Enchantress of Numbers

by Jennifer Chiaverini

  “Haven’t you? Well, we shall have to see what we can do to remedy that.”

  “You know Mrs. Somerville?” I exclaimed with such reverence that he might have told me he had met Sir Isaac Newton or John the Baptist.

  “I’m acquainted with her son,” he replied. “I’m sure I could persuade him to introduce us.”

  The “us” rang with promise, and suddenly I remembered Miss Bettencourt’s unhappiness, and my own misery when Wills was lost to me. “Mr. Knight,” I began, but then I sensed rather than heard someone approach me from behind, and I turned to discover my mother. I greeted her with a smile and quickly made introductions. Her face remained serene throughout, which told me she was likely agitated about something. I was not surprised when she offered Mr. Knight a polite excuse and led me away.

  “I don’t like him,” she told me when we were out of earshot. “He seems too eager to ingratiate himself with his superiors.”

  “Every day you’re surrounded by people who seek to ingratiate themselves with you,” I said, a trifle exasperated by the tightness of her grip on my arm. “What’s one more?”

  “There’s something different about him. Something oily.” She halted, bringing me to a stop as well, and fixed me with a look that would suffer no disagreement. “I don’t want you to speak to him again.”

  “You can’t ask me to cut him,” I protested.

  “Of course not. He hasn’t given you just cause, and—” She glanced about, frowning. “I suspect he has numerous friends here.”

  “Perhaps he won their friendship by being a good and decent gentleman.”

  “Or by learning their secrets and placing them in his debt.”

  “Mama, you must let me keep this acquaintance,” I pleaded. “He offered to introduce me to Mrs. Mary Somerville.”

  “Nonsense. He is no more acquainted with Mrs. Somerville than he is with Napoléon. I shall find a mutual friend to introduce you.” She linked her arm through mine, but her touch was less possessive than before. “Let us go find more suitable company.”

  I acquiesced, not only because I was reluctant to make a scene, but also because her promise of an introduction had mollified me. In truth, I preferred not to encourage Mr. Knight. I knew how it hurt to be disappointed in love, and I did not want to bring Miss Bettencourt further grief—and yet, I could not forget that she had not shown me any such kindness on the afternoon we were presented at court.

  The following evening, although my mother complained that she had tired of revelry and wished the whole Season were over, we attended a ball at the residence of the Contessa di Passarelle, who was visiting from Milan. Miss Bettencourt was present; I greeted her with a polite nod, which she returned gracefully, and we proceeded to deliberately ignore each other. It was not until much later that I spotted her dancing with Mr. Knight, and although I irrationally regretted ceding victory to my rival, I felt no sorrow over losing the gentleman himself. How could I, when if Wills had walked into the room and beckoned to me, I would have thrown myself into his arms and wept for joy?

  Soon thereafter, I was strolling through the gallery admiring the paintings when I heard footfalls behind me and turned to see Mr. Knight striding my way. “Good evening, Miss Byron,” he said when he reached me, bowing. “Are you not dancing this evening?”

  “I’m a little fatigued,” I said, smiling ruefully, hoping he would take the hint and not ask for a dance.

  “Are you too tired to meet someone extraordinary?”

  I gasped. “You don’t mean—”

  He smiled and offered me his arm. “Why don’t you come and see?”

  Eagerly I took it, my thoughts racing as I tried to plan what I would say to my idol. “I’m as nervous now as when I was presented to the king and queen,” I confessed, laughing tremulously. “More so, I think.”

  “A little nervousness is to be expected.”

  He had led me away from the rest of the party, and as the sound of music faded behind us, I hesitated. “Why is Mrs. Somerville not with the other guests?”

  “Come along,” he urged, leading me toward the staircase. “Don’t be shy.”

  I did not want to keep her waiting, so I nodded and we started climbing the stairs. Perhaps Mrs. Somerville had taken ill, I thought, and had gone upstairs to rest. But if that were so, I would not wish to disturb her. “Perhaps not,” I said, halting on the staircase and releasing Mr. Knight’s arm.

  He caught hold of my hand before it could slip free from the crook of his elbow. “Why not? We might not have another opportunity.”

  “I’m sure we will. I’d prefer to wait until she’s feeling better. Bursting in on her when she’s indisposed will hardly make a good impression.”

  “Miss Byron?” a woman called to me from below.

  I glanced over my shoulder and saw my mother’s friend Lady Gosford peering up at me curiously from the foot of the stairs. “Yes, Lady Gosford?”

  “Your mother was asking for you.” Her gaze darted between me and Mr. Knight and settled firmly upon him. “I don’t think she’s feeling well.”

  “Something must be going around,” I said, shaking my head as I made my way down the stairs. “Mrs. Somerville has taken ill too. I was just going to see her.”

  “Who?”

  “Mrs. Somerville, the mathematician.”

  “Yes, Miss Byron. Of course.” Lady Gosford extended her hand as I approached and drew me to her. “Mr. Knight,” she said imperiously, “I believe you should either rejoin the party or go home.”

  Wordlessly he bowed to her, but Lady Gosford steered me back to the ballroom so quickly that I did not see which of the two astonishing suggestions he chose. She did not release my shoulders until she had delivered me to my mother, who stood in a quiet corner of the salon adjacent to the ballroom. My mother was ashen faced, and her eyes and mouth were lined with tension, and I knew at once that I was the cause.

  We did not leave the party immediately because my mother did not wish to draw attention to our departure. Soon, however, we were in the carriage speeding toward our London home, my ears ringing from my mother’s scolding. “How could you have been such a fool?” she berated me. “You’re supposed to be so clever. Haven’t you courted disaster enough already? Do you want to be ruined with all of London watching?”

  “Of course not.”

  “What, then? What were you thinking?”

  “He offered to introduce me to Mrs. Somerville.”

  “There and then? At the party?”

  “He was taking me to her.”

  “He said so?”

  “Yes, he—” I hesitated, thinking. He had asked if I were too tired to meet someone. I had filled in the rest myself.

  I felt faintly ill.

  “Let me be very clear,” my mother said sharply. “If, at a social gathering, a man you scarcely know attempts to lead you to a secluded place some distance away from the other guests, the correct answer is always no!”

  My heart was pounding. “I don’t think— Mama, you must believe me. I wouldn’t have consented—”

  “He might not have cared whether you consented.”

  “I—I don’t think he would have forced me.”

  “You don’t know that, and perhaps that was not his intention. All he needed was to get you alone in a compromising situation. If anyone had discovered you—and I’ve no doubt he had a friend lurking nearby to ensure that you were—your reputation would have been ruined. Our only choice would have been for you to accept disgrace or marry him.”

  I squeezed my hands together in my lap, closed my eyes, and let my head fall back against the seat. She was right. Clever though I was with books and lessons, in every other respect, I was a fool.

  We rode on for a moment in silence, but it was not to last. “I am constituted by God to be your guardian forever—”

&nb
sp; “Not forever,” I exclaimed. “Not when I am a woman grown!”

  “Indeed, forever and always, and you must let me guide you,” my mother said, glaring at the interruption. “You must learn obedience if you cannot learn caution.”

  “I choose caution, then,” I said wearily, a trace of anger in my voice. Silence again descended upon the carriage, and when we finally reached home, we parted in the foyer without a word.

  In the morning, I woke to find my mother gone. The housekeeper informed me that she had returned to Fordhook, and that in her absence I was to stay with Lady Elizabeth Byron, the seventh Lord Byron’s wife and George’s mother.

  After breakfast, as instructed, I packed a satchel with enough clothing for a few days. Although I recognized my mother’s tried and true punishment, I felt abandoned nonetheless, and angry with myself for feeling that way, and resentful of my mother for deliberately causing me distress. I knew I had made a mistake, but I had not intended any wrongdoing, and punishment would not help me learn from it any better.

  Fuming, I closed my satchel and set it by the door for the footman to load into the cab, but before I departed, I went to my mother’s study, seated myself at her desk, snatched up pen and paper, and poured out my anger and frustration onto the page, without the civility of a salutation.

  The principle point on which I differ from you is “your being constituted my guardian by God forever.” “Honour thy father & thy mother,” is an injunction I never have considered to apply to an age beyond childhood or the first years of youth, in the sense at least of obeying them. Every year of a child’s life, I consider that the claim of the parent to that child’s obedience, diminishes. After a child grows up, I conceive the parent who has brought up that child to the best of their ability, to have a claim to his or her gratitude. The child should serve the parent & next himself to make him or her comfortable, the same as a friend to whom he was under an obligation. But I cannot consider that the parent has any right to direct the child or to expect obedience in such things as concern the child only.

  I will give a practical illustration of my meaning. If you said to me, “Do not open the window in my room,” I am bound to obey you whether I be 5 or 50. But if you said to me, “Don’t open your room’s window. I don’t choose that you should have your window open,” I consider your only claim to my obedience to be that given by law, and that you have no natural right to expect it after childhood. The one case concerns you & your comfort, the other concerns me only and cannot affect or signify to you.

  Do you see the line of distinction that I draw? I have given the most familiar possible illustration, because I wish to be as clear as possible. Till 21, the law gives you a power of obedience on all points; but at that time I consider your power and your claim to cease on all such points as concern me alone.

  I signed the letter, sealed it, and gave it to the housekeeper to put in the post. Never before had I spoken so bluntly and defiantly to my mother, but I meant every word, and my declaration was long overdue. She could command my obedience only until the age of twenty-one, at which point the law could not compel me to follow her commands. The intervening years would be scarcely tolerable if she made them so, but knowing they would eventually come to an end would help me endure them.

  As I climbed aboard the carriage, I realized that the only way I could escape her control any sooner would be to marry.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Once Kindled, Quenchless Evermore

  May–June 1833

  I learned that my mother had informed Lady Elizabeth Byron about my most recent brush with infamy when, mere moments after I had crossed her threshold, she sat me down with a cup of tea and told me that Mr. Knight was a notorious fortune hunter.

  “He can’t be a very good hunter,” I said with feigned nonchalance, “or he would have caught himself a wife by now. Regardless of what you might have heard, I was never in any danger of being ensnared.”

  “Of course you weren’t,” she said sympathetically, passing me a plate of scones.

  I had a fleeting thought that perhaps I ought to warn Miss Bettencourt to avoid Mr. Knight, but I concluded that she probably would dismiss my warning as a rival’s deceptive stratagem. Furthermore, since she had no fortune to tempt him, he might admire her, but he would surely not attempt to seduce her. A fortune hunter did not scheme to compel into marriage a young woman without a penny to her name. But while Miss Bettencourt was safe from him, other young ladies would not be. I resolved to keep a watchful eye on that villain, and if I ever discovered him leading another innocent young woman into peril, I would fly to her rescue.

  I spent several pleasant days with my Byron kin, and I was delighted by an unexpected visit from the cousin I claimed as an honorary brother, George. Before long it occurred to me that I loathed my mother’s favorite punishment much less than I once had. I could not share this insight with her, however, or she would contrive some new and more injurious punishment next time. Not that I intended there to be a next time, but it seemed inevitable.

  Our separation had the additional benefit of giving us time for our tempers to cool. When my mother returned to London in early June, I joined her in our rented lodgings, she greeted me with a kiss, and nothing more was said about my blithe stupidity. Soon thereafter, either to show me that all was forgiven or to reduce the likelihood that the odious Mr. Knight would succeed in a second attempt to deceive me, my mother accepted an invitation for us to attend a party at the home of Sir Richard Copley, a member of the Royal Society and one of the prestigious science society’s most important benefactors. Many scientists and philosophers were on the guest list, and she believed that Mrs. Somerville might be among them.

  Thrilled, I thanked my mother profusely and immediately began planning what I should wear to make a good impression, and more important, what I would say. With my mother’s help, I settled on a lemon-yellow day dress with a low waist and gigot sleeves, and a white lace pelerine to drape over my shoulders. I had memorized how I would greet my idol, rehearsing the phrases while studying myself in the mirror, but what I would say after that, I still did not know even as my mother and I climbed into the cab on the evening of 6 June.

  “Be natural and at your ease,” my mother advised me as we rode toward Whitehall. “Sometimes you appear overconfident. If you do meet Mrs. Somerville, do not try to impress her with your mathematical knowledge, because hers surpasses yours, and you will look like a foolish child.”

  I nodded, not wishing to spoil the evening with an argument. If I sometimes seemed overconfident, it was only because I was trying to conceal my uncertainty.

  Lady Copley’s London residence boasted a flourishing garden in front and ornate white pillars flanking the entrance. When we entered, the music of a harp drifted to us above the murmur of conversation, and I eagerly turned toward it. I adored the harp, and I esteemed Mrs. Somerville so much that I was certain she must adore it too. Surely I would find her near the source of that music.

  “Ada, wait,” my mother said, placing her hand on my arm. “Before you hurry off, we must greet our hostess.”

  We soon found Lady Copley in a sitting room just off the foyer, and we went to pay our respects. Young, auburn-haired, and graceful, Lady Copley looked splendid in a cream silk dress with an embroidered bodice and a sash of pale green, and her glowing complexion intimated that the rumors of her delicate condition could be true. Lord Copley had been a widower twenty years her senior when she had married him two years before. She had a stepdaughter only four years younger than herself, and by all accounts they had become the best of friends. I confess I envied Miss Copley for that.

  Lady Copley welcomed us warmly, and as soon as we got through the usual pleasantries, I blurted, “Did Mrs. Somerville come? I do so want to meet her.”

  “I’m very sorry, Miss Byron,” she replied, shaking her head, “but Mrs. Somerville has been traveling abroad for the
past year or so. I believe she’s now in Paris, working on her new book.”

  “Oh, dear,” I lamented. “What a pity!”

  “Never mind,” my mother said briskly, smiling to compensate for my poor manners. “We’ll make her acquaintance another day. In the meantime, we have many friends here we look forward to seeing, and other ladies and gentlemen we cannot wait to meet. Thank you, Lady Copley.”

  We exchanged curtseys and my mother took me by the arm and guided me away. “I so wanted to meet Mrs. Somerville,” I fretted in an undertone.

  “I know you did,” she murmured back, nodding to an acquaintance in passing, “but that’s no reason to make Lady Copley feel as if she’s failed you by not conjuring the lady upon demand.”

  While my mother followed after me at a more leisurely pace, pausing to greet friends along the way, I traced the harp’s melody to a drawing room. Nearly two dozen ladies and gentlemen mingled in the sunny room, gathered in small groups or pairs near the window or in comfortable seats arranged here and there. The harpist, seated in the far corner, was a silver-haired woman attired in a modest dress of midnight blue, so engrossed in her music—an adaptation of a Haydn piano sonata in F major, if I was not mistaken—that she seemed unaware of anything but her instrument and the enchanting melody she spun from it.

  As I drew closer, nodding politely to other guests who glanced my way, I overheard bits of fascinating conversations—one of which I was sure was led by Mr. Charles Lyell, the preeminent geologist, for he strongly resembled the portrait on the frontispiece of the book Principles of Geology. “Aquatic creatures lived in ancient seas,” he was telling his enthralled audience. “When they perished, their bodies sank to the bottom, where their soft parts decayed and their sturdier shells remained, creating a layer blanketing the seabed. Over the centuries, subsequent layers built up, one upon the other, and they were compressed to form stratified rock. Eons later, the seas dried up, great subterranean geological forces thrust these layers upward to great heights, and they were carved by rivers into the mountains we see today.”