Byron in Love by Edna O’Brien Page B

and as he tells Lady Melbourne, ‘is measured for a Bible every quarter’. Yet he can report that they have, in a sense, ‘made love’ and that Platonism is in peril. All that is needed is the privacy to consummate it. Apart from Sir Wedderburn’s vigilance, which is manic, Byron also suspects one of the other male guests of having cast himself in the Iago mode, and her sister Lady Catherine, recently jilted, seems to cling over-duly to Ph.
    It is decided that the house party will repair to Newstead, the ‘melancholy mansion’ of Byron’s forebears and where he hopes the residing genii will foster his intentions. During dinner Ph announces to her husband that her sister shall share her room at Newstead, whereupon Webster thunders about his rights and maintains that none but a husband has any legal claim to divide the spouse’s pillow. Lady Frances, in a rare moment of spiritedness, whispers to Byron–‘N’importe, this is all nothing’, a remark which perplexes him greatly. At Newstead he has one of the mounted skulls filled with claret, which he downs in one go, incurring a fit which bars him from being with the ladies, convulsions followed by such motionlessness that Fletcher believes that his master is dead. But his master revives in order to resume the courtship.
    The opportunity at last presents itself. It is two in the morning at Newstead and they are alone, Ph’s words so sincere, so serious, she is in a perplexity of love, she owns up to a helplessness, saying she will give herself to him but fears that she will ‘not survive the fall’. Byron is flabbergasted, he is used to women saying no while meaning yes, and this sincerity, this artlessness, this ingenuousness is too much altogether so that he wavers and in a burst of chivalry that he would come to regret, he feels he cannot take advantage of her. Each and every nuance is relayed to the scrutinous Lady Melbourne, who of course is impatient to know if he is willing to go away with Ph. The answer is Yes. To the ends of the earth if necessary, because he loves her, adding that if he had not loved her he would have been more selfish when she yielded.
    When the party return to Aston Hall, the entire household is thrown into bile and ill temper, Sir Wedderburn prating at servants in front of the guests, sermonising his wife and her sister in front of the guests, and a general feeling that something catastrophic is about to occur.
    What transpires is that Byron is due to leave, Frances’s heart, though broken, is cemented to his as she gives him the gift of a seal, asks that he be faithful to her and vow that they meet in the spring.
    On the eve of departure, Sir Wedderburn plays a caddish card, tells his wife that Byron confessed to him that he had only come and stayed to seek the hand of Lady Catherine, the drooping sister. Ph is devastated. Byron has deceived her. There is weeping and gnashing at their last secret rendezvous in the garden. Then Webster borrows £1,000 from his befuddled houseguest. The following morning as Byron prepares to step into his carriage, Webster confounds matters by professing such a friendship that he will accompany Byron to London. On the wearisome journey, Webster assures him that he and his wife are totally in love and marriage the happiest of all possible estates.
    Meanwhile, Lady Frances has begun her copious correspondence, penning letters that extend to eighteen pages, dilating on Byron’s beauty and her ‘bursting heart’. Borne out in a poem, ‘Concealed Griefs’, Lady Melbourne, who is privy to this dotage, does not doubt Ph’s sincerity, but pronounces her ‘childish and tiresome’.
    Byron had not, as he believed, exorcised the love of Augusta and with his mind in such ‘a state of fermentation’ he was obliged to discharge it in rhyme. A first draft of The Bride of Abydos was completed in four days, the ‘lines