by Olivia Waite
Catherine glared into her tea, wanting the scalding feel of it on her throat but not yet feeling civilized enough to pick up the delicate cup. “I shall have some choice words for him when next he dares show his face.”
“He claims he has a plan.” Lucy sipped thirstily at her tea, steam curling dragonish around her.
“I’m sure he does. But will it work?”
Lucy shrugged. “I have to assume it won’t, and brace myself for the worst.” She outlined the preparations she would undertake, all the reading she would do in advance of the Symposium. Catherine listened with half an ear as her mind raced a million miles ahead.
The crux was this: she didn’t just want to help Lucy through a single crisis, howsoever significant it was. She wanted to offer Lucy something that would last for the rest of their lives.
This, Catherine thought, was why brides came with dowries: it was something concrete and immediate to offer a spouse, something more than beauty or bloodlines or the ephemeral possibility of an heir. You couldn’t eat bloodlines, after all. Children might never result, either—or they might all be daughters, unable to inherit or to carry on a family name.
Money, though—money was practical. You could do a lot with it. You could even do nothing, and it would still be useful: having ready wealth was never a bad guard against the vagaries of chance and crisis. Lucy had some money, now—what if Catherine offered her more of that? As something like a dowry, to connect them for the future?
No. That wasn’t quite right. Lucy didn’t want money from Catherine; she’d reacted badly the last time Catherine had offered it. What Lucy wanted was marriage: a permanent connection, something legal and public and celebratory . . .
After breakfast, Lucy decamped to the library and set to work. So, in rather a different way, did Catherine. Since there was nothing Catherine could do to help Lucy with the Symposium itself, she would help with absolutely everything else.
First thing was to write to Aunt Kelmarsh and invite her to stay for Christmas. It looked to be a particularly frigid one. Catherine would feel more at ease if her aunt were close and cozy during the coming months. She also had some questions to pose to her aunt about women naturalists from her mother’s generation . . .
Then, since she was already at her writing desk, she composed a letter to Miss Annabelle Barber of Sussex. Who may or may not still reside at the same address. Who may or may not have married or died or otherwise vanished from reach in the decades since her letter was published in Polite Philosophies.
But at least it was somewhere to start.
That day set the tempo for the autumn and early winter: Lucy finished reading the rest of Oléron’s oeuvre, and Catherine turned George’s bedroom into a proper guest suite for Aunt Kelmarsh. Lucy invited Mr. Edwards to instruct her about electrochemistry, and Catherine refined her embroidery designs for publication while Mrs. Edwards read aloud from her latest novel. Word came that the Society had voted overwhelmingly in favor of admitting Oléron as a Foreign Member. Lucy and Mr. Frampton went out and bought a whole shelf’s worth of new mathematical texts, while Catherine snuck (rather guiltily) into the library and combed the archives of Polite Philosophies for more women’s names and addresses.
Eventually the replies began trickling in: who had died, who had married, who had given up science at the demands of family and friends, who were still pursuing experiments and lines of inquiry and collecting specimens. An astonishing number of these last women had taken to writing children’s schoolbooks on their chosen subject. Catherine began to keep files on what she learned, and as the weeks passed, an idea began to take shape, a great and glorious Something that she initially categorized as an auxiliary in case the Symposium brought disaster for Lucy, but that soon came to loom even larger in Catherine’s strategic mind. Larger than anything she’d done before.
Something that would take a lifetime to accomplish.
This almost-plan helped Catherine not to fret herself to pieces as she watched the dark circles flower beneath Lucy’s eyes, or the worried twist to her mouth that became more and more habitual as the weeks spun by. The closer the Symposium came, the later Lucy stayed in the library each day. Her restlessness proved contagious, and Catherine cast about for ways to keep her hands busy and her mind from going over the same unchanging fears time and time again. She found comfort where she always had: in needle and thread and the careful process of stitching into fabric, one tiny bit at a time.
She couldn’t help Lucy in the actual battle—but she could make sure she didn’t go unarmored into the field.
Chapter Sixteen
The day of the Symposium dawned clear and cold, with a frost sheening over everything in the garden. Lucy stared out at silver-edged leaves and icy wrought iron and resonated with the frozen fixity of it all. Her anxiety had crystallized overnight into something hard and clear and seemingly calm, but that smooth facade was a thin and brittle shell overlying a universe of panic.
She feared it would only take one blow to shatter her completely.
Catherine slipped up behind to embrace her, nuzzling her face into Lucy’s shoulder. Lucy grasped the arms that twined around her waist and leaned cravingly back into the countess’s warmth. “Good morning.” Catherine yawned.
“Morning,” Lucy echoed, unthawed.
“Time to get dressed—unless you want to sleep longer?”
“Sleep is for the comfortable. I am anything but.” A horrid revelation struck Lucy, a sidelong slap in the face that she’d have seen coming if she hadn’t had her gaze so focused on the goal ahead. “Oh, lord, Catherine—what am I going to wear?” The gold gown was her finest, but entirely wrong for the occasion: it was too decadent, too luxurious to wear to address a group of motley and indifferently garbed scholars. She’d look like a brothel mistress among a collection of churchmen.
Catherine’s laugh was sleep-tinged and knowing; Lucy melted a little to hear it, and turned in the countess’s arms. The shorter woman grinned up at her, all slyness and soft flesh and tousled curls. “Don’t fret about that,” she said. “I’ve been working on something.”
She led Lucy over to the wardrobe and pulled out a dress wrapped in tissue, which Lucy in her fixation had managed not to notice before. Slowly, Catherine laid the bundle on the chaise and peeled the paper away.
A velvet gown in rich blue-green, with accents of soft gold. Simpler than many of Catherine’s other designs—but the more Lucy looked at it, the more she liked it. The heavy velvet gave weight to the skirt, while a spray of delicate rays stitched in gold thread fanned out around the bodice. They looked like the lines of illumination you’d see in an engraving surrounding a candle: slim, dotted beams of light that winked within the high pile of the velvet. The shimmering pattern caught the gaze and directed attention inexorably upward, toward the wearer’s face.
Lucy knew exactly how she’d feel as soon as she put it on: feminine, warm, and elegant. Strong, but not forbidding, not aggressive. It was a design that spoke of precision without being in the least cold. It was absolutely, beautifully the right thing for a lady astronomer to wear if she planned to dazzle a roomful of suspicious men.
“Do you like it?” Catherine asked, still standing beside the chaise, her hands clasped anxiously behind her.
“It is perfect. You are perfect.” Lucy turned and kissed her, as a tiny light like a candle flame flickered into life within her icy heart. Catherine sighed into Lucy’s mouth and the countess’s whole body relaxed. She had been more tense than Lucy realized.
Regret assailed her: she’d been so focused on what this night meant for her, that she’d quite ignored how Catherine had been feeling about all of this. Lucy gripped the countess’s shoulders as her anxiousness shifted focus. “Are you worried about tonight?”
“Not at all.” Catherine’s rosebud smile bloomed fully, and as always Lucy’s breath caught to see it. “I have every faith in you.”
So simple a thing to say, and so powerful when said in ea
rnest. Lucy’s heart sounded like a bell, setting her whole body ringing. She rested her forehead against Catherine’s and simply stood there, breathing her in.
No matter what happened tonight, at the end of it she would have this beautiful, stalwart, thoughtful, fierce woman by her side.
Tonight could still ruin her reputation among men of science, but it would not take Catherine from her. She would be left with something after all of this was through. And the mathematics were clear: something was infinitely more than nothing.
Her hands might still shake and her head might still be spinning, but for the first time in months she could glimpse a future beyond this evening’s events.
She managed a good breakfast and buttered toast at tea, but by the time Narayan helped button up the blue-green velvet, she was feeling chilled through again. Her appetite had given way to a hollow, twisting feeling that made her feel skittish as a bird on the verge of startling. Long white gloves and a thick cream shawl did nothing to banish the shivers, but she had expected nothing less. She tried to take deep breaths and calm herself. This was just a more intensified version of the nerves she’d suffered from every exam period at Cramlington, she told herself. She always fretted right up until she started answering questions. This would be no different.
If she repeated it often enough, maybe it would prove prophetic.
The carriage was brought round in due course. Catherine and Aunt Kelmarsh conspired to hold a restful silence the whole way to Somerset House. Lucy clenched her hands in her lap until the knuckles creaked, and concentrated on not being sick out the carriage window.
The Polite Science Society had the use of a set of offices in Somerset House, and the Symposium was always held in the portico rooms overlooking the terrace on the riverside. The three made their way across the courtyard—the same route Lucy and Catherine had walked six short months ago for the Summer Exhibition. But there were no daylight throngs of visitors now, no chattering artists or painted glory or vivid sunset scenes. There was only one or two hurrying figures in the lamplight, muffled up against the cold, and above it all the tall, glacial face of the building, its classical columns looming like prison bars, or the teeth of some prim but ravenous predator.
Catherine tucked her hand into the crook of Lucy’s arm and squeezed for support. Lucy, grateful and somewhat beyond speech, squeezed back.
They found Mr. Frampton waiting at the base of the sinuous stairs—and he wasn’t alone.
His face lit up when he saw them approach, and he straightened his shoulders with evident excitement and pride. “I am so glad you are prompt,” he said, and turned to his companion. “Madame la marquise, may I introduce Lady Moth, Mrs. Kelmarsh, and Miss Muchelney? My lady, Mrs. Kelmarsh, Miss Muchelney—I am honored to present you to Gervaise Marie Oléron, Marquise de Lantier.”
Aunt Kelmarsh’s head snapped up in surprise. Catherine let out the tiniest of gasps, barely more than a breath. The lady being introduced stepped forward: she was clad in a rich blue gown that set off her brown skin to perfection, a turban of the same silk wound around the tight-curled locks of her hair, graced with comet-streaks of silver. Her shawl was deep gray and very fine where it looped about her neck and shoulders.
Lucy used the depth of her curtsy to cover for her amazement, and hoped her knees wouldn’t give out and drop her in a heap to the floor. Oléron was a woman! A dark-skinned woman! As soon as the first shock had passed, she was flooded with chagrin at one simple, telling fact: the possibility of Oléron being anything other than a white-skinned man had quite simply not occurred to her.
What a mortifying realization for someone who prided herself on being keenly observant.
Well, astronomers did spend most of their time being wrong. What mattered was what they did when they realized the truth.
Lucy lifted her head and found herself the subject of an eye that twinkled sternly as a polar star. “So this is the translator of my work into English?” The marquise’s accent was faint and charming, and when she smiled, laugh lines appeared at the corners of her mouth. “Our friend has sent me a copy—it was rather beautiful. Even the parts I did not write.”
Lucy’s blush could have melted all the ice in the world. “I tried to do justice to your work, madame.”
“Do you plan to continue the project? There are five planned volumes in the Méchanique céleste. Two are out already.”
Lucy bit her lip. “I have not thought that far ahead,” she confessed. “Would you want me to continue?”
Her elegant eyebrow arched. “So long as you send me the manuscripts to critique before they are printed, it would please me very much to see more of your translating. There were, of course, a few phrases I should have liked to alter. Trifles, really, but I have spent fifty years trying to be precise about things and I am not about to change at so late a date as this.”
Aunt Kelmarsh was laughing silently into her sleeve.
The marquise turned to Catherine and Mr. Frampton, who had watched this exchange with a mix of relish (his) and wonder (hers). “Now that your friends have arrived, monsieur, shall we go up?”
“Of course,” he replied, and offered her his arm.
She waved him aside and grasped Lucy’s elbow. “I should like to talk to this young lady a bit more, I think,” she said.
She set a careful pace up the stairs, which Lucy took care to match.
“My ankle has not been the same this decade,” the marquise explained. “The emperor’s reign did not, it turns out, agree with me in every particular.”
They walked a few steps in silence while Lucy’s brain spun, placing new facts alongside the old ones and forging new connections and conclusions. The future had taken on a new but no less ominous cast—and not just for Lucy herself. She cleared her throat as they ascended to the first-floor landing. “I feel I ought to warn you, madame—the Polite Science Society has never admitted women to their membership before. When they realize you are not a man, they may rescind the invitation entirely. And . . .” she trailed off, took a breath, and plunged forward. “They may be cruelly insulting when they do it.”
The marquise narrowed her dark eyes. “Yes, I noticed how graciously they worded their invitation for tonight’s discussion. I also noticed how openly they questioned the legitimacy of your work. Such clever men, such logical arguments. Mr. Frampton sent me that paper, too. And told me how shamefully they have treated him during this whole business.”
“He is a very prolific correspondent,” Lucy said wryly.
The marquise chuckled. “But an earnest one. He reminds me of my nephews—and a little of myself.” She tossed her head. “Do you know, my grandmother was friends with Voltaire? So many clever men in that generation. I used to sneak down to listen to them sharpen their wits on each other in her salon. Once I was old enough to attend evening parties myself, I learned how vicious things could get when a dozen people are all trying to prove they are the cleverest one in the room. This was long after the great man’s death, of course—but I dare say nobody has proved half as clever since he left us.” Her lips curved with a duelist’s anticipation. “I do hope these Society men have cause to regret all the errors they’ll soon learn they’ve made.”
The lofty room at the top of the stairs was awash with candlelight and cutlery. Windows looked out on the darkened Thames and reflected images of the guests back to themselves. Botanists and chemists and astronomers and naturalists greeted one another after the long year apart, and immediately took up the thread of last year’s arguments. New debates sprouted up with each shift in the crowd, adding to the cacophony. The din lessened briefly as the assembled Fellows took note of Lucy’s arrival, then redoubled itself with vicious interest.
Lucy kept her chin high, though she still felt shaky. The marquise preened like a bird of prey.
Mr. Frampton indicated the raised table at the head of the room, with two podiums and places set to either side. “If you’ll pardon me, ladies, I should present madame la marq
uise to our host.”
Mr. Hawley was standing guard over one podium, his soft gray hair combed high. He’d chosen court dress for the evening, with breeches and buckles and a formal froth of lace. It made him look distinctly old-fashioned among the crowd, as though he’d stepped out of one of the last century’s portraits where they hung in the gallery.
The marquise nodded to Lucy. “I look forward to our conversation after dinner,” she said. With a touch of her hand, she allowed Mr. Frampton to lead her at a regal pace toward the front of the room.
Catherine asked a discreet question of a footman and learned that the other podium, and the place just beside it, had been reserved for Lucy. Catherine herself had been seated some ways apart with Aunt Kelmarsh. The countess grimaced to hear it, but quickly smoothed out her face and squeezed Lucy’s hands. “It will all come right,” she said. “Remember: you are brilliant.” Her eyes flicked down to Lucy’s mouth, and Lucy wished more than anything that she could steal a kiss for luck.
Afterward, she promised herself, then let go of Catherine’s hands and turned toward her lonely seat.
She slowed and lingered: Mr. Frampton and the marquise were approaching Mr. Hawley, and if Lucy took her own chair she would not have quite such a good view on the encounter.
Mr. Frampton was making the introduction, his face serene but for the fire in his eyes, and as he finished, the marquise held out one gloved hand, as graceful a gesture as Lucy could ever have expected of a French aristocrat. But Mr. Hawley . . .
Mr. Hawley went flat crimson as realization struck.
The marquise’s hand hovered in midair.
Slowly, as the blood drained out of his face, Mr. Hawley reached out and grasped her hand, bowing over it. He said a few words, and the marquise responded, and allowed the visibly flustered gentleman to lead her over to her seat, beside his.
