VINDICATED
A Novel of Mary Shelley
Kathleen Williams Renk
Cuidono • Brooklyn
For my daughter, Sarah,
and for my granddaughters
Maeve, Piper, Carrigan
Isabella and Sloane
Prologue
1797
I hear them murmur, “Bring in the pups to suckle. Perhaps that will loosen the afterbirth.” I want to shout “No! Bring me my baby,” but my tongue is tied. I am hot and thirsty, but no one offers me water. “Please,” I beg them in my mind. And then nothing. I drift out of my body. I search for my daughter.
31 August 1797
Even though we have prestigious surgeons in attendance, I begin to think that these surgeons are fools. One wears his powdered wig askew, looking like a pantaloon. I inquire what their objective is in healing my dear wife Mary, and all they say is that they need to remove the remainder of the afterbirth, which is stuck. They think that bringing pups to suck on my wife’s breasts may make her womb contract sufficiently to release the last bits of the placenta, and thus cure her of her fever and blood poisoning. I watch incredulously as they try to coax the pups to nurse on the human teat. If Mary were truly here in full force, if she were cognizant, she would be appalled and would be calling the surgeons out for their ludicrous plan. I feel such shock in seeing my brilliant wife so lethargic and ill that I suffer mental paralysis in regard to the correct course of action. I try to believe that the surgeons possess reason and logic and know precisely what they are doing. I must have faith in their abilities and knowledge. Surely they have seen other such cases and understand the remedy.
I briefly consult with the head doctor, Dr. George Fordyce, a friend and expert whom Mary insisted on procuring, and ask him why he doesn’t place the newborn child at the breast, instead of these ridiculous pups. He says that without the mother’s guidance the child cannot latch on. The pups know instinctively what to do. Is he suggesting that humans possess less instinct than other animals? I wonder what Erasmus Darwin would say in response to his absurd and unsubstantiated claim.
So far, I don’t see any progress. The puppies just lie on Mary’s chest, which heaves with each breath. They do not root for the teat. They snuggle next to each other, while the surgeons take turns tickling their feet to entice them to nurse. If this weren’t so very tragic, the scene would be comical. The midwife, Mrs. Blenkinsop, stands in the background with her arms folded across her chest. She remains silent because she knows that these foolish men will not ask for or listen to her expert advice, even though she is the head midwife at Westminster Lying-In Hospital and has personally attended more births than all of these buffoons combined. She seems as disgusted and baffled as I am.
4 September 1797
It’s now been five days since Mary gave birth to our daughter, her namesake. During her early labor, she was cheerful and felt well enough to write notes, three of which she scribbled to me for I had gone, as was my habit, to my apartments to read Greek and Latin. As per her routine each morning, she sat in the parlor and read the Times. In a note addressed to me, she informed me that she had sent for Mrs. Blenkinsop because her labor had begun but she joked that the “animal will not arrive today.” She cuddled with little Fanny and told her that she would soon have a baby sister or brother to hold. When the pains became difficult to ignore, Mrs. Blenkinsop escorted my wife up to her bed chamber.
Now, my wife drifts in and out of consciousness due to her trauma. Periodically, it seems as though she is about to turn a corner and be ready to take on the task of mothering our miniature Mary. During her lucid periods, she has asked to see the child but the surgeons believe that it would do more harm than good, that she will experience the stress of motherhood when she ought to focus her mind and soul on healing her womb. It seems strange to me that men who believe that women are mere wombs and mothers at heart don’t see any efficacy in Mary succoring her child. Surely a child sucking at her mother’s breast would have greater benefit than these ineffective, preposterous puppies. And Mary is an excellent mother with experience in caring for her first-born, Fanny, but also in writing about how one should raise and educate daughters in a modern, liberal way, to allow them to flourish in reason and brilliance in the way that males are encouraged and permitted to do. In observing her struggle, I fear that she may not live long enough to educate her daughters and watch them grow to womanhood.
As I watch my wife, I fret about what life may be like, if she does not recover. What if she is an invalid? Or worse yet, what if she succumbs to the toxin that poisons her? Sometimes I think that I should have studied medicine rather than philosophy so that I could better assist her in her time of need.
⁂
I felt better briefly and asked to see my child but the surgeons forbade it. The doctors say that I am too weak to hold the child because I have lost a river of blood. I vaguely recall seeing the blood rush out all over the bed. I felt Mrs. Blenkinsop lift my hips and place pillows beneath them in order to stop the hemorrhaging. I felt her vigorously rub the top of my womb until it cramped and became hard like a rock. But then I lost consciousness and drifted away.
I want to see my Mary. I don’t even know what she looks like, if she looks like William or me, or a combination of us. Does she have my auburn hair? I wonder what sort of person she will become and if she will possess William’s superior intelligence and my stubborn tenacity. When the surgeons were out of my sick room, I asked Mrs. Blenkinsop to bring my baby to me and she pledged that she would. “I give you my word, Mistress Mary,” she said. I have known Mrs. Blenkinsop all these many months and I fully believe that she will fulfill her promise. I trusted her to deliver my baby and to bring in a doctor, if needed, which she did when the afterbirth failed to release on its own. She is a reliable woman who possesses excellent midwifery and childcare knowledge and knows that it is crucial for the mother and child to grow close. I fear that the child will not know me and when I am well, she won’t latch on and feed properly.
I just want to touch her and know that she is real. That I didn’t dream her into being. I felt something on my chest periodically and weakly sucking at my bosom. I assume that the surgeons relented or that Mrs. Blenkinsop did her duty to me and brought my child to my breast for the child’s nourishment and for my emotional and physical well-being.
5 September 1797
This evening my Mary experienced a shaking spell that went on for what seemed like hours. Her teeth chattered; her whole body shook; the bed trembled below her. Mrs. Blenkinsop fetched as many counterpanes as she could find and piled them on Mary. She heated water and placed it in a hot-water bottle to warm the bed as they do in Scotland, her homeland. She fetched more logs and then stoked the fire in the fireplace. I blame Mary’s shivering in part on this old, drafty house built right after the Great Fire of London. The wind whistles through every crack in the window sashes and even roars down the chimney; we can’t keep the fire lit.
Mary looked so distressed and kept repeating, “I am so cold, William. Please do something. I fear I should die.” I crawled under the counterpanes with her and held her in my arms, but she shook so violently that I feared she would have a seizure. I tried to keep her from thrashing about. Finally, she came to rest in my arms. Mrs. Blenkinsop placed a cold compress on Mary’s forehead and I continued to hold her, hoping that my action gave her some comfort. I watched her chest rise and fall to ensure that she was still with us, still breathing.
If she quakes again, the surgeons threaten leeches and cupping.
⁂
I am not a believer in a patriarchal god and neither is William, even though he is an ordained m
inister as was his father, but the world feels strange to me right now because I believe that I have seen glimpses of an afterlife where my mother Elizabeth is. She beckons me to join her. It’s odd because I was fully awake when this occurred; I wasn’t dreaming. I shook my head when she gestured to me to cross over and meet her. I tacitly told her that I still have work to do here, to help my wee daughters and to work on behalf of all women. We are just beginning to make some progress towards the idea that women should not be treated as overgrown children, that we have the right to be educated and to be treated, not as dolls for men’s amusement, but as full and complete human beings, not imperfect men or half-formed creatures. I don’t wish to depart this life for another, assuming that there is another world in which to reside. For now, my mother seemed satisfied when I explained my reasoning. She seemed to be able to read my mind. She has not departed though; she stands on the edge of my lying-in room, and patiently waits.
Oddly, my mother has disappeared and my beloved Fanny Blood has appeared in her place. Perhaps my mother convinced Fanny to try to persuade me to join them. I nursed and attempted to minister to Fanny in Portugal during her confinement. Tragically and regretfully, I was unsuccessful in my practice. My poor Fanny, who was a great soul, hemorrhaged right in front of me. Blood, just like her name, gushed forth and flooded the bed, like an overflowing fountain. I could do nothing to stop it, even when the midwife compressed and robustly rubbed the top of the womb as is necessary following birth. The bleeding did not cease and Fanny turned as white as alabaster. Then her heart gave out and stopped beating.
Fanny is certainly not here to nurse me; clearly, she is my Fetch. She stands wrapped in her shroud with her hands extended toward me, pleading with me to go with her to help her find her baby girl. She repeats over and over that her child is hungry and is crying for her. She doesn’t seem to realize that her child was born too early and never took a breath.
I feel helpless and all that I can say is, “Forgive me, Fanny. I did what I could, but I didn’t have the skill to save you or your babe.” I try to reassure her that her child is at peace. I fear Fanny’s presence and her reprimand, her scowling look, which she never once exhibited in real life towards me. In life, she was my dearest and most admired friend. I looked up to her.
I don’t believe in Fate or in what the Hindus call karma, but Fanny seems to be a testament to what is in store for me. She persists, despite my entreaties. I ask her to please leave me or, if she can’t, to not stand so close and accuse me of her death or to beg me to go with her; I am not prepared and I don’t wish to leave Godwin and my daughters.
I did my best for Fanny while she was dying and tried to comfort her in her final hours, just as I had attempted to save other women, my mother when she was tyrannized by my ruthless father, my sister Eliza whom I helped escape from her cruel and heartless husband, Mr. Bishop, my pupils in Ireland, Lady Kingsborough’s girls, who were being raised to be decorative, brainless “ladies.” I have tried to intervene on behalf of the women and girls in my life and for all women. I may not have always been consistent; sometimes I despaired and was weak. I profoundly regret that I tried twice to throw away my life. How horribly ironic that I now cling to and beg for it.
I wish that women could help me, but all I have are men encircling me who seem not to know what to do to save me. They speak to each other in hushed tones and act as though I am already deceased. Sometimes they chuckle and pass the brandy bottle around to one another. They seem tipsy as they discuss their clubs and polo matches. Mrs. Blenkinsop would help me, if she could, but she is completely outnumbered and dominated by foolish men.
The one doctor that Godwin called in at my behest, Dr. Fordyce, confirmed that Dr. Poingnand created this catastrophe in not removing the placenta intact but rather in pieces, like a jigsaw puzzle. Mrs. Blenkinsop called him in to attend me after the birth, when the afterbirth failed to expel. Unfortunately, he had just come from a rather messy autopsy of a convict, a true rogue he said. Mrs. Blenkinsop noticed blood on the doctor’s hands and offered him water to rinse them but he said, “That’s completely unnecessary. A little blood never hurt anyone. Besides,” he said, “I need to get to my club. Now, let’s see what we have here.” He reached inside me and gave a swift tug on the umbilical cord. I felt something rip and then I saw him pull pieces of the placenta from my womb, one by one. He handed them off to Mrs. Blenkinsop who held out a large basin to receive them. He tried to reconstruct the afterbirth in the basin but saw that parts of it were missing. Some remained clinging to my womb and he had no idea how to get them out. After that, Godwin did require that Dr. Poingnand stop attending me, but the other doctors who have replaced him, even my friend Fordyce, prove that they are as incompetent.
I saw the pieces of the afterbirth lying in a bowl; they looked like large, grotesque pieces of purple liver. I have read that in some aboriginal societies, women eat their afterbirths, just as animals do. If it would save me so that I could properly mother my child, I’d undertake this repulsive act.
7 September 1797
A new doctor is in attendance, Mr. Carlisle. He has ordered a diet of wine for Mary and has instructed me to dose her with it liberally. Mary has never been an imbiber of spirits; her father was a drunkard, a true dipsomaniac, and she saw the disastrous consequences of intemperance. She even considered brandy a bane and rightly surmised that intoxication contributes to social disease and the physical and emotional abuse of women and children.
Initially, she adamantly refused the wine, but I told her expressly that Mr. Carlisle believes that it will relieve her of her malady. “Why does he want me drunk?” Mary asked.
I wasn’t sure, but I fabricated a reply. “Perhaps he thinks that the wine will relax you sufficiently so that you will let go of the last bits of afterbirth.”
Of course, I didn’t nor did Mary believe that she had mental control of this malady. Yet we were desperate and Mary relented and allowed me to pour tumbler after tumbler, all in the hopes that she would be cured of this toxin that persists despite all attempts to destroy it. The only effect of the misguided remedy was complete and utter stupor.
I have lost all faith in these doctors; I wanted to believe that they know what is best, that they are experts in childbirth and its complications, but surely there must be something beyond drunken stupor that can cure my wife who becomes more and more of an invalid with each passing day. I grow angry and curse the universe but find that there is nothing that I can do but hold on to the hope that she will rise, like Jarius’s daughter or Lazarus, from her death bed and be my wife and companion again. I flirt with the idea of firing the entire lot of doctors, of turning the case over to Mrs. Blenkinsop alone. Surely, a woman can discern what the remedy is, not men who have never conceived a child or given birth.
⁂
Godwin spoke to me today in cloaked sentences, never revealing what he truly thinks. He asked me, “What do you want for your children, your daughters?” I knew exactly what he meant. He believes that I am on the verge of death and wants to know what I want done with the children. Surely he must know. Of course, I want my girls to live with him and to be educated as equals to men, but I despair because he seems to imply that there is no hope for me. I am doomed. I can see it in his eyes, even though he does not allow the words to issue from his mouth. I did not answer his question but turned my face to the wall.
Fanny Blood lingers at the foot of my bed, wrapped in her shroud. She holds two half-pennies in her hand; she’s ready to place them on my eyes. “No,” I shout. I am not ready. I am not willing. I am only 38 years old. I have not accomplished all that I wish to accomplish. I have not won a great victory for humanity, for women, half of the world’s citizens. If I had, perhaps I would be content to surrender to death. And I am not ready to abandon my poor daughters who will never know the depth of my love and affection for them.
I cannot bear to think of being no more. It s
eems impossible that I should cease to exist.
9 September 1797
My dear wife’s faculties have decayed; she appears to hallucinate and talks to people who are not there. She mumbles something nonsensical about her childhood friend Fanny Blood and dead babies. Occasionally, she comes out of her stupor and asks to see the child, but Dr. Fordyce still prohibits it.
I waited until Dr. Fordyce departed for his club and I asked Mrs. Blenkinsop to fetch the child. Mrs. Blenkinsop and I consulted; she thinks that this is the best way to heal my wife and relieve her of this ordeal. The child’s hunger will be Mary’s salvation.
We had to shake Mary to awaken her; she seemed to have entered another realm. However, when she saw her namesake, she became alert and gathered her to her breast. She seemed herself again and I had to restrain myself from weeping like a child. I swallowed tears as Mary, my darling wife, held our daughter, cradling her next to her bosom and whispering endearments to her. “Mon petit chou, mon coeur.” The child seemed famished and nursed readily, emptying my wife’s breasts and relieving her of pain. The child continued to suck and fell asleep as did Mary. She was finally at peace. For the first time, I felt hopeful. Mrs. Blenkinsop will bring the child to Mary in another two hours. The doctors be damned. Now, we wait to see if the last bits of afterbirth will pass. Perhaps the child will save, will resurrect, my dear wife.
⁂
I dreamt that my new daughter was brought to me. It sounds odd that in looking at her diminutive face I could see that she will become what I wish for her to be. She has a broad forehead like Godwin, which indicates a capacious, philosophical mind. For a moment, I could visualize her beating heart and I could see that it will be filled with passion but also reasoned sensibility. I only hope that her lust for life will not impede all that she can become; I don’t want her to make the same mistakes that I did and fall in love with an unworthy, unfaithful man. I ardently wish that I could remain in this world to see her grow into a woman, a full human being.
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