Chapter Fourteen #2
Jane did not look at him. She looked at the buds on the tree. “I am not jealous, my lord. I could not be jealous of those ridiculous women. Why, to say such a thing. ‘Every stanza rhymes,’” she mimicked in a high-pitched voice, utterly disgusted.
Byron burst out into laughter.
“I don’t care if you do give them attention. Certainly, I don’t want your attention. We exchange one glance yesterday, and you think you’ve turned my head, but let me assure you, that is the furthest thing from the truth. I do not think of you in that manner.”
“Yes, noted,” he said, smirking. “You, indeed, do not.”
She clenched her hands into fists, but otherwise she refused to show any of her perturbation outwardly. She still did not look at him.
“That isn’t what I meant, anyway,” said Byron.
“What isn’t?”
“You aren’t jealous of them, you’re jealous of me,” he said. “Imagine if everyone in that room knew that you had written Sense and Sensibility.”
She turned to look at him, and she felt as if he’d just smote her, as if she had been struck, right in the chest, with an arrow. A deep arrow, one that had lodged itself in her heart and now her life’s blood was draining out of her.
Yes, all right, Cassandra was right. Sometimes she was fanciful and dramatic.
“Well, that will never happen,” she said.
“You’ve got the better deal, let me assure you. I would much rather have published Childe Harold anonymously and got the money for it.”
“Oh, no you wouldn’t have,” she said.
“Have I mentioned how much I could stand money?” said Byron.
“I think you talk about money far more than is really proper, my lord. It’s not done to complain so about your finances.”
“Well, I do all sorts of things that aren’t done,” he said.
“Yes, so you do.”
He gave her a little smile. “It is so trying. They don’t understand it. They make it all about… the entirely wrong things. They think I am some dashing and sad romantic tragic figure, that all I need is the love of a good woman to set me straight. They don’t understand what the poem is even about.”
“And what is it about?” she said.
“You know,” he said. “You can feel it. It’s about… the ache. The one we both feel. All the time. The one that is never soothed. The one that can’t be soothed. The one that smites one in the chest, like a deep arrow, forcing us to bleed out our life’s blood—”
She smirked, unable to stop herself.
He looked down, flushing. “All right, I had expected better from you, though everyone will say that I do go on too much and that I am far too dramatic—”
“No, it is not that,” she said. “It is only that I was thinking a very similar metaphor, in almost the exact same words, only moments ago. We are a bit of a pair, I’m afraid, my lord.”
He lifted his gaze to hers. “That we are. You do understand.”
“I don’t,” she said. “I would never write a poem about that ache. Anyway, women aren’t allowed to have that ache.”
“I think they are,” he said. “It’s only that women always associate it with romantic love. This is why women like my poem.”
“Yes, you’re right.”
“People don’t know what your book is about either,” he said.
“That Willoughby fellow, he’s the most tragic and romantic of the heroic figures that have ever cut against a novel’s horizon.
And he’s not the answer to Marianne’s predicament, is he?
It’s not romanticism or that ache that saves her.
It’s good common sense. People think your book is about romance, about finding love.
But it’s about women thinking for themselves and denying it, in all truth. ”
Jane looked away, sighing.
“Well, as much as one is able, I suppose,” he said, his voice soft.
It was quiet.
“I have an idea,” he said. “I shall convince Caro to throw a masquerade ball in London, and you will come, as the author of Sense and Sensibility, not as Jane Austen. No one will know your name. You will be masked the entire time. But you’ll be introduced to everyone as an author, and they’ll all fawn over you. ”
“Oh, I couldn’t,” said Jane, whose stomach had turned to jelly at the very prospect.
“Why not? You’d be in a mask.”
“I have been to a masquerade ball before, my lord. As much as Shakespeare wishes us to believe that no one is recognizable when in costume, I can tell you that it is usually quite easy to determine the identity of everyone in attendance.”
“Certainly, but no one in London knows you. And they do know the book. I tell you, it’s quite popular.”
She fixed him with a penetrating look. “Have you really not read it?”
“Do you really think my poem is dreadful?”
She laughed softly. “Well, you are so very good at rhyming. Every stanza!”
He laughed, too. “All right. I see you’re going to repeat that forever. I’ll have you know, it is much more difficult to rhyme than not. You must own this is true.”
“You think I’ve never written in verse?” she said.
“No, I suppose you would have,” he said. “I suppose you’re quite good at rhyming?”
“I’ve never written anything rhyming as long as yours,” she conceded. “Whatever possessed you to think your little jaunt across the ocean to drink and carouse was the proper subject of an epic poem? How much of an ego do you have?”
“No, it’s not like that.” He was blushing again.
“That’s sort of the point, don’t you see?
That there isn’t anything, nothing at all, that’s worthy of that sort of thing anymore, not for men like us, and this is all that’s left to us, to cobble meaning together from what we do experience, as banal as it may be? ”
“Right,” she said, nodding. “Right, of course. I suppose I do see that.” She was going to say something else, but then she noted that someone was approaching from the house. It was one of the women from the tea, a Mrs. Edgerton.
Jane couldn’t remember if Mrs. Edgerton had said anything to Byron or not. She had been mostly subdued through the tea, watching and listening.
Now, however, she caught Jane’s eye. “Oh, Miss Austen!”
Byron turned in the direction of the woman’s voice. “Hello there.”
“My lord,” said Mrs. Edgerton. “I wish to speak to you both.” She looked around as if she was wondering if anyone was watching her and then, noting she was not being watched, she scurried closer. “It’s about Miss Seward.”
“Oh,” said Byron. “Well, we are quite curious.”
“You were wondering if she had a lover,” said Mrs. Edgerton.
“And I don’t know about that. Not for certain, anyway.
No, what I’m about to tell you is simply conjecture, and if you were to repeat it to anyone or claim that you heard it from me, I’m afraid I would not confirm it.
I do not wish to be involved in any unpleasantness, you see? ”
“Of course,” said Byron.
“So, you aren’t certain at all about it?” said Jane.
“I’m certain of this,” said Mrs. Edgerton. “That ladder belonged to the Wellings.”
“The Wellings,” said Jane.
“Yes,” said Mrs. Edgerton, “and I’m certain of it because I saw them, the night after Miss Seward had died, carrying it back to his shed.”
“Well,” said Jane, “the Wellings live only across the back alleyway from the tavern. If someone wanted to steal a ladder, that’s a convenient place to steal it from.”
“Indeed,” said Mrs. Edgerton. “I don’t wish to out and out accuse Mr. Wellings of being the one to have an affair with Miss Seward.
It may not have been him. But I think it must have been someone who knew about that ladder being stored there.
And I think this is how he would get in and out for the trysts with Miss Seward.
He would use the ladder, and then, when he had finished, he would take it back to the Wellings’s shed. ”
“That makes sense,” said Jane.
“It could have been one of the Wellings’s servants,” said Mrs. Edgerton.
“Also true,” said Jane.
“I don’t know,” said Mrs. Edgerton. “But I do know this. Mr. Welling was involved in putting the ladder away, and he made sure to do it under the cover of darkness. It was near ten o’clock at night when they were carrying it from the tavern and across the alleyway back to the Wellings’s shed. I saw, because I live close by.”
“Yes, on the other side of the tavern,” said Jane thoughtfully. “But certainly anyone in town would have seen.”
“More people would have seen if he’d done it in broad daylight,” said Mrs. Edgerton. “I’m not saying he had something to hide, but it also looks bad, if you know what I mean.”
“Quite,” said Byron. “Thank you for telling us this, Mrs. Edgerton.”
“I hope it’s helpful,” said Mrs. Edgerton. “I should hate to see you blamed for something you did not do, my lord.”
“I am ever so appreciative,” said Byron. “I shall be quite certain to do everything in my power to clear my name, and it’s only possible because of people like you offering me their confidences and their important information.”
Jane fought the urge to roll her eyes again. She was not jealous of those women, but she found the way he spoke to them made her furious for some reason.
At this point, Mrs. Austen came out of the house and waved Jane over.
“Oh, there’s my mother,” said Jane. “I should likely go to her.”
“Well, come back,” said Byron. “We need to speak to Mr. Hardy and Mr. Seward, get their responses to everything we’ve uncovered. And it would be good to speak to Mr. Wellings, I think, in light of this business about the ladder.”
“Right, of course,” said Jane. “I shall simply tell her that I am off with you for a bit, then.”
Mrs. Austen wasn’t pleased. “You’re going to make me walk home alone? Truly?”
“Well, if I walk with you, I’m going to have to turn round immediately and walk straight back to town, and that seems pointless,” said Jane.
“I wouldn’t have come all the way down here if I knew you were going to abandon me,” said Mrs. Austen. “Couldn’t I come along while you ask questions?”
Jane cleared her throat. “I… it’s all…”
“Is it as Cassandra says, entirely indelicate?”
Jane felt her face heat up. “Oh, well, there are… things… but really, I think that we’re going to wish for the people we visit to feel safe opening up to us, and I don’t know if introducing another person at this juncture will be likely to make them loosen their tongues.”
“You could just say that you don’t want your old mother along,” said Mrs. Austen.
“That is not what I’m saying!” protested Jane.
“Well, then, how about I come along and I simply stay out of the way while you are asking questions of the people?” said Mrs. Austen.
Jane sighed. But what was she to do? She marched back over to Byron, plastered a smile on her face, and said, “My mother is coming along.”