Lord Byron's Novel (33 page)

‘Then tell me,’ Ali said, ‘all that you have to tell, as you promised. There is no
better
use for this day, I think. And when you have done, I shall part from you, I hope forever.’

‘Agreed,’ said the other; and so he began the tale that the following Chapter will recount.

NOTES TO THE 12TH CHAPTER

I know not now if I may be spared even to complete these notes I cannot look back All this month I have done little but lie upon my back, and when that provided no relief, I have haunted my house and roamed the halls and stairs, seeking I know not what by way of succor. My old friend Opium has not been as faithful as once he was, and I am afraid to make too great demands upon him. There is so much left to do when I close my eyes I see letters & numbers, as when retiring after a long evening of cards one sees only cards pips faces meaningless I want the sea sleep begin again upon the morrow

1. Alps:
   It was not two years after my father’s death that I was taken abroad by my mother’s constant companions, three ladies whom it was my pleasure to term ‘the Furies’, for the intensity of their attention to me, and the incessant care with which they watched over me, and reported to my mother any sign of
   ancestral
   weakness, or moral incontinence. I was then eleven years old. We travelled first to Switzerland, to the lake my father always called Lake Leman in the old-fashioned way, on whose shores he had lived after the separation from his wife—though I did not know that, I knew nothing, hardly knew then that he had lived and died. Now I look back to see myself, collecting stones and botanizing upon those shores—for it was from childhood my delight to know things, and learn how the world and its parts are made—and I know that I was near where he walked, and it is almost as though time doubles, and I am where he
   once
   was, and yet we are together.
        There is a Villa, quite near where we were then residing (myself and the Furies), and it is the place where Ld. B. and the Shelleys once gathered, after Ld. B. had left England. I may even have seen this place as I later wandered nearby, and yet not known it. In that house, if we may believe Mrs Shelley in the Preface to her romance
   Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus,
   the three friends each began a tale in prose. Byron’s was believed to have been abandoned. I cannot know if this present tale be that one. Perhaps the Future, if it possess this tale (as I hope to make certain it shall), may adduce evidence to show it is the same he started then, and hid away. So much was hidden, and yet what is
   hidden
   is not destroyed, while what is
   patent
   may be.
   
2. The reign of that Pacha:
   Ali Pasha, for whom this ‘Pacha’ is meant, was assassinated by a Turkish agent in 1822. That Byron does not allude to this, suggests it had not yet taken place when these pages were written.
   
3. Amazons:
   The Amazons of legend are placed by most authors in Scythia. Euhemerus was the Greek who taught that the stories of Gods and divine beings arose merely from exaggerated reports of the doings of heroic kings and warriors in a long-ago time. I know not if Byron’s account here of the practices of the Albanians be factual, or his own invention; his companion upon his Albanian journey (which was brief, for all that he later made of it) was the present Lord Broughton, who has not responded as yet to my request for information upon this point.
   
4. unconfined:
   ‘On with the dance! Let joy be unconfined’—
   Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage
   
5. Adam’s children:
   The same theme is adumbrated at length in Ld. B.’s drama
   Cain,
   wherein Cain’s beloved wife is also his sister. The sister in the present tale is more correctly a
   half-sister,
   as was Ld. B.’s only sibling, Mrs Augusta Leigh. He chose to give to the sister-wife in
   Cain
   the name Adah. Augusta Adah Ada Augusta ada adust
   
6. his starved and desiccated heart:
   ‘The withered heart that would not break’—
   Lara
   
7. a Pyre:
   It is astonishing to me that, though by all evidences I am able to assemble these pages were written before Lord Byron’s residence in Pisa and Leghorn, and therefore before the death by drowning of Shelley, yet here is the pyre set up by the water, the beloved figure consumed, &c., all so much as it
   would be
   that a thrill as of the uncanny passed through me to read it. Here is what Ld. B. wrote to Mr Moore of that day in Lerici when the bodies of Shelley and his friend Williams were burned: ‘You can have no idea what an extraordinary effect such a funeral pile has, on a desolate shore, with mountains in the back-ground and the sea before, and the singular appearance the salt and frankincense gave to the flame.’ And yet
   he did
   have an idea beforehand, and an exact one. It is said that Shelley was glimpsed walking in the woods near his house in Leghorn, but when his friends hailed him, he would not turn, and vanished away; and on that day, in fact, he was upon the sea, and drowned. What then
   is
   Time? Is its course but one way? Or is it like a swift stream, that rolls some things along faster & some slower, leaves, sticks and stones, which may change places, and pass each other by, collide, and combine, even as all are borne along? I sometimes think that we lead many lives between birth and dying, and only one, or perhaps two, are ever known to us consciously; the others pass in parallel, invisible, or they run backward while the one we busy ourselves with runs forward. There is no expressing this in words; only in dreams or in the power of certain stimulants is it possible to experience them—that state where two things can, after all, occupy the same space.
   

W
HAT NAME I
was given by my mother and father, or what name had been chosen for me, I know not,’ Ali’s interlocutor began. ‘My father bestowed none upon me; I was not christened. I had come before my time from my mother’s womb, and ill-finished, an “unlicked bear cub that carries no impression like the dam”. My father believed—indeed he hoped—that I should not live to see the Sun set on my first day. He considered it best that I not be fed, and be let to pass quickly—as the more
merciful
way—and he supposed that it would be done as he decreed. My mother, however, hid me away, with the connivance of her servants, and though I did not flourish, I did not die. Nameless—unformed—rejected—given suck in secret—a pale worm not quite of this world: so was my coming hither.

‘When some week or two had passed, the Lord my father discovered the subterfuge, and, judging me still unfit for Life, in a rage took me from my mother’s Breast, consigned me to a Nurse chosen from the household, and sent me with her to a distant cot amid people from whom she had sprung. Privily upon her going away he gave her a purse of Money, and told her he would be glad of news that I had
succumbed
—which he was certain I should do—by one means or another.’

‘I cannot conceive how you came to know this tale,’ said Ali.

‘I did not, till I was grown,’ said the other, ‘for that good woman, who took my father’s silver, was not able to do what she had been paid to do. Instead she found among her people a couple whose new-born had but a week before died of a fever, and who agreed, for the same fee, to foster me—whereupon she sent word to my father the news that he desired to hear.

‘I grew, then, among simple cotters, who knew only that I had come from the Laird’s house—yet not
who
I was. I was called by the only name I have ever borne, which is Ængus—a wanderer’s name, in Scots legend a lad born to a King and fostered in another’s house—tho’ I learned not if those who bestowed the name upon me recked that. There were reasons enough why a
bairn
should thus be outcast. I grew, I say—never straight nor very strong—and though the people who raised me as their own were kind, I thought of little but how I might escape the land of my birth, where I was feared as a
changeling,
and mocked as a cripple—or worse than that—for among those people Religion was not the mild affair of Glasgow and Moral Sentiment, but of the old fierce prophets of the moss-hags. A deformity of Body, as they perceived it, showed clearly the disfavour of God—or, just as likely, the favour of the Devil, for they were not done burning witches in that country. There was talk that I was possess’d of the Evil Eye, and some spoke of making an incision in my forehead, in the form of a Cross, to prevent the effects—and, if the eye is the window of the Soul, as not only poets aver, then well might mine have projected an evil from within, that ’twere best good folk avoid! My kind fosterers, seeing clearly enough that neither in my person nor in my mind was I destined to be a prop to them in their age, at length permitted me to depart; and when I had reached the age of sixteen, and resolved upon a career at Sea, they put into my hands the very purse of silver that had come with me in my basket from my father.’

‘Kind people indeed!’

‘It was but mine own,’ said Ængus with a shrug, ‘with much more too, that I was likely—indeed, as it seemed, certain—never to enjoy. On the day I struck out for the coast and the harbour, that nurse who had at first taken me from my father’s house stopt me along the road, and there gave me—along with her blessing—the account of my coming-to-be which I have told you. Then I knew two things—that I was the heir of the Sanes, and of my mother’s lands, including that upon which I stood; and that my father had desired, and conspired in, my death. I vowed that however far I went, I would return to have vengeance upon him, and to see the ruin of his house.’

‘Which was your
own
.’

‘What was mine was nothing. What was not taken from me I threw away and look’d not back. I had—I
have
—nothing but the power to act
as I will
—even to act against myself.’

‘So it was said of
him
,’ said Ali. ‘So I saw it in him, myself.’

‘I am his son.’

‘And so am I.’

Ængus looked down upon Ali then, and a smile—a terrible smile, a sneer of triumph—cross’d his features. ‘Then I will hold the mirror up to thee, my brother,’ said he, ‘and do thou look—look well!—and tell me what thou seest.’

‘Nay,’ said Ali, nothing abashed, and returning that gaze. ‘If thou wert nothing, so was I: what I am, I have made. It may be the same with thee. Continue with your tale. Did you go to sea?’

‘I did,’ said Ængus. ‘When a man has an object in view such as I then had—when his every thought is of an act he
will
perform, and measures he
will
take—it may so concentrate his mind as to make his daily labour, howsoever tedious or arduous, of no consequence—and he may make no
objection
to it—strangely, it may make him singularly attentive to such Tasks as fall to him, for each has its Reason, and its end in view, no matter how far off. Thus may an avenger resemble a Saint, in the execution of his daily duty, his thoughts fixed upon a
future state
. In this mood I became a Sailor, despite the disabilities under which I laboured—I did twice the work another man would do, and did it more conscientiously. I learned, quickly enough, the heedless
courage
(if so it is to be named) which a man needs below decks, not to be ground underfoot by stronger and better-friended men—you must make them know you will not stop at cutting their throats, if they abuse you, though it mean your own execution.

‘Thus it was that upon the Seas I became educated—not only in the nautical trades but in Commerce as well. I devoted myself to learning the most lucrative branches of it, which are Smuggling, and the Slave-trade—the two not then having become one. I rose to be Master of my own ship, and turned to the buying and selling of men, upon which I profited much, and rarely disappointed my Investors—tho’ once an intire
cargo
was lost to a fever, and had to be thrown overboard, to my great cost. When the Slave-trade was banned, the traffic in them became more operose, subject to the whims not only of Chance, but of Law, and soon I lost my taste for it. With my fortune, I bought sugar lands in the West Indies, and became a Planter, employing many slaves in the business—the abolition of
commerce
in them having no impact upon the
owning
of them, nor the
working
of them to the limits of their appalling endurance, nor even their Increase, tho’ by natural means, rather than buying and selling. I drove mine, indeed. More than one I saw put to death—their lives, as their Liberty, being entirely in my hands, no magistrate needed to be summoned. Had I not been willing to take such measures as needed, I should not have lived long among them, but would have been murdered in my bed—or revolted against by my own Overseers, and stript of my
property
—for that sort took every advantage of their
employers’
weakness, as of the weaknesses of the folk they oversaw. I drove my slaves—I flogged them—I worked them. Yet I laboured with them too, and sweat beside them, often as near-naked as they in the heat of those regions. After a year and more I had a fine house, and they mean cabins; I had Pistols in my belt, and they welts upon their backs. After three years, despite my youth, I was a man of wealth—and yet no sooner had I accumulated Money to a degree I deemed sufficient, than I was done with
Sweetness
—whose true bitterness the tea-drinkers of England do not think upon, and perhaps cannot conceive. At that time, observing that the uprisings in Santo Domingo had—at least for a brilliant moment—succeeded, and having grown conscious of their own base servitude, and desperate enough of Life to throw it off, the blacks of the Islands I inhabited had determined upon revolt. There were leaders among them as astute as Marlborough, as ruthless as Caligula—and with a more noble aim,
Liberty,
than either. I called to me those of my
own
whom I knew to be allied with the Rebels, and offered them Manumission, which they rightly scorn’d. I thereupon congratulated them, and that night, with a Treasure in specie and a small crew of those who insisted against all good sense on remaining loyal to my person, I sailed away. I left behind my house, an amount of gold in Spanish dollars, the keys to my strong-room—wherein was kept not only a supply of arms but several nine-pound Japan tins of Powder,—and a list of the names of those whom they would do well to make the first targets of their insurrection.’

‘You fomented revolution against your own neighbours?’ Ali exclaimed. ‘When you knew what the result would be?’

‘
What
did I know?’ said Ængus. ‘I knew that the Judges, Officers, overseers, and planters whom their Revolution intended to shoot were quite deserving of it, myself first among them. Whether the revolted Negroes themselves, who (as I hear) now sit in the seats of Power, and decorate their uniforms in Gold, and have their portraits painted, have
already
earned a hanging, or
are yet to do
—that I cannot tell. ’Tis no matter; I shall not return thither. I sailed into the rising sun, toward my
Homeland,
now with the means to effect my vengeance, which was all that I had sought in my business dealings. I know not how a heart may become so singular, as though a coal were to keep its fire forever, and neither consume itself nor grow cold—yet so mine then seemed to me—it does not now. I disposed of my ship upon the Irish coast, and the crew I gave their freedom, with papers attesting, signed and sealed, with the understanding that they would return to whichever land they now considered Home, and speak not a word of me, or my comings and goings—to which they willingly consented. Now without hindrance I went to and fro upon the land, and walked up and down in it—a purse-ful of gold being a fine Cloak of Invisibility, if used as such—and learned much about the fortunes of my House, and its shameful decline in the keeping of my Father, and the fate of my Mother—dead, dead before my hand could touch hers, before I could ask her blessing, or offer my forgiveness! I learned, moreover, of
you,
my Brother, and of your usurpation.’

Ali at this might have bridled, and challenged the stoop’d and bitter figure who related the tale—but somehow upon the man’s features he saw that which stilled him—a kind of carelessness of heavy usages that made them seem light, or unmeant—yet still able to sting. Usurpation! Would he had never heard the tongue in which the word existed, nor seen the lands he had
usurped
! ‘How came you,’ he asked, ‘to learn of these things—of me—without raising questions concerning yourself?’

‘I made myself known to one of the household,’ said Ængus. ‘Rashly, it may be, yet (for a reason I know not), I now believed my plan could not fail, that the Stars had sealed it, or that the Angels—no, not they!—had written it in the Book of what’s to be, and it could not now be erased. ’Twas an old serving-man, who had waited upon my Grandfather, and for aught I know upon
his
father too—a hoary-headed ancient—a heart of oak—’

‘Old Jock!’ breathed Ali. ‘He knew of you?’

‘By certain signs he begged to see, he had proof of who I was,’ said Ængus, ‘as Ulysses’ nurse knew him. I asked for his silence, which he readily gave, and was my spy within the house in that week when I laid my plans. Indeed, he aided them—for he supposed I had returned to claim but my rightful place there in the House—to supplant, that is,
yourself
—the which I permitted him to believe. I see in your face that this shocks you—for by his own words he professed to love you—I know he
did
—yet such men are bound most by their ancient loyalty—their hearts, and their
backs,
will break before those chains are broken. Your sudden return to the Abbey was an inconvenience, as it fell just upon the time when I had determined the deed might best be done. Still I continued as I had planned. Old Jock it was, who on that night, set out astride an old galloway after Lord Sane in his carriage; and finding him next day becalmed, as it were, at an Inn of ill-repute upon the South-ward road, told him that a Stranger had appeared at the Abbey, who desired some private conversation with him—the subject being his
legitimate son,
and a
Fortune
—which conversation the said stranger would not hold in any public place, nor under the Lord’s roof. I believe that if any but that good old man had told Lord Sane of these things, he would not have agreed to come that night to the old watchtower. But so it fell out, and so he came. And there within was I.’

‘And there you intended to murder him?’ Ali here exclaimed. ‘Was such from the outset your intention? Did you consider yourself able? Did you not tremble, at the enormity—nor even at the difficulty? He was one not easily to be conquered.’

‘I had no fear of
that
. My
own
strength—which is greater than those who oppose me often suspect—would not, I thought, be sufficient to the accomplishing of
all
my purpose. But I had brought with me, from those Islands where I had formerly reigned, a power that the land of my birth reck’d not of. For, among those people suborned from their native Forests, and brought in chains to the New World to labour in unaccustom’d servitude, there is yet preserved an ancient Science of life & death, a
practique
known only to the wisest among them (who may
seem
the lowliest) and passed on by them to their epigones, in whispers, and under close vows of secrecy, not to be broken on pain of death—or
worse
. In short, there is a means known to these priests, or doctors, by which one apparently dead—to all our senses cold, without breath or motion—may be preserved from Corruption, so that—though he be no longer
conscious,
of himself or the world—he may go on serving the Master who so animated him—or rather his
flesh
. Such a one, though he seem alive, is
not
—he feels nothing, knows nothing. Yet he responds to commands unquestioningly—feels no pain, no fear—is tireless, ceaseless, insensate, horribly strong—and unable to be slain, for he is dead already!’