INCOMPATIBILITY OF TEMPER
A thick accretion of legend has gathered round Byron's life alike as an
engaged and as a married man. Every biographer, whether friendly or
hostile, has added fresh anecdotes to the heap. Almost all the stories are
coloured by prejudice. Even when they seem to be derived from the same
source, they are often mutually contradictory; so that it is, as a rule, a
hopeless task to try to distinguish between fact and fiction, or do more
than disengage a general impression of discordant temperaments progressing
from incompatibility to open war.
Even the period of the engagement is reported not to have been of
unclouded happiness. A son of Sir Ralph Milbanke's Steward at Seaham has
furnished recollections to that effect. "While Byron was at Seaham," says
this witness, "he spent most of his time pistol-shooting in the
plantation"--a strangely moody occupation for an affianced man; and he
adds that, on the wedding morning, when all was prepared for the ceremony,
"Byron had to be sought for in the grounds where he was walking in his
usual surly mood." Mrs. Beecher Stowe tells us that Miss Milbanke,
observing that her lover did not rejoice sufficiently in his good
fortune, offered to release him from his promise--whereupon he "fainted
entirely away," and so convinced her, for the moment, of the sincerity of
his affection.
Similar stories, equally well attested and equally unconvincing, cluster
round the departure of the married couple for Halnaby where they spent
their honeymoon. Lady Byron told Lady Anne Barnard that the carriage had
no sooner driven away from the door of the mansion than her husband turned
upon her with "a malignant sneer" and derided her for cherishing the "wild
hope" of "reforming him," saying: "Many are the tears you will have to
shed ere that plan is accomplished. It is enough for me that you are my
wife for me to hate you." The Steward's son, giving an alternative version
of the story, declares that "insulting words" were spoken before leaving
the park--"after which he appeared to sit in moody silence, reading a book
for the rest of the journey." Byron's own account of the incident, as
given to Medwin, was as follows:
"I was surprised at the arrangements for the journey, and somewhat out
of humour to find a lady's maid stuck between me and my bride. It was
rather too early to assume the husband; so I was forced to submit, but
it was not with a very good grace. Put yourself in a similar
situation, and tell me if I had not some reason to be in the sulks."
These three stories, it is clear, cannot all be true; and none of them can
either be proved or disproved, though the last was contradicted by
Hobhouse who said that he had inspected the carriage and found no maid in
it. Similarly with the stories which follow. According to the Steward's
son, Sir Ralph Milbanke's tenants assembled to cheer Byron on his arrival
at Halnaby--but "of these he took not the slightest notice, but jumped out
of the carriage and walked away, leaving his bride to alight by herself."
There is also a story told by another authority, who cannot, however, have
been an eye-witness, to the effect that Byron, awaking from his slumbers
on his nuptial night, exclaimed, in his surprise at his strange
surroundings, that he supposed he was in Hell.
All these stories, of course, are exceedingly shocking, if true; but there
are no means of ascertaining whether they are true. Nothing can be
positively affirmed except that the beginnings were inauspicious, and must
have seemed the more inauspicious to Lady Byron because of that fond
belief of hers, that her rejection of Byron in 1812 had caused him two
years' mental agony, now at last to be happily removed by her
condescending tenderness. A vast amount of tact--a vast amount of
give-and-take--would have been needed to make a success of a marriage
concluded under that misapprehension; and Lord and Lady Byron were both of
an age at which tact is, as a rule, a virtue only known by name.
Of Byron's tact we have an example in the famous dialogue: "Do I
interrupt you, Byron?"... "Damnably." Of Lady Byron's tact we shall
discover an instance at the crisis of her married life. In the meantime we
must note that they made up their first quarrel--which may very well have
been less serious at the time than it appeared to be in retrospect--and,
at any rate, kept up appearances sufficiently well to deceive their
closest friends. From Halnaby they returned to Seaham, where nothing
happened except that Byron discovered his father-in-law to be a bore,
addicted to dreary political monologuising over wine and walnuts. They
next visited Mrs. Leigh at Six Mile Bottom, and then they proceeded to 13
Piccadilly Terrace--that unluckily numbered house, hired from the Duchess
of Devonshire, in which many catastrophes were to occur, and a distress
was presently to be levied for non-payment of the rent.
Mrs. Leigh, it will be observed, was pleasantly surprised to observe that
the marriage seemed to be turning out well. She had the more reason to be
surprised because she shared none of Lady Byron's illusions as to the part
which she had played, for the past two years, in Byron's emotional and
imaginative life. She was in her brother's confidence, and knew all about
Lady Caroline Lamb, all about Lady Oxford, and--more particularly--all
about Mary Chaworth. Consequently she had had her apprehensions, which she
confided to Byron's friend Hodgson. A few extracts from her letters to
Hodgson will bring this point out, and show us how the marriage looked
from her point of view. On February 15, 1815, she wrote:
"It appears to me that Lady Byron _sets about_ making him happy in
quite the right way. It is true I judge at a distance, and we
generally _hope_ as we _wish_; but I assure you I don't conclude
hastily on this subject, and will own to you, what I would not
scarcely to any other person, that I had _many fears_ and much anxiety
_founded upon many causes and circumstances_ of which I cannot
_write_. Thank God! that they do not appear likely to be realised."
On March 18, 1815: "Byron is looking remarkably well, and of Lady B. I
hardly know how to write, for I have a sad trick of being struck dumb
when I am most happy and pleased. The expectations I had formed could
not be _exceeded_, but at least they are fully answered.
"I think I never saw or heard of a more perfect being in mortal mould
than she appears to be, and scarcely dared flatter myself such a one
would fall to the lot of my dear B. He seems quite sensible of her
value."
On March 31, 1815: "Byron and Lady B. left me on Tuesday for
London.... The more I see of her the more I love and esteem her, and
feel how grateful I am, and ought to be, for the blessing of such a
wife for my dear, darling Byron."
On September 4, 1815: "My brother has just left me, having been here
since last Wednesday, when he arrived very unexpectedly. I never saw
him _so_ well, and he is in the best spirits."
This is evidence not extorted by questions but spontaneously volunteered.
If it proves nothing else, at least it proves that appearances were kept
up, and that Augusta was deceived. But appearances, none the less, gave a
false impression; and there were other friends, more keen sighted than
Augusta, who saw through them. Hobhouse, in particular, did so. He too had
had his anxieties, and had been watching; and the notes in his Diary--some
of them contemporaneous with, but others subsequent to, Augusta's
letters--are not unlike the rumblings of a coming thunderstorm.
On March 25, 1815: "I went to bed out of spirits from indeterminate
but chiefly low apprehensions about Byron."
On April 1, 1815: "He advises me 'not to marry,' though he has the
best of wives."
On April 2, 1815: "Lady Oxford walks about Naples with Byron's picture
on her girdle in front."
On July 31, 1815: "Byron is not more happy than before marriage. D.
Kinnaird is also melancholy. This is the state of man."
On August 4, 1815: "Lord Byron tells me he and she have begun a little
snubbing on money matters. 'Marry not,' says he."
On August 8, 1815: "Dined with Byron, &c. All grumbled at life."
On November 25, 1815: "Called on Byron. In that quarter things do not
go well. Strong advice against marriage. Talking of going abroad."
There is nothing specific there; and when we set out to look for something
specific, we only run up against gossip of doubtful authenticity. "Do I
interrupt you?"... "Damnably," may be assumed to be authentic since Byron
himself has admitted the repartee. It was rude and reprehensible, though
it was probably provoked. The charges which young Harness, now in Holy
Orders, heard preferred by some of Lady Byron's friends are rightly
described by him as "nonsensical"; but we may as well have them before us
in order to judge of the propriety of the epithet:
"The poor lady had never had a comfortable meal since their marriage.
Her husband had no fixed hour for breakfast, and was always too late
for dinner.
"At his express desire she had invited two elderly ladies to meet them
in her opera-box. Nothing could be more courteous than his manner to
them while they remained; but no sooner had they gone than he began to
annoy his wife by venting his ill-humour, in a strain of bitterest
satire, against the dress and manners of her friends."
"Poor Lady Byron was afraid of her life. Her husband slept with loaded
pistols by his bed-side, and a dagger under his pillow."
"Nonsensical" is decidedly the word for these allegations. The incidents,
even if true, could only be symptoms, not causes, of the disagreement.
Harness, perceiving that, seeks the true explanation of the estrangement
in the disposition of Lady Byron, whom he had known as a girl. She "gave
one the idea of being self-willed and self-opinionated." She "carried no
cheerfulness along with her." The majority of her acquaintances "looked
upon her as a reserved and frigid sort of being whom one would rather
cross the room to avoid than be brought into conversation with
unnecessarily." A common acquaintance remarked to Harness: "If Lady Byron
has a heart, it is deeper seated and harder to get at than anybody else's
heart whom I have ever known."
Et cetera. So far as we can judge Lady Byron by the letters in which she
subsequently announced, without formulating, her grievances, the verdict
seems a just one. She might be pictured, in the words of the author of
"Ionica" as one who
"_Smiles at all that's coarse and rash,
Yet wins the trophies of the fight,
Unscathed in honour's wreck and crash,
Heartless, yet always in the right._"
Or rather one begins so to picture her--and is even justified in so
picturing her at the beginning--though presently, when one sees how
unfairly she fought in the great fight which ensued, one changes one's
mind about her, withdraws such sympathy as one has allowed to go out to
her, and thinks of her husband when one comes to the final couplet of the
poem:
"_And I, dear passionate Teucer, dare
Go through the homeless world with you._"
Yet Lady Byron had her grievances, and though they were quite different
from those which Harness has reported, they were not light ones. Two
grievances in particular must have been very trying to the temper of a
young bride who had been an only and spoiled child. In the first place,
and almost at once, there was trouble about money. In the second place,
and very soon, there was trouble about "the women of the theatre."
Byron, at the time of his marriage, was heavily in debt. His one idea of
economy had always been to obtain credit instead of paying cash; and such
cash as he had the handling of quickly slipped through his fingers. He
never denied himself a luxury, and seldom refused a request for a loan. He
had helped Augusta; he had helped Hodgson; he had helped Coleridge. Now he
found his expenses increased out of all proportion to the increase of his
income; while his creditors, assuming that his wife had a fortune,
proceeded to press for the settlement of their accounts. Hence that
"snubbing on money matters" to which we have seen Hobhouse referring; and
the word "snubbing" may well have been a euphemism for more severe
remonstrance when executions began to be levied. There were no fewer than
ten executions in the house in the course of a few months; and one can
understand that the experience was unfavourable to the temper of a young
wife coming from a well-ordered home in which precise middle-class notions
on such subjects had prevailed.
The simultaneous trouble about women, of course, made matters worse.
Whether there was trouble about Mary Chaworth or not is uncertain; but, at
any rate, Lady Byron met her and appears to have felt the pangs of
jealousy. "Such a wicked looking cat I never saw. Somebody else looked
quite virtuous by the side of her," was her commentary to Augusta; and, if
she spoke of Mary Chaworth as a cat, we need not suppose her to have been
any more complimentary in her references to those actresses whose
acquaintance she knew her husband to be making.
He had become, at this time, together with Lord Essex, George Lamb,
Douglas Kinnaird, and Peter Moore, a member of the Sub-Committee of
Management of Drury Lane Theatre. It does not appear that the
Sub-Committee did a great deal except waste the time of the actual
managers; but it is not to be supposed that they were altogether
neglectful of the amenities of their position. They had "influence"; and
upon the men who have "influence" actresses never fail to smile. Some
actresses smiled upon Byron for that reason, and others smiled upon him
for his own sake. Some of them, it may be, drew the line at smiling; but
others, as certainly, did more than smile. Miss Jane Clairmont, in
particular--but we shall come to Miss Jane Clairmont presently.
How much Lady Byron knew, at the time, about these matters is doubtful.
She must have known a good deal, for actresses sometimes called at the
house; and any defects in her knowledge may be presumed to have been eked
out by conjecture. Knowledge, conjecture, and gossip, operating in
concert, cannot have failed to make her feel uncomfortable. In this
respect, as in others, things were not falling out as she had expected.
The fondly cherished belief that her love was the one thing needful to
Byron's happiness, and that he had moped for two years because she had
withheld it from him, was receiving every day a ruder shock.
The shocks were the more violent because Byron, in the midst of his
pecuniary embarrassments and theatrical philanderings, was attacked by a
disorder of the liver. No man is at his best when his liver is sluggish;
and Byron probably was at his worst--gloomy, contentious, and prone to
uncontrollable outbursts of passion. So there were scenes--the sort of
scenes that one would expect: Lady Byron, on the one hand, coldly and
reasonably reproachful--"always in the right," and most careful not to
lose her temper; Byron, on the other hand, talking to provoke her,
boasting of abandoned wickedness, falling into fits of rage, much as his
own mother had been wont to do when she rattled the fire-irons--throwing
his watch on the ground and smashing it to pieces with the poker.
Very likely he was angry with Lady Byron because he did not love
her--irritated beyond measure at every fresh revelation that she could
never be to him what Mary Chaworth might have been. The beginning of
unhappiness in marriage must often come like that. It is not unnatural,
though it is unreasonable, and not to be combated by reason. Lady Byron,
unhappily, had no other weapon than reason with which to combat it; and it
is quite likely that her very reasonableness made the trouble worse. It
did, at any rate, pass from bad to worse--and then from worse to
worst--during the critical days of her confinement, at the end of 1815.
Those were the circumstances which paved the way for open war and the
demand for judicial separation. Or, at all events, those were some of the
circumstances; for the story is long, and intricate, and involved, and
darkened with the clouds of controversy. Byron's version of it, it is
needless to say, is quite different from Lady Byron's. According to him
the causes of the separation were "too simple to be easily found out."
According to her, they included an enormity of which he dared not speak;
and the clash of these conflicting allegations constitutes what has been
called "the Byron mystery."
Perhaps it is not possible to solve the whole of that mystery even now.
New evidence, however, has lately been adduced, on the one hand in
Hobhouse's Diary and Narrative, and on the other hand from Lady Byron's
correspondence, printed by the late Earl of Lovelace in "Astarte." By
sifting it, we may at least contrive to come nearer to the truth--to put,
as it were, a ring fence round the mystery--to distinguish the assertions
which have been proved from the assertions which have been disproved, and
to reduce within narrow limits the fragment of the mystery which, until
more conclusive documents are produced, must still remain mysterious.
The late Earl of Lovelace, as is well-known, attempted to acquit his
grandmother of a charge of evil-speaking by convicting his grandfather of
a charge of unnatural vice. It will be necessary to consider whether he
has succeeded or failed in the attempt. The latter charge, but for his
revival of it, might have been waived aside as equally calumnious and
incredible. As it is, a biographer cannot discharge his task without
taking up the challenge. It shall be taken up with every possible
avoidance of unpleasant detail, but taken up it must be; and the most
convenient way to approach the subject will be first to tell the story as
it is presented by Hobhouse who represented Byron throughout the
negotiations.