It was a highly sentimental and allegorical tale of a young poet who wandered the world, looking for truth and love. Wearied by his travels, the poet stretched out beside a stream to sleep, and he dreamt of a beautiful dark-haired maiden, who appeared beside him: Her voice was like the voice of his own soul.
And she spoke to him of knowledge and truth and virtue, and lofty hopes of divine liberty, and as she waved her hands, he heard music sweeping from some strange harp.
But suddenly his dream-lover vanished, and the poet was in despair. Mary read on impatiently as the poet wandered through ruined landscapes, set sail in a little boat, and finally found his way to a forested mountainside with a cascading stream, where he lay down and died.
ah! thou hast fled!
The brave, the gentle, and the beautiful,
The child of grace and genius.
The meaning of the poem was obvious. Shelley feared he would die in obscurity; he panted for fame, he yearned for distinction. And he prophesied that salvation and enlightenment would come to him through his love for a beautiful dark-haired lady.
Her mind began to teem with ambitious thoughts. Truth and virtue, Mary thought, were in short supply everywhere but at least she could offer knowledge. And she had a harp.
* * * * * * *
The entertainments and conversation of the following day were much like the last, and served to increase Mary’s conviction that Shelley was falling rapidly and deeply in love with her. Shelley often exclaimed over the way their paths had crossed more than once, in London, France, Switzerland and Italy, and how destiny brought them together. Mary remained sceptical on that point.
When they parted that evening, Shelley reluctantly told her he was compelled to return briefly to Livorno on a matter of business.
“Dear lady, tell me, how long will you stay here in Bagni di Lucca? Pray assure me you will be here upon my return. You are not going back to that brute, your husband?”
“I took my lodging for the summer,” Mary answered. “I must return to England soon, for fear my children will forget I ever existed. I must manage Edmund somehow. He has all the power—the law is on his side—I must make him my friend again.”
Shelley kissed the tears forming at the corners of her eyes.
“Sssh, sssh, my dear one. I will protect you from his cruelty, I swear it.”
Shelley promised to return within the week. He left her a fragment of a poem, some lines which he said were inspired by her sufferings:
Is not to-day enough? Why do I peer
Into the darkness of the day to come?
Is not to-morrow even as yesterday?
And will the day that follows change thy doom?
Few flowers grow upon thy wintry way;
And who waits for thee in that cheerless home
Whence thou hast fled, whither thou must return
Charged with the load that makes thee faint and mourn?
Mary was deeply moved that her sufferings had been portrayed as they ought, in such exquisite verse. Shelley’s was truly an undiscovered new voice in poetry. And had she awakened his voice from its exile?
Her encounter with Shelley had completely overthrown her plans and views and even her sentiments. Years ago at Mansfield Park, she had been apt to roll her eyes at Fanny Price’s rapturous witterings about nature, and trees, and shrubbery. Now she found herself noticing things, like the way the slanting shadows fell across the piazza outside her hotel, and wishing she could share them with Shelley. He always seemed, in her imagination, to be at her side.
In his absence, she passed the time with reading, riding, and going to the baths. She sometimes dined at an al fresco café beside the promenade. Gentlemen sent her significant looks and inviting smiles, but she ignored them, and spoke to no-one but the waiter. She sat with her book as the ladies all about her gossiped about the upcoming marriage of a German princess to the Duke of Clarence. Princess Adelaide was both envied and pitied, and speculation about her wedding dress and her opinion of her bridegroom, formed the chief part of their conversation. How trivial these women, how common, compared to her—the Muse of a poet!
* * * * * * *
A letter from Edmund arrived during this interval, which almost did not come to her hand, but fortunately, she overheard Madame Ciampi telling the postman that there was no “Signora Bertram” lodging at the villa, and she hurried forward and declared herself to be Mrs. Bertram. Her admission, of course, brought even more mutterings and side-glances from her landlady, but Mary ignored her and hastened up the stairs to her apartment. She was surprised at her own agitation, annoyed with herself, and further irritated that her loss of composure was observed by her little Italian maid.
“May I go out, madam, so you may read your letter?”
Mary dismissed her curtly, and took a seat by the window. She held the letter in her hands, and looked at the familiar handwriting for a moment, before opening it.
She hoped and expected to find an apology, an acknowledgement that the errors and unhappiness of their marriage had proceeded from him; an avowal of his misery and remorse. She did not intend to return to Edmund, but it would have given her no small degree of satisfaction to know he had been properly humbled by their separation.
“Dear Mary,” the letter began.
“Ah, that I really did think myself dear to him at one time!” Mary murmured to herself.
“As I did not receive a response to my last, I will assume my letter went astray in the post. In brief, I wrote that our servants gave me a good account of you, and of Bagni di Lucca, when they returned from conveying you to Tuscany.
