Following a headily aristocratic September in Scotland (where the Stowes were the guests of the Duchess of Sutherland), Harriet’s husband escorted young Henry back to his American schooling. Meanwhile, Harriet, together with her married sister, Mary Foote Perkins, arranged to visit a personal hero, Charles Kingsley, at his Berkshire rectory, before embarking on her second tour of Europe. It was by happy chance that Annabella’s new abode was at Ham Common, conveniently placed along the westward route from London out to Eversley, Kingsley’s secluded home.
Following a satisfying expedition to Eversley Rectory, Mrs Stowe and her sister spent a night at Aford House. It was now that a key conversation took place between Lady Byron and Mrs Beecher Stowe. Disclosures were ventured on both sides. Harriet’s confession of her youthful adoration of Lord Byron led easily on to an unfolding of the private history of Lady Byron’s marriage. Only the slightest of pauses occurred when Mrs Stowe confessed that she already knew about the incest. (Her source was their mutual American friend, Eliza Cabot Follen.) Nodding swift assent, Annabella passed on to a thrillingly intimate account of her married life.
And what, a pale-faced and emotional Lady Byron asked at the end of her enthralling monologue, should she do now? Plans were once again afoot for a popular edition of her late husband’s poems, prefaced by what threatened to be a wickedly misleading account of Lord Byron’s domestic life. Was it her duty to reveal what she alone now knew to be the Truth? Should she volunteer it herself, or . . .?
Lady Byron’s hesitation was pregnant with implication. Was Annabella hoping that Mrs Stowe would step forward with an offer of her own services, or was she simply seeking practical advice? Mrs Stowe herself was uncertain what was expected from her. Playing for time, she requested a written account of past events to which she could devote herself with scrupulous consideration. To this, Lady Byron readily agreed.
The discussion at Ham took place at the end of October. On 5 November, Mrs Stowe returned the detailed notes (from which Lady Byron had prudently omitted any mention of incest). Twelve days later, on the verge of departing for Paris, Mrs Stowe announced that she had changed her mind ‘somewhat’. Better, perhaps, to publish nothing at this time. Such delicate matters should be placed in the hands of ‘some discreet friends’ who could decide, after Lady Byron’s own demise, what should be done?
Perhaps Harriet sensed that she had disappointed her new friend. Shortly before returning to America in the summer of 1857, Mrs Stowe sent Lady Byron a gift of some little majolica vases from Italy, together with a reassuring message of affection. ‘I often think how strange it is that I should know you,’ she wrote on 5 June, ‘you who were a sort of legend of my early days – that I should love you is only a natural result.’ Omitted from this pleasing tribute was any hint of just what sort of a legend the youthful Lady Byron might have been. It was the poet, not his widow, whom an impressionable young girl had worshipped.
Henry Beecher Stowe drowned shortly after his mother’s return to America. Lady Byron’s silence about the tragedy hurt. ‘I did long to hear from you,’ Harriet confessed on 30 June 1858, ‘because I know that you did know everything sorrow can teach.’
A considerable deterioration in Lady Byron’s already failing health may have contributed to her neglect of a friend in need. She had moved into her final home, a tall, pleasant house in St George’s Terrace, looking out at the steep green ascent of Primrose Hill. All physical endeavours had become a struggle. The next-door and smaller house was being purchased in order to create a practical ground-floor suite for her own use. Ralph, about to go to Oxford (following a meeting with a kind-hearted academic, Professor Donkin), was to be given an upstairs study all his own. A physician was in permanent residence, but the kindest of Lady Byron’s nurses was her own granddaughter.
The two Annabellas enjoyed a delightful friendship, so Mrs Stowe now learned. It was one in which a ‘spirit union’ left plenty of room for lively mutual dissent. Together, they had been reading serialised instalments of Harriet’s new novel, The Minister’s Wooing. Tactfully (for this was not one of Mrs Stowe’s finest works), Lady Byron compared it to Adam Bede (‘the book of the season’) and ingenuously wondered which would prove the more enduring.
Curiously, Annabella made no mention to Mrs Stowe of the fact that she herself was once again planning to write the story of her doomed marriage. On 18 April 1859, she heard from Anna Jones, the vicar’s daughter who had kept up a friendship with both Mary Montgomery and herself ever since those miserable early weeks of 1816 when Annabella had taken refuge at Kirkby. The chief topic of Miss Jones’s letter was the autobiographical book which Lady Byron had declared that she was going to write. While Anna approved (‘The sooner you commence the better’), she qualified her encouragement by adding a curious rider: namely, that ‘many should give opinions and be allowed to revise & find fault’.
The project went no further. The thought of being revised and found fault with was enough to deter an author who detested criticism. But it’s more likely that Annabella, growing weaker month by month, simply ran out of energy.
Harriet Beecher Stowe returned to England in the summer of 1859. Calling upon her old friend and finding an ashen-faced and greatly aged Lady Byron almost unable to speak, Mrs Stowe departed in haste. A second visit took place on a warm summer afternoon. The invalid had recovered enough strength to undertake a pleasant saunter around the garden of her London home. ‘She was enjoying one of those bright intervals of freedom from pain and languor, in which her spirits always rose so
