"Miss Chaworth is married."
Byron drew his handkerchief out of his pocket and blew his nose, and with that expression of sarcasm which he knew so well how to assume at certain times, he said—
"Is that all?"
"Isn't it enough?" asked Lady Byron, who knew well enough the real pain he was concealing beneath that apparent indifference.
"Enough to make me shed tears? No indeed!" and Byron put his handkerchief back into his pocket.
When Lady Byron had announced to her son in this callous, mocking way his adored Mary's marriage, and Byron had put on a smiling appearance of indifference to the news, returning his handkerchief to his pocket unwet by a tear, the poor youth went to his own room heart-broken, and, taking up in his hand the portrait of his unfaithful sweetheart, the poet tried to comfort the lover, inviting himself to mourn, lashing his passion into words.
Hence resulted those mournful sighings of a broken heart addressed to Mrs. Musters:—
TO A LADY
"Oh! had my fate been join'd with thine,
As once this pledge appear'd a token,
These follies had not then been mine,
For then my peace had not been broken.
To thee these early faults I owe,
To thee, the wise and old reproving:
They know my sins, but do not know
'Twas thine to break the bonds of loving.
For once my soul, like thine, was pure,
And all its rising fires could smother;
But now thy vows no more endure,
Bestow'd by thee upon another.
Perhaps his peace I could destroy,
And spoil the blisses that await him
Yet let my rival smile in joy,
For thy dear sake I cannot hate him.
Ah! since thy angel form is gone,
My heart no more can rest with any;
But what it sought in thee alone,
Attempts, alas! to find in many.
Then fare thee well, deceitful maid!
'Twere vain and fruitless to regret thee;
Nor hope, nor memory yield their aid,
But pride may teach me to forget thee.
Yet all this giddy waste of years,
This tiresome round of palling pleasures;
These varied loves, these matron's fears,
These thoughtless strains to passion's measures—
If thou wert mine, had all been hush'd:—
This cheek, now pale from early riot,
With passion's hectic ne'er had flush'd,
But bloom'd in calm domestic quiet.
Yes, once the rural scene was sweet,
For Nature seem'd to smile before thee;
And once my breast abhorr'd deceit,—
For then it beat but to adore thee.
But now I seek for other joys:
To think would drive my soul to madness;
In thoughtless throngs and empty noise
I conquer half my bosom's sadness.
Yet, even in these a thought will steal
In spite of every vain endeavour,—
And friends might pity what I feel,—
To know that thou art lost for ever."
Alas! Miss Chaworth was not, as Mrs. Musters, to be happier in her marriage than the man she had forsaken. She married John Musters, Esq., in the August of 1805, and lived miserably until 1832, when she died in as melancholy a way as she had lived. A band of insurgents from Nottingham came and set fire to Colwick Hall, where she lived. She and her daughter took refuge in a potting-shed, and, being already in poor health, she took cold and fell ill, and died practically of the same complaint that Byron had died of eight years before.
As Byron says in the second verse of his poem to Mrs. Musters, it was in consequence of the rupture of his friendship with Miss Chaworth that he flung himself exclusively into the pursuit of pleasure. He flirted, rode, gambled, kept dogs, took up swimming, fencing and pistol-shooting.