Jane Austen Mysteries 10 Jane and the Madness of Lord Byron (30 page)

"Lady Caroline!" Desdemona cried.

The severe figure on horseback, as tho' backed with military steel, tossed her head defiantly. "
Pathetic
Aspasia. You are quite in the autumn of your reign, are you not? You
require
the lies. You beg for them, with your tit in his mouth. You wish to think them purest Truth! Whereas I hear the golden words that drip from his blessed lips and love them for their sheer deceit. I
cherish
them for their mockery, their trickster's toils. I am quite otherwise from you,
dearest Jane
--at whose knee I once sat, to learn the wisdom of the World. You require his lies, the better to hide from yourself--whereas I hear them in order to know
exactly
how degraded I am become."

"
Shut up
, Caroline," Lady Oxford muttered; but there was violence in her words.

Lady Caroline had begun to sob: dry, wracking sobs that lifted her frail breast as tho' a vast bellows filled it.

"Make him
tell
you!" she shrieked. "Make him tell you how he loved the Twining girl to the point of
madness
! He could not bear to keep away--flying south from your arms to haunt the lanes and rooms she frequented. He could not endure her unsullied innocence--the childlike purity of her tender frame--he wished for nothing more than to ravish her, and break that innocence on a stone!"

I saw Lady Oxford wince. Then she stiffened, as tho' some barbed point had found its home in her flesh. "I do not believe it," she whispered, groping for her friend's hand like a palsied ancient. "Mona--Tell me she lies."

The black colt jibbed, and backed; the little hands must have clenched on the reins.

"Did you know," Lady Caroline queried in the mildest amusement, "when you pressed your chaise upon him for the ease of his travels--poor boy, he worked so long into the night, scrawling verses for his Leila, he
ought
to take refreshment, he
ought
to steal a day or two in sailing o'er the seas--Did you know that it was to
her
he coursed, in your golden carriage?
Her
, he bound by wrist and mouth, to carry off to Gretna, for a Border wedding? She would not have him, Aspasia, by fair means or foul. Innocence is innocence still, that can reckon up the lies and find them short in weight. She threw all his passion in his face--and still she was his
Leila
! Not you!"

All around us, a hush had fallen over carriage and horse alike, every fashionable head averted, but nonetheless in thrall to the slight figure who sat her mount as brutally as any Cassandra, crying doom to Agamemnon's house. There had been nothing to equal the charm of this Season in Brighton for a decade, at least!

A tall figure thrust its way through the crowd; the Earl of Swithin, come to claim his lady at last. I saw his broad frame, his unbowed head, with profound relief; but even Swithin's face was white at the scene he had been forced to witness. He paid no heed to Caro Lamb, merely slapping the flank of her colt from his path, his eyes fixed on Desdemona's phaeton.

"Have we not a race to run?" he cried. "The gun is about to fire!"

All heads swung as one towards the far end of the course, past the spectator stand, some fifty yards distant from our position, where a ragged line of seven horses fretted and sidled at the starter's mark; and then, an indeterminate figure raised its arm and triggered a duelling pistol.

The thunderous pack shot forward.

I had no idea which was China Trade. For an instant--or even an hour, perhaps, so thoroughly is one's sense of time suspended in contemplating a race--the horses seemed barely to move at all as they advanced upon us; we could not easily gauge their speed or distance in staring directly at them. Once they had swept past our position, however, in a surge of pounding flanks and striving forelegs, their jockeys crouched at their necks, whips flying, the sensation of speed was immediate. And suddenly one horse had leapt a stile, and another, and a third--

"That is China Trade," Mona murmured for my benefit; "the neat little bay with the small head and long neck. She is not so powerful as a stout hunter, mind, but she is built for speed--and leaps every obstacle like a gazelle, Swithin says."

I strained my gaze to distinguish the mare, flying away from us towards the far end of the course; it seemed to my eye that she was gaining. I had quite forgot Lady Caroline Lamb in all the excitement of the turf--but she obtruded suddenly and emphatically on my notice.

"Hola, Sir!" she cried.

The black colt surged powerfully forward, past our phaeton and into the mounted crowd before us; I thought with thankfulness that her ladyship had done hounding the Countess of Oxford for a moment.

"Dear God," Mona muttered. "What queer start will she next attempt?"

And it was true: Caro Lamb did not merely seek a better position from which to view the race. With a slackening of her hold on the reins and a kick to her mount's belly, she shot through the assembled viewers and dashed headlong out onto the course.

The pack was long since gone, but Caro paid no heed--throwing herself flat along the black colt's neck, the reins loosed as tho' she wished to be run away with, she gave the horse its head--and galloped straight at the first stile.

"She'll break her neck," Lady Oxford said grimly; and I was surprized to find no hint of satisfaction in her voice.

"Not Caro," Mona replied. "She has hunted her whole life with the Duke of Devonshire--I am sure there is nothing she will not throw her heart over."

And indeed, the black colt had carried her safely beyond the first three obstacles in the course; to my amazement, the gap between Caro and the rest of the field was shortening.

"That's a devilish fine horse," I heard Sir John call out from beside Mrs. Alleyn's curricle; "what do you say, Hodge, to a side bet on the black colt?"

"Ten pounds on Lady Caroline to place!" Hodge replied.

And all around us, a feverish spate of betting commenced, with gentlemen hastening towards the little knot of men whose employment it was to record such wagers, and tally the winnings.

Fragments of intelligence drifted over our heads ... one horse was down on the far side of the course, beyond our view; Lord Wyncourt's had refused a hedge. There was no word of China Trade.

"How much to see the lady thrown?" a random voice called from the crowd; and a guffaw went up amidst the more vulgar members.

Three horses were rounding the final curve in the course. A last fence remained, with a broken trunk beyond it--as deadly and as frightening a jump as any I had ever witnessed. One head rose up, shoulders bunched and forelegs dangling--the neat little mare with the long neck. Her mount was clinging like a monkey to her back, a diminutive fellow in the Earl of Swithin's colours. As I watched, her body seemed to extend--to soar--and both fence and twisted mesh of fallen tree branches were behind her. A cheer went up as the mare laid back her ears, extended her head, and flew for home.

And behind her--

The black colt, with Lady Caroline's Prussian blue train lying like a flag along its back.

She was perfectly positioned as her mount took the final fence, her frail figure aligned with the horse's as it leapt; and there was no doubt of the heedless courage in every fibre of both creatures' beings. I had no doubt they moved, in that instant, as one; which made the horrendous destruction that followed almost incomprehensible. The colt cleared the fence, but sailed just short of the vicious trunk; his hind legs caught in a tree limb; the horse staggered, fell forward on its knees, and somersaulted--with Caro Lamb going straight over its neck.

A moan of horror went up from our assembled crowd; and for an instant, all breath and movement was suspended. I saw, as in a dream, China Trade swirl across the finish; saw her jockey pull up his heaving mount in expectation of universal acclaim--and watched, as horror freed its grip, the first of the gentlemen bolt past the victorious mare in the direction of the insensible lady lying prone on the ground.

"As I observed," Lady Oxford said drily, "the wretched fool has broken her neck. How in God's name are we to explain it to William Lamb?"

Desdemona made as if to descend from her carriage, but her husband's hand on her wrist stopped her.

"Stay," he said. "I shall go. You can do nothing there."

The black colt had scrambled to its feet but stood all of a huddle, head hanging, one back leg pulled up as tho' in agony. Several gentlemen had reached Lady Caroline, and knelt about her; one of them called, in an agitated accent, "She breathes!"

"Praise God," Lady Oxford murmured; and again, I was startled at her charity.

A crack, as of a pistol shot, rang out--and I saw to my horror the beautiful black colt crumple to the ground, with a shudder as profound as thunder--a ruin to Lady Caroline's whims. It was the starter's pistol that had done it; and a gentleman stood a moment over the pitiable creature, staring at its noble head, pistol dangling, before turning away.

"I suppose the hind leg was broken in the tree," Lady Oxford said with a slight catch in her voice. "I cannot bear to see it--a hunter of mine went in just such a way, some years since, when I rode with the Quorn.
20
God forgive us for the way we use our beasts."

"I hope He may find it in His heart to forgive Lady Caroline, at least," I murmured. "She drove that colt to its destruction."

Lady Oxford was silent a moment. "I have often thought it is
herself
she wishes to destroy. But until that day--Caro will be content to smash everything near her," she said.

20
The Quorn Hunt, founded in 1696 by Mr. Thomas Boothby of Tooley Park, Leicestershire, is still in existence today. It was considered one of the most rigorous, demanding, and exciting of the hunts of Jane Austen's time, and to be invited to ride with its members conferred considerable prestige. It takes its name from the village of Quorn, where the pack was kenneled from 1753 to 1904.--
Editor's note
.

CHAPTER TWENTY
The Green-Eyed Monster

W
EDNESDAY
, 12 M
AY
1813
B
RIGHTON, CONT
.