The Lady and Her Monsters (25 page)

Chapter 9

A S
EA
C
HANGE

First our pleasures die—and then

Our hopes, and then our fears—and when

They are dead, the debt is due

Dust claims dust—and we die too.

P
ERCY
B
YSSHE
S
HELLEY,
D
EATH

M
ary Shelley parted the curtains of her Naples apartment and looked out on the barren and desolate Royal Gardens. It was still winter, and the famed rosebushes had not yet bloomed, though her view beyond the Bay of Naples was as stunning in winter as it was in summer. She looked out to the cresting waters as they slammed against the rocky shores, and from where she stood, she could see Mount Vesuvius standing forlorn, brooding like those infamous Italian men smoking pipes. It was a classic Italian scene, admired and sought out by English expatriates, who came to Naples for its beauty and its climate. “So astonishing and so delicious a spot,” the barrister Henry Crabb Robinson would write in his diary some years later on visiting Naples.

But even this vista could not stir Mary's soul.

The writing of
Frankenstein
had been satisfying, albeit draining, but finally it was finished and ready to be published. But before the reactions to Victor Frankenstein and his fiend were gathered, Mary, Percy, and Claire left England, because Percy continued to be plagued by health complaints, and he was always searching for an environment that would help his numerous maladies. (They would try to find such a place nearly a dozen times in the next few years, all futile attempts at finding health and peace of mind for Shelley.) They had arrived in Naples in early December 1818, after several other stays in Italy.

Naples, the ancient city situated on the southwest coast of the Italian peninsula, in the region of Campania, was bordered by two volcanically active areas, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields. Mary was also flanked by two volatile characters, Percy and Claire, who pushed her to display two sides of her own personality—calm and abrupt—at the same time. But for this brief period, they had found in Naples a city with such mild weather that it worked as a balm to soothe their irritated moods.

But as Shelley's condition improved—his days were filled with walks and horseback-riding lessons—Mary's mood declined. She despised the Neapolitans, whom she saw as only a shade better and slightly more alive than the pallid ghostly creatures populating Coleridge's phantom ship. She had tried to move beyond her present state, assisted somewhat by walks with Percy through the ancient monuments scattered throughout the region. They also took boats out on the quiet bay, where the water was “translucent and shiny” and they could enter caverns that could only be explored with lanterns. But none of this seemed to lift the unsettling feeling that had pervaded her person.

Percy, Mary, and Claire settled in the Chiaia district, the most famous and desirable area of Naples. They were joined by a Swiss nursemaid named Elise, who had been hired earlier in the year to care for the children; the ever-present Claire; and Claire's daughter, Allegra. In August 1818, Shelley had also met and hired Paolo Foggi, a young man who had already become indispensable. Shelley liked Paolo's industriousness, the way he hurried to be of service, and his talents as a cook. Shelley also believed that Paolo was a reliable addition to the household and someone who could be counted on. But as the three English visitors settled into their new routine, they began to see signs that Paolo Foggi had a tendency to cheat them. This didn't please them, but considering his more uncompromising skills, they decided to view this as a small defect they were willing to overlook.

As soon as Paolo Foggi made himself a part of the household, he set his sights on Elise, and before long the quiet nursemaid and the charming Italian were engaged in a sexual relationship, which soon resulted in Elise's becoming pregnant. Mary was almost instantly irritated by Elise's condition. She may have come to care for Elise too much—or not enough for Paolo—but arrangements for a marriage were quickly made. The ceremony was a great relief for everyone, but soon after the wedding, the Shelleys dismissed Paolo and Elise from their positions.

Disappointed that this relationship had ended badly, the family believed they would never hear from Paolo and Elise again. But as the couple journeyed north across Italy and into England, they were very busy talking wildly and freely about their former employers, whispering to anyone who would listen about a tale that often wavered between the truth and lies.

On December 27, 1818, the strong wails of a newborn little girl were heard in the Chiaia district. Nearly two months later, Percy Shelley rushed toward the Office of Vital Statistics to have her birth registered. The certificate that was issued stated that the baby's name was Elena Adelaide Shelley. In addition, the certificate also revealed that the child belonged to Mary Shelley, though Mary had not given birth during her time in Naples.

When people heard about the child, they thought Shelley had somehow gotten the baby in a shady black-market adoption scheme to find a child for Mary, who was suffering a bleak depression over the death of their infant daughter, Clara, while they were in Venice. Mary never said this aloud, but there is reason to think that she blamed her husband and stepsister for her baby's death. After all, Claire was the reason Percy had gone off to Venice.

Eager to see Allegra, who was in Venice with Lord Byron, Claire asked her brother-in-law to travel there with her, and he agreed. They departed on August 17, and once there, he wrote to Mary and asked her to follow. On August 31, she left with Clara, who was almost one, and with two-and-a-half-year-old William. When Shelley summoned Mary, he did not consider how harmful a trip like this through the Italian countryside in a stuffy carriage could be for Mary and the children. Clara was already ill, and she became progressively worse over the four-day trip. By the time they had reached their destination, Mary, clutching the child to her breast, knew it was too late.

Now, these months later, was Percy trying to find a new child for his wife in Naples? It's not known if Mary was aware of what he was doing or whether she had even agreed to take this Neapolitan newborn into their household. In any case, Elena Adelaide never became a part of the Shelley family because she died on June 10, 1819. However, for those few months, she lived with a set of foster parents in Naples, whom Paolo Foggi and Elise knew firsthand.

Most people believed Elena Adelaide had been rescued from one of the city's many orphanages, but Paolo and Elise told a different story. Once they reached England, they met with Shelley's friends, the Hoppners, and claimed the child's real parents were not some Italian destitutes but were really Percy Shelley and Claire Clairmont. The adoption story was simply a cover story. Claire had been very ill during December 1818, the same month the baby was born. Elise was working for them during this period and knew Claire had taken to her bed for several days.

After the baby was born, Elise continued, Shelley quickly took her, during the night, to the city's foundling hospital, where she remained for several months, until her death. Elise said she was present during all of these events and that a doctor was called to attend to Claire. Few people had even seen Claire during the months when she was supposedly pregnant because she had been sequestered until the moment of the birth.

On visiting Lord Byron in Ravenna, Shelley learned that this story was being whispered among his acquaintances. People had seen the Shelleys and Claire during their stay in Naples. Those who had met them would have noticed if she had been pregnant. Elise also said that Mary seemed strangely out of sorts while all of this was happening. According to Paolo and Elise, in the months leading up to the baby's birth, Mary had been assaulted by such severe melancholy, given the death of Clara, that Percy and Claire had been able to go about their business unbothered. Eventually, Mary grew tired of what was happening and became aware of her stepsister's pregnancy and of the baby's paternity. But despite her knowledge, she did nothing about it because she was either outnumbered or far too depressed.

When Shelley learned that Paolo and Elise were spreading these rumors, he immediately told Mary, who was horrified. She began a campaign to counteract Paolo and Elise's rumors by dispatching letters to family and friends. In them, she did acknowledge that Claire had been ill at the time of the supposed birth, but she said the sickness was something Claire often suffered from and was not related to a child fathered by Percy or anyone else. She emphasized Claire's shyness and that she was sure Claire would never do anything to hurt her. Those lines led those who were familiar with the two women to conclude instead that the scandalous rumor was true. Everybody, including Mary, knew that Claire had never been, nor ever would be, a self-controlled person. People recalled the abandon Claire had displayed in pursuing Lord Byron, a notorious womanizer. And despite the family's best intentions, it had become known that Allegra was Byron's daughter. Those who knew the Godwins also knew Claire had had a crush on Percy.

The salacious scandals that arose from Claire's rumored pregnancy in Naples and Percy's indiscretions occupied conspiracy theorists for decades after all the parties had long since passed. In 1936 all official records pertaining to the child's birth, death, baptism, and the months she survived following her birth were found in the vaults of the Vital Statistics offices. But prior to that, a gentleman of strong New England roots suggested that he knew what had truly occurred in Naples—because he believed that Claire had confessed it all to him.

In the early 1870s, a schooner left the small harbor of Salem, Massachusetts, bound for Europe. It sailed beneath a warm sun and fair winds, an auspicious send-off. Its American captain was Edward Augustus Silsbee. A New Englander born and bred, Silsbee was born in 1820 to a ship-owner father also of New England descent. Though young Silsbee had been reared to join the family business, he also had a keen literary and artistic sensibility that made the Romantic poets especially appealing to him. Throughout his life he collected everything he could about Percy Shelley, whose poetry he felt was the essence of the sublime.

Shortly before leaving Salem, Silsbee learned that the poet's sister-in-law, Claire Clairmont, was still living. Now in her seventies, the white-haired Claire lived in a yellow-speckled apartment in the once-aristocratic Palazzo Orsini, in the heart of Florence. When Silsbee reached Florence in October 1872, he traversed the city's cobblestone streets, setting his sights on the old palace. He liked the feel of the tree-shaded courtyard and enjoyed hiking up the screeching staircase that brought him face-to-face with Claire. Of course, he befriended her almost immediately and visited with her daily for more than a year.

He jotted down notes from their conversations in numerous leather-bound notebooks, most often writing in a hurried, hardly legible penciled scrawl, all interspersed with his views on the countries he visited, the natives he encountered, bits of poetry and narrative lines he heard that much impressed him, lists of the accounts he possessed, questions to ask and those he had already asked, and bank codes. Dozens of these notebooks exist, now housed in the vaults of the Phillips Library at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts.

In many of their conversations, Claire obliged Silsbee's curiosity with stories about the two poets in her life who were so different and so alike, going so far as to compare, at a certain point, the thicknesses of Shelley's and Byron's lips: “Shelly,” she said, “fine & white too thick, B's curved and [not] thick.” Silsbee also knew about the friction between Claire and Mary Shelley, and Claire, at one point, readily admitted that there had been jealousy between the two, mostly because Percy Shelley insisted on spending too much time with her. “Mrs. Shelley jealous of her,” Silsbee wrote on a later occasion. “Often S. used to walk with her & pay her attention.”

Silsbee suggested that Claire must have shown Shelley more of the attention he craved, physical attention that perhaps Mary was unwilling to display: “Claire more caressing,” Silsbee wrote. “This she says S. liked her.” A note on a previous page implied that Mary did not like “
carezze,
” the intimate Italian word that refers to caresses or to the act of touching.

After gaining Claire's confidence, Silsbee asked her for intimate details of what had occurred in Naples. The entry for that particular conversation is relatively short but gets right to the point. He tells of an awkward situation Percy and Claire became involved in and says that indeed, Claire was the person everybody had been talking about for years, the woman who had given birth to Percy's child. Those involved in the predicament—supposedly Percy, Claire, and Mary—promised each other to keep the secret, even though it caused Claire great sorrow.

The lines appear to have been written in great haste, as if the author could not contain his excitement because of what he had just learned and could not be bothered with penmanship, either. But had Silsbee truly learned what happened in Naples? Judging by the briskness of his writing, he believed so. But Silsbee's own methods of recording also must be taken under consideration. He jotted down his notes several hours after speaking with her, not during their conversations. It is also possible that Silsbee misunderstood what Claire said to him. Did he correctly transcribe what Claire had told him or did he write down what he wished she had told him? As it stands, the truth of the Neapolitan child is still a mystery to be solved.

S
canning the horizon had now become habit for Mary Shelley. Whether she did so in Marlow, staring at the droopy willow trees hanging like tentacles over the rooftops, or in Naples, where in the distance the volcano puffed, it didn't matter: her eyes always watched the changing light before her, as she could see her own life change in the various colors reflected in the seasons of nature. In 1822 she found herself staring at another horizon, with the new waves of another sea. This time, the Gulf of La Spezia, on the upper northwest coast of Italy, stretched before her, the blowing of the Mediterranean winds bringing not relief, as she and Percy had anticipated, but a strange prequel to sorrow.