The Lady's Guide to Celestial Mechanics

by Olivia Waite

  Surely Miss Muchelney had very little to fear from him as a rival.

  Dinner was announced, served, and enjoyed. Conversation remained general until the courses were carried away, then Mr. Hawley sat back with a fresh glass of his favorite honey-wine and turned to the more serious subject of the evening. “Ladies and gentlemen, it is time to talk about Monsieur Oléron. Mrs. Kelmarsh, will you take notes?”

  Aunt Kelmarsh smiled tightly and nodded acquiescence. She was not a Society Fellow—women had never been admitted—but she was an avid botanical illustrator and never went anywhere without a sketchbook and a pencil. She flipped past all her ferns and flowers to the next empty page, and began jotting in her elegant shorthand.

  “Thank you,” said Mr. Hawley. “For those of you who missed our last discussion—” nodding at Mr. Wilby “—the Society is undertaking an English edition of Gervais Oléron’s Méchanique céleste. This book builds on Newton’s great Principia and has collected the past fifty years’ worth of advances in mathematics, gravitation, and astronomy. Which, it must be admitted, are mostly on the French side of things. It is a definite masterwork, and if our English astronomers are to catch up to our Continental counterparts, this is the absolute best place for us to begin.”

  “Hear hear,” said Sir Eldon, raising his port. A general murmur of approval followed.

  Mr. Hawley inclined his head humbly. “Now: Lady Moth has generously offered to bear half the cost of the publication, in honor of her late husband, the much-missed George St. Day. The Society membership will raise the other half of the funds. Only one question remains: Who shall we ask to undertake the translation? We shall select two names.”

  Sir Eldon put a hand on his nephew’s slender shoulder. “Richard took a double first in mathematics and physics at Oxford. He’s read Newton and replicated all the experiments in the Principia. He’s young, I’ll grant you, but that only means his mind is fresher. More flexible and full of the juices of youth than us wizened old balloons.” Sir Eldon chuckled, including both himself and Mr. Hawley in this description.

  The president’s smile was slight. “Does he have the French for it?”

  Sir Eldon huffed into his mustaches. “His French was good enough for the Tour—and anyway, the language is the easier part of the thing, is it not? Any mind that can grapple with the mathematics will surely have no trouble with mere French.”

  The president nodded, lips pursed. “Mr. Richard Wilby,” Mr. Hawley said to Aunt Kelmarsh.

  She noted it down.

  Mr. Wilby’s ears were red but his chin was high, as he peered around the table for any challengers.

  The president rested one hand magisterially on his lapel. “I have a candidate of my own to suggest. Mr. William Frampton has been a Society Fellow for the past six months, and has already contributed several letters to our Polite Philosophies in that short span of time. He is a gifted autodidact who would have made a great sensation at Oxford, had his race permitted him to attend.”

  Mr. Frampton crooked a sardonic eyebrow at this phrasing.

  Mr. Hawley continued blithely. “His grandmother was from Saint-Domingue, so he speaks French like a native, and his residence here in London makes it a simple matter to consult with him whenever an issue with the manuscript should arise.” For a moment his cloud-like brow furrowed with remembered storms. “We all are, I’m sure, anxious to avoid a repetition of the kind of results Mr. Grenfuller presented us with, when we trusted him with Captain Lateshaw’s papers.”

  The company murmured agreement. Aunt Kelmarsh looked up, her green eyes acid-bright, before returning to her notebook and jotting down Mr. Frampton’s name.

  Mr. Hawley took another sip of honey-wine and set the tiny cup aside. “So, shall we designate our translators in the official Society record—?”

  Catherine straightened in her chair. “Excuse me.”

  “—or are there any objections?”

  “Excuse me,” Catherine said, more loudly.

  Mr. Frampton cleared his throat.

  Mr. Hawley beamed at him. “Mr. Frampton, my dear sir?”

  “I believe Lady Moth has something she wishes to say,” Mr. Frampton offered. Quite as if Mr. Hawley had not blatantly ignored Catherine a bare moment ago.

  Mr. Hawley’s smile stayed put. He blinked once or twice, then turned toward Catherine without a single muscle changing the placid set of his features. “My lady?”

  Catherine swallowed her nervousness. She rarely addressed the Society, even in so informal a setting, preferring to make arrangements with Mr. Hawley in private and allow him to convey them to the group at large. She wished she had thought to prepare remarks in advance. Best to be direct.

  “I would like to propose Miss Lucy Muchelney as a translator,” she said.

  A ripple of surprise ran around the table, as Lucy raised her chin and folded her hands serenely in front of her. Only Catherine, who was more than usually interested in Miss Muchelney’s hands, could see how the knuckles were white with strain.

  Mr. Hawley chuckled as if Catherine had said something witty. “Miss Muchelney? Translate Oléron?”

  “She is of anyone the most familiar with her father’s finely developed mathematics,” Catherine said.

  Sir Eldon wheezed a hearty laugh through the brush beneath his nose. “Letting his daughter play at astronomy is just the sort of wild hair Arthur would have gotten, don’t you know.”

  Lucy’s cheeks had twin spots of red, but her voice was measured when she replied. “He trained me first as an assistant, but in the last year before his death I was performing all of the calculations on my own.”

  “While he sent us letters about Lunarians and life-forms and the rain clouds he spotted on the sun,” Mr. Chattenden broke in. Mr. Chattenden was a chemist and had taken the solar letters as a personal affront, Catherine recalled.

  Sir Eldon laughed and Mr. Wilby openly snickered.

  Mr. Hawley only turned his kindly eyes toward Catherine. “Miss Muchelney is not a Society Fellow.”

  “Is Mr. Wilby?” she countered.

  “Not yet,” Mr. Hawley replied easily, “but no doubt his uncle will sponsor his application shortly. Miss Muchelney has not the same recourse, since Society Fellowships are forbidden to the gentler sex.”

  “And what if they weren’t?” Catherine blurted out.

  Every eye at the table swiveled toward her: some in astonishment, others in horror. Anger gave her armor. She went on. “You all know Mrs. Kelmarsh is as talented a botanist as her husband ever was. He told us often how well they worked together on many of the papers he wrote for us. Why shouldn’t she have the benefit of Fellowship, as he did in his lifetime? Why shouldn’t the Society have the benefit of her insight and intelligence, simply because they’re hers rather than his?”

  The widow’s eyes were bright as stars as she looked up, as though Catherine were speaking a new language. Emboldened, Catherine continued. “If Miss Muchelney has anything like her father’s gift for astronomy, surely she should be able to put it to use?”

  “I think it’s an excellent suggestion,” said Mr. Frampton, folding his arms across his chest. There was an odd note of relief in his voice.

  Mr. Hawley cut him a keen glance and sipped at his drink. “Perhaps.”

  Sir Eldon huffed wordlessly.

  Mr. Wilby leaned forward. “But let us go about it scientifically,” he said, his expression eager as a puppy on a new scent. “We must start not with assumptions, but with the fundamental questions. Several points need to be clearly determined at the outset: first, whether women are capable of astronomy; second, whether they would offer any particular benefit to astronomy; third, whether astronomy would be of any use or benefit to women; fourth, whether it would harm the needs of mankind to encourage women to put their efforts toward the sciences rather than the continuation of the species.”

  Mr. Chattenden nodded. “That is a proper scientific line of enquiry, Mr. Wilby.”

  Aunt Ke
lmarsh looked nauseated. Miss Muchelney reeled back as though she’d been slapped.

  Catherine’s body went hot with rage. The men of the Society had almost always talked over her, of course—but she’d always thought that was because she was no expert in their chosen fields of study. She hadn’t known they’d been imagining she was inferior simply because she was a woman. But here was Miss Muchelney—brilliant, sensitive Lucy Muchelney—being talked about as if she had no more brain than a child, simply because she was wearing skirts instead of breeches.

  Words like embers danced on her tongue and she feared the lightest breath would kindle them into flame.

  Mr. Hawley stayed cool. “Fruitful as such a debate would be,” he declared, “I’m afraid that it can be no solution to our present quandary. You know, my dear Lady Moth,” he said, reaching a hand out and placing it on the table in front of Catherine, “the idea was for our translator to work with the men of the Society. Surely you will see the impropriety of Miss Muchelney being closeted for long stretches of time with so many single men, in what must be ardent and rather volatile circumstances?”

  Catherine let her eyes narrow. It was one thing to worry about the girl living with a bachelor—but merely existing in the same room? “Are you suggesting not all Society Fellows are to be trusted to behave like gentlemen?” There was a jumbled general outcry at this. Catherine pressed her advantage. “If that is your only concern, then I would happily attend as chaperone whenever Miss Muchelney is working in consultation with the other translators. Her expertise with the mathematics is paramount, and not to be tossed aside.”

  Mr. Hawley shook his head, his face all apology. “My dear lady, it is out of the question.” He pulled his hand away and leaned back, eyes distant, the topic clearly finished in his mind.

  “You might at least take a look at her work before you dismiss it,” Catherine insisted stubbornly. “She’s already made a good start on the first volume.”

  Lucy said not a word as she pulled her handwritten pages out of her pocket and set them on the table in front of the Society president.

  Mr. Hawley kept his eyes on Catherine, swept out his hand, and brushed the pages, unread, to the floor.

  Aunt Kelmarsh gasped, hand over her mouth, and Mr. Frampton’s eyebrows shot up.

  Mr. Hawley sighed. His tone was all sweet disappointment. “My dear countess: you must know you are being unreasonable.” While Catherine choked on shock and outrage, he turned to Miss Muchelney, putting a hand on her wrist and gripping it with earnest entreaty. “Please do not think I disparage your eagerness to help, my dear girl—it is only that as men of science, we must uphold certain standards if our work is to be accorded its proper value in the community. You understand, of course.”

  “Oh yes, Mr. Hawley,” Miss Muchelney replied tightly. “I understand you perfectly.”

  Catherine rested both her palms onto the dinner table and stood. Chairs scraped as the others hastened to follow her to their feet. Old oak creaked as Catherine leaned forward. “Mr. Hawley, you have your standards, and I have mine. This behavior fails to meet them on every level. I officially retract my half of the funds for this publication.”

  Mr. Hawley’s mouth went tight with fury. “You think to bully me, Lady Moth—but the Society will go ahead with a proper scientific translation, with or without your support.”

  Catherine ignored him and gave the rest of the company a tight nod of farewell. “Mr. Frampton, Mr. Wilby, I wish you every good fortune with your work. Miss Muchelney.” She swallowed hard. “If you prefer to stay awhile longer, I can have the carriage return for you.”

  Miss Muchelney stood easily. Her voice was all sunshine when she replied: “No need, my lady. I shall intrude no longer on Mr. Hawley’s kindness.” Catherine saw, with vicious glee, one corner of the president’s mouth tighten as he caught the bright, bitter undertone. Aunt Kelmarsh’s lips quirked as she caught it, too, and she sent Catherine an eloquent look. Miss Muchelney made a very pretty curtsy, set her chin at a most stubborn angle, and marched out of the room.

  Her discarded manuscript pages fluttered farewell as she passed.

  As soon as the carriage began to move, Miss Muchelney’s invulnerability cracked. Her shoulders shook and her eyes went wild and she clutched Catherine’s green wrap around her as though she were caught in the sudden blast of an arctic howler. Catherine twisted her hands together, feeling helpless. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I should have gathered up your manuscript pages . . .”

  “Oh, that.” Miss Muchelney half laughed, a sound like a wild thing. “That was only a clean copy. I still have the rough version and all my notes, safe and sound where they belong.” She pursed her lips. “Mr. Hawley only thought he was trampling all my hopes and ambitions.”

  Relief was a river, deep and quiet. Catherine’s fingers relaxed. “I’m glad,” she breathed.

  “You tried to warn me how it would be,” Miss Muchelney replied. Her voice was watery, forewarning Catherine about the tears that soon began to spill from her eyes. The girl scrubbed at her cheeks with the heel of her palm. “I should have listened.”

  “I had no idea they would be like that,” Catherine said. The upswelling anger that had sent her storming away from Mr. Hawley’s dinner table still sizzled just beneath her skin. “I had expected them to grapple with you about mathematical formulas or how you interpreted your French verb tenses. They have those sorts of arguments constantly. I thought they might question your expertise, yes. I never thought they might question your existence!”

  For that is what Mr. Wilby’s argument had amounted to. He had wanted to debate the very fact of women’s intelligence, when the intelligent woman seated across the table from him ought to have been proof in and of herself.

  Miss Muchelney turned her head to stare out the window at the passing city. Light from a streetlamp passed briefly over her face, and then was gone. “They think of me as my father’s satellite. And so they cannot see me as I am. Anyone who’s ever looked through a telescope should know: perspectives can be distorting.”

  “Trust an astronomer to consider it a problem of angles.” Miss Muchelney chuckled weakly, and Catherine’s anxious tension eased, though her heart wouldn’t stop aching. “Not everything can be explained by geometry.”

  “I shouldn’t have surprised them,” Miss Muchelney went on. Her hands fell to her lap and fidgeted with the edging of the wrap. “It is sometimes difficult for men to change course once they have set their minds to something. I should have talked them round more, led up to the idea. I thought they would be like my father—but of course they were more like my brother.”

  Catherine hadn’t known that Albert Muchelney had a second child. “Does your brother not encourage your pursuit of astronomy?”

  Miss Muchelney let out a wordless choked laugh. “He has talked about selling my telescope.” Catherine gasped. Miss Muchelney’s lips curved briefly at the sound. “The day I left for London, Stephen told me nobody would employ a female astronomer.” She stopped herself, then burst out: “I hate that he’s right.”

  “He isn’t right.” Catherine leaned forward and clasped her hands around Miss Muchelney’s. “He’s only an astronomer—and astronomers spend a great deal of time being wrong before they come to realize it.”

  “He’s not an astronomer. He’s an artist.”

  “Then he’s doomed to be wrong his whole life.”

  Lucy laughed, but even in the dimness the tears sparkled as they fell from her eyes. “I’m always crying in front of you, aren’t I?”

  Catherine lifted one hand and brushed the tears away. “I wish you had fewer reasons for it.” Lucy’s eyes were star-bright. Her lips parted on a breath that was far too soft for a sigh. Catherine’s whole body went tight and liquid—how easy would it be to just lean forward, and press her mouth to Lucy’s, and taste that sound on her own tongue?

  She wanted it so much that it frightened her. She yanked herself away and tucked her hands tightly
beneath her knees.

  Lucy’s breath hitched, but after a moment she turned away and stared out the window again. “I suppose I must pack my things in the morning, then. Head back to Lyme.”

  “Must you?” Catherine swayed in her seat—surely it was only a tight turn of the carriage that staggered her, and not the thought of parting from Lucy. Catherine cleared her throat and tried again. “Couldn’t you continue the work on your own?”

  Lucy’s shoulders rose and fell, a shadowed shrug. “I could—but without the imprimatur of the Polite Science Society, who would publish it?”

  “I would,” Catherine said at once. Imagination raced ahead, mapping out the path ahead of her, obstacles and their solutions and all. Nothing struck her as insurmountable. “Yes,” she said, more confidently, “I absolutely would. How soon do you think you can have the first volume translated?”

  Lucy frowned, as Catherine fidgeted, impatient for an answer. “Less than six months, for certain,” she said. “Perhaps as little as four.”

  “Excellent,” Catherine said. “You continue working, and I will ask about for a good publisher for this kind of thing. I’m sure someone can recommend a few names for us.” Lucy was staring, and Catherine dropped her eyes back to her hands. “You are, of course, welcome to stay with me for the duration. If—if for any reason you don’t fancy going home just yet.”

  Lucy tilted her head, birdlike. “I confess, Lyme does not hold much appeal at present.” Another streetlamp flashed over the younger woman’s hesitant smile, and Catherine let out a long, silent breath in the darkness. “And I can write to Stephen—to tell him I’ve found work. For a while, at least.”

  Catherine was relieved; she was fearful; she didn’t know what she felt, as they disembarked at the townhouse and made their way separately to bed. Her nerves flickered like the candles as Narayan helped her undress. Only one thought felt solid, and she clung to it like a compass heading in the fog: Lucy Muchelney was going to have a chance to do the work she had so much talent and passion for.