In the midst of, and in consequence of, these spectacles, Lady Melbourne decided to take Lady Caroline to Ireland. She cherished, it seems, the double design of getting her daughter-in-law out of Byron’s way and marrying Byron to her niece. Of the success of the latter scheme there will be a good deal to be said in subsequent chapters. Much was to happen, however, both to Byron and to Lady Caroline before it succeeded. They continued to correspond during Lady Caroline’s absence; and the correspondence soon reached an acute phase which resulted in a series of violent scenes.
CHAPTER XII
THE QUARREL WITH LADY CAROLINE—HER CHARACTER AND SUBSEQUENT CAREER
“While in Ireland,” Lady Caroline Lamb told Lady Morgan, “I received letters constantly—the most tender and the most amusing.”
She received one letter in which Byron, after speaking of “a sense of duty to your husband and mother” declared that “no other in word or deed shall ever hold the place in my affections which is, and shall be, most sacred to you,” and concluded: “I was and am yours freely and most entirely, to obey, to honour, love—and fly with you when, where, and how you yourself might and may determine.” What did he mean?
Apparently he meant to let Lady Caroline down gently—to give her the right of boasting of his undying regard—and to obtain his liberty in exchange. We need not stop to consider whether the bargain would have been a fair one, for Lady Caroline did not agree to it. There were no bounds to her infatuation, and she could not bear the thought that there should be any bounds to his. But there were. “Even during our intimacy,” he told Medwin, “I was not at all constant to this fair one, and she suspected as much.” It looks as though her suspicions decided her to return to England. At all events she started, and at Dublin, received another letter to which the epithets “tender” and “amusing” were equally inapplicable.
“It was,” she told Lady Morgan, “that cruel letter I have published in ‘Glenarvon’”—the novel in which, some five years later, she gave the world her version of the liaison. The text of it, as given in ‘Glenarvon,’ is as follows:
“I am no longer your lover; and since you oblige me to confess it by this truly unfeminine persecution, learn that I am attached to another, whose name it would, of course, be dishonest to mention. I shall ever remember with gratitude the many instances I have received of the predilection you have shown in my favour. I shall ever continue your friend, if your ladyship will permit me so to style myself. And as a first proof of my regard, I offer you this advice: correct your vanity, which is ridiculous: exert your absurd caprices on others; and leave me in peace.”