It transpired, in the course of conversation, that the father and daughter had decided to settle themselves in Marlow in order to console Bysshe after the death of Harriet. They had rented a house close by but, at Bysshe’s urgent entreaty, they had agreed to take up quarters in Albion House itself. There was room for all, he said, in Albion. I gained the impression that Mr. Godwin was in straitened circumstances and, as a consequence, had welcomed the offer. I wondered, too, if he was also accepting contributions from Bysshe’s purse. Bysshe had not the slightest regard for money.
“I wonder, Mr. Shelley,” Miss Godwin said, “that you keep a boat in this dreadful weather.”
“I have asked you to call me Bysshe.”
“I know. I must learn to forget my manners.” She was a striking young woman, with a mass of black hair descending in curls and ringlets; she had a fine forehead, suggesting a highly developed ideality, and dark expressive eyes. She always looked as if she had just awoken from sleep, and in repose had a dreamy and even passive expression. She looked intently at me as she spoke to me, but would then drift back into some world of private reflection. “Will you join me, Mary, on the water?” Bysshe asked her. “I will show you the delights of the river even in dreadful weather, as you call it. There is an inexpressible comfort in seeing the rain dissolving into the water, and we can shelter beneath the branches of a willow. There is often a mist where the rain and the river are reunited.”
“Will it not be cold?” she asked him.
“Not if you have shawl and bonnet.”
“The hydrologic cycle,” Mr. Godwin said. “There is not one drop of water, more or less, than there was at the creation of the world.”
“Is that not an enchanting thought, Victor?” Bysshe had handed me another glass of Madeira wine. “As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be.”
“You are quoting an old prayer,” I said, “for deliverance.”
“A prayer of celebration, I think.”
“Eternity fills me with dread,” I replied. “It is not to be imagined.”
“Now there, sir,” Mr. Godwin said, “you have touched upon a great truth. Eternity is incomprehensible. Literally so. Even the angels, if such beings exist, cannot envisage it. Every creature that is made is imbued with a sense of ending.”
The conversation continued in this vein for a little longer, until I pleaded tiredness and was taken by a maidservant to my room. She told me that her name was Martha. “Where is Fred?” I asked her.
“He is in the kitchen, sir, tucking into some ham.”
“Not to be disturbed then.”
“Do you need him, sir?”
“No. Not at all. Leave him to his ham. I will see to myself.” I undressed and lay down upon the bed. It was a stormy night, and the rain lashed the windows; I found a certain comfort in the sound, and very quickly fell asleep.
I WAS STARTLED INTO WAKEFULNESS by a prolonged scream coming from some part of the house close to me. It was a shriek of the utmost terror. I took my gown and hastened into the hallway, with many dark thoughts descending upon me. Suddenly Bysshe appeared in his nightshirt, at the other end of the hallway, and beckoned me to come forward. “Did you hear that?” he asked me.
“Who could not?”
“I believe it came from Mary’s room. Here.” He tapped lightly upon the door, whispering her name.
It was opened a few moments later. “I am sorry,” she said. “There is nothing to fear.” She was wearing a white muslin nightgown, but it was not as luminously pale as her face or her trembling hands. She stood uncertainly, and the door remained half-opened. “I dreamed that I saw a phantom by the window. It was a dream. I am certain of it. There was a face.”
“Of course it was a dream, Mary. But dreams may take on the appearance of a terrible reality. You were right to scream.”
“I am sorry to have awoken you. I awoke myself.”
“Think nothing of it. Now try and sleep.”
She closed the door. Bysshe and I returned to our chambers. I had said nothing during this exchange, but it was a long time before I managed to find rest.
ON THE FOLLOWING MORNING Mr. Godwin was in fine spirits. He had slept peacefully through the night, he told us at breakfast, and was feeling “very sound.” Miss Godwin looked pale still; she could not eat, and said very little. “I have been extolling to Martha the virtues of Baxter’s beetroots,” her father was saying. He helped himself to a large portion of kedgeree. “They are sweet. They are tender. They are delicious. They surpass all others in the kingdom. You must remind Martha of them.”
“I have not seen Martha this morning,” Bysshe replied. “She will be at the market.”
“I will speak to her when she returns.”
We did not mention the incident in the night, but I noticed that Miss Godwin and Bysshe exchanged glances of a private kind: I could not help but think that my friend was growing greatly attached to her. After the meal was over Bysshe repeated his proposal for an expedition on the river. The storm had passed, and the sky was clear. What better morning for a jaunt upon the Thames? Mr. Godwin was enthusiastic at the prospect, and so his daughter dutifully assented. I merely followed the general wish.
We sauntered from the house down the main street towards the river. The Godwins walked ahead, and Bysshe took the opportunity of discussing with me the events of the previous night. “Mary has seen phantoms before,” he said.
“Do you mean ghosts? Spirits?”
“No. Creatures that seem to be of flesh and blood. But they are not truly alive. She dreams of them often.”
“She has not seen one in reality?”
“Of course not. Whatever are you thinking?”
“Thinking of nothing.”
“She knows that they exist only in her sleeping mind. But they scare her. Ah, the river beckons.”
Bysshe had hired a skiff for the duration of his stay, and he kept the vessel by Marlow Bridge. It was large enough for us all, and he took the oars with some aplomb, guiding us from the bank into the main current of the river. In his enthusiasm he began to recite a poem that I did not recognise, but that seemed to be of his own composition:
“O stream,
Whose source is inaccessibly profound,
Whither do thy mysterious waters tend?
Thou imagest my life!”
“That is very fine,” Miss Godwin said. She trailed the fingers of her left hand in the water. “Where is the source?”
“Some say that it is Thames Head. Others insist that it lies at Seven Springs. There is great debate about the matter.”
“Which do you favour?” she asked him.
“I do not understand why a river cannot have two sources. A living being requires two parents, does it not?”
“It is believed,” Mr. Godwin said, “that some molluscs are auto-generative.”
“Too painful to contemplate,” Bysshe replied. We passed a small island in the middle of the river, where two swans were resting. “Faithful until death,” he said.
Miss Godwin looked at him for a moment, and then resumed her contemplation of the water. “It used to be said that the swans greeted the ships sailing home with song,” she said to no one in particular. “But how can that be so?”
“Precisely,” Mr. Godwin said. “They are mute swan.”
“I hope to have a swan-like end, fading in music,” Bysshe replied.
“I would rather prefer swan pie.”
So we continued downriver, following the current. Miss Godwin seemed to be lulled to sleep by the movement of the water, and for a moment closed her eyes. I hoped that she was not dreaming of phantoms. “What was that?” Bysshe asked suddenly.
Miss Godwin opened her eyes very wide. “What?”
“Over there. By the bank. I thought something reared its head and then went under the water.”