Jane and the Madness of Lord Byron

by Stephanie Barron

  “Strong words indeed, sir,” I said imperturbably. “What has the General done to inspire such implacable resentment?”

  “He had a wife, ma’am, before he possessed his children—and the misery he brought upon her head cannot fail to move any who once knew her, tho’ she is many years now in her grave.”

  I bowed to the Captain; his words were laden with honest emotion, and I detected no attempt at dissimulation, no effort to disguise his passionate disregard for the General. If this young man were determined to be the agent of his family’s revenge upon the Twinings—and had sought to destroy the father by extinguishing first his son, a companion in arms—and then his daughter, so trusting and young—Morley was exceedingly clever. A man who had much to hide, should have affected a careless cordiality towards the General—and I should have suspected his motives instantly. By exposing his unvarnished enmity, Morley appeared guileless; and I suspected him the more.

  “But I blame myself for Miss Twining’s murder,” he said, in a lowered voice. “I spoke too freely, when I should not—I sought to protect and shield her. Instead, I served only to incite her murderer to violence.”

  “Unless you held her head under the waves, Captain, you cannot possibly claim guilt.”

  He looked at me in swift dismay. “I, drown Catherine? You will acquit me of such an atrocity, I hope, Miss Austen, when I tell you that it has been many months since I have known she was the only creature on earth capable of ensuring my happiness—and that, tho’ she shrank from openly proclaiming an engagement, until she should be of age, I may say with confidence that she felt the same depth of regard for me.”

  “Good God!” I said blankly. “Do not tell me that the Earl of Derwentwater’s estates lie somewhere near Bath?”

  “My family has long been established in that part of the country, indeed,” the Captain returned with a faint air of curiosity.

  Thus did my brother Henry’s predicted appearance of a gallant Unknown, devoted to Miss Twining, come to pass—and as I had feared, entirely too late. A host of impressions swept over me. Catherine in love with a young officer. Catherine, sent home from school. Catherine, going in fear of disclosing her beloved’s name. But Morley was speaking, and I must attend.

  “The fact of her brother having reposed his trust and friendship in me, early supported my suit; but many months of mutual esteem, and increasing knowledge of one another’s character, established the true bond.”

  “Then you have all my sympathy, Captain,” I said; but I studied his classic profile in some doubt. “How did you come to meet? Miss Twining was much of the year at school, I believe, in Bath?”

  “She was—but at such a remove from the General, Catherine naturally felt herself to be free of inordinate restraint. She might receive visitors, under the eye of Miss Addams, the Headmistress. I first called last November, to deliver a letter I had long held in keeping—the final one penned by her brother. Richard had told me much of his beloved sister during our long campaigning in Spain.”

  “Of course,” I murmured.

  “From that beginning,” the Captain continued in a voice that wavered only a little, “our attachment was constant and fervent. The knowledge that I was to be garrisoned in Brighton—where Catherine made her home—only increased our happiness—but we taught ourselves discretion, so as not to excite the animosity of her father.”

  “You only danced the one dance with her, at Monday’s Assembly,” Mona observed.

  The Captain turned his head. “All subterfuge must be abhorrent; but I knew the General should make Catherine’s life a misery if he suspected our mutual regard. An ancient scandal lies between our two families, which renders any marital tie repugnant to the General.”

  “You were aware he intended to marry her to Mr. Hendred Smalls?” I asked.

  “The Company chaplain? Catherine had spoken of the General’s threats, but did not regard the union as imminent; she pled her tender years, and the unfortunate Smalls is an elderly gentleman. He might, after all, be carried off by a putrid fever at any time,” Morley said, with the unconscious arrogance of youth, “and had he pressed his suit—or the General forced the union upon her—we should have been ready to fly to the Border at a moment’s notice.”

  He was pensive a moment, the charger skittering sideways, and I observed that his pallor was extreme. “To think that it should be my darling—in all her freshness and bloom—who should be lost, and as a result of my unguarded tongue! I do not exaggerate, Miss Austen, that when I learnt of her death—of the wretched manner in which she was found—that I very nearly made away with myself. Only a consciousness of what was due to my father—to all my family—preserved me. I would not have it said that a Twining was the ruin of another generation’s hopes!”

  “Your unguarded tongue,” Mona repeated, all anxious concern. “What can you possibly have said, Morley, to bring such guilt upon your head?”

  “I told his lordship too fully, and too freely, what I thought of his manners in abducting my Catherine.”

  “His lordship being—Byron?”

  The Captain nodded. “I upbraided him at Monday’s Assembly. I was careful throughout the whole to suggest only the indignation of a gentleman, rather than of Catherine’s betrothed, lest I betray too great a partiality. I informed him that by making a sport of Catherine’s virtue, he had exposed her to all the burden of her father’s anger—and that the General’s rage had undoubtedly found expression in physical abuse. In short, I accused Byron of blind selfishness, that had occasioned harm to the very being he professed to love. I believe that I so shamed him—and that, in publick—that he found Catherine in her way home from the Pavilion, and—”

  “Killed her.”

  His hands must have clenched on his mount’s reins, for the horse jibed.

  “You do not credit Mr. Scrope Davies’s assertion, then, that Byron was with him the remainder of that night?” I said nothing of Caro Lamb.

  “Davies is Byron’s friend,” Morley said simply.

  “You believe all this,” Mona cried, “and yet may play at cards with his lordship? I will never understand the code of gentlemen. Never!”

  “I have no proof, and the coroner had effectively acquitted Byron. When I learnt the inquest verdict, I was beside myself—and might have called him out, then and there. But my family has a wretched history where private vengeance is concerned,” he said, with a faint smile.

  Point to the Captain, I thought ruefully; his performance was exceedingly well done.

  “I chose to shadow Byron,” he continued, “in order to engage him in conversation when I might, over cards or a glass of claret—in the hope that he might betray himself, so that I could then lay information before the magistrate. But happily, Sir Harding Cross arrived at his determination before I was required to act.”

  “It is so difficult to untangle the events of that evening.” I sighed. “I was not in attendance at the Assembly myself; but I had heard that the principal actors came and went at such confusing times! Byron quitting the Rooms as Lady Caroline Lamb entered them; Lady Caro quitting them in company with Miss Twining; and the General, who was said to be so jealous of his daughter’s virtue, departing hours before she did! Do you not think it odd, Captain, that so scrupulous a parent should have left his daughter alone at a ball where two men he despised—Lord Byron and yourself—should be paying her marked attention?”

  This was plain speaking indeed.

  “I should, had I not learnt the cause of the General’s early departure within minutes of leaving the Assembly myself,” the Captain answered calmly. “He had been invited, as I was, to drink Port and play at hazard with Colonel George Hanger, at the Pavilion.”

  “With Colonel Hanger!” I glanced at Mona in surprize and consternation, and saw the same mirrored in her looks. “But the General claimed to have gone home that night!”

  “It is possible he did not wish to admit of an acquaintance with Hanger, particularly in the company
of Mr. Hendred Smalls,” Morley said drily. “But it is common knowledge within the 10th that Hanger and the General—who was but Major Twining then—served together years ago, during the rebellion of the American colonies. Indeed, Hanger was Twining’s second, in the duel that forever divided our two families.”

  “Then what were you about, in Heaven’s name, drinking Port with the pair of them?” Mona demanded, scandalised.

  The Captain’s mouth curled. “Hanger remains a senior officer, Countess. A fellow in my position does not idly ignore such invitations—which must be received uncommonly like orders.”

  “At what time did you join Colonel Hanger?” I recollected that the undergroom, Jem, had received Hanger’s sodden visitation at about half-past two o’clock in the morning.

  “I reached the Pavilion when Miss Twining did,” he replied without reservation. “Indeed, I waited until she had quitted the Assembly with Lady Caroline—and then followed, by prior agreement. I escorted the ladies across the Steyne, and parted from them in the front entry. I was shown to Hanger’s rooms, and found General Twining already established in a chair. He did not remain above a half-hour, however, having already been at Hanger’s mercy some time; he stayed only long enough to twit me on my parentage and family history, with undisguised contempt; to belittle Wellington and all our efforts in the Peninsula; and to speak with indescribable bitterness of the loss of his son, and the unusual survival of others—meaning myself, of course, whom he should have preferred dead. I might have said such words to him then as should have justified him in calling me out—for a Captain offers a General disrespect at his peril, you know. But I thought of my friend Richard—and more of my beloved Catherine—and kept a still tongue in my head.”

  “And so, by your calculation, the General left you at half-past one?”

  “Or a little earlier, perhaps. I did not linger alone with Colonel Hanger long. The General was no sooner out the door, than Hanger must be abusing him—and all his family. The affair of the duel was dragged forward, with Hanger describing the morals of Catherine’s mother in such terms as I should blush to repeat; and then—” Morley hesitated, his blue eyes flicking to meet mine, and a dull red colour suffusing his cheeks—“went so far as to drag Catherine herself through the muck.”

  The charger’s head jerked back; the Captain had clenched unconsciously at the reins. “He knew of Byron’s persistent suit—knew, as well, of the attempted abduction, I know not how. His contempt for Byron was immense; he seems to regard all poets as weaklings and—forgive me—sodomites; the fact of Byron’s lameness only inflamed his derision further. I did not waste my words in defending a man I regarded as my enemy; but Catherine—Hanger seemed to believe that Miss Twining encouraged Byron’s attentions—that like her mother, she was, as Colonel Hanger put it, soiled goods, no better than a common doxy, not worth the bullet fired to defend her honour.”

  Mona uttered a shocked exclamation of sympathy.

  “You may imagine how I felt,” Morley said in a low voice. “Indignation—outrage—on the point of personal honour, and family pride—Had he been anyone but a senior officer, I should have thrown my glove in his face. As it was—I bade him goodnight with the barest civility and showed myself out of the old blackguard’s rooms.

  “I loitered in the Pavilion’s foyer a moment, in the hope that Catherine might descend, and require an escort home. I wish to God I had waited longer! I must have missed her only by moments.”

  The Pavilion footman responsible for the door that evening should of course corroborate this, did we ask.

  “But Catherine did not appear, and I had no business disturbing Lady Caroline. I recollected I was expected on the Parade Ground to train some raw recruits early the next morning, and slipped regretfully out the door. The stable clock had just finished tolling the half-hour.”

  “And General Twining was nowhere in sight?”

  Morley hesitated, then continued with marked distaste. “In fact, he had lain in wait for me, if you will credit it. He stepped forward out of the shadows and offered me such abuse—the sort of violent obscenities only a man in his cups should utter—that I so far forgot myself, as to knock him down. No doubt that was his very object, that he might have the pleasure of calling me up before a court-martial.”

  “You struck the General?” Mona cried gleefully; she seemed to regard a mill as excellent sport.

  Morley smiled at her sadly. “He was excessively foxed, I fear—Hanger is notorious for a deep drinker, and the General had been keeping pace with his old comrade. Indeed, he was so unsteady as to take the blow full on the chin, and lose his footing—and once he fell, appeared senseless. I was horrified enough at the result of my actions to search for a pulse—satisfied myself that he breathed still—and then left him. My feelings were so uncharitable towards General Twining at the time, that I had no interest in aiding him—and hoped he should suffer acutely from the headache in the morning.”

  Mona laughed delightedly, and her team seemed to take some of their excitement from her—slipping into a canter that hurtled the precarious phaeton down the road towards the sea.

  “And then?” I gasped, clutching at my seat as Mona sawed at the ribbons. The chestnuts dropped back into a walk.

  “I returned to the Castle, where I had stabled Intrepid,” Morley said, patting his charger’s neck. “We must already have achieved our road home when Catherine—when she quitted the Pavilion, entirely alone.… How Lady Caroline can have allowed it …”

  “As to that,” Mona began—but I pinched her near arm and she shot me a look of enquiry. I gave my head the slightest shake. There was no need to inform the Captain of Byron’s appearance in Caro Lamb’s rooms. Morley appeared in ignorance of it, and I had no wish to heighten his conviction that Byron was a killer.

  We had reached the final descent into Brighton when the Captain drew rein, and doffed his hat.

  “Will you not dine with us this evening, Captain?” Mona asked, at her most engaging.

  “I should enjoy nothing better,” he said, “but must decline the invitation—I do not have leave. Indeed, I have neglected my duties already too long. I shall be fortunate not to be thrown in the stocks! But I could not resist the chance to speak of Catherine to a few who knew her—and wished to thank you, Miss Austen, for having saved her that day in Cuckfield. Would that she had never known a greater danger!”

  He wheeled Intrepid, and galloped away from us then, but not before I had seen an unexpected rush of tears stain his cheeks.

  “It is remarkable,” Mona told me sombrely, “that such gentlemen may cut their way through scores of French—and yet return home possessed of hearts enough, to mourn the loss of a green girl.”

  “He makes no mention of meeting Byron as his lordship entered the Pavilion, tho’ the timing was such, it is extraordinary their paths did not cross,” I observed. “Do you think we ought to believe him, Mona?”

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  The Giaour

  SATURDAY, 15 MAY 1813

  BRIGHTON

  A REVENGE TRAGEDY, LADY OXFORD HAD SAID OF THE verses Lord Byron was presently writing. I had thought that she referred to her lover in this—that it was Byron who sought revenge, for Catherine Twining’s murder—but as the phaeton swiftly descended towards the village by the sea, and the beautiful youth who was Captain Viscount Morley disappeared behind us, I asked myself which of the gentlemen might have had cause to feel the spurs of jealousy more.

  A man I knew for my enemy, the young captain had said of his lordship; and who could blame him? Morley had, in retrospect, shown remarkable restraint while playing at cards with Byron the previous evening. Was this a testament to the quality of his breeding—or the depth of his satisfied revenge?

  “I wish we had been able to speak to Byron,” I fretted, as Mona pulled up at the meeting of the Lewes and London roads.

  “It is a pity,” she agreed as she headed her team south. “Had we been able to put Caro’s story to him
point-blank, he might have confessed the whole—and we should then be saved the embarrassment of interrogating poor Scrope Davies. I shall make Swithin do it, of course; he will manage exactly the right blend of sympathy and sternness. He is forever adopting that tone when my modiste’s bills prove shockingly high, and we are forced to engage in an uncomfortable interview in his book room. Shall I set you down at the Castle, Jane? I confess I should prefer you to come back with me to Marine Parade—I do not like to face Lady Oxford alone.”

  “Mona,” I said, shaking the sealed packet of paper, “if this proves to be a letter from Byron to the Countess, you shall be greeted with joy.”

  “And if it is not?” she countered. “Pity me, Jane!”

  I glanced at her sidelong. “I believe all this fresh air has given me an appetite. I should be happy to partake of a nuncheon in Marine Parade—and shall stand buff as heartily as Scrope Davies, should you require it!”

  LADY OXFORD STILL KEPT TO HER ROOM.

  We discovered her established on a settee, in fetching dishabille, with a pretty lace cap covering her light brown hair and a pair of spectacles on her nose. She was reading Volume the Eighth of her history of Rome.

  “We intend a trip to Sardinia, you know, in June,” she told me carelessly as she set aside the book; “or perhaps we shall simply stay at Naples. Oxford hopes to find some antiquities there—his friend Lord Hamilton is forever singing the praises of Naples for such treasures, and if watching poor labourers dig in the dirt will make my lord happy, I find no cause to complain.”

  “—Provided Vesuvius does not erupt again,” Mona murmured. “Jane—we carried a hamper of provisions to Byron this morning, but the sentries at the Camp would not allow us a glimpse of him. He sent this to you by way of his gaolers.”

  “At last,” she breathed. “A communication.”

  She reached eagerly for the packet, broke the seal with impatience, and began to scan the first page.

  I observed her with interest and some apprehension. Closeted in her rooms without the benefit of dress, hair, or such touches of powder and rouge as a fashionable London lady must always employ, she looked all her forty years; and the recollection of Byron’s haunting visage and vigourous frame, despite the club foot—proclaimed all the disparity of the five-and-twenty-year-old. Theirs was a misalliance, undoubtedly a misalliance—and as I studied the Countess’s face, I guessed that she apprehended the same. Without Byron’s overwhelming presence, she might better command her reason.