Death and the Maidens by Janet Todd

Death and the Maidens by Janet Todd

Author:Janet Todd
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2013-06-14T16:00:00+00:00


CHAPTER 18

HARRIET

Despite the immense shock of discovering her husband enthralled by another woman, when Shelley returned from the Continent Harriet wished to keep the connection warm. From Mrs Boinville she had heard of his attentions to Cornelia and Mrs Godwin may have added her suspicions about Fanny. Harriet hoped that her husband was simply going through a phase of acute susceptibility to women. She had seen his wild mood swings with Miss Hitchener and her sister Eliza Westbrook, his enthusiasms and violent disillusionment. He might yet return. She still loved him.

Like the Godwins trusting that the trio would disperse when they reached England, she was disappointed to find them taking lodgings together. But Shelley chose a place, 56 Margaret Street, close to the Westbrooks’ house in Chapel Street; intercourse between them would be easy. Hoping to reclaim her husband, she tried to be amenable and sent books and clothes when he asked.

His publisher Thomas Hookham continued to disapprove of Shelley’s abandonment of Harriet; nonetheless, when they met at her Chapel Street home the two men made up their quarrel. Soon Hookham was dining regularly with Shelley and Mary, though Mary never took to the ‘nasty little man’ and the relationship with Shelley remained uneasy: he would, they discovered, later betray them. Like Fanny in Skinner Street, Hookham must have felt torn between warring parties.

Harriet’s emotions vacillated. Sometimes she wrote lovingly to Shelley, anxious about his health; her care gave her proprietorial feelings, for she knew his fads and needs so intimately. In the beginning she tried to be circumspect where Mary was concerned, knowing her husband’s scorn of female jealousy. But as she lost hope she lashed out at Mary and especially Godwin, seeing them both in league against her; then she withdrew, anxiously fearing that she would lose Shelley irrevocably.

In his turn he upbraided her for not being ‘above the world’. He was, he considered, being kind to her despite his ‘violent and lasting passion for another’. Mary was ‘the noblest and the most excellent of human beings’ and, if Harriet could not accept this, their ‘intimacy’, such as it was, had to end. Near the time of her confinement, Harriet was finding it hard to dwindle quite so quickly from being a wife. There were moments when she utterly despaired.

Shelley’s efforts at borrowing for the upkeep of his household, pregnant Mary and Claire, as well as for Godwin required that he keep his complicated relations secret. Harriet was instructed not to go near a solicitor. When he learnt that she had, he exploded: ‘I was an idiot to expect greatness or generosity from you.’ She was ‘enslaved to the vilest superstitions’ and was lost to him. Stunned, Harriet replied that she had only asked advice, but she could not resist deflecting her hurt into anger at Mary.

Shelley was incensed: ‘Your contumelious language toward Mary is … impotent & mean … I consider it an insult that you address such Cant to me.’ When he next wrote he was forthright: ‘I am united to another; you are no longer my wife.



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