And so it was in this case. Mary had not consciously intended it, and yet it was inevitable, as inevitable as the way the nearby stream had worn a path through the boulders, the stream to which Shelley led her, as naked as a nymph, after they had joined together.
The water was icy cold, and she returned shivering to their sun-warmed quilt, and he caressed her tenderly, and made love to her again.
“I wish we could stay here forever,” he whispered to her when they lay still. “Here, by water, is where I first dreamt of you.”
With an expression of endearing sweetness, he recited:
The fountains mingle with the river
And the rivers with the ocean,
The winds of heaven mix for ever
With a sweet emotion;
Nothing in the world is single;
All things by a law divine
In one spirit meet and mingle.
Why not I with thine?—
He hesitated and coughed. “I know my voice is not very pleasant! I date it to a time when I was severely ill as a child. I nearly died of a putrid sore throat.”
“Good heavens! Was your family without the means to hire a good physician?”
Shelley laughed. “I have never told you about my family, have I! My grandfather is a baronet, and my father is the member for Horsham in Sussex. It is not impossible that I should succeed to his seat in Parliament one day.”
“You are the heir to a baronetcy! And your father sits in Parliament!” Mary cried. Shelley blinked, surprised that she should be surprised.
“Oh yes, my grandfather is a very wealthy man.” Shelley laughed and propped himself up on his elbow. “But do not imagine the Shelleys are an ancient house! Grandfather is a veritable old pirate and fortune hunter. He bought his honours when I was a child. My father, sadly, is a slave to conventional prejudice. He turned me out of the house.”
“But you are still the heir,” said Mary, almost sitting up in her alarm.
“Oh, certainly!”
“Would… would you not like to be reconciled to your father?,” Mary asked, not pleased to hear Shelley speak so casually of the honours and fortune he might yet contrive to throw away through his youthful impetuousity.
Shelley looked grim. “I will not disavow my beliefs. I will not give up my poetry.”
“Can you not write something which does not outrage public opinion? Something without radicalism? Would it be impossible to write a beautiful lyric poem on nature, for example?”
“I did alter my last poem at the insistence of my publisher and my friends.” Shelley began to play with a strand of Mary’s hair. “It was not my politics they objected to, but my contempt for organised religion.
“And, of course, the incest,” he added, almost as an afterthought. “I had to take out the incest. It is not as though I am incapable of making certain compromises when self-interest dictates.”
The sun, filtering through the branches of the chestnut trees, passed the meridian and Mary began to speak of returning to the village. Shelley led her to the gorge for a final plunge in the cold waters before they dressed.
Mary wrapped herself in the quilt and picked her way carefully over the boulders to the edge of the stream. She sat and dangled her legs in the rushing water. Shelley plunged into the small waterfall which cascaded between the boulders. He cried aloud for pure joy and held out his arms in an exuberant pose.
“All of my life,” he cried, “all my life, I have been drawn to water. If there was a lake or a pond or a stream nearby, I was sure to be upon it.”
He strode through the water, tugged the quilt from her shoulders, and pulled her into the stream. She shrieked with laughter like a child, and he held her tenderly in his arms. He caressed her cheek and gazed into her eyes with passionate intensity.
“You give me life, like the water,” he whispered. “My anima. My Marina. I shall call you the sea. I am reborn in you. And thanks to you, I shall write—and I shall write of you.”
* * * * * * *
Madam Ciampi stopped Mary before she went upstairs to her apartments and upbraided her for leaving her maidservant to get into mischief. “That one—that hussy from Lombardy—I always see her walking out and talking with men! One day with an English valet, and the next with an Italian. She will come to grief, mark my words madam, she will be ruined and she will hurt the reputation of my house.”
To appease her landlady, Mary scolded Lucenza, although she truly did not care what the silly girl did, and in fact preferred her to remain out of sight when she was not required. The girl was too stupid to be good company, but Mary had no other, and several days passed without a visit or a line from Shelley, apart from a brief
