Shelley’s friend Thomas Hogg visits us frequently. He pays considerable attention to me and has even suggested that he and I have intimate relations. He confesses his love and lust for me. I find it amusing but know that, like Jane, Hogg wants everything that someone else possesses. If Shelley didn’t desire me, Hogg would not want to bed me.
Shelley revealed to me that Hogg also tried to bed Harriet after she and Shelley were married. She refused him. I refuse him too because I only desire Shelley. Of late, he has avoided sexual congress with me because he fears that it will harm our child. Now, Hogg wants me to promise to join him in his bed. I know that they believe that free love is modern and that no one should “own” anyone else, but I cannot even think seriously about Hogg’s proposal. I put him off and laugh at his propositions, telling him that perhaps after the child is born we can become closer, but I don’t mean it. It feels like a game to me and that I am just a pawn in a game of sexual chess. I would rather be queen and move about as I like, making my own choices.
30 November 1814
Shelley received news that Harriet has given birth to a son. As soon as he heard, Shelley rushed to Harriet’s side. They have named him Charles. I try my best to believe that Shelley will not return to Harriet but it is difficult when he expresses such affection for his son. And he often talks about his love for his daughter, Ianthe, named after his spirit character in “Queen Mab.” I should be brave and gracious and remember that, even though I am Shelley’s natural mate, Harriet remains his wife by law. She possesses his name, but I possess his heart.
1815
10 January 1815
We are financially saved! Shelley’s grandfather has passed and has left Shelley ₤1000 per annum. 200 of that will go to Harriet and the children. Now I no longer need to continually fret that Shelley will have over-extended himself and we will have debt collectors banging at the door in the middle of the night or accosting Shelley on the street. In order to receive this annual allowance, Shelley had to forego ownership of a second estate valued at ₤140000. Shelley did not want to be a landowner and baronet anyway. We wish to live a simpler life. With these regular funds, we feel far more secure and can remain in our new lodgings at no. 26 Nelson Square.
Even in the cold weather I spend time in the glorious winter garden. I watch mothers and babies and dream about my child, imagining my mother sitting next to me advising me in regard to how to raise my daughter. I am certain that I carry a girl. I write stories about her and my mother and how they meet in a new Garden of Eden to discuss women’s lives. My mother takes my girl by the hand and walks her into a new world. The world where there is neither marrying nor the giving in marriage.
My girl is quite the acrobat. I feel her tumble about in me, turning somersaults and doing the type of handstands that I’ve only seen court tumblers do. I do hope that when she is born that she will be able to participate in the kind of physical activity that boys often enjoy. My mother advocated such activity and advised her pupil Margaret King to play as boys do. Climb trees, run through the tall grass, swing the cricket bat, and enjoy the vigor of physical exercise. And Margaret King surely benefited from such physical activity, which also stimulated her mind. My father told me that she went on to become a revolutionary and a writer, just like my mother. I sense that my daughter will not be an ordinary child. She will be daring and will hang from her knees on tree limbs. She will be fearless and will be a new kind of woman.
I grow rotund and am eager for my child to be born, but I must wait patiently. She is not due to arrive until April when the daffodils bloom. It remains a damp and dark January. In late spring, I shall take her to a field of daffodils and read Wordsworth to her. Someday we shall travel north to the Lake District and visit Mr. Wordsworth himself and his sister Dorothy who is also a writer. We shall ramble the fells with them and perhaps Mr. Wordsworth will recite lines from his “Prelude” that recall his youth wandering those hills.
I intend for my child to meet with all of the poets, just as I did, because poetry and writing are in her blood. I am certain that poems and stories seep into her as Shelley and I write and as Shelley reads to me from his latest work. He writes about Mont Blanc and I continue to write my story “Hate,” which considers human prejudice and its inherent evil. I ponder Hobbes’s theory of innate human evil and juxtapose it with that of Rousseau. Are we born evil, as the Old Testament implies, or is it learned and acquired through society’s corruption of us? What determines our ability to feel compassion and love one another? How much of this depends upon parental love? What would happen to an individual creature if they were utterly abandoned by its creator/father/mother? How would that creature fare? These are the things that I ponder as my daughter tumbles about begging to be let out of her confinement.
29 January 1815
I have felt well of late and so Shelley and I have spent our days escaping Jane, who now calls herself Claire, because she declares this name more “poetic” than plain Jane. Now, Shelley and I traverse London, walking from Trafalgar Square to Parliament and sometimes we take a carriage ride to Hampstead. We sometimes get disdainful looks because I am round with child and ought to be home and confined according to societal dictates. We ignore the hateful looks and I tell Shelley that the fresh air and my strolling are good for our child, whom we have tentatively named Sophia after Lady Philosophy in Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy. This name is fitting; perhaps she will become the philosopher that my father longed for me to be.
I do wish that Godwin would come around to meeting with me. I seek his forgiveness and love. I once worshipped him. Now that he has disowned me, I feel utterly rejected by my sole parent. I miss my conversations with him and his affection; we were so close when I was young. When I was a child, he read to me, took me to the pantomime theater, and played games with me in Regent’s Park. He often told me that I was a duplicate, a smaller version of my mother, his love. And he treated me with the utmost affection. Yet, despite the fact that he has learned that I am with child, he still refuses to meet with me and Shelley and will only correspond with us through his solicitor, Mr. Higgins. I find it troubling that he refuses to speak with us but that he still requests funds from us, especially now that he knows that Shelley has received his inheritance. This is highly hypocritical, but I suspect that Godwin’s publishing business has not turned out as he had hoped. He would rather spend his days parsing and translating Plato and writing political tracts anyway. He has always been and will remain a contemporary Prospero. I guess that makes me his Miranda and Shelley his Ferdinand. However, these days Godwin labels Shelley a Caliban rather than Ferdinand; fortunately, my Shelley does not resemble the barbaric Caliban in the least, but he does curse as Caliban does, but with sibilant tones.
Perhaps if our Sophia turns toward philosophy, Godwin will come around. She will be the ideal child that he longed for. I fear that I have disappointed him.
If that is the case, we have a long time to wait for Godwin’s affection. Unless of course she is a genius child, which may be so, given her pedigree with Shelley as her father and Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft as her grandparents.
2 February 1815
I have had vivid dreams that seem as real as the waking world. My Sophia stands at the door knocking, asking to be let in. For some reason, I do not respond but keep writing, even though I know that she wants to enter. I peer at her from the window, hiding behind the curtain, hoping that she doesn’t see me. She is petite and her dark hair waves down her back to her waist. She persists and continues rapping at the door, but all I can think is “Not yet; do not come in yet. You must wait until you are fully grown and no longer a wee mite.” I think this even though I see with my own eyes that she is not a wee thing but a child of seven or eight wearing a checkered purple and pink pinafore. I send my mother to the door to send her away but by the time she gets there, Sophia is gone. I do hope that she returns at the proper time.
U
nder my mother’s guidance, I have been writing my child a story about a girl who refuses to wear a corset and foregoes the ringlets in her hair. She is as brave as any boy and is perhaps more studious. She does not play with dollhouses and dollies, but spends her time gazing at the stars at night, like any good philosopher, in order to plot their course through the heavens. She speaks many languages and travels to India and China; she rides through the forests on an ebony stallion, and braves the river rapids in an Indian canoe. Her name is Sophia and she is the girl of the future. She receives an equal education and can debate in grand halls. She’s taken her father’s place in parliament and votes with the Whigs for equal rights for all. She obtains women’s suffrage. She is our Poet Laureate. She becomes the Prime Minister of England. When Sophia is older, I will give her this story. But I believe that she will live the story as I have dreamt it.
15 February 1815
It is mid-February and we have had a late snow, which is falling throughout London. It falls like French Lace to the ground and is quite exquisite to watch as it covers the withered rose garden. Shelley and I have hunkered down in our bed; we try to stay warm under the eiderdown quilt that I bought at a flea market. Shelley continues to work on “Mont Blanc” and he reads passages to me about the snowy peaks that poke the heavens and describes the thunder and lightning that strike the mountain’s peak and illuminate the firmament. It’s a fearsome and chilling sight. I ask him to stop and just hold me. He tells me that he will shortly but that he is working on a stanza in his head. So he has picked up his candle and has retreated into the parlor, telling me to sleep. Of late, he has not touched me for fear of harming Sophia. I tell him not to worry but he insists. I miss his tender touch and feel alone. I continue to ask him to read my writing, but he puts me off with promises of later, my darling.
I waited until I thought that he had completed his evening work and I met him in the parlor. I took his hand and we made quiet love on the rug in front of the roaring fire and then lay in each other’s arms as the shadows flickered on the wall.
17 February 1815
This morning I awoke with cramping like a heavy monthly. I became frightened and went back to bed. I ordered Claire to fetch Mrs. Blenkinsop, who tended my mother in her confinement. She told me not to panic and advised that I drink liquids and lay on my side. I have done so, but the cramping continues to come and go like great waves. Tonight they have finally subsided and I feel comfortable. I feel Sophia kick against my hip bone and I know that she is all right. She pushes her little fingers up, which feels like she is in and of my ribs, which I know is impossible. I tell her, dear girl, stay in your cozy home awhile longer and grow to be a big girl who fills the space before you make your entrance into this world.
My mother visited me last night. I had just settled down to sleep and there she stood at the end of my bed. She was dressed all in white, her head covered with a hood. In one hand, she carried a book engraved with my initials. In the other, she pushed a baby pram. Was she suggesting I need to make a choice or was she assuring me that a mother can have a thoughtful, full life? That she does not intellectually and artistically die when she gives birth? I believe the latter. Mother believed that women are complete human beings who can be mothers and authors, mothers and teachers, mothers and members of parliament (if given the right to vote!). She lived her beliefs. As I started to speak, she walked away and disappeared like a mist. Perhaps the laudanum that I took for sleep conjured this apparent dream. I should perhaps forego taking the concoction tonight or maybe I will take it just so I can see my mother’s face one more time.
22 February 1815
The cramping returned more intensely last evening and within a few hours our fair Sophia was born. Mrs. Blenkinsop tried again to delay my child’s arrival, this time by making me drink what seemed like a barrel of wine but to no avail. I feared for my life during the entire ordeal. I couldn’t help but think of my mother and her friend Fanny and I seemed to see them standing at the end of the bed. I think Mrs. Blenkinsop felt their presence too. They were silent, but I worried that they would embrace me and take me with them. In retrospect, I should have looked to them for strength.
The pain began in my back and traveled around sharply to the front, all in waves that piled onto one another like a great torrent. There was much blood, which made me more fearful, but Mrs. Blenkinsop assured me that it was normal and that the child and I would survive. Claire stood looking horrified at the end of the bed, vowing that she would keep her legs closed or use one of those French letters so that she would never have a child. I told her, in between the pains that I would rather that she kept her thoughts to herself, although I also wondered how women have survived this unbearable pain century after century. I suppose it means that we are particularly strong; we are heroic. I doubt that many men could do as well.
Once it was all over, I held Sophia. Mrs. Blenkinsop looked relieved as the afterbirth passed intact. My mother and her dear Fanny Blood looked on and beamed at me.
Sophia is indeed a beautiful child with ivory skin and hair as dark as Shelley’s. She opened her eyes and looked straight at me as if she knew me well. She responded to my voice. I held her next to my heart and she latched onto my breast quite easily without needing any guidance. Although she is tiny and arrived too early, she seems hardy. Mrs. Blenkinsop warmed bricks in the oven and she placed them in Sophia’s cradle to keep her from freezing in this chilly weather. Shelley has been very attentive and he sang us both to sleep, singing a French lullaby.
28 February 1815
I am awestruck by this child who seems like a spirit straight out of one of Shelley’s poems. I would call her another Ianthe, but that is Harriet’s daughter’s name. Sophia suits my child. She snuggles next to me and her wee hand clings to my finger when she suckles. She seems quite robust for one so tiny. I would say that she’s like a miniature doll but that would make her mere decoration which she is not. Her cry is vigorous and healthy and she lets me know when she is famished. Mrs. Blenkinsop has showed me how to get my child to feed when she is sleepy. She advised that I tickle her feet or express some milk with my hand and wipe it on her lips. She says that it is acceptable to nurse the child whenever she cries, particularly since she was born far too early, eight weeks early. We give her droppers of sugar water too, since my mother’s milk does not yet flow steadily.
I feel some guilt that Shelley and I may have brought about Sophia’s premature birth through our lovemaking, but I was cold and missed Shelley so and needed his touch. Her early birth seems not to have affected her health. She is as strong as I imagined her to be. One day, I shall see her hang from her knees on a tree and do cartwheels with Shelley in the garden.
3 March 1815
Sophia continues to thrive. Although only eleven days old, she is beginning to put on weight. Mrs. Blenkinsop told me that initially babies lose weight, but now that my milk has fully come in, Sophia’s tiny cheeks have certainly filled out and her soft little belly begins to grow round. I do wake her occasionally to feed, because sometimes my breasts ache.
I sent word to Godwin that he has a granddaughter named Sophia, but have not received a response. Perhaps he is waiting to surprise us with a visit to see our baby philosopher.
6 March 1815
My heart is now shattered. I weep as I write in this journal; the pages are stained with my tears. I went to my Sophia’s cradle this morning because I had not heard her cry out for me as she usually does when she is famished. I looked into her bed and she was pale and cold. I picked her up and held her close but she was as limp as a ragdoll. I screamed for Shelley who came running, but neither of us were able to rouse her. The life, the spirit fled from her. We did everything that we could to revive her. I opened her mouth and blew breath into her lungs. Shelley even slapped her back, thinking that this would cause her to gasp, but nothing worked. I screamed so loudly that the neighbors came running into our flat and they watched as I
fell to my knees in utter despair. Shelley ran for Mrs. Blenkinsop and the apothecary down the street, but neither were able to bring her back. Mrs. Blenkinsop held me in her arms, as I sobbed. She acted the mother to me, knowing that my own mother could not embrace me.
Our fair Sophia is gone. We could not call her back from the other side; we could not resurrect her.
I am numb and feel hysterical. Mrs. Blenkinsop continues to hold me close as I rock our dead child. How could this have happened? She was well when I placed her in her crib and tucked her in to keep her warm. I tell Mrs. Blenkinsop that I should have kept Sophia next to me rather than leave her alone in her crib. I hope that she did not feel as though I had abandoned her. Mrs. Blenkinsop assures me that Sophia’s death is not my fault. I cannot be consoled. She tells me to go ahead and weep; the tears will soothe my heart.
With the loss of my Sophia, so many questions trouble my mind: Where does the spirit go? What animates us and gives us life to begin with? I am reminded of my mother’s words: “Life, what art thou? Where goes the breath? This I, so much alive.” If only I could bring Sophia back. I would do anything to warm her cold body and re-invigorate her.
I find it hard to sleep and when I do finally meet the God Morpheus, I dream about Sophia who is always out of reach. Perhaps I am Niobe being punished for her arrogance. The gods have taken my child from me.
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