A Fatal Likeness

by Lynn Shepherd

  He opens his eyes now, and Charles sees that there are tears.

  “I wish that were all I had to tell. But it is not. I used my position—my influence—for the first and only time in my career, to further my own personal ends. I allowed certain facts to come to the ear of the judge in Shelley’s Chancery case. With so much already against him—his atheism, his manner of life—I knew the information I passed on would ensure he never gained custody of Harriet’s children. I believed she would have wished it so. I believed, and sincerely, that I was acting in those children’s best interests.”

  “And you were not?”

  Maddox shakes his head slowly. “Not, at least, in the way I imagined. It was only after the Shelleys left England for the last time that I discovered the truth. That whatever he had done in the past that so haunted his steps, he was not the monster I had made him.”

  Charles frowns. “I do not understand—”

  “It was some years before I saw Absalom Blackaby again. I rarely dealt with such as he if I could help it, and avoided him all the more after the Shelley case. But there came a day when I could evade him no longer.”

  The old man stops a moment; the effort is taking its toll.

  “I shall not torment myself with details. Suffice it that I was wrong. Calamitously so. Blackaby saw the child’s body unwrapped, as I did not—but that is no excuse. I should have insisted. Because had I done so, I would have seen at once that there were marks not merely about the child’s eyes, but all over its body. What I had thought to be proof of strangulation was, in truth, evidence only of the infection that was no doubt the true and only cause of death. The man laughed in my face—taunted me for making so elementary an error.”

  He sighs. “And I did indeed merit such derision. I had accused Shelley of the worst possible crime, and I was mistaken. Whatever else he might have done, he did not harm his child. But if he believed that he had, and ever after paid the penance for it in his own heart, it was my own negligence and incompetence that were to blame.”

  They sit in silence, the fire cracking softly now and again, the clock ticking in the silence.

  “Shelley never knew?” says Charles eventually. “What Blackaby told you?”

  Maddox shakes his head. “I wrote to him at the poste restante in Pisa but the letter was returned, unopened. The hand that had penned my address was hers. Six months later he was dead.”

  He is tiring visibly now, his hand fluttering, and his voice slowing. Charles clasps the hand that flutters so, and Maddox grasps him tight with the other. “There is little left to say—let me—there may not be another chance—I beseech you—”

  His eyes are pleading. Before his attack—before the moment that seemed to rend the veil of mortal frailty—the most painful part of the malady that afflicted him had been his knowing it. And Charles can see that same terror now—that same fear of the darkness, the forgetting.

  “You must not pain yourself,” he whispers.

  “It is the not telling that has caused me pain.”

  He sits back. “I did not know my son was dead. Not until I heard she had come back to England a widow. She and a child far too young to be mine.”

  The words are coming slower and slower now, each breath drawn in distress. “That journey I made to Italy. I put out that I wished to visit the Palladian villas, and so I did. But I went also to Rome, where they had buried him. It was a beautiful place. The scent of wildflowers, the shade of cypress trees. I asked directions to the grave, but the attendant said that no-one knew where his body lay. They had wished to bury Shelley beside him, but when they opened the tomb they found no child’s remains. My own boy, and I could not be near him. Not even in death.”

  In the long dark hours that follow, while the rest of the house sleeps, Charles takes his pages of notes and attempts to put them into some sort of order—some sort of connected narrative that makes sense of these tangled and poisoned lives. He knows, now, why his uncle destroyed his records. And why he tried, even in his half-insensible state, to eradicate what Charles had succeeded in deciphering. But one question yet remains—and it is one to which even Mary Shelley seems never to have known the answer. Why was Shelley tracked first to Cumberland and then to Wales, all those years ago, and shot at in the chaos of a midnight assault? What was it that had him seeing the shadow of a persecutor on every street, and an avenging demon at every turn? Was that what he’d meant, that night of storms in Geneva, when he talked to Polidori, half dazed by ether, of a spectre that pursued him wearing his own face?

  Charles puts down his pen and looks out at the slowly silvering sky, thinking of Mary, and of Claire. Mary, who will, by now, have received his letter accusing her husband of a crime she has concealed for more than thirty years, but which Charles now knows he did not commit. By rights he ought to write again, and free her from that terrible burden—allow an ill and aging woman a last peace. But something within him stays his hand, something perverse that whispers Mary has deceived the world all this time, and it is little enough punishment to leave her fearing, for a few more days yet, that the world might soon discover that deception. And as for Claire, she may have deserved better than she has received, but she has lied as much as any of them. Charles has no more wish to see her than he has to ever set foot again within that house on Chester Square, with its sham shrine and pristine façade of imitation gentility. He writes Claire a note, explaining that he has not heard from the Shelleys, and that on consideration, he believes negotiations about her papers would be more fruitful if they were conducted with the Shelleys directly. Then he seals the envelope, and has Billy take it to St John’s Wood. Though when the boy comes back two hours later it’s to say the house is empty, and the inhabitants gone.

  “I asked around a bit, Mr Charles, but no-one seems to know where she went. Left the letter next door in case, but they didn’t think it were likely the lady’d be coming back.”

  Charles wonders, in passing, at this sudden change of address. How many homes has Claire had in the course of her life, and not one of them her own? And is she now in flight, or merely—once again—in transit? He, in the meantime, has spent those two hours rereading Thomas Medwin’s Life. Knowing what he knows now, this second reading is rather like deciphering the trick of Holbein’s Ambassadors: working out by trial and error exactly where it is you have to stand to turn that strange distorted foreground shape into a perfectly proportioned human skull. Charles thinks he knows now where to stand to scrutinise Shelley, but the image in the centre is not quite clear—not yet. But he is a detective, and this is not the only evidence he has to hand. So he retrieves his volume of Shelley’s poetry from the shelf in the attic and sits down in the office to read. He finds the place where he last left off and starts to work forwards once more, disdaining anything overtly political, interested only in what appears to him to be personal, or suggestive. And then suddenly he finds it. Stanzas he has seen before—in the paper Maddox found on Harriet Shelley’s dead body:

  The breath of night like death did flow

  Beneath the sinking moon.

  The wintry hedge was black,

  The green grass was not seen,

  The birds did rest

  On the bare thorn’s breast,

  Whose roots, beside the pathway track,

  Had bound their folds o’er many a crack

  Which the frost had made between.

  Thine eyes glowed in the glare

  Of the moon’s dying light,

  As a fen-fire’s beam

  On a sluggish stream

  Gleams dimly—so the moon shone there,

  And it yellowed the strings of thy tangled hair,

  That shook in the wind of night.

  The moon made thy lips pale, beloved;

  The wind made thy bosom chill;

  The night did shed

  On thy dear head

  Its frozen dew, and thou didst lie

  Where the bitter breath of the naked sky

 
Might visit thee at will.

  It’s listed as an early poem and dated “November 1815”—almost exactly a year before Harriet Shelley died. Charles leafs quickly through the others in the same section but finds nothing else he recognises. There must have been some reason Harriet copied out these words in her last despair, because if anyone knew the mystery of Shelley’s past, it was her. Did she not say something of the kind to Maddox, when she spoke to him of Tremadoc? ‘No-one knows the truth of that night but Shelley and I. Neither what happened, nor why.’ Charles gets out Maddox’s papers again and looks at the page he found on her body, those scrawls and stains that evoke so painfully her last pitiful hours, that paper darkened by thoughts of drowning, and the shadow of an imminent death. But if there is some other meaning here, he has not the clue he needs to unlock it. He curses softly and sits back. Perhaps, after all, he’s looking at it the wrong way. Lines about a dying girl might well have impressed themselves on the mind of a young woman distraught enough—desperate enough—to contemplate the same fate. But what of the other words on this page—might some of them come likewise from Shelley’s poems? Could that give him the key to the puzzle? He’s left the other volumes downstairs, and when he opens the drawing-room door a few minutes later he finds Abel sleeping quietly in the big chair, his hands folded over his stomach. The fire is low and Maddox is sitting on the sopha, one of the Shelley volumes open on his lap. Charles walks slowly over to him and puts his hand on his shoulder, and it is not just the old man who has tears in his eyes as Charles realises what it is he has been reading.

  TO WILLIAM SHELLEY

  Thy little footsteps on the sands

  Of a remote and lonely shore;

  The twinkling of thine infant hands,

  Where now the worm will feed no more;

  Thy mingled look of love and glee

  When we returned to gaze on thee—

  There is the sound of laughter then, in the street outside, and when Charles goes to the window he can see Betsy playing down there with Billy, the little girl running round and round him in excited circles, leaving a trail of tiny footprints in the smooth and perfect snow.

  It is Monday morning, and as Nancy and Molly haul the heavy baskets of laundry down to the dolly tub for washing, Charles is in the office going through Maddox’s old cases, in search of anything that might help him in the task he has taken on for the Bodleian Curators. He could ask Maddox himself, of course, and he may yet do that, but the strain of his last disclosures has left the old man restless and occasionally irascible, and Charles knows that the balance of his mind is only too fragile, and judges this latest case not worth the risk.

  So absorbed is he, so intent, that even though half his mind hears the knock downstairs—hears Billy’s chirpy enquiry and a woman’s reply—it is only when the door to the office swings open that he registers who it is he has before him. The little worn shawl he has seen before, a dark silk gown, and a hat the matrons of Buckingham Street would no doubt consider scandalous.

  He bows, a little stiffly, “Miss Clairmont.”

  “Mr Maddox.”

  Billy looks from one to the other, trying—evidently—to work out what can be generating such a crackle of fractious energy between them.

  “Have Molly bring coffee, would you, Billy?”

  As Charles takes a chair and sets it for her he finds, to his surprise and vexation, that his hands are trembling.

  “You have received my letter.”

  “Clearly.”

  She is furious, that much is obvious, but as he sees the anger flushed in her face he feels his own exasperation rise to meet it. Has she always known what he has only so recently discovered? And how much effort might she therefore have saved him, had she chosen to tell him the truth? But then he remembers—the truth is a commodity Claire Clairmont reserves for her own use, and at a time of her choosing.

  “When you left my house,” she says, “it was on the understanding that you were to undertake my commission to the Shelleys. That you would do so without delay, and return to tell me their response. Not only have you not done so, but it seems you are now attempting to renege on our agreement.”

  “I did,” he replies, keeping his irritation in check, but only just, “visit the Shelleys. And I did, as instructed, convey them your message.”

  “And?”

  “Lady Shelley said they would consider the proposal, and inform me of their decision. Thus far, I have not heard what that is.”

  Her eyes glitter and she is about to fling her fury in his face when there is a knock outside. He gets up and goes to take the coffee from Molly, and sees Claire eyeing her as he closes the door and sets the tray on the desk.

  “I have, therefore,” he continues, calmly now, “nothing to report. But I do have something to confess.”

  He pauses, knowing now he has her attention. And the upper hand; at least for a while.

  “And what might that be?” she says, apparently busy about the cups. But she is not fooling him; he can see her impatience in her parted lips, in her shallow breathing.

  “When last we met, I told you I had read my uncle’s files. That was a lie.”

  He sees her gasp, then attempt to conceal it by raising her cup to her mouth. “This coffee is barely drinkable,” she says with a grimace, replacing the cup on the tray.

  “My apologies. The maid clearly does not know the Italian way of such things.”

  “So what has prompted you to this sudden confessio peccati?”

  He lets a moment lapse, and then another. “Because I have now discovered what was in those missing papers. They concerned the suicide of Fanny Imlay. And of Shelley’s wife.”

  Her face goes pale. So suddenly and so completely that if she were not sitting down he would fear she might faint.

  “Miss Clairmont?”

  “I am sorry,” she murmurs, her hand to her mouth. “It is so long since I have heard those events spoken of, it is as if they took place in another life. A life I have striven for many years to forget.”

  She looks at him with those extraordinary eyes, those eyes that have drowned many an older and more experienced man, but Charles is not going to be drawn in—not this time.

  She takes a deep breath. “I was very fond of Fanny. She was a sweet kind creature, and much put-upon. Mary treated her abominably. She knew exactly what to say that would hurt her most.”

  “And Shelley? Did he not treat her far more unkindly, by awakening affections he had no intention of returning?”

  She shakes her head. “He told me, years later, that he had no idea that Fanny had such feelings for him. That he never meant such a thing to happen, and reproached himself bitterly that he had not perceived it. You did not know him—he could be very gentle, very encouraging. He would often sit with Fanny—listen to her talk. No-one else in that house ever took the slightest notice of her, but he did. It is easy to see why she might have loved him for it.”

  “As you did. Only your love, unlike hers, was returned. And your love, unlike hers, led not to death, but to life.”

  She reddens now, the contrast deepened by the pale before. “I do not know what you mean.”

  “I think you do, Miss Clairmont. The papers I just referred to are not all I have since discovered. Byron’s was not your only child. By then you had already borne another. To Shelley.”

  “I bore him no child.” Her voice is small, desolate.

  “Please, Miss Clairmont—it is of no use to lie to me! It is not only the papers for 1816 that I have read. I have talked to Fraser—heard his account of how you and my uncle first met. I know why they sent you to Lynmouth—I know it was that the birth might be concealed—”

  “But do you know what happened before I took that long journey alone? When as little more than a child myself I was cast out from all I loved into such a lonely and miserable place?”

  Charles flushes. “I know that she—that there was an accident—”

  “It was no accident! She
laid violent hands upon me—lashing out at me in a frenzy of vicious hatred. I have never seen such enmity in another being’s eyes as I saw that day in hers. Mary wished to be rid of me—and rid of my baby. I remember, even now, sitting alone upon that desolate Lynmouth seashore, without a friend to comfort me in my loss, and being sure of nothing but that my life was more than I could bear.”

  She is silent, so beset by the past that she is struggling for self-control.

  “The child did not live,” says Charles eventually.

  “I had scarce been there three months when I was brought to bed. The injury—the fall I had taken—the doctor said—”

  She stops and raises her hand for a moment to her eyes, then forces herself to go on. “My baby was—damaged. They would not even let me see it. When I wrote to Shelley to tell him he contrived to come to see me, but aside from that one visit I was alone. Alone, and utterly miserable. And when at last I did return, wretched and exhausted, I stepped down from the coach to see them both awaiting me. He haggard, but she exultant as her eyes met mine and she moved her hand to rest on her swollen belly. He had not found the words to tell me, but she needed not language to convey her message: I had lost his child; Mary would now give him the son he longed for, the son he doted upon from the day he was born.”

  Charles looks away, unable to hold her gaze. How different her life might have been, he wonders, had Shelley known that precious baby was not his own. But the truth, told now, will change her nothing, and only render the past more poisonous with lost possibilities.

  “The first moment I saw Shelley take William in his arms and his face light up with love of that little boy, I knew she had triumphed. Why else do you think I hurled myself so desperately at Byron that spring, if it were not to secure a life of my own, a lover of my own? It was a mistake so disastrous it has ruined all the years that have succeeded it, and I have never once spoken of what drove me to it. But I will do so now. My long silence has availed me nothing, and served only to afford her a protection she has done nothing to deserve. And so,” she says defiantly, “I will break that silence. I will tell the truth.”