Jane and the Madness of Lord Byron Read online

  With unaccustomed familiarity—such is the strength of feeling in the face of Eternity—the old Frenchwoman grasped my hand and drew me swiftly up the stairs. I could not stay even to loose my bonnet strings; and that I should be aware of such a nothing on the point of seeing Eliza, must be an enduring reproach. I am ashamed to own it.

  Mme. Bigeon hesitated before the bedchamber door; it was ajar, so that I could just glimpse the outline of the bedstead, my brother Henry dozing in a straight-backed chair set up against the wall; and the silhouette of Mme. Marie Perigord—the old woman’s daughter and Eliza’s dresser, her constant reminder of all the glories of France that are gone beyond recall. Manon, as she is called, was seated near the bed, her sharp-featured face thrown into relief by the flame of a single candle; in her hand was a small bowl.

  And beyond—

  Eliza.

  Her eyes were closed, her breathing heavy; a few damp locks of hair escaped from her white cap. There was a peculiar odour on the air—a sweet, sickly smell that emanated from the open wound in her breast, and the great tumor lying malevolently there; no amount of warm compresses or fresh linen could blot out the taint.

  I crept softly to the bedside, young Edward hesitating behind me.

  Manon rose and drew back her chair. “Monsieur—mademoiselle … I cannot persuade her to take any of the broth. And it is Maman’s best broth, made from a pullet. Five hours it has been simmering on the stove—”

  “Hush,” Henry muttered, as he jerked awake. My brother’s dazed eyes met mine through the shuttered gloom. “Ah—Jane! You are come at last!”

  He rose, and pulled me close; the stale odour of a closed room, and clothes too infrequently exchanged, clung about his person. Henry—who is the nearest example of a Dandy the Austens may claim—had been neglecting himself.

  “Praise God you came in time,” he whispered.

  “Mademoiselle!” Manon tugged impatiently at my sleeve. “Perhaps you will try? Perhaps she will take some broth from you, hein?”

  “What does it matter?” Henry burst out, worn beyond bearing.

  “But she must keep up her strength!” the maid protested.

  Pointless to observe that strength would avail her mistress nothing, now.

  Manon’s face crumpled into a terrible grimace and she began, painfully, to weep, turning away from the awkward crowd of Austens as though we had caught her at something shameful. Mme. Bigeon swept her daughter out of the room, murmuring softly in her native tongue, half-scolding. I had an idea of the maid’s high pitch of nerves, waiting in that darkened chamber through all the hours of a night and day as her mistress’s life slowly ebbed, ears pricked for the sound of a particular set of horses halting in the street below. How like Eliza to hold on to the last, as though she knew I was hastening towards her!

  But was she even aware of my presence?

  “Dearest,” Henry whispered, bending over Eliza. “Here is Jane arrived from Chawton.”

  Her eyelids flickered; the clouded gaze fixed for an instant on my brother’s face, unseeing. How great a change was come upon that sprite, that eager, winning countenance! And how helpless I felt, unable to save her, to forestall the dreaded end!

  I took up the bowl of broth and the silver spoon still warm from Manon’s hand, leaned close to my dying cousin, and whispered, “Come, my darling, and try a little—to please your Jane.”

  YOUNG EDWARD RETURNED IN HIS FATHER’S CHAISE THE next morning to Chawton. The rest of us watched with Eliza so long as our spirits would allow, although in truth Henry was never from the sick room. He dozed upright in a chair, regardless of whether the Frenchwomen or I were attending upon his wife. For my own part, I snatched at sleep whenever one of the others relieved me—curling fully clothed on the comfortable bed in the best bedchamber. We ate what we could at odd hours, taking cold meat and tea in the breakfast room; Mme. Bigeon had no heart to cook, or rather her cooking was all for Eliza: possets, puddings, coddled eggs that were returned, one by one, untouched on their plates. Through the hours Eliza shuddered, and turned, her mind beset by the demons brought forth in laudanum; and though Henry and I would have stinted her, she suffered too much when the draughts were denied.

  What did she mutter, as I leaned over her in the depths of the night? Regret … regret … Her fingers claw-like at my wrist.

  The upright and devout would urge me to believe in a deathbed conversion—some softening of her pagan heart, as the life sped out of her—but I am too well acquainted with the little Comtesse. I regret nothing, Jane, she would wish me to know. Regret nothing. Not the madcap days in Marie Antoinette’s train, or the careless disregard for reputation and finances, the husband lost to the guillotine; not the dashing promenades in Hyde Park with a score of beaux dazzled by her wicked dark eyes. Her dead son she might yearn for—wasted from birth by too many ills—but even Hastings could never figure as cause for regret. Eliza cherished the boy, heedless of a world that declared him little better than an idiot.

  She shall sleep beside him soon.

  This morning, near dawn, there was a change. The poor roving spirit stilled and her body went slack, the eyes tightly closed. The sound of her laboured breathing mounted until it seemed to fill the whole room—the airless weight of that room, its single candle glowing. Henry’s hand clasped hers, but she seemed insensible of it; and at the last, with barely a flutter of its wings, Death entered the room. She turned her head once on the pillow, towards the window—raised herself slightly—and then fell back, a shell.

  I waited, breath suspended. And apprehended that her breathing, too, was done—the very walls listened for it, every window frame strained; no sigh murmured back.

  Henry stared at his wife as if willing her eyes to open. Then he placed her limp hand gently on the coverlet, and rose from his chair.

  I would have gone to him; but the look on his face was terrible. He walked without a word from the room, and after a final glance at the still figure at its centre, I fled in search of the maids.

  30 APRIL 1813

  SLOANE STREET

  ALL WEEK THE CANDLES HAVE FLICKERED BY HER BIER IN the pretty little salon she loved so well, where her Musical Evenings collected a gay throng and her morning callers were wont to sit; tributes of spring flowers arrived daily from Henry’s colleagues and Eliza’s acquaintance both highborn and low. Lord Moira sent a massive wreath of lilies; but I think I liked best the posy of wildflowers offered at the kitchen door, by one unknown fellow Mme. Bigeon assures me was Eliza’s favourite hackney coachman.

  Mrs. Tilson—the wife of one of Henry’s partners and a near neighbour—came to call, and sat with me a half-hour in Eliza’s boudoir; I cannot love her, but she forbore to express her displeasure at my sister’s frivolities quite so forcibly as in the past.

  Eliza is to be buried at Hampstead tomorrow, beside her mother and son; Manon and I shall wait only for the train of black carriages to depart, before quitting Sloane Street ourselves.2 The poor maid is quite worn down with nursing Eliza, and could do with a rest in the country—I am to carry her off to Chawton, until Henry comes to fetch her. It shall be a comfort to have the Frenchwoman beside me, merely to dull the edge of grief.

  The rain and bitter fog descended upon us today; Spring, it seems, is quite fled. Eliza’s death comes as a presentiment, a weight of dark cloud sitting over the house; we are all of us growing older, Henry and I and the two Frenchwomen.

  The Autumn of my life is come—my hopes of happiness long since buried in an unmarked grave—and how long, pray, shall the sun endure, before Winter?

  1 The Hog’s-back is a narrow ridge that runs between Farnham and Guildford; the road traveled by the Austens on their journey to London ran along the summit and offered excellent views of some six counties.—Editor’s note.

  2 Women generally did not attend funerals in Austen’s day.—Editor’s note.

  CHAPTER TWO

  An Interval for Reflection

  5 MAY 1813

>   CHAWTON, HAMPSHIRE

  IF MY THOUGHT WAS TO PROVIDE MANON WITH SUCCOR IN her time of grief, my impulse was misplaced, however well-intentioned. It is virtually impossible for a woman of middle years, who has served others nearly all her life, to leave off doing so, be she ever so eager to attempt the exercise. No sooner was Manon settled in a chair, with a bit of needlework to pass the time, than she must be jumping up and shifting the pillows for my mother’s back; or helping Mademoiselle Cassandra with the gathering of the new peas; or busying herself in the kitchen about the boiling of the tea. I spent our first Chawton morning following her anxiously about, and urging her to leave such cares to others, that she might take a refreshing turn in the garden, where the syringa is in bloom—but she would have none of it. I therefore set her to fashioning my mourning gowns—for I would not appear a dowd in respect of Eliza’s loss. Of all the women I have known, my late sister’s passion for dress was insatiable. The task suited Manon’s needle so admirably, and animated her instincts as a Frenchwoman so well, that nothing would serve but that I must carry her into Alton for the purchase of such trimmings and lengths of muslin and silk as a country village might provide. We were not many hours returned from our shopping, with the packages sent round by dogcart, before I was summoned to stand before the tiny looking glass that serves Cassandra and me for doing up our hair of a morning, while Manon pinned and trimmed to her heart’s content.

  I was arrayed in a sober dark grey, with rosettes of black silk cord about the bodice, the following morning—Manon having sat up with work candles the better part of the night so that the gown might be finished. Overcome by this evidence of her devotion to her mistress, I apprehended—amidst my profuse thanks—that the unfortunate creature could not get a wink of sleep in any case, for the utter silence of the country, and was desperately in want of her beloved London’s racket. Her exhaustion failed utterly to diminish her energy, however—the maid would look mumchance at the prospect of taking up a book in the chair nearest the fire—and so my mother set her to baking bread, and later despatched her to Alton’s butcher and poulterer—which errand occupied so many hours, and gave her such a sense of importance, as a Londoner and a Foreigner in a country town, that I am sure her grief for Eliza was momentarily forgot.

  As day followed day, however, I found myself seeking comfort alone in the out-of-doors, where I might walk towards the Great House in the hope of seeing Fanny or another of my nieces; I made no progress at all in the thorny question of Mr. Henry Crawford, and his possible salvation through the love of a pure heart. It was impossible to write at my little table in the front parlour, with Manon endlessly sweeping the floors.

  It was with a measure of thankfulness, therefore, that I saw a travelling chaise draw up before the Cottage door this Wednesday evening, and my brother Henry alight from it. There is no doubt that Manon is eminently useful about the place—but we are all of us fatigued beyond what may be borne, in finding out tasks for her.

  “Jane,” Henry said as he took my hand, “you look entirely recovered from your recent exertions.”

  “From the exertion, perhaps—but not the loss.”

  He inclined his head; we neither of us said anything further; we should not be reviving Eliza, after all, in talking over her end. But I could not like the cast of Henry’s countenance—whatever repose I had found, in regaining the country, he had failed to secure in Sloane Street.

  When he had paid off the coachman and directed the man to the Crown at Alton, where he might find stabling for his team, I slipped my hand through Henry’s arm. He had exchanged his usual bright waistcoat for apparel of a sombre hue; the picture he made being so unlike our Henry that I suffered a pang, as though my brother, too, had gone into the grave with Eliza.

  “Come inside. We keep shockingly country hours, as you know, but you are only a little late for dinner—Mme. Perigord will certainly warm something for you.”

  “How is she?”

  “Pining for Town, I’m afraid. She holds our ways very cheap, in Hampshire. Other than the quality of our peas, she can find nothing to admire.” I leaned towards him conspiratorially. “I confess I shall be heartily glad to have her off my hands, Henry! So much for benevolent impulse!”

  “Yes—one tires of nothing so quickly as benevolence; and it is never valued as highly by the object as the giver!” The smile he flashed was almost the Henry of old. “Very well; I shall carry off my good French maid tomorrow, as soon as she has cooked us breakfast. She is sorely wanted at home. For you must know, Jane, that I have in mind a scheme of removal—I have set old Bigeon about it already. I intend to give up Sloane Street—”

  “So soon!” I interjected.

  “—and live quite neatly and comfortably above my offices. Only think what a saving in the lease!”

  “Indeed,” I managed, having a sudden, sharp vision of the neighbourhood round No. 10, Henrietta Street—the building that houses Henry’s bank. Covent Garden, in all its noise and bustle, its theatre linkmen, its throng of carriages and torch-lit entryways; its gentlemen swaggering among the Impures who ply their trade in the shadow of opening nights—is hardly the locale for an Interval of Reflection, so appropriate to one But Lately Bereaved. No, for a Henry stricken in grief, something wilder and more severe was required; something like the fall of the rocky coast at Lyme, or the noble crags of Derbyshire! What a pity it was not November! There is no nursing a grief in May.…

  “Henry,” I said as he pulled open the Cottage door, “I have had a capital notion. Should you not like to repair to the seaside for a period, in order to take the air, and recruit your strength?”

  “The seaside, Jane?” He frowned at me. “I thought you were wishing Mme. Perigord at Bedlam!”

  “Indeed,” I assured him. “You might seek the seaside after you have restored Manon to her mother. While the good Frenchwomen effect the removal of your things to No. 10, you might be taking restorative walks along the Cobb.”

  “The Cobb?” he repeated, bewildered.

  “In Lyme,” I persisted. “You will recall that poor Father was forever taking Cassandra and me there, and at the very end of the Season, too, when the town was dreadfully thin of company and the Assemblies almost run. Or perhaps Worthing—”

  “Worthing?” His tone of revulsion was not propitious. “Jane, only such relicts of the country gentry as are tottering on the edge of their graves, seek to be known in Worthing.”

  “Very well. Ramsgate.”

  He took me firmly by the arm and propelled me within the Cottage. The most delicious odour of roasted fowl still hung upon the air, but I am afraid the better part of the bird had long since been consumed, and the excellent Manon would already be thrusting the carcass into a soup pot; it was her decided passion, this affair of bones and broth.

  “Henry!” my mother cried, and rose from her chair—not without effort, but with at least the suggestion of alacrity; for, after all, she is four-and-seventy. “My dear boy! We have all been so grieved—so shattered, indeed, by the passing of Eliza! How such a hearty soul can be taken, when I linger here, a burden to you all—”

  He kissed her cheek, and she smoothed his hair, and for a moment as I watched them we might all of us have been thirty years younger—and Henry a boy of fifteen, returned from school.

  “There will never be another like her, Mamma,” he said softly, “as Heaven is daily learning—to its chagrin!”

  “Come and sit by the fire,” she said fondly, “while that busy French scold warms your dinner. You look fagged to death!”

  “It has been a long, weary, and mournful winter,” he admitted with a sigh, “but that is all to be mended.”

  “Indeed?” Cassandra murmured, with an anxious glance for me; it has long been her assertion that Henry is incapable of living alone, and will throw himself at the first well-endowed widow who offers. “Mended, you say? And so soon?”

  My brother smiled. “Our sister Jane has a decided inclination to visit the sea
. She believes that a period of exposure to salt air is as essential as balm to a wounded heart. You know her devotion to Eliza; they were sisters as much as cousins; and I think, after all her signal exertion during the past few weeks—her devotion to my wife in her final hours—that it behooves me to offer this small gesture of thanks. I have consented to bear her company on an expedition to the seaside.”

  “Jane?” my mother repeated, aghast. “But she is only just returned from London! Who is to put up the strawberries, if not Jane? And there will be no dealing with the butcher if Jane is gone off again!”

  It is painful, in such moments, to learn exactly how one is valued by one’s parents. But I was too diverted by the expression of mischief in Henry’s visage to pay my mother much heed.

  Her face darkened. “Do not be thinking to leave that Perigord woman on our hands, Henry! We should none of us survive it! An excellent creature in her way, I am sure—but so dreadfully active.”

  “She is to be gone on the morrow, Mamma. Jane’s plan—”

  I could not suppress a gasp at this; but Henry was always adept at effrontery.

  “—is that once we have seen Manon safely restored to Sloane Street, she and I shall pursue our interval of reflection. A period of long walks about the cliffs—the refreshment of our jaded spirits—deep draughts of restorative salt air.” He surveyed the room with a satiric eye. “We are bound, you see, for the wilds of Brighton.”

  BRIGHTON.

  The most glittering resort of the present age, the summer haunt of expensive Fashionables, the exile-of-choice for every member of the London ton possessed of the careless means of securing a lodging—Brighton, where the betting is high on the horses raced with spontaneous abandon over the hard-packed Downs; where the Assemblies at the Old Ship are a crush of the highborn and the low; where the Prince Regent and his cronies hold indecent revels beneath the Chinese lanterns of the Marine Pavilion.