Shelley's Ghost

After Shelley’ death Claire Clairmont travelled first to Vienna and then to Russia, where she worked as a governess and told no one of her eventful past. Years of subsequent travel included a visit to England in 1828, when Mary Shelley told Trelawny ‘[she] still has the faculty of making me more uncomfortable than any human being’. Claire returned to England in 1846, but when her niece Clara married Alexander Knox, a friend of the Shelleys, without her knowledge, she was so anrgy that she broke off all contact with Mary. This letter from Claire to Sir Percy Shelley was written after she heard of Mary’s death. It is full of recrimination – why had he not told her the news? 

My dear Percy

 I have heard to-day that your Mother is dead. I have no wish to add any thing to your affliction, but indeed it was most unkind in you never to let me know she was ill. Most unkind. Now I can never see her more! Many times last winter I made Willy ask of M^rs. Knox of her health, and he always brought back word that M^rs. Knox refused positively to satisfy my wish. After the contemptuous way in which I had been treated in your house, I could not apply personally. Though I am no toady and resent insult, though I am poor and will not put up with indignity from the rich – yet I have as much feeling as others and the loss of an old friend has afflicted me most sensibly. I wish when you are calm to hear all of her last moments – when her illness began and what her illness was – what she said if she knew she would die – if she regretted Life – but oh! no that she could not do. Who that breathes cares for Life? No one can like eternal sorrow and eternal wickedness.

 You were a good son to her and she felt it and it made her happy and that you will find an ineffable consolation in the present moment. She always said – she always wrote – My Percy is the best and dearest of Beings!

 The dreadful treatment I met with from M^rs. Knox, her duplicity her ingratitude broke my heart. I hoped for happiness from the members of my family – I loved them well – I found the bitterest misery. Because I am myself dying I will speak my mind to you. How could you, so good a son, how could you encourage a daughter to every species of undutifulness to her parents – how could you urge her to treat them as if they were the dirt under your her feet. If you knew what my poor brother wrote of the despair that hard girl’s conduct inspired him with. And what he felt when you gave a ball for her wedding and she went to it – at the very time she had plunged a dagger in all our hearts. I saw you born – I nursed you as my own Child – I ever loved you as my Child – and I ever shall – but indeed as truth is truth your want of consideration for my feelings and for my poor Brothers has given me a deadly blow from which I shall never recover.

 The subject makes me so unhappy – it is such irremediable misery – we cannot alter M^rs. Knox’s disposition – we cannot bring back the dead – It is better therefore to join them.

Cl. Clairmont.

75 Gloucester Road
 Hyde Park Gardens.

Sir Percy Shelley; (bequest, 1889) Lady Shelley; (bequest, 1899) Shelley Scarlett (later 5th Baron Abinger) and/or Robert Scarlett (later 6th Baron Abinger); (bequest, 1917) Robert Scarlett, 6th Baron Abinger; (bequest, 1927) Hugh Scarlett, 7th Baron Abinger; (bequest, 1943) James Scarlett, 8th Baron Abinger; (bequest, 2002) James Scarlett, 9th Baron Abinger; (purchase, 2004) Bodleian.

The Clairmont Correpondence ii, pp. 536-7.

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