Lord Byron's Novel

by John Crowley

  THE MILITARY SURGEON welcomed one who had once been his Comrade (tho’ briefly) in arms, and led Ali within the Bosom of his new family—a plump Wife, as advertised, and two plump Children, all three as alike, and as likeable, as three great blushing Fruits in a Dish. The fire was lit, and a bowl of Punch in the making, and all was as warm as the Womb. Nor was Ali insensitive to the beauties, and the Delights, of such domesticity; he was at first shy amid so much hubbub and welcome, but by that eve he was more at ease than he had been since—since—and here the memory of Corydon Hall obtruded, and he turn’d away from the spillikins he would pick up, or the lead soldiers he was to command. Yet the little Son of the Upwards could smile upon him, and the Daughter tug at his sleave, to bring him round again.

  For a week and more he kept the vow he had made—that he would not think of Susanna—but the hours and days of that week proved remarkably elastic, stretching to fill an Eternity—and what with the well-known impossibility of forbidding one’s thought to dwell upon a certain object, the very act of forbidding being itself but one more thought of the forbidden—and the sullen Sea offering him no whit of comfort, and no suggestion of a Resolution, though he flung himself into its cold embrace twice a day, all but naked, to solicit its wisdom—he approached, in a short time, to Despair. Easy and sweet it seemed to him to leap into that sea, and easy to swim out so far he could not return—sweet to sink beneath the wave, and know no more, of Susanna, of Love—yea, of Ali! Yet what commended him to the Deep, and Forgetfulness, was the same as what he could not give up, which demanded that he cling to Life, and Hope—the Paradox is a common one, which does not make it sting the less.

  More than once indeed did Ali determine to carry out his stated resolve, and ‘take up arms’ against his own ‘sea of troubles, and by opposing, end them.’ He stood long on a height above the roiling waves, that dashed upon the rocks where he might dash himself—they ever to re-form, and be flung back again, but he never! Or he took a Pistol, and clutched it as though it were the hand of his only friend—or he considered the long & honed Razor that might in a moment’s spasm release his pulsing blood from the carotid artery that beat along his throat. But—and it will not surprise any, who have known the vagaries of a fit of Melancholy—there came a night when Ali felt almost that his raging soul might cross over by its own volition to the realm of the unhappy Dead—and of a sudden sleep seized him, and when he woke, he woke calm, a sea after storm—and in wonder and a little shame he found that he intended to live and not to die, and to have a Bath, and eat his Breakfast.

  ‘As I predicted,’ said the Military Surgeon gravely—for his manner had grown suitably grave, with the increase in his responsibilities, and the numbers and ailments of his Patients—‘Sea air has done for you what Nature and Nature’s God intended it might—why, your cheek is as bright as a girl’s, and your eye as clear as—as—as anything clear. Another week or two, and you will be sleeping like an infant, and eating like one too.’

  ‘Forgive me,’ Ali said. ‘The cure you propose must be cut short—I left all my business at sixes and sevens—truthfully, I did not expect to consider it further. Will you make my obeisance to your dear wife, and your delightful babes? And here, take this as a gift from myself—you see it is a fine one—made by Joe Manton himself—you see the chasing, upon the stock? Nay, nay—take it—I would have it far from me, now—I have no use for it, I hope!’

  He had not returned to Town but a week, however, and had not chosen a new path (tho’ feeling sure one lay before him, or more than one), when on a fateful afternoon—fateful he would later name it—a Visitor to his lodgings was announced.

  ‘A Female,’ said his valet, in some disapprobation, as such creatures, come a-calling alone, inevitably added to his own cares. ‘She requests an interview.’

  ‘Is she known to you?’

  ‘The Lady is veiled.’

  Beneath his servant’s critical eye Ali stood in an agony of doubt. Susanna—should she not be sent away? Had she not sent him to his death—or well might have, had he had a little more resolve—and spake not a word to call him back? Had he not vowed—had he not sworn before his own soul—had he not promised her never to put her again in shame’s way? Never! Never! ‘Admit the Lady,’ said he, and then when the cursed valet pretended he had not heard, and cupped an ear with a large and hairy hand, again—‘Admit her!’

  Yet when the female stood upon the threshold, and lifted the heavy veil, Ali saw before him not Susanna, but Miss Catherine Delaunay. Pale she was as though she had passed through the Valley of the Shadow, yet she held herself erect and brave, and look’d steadily upon Ali.

  ‘Miss Delaunay—Catherine,’ said he, and came to greet her. ‘Why, how do you do?’

  ‘My Lord,’ she said, in a voice of icy calm, one not her own, and yet a voice he was not entirely surprized to know she could deploy—it struck a strange fear, and a stranger pity, into his heart to hear it. ‘I come to tell you that there have been consequences of our late meeting.’

  ‘Consequences?’ responded Ali. ‘What consequences? To which meeting do you allude? Will you not be seated? Will you take tea, or a glass of wine? Your coming here is unwonted—I hope the matter is not such as to cause you great distress!’

  At this word the lady seemed suddenly suffused with feeling—whether anger, or affront, or horror, could not be told, but for an instant she seemed ready to detonate, like a hand grenade just toss’d. Then—it was terrible to see—she drew herself together, and made herself ice again. ‘Consequences,’ she said again. ‘If I speak not plainly enough, I shall: I am with child.’

  There is—it is comically reliable—an attribute in Man such that, upon hearing Woman speak so, he feels himself instantly solicitous, and at the same time alarmed beyond reason—he must bring a chair, and insist she sit—await any command—speak tenderly—all this he will do, except in one circumstance, and that is when he suspects he is about to have a claim of Paternity brought against him, which he intends to deny—then there is no wight crueller, or less pitiful. Ali sensed a claim upon him, indeed, and one made by a person whose uprightness, and truthfulness, and probity, he would never doubt—yet it was not a claim whose basis he could admit—or even imagine. Therefore he only stood, between solicitude and aloofness, unable to respond. At last he spoke—‘I know not,’ said he, ‘of what you speak.’

  ‘Will you deny me now?’ said Catherine, in a voice like a subtle knife. ‘I do not believe you will—you cannot be so changed from the one I knew.’

  ‘You must forgive me,’ said Ali. ‘I am innocent of all that you say—I know nothing of it.’

  ‘Do not mock me,’ she cried then piteously, and all the cold reserve she had theretofore shown slid from her as a garment undone. ‘O do not! If you deny me now, I know not where I may turn—indeed there is nowhere—nowhere in this land—this Earth! I swear to you I shall not remain upon it—not for shame, tho’ that be reason enough, but that you deny me—that is too terrible!’ She sank then at his feet, and like a grieving child clutched at his knees in abasement. ‘No!’ Ali cried to her—‘No! Do not do so!’ He knelt to lift her from the floor—found her too shaken even with his aid to stand—and ended by sitting on the Carpet beside her, as though they were two children at a game. Ali took her face, now all wetted with her tears, into his hands, and by his look made to subdue her horrors—so shocking as coming from such a one, who he thought may never have wept before—surely not such a storm! ‘Tell me,’ said he, ‘what you believe to have happened—tell me, for you have surely been deceived by someone—and trust that I will do all I can to aid you, and to learn the truth—more I cannot do.’

  ‘I came to you in response to your summons,’ she said, and from within her reticule she withdrew a paper—which she had not half-unfolded before Ali recognized it, tho’ ’twas worn with much reading, and stained too with tears—for it was the letter he had sent to Susanna, that last desperate missive she had not answered—his an
swer, as he had thought, being her silence. Catherine now read from it—‘I was wrong to think I could live without you’,—‘I shall not live, if you so instruct me’, and ‘Meet me, where and when you may decide’, and the rest. A blackness swam before Ali’s vision as he heard the words, and he felt the sensation of a sword cutting him in two—not dividing, but doubling him. ‘Tell me it is not your hand,’ said Catherine, proffering this letter. ‘You shall not say so—you cannot!’

  ‘Who brought this to you? Did it come by post? How addressed?’

  ‘Not by post—it was given me by a messenger, who insisted he must put it in my hands—he was commanded, he said, to wait upon my answer.’

  ‘I sent you no messenger,’ said Ali—but not now as one who insists upon his Innocence, or argues his case, but as one stunned with wonder, who knows not what will resolve the contradiction he is caught in, that offers no Resolution—no more than the immovable object, that meets the irresistible force. ‘What answer made you?’

  She looked upon him as though he were mad. ‘You know what answer!’ cried she. ‘You know! That I would not have harm come to you—would not have the guilt of that upon me—I know not what words I used—as wild as those you addressed to me—I wrote that I knew not where we might meet, that I knew nothing of such places, save public ones. The next evening a further communication was brought me—naught but the name of a street, and the number of a house—an hour, late—O Heaven forgive me!’

  There she had gone, she related, with but a single trusted servant, to the house named—was admitted—her servant commanded to await her return. She was conducted to a darkened bed-chamber—its drapes drawn—without lamp or light—and there awaited him, Ali, in dread and hope!

  Ali had ceased to speak—found he could as little interfere, or question her narrative, as a spectator at a play, who watches in a state of suspended excitation—scarce breathing—while the persons of the drama enact their foregone dooms:—or as our own innocent spirits may watch, from their abode within us, the fatal words we speak, the actions we take, that can never be undone.

  Anon one had come into the chamber—she scarcely knew how, or from where, as though it were a Ghost, or a Sorcerer—and lay down beside her. He spoke but her name, and yet—she said—she knew him surely for Ali—how, she could not say—as even a blind dog knows its master—as a storm-toss’d Bird the way to its nesting place—she knew! She had believed she would speak to him—tell him of the higher purposes of Life, and the infinite value placed upon every soul by its Creator and Judge—that his despair was but a temporary madness, a dream from which he would wake, and Reason and Proportion return him to himself—all this and more she had designed to say, and had spoken over to herself, as an uncertain actor his part, as she went thence, and there awaited him—but he only laid a gentle finger upon her lips—and then met them with his own—and all was forgotten. But thrice more he spoke—‘Fide in Sane,’ he said; and again, ‘Without you I am nothing.’ And last—when all was yielded, all surrendered—‘Remember Psyche.’

  All this she told over now to Ali—in disjoynted sentences, as though he knew all, and needed but a hint, a word of reminder—but he knew naught, and only gaped at her and goggled, like a caught Trout in a Net, till she withdrew from him, pale and in terror. ‘Stare not so upon me!’ she cried. ‘What mean you? You cannot deny this—O that I had lit a lamp then despite your commandment—made you acknowledge yourself!’ At length she flung herself heedlessly into his arms—begged that, after all that she had given, and he taken, he would never abandon her, never despise her—that he loved her, and that all which had occurred was from this source alone.

  ‘Catherine,’ said he, drawing himself from her, as far as she allowed. ‘You must know that the German doctor who examined me has found it to be possible that I might suffer from a condition, as rare as strange, whereby I may, in a fit like sleep, and all unknown to my self—I mean my conscious self, this self that knows that I am here, and I am I, and you and all this are here before me—I may do things that I know not I do. I say, ’tis possible, it may be—I know not—I doubt it could be—and yet—perhaps—’

  She looked upon him as he spoke, and to Ali it was as when we watch a weak & failing flame, wondering if it will die away, or grow strong and burn—he knew not if she would shrink away in horror from him, and her heart die—or rather would she rise, in fury, or in love—’struth! He knew nothing, who knew not if he had possess’d the girl—for, who knows not that, knows nothing indeed! ‘Ali!’ she breathed then. ‘My Lord! Do you then not love me? Tell me now if what you did, you did from love—for my part I swear it was!’

  There was then but a single course open to my hero—heroes being, in general part, those who have but a single way to take, and take it. Catherine Delaunay believed him to be the one who had gone to the bed where she lay, in a darkened house, in a dark street, and had got her with his child—and had done these things because he loved her. He had not done so—or what was more dreadful, perhaps had done so, but in a Dream, or a blindness—yet it was he alone, & awake, who could bear the blame, there was no other. Now if he took her up—whether he acknowledged the night, and the deed, and the child, or did not—it could only be because he loved her—she would refuse him else. So he said—‘I indeed do love you, Catherine. I love you, and if I do not affright you—for truly I know not who I am, nor what I may do, if I have done this—I desire your love, too—forever—from this time forth.’

  ‘You do love me, then!’

  ‘I say that I do.’ It was in truth all he could say; and—his honest heart moved to pity & awe at what she had done for him (though he had known nothing of it), which was done in response to his outcry of despair & love (though that outcry was meant for another), and in apparent possession now of what she could give but once—he was persuaded—he was nearly sure—he thought it certain—that indeed he did.

  NOTES FOR THE 10TH CHAPTER

  new plays: Lord Byron loved the Theatre, and was for a time early in his marriage a member of the committee of Drury Lane which chose new plays—though his own plays were never meant for performance—he was greatly annoyed when one of his dramas intended only for the Closet was performed in London without his permission and against his wishes. Sorry he would be, I think, that now-a-days no-one would think even to try—they are not much read, except Manfred and perhaps Cain.

  Argus: The being with a hundred eyes set to watch upon Jupiter’s love Io, and not the ship of Jason, which was the Argo. He never entirely slept, which is the jest. The reader will encounter him again in the 12th Chapter.

  Animal Magnetism: The supposed fluid or property of living things (not excepting trees and flowers) that M. Mesmer and his followers claimed to control by their baths and manipulations. Like many things once thought to be fact, it persists as fancy, a term used loosely and generally to mean sex attraction.

  the Authoress herself: It has long been Lady Byron’s habit, to retain copies of letters she has herself sent. Even when she has composed them in the heat of feeling, she is able coolly to transcribe them, and if disagreement arise as to what she said, or implied, to any correspondent, she may thus refresh her own memory. I sometimes wish that such habits of forethought were mine, and the past were not lost to me, as it sometimes is. O what a tangled web.

  A young officer: Lady Caroline Lamb used often to go to my father’s apartments dressed as a Page, with her hair cut short as here described. All that tale is as well known as Beatrice and Benedick, or Lara and Kaled, or I know not who, but the future (it may be hoped) will have forgotten it.

  two plump Children: Ld. B.’s tale flies faster than his system of time—there could hardly be time between the battle of Salamanca and this sojourn, stated to be shortly before the battle of Waterloo, for this character to marry and generate two children. Ld. B. was (it appears) very fond of children, and happy in their company.

  ‘Fide in Sane’: The Byron family motto is Crede Byron. This nice p
un may reflect upon the real motto it echoes, for it can mean ‘Have faith in Sane’, as ours says ‘Believe in Byron’, or it may mean ‘Be certain, (he is, or I am) insane’. (My thanks to C.B. for the Help with Latin, of which I have none.)

  Psyche: Psyche loved the God of Love, but was warned never to look upon him during his nightly visits to her. When her three sisters urged her to break his rule—for, they said, her husband may be a monster, or a demon—Psyche lit a candle to look upon him as he slept, and found him to be a God. The hot wax dropping upon him, he woke—and all was spoiled. After many trials the God and his love end happily—tho’ not all remember this conclusion—which is less memorable than the moment when everything was lost. Happy endings are all alike; disasters may be unique.