Chapter V

On December 31, 1819, Byron wrote a letter to his wife. The following is an extract:

'Augusta can tell you all about me and mine, if you think either worth
the inquiry. The object of my writing is to come. It is this: I saw
Moore three months ago, and gave to his care a long Memoir, written up
to the summer of 1816, of my life, which I had been writing since I
left England. It will not be published till after my death; and, in
fact, it is a Memoir, and not "Confessions." I have omitted the most
important and decisive events and passions of my existence, not to
compromise others. But it is not so with the part you occupy, which is
long and minute; and I could wish you to see, read, and mark any part
or parts that do not appear to coincide with the truth. The truth I
have always stated--but there are two ways of looking at it, and your
way may be not mine. I have never revised the papers since they were
written. You may read them and mark what you please. I wish you to
know what I think and say of you and yours. You will find nothing to
flatter you; nothing to lead you to the most remote supposition that
we could ever have been--or be happy together. But I do not choose to
give to another generation statements which we cannot arise from the
dust to prove or disprove, without letting you see fairly and fully
what I look upon you to have been, and what I depict you as being. If,
seeing this, you can detect what is false, or answer what is charged,
do so; _your mark_ shall not be erased. You will perhaps say, _Why_
write my life? Alas! I say so too. But they who have traduced it, and
blasted it, and branded me, should know that it is they, and not I,
are the cause. It is no great pleasure to have lived, and less to live
over again the details of existence; but the last becomes sometimes a
necessity, and even a duty. If you choose to see this, you may; if you
do not, you have at least had the option.'

The receipt of this letter gave Lady Byron the deepest concern, and, in the impulse of a moment, she drafted a reply full of bitterness and defiance. But Dr. Lushington persuaded her--not without a deal of trouble--to send an answer the terms of which, after considerable delay, were arranged between them. The letter in question has already appeared in Mr. Prothero's 'Letters and Journals of Lord Byron,'[77] together with Byron's spirited rejoinder of April 3, 1820.

Lord Lovelace throws much light upon the inner workings of Lady Byron's mind at this period. That she should have objected to the publication of Byron's memoirs was natural; but, instead of saying this in a few dignified sentences, Lady Byron parades her wrongs, and utters dark hints as to the possible complicity of Augusta Leigh in Byron's mysterious scheme of revenge. Dr. Lushington at first thought that it would be wiser and more diplomatic to beg Byron's sister to dissuade him from publishing his memoirs, but Lady Byron scented danger in that course.

'I foresee,' she wrote to Colonel Doyle, 'from the transmission of
such a letter ... this consequence: that an unreserved disclosure from
Mrs. Leigh to him being necessitated, they would combine together
against me, he being actuated by revenge, she by fear; whereas, from
her never having dared to inform him that she has already admitted his
guilt to me with her own, they have hitherto been prevented from
acting in concert.'

Byron was, of course, well acquainted with what had passed between his wife and Augusta Leigh. It could not have been kept from him, even if there had been any reason for secrecy. He knew that his sister had been driven to admit that Medora was his child, thus _implying_ the crime of which she had been suspected. There was nothing, therefore, for Augusta to fear from _him_. She dreaded a public scandal, not so much on her own account as 'for the sake of others.' For that reason she tried to dissuade her brother from inviting a public discussion on family matters. There was no reason why Augusta should 'combine' with Byron against his hapless wife!

The weakness of Lady Byron's position is admitted by herself in a letter dated January 29, 1820:

'My information previous to my separation was derived either directly
from Lord Byron, or from my observations on that part of his conduct
which he exposed to my view. The infatuation of pride may have blinded
him to the conclusions which must inevitably be established by a long
series of circumstantial evidences.'

Oh, the pity of it all! There was something demoniacal in Byron's treatment of this excellent woman. Perhaps it was all very natural under the circumstances. Lady Byron seemed to invite attack at every conceivable moment, and did not realize that a wounded tiger is always dangerous. This is the way in which she spoke of Augusta to Colonel Doyle:

'Reluctant as I have ever been to bring my domestic concerns before
the public, and anxious as I have felt _to save from ruin a near
connection of his_, I shall feel myself compelled by duties of primary
importance, if he perseveres in accumulating injuries upon me, to make
a disclosure of the past in the _most_ authentic form.'

Lady Byron's grandiloquent phrase had no deeper meaning than this: that she was willing to accuse Augusta Leigh on the strength of 'a long series of circumstantial evidences.' We leave it for lawyers to say whether that charge could have been substantiated in the event of Mrs. Leigh's absolute denial, and her disclosure of all the circumstances relating to the birth of Medora.

In the course of the same year (1820) Augusta, having failed to induce Lady Byron to make a definite statement as to her intentions with regard to the Leigh children, urged Byron to intercede with his wife in their interests. He accordingly wrote several times to Lady Byron, asking her to be kind to Augusta--in other words, to make some provision for her children. It seemed, under all circumstances, a strange request to make, but Byron's reasons were sound. In accordance with the restrictions imposed by his marriage settlement, the available portion of the funds would revert to Lady Byron in the event of his predeceasing her. Lady Byron at first made no promise to befriend Augusta's children; but later she wrote to say that the past would not prevent her from befriending Augusta Leigh and her children 'in any future circumstances which may call for my assistance.'

In thanking Lady Byron for this promise, Byron writes:

'As to Augusta * * * *, whatever she is, or may have been, _you_ have
never had reason to complain of her; on the contrary, you are not
aware of the obligations under which you have been to her. Her life
and mine--and yours and mine--were two things perfectly distinct from
each other; when one ceased the other began, and now both are closed.'

Lord Lovelace seeks to make much out of that statement, and says in 'Astarte':

'It is evident, from the allusion in this letter, that Byron had
become thoroughly aware of the extent of Lady Byron's information, and
did not wish that she should be misled. He probably may have heard
from Augusta herself that she had admitted her own guilt, together
with his, to Lady Byron.'

What _naïveté_! Byron's meaning is perfectly clear. Whatever she was, or may have been--whatever her virtues or her sins--she had never wronged Lady Byron. On the contrary, she had, at considerable risk to herself, interceded for her with her brother, when the crisis came into their married life. Byron's intercourse with his sister had never borne any connection with his relations towards his wife--it was a thing apart--and at the time of writing was closed perhaps for ever. He plainly repudiates Lady Byron's cruel suspicions of a criminal intercourse having taken place during the brief period of their married existence. He could not have spoken in plainer language without indelicacy, and yet, so persistent was Lady Byron in her evil opinion of both, these simple straightforward words were wholly misconstrued. Malignant casuistry could of course find a dark hint in the sentence, 'When one ceased, the other began'; but the mind must indeed be prurient that could place the worst construction upon the expression of so palpable a fact. It was not Lady Byron's intention to complain of things that had taken place _previous_ to her marriage; her contention had always been that she separated from her husband in consequence of his conduct while under her own roof. When, in 1869, all the documentary evidence upon which she relied was shown to Lord Chief Justice Cockburn, that great lawyer thus expressed his opinion of their value:

'Lady Byron had an ill-conditioned mind, preying upon itself, till
morbid delusion was the result. If not, she was an accomplished
hypocrite, regardless of truth, and to whose statements no credit
whatever ought to be attached.'

Lord Lovelace tells us that all the charges made against Lady Byron in 1869 (when the Beecher Stowe 'Revelations' were published) would have collapsed 'if all her papers had then been accessible and available'; and that Dr. Lushington, who was then alive, 'from the best and kindest motives, and long habit of silence,' exerted his influence over the other trustees to suppress them! Why, we may ask, was this? The answer suggests itself. It was because he well knew that there was nothing in those papers to fix guilt upon Mrs. Leigh. It must not be forgotten that Dr. Lushington, in 1816, expressed his deliberate opinion that the proofs were wholly insufficient to sustain a charge of incest. In this connection Lady Byron's written statement, dated March 14, 1816, is most valuable.

'The causes of this suspicion,' she writes, 'did not amount to proof
... and I considered that, whilst a possibility of innocence existed,
every principle of duty and humanity forbade me to act as if Mrs.
Leigh was actually guilty, more especially as any intimation of so
heinous a crime, even if not distinctly proved, must have seriously
affected Mrs. Leigh's character and happiness.'

Exactly one month after Lady Byron had written those words, her husband addressed her in the following terms:

'I have just parted from Augusta--almost the last being you had left
me to part with, and the only unshattered tie of my existence.
Wherever I may go, and I am going far, you and I can never meet again
in this world, nor in the next. Let this content or atone. If any
accident occurs to me, be kind to _her_; if she is then nothing, to
her children.'

It was, as we have seen, five years before Lady Byron could bring herself to make any reply to this appeal. How far she fulfilled the promise then made, 'to befriend Augusta Leigh and her children in any future circumstances which might call for her assistance,' may be left to the imagination of the reader. We can find no evidence of it in 'Astarte' or in the 'Revelations' of Mrs. Beecher Stowe.