Stephanie Barron - Jane and the Madness of Lord Byron

“No, damme, but I know who does . Get out of my house this instant, sir, and never darken its door again!”

“Papa!” cried Miss Twining, all her outrage in her looks; the General might treat her like the merest chattel, it seemed, but she would not see her friends abused.

“We shall leave you now, Miss Twining,” I said firmly, with a curtsey for the trembling girl. “I am quite sure when your father is restored to calm, he will better apprehend how blameless you have been today. If he should require further corroboration of your excellent conduct, I am happy to supply it at any time. But now I would urge you to seek your room” — I gave her an expressive look — “and place yourself in the hands of your maid; you will be wanting supper on a tray, I am sure, and an interval of quiet. General, we must bid you good day.”

I dropped the old renegade another curtsey, and rose to find his snapping eyes fixed upon my face. “Very well,” he said unexpectedly, “you have my thanks for my daughter’s deliverance from Lord Byron — however much I may suspect the tale, and the motives of every member of this party! We shall not speak of this day again. I cannot like a Twining’s disgrace to be known to complete strangers!”

“Be assured, General, that we shall dismiss every insult we have witnessed, from our minds as soon as may be,” my brother said evenly.

And having bowed our farewells at the door, and seen Miss Twining hastening above-stairs — we had nothing more to do than seek our rooms at the Castle Inn.

THIS PROVED TO BE ONE OF TWO PRINCIPAL HOSTELRIES that Brighton affords, a modern building replete with every convenience, including an admirable Assembly Room some eighty feet long, of which the servant offered me a glimpse while conducting us to our bedchambers. The ceiling must be half again as high, and surrounded by a delightful frieze in the Classical manner. A ball is held at the Castle every Monday, as Catherine Twining had assured me, and thus Henry and I shall be treated to all the Fashionables the town at present affords — swirling animatedly in a crush of music, heat, and scent.

Our apartments overlook the Steyne, the Promenade Grove — a pleasant enough arrangement of poplars, flowers, and darting paths — and just beyond these, the sea. We are fortunate in having descended upon Brighton in advance of the true Season, which may be said to begin in June; and thus may command a commodious suite of rooms: two bedchambers with a private parlour between. Tho’ the furnishings are nothing extraordinary, they are just bright and easy enough to suit a seaside holiday. The whole adventure, indeed, wants only Eliza’s careless frivolity to make it quite perfect.

—And at that thought, to my surprize, I fancied I caught an echo of my late cousin’s bell-like laughter. I turned enquiringly towards the door, but no quick step passed it; I shook my head impatiently, and answered some query of the chambermaid’s regarding the disposition of my things.

“SHOULD YOU CARE TO WALK, JANE?” HENRY ENQUIRED perhaps a half-hour later as he thrust his head into my room, “or are you famished?”

“Walk,” I said decidedly. “The sea air alone shall give me an appetite — and I have it on the best authority that even the Prince Regent dines early at Brighton.”

“You have been gossiping with the serving-girl, I collect.”

“Who better to impart the holy rituals of the place? Her name is Betsy; she is not above twenty years old, and is exceedingly wise; she is a native of Brighton, and she urges me to order our dinner for six o’clock, with no fear of being judged unpardonably vulgar.”

Henry’s face lit up; I do not think he has enjoyed a meal since Eliza slipped into her decline, some weeks ago. “I shall bespeak a green goose, Jane, and some turbot — for we cannot dine in Brighton without a nod to the sea.”

“Lobster patties,” I said dreamily, “and champagne.”

My brother laughed aloud. “You shall have to walk a good two hours, my dear, to merit such indulgence! But do you know — I believe that is exactly the menu Eliza should have requested, were she our companion in dissipation.”

“She is, Henry,” I said seriously. “She is.”

We set out across the Steyne, intending to seek the Marine Parade, and spent a good hour ambling west along the sea-front. The day being well advanced, the more notable denizens of the town could be discovered in the Promenade Grove, where an orchestra dispensed music from an elevated platform at its centre, and the Pinks of the ton might ogle the Beauties who effected to admire the profusion of May flowers in the neatly arranged beds. Thus Henry and I, in our funereal black, had the Parade entirely to ourselves. There is nothing so bracing as a brisk stride against the wind, with a lowering edge of cloud on the sea’s horizon, and the waves churning whitely at a safe distance. I felt my spirits rise inevitably, and I thought from the glint in Henry’s eye as he surveyed an elegant vessel, well hove-over on her keel with her sails full of wind, that he had left his grief behind him. He is wise to quit Sloane Street, with its memories that should not soon be forgot, and its loneliness that might never be altered; he is the sort of man who must be doing things, and I admire him for it.

“What is to be your programme for Brighton, Jane?” he carelessly asked. “Or do you intend to closet yourself in your room for hours on end, scribbling at your latest oeuvre ?”

“I am hardly proof against the temptations of this town, Henry! How am I to write, when so much that is delightful is spread before my feet! Better to set down my pen until I am back at home, and the rain of June has descended with persistence, and there is nothing but mud and desolation to be had out-of-doors. Then I might give thought to Henry Crawford, and the salvation of his blackened soul.”

“You admire Brighton, do you?”

“I have never seen such a place. There is not a beggar or a blight from one end to the other! The buildings, the plants, the horses, the people — all perfectly elegant, all seemingly immune to the decay of nature! How the equipages gleam, and the shop fronts beckon! I should call it unnatural, and the result of witchcraft, were I not aware that a vast sum of money is necessary to its achievement.”

“Money, indeed — and most of it drawn from taxing the British subject,” Henry returned drily. “It is the pleasure ground of a Prince, remember, and one who is no stranger to debt. Brighton is carried on the backs of the most impoverished denizens of London, and by the nabobs of India; by the canny traders of Chinese cantons and the millworkers of York. But I daresay if you asked the Regent, he would claim credit for the whole.”

It was true, of course — trust a banker like my brother to advise me of it. Paradise is never granted for halfpence. The Regent had achieved more than fifty years of age without ever having been called to a reckoning of his accounts; a more expensive Royal never lived. Parliament itself had been forced to relieve his debts; he had married his hated cousin, Caroline of Brunswick, merely to obtain a handsome allowance; and was probably a million pounds to the red side of his ledger at present. The Regent remained as enthusiastic as ever in his schemes for the improvement of Carlton House, in London, and the Marine Pavilion here, without the scantest consideration of such an ugly word as cost .

“You ought to have seen Brighton as I first did, before the Prince discovered it,” Henry murmured, his gaze still following the sailing vessel, on which two or three wind-whipped figures could just be discerned. “It was called Brighthelmston then, and was the simplest of fishing villages — the Pavilion a modest farmhouse Prinny leased for the enjoyment of Mrs. Fitzherbert. They were said to spend the majority of their evenings playing at cards, with their intimates, and retiring early from exhaustion at the salt air. One wag noted that there were more sheep than people on the Channel Coast in those days! An utterly wholesome and rather poignant interlude, in the Regent’s shameful career.”