Unfortunately Hunt’s immediate contact with Byron was far from pleasant. Although Byron considered Hunt’s political ideas extreme, nevertheless he had a sort of protective affection for him, considering him an honest writer, a good father and husband, a decent sort of fellow. But he had never been able to endure Hunt’s wife, whom he considered a dowdy and disagreeable woman as impertinent as she was silly. Marianne Hunt was a type of the equalitarian who can never for a moment forget inequalities. To show that she was not impressed by Byron’s wealth and position, she treated him with an insolence that a chimney-sweep would not have tolerated. With the kind-hearted and charming Countess Guiccioli she put on the airs and graces of an outraged British matron.
Byron remained courteous, but became glacial. At the end of twenty-four hours he could endure no more. Seven disorderly children romped up and down the Palazzo, spoiling everything. “A Kraal of Hottentots, dirtier and more mischievous than Yahoos.” He looked with disgust on such human vermin, and put his big bull-dog to guard the staircase: “Don’t let any little cockneys pass our way!” he told him and patted his head.
Already he was sick of the newspaper.
Shelley, who should have left the same day, could not forsake Hunt without having settled the business. He got round Byron, lectured Marianne, consoled poor Hunt, and delayed his departure from day to day until everything was arranged. His tenacity always triumphed over Byron’s haughty lassitude.
He obtained the promise that the first number of the new paper should have the copyright of The Vision of Judgment which Byron had recently finished. This would give Hunt a first-rate send-off.
Williams, waiting at Leghorn, grew impatient and testy. Never before, he complained, had he been separated from his wife for so many days. Shelley sent him letter after letter to explain the delay.
The July heat was suffocating; “le soleil d’ltalie au rire impitoyable.” The peasants stopped working in the fields from ten to five. There was a water shortage, and processions of priests carried round miraculous statues and prayed for rain.
On the morning of the 8th, Trelawny and Shelley arrived from Pisa. They went to Shelley’s bank, made purchases for the housekeeping at Casa Magni, and then the two friends and Williams went down to the harbour. Trelawny wanted to accompany the Ariel on the Bolivar. The sky was clouding over, and a light wind blowing in the direction of Lerici. Captain Roberts predicted a storm. Williams, who was in a hurry to be off, declared that in seven hours they would be at home.
At midday Shelley, Williams, and Charles Vivian were on board the Ariel. Trelawny on the Bolivar was getting ready too. The guard-boat boarded them to overhaul their papers: “La barchetta Don Juan? Il capitano Percy Shelley? Va bene.”
Trelawny, who had not got his port-clearance, tried to brazen it out. The officer of the Health Office threatened him with fourteen days’ quarantine. He proposed to go instantly and obtain the clearance papers, but Williams, fretting and fuming, would not hear another word. There was no more time to be lost. It was two o’clock already, and there was so little wind they would have great difficulty in reaching home before night.