I still grieve for all of the recent loss, but now look forward to the possibility that our family will grow. That William will have a new brother and sister and that our love will overcome all of the heartache of recent days. Surely, the magistrate at the Chancery will rule in our favor, since Percy is the children’s father; at least we know with certainty that he sired Ianthe.
30 December 1816
Today, I wore white at St. Mildred’s Church, named after Mildred the Virgin. A statue of Mildred witnessed our vows. The irony was not lost to me.
The ceremony was modest. Both Shelley and I insisted on it. We exchanged brief vows according to the dictates of the Church of England. However, I did not consent to obey Shelley and to our amazement, the vicar agreed to exempt us from that part of the traditional vows.
My father and Mrs. Clairmont attended, which made the ceremony more official and sanctioned, although my father’s reputation as a rebel will probably not help our cause to become the legal guardians of Shelley’s children. I was happy to hear my father state that he believes that I have made a “good match” and that he has great hopes that Shelley will make me a suitable companion and husband. I was surprised at his reaction after his continued rejection of us and of our union. Perhaps he is coming around to caring for the two of us again. Yet we feel that he is a bit duplicitous. However, the witnesses to our ceremony can testify that we have family support for our marriage and that may help secure our custody case to the Lord Chancellor. I worry that Godwin blesses our union only to ensure that we will continue to financially provide for him.
Although marriage seems unnecessary to me and I had hoped to live in a world where there was “neither marriage nor the giving in marriage,” I feel relieved that Shelley and I are now joined properly. This will help us acquire the children and perhaps Claire will desist in her pursuit of my husband. I noted that she wept at the ceremony, certainly not for joy. Perhaps she will eventually realize that our union is strong, sanctioned by the church and government and can withstand any and all trials and tribulations and any attempt on her part to come between Shelley and me.
1817
11 January 1817
Claire complains of labor pains. We have called for her midwife, even though, based on my own experience, I doubt that Claire is far along in the birth process, although she does complain so and carries on like she is dying. Knowing what I know about the dangers of childbirth and the tragedies that can accompany it, I wish that I had more sympathy for her, but she did bring this on herself. She seemed to want Byron’s child, in order to try to secure him, which did not work. For the life of me, I can’t imagine wanting to be tied to him and his arrogance. In Claire’s mind, he is a substitute for Shelley and yet he is so dissimilar to my love.
A new midwife attends Claire, because Mrs. Blenkinsop refused to attend Claire. She wouldn’t say why but I suspect that Claire was rude and uncivil to Mrs. Blenkinsop and she won’t tolerate fools. The new nurse, Miss Forsythe, tries to alleviate Claire’s pain with laudanum, wine, and attaching a rope to the bed for her to pull on. Miss Forsythe also placed a knife under the bed to cut the pain and yet nothing appears to quell it. Claire screams every time her womb seizes.
Although it’s difficult, I try to drown out her wailing by retreating to the garden to write. I continue to write my novel, which I now call Frankenstein. I have created a frame story with an adventure scene, which should entice readers. A young explorer, Captain Walton, who is endeavoring to discover a passage through the North Pole, fishes up our Victor from the icy sea. Victor has been chasing his creature and the creature has also pursued him. His creature taunts him and they are set to destroy one another. Victor, like the Ancient Mariner, needs to tell his tale to someone as recompense and Captain Walton seems like a suitable potential listener. He is someone who needs to hear that transgression, pursuing forbidden knowledge, may not be the best path towards human perfectibility or great achievement. Will Walton listen attentively and heed Victor’s warning about what may happen if you exceed human limitations? Does Walton possess Victor’s hubris? Is Victor penitent? Does he hope to make recompense to his creation?
I hear a great deal of pandemonium and shouting. I must stop writing. Claire is screaming my name and then “Bloody Byron” after that. I had best see if I can help her through the ordeal.
12 January 1817
After much tribulation, Claire has given birth to a baby girl, whom she has named Alba. The child is as pale as her name. Claire did have a difficult time birthing Alba. Shelley had to leave the flat because he could not stand to hear her wail endlessly for hours while cursing that “devil Byron.” At least she is starting to realize his unworthiness so I felt more empathy for her, especially when the baby turned out to be breech and the midwife had Claire hang upside down as the midwife turned the baby head-down for the birth, a maneuver that caused Claire to bellow even louder.
Claire grasped my hand through most of the last part of the birth; I thought that she would break my fingers. The midwife and I told her to try to let her body do its work, to open up and not fight the labor. This did not help and all she could do was ask me over and over if she was going to die. I told her “No” but, of course, I didn’t really know. All I could see was fear in her eyes. She looked like a frightened doe. I did my best to soothe her but nothing helped much. She thrashed about and continued to wail like her own banshee foreseeing her own death.
When Alba emerged, she was still in her caul. The midwife gasped and said, “The child wears the veil.” Apparently, “wearing the veil” is quite rare and, according to the midwife, is considered good luck. Perhaps Alba will be an extraordinary child and woman. My immediate thought was not as positive; perhaps her heritage is a blight and it will smother her. I, for one, can’t help but think that the “veil” is a bad omen.
Once the midwife lifted the “veil” and cleaned up Baby Alba, she placed her in Claire’s arms. With her baby in her arms, she seems content and is an attentive mother. She stopped cursing Byron and instructed Shelley to write to Byron and to tell him that his child was safely delivered, not that he would care.
I do understand though that a mother’s love is great and perhaps loving little Alba will be what Claire needs to grow toward a greater humanity, to become more perfectly human.
24 January 1817
It is our Willmouse’s birthday. How he has grown in the last year! He takes a few steps of late, back and forth between Shelley and me. And he says Mama when he falls and lands in my arms. I am grateful to the universe for giving me this little mouse and for his continued good health. We blew out the birthday candle on the tiny cake that our new servant Elise baked for him, wishing away all sickness and bad fortune. It was festive and Shelley and I have grown closer through our love of our Willmouse.
30 January 1817
We have been staying in London with our friend Leigh Hunt because Shelley was required to testify in court and we wish to be close by to hear the Chancery’s decision in regard to custody of Ianthe and Charles. It is exceedingly difficult to await the decision, but I remind Shelley that patience remains a virtue. We try to stay hopeful that all will turn out well and that the children will soon join us in in our new home in Marlowe. Shelley has asked the proprietor to prepare cheerful rooms for them and a nursery for all of the children. The hobby horse awaits them as do picture books, a telescope where they can gaze at and dream about infinite worlds, and a delightful kaleidoscope that further engenders the imagination. Ianthe has a special bed prepared for her that has a large canopy. I caution Shelley not to go overboard or to insist that Ianthe possess feminine objects that will enfeeble her, but he says that his children will not want for any material or emotional needs. However, he promises to remain mindful to not weaken Ianthe by excessive attention to trivial things.
He, of course, possessed all of the material needs that he required as a child, but his emotional needs wer
e not met; his father was distant and cold. Shelley is an observant, loving father to Willmouse and promises to be the same for Charles and Ianthe. They will greatly benefit from the love and education that we can give them. We will raise them to be creative, free spirits; they will run and play and study under our guidance. We will raise Ianthe as our own daughter and follow my mother’s precepts in regard to the education of her.
We are delighted that the young poet John Keats has also arrived to stay with the Hunts for a few days. Although some critics disparage Keats’s poetry, calling him a cockney upstart, a mongrel who uses simplistic vernacular, Shelley thinks highly of Keats’s work and considers him his protégé. He and Shelley spoke at length about Spenser’s “Faerie Queen,” the poem that Keats claims awakened his imagination and led to his own poetry. Keats’s first volume of poetry is being published by Shelley’s publisher and Shelley has enthusiastically read the poems but has advised Keats to take his time to publish further until his work has matured. Keats seems, according to Shelley, to be in a hurry to publish, although we can’t understand why. I favor Shelley’s friendship with Keats over his companionship with Lord Byron. Like Shelley, I am very taken with Keats’s “On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer,” which moves us to understand that translation is interpretation; if done well, we see the ancient world for the first time, even if we have entered those golden worlds many times in the poems and histories that we read. I must keep this in mind whenever I take on the task of translation; it is an art, not a transcription.
While Shelley and Keats roam the Heath, I spend time in the garden on a bench under the weeping willows and continue to work on my creation. Of late, my creature appears before me in all of his hideousness, but I have much empathy for him and have grown in my affection for him. I often identify with him and with his motherless state, his rejection by his creator, his need for human relationships. He cannot help his physical being and he never asked to be “born.” He is a bit like all of us humans actually. As he stands before me, he also asks me why I created him. I tell him that he was born of a dream, a nightmare actually, and dreams, like life, are not under our control. From where they emanate no one knows. He seems puzzled by this because he does not know what dreams are. He seemed shocked when I told him that while we sleep images and scenes arise before our eyes and we can often see our loved ones. He remarked that his sleep is dreamless and then asked, “Please, Can you give me the gift of dreams?” Sadly, I replied, “No that is beyond my abilities. I can conjure characters and worlds but cannot determine all of their capabilities.” He looked disappointed, bowed to me, and walked away into the woods behind our house.
As I write, I see Victor’s creation as a flawed but potentially benevolent being. He is half-formed, but aren’t we all? He is resourceful and after his abandonment by his creator, he has attached himself to a formerly noble family, the De Laceys, in France, although they do not know that he is their benefactor and sometimes their voyeur or that he is learning language and literature from them. He is a quick learner and has even read the entirety of Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained. He told me that he admires Milton’s poem “Lycidas,” because it laments the loss of a beloved friend. He has also read Plutarch’s Lives, much like myself. Although that may seem absurd, it seems reasonable to me. How else might he learn about the human potential for nobility and greatness? About beneficence and everlasting friendship?
The humans who encounter him do not understand that he, like them, must also be loved.
My novel is more than an examination of human transgression; it’s an exploration of what has been termed human nature. Are we inherently evil as Hobbes says or are we inherently good, like Rousseau’s natural man? If one were to create a human-like creature would that creature inherit an innately good or evil nature? In his observation of humans, will he be taught evil or good ways? How much of our reaction to any creature depends upon that creature’s physical beauty or lack thereof? Why do we associate evil with the hideous and the deformed? Why do we fear those who are alien or atrocious to us?
17 March 1817
Today ought to be a day of joy, but once again it is a time of profound mourning. The Lord Chancellor has ruled against Shelley in the custody battle. He has labeled him unfit, “immoral in principle and conduct.” Shelley’s past haunts him, particularly his refusal to deny that he and Thomas Hogg wrote and distributed “The Necessity of Atheism.” Shelley’s own poetry is also held against him; the Lord Chancellor deemed “Queen Mab” atheistical and immoral in its condemnation of religion and royalty and its argument about human perfectibility here on earth, its advocacy that there is no need for a heaven. Our own relationship, even though we are now legally bound to each other, was also pronounced immoral because we had lived as wife and husband prior to our marriage. The Lord Chancellor also labelled Shelley an adulterer and a near bigamist. If these are the grounds to keep fathers from their children, then half of English landowners should be deemed unfit fathers. How many “bastard” children roam our village lanes?
In the end, he proclaimed that Shelley would raise the children to be atheists, which would in the end destine the children to live immorally and lead to their perdition.
I try to console Shelley but he tells me to leave him alone. He has shut himself in his study and sits in the dark with the curtains closed. He can’t bear the thought that the court gave his children to a clergyman in Kent; that they will grow up having dogma forced down their throats on a daily basis, that they will “eat” Church of England tenets, that they will likely not have the freedom to exercise their imaginations, that they will not experience their own father’s love. He fears that they will be taught to detest him and his work and that eventually they will forget him completely. He will be distant and cold, like his own father, but not through a lack of fatherly devotion, but through the court’s ruling that forbids him from visiting his own children.
I feel great loss also; I had hoped for a house of laughter and love. Now we must shut the doors to their bedrooms, put away the new toys: the telescope and the kaleidoscope. Perhaps we will be able to send them as Christmas gifts once our fractured hearts have healed.
29 March 1817
As I suspected but did not tell Shelley, I am again going to bear a child. I will tell him soon, once his grief is partially assuaged. Perhaps this new child will help heal our hearts of the grief and the guilt that lays heavily upon them.
1 April 1817
Shelley and I have both thrown ourselves into our work. My narrative continues to unfold. My misunderstood creature has enacted revenge against his “father” and threatens more violence unless his creator agrees to provide him with a companion, another being similar to himself. Again, he has stood before me dripping with repulsiveness, wearing his rags, smiling his gruesome smile. Now, he beseeches me to ask the maker for a mate for him. His arguments are sound. Every creature has its mate, even loathsome snakes, frogs, toads, reptiles of all sorts. He has seen them cavorting in the woods. Why should he be deprived of affection and even intimate relations? I have no answer and cannot justify leaving him alone without a companion. I will offer his request to Frankenstein and await his reply.
2 April 1817
I was astonished that Victor agreed to fashion another half-formed creature given his animosity toward his creation. The creature’s reasonable arguments must have persuaded him. Perhaps he thinks that by providing the creature with his own companion, the creature will leave him alone.
Victor has gathered his chemicals and instruments and has left for England to study how to fashion this new Eve. His dutiful and benevolent friend Clerval, accompanies him, although Frankenstein plans to travel far north to the Orkney Islands to find his filthy workshop and fashion a female creature. The wild, barbarous place where the wind bellows and blows continuously, the isolated environment, seems the perfect location to him to undertake his fulsome work. I watch him dig up the graves li
ke a Resurrectionist in the middle of the night and snatch body parts to fabricate his new “Eve.” The creature is never far away and watches Victor’s every move. Victor is unaware of his voyeur. I think that he relishes his work, although he fears what the creation will become. Will his original creature be able to reproduce itself once it meets its mate and then populate the world? Although the creature promises to leave England and live in the jungles of South America, will he do that or will he and his new “Eve” remain here and terrify our world with their repulsiveness? Will the female even accept the creature as its mate or will it too reject him because he is so loathsome? Perhaps she will be more fearsome than he is. These are Frankenstein’s and my worries.
This Eve is far different from the one that my mother imagines engendering in a new world. I read passages of my work to her and even though she finds all of my fictional world fearsome, she assents, and tells me that I have invented a new genre, a philosophical fiction, a science fiction. I have combined my love of philosophy with Shelley’s search for the philosopher’s stone, his quest to be an alchemist that transforms the world.
17 April 1817
Another spring is upon us and Willmouse and I spend happy hours in the garden watching the daffodils unfold in all of their glory. I try not to think of my sweet Sophia who lies cold in her grave next to my mother. I wish that I could pray for the good health of this child in my womb. I send her or him loving thoughts and talk to the child daily, reminding them to grow and blossom like the yellow buttercup daffies. I promise the child that I will take them to fields of daffodils next spring and we will feast on the magnificence that surrounds us.
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