Claire's Last Secret

by Marty Ambrose

  Thoughts racing, I eased myself into a sitting position to massage my ankle as I tried to gather my scattered thoughts into the deductive processes that Shelley had taught me from his favorite philosopher, Aristotle.

  Fact: my illegitimate daughter, Allegra, had been born during the autumn of 1816; her father was Lord Byron and he had taken over her upbringing since he could provide for her financially when I could not (well … a little emotion had crept in).

  Fact: our small, tight circle in Geneva knew about Allegra; Shelley had even helped to negotiate my agreement with Byron concerning my daughter’s future.

  Fact: Byron, Shelley, Mary, Polidori and I were the main players in that summer of literary (and passionate) pursuits.

  Fact: Allegra had died in the Convent at Bagnacavallo on April 2, 1822 – at the age of five years and three months. She was buried in an unmarked grave outside Harrow Church near Byron’s ancestral home in England – sadly, the churchwardens would permit no memorial tablet to Byron’s illegitimate child inside the church (or so I was told).

  Tears welled up in my eyes – reason and logic be damned. The thought of my little child lying in her cold grave could still cause a grief so deep and profound that it felt as if I were falling from a mountaintop into an emotional abyss that had no bottom.

  I gave myself a mental shake, pulling myself back into reality, if not sanity.

  Someone wanted me to believe that Allegra was still alive, and I had to find out who was responsible for sending me that note – and why it appeared the day Mr Rossetti came to call to tell me that I had become a footnote in history and he wanted to remedy that injustice. By purchasing my letters.

  Perplexing.

  A tiny voice then whispered inside of me: Perhaps Allegra is alive.

  Before I could stop myself, hope sprang up, unbidden as the flowering of a rose in spring.

  I did not know how it could be possible, but I knew I had to find out once and for all – perhaps even atone for having handed her over to her father in her youth and allowing him to install her in a convent school when she was but five years old.

  Redemption.

  In my mind’s eye, I could see Allegra as a child of two years when I first took her sea-bathing in Dover on an unseasonably warm day with Shelley and Mary, who had William with them. I heard my daughter’s laughter ring out, just at the moment that a seabird dipped low and seized a fish in its beak. Clapping her hands, she tottered toward the surf, and I caught her up in my arms to keep her safe from the swiftly moving tide. Allegra’s dazzling blue eyes and soft curls shone on the sun-drenched beach, and I was lost in the most complete and utter love for my child, even as I traveled to Italy to surrender her to her father.

  Oh, my dear, sweet Allegra. I miss you even now …

  ‘Aunt Claire, do you want to have tea now?’

  I spied Paula in the doorway, arms folded, with a frown of concern on her face. ‘Mr Rossetti left thirty minutes ago because he thought you were too weak to continue your conversation. Apparently, he also had to meet someone at Santa Croce to discuss selling a painting. I looked in a few minutes ago, and I thought you had fallen asleep.’

  ‘No, I was just resting.’ Summoning a smile of reassurance, I continued, ‘Did anyone else enter my bedroom today, aside from Raphael?’ I asked.

  ‘Not that I know.’ Her eyes widened in caution. ‘Why do you ask? Is something missing? If so, I will immediately ask him to question the cook. She came to us with good references from the landlord, but we really do not know her—’

  ‘Nothing is missing,’ I cut into this train of thought swiftly and firmly. ‘I was just curious because my … my stack of books seemed to be out of order earlier. I always place Byron’s poems on top, but then again I may have removed the volume myself after we looked at it the other day and later reinserted it in the middle of the pile …’ Babbling away, I swung my feet to the floor and stood up slowly, testing out my weight on the sore ankle. It held. ‘I will have tea in the sitting room after all; my ankle seems much better after resting today, though my memory seems to have taken a turn for the worse.’ To say the least. It was time to take charge of this situation – even at my advanced age, I was not done yet. And I could not share any of my suspicions with Paula yet, for her sake.

  ‘The blue-flowered china teapot?’ she queried.

  ‘Yes, my dear.’ It was the one that we had used daily in Geneva; I could not part with it – ever. ‘And please do not concern yourself with my silly query about books in my bedroom. I must be going dotty to have thought someone entered our rooms without our knowledge. Imagine that?’ I gave a light flip of my hand.

  ‘Hardly.’ Paula dropped a light kiss on my head, and I patted her hand with a twinge of guilt at my dissembling act.

  I would find the truth – no matter what.

  After an early dinner of pasta fagioli soup – and small talk about Mr Rossetti’s good manners and kind attitude – I feigned a sudden bout of weariness and retreated to my room. Paula settled me on my chaise longue, my ankle again cushioned on a pillow, and I waved her off with a grateful smile.

  After she exited and closed the door, I immediately rose and hobbled over to my empire mahogany writing desk. It was positioned near the large window that faced the Boboli Gardens and held my treasures: a few pieces of jewelry (including the repaired locket), a small sketch of Allegra, and my precious letters from the summer of 1816 – and the later years in Italy.

  Perhaps I would find something in the latter that I had overlooked all of these years. A clue. A reference. Anything that might point to Allegra being alive.

  I unlocked the top drawer and gently slid out several stacks of correspondence.

  Slipping on a pair of spectacles, I unfolded each yellowed letter and scanned the contents slowly, carefully. The words brought back my daily activities of that time, some of which were exciting, such as sailing to different spots around Lake Geneva to see medieval towns and explore crumbling castles. But much of my correspondence centered on the mundane: copy work that I did for Byron, readings that I completed under Shelley’s tutelage and strolls that I took through the open markets to find the cheapest food. Living for love and poetry still required money – even residing in our tiny cottage near the lake. Of course, when we dined at the Villa Diodati with Byron – which we did often – it was a completely different situation: we had access to every dish we could ask for, as well as copious amounts of wine, though Shelley rarely partook of rich food.

  Byron could be petty, harsh even, but he was always generous to friends.

  Speak of the devil … I pulled out a thin stack of correspondence, folded neatly and tied with a red ribbon. My letters from Byron. My letters to Byron – most of which had been returned to me, unopened. I didn’t need to look at the second group; I knew those appeals by heart since I had rewritten them in my head many, many times, wondering if there was something I could have said or done to keep our love intact. Later, all I wanted was Allegra, and that did not happen, either.

  Toying with the ribbon for a few moments, I finally untied the knot with a trembling hand. Sorting through my returned communiques – one by one – I checked the dates. After I had returned to England in the autumn of 1816 to give birth to our child, I had written to Byron repeatedly, but to no avail. Shelley had become our intermediary by that time, and he had handled most of the arrangements about our daughter’s future.

  I sighed.

  Scant communication with Byron had left me anxious and bitter, and my tone grew increasingly demanding in the years after Allegra’s birth. I winced at the raw emotion in sentence after sentence, which did nothing but push Byron further away. How foolish of me, but I was young and angry.

  Then, in midsummer 1821, Byron finally responded to my appeals to see Allegra after he had placed her in school at the Capuchin Convent of Bagnacavallo.

  My heartbeat quickened slightly as I unfolded the letter and spied the bold handwriting scrawled across the pag
e.

  Ravenna, 1821

  Dear Claire,

  I am glad you are well and residing with the Shelleys at Leghorn, enjoying the beauties of the Adriatic. I was even more delighted to learn that you are taking swimming lessons – it is certainly one of my greatest pleasures.

  On a more disagreeable note, I cannot honor your request to visit Allegra or have her brought to my residence here in Ravenna. Shelley can attest that my situation is not conducive to [blackened words] a young child. Unfortunately, we live in a world where the most innocent can be prey to serpents in the garden …

  A presto,

  B.

  Slowly, I lowered the letter to my lap and glanced out of the window, mulling over each and every word. Shelley had visited Byron in Ravenna and taken my letter with him, requesting that Allegra be removed from the convent. I did not believe she was happy there and proposed that Allegra live with him again – as he had promised before she was born. More than anything, I wanted to see her, hold her in my arms and stroke her soft curls. Just once. If only once.

  Was that too much for a mother to ask?

  But I had received only this short note in response. No other letters passed between us until after Allegra’s death.

  Adjusting my spectacles, I scanned the missive again, pausing this time over the blackened words. I had always assumed that section was a simple mistake that he had crossed out, but now I found myself fixating on the missing words. What if he had deliberately deleted words because he didn’t want to arouse my alarm about Allegra’s situation?

  I held the parchment sheet up to the window, trying to make out what was under the blackened section. Squinting in the quickly fading sunlight, I still could not see anything beyond black ink strikeout. Then I picked up a small letter opener and scratched at the darkened spot. Two tiny flakes dropped off, and a jolt of excitement rose up inside me. It might work. I kept rubbing at the ink with a light, feathery motion and, gradually, the ink chipped away to reveal the words underneath: my situation is not conducive to the safety of a young child.

  Sitting back, I blinked. Why had he struck through the words? And why would Allegra not have been safe with him?

  Granted, Byron had been living in Ravenna at the time with his Italian mistress and her hothead brother, known for his revolutionary beliefs. But Byron was an English lord and, as such, untouchable in Italy no matter what the opinions of his inamorata’s brother. Allegra would have always been safe with him. Was he simply being overly cautious because Italy was then a divided country caught in a post-Napoleonic power struggle? I vaguely recollected that a battle had occurred near Naples that spring … and the Neapolitans had been defeated, but the military rout was far south and had little impact on the northern regions.

  Our lives had continued, untouched by Italian politics.

  Or at least as far as I remembered. Sadly, I was young and preoccupied with my own life, and paid little attention to the events swirling around our little expatriate group. Byron had obviously felt the convent in Bagnacavallo was preferable to Ravenna, though it was scarcely eleven kilometers to the west. I assumed at the time that he did not want to be bothered with the care of a young child, but maybe other forces had been at work behind his decision.

  Slipping off my spectacles, I rubbed my eyes. Did any of this really matter? Or connect to the note that I found today? It was so long ago, and since I was one of the few members of our circle who was still alive, I had no one else to ask – except Trelawny. I vowed to write to him before the week was out to see if he recalled anything unusual about Allegra’s … demise.

  I stared down at Byron’s letter again, the writing now blurry to my old eyes, but the words kept echoing through my mind. Her safety. Allegra’s safety. We had all failed to keep her safe in one way or another.

  Shuffling through the rest of my letters, I double-checked to see if I had any further communications from Byron during the last half of 1821. I did not. Nor did I possess a single letter from the Mother Superior at the convent. Just a huge, empty silence in terms of my daughter’s welfare before her death.

  A quiet knock at the door interrupted my search, and I ceased all activity.

  ‘Aunt Claire?’ Paula prompted, without opening the door. ‘Are you awake?’

  I didn’t respond.

  She called out my name again and, after a few moments, I heard her heels moving off on the hard stone floor.

  Still not ready to share with her my suspicions about Mr Rossetti or the note about Allegra, I knew I had to find more concrete information before I brought my niece into any of the developments today – too much was at stake.

  Yet, as vague and disturbing as the last two days had been, they had also ignited something in my life that had been missing for years: a flicker of optimism about the future. It might not be burning brightly yet, but the embers had been stirred.

  I arranged the Byron letters into a little pile, retied them with the ribbon and then placed them with the rest of my cherished correspondence inside the desk drawer and locked it again, leaving out the note from Ravenna. It was time to plan my next move before I saw Mr Rossetti once more. But I needed time to rest and think.

  Returning to my bed, I rang a little silver bell and Paula immediately thrust open the door, Georgiana at her side. ‘Are you feeling better?’ Her daughter started to dash in my direction, but Paula held her back.

  ‘Somewhat, my dear, but I may turn in early – it has been quite an eventful day.’ I smiled at both of them.

  ‘Did Mr Rossetti upset you?’ Paula queried, looking down briefly. ‘Because if the thought of selling some of your letters is a prospect that causes you too much distress, I think we should reconsider the entire thing. And do not worry – we will find another way to bring in more funds. While you were resting, I spoke with Raphael, and he suggested that I might take in sewing for some of the local Florentine ladies—’

  ‘We are not that desperate yet,’ I interrupted with a firm tone. ‘In truth, while it was somewhat … unsettling to revisit the past, I am resolved that it may hold the key to our future well-being.’ I did not lie – exactly.

  Paula frowned. ‘It is your decision, Aunt.’

  ‘I know.’ Extending my hand to sweet Georgiana, she pulled at her mother’s retraining grasp in my direction. ‘Please leave her with me for a little while. I need to hear her laughter and bask in her love.’

  Releasing her daughter, who bounded towards me, Paula turned away, then she looked back in my direction. ‘I cannot tell you how much you mean to us.’

  ‘Nor I you.’

  Paula gave a quick nod and disappeared as Georgiana happily settled on to the bed next to me. Holding out her book, she asked, ‘Would you read to me, Auntie? I cannot make out some of the words.’

  ‘Of course I will, my dear.’ Opening the book, I glanced down at her cornflower-blue eyes – so sweet and trusting – and my arm tightened protectively around her tiny shoulders. ‘Sometimes stories can be confusing if we do not know the right questions – or right person – to ask.’

  She sighed in contentment as I started reciting the children’s book aloud.

  I knew where I would begin to find some answers tomorrow. The note had stirred up doubts about Allegra’s fate, and I needed to put them to rest before I could sell Mr Rossetti my letters and let the past go.

  I needed to see Father Gianni.

  After a good night’s rest, I awakened the next morning with a renewed sense of purpose. I tested out my ankle upon rising and found it surprisingly stable – certainly strong enough to do what I had in mind. Throwing open my shutters to a sunny Florentine summer day, I managed to complete my toilette unassisted. And by mid-morning I was enjoying a light breakfast of butter-flavored porridge in the kitchen with Paula as I declared my intention to go to the Basilica di San Lorenzo to see Father Gianni, my priest.

  Paula cast a startled glance in my direction. ‘Are you certain that you want to exert yourself like that? Is you
r ankle strong enough?’

  ‘It is much better today – as you can see.’ I rose to my feet and circled around the small oak table with slow, careful steps. ‘Indeed, I think the fresh air will be most beneficial for my physical recovery, but I also feel the need for spiritual guidance right now. Mr Rossetti’s visit has shaken me a bit, and I could use Father Gianni’s wisdom at this time.’ Seating myself again, I continued, ‘Raphael will hire a carriage to take me there, and I promise to walk only as far as the Old Chapel in the basilica—’

  Uncertainty shadowed her features, and I leaned over to place my hand on hers in reassurance. ‘I promise not to overexert myself.’

  ‘I suppose if the driver waits for you, it will be all right,’ she finally said. ‘But you must return before the heat becomes too intense. It is going to be quite warm today.’

  Squeezing her fingers in agreement, I fastened my glance on hers. ‘Once I have a chance to sort through matters with Father Gianni, I will send a note to Mr Rossetti about a second meeting, but only after you and I discuss the next move …’

  She laughed. ‘You make it sound like a chess game, Aunt.’

  ‘Is not everything in life?’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  Her puzzlement caused me to add hastily, ‘We must make sure that we receive proper payment for my letters.’ Well … it was partially true.

  Just then, Raphael strolled into the kitchen with a basket that contained two loaves of fresh-baked bread from the market, filling the kitchen with the delightful smell of rosemary and garlic. As he set the basket on a nearby counter, Paula’s glance moved in his direction with a softening of her eyes that spoke of a deeper affection than I had previously seen. Or perhaps I had not really noted it until I began thinking about my youthful romance yesterday. She loves him. Then he turned and smiled, his expression mirroring hers, his dark eyes filled with a depth of feeling that seemed to rival my niece’s emotions.

  Ah, the sweetness of two souls finding themselves in the world. Could anything be more beautiful?