“I have not the least idea, sir. I am sorry-”
Bysshe brought a chair for me, and offered me a glass of Madeira wine that I willingly accepted. “You are tired after your journey, Victor.” He had noticed my listlessness and weariness. “This will revive you.”
The father and daughter looked at me with placid interest, and waited for me to speak.
“It has been a hard time,” I said.
“Of course. William and Mary know all the sad facts of the matter. You can speak freely.”
“I do not know if I can speak at all.”
“You attended Harriet’s funeral?”
“Yes.”
“And were you present at Daniel’s execution?”
I looked round for Fred, but he had silently left the room, no doubt in search of the company of Bysshe’s servants.
“Yes. He died bravely. He was an innocent man.”
“How do you know that, sir?” Mr. Godwin put the question to me in a challenging manner.
“I know it. I know-I knew-Daniel Westbrook. I saw him in his prison cell. There was no gentler being on the earth. He had nothing to do with this crime. Nothing whatever.”
“No one else was suspected,” Mr. Godwin said. “We read the public prints, even in Marlow.”
“The murderer walks free.”
“Do you have private information, Mr. Frankenstein?” Miss Godwin asked me this with the faintest impression of a smile.
“No. I have no information on the subject except that which instinct and intuition give me. I am sure that, as a lady, you will grant me that right.”
She gave me a keen glance then. “Instinct is very right and just. My father adopts more rational principles, but I have always believed in the divining powers of the imagination.”
“She has read Coleridge,” her father said. “She is an enthusiast for the divine afflatus.”
“Without the imagination, Father, the human frame is dust and ashes.”
“You cannot go so far, Mary.”
“I may trespass into the world of the ideal, may I not?”
Bysshe had been listening in silence to their conversation, and I could not help but notice the profound admiration that he evinced for Mary. It seemed to me strange that, after the recent death of Harriet, he should be so struck by another woman. Yet I was not wholly surprised by his interest. I had heard of Mary’s mother, Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin. She was the author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman that, as a student in Switzerland, I had read with great fervour. Yes. Fervour is the word. She had instilled in me a love of liberty in all its forms, and I believed that human happiness should be the prerogative of all regardless of sex. I hoped to see in Miss Godwin some sign or token of her mother’s genius. I soon gathered that she had quieter but no less interesting virtues.
Bysshe seemed to divine my interest because, a moment later, he led me to the other end of the room on the excuse that he wished for a “private symposium.”
“I could not have endured the funeral, Victor,” he said. “The horror of it. The senselessness of it. I still think of her as a dear, good girl. I will never lose that memory.”
“What of your child?”
“Ianthe is better with the Westbrooks. I have made arrangements that an annual income be paid to them through my banker.” He looked at me in appeal, as if seeking my approval.
“You have done what is necessary, Bysshe.”
“And what is right?”
“Of course.” I was silent for a moment. “You have mentioned Mr. Godwin to me before.”
“Did I tell you that I visited him in Somers Town? I have always admired him, ever since I read his Enquiry Concerning Political Justice. I share his belief that Man can be improved and even perfected.”
“Indeed? How does he reach that conclusion?”
“You never used to be so sceptical, Victor.”
“I merely ask the question.”
“Mr. Godwin is animated by a keen sense of the natural man. The first men were not savage or cruel. In their natural state they were peaceful and benevolent. It is only the tyranny of law and custom that has made us what we are. But man is perfectible. Once we have removed his shackles, he will be capable of perpetual improvement.”
“And you also believe this?”
“It is an article of faith. There was a time, Victor, when you would also have subscribed to it.”
“I do not have all of my old enthusiasm, Bysshe.”
“Are you sure you are quite well? You seem to have lost your spring.”
“It has turned to winter, I am afraid.” I longed to unburden myself to him, to explain all that had occurred in the most exact and methodical manner, but I knew well enough that even Bysshe would deem me to be a madman.
“The deaths of Harriet and of Daniel,” he replied, “have been a monstrous blow to us. You have fallen, dear Victor, into a melancholy from which I vow to save you. You will stay with us here in Marlow until you are quite recovered. We will spend long quiet days at our ease. We will journey along the Thames. You see. Already you are returning to life. Come. Let us join the Godwins.”
It transpired, in the course of conversation, that the father and daughter had decided to settle themselves in Marlow in order to console Bysshe after the death of Harriet. They had rented a house close by but, at Bysshe’s urgent entreaty, they had agreed to take up quarters in Albion House itself. There was room for all, he said, in Albion. I gained the impression that Mr. Godwin was in straitened circumstances and, as a consequence, had welcomed the offer. I wondered, too, if he was also accepting contributions from Bysshe’s purse. Bysshe had not the slightest regard for money.
“I wonder, Mr. Shelley,” Miss Godwin said, “that you keep a boat in this dreadful weather.”
“I have asked you to call me Bysshe.”
“I know. I must learn to forget my manners.” She was a striking young woman, with a mass of black hair descending in curls and ringlets; she had a fine forehead, suggesting a highly developed ideality, and dark expressive eyes. She always looked as if she had just awoken from sleep, and in repose had a dreamy and even passive expression. She looked intently at me as she spoke to me, but would then drift back into some world of private reflection. “Will you join me, Mary, on the water?” Bysshe asked her. “I will show you the delights of the river even in dreadful weather, as you call it. There is an inexpressible comfort in seeing the rain dissolving into the water, and we can shelter beneath the branches of a willow. There is often a mist where the rain and the river are reunited.”
“Will it not be cold?” she asked him.
“Not if you have shawl and bonnet.”
“The hydrologic cycle,” Mr. Godwin said. “There is not one drop of water, more or less, than there was at the creation of the world.”
“Is that not an enchanting thought, Victor?” Bysshe had handed me another glass of Madeira wine. “As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be.”
“You are quoting an old prayer,” I said, “for deliverance.”
“A prayer of celebration, I think.”
“Eternity fills me with dread,” I replied. “It is not to be imagined.”
“Now there, sir,” Mr. Godwin said, “you have touched upon a great truth. Eternity is incomprehensible. Literally so. Even the angels, if such beings exist, cannot envisage it. Every creature that is made is imbued with a sense of ending.”
The conversation continued in this vein for a little longer, until I pleaded tiredness and was taken by a maidservant to my room. She told me that her name was Martha. “Where is Fred?” I asked her.
“He is in the kitchen, sir, tucking into some ham.”
“Not to be disturbed then.”
“Do you need him, sir?”
“No. Not at all. Leave him to his ham. I will see to myself.” I undressed and lay down upon the bed. It was a stormy night, and the rain lashed the windows; I found a certain comfort in the sound, and very quickly fell asleep.
I WAS STARTLED INTO WAKEFULNESS by a prolonged scream coming from some part of the house close to me. It was a shriek of the utmost terror. I took my gown and hastened into the hallway, with many dark thoughts descending upon me. Suddenly Bysshe appeared in his nightshirt, at the other end of the hallway, and beckoned me to come forward. “Did you hear that?” he asked me.