In the intellectual atmosphere of Florence, Mary began to take a new interest in life. At the boarding-house she “mixed a little with the people downstairs.” She got through the birth-time quickly and well. When once more she found herself with a baby in her arms, she smiled for the first time since the death of William.
She had her son christened Percy Florence.
CHAPTER XXVIII
“ANY WIFE TO ANY HUSBAND”
Everything in life comes in series. One friend brings another. Mary and Percy, after suffering so much from loneliness, suddenly found themselves, without having sought it, the centre of a gay and pleasant circle.
Chance had worked the miracle. First of all Shelley had begun to suffer again from the pain in his side. The wind from the Apennines, so boisterous in Florence during the winter, tried him greatly, and the doctor recommended Pisa as more sheltered.
Tom Medwin, one of his cousins, came to join him there. Medwin had been in a dragoon regiment in India, from which he was now retired with the rank of Captain. He had literary aspirations, and on this account sought the society of the only literary member of the family. He was a good fellow, though a deadly bore, but he introduced to the Shelleys a charming couple, the Williamses.
Edward Williams, after three years in the Navy, had exchanged from that branch of the service into the 8th Dragoon Guards, then quartered in India, where he had made Medwin’s acquaintance. He had been obliged to sell out, he always explained, because of his health. Frank, fearless, quite without side, and interested in everything, the Shelleys liked him extremely, and they found his wife charming. She was a very pretty woman with much sweetness of manner, and an excellent musician. The two couples became great friends and at last the Shelleys knew the delights of informal visiting, of ungrudging admiration and praise, and of the perfect confidence which makes the joy of any real friendship.
The moment a social circle exists it attracts to its centre all the lonely souls drifting round its circumference. Thus, came Taaffe, the Irish count; Mavrocordato, the Greek prince; and an extraordinary Italian priest with the diabolic and piercing eye of a Venetian inquisitor. This was the reverend professor, Pacchiani, known as the Devil of Pisa, abbé without religion, professor without a chair, amateur of women and pictures, antiquary, pimp, dilettante, and go-between in general.
Always with some palazzo or other to let, he would take his commission from the tenant as well as from the landlord; he would warmly recommend a teacher of Italian, and divide with him the price paid for the lessons; to the rich Englishman passing through Venice he would give, in strictest confidence, the address of a marquese wishing to sell an Andrea del Sarto.
On familiar terms in every house the moment he had got his foot within the door, he called Mary and her friend Jane, “la belle Inglese,” and amused them by telling them tales of the great ladies of Pisa, to whom he was father confessor and tame cat.