Being familiar with some of Mr. Godwin’s work, I was thrilled by the afternoon’s opportunity to learn more of his mind; now the prospect of spending more hours together, that I might come to know the man’s soul as well, was almost too heady an honor to contemplate.
“Perhaps Mrs. Robinson would crave the time to devote to her own writing, William,” said Miss Wollstonecraft, her tone as supple, yet firm, as a rapier. “After all, whilst a writer may race through a first draft, it often requires much patience and many painstaking hours to revise it, to add shade and nuance, to ensure that every character has been given his due, and every storyline a logical arc that, though it may venture onto a tangent, always arrives at a satisfying conclusion. Mrs. Robinson is so prolific that I feel certain her precious time might be devoured by too many social engagements.”
With her golden brown hair and open countenance, I found her quite lovely to look at. From her frankness, it was plain to see that she was also extraordinarily fearless as well as brilliant. As such, it was difficult to dislike her, though I sensed that she might be less fond of cultivating my friendship as was her intriguing lover.
“Are you saying that you find my writing rushed?” I inquired, suppressing the edge in my voice. I had never forgotten my training at David Garrick’s heels. “For I would be gratified to hear your opinions, that I might apply them—the better to strengthen my efforts. Perhaps you are right, Miss Wollstonecraft; mayhap I should devote more time than I already do to polishing each sentence until it shines like a newly minted sovereign. Recently, I have also accepted the responsibility of editing the poetry page of the Morning Post. Alas, the Almighty has yet to increase the number of hours in a day, and as it is I burn my candles down to stubs, but I will toil all through the night, if need be, to increase my income. It pains me to confess this to such a new acquaintance, but as we are both authors, I admit that it has been my unhappy history that all too often I find myself caught up short when it comes to funds. And my only expectation of further subsistence is to take up the pen again that I may profit by it. You must indeed be fortunate to write at leisure without fear of never seeing more of the world beyond the stony walls of a debtors’ prison.”
Her lover broke the mounting tension. “There’s a bit of a competition between Mary and me to see who can sell more pamphlets,” Godwin told me, brandishing another biscuit and glancing ardently at Miss Wollstonecraft. “You heard what Prime Minister Pitt said of my Poetical Justice when it was published back in ninety-three? He said that there was no need to censor it because, at over a guinea a copy, so few people could afford it anyway.”
“But when the corresponding societies began reading it to the illiterate ‘unwashed masses,’ William’s philosophy caught fire like dry reeds. He’s too modest to mention that over four thousand copies have sold,” added Miss Wollstonecraft.
“We’re tremendous admirers of your novels, Mrs. Robinson,” said Godwin. “I have dabbled with some modest success—”
“I have read Things as They Are, or the Adventures of Caleb Williams,” I told him.
“You have?” Godwin tried not to appear gleeful, but his color deepened, emphasizing the planes in his cheekbones.
I nodded. “Indeed, and I found it extremely entertaining. You managed to strike a delicate balance between the popular gothic novel and your own political themes.”
Miss Wollstonecraft shifted in her chair, clearly put off by this society of mutual admiration formed twixt her lover and myself on our very first encounter. She appeared confident when it came to matters of the intellect, but in the realm of the heart, to me it was evident that she was not in the least sure-footed. Yet another opportunity for empathy, if she’d only known.
“We ‘lady scribblers,’ as they are wont to call us, must be very brave,” Miss Wollstonecraft averred. “For the press will skewer us and serve us up for dinner, in order to undermine the public position we adopt in our writings. No doubt you, too, have experienced it, Mrs. Robinson: every salacious, scandalous, sordid detail of our private lives is exposed and used against us. Never mind that four years ago A Vindication of the Rights of Women revolutionized the way our sex viewed their place in society, and of course continues to do so. No—hoping to trumpet to the world that my treatise is nothing but a load of freshly minted horse manure, all the press cares to print is that Mary Wollstonecraft is mentally unstable, having twice tried to take her own life over the demise of an unhappy love affair.”
I nodded my head. “Man is a despot by nature; he can bear no equal. To our sex’s benefit as well as to our detriment, the pen is the great equalizer. And I have come to discover, the older I become, that men fear it more than the point of a sword.”
With my numerous recent literary successes, I should have been wallowing in money, but alas, the reverse was true—I received a note from my bankers, informing me that I was twelve hundred pounds in debt. And I was still supporting Ban, even though he no longer squandered my resources in the faro hells.
After an especially fine dinner of capon with roasted almonds, I confronted my lover with the alarming letter from Coutts. As he sipped a bowl of brandy from the last of the bottles he’d managed to sneak out of France, I had to face the music.
“I have bought no luxuries for myself of late,” I told Ban. “No matter how much I earn, I never seem to have enough. Can you honestly recall
