“Oh, as to what the world calls rank, I am perfectly indifferent. True nobility is one of shared understanding, shared sentiment,” Shelley replied with a little wave of his hand. “But, madam—” and this was accompanied by a graceful half-bow— “I am honoured to re-encounter you here, in this place, and I apologise for my perverse behaviour in London, which prevented us from becoming good friends, as Destiny clearly intends for us to do.”
“Do not suppose I am on the point of giving you a sermon, Mr. Shelley, but in Chamonix, as you know, everyone was in raptures over Mount Blanc. But you, sir, in the very shadow of that mountain, proclaimed yourself to be an atheist. I only wish to understand—how can you believe in Destiny? What is Destiny, and what form does it take? You believe my footsteps have been guided here somehow. How can that be, if there is no divine hand to guide them?”
Shelley rubbed his hands together and smiled. “Ah! My dear Mrs. Crawford, you have made me so happy. To meet a clever, talking, Englishwoman!”
“You were not so taken with me at our first meeting, Mr. Shelley.”
“Ah, but if you only knew the agonies I was in, at that time! Both physical and mental. I might have appeared to be uncivil to you.”
“Uncivil! You only laughed in my face and told me to take my money and give it to the Devil!”
“And yet now, we meet again as old friends. Promise me you will spend the day with me. Let us dine together, let us talk for hours, and watch the sun set together. Nothing else will satisfy me. Pray permit me to walk back into town beside you—where are you staying? Is it comfortable? You must give me every moment that you can. I could talk with you forever.”
And after so exclaiming, Shelley leapt to his feet and with great agility climbed back up to his boulder-pulpit, and retrieved his shoes, stockings, book and hat.
Mary did not object to abandoning her plans for an interval of solitude in favour of passing the day in this strange man’s company. She fascinated him, and should he cease to interest her, she could always dismiss him. She was, after all, free to do as she pleased. Edmund had told her so.
* * * * * * *
Mary passed through many different states of mind during that day spent in Percy Shelley’s company. At first, her interest in him almost gave way to irritation. She could hardly credit his sincerity—surely no adult man was so mercurial in his moods, so very sensibly affected by all that he saw, heard and thought. His ideas tumbled out like the waterfall he had chosen for his outdoor study room: when he spoke of England and its rulers, he grew vehemently angry; when relating an anecdote of his days in Oxford, he laughed until the tears rolled down his cheeks, when stopping to question a little beggar child by the road, he was the picture of solicitude, and while listening to her, expressions of delight, even veneration, lit up his countenance. He was intensely alive, intensely attuned to every fleeting moment, unlike any other person she had ever encountered. Some might have thought him feminine in his manners, certainly there was a captivating gentleness, but the vitality of his air, the intensity of his expressions, were so stimulating as to be rather unsettling.
How could a man feel so acutely, and be the captive of every passing thought and emotion? The sensibilities that resided in so fragile a frame would surely overwhelm and destroy its host, as a strong fever consumes an invalid.
Perhaps this explained why Mr. Shelley had aged several years in the brief span of time between their first encounter and today. He had been ill as well, he told her. Something was amiss with his liver—something, he remarked with cheerful resignation, which would kill him one day.
As her guest was so slender of build that he appeared in danger of being blown down the hillside by the next puff of wind, Mary resolved to provide him with an ample dinner. But Shelley ignored Madame Ciampi’s chicken in wine and dined only on bread, pulling pieces from a fresh-baked loaf, waving the bits about enthusiastically as he discoursed on a dizzying multitude of topics, including the reality of ghosts, the hardships and poverty of English lace-makers, and his frustrated poetical career.
“Do you have a work in progress, Mr. Shelley?”
“Alas. My Muse is silent. I moved heaven and earth to come to Italy so that I could write, and—nothing. I have nothing.”
“What were you reading, when I came upon you? One of your own compositions?”
“I was looking at my friend Peacock’s new poem. Have you read anything of his?” He went on before she could answer, “but mostly I have been studying Plato. They did not teach him in Oxford. The private habits of the Greeks, you know—not considered proper reading matter for undergraduates.”
“My husband attended Oxford as well.”
“Your husband? The clergyman with the deficient writing style? What is he—is he a hail-fellow-well-met, fond of hunting and shooting, an obliging guest at any stately home, grateful for a good dinner and a bottle of claret?”
“Indeed, that is the common sketch of the country clergyman but no, my husband claims he entered upon the profession willingly. But he does enjoy hunting.”
Mary offered her guest some cheese. He took a piece and placed it carefully on his plate.
“Claims to have? You do not know his true sentiments? Does he believe in the Thirty-Nine Articles—the Virgin Birth—Lazarus being raised from the dead? Can he be a true disciple of Christ if he derives pleasure
