Free Angelmonster by Veronica Bennett

empty, though the “Closed” sign was not on the door. I tried the handle. The door was locked.
    Trembling with frustration, tinged with the self-pity of one whose secret pessimism has been proved correct, I walked back to the lodgings Shelley had found for us.
    He was sitting in a too-small chair, his long legs folded inelegantly beneath him, writing furiously. When I came in he did not look up.
    “It is exactly as I said it would be,” I announced. “My father will not see me.”
    He still did not cease from his task, nor did he look at me. His eyes had the glossy look of inspiration flowing faster than the ink. I doubted he even heard my words.
    Going into the bedroom, I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror.
    Women in my condition were supposed to look plumper than usual. But I was so thin that when I had dressed to visit Mama and Papa that morning, I had had to tie a sash under my bosom to pull in the excess material of my gown. Women in my condition were supposed to look radiant, and expectant in every sense of the word. But my face looked stricken. Pale, shadowed, bony.
    I sank on my knees beside the bed, clutching the bed covers in my fists, refusing to cry. The truth was, I had been dealt a blow more painful than any physical injury. My beloved father, on whose selfless affection I had depended for my entire motherless life, had banished me from his house.
    How alone I felt, kneeling there on that threadbare carpet. Jane had been welcomed back into the arms of her mama. Shelley, lost in poetry, was careless of the fact that the man he had hoped would be his patron was now implacably opposed to him. I would have to face this calamity without his help.
    “Mary, what is the matter?” came his voice from the doorway. “Are you unwell?”
    “No.” I tried to rise, but my foot caught on my gown. “I am quite well.”
    He helped me from my knees to the bed. He sat down on its edge and embedded his fingers energetically in his hair. “I have been composing,” he said.
    “Yes, I know.”
    “I am writing of Prometheus.”
    “Prometheus?”
    “In Greek mythology, the demigod who created mankind out of clay and stole fire from Zeus to enable them to live. I cannot stop thinking about the alchemist Herr Keffner spoke of, who wanted to create a living man. My poem is about the triumph of freedom over oppression, to show that mankind –”
    He stopped, his curls still tangled around his hands. He had at last remembered where I had been. “Where is Jane?” he asked.
    I answered with a shrug.
    “Was she admitted to your father’s house, while you were not?” he asked, horror-struck.
    I nodded miserably.
    The mattress juddered as Shelley slapped his palms down on it in frustration. After a moment’s thought, he jumped up and walked about the room. “Mary,” he exclaimed, “the man is a scoundrel! You are better off away from him.”
    “My father is not a scoundrel,” I told him calmly.
    He sat down again. “Deluded, then.”
    “Yes, deluded.”
    His eyes were pensive, looking at nothing. After a long pause, he said, “Perhaps we should go back to Europe. Perhaps we should never have come home.”
    There was a weary edge to his voice. My despair began to trickle away, and I embraced him. He responded immediately, as if he had been starved of physical contact for years. He was indeed a child, or an animal. He did what came naturally to him. To his cost, perhaps.
    I let him kiss me and put his hands on me as much as he wanted. When he next spoke, his voice was calm again. “This reminds me of that day in the churchyard, when I took you for the first time. The grass stains on my shirt never came out.”
    “No matter! No one would notice them among all the other stains.”
    “Why do you scold me so?” he asked.
    “Because
someone
has to scold you, or you would be even worse than you are.”
    He kissed me again. “And do you remember that I told you it was my birthday?”
    “Of course. How could I