Stephanie Barron - Jane and the Madness of Lord Byron

I could not make out his countenance or read his looks in the darkness of the passage; but in the throb of his voice, in the very current of suppressed violence his still form conveyed, I read the truth. Every pore of my being was alive to his; that was Byron’s inimitable power. “Dear God,” I whispered. “You have killed him, then. We are too late.”

Byron advanced towards us silently; Henry raised the taper as tho’ it were a weapon. His lordship stopped perhaps a yard from where we stood. At last I could see his eyes glittering in the faint light, and the pallid gleam of his countenance.

“Killed him?” he repeated contemptuously. “He did not die by my hand. That was unnecessary; there are such men on earth, Miss Austen, who are mortal to themselves.” He stepped closer, all the intensity of his look fixed upon mine, and my rebellious pulse quickened. “But how did you come here?” he demanded. “What unknown seraph whispered my truth into your ears?”

By way of answer, I drew breath and recited the words I had read only a half-hour before, in the comfort of my Castle bedroom:

Thy victims ere they yet expire

Shall know the demon for their sire ,

As cursing thee, thou cursing them ,

Thy flowers are withered on the stem .

But one that for thy crime must fall ,

The youngest, most beloved of all ,

Shall bless thee with a father’s name—

That word shall wrap thy heart in Flame !

“Ah,” Byron said acidly. “ The Giaour . It is an excellent tale, is it not? So replete with exotic detail—so vivid with Attic life! All of London shall read it, and exclaim at the barbarous customs that obtain in the East!”

“And in Brighton,” I supplied.

“Exactly so, Miss Austen. And now—if you will forgive me—I stand in need of whiskey.” He made as if to limp past us, but Henry seized him by the arm.

“You cannot quit this place, Byron,” he said wonderingly. “Are you out of your senses? The entire town is raised against you!”

“If the entire town wishes to speak with me, I shall be at Davies’s house,” the poet said wearily. “In the meanwhile, you might offer the entire town the General’s last letter.”

He shook off my brother’s hand, and pushed his way through the open door.

We let him go.

Then we glanced at each other and walked side by side towards the faint light spilling from the back room.

General Twining was in dress uniform, seated at his writing desk as tho’ sleeping, his head resting on his arms; but a pool of dark blood flowing from one temple shattered the illusion of dreaming peace. His eyes were open, and dreadfully fixed; their last sight, I must suppose, had been the portrait of a young officer of the 10th Hussars that hung over the mantelpiece—his son and heir, Richard, killed in the Peninsula.

“Observe, Jane.” Henry reached for a folded sheet of hot-pressed paper, which had been sealed with wax and the General’s ring. “It is inscribed to Sir Harding Cross.”

“His confession, no doubt.” Another sheet had lain beneath it—and this hand I recognised. It was Byron’s.

Yes, Leila sleeps beneath the wave,

But his shall be a redder grave;

Her spirit pointed well the steel

Which taught that felon heart to feel .

I watched my time, I leagued with

these, The traitor in his turn to seize;

My wrath is wreaked, the deed is done ,

And now I go,—but go alone .

SATURDAY, 15 MAY> 1813

BRIGHTON, CONT.

HENRY INSISTED UPON REMAINING WITH GENERAL TWINING’S body, the letter replaced in its position on the desk, while I walked swiftly back in the direction of Marine Parade in order to rouse the Earl of Swithin’s household. It was for Charles Swithin, we thought, to inform Sir Harding Cross that his case of murder was done—so that the magistrate might have the reading of Twining’s sealed letter before anyone else should find it. That it had been dictated to the General by Lord Byron, and probably at gun point, I never doubted; whether his lordship or the General’s hand eventually despatched the pistol’s ball into the General’s brain, I do not care to consider over-long. The duelling pistol was the General’s own—and antique enough to have accounted for the death of his wife’s lover, nearly fifteen years since. It was found on the floor near the General’s chair; and coupled with the confessional letter, was enough for Old HardCross to proclaim the death self-murder, and to acquit Lord Byron of any charges in the drowning of Catherine Twining. As for Byron’s part in the General’s scandalous end—so far as Sir Harding knew, his lordship had never been more than near the place, having repaired to his friend Mr. Davies’s lodgings the very instant his amorous page effected his release from Brighton Camp.

When the contents of the General’s letter were related to me the following morning, over a late breakfast at No. 21, Marine Parade, they were much as I had suspected: The General confessed to having drowned his daughter in a fit of drunken rage. After Captain the Viscount Morley knocked him senseless outside the Pavilion’s doors, the General had regained his wits in time to observe Lord Byron entering the Pavilion. When Catherine exited a few moments later, in evident agitation, her father had followed her out of the courtyard. He had confronted her on the Steyne with his suspicions—that she had disgraced herself like a common trollop with Lord Byron. He then informed her, with evident glee, that her indiscretions should never dishonour her father again—that he had agreed that very night to give her hand in marriage to Mr. Hendred Smalls. In return, Catherine declared that her heart already belonged to Captain Morley—and that she should rather be dead than marry anyone else.

It was this honest expression of feeling that inflamed the General against his own flesh and blood. In his right mind, of course, he might only have struck the girl, and carried her home to live out a miserable existence confined to her rooms. In his drunken state, however, he was deaf to all reason. He had declared that she should have her dearest wish—and dragged her towards the shingle, where he thrust her head beneath the waves.

It was a dreadful history; and I suspect that the General’s old friend, Colonel Hanger—in having plied his former comrade with Port that night—bears much of the responsibility for Catherine’s death. I am certain it was indeed Hanger, discovering the corpse in one of his solitary midnight strolls, who hit upon the excellent joke of sewing Catherine Twining into a shroud formed of the Giaour ’s hammock—and deposited Catherine in what he assumed to be Byron’s bed.

The Colonel, of course, cannot be accused, approached, or touched—he remains the Regent’s friend, and enjoys a Royal protection. But I confess I hate the very sight of him.

What might have been the General’s sentiments the following morning, when he awoke to a brain restored from drink, a full sense of the horror of his crime, and the intelligence that his daughter’s remains had been discovered in such circumstances, can only be guessed at; his confessional letter is silent upon all points. His cowardice, however, in allowing another man to bear the brunt of suspicion and guilt, to the very threshold of the gibbet, must acquit the world of the slightest impulse towards sympathy.

“I must say, Jane, that you are very poorly repaid for all your efforts on Lady Oxford’s behalf,” Mona observed as she crumbled a roll and sipped at her tea, “for she left Brighton last night before Byron’s escape was even heard of; and never thought to thank you. I am ashamed of Jane Harley, I confess; tho’ in truth I cannot blame her. Lord Byron would try a saint.”