Well, what did it matter? Jane was going to eat her dinner and then go directly home and go to sleep and in the morning, she would give absolutely none of this another thought. Thus decided, she began to cut at her meat, resolving not to even bother listening to the conversation.
In this, however, she was unsuccessful. She listened to every word.
“This is hardly the sort of thing one discusses over dinner,” said Beaumont.
“This is not that kind of dinner, by your own admission. You said this was quite informal,” said Byron. “If you’re worried about Miss Austen here, I should think you wouldn’t be. Just looking at the two of us, you would form an opinion about which of us has more discretion than the other, I should think, and she would come out the clear winner.”
“I suppose,” said Beaumont. “But she is a woman and women gossip—”
“No, not Miss Austen,” said Byron. “Truly, you may speak freely. It’s me, Thomas. You can tell me.”
Beaumont didn’t say anything for a while, seemingly thinking this over. “Frankly, I don’t know that you’re entirely trustworthy, George.”
“Well, you know I’m good at keeping secrets,” said Byron.
“I suppose that’s true,” Beaumont said immediately, as if he were reassured.
What secrets?Jane wondered. In all truth, she would not think that Byronwasgood at keeping secrets. He didn’t seem the tight-lipped type at all.
“So, here it is,” said Beaumont. “There was a time when it may have been true, but not in some years now.”
“I see,” said Byron. “Well, we thought, with your wife the size of a house—”
“One does not seek the company of other women when one’s wife is with child!” cried Beaumont. “Heavens, what do you take me for, George?”
Byron snickered. “I doubt you want me to answer that, Thomas.”
Beaumont snickered as well. “Oh, indeed, do not answer it at all. I suppose I know what you take me for.”
“Oh yes,” said Byron, his voice low and nearly musical. “I take you for all manner of things.”
Beaumont cleared his throat. He pointed at Byron with his knife. “You stop that, now, if you know what’s good for you.”
“Apologies,” said Byron, who didn’t sound the least bit sorry.
Was he simply like this with everyone, then? What was it about this man? Jane resolved, for the eighth time, to hate him.
“Well, to get back onto the subject we’ve wandered away from,” said Byron, “why did your affair with Miss Seward end?”
“It wasn’t truly what I would call an affair,” said Beaumont. “Here is the way of it. When I was growing up here, a boy, in this house, she was the daughter of Mr. Seward, who ran that tavern, and her mother had died when she was quite young, and there was no one there besides her father and the servants he employed at the tavern, and we all know what those sorts of women and men are like. So, she grew up rather wild, I might say, and…” Beaumont sighed. “Well, there was something about that, perhaps you know what I mean? There’s something about a woman like that. You wouldn’t want to marry her or get children on her or anything like that, but you still… you find her… I don’t know, she’s like a wild filly you wish to ride or something, do you know what I am saying?”
“Entirely,” said Byron.
Jane shook her head, wishing she were, in fact, not listening to this conversation. She stabbed a piece of meat with her fork and shoved it in her mouth. She chewed.
“Anyway, that was a long time ago,” said Beaumont. “Long before, well, anything. Before I met you, before any of that, and before I married.”
“You married awfully young,” said Byron.
“When you know, you know,” said Beaumont with a shrug. “But that’s something you won’t understand, I don’t suppose,George. You couldn’t settle down with one person unless they chained you to the bedposts.”
“I could,” said Byron, affronted.
Beaumont laughed. “Anyway, there was some affection between Annie and me. It’s borne of such a thing, after all.”
“And to be clear, such a thing is an adolescent association of some sort?” said Byron.
“Quite,” said Beaumont. “She was wild, as I say. Any girl with any sort of proper female oversight would have been prevented from such a thing, but she wasn’t, and I suppose I took advantage. But she was going to be taken advantage of, one way or the other, if you know what I mean. If it hadn’t been me, it would have been someone else.”
