Jane and the Madness of Lord Byron jam-10 Page 12

  Henry placed his hands over mine. “Do not berate yourself, my dear. You cannot regard yourself as responsible for Miss Twining’s death. I will not allow it. You could have had no notion — ”

  “You do not perfectly understand,” I managed. “The last words Catherine Twining uttered to me were a plea that I remain. She feared him, Henry — so much I knew; but I thought her a goosecap for doing so, in the midst of an Assembly. I actually laughed at her a little. When in fact she went in fear for her life. Oh, God, I am to blame! I am to blame for the loss of that innocent creature!”

  The picture of Catherine as she had been — flower-like in her white muslin gown, the thin bones of her shoulders as subtly molded as porcelain — and the image of what she must now be, were too melancholy to contemplate. My eyes filled with tears.

  Henry grasped my arm and turned me firmly back along the way we had come. “Jane,” he said bracingly, “we require a revival of your formidable spirit — one I have not seen in nearly two years. You must take up the rôle of Divine Fury. You must penetrate this killer’s motives, and expose him to the world!”

  “It should be a form of penance, I suppose.”

  “Penance! It should be nothing less than justice for Miss Twining’s sake!”

  “There are so many persons, Henry, far more adept than I — the magistrate, the coroner …”

  “Neither of whom knew Miss Twining in the least.”

  I glanced at him in grudging acknowledgement.

  “But what if the man you ruin is indeed Lord Byron?” my brother suggested. “Would you hesitate, when guilt falls upon a poet — one the Polite World acclaims as a genius?”

  I did not bother to reply, but strode only more swiftly towards the Steyne.

  “I tremble for the poet.” Henry sighed.

  AS WE DINED QUIETLY IN ONE OF THE CASTLE’S PARLOURS that evening, a serving-man appeared with a note for me, presented on a silver tray. Desdemona, Lady Swithin, had scrawled it so swiftly as to blot her words, on an elegant scrap of hot-pressed paper. Struck afresh by the Swithin crest, a tiger rampant, I broke the seal — and begged permission of Henry to peruse the communication.

  21 Marine Parade

  11th May 1813

  My dear Miss Austen,

  If you do not take pity upon Charles and me, and come round directly after dinner to discuss this miserable affair of Byron’s, there will be no living with either of us. We may promise you tea and an excellent Rhenish cream in return; Swithin is most anxious for Mr. Austen to sample his Port. Two dozen of his finest bottles sent down from London, wrapped in cotton wool and supported by goose feather pillows, so as not to disturb the sediment! But I digress. I would not have you believe we are mere gluttons for gossip — that not an hour may pass, but we must surfeit on the latest whiff of local scandal — but my interest has been sought in the present tragedy, by one I hold in friendship. I shall say no more. We shall expect you at eight o’clock — but if you are otherwise engaged, pray send your reply by the footman; he awaits your pleasure.

  I remain, etc.,

  Desdemona, Countess of Swithin

  “We are invited to take tea on the Marine Parade,” I informed my brother.

  “Nonsense,” he replied, reading over Mona’s note without so much as a by-your-leave. “We are invited to canvass a murder. There is no end to the dissipations of Brighton! I never thought to enjoy myself so much!”

  I drank down my glass of claret, knowing I required the fortification; there could be only one friend of Desdemona’s interested in the death of Catherine Twining — Lord Byron’s lover, Jane Elizabeth, Countess of Oxford.

  Chapter 13 The Passions of Lord Byron

  TUESDAY, 11 MAY 1813

  BRIGHTON, CONT.

  IF I EXPECTED TO FIND LADY OXFORD ALREADY ESTABLISHED in the Marine Parade, I was disappointed; but upon reflection, too little time had intervened between the discovery of the murder, and the arrival of such news in London; even were she in constant communication with Lord Byron, it must be impossible for the mistress of so considerable an establishment to fly south on a whim, as Caro Lamb had done. The Swithins were not quite alone, however: a dozen guests were arranged in the pretty drawing-room of No. 21, Marine Parade, a fact which caused me to hesitate on the threshold. I was suitably dressed for dinner à deux in the Castle’s private parlour, but not for an intimate soiree of the haut ton. It was impossible to draw back, however, or to wish that Betsy had had the dressing of my hair — and so, with Henry’s arm guiding me gently forward, I braved the tiger’s den.

  “Miss Austen.” It was the Earl who greeted me, elegant as ever in evening dress. His smile was so warm that I wondered how I had ever thought him haughty, upon first acquaintance, in the Bath of our youth; perhaps nearly ten years of marriage had softened the ruthless opium trader he had once been. “It is very good of you to join us. Desdemona, I know, is most anxious to speak with you. Mr. Austen! As you see, the gentlemen — some of whom I believe are known to you — have by now rejoined the ladies; but pray allow me to fetch you a glass of Port!”

  With merely a look, the Earl summoned a footman; Henry bowed to a tall, lean fellow with very little hair, and murmured, “Pleasure, Sir John — had thought you tied to Hertfordshire at this time of year — ” and I was claimed by Lady Swithin.

  “Miss Austen,” she said as she curtseyed. “I am in your debt, dear creature. And I said nothing of this crush in my note to you! I feared you would not come, did you know we were encumbered with acquaintance this evening. Now, in penance for my sins, I shall make you known to only a few of these ladies — Miss Kemp, who is quite musical, and shall presently repair to the instrument, thereby allowing us to converse under cover of its noise; Mrs. Alleyn, who is so animated that no one may avoid her notice; and Mrs. Silchester, who acted as duenna to your unfortunate friend, Miss Twining.”

  Mrs. Silchester! Here was a treasure, indeed!

  I fixed a smile to my countenance; moved sedately under Desdemona’s guidance through the gauntlet of eyes, and found that Miss Kemp was of that uncertain age, when one does not know whether to hope for salvation in the form of an eligible parti; or accept the inevitable degradations of spinsterhood with private relief. She was, in short, approaching the age of danger, and should soon be at her last prayers. Her interest, therefore, was fixed upon such single gentlemen as the room afforded — a cousin of Swithin’s called Mr. Stanhope, and a dark-haired rake in his late thirties who went by the name of Hodge. If he possessed any other, I never learnt it. He was absorbed in casting dice, his right hand against his left — which, tho’ hardly the most genteel occupation for a drawing-room, appeared to be regarded as the merest commonplace by his intimates.

  “So pleased,” Miss Kemp fluttered; “I hope you shall find Brighton to your liking.” Her gaze drifted continually over my shoulder, to follow the course of one gentleman or another through the crowd of her rivals.

  “Augusta,” Desdemona said, “we are expiring for want of music. Would you be so good as to play an air or two upon the harp?”

  “But if Miss Austen should care to exhibit — ?” she demurred.

  “I know nothing of the harp,” I assured her. Of the pianoforte prominently positioned at one end of the room, I chose to say nothing. Miss Kemp fluttered over to her instrument, which was conveniently placed next to Hodge and his dice — fluttered a bit in composing herself to play — and allowed her fingers to flutter over the strings. At the first note, Hodge frowned — collected his dice in one sweeping movement — and repaired to the pianoforte, where he lounged in heated debate of tomorrow’s horse race with Mr. Stanhope.

  Poor Miss Kemp.

  Mrs. Alleyn, next in the gauntlet, was a vivacious widow who formed a principal part of Brighton’s charms, I was made to understand; her children being not yet out of the schoolroom, her fortune secured, and her taste for Society as rich as in her first girlhood, she was at liberty to accept as many invitations as the Season afforded �
� and in her case, these were many. She was the decided object of Sir John Stevenson’s gallantry — which, as Henry observed later, had much to do with her fortune of thirty thousand pounds, and explained why that gentleman was not tied to his estates in Hertfordshire at present.

  “And so you are come down from London,” Mrs. Alleyn said. “How long a stay do you make in Brighton?”

  “But a fortnight.” I glanced at Henry. “My brother, Mr. Austen, has been so unfortunate as to recently lose his wife; and we are here in an attempt to raise his spirits.”

  “A widower!” She surveyed Henry with an appraising eye. “And in what part of the country are Mr. Austen’s estates?”

  I stifled a smile. “My brother is a banker, ma’am, and thus fixed in London.”

  Her interest waned.

  “Mr. Austen is endlessly useful to Swithin,” Desdemona supplied, “and Lord Moira quite dotes upon him, I believe. But Miss Austen is an intimate friend of my girlhood, and knew my dear late grandmamma in Bath. I was so pleased to brush against her in Donaldson’s, and discover that she had come to Brighton for a bathing-cure.”

  “Do you mean to try the machines?” Mrs. Alleyn asked, her eyes widening a little; “I should not attempt it before July, at the earliest — the water is far too cold for my taste in May. But perhaps that is part of the cure; the nerves are shocked into order by the frigidity of the plunge.”

  “No doubt. Have you long been resident in Brighton?”

  “Above five years. I removed here when my husband died — I was but a child, as you may conceive,” she added, self-consciously, tho’ I should never accuse her of being mutton dressed as lamb; she retained the bloom of youth, and looked several years my junior. “There is nothing like Brighton for banishing melancholy!”

  “I had begun to wonder,” I suggested doubtfully. “The distressing news of Miss Twining’s death last evening — the probability of its being murder — very nearly convinced me to return to London! Such a town cannot be safe for unattached females! Poor Catherine, I said to my brother — To end in such a way!”

  “You were acquainted with Miss Twining?” Mrs. Alleyn’s countenance was all interest.

  “A little.”

  “Ah,” she said with satisfaction. “Then you will be wishing to condole with Louisa Silchester. She is quite cut up, poor lady — tho’ not so melancholy as to avoid all society at present. Were she to hide in her rooms, the malicious might suspect her of negligence with regard to Miss Twining; and Louisa should never wish to forfeit the good opinion of Brighton. She cannot be held responsible for the girl’s death, — or not before the inquest, at least. Of the coroner’s opinion, we can as yet know nothing.”

  “ — Or of General Twining’s, I presume? If he held Mrs. Silchester in trust — placed his daughter in that lady’s care — ”

  “General Twining! Do not speak to me of that odious fellow!” Mrs. Alleyn cried. “He had the presumption to dangle after me, Miss Austen, a full twelvemonth, when first I came to Brighton; and his persistence could hardly be endured! I was forced to speak quite plainly to the gentleman, and assure him in the strongest language that we should not suit. I’ve long since cut my Wisdoms, my dear — and saw in an instant that fortune was the General’s first object! Female society is as nothing to him.”[17]

  “And has he proved inconsolable? Has any other lady excited his notice? Mrs. Silchester, perhaps?”

  “My dear,” Mrs. Alleyn returned, “she has no money — and the General is entirely about interest. I am sure Louisa Silchester would have got him if she could — she was bosom-bows with his late wife from girlhood, I understand. The General is very sly — content to give his daughter into Mrs. Silchester’s charge — but nothing in the matrimonial line has come of it!”

  “If General Twining must be mercenary, I wonder that he did not promote his daughter’s prospects,” I observed. “Miss Twining felt herself doomed to a marriage she could not like — with a clergyman, greatly her elder. But perhaps there was a fortune in the case.”

  “You cannot mean Mr. Smalls?” Mrs. Alleyn laughed. “No fortune whatsoever, my dear. Such a match is in every way inexplicable; unless one assumes that the father was determined to destroy every hope in the female breast. So grim and humourless as he is! I make it my business to avoid any meeting with the General — and can only pity what his daughter’s life must have been. Perhaps she drowned herself in despair! I can believe such a thing more readily than that Lord Byron killed her. But I detain you — Mrs. Silchester is at liberty, Sir John having quitted her; you will observe her by the bow window — the frail-looking lady, in the dove-grey. Louisa!”

  Drowned herself in despair. It was a thought, indeed; and had Catherine Twining been discovered cast up on the shingle, and not sewn into a hammock in Lord Byron’s bed, I might have accorded Mrs. Alleyn’s views more weight. But Henry had said there were marks of brutality at the girl’s throat; she was no victim of self-murder. Someone had deliberately held her head beneath the waves.

  Lady Swithin having been claimed by the fellow named Hodge, who was determined to teach her how to cast the bones, Mrs. Alleyn presented me to the tiny Mrs. Silchester, adding with an attempt at carelessness, “Miss Austen was a little acquainted with that unfortunate child, Miss Twining, you know.”

  Mrs. Silchester started and her eyes widened, as tho’ I sported a Gorgon’s head. She pressed one hand to her breast; both breast and hand were bony; and I concluded that the lady suffered from a nervous complaint, excited by the least novelty. “You knew poor Catherine?” she whispered. “But how? I thought you quite a stranger to Brighton, and all our little concerns!”

  I should hardly describe murder as a little concern, but having no desire to frighten the lady further, I merely said: “I met Miss Twining in Cuckfield, on my journey hither. Indeed, we met under rather unusual circumstances.”

  That Mrs. Silchester understood my allusion, I readily perceived by her repressive look at Mrs. Alleyn. That far-too-penetrating lady, her object achieved, merely said, “You will have much to talk over, I suspect,” and left me to my quarry with a nod and a smile.

  “So it was you, I collect, who tore her from the Fiend’s clutches in the stable yard? You, who delivered her from that unhappy state of bondage?” Mrs Silchester whispered.

  “I and my brother. We were happy to be of service to Miss Twining.”

  “But, alas, her enemy proved too strong for us all.” Mrs. Silchester’s eyes closed, and her face blenched; she groped for support, and found only the bow window.

  “I am sure you are unwell. Will you not sit down? On this sopha, perhaps?”

  I led the frail being to a settee placed at an angle to the window, where she leaned back against the cushions a moment. Her countenance was dreadful. “If you could search out my vinaigrette,” she said faintly, thrusting her reticule into my hands. “When I consider of that poor child — so young, so innocent, a mere dove among wolves — ”

  I loosed the strings and felt in the depths of the fabric bag; the vinaigrette was there, of course — no lady of Mrs. Silchester’s demeanour could travel far without it. I removed the cap and wafted the bottle under my companion’s nostrils. She gasped, pressed her fingers to her lips, and stared at me with welling eyes.

  “You are unmarried, Miss Austen, but I am sure you cannot be entirely ignorant of the world.”

  “No indeed.”

  “Then you apprehend what beasts men are.”

  “In every person, I believe, there is the potential for bestiality — as well as for good.”

  “Not in Lord Byron,” she said heavily. “He is entirely evil. The sort of evil Lucifer knows, that walks with an angelic face. I say so, Miss Austen, tho’ the world acclaims him as a god; I want nothing of such idolatry. He killed poor Catherine because she saw him for what he was; she feared rather than loved him; and he could not endure to be repulsed.”

  “You are very sure in your accusations, ma’am, but it wo
uld appear not all the facts are yet known. Lord Byron may be innocent.”

  “Innocent! A falser word could never apply!” She struggled upright on the sopha, and seized her vinaigrette. “Since that Fiend came to Brighton, my poor Miss Twining has known not a moment’s peace. Those who are little acquainted with that man’s character like to say it is sailing, and the promise of good Society, that drew him here in defiance of Lady Oxford’s wiles — but I know better! It was poor Catherine he sought, and Catherine upon whose frail body he slaked his vile lusts!”

  Such language from so fragile a creature could not but be shocking; and had I been ignorant of Miss Twining’s history — known nothing of the attempted abduction at Cuckfield — I might have judged Louisa Silchester a prey to fancies of the most lurid type, a creature enslaved to novel-reading and Gothick romance. But I had seen the cravat knotted around Miss Twining’s wrists, had seen Lord Byron’s countenance alter to something just short of demonic, upon the discovery of her liberation. I could not dismiss Louisa Silchester, however excessive her language.

  “When did his lordship first meet Miss Twining?” I asked her.

  “Some three weeks since, when she was sent home from her seminary in Bath.” Mrs. Silchester dabbed at her eyes with a square of lawn. “Poor, dear child. Such an innocent, always. She had conceived a passion for a well-born young officer whose estates were in that part of the country — and dismissal was the result!”

  “Indeed!” This was news of primary importance; Henry’s Unknown made a tentative appearance. There had been a rival to Mr. Hendred Smalls — and a prior claimant to the heart Byron had so boldly besieged.

  “Miss Twining in love!” I exclaimed. “She said nothing of this to me.”

  “She kept the matter very close, in terror of the General. I confess I do not even know the young gentleman’s name, for she would never tell it to me. But I have thought of him often, in the hours following her death — and wondered how the intelligence was to reach him.…”