"Is there no hope?" Mary asked, when Trelawny reappeared on July 19. He could not answer, but left the room, and sent the servant to take the children to their widowed mothers. He then, on the 20th, took them from the sound of the cruel waves to the Hunts at Pisa.
Naught remained now but to perform the last funeral rites. Mary decided that Shelley should rest with his dearly-loved son in the English cemetery in Rome. With some little difficulty, Trelawny obtained permission, with the kind assistance of the English Chargé d'Affaires at Florence, Mr. Dawkins, to have the bodies burned on the shore, according to the custom of bodies cast up from the sea, so that the ashes could be removed without fear of infection. The iron furnace was made at Leghorn, of the dimensions of a human body, according to Trelawny's orders; and on August 15 the body of Lieutenant Williams was disinterred from the sand where it had been buried when cast up. Byron recognised him by his clothes and his teeth. The funeral rites were performed by Trelawny by throwing incense, salt, and wine on the pyre, according to classic custom; and when nothing remained but some black ashes and small pieces of white bone, these were placed by Trelawny in one of the oaken boxes he had provided for the purpose, and then consigned to Byron and Hunt. The next day another pyre was raised, and again the soldiers had to dig for the body, buried in lime. When placed in the furnace it was three hours before the consuming body showed the still unconsumed heart, which Trelawny saved from the furnace, snatching it out with his hand; and there, amidst the Italian beauty, on the Italian shore, was consumed the body of the poet who held out immortal hope to his kind, who, in advance of the scientists, held it as a noble fact that humanity was progressive; who, more for this than for his unfortunate first marriage and its unhappy sequel, was banished by his countrymen, and held as nothing by his generation. But, as Claire wrote later in her diary, "It might be said of him, as Cicero said of Rome, 'Ungrateful England shall not possess my bones.'"
The ashes of the body were placed in the oaken box; those of the heart, handed by Trelawny to Hunt, were afterwards given into the possession of Mary, who jealously guarded them during her life, in a place where they were found at her death, in a silken case, in which was kept a Pisan copy of the Adonais. The ashes of Shelley's body were finally buried in the cemetery in Rome, where the grave of the English poet is now one of the strongest links between the present and the past world; and there beside him rest now the ashes of his faithful friend, Trelawny, who survived him nearly sixty years.
CHAPTER XIII.
WIDOWHOOD.
The last ceremony was over, hope, fear, despair, were past, and Mary Shelley had to recommence her life, or death in life, her one solace her little son, her one resource for many years her work. Fortunately for her, her education and her studious habits were a shield against the cold world which she had to encounter, and her accustomed personal economy, which had fitted her to be the worthy companion to her generous husband, whom she had encouraged rather than thwarted in his constantly recurring acts of philanthropy, would help her in her present struggle; and one friend was ready to assist with advice and out of his then slender means, Mr. Trelawny. But from England no help was forthcoming. Godwin's affairs having reached the climax of bankruptcy already referred to, were not likely to settle down easily now that the ever-ready supply was suddenly cut short.
Sir Timothy Shelley was not inclined to continue the terms he made with his son, nor was anything to be arranged but on conditions which Mrs. Shelley could never consent to. Of her despondent state of misery we can judge in her letters of 1822 to Claire, as when she writes from Genoa, September 15, "This hateful Genoa"; and, describing her misery on her husband's death, she exclaims: "Well, I shall have his books and his MSS., and in these I shall live, and from the study of these I do expect some instants of content…. some seconds of exaltation that may render me both happier here, and more worthy of him hereafter." Then, "There is nothing but unhappiness to me, if indeed I except Trelawny, who appears so truly generous and kind…. Nothing but the horror of being a burden to my family prevents my accompanying Jane (to England). If I had any fixed income, I should go at least to Paris, and I shall go the moment I have one." And again in December of the same year she writes to Claire, addressing her as Mdlle. de Clairmont, chez Mdme. de Hennistein, Vienna. She mentions an approach to Sir Timothy, through lawyers, abortive as yet; how she detests Genoa; "Hunt does not like me." Her daily routine is copying Shelley's manuscripts and reading Greek; in her despair, study is her only relief. She sees no one but Lord Byron, and the Guiccioli once a mouth, Trelawny seldom, and he is on the eve of his departure for Leghorn.
Thus we find Mary Shelley going on from day to day, too poor to travel so far as Paris, as yet her child and her work of love on her husband's MS. filling up her time, till in February she had to undergo the mortification of her father-in-law proposing that she should give her son up entirely to him, and in return receive a settled income. But Mary was not of those who can be either bought or sold, and, having the means of subsistence in herself, she could be independent; a letter from her father shows how they were at one on this important subject, and it must have been a great encouragement to her in her loneliness, as she was always diffident of her own powers. However, now her work lay in arranging and copying her husband's MSS., and saving treasures which but for her loving care might have been lost. In the spring of this year, 1823, Trelawny was in Rome arranging Shelley's grave, which he bought with the adjoining ground for himself, and he had the massive slab of stone placed there which still tells of the "Cor cordium" In the autumn of the same year Mary found means for leaving the hated Genoa, and, travelling through France; she stayed for a time at Versailles with her father's old friends, the Kennys, and of this visit one of the daughters, now Mrs. Cox, then a child of about six years, retains a lively and pleasing recollection. Brought up in France and imbued with the idea and pictures of the Madonna and child, the little girl, on seeing Mrs. Shelley arrive with her small son, became impressed with the idea that the pale, sweet, oval-laced lady was the Madonna come to visit them; and this idea was not dispelled by the gentle manner and kind way that she had with the children, reminding one who had been punished by mistake that the next time she was naughty she would have had her punishment in advance. This visit was followed later by the intimacy and friendship of the two families. In London (as we learn from a letter to Miss Holcroft, Mrs. Kenny's daughter, by her previous marriage with Holcroft) Mrs. Shelley was settled at 14, Sheldhurst Street, Brunswick Square. She was then hoping that her father-in-law would make her an allowance sufficient for her to live comfortably in dear Italy; and, at all events, she had received "a present supply, so that much good at least has been accomplished by my journey." She felt quite lost in London, and Percy had not yet learnt English. She had seen Lamb, but he did not remark on her being altered. She would then have returned to Italy, but her father did not like the idea.
Among other work at this time Mary Shelley attempted a drama, but in this her father did not encourage her, as he writes to her in February 1824 that her personages are mere abstractions, not men and women. Godwin does not regret that she has not dramatic talent, as the want of it will save her much trouble and mortification.
This disappointment did not discourage Mary, for in the next year she published, with Henry Colburn of New Burlington Street, her novel The Last Man, of which a second edition appeared in the succeeding year. This must have been a great help to Mary's limited means: she had received four hundred pounds for her previous romance.