Enchantress of Numbers

by Jennifer Chiaverini

  Nor was the business of finding me a husband neglected. My mother and I attended balls, parties, dinners, luncheons, dances, concerts, and soirées. We went riding in Hyde Park and browsing in the shops on Bond and Regent Streets. We paid calls on my mother’s friends and received callers at our residence in Mayfair. Most of the time we got along quite well, and though we were not quite confidantes, we had grown closer than ever before. I was grateful for my mother’s guidance, and I had resolved to put aside my youthful rebellion for the sake of my future. More often than not, I succeeded.

  Basking in my mother’s full attention, which I had so long desired, I blossomed. I attracted more than my fair portion of attention from the eligible young gentlemen making the rounds, but I was mindful that in all probability most of them were more interested in my fortune than in my mind, and I did not lose my heart to anyone, no matter how handsome or clever. Some of the young men were amusing and intelligent, others as dull as a lead whetstone. I never failed to introduce mathematics or science into our conversations, and if a fellow returned a blank-eyed stare, I crossed him off my mental list regardless of his handsome face or impressive title or substantial fortune. One had to narrow down the field somehow.

  I flirted; I will not deny it. Most of the young gentlemen flirted right back. It was light and fun and meant nothing, and everyone knew it. I’m sure three-quarters of our clever banter was forgotten within the hour, but it was diverting for the moment, and it did no harm. But despite the distraction of frivolities and flirtations, my thoughts were never far from matters mathematical and scientific, especially Mr. Babbage’s Difference Engine.

  —

  BY MID-AUGUST THE SEASON WAS winding down, and my mother was more than ready to retire to the country. As for me, I departed London with mixed feelings. I had not seen Mr. Babbage and his Difference Engine as often as I would have liked, and to my regret, I had not been introduced to Mrs. Somerville, who was still abroad. I had done my duty to my mother by meeting prospective suitors, and I had served myself by failing to get engaged to any one of them. I had passed the test of my presentation to the king and queen at the royal court; I had made only one enemy in Miss Bettencourt, and that was entirely her design; and I had done nothing more scandalous than climb halfway up a staircase with the fortune-hunting and incongruously named Mr. Knight. In sum, I calculated that my first Season was a success.

  I enjoyed the liveliness of London and would miss it, but that was not why I dreaded returning to Fordhook. While I longed to see my horses and Puff, who had grown curmudgeonly in her middle age but remained fond of me, the Three Furies were also awaiting our return. Distance had afforded me some relief from their constant scrutiny, but our weeks apart had not weakened their resolve to improve me. In all the time I had been in London, they had continued to harangue me through the post as vigorously as they had stalked me around Fordhook.

  One might assume that the learned Dr. King’s guidance on ethical matters would have sufficed for one seventeen-year-old girl, but his were not the only sermons I was obliged to endure. My mother’s friends—the Three Furies most of all but also several others—wrote to me often, accusing me of vague crimes they had not observed but were certain I had committed, because defiance was my nature.

  Time and again they reproved me for not appreciating my exemplary mother as I ought. “You have a parent to whom you have at times behaved in a manner unbecoming the child of so invaluable a mother,” admonished Miss Briggs, a former governess who apparently believed I was still in her charge. “The time will come when you will no longer have it in your power to make amends for the omission of any filial duty, and when you probably will wish in vain for the opportunity of doing so.” Miss Doyle, who until the end of her days would probably picture me sitting on Wills’s lap in the garden whenever she heard my name, wrote, “In your dear and excellent mother you have all that can be offered as an example short of the character of our Saviour, and she is still with you. Cherish this advantage, my dear Ada, while it is yours and do not let it be the subject of regret hereafter that you have not made proper use of it or valued it as it deserved to be valued.”

  Was it not perfectly natural that their letters upset me? It eroded my happiness and confidence to be told so often, day after day, that I was a wicked, incorrigible girl, that I was the ungrateful daughter of a perfect mother, and that I would regret taking her for granted after she was dead. Their condemnation exhausted me. Their predictions of my mother’s imminent death worried me. The impossibility of satisfying them frustrated me beyond measure.

  There was no point trying to defend myself, not only because that would add denial and defensiveness to the list of my infractions, but also because their complaints were vague and therefore all-encompassing. They berated me for a general wrongness intrinsic to my character. Humbly thanking the Furies for their concern and for the affection they showed by correcting me did absolutely no good, for even my repentance aroused their suspicions. “The sense you expressed of your faults and imperfections I believe to have been perfectly sincere,” Miss Briggs wrote in reply to a particularly contrite letter, “but let me warn you against the error of supposing that a merely professed intention of amendment is sufficient to satisfy either myself or your mother, or your own conscience. You will have to search yourself continually—to form fresh determinations daily.”

  I tried. When some contrary part of my nature—my bad Byron blood, perhaps—boiled up within me and spilled over, compelling me to snap at my mother impatiently or tell a lie because I did not want to have to explain why I was engrossed in an activity that she would dismiss as a ridiculous waste of time, or when I found fault with everything she did and just wanted to go to my room and be away from her for a while—then I felt deep shame, followed by guilt, and joined soon thereafter by horror, because my wickedness was no doubt pushing her toward an early grave.

  I know I’ve described how often throughout my childhood my mother was obliged to leave me to take various rest cures at spas, and how frequently her physicians prescribed leeches and cuppings to ease her symptoms. However, I neglected to add that I was considered the cause.

  Real or imagined, all of my mother’s complaints about her poor health were blamed upon a disorder of the womb that, it was said, had originated on the day of my birth. While the pregnancy and delivery were in every way normal, my mother’s physicians and phrenologists agreed that as a consequence of bringing me into the world, the blood vessels in the region of her womb had become chronically overloaded and thenceforward required continual depletion.

  My mother did not blame me, or so she assured me on many occasions, because of course I had not done it on purpose, but the simple fact I was reminded of time and again was that my mother had sacrificed her good health and vitality for me. It is little wonder that I suffered great remorse for the slightest wrongdoing, and that I so intensely resented the Three Furies’ constant remonstrances that I was an undeserving daughter. Simply this: I believed they were right, but I was powerless to repair the damage I had allegedly done.

  It did not occur to me then that my mother’s various, vague ailments never prevented her from doing anything she wanted to do but gave her a ready excuse to decline invitations she did not wish to accept and to avoid people, including myself, whom she did not want to see. The guilt and fear that her fragile health evoked in my heart gave her tremendous power over me as well.

  My mother did not need to remind me of how birthing me had injured her, for her loyal friends readily took on that task. When we left London for Fordhook, within days the Three Furies flew in from whatever gloomy roosts they had perched upon in our absence. At first they were too thrilled to be reunited with my mother to pay much attention to me, but the moment she departed for a favorite spa, with grim resolve they settled in to the task of supervising me, determined that I should not sin on their watch. Forgive me if I choose not to relive those unpleasant, endle
ssly frustrating days in these pages. Suffice it to say that I cannot imagine how I would have endured them if not for my books and my horses. They offered me the escape I desperately needed, for Dr. King himself had recommended diligent study to give order to my unruly mind, so the Furies did not interrupt if they came upon me bent over a book. The Furies could not keep up with me on horseback, nor did they dare try, so riding offered me a few hours of glorious freedom that did much to relieve the burdening sense of oppression that weighed me down so heavily that autumn.

  In early November my mother granted me a most welcome holiday from my jailers when she accepted Queen Adelaide’s invitation for us to attend a royal Drawing Room at the sumptuous Brighton Pavilion in that seaside resort town. Unlike my first appearance before the king and queen, this court was to be semiformal, although the setting would still be quite lavish, for the pavilion, designed by King William’s more decadent predecessor, George IV, had been newly refurbished as a royal palace.

  I wore a peacock-blue satin gown embellished with elaborate floral embroidery around the skirt at the height of my knee. Ribbons adorned the full gigot sleeves and a belt emphasized my slender waist. My mother looked very youthful and pretty in a gown of figured satin in a rich maroon hue. The neckline was fashionably low and curved, but it rose to a peak in front, a style that complemented her figure particularly well. White and blond satin covered her neck to the throat, so no one would realize that she wore her flannels underneath, as well as a plaster on her chest, for the sake of her health. Her hat, too, was crafted from white and blond satin and was adorned with white ostrich feathers.

  No one was more pleased with my mother’s splendid appearance than the dressmaker herself, who went into ecstasies when she beheld the perfection of her own handiwork. “C’est divine,” she exulted when my mother tried on the finished gown for the first time. “Vous êtes un ange! Mais regardez donc, madame! Oh, elle est céleste! Elle va si bien!”

  On and on she rhapsodized with such ardor and enthusiasm that we would have been alarmed if the scene had not been so comical. After a while my mother and I could hardly maintain our composure, and we exchanged amused glances, stifling laughter, until we could no longer meet each other’s eyes for fear that we would burst out laughing. Such moments of shared levity between us were rare, and I knew this one would swiftly pass, so I cherished it.

  Our conviviality lingered long enough, however, to infuse our appearance at court with anticipation and delight. It was a triumphant evening for my mother, and I fairly burst with pride when the queen honored her with a request to join her private circle—and to my delight, as her daughter, I was allowed to accompany her.

  The pavilion was divided into numerous salons, the most splendid of which was reserved for the royals and their most favored guests. I tried to imitate my mother’s expression of implacable serenity as we were escorted into their illustrious company, but inside I trembled and quaked, wishing that I had practiced my graceful glide and silently praying that I did not stumble as we approached the place where Queen Adelaide and her companions were seated. My mother was shown to a gilded and embroidered chair a mere few feet from the queen, and I was taken to a large ottoman a little farther away, where a few young ladies already seated upon it smiled and made room for me.

  The queen spoke graciously with all of the ladies honored with places in the semicircle around her, but since a vast number of topics were, for reasons of decorum and politics, excluded from royal conversation, much of our talk was rather bland, or as my mother sighed the next morning, “comparatively insipid.” “It is a pity,” she lamented, “that apparently it is proper etiquette to stultify oneself.” I cannot say that I agreed. From where I sat, it seemed that Queen Adelaide valiantly enlivened the exchange as much as anyone could have done, and I was too pleased and honored by the favor Her Majesty showed us to critique the conversation as if I were reviewing a play for the London Times. King William also distinguished my mother by pausing by her chair as he made his rounds of the room and engaging her in a lengthy conversation.

  From my place on the ottoman with the other younger ladies, I could not help observing that the royal salon seemed to be regarded as a sort of sanctum sanctorum to those guests who had not specifically been invited to enter. Very few people possessed the courage to cross the threshold, and I was at first surprised, and soon amused, to watch one finely dressed, dignified guest after another approach the doorway, peep inside the salon, and timidly retreat. One young lady—tall, slender, blond, attired in an elegant gown of emerald silk—lingered longer than the others, her gaze taking in the scene without a hint of bashfulness. When her gaze settled on me I recognized her as none other than Miss Bettencourt. I started in surprise, she inclined her head, I nodded politely back, and after a moment more, she glided from the doorway so gracefully she would make a dancer envious. I watched for her throughout the evening, but she did not return.

  My mother and I stayed at court until almost midnight. We could not have left earlier even if we had wanted to, as it would have been the height of rudeness to retire before Their Majesties did. We were both quite fatigued by the time we boarded the carriage, but we enjoyed a pleasant ride back to our lodgings even so, for I was proud of my mother and she was pleased with me.

  It was only later, as I reminisced about the evening while preparing for bed, that I remembered Miss Bettencourt. It occurred to me that I could have made a show of going to speak with her, and perhaps the gracious queen would have invited her to join our prestigious circle, and Miss Bettencourt might have been grateful, and we could have become fast friends evermore. But I thought of it too late. Never mind, I told myself as I sank into sleep. The idea that Miss Bettencourt would ever like me was surely wishful thinking.

  I still longed for more friends my own age, and though my first London Season had been a whirlwind of social activity and I had made many new acquaintances, I had not really found much opportunity to develop strong friendships with other young ladies. I suppose the atmosphere was not conducive to friendship, as we were under such pressure to look our best and impress with our conversation and delight with our accomplishments, all while competing for the elusive prize of a good match. There were only so many eligible young gentlemen to go around who were handsome, wealthy, titled, intelligent, and agreeable, and I am sure we were all mindful of the disgrace that would follow if we did not acquire one. It was little wonder we regarded one another as rivals.

  My mother and I returned from our holiday in Brighton in good spirits and more satisfied with each other than we had been in a long time. Naturally, this disruption to the natural order alarmed the Three Furies, who promptly set themselves to the task of reminding my mother that I could not be trusted and that if I seemed obedient and repentant, it surely meant that I had learned to better deceive her.

  The situation became increasingly frustrating to me as the autumn days grew shorter and winter sent in. As I began to despair of ever becoming perfectly good, I grew resentful, and my old habit of “conversational litigation” reemerged. If I could not be good enough to please my mother and her friends no matter how hard I tried, why bother trying? Why not indulge myself and say what I really thought?

  “I am not who I was a year ago,” I told my mother on the eve of my eighteenth birthday as we sat alone in her study. “The more I see and the more I think and reflect, the more convinced I am that no person can ever be happy who does not possess deep moral feeling and who does not let that feeling be one’s guide in all circumstances throughout life. What more can I do to prove to you that I am an altered person?”

  “I do think you have lost your sense of infallibility,” my mother acknowledged, studying me. “However, you have not yet substituted that with reliance upon the Infallible Guide.”

  “I do place my trust in God,” I protested. “Of course I do.”

  My mother sighed, interlaced her fingers, and rested her hand
s on her desk. “Ada, I know you better than anyone, and you cannot fool me. What disturbs me most is that, despite all of our best efforts to instruct you, you seem to lack any sort of a moral sense.”

  I felt a chill of apprehension. What she described was a form of madness. People were sent to asylums for that. “Mama, I assure you, that is not so. What have I done to make you think so little of me?”

  “When you do adhere to principles of truth and virtue, you do so only because we expect it of you, not because you have any understanding of, or esteem for, their inherent goodness.”

  For a moment I was going to retort that as long as my behavior was exemplary, what difference did it make, but I held my tongue, because I knew it made all the difference in the world to my mother. I felt trapped, judged, powerless. How could I prove how I felt if my actions would not be accepted as evidence of my feelings?

  I was struck by a curious, fleeting thought: If I had a Difference Engine inside me instead of a brain and a heart, how much easier my life would be. No one could doubt me then. The Difference Engine’s “thoughts,” or rather, the calculations it provided, were always correct and always readily visible. No one could argue with it or accuse it of deception or manipulation.

  Imagining myself as a young woman on the outside but with gleaming brass mechanical innards, and oil instead of blood, I felt a frenzied mirth bubbling up in my chest, threatening to spill out in a cascade of manic laughter. I pressed my lips together and bowed my head, but it required every ounce of my strength not to laugh and cry all at once.

  My mother must have interpreted my struggle as the first true sign of my contrition, for she sighed, relenting. “I think I know something that may help you.”