Jane and the Madness of Lord Byron Page 8
“There is George Hanger,” Henry murmured in my ear as he handed me a glass of champagne. “What an old villain, to be sure! You will know him by his hook of a nose, his lean frame, and his inveterate look of a satyr. They do say as it was he who arranged the illegal marriage of the Prince and Mrs. Fitzherbert seven-and-twenty years ago—procured the priest, and held the branch of candles at the midnight service!”
His was a raddled and dissipated face, much cragged and lined; he was famous for his patronage of the Fancy—the sport of boxing—for his military service during the late war in the American colonies; and for his general lack of sense. As I watched, one crabbed hand reached for the delicate pink silk of a lady whose rump was turned towards him, entirely ignorant of it; he pinched some portion of her flesh, and I observed the poor creature to jump out of her skin.
“Keep your distance, Jane,” Henry chortled. “I doubt even the weeds of mourning would preserve you from such a roué!”
“Henry,” I said faintly, “is there any purpose to this soirée beyond standing about and sampling the overwhelming expanse of food? Is there to be singing? I had heard the Prince was fond of playing the violincello with his orchestra. Or do we sit down to cards, perhaps? Is there to be an address by the Regent? Is His Highness anywhere within sight?”
“Not that I can observe,” my brother replied. “I suppose we might make a push to see the other rooms—it is the Marine Pavilion, after all, and one ought to explore the length and breadth of it when such an opportunity offers—I cannot imagine we shall ever set foot within the place again!”
“You go,” I urged him. The heat was proving more than my black silk or the beaded band of ribbon about my carefully dressed curls could support. I was certain I felt a drop of moisture working its way down one temple—and I would not be discovered by a member of the ton in a red-faced state of vulgarity. “I shall endeavour to find a cooler spot, perhaps by a window—tho’ none of them appear to be open.”
Henry surged off through the crowd, his champagne glass held high; and as my eyes followed his course, I thought I glimpsed Desdemona, Countess of Swithin—in animated conversation with a lady I did not recognise. She looked cool as September in transparent gauze, and I swear her underskirt was dampened so as to cling to her skin—her form might almost have been etched in marble for every eye—but I credited her for the canny preparation borne of past experience: in the heat of the Marine Pavilion, one might as well arrive already drenched. I debated approaching her, but a tide of humanity, swelling and lapping about the tables of food, separated us; I must hope to meet with the Countess at a more propitious hour.
“Miss Austen, this is a pleasure indeed!”
I turned with difficulty—being caught in a crush between a lady with three ostrich plumes waving on her head, and a corpulent gentleman whose broad stomach, expensively clad in white satin breeches and embroidered waistcoat, permitted him no movement at all—and discovered a beaming Lord Moira before me.
I had come to know the Earl in London, where he formed one of Eliza’s court; and the mix of sympathy and delight in his notice at the present moment recalled her immediately to mind. I offered him my hand; he bowed over it and muttered some words regarding our dreadful loss—that no amount of time should reconcile us—that Heaven had acquired a hellion, or Hell its first real angel—and I found myself smiling back at him with a curious sensation of relief. The Marine Pavilion, and Brighton itself, could not be so awful when Lord Moira moved in their midst.
My brother enjoyed Lord Moira’s patronage at his bank; but the Earl had also been an intimate of Lord Harold Trowbridge, during a period of high intrigue among the Whig Party, at whose centre Lord Harold always had been; and from this cause of friendship alone must remain an object of my regard.12
“And how do you do, my lord?” I enquired. “You are in excellent health, I hope? Does the sea air of Brighton agree with you?”
“Not at all, my pretty—not at all! I am never so bilious as when I am by the sea. But the Regent, you know, must have his household about him; and where His Royal Highness commands, I know my duty. I shall be playing whist for five-pound points until August at least, when the shooting season releases us all to the North. But enough of me! This is your first visit to Brighton, I collect? And have you been presented to the Regent?”
“Sir … I …” The words were stuttered in confusion. It was not enough that I was clad in dreary black, of which His Highness is said to have the greatest abhorrence; nor that I am well past my bloom, and could not excite admiration with the freshness of my looks; only add to all this, indeed, the profundity of my contempt for the man—who treats all women, particularly his wife, with a publick disrespect and callous conceit not to be borne—and you will understand the desperation of my desire to avoid the Regent’s notice.
But Lord Moira was already searching beyond my head for the Royal figure, so vast and magnificent, with its dyed locks carefully arranged à la Brutus; its fobs and seals and various puffery orders displayed upon its vast expanse of bosom; its elaborately tied cravat and its ponderous thighs. And as I observed Lord Moira’s countenance, it underwent a change; a suffusion of pleasure overcame the thickened cheeks.
“Mr. Austen!” the Earl cried. “My dear Henry! I have blockaded your sister here by the lobster patties, and must engage your support in overcoming her blushes! She protests she cannot meet the Regent! For shame! Why else is she come to the Marine Pavilion, indeed?”
“To gawk at all the ton in their summer pleasure ground, my lord. For you must know that Jane possesses as exquisite a taste as Beau Brummell—she holds the Regent in absolute abhorrence.”
The Earl’s expression of dismay was a visible reproach; poor Eliza should never have repaid his attentions so ill, and my conscience smote me. Henry’s shot at levity had fallen too wide of its mark. We were both of us in danger of offending an old friend, and one who had every reason to expect our gratitude, in having procured the evening’s tickets. There seemed no other recourse in such a crise but the lady’s constant friend—the fainting fit—and so without hesitation I swayed dangerously where I stood, fluttered my eyelids helplessly, and said in a failing voice: “My lord—the heat—”
Immediately, Lord Moira’s hand was at one elbow; Henry supported the other, and a path was cleared through the fashionable throng at the Earl’s insistence. There is something to be said for buff and blue livery, when it may cut so swift a line through a crowd of gentlemen and ladies hell bent on pleasure. I was carried off to an airy, high-ceilinged structure filled with greenery: the Regent’s Conservatory, I collect, where every manner of fragrant bloom, tropic palm, and sinuous vine trailed among the pillars. I could almost suspect a primordial snake to slither out at my feet, hissing its most seductive favours.
Tho’ my eyes were half-closed, in pretence of swooning, and my head lolled like a doll’s on my brother’s shoulder, I was not so far lost in high drama as to ignore the presence of others, half-hidden amidst the serrated leaves of a verdant fig: the whipcord figure of a man, crushing like an inverted flower the delicate form of a girl, bent to ravishing point at his embrace. He had pinned her arms behind her narrow waist; his mouth was buried in her white throat; her head was tilted backwards. She looked for all the world like a doe caught in the slavering jaws of a hound.
“Henry!” I hissed, as Lord Moira halted in abrupt confusion.
The man swung round. George Hanger, intimate of the Regent and more than sixty if he was a day; and the girl—crumpling to the floor as he released her—
Was none other than Catherine Twining.
9 Thomas Kemp owned most of the land in Brighton at the end of the eighteenth century; his son, Thomas Read Kemp (1782–1844), built Kemp Town in 1823, a significant Regency-style architectural neighborhood between the Royal Crescent and the racecourse on the Downs. The project eventually bankrupted him, and he died on the Continent, unable to meet his creditors’ demands.—Editor’s note.
11 Jane’s description of the Marine Pavilion appears almost quaint to a present-day reader, reflecting as it does a simpler palace long since razed. The Chinese wallpaper she mentions, however, is credited with having inspired the Regent’s subsequent renovation of the Pavilion into the present exotic folly.—Editor’s note.
12 Francis Rawdon, then the second Earl Moira, had been appointed governor-general of Bengal in 1812, and left England later in 1813 without repaying the loans he had drawn on Henry Austen’s bank.—Editor’s note.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The Girl in Boy’s Clothing
SUNDAY, 9 MAY 1813
BRIGHTON
“COLONEL HANGER!” LORD MOIRA CRIED. THE EARL’S heavy jowls trembled with emotion—outrage or uneasiness, I could not tell. “The young lady—I trust she has not been overcome by the heat—Miss Austen, you perceive, is in a similar case—”
“Miss Austen,” Catherine Twining repeated faintly; her eyelids fluttered as tho’ she roused from a dream. “Again you are my salvation!”
“Shhhh,” I murmured, kneeling down beside her and shaking my head once, sternly, in mute admonition. It would not do to make a scene—any hint of scandal in such a place should damage Colonel Hanger not at all, but should leave Miss Twining’s reputation in shreds.
“Allow me,” Henry said gently, extending his hand to assist the girl. “Are you all right?”
The lace ruff at the edge of Catherine’s bodice was torn and dangling; observing this, her cheeks were suffused with scarlet. Her fingers fluttered at the scrap ineffectually.
“Perhaps a pin,” I suggested hastily, and searched in my reticule for one I kept there against just such a need.
My brother turned coldly on Colonel Hanger. “Sir, I have not the honour of your acquaintance, and must leave it to others more closely connected with Miss Twining to question your conduct—”
Hanger grinned, displaying a lamentable set of wooden teeth. “The General, d’ye mean? He’s not likely to cross a brother officer over a bit of muslin, even if she is his daughter. From what I remember of her ma, there’s not much virtue in the female line.”
“Sir! You forget yourself!” Henry said fiercely.
Hanger’s eyes narrowed. “Think you’re entitled to teach me conduct, do you?” He stepped pugnaciously towards my brother. “And what if I slapped your face with my glove, you damnable mushroom? Would you accept the honour of my acquaintance then? The girl encouraged my attentions, if you must know—and led the way to this secluded spot!”
Henry stiffened, and I feared for the issue. “Sir, your imputations are insupportable! Pray step outside, where we may discuss this in greater privacy!”
Hanger strode like a bantam cock towards a pair of great iron doors that let out from the Conservatory onto the Pavilion’s grounds. “Lead on, my fine fellow! I should be happy to draw your cork for you!”
I looked in desperation to Lord Moira, who shouldered his way between my brother and his unusual adversary. “George, if you do not take care, you will bring all of Brighton down upon us—and I cannot think you wish that! You have too many creditors among the townsfolk, ha! ha! And in any case—His Highness sent me in search of you. He desires you to attend him in the Blue Saloon.”
“Does he, indeed?” Hanger eyed poor Catherine, huddled under my wing, with hungry chagrin. “I had forgot what I was about. It was the Regent who was wild to make your acquaintance, my dove, only I tarried too long in presenting you. But don’t cry—we shall have other opportunities—and the Prince was never one for little girls, nor dark-haired ones, neither. He prefers them billowy and blond. I should know—I was ever Prinny’s procurer.”
“George,” Lord Moira breathed warningly. “Have a care!”
Hanger smirked. “You’re a diplomat born, Francis, for all you’re so hopeless at cards. You’ll do very well among the savages and Nabobs—you shall indeed. I wish you at Bengal right now, truth be told; or at the Devil—whichever you will. It’s all one to me.”
“I dare swear you’re foxed, George,” Lord Moira returned despairingly.
Hanger bowed in Catherine’s direction. “Pleasure, Miss Twining—one I hope to have often repeated.”
Henry surged forward, but I placed a restraining hand on his arm; we could not endure a meeting at dawn with such an opponent. Hanger might very well be foxed—his whole person reeked of brandy—and Henry might have the advantage of him in years; but the Colonel was known for an excellent shot. Catherine Twining’s honour was not my brother’s to defend.
As Hanger swung out of the Conservatory with the arrogant stride of a man half his age, Lord Moira, without requiring to be told, had the good sense to draw Henry aside and speak to him very sensibly on the subject of our late Eliza. I busied myself with tucking up Miss Twining’s torn lace, using the least number of pins.
“How came you to be in such a sad case?” I enquired in a lowered tone. “Where is your father? Why are you all unprotected?”
“I am here at the invitation of a neighbour,” she murmured, “Mrs. Silchester. I do not think she knows where I am. It was she who introduced me to the Colonel, at his particular request. He said he wished to present me to the Regent. I am sure Mrs. Silchester thought there could be no objection. Only that odious man carried me directly here, where I am sure the Regent has not been at all!”
“You ought not to have walked off with a strange gentleman alone, Miss Twining. That is considered to be very fast, you know. Let us hope it has not excited comment.”
I glanced up, and discovered tears on the poor girl’s face. I added firmly, “Tho’ in such a crush, how could the movements of any one person be remarked upon? I am sure we need not refine too much upon events. Dry your eyes, lest Mrs. Silchester be in a quake, and escort you home too soon to your papa! You would not wish him to receive you in moping looks! But I am glad to know he allowed you to come this evening—he was so very stern when we met at the Camp, with his talk of beatings and locked doors. Shall I restore you to your party?”
“Oh, yes,” the child said gratefully. She slipped her hand through my arm. Her thin shoulders, bare in her evening dress, heaved as with a sudden chill. “Is this not a dreadful place, Miss Austen? And yet the World would have it the Pavilion is everything great! I shall not recall it with anything but disgust. So hot and so crowded—and the people one meets are not at all kind, except for you! I confess I have the headache. I wish I might go home—”
“And so you shall, as soon as we achieve Mrs. Silchester,” I soothed.
NOT LONG AFTER THE INCIDENT IN THE CONSERVATORY, Henry and I quitted the Regent’s pleasure dome—having at last submitted to Lord Moira’s persistent desire to present us to his crony. The man who would one day be King of England took my hand, patted it earnestly if absentmindedly, and remarked to the Earl that he could not abide to see a woman go in mourning—it made him feel quite low, in thinking of all the good friends lost in recent years. His Royal Highness took my brother’s blacks in better part—as a banker and thus a possible source of funds, Henry should be an invaluable friend did the Regent’s luck at faro turn sour. Henry treated the great man’s notice with surprising circumspection, betraying a caution I had not thought him equal to; and so we parted without regret from the Royal Presence, feeling we had attained every sensation of body and spirit the Pavilion could offer.
I did not see Desdemona, Lady Swithin again—a disappointment—but was permitted a brief glimpse of Catherine Twining, departing in the train of a frail
woman dressed in lavender silk with many flowing veils; Mrs. Silchester, no doubt.
“I rather wonder about your protégée, Jane,” Henry observed as we crossed the Steyne once more towards the Castle Inn, and our longed-for beds. “That chit has a positive genius for landing in scandal with some of the most notorious men in England; and yet I swear there’s not the slightest calculation behind it!”
“She is too much of a goosecap for calculation, Henry.”
“Even the unintelligent may seek the world’s notice. Perhaps Miss Twining craves flattery—excitement—the sensations of a broader world. Perhaps she dreams of treading the boards on the London stage, and Brighton is her apprentice-play!”
“Surely not!”
“You persist in believing her a wide-eyed innocent?”
“She suggests nothing else!” I protested.
“—Tho’ we found her on the verge of ravishment for the second time in two days? I wonder,” he repeated. “Is Miss Twining a mere fawn—or a cunning puss, as shrewd as she can hold together?”
I stopped short before the Castle door. “What has the poor girl done, to inspire such enmity?”
“Required me to defend her honour, at the risk of several duels, among a party of fellows with whom I am not the least acquainted!”
I could not subdue a smile. “Henry! Such Corinthian airs!”
“Be serious, Jane—I am uneasy at something Hanger said: that he had ever acted as the Prince’s procurer, and was charged with presenting Miss Twining to the Regent.… Can it be so? Or was it invention, designed to shirk responsibility? How has such a meek little mouse drawn such a riot of notice?”
“For all she is so young and unformed, she will be a Beauty, Henry,” I quietly replied. “Have you not observed it? Her skin, like porcelain; her features, all excellent—and the depth of innocence in those wide, dark eyes—her artless wonder at the Great World—Miss Twining is all that is enchanting! How else should she have ensnared both the greatest Prince and the greatest Poet of our age?”