Whatever may have been Godwin’s degree of responsibility for the opinions which had enabled Shelley to elope in all good faith with his daughter, and which saved her from serious scruple in eloping with Shelley, it would be impossible not to sympathise with the father’s feelings after the event.
People do not resent those misfortunes least which they have helped to bring on themselves, and no one ever derived less consolation from his own theories than did Godwin from his, as soon as they were unpleasantly put into practice. He had done little to win his daughter’s confidence, but he was keenly wounded by the proof she had given of its absence. His pride, as well as his affection, had suffered a serious blow through her departure and that of Jane. For a philosopher like him, accustomed to be looked up to and consulted on matters of education, such a failure in his own family was a public stigma. False and malicious reports got about, which had an additional and peculiar sting from their originating partly in his well-known impecuniosity. It was currently rumoured that he had sold the two girls to Shelley for £800 and £700 respectively. No wonder that Godwin, accustomed to look down from a lofty altitude on such minor matters as money and indebtedness, felt now that he could not hold up his head. He shunned his old friends, and they, for the most part, felt this and avoided him. His home was embittered and spoilt. Mrs. Godwin, incensed at Jane’s conduct, vented her wrath in abuse and invective on Shelley and Mary.
No one has thought it worth while to record how poor Fanny was affected by the first news of the family calamity. It must have reached her in Ireland, and her subsequent return home was dismal indeed. The loss of her only sister was a bitter grief to her; and, strong as was her disapproval of that sister’s conduct, it must have given her a pang to feel that the culpable Jane had enjoyed Shelley’s and Mary’s confidence, while she who loved them with a really unselfish love, had been excluded from it. What could she now say or do to cheer Godwin? How parry Mrs. Godwin’s inconsiderate and intemperate complaints and innuendos? No doubt Fanny had often stood up for Mary with her stepmother, and now Mary herself had cut the ground from under her feet.
Charles Clairmont was at home again; ostensibly on the plea of helping in the publishing business, but as a fact idling about, on the lookout for some lucky opening. He cared no more than did Jane for the family (including his own mother) in Skinner Street: like every Clairmont, he was an adventurer, and promptly transferred his sympathies to any point which suited himself. To crown all, William, the youngest son, had become infected with the spirit of revolt, and had, as Godwin expresses it, “eloped for two nights,” giving his family no little anxiety.
The first and immediate result of Shelley’s letter to Godwin was a visit to his windows by Mrs. Godwin and Fanny, who tried in this way to get a surreptitious peep at the three truants. Shelley went out to them, but they would not speak to him. Late that evening, however, Charles Clairmont appeared. He was to be another thorn in the side of the interdicted yet indispensable Shelley. He did not mind having a foot in each camp, and had no scruples about coming as often and staying as long as he liked, or in retailing a large amount of gossip. They discussed William’s escapade, and the various plans for the immuring of Jane, if she could be caught. This did not predispose Jane to listen to the overtures subsequently made to her from time to time by her relatives.
Godwin replied to Shelley’s letter, but declined all further communication with him except through a solicitor. Mrs. Godwin’s spirit of rancour was such that, several weeks later, she, on one occasion, forbade Fanny to come down to dinner because she had received a lock of Mary’s hair, probably conveyed to her by Charles Clairmont, who, in return, did not fail to inform Mary of the whole story. In spite, however, of this vehement show of animosity, Shelley was kept through one channel or another only too well informed of Godwin’s affairs. Indeed, he was never suffered to forget them for long at a time. No sign of impatience or resentment ever appears in his journal or letters. Not only was Godwin the father of his beloved, but he was still, to Shelley, the fountain-head of wisdom, philosophy, and inspiration. Mary, too, was devoted to her father, and never wavered in her conviction that his inimical attitude proceeded from no impulse of his own mind, but that he was upheld in it by the influence and interference of Mrs. Godwin.
The journal of Shelley and Mary for the next few months is, in its extreme simplicity, a curious record of a most uncomfortable time; a medley of lodgings, lawyers, money-lenders, bailiffs, wild schemes, and literary pursuits. Penniless themselves, they were yet responsible for hundreds and thousands of pounds of other people’s debts; there was Harriet running up bills at shops and hotels and sending her creditors on to Shelley; Godwin perpetually threatened with bankruptcy, refusing to see the man who had robbed him of his daughter, yet with literally no other hope of support but his help; Jane Clairmont now, as for years to come, entirely dependent on them for everything; Shelley’s friends quartering themselves on him all day and every day, often taking advantage of his love of society and intellectual friction, of Mary’s youth and inexperience and compliant good-nature, to live at his expense, and, in one case at least, to obtain from him money which he really had not got, and could only borrow, at ruinous interest, on his expectations. He had frequently to be in hiding from bailiffs, change his lodgings, sleep at friends’ houses or at different hotels, getting his letters when he could make a stealthy appointment to meet Mary, perhaps at St. Paul’s, perhaps at some street corner or outside some coffee-house,—anywhere where he might escape observation. He was not always certain how far he could rely on those whom he had considered his friends, such as the brothers Hookham. Rightly or wrongly, he was led to imagine that Harriet, from motives of revenge, was bent on ruining Godwin, and that for this purpose she would aid and abet in his own arrest, by persuading the Hookhams in such a case to refuse bail. The rumour of this conspiracy was conveyed to the Shelleys in a note from Fanny, who, for Godwin’s sake and theirs, broke through the stern embargo laid on all communication.
Yet through all these troubles and bewilderments there went on a perpetual under-current of reading and study, thought and discussion. The actual existence was there, and all these external accidents of circumstance, the realities in ordinary lives were, in these extraordinary lives, treated really as accidents, as passing hindrances to serious purpose, and no more.
Nothing but Mary’s true love for Shelley and perfect happiness with him could have tided her over this time. Youth, however, was a wonderful helper, added to the unusual intellectual vigour and vivacity which made it possible for her, as it would be to few girls of seventeen, to forget the daily worries of life in reading and study. Perhaps at no time was the even balance of her nature more clearly manifested than now, when, after living through a romance that will last in story as long as the name of Shelley, her existence revolutionised, her sensibilities preternaturally stimulated, having taken, as it were, a life’s experiences by cumulation in a few months; weak and depressed in health, too, she still had sufficient energy and self-control to apply herself to a solid course of intellectual training.
Jane’s presence added to their unsettlement, although at times it may have afforded them some amusement. Wilful, fanciful, with a sense of humour and many good impulses, but with that decided dash of charlatanism which characterised the Clairmonts, and little true sensibility, she was a willing disciple for any wild flights of fancy, and a keen participator in all impossible projects and harum-scarum makeshifts. Her presence stimulated and enlivened Shelley, her whims and fancies did not seriously affect, beyond amusing him, and she was an indefatigable companion for him in his walks and wanderings, now that Mary was becoming less and less able to go about. To Mary, however, she must often have been an incubus, a perpetual third, and one who, if sometimes useful, often gave a great deal of trouble too. She did not bring to Mary, as she did to Shelley, the charm of novelty; nor does the unfolding of one girl’s character present to another girl whose character is also in process of development such attractive problems as it does to a young and speculative man. Mary was too noble by nature and too perfectly in accord with Shelley to indulge in actual jealousy of Jane’s companionship with him; still, she must often have had a weary time when those two were scouring the town on their multifarious errands; misunderstandings, also, would occur, only to be removed by long and patient explanation. Jane (or “Clara,” as about this time she elected to call herself, in preference to her own less romantic name) was hardly more than a child, and in some respects a very childish child. Excitable and nervous, she had no idea of putting constraint upon herself for others’ sake, and gave her neighbours very little rest, as she preferred any amount of scenes to humdrum quiet. She and Shelley would sit up half the night, amusing themselves with wild speculations, natural and supernatural, till she would go off into hysterics or trances, or, when she had at last gone to bed, would walk in her sleep, see phantoms, and frighten them all with her terrors. In the end she was invariably brought to poor Mary, who, delicate in health, had gone early to rest, but had to bestir herself to bring Jane to reason, and to “console her with her all-powerful benevolence,” as Shelley describes it.