Free Hideous Love: The Story of the Girl Who Wrote Frankenstein by Stephanie Hemphill Page A

SALE
    HarperCollins Publishers
    .....................................................................
    THE HUNTS’ ARRIVAL
    June–July 1822
The Hunts and their six children
finally land in Italy at Genoa
on the twentieth of June.
Shelley rejoices
that they are finally here
and he and Edward
make plans to sail
to meet them in Genoa.
Marianne Hunt is very ill,
but so too am I,
and I entreat Shelley
please not to go.
But my pleas
are as cries to the deaf,
seen but not heard.
The Hunts change their plans
and decide they will go to Livorno,
so Shelley, Edward, Captain Roberts,
and Charles Vivian, their
one-boy crew,
will sail to meet them there.
I beg Shelley not to go again,
but he refuses me
as though I am but a nagging fly
in this oppressive summer heat.
Before he leaves,
Shelley promises me he will
look for new lodging for us
at Pugnano for the rest of the summer.
This calms me a little
like a handkerchief
offered to the mourning.
Still I have a mind to pack up
Percy and head to Pisa myself.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
    HarperCollins Publishers
    .....................................................................
    NO GOOD NEWS FOR MARY
    July 1822
On July fourth a most upsetting
letter arrives from Shelley
that he will not in fact
look for a new house at Pugnano
and he cannot say when he will return.
He wishes that I stay in Lerici
where I am in such agony
under the scorching sun
and without him.
He tells me he and Hunt
had a joyous reunion
in Livorno after not seeing
each other for four years.
They then traveled to Pisa,
where the Hunts were installed
in the apartments set aside
for them in Byron’s palazzo.
Marianne is said to be in grave
health and all are concerned
for her, the travel has made
her so very weak.
I understand how she feels.
Also the Hunts
are destitute and fully dependent
on the idea of living off the profits
from this new journal Hunt
is to edit with Byron.
Byron tires of the idea
of the journal
before it is even begun.
Byron contemplates leaving
Tuscany altogether, because
Teresa and her family
face trouble here
after the whole Masi affair.
Shelley mends the broken
bond over the journal,
like a tailor stitching up
a tattered suit,
and Byron agrees to stay in Pisa.
But my Shelley maneuvers
much negotiation on Hunt’s behalf.
Edward wishes to return to Jane
here in Lerici, as would be
expected of a husband.
I send the saddest of letters
to my Shelley in his absence.
Shelley writes letters to Jane
worried about how she handles
her solitary and melancholy,
but he directs
no sympathy to me.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
    HarperCollins Publishers
    .....................................................................
    THEN
    July 1822
I lie back against
my mother’s gravestone,
and Shelley runs
his fingers through
my fine red hair.
The limbs of the willow
embrace us
with their verdant arms.
His wild eyes
blaze with a passion
I have never known
like a thousand
acres aflame.
I want to say something,
but Shelley
seals my lips.
“All words fail
this moment,”
he says.
I fervently nod my head.
I hear a small whimper
like the wind’s whistling cry.
“Mama.”
I push the covers
from my bed.
I was reveling
in a lovely dream.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
    HarperCollins Publishers
    .....................................................................
    THE STORM
    July 8, 1822
The Ariel sets sail from Livorno
to come back to Lerici.
The only people aboard
are Shelley, Williams,
and the crew boy, Charles Vivian.
Captain Roberts sees
the ship take leave
and watches some ominous clouds
form on the horizon.
After an hour,
through his telescope Roberts
views a storm come up
and swears he saw the ship
take down its topsails.
But I’m not sure,
for without a deck
and with sails hard to bring down,
even a small but sudden
gust of wind could upset the Ariel .
And my Shelley cannot swim.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
    HarperCollins