Jane and the Madness of Lord Byron jam-10 Page 3

  His brows rose in surprize. “Are you certain?”

  A third moan, more strident if possible than the last, and a thumping sound, as tho’ a booted foot had been thrust against the door.

  “Good God!” my brother said blankly. “We must enquire of the chaise’s owner, I suppose. He will have gone into the inn.”

  “Are you mad?” I reached up for the door handle. “The owner is undoubtedly kidnapping an innocent girl! Would you deliver her completely into his power?”

  The chaise sprang open as neatly as a jewel box.

  “Jane,” Henry objected. “Do you not think …?”

  “Nonsense.” The steps were as yet let down; I mounted them, and peered within.

  A girl of perhaps fifteen, dark-haired and doe-eyed, was sprawled on the forward seat in a state of considerable dishevelment. Her wrists were bound before her, with what appeared to be a gentleman’s cravat. A second length of linen was folded and tied around her mouth in a manner painful to observe. She stared at me imploringly, and made the same pitiful moan.

  “Help me, Henry,” I demanded, and drew off my gloves, the better to untie the knots that bound her hands. I made swift work of it—I was always adept at untangling skeins—and chafed her reddened wrists. She was already struggling to her feet, bent upon exiting the chaise as quick as might be, regardless of the gag about her mouth. She spared no thought for the bonnet and gloves abandoned on the seat beside her—she moved as tho’ all the imps of Hell were at her heels.

  I helped her into Henry’s arms, then gathered her reticule and discarded belongings. Henry eased the sodden cravat from her head; being Henry, he paid infinite care to her tangled curls, unwilling to incommode the poor child further.

  “Oh, pray,” she whispered hoarsely when once the offending gag was removed, “hide me! Hide me quickly, before he returns!”

  I grasped her elbow and would have instantly conveyed her to the curricle, but that my brother impeded my path. “Before who returns, Miss …?”

  “Twining,” she replied, a bit more strongly now. “Catherine Twining. I have been abducted all against my will, and should have ended in wretched ruin had you not intervened, kind sir. Pray, do not deliver me back again into his hands!”

  “No one shall hurt you,” I soothed, “only you must tell us how you came here. Only then may we know how best to help.”

  Henry’s colder eye had sought my own while the girl spoke; and without a word being said, I apprehended his meaning—there were some who might convey a rebellious child, blessed with a petulant temper, to her relations in another town in just such a manner—or send her off to a hated Seminary for Young Ladies in the care of a servant, now gone to fetch lemonade—with her hands bound. Much as we might abhor such methods, it was not within our province to interfere. We were nothing to Miss Twining, and her governance could not be our business.

  She swayed as she stood, peering about the stable yard in apparent terror; nothing less like the picture of rebellion could one conceive. Her flounce was torn, and I observed her hands to tremble as she felt her swollen lips.

  “Who has done this to you?” I asked.

  But Miss Twining was no longer attending. Her palpitating gaze was fixed on the door to the inn, where a second figure had joined the innkeeper: a gentleman by his air and address, clothed all in black, his shoulders broad and his countenance pale under a mass of dark curls. He was a stranger to me—and yet, there was a something in his profile that tugged at memory, as tho’ I ought to know his name.

  “Oh, Lord,” Henry muttered under his breath.

  The gentleman had evidently seen us; his countenance altered. A storm of anger blew across his brow, and he made purposefully across the yard, violence in every jarring step. For despite his appearance of youthful vigour—his inordinate beauty of face and form—he walked with a painful limp; his right foot was the culprit, and marred every step he made.

  Beside me, Miss Twining let out a squeak—then fell senseless to the mud.

  “Henry,” I gasped, as we both bent to assist her, “who is that man?”

  “George Gordon,” he returned grimly, “Lord Byron. And if I do not mistake, Jane, he is about to challenge me to a duel.”

  LORD BYRON. THREE SYLLABLES, THAT IN ANY OTHER case—were they, for example, as commonplace as Mr. Johnson—should excite not the slightest interest. Mr. Johnson may claim neither the ready curiosity of the literary-minded, nor the excited beat of the romantic heart. But Lord Byron!—Who broke upon the notice of the Fashionable World but a year since, with the publication of his epic poem, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage—the tale, in verse, of a wanderer through Attic climes, which has aroused the passions of more females between the ages of ten and seventy than any work of genius in the last century or this; Childe Harold, which has actually set a fashion in dressing ladies’ hair à la grecque, and has made of its author a Darling of the haut ton; Childe Harold, which drove no less notorious a sprite than Lady Caroline Lamb to make a public spectacle of herself, mad with love and bent upon exposing her poor husband to all the ridicule of his dearest acquaintance; Childe Harold, both cantos of which, published in succession, my lamented Eliza was good enough to send me by carrier, direct from Hatchard’s book shop, and which I found (to my disappointment) I liked only moderately well.

  “You have interfered in my concerns, sir,” Lord Byron declared as he reached our little party. “And I must demand to know the reason for it.”

  “Any gentleman should have done the same,” Henry replied through compressed lips, “had he witnessed the outrage visited upon Miss Twining’s person. Now I must beg you to stand aside; she requires immediate attention.”

  My brother had lifted the girl’s inert form, and meant to bear her into a private parlour; but Lord Byron stood firmly in Henry’s path.

  “Outrage!” he repeated. “She came to me willingly enough. I call it an outrage when a stranger meddles in affairs not his own. You will oblige me by depositing the young lady back inside her conveyance, sir. If you do not—I shall know how to act.”

  “Lord Byron—it is Lord Byron, I collect?”

  The gentleman glanced at me smoulderingly. “That is my name. All the world seems acquainted with it.”

  “And thus the more reason you should behave with care. Not all publicity can be to your liking. We are in a posting yard, my lord. Do you wish to invite enquiry? Miss Twining shall not support your assertions. Indeed, she may well bring down the Law upon your head.”

  He held my gaze an instant; then observed the ostlers, racing to meet another carriage—full of Fashionables, by its appearance—with a second approaching behind. The traffic of the day was constant; who knew when he might encounter a friend—or an enemy?

  “It is not I who would excite comment. You might end all conjecture by depositing her within my chaise,” he said evenly.

  But Fate, in the form of Mr. Puffitt, intervened.

  “Ah,” the innkeeper wheezed as he lumbered towards us, “overcome by the heat, is she, pore young thing? Do you carry your daughter into the house, sir,” he said with a beaming nod for Henry, “and Mrs. Puffitt shall see as she’s attended to.”

  “Thank you,” Henry answered brightly. “I am sure she shall revive in a moment; she was never a stout traveller, I am afraid—you are very good, Puffitt.”

  Bowing to Lord Byron, the innkeeper gestured for us to precede him. Henry stepped carefully with his insensible burden through the mud.

  I made to follow, but halted as a strong hand grasped my arm.

  “You have won this round,” Lord Byron muttered in my ear, “but do not flatter yourself the matter is done. I will have your brother’s name and direction.”

  I stared calmly into his glittering eyes. What countenance he possessed! The features nobly drawn, firm in every outline; the lips full and sensual; the pallor of the skin akin to a god’s beneath the dark sweep of hair. It was the face of an angel—but a fallen one. Lucifer’s visage must ha
ve held just such heartrending beauty.

  “You might have had name and direction both, my lord,” I replied, “had you behaved in a more gentleman-like manner.” And left him drawing his gloves furiously through his hands.

  “I AM MISS AUSTEN,” I SAID QUIETLY, TAKING UP A PLACE by the bow window of Mr. Puffitt’s private parlour, “and that gentleman is my brother, Mr. Austen. You are perfectly safe, now, Miss Twining. Lord Byron has gone. Do not attempt to speak, I beg of you, until you are somewhat recovered.”

  She had revived enough to open her eyes and gaze wonderingly around her; then she lay back upon the sopha and drew a shuddering breath. “Papa,” she said faintly, “shall be so very angry.”

  “Papa will be only too thankful to have you restored to him,” I returned. I searched in my reticule for a handkerchief—I was in ample possession of them, Manon having hemmed several dozen in black—and knelt down beside the girl.

  “You have a smear of mud on your cheek. Will you not allow me to wipe it clean?”

  “You are very good,” she said gratefully, “but oh, Miss Austen, I wish that I were dead!”

  “Come, come,” my brother muttered, in some discomfort.

  “Henry—do you go in search of brandy,” I suggested.

  He quitted the parlour with alacrity.

  I dabbed at Miss Twining’s cheek. “Nothing, in my experience, is quite beyond remedy—except death. I must encourage you to determine to live, Miss Twining. You shall undoubtedly discover that tomorrow is a far better day than the present one.”

  She had begun to weep; I pressed a second—and far cleaner—handkerchief in her hand, and awaited the return of my brother with restorative spirits.

  He appeared within a few moments, bearing a tot of brandy on a tray. For myself, he had fetched a glass of ratafia and a plate of biscuits; in his free hand he clutched a tankard.

  “Drink this,” I urged Miss Twining as I offered her the glass. “You shall be much the better for it.”

  “But Papa is most strict in deploring strong spirits as an intervention of the Devil,” the girl said doubtfully. On closer examination, she was excessively pretty, with a naïveté of manner that encouraged me to think she had played no part in her own abduction; here was a victim of depravity if ever I beheld one. The clarity of her vowels and the ingenuousness of her manner betrayed the gentlewoman, not to mention Papa’s care—God be praised there was a Papa somewhere—for her upbringing.

  “Regard it in the manner of a medicinal draught,” I ordered, “and swallow the dose all at once. I assure you, it is by far the best way of downing the stuff.”

  She did as she was told, her eyes flying wide at the strength of the cordial; hiccupped; coughed; and then stared at me in outrage. “That was nothing less than liquid fire!”

  “Very true,” I said with amusement. “You are beginning to be restored to yourself. Now tell me, if you will, how you came to be in Lord Byron’s charge.”

  The girl flushed to the roots of her hair, and set aside her brandy glass. She could not meet my gaze, I found, as though I were a governess intent upon scolding her.

  “I am only a little acquainted with his lordship,” she said, “and must confess that I have never felt any particular partiality for him. But it is—was—otherwise with him; he appears to have formed an attachment, and has pressed his suit most ardently in recent weeks, whenever he is in Brighton—for Brighton is my home, Miss Austen.”

  “And being unable to return his lordship’s affection, you have repulsed his advances?”

  She lifted her eyes to mine. “At every turn! We have only met some once or twice, at the Assemblies—he is but rarely in Brighton, being much taken up with Lady Oxford and her set, who remain fixed in London.”

  Lady Oxford—the Countess of Oxford—was rumoured to be Byron’s latest paramour. A very great lady of some forty years of age, and the mother of five hopeful children—possibly by as many fathers—she had taken up the young poet as her latest lover, and kept him the whole of the winter at Eywood, the Earl of Oxford’s estate in Herefordshire. Or so I had gleaned, from the veiled hints of the Morning Gazette’s Society pages. Now it seemed Lady Oxford’s protégé was determined to play her false—with a girl young enough to be her daughter.

  “His lordship will descend upon Brighton without warning,” Miss Twining persisted, “to indulge his passion for sailing; and on such occasions condescends to enter the Rooms at the Castle of a Monday evening, or even the Old Ship—which Assembly you will know is held on Thursdays—from time to time.”

  This flood of information conveying very little to me, being a stranger to the town and its delights, I contented myself with a mere, “I see.”

  “His lordship never dances, however,” the girl hurried on, “being ashamed, so they say, of his lame foot. But he often skirts the edge of the Assembly with one of his intimates—Mr. Scrope Davies, or Mr. Rogers—to whom he alone will speak; and being forced to sit out several dances myself, I have had some once or twice the privilege of conversing with him. I never sought his attentions, I assure you—tho’ all the town is wild about Lord Byron, and celebrates his verses, and swoons at his every entrance—I cannot like him, Miss Austen. Indeed, he frightens me.”

  This last was uttered in a whisper; I saw the threat of renewed tears, and said hurriedly, “But this morning there was a change?”

  She swallowed convulsively. “I am afraid I have been very foolish.”

  I glanced at Henry.

  “I was strolling with my maid along the Steyne, intending to exchange a book at Donaldson’s, when Lord Byron’s chaise came up alongside. Or rather—I should properly say Lady Oxford’s chaise, for it bears her ladyship’s crest, and is excessively well-sprung—the squabs are straw-coloured satin.”

  “Indeed—it was an admirable equipage,” I stammered. Lord Byron had used Lady Oxford’s chaise to abduct another woman? “And his lordship invited you to take a drive?”

  “He was all politeness. He told me he was bound for London, and should be deprived of my society for at least the next fortnight; he added that my cruelty should be beyond everything, did I not consent to spare him a few moments. He pined already for my society, he said; could I not bear him company so far as Donaldson’s, so that he might cherish my image the length of his journey to London?”

  The gentleman was, after all, a poet, and the most celebrated Romantic of our age; what girl of fifteen should be proof against such ardent address? Miss Twining had dismissed her maid, and ascended into the carriage.

  “But he did not stop at Donaldson’s,” she said wonderingly, “and indeed, he urged the coachman to all possible speed, so that we bowled out of town along the New Road at such a pace, I was forced to cling to the side-straps in sheer terror!”

  She had attempted to flee the carriage when it slowed at Lewes; and it was then that Byron subdued her, his superior strength and the natural fear she bore him, combining to render her passive when he produced his cravats. His lordship was so good, at that juncture, as to inform Miss Twining of her intended fate: he travelled not to London but to the Border—a journey of several days’ duration—with a Gretna Green marriage in view.

  Apprehending that after several days in the gentleman’s sole company, her reputation should be utterly ruined, Miss Twining cried—she pled for his lordship’s mercy—assured him that she could not love him; but her shrinking only inflamed Byron further. He was unaccustomed, it seemed, to rejection; the adulation of all the Polite World having convinced him that Miss Twining must be hoping for just such an avowal of ardent love.

  “Marriage?” Henry repeated, all astonishment. “I had not thought Lord Byron much taken with the married state—unless it be to persuade those ladies already shackled with it, to break their sacred vows! He did you a decided honour, Miss Twining, in thus singling you out; you should be the wonder of your acquaintance, did they know of it. To make a conquest of Lord Byron!”

  “Do not be so tiresome,
Henry,” I retorted crossly. “You must know that she abhors the man!”

  Outside Lewes, Byron overmastered her, and assured Miss Twining that she should not prove so missish within a very few hours—for her honour depended entirely upon marriage, as she should be brought to understand. She screamed for the coachman’s aid, at which Byron laughed diabolically, and gagged her mouth.

  “And if you had not heard me moan, Miss Austen,” she concluded, “I should be entirely ruined. How I am to face Papa, I know not! He is sure to blame me—to be most frightfully angry—for fast behaviour in a female is what he cannot condone, and try as I might, I cannot regard my behaviour today as anything other than fast.”

  “We shall engage to put the matter before Papa in the proper light,” I told her. “He should do better to set the whole of the blame at Lord Byron’s door—and I shall urge him most forcefully to do so. His lordship must be called to account for his insult, or no young female in Brighton shall be safe! Your father’s interview must be absolutely discreet, however—the preservation of your reputation demands it. Is it known where Lord Byron lodges, when he is in Brighton?”

  “He keeps a suite of rooms at the King’s Arms, against those occasions when the whim overtakes him to sail. He has been staying at the King’s Arms a good deal, of late.… Oh, pray that he never returns!” Miss Twining cried.

  “Undoubtedly he shall not,” I agreed, “—gentlemen being loath to admit their losses, you know; Lord Byron shall find other fish to fry in London.”

  “The blackguard,” Henry commented coolly. “And now, Jane, the team is put to—if we make haste, we might be in Brighton within the hour. Miss Twining, you will of course accompany us?”

  LADY OXFORD’S CHAISE, WITH ITS OUTRAGED OCCUPANT, was nowhere in sight when we ventured into the stable yard. But I could not help noting, as Henry’s curricle bore us away, two lengths of soiled linen lying trampled in the mud.

  Chapter 4 Pleasures of a Prince