‘You can address to me at Venice as usual. Wherever I may be in Italy, the letter will be forwarded. I enclose to you all that long hair on account of which you would not go to see my picture. You will see that it was not so very long. I curtailed it yesterday, my head and hair being weakly after my tertian.
‘I wrote to you not very long ago, and, as I do not know that I could add anything satisfactory to that letter, I may as well finish this. In a letter to Murray I requested him to apprise you that my journey was postponed; but here, there, and everywhere, know me
‘Yours ever and very truly,
‘B.’
It is ridiculous to suppose that these two letters were addressed to the same person. In the one we find the expression of an imperishable attachment, in the other merely commonplace statements. In the first letter Byron says, if ever he returns to England, it will be to see the person to whom he is writing, and that absence has the more deeply confirmed his passion. In the second he tells the lady that he has had his hair cut, and that he was never very willing to revisit Great Britain! And yet, in spite of these inconsistencies, Lady Byron walked into the snare which Augusta had so artfully prepared. In forwarding the amatory epistle to Lady Byron, Augusta tells her to burn it, and says that her brother ‘must surely be considered a maniac’ for having written it, adding, with adroit mystification:
‘I do not believe any feelings expressed are by any means permanent—only occasioned by the passing and present reflection and occupation of writing to the unfortunate Being to whom they are addressed.’
Augusta did not tell Lady Byron that ‘the unfortunate Being’ was Mary Chaworth, now reconciled to her husband, and that she had withheld Byron’s letter from her, lest her mind should be unsettled by its perusal.
Mrs. Leigh had two excellent reasons for this betrayal of trust. In the first place, she wished Lady Byron to believe that her brother was still making love to her, and that she was keeping her promise in not encouraging his advances. In the second place, she knew that the terms of Byron’s letter would deeply wound Lady Byron’s pride—and revenge is sometimes sweet!
Lady Byron, who was no match for her sister-in-law, had failed to realize the wisdom of her mother’s warning: ‘Beware of Augusta, for she must hate you.’ She received this proof of Augusta’s return to virtue with gratitude, thanked her sincerely, and acknowledged that the terms of Byron’s letter ‘afforded ample testimony that she had not encouraged his tenderness.’ Poor Lady Byron! She deserves the pity of posterity. But she was possessed of common sense, and knew how to play her own hand fairly well. She wrote to Augusta in the following terms:
‘This letter is a proof of the prior “reformation,” which was sufficiently evidenced to me by your own assertion, and the agreement of circumstances with it. But, in case of a more unequivocal disclosure on his part than has yet been made, this letter would confute those false accusations to which you would undoubtedly be subjected from others.’
In suggesting a more open disclosure on Byron’s part, Lady Byron angled for further confidences, so that her evidence against her husband might be overwhelming. She hoped that his repentant sister might be able to show incriminating letters, which would support the clue found in those missives which Mrs. Clermont had ‘conveyed.’ How little did she understand Augusta Leigh! Never would she have assisted Lady Byron to prejudice the world against her brother, nor would she have furnished Lady Byron with a weapon which might at any moment have been turned against herself.