Most of the inn’s occupants are abed; being a Wednesday, the town was not very lively this evening, given over to card parties and boxes at the theatre in New Road—tho’ I have an idea that the better part of the populace was gathered privately, in a multitude of salons, to talk over the scandalous news of murder. But to return to the scene in Scrope Davies’s drawing-room—
Lord Byron was drinking claret as he lay on the sopha, nursing a bottle to himself. His bloodshot eyes moved dully over our party, but at his friend Davies coming forward to bow to the Earl and Countess—clearly astounded that Swithin had not come alone, as his card had suggested, but had actually brought his wife, not to mention a pair of strangers—Byron forced himself upright, and set the bottle between his feet.
I tried not to stare at these; one, his right, was perceptibly deformed. His lordship is said to be morbidly anxious on the subject of lameness.
“Our intimate friends,” the Earl said to Scrope Davies carelessly, “Mr. and Miss Austen.”
“Pleasure,” Davies murmured, looking about him with a wild air, as tho’ we four had stumbled upon an orgy. “Countess, I had no notion—beg you will forgive the general air of disorder—I live as a bachelor, as you no doubt know—believe you are acquainted with Mr. Hodge.…”
Upon hearing his name, this gentleman shot our uncertain group a sharp look and said, “Mona, your servant. Miss Austen,” and went back to throwing his dice. The sandy-haired Runner who cast against him swore loudly and fluently, without a thought for ourselves, and slammed his free hand upon the table. “That’s seven pounds you’ve stolen from me!” he cried. “I shall have to sell me pistols.”
“I would not have you do so for the world,” Hodge replied in a bored tone, “for then Byron should be killed; and there would be no end to the women laying blame at my door. Let’s throw again—Luck’s the very Devil, but it changes as swift as affection.”
The Earl of Swithin, meanwhile, had bowed to the dissipated figure on the sopha. “My felicitations, George. You came out of the morning’s affair rather well. Have you any notion of when you may be released from your obligations to the Law, and return to London?”
“None,” the gentleman said curtly. “The magistrate is a fool. Mona, have you had a letter from Lady Oxford?”
“We expect her every hour,” the Countess said. “Pray dine with us this evening; there shall be no one but yourselves.”
“She means to stay with you, then?”
“So I understand.”
“Bloody hell,” Byron said heavily. “I wish she had not got it into her head to come here. She shall be subject to every sort of insult—and from that I would preserve her at any cost. The rabble of Brighton are nothing, you know, to its haut ton. They may freeze the blood of Satan’s imp at a single glance; and my poor Jane shall be held in abhorrence, being known for an enemy of the Regent’s. The office of maîtresse to a murderer is as nothing to it. Well, we have given them something to chatter about, at least! Society is now one polished horde / Formed of two mighty tribes, the Bores and / Bored.”
“Byron, I believe you’re foxed,” Swithin observed.
“What’s drinking, quoth he? A mere pause from thinking. And why should I not be drunk?” his lordship demanded belligerently. “It is of a piece with all the rest. Do you not know me for a hellhound? Is that Miss Austen, did’ye say? Miss Jane Austen?”
“That is my Christian name,” I returned calmly, “but how you are in possession of it, I know not.”
“I am by way of being a collector of Janes,” Byron replied coolly. He reached for his bottle and drank deeply of claret. “Augustas, Annabelles, Ara … Ara … bellas; such a multitude of vowels as women employ! Give me plain Jane any day.”
“Or … Catherine, perhaps?”
The poet lifted sodden eyes to mine. “She declined to be collected. As you yourself observed. We last met, I believe, in a stable yard in Cuckfield—tho’ I should not call it so much as a bowing acquaintance.”
“And yet, you know my name.”
He smiled secretly to himself, the leer of a successful Cupid. “I can get anything from the mouths of ladies, my sweet; they fall over themselves to offer me confidences. Eliza was one of those.”
Startled, I stared at him narrowly. Could it be possible he spoke of my late sister?
“Did they not inform you I’ve a taste for older women? Married, where possible, but I have been known to violate my principles. Indeed, I only hold principles that they might be violated.”
“Sir!” Henry said through his teeth. “Consider what you say!”
Byron allowed his glittering gaze to drift over my brother. “I do not like your face,” he said. “It suggests stupidity, without the redemptive air of Fashion. Indeed, Mr. Austen, in you I smell the shop. With your wife it was otherwise. Stiled herself a comtesse, did she not? I wonder what Mona has to say to that.”
Henry stiffened, but the Earl grasped his sleeve with a strong hand. “Do not regard him,” he said in a lowered tone. “He is far too well to live, at present. I shall urge Davies to wrest the bottle from him presently, and put him to bed.”
“Miss Austen,” Byron sang out from his sopha-throne, “I should like to speak with you, for all you look so melancholy. Do you go in mourning for your life—all its hope of love long since lost—or for some nearer being? Come, sit beside me. I do not reek of spirits yet; I promise I shall not drown you.”
I had a strong impulse to slap him, man of five-and-twenty tho’ he was; yet a burning spark in his eye and a dangerous throb of feeling beneath the rude words piqued my interest. This was the man who had bound Catherine Twining with a cravat; this the man who had sailed on, regardless, as Caro Lamb foundered in the sea. What impulse of destruction rode him like a monkey? What would he not risk, of the lives of others—and why did danger draw him like strong drink? Was he capable of seeking the final proof of his violent impulses—capable, even, of murder?
“Let us go, Jane,” Henry urged in a lowered tone. “I do not like this fellow. I do not like him at all.”
“You should do me the greatest service, my dear,” I murmured, “if you would but cultivate Scrope Davies. He is too plausible a foil for his lordship by half. Learn what you can of him. And leave Byron to me.”
Before he could protest, I gathered my skirts and glided towards the listing figure of the poet, whose delicate fingers—quite beautiful—caressed the neck of his wine bottle.
“Tell me how you know my name,” I demanded quietly as I adopted a position beside him on the sopha.
“The ambitious must always know their rivals.” It might have been a cherished aphorism, so swiftly did the phrase fall from his lips; and then he glanced up, to hold my gaze with his own. The dark intensity of that look, the unnerving penetration—the impression immediately received, that I alone existed for this man, that he breathed for me and me entirely—was almost overpowering. It was as tho’ a swift magnetic bond had formed between us, dragging me within his orbit, a bond I was incapable of breaking. The room and its several occupants slid effortlessly away; I heard the distant chatter as through a roaring in my ears; I might have been falling into the dark pools of those eyes, and all they promised of passionate annihilation. I was aware, as I had not been a few moments previous, of the rapidity of my pulse, the wave of heat rising in my frame, the sudden parting of my lips to protest or plead—all involuntary, all ungovernable. It was impossible that my body should thus betray me—should throw me into the power of one I despised, indeed! And yet, each fibre of my rebellious being strained towards that pale countenance, that burning gaze.
I apprehended in an instant how a Caro Lamb might crave such thralldom; how to enter a room Byron owned was to breathe a more electric air. How, my reeling mind stuttered, had Catherine Twining been proof against such a man? What better angel had sustained her? Impossible to ignore Byron’s will!
A faint smile formed at his lips; he was waiting for my reply. What was it
he had said?—That the ambitious always knew their rivals?
“I do not understand you,” I gasped.
The smile widened. “Was there ever so fickle a tongue as that of woman? You understand me too well, I suspect. Nothing has been so praised or sought as Pride and Prejudice since Scott last cast his wretched verses upon the adoring public; and therefore it was imperative in me to pierce the veil of A Lady.—Is that not your captious name, my Jane? For shame, for shame, to disavow it! How could you deny your own child, and at birth? I call it missish, a sort of prudery and deceit that will not be borne! If you will write, then proclaim your words to the World! Let the avid ghouls of Bond Street and Pall Mall know to whom they owe the mirror of Mrs. Bennet, in all her mercenary glory!”
My eyes dropped; I drew a shuddering breath, and regained some shred of composure. “How can you know this?” I demanded. “Whom have I trusted, that ought rather to be suspected?”
“Do not make yourself anxious—I am sure dear Eliza carried your secret to the grave,” he said. “—But for the one exception all women must make, soon or late—myself.” Of course. She would have felt it immediately: that quivering, seductive bond—that cord impossible to break. In her dying state it would have been as life-blood to Eliza, to brave a rout party where Byron lounged, merely to have his gaze meet hers and feel, for an instant at least, more alive and ardent than she should ever feel again.
“My relations with the frailer sex rarely conform to rules, you know,” he said, “and they have next to nothing to do with vows. I am sure she meant to keep her promises most faithfully—but poor Eliza was a butterfly creature, susceptible to flattery and the influence of fashion; I was all the rage in her final months. Childe Harold having lately broken upon an astonished ton, she must use her knowledge to attract me.”
“Her knowledge?” I repeated.
Those eyes raked over me once more. “It was as gold in Eliza’s hands. She possessed something no other lady possessed: the name of a greater writer than I.”
My gloved hands formed tight claws where they lay in my lap. My second novel, sped by the success of my first, had appeared in January; and in April Eliza had expired. When had she shared her secret?
Of a sudden, I was visited in memory by her dying words. Regret … regret. Had this been meant for me?
“You should rather thank than blame her,” Byron said in a lowered tone, meant for my ears alone. “I have not thought to publish your secret to the world. There is no value to anything once it is known everywhere. But do, Miss Austen, confess to your next work—It ought to be your policy, as it is mine, to proclaim your every sin. The publick will devour you alive—but it will also devour your books, which is all to the good.” He took another draught of his claret, and for an instant, I was freed of the consuming gaze. “Sins are the writer’s stock-in-trade, however vicious. Incest, rape, idolatry, sodomy—nothing is too violent for my appetites; all these have I known, and you may find their ghosts reanimated in my verse.”
I believed it now, when I might have scoffed earlier, but it was time to summon control, and place a quelling distance between myself and the poet. Intimacy must be unsafe, when one fenced with Byron.
“I have only looked into Childe Harold,” I remarked mildly, “but enjoyed what little I read of it.”
Those eyes glittering with drink or fury narrowed at my tepid praise; then he bestowed upon me the most seraphic of smiles. Instantly, the hectic brow was revealed as a child’s; the vicious tendencies, as mere play-acting. Another woman might have felt swift sympathy; my cooling brain was the more active, in perceiving a warning.
“You chuse to invoke our first meeting, Lord Byron, at Cuckfield,” I persisted. “I am emboldened, therefore, to ask a home question. What drove you then to take up and bind a respectable young lady of only fifteen—one known, moreover, to enjoy the protection of a father?”
“Snapping my fingers beneath the General’s nose was half the attraction.” His eyelids drooped, brooding. “But Catherine herself incited me to it, that morning, as my coach came alongside her—so fresh as she was, so delicate, her look half-shy, half-inviting, as tho’ she had begun to trust me at last. She gave me her hand, and I lifted her into the chaise—ready to cherish her, ready to ravish her if she would but swoon in my arms a little—Pure innocence! Can you have an idea of it, Miss Austen?”
The piercing gaze held mine again and I drew an unsteady breath.
“—How o’erwhelming the throes of passion for an unaccustomed purity might be?” he muttered. “All the complicity of that closed carriage! Her face, her figure, her soft voice were incitement to anything you may imagine—and I should never be proof against their charms!”
A groan broke from somewhere in the room—I looked away, and saw Scrope Davies with his hands pressed against his face, as tho’ his skull throbbed with acutest pain. Henry, who had been conversing with the gentleman, paused in perplexity and placed a hand on Davies’s arm. Byron, however, heard nothing of his friend’s distress—being too intent upon reliving his thwarted passion.
“Catherine did not trust me, however. She did not swoon. When presented with the soul and heart of a poet—she first screamed, and then shrank, as tho’ from a leper. It is my lameness—I know it is my lameness; she saw the blighting mark as the Devil’s touch. His token of ownership.” Byron sneered, but the hateful look was entirely for himself. “The beautiful Catherine was as repulsed by me as by a reptile, slimed and dank; as by a relic dug too soon from a foetid grave. In her disgust, I knew my worth. Perhaps it was this that formed the chief part of her fascination—the girl despised me almost as much as I despise myself.”
Ah! Sudden comprehension flooded my mind. Not self-hatred, but self-love, was Byron’s consuming demon. He was incapable of apprehending a fellow creature’s outline, however ardent his object might feel in his presence; the world entire must be viewed solely as it related to Byron.
“Being the victim, as I see you mean to stile yourself,” I observed in a lowered tone, “why stop at abduction? If Catherine could not love you—could never endure to be yours—why not end the agony of her refusal, with her life?”
“Ah, but that should be a poem, Miss Austen—not the sequel to a dull evening’s entertainment at the Brighton Assembly,” he said abruptly. “I might write such a poem; but I should never form the elaborate intention of quitting a ball, deserting my rooms, and employing my friend Davies as surety for my reputation, in actual life. I was too drunk to hunt the girl through the entire town at the dead of night, for one thing; and for another, too sick of Caro Lamb. Besides, I must confess my ardour for young Catherine had already begun to wane; one cannot always be proclaiming deathless love to a chit who colours, avoids one’s eye, and ducks behind a pillar rather than surrender her heart. It verges on the ridiculous; and I avoid the ridiculous at all costs—in life, as in poetry.”
I glanced about the elegant little drawing-room: the Earl was tossing the bones with Hodge and the Bow Street Runner; Lady Swithin was tuning the strings of the violinist’s instrument; and my brother was once more trading pleasant nothings with Mr. Scrope Davies, who appeared to have recovered from the head-ache. Our host was remarkably pallid, however; sweat stood out on his brow; and he determinedly avoided glancing in his friend Byron’s direction. All was not perfect cordiality between the two, I supposed; tho’ Byron should probably fail to observe it.
“My lord,” I said, “that child’s body was wrapped in a hammock taken from your yacht. It was placed in the bedchamber thought to be yours. If we regard as credible your assertion that you did not drown her—”
He bared his teeth and I was reminded, inevitably, of the wolf. “The coroner has proclaimed it!”
“—then someone has gone to great lengths to see you hang. Who hates you so much?”
He drained his bottle to the dregs. “The better part of England, my poor darling.”
The voice was a caress I forced myself to ignore.“That wil
l not do. You must confine yourself to those who hate you, and knew of your passion for Miss Twining. A much more select gathering, I’ll be bound.”
His eyes roved over my form, as tho’ my gown were transparent, and I revealed in all my nakedness. I raised my chin and stared back at him.
“You are decidedly imperturbable,” he observed. “Our Jane is not missish. Neither an ape-leader nor an old maid; nor yet a simpering dowd, for all she does go in black.”
Perversely, I blushed—the words and the intensity of his tone having their predictable effect. Indeed, the man should not be allowed to roam unfettered in polite Society!
“Shall I draw up a list of my enemies for your private perusal?” he jested. “Do I understand you undertake to name Miss Twining’s murderer?”
“She was by way of being a friend,” I retorted. “And indeed, I should relish any list you could summon. You might send it to my direction at the Castle Inn.”
“Then start,” he said bitterly, “with Caro Lamb—she lives for the amusement of spinning webs, and is entirely capable of drowning a rival. There is a Lucretia Borgia quality to the act that should undoubtedly appeal to her more lurid phantasies. And now, Miss Austen—I beg your pardon—but I feel an overwhelming need to relieve myself. You will, I know, excuse me.”—With which churlish frankness, he quitted my side—and I felt myself to have been released from a disturbing influence, powerful and heady.
All of us in that room, so carelessly crowded, fell silent as we observed his limping progress towards the door—the club foot swinging with clumsy violence. It was as tho’ a spirit beloved of the gods—given every gift of beauty and conceit by a benevolent Olympus—had been deliberately blighted. Lord Byron was a warning against the human quest for Perfection; it could not be attained in all things.
I doubt I am the first to make this judgement of his lordship—and I am certain I shall not be the last.
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