by Liz Lochhead
CLAIRE. That was Mary’s secret place. Her mother’s grave. She would tell me how her mother would come and haunt me. I never went there.
MARY (heartfelt). There, I could be perfectly alone.
CLAIRE. Alone until you began to encourage Shelley to accompany you!
SHELLEY. And I needed little encouragement! (Kisses MARY.) You know, Byron, I was half in love with Mary before I even met her. I’d go to Godwin’s house. And how I worshipped that man –
CLAIRE. You used to bring Harriet!
SHELLEY. Sometimes.
CLAIRE turns to MARY.
CLAIRE. You were away in Scotland then. My mama found you unmanageable!
MARY. I was just fifteen! She sent me away!
SHELLEY. I could not wait to see the daughter of this excellent man I wished was my father!
CLAIRE. That would have made Mary your sister!
SHELLEY. My soul’s sister. She is. Has been always!
CLAIRE. If she was your real sister you could not –
BYRON (laughing). Not without being the storm in every teacup in Albion – and you may take that from the horse’s mouth! Godwin, eh? Political Justice!
SHELLEY. The best and bravest and most important book ever written in the English language.
BYRON. High praise!
SHELLEY. Not exaggerated!
BYRON. Poor Mary-Mary! Wearing her mother round her neck and her father on her sleeve.
SHELLEY. Albé, I defy anyone to read that book and not be filled with the certainty that, as sound politics diffuse through society – as they inevitably will – freedom and justice for both men and women then must be universal.
BYRON laughs.
BYRON. And do you think I have not read Godwin’s great work? Well, I have, when it was fashionable – long before you, Mary, were out of schoolroom pinafores, I had seen that silly book for the euphoric bombast it was.
ELISE enters with the decanter.
Ah, Elise, come here. Elise, come help us, we need you to demonstrate.
ELISE curtseys.
ELISE. Lord Byron.
BYRON. What do you do, Elise?
ELISE. Sir?
BYRON. For a livelihood, Elise. Who are you?
ELISE. Mrs Shelley’s maid, sir.
BYRON. A maid?
ELISE. Yes, sir.
BYRON (indicating MARY). Well, Mademoiselle Maid, and who is this?
ELISE. Mrs Shelley, sir.
BYRON. No, indeed, it is not! This is – a Great Man. A… philosopher, let’s say.
ELISE. Sir?
BYRON. No one reads him, of course. Can you read?
ELISE. Yes, sir.
BYRON (amazed). You can?
ELISE. I’m learning, sir. A little each day. Mrs Shelley, she helps me when William is asleep, and Mr Shelley, sir.
BYRON. He does?
ELISE. In the afternoons, sir. Sometimes.
BYRON. A maid who can read!
ELISE. And write, sir. Mrs Shelley helps me to form my letters…
BYRON. Perhaps we shall have dogs on two legs next, entering the House of Lords, and pissing on its portals.
SHELLEY. Better than the wolves and vipers and crocodiles that we have to contend with currently!
BYRON. Indeed! But we digress! Elise, who is this?
ELISE. A… philosopher, sir.
BYRON. And who are you?
ELISE. A maid.
BYRON. His maid.
ELISE (very uncomfortably). Yes, sir.
BYRON. And now I have to decide which one of you to save.
MARY. Byron, this is an abuse – Elise, don’t be alarmed, this is but a game of our neighbour’s, he –
BYRON. Wishes to demonstrate a philosophical argument of the illustrious Godwin’s. And do you know who Godwin is, Elise?
ELISE. He is… Mrs Shelley’s father, sir?
BYRON. Indeed. Mary Godwin’s famous father. And now we shall examine his concept of justice, ladies and gentlemen! You are both in a burning building and I have to decide which of you to save. Can’t you feel the flames catch at your petticoats, lick at your ankles?
ELISE looks down. She is angry, silent, impotent.
Can’t you feel the thick smoke choke you? Elise, can’t you? Answer me, girl!
ELISE. Yes, sir.
BYRON. Now, I am concerned with justice. Godwin’s justice.
There is an old maxim, everyone’s heard of it, although only you, Claire Clairmont, seem inclined to put it into practice around here: that we should love our neighbour as ourselves.
CLAIRE (going to his side). Albé!
BYRON. Keep seated! I’m on the track of justice. You, philosopher, and you, chambermaid, are presumed of equal worth. You are both human beings, are you not?
And entitled to equal attention… in the natural world at any rate. As a general principle? Yes? No? And yet Godwin says I must save –
MARY. Well, I understand why my father advocated the saving of me.
BYRON. The philosopher!
MARY. Yes. There is the consideration that the common good of all mankind for all time will benefit from my work. So save me.
SHELLEY. Bravo, Mary!
BYRON. Ah, but suppose this mere maid were my wife? Or my mother? Yes, or my sister? Certainly I should want to save my beloved sister before some old philosopher.
MARY. My wife, my sister, my mother! What is so magical about the pronoun ‘my’? My sister may be a fool… or a harlot… If she be, then what worth is she lent by the fact she is my sister?
BYRON. Where is your heart, Mary? Hear that, Elise? Are you listening, Claire? She’d consign her own sister to the flames. But I don’t know I believe her. I think it’s Godwin’s daughter wishing to convince us – and her papa – that she has her head in the right place!
MARY. Suppose I were myself the philosopher’s maid, I should choose to die rather than him.
BYRON. Ah, so you won’t grant life to the maid. Elise, tell me who are you going to save? Yourself, or Mister Philosopher?
ELISE. I… I shouldn’t like to say, sir.
BYRON. Come, Elise, you are among friends, you can tell us what you think.
ELISE. What would you like me to say, sir?
BYRON. Tell us the truth. Who would you save?
ELISE. I should save myself, sir.
BYRON bursts out laughing.
BYRON. Thank you, Elise, that is what I wished to hear.
ELISE. May I go, madame?
MARY. Yes, Elise.
ELISE. Madame, I did not mean… I hope I did not say the wrong thing, madame?
MARY. You are a good girl, Elise.
ELISE. Thank you, madame.
ELISE exits.
MARY. It was wicked of us to use her so.
BYRON. Why? She is but a maid.
MARY. But I have not bought the right to abuse her. I ought to act towards all creatures with benevolence.
BYRON. Benevolence by all means, Mrs Shelley. Nicety costs nothing. But recognise that where you are paymaster, benevolence is yours to bestow… or to take away.
SHELLEY. Peddling in human flesh… a vile and a universal thing. To be born poor may be translated: to be born a slave. The lot of the working people! In the new hells of our cities, the mechanic himself becomes a sort of machine. His limbs and articulations are converted into wood and wires.
Surely they must rise up, they shall rise up.
MARY. But Elise is not my puppet. It is my duty to educate her, enlighten her.
BYRON. So she can see the justice of her giving up her own life for you! No, she is not your puppet, Mary. Thank God we may own the body but, although we stuff the head with Latin, algebra and Platonics, we cannot own the heart. (Pause.) Nevertheless, if I am honest, and I think I am, I must admit that possession of the odd body does all but suffice. For me. But then I’m no Godwinite. I won’t tyrannise the world by force-feeding it freedom.
CLAIRE. I don’t like these games, I wish Pollydolly was here.
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BYRON. Well, he’s not. So we have to otherwise divert ourselves. Pollydolly! Pollydolly, indeed. Honestly, Shelley, I pick me as travelling companion a physician – hoping he can at once apply the pharmaceutical leeches and keep the human ones at bay – and what does he do but decide he should forsake his doctoring and take up competing with me – and you – at the scribbling. Ah, the Literary Life! And truly, Claire, I think, he is a little jealous! Since I found myself such… congenial neighbours and stimulating companions I have little time for Pollydolly. (Kisses CLAIRE lightly, sarcastically.) I fear we have begun to tire of one another. Oh, is it not the way of all human intimacy?
Even the best of marriages, you know yourself, Shelley, grows tedious to the combatants.
And even the firmest friendships come unstuck…
CLAIRE. ‘True love differs from gold and clay. To divide is not to take away.’ Shelley’s poem, Albé! Remember?
BYRON. Pretty lines!
MARY. It’s true! Because… because Shelley loves me, it does not mean he must stop loving Harriet; I should be wrong to wish him to.
SHELLEY. I think if she would only consent to meet Mary she would become her friend.
BYRON. Honestly, Shelley, you do take the Bath bun and the biscuit too! (Laughs.) I’m afraid you’re not for this world. Shiloh! Love is all on account, debits, debits, precious few credits, and always less in the coffers than one thinks there is – a sudden running-out and not a ha’p’worth left is the common way to the inevitable bankruptcy.
The worst of Annabel’s lies and slanders is I’ll see her in hell. If only she’d keep a virtuous silence she’d gain the other place, and eternity were not too long a time I’d never see her again…
SHELLEY. There could not have been devised anything – anything! – more hostile to human happiness than marriage.
CLAIRE. Amen!
BYRON. I’ll drink to that!
BYRON polishes off the last drop in his glass.
SHELLEY. Abolish marriage and all connections between women and men will be natural. And right – because choice and change will be possible – will even be desired by both!
The two women cheer and applaud SHELLEY. MARY goes to him.
BYRON. Lord, Shiloh, I’m not much of a one for such airy Platonics. I am a simple man. Ladies, I am as ditchwater dull and tethered to the earth as clodhopper Caliban… I am happy as a pig in… the proverbial acorn wood. I’ll gobble up the lot. Shelley here, though, he’s a different kettle of nightingales. Oh, we only have to look at him and we dissolve. He’s all Light and Grace, is Shiloh! He’s Ariel, a pure spirit moving through the changing air, fashioning liquid verse into new forms for freedom. How he will flame and amaze! And how about you, Miranda-Mary?
Friends, how shall we amuse ourselves?
Oh, to hell with Dr Polidori and his German volume of Fantasmagoriana! Listen, I’ll set us a little contest. Why should we content ourselves with translated, traditional horrors, all bookish and stilted. Home-grown ones are the best. We shall all write a ghost story!
CLAIRE. A story!
She laughs uproariously, clapping her hands, dancing around in circles.
A story, a story! Who can write the most horrid tale! Oh yes, we shall all be terrorists – Claire will, and Mary will, and Shelley will, and Byron, and Claire and Shelley and Byron and Mary…
And fade out as lights change.
Back to widow MARY, who is back at her writing desk, suffering as she remembers.
MARY. I did not want to write –
CREATURE’S VOICE. Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay to mould me?
MARY. I did not want to write. I did not want to write. Daughter of Political Justice, daughter of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. And I wrote you. If I had known the misery, the terror, the grief I foretold for myself? I did not want to write you anyway. Nothing came to me, no ideas, I was empty. Everybody was engaged on his creation, except me.
Back to Switzerland, 1816 again, a few days later, and much later at night, with the wind outside, summer storms. BYRON and SHELLEY with opium pipes.
The trio of BYRON, SHELLEY and CLAIRE are all writing.
SHELLEY (deep in thought).…A beautiful creature, half-man, half-woman. Perfect, therefore terrifying!… (Writes.)
BYRON. There’s Mad Shelley, and Bad Byron, and Sad Polidori next door, scribbling away like a dervish, muttering ‘Vampyre, vampyre.’ Why, even Glad-eyed Claire is lusting somewhat after cuttlefish ink and quill pens, eh, Claire?
CLAIRE. I tell you, I have begun one.
BYRON. Of course you have. (Mutters.) It’d be too much to hope, would it, that girls of eighteen had nought but fertile imaginations…
MARY comes in to join them.
And how about you, Mary, have you begun yours?
SHELLEY. Is he asleep at last?
MARY. He’s sleeping.
CLAIRE. You should let the maid! Don’t they say ’tis a pity to spoil the creatures?
MARY. When you are a mother, Claire, perhaps I’ll listen to your advice.
BYRON. Ah! (Mutters.) And this may be sooner than you think, apparently…
Never mind. Writing time! The Contest! Creation! I asked you, Mary, how goes your story?
SHELLEY (bursting out enthusiastically). Well, all I’ll say of mine – it’s scarce begun, to tell the truth – but I will say it’s something about a dream.
BYRON. A dream, eh? Marvellous! How about you, Mary?
SHELLEY. A dream of a beautiful creature – half-man, half-woman – who lives high, high, on the topmost pinnacle above that awful ravine, where naked power, dressed as a river, pours out of the rock, and down… Remember, Albé, when we finally reached the source of the Arve?
BYRON. Up mountain and glacier! No wonder we’re chilled and stiff and ache so that Polidori had to lard us with liniment. Ladies, I’m sure we reek like racehorses…
SHELLEY. It wasn’t a river. It was pure, naked, absolute Power. That element. Oh, in the disguise of a river! This time.
The surfaces of things hide from us what they truly are.
MARY is thrilled by this, BYRON laughing at it.
MARY. Oh yes! The surfaces… of things… hide from us what they really are!
SHELLEY. The same secret strength of things flows through us all, making us work. Just because it’s invisible doesn’t mean it isn’t real…
Think of us! We four.
Oh, there are wires and bonds between us that are as finespun as filigree and as intricately structured as a spider’s web and stronger than blood – or Manchester iron.
As imperative as the delicate smells that drag the insect to the nectar.
BYRON. Gossamer, blood, pig-iron and stink! Four very different things in my book.
MARY. Then what’s in your book, Albé, is only the tip of the iceberg.
BYRON. Ah, Mary! Brave new world that has such poets in it.
BYRON drinks to her, toasting her.
SHELLEY begins to write again, almost in a trance, staring. A moment or two’s silence but for the scratching of the pen nibs.
I’m asking you, Mary Godwin –
MARY. What?
BYRON. Have you started your story?
MARY. I don’t think we would play with such dangerous things.
BYRON. Won’t dabble in the dark?
MARY. There is no darkness! There are no forces of evil outside of ourselves. Once we let the clear light of reason sear through… Besides, how can I write when William screams all day?
BYRON. As Claire said, let the nursemaid see to him.
SHELLEY. Naked!
MARY. He needs me, every child needs his mother.
BYRON notices SHELLEY, who’s really spooking himself, writing and muttering.
SHELLEY. Naked! Naked! God! And eyes…
BYRON. Fan… tas… magor… iana…! What was that story, Mary? You read it last night. ‘And when the moon…’ What? ‘And by that…’ What, Mary?
MARY. Blu
e and baleful light.
BYRON. ‘Blue and baleful light!’
Shelley! Shelley! Does she not make your flesh to creep and your gorge to rise? Oh, I know she does mine! ‘He saw that in his arms…’ yes?
MARY is almost in a trance now, BYRON’s power has her half-hypnotised – she can’t not answer.
MARY. ‘He saw that in his arms he clasped the pale, pale ghost of her he had deserted.’
SHELLEY. No! Who in hell are you? Mary! Not-Mary! Your breasts… you have eyes, eyes in your breasts… don’t stare at me! Keep… her away from me!
MARY. Shelley –
But he screams, runs from her. Chaos. BYRON tries to hold SHELLEY in the room, CLAIRE begins fighting with BYRON to let SHELLEY escape.
CLAIRE. Let him go! Leave him! Mary! Albé! Help him!
SHELLEY breaks loose and runs screaming from the room.
MARY stands, upset, unable to move.
Shelley? Hush, Shelley, it’s me, your Claire, calm, I’m coming!
CLAIRE runs out after him. BYRON stands stock-still looking at MARY, she at him. BYRON shrugs.
BYRON. He reads too much.
MARY belatedly makes to follow SHELLEY.
MARY. Shelley…!
BYRON stops her by grabbing her wrist.
BYRON. No, Mary, let Claire. You are not the right person. You are the subject of his… Waking Nightmare.
MARY. I must go to him. We always have avoided stimulants. Even alcohol, especially alcohol, as well you know! Too much opium…
BYRON. Too much imagination. Let Claire see to him. Claire will calm him.
BYRON lets MARY’s arm go. She stays.
MARY. I must go to my husband.
BYRON. Ah? Strange, but I thought poor Shiloh had a wife already! Mary, Mary, don’t scuttle off like a manhandled maidservant! Don’t spurn my company. Lord knows, I’ve had enough of ostracism in England.
Well, well, I should have honestly thought it impossible to scandalise Shelley, the Anti-Christ’s Lady! The Queen of the Ménage à Trois!
MARY. What do you mean?
BYRON. Was not… What’s-his-name, your dear friend, Mary?
MARY (involuntarily).…Hogg?
BYRON. Yes, Hogg. Thomas Jefferson Hogg. Percy Bysshe Shelley’s bosom companion. And his rival in love for the affections of their ‘participated pleasure’ – Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin!