We made a safe passage to Dover, and are reunited with my parents in Norfolk. I found my parents in tolerable health but feeling the decay which accompanies their advancing years, which confirms me in my determination to remain in England.
If my wishes still have any influence with you, let me repeat my request that you will return to England to be nearer your children.
Nearer, but not with, thought Mary
Cyrus desires me to tell you he has his first loose tooth.
With my continued wishes for your health and happiness, I remain,
Your husband,
Edmund
“How like Edmund!” Mary exclaimed aloud. She could imagine the ironic smile with which he wrote “I remain your husband.”
Return to England! Yes, the cause of their final, most bitter argument. Edmund told her he intended to resume his clerical duties at Mansfield.
“Once again, Edmund, you have decided what we will do and where we will go, without asking me for my opinion! ‘We’re off to Mansfield,’ you announce! As always, my wishes come last. Do you care nothing for me—nothing for my happiness?”
“Happiness is much to be desired, Mary, but there is something more important. I left Thornton Lacey in the hands of my friend—shall I likewise be absent from my pulpit in Mansfield? You know my convictions on that head, and knew them when we married. Will you at least believe, Mary, how heartily sorry I am for your unhappiness, and my own? Will you acknowledge that I sincerely wish it were otherwise?”
“Oh—as always, you are the generous, reasonable one, and I am the madwoman. You are not going to force me to go back against my will! I am not a slave!”
A pause. Then— “No. I have no intention of obliging you to live with us, Mary. Perhaps we were better to live apart. But I do want to see you safely established somewhere.”
“What!”
“The children will stay with me, Mary. And I am going to England.”
She had truly lost her composure then, and began to upbraid him for his cruelty. And he, as usual, had walked away, and closed the door.
Mary returned from her reverie, and looked down again at the note, in his familiar handwriting. Familiar, and yet—now she and Edmund were strangers to one another and would always be.
Well, the children were too young to understand, but one day... One day they would be grown, and they would find her and she would explain everything. And they would forgive her and pity her wrongs.
She decided Edmund’s letter did not require an answer—not yet. She had no news for him.
* * * * * * *
Ten days later Mary found a note waiting for her when she returned from the hot baths:
My dearest nymph:
—For I have not yet uncovered your true name, but soon some zephyr wind or fairy sprite will whisper it in my ear—
I return on Thursday. Please come to me at our grove in the forest.
Yours,
PBS
Mary set off as she had before, riding her mare up the hill to where the path led to the forest. At the outskirts of the upper village, she passed the entrance to a small piazza, where several villas stood, cheerful in fresh yellow paint. At the same moment, a young Englishwoman came out of the gateway, and started down the hill in the opposite direction, with a very young boy tugging at her arm.
Mary reined in her mare to allow them to pass.
The young woman’s gown was out of fashion but her carriage was proud and erect. She wore the harassed, absent-minded expression which mothers of young children often wear. Her hair was notably beautiful, fine and abundant; it was a rare shade of golden-red. No doubt she was vain of that hair and Titian or Botticelli would have clamoured to paint her and make much of her pale skin, her broad, high forehead and her large, intelligent, sad eyes.
The sight of the boy, straining impatiently at his mother’s arm, gave Mary a momentary stab to the heart. She looked earnestly at his sweet face, his large blue eyes, and thought of her own two sons, her Thomas and her little Cyrus, and wondered how often they thought of her.
The child, however, had eyes only for the horse, and not for the lady riding it, crying “Mama! Ride a horsie! Ride a horsie!”
The lady told him, “perhaps another day, Will-mouse. Mama is going to the baths later. You can picnic in the garden with Claire.”
Mary was on the point of making some pleasant remark to the lady on what a fine boy she had, but the younger Englishwoman walked on, without meeting Mary’s eye or acknowledging her in any way.
* * * * * * *
Shelley’s reception of her at their trysting-place was joyful and ardent— “My dear one! I am writing again!” he exclaimed, raining down kisses on her face and hands. “I could hardly wait to tell you! Since I met you, I am able to write again! You have freed me from my ice prison! Perhaps you are the sun! No, no, not with those bewitching dark eyes and that dark hair.”
He pulled off her bonnet and started to pull the pins from her hair, while she laughingly protested.
“My dear nymph, do not suppose this faun permits his visitors to bind and confine their hair in that fashion—there, now. How beautiful you look with your hair flowing about your face.” Shelley broke off, and taking her face in both of his hands, softly exclaimed. “What shall I call you? I cannot call you ‘Mrs. Crawford.’ I will not call you ‘Mary.’ You are my deliverer. You make me feel reborn. You are such a woman as I had dreamt of, but could not believe really existed.”
