Jane and the Madness of Lord Byron

by Stephanie Barron

  “Not so as to know her name. Jem’s not the sort to be acquainted with young ladies. Asleep, he ought to have been, at such an hour—but one of the Regent’s mares was dropping a foal that night, and Jem was up in the loose box a-helping of her. The mare’s first, it was, and having a hard time of it. Jem stepped out with a lanthorn to fetch hot water from the kitchen, and that’s when he saw her—a girl with dark hair, dressed in white, hurrying away from the Pavilion. Headed towards the Steyne, she was, but powerful late Jem thought it, to be abroad alone.”

  “He did not chuse to speak to her?”

  Betsy shook her head. “Wasn’t his place, ma’am, to take notice of young ladies leaving the Pavilion in the middle of the night. The Regent’d have had his head, like. Young ladies’ve been slipping in an’ out of the Regent’s quarters for years, and nobody the wiser. Besides, there was the mare to think of.”

  “Did he say what time this was?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “I should like to talk to Jem,” I said thoughtfully.

  “If you’re wishful to have a word, I can always send for him.” The maid coloured painfully. “Jem is always ready to oblige me.”

  “You would do better to send him to the magistrate. The coroner’s panel assembles this morning, and they would give much to know what your cousin saw.”

  “A reward, like?” Betsy eyed me curiously; ladies who were knowledgeable of the workings of inquests had probably never come in her way. I slid out of bed and went to my reticule. Within it, I kept a few coins. I withdrew a shilling.

  “Please give this to Jem,” I said, “and urge him to seek out Sir Harding Cross. The Regent, I am sure, shall not reproach him for speaking publickly in a matter of murder.”

  If I surprized her, Betsy made no comment—but pocketed the coin and promised to do as I urged.

  BEFORE THE EVENTS OF YESTERDAY, I HAD MADE A thousand plans with Henry for the balance of the week. We were to take in today’s race-meeting, on the course established by the late Duke of Queensberry just outside of town; we were to drive past Hove, to the ruins of St. Aldrington’s Church; we were to hire a pair of dippers, and bathe in the frigid seas, first obtaining a respectable costume for the purpose; we were to attend a concert at the Pavilion, at the express invitation of Colonel McMahon, who had taken an inexplicable liking to my brother, or perhaps to the depth of his pockets. But some part at least of these frivolous pursuits must be set aside. The race-meeting was not to be thought of. I took breakfast in my room, being certain that Henry was already at Raggett’s, awaiting the issue of Miss Twining’s inquest—and as I sipped my coffee, and fiddled with my bread, I compiled a list of questions that must be answered, if the truth were to be known.

  With whom did Catherine Twining dance at the Assembly, besides Mr. Smalls?

  When did Catherine arrive at the Pavilion in Caro Lamb’s care?

  What was the purport of the ladies’ tête-à-tête?

  When did Catherine quit the Pavilion?

  If the undergroom observed her walking towards the Steyne, how did she come by her death in the sea?

  Where was Lord Byron at the time?

  Colonel George Hanger?

  General Twining? Mr. Hendred Smalls?

  What did Lady Caroline Lamb do after Catherine left her?

  When did the General discover that his daughter never returned home Monday night—and did he sound an alarum?

  How could a body be carried into the King’s Arms in the dead of night without being seen?

  Did anyone at the Arms hear a disturbance in Byron’s rooms? Query: Who was lodged next to Byron?

  I should have to speak with the principals on my list, of course—tho’ some might bar their doors against me. The endeavour should demand considerable address. I considered of the prospects: the General, whom I knew already for a formidable man, and whose plans for his daughter I had reason to suspect; Mr. Smalls, from whose interview I should derive little but platitudes and no pleasure; Caro Lamb, who should be unlikely to disclose her schemes to anyone. Desdemona might better assist me there.

  And Byron himself: a slight shudder coursed through my body at the thought of the man—so much a prey to his passions, so entirely a complex of contempt and ardour. Would he recall my visage from the Cuckfield Inn, and regard me as his enemy? How had the murder of Catherine Twining worked upon his lordship’s emotions?

  Amidst such a company, my enquiries were likely to be fruitless.

  In the course of my mature life—dating, indeed, from my first acquaintance with the Gentleman Rogue, more than ten years ago—I have been so circumstanced as to meet with a variety of murderers, some very clever and some merely cold. Avarice has been their motive, or revenge, or a passionate love turned to hate. There were aspects of this case—the sewing of the hammock, the delivery of the corpse to Byron’s bed—that argued a deliberation of mind; and other aspects—the forcible drowning of a young girl, her head held violently under the water as she struggled—that bespoke a destructive passion. It was almost as tho’ two different persons had been involved. Had they worked in concert, or in ignorance of each other? Had Byron done murder—and another delivered the proofs of it?

  The only possible motivation for such an act must be to see the poet tormented, upon the discovery of his beloved’s corpse; or to see his lordship hang.

  If Byron were innocent of Catherine’s death, then he, as well as the unfortunate girl, was the victim of a merciless intelligence. There was cruelty and forethought in the execution of the whole; someone had derived pleasure from dropping that sodden package in his lordship’s bed.

  It smacked of hatred. Or a desire for vengeance. And in all this, the life of a young girl had been snuffed out as nothing.

  And so, after a pause, I penned the last of my queries on the Castle’s sheet of paper:

  13. Who, among the respectable and the highborn of Brighton, hates Lord Byron to the point of madness?

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Conflicting Testimony

  WEDNESDAY, 12 MAY 1813

  BRIGHTON, CONT.

  MY PERIOD OF REFLECTION WAS BROKEN BY A KNOCK AT the bedchamber door. A footman stood in the passage, with the intelligence that my brother awaited me downstairs—with a party of friends.

  “Has the inquest adjourned?”

  “Not a quarter-hour ago, ma’am.”

  I hastened below, and discovered Henry established in a little side-parlour with the Earl and Countess of Swithin; all three were taking glasses of something fortifying—brandy, in the case of the gentlemen, and ratafia, in the person of Desdemona.

  “What is the coroner’s verdict?” I enquired, as I accepted a glass of wine.

  “Oh, murder, of course,” Swithin said grimly; “but to everyone’s surprize, it was brought back against a person or persons unknown. There is much talk as to the motives in such a judgement; it was said at first that the Regent must have intervened, to preserve the freedom of a celebrated poet and nobleman; but those acquainted with the two gentlemen are well aware that no love is lost between them, the Regent detesting the very sight of George Gordon. His Royal Highness finds the poet’s club foot distasteful, and cannot forgive him for forming a part of Princess Caroline’s court. So there is astonishment in many quarters. Old Sir Harding Cross cannot be to blame, as he owes his position to the Regent; it was hardly he who taught the jury mercy. Perhaps it was Frogmore, the coroner, who urged caution.”

  “For a wonder,” I observed, “a coroner’s panel has drawn a conclusion independent of the magistrate—and declined to hang a man who insists he was elsewhere when murder was done! What is likely to happen now?”

  “Byron shall have to go to ground, somehow,” Henry said. “There are any number of folk in Brighton out for his blood, chief among them the poor young lady’s father.”

  “General Twining was in attendance, I apprehend?”

  “He testified as to the remains being his daughter’s, at which point the
panel was required to view the corpse. Several went quite green, I understand. The General said only that he had entrusted his daughter to the chaperonage of Mrs. Silchester, who had failed in her duties; that he had quitted the Assembly Rooms at the decent hour of eleven o’clock; ordered Miss Twining’s maid to wait up for her; and was roused at five o’clock in the morning with the intelligence that his daughter had never returned. He suspected, he claimed, a further abduction on the part of Lord Byron—and informed the Brighton constables of the fact.”

  “Abduction? So the tale of Cuckfield came out—and still the jury did not find against his lordship?”

  “It was viewed, rather, as a point in Lord Byron’s favour; a man who wished so ardently for a Flight to the Border can hardly be suspected of murdering his lady.”

  “General Twining cannot have regarded the matter thus.”

  “No, indeed,” Henry agreed. “Having given his evidence—and heard Mrs. Silchester, amidst much tears and lamentation, assure the panel that Lady Caroline Lamb had been most insistent upon carrying Miss Twining away to the Pavilion—the General retired into his handkerchief. His face emerged from it only at the announcement of the panel’s verdict—at which, in a rage, he slapped Lord Byron’s face with said handkerchief, and vowed to see him dead at twenty paces if he were to escape hanging.”

  “Lord!” Desdemona breathed. “And Byron?”

  “—Merely looked contemptuous; and said he should be only too happy to meet the General, his honour and reputation having suffered injuries enough already at his hands. Scrope Davies—who provided my intelligence—said Byron has long hated the fellow, and might more readily have drowned the father than the daughter.” Henry rubbed his nose in speculation. “I daresay poor Byron’s life is not worth a farthing in Brighton at this present. Your Lady Oxford might take him back to London, Countess—but for the magistrate’s demand that Byron remain in town for the nonce.”

  “Are further researches to be undertaken? Does the magistrate mean to learn the truth of Miss Twining’s death?” I enquired.

  “Not at all,” Mona scoffed. “It is as I predicted; Sir Harding shall be content to say that persons unknown killed the girl, and have done.”

  “I cannot agree, my love,” Swithin objected. “Indeed, I think Old HardCross intends to charge Byron regardless of the inquest’s judgement. It is within his office, you know, provided he can recruit his proofs, and present them along with Byron at the next Assizes.”

  “The magistrate is a fool if he believes Byron should be witless enough to leave Miss Twining’s body in his own rooms. Good God,” Desdemona said bitterly, “had he indeed drowned the poor child, as all of Brighton supposes, he had merely to leave her lying on the shingle! For what possible purpose should he have taken a hammock from his own yacht, and sewn her into it like a lost seaman, in order to carry her to his bed?”

  “The hammock was indeed Byron’s?” I repeated, startled.

  “Yes,” Henry supplied. “The word Giaour, you will recall, was embroidered on the canvas—and as you correctly divined, that is the name of Byron’s boat. It is a Turkish word, apparently, meaning infidel, or heathen … or … some such. Sir Harding would have it the hammock alone indicts his lordship.”

  “Nonsense!” Desdemona cried. “Does any murderer leave his calling-card on the body?”

  “Sir Harding can think of nobody else to blame, my dear,” her husband soothed. “This adjournment is a lull in the battle merely, with further salvos to come.”

  “But what did Lord Byron say, that so persuaded the jury of his innocence?” I demanded.

  “It was his valet, rather than Byron himself, who moved them,” Henry supplied. “The man is Brighton born and bred. Byron employs him only when he chances to descend upon the town for a bit of sailing; and with little in the nature of loyalty due to such an indifferent master, the valet—one Chaunce by name—was readily credited by his fellows on the panel. He declared that Byron returned to the Arms at a quarter to one in the morning, well before Miss Twining is known to have quitted the Assembly with Lady Caroline Lamb, which may be put at one o’clock; and that his lordship demanded that his bags be packed. He paid his shot with the innkeeper while Chaunce collected his traps. Chaunce and Byron then quitted the Arms for Mr. Scrope Davies’s house, Davies affirming that he had waited in the publick rooms and escorted Byron and his man to his own lodgings. At no point was Byron out of sight of either of his fellows—he cannot then have effected murder.”

  “Did Mr. Davies say when they achieved his lodgings?” I asked swiftly.

  “He would put it at perhaps a quarter to two in the morning. He and Byron sat up drinking Port, and talking over the regrettable behaviour of Lady Caroline Lamb. I’m told that Byron declared he fled the King’s Arms in order to avoid Lady Caro—he was certain she would attempt to breach his rooms that night, as she is forever doing. The two gentlemen sought their beds at three o’clock. Byron was up again at eight, mounted and riding north for London. All this he told the coroner, under oath.”

  “I suppose he might have killed Miss Twining between three and eight, with no one the wiser,” I said thoughtfully, “but how was the deed effected? Is Mr. Davies to be relied upon?”

  “I daresay Davies would sell his own mother to get Byron off,” Swithin confided. “They’ve been friends for ages.”

  “Would he, indeed?” Desdemona turned on her husband swiftly. “Even in a matter of murder? This is not a debt of honour Davies stands security for, Charles!—None of your vowels offered over the faro table at White’s! Even so frippery a fellow as Scrope must apprehend the gravity of the case.”

  “More reason to stand buff, if his friend is in danger of hanging—”

  “I do not understand,” Mona said petulantly, “why Byron should be suspected at all. It is distinctly tiresome! Simply because the corpse lay in a room he once inhabited!”

  “The mere fact of Miss Twining having been killed outside that room must materially lessen Byron’s security,” I said. “His lordship’s assertion that he quitted the Arms at such-and-such an hour, and Mr. Davies’s statement that his friend spent the whole of the night in his lodgings, are worth little, given that Miss Twining did not die in Byron’s room at the Arms—she was only found there, much later. It might as well have been Lord Byron, as anybody, who drowned her and left her body in his bed for safekeeping.”

  “But it is all absurd, from beginning to end!” Desdemona protested. “Why should Byron kill Catherine Twining? He was passionately attached to her! Moreover, how could he possibly have carried that dripping hammock upstairs, under the eyes of the whole publick house, in the middle of the night? Do you not think it appears as tho’ the murderer—whoever he might be—hated Lord Byron, and meant for suspicion to turn upon him?”

  “That is what the jury believed,” Henry said.

  “But not the magistrate,” Swithin countered. “Absent Byron, all of Brighton is subject to suspicion—and when presented with such a bewildering array, Old HardCross is sure to take comfort in the obvious. He shall prefer to arrest the one man he may name.”

  Being too well acquainted with the limited understanding and general indolence of the magistracy, who are appointed more for their connexions than their zeal, I could not find it in me to argue with the Earl. Moreover, I saw a certain cunning in the very implausibility of Byron’s guilt—a cunning of which I suspected him perfectly capable.

  “By ostentatiously paying his shot and quitting the King’s Arms at an unlikely hour,” I mused, “his lordship may have deliberately established his absence in the eyes of all observers, precisely to avail himself of those same rooms only hours later. He may depend upon the world exclaiming: ‘Byron was long gone when the girl was killed! Byron should never place his victim in his own bed!’ He may be clever enough to incriminate himself, if I may so express it, in order to convince us all of his innocence.”

  There was a pause as the whole party digested this bit of reason
ing. Then Mona said, “What a terrible and penetrating mind you own, my dear Jane. I should not like to live too long with such thoughts as yours; they cannot be comfortable. But you have not heard the most diverting thing of all—I have had it from almost every lip in town, tho’ none were present at the panel—how swiftly a delicious on-dit does fly about, to be sure! You will never guess who forced an entry to the inquest!”

  “Lady Oxford?”

  “She is not yet arrived, else I am certain she should be impatient to meet with you—I have assured her of your good offices on Byron’s behalf.”

  “But, Mona—!” I cried, shocked; never had I said my slightest office was devoted to his lordship.

  “You have agreed to discover the truth,” she said, shrugging; “and while we may be aware that the truth could run counter to Byron’s interests—Lady Oxford need not know it. It was Caro Lamb who descended upon Mr. Frogmore and Sir Harding!—Dressed in cloth-of-gold, for all the world like Lady Macbeth, excepting only a bloody blade raised high above her head. I am sure she may have been walking in her sleep, or in the grip of a fit at the very least—by all accounts, her looks bordered on the deranged.”

  “I had it from Scrope Davies himself,” Henry said with a grin, “at Raggett’s Club not an hour since, that Byron nearly tore his hair when her ladyship invaded the inquest—thrusting back the door with an audible clang, pacing ceremoniously down the aisle between the chairs, calling out in agitation to Mr. Frogmore that she must be heard, for tho’ he would not stay even to save her from the sea, she would not wish Genius to perish under the heel of the rabble.”

  “Good God,” I murmured.

  “Byron, I’m told, called her ladyship a carrion bird not content with hounding him to death, but that she must come and feast upon his bones. He was on the point of quitting the inquest entirely, which should have been most improper and prejudicial to the jury’s judgement, had friend Scrope not constrained him.”

  “And Lady Caroline?” I asked eagerly. “Did she explain her excessive interest in Catherine Twining?”