Clairmont

by Lesley McDowell

Genres: General Fiction; Action & Adventure; Historical Fiction

Synopsis

Geneva.
They always come back to it, somehow.
They're the only ones who know what took place there.

'Beautifully written, Clairmont tells the sensuous hidden story of an influential historic woman.' Sara Sheridan, author of The Fair Botanists Waterstones Scottish Book of the Year

'An absorbing, intoxicating page-turner about a woman who deserves to be remembered.' Jennifer Saint, author of Ariadne and Atalanta

1816. A massive volcanic eruption has caused the worst storms that Europe has seen in decades, yet Percy and Mary Shelley have chosen to visit the infamous Lord Byron at his villa on Lake Geneva. It wasn't their idea: Mary's eighteen year old step-sister, Claire Clairmont, insisted.

But the reason for Claire's visit is more pressing than a summer escape with the most famous writers in the world. She's pregnant with Byron's child - a child Byron doesn't want, and scarcely believes is his own.

Claire has the world in her grasp. This trip should have given her everything she ever dreamed of. But within days, her life will be in ruins.

History has all but forgotten her story - but she will not be silenced.

(P)2024 Headline Publishing Group Ltd

Publisher: Headline

Print pages: 400

Sample

Acknowledgements

In 1998, a newspaper asked me to review a new publication – Maurice or The Fisher’s Cot, a newly discovered short story for children by Mary Shelley. But it was the introduction by Claire Tomalin that grabbed my attention, and this sentence in particular: ‘To begin with, there is the matter of lost children.’ I knew who Claire Clairmont was from reading the Romantic poets and Frankenstein when I was a student. But I didn’t know about her remarkable life after Shelley’s death, or the full extent of her losses. After this, I read everything I could find – the two biog­raphies about her, her volumes of letters, her journals. I had an idea to write a novel about her life and that’s what I tried to do. But I lacked the experience to make it work, and after several attempts, I moved on to other subjects and published other things.

Twenty-­four years and several novels later – both published and unpublished – I tried again, and the result is Clairmont. My first and biggest thanks are to my editor Jack Butler, for sending me the email that every writer dreams of receiving. From our first conversation, he showed me how well he understood Claire’s story, and that I could trust him completely with what I wanted to write. The support of the team at Wildfire has been a joy to experience; again, it’s been everything a writer could want.

I’d also like to thank Helen Fitzgerald, for introducing me to writing in coffee shops, which led me to my favourite Caffe Nero and ‘my’ writing desk. Huge thanks to The Society of Authors and The Royal Literary Fund for much appreciated financial aid during the latter stages of writing, and to my agent, Ian Drury, for signing me up when I really thought my publishing chances were all gone. Thanks especially to my Mum, Irene McDowell, and to my dear friends who have kept me going through the years of highs and lows. And, most of all, thanks to my amazing husband, Russel McLean. Claire wasn’t lucky enough to marry her soulmate; thankyou, Russel, for not being a Byron. Or a Shelley!

 

Lesley McDowell, March 2023

Clairy, Lake Geneva 1816

‘Oh, let me in, Mary. I’ve said sorry a hundred times.’

The hole in her chemise crinkles when she changes position. Mice, when they first travelled to the Continent two years ago, got into their trunks, feasted on everything.

It’s not quite ruined yet, though. Not like the one lying on her bed.

A delicious thought, bringing her knees to her chest. Scampering up her spine to rest where he lately put his lips. On her neck, a bruise purples where his teeth pressed; on her right breast, crescent moons left by his fingernails redden.

She hadn’t thought to feel – or see – the ruin of her reputation in quite that way. And soon there will be so much more of it for everyone to see! A snigger seeps out; she clamps a hand over her mouth, swallows it back down. Stretches her scratched legs along the hard wooden floor outside Mary’s room.

Mary had made plenty of others feel the ruin of her own reputation when she – no, they, for don’t they do everything together? – first ran off two years ago. Sitting at the door, she bites her lip, wonders if her own ruin will have the same effect. Another laugh bubbles up then – ah, but Albe hasn’t invited her to follow him in the same way Shelley did Mary.

No matter; it’ll be a given now. No neckerchiefs will hide his mark on her, not when her belly grows. No collars, no matter how extravagant, will disguise that.

Her fingers stop stroking her stomach; there’s nothing showing yet, of course. They travel up her breastbone, then find the tender spot on her neck. It nips a little. He’d watched the vein pulse before sinking his teeth into it, hard. He likes making women hurt, he’d said. A woman’s pain is a sign of grande passion.

She didn’t weep, though.

‘Clary Clearmont,’ he’d teased, as she lay naked as a newborn on his grand four-­poster. ‘Clarity Clair de Lune,’ he’d said, ringed fingers skimming her breasts back and forth to catch on her nipples, hoping to force tears from her.

Mary’s just jealous.

‘Leave me alone.’ Mary’s furious, reedy voice comes from behind the door. It would grate on her if she wasn’t so delighted with herself. ‘I’ve told you a hundred times.’

But now Shelley’s tramping upstairs, pink-­cheeked as a babe, eyes full of the sea, almost tripping over her legs, with no remarks at all about her scratches. Does he even see them? He’s muttering – lines of a new poem, probably – as he strides past the door, before Mary’s voice stops him.

‘Pecksie! Pecksie!’ he says.

Claire shrugs.

He shakes his head, finger at his lips. ‘My love, come out,’ he calls through the door. ‘Claire’s very sorry.’

Tutting, Claire gets to her feet. ‘Claire’s had enough of being sorry. Dear God. All this fuss over bedsheets.’

The bedsheets are blowing in the wind like white clouds, suspended from Albe’s balcony high up on the hill behind their little house.

The second Mary saw them from the garden, she threw a strop to shake the birds from the trees. ‘Why don’t you just sell tickets?’

And so it began. Back and forth they went, over and over, until Little Willmouse started to cry and Mary ran upstairs to him, calling her all sorts of names.

So, Albe’s made a show of their night together. But it’s only to the good; why doesn’t Mary see that? Claire gets to wondering who hung out the sheets, and pictures Fletcher, sulky and bent, grappling with his master’s soiled bedding. Then Polidori, his poor physician – Polly-­dolly – entangled in his hero’s linen, face like a lost thundercloud.

That makes her snort too loudly, though.

The door flies open, Mary clasping Willmouse to her wet bosom. His round blue eyes blink, and Claire blows him a kiss and reaches for him. Mary thrusts the child at his father instead.

‘She brought us all this way, just for herself. When she said it was for all of us. For you.’

‘Who’s she?’ Claire demands, barring Mary’s way to the stairs. ‘And besides, Shelley—’

But that’s another secret, beside the one in her belly. She stops. Mary’s breath is in her nostrils, she’s so close. Her eyes are tear-­stained, her face pale and pinched. Guilt softens Claire; she’s about to apologise again when Mary shoves past, saying, ‘You really believe he cares about the women he takes to bed?’

‘Well, he’s only known three kinds,’ she says, keeping her tone light as air. ‘Whores. Servants. Aristocrats. I confuse him.’

‘Oh yes, Claire, you’re holding all the cards.’ Mary’s golden hair is undone and bushy in that fetching way Shelley likes. She’s buttoning up her loose chemise, patchy and wet after feeding Willmouse. Shelley stares after Mary with a need that pushes Claire out of view, consigns her to the margins.

As though she doesn’t exist.

Albe’s never looked at her the way Shelley does Mary. Excluding everyone else in the room by the force of his gaze.

Not yet. Not yet.

All she’s had to offer him was the ruin of her reputation. But it’s far beyond that now, the kind of ruin that grows inside a woman.

Her sister’s envy breaks into her thoughts.

‘I didn’t show off what I was – we were – doing,’ Mary’s saying to Shelley now. ‘I took the greatest care—’

Oh, Mary only wants her small and humble. Stuck on the outskirts of everything.

But it’s her ever-­growing ruin that will bring her closer to Albe. As close as his own wife was, once.

So pride lifts her chin as she bares her ruined neck and follows Mary, who’s flouncing down the rickety wooden stairs of little Maison Chapuis like Marie Antoinette playing shepherdess at Versailles. And we all know what happened to her, Claire thinks, just before the top of her head hits the banister above. Mary’s tall, but Claire’s taller still.

The ceilings are too small to let anything grow. They’d crush her just as Mary would, given half a chance.

At least it’s better than the Hotel d’Angleterre. Even pokier rooms, and full of gossiping Britons, smirking every time Albe showed his face. Little people thinking to mock and stare at him.

‘Oh, but I take care, too, Mary,’ she says. ‘That’s why I sneaked out last night. And I didn’t bring Albe here – not like I did at the hotel.’ She smirks a little, flings it like a clot of earth at Mary’s back.

Mary has a bowl of milk in her hands. For a moment, it seems she’ll throw it, so Claire ducks, calling out for Shelley, who’s holding a shrieking Willmouse. Mary shouts back, Shelley insists on calm, and all of them miss the first rap at the door.

The second one is sharper. Claire stands up straight; Mary grips the bowl tight. Even Willmouse falls silent.

‘Fletcher!’ says Shelley, when the man enters. Mary wraps her arms about her stained chemise, sinks into a chair. Claire won’t cover herself though; no, she shakes her hair about her shoulders. Albe called her ‘devil’s bride’ last night, her black curls loose and long. She licks her lips. Shelley, looking dazed, wet fringe stuck to his forehead, his little finger in Willmouse’s mouth, asks, ‘Is everything well?’

‘Lord Byron wishes to know if you will attend at the villa at two,’ Fletcher murmurs, surveying the room with a raised eyebrow like an appalled mother.

Yes, there are upturned cups and dirty bowls and plates encrusted with food. A chair, knocked over yesterday, hasn’t been righted, and a jumble of apples and figs and cheese and bread are jostling for space on the kitchen table. Empty wine glasses dot the room.

An abundance of everything that’s fresh and filling – well, isn’t that what lovers want?

Claire pouts at Fletcher. ‘It’s no worse than Villa Diodati,’ she says.

The villa had been in much this state last night, when she had crept in under the dark of the clouds, sniggering and softly singing her way upstairs to Albe’s room. She almost tripped over an empty wine bottle at his door; his bed was strewn with them, the floor littered with abandoned peaches, plums, hazelnuts.

‘Doesn’t Fletcher clean this up for you?’ she’d asked him, long after they’d added a few more bottles themselves.

But he’d only rolled his eyes.

He needs someone to take care of him as a manservant cannot. He needs her.

But already Fletcher’s turned on muddy heels, to trudge his way back through the vineyard between their houses, and Shelley’s shaking his head at her nerve.

‘Dear God,’ says Mary, pointing at him. ‘You want this more than she does. But we’ll be the ones to clear it up, when the mess is made.’

Suddenly, exhaustion rolls through her, like those volcano clouds of late, plunging her spirits down once more.

Scrambling her way down the hill to Chapuis in a dark, gloomy dawn – as unlike the night-­time as it’s possible to be, for in this contrary summer, thanks to Mount Tambono erupting and causing magnificent electric storms, the world is lit up every evening – she had cursed loose vines for scratching her legs, and Albe for insisting on her leaving before light.

Electricity, says Shelley, is proof that Creation has nothing to do with a God.

She’s learned more than that, though. Why, she thinks – and a little smile stretches her lips now – hasn’t she also learned that Creation is at one with Ruin?

‘I’m going to bed,’ she announces, sloping past them both to the tiny chambre off the kitchen. ‘Willmouse – bid your parents be quiet an hour or so!’

Mary’s bowl hits her door as it closes. Willmouse’s wails force his father into the garden beneath her window; Shelley’s cooing makes her wriggle on the thin mattress. Her bruised thighs throb; she gets up to use the pot, her trickle of water stinging. Pats herself with more care than he showed – but that’s the way of grande passion, she tells herself, lying down again, stroking where he so lately nipped and bit.

He’s hungry for me, she thinks. That’s what it is. Insatiable hunger. And I am his feast.

 

They climb the hill just after two o’clock – they’re always late as a party, even for Albe, who’ll be late himself. Elise, a woman from the village with a child of her own, has come to sit with Willmouse.

‘He will be fine with her,’ Shelley insists.

‘But I’ve never left him with anyone before,’ Mary cries. ‘What if something happens?’

She’s thinking of the first baby she lost, of course. The little girl only survived a few days.

‘Nothing will happen – you must get used to it, if you are to have time to write,’ Shelley says.

‘He’s right, you have to trust,’ Claire says, then stops, bites her lip. To birth a child and have it die so soon is not easy – she should support her sister now, take Mary’s side, not Shelley’s, the way she always does. She shakes her head as though there’s water in her ears. Oh, but Mary doesn’t make it easy. Only this morning, she’d said, ‘You know Albe will never marry you,’ when she knows Claire wants no such thing.

But that little voice in her head – Mary, naturally – had ­whispered, ‘You would like a place in his household. You’d like to be acknowledged by him, by the world, as his.’

‘I don’t give a stuff for marriage,’ she’d said, ‘and neither does Shelley. Only you do, Mary. And that will never happen.’ Her arrow hit its mark, for Shelley has one wife already, and no amount of Mary’s scrawling her name Mary Godwin Shelley will alter that.

It was cruel to taunt her, Claire thinks now, but Mary often makes her feel cruel these days, in a way she never did when they were small. So much has changed between them since, and that saddens her, as they trudge uphill. Again, a little loneliness creeps through her bones. When Mary wants Claire’s company, she has it. When Mary wants Claire out of the way, she has that, too.

A troublesome younger sister, threatening the older sister’s happiness.

Claire’s frown’s heavy, as if from a too-­tight bonnet. ‘Shake it away! It’s just water in your ears,’ she murmurs. Albe doesn’t care for irritated or gloomy looks in women.

But when she turns round to see Mary wiping her eyes, her attitude shifts again, and her frown returns.

‘Here, take my arm,’ she says, after scrambling back down the hill to her sister, just as Mary stumbles from twisting to stare at the cottage where Elise is rocking Willmouse to sleep.

‘You still stink of him,’ Mary says crudely, pulling away.

Oh, wouldn’t her many admirers be shocked to hear what comes out of Mary’s mouth sometimes. All that comes out of Claire’s is her tongue, which she waggles in Mary’s face.

‘You and Shelley are no purists behind closed doors, and all the world can hear it,’ she says, then scrambles away before Mary can annoy her with a reply. ‘There be none of Beauty’s daughters with a magic like thee,’ she sings out to Shelley, who’s up ahead. She sings in the manner of an old washerwoman, pulls hideous faces to make him laugh. ‘How many women can say Albe has written a poem for them?’ she asks him, panting at the steep incline.

‘Too many to count,’ says Shelley, then checks her cross expression.

‘You can do much better than him,’ she says. ‘You know me.’

The day’s still cold and grey under a cloud of ash, and Shelley’s legs are so very much longer than her own. He strides higher and higher, as if gliding over a frozen lake.

‘Oh, no doubt about it. On both counts.’

He’s assuming too much, even if he’s smiling, which irks her. Even if it’s true.

‘Last night, he had certain ideas. Albe had, I mean,’ Claire says. ‘Shocking ones, some might think. He’s very taken with Mary – haven’t you noticed?’

She’s not being mischievous; it’s only the truth.

‘He wants us – the four of us, together, to explore – oh, he suggested that we might – oh, but he’d drunk a lot of wine.’ And she laughs nervously, pulls the ribbon from her hair to shake it loose in the grey, ashy air.

‘Might what?’ Shelley halts, staring around him.

‘He thinks you and I already share – you know. A bed. So if Mary were willing to do the same—’

Shelley doesn’t believe in jealousy. Or in the possession of people. ‘Mary’s free to do what she wants,’ he says. ‘You know I encourage that.’

‘But with the baby and everything – she might not care to—’

He shrugs, still staring up at the mist, which shrouds the mountain tops above them. ‘Albe’s free to ask whomever for whatever he wants. Mary can agree or disagree. What else does free love mean, if not that? Though I thought his horror of communal living was predicated upon fewer bodies around him. Not more.’ He takes a long step forward.

She’s a little relieved by his answer, yet peeved, too. With a pout he doesn’t see, she begins, ‘So I’m also free to ask—’

‘Just be careful of him,’ he interrupts. ‘Pull back a little. Don’t be so eager.’

‘You didn’t say that when you were telling me to write to him.’ She catches up, seizes Shelley’s arm to make him face her.

‘I didn’t tell you so much as . . .’ He tails off, shrugging once again.

‘So much as what?’ After all Albe’s attempts to make her weep, now tears are in her throat.

‘I thought you understood better than this,’ he murmurs. ‘Don’t disappoint me.’

There’s no space between them on this hillside. Mary’s still far behind.

Suddenly, Claire presses in close, whispers in his ear so that her lips rest for a second on his earlobe, ‘What if he wants to keep me with him always?’

He frowns, fingers lightly the mark on her neck, exposed now by a breeze blowing back her hair. ‘Don’t go looking for that.’

‘But Mary would prefer it.’

He shakes his head. ‘Mary has more understanding than you give her credit for.’

She steps back, crosses her arms. ‘Since when?’

‘She cares very deeply. Even if you don’t have care for your own self,’ he mutters. ‘She’s a mother now. You can see – it’s changed her.’

For a moment, she can’t respond. Then, she loosens her arms, curls her fists and says, ‘Mary was right when she said we’re here for you. This isn’t for me at all.’

But he’s already turned away from her, is heading back down the hill towards Mary. She shouts after him, furiously, ‘I’m nobody’s puppet. I am—’

He flicks his hand in the air as though she’s a fly buzzing round him. Dear God, but the pair of them are insufferable, she thinks. Alone on the hillside suddenly, a scowl disrupts her features. Her lower lip wobbles a little.

Playful Clairy; fun Clairy. She’s the only one they want.

Well, she won’t have it. She’s a mother now. It’s changed her. Yes, motherhood does that. So let them see what it will do to Claire.

She strokes her plump chin, just where Albe likes to tease her with ma petite boule de suif. Does he think she’s fat? It occurs to her she’ll be fatter soon enough, and already she’s forgotten Shelley and Mary, is climbing the hill as fast as she can. By the time she arrives, she’s too hot to breathe steadily and is soaking with sweat, which isn’t the best way to greet Albe. Will he want her when she’s big?

She heads for the house, fretful fingers pulling at her hair to set it off her shoulders, expose her neck. The villa’s pale grey pillars resemble those of a Greek temple, set amidst lush greens, though there are few flowers blooming in this ashy summer.

If Zeus is inside, thunderbolts ready to destroy his Semele, then she’ll welcome it. He won’t refuse her, big or not. She’s irresistible; he’s told her often enough.

‘Come, fiery death!’ she shouts, opening plump arms wide. Shelley and Mary catch up with her; Mary tugs at her shoulder, trying to quiet her. That irritating way of hers! She pushes her sister’s hand away, just as Mary did to her.

‘Open up the castle of Otranto!’ she calls up.

But it’s Fletcher who appears in the doorway, barring their entry as if he’s never seen them before. Which only makes her shout the louder.

Suddenly, a volley of tiny rocks bounces off their heads and shoulders.

On the balcony above them all, he’s swaying, nightshirt open to his chest, dark hair awry, his face bloated and pale in the dwindling light. He’s picking handfuls of peach stones from a bowl balanced on the wall.

‘Vanquish the hordes who would destroy me!’ he cries, waving a wine goblet in his other hand so that some drops splash down on top of them. He pelts them a few more times, laughing. Mary squeals and Shelley ushers her inside, past Fletcher.

Oh, they’ll never understand Albe, not as Claire does. She picks up a handful of peach stones from the grass, lobs them back at him.

‘The barbarians are at the gates!’ he shouts like an old man, throaty and drunk. But her aim’s too good, for one of the stones strikes him in the eye, and he cries out, ‘You little bitch, you’ve blinded me!’ before stumbling inside.

‘There be none of Beauty’s daughters with a magic like thee,’ she sings, then bites her lip. ‘I didn’t mean to,’ she calls up. But he did start it. She shrugs, picks up her skirts and waltzes into the villa, humming.

In the silent, dark hallway, though, she comes to a standstill, the music in her head falling away. She’s alone, suddenly hesi­tant. Their whole affair has been a dance set to these steps: rush, hesitate, pull back; rush, hesitate, pull back.

The black candelabra beside her is lit, showing up the black-­and-­white tiles of the floor, but the top of the grand stone stairway disappears into darkness.

She’s a single chess piece, waiting for the right move. Fletcher, the rook, has disappeared. The king is upstairs in his room. Mary is queen, though; Claire most definitely is not.

Atheist as she is, she can’t be his bishop. And she’ll not be a pawn in his game. So she’ll be his knight, she decides, and that restores her confidence a little. Maybe she’ll run upstairs to him. Flout his very clear rules about never entering his bedroom uninvited.

A loud cough pulls her, knight-­errant, away from what might be a terrible mistake. In the drawing room, an enormous fire is ablaze, as though evening has fallen already. A second cough draws her eye to the chaise facing the tall, windowed doors.

Polly-­dolly’s lying there, his left arm raised above his head, palm resting on his forehead. He looks like a widowed empress, she thinks, and stifles a giggle. What kind of a doctor is he? His pretty fringed eyelids are closed tight, but his eyelashes twitch. The smell of pear drops filters up on his breath.

‘You might have waited for us,’ she says, nudging his shoulder.

‘I did,’ he squeaks in his high-­pitched voice, a mismatch for his dark, demonic looks. ‘You’re very late. There’ll be no walk now.’

‘I say if there will be a walk or not,’ Albe announces from the doorway. He’s fashioned a neckerchief over his eye like a pirate. She rushes over, full of concern, but he sidesteps and she bumps into Shelley and Mary instead.

‘You’re not blinded at all,’ she says, annoyed at his rudeness. There’s a red wine stain on his chin, and his eyes are crusty with sleep, or the lack of it. His shirt hangs loose – a different one from the night before, but with a similar tear that she imagines has been made by some other, not so long past, grand passion.

‘No thanks to you, madam,’ he says, turning to Shelley to pull him into another room, away from the rest of them.

Jealousy makes her mean; she seizes Mary’s arm, takes her over to Polly-­dolly. Mary’s nearness causes him pain because he cannot have her, and his pain assuages Claire’s.

‘Don’t you think Mary looks very fine this day? She’s bereft at leaving Willmouse behind, so we must cheer her up,’ she says, nudging her stepsister forwards.

Polly-­dolly rises, but he’s dizzy from the opium. He kisses Mary’s hand like a deer nuzzling for scraps. He has a handsome face, foggy and twitching though it is. His delight makes Mary blush; he steers her to the window, whispering and pointing.

Albe and Shelley appear outside in the entrance hall, talking.

Claire is alone, caught between two groups. Wanted by neither.

Lightning flashes; thunder rumbles overhead. Still, nobody attends to her.

She’s a knight – what should be her move now? She can slip to the side, or push straight ahead.

Or stand still, of course.

She fingers the mark on her neck. An idea comes to her. She picks up a glass goblet from a little table, calls out for wine.

Nobody answers. She calls out again.

Mary’s giggling at something Polly-­dolly mutters in her ear. Albe gestures to Shelley, who frowns, listening closely.

She tries a third time. Nothing.

She broods a moment. When the lightning flashes, she drops the glass goblet.

‘Claire!’ Mary cries; Polly-­dolly says, ‘But did a shard of glass – is that a scratch there – dear Mary—’ as he flaps at Mary’s cheek. Shelley asks, ‘What happened?’

And Albe – well, Albe knows what she did, for he was looking in her direction as she did it, and he didn’t try to stop her.

‘Clear it away,’ he says, and for a moment she thinks he’s talking to her. She’s shocked at her own behaviour – why does she behave so differently when he’s there? Bending down, she lifts a piece of broken glass, clutches it in her hand. Its jagged edges pierce her palm. She cries out, and drops the shard just as Fletcher – for he’s the one Albe meant, of course – appears with a brush.

‘It’s only a little cut,’ she says, but already Polly-­dolly’s left the room, returning with a piece of muslin and some balm. He’s a fool, but he can be kind, and she’s grateful – and ashamed, as Albe still ignores her, even when she gestures in his direction. He wants only Shelley, it seems. Polly-­dolly wants only Mary.

The storm saves her, though. For once Fletcher has lit more candles, stoked the fire, brought more glass goblets, poured out wine, they gather together, all five of them. Talk begins of storms, of the differences between Galvani and Volta, of the flow of electricity within animal and human bodies.

She’s no longer apart, or alone.

So even though it’s near midnight before Shelley and Mary remember Willmouse and make their way back down the hill to Chapuis, finally letting her have Albe to herself, she can’t be sorry.

 

When Albe woke at six, though, it was to chase her away as usual.

A few hours later, and they’re all out on the promised walk together. But she’s tired, and because she couldn’t face breakfast, her belly’s grumbling. Polly-­dolly’s prattling at Mary, of course, helping her over the worst spots on the hill as though she’s an invalid. Indeed, there’s a high wall further ahead; Claire struggles over it. Albe shouts at Polly-­dolly, ‘Take care with Mary over the wall!’

She mutters to herself under grey skies. Polly-­dolly can’t see that his suit is useless, that Mary has a five-­month-­old baby whose father is married to another woman. Why does the silly doctor think Mary has room for him? And why must Albe attend to Mary more than to her? His voice is always so much more serious and earnest when he’s in conversation with her sister. Why do they all run after her? Ah, but her mood’s black today!

From far behind, Polly-­dolly’s ministrations filter up. Albe and Shelley stride on ahead.

She’s caught between two groups again.

Claire de lune.

Claire alone.

She scuffs at the scrub under her feet like a child, at the pebbles and weeds that litter the hillside, at the soft webbing of ash that covers the ground and is ruining the bloom of little flowers.

More ruin. Perhaps Albe cares not to see his mark on her. His words to her last night were uttered with a new kind of contempt. There have been many kinds with him so far. A fat contempt, when he’s eaten all he can, and she’s a dish he wants but can’t stomach. A foul contempt, as though she’s the contents of his bedpan but he can’t resist taking a sniff. A maidenly contempt, when he retreats from her like a virgin bride. A vampiric contempt, when only her blood will keep him alive, and he loathes her for it.

‘“But first, on earth as vampire sent; Thy corse shall from its tomb be rent; Then ghastly haunt t. . .