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- Herausgeber: Pushkin Press
- Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023
'Fantastically moody' SARAH WATERS 'A little masterpiece of suspense-filled gothic fiction… Persuasive and mysterious' FINANCIAL TIMES 'A beautiful, hallucinatory dream of a novel' J.M. MIRO 'Atmospheric… A must-read' i 'Intensely lyrical and powerfully haunting' SUSAN STOKES-CHAPMAN 'Moody and evocative' KIRKUS 'Seductive and unnerving' NAOMI BOOTH __________ There is a beast inside her, a monster. It wants to scream, it wants to tear things apart. 1816. Mary, eighteen years old, is staying in a villa on Lake Geneva with her lover Percy Shelley. She is tormented by his infidelities; haunted by the loss of her baby daughter. Then one evening with friends, as storms rage outside and laudanum stirs their imaginations, Lord Byron challenges everyone to write a ghost story, and something fierce and wild awakens in Mary. Memories surface of the long, strange summer she once spent with a family in Scotland, where she found herself falling in love with the enigmatic Isabella Baxter. She learned tales of mythical beasts, witches and spirits. And she encountered real monsters - both in the rocky wilds, and far, far closer to home... Illuminating the past like a flash of lightning, this brilliant reimagining of the birth of Frankenstein takes us into a feverish world of waking dreams-where grief mingles with desire, and the veil between beauty and horror grows thin.
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praise for
MARY
‘A fantastically moody, unsettling novel, with a teasing, enigmatic atmosphere entirely its own’
Sarah Waters
‘A beautiful, hallucinatory dream of a novel, which brings Mary Shelley back to life with a brilliant intensity. This is a marvellous book about desire, and love, and the dark mysteries of the creative act’
J. M. Miro, author of Ordinary Monsters
‘Imagines, with spell-binding vividness, the forbidden desires and creative inspirations that fuelled Mary Shelley’s writing’
Naomi Booth, author of Exit Management
‘Confirmation of Shelley’s position as the mother of all goth girls. A moody and evocative reveal of the backstory (behind the back-story) of Frankenstein’
Kirkus Reviews
‘Rich, intricate and beguiling, this is a novel of enormous insight, great heart and incredible skill’
Nell Stevens, author of Briefly, A Delicious Life
‘A compelling and sensitive deep-dive into Mary Shelley’s brilliant mind’
Sara Sheridan, author of The Fair Botanists
‘A novel that tiptoes and whispers, woos and caresses like the darkest of fairy tales’
Joanne Burn, author of The Hemlock Cure
‘Like reading a laudanum dream… [this book has] a hallucinatory quality that encourages us to question everything and doubt everyone’
Annie Garthwaite, author of Cecily
‘A lyrical dream of a book that strays into the nightmarish, the gothic and the eerie with an assured elegance’
Elizabeth Lee, author of Cunning Women
‘A literary creation story as bold, terrifying, and riveting as Frankenstein itself’
Laurie Lico Albanese, author of Hester
‘A nuanced, beautifully atmospheric portrayal of a young woman’s intense inner life, foreshadowing Frankenstein’s themes of grief, loneliness, and the desire for love’
Booklist
For Bertram Koeleman, a great storyteller, my great love.
It was beneath the trees of the grounds belonging to our house, or on the bleak sides of the woodless mountains near, that my true compositions, the airy flights of my imagination, were born and fostered.
mary shelley
Everything you can imagine is real.
pablo picasso
Contents
Fairy Story
For my mother and my little daughter
They both listen to her old tale,
wondrous things come flying by,
visible in their dilated eyes,
like flowers floating in a bowl.
There is a gentle tension in their being,
they are lost and sunk within each other,
—the white and the blonde hair—
believe it, believe it,
everything she tells is true
and you’ll never read anything more beautiful.
—m. vasalis
Characters
Geneva
Mary Shelley – née Wollstonecraft Godwin (b. 1797)
Daughter of the philosopher and writer Mary Wollstonecraft and the philosopher and writer William Godwin. Lover of Percy Shelley, mother of William.
Percy Shelley (b. 1792)
Mary’s lover, poet. Although not officially married at this point, they present themselves as husband and wife.
William Shelley (b. 1816) Willmouse. Mary and Percy’s infant son.
Claire Clairmont (b. 1798) Mary’s stepsister, the daughter of Mary Jane, Mary’s father’s second wife.
Lord Byron/Albe (b. 1788) Notorious writer and poet. Occasional lover of Claire.
John Polidori (b. 1795) Doctor and writer. Friend of Albe.
Scotland
Isabella Baxter (b. 1795) Daughter of William Baxter, sister of Margaret, Robert and Johnny.
David Booth (b. 1776) Margaret’s husband. Runs a brewery.
Margaret Booth (b. 1789) David’s wife, Isabella’s sister.
Johnny Baxter (b. 1805) Isabella’s younger brother.
Robert Baxter (b. 1796) Isabella’s older brother.
William Baxter (b. 1766/1771, date uncertain) Father of Isabella, Margaret, Robert and Johnny.
May 1816
—cologny, geneva—
Witching hour
This is the hour. Every night she dies, her daughter. She only discovers it in the morning, though she saw her lying there in the night, so quiet, head full of sleep. But she knows it must have happened at this hour, the witching hour, because that is when she always wakes up. Usually it is not for long; she wraps the slipped-off sheet around herself, presses her nose against Percy’s warm back; he sighs in his sleep, she drowses off. But sometimes, sometimes it draws her out of bed. She does not know exactly what it is. She does not want to, and she is tired, she wants to go on sleeping, go on into this night, beyond this hour, but she already knows, she has to feel it. Every minute of this hour must burn against her skin. Because this is what she brought into the world. And this is what disappeared so swiftly.
The veranda keeps her dry, her overcoat keeps her warm, but not too far away from here the world is in the process of destroying itself. They have been here two weeks now, in Geneva, and ever since they arrived, storms and thunder have performed a frenzied ritual almost every day. Mary loves it when the sheet lightning persists, stretching like a cat and lighting up the skies for seconds at a time, painting it a pale purple, as if it were a canvas, a tent canopy above the earth, making the objects below seem unreal, a story, and yet lending them more meaning; her bare feet on the veranda, the weeds among the grass, the willow by the water, the Jura, rising on the other side of the lake, the boat, rocking in a basin of light.
In the other direction, up the hill, a faint light is shining at Albe and John’s. She finds it reassuring. She might wake every night at three, but at least then Albe is not yet asleep. He is keeping watch. Undoubtedly with his gaze on the paper, where his quill dances chaotically, writing into the world what already exists within himself.
She turns and rocks on her toes. In the darkness she could not find her boots. Little William wakes easily—although the thunder does not bother him—and her stepsister, Claire, is finally asleep. And in her own bed too. She looks like a small child, and Percy takes her by the hand like a father. No, not like a father. Definitely not like a father.
Lightning cracks through the sky, humming upon the surface of the water, among the treetops, on her skin. Storms are different here than in England. More awake. More alive. More real. As if she might touch the light, hold it, as if it were holding her. The roar, the deep rumbling has something physical about it, as if it might join the living. As if it might gain access to her chest, her heart, her blood. There seems to be no end to the series of days in which the night lights up, the sun rarely shows itself, the garden becomes a swamp, nature falls silent—and sometimes they say to one another: maybe this is the end of the world. The Last Judgement. But then they laugh. Because each of them knows: God exists only in dreams and children’s rhymes. Mary rubs her hands. The chill bites into her toes. And sometimes, she thinks, when one is very, very afraid.
But back in bed she cannot sleep again. The cold has taken up residence in her body and nothing—not a blanket, not the thought of a fire in the hearth, not the heat of Percy’s back—can make her warm again.
That is because of Claire. She is barely any younger than Mary, and sometimes Mary thinks it would do Claire good if she saw her more as her real sister. But every day it becomes more difficult to accept Claire, let alone to help her, to comfort her, to entertain her. The men seem to find her less irritating. Albe even describes it as ‘a woman’s way’, whatever that is supposed to mean. Mary never stands up in the middle of a conversation and throws herself, weeping, onto the sofa, while saying that nothing, no, really, nothing is wrong, does she? It is not a woman’s way. It is Claire’s way. It flatters Percy, she knows that. It flatters him when Claire throws her arms around him, asks him to read poetry to her until she falls asleep, when she laughs at his jokes, her head thrown right back, pale skin from her chin to far, far below, her breasts asking for looks, for touch, for attention. Claire cannot exist without attention. She would probably die if she were ignored for three days. She has it from her mother, from Mary Jane, that need for attention. Mary believes her father had no idea how hysterical, how vain, how bossy Mary Jane was—until he married her and she and her daughter, Claire, came to live with them. Ever since Mary became aware, rationally aware, that she has no mother, that fact has been the very definition of sadness. All sadness fell into precisely that shape, was viewed in that mirror. But from the moment her father remarried, this became the scale upon which she weighed everything: this mother or no mother? And her thoughts always came down to the same: no mother. Or at least, having to live with only the stories about her own, dead mother, with the image above her father’s desk of the woman who mattered to so many people: so clever and courageous, so unconventional in her life and her convictions. She was no longer alive, Mary had never known her, but she was everywhere. And above all: she was perfect. She would never become angry with Mary. She would never disapprove of her decisions. Mary would never be ashamed of her mother. And she would never have to be afraid of losing her love. Her mother would always love her, as she had on her deathbed: Mary as her little doll in her arms—the pure, complete, uninhibited love would never have the chance to fade or to be soiled by the quotidian. And that was what Mary’s mother was like inside her head. The perfect mother, in fact. Both in spite of and thanks to the fact that she no longer existed.
A clap of thunder, Percy turns over with a groan. His knee jabs Mary’s side. In the moonlight shining through the crack of the shutters, she can see his face. Her tempestuously beautiful elf. She knows no other man who, with such fine features and translucent skin, like a satin moth, almost like a girl, holds such a strong attraction for her. And she is his great love. She does know that, but it is not easy. The fact that his philosophy is not quite hers—maybe in theory, yet not in practice—puts their love to the test again and again. Perhaps it is tolerable that, now and then, he loves another woman. Perhaps. But that it does not bother him, that he actually encourages her to share her bed with another man—that tortures her soul. At the same time, she sees how he looks when she talks to Albe about his poems, or about her father. Those are the moments when jealousy strikes him, she thinks, a cold fear in his eyes. The jealousy he feels then has nothing to do with her. Percy is not afraid that she will choose Albe over him. He is afraid that Albe will choose her over him. That the great, wild poet Lord Byron finds her more interesting than Percy Shelley, who still has so much to learn. Does he have enough talent? Eloquence? Percy has pinned his hopes on Albe. Could he show him the light? Could Albe give him advice, become his mentor, maybe even his friend? Very occasionally, when Percy is so insecure—oh, he does not say so, but she can see it, the faint hope in his eyes, the childish impatience in his movements—then she fears for a moment that she does not love him.
She kisses him softly on the cheek. He groans again. Turns over. The knee in her side disappears. And slumber, finally, approaches. She feels the arms of sleep unfolding like wings, wrapping her tightly, protectively, not unpleasantly, and taking her consciousness away.
———
After the journey, which he did not appear to enjoy very much—after all, children are not made for travelling—William seems to feel at home at Maison Chapuis. The rooms are large and light, high windows with a view of the big garden, the lake, the Jura beyond. And of the rain, of course. Of the slate-grey sky. He is still too young to crawl around. Or she would no doubt have spent the whole day running after him through all the rooms, keeping him away from the fireplace, from the bookshelves, from the corners of the tables. But he has just learnt to turn from his back onto his stomach, and he will come no further than that for a while. Her Willmouse is five months old, and she enjoys every one of his days. And yet she cannot let go of the thought of her, of her firstborn. If she had lived, she would have been toddling around this place. Short, chubby legs, little bare feet step-stepping from the rug in front of the fireplace onto the shiny wooden floorboards, step-stepping through the doorway, into the hall, to the stairs, no, that’s not allowed, come on, hold my hand, let’s go back, that’s right. Look, there’s your brother, give him a cuddle.
‘Is everything all right?’ Claire drops down beside Mary on the sofa. William, who just closed his eyes, opens them again. Claire tickles him under the chin. ‘You’re just staring into space.’
Mary nods. Claire does not understand, even after all these years, that Mary sometimes slips away from the world. But Claire is not the same as her, not in blood, not in temperament and not in empathy. Only, now and then, in a shared moment, in an uncontrollable fit of laughter as Claire’s mother and Mary’s father anxiously prepare the house for guests. It is only adults who can be like that, or so they think, so they see in each other’s eyes, we will never be like that. But that was long ago. She has not seen them in a long time, her father and Mary Jane. It is so difficult now, since she has been with Percy, since her little girl.
‘I am a little tired,’ says Mary. ‘How was it with Albe?’
‘Oh, good,’ says Claire, winding a lock of hair around her finger. ‘He’s invited us to dinner. Crackers and beans, no doubt.’
Albe’s eating habits do not appeal to Claire. Neither do Mary and Percy’s, though. She misses the meat.
‘Well, you don’t have to go,’ says Mary. She immediately regrets it.
‘Of course I do.’ Claire’s eyes widen with shock. ‘Albe wanted me to come. He said so.’
Mary stands up. William has dozed off again. His beautiful, pale face. But don’t become too pale, Willmouse, she whispers in her mind. Without another word, she leaves the room to put William in his cradle. Sleep well. Soon you’ll be awake again.
———
‘Mary.’ Albe embraces her. He smells of camomile and something sweet, his stubble brushing her cheek. ‘I’m glad you came. There’s something I’d like to show you.’
Mary sees Percy’s inability to join them and his annoyance at this inability in his brief smile. He follows Claire to the drawing room. Albe takes a candlestick from the dresser and leads Mary by the hand down the hall and to a dark room at the back of the house. Villa Diodati is considerably larger than their house, but Chapuis is better situated, she thinks. Albe’s house is darker, surrounded by trees with dense foliage, like stern and eternal guards. Inside, even in the daytime, you need candles or a lamp. The doorposts, the window frames and panelling, the many bookshelves are made of mahogany, the carpets run from wall to wall, in red or blue, with equally dark patterns. Brown is also the prevailing colour in Albe’s study. The evening light falls through the strands of ivy that creep across the windows. Albe places the candlestick on his desk and gathers up some loose papers.
‘Come here.’ He beckons Mary from behind his desk. ‘I’m working on a new part of Childe Harold. I think it’s going to be good. I’d like you to read it and tell me what you think.’
Something in the way Albe asks her makes her sense that there is no need for her to feel flattered; he simply views her as his equal. At least, as a critic.
So, she says, ‘I’d be happy to. I’d like to read it.’
Albe rolls up the papers. ‘They’re copies. Feel free to make notes.’ He hands them to her. ‘Shelley may read them too. If he wishes to.’
Percy will say—to her—that he does not wish to read them. But he will read them.
‘Mary.’ The candlelight falls into the light brown of his eyes, making them deeper. ‘I should like to read more of your work. Something that originated inside your head, not outside of it. A real story, a poem.’
‘Perhaps I’m a writer like my parents,’ she says. ‘Perhaps I can only write about real things.’
‘I am fairly certain that is not the case.’ Albe smiles. ‘Is the difference between real and not real truly that great?’
———
Percy is sitting beside her at the table. John, Albe’s friend and personal physician, is on her other side. Claire—of course—is next to Percy and next to Albe, who ignores her most of the time. Sometimes, when he has had a good deal of wine, has smoked something, or is simply in a good mood, Albe really talks to Claire. Sometimes he kisses her, and they disappear for a time. At such moments, Mary tries not to pay attention to Percy, because even though he acts no differently than usual, she sees in all his movements the agitation of a complex sort of loss. She does not know exactly what he fears losing. Maybe it is similar to what she fears.
Since Percy saw her enter the drawing room with Albe and with the roll of papers in her hand, he has been doing his best not to look at her and to concentrate on Claire. That is tricky, because if you give Claire your attention, she does not let go and you can easily become caught up in gossip about London acquaintances and about her heartfelt fear of all manner of things that she was terrified of as a child and has never got over: the devil, witches, patterns in the fire, patterns in the clouds, whispers carried by the wind. Now and then she thinks Claire enjoys it. That the consolation is the reward. That the fear is worth it all.
‘Adeline found asparagus at the market,’ says Albe in a terribly cheerful voice.
The asparagus is well seasoned but stringy. They cannot help but laugh a little. John grimaces at Mary. Adeline is mainly good at preparing meat, as she told Albe when he hired her as a cook and housekeeper. Luckily, she can also bake bread and there is more than enough wine. Albe tops them up every time a glass is half empty.
‘How is William?’ Mary does not know if John really cares, but he asks her almost every day.
‘Oh,’ Claire exclaims, ‘William is such a little treasure. He smiled at me today.’
‘What man would not smile at you?’
She does not believe that he means it, nor that he intends it in jest. From any other man Mary would have found such a remark irritating, but not from John. John has a way of putting people at ease. He knows exactly what to say, and what tone to use.
‘He went to sleep on time today, thank God,’ says Mary. ‘We’ve found a nurse for him, Elise.’
‘That’s good,’ says Albe.
‘We don’t really have the money, but so be it.’ Percy takes a swig of wine, does not look at her.
‘Consider it an investment in Mary’s future,’ says John. ‘How can she write if the baby requires constant attention?’
Claire nods enthusiastically.
‘Don’t whine, Shelley. You’re sitting there like some grumpy old man. We’re in Switzerland. Look around you!’ Albe throws his arms in the air. ‘You’re here with your wife, with your child. With me.’ They all laugh, including Percy, but Mary doubts that Albe meant it as a joke.
‘I gave your wife something to read. It would be an honour if you would take a look at it, too.’
The difference in Percy’s eyes, his face, his whole demeanour is unimaginable. Within a fraction of a second, everything within him has brightened up. He has transformed from a sullen man into an eager, grateful little boy. Mary feels relieved and, at the same time, disappointed. In Albe, in Percy or in herself.
After dinner, they retire to the drawing room, where the fire has to be stoked up high. There is another storm tonight. The first clap of thunder feels like someone grasping Mary’s heart.
‘That doesn’t look good,’ says John, peering outside.
Through the window, the sky swirls from grey to dark blue to black and back again. The last of the daylight will soon have gone completely. The rain lashes against the windowpanes. Elise will stay with William until they return. The thought of him lying in his cradle, screaming with no one hearing him, his cries stolen by the wind, makes her chest clench. It will never again be like it was that time, she has to tell herself. There is always someone with him. To stop him from suddenly and silently slipping away.
More wine is poured, but this time, as John warns them, it is mixed with laudanum. He is a doctor, so they trust him to prepare the drink. Mary knows that Sam Coleridge, a good friend of her father’s, often uses it, that he swears by the drug when he is writing, so she is rather curious. She cannot remember ever having been given it, although she often used to be ill. The bitter taste summons a vague memory within her. More like a feeling, like a dream; a hand sliding towards her over silk sheets. Percy and Albe have become involved in a conversation about electricity. Percy is sitting beside her, absentmindedly stroking her arm, as he listens to Albe, who is telling a story about frogs brought back to life by the power of galvanism.
‘Life force,’ says Percy, staring at the fire. ‘That’s the proof, isn’t it?’
‘Proof of what?’ asks John.
‘That there can be no God. If there is some vital force that man can control, it is illogical—if not impossible—that there is a God.’
‘What nonsense,’ says John. ‘That’s not proof.’
‘If God exists, that force and the ability to bestow it would be solely his preserve, wouldn’t it?’ Percy is given his second glass of laudanum-laced wine.
‘It’s still not proof,’ says John. ‘What you believe belongs to God does not constitute a fact.’
‘Listen to my doctor,’ says Albe. ‘Dr Polidori knows everything.’
‘I don’t know everything at all,’ John continues, far too seriously, ‘but I do know what proof is. Wine?’ he asks Mary and she nods, because she can feel the effect of the laudanum, and that makes her forget the taste. She sinks deeper into the cushions on the sofa.
Claire is lounging in a chair by the fireplace, half lying down, eyes wide open. It is not clear if she is listening. Now and then, lightning flashes behind her and she is startled, as if she has received a shock.
‘No more for Claire,’ says John.
He sits down on the rug at Mary’s feet, leaning half against her legs, and it seems almost like a gesture, a friendly, companionable gesture, and that suddenly moves her.
‘But…’ Albe leans forward, ‘the fact that there is no evidence that no god exists does not mean that a god does exist. So, for the record, let us assume for a moment that there is no god.’
‘Which is the case,’ mumbles Percy. He undoes the buckles of his boots and takes them off. He rests his legs on Mary’s lap, his head on the armrest.
When did we all start feeling so at home? wonders Mary. She suddenly feels old—and old-fashioned. She wants to do something strange as well.
‘Anyway,’ Albe continues, as he takes a small pipe from his jacket pocket, ‘the idea that people can use electricity to generate vital force themselves is very interesting. Being able to bring dead matter back to life. Just imagine—your dead grandmother alive once more.’ He smiles broadly.
But Mary is not thinking about grandmothers. Whether the subject is death, war, wine or nature, Mary’s brain always finds a path that leads to her little girl, to her first child. And when she asks herself if she ever wants that to end, she has no answer.
They go on talking, the men, but she is no longer listening. She cannot listen anymore. She has rested her hand in John’s hair. Thoughts no longer have logical order, no beginning, no end, no cause or necessity. They exist simply as they are: random and nonsensical, yet nevertheless overwhelming. The breaking of glass, the pitiful cry of something unimaginable, a fish the size of a ship, moonlight creeping in through cracks, an unspeakably terrifying head, a snake, as slippery as jelly, sliding through her fingers. In the end, everything slips through her fingers. Because that is how it goes.
At some point that evening Percy kisses her, in the midst of the others. The reason is unclear, or maybe her mind was elsewhere for a moment. Claire is sitting on Albe’s lap, kissing his neck, as he absentmindedly slides one hand over her hip, holding his glass with his other hand, almost continuously taking little sips. John is at the window, looking outside. The lightning flashes between the silhouettes of the trees, sometimes for seconds at once, so that the world once again takes on that silent strangeness, as if the veil of reality has been lifted and she can briefly see the world beneath it: a world in which nothing can be kept at bay by the intellect; no memory, no threat, no spirit.
Percy kisses her cheek, her temple, her forehead, her nose. Then, long and slowly, he kisses her mouth. Mary thinks somehow she was angry with him, but she cannot quite remember why, and she smells his scent, his scent of oranges, but spicy, and she kisses him back, her dear elf, her insecure, cantankerous, wonderful poet. And what happens next is not clear. They make love, or they fall asleep together and she dreams that they make love. The sky is black, the storm is over. Someone is standing under the window, he calls her name, but it does not sound like her name. And then she knows she is dreaming, because the one who is calling her does not exist.
At night Mary thinks she can hear her little girl. She is crying. She is wailing. She knows her. She is so certain that she has made a mistake: she is alive! Of course she is alive. All that time, months and months. What a bad mother she was to think her child dead! But that time is over now, she has to go to her, to her little Clara. She has to nurse her, look deep into her blue eyes, hug her to her breast forever, so firmly that neither of them can breathe. Otherwise she will slip away from her, she knows, no, she is already slipping away from her. Between the cracks of awakening, she knows: oh God. This world. Oh God. And she loses her again. The sound that woke her in this witching hour is alarming enough. She has shaken off the dream, the half-dream. She is still at Diodati. A single candle is lighting the room, the embers in the fireplace are still glowing slightly. Mary gets up off the sofa, where she was lying half under a blanket, her neck crooked, and tries to understand what is going on. The sound is coming from upstairs. Someone is crying, screaming hoarsely. She takes the candle, heads up the wide staircase. Is it Claire? Once again she thinks what she so often thinks when she is woken by a Claire who seems to be possessed by some evil spirit: we should never have let her come. But it had in fact been Claire’s idea for them to spend the summer here, close to Albe, and it was Percy who had seen it as an opportunity to get to know the writer. When she reaches the landing, she follows the sound. There is a faint light in one of the bedrooms: an oil lamp with a low flame. Claire is sitting on the bed, leaning against the wall, legs pulled up, hair tousled, eyes fluttering and hands plucking at her dress. Percy is lying on his side next to her, his hand on her stomach, as he looks up at her and whispers things that are not meant for Mary’s ears or which Mary’s ears simply do not hear. She stands there, in the doorway. Percy has not yet seen her and who knows what Claire is seeing. If you were to ask Mary if Claire does this a little bit on purpose, her answer would differ from one day to the next. Sometimes Mary feels sorry for her, she really does, and believes that Claire is a victim of herself. And sometimes she believes that she herself is Claire’s prime victim.
‘I don’t want to see this!’ shouts Claire. She is staring at the window, where there is nothing to see; the shutters are closed. Her hands are clawing at the air now. ‘Everything is dripping,’ she rasps, ‘nothing is as it was, Perce. This is real! I can’t do this.’ She sobs with a high-pitched snarl. A hyena, thinks Mary.
Percy sits upright and takes hold of her. Claire dangles like a doll in his arms, her eyes fixed on the window. Percy strokes her back, kisses her tangled hair, his eyes closed.
‘I don’t want this,’ Claire cries. ‘I don’t want this anymore.’
Mary turns around. She does not mind. This is fine. He is only comforting her and what man wants a morbidly anxious woman, but still it makes her stomach ache, a hard, stone stomach cramp, which is not only pain but also anger. She knows it is not Percy’s fault. It is Claire’s. Back on the sofa, at the point when her thoughts are barely coherent, she feels that she needs to pee. In the hallway, on the way to the lavatory, a shadow presses her to the wall. It is Albe. She lets him, as she knows it does not mean anything. He is drunk and wants to say something to her. Albe does whatever makes him feel good. Albe is her friend.
‘You know why I gave it to you, don’t you?’
His breath feels foul in her face, smells of animal fat or sheep shit. She tries a gentle push.
Albe gently pushes back.
She nods. Something is starting to dawn on her, but it seems far away, unimportant. Now he nods too, closes his eyes. He starts singing. Very softly. Mary cannot make out the words, but it sounds like a lullaby. He stands there, with his arms against the wall, his shoulder against hers, his breath in her ear. And suddenly she feels something loosening inside her head. With a small crack, it comes free, tumbles down, through her throat, through her stomach to her gut. And there it lies: warm and insistent. She should know what it is.
1812
—dundee, scotland—
12 June 1812
Almost my entire life in London and then: a week on a boat, just the waves, the waves, the waves. I had so longed to see the sea, but on that rough and rugged boat, she became an accursed beloved. The gift she gave me was sickness, robbing me of my vitality and my hope. But those times when I felt good enough to go on deck, to look out over the rail on the bow and across the white-crested waves, as she drove her salty splashes into my face and the wind, the wind blew into me, blasting everything clean and bright with constantly renewed vigour, I found her the most beautiful, the most insane, the most awesome of all and I knew that my adventure, my life with her had begun.
At the exact moment I descended the gangplank—one small step at a time—I felt that this was where I would find what I was looking for, although I did not yet know what I was seeking. There were not many people standing on the quay. A man with fair sideburns, younger than my father, but with a calm smile, nodded at me.
‘Miss Godwin, welcome. I am William Baxter.’ Fortunately, I found his accent easy enough to understand. Mr Baxter took my case from my hand. ‘How was your journey?’
The sailing had been a horror. During the daytime it was bearable, when I could clasp my hands to the railing, a firm and narrow strip to hold on to above the depths of the North Sea, to which I could fasten my thoughts: those quick handclapping games with Claire, Fanny’s breath on my back when we lay in bed, listening to Papa playing the piano downstairs, a baby crying in the street, carts passing on the cobblestones outside, horses’ hooves pounding to the rhythm of the ship’s pitching. It was the nights on the boat that were unimaginably awful. A no-man’s land of blackness, in which the words ‘above’ and ‘below’ no longer had any significance, in which every swell swirled in my stomach, in which I sometimes doubted my own existence. And I was alone, so terribly alone.
I was uncertain whether to tell him all that, but he had already started talking again. ‘This is my son Robert. The others are waiting at home. It’s not far.’
In the carriage, I looked at Robert, who was sitting opposite me. I thought he was about five years older than me, and he had an earnest air about him. Still, he smiled at me. He had a nice smile, without any ulterior motives, I thought.
‘Our house is in the centre of Dundee, not far from the harbour, in fact. It’s known as “The Cottage”,’ said Mr Baxter.
‘Our little cottage,’ Robert said with a grin.
The harbour slowly disappeared from view, giving way to small houses, a church, shops. We passed a pharmacy, a draper’s shop, a tailor’s and a bookshop.
‘How many bookshops do you have in Dundee?’ I asked.
‘Four or so,’ said Robert. ‘That one over there is excellent. And so is Rumpton’s, down the road. I’ll take you there one day.’
‘Let her recover from the journey first,’ said Mr Baxter. ‘I promised your father that, in addition to all your adventures as a young lady far from home, you will also have plenty of rest. We all want you to be healthy again as soon as possible, don’t we?’
I nodded. Although the weather was actually too warm for it, I was wearing a gown with long sleeves. It was not that I was ashamed of my skin condition. It was more that I was not in the mood for questions, for looks. It had started the year before: flaking skin, red and irritated patches, itching, such terrible itching, and only on my arms. The doctor had prescribed an ointment, but it made no difference. Mary Jane forbade me to scratch, and I knew she was right, but I never want to admit that Mary Jane is right. And besides, it is impossible not to scratch. I can stop myself during the daytime but at night, when I am in bed, my arms free from those tight sleeves, I yearn for the relief of my fingernails. When it heals, if it heals, there will be scars, Mary Jane warned me. But that might be true even without the scratching. My father did not concern himself with it. He has never had much interest in appearance. Perhaps he does not know how much beauty matters in the life of girls, of women. No, I am sure he is aware. But it will be something he disapproves of. And although I understand it, his arrogance annoys me. No woman alive can allow herself the luxury of not caring about her appearance. The sheer fact that only a man may say beauty does not matter because it should not matter only goes to show the extent to which—unfortunately—he is wrong.
Mr Baxter smiled at me. ‘We are very happy to welcome you as our guest, Miss Godwin.’
‘Please call me Mary,’ I said.
He nodded and smiled as if he had a secret. I saw now that his hair was already greying, particularly his sideburns, which stretched far along his jawbone.
‘My mother was a great admirer of yours, Mary,’ said Robert. ‘As is Isabella, by the way. Perhaps you could talk to her about your mother’s books. Isabella has been so glum lately. It’s as if…’
‘Robert.’ It was not loud. Not the way my father can raise his voice. When I was younger, that used to make my stomach ache. But it was effective. Robert immediately stopped talking. He looked at his father. I could not quite interpret his expression; he looked reproachful, but also seemed distracted, as though his father had set him thinking. Silently—I had barely noticed it—a dull sadness crept into me.
‘Here we are!’ cried Mr Baxter and the heaviness left my body. The carriage stopped in front of a house that was at least three times the size of our home in London.
A young girl opened the door for us—it was Grace, the maid, and she took my case from Robert.
Mr Baxter walked ahead of me into the drawing room. The sun streamed in through the large windows, onto the thick rugs on the gleaming dark wooden floor and various sofas and armchairs around the fireplace. Everywhere I looked, there were books. On the bookshelves that climbed the walls to the ceiling, of course, but also stacked on tables, windowsills, even on the backs of some of the chairs. In the corner of the room stood a shiny black grand piano with such a powerful presence that I thought for a moment it was breathing.
In the kitchen I was introduced to Elsie, the cook. Then Robert led me upstairs so I could rest for a while. The four large windows on the south-facing side of my room looked out on the houses in the street, the street behind that, and the River Tay beyond. The windows to the west were narrower and from there I could look out over the landscape. The hills that must stretch inland for many miles. They were covered with bushes, grass, heather in shades of green, yellow and, more distant, brown. There was a path, and a few houses up the hill. This was a country of the past. Of the stories in my books. Of water spirits, mermen and monsters, hidden deep among the hills. Of streams with slippery moss-covered stones that served as crossing places. A land where fear and love, imagination and truth coexisted on the riverside, in the undergrowth, under ancient trees. There was nothing that could not grow here. There was nothing that might not exist here.
I pulled my case up onto the bed, hung my gowns and corsets in the closet. Undergarments, stockings and bonnets went on the shelf. I had brought nine books with me. They included Horace Walpole, Samuel Coleridge and the published letters of Abigail Adams, in addition to works my father had given me, mostly philosophy and a recent analysis of the French Revolution. It is not that I am uninterested in the world outside, God knows that I am. But I have become aware of an ever-increasing interest in my own world. The dreams I have, the nightmares, my daydreams. I notice that the writers in my books have brains that work just like mine. A brain that connects what has never been connected, what perhaps is not supposed to be connected.
That night we ate together. In addition to Mr Baxter and Robert, there was also little Johnny. Only Isabella was not there. My father had told me about the family, and I knew there were two daughters: Margaret, who was married, and Isabella, who was a little older than I. Their mother had died a year ago. My father said Isabella would be glad of my coming. No one spoke about her, and I did not dare to ask about her. Her brothers and her father were in high spirits. The food was good, and the conversation flowed naturally. I kept myself somewhat to myself, feeling shy with a family I did not know, who did not know me. But before long it felt familiar and they began to ask me questions, to make little jokes and I thought about home, in London, what it was like at the dinner table there, how I had to watch Mary Jane sitting and chewing away opposite me, how my father, if he came to the table at all, left his mind in his study; Claire chattering away, about her new boots, the play she wanted to see, how wonderful Thomas Moore actually was; how quietly Fanny ate, or did not eat, softly skimming her cutlery over her plate. I looked around and felt so happy that it frightened me.
After the meal, Mr Baxter read a story to little Johnny, and I could see the wild adventures taking shape in the boy’s eyes. I looked at the fire, from the reading chair I sat in, Coleridge on my lap, and I listened to Mr Baxter’s voice. Less than a year ago, Johnny’s mother must have sat with him like that in front of the fire, and she would have been the one telling the story. I tried to imagine what that must be like, a mother close to you, a mother’s voice just for you, and how it must feel to miss her, when you knew—when you knew exactly—what her voice had sounded like.
I lay in bed, my new bed, in the home of the family who were going to be my family for the time being. The sheets smelt of starch and vaguely of flowers. The shutters were not quite closed, and a strip of light crossed the floor to my bed. My first day with the Baxters had exceeded my hopes and expectations, and I was already looking forward to the next day, to the weeks ahead. I fell asleep with a feeling of lightness, and my first dream began while I was still playing out my upcoming adventures for myself on the ceiling of the bedroom. The sound of a bear or a wolf marked the beginning of the dream, which was realistic, but which I can no longer remember. I can only recall the feeling that came with it: a wretched trepidation, a sense of a vivid evil that had not yet been shown to me.
14 June 1812
They are very kind and welcoming, the Baxters. Far more than I had imagined when I was on my way to these strangers. My father knew Mr Baxter only from their correspondence. They include me in everything, and I feel like a sister returning home to a troubled family. I still have not met Isabella. I know she is there, as her brothers take her food up to her room. I do not quite dare to ask about her. Is she ill? How long has it been since she last left her room? And what does she do in there all day long?
This morning Johnny sat me down at the piano and played a piece with me. We had the greatest enjoyment when he asked me to play something—anything!—while he practised his scales. It was a cacophony, of course, and Robert came into the drawing room with his hands over his ears and a grimace on his face.
‘Stop it,’ he said, ‘you’ll wake the spirits,’ but Johnny laughed and shooed him away with a stack of sheet music.
‘That’s not true,’ said Johnny. He put on a serious expression and started to play a piece I recognised, but whose title I did not know. The slow, deep notes filled the room, seemed to soak into the red damask curtains, to stick to the mahogany furniture. ‘The spirits never sleep.’
After teatime, Robert emerged from behind my book. I was sitting in the large armchair by the fireplace. Blackened remains of the fire from the night before lay waiting in the grate for someone to come and turn them into ashes with the poker. Usually that someone is Johnny, who likes to pretend the poker is a sword, or a lance, which continues until Grace realises what is going on, takes the poker from him and wipes the blackness from his hands and cheeks.
‘Do you like scary stories?’ Robert asked, giving Walpole a tap. I had just started reading The Castle of Otranto and the book had already captured my complete attention. There was something about the way the castle and the atmosphere were described that fascinated me. I could not wait to discover what foul deeds would be done, how the dark corridors and the turret rooms would fulfil their dark functions and what terrible fate awaited Manfred.
Robert sat on the arm of the chair. ‘If you like this, you should read Radcliffe too. Very scary.’
I had heard of it: Ann Radcliffe, The Mysteries of Udolpho. My father sold it in the bookshop—and it sold well. It was why Claire had given me this copy of Walpole. She told me her mother had said we were not allowed to read such exciting stories, but that she had brought the Otranto story from the shop because, unlike Ann Radcliffe’s book, few copies of it were sold these days, so no one would miss it. The book had terrified her and so now it was my turn to read it so that I could recognise the ghosts that lived in her head at night and render them harmless. When we said our farewells on the pier in London, she whispered that she expected me to read it quickly and to send her a letter to relieve her of her fears.
‘If you want to read it, you’ll have to ask Isabella. She has it,’ Robert said. He gave my shoulder a playful nudge and left the room. How on earth was I expected to get hold of the book if Isabella, who never showed her face, had it? It occurred to me that she was not leaving her room because of me. Because I was there. Had she shut herself away when I arrived in Dundee? Because—yes, why exactly?—because I had come to disrupt the normal order of things? Her brothers were very kind and seemed genuinely delighted that I was staying with them for a time. So, why wasn’t Isabella?
This afternoon, when I was about to go out for a walk, Johnny asked me to go and look for ladybirds with him. It was such a sweet request that I could not turn him down. We walked around the garden, which was still wet with this morning’s rain, I holding up my skirt, Johnny skipping like a foal, chattering all the time, and it felt so wonderfully natural. As if I were walking with my little brother, and this were my house, as if I had always lived here. They proved hard to find, the ladybirds. In fact, we did not find a single one, and Johnny suggested that they might be hiding because of the rain. I know nothing about insects, but I could well imagine that he was right. At the bottom of the garden, as we stood leaning against the fence looking at the hills beyond, where I had wanted to walk, he gave my arm a tug.
‘What’s that?’ he asked.
I was wearing my pale-pink gown, the sleeves of which do not reach all the way to my wrists, and I realised he was looking at my skin, at the red bumps, the cracks and flakes and the raised patches that almost shone because the skin was stretched so tightly. I told Johnny that I have a sickness on my arms that damages the skin, making it bleed at times, and itch. And Johnny, dear Johnny, he went on looking at my arms, and then gently touched the skin. He did not find it ugly, or dirty, or frightening. I even believe he thought it beautiful, in an intriguing way.
And that was when I decided to ask him.
‘How is Isabella?’ I tried to sound nonchalant, but it did not seem to matter either way.
‘Oh,’ he said, ‘she’s been very sad since Mama died.’
It was as if I had been hit by something, a blunt, hard object. Of course, they had lost their mother. And I, like an idiot, had assumed they had all recovered from their loss by now because I never heard anyone mention it. But just because the others seemed to be getting on with their lives did not mean that Isabella was able to do the same.
‘Has she been alone in her room all this time?’ I asked. I could not imagine that was the case. For a whole year? And no one had said anything about it?
We slowly walked back to the house. Johnny pulled a leaf off the hedge and tore it to pieces. ‘She sometimes comes out. But that’s usually where she is. I miss her.’ Johnny looked up at me. His big eyes were blue and gleaming.
‘What happens when you knock on her door?’
He shrugged. ‘She usually tells me to go away. But I don’t try very often anymore.’
At the back door, we kicked the wall to knock the mud off our shoes. I could finally lower my skirt again. We went into the kitchen, where Grace was making cocoa. The smell made my nose sting, and I almost started crying.
19 June 1812
Last night i met her in the hallway. I was startled, felt tingling all over my body. She was shocked too, eyes like wild patches of white in the darkness. I was the only one with a candle. We stood there, barefoot on the floorboards, a couple of yards away from each other, and maybe she was a ghost, maybe she was an apparition or a witch, but then she said something. She said: ‘Hello.’
I chuckled. ‘Hello,’ I replied.
Isabella did not laugh. Her eyes were just as big as before, but now I saw that the irises were green, very bright green. ‘I heard something,’ she said.
‘I’m Mary,’ I said.
‘I know.’
We stood in silence. There was no sound inside the house, but outside the wind took a run-up and tried to push the windows from their frames.
‘Well then,’ I said, ‘I’m going back to bed. I just came to see if any windows were open.’
‘Papa never leaves the windows open at night.’ A brief hint of a smile. ‘Scared something will come flying in.’
‘A bird?’
She shrugged. ‘Or something else.’
Something unpleasant slithered through my stomach.
‘I’ll see you tomorrow,’ I said. ‘Maybe.’
Isabella nodded. ‘All right. Tomorrow.’
