Stephanie Barron: Jane and the Madness of Lord Byron

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.

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

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.