Jane and the Madness of Lord Byron

Chapter 24 Ode to a Drowned Girl

THURSDAY, 13 MAY 1813

BRIGHTON, CONT.

THE RAIN HAD TAPERED TO A MIZZLE BY THE TIME WE quitted the King’s Arms. Henry and I were agreed upon the necessity of paying a call at No. 21, Marine Parade—he to solicit an introduction to Sir Harding Cross from the Earl of Swithin, and I to beg Desdemona for her intercession that evening with Brighton’s Master of Ceremonies, Mr. Forth. We hastened along the damp paving beneath Henry’s fortuitous umbrella, and were gratified in discovering the Swithins at home.

It was a fine family party that presented itself to our eyes: the Earl in his book room, surrounded by mellow bindings of calf, and a good fire against the chill; Desdemona at her tambour work, with her children—a son of five, and a daughter of seven—playing at spillikins on the drawing-room rug. Lady Oxford was seated at a writing desk, embarked on correspondence; and I was sorry to see all five rise up, and set aside their several pursuits, at our unexpected arrival. The children, indeed, were swept away by their nurse for hot milk and bread in their quarters; and I should imagine them fulminating darkly at the tiresomeness of unwanted callers, on a rainy afternoon.

Desdemona, however, was charming; declared that Henry and I had saved them all from insufferable boredom; and confided, in a whisper, as Lady Oxford tidied her writing things, that her friend had been longing to see me—had sent round to the Castle begging for just such a visit, only to discover we were gone out.

“Such an adventure as we have had!” Henry declared, as the Earl offered him a glass of sherry. “But Jane had better relate the whole; it is her story, in truth.”

In as brief a fashion as possible, I related the particulars of the Regent’s tunnel, to the astonished exclamations of the other three.

“I cannot pretend to shock,” Lady Oxford declared, “for Prinny was always very wild as a boy. Maria Fitzherbert did a great deal to settle him, I believe—but of course, I was the merest child when that alliance was established.”

“But you apprehend what this signifies,” Swithin said with a troubled look. “If the Regent’s undergroom last saw the girl alive, and her body was carried to the Arms through the Regent’s tunnel …”

“It would appear more than likely that somebody at the Pavilion killed her,” I concluded baldly. “Henry and I have been canvassing the same point. While there are some, wholly unconnected with the place, who may have known of the tunnel’s existence—”

“The man Tolliver!” Desdemona broke in excitedly.

“—it must be extraordinary for murder to be done at such an hour, and the Regent’s wine cellar penetrated, by a total stranger.”

“As is true of Miss Twining, a stranger should have been remarked,” the Earl agreed. “What do you intend to do with your dangerous information, Henry?”

“Set it before the magistrate, of course!”

“Are you sure that is wise?”

“What has wisdom to do with it, when a murderer is to be found?”

Swithin merely shrugged, his gaze drifting quizzically to his wife’s. “You are correct, naturally. But I fear a frontal assault upon the Law may achieve more harm than good.”

“I cannot very well suppress the intelligence,” Henry said in perplexity.

“As you say.” Swithin bowed. “You are acquainted with Sir Harding Cross?”

My brother flushed. “I regret that I have not that pleasure.”

“Then I shall carry you off to Raggett’s Club. Old HardCross is certain to be established at the betting tables of a rainy afternoon, and I have a yearning to play at whist myself—the boredom of a grey sky in Brighton being insupportable.”

“You are very good,” Henry said haltingly. An impression of the Earl’s vast condescension, in lending his name to an effort he found both unwise and distasteful, had clearly struck my insouciant brother. But not even Swithin was immune to gratitude; he unbent enough to clap Henry on the back.

“Do not neglect to throw me a line,” he murmured as the two quitted the drawing-room for the front hall, “should you sink up to your neck in this.”

“NOW, MISS AUSTEN,” MONA BEGAN WITH A FORMALITY I must believe was due to the oddity of having two Janes in the room—“tell us what else you have learnt from your researches.”

What ought I to disclose?—That Scrope Davies, upon whose friendship Byron had always presumed, was in love with the object of Byron’s obsession—and might at last have grown tired of sacrificing for his friend? That General Twining was a brutal husband and a jealous father? Two such Fashionables as the Countess of Swithin and the Countess of Oxford might enjoy turning over the sad misfortunes of the late Lydia Montescue—might even, indeed, have been acquainted with the lady in her youth—but I lacked sufficient time to indulge in a comfortable coze of gossip.

I settled on the one fact sure to afford Lady Oxford some comfort: “It is now quite certain that the doors of the King’s Arms were barred against all comers, once Lord Byron had quitted the place about half-past one o’clock on Tuesday morning. According to the publican Tolliver’s own information, nobody—including his lordship—could have reentered the place before five o’clock that morning.”

“And Davies shall certainly swear that George was asleep at the hour, breakfasting by seven, and mounted for London by eight,” Lady Oxford mused absently. I noted that she did not say whether she believed these things, or that they were indisputable facts; merely that Davies should swear to them.

“But, Lady Swithin,” I said briskly, “having penetrated so much of the King’s Arms—I should like to know more of Catherine’s enjoyment of the Assembly. I mean to approach the Master of Ceremonies, and learn whether he observed her dancing partners.”

“There is nothing Mr. Forth does not observe, my dear—or comment upon, should the spirit move him. A most fastidious and exacting fellow, hideously high in the instep—which comes, of course, from a dearth of breeding. Only those unaccustomed to the most excellent Society from birth, should chuse to ape its snobbery rather than its easiness.”

If I winced inwardly for poor Mr. Forth’s sake, I did not betray it. “I had heard that he should not look with favour on a lady in mourning attending tonight’s Assembly,” I said calmly, “but I should like to brave Mr. Forth’s displeasure—with your support, of course. Would you consent to carry me into the Old Ship, Lady Swithin, in defiance of all propriety, and make me known to the redoubtable Master?”

“With pleasure,” she answered, a glint in her eye.

“And with so notorious a lady as the Countess of Oxford on your other arm,” her friend interjected, “our dear Miss Austen is unlikely to arouse comment.”

“Exactly!” Mona cried in gay amusement; but I do not think Lady Oxford meant it for a joke. There was a bleakness to her looks that suggested some dire reckoning had commenced in her brain and heart. I wondered very much how the previous night’s dinner had gone off—whether his lordship had indeed put in his promised appearance, and how the lovers had met or parted—but could not find the courage to enquire. Even my boldness must find its limit.

Lady Swithin sprang to her feet. “I must pay a visit to the nursery, for a report on little Charles’s cold; and then I believe I shall recruit my strength with a nap in my boudoir, before dressing for dinner. Miss Austen, I shall not bore you with a tedious dinner when your day has already been so full of incident—but if you and your brother would be good enough to join us for coffee, we may then set out in a grand complement to the Old Ship. Shall we say—nine o’clock?”

I gratefully accepted the Countess’s invitation, as well as her dispensation from the necessity of dining—for one so stricken in years as myself, a period of repose is vital before any attendance at a ball—and gathered my reticule in preparation for leaving. But as I rose from my chair, Lady Oxford astonished me by saying, “I should be grateful, Miss Austen, if you might spare me the benefit of your excellent understanding a few moments—if there is no other claim upon your time, naturally.”

Mona being already out of the room, it was evident she had contrived to leave the two Janes in possession of it; and so I resumed my seat. Lady Oxford, however, paced a little restlessly before the fire, as tho’ in an effort to order her thoughts.

“I need not inform you, I know, of the nature of my sentiments towards Lord Byron,” she began. “Nor must I beg you to hold anything I might say in complete confidence. Mona assures me that I may trust in your discretion—and tho’ Mona may act the goosecap at times, she owns an excellent heart, and should never betray a friend.”

“I honour her esteem, and shall endeavour to deserve it,” I said quietly.

Her ladyship paced some once or twice, her ringed hands braced upon her hips; it was a regal pose, and entirely unconscious, as was the forbidding look upon her countenance. “I should begin, I suppose, by allowing you to read this,” she said abruptly. She drew from an inner pocket a piece of closely-penned paper.

I must have shrunk back a little, because she said hurriedly, “It is no private correspondence, I assure you. Only some verses of Lord Byron’s he left behind last evening. He has been working on a long narrative poem some months—during the winter at Eywood, my estate in Herefordshire—and this spring, both in London and Brighton. As he certainly means to publish, I can see no harm in showing the verses to you. The poem is called The Giaour.”

I glanced up. “As is his yacht?”

“Yes—a word his lordship picked up in Turkish, during his wanderings—it means infidel, or foreigner, or perhaps simply Christian Englishman. I suppose it most truly refers to himself: the lone traveller in distant lands. A pretty enough name for a seagoing craft, certainly.… But this latest fragment …” Her voice trailed away. “I find it disturbing. And suggestive. Please read it, Miss Austen, and lend me your thoughts.”

I accepted the piece of paper, and studied Byron’s hand—which was fair copperplate, entirely legible, and not the impassioned scrawl I might have expected from a Romantic.

Yes, Leila sleeps beneath the wave,

But his shall be a colder redder grave;

Her spirit charged pointed well the steel

Which taught that felon heart to feel .

He called on Heaven the Prophet, but his power

Was vain against the vengeful Giaour:

Thou Paynim heart

I watched my time, I leagued with these,

The blackguard traitor in his turn to seize;

My wrath is wreaked, the deed is done ,

And now I go,—but go alone.

And further down, at the bottom of the page, another few couplets, as tho’ scrawled at random:

Much in his visions mutters he

Of maiden drowned whelmed beneath the sea;

On jagged cliff he has been known to stand

And rave as to some bloody hand

Her treachery was truth to me;

To me she gave her heart, that all

Which Tyranny can ne’er enthrall

And I, alas! Too late to save !

Yet all I then

Something, something, our foe a grave

But for the thought of Leila slain

Give me the pleasure with the pain,

So would I live and love again

???

Tis all too late—thou wert, thou art

The cherished madness of my heart!

“Poor Lord Byron,” I said soberly. “He grieves, certainly.”

“I must conclude he truly loved the girl.”

Lady Oxford’s voice was tight with pain; to have believed that smouldering passion hers to command—and then know it to have been incited by Another—

“And you have read the earlier verses?” I said by way of distraction. “Are they all a paean to Miss … to Leila?”

Lady Oxford shook her head. “It seemed, at first, rather a dashing tale of battle between Infidel and Christian, as told by an old campaigner to his priest.” She sank at last into a chair by the fire, her eyes bent upon the flames. “But this.… It is as tho’ the narrative turned to something other—a revenge tale, Miss Austen. There is grief in it, to be sure—but also bloodlust, a desire to see violence given where violence has taken away.”

Her understanding—of both her lover and his verse—was certainly acute; hers was a formidable mind. Byron had claimed, during our interview the previous day, that his passion for Catherine had already been waning. But what if that were merely a pose, adopted to veil his vengeful heart? A chill swept over me. “Countess—what is it that you fear?”

She met my gaze bleakly. “That George means to have a private justice. Miss Austen, he knows exactly who killed Catherine Twining.”