The Life and Letters of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Volume Ii Part 5

Trelawny had departed for Leghorn and his favourite Maremma, _en route_ for Rome, where, by his untiring zeal for the fit interment of Sh.e.l.ley's ashes, he once more earned Mary's undying grat.i.tude. The ashes, which had been temporarily consigned to the care of Mr. Freeborn, British Consul at Rome, had, before Trelawny arrived, been buried in the Protestant cemetery: the grave was amidst a cl.u.s.ter of others. In a niche--formed by two b.u.t.tresses--in the old Roman wall, immediately under an ancient pyramid, said to be the tomb of Caius Cestius, Trelawny (having purchased the recess) built two tombs. In one of these the box containing Sh.e.l.ley's ashes was deposited, and all was covered over with solid stone. The details of the transaction, which extended over several months, are supplied in his letters.

TRELAWNY TO MARY Sh.e.l.lEY.

PIOMBINO, _7th_ and _11th January 1823_.

Thus far into the bowels of the land Have we marched on without impediment.

DEAR MARY Sh.e.l.lEY--Pardon my tardiness in writing, which from day to day I have postponed, having no other cause to plead than idleness. On my arrival at Leghorn I called on Grant, and was much grieved to find our fears well founded, to wit, that nothing definitely had been done.

Grant had not heard from his correspondent at Rome after his first statement of the difficulties; the same letter that was enclosed me and read by you he (Grant) had written, but not received a reply. I then requested Grant to write and say that I would be at Rome in a month or five weeks, and if I found the impediments insurmountable, I would resume possession of the ashes, if on the contrary, to personally fulfil your wishes, and in the meantime to deposit them secure from molestation, so that, without Grant writes to me, I shall say nothing more till I am at Rome, which will be early in February.

In the meantime Roberts and myself are sailing along the coast, shooting, and visiting the numerous islands in our track. We have been here some days, living at the miserable hut of a cattle dealer on the marshes, near this wretched town, well situated for sporting.

To-morrow we cross over to Elba, thence to Corsica, and so return along the Maremma, up the Tiber in the boat, to Rome....

... I like this Maremma, it is lonely and desolate, thinly populated, particularly after Genoa, where human brutes are so abundant that the air is dense with their garlic breath, and it is impossible to fly the nuisance. Here there is solitude enough: there are less of the human form here in midday than at Genoa midnight; besides, this vagabond life has restored my health. Next year I will get a tent, and spend my winter in these marshes....

... Dear Mary, of all those that I know of, or you have told me of, as connected with you, there is not one now living has so tender a friends.h.i.+p for you as I have. I have the far greater claims on you, and I shall consider it as a breach of friends.h.i.+p should you employ any one else in services that I can execute.

My purse, my person, my extremest means Lye all unlocked to your occasion.

I hope you know my heart so well as to make all professions needless.

To serve you will ever be the greatest pleasure I can experience, and nothing could interrupt the almost unmingled pleasure I have received from our first meeting but you concealing your difficulties or wishes from me. With kindest remembrances to my good friends the Hunts, to whom I am sincerely attached, and love and salaam to Lord Byron, I am your very sincere

EDWARD TRELAWNY.

"Indeed, I do believe, my dear Trelawny," wrote Mary in reply, on the 30th of January 1823, "that you are the best friend I have, and most truly would I rather apply to you in any difficulty than to any one else, for I know your heart, and rely on it. At present I am very well off, having still a considerable residue of the money I brought with me from Pisa, and besides, I have received 33 from the _Liberal_.

Part of this I have been obliged to send to Clare. You will be sorry to hear that the last account she has sent of herself is that she has been seriously ill. The cold of Vienna has doubtless contributed to this,--as it is even a dangerous aggravation of her old complaint. I wait anxiously to hear from her. I sent her fifteen napoleons, and shall send more if necessary and if I can. Lord B. continues kind: he has made frequent offers of money. I do not want it, as you see."

_Journal, February 2nd._--On the 21st of January those rites were fulfilled. Sh.e.l.ley! my own beloved! you rest beneath the blue sky of Rome; in that, at least, I am satisfied.

What matters it that they cannot find the grave of my William? That spot is sanctified by the presence of his pure earthly vesture, and that is sufficient--at least, it must be. I am too truly miserable to dwell on what at another time might have made me unhappy. He is beneath the tomb of Cestius. I see the spot.

_February 3._--A storm has come across me; a slight circ.u.mstance has disturbed the deceitful calm of which I boasted. I thought I heard my Sh.e.l.ley call me--not my Sh.e.l.ley in heaven, but my Sh.e.l.ley, my companion in my daily tasks. I was reading; I heard a voice say, "Mary!" "It is Sh.e.l.ley," I thought; the revulsion was of agony. Never more....

Mrs. Sh.e.l.ley's affairs now a.s.sumed an aspect which made her foresee the ultimate advisability, if not necessity, of returning to England. Sir Timothy Sh.e.l.ley had declined giving any answer to the application made to him for an allowance for his son's widow and child; and Lord Byron, as Sh.e.l.ley's executor, had written to him directly for a decisive answer, which he obtained.

SIR TIMOTHY Sh.e.l.lEY TO LORD BYRON.

FIELD PLACE, _6th February 1823_.

MY LORD--I have received your Lords.h.i.+p's letter, and my solicitor, Mr.

Whitton, has this day shown me copies of certificates of the marriage of Mrs. Sh.e.l.ley and of the baptism of her little boy, and also, a short abstract of my son's will, as the same have been handed to him by Mr. Hanson.

The mind of my son was withdrawn from me and my immediate family by unworthy and interested individuals, when he was about nineteen, and after a while he was led into a new society and forsook his first a.s.sociates.

In this new society he forgot every feeling of duty and respect to me and to Lady Sh.e.l.ley.

Mrs. Sh.e.l.ley was, I have been told, the intimate friend of my son in the lifetime of his first wife, and to the time of her death, and in no small degree, as I suspect, estranged my son's mind from his family, and all his first duties in life; with that impression on my mind, I cannot agree with your Lords.h.i.+p that, though my son was unfortunate, Mrs. Sh.e.l.ley is innocent; on the contrary, I think that her conduct was the very reverse of what it ought to have been, and I must, therefore, decline all interference in matters in which Mrs.

Sh.e.l.ley is interested. As to the child, I am inclined to afford the means of a suitable protection and care of him in this country, if he shall be placed with a person I shall approve; but your Lords.h.i.+p will allow me to say that the means I can furnish will be limited, as I have important duties to perform towards others, which I cannot forget.

I have thus plainly told your Lords.h.i.+p my determination, in the hope that I may be spared from all further correspondence on a subject so distressing to me and my family.

With respect to the will and certificates, I have no observation to make. I have left them with Mr. Whitton, and if anything is necessary to be done with them on my part, he will, I am sure, do it.--I have the honour, my Lord, to be your Lords.h.i.+p's most obedient humble servant,

T. Sh.e.l.lEY.

Granting the point of view from which it was written, this letter, though hard, was not unnatural. The author of _Adonais_ was, to Sir Timothy, a common reprobate, a prodigal who, having gone into a far country, would have devoured his father's living--could he have got it--with harlots; but who had come there to well-deserved grief, and for whose widow even husks were too good. To any possible colouring or modification of this view he had resolutely shut his eyes and ears. No modification of his conclusions was, therefore, to be looked for.

But neither could it be expected that his point of view should be intelligible to Mary. Nor did it commend itself to G.o.dwin. It would have been as little for his daughter's interest as for her happiness to surrender the custody of her child.

MARY Sh.e.l.lEY TO LORD BYRON.

MY DEAR LORD BYRON-- ... It appears to me that the mode in which Sir Timothy Sh.e.l.ley expresses himself about my child plainly shows by what mean principles he would be actuated. He does not offer him an asylum in his own house, but a beggarly provision under the care of a stranger.

Setting aside that, I would not part with him. Something is due to me.

I should not live ten days separated from him. If it were necessary for me to die for his benefit the sacrifice would be easy; but his delicate frame requires all a mother's solicitude; nor shall he be deprived of my anxious love and a.s.siduous attention to his happiness while I have it in my power to bestow it on him; not to mention that his future respect for his excellent Father and his moral wellbeing greatly depend upon his being away from the immediate influence of his relations.

This, perhaps, you will think nonsense, and it is inconceivably painful to me to discuss a point which appears to me as clear as noonday; besides I lose all--all honourable station and name--when I admit that I am not a fitting person to take charge of my infant. The insult is keen; the pretence of heaping it upon me too gross; the advantage to them, if the will came to be contested, would be too immense.

As a matter of feeling, I would never consent to it. I am said to have a cold heart; there are feelings, however, so strongly implanted in my nature that, to root them out, life will go with it.--Most truly yours,

MARY Sh.e.l.lEY.

G.o.dWIN TO MRS. Sh.e.l.lEY.

STRAND, _14th February 1823_.

MY DEAR MARY--I have this moment received a copy of Sir Timothy Sh.e.l.ley's letter to Lord Byron, dated 6th February, and which, therefore, you will have seen long before this reaches you. You will easily imagine how anxious I am to hear from you, and to know the state of your feelings under this, which seems like the last, blow of fate.

I need not, of course, attempt to a.s.sist your judgment upon the proposition of taking the child from you. I am sure your feelings would never allow you to entertain such a proposition.

I requested you to let Lord Byron's letter to Sir Timothy Sh.e.l.ley pa.s.s through my hands, and you did so; but to my great mortification, it reached me sealed with his Lords.h.i.+p's arms, so that I remained wholly ignorant of its contents. If you could send me a copy, I should be then much better acquainted with your present situation.

Your novel is now fully printed and ready for publication. I have taken great liberties with it, and I fear your _amour propre_ will be proportionately shocked. I need not tell you that all the merit of the book is exclusively your own. Beatrice is the jewel of the book; not but that I greatly admire Euthanasia, and I think the characters of Pepi, Binda, and the witch decisive efforts of original genius. I am promised a character of the work in the _Morning Chronicle_ and the _Herald_, and was in hopes to have sent you the one or the other by this time. I also sent a copy of the book to the _Examiner_ for the same purpose.

_Tuesday, 18th February._

Do not, I entreat you, be cast down about your worldly circ.u.mstances.

You certainly contain within yourself the means of your subsistence.

Your talents are truly extraordinary. _Frankenstein_ is universally known, and though it can never be a book for vulgar reading, is everywhere respected. It is the most wonderful work to have been written at twenty years of age that I ever heard of. You are now five and twenty, and, most fortunately, you have pursued a course of reading, and cultivated your mind, in a manner the most admirably adapted to make you a great and successful author. If you cannot be independent, who should be?

Your talents, as far as I can at present discern, are turned for the writing of fict.i.tious adventures.

If it shall ever happen to you to be placed in sudden and urgent want of a small sum, I entreat you to let me know immediately; we must see what I can do. We must help one another.--Your affectionate Father,