Jane and the Madness of Lord Byron

Chapter 14 A Call to Justice

TUESDAY, 11 MAY 1813

BRIGHTON, CONT.

“WHAT HAVE YOU BEEN SAYING TO POOR LOUISA SILCHESTER?” Lady Swithin demanded as she led me to the fire, where a pair of chairs were at liberty, owing to the general warmth of the night. “She looks as if she had received a sentence of death—tho’ I suppose that is very natural, given the loss of her protégée.”

“I did not rebuke her; tho’ I confess I was tempted. She is an excessively silly woman, my lady—and ought never to have been entrusted with Miss Twining. She tells me she allowed the child to go off to the Pavilion last night with Caro Lamb!”

“Did she?” Desdemona enquired, all interest. “I had not an idea of it. I stayed only to observe Byron’s outrage at Caro’s entrance—to judge the effect her costume made upon the room—and then Swithin pled boredom, and we made good our escape. What did Caro mean by carrying that child off to the Pavilion? They were not acquainted before last night, I am sure—and there must be more than a decade between them in age. It is a singular condescension.”

“I cannot say what her ladyship was about, but I must endeavour to learn,” I replied. “Lady Caroline should have been one of the last to see Catherine Twining alive. It may be in her power to disclose something vital of the child’s movements. At what hour did you quit the Assembly, my lady?”

Desdemona shrugged. “Far too early for Fashion. It was not above one o’clock, I am sure—Lady Caroline having put in her appearance just after midnight. But do sit down, Miss Austen”—the Countess was already arranging the folds of her silk gown—“so that we may be comfortable. No one shall teaze us; your blacks will keep them all at a distance, you know.”

I sat. My mind, I confess, was worrying at the problem of Lady Caroline—and my thoughts ranged so far abroad as to render me almost uncivil. I drew my attention back to my hostess; she had, after all, summoned me to her home that evening with the object of conversation.

“You must have formed your own opinion of Catherine Twining,” she began. “For my part, I knew her not at all. But any lady capable of engaging Byron’s entire interest, must have been a paragon. And when one considers her youth—it is in every way extraordinary. He has been in the habit of pursuing married ladies of a certain age—not virgins of fifteen.”

“Our acquaintance was so slight, and of such recent formation—we met in a stable yard in Cuckfield, on the journey south,” I said. I hesitated at disclosing the nature of our meeting—but the silence so fervently embraced by the General and Mrs. Silchester had already done damage enough; I could not regard myself as bound by it. “I rescued Miss Twining from Lord Byron’s clutches, in fact. He had formed the intention of abducting her—to what end, a Gretna marriage or a swift ruin, I know not. Certainly he had bound her wrists and gagged her; she made her presence known by beating on the side panels of Lady Oxford’s chaise, which his lordship had borrowed for the purpose.”

“Good God!” Desdemona said blankly. “And he chose Jane’s chaise for his seductions? The man’s insolence knows no bounds! I shall have to suppress the fact—tho’ it may already be all over Brighton.”

The fact of the abduction did not appear to outrage her ladyship nearly as much as the bad ton his lordship betrayed; there was little that could shock Lord Harold’s niece.

“I do not think anyone but the Twining family, and ourselves, is aware of it,” I assured her. “Lady Oxford may remain in ignorance—but I cannot think it wise. There may be worse shocks in store, if Lord Byron is charged with murder.”

She looked at me speculatively. “What sort of girl was Miss Twining?”

“I should have said that she was no different from every other young lady of respectable birth and gentle rearing. She was diffident, shy, easily imposed upon—” I might, at this juncture, have disclosed my encounter with George Hanger in the Pavilion Saturday, but doubt as to what I had actually seen, stopped my mouth. “Her appearance of goodness, I thought, was entirely genuine. And she was afraid of Byron—she dreaded a meeting with him. Indeed, only last evening, she begged me to remain with her.”

“And now you berate yourself for having failed to do so.” Desdemona reached impulsively for my hand. “My dear Miss Austen—you were not her parent. You were not her chaperon. Having saved her once from a predator’s clutches, you cannot always have been her protector. What of the girl’s family?”

“There is a General Twining—Mrs. Alleyn had much that was ill to say of his character—and a brother in the 10th Hussars, lost in the Peninsula.” I hesitated. “My lady, to what end do these questions tend?”

She chose her words with care. “You are aware, I think, that Lady Oxford is my friend—Swithin would not have me call her so, to be sure, as she is regarded askance by almost everyone of consequence in the ton, on account of her sad tendency to seek consolation outside her marriage.”

“And yet you brave the Earl’s displeasure?” I interjected, curiously. “This is being a loyal friend indeed!”

“The Countess is a clever woman, and unafraid to appear the bluestocking before her friends; it is for this reason so many gentlemen seek her company—she possesses a well-informed mind. Have you any notion, Miss Austen, how rare a powerful understanding is, among women of Fashion? It is insupportably dull, I assure you, to spend all one’s days among creatures who talk of nothing but dress, and children, and the gifts their husbands have lately showered upon their mistresses! I prize Lady Oxford for her courage in living life as she chuses, without entirely affronting the Polite World, as Caro Lamb must perpetually do; and if Swithin fears her ladyship’s example—so much the better for me,” she added with a droll glint in her eye. “Anxiety keeps the Earl attentive; and that is saying a good deal.”

We had wandered from the subject of Catherine Twining, and the Countess recognised it. She took up the reins of conversation with a brisk twitch. “I do not need to tell you that Lady Oxford is in love with Lord Byron. Indeed, a degree of affection subsists between them that would make any risk to his life or reputation a matter of extreme anxiety to the Countess.”

A degree of affection subsists between them … and yet he had been obsessed with Catherine to the point of madness. How to explain it? Was Lady Oxford deceived, or was Byron the sort who must seduce every creature he encountered?

“That can be nothing to me,” I said, tho’ the words felt thick and ungracious on my tongue. “I am acquainted with neither the Countess nor the poet; my bond, slight as it was, lay with the unfortunate victim, and my sympathies must be entirely devoted to her cause.”

“I do understand,” Desdemona said with swift warmth. She squeezed my hand. “Indeed, I expected no less—and honour you for your sentiments. Which is why I craved your society this evening; I cannot help recalling, Miss Austen, how brilliantly you acted in the matter of my brother Kinsfell’s being mistakenly taken up for murder—and how deftly you then penetrated the motives of those who would have seen him unjustly hanged.”[18]

“It was your uncle’s brilliance that prevailed on that occasion, not mine.”

A bold statement and a painful one in such a house, with all that remained of the past lying unspoken between us; and for an instant, Desdemona stiffened. “We will not speak of my uncle, I beg.”

She had loved Lord Harold like a daughter—or perhaps, their natures being so alike, more as a companion in adventure. When he was killed, I must believe she blamed me—for tho’ present, I was entirely unable to avert the deed, or save him from the mortal effect of his wounds. I had fully expected to be petitioned for the details of the Rogue’s final hour; but thus far, her ladyship had not asked for them. I guessed it was a form of Wilborough pride—and the fear of opening old wounds. I waited all the same for the moment when Desdemona’s desire should overcome her dignity.

“Are you suggesting that I ought to exert my energies to clear Lord Byron’s name?” I demanded. “—Given that gentleman’s extraordinary history, I doubt any woman could do so.”

Desdemona’s countenance eased. “You are annihilatingly frank, are you not? I care nothing for Byron myself; it is merely the fashion, you know, to swoon over his verses. I find him boorish and ungentlemanly; which is to say that he has never made the slightest push to engage my attention. Naturally I must regard him as my enemy! But with Lady Oxford it is otherwise; and I should not be most truly the friend I profess, did I not endeavour to help where help was wanted.”

“What is your honest opinion of Lord Byron’s mind?” I asked. “I spoke to him only once—in Cuckfield—and he was not then master enough of himself to know what he said. But you, who have seen him a good deal … would you regard him as entirely sound?”

“Are you asking whether he is mad?”

I made a diffident gesture with my hand. “I had wondered, indeed, whether he was perfectly sane. His behaviour of late has been most unsteady. Even in his writings there is much that is violent. It is of a piece, you know, with Romantical poetry, to be driven to the brink of murder—by thwarted love.”

“Caro Lamb would certainly think so! I am sure she is wishing it were she, and not poor Miss Twining, who was dropped like a sacrifice in Byron’s bed last night.”

The words, however farcical, were too close to truth for comfort. Her ladyship seemed to feel it; there was the briefest uneasiness between us; and then Desdemona attempted a recovery.

“Such stuff may be exotic, and feed the rage for all things Oriental that the Regent himself is so wild about—but it is not to my taste at all! I vastly prefer a good novel, about people such as one knows, and circumstances one may comprehend—something delightful and brimming with excellent conversation! I adored Pride and Prejudice—has it come in your way, by the by?”

“It has, yes—indeed, I was so happy as to look into it this winter,” I stuttered, feeling my countenance flush as tho’ her ladyship had let slip an indecency; and then, reverting to safer subjects, “But if you do not care for Byron, how can you be so solicitous for his welfare—?”

“It is all Lady Oxford. She sent me such a letter by Express this evening—the courier drew rein at our door just as the dinner bell was rung. I do not scruple to say, Miss Austen, that her ladyship is wild with fear that Byron will be hanged.”

My senses sharpened. “Has he been taken, then?”

“You did not know?” Desdemona sat up alertly in her chair, the fire in the hearth edging her profile in gold. “He was met at the door of his lodgings—he has rooms in Bennet Street, St. James’s—by the Brighton constabulary. Lady Oxford—her Christian name, like yours, is Jane—says Byron listened to them patiently, but when told he must return for the inquest, he kicked up a dust. One of the constables had his cork drawn, and another was tossed on his ear into the street, whereupon Byron remounted and rode directly to Mortimer House, the Oxford residence in Town. The constables followed, and it was the Earl of Oxford in the end who urged Byron to do their bidding—fearing, no doubt, a hideous scene at his very door. Adultery may be one thing—Oxford is accustomed to that—but murder is quite another.”

“And Lady Oxford?”

“—prepares to follow her heart. She wrote to beg a room here on the Marine Parade, and tho’ Swithin dislikes it, he has given way to my wishes.” She glanced affectionately at her husband, who was deep in conversation with Sir John and my brother. “He is an excellent husband, is he not? I never dreamt, during those distant days in Bath when Charles was disposed to be excessively disagreeable, intent upon winning every battle and making myself the object of his conquest—that I should be so content with my surrender!”

“I am glad to hear it,” I said; and meant it. Tho’ the Earl and his Countess had rarely met without quarreling in their salad days, it had been obvious to all who observed them that they were formed for each other. I envied them completely.

“Jane—I hope I may call you Jane?”

“Of course.”

“And you shall call me Mona. Everyone does.” She leaned towards me confidingly. “I shall not tax you to save Byron’s neck—he will come to a bad end regardless. No one can pursue so ruinous a course, in love and debt, without he ends in a sponging house or flight to the Continent. I will urge you, however, to pursue justice. Someone drowned Catherine Twining like a helpless kitten; and I cannot bear to think that such a horror should go unpunished. Even if it was Byron who killed her. We should be doing the world a service, in publishing the murderer’s ill fame—whoever he proves to be.”

“We?” I repeated dubiously. Justice was a far higher plane of talking for the Countess of Swithin, who had begun with mere ties of friendship to a woman whose morals I could not like.

“Well, naturally, I shall do my all to help you,” Mona said indignantly. “I may open any door in Brighton on your behalf; nothing is more easily done; and I should think it very good sport, to be frank, to be privileged to hear of your researches. Uncle used to tell me everything, you know.”

There; she had referred to him, despite herself.

“He even told me,” she said distinctly, “that he intended to marry you one day.”

My breath stopped in my throat; my face, I felt, was blazing. I wished of a sudden that I might run from the room, heedless of the Alleyns and Silchesters and Hodges who might stare after me, astonished and babbling; I wished only for darkness, and a soothing bout of tears.

“I wish that he had,” Mona persisted. “I wish that he had lived. I might have called you Aunt.”

“Pray, say no more,” I whispered.

“Will you do it? Will you find Catherine Twining’s murderer?”

“I cannot simply thrust myself in the way of an investigation, Mona.” I sighed in exasperation. “There are men charged with finding the truth. The magistrate, for one—and the coroner, for another.”

“The magistrate is Sir Harding Cross, who is intimate with the Regent—hence his token office,” Mona said shrewdly. “Sir Harding lives for the next race-meeting, considers himself a dashing blade, for all his stays creak when he attempts to bow; and is disinclined to bother himself very much in anybody’s death. He is a three-bottle-a-day man, too intent upon draining the last drop to attend to trifling affairs like a drowning. Rather than untangle this web, he would vastly prefer to charge Lord Byron with the deed—and have an end to it.”

“Then the truth will out at his lordship’s trial.”

“—Do you believe it? So do not I.” The Countess’s voice had sharpened. “Once Miss Twining is in her grave, any proofs that might have pointed to the culprit will have been neatly swept into the rubbish.”

“It is for her family to pursue justice, not a stranger.”

“The Jane Austen so valued by Lord Harold should never have hesitated to learn the whole!”

Her voice had risen, on this last; a few curious eyes turned in our direction; I observed Henry to set down his glass of Port with an audible clink. He looked as if he would approach; I shook my head slightly.

It was unfair of Mona to invoke, again, the Gentleman Rogue. I looked at her ladyship, whose grey eyes were as cool and satiric as Lord Harold’s own, and whose wits were certainly as sharp, and said, “But what if it was indeed Lord Byron who held Catherine Twining’s head beneath the waves? What shall you tell your friend Lady Oxford?”

“The truth,” Desdemona replied without hesitation. “It should, after all, be the salvation of her.”