“He sat down much of the time,” said Cassandra. “He brought his married mistress with him, did we tell you that?”
“You did,” said Mrs. Austen. “But that’s what I hear about him. I hear that he’s positively shameless. He’s exactly like that Childe Harold in that poem of his, reckless and wild and living without any restraint.”
“He did giggle rather a lot,” said Jane, with a shrug. “I suppose that wasn’t restrained.”
“Well, have either of you read the poem?” said Mrs. Austen.
Jane cut her mutton.
Cassandra sipped more of her wine.
“I haven’t, of course,” said Mrs. Austen. “I hear it’s rather lengthy, and it’s not even finished, that he has only come out with the first two cantos. Of course, I was never like your father, reading all those novels and that. I much rather would have a bit of scripture to read, maybe some classic play or the like.”
“Everyone has read it,” said Jane. “Positively everyone.”
“Well, not me,” said Mrs. Austen. “Was it really Lady Caroline Lamb?”
“Oh yes,” said Cassandra. “She did not give us her name, but of that, there can be no doubt. And I have already heard gossip of his being overly associated with her, and it is positivelyshameless indeed for him to be cavorting with her under our roof. She is a married woman, after all.”
“Positively shameless,” agreed Mrs. Austen.
“He’s wretched,” pronounced Jane. “I did not admit to having written anything, and I doubt we’ll ever see him again.”
BUT INDEED THEYdid see him, only the next day.
Jane heard the sound of someone pounding on the door, and then the door opening, and then a maid calling out, “Excuse me, sir, it is customary to wait for the door to be answered before rushing into a house!”
Jane was upstairs in the house, spending the morning reworkingFirst Impressions. She came down the steps and there was Lord Byron, eyes wide, clothes rather askew—his jacket and waistcoat unbuttoned, his cravat untied, his boots muddy.
“Miss Austen,” he said. “It is a matter of some urgency. I need your assistance.”
“Pardon me,” she said, alighting from the bottom step, “but am I to understand that you have just forced your way into my house?”
“I know, it’s highly irregular,” he said. “But the matter, as I have just said, is urgent.”
“I’m surprised you’re even awake at this hour of the morning,” she said. “You seem like the type who lies in until noon.”
“Yes, well, it is rather difficult to sleep when people are trying to hang you, so I suppose that’s why I’m up and moving.”
“Hang you?” said Jane. “What are you talking about?”
“All right, here it is,” said Lord Byron. “You know that I was here, meeting you, yesterday, and that I can’t have been doing anything else.”
Jane furrowed her brow. “I am ever so confused in this moment, my lord, I must say.”
“You do know it,” he insisted. “You don’t deny that I was here. Oh, and your sister, she can confirm it as well. In addition, the servants!”
“Yes, I suppose, but what does that have to do with anything at all, especially with the threat of being hung?” she said. She thought about it. “Hanged?”
He pointed at her. “In several moments, some men are going to knock upon this door, and you need to tell them exactly that, that I was here, and that I can’t have—”
A banging on the door interrupted him.
Jane cleared her throat.
The maid who had answered the door, who had been watching all of this with wide eyes, looked at Jane questioningly.
“Yes, go ahead, Nellie,” said Jane. “Answer it.”
