Stephanie Barron - Jane and the Madness of Lord Byron

He rose from the card table as Mona approached; bowed with charm and correctness as she forced my acquaintance upon him; and remained standing, to Lord Byron’s impatience, until we should have passed on. I met those limpid blue eyes only once, before demanding of myself how I could possibly have imagined such a boy capable of murder . He could not be above four-and-twenty years of age. That he should find Catherine’s face and form alluring must be natural; that he should then ruthlessly force her head beneath the waves, impossible.

But the questions must be asked—and I alone should ask them. How to effect a tête-à-tête?

“My luck is out, Mona,” Lord Byron said with a scowl, throwing down his cards. His pale countenance bore a restless, feverish look, and his fingers played with the stem of his wineglass, which was only half-full. “Morley’s a deep one; he has had the best of me tonight. I must summon my Runner and make for home.”

The Captain gathered up the cards—coolly pocketed the winnings—and said, “I imagine your mind is engaged on greater matters than whist, Byron. You are writing a poem, are you not? To the memory of your Leila ? But then—you are always writing a poem to someone . The ladies who have figured in your verse are legion. Only one, however, has suffered mortally from the honour.”

Byron’s countenance flushed, as tho’ all the wine in his veins had roared angrily to the surface, and his glittering look fixed upon the Captain. I felt, with a sense of shock, all the violence of passion that emanated from the man; it attracted far more powerfully than it repelled.

“She shall live long in my verse, Morley,” he growled, “when you are already rotted in your grave!”

“No doubt,” the Captain returned, “—if you are permitted time enough to finish your poem. I thought you exceedingly brave to show your face at the Assembly tonight—and should have feared for your very life on your return home. But you relieve my mind; I had forgot the fact of the Runner.”

Did I detect a menace in these words, so carelessly spoken? But Byron was no longer attending to the Captain; his ire was fleeting. He rose unsteadily to his feet and demanded of Mona, like a weary child, “Where is Davies? And where has Jane got to?”

I flushed as he uttered my name, but he referred, of course, to Lady Oxford. I did not exist for Lord Byron this evening, and was woman enough to feel a pang. The greater writer than he, however, overcame it.

“I believe she is in the ballroom, observing the dancing,” Desdemona faltered. “George—are you unwell? Shall I summon Swithin?”

But Lord Byron’s smouldering gaze had fixed on three men who were advancing across the card room towards our party. They were not dressed for a ball, and their countenances were stolid and unreadable. Constables at the beck and call of Sir Harding Cross, and I did not mistake.

“George Gordon, Lord Byron?” the chief of the three intoned.

“That is my name,” his lordship replied; “but I did not give you leave to make free with it.” And he snapped his fingers beneath the constable’s nose.

The fellow’s countenance did not alter; he might have been confronting a mad dog, run loose on the shingle. “It is my duty,” he said, “to arrest you, sir, on the charge of murder.”

At which his lordship knocked the poor fellow down.

THE ASSEMBLY ROOMS FELL SILENT AS BYRON WAS dragged away—all of Brighton horrified, as it seemed, by the sudden plummet of its favoured comet. The moment his lordship’s black head disappeared from the main staircase, however, the orchestra struck up a tune—the old chestnut, “Lady o’ the Timmer Lands.” A few couples moved hesitantly to the floor, and soon the scene was one of gaiety; Lady Oxford did not faint, but continued talking with deliberate animation to Sir John and the man named Hodge; and I found my brother Henry hastening towards me from the supper room. The Earl of Swithin was hard on his heels.

Mona pulled at Swithin’s sleeve with urgency. “Do something, Charles! They cannot simply throw Byron in gaol!”

“It may be the safest place for him, Mona,” her husband replied grimly.

“Is the whole town so opposed to the notion of innocence?”

“The Regent is—and that must be enough for the magistrate. I have been talking with Old HardCross.” The Earl’s eyes flicked dispassionately towards my brother. “The intelligence the magistrate received this afternoon, of a tunnel leading from the Marine Pavilion to the King’s Arms—or, not to put too fine a point upon it, from the Regent’s home to a place of murder —has animated His Royal Highness as nothing else should. He is demanding a swift period to the Twining business. Sir Harding assures me that nothing shall equal his efforts to set the Prince’s mind at ease; and therefore, it is to be hoped Byron will hang for the corpse found in his rooms, and there is to be an end of it.”

“But that is unjust!” Mona cried. “That is … that is criminal , Charles!”

“I am mortified,” Henry said in a low voice. “To think that Byron’s liberty is denied him—that his very life might be laid at my door—when my only object in speaking with the magistrate was the achievement of justice!”

“I believe we should collect our party and return home,” the Earl said gently. “We can do nothing more here.”

“Where have they taken him?” I asked.

“To Brighton Camp. He is to be held under the armed guard of the Regent’s own—the 10th Hussars.”

My eyes drifted across the room, and observed Captain Viscount Morley, his military helmet hiding his golden curls, slipping neatly out of the room.

I could not think a barracks the safest gaol for Byron.

FRIDAY, 14 MAY 1813

BRIGHTON

I HAD BEEN DRESSED ONLY A QUARTER-HOUR THIS MORNING, and was taking tea and toast in the private parlour set aside for Henry’s and my use, when the Countess of Swithin sent up her card—followed hard on its heels by the Countess herself.

“We must corner her,” Desdemona cried as she sailed into the room, a perfect picture in straw-coloured linen trimmed in dull rose, “and make her tell us what she knows.”

“Who?”

“Caro Lamb, of course!” She drew off her bonnet and gloves, and set about prosaically pouring herself a cup of tea. “You cannot think how low poor Jane Harley is become. She is certain Byron will hang, and is torn between a jealous desire to see him do so—born of her discovery of his passion for Miss Twining—and outright despair at the World’s Loss. She persists in believing him a genius, tho’ the rest of us are inclined to consider him out of his wits.” Mona took a sip of scalding tea, and grimaced.

“Swithin went this morning to appeal to Old HardCross for the setting of bail, and the release of his lordship into our own household—bail to be paid by Swithin, of course—but Sir Harding refused. He had the sheer effrontery to say that he regards Byron as excessively dangerous, on account of his knocking down that constable last evening; and in the next breath, told Swithin that he now believes Caro Lamb’s testimony at the inquest!—For you will recall she claimed Byron spent the remainder of the night at the Pavilion, in her arms, and not at Scrope Davies’s at all. Anybody in Brighton might know her for a liar—except, it would seem, Sir Harding Cross.”

“I am sure she offered her testimony then with the intention of protecting Lord Byron—by swearing to his presence, and offering an alibi, when he might have been anywhere,” I said thoughtfully. “The discovery of the tunnel leading out of the Pavilion, however, has secured the noose around his lordship’s neck. Sir Harding need look no further. Miss Twining’s body is believed to have found its way to Byron’s rooms at the Arms through the cunning tunnel that commences in the Regent’s wine cellars; Lady Caroline swears Byron was at the Pavilion during the critical hours of the murder and disposal of Miss Twining’s body—and therefore, Lord Byron shall be found guilty of having drowned the girl he passionately loved. Nobody seems to give a ha’porth of interest in why he should be moved to do so, however.”