Livorno was Mary’s first destination, being the nearest city where she might engage more servants and refresh her wardrobe. There, every convenience to lessen the tedium and danger of a journey across Italy was within easy reach of her purse.
She travelled slowly and rested frequently, and reached Este in the third week of October. She went to the post office to discover the whereabouts of Lord Byron’s villa there, and was almost overpowered to learn the Shelleys were gone. They had left instructions to forward their mail to the post office in Ferrara.
Mary wrote a blistering letter to Shelley, care of the post office in Ferrara.
The road leading out of Este to Ferrara was very poor, and to avoid being knocked about inside her carriage she ordered her driver to proceed slowly. She looked listlessly out her window as she crawled past one farm after another, each with its little mountain of corn and pumpkins, and their lean and ferocious guard dogs, whose hostility was sometimes echoed by a baleful glare from a farmer or his wife.
The approach to Ferrara was more peaceful; given over to gently undulating fields of grape vines, their leaves turning tawny in the autumn sun.
After finding some good accommodation, Mary made her hopeful excursion to the post office, where several letters from Shelley were waiting along with a little ring, inscribed with the motto, “il buon tempo verra,” or “better weather is coming.”
My Marina, I pledge myself to you whole-heartedly. I am wearing the mate to this ring, a token of my eternal devotion to you. Better times will come for us, I swear it.
But, she learned, the Shelleys were gone on to Bologna.
In Bologna, a note filled as usual, with protestations of his adoration of her, advised her to visit the public gallery, where she might see some exquisite paintings by Raphael and Guido.
After Bologna, Mary moved on to Spoleto and Terni. The Shelleys were bound for Rome, where Mary did not want to follow—she had too many acquaintance there and her condition was now apparent.
Shelley had left word they intended to winter in Naples, and he implored her to wait for him there. The Appian Way was reckoned to be particularly hazardous for travellers, infested with revolutionaries and banditti. Mary kept loaded pistols beside her, and Roberts was likewise armed. While she felt she could shoot a robber in the face with no compunction, it was yet another point of resentment to add to the score against Shelley.
The long journey, fortunately, was made without incident.
In Naples, she would resolve matters one way or another—to sever Shelley from his old associations completely, or abandon him, regardless of the consequences.
Chapter 20: England, Autumn 1818
In addition to leaving Thornton Lacey in Mr. Owen’s hands, Edmund was revolving a new enterprise in his mind, an undertaking which would keep both himself and his friend fully occupied. He was still arranging his thoughts, considering possibilities and probabilities; he was not yet prepared to confide in his friend Richard upon the occasion of their reunion. But it came about naturally, during his friend’s visit to welcome him home to Mansfield, when Richard enquired, “Will you be sending Thomas to school this year or next, Edmund?”
“In fact, I intend to educate Thomas privately, at least for the time being.”
“Do you mean you will send him away to a tutor, or keep him here?”
“I will keep him with me.”
As the conversation was now tending toward the very matter which Edmund had been meditating upon, he asked, “May I speak openly, Richard?”
“Of course!”
“Circumstanced as we are, I am convinced Thomas would be the object of constant insult at school, because of his mother. The rumours concerning her reached us in Belfast; they will certainly reach him at school. One day, Thomas and Cyrus must be informed about these… rumours. They must acquire the fortitude to endure it, but for now, I have resolved to keep him out of school.”
Richard nodded. He himself, while fortunate enough to be sent to good schools, had not forgotten the sneers directed at him for his poverty and undistinguished lineage, nor had he forgotten how his friend Edmund Bertram protected him from the worst abuses.
“And,” Richard added quickly, feeling acutely for his friend’s predicament, “you will want your son to form an attachment to Mansfield, to know its ways and its people. Now you are finally returned, it will not be wondered at if you are reluctant to send Thomas away again from a home to which he is still a stranger. On this ground alone, Edmund, I think it an excellent scheme. Will you tutor him yourself, or—” he paused, wondering if he had blundered from one uncomfortable topic to another—did his generous friend suspect him?
“I have an idea, Richard, which I have not yet discussed with anyone. I need your opinion, and if it is favourable, I will need more from you than your opinion.”
Edmund’s plan was no less than to convert Mansfield Park into a school for boys—to take on as many as twenty pupils. “Can you undertake to give me some of your time as an instructor, Richard? You were always better at Latin than I. We already have one schoolroom, we have more than enough bedrooms. We can convert the billiard room into a classroom, and so forth.”
Richard heard the proposal with dawning interest. “And what do you think your father will say to this notion?”
“I trust he will give his approval,
