Chapter Twenty-five #2
“I didn’t kill Mr. Hardy,” said Mr. Crampton. “He didn’t come after me, anyway. It wasn’t me. It was…” He looked away.
“Oh,” said Byron. “That’s still going on, then.”
“I cannot dismiss him, can I?” said Mr. Crampton. “He is the one who weaponizes secrets against me.”
Jane was very confused.
“Is he here?” said Byron. “Perhaps he did it.”
Mr. Crampton sat back in his seat, his eyes widening.
“Oh, dear. You might be right.” He let out a breath, one so loud it seemed to echo off the ceiling, and then he shot out of his seat and began to pace on the carpet in front of them.
“He is here. How could he not be? He goes everywhere I go. I am barely ever able to escape him. He is the person who dresses and undresses me, after all.”
“Pardon me,” said Jane, who was putting this all together, “but are we speaking of your valet?”
“Yes,” said Mr. Crampton.
“Oh,” said Jane. Then, swallowing, “You and your valet are… together?”
“His valet and positively everyone,” said Byron, waggling his eyebrows at Jane.
Jane drew back.
“His name is Mr. Lovell,” said Mr. Crampton. “And if there is a soul on God’s earth who is nothing but blackness, it is him.”
Jane was astonished. “What?”
Byron was also seemingly astonished. “What?”
Mr. Crampton sat back down. “Oh, come now, Byron. You know that whatever passed between you and I, it was orchestrated by him. You remember how that all went. He was there. He moved us about, made us do whatever it was he wished. He ran all of it like it was a personal show for him. You know what he is like.”
Byron furrowed his brow. “Wait a moment. You’re going to claim that your valet forced you—”
“That is exactly what happened,” said Mr. Crampton.
Byron got up from his chair. “No.”
“Yes, when I was at Cambridge,” said Crampton.
“When I was barely sixteen. He and I were away from home for the first time. He was nearly the same age. He was stronger than me. He said that if I told anyone, it would destroy me along with him, and so I went along with it. And then, he was never satisfied. I had to bring in others, like you, like Beaumont—”
“And you didn’t want to do any of that?” said Byron.
“Well, no,” said Crampton. “What are you saying? None of us did.”
Byron coughed and sat down on the couch. “Erm, where is Mr. Lovell?”
Jane was not at all sure how to handle this last revelation, though she supposed it all made sense. If men could ravish women, they could ravish other men. She had not thought it all through before, but she could see that it was possible.
“Do you wish me to ring for him?” said Mr. Crampton, a bit sarcastic.
“In a moment,” said Byron, whose tone had gone quite somber. “Let us get this all clear first of all. You said that Mr. Hardy blackmailed Mr. Lovell.”
“Yes, I think he saw clearly who was the person in charge,” muttered Mr. Crampton, sitting down.
“But it was my resources he wished to get his hands on. This was when I became associated with Anne, in fact. She said that Mr. Hardy did these things for her and that she didn’t like them, but she could not help but benefit from them.
She said that Mr. Hardy was in love with her and she was not in love back.
And she said that she seemed to be cursed to fall in love with men who only loved other men. ”
“Yes, does seem that way,” said Jane.
“No,” said Crampton. “Well, that is, I would have loved her, if I was free to do so, but I had to keep it secret from Mr. Lovell, or he would retaliate. He has it in his head that he and I are some epic love story or something. He is very jealous.”
“You’re being puppeted by your valet,” said Byron. “For years now, since boyhood?”
Crampton glared at him. “I’m not a puppet.”
“No, no, it’s only… that’s monstrous,” said Byron. “I’m ever so sorry.”
Crampton’s face fell. He had not been expecting the kind words, and they seemed to affect him badly. His face twisted for a moment, and then he got control of himself. He looked at them both. “I cannot be rid of him.”
“Well, if he was a murderer, he’d be hung, would he not?” said Byron, looking cheerful. “So, then, how did he react to the blackmail?”
“Oh, what did he care?” said Crampton. “He didn’t have to pay. It was I who was the one paying the price.”
“Oh,” said Byron, making a face. “Well, that means he didn’t have much of a reason to do it then, doesn’t it?”
“You are positing,” said Crampton, “that Mr. Lovell attempted to poison Mr. Hardy?”
“Yes,” said Byron.
“He didn’t. He couldn’t have. He was not there,” said Mr. Crampton. “I was there that night, and he was not, and this was all by design. There was a reason I went to that tavern, and it was because he didn’t like it and would not follow me there. I had to be shut of him sometimes.”
“Oh,” said Byron, quite deflated.
“Are you certain?” said Jane. “You’re positive he couldn’t have been there without your knowing about it?”
“Fairly positive,” said Mr. Crampton. “If Mr. Lovell had known where I was, he would have had something to say about it. As it was, he seemed to believe my lies that I was elsewhere whenever I was at that tavern.”
“Well, then,” said Lord Byron.
“Well, then,” said Jane.
It was quiet for some time.
Mr. Crampton broke the silence. “You two seem quite glum.”
“Yes, well, it’s partly because we had hoped we’d discovered who the murderer was,” said Byron. “And we haven’t, so we are still doing a great deal of uncovering of secrets, but to no real end. Which is frustrating.”
“Mmm, sounds it,” said Mr. Crampton.
“But it’s also because I can’t bear the idea of leaving you here with that Mr. Lovell,” said Byron. “We have to do something about that.”
“Oh, he’s been with me forever,” said Mr. Crampton, with a shrug. “He’s a bother in many ways. He forces me to do his bidding and molests my person and won’t let me get married and is a tyrant in every way, but I am used to it. The devil you know and all of that.”
“Even so,” said Byron, “it is insupportable. Something must be done.”
“I can’t see what,” said Mr. Crampton. “If I dismiss him, he will tell everyone that I am buggering everything in sight—oh, dear me, apologies, Miss Austen, for using such a word.”
“It’s all right,” said Jane. “It is only a word, after all.”
“Right,” said Mr. Crampton. “And how else can I get rid of him?”
“Perhaps we simply threaten him into silence,” said Byron.
“Oh, no,” said Mr. Crampton. “He has told me numerous times he’d be quite happy to face the hangman’s noose so long as he takes me down with him. ‘If I go down, you go down,’ he says.”
“Well, he says that,” said Byron, “but most men have a sense of self-preservation when it really comes down to it. I think he is all threat and that he would fold like a pack of cards if you exerted any pressure.”
Mr. Crampton smirked. “My lord, you have met him. You don’t really think that.”
Byron hesitated, rubbing his chin. Finally, he said, “Yes, all right, upon further consideration, I am remembering what he is like.”
“He will not fold.”
“Perhaps not,” said Byron. “But I still say that he will not go to the gallows. If he accuses you, you can leave him to it, I suppose. Leave him to hang, and you can go to the continent. Everything’s better there, really.”
“Better?” said Mr. Crampton. “What with the war and Napoleon and all of that?”
“Well, true, I suppose,” said Byron.
“That’s what you’d do, I suppose, if you happened to be charged with sodomy. Simply pack up and leave England entirely?”
“Oh, if I had an excuse to do it, I’d do it now,” said Byron.
“This whole country sickens me. We Englishmen all pretend to be civilized, but we are backward, priggish, repressed, and ever so preoccupied with propriety. I should like to live in a looser manner, and I don’t think anyone who’s ever met me would be surprised to hear that. ”
“He should be your valet.”
Byron smirked. “Oh, I should kill him if he were my valet.”
Mr. Crampton’s eyes widened.
“Not that I’m countenancing murder, of course,” said Byron.
“Lovell is not your affair,” said Mr. Crampton. “He is my issue to solve. You may wash your hands of it and forget all about it.”
“Oh, I have your permission for that?” said Byron dryly.
“Indeed you do. Now, if there’s nothing else, perhaps the two of you can be on your way,” said Mr. Crampton.
“Mr. Crampton,” spoke up Jane.
“Yes, Miss Austen?”
“It’s only that it occurs to me that we had no idea you were at the tavern that night.
We have never compiled any sort of list, you see, and that might be where we really ought to have started, back at the beginning.
I wonder if you would be so good as to tell us everyone you can remember seeing, and give me a piece of paper and a pen so that I might write the list down? ”
“Oh,” said Mr. Crampton. “Oh, yes, of course.”