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 stockin-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 headache. 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 will 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.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The Rivals
WEDNESDAY, 12 MAY 1813
BRIGHTON, CONT.
WE PARTED FROM THE EARL AND COUNTESS ON SCROPE Davies’s doorstep. It had been agreed that Henry should accompany Swithin to the day’s race-meeting—“for murder or no,” he said, “I have a horse running at four o’clock, and must not fail to appear, or the betting shall be all against me. Wyncourt—old Gravetye’s heir, you know, and as sound a judge of horseflesh as any ever born—is my only competition.”
“I have seen Lord Wyncourt’s gelding,” Henry observed coolly, “and thought it a trifle too short in the back—” At which the Earl clapped my brother delightedly, and the two set off in search of a hackney carriage bound for the Downs east of town.
Lady Swithin was to return to the Marine Parade, in expectation of her friend Lady Oxford’s arrival; and she invited me cordially to accompany her—but a nearer duty obtruded. Directly opposite our position was General Twining’s house, its doorknocker muffled and its windows hung with crape.
“I must pay a call upon a bereaved parent,” I said, “however much I should prefer a few hours of sun and excitement on the racing-ground.”
The Countess’s face lit up. “But I have a capital scheme! I shall call round in my perch phaeton, with or without my London friend, in half an hour’s time—to save you from the General’s clutches, and carry you off to the races. All the world shall be there, you know, and it must prove an excellent opportunity for your researches.”
“I can have no objection, and should be delighted to accept of your ladyship’s invitation,” I replied.
Lady Swithin unfurled her sunshade with a look brimful of mischief and said, “I almost hope Lady Oxford is delayed. We might enjoy a most delicious tête-à-tête in the phaeton—for I mean to hear every word Byron spoke to you this morning. Never have I seen him so little bored by a lady’s conversation—even Caro Lamb’s!”
I coloured, and deflected suspicion with the novelist’s chief tool—a facility for timely invention. “That is because I was impertinent. Lord Byron cannot often meet with a woman so little inclined to captivate him.”
“I wonder it did not send him into strong hysterics,” Desdemona said, “but you must school your tongue a little, my dear, before entering the opposite abode—it should never do to carry pugnacity to the General!”
She was correct, of course; the encounter with Byron had perhaps been too invigourating. I ordered my emotions into a confirmed serenity, bade her ladyship adieu, and crossed to the far paving with a step that was the very picture of meek womanhood.
It seemed, at the first, as tho’ my efforts were for naught—Suddley the butler being little inclined to admit me this morning, whether he recognised my countenance from my previous visit, or no.
“The General is not at home to visitors,” he said austerely; and I could well imagine that the General was loath to parade his grief before the stream of the curious and the hypocritical who had left their cards upon the foyer’s table. Suddley’s elderly face was marked with the ravages of grief; and I recalled how Catherine had greeted him as one might an old nurse, a friend of the schoolroom. How little right the serving class was accorded to mourn for those they loved, of whatever station—duty must always intervene. Someone must lay the fire each morning; someone must answer the door.
“I quite understand.” My voice was firm and a trifle over-loud; behind Suddley’s stooped form was the hushed length of the Twining hall, and if there was to be any hope of the General’s overlistening our conversation, I must condescend to bray a little. “If you would be so good as to convey Miss Jane Austen’s deepest sympathy to General Twining. Tho’ I knew his daughter only briefly, I could not help but regard her with admiration and respect—and know how severe his loss must be.”
“You are very good, ma’am,” the butler said in a quavering voice, and his gaze—which had been correctly fixed at an indeterminate point over my right shoulder—met my own. “It is an affliction we never looked for, in plain terms. Such a sweet and biddable child as she was—hardly one of these harum-scarum misses, wild for a red coat and no thought to her family name. I wish that Lord Byron had never been born! Her death, that Devil’s imp was, from the moment his evil foot crossed her path.”
I murmured encouraging nothings.
“Right there on the paving he bowed to Miss Catherine, being arm in arm with our friend Mr. Davies. I may say, meaning no disrespect to the gentleman, that I was surprized at Mr. Davies’s judgement—knowing Lord Byron’s vicious tendencies as he does, he should not have encouraged the acquaintance, in my opinion. But, however, Mr. Davies may have felt he had no choice but to accede to his friend’s wishes, in all politeness.”
Scrope Davies, on intimate terms with the Twining family? I had not had an idea of it—and felt a ripple of excitement twist my entrails. I must speak to Henry. Surely my piquant brother would have learnt much from his brief conversation with the gentleman.
“Not a moment’s peace did any of us know, from that day to this,” Suddley went on. “His lordship was fair took with a passion for Miss Catherine. It wasn’t like the usual courting of a gentleman and a young lady. Quite dotty he was—mooning about below her windows of a midnight, and calling her by some foreign name.”
“Leila?” I suggested.
“That was it! Spanish, I thought it,” the butler confided, “or maybe French. It was as tho’ his lordship had been took with a sickness, of the heart and head. Miss Catherine went in fear of him—her poor little self all of a tremble when the bell was pulled, lest it be his lordship calling—and the General could not abide him! A wolf, he said, come to ravish my white lamb. And look where it’s ended! With that Devil’s white hands round the sweet child’s throat!”
“You believe, then, that he drowned her?—Tho’ so respectable a friend as Mr. Scrope Davies vouches for Lord Byron’s movements?”
“Suddley!”
The General’s voice, as harsh and bellicose as tho’ he commanded the heights of a battlefield, rang out from the far end of the passage. “Cease your prattle at once and send that woman away! She calls only to feed upon our misery, like all the rest!”
“Very good, sir,” Suddley said woodenly; then added in an undertone, as he made to close the door in my face, “May I beg leave to apologise—”
“Pray do not regard it. You have all my sympathy.” I turned away.
“Miss Austen, is it?”
The General’s form was just visible behind his man’s as Suddley hesitated, his hand on the door.
“I am come to condole, sir—but have no wish to intrude upon so profound an affliction.”
“Then be off with ye,” he snarled, thrusting his head round the jamb, “and do not presume to return! I have nothing to say t
o you, madam! Nor to any woman of my acquaintance; you are all jades, whores, and vultures—not a pure soul among you. Not even,” he added, his voice breaking down entirely, “my poor Catherine, tho’ her winding sheet be white! Oh, God, that I should live to see the sins of the mother visited upon the child—”
There is no uglier sound, to my mind, than that of a grown man weeping; its utter desolation strikes the heart to stone.
“Forgive him, ma’am,” Suddley whispered as he drew his master inside. “He does not know what he says.”
But I wondered very much, as I walked towards Marine Parade, whether Suddley lied. A new train of thought had been opened to me: I must speak to Mrs. Silchester once more.
LADY OXFORD HAD NOT BEEN DELAYED, HAVING FLOWN south that morning with the lightest of traps and a team of four high-steppers to speed her journey. She declared herself an excellent traveller, who suffered not at all from the headache, requiring only a simple nuncheon to restore her jangled nerves—was only too happy to encounter all her acquaintance at the race-meeting that afternoon—was sure that Byron would venture out to lay a wager on Swithin’s horse—and would be charmed to further her acquaintance with any of dear Mona’s intimate friends.
I had progressed, in a matter of days, from a lady briefly recollected from Mona’s Bath girlhood, to an intimate friend, and was hardly likely to quarrel with the change.
Jane Elizabeth Harley, Countess of Oxford, was nothing that I expected. From her reputation as a captivator of powerful men—her liaisons with such Whig potentates as Sir Francis Burdett, Lord Granville, and the reformer Lord Archibald Hamilton being everywhere known—I had predicted a heavy-lidded seductress, with expansive bosom and swaying hips, her indolence suggestive of the boudoir. But here was a trim and adorable creature some years my senior, whose pert nose and rosebud mouth belonged to an ingénue. Brisk and merry in her attitudes, she was nonetheless as sharp as she could stare—pronouncing some blistering insight upon her fellows with every second sentence. She kept a lorgnette in her reticule, the better to examine any fragment of leaf or fossil that might fall in her way, and was forever losing herself in a book. At present, she informed Desdemona, she was engrossed in fourteen volumes of a history of Ancient Rome, and had brought Volume the Seventh with her to peruse in the phaeton on the way to the race-meeting.
Jane and the Madness of Lord Byron Page 17