Childish Loves (27 page)

We have all felt painfully the want of occupation; there has been nothing to replace it. John is gone; Captain Leacroft, too. Kitty, at least, has become less unreasonable – she is too grateful. I have decided not to take up my place at Trinity this autumn, and the presence of her
son
has allowed
Mrs
Byron to resume many of her old relations. But then, I have been too busy reading, reflecting, composing to think of returning to college, where these things are unheard of. The second volume of verse is under preparation. It is to be called
Poems on Various Occasions
, a fine, mild, meaningless title that can offend no one, not even Mr Becher. Ridge has spoken for it and I ride to Newark weekly, thinking of Mary, and my Cornelian, and – many other things.

Only Edleston regrets my absence. Long and I have hardly exchanged a letter. Bankes wrote to congratulate me on the volume of my
poesies
which Long had given him. He did not know I wrote, and underlined ‘volume' twice as if the chief source of his wonder lay in the
quantity
of verse. It surprised me to find Bankes and Long in communication. I made Bankes a suitable reply and expressed my resentment to Long for distributing without my consent what was always intended for private circulation. Especially as I am in the midst of preparing a revised edition. But I have not heard from him. It is left to Edleston to wonder at and regret my absence. The truth is I wonder at it, too. But when the play was over I felt the need of some other occupation and was surprised at how well the task of revising answered. I have become as sociable as a wolf and see no one for whole days at a stretch, excepting Elizabeth and Mr Becher and sometimes Julia Leacroft.

*

It is quite shameful how the weeks go by, and nothing to show for them but a few bound volumes.
Poems on Various Occasions
appeared, fatter than its predecessor, but soberer, too – a good
burgher
of a book, Mrs Pigot calls it. It produced no great sensation, but then, I aimed at none. The daughters of Southwell may read it safely in their fathers' drawing rooms. Indeed, I have seen them do it, and the effect is gratifying. Elizabeth mocks me for becoming respectable, but (as I tell her) nothing but virtue will do in this damned world. I am already at work on a sequel, for public circulation; it is only in want of a title.

We have all become very dull and the worst of it is, we are too dull to mind it much. On St Stephen's Day, at least, we had a revival of the play. John was at home for Christmas and for two or three days we amused ourselves, in the sudden fever of rehearsal; but the performance itself fell rather flat. Captain Leacroft had been replaced with Miss Bristoe's brother, who is only fifteen. He forgot his lines and when he remembered them spoke so loudly no one could understand them. Afterwards it emerged that he had drunk a bottle of sherry beforehand; we were only lucky he was not sick. Mr Becher felt the awkwardness of his position. To be seen one day before an altar, and the next on a painted stage.

On New Year's Day, which was warmish and wet and consequently more muddy and miserable even than is usual for this miserable season, we rode out together towards Annesley, as far as Miskin Hill, and waited out a shower of rain under the elm trees. I could see through the rain the house itself bright and wet under a patch of clear sky. But Mary is gone, as far as Colwick Hall, which is not very far, though it might as well be the moon.

I said to Mr Becher, ‘I am told she is not very happy. My mother has it from a cousin whose housekeeper knows Mrs Thomason, who has gone with Mary to Colwick Hall. There is no actual cruelty, she says, but a general indifference.'

‘Who is not happy?'

‘My cousin Mary – Mary Chaworth. For a summer at least I was very much in love with her. But she married John Musters, who was reckoned a great catch. He is perhaps five or six years my senior. I was rather afraid of him.'

And then, says he, after a decent silence: ‘Do you think she will marry me?'

‘Who will? Have you asked her?'

‘I have. She wanted to consider the question, for the space of a night and a morning; and in the morning she told me, no. She said she could not.'

‘When did you ask her?'

‘At tea at Mrs Pigot's, on the day after our play. Mrs Pigot very kindly let us alone. John was out and Elizabeth sat quietly with her hands on her lap until I was finished.'

‘Did she give you a reason?'

He shook his head; his beard was wet and dripped. There was a fine web of drops across his face, which he brushed away with his hand. ‘Do you suppose,' he said, ‘it is because she is in love with you?'

‘She is not in love with me. I do not think she is. Elizabeth is good and kind and wise but not very loving. She has complained to me herself that her understanding is rather better developed than her affections. She says she has no
ear
for feeling.'

‘Then she might marry me without feeling.'

‘Would you like her to?'

‘Very much. If she has no feelings, she must do without them.'

But the rain had stopped and we rode back to Southwell and separated by the Green. Kitty berated me for appearing in the hall in muddy boots; but I could not get them off without her, which forced us into a confederacy of sorts. Afterwards I ordered a hot bath and lay in it much of the afternoon – feeling very sorry for Mary and Mr Becher, Elizabeth and Edleston, and everything else.

*

I have had another letter from the
Edlestone
, as Elizabeth calls him. His voice is breaking. Bankes took him aside on one of his Sunday afternoons; he is rather more fastidious than the choir-master. It grates on his nerves, he said, to feel himself in the presence of that awful transformation, from boy into man. ‘Do you wish me to keep away?' Edleston said. To which Bankes apparently replied: ‘If you are willing to keep
quiet
, there are still one or two years of boyhood left to you.'

Perhaps he intends to trick me into returning. All that sort of thing used to disgust him, but he does not say that he means to give up Bankes's Sunday afternoons. In the round of his life there is little enough variety, to be sure, but I should be sorry to see him made use of as an object of pleasure.

This is what comes of a long separation. For several days after the receipt of this letter, I felt out of temper. I kept it in a book I was reading but found myself reading the letter instead of the book. But then, we are often drawn to what displeases us. At present, I am too dipped to appear at Cambridge in anything like my old splendour, but have a notion of returning after the publication of my poems – as a man of letters, who may be forgiven the holes in his shoes and the stains in his shirt. Kitty is presently attempting to raise a loan from her Scotch relations, who are comfortable enough themselves to give comfort to others. If that fails, I may have to sell the carriage and two or three of my horses.

As Elizabeth is the only person I speak to of my
Cornelian
, I thought she might confide in me about Mr Becher's proposal. But she keeps her counsel wonderfully. It occurred to me at last that the proposal was not made public (by her own
expressed
desire), and she might not have known I was in the secret of it. So one day I raised it directly. We were sitting in my own front room, overlooking the Green, which was a very rich green as the rain had been falling steadily since breakfast. Kitty and Mrs Pigot had gone out to inspect one of Kitty's improvements in the kitchen; they had just left. We had finished our tea, and I said something like, ‘Mr Becher looks to me very unhappy.'

‘He always looks unhappy,' she said. ‘It is his beard. It is an unhappy beard.'

‘No, he has generally a humourless look, which is not at all the same thing.'

‘I thought he was a great friend of yours.'

‘So he is, which is why I dislike seeing him miserable.'

After a minute, she said, ‘You say that, as if you believed me capable – as if you believed me capable of improving his state of mind.'

‘Yes, that is just what I do mean.'

‘But I am not capable of
that
.'

There was a fire in the grate, which we both stared at. I was surprised at my feelings, of which resentment made up a large share; and it occurred to me that not all of it was on his behalf. She had done nothing to offend me – and yet, offence of a kind is just what I had taken.

‘Then I have been misinformed,' I said. ‘He told me that he had put his happiness in your hands.'

‘Oh, if it were only my hands.'

‘I don't understand you. I supposed you to admire him
as much as any man alive
. These are your own words; forgive me if I repeat them to you. Perhaps you had rather marry a dead man. His fortune is not great, but he has a respectable house, a good living, and the favour of a generous patroness. Of his attachment to you there can be no doubt. You have long been the object of his preference.'

‘I don't intend to marry out of admiration. There is also the question of
my
preference.'

We looked at each other for a moment, and she continued in a different tone, ‘But Byron this is no way for us to talk. This is not amusing to me, and we have determined always to be amusing. I hardly recognize you. You look as solemn as a penguin, and as for what you
sound
like …' She gave a kind of laugh. ‘
His fortune, his favour, his attachment
. I am not used to thinking you such a paragon of propriety.'

‘It is odd you should say that, as I have just had a letter from my
Cornelian
. He complains as usual of my neglect, but not for the usual reason. It seems that in my absence he has become vulnerable to a kind of attention from which my presence alone might have protected him. Such is the regard in which I am generally held – only you are willing to brave my disapproval.'

‘And has he stood firm?'

But it was the old tone again, and I only looked at her.

‘In spite of your neglect?'

‘I believe he has.'

‘It does not surprise me,' she suddenly broke out, ‘that a young man should contract such a friendship. But that he should be proud of it!'

The rain had ceased and a soft light made its way through the softening clouds, which had the effect of making everything in the room a little harder to see – even Elizabeth looked rather faded in the glow. She sat in her chair, and I sat on the sofa stretching my legs, not very comfortably. I stood up to poke at the fire. I think we both had the feeling that whatever we had to talk about had been talked
out
. After a minute (to put an end to the discussion), I said, ‘Indeed, I am not proud,' and shortly thereafter Kitty and Mrs Pigot returned.

*

Since then there has been a little coolness between us, which is just as well; it does us good to be sometimes apart. Miss Leacroft quizzes me interminably about Elizabeth, and wonders whether we are to have ‘a proper Southwell wedding', which is all a nonsense on her part – the fact that she mentions it at all shows her fears in that direction somewhat abated. I should be happy to give up the Leacrofts altogether, and the Pigots, too, now that John is away. My solitude is busy enough. The latest ‘slim volume' is nearly ready for the press, though it wants a title, and there is nothing to detain me here but Ridge and Kitty's loan. I am waiting only on one or the other to return to Cambridge.

Edleston says he has forgotten me. I am sure he will not recognize me, as I am slimmer even than I was, which is saying a good deal.

Miss Leacroft tells me her brother is expected daily. The family are in a constant state of
news-readiness
about him. He was stationed off Martinique, when he was attacked or boarded or sunk or put in chains or stays (in any case, made to endure some species of nautical torment), in what I have no doubt was a very gallant action, involving two French frigates and a privateer. It is the privateer who comes in for their particular condemnation; it is what
Tom had not reckoned on
. Anyway, he was captured and subsequently re-captured – all in the space of a rather breathless week (the news came three days apart) and is now to be sent home again till he has got a new ship. The
Diana
was stove in.

I have had one other piece of news. A few days ago a rather tall bearded stiff and painful-looking man appeared at our door, wishing to speak to his lordship. About fifty years of age, shabbily and dirtily dressed, but with an air of effort – a man meaning to look respectable. His lordship was duly summoned. I did not recognize him at first (which is no great surprise, as I had never met him), not even his name when he gave it. But after a minute, during which time he kept up a steady stream of embarrassment, under his breath and beard, and never once looking me in the eye, but
talking
all the time, it struck me just who it was and what he had made himself respectable
for
.

He was none other than Mary's father. It seems she has lately given birth, to some unfeathered, two-legged thing, and he wanted me to pay the interest on my paternity. I cannot exactly remember the terms he put to me, as I was so enraged: that if I did not pay a certain sum of moneys, for the care etc. of this same child – but before he could finish, I had beaten him about his ears so that he fell to his knees. I helped him to his feet and boxed his ears again. Then he limped away. At least the child (whoever he belongs to) has brought about a reconciliation of sorts between father and daughter; for when I last saw Mary she was black and blue with his
interest in her situation
, this being one of his phrases.

For several hours afterwards I was too angry to write and went out shooting with Boatswain, firing at coins and birds. And it has been three days now. Somehow this anger has transmuted itself into something else and I have half a mind to ride over to Nottingham and inspect the brat. After all, it would be something to have a son. And my father never suffered much for the raising of me. His part of the business was over quickly enough. All this came over me in a kind of fever, and I relieved it, as I usually do, by scribbling. There was pleasure to be had in giving the boy my own blue eyes and imagining its mother dead. I felt for Mary a great deal more tenderly, laying her in the lowly turf, than I should at the sight of her, reclining amidst the luxuries of her trade in a second-floor room on a Nottingham side street. Besides, I should never be sure the child was my own, which counts against it; and the poem itself has somewhat exhausted the sentiments that inspired it. I rode over to Newark afterwards to give the page to Ridge in case there was time to include it in the new edition. There was not. Oh, but we have got a title for my book. Ridge himself suggested it. What do you say to
Hours of Idleness
, he said.