Jane and the Madness of Lord Byron jam-10 Read online

“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.”

  Chapter 15 Evidence of an Undergroom

  WEDNESDAY, 12 MAY 1813

  BRIGHTON

  THE CONSTABLES BROUGHT LORD BYRON BACK TO Brighton under cover of darkness last night, hoping, no doubt, to escape the notice of the general populace—but they reckoned without the avidity of the lower orders in all matters having to do with murder, and found to their discomfiture that the way into town was lined with torches and a gallery of faces four deep along the roadside. I observed some part of the chilling progress from my window at the Castle, for it was to this inn that his lordship was bound. He has not, it seems, been charged with murder or placed under arrest—merely summoned to appear at the coroner’s inquest—and thus could not be housed in Brighton’s gaol. The King’s Arms, it seemed, would not have his lordship back again—Mr. Scrope Davies, tho’ sympathetic, could not assure Byron’s safety in his private lodgings—and so his lordship was consigned to the comforts of our own temporary abode.

  “Once the verdict is brought in at the inquest,” Henry mused as he stood beside me in the window, “he shall have to be placed under the 10th Hussars’ guard at Brighton Camp. No other place will hold him.”

  We had a brief glimpse of the poet—dark head, dark clothes, and a face whose pallor was dreadful—as he limped from coach to Castle entry; and it required the combined efforts of four constables and a burly individual I took to be a Bow Street Runner, who brandished a pair of pistols and met the crowd jeer for jeer, for his lordship to achieve the door.

  Who, I wondered, had hired the Runner as Byron’s guard—Lady Oxford, perhaps?

  “When is the inquest to be?” I asked my brother.

  “Tomorrow,” he replied. “They were waiting only for Byron.”

  He left me then to my bed and my thoughts, which were so numerous and tangled as to keep me awake, long into the night.

  HAVING FORMED NO PART IN THE DISCOVERY OF CATHERINE Twining’s body, I was not permitted to attend the inquest this morning; that was for the select company of the coroner, his chosen panel of local fellows, and the magistrate, Sir Harding Cross. The King’s Arms’ publican should be present, indeed; and the chambermaid who found poor Catherine; and Lord Byron, whose bed she had lain in; and General Twining, whose office it must be to confirm the identity of Deceased. Even Mr. Scrope Davies should be there—to swear on his oath that Byron had spent Monday night in his lodgings, and quitted them for London early Tuesday morning. All the oaths should avail Byron nothing; if Lady Swithin was to be credited, Sir Harding would make swift work of the business, and a verdict of willful murder should be returned against the poet. There was no very great loss in being barred from the inquest; Henry should have an account of it almost as soon as it was done, from the knowledgeable at Raggett’s Club.

  “Betsy,” I said to the chambermaid as she tidied the ashes from my grate, “are you at all acquainted with the servants at the King’s Arms?”

  Her eyes grew round. “That I am, ma’am, but if it’s the murder you’re wanting to talk of, I must beg to be excused. Not a word I’ve heard of anything else, since yesterday noon, and not a wink of sleep I’ve had, for brooding over all I’ve heard, and dreading to find a similar case each time I open a bedchamber door!—For if there’s a madman throwing young ladies into beds at the Arms, what’s to keep him from doing the same at the Castle? There’s little to chuse between them, except we’ve more beds to hide a body in! And now they’ve lodged that Lord Byron here! I declare, it’s enough to make every man, woman, and child pack up their traps and quit the place, for all he’s so handsome. Mr. Anson, the head steward, allows as how our patrons is too high in the instep for the use of hammocks, besides needing a servant to do the sewing for ’em, but I never pay no mind to Mr. Anson. He’s from Liverpool,” she added, as tho’ such an origin could hardly be trusted.

  “I was a little acquainted with the young lady who died,” I said.

  Betsy sat back on her haunches, her dustpan slack on her knees. “Were you now? No wonder you look so peaked this morning. Probably never caught a mite’s sleep all night. But wasn’t she fearful young?”

  “I should judge her to have been no more than fifteen.”

  Betsy bit her lip. “Then she’d no cause to be walking abroad alone at night. Foolish, I call it, and fast, tho’ the poor thing was murdered. Got what she asked for, didn’t she?”

  “Nobody asks to be drowned,” I said sharply, “much less sewn into a hammock. But why do you say Miss Twining walked alo
ne?”

  “Jem saw her.”

  “And who is Jem?”

  “Undergroom at the Pavilion,” she said immediately. “He’s by way of being a cousin.”

  “I see.” Betsy’s relations were extensive enough to cover most of Britain. I set down my teacup. “And this fellow saw Miss Twining before her death? Well enough to recognize her?”

  “Not so as to know her name. Jem’s not the sort to be acquainted with young ladies. Asleep, he ought to have been, at such an hour—but one of the Regent’s mares was dropping a foal that night, and Jem was up in the loose box a-helping of her. The mare’s first, it was, and having a hard time of it. Jem stepped out with a lanthorn to fetch hot water from the kitchen, and that’s when he saw her—a girl with dark hair, dressed in white, hurrying away from the Pavilion. Headed towards the Steyne, she was, but powerful late Jem thought it, to be abroad alone.”

  “He did not chuse to speak to her?”

  Betsy shook her head. “Wasn’t his place, ma’am, to take notice of young ladies leaving the Pavilion in the middle of the night. The Regent’d have had his head, like. Young ladies’ve been slipping in an’ out of the Regent’s quarters for years, and nobody the wiser. Besides, there was the mare to think of.”

  “Did he say what time this was?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “I should like to talk to Jem,” I said thoughtfully.

  “If you’re wishful to have a word, I can always send for him.” The maid coloured painfully. “Jem is always ready to oblige me.”

  “You would do better to send him to the magistrate. The coroner’s panel assembles this morning, and they would give much to know what your cousin saw.”

  “A reward, like?” Betsy eyed me curiously; ladies who were knowledgeable of the workings of inquests had probably never come in her way. I slid out of bed and went to my reticule. Within it, I kept a few coins. I withdrew a shilling.

  “Please give this to Jem,” I said, “and urge him to seek out Sir Harding Cross. The Regent, I am sure, shall not reproach him for speaking publickly in a matter of murder.”

  If I surprized her, Betsy made no comment—but pocketed the coin and promised to do as I urged.

  BEFORE THE EVENTS OF YESTERDAY, I HAD MADE A thousand plans with Henry for the balance of the week. We were to take in today’s race-meeting, on the course established by the late Duke of Queensberry just outside of town; we were to drive past Hove, to the ruins of St. Aldrington’s Church; we were to hire a pair of dippers, and bathe in the frigid seas, first obtaining a respectable costume for the purpose; we were to attend a concert at the Pavilion, at the express invitation of Colonel McMahon, who had taken an inexplicable liking to my brother, or perhaps to the depth of his pockets. But some part at least of these frivolous pursuits must be set aside. The race-meeting was not to be thought of. I took breakfast in my room, being certain that Henry was already at Raggett’s, awaiting the issue of Miss Twining’s inquest—and as I sipped my coffee, and fiddled with my bread, I compiled a list of questions that must be answered, if the truth were to be known.

  1. With whom did Catherine Twining dance at the Assembly, besides Mr. Smalls?

  2. When did Catherine arrive at the Pavilion in Caro Lamb’s care?

  3. What was the purport of the ladies’ tête-à-tête?

  4. When did Catherine quit the Pavilion?

  5. If the undergroom observed her walking towards the Steyne, how did she come by her death in the sea?

  6. Where was Lord Byron at the time?

  7. Colonel George Hanger?

  8. General Twining? Mr. Hendred Smalls?

  9. What did Lady Caroline Lamb do after Catherine left her?

  10. When did the General discover that his daughter never returned home Monday night—and did he sound an alarum?

  11. How could a body be carried into the King’s Arms in the dead of night without being seen?

  12. Did anyone at the Arms hear a disturbance in Byron’s rooms? Query: Who was lodged next to Byron?

  I should have to speak with the principals on my list, of course—tho’ some might bar their doors against me. The endeavour should demand considerable address. I considered of the prospects: the General, whom I knew already for a formidable man, and whose plans for his daughter I had reason to suspect; Mr. Smalls, from whose interview I should derive little but platitudes and no pleasure; Caro Lamb, who should be unlikely to disclose her schemes to anyone. Desdemona might better assist me there.

  And Byron himself: a slight shudder coursed through my body at the thought of the man—so much a prey to his passions, so entirely a complex of contempt and ardour. Would he recall my visage from the Cuckfield Inn, and regard me as his enemy? How had the murder of Catherine Twining worked upon his lordship’s emotions?

  Amidst such a company, my enquiries were likely to be fruitless.

  In the course of my mature life—dating, indeed, from my first acquaintance with the Gentleman Rogue, more than ten years ago—I have been so circumstanced as to meet with a variety of murderers, some very clever and some merely cold. Avarice has been their motive, or revenge, or a passionate love turned to hate. There were aspects of this case—the sewing of the hammock, the delivery of the corpse to Byron’s bed—that argued a deliberation of mind; and other aspects—the forcible drowning of a young girl, her head held violently under the water as she struggled—that bespoke a destructive passion. It was almost as tho’ two different persons had been involved. Had they worked in concert, or in ignorance of each other? Had Byron done murder—and another delivered the proofs of it?

  The only possible motivation for such an act must be to see the poet tormented, upon the discovery of his beloved’s corpse; or to see his lordship hang.

  If Byron were innocent of Catherine’s death, then he, as well as the unfortunate girl, was the victim of a merciless intelligence. There was cruelty and forethought in the execution of the whole; someone had derived pleasure from dropping that sodden package in his lordship’s bed.

  It smacked of hatred. Or a desire for vengeance. And in all this, the life of a young girl had been snuffed out as nothing.

  And so, after a pause, I penned the last of my queries on the Castle’s sheet of paper:

  13. Who, among the respectable and the highborn of Brighton, hates Lord Byron to the point of madness?

  Chapter 16 Conflicting Testimony

  WEDNESDAY, 12 MAY 1813

  BRIGHTON, CONT.

  MY PERIOD OF REFLECTION WAS BROKEN BY A KNOCK AT the bedchamber door. A footman stood in the passage, with the intelligence that my brother awaited me downstairs—with a party of friends.

  “Has the inquest adjourned?”

  “Not a quarter-hour ago, ma’am.”

  I hastened below, and discovered Henry established in a little side-parlour with the Earl and Countess of Swithin; all three were taking glasses of something fortifying—brandy, in the case of the gentlemen, and ratafia, in the person of Desdemona.

  “What is the coroner’s verdict?” I enquired, as I accepted a glass of wine.

  “Oh, murder, of course,” Swithin said grimly; “but to everyone’s surprize, it was brought back against a person or persons unknown. There is much talk as to the motives in such a judgement; it was said at first that the Regent must have intervened, to preserve the freedom of a celebrated poet and nobleman; but those acquainted with the two gentlemen are well aware that no love is lost between them, the Regent detesting the very sight of George Gordon. His Royal Highness finds the poet’s club foot distasteful, and cannot forgive him for forming a part of Princess Caroline’s court. So there is astonishment in many quarters. Old Sir Harding Cross cannot be to blame, as he owes his position to the Regent; it was hardly he who taught the jury mercy. Perhaps it was Frogmore, the coroner, who urged caution.”

  “For a wonder,” I observed, “a coroner’s panel has drawn a conclusion independent of the magistrate—and declined to hang a man who insists he was elsewh
ere when murder was done! What is likely to happen now?”

  “Byron shall have to go to ground, somehow,” Henry said. “There are any number of folk in Brighton out for his blood, chief among them the poor young lady’s father.”

  “General Twining was in attendance, I apprehend?”

  “He testified as to the remains being his daughter’s, at which point the panel was required to view the corpse. Several went quite green, I understand. The General said only that he had entrusted his daughter to the chaperonage of Mrs. Silchester, who had failed in her duties; that he had quitted the Assembly Rooms at the decent hour of eleven o’clock; ordered Miss Twining’s maid to wait up for her; and was roused at five o’clock in the morning with the intelligence that his daughter had never returned. He suspected, he claimed, a further abduction on the part of Lord Byron—and informed the Brighton constables of the fact.”

  “Abduction? So the tale of Cuckfield came out—and still the jury did not find against his lordship?”

  “It was viewed, rather, as a point in Lord Byron’s favour; a man who wished so ardently for a Flight to the Border can hardly be suspected of murdering his lady.”

  “General Twining cannot have regarded the matter thus.”

  “No, indeed,” Henry agreed. “Having given his evidence—and heard Mrs. Silchester, amidst much tears and lamentation, assure the panel that Lady Caroline Lamb had been most insistent upon carrying Miss Twining away to the Pavilion—the General retired into his handkerchief. His face emerged from it only at the announcement of the panel’s verdict—at which, in a rage, he slapped Lord Byron’s face with said handkerchief, and vowed to see him dead at twenty paces if he were to escape hanging.”

  “Lord!” Desdemona breathed. “And Byron?”

  “—Merely looked contemptuous; and said he should be only too happy to meet the General, his honour and reputation having suffered injuries enough already at his hands. Scrope Davies—who provided my intelligence—said Byron has long hated the fellow, and might more readily have drowned the father than the daughter.” Henry rubbed his nose in speculation. “I daresay poor Byron’s life is not worth a farthing in Brighton at this present. Your Lady Oxford might take him back to London, Countess—but for the magistrate’s demand that Byron remain in town for the nonce.”