When it shall be produced to the world, it will be time enough to give an opinion whether this marvellous letter was written by Claire to screen Mary from her father’s censure; or at a later time to whitewash her sister Mary in the eyes of Sussex society; or was a fabrication, for which Claire was in no degree accountable. Should it appear that Claire really wrote the letter, it will only be additional evidence of her faculty for fibbing. To support the letter’s manifest untruths, with words written by Mary (who, as we have seen, was often curiously inaccurate in her biographical statements), or with words written by Shelley (who seldom let a month pass without penning something wholly devoid of historic truth about himself or his affairs), would be only to produce evidence of a conspiracy to impose an untruth on human credulity, for some purpose or other.
My way of dealing inferentially with admitted facts is this: On flashing in upon her sister and Shelley at Bishopgate, with joy in her face, Claire told them at once that she had won the great Byron’s heart, and was holding the place, for which Lady Byron had been found unworthy. On learning from her how she and Byron had arranged to journey to Geneva by different routes, in order that public attention should not be called to their movements and purpose, Shelley and Mary Godwin consented readily to her prayer, that they would take her out to her lover. In brief, this is my view of the case. Let readers decide for themselves, whether they should accept the view as reasonable or reject it as the reverse. What motive can Claire have had for concealing her tender and romantic intercourse with Byron from her sister Mary, living in Free Love with Shelley? Why should Claire have hesitated to avow her friendship with Byron to the poet and social reformer, who had taught alike, by precept and practice, that love should be free; that the love which yearned for marriage was the only sanction its marriage needed. The only motives a girl in Claire’s position could have for holding her passion from her sister’s knowledge would be motives of shame and delicacy. Such motives cannot be supposed to have influenced Claire’s action to her sister-by-affinity; the girl with whom she had studied Queen Mab’s views about marriage, and the Chevalier Lawrence’s Empire of the Nairs; the spouse of a man to whom she was not married; the mother of a child who in the law’s eye, from one point of view, was no one’s child. What could Shelley discover of evil in Claire’s attachment to Byron? The thing he approved for himself was no thing for Shelley to disapprove in Byron’s case. The course which was virtuous for Mary, could not strike him as vicious for Mary’s sister.
Mr. Froude writes disdainfully of Claire’s probable presumption in ‘perceiving the analogy of Byron’s and Shelley’s situation.’ Mr. Froude remarks also that, ‘so far from Claire’s position being like that of Mary Godwin, it must have appeared to Shelley rather a hideous parody of it.’ Why a hideous parody? The cases were too similar for the resemblance to have escaped any one of the trio. Shelley had quarrelled with his wife and was living with another woman. Byron had differed from his wife and was attached to another woman. Separated from their wives by what is called ‘amicable arrangement,’ both poets were living in Free Contract with girls they could not marry. The similar cases had no doubt their points of dissimilarity. But on the whole these points tell in Byron’s favour. In taking Claire under his protection, he had not seduced a girl no more than sixteen years of age. He had not carried off by stealth the child of his most intimate friend. Nor had he taken such pains to win Claire as Shelley took to capture Mary. It is not certain when and how Byron made Claire’s acquaintance. On this point there are two different stories; one of them representing that he saw her for the first time at a point of Oxford Street, to which he had come at her written request; the other and more reliable story being that their first interview occurred at Drury Lane Theatre, under circumstances set forth in The Real Lord Byron. Anyhow the poet’s capture of the giddy and clever girl was an easy conquest, whereas Shelley’s triumph over Mary was a very difficult business. In palliation of Claire’s evil behaviour it should be remembered, that she did not act thus lightly until Shelley had educated her out of her early views, and that in becoming Byron’s mistress she followed an example set her by Mary.
Though in my Real Lord Byron I followed previous biographers in saying Shelley and Byron met for the first time at Geneva, I am by no means confident that they had no intercourse in England before setting out for their separate journeys to the same foreign capital. Under the known circumstances it would be so natural for the poets to have a personal conference in the earlier weeks of April, 1816; that far from causing me surprise, it would only fulfil one of my reasonable expectations, to come upon documentary evidence of their having met in London shortly before Byron sailed for Ostend. For the present, however, readers must be content with the assurance that Shelley and Byron came together at the Sécheron Hotel on the 25th of May, 1816.
Having consented to accompany Claire to Geneva, Shelley, in his preparations for the journey, acted as though he were especially desirous to prevent his most familiar friends from discovering or suspecting the real object of the expedition. Had he felt no need for secrecy he would surely have told so close a friend as Peacock whither he and Mary were going, and the purpose of the trip. He would have said, ‘Mary’s sister, who went abroad with us last July twelve months, is set on going to Geneva, and has persuaded us to take her there.’ But for some reason he withheld the real purpose of the trip, and went abroad under cover of misstatements.
It must have been a day of early April, 1816 (though Peacock calls it a day of ‘early summer’), that witnessed a curious scene in the library of the Bishopgate cottage. Bethinking himself that he would take a mid-day stroll, Peacock (a visitor at the cottage) went for his hat to the hall, where he saw Shelley’s small hat, but looked in vain for his own large hat. As he did not care to walk about the country hatless, Peacock returned to the library, where he was joined by Mary Godwin, who at once gave him the particulars of certain stirring news, brought that very morning to Shelley by Mr. Williams, of Tremadoc; the particulars thus passed on by Mary having just come to her from Shelley’s lips. Instead of showing any excitement at the stirring news, Peacock took Mary’s gossip coolly, and declared frankly he could not believe Mr. Williams had been to the house, or believe Shelley had received the news from the Welsh agent. Slightly astonished, and perhaps slightly nettled at Peacock’s incredulity, Mary Godwin withdrew from the library. A few minutes later, Shelley (with Peacock’s big hat in his hand) entered the room. Now for the scene between the calm, sagacious, stolid Peacock, and the tall, slight, round-shouldered, stag-eyed, fresh-complexioned, boyish Shelley.
For the full enjoyment of the combat between the two poets, readers must go to an article preserved in Peacock’s Collected Works. In answer to a remark by his companion, Peacock admitted his inability to believe the account Mary had given him of Mr. Williams’s brief visit. Insisting on the truth of the story, Shelley declared that he had seen Mr. Williams and walked with him to Egham, adding (in reply to a question by Peacock) that, during the walk to Egham, he wore the hat he still held in his hand. On discovering how far too big the hat was for his small head, Shelley admitted having snatcht it up hastily, and remarked that perhaps, instead of wearing it, he had carried it in his hand the whole way to Egham and back. Peacock may well have smiled; it being, of course, obvious to him, that Shelley had snatched up the wrong hat, only a minute or two since, to put himself into walking costume, and give himself the appearance of having just returned from a walk.
Seeing that the hat-trick had only confirmed Peacock in his disbelief of the story, Shelley pleaded how hard it was for him, a man who had devoted his life to the pursuit of truth, and made great sacrifices and suffered much for the truth, to be treated as a visionary. It was thus that Shelley mistook himself for a martyr, and required his friends to regard him as a martyr for the truth’s sake. How had he proved his devotion to truth? The only sacrifices he had ever made of his interests were made from altogether selfish considerations. He had sacrificed his future interest in his grandfather’s property, in order to preserve his interest in A and B, on which he could raise money for his immediate use. He had sacrificed a little of his interest in A and B, in order to get an immediate income of 1000l. a-year. Seeing how little Peacock was affected by the plea in misericordiam, Shelley proposed that on the morrow they should go to London, and call on Mr. Williams. ‘He told me,’ said Shelley, ‘he was stopping at the Turk’s Head Coffee-house in the Strand, and should be there two days.’ Mr. Williams, of course, had told him nothing of the kind. Catching at the suggestion, Peacock declared he would willingly go to Mr. Williams, for proof that the marvellous story was a true story.
In accordance with this arrangement Peacock and Shelley set forth the next morning, to call on Mr. Williams at the Turk’s Head Coffee-house; Shelley (an excellent walker) putting forth his foot bravely, with the air of a man confident of achieving the purpose of the walk to London. But on getting half-way down Egham Hill, Shelley stayed the march to town by turning suddenly on his companion with a declaration, that after all he did not think they would find Mr. Williams at the Turk’s Head. Peacock declared himself of the same opinion. Still holding to his invention, but altering it in an important particular, Shelley explained that, when declaring his purpose to stay two days at the hotel, Mr. Williams had mentioned a contingency, which might cause him to leave London before night. To this explanation the merciless Peacock replied, that all the same they might, by going up to town, learn at the hotel whether Mr. Williams had been there. The suggestion was not acceptable to Shelley. Shrinking from the proposal to put the truth of his story to the test, he declared he would find some other way of convincing his incredulous friend. He would write to Mr. Williams on the matter. For the present, it would be more agreeable to him to stroll about the forest than walk along the road to London.
Peacock assenting with a scarcely perceptible smile, the walk to London was given up, and the friends passed the day in the forest.