Jane and the Madness of Lord Byron Page 3

  I could not conceive of a less reclusive spot for Henry to chuse, but before I opened my lips in a torrent of protest, a single thought arrested me.

  How Eliza would have loved it.

  They were a different sort of animal, Henry and Eliza, from the general run of retiring Austens. Not for them the solitude of Nature, the steadying influence of contemplation or prayer. Henry would never survive his grief by embracing melancholy; he was not an one to drape himself in crape, and sigh over the grave of his beloved. Henry seized at Life, and it is probable that his final vigil by Eliza’s bed—the sleeplessness and darkness, the nightmares of laudanum—were the closest he should ever come to Death’s abyss. He had leapt over it now, and the brightness of pleasure called to him. Brighton, in all its strumpet glory, was exactly what he required.

  “Brighton?” Cassandra repeated, in a tone of bewilderment. “But is it not a very vulgar place, Henry, of decided dissipation? Recollect that it was in Brighton that poor Lydia Bennet made her fatal choice to elope with Wickham, in dear Jane’s diverting novel. I am sure I should never care to go there.”

  “And due to your goodness, our mother shall not be entirely abandoned! You have my gratitude, Cass, for the sacrifice.” Henry placed his hand over his heart, and bowed. “But as to your scruples—I have it on good authority that the 10th Hussars are grown so respectable now Napoleon has immolated himself among the Tatars, that you need not be in a fret regarding dear Jane’s virtue. She shall not run off with a red coat, while she is under my protection.”

  “Unfortunate,” my mother sighed, “but we cannot be having everything. It is enough, perhaps, that she has the opportunity to be seen. One may meet with so many Eligibles in Brighton, I am sure—and though Jane is long since on the shelf, you cannot deny that her complexion improves with exposure to salt air!”

  On this happy thought, my mother retired to her bedchamber, while I thanked Henry prettily, if somewhat archly, for the treat he meant to bestow.

  “Save your breath for Manon,” he advised. “If that woman is to be credited, there is only one right manner of folding and packing gowns—and she will be busy with your trunk and silver paper the better part of the night.”

  I left him to recruit his strength with the remains of a pie, while I hurried above-stairs, certain that nothing like silver paper was to be found in Chawton Cottage—to discover my bedchamber strewn with the stuff, and Manon up to her elbows in my meagre wardrobe.

  CHAPTER THREE

  An Incident on the Road

  7 MAY 1813

  THE CASTLE INN, ON THE STEYNE, BRIGHTON

  I WAS TO LEARN WITH MORTIFYING SWIFTNESS THAT I OWN nothing fashionable enough for the display of Brighton; indeed, in our dusky clothes, Henry and I appear little better than a pair of crows flapping about this expanse of frivolous and sunlit shingle—but more on the vexatious subject of dress later. Having arisen at the first cock-crow, with a mizzle on the air, we bundled ourselves into the hired chaise and made with all possible haste to London, sparing only half an hour for our nuncheon at the White Lion in Guildford. Manon was the most anxious of us all to get on—having put Hampshire to her back, she could not be quit of the country soon enough. It was with an exclamation of incomprehensible Gallic relief that she alighted at last from our chaise, a mere nine hours and five days since she had escaped the confines of her adoptive city; and swept without a backwards glance across the Sloane Street threshold. We did not see her again that evening.

  She was present, however, to wish us well on our journey south the following morning—for Henry is incapable, I find, of resting long in the house where Eliza breathed her last, and nothing would do but that we must press on for Brighton immediately after breakfast. The journey being to be achieved in a curricle and pair, the sensation of air about the face was so delightful when the top was put down, just past Westminster Bridge where we gained the New Road, that I declared I should never wish to travel again in any sort of closed conveyance.

  “—Until you are bound for Godmersham one wretched, chill November, and ready to sell your soul for a pan of coals at your feet and a glass of hot lemonade,” my brother unkindly observed.

  We were to change horses thrice, at Croydon, Horley, and Cuckfield. The Chequers Inn at Horley saw us arrived a mere three hours after we had quitted London, and it was not above half-past two when our third flagging team was claimed by the ostlers at Cuckfield. The King’s Head is an easy, genteel establishment accustomed to the crush of visitors descending upon the seaside in the month of May; the landlord, one Puffitt, was at the door in his white apron, ready to offer Henry a tankard and myself anything I should require, while our team was changed for the last time.

  I quitted the curricle, glad of the opportunity to ease my limbs, and began to pick my way through the mud of the yard. I had worn stout boots for the road, and was glad of my foresight; it had rained in the night, and the ground was uneven. I reached out a hand to steady myself against the cream-coloured body of a magnificent travelling chaise, bearing a crest I could not recognise upon its door; the owner had quitted it for refreshment in the inn, and the traces were already free of its team. As I touched the chaise, it rocked slightly, and a faint moan emanated from within.

  I paused, and looked about. The tone of voice was female, and rather young; surely no one had abandoned a child, and possibly unwell at that, to the ostlers’ indifferent care?

  No one spared me a look; I leaned closer to the chaise, and said low and clear, “Are you all right? Do you require assistance?”

  The moan was repeated, louder and more urgently than before—a stifled sound, as though the girl would speak volumes if only she might.

  “Henry!” I called out. My brother had advanced halfway to the innkeeper’s smiling form; he was nodding, and saying a word—the request for porter, perhaps. He turned and searched for my figure. I beckoned to him, and with a frowning look he made his way back across the churned expanse of yard.

  “What is it, Jane? Surely you have not allowed a bit of mud to stop you!”

  “There is a child trapped in this chaise,” I declared.

  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 have 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.