Enchantress of Numbers

by Jennifer Chiaverini

  No one but Wills, and he was forever lost to me—and I could no longer ignore the bitter truth that he had let me go without much of a fight.

  “Ada, it is your duty to marry and produce an heir,” she said, more gently than she ever had before. “It will be your husband’s duty as well.”

  “I know that, but there must be more to marriage than duty.”

  “Of course there is. You should marry someone you respect, someone you trust to carry out that duty faithfully with you. Passion fades where once it burned brightly, but love, real love, can grow where only friendship was before.” Her eyes were ineffably sad. “I married for love. I married the man I thought would make me happy. You know well what came of that.”

  I had come of it, I wanted to cry out, but I dared not. I could not bear it if she said aloud that my existence was poor recompense for her unhappy marriage.

  Chapter Nineteen

  I Could Not Tame My Nature Down

  January–May 1835

  For as long as I could remember, I had been aware of my duty to marry and to produce an heir. This was expected of all young ladies of rank, but I felt the obligation more keenly than most because I was an only child, and my mother was an only child. There was no one else to fulfill this obligation for me if I refused.

  As the beginning of my third Season approached, I felt more nervous and anxious than I had before my first. I’m not sure how long I had expected to get away with circulating in Society without soliciting a single proposal, but the end of the fun and frivolity loomed ominously before me, and a new determination seized my mother as she set about planning my wardrobe and arranging my social calendar. My irrational response was not to consider the young gentlemen I had already met and to weigh their virtues and flaws, or practice my dancing and witty remarks, but to study more intensely than ever before, as if I were desperate to cram as much learning into my fevered brain as I could before marriage brought my studies to a fatal end.

  Dr. King, who had prescribed regular, diligent study as a cure for my overactive imagination, grew concerned that it was not having the calming effect on my nerves he had expected. “Indiscriminate reading will do you no good,” he warned in a letter from Brighton. “Perhaps in a year’s time you may explore a broader landscape of scientific topics, but for now you should focus on mathematics, especially Euclid, as well as Logic and Morals.”

  I dutifully agreed, even as my heart leapt with panic to think that in a year’s time, I could be married, living with a husband I did not yet know in an unfamiliar house among strangers.

  In late February, my mother and I traveled to London for the day, and while she arranged our lodgings for the Season, I called on Mrs. Somerville, hoping to escape my oppressive worries. Our conversation was pleasant and cheerful as she shared the news from Woronzow and her daughters, and as I described my recent progress in my studies. Then the conversation turned to Mr. Babbage and his two engines, and suddenly my thoughts flew to the enchanting Silver Lady displayed in his drawing room—beautiful, graceful, and a delight to behold, but unable to dance of her own free will, subject to the whims of her master and his inclination to depress the mechanism on her back or withhold his touch. Even when she was released from her frozen arabesque and allowed to dance, she was eternally constrained to a few square inches of tabletop, always the same pattern, always the same place—

  Mrs. Somerville’s gentle voice faded, drowned out by the surging of blood in my ears. I trembled and felt my heart palpitating, and as my throat constricted, a wave of nausea swept over me and beads of perspiration broke out on my brow and on the back of my neck. Dizzy, I clutched the armrests of my chair and tried to focus on Mrs. Somerville’s voice as she urgently asked me if I was unwell. I remember that she helped me to the sofa, though I could barely stand, and then I was reclining on my back and Dr. Somerville was bent over me, peering intently into my eyes and holding his fingers to my wrist to measure my pulse.

  Groggily I tried to sit up, and after I assured them that my head was clearing, Dr. Somerville arranged pillows behind my back to support me and Mrs. Somerville pressed a cup of tea into my hands. A servant had been sent to fetch my mother, and I was feeling quite restored by the time she swept into the room, her face pale, her lips compressed in a frown of worry.

  “I’m quite all right now,” I told them, rising a bit shakily from the sofa, but they were in firm agreement that I must be taken home to Fordhook immediately. My mother helped me into my wraps, and Dr. Somerville escorted me outside to the carriage, but not so quickly that I missed overhearing my mother and Mrs. Somerville discussing me in hushed, urgent tones.

  “She may have exhausted herself from overwork,” Mrs. Somerville told my mother. “Or it could be that life in London is too much for her. You know her best, but if I may, perhaps some quiet, restorative time at home would be better for her than the frenzy and stimulation of Town.”

  As my mother murmured agreement, my heart thumped with terror. I could not bear to abandon my studies, or to be banished from the intellectual encouragement I had enjoyed at Mrs. Somerville’s and Mr. Babbage’s homes. “I am quite well,” I insisted as my mother joined me in the carriage, but all she would say was that she was glad to hear it and Dr. King would have the final word.

  An examination was ordered forthwith, but Dr. King found nothing wrong with me, no trauma or fever, no recurrence of the terrible illness that had robbed me of the use of my limbs years before. “She may and should continue her studies,” he pronounced, “but less vigorously than before. I believe idleness poses more danger to her than activity.”

  It was the best prescription I could have hoped for, but I knew my mother would not permit me to resume my activities in London unless Mrs. Somerville also concurred that it would not harm me. That very afternoon, I sent an impassioned appeal to my mentor and friend, first making light of my dizzy spell, and then imploring her not to cut me off from the intellectual activities that brought me so much good. “I am beginning to be alarmed, for I am afraid you mean to keep me in desperate tight order, and do you know I dare not disobey you for the world?” I wrote, my composure fracturing. “I cannot deny that I was shattered when I left you, but then I am for some unaccountable reason in a weak state, altogether now, and at this moment can hardly hold my pen from the shaking of my hand, though I cannot complain of being what people call ill.”

  I took a deep breath and refreshed my pen in the ink. Perhaps instead of denying that I was ill, which I was not doing particularly well, I ought to tell her I was quite well and getting better. “In a few weeks I daresay I shall be quite strong, particularly if I see a good deal of you,” I wrote. “When I am weak, I am always so exceedingly terrified, at nobody knows what, that I can hardly help having an agitated look and manner, and this was the case when I left you. I do not know how I can ever repay or acknowledge all your kindness; unless by trying to be a very good little girl and showing that I profit by your excellent advice.”

  I could only hope that none of that “excellent advice” would include remonstrations that I should put away my books, languish in dullness at Fordhook, and miss the entire Season, as well as any new developments at 1 Dorset Street. I know Mrs. Somerville exchanged a few letters with my mother while I waited apprehensively for her to reply to mine, but my mother did not read them aloud to me, as we often did when one of us received a letter from a mutual acquaintance. In fact, my mother never acknowledged receiving any letters from the Somervilles, and if I had not glimpsed them on my mother’s tray when her maid brought in the post, I would not have known about them.

  This was enough to tell me that I was the subject of their conversation, and my anxious curiosity swelled until I could no longer bear it. I confess that one afternoon when my mother was off on business for her Ealing Grove school, I crept into her study and sorted through her papers until I found a letter in Mrs. Somerville’s familiar script.

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sp; I had expected to find an analysis of my symptoms, perhaps accompanied by a course of treatment recommended by Dr. Somerville. What I discovered instead shocked and grieved me, not for my own sake, but for the Somervilles’. I knew that Mrs. Somerville had lost children, a son from her first marriage and a son and daughter from her second. What that letter revealed was that Margaret, the eldest child of her second marriage, had died at age ten, and that Mrs. Somerville blamed herself in part for her death. Margaret had been “a child of intelligence and acquirements far beyond her tender years,” and so Mrs. Somerville, filled with maternal pride and devotion, had encouraged her to study mathematics and science, never restraining her hunger to learn even when it seemed insatiable. “I would not deny my precocious daughter as I had been denied,” Mrs. Somerville wrote, “but when she fell ill of a brain-fever, I repented my leniency. For the rest of my life I will feel her loss more acutely, for I fear I had strained her young mind too much.”

  Anguished, I muffled a sob and returned the letter to the stack where I had found it. My heart broke for poor Mrs. Somerville, and for poor Margaret, too, and I understood then why my mentor feared that I would ruin my health with too much study. But although I felt a stirring of trepidation, I could not believe that too much study of mathematics could prove fatal, not even to a girl, certainly not to a girl like me. I was nine years older than Margaret had been when she perished, and presumably stronger. Furthermore, Mrs. Somerville had studied tenaciously as a young girl, memorizing textbooks by day and solving equations in her head by night. That was more grueling than anything I had ever attempted, and Mrs. Somerville had never suffered a single day for it.

  I wished I could go to my mother and present a logical refutation of Mrs. Somerville’s letter, but I dared not, as I had not been given permission to read it. All I could do was wait and hope that my mother would work out the flaws in Mrs. Somerville’s reasoning just as I had, or that Mrs. Somerville herself would realize that the intensity of her emotions had swayed her usually infallible judgment.

  I began to breathe a little easier, day by day, as no command to put away my books was forthcoming. In the middle of March I wrote to Mrs. Somerville again, a pleasant, cheerful letter in which I asked several questions about mathematics and astronomy, mostly to show her how well I was getting on. My hopes soared when she replied a few days later to say, after her customarily clear and informative responses to my queries, “I hope to see you in London soon. My daughters, Woronzow, and Mr. Babbage all send their kindest regards.”

  I rejoiced, for Mrs. Somerville would not give me false hopes. Surely this meant that she and my mother, and Dr. King, too, had agreed that I should not be exiled from London.

  After that, I expected that any day my mother would instruct me to pack my things and prepare to travel—and she did, but her orders were not at all what I had anticipated. She would be going to Seaham for a few days, and then on to London, but I would be traveling to Brighton to partake of the restorative cure that my mother had always found so beneficial to her own health.

  I balked at this, and my opposition grew when I was informed that Miss Frances Carr, easily the dullest and most disagreeable of the Furies, would be my traveling companion; but when my mother declared that for me the only road to London passed through Brighton, I acquiesced.

  The fifty-mile journey to the seaside resort in Sussex took us two days by carriage and required an overnight stay at an inn along the way. The weather was blessedly fair, and since the carriage had a box both before and behind, I rode the greater part of the journey outside, not only to escape Miss Carr’s oppressive presence, but also to lessen the discomfort of the carriage’s disagreeable rocking and to enjoy the warm sunshine and fresh breezes.

  The suite my mother had arranged for us at the Brunswick Hotel boasted lovely views of the sea and of the adjacent gardens, and after an invigorating walk along the beach and a delicious supper, I decided that a restful holiday to strengthen and inspirit me in preparation for the challenges of the upcoming Season was perhaps not the worst idea my mother had ever had. I rode every day, read novels, and studied mathematics—but not too vigorously, per Dr. King’s orders, only when a question occurred to me as I strolled along the beaches listening to the crash of the surf and curiosity compelled me to look up the answer. Miss Carr chaperoned me to concerts and dances, and I discovered that she was not as sour and judgmental on her own as when the other two Furies were there to spur her on.

  But although the days were pleasant and full of enjoyable distractions, my thoughts often turned to London—and more specifically, to the Difference Engine and its presumptive successor. Since I had come to Brighton I had heard from Mrs. Somerville infrequently and from Mr. Babbage not at all, and although I had been warned not to let myself become unduly agitated, I became increasingly curious and worried about the unresolved matter of funding, the progress of his plans for the Analytical Engine, and the state of the partially completed Difference Engine. I fervently hoped that it was not sitting neglected in his workshop, and that if Mr. Babbage did not show it off to his guests anymore, that he at least remembered to send the maid out to give it a thorough dusting now and then.

  On the fourth day of April, with the Season about to begin in earnest, I wrote to Mrs. Somerville, hoping that she would tell my mother how wonderfully restored I seemed. First, I offered a brief, lighthearted account of our long, arduous carriage journey, and then, composing my thoughts before setting pen to paper, I turned to the subject of my health.

  As for myself, I am much stronger. I have been taking what has always been to me the finest of all medicines—horse exercise; & if I am to believe your daughters’ own account of their feelings on this tender subject, I am afraid I shall excite in them hatred, & malice, & envy, & all manner of bad passions, when I say that I generally ride in the riding school everyday, and—best of all—leap to my heart’s content. I assure you I think there is no pleasure in way of exercise equal to that of feeling one’s horse flying under one. It is even better than waltzing.

  I am very well able now to read Mathematics, provided I do not go on too long at a time, & as I have made up my mind not to care at present about making much progress, but to take it very quietly & as much as possible merely for the sake of improvement to my own mind at the time, I think I am less likely to be immoderate.

  I wrote a little more about the weather, and about a few interesting people I had met, and I concluded with a cheerful invitation for Mrs. Somerville and her daughters to join me and Miss Carr in Brighton. “It is not too late either now,” I wrote, “so pray take it into consideration.” I invited them in all sincerity, for it would have been lovely to spend time together there, but the remark was also calculated to show that I was not overeager to leave. It seemed to me that happiness and contentment would suggest that I was fully restored to good health, whereas any disgruntled urgency to leave Brighton would be taken as a sign that I had not yet achieved the peace of mind everyone thought I needed.

  Whether my letter convinced Mrs. Somerville, or Miss Carr sent favorable reports of my progress, or my mother realized it would be very difficult for me to partake of the Season from more than fifty miles away, I will never know, but at last my mother summoned me to London. By the middle of April, I was happily settled into my rooms at the house my mother had taken for us at 10 Wimpole Street in Marylebone, a delightfully short half-mile walk to Mr. Babbage’s house.

  An invitation to his next soirée was waiting for me when I arrived, and I could barely contain my elation as my mother and I crossed the threshold of the now familiar Georgian house, where friends greeted us warmly and interesting new acquaintances were met. Mr. Babbage and I had much catching up to do, and we both expressed great satisfaction at seeing each other in good health and fine spirits. I was relieved to hear that he had not abandoned work on the Difference Engine but had continued to tinker with it, as well as he could with his obstina
te engineer off sulking somewhere. “I’ve entertained several new ideas for the Analytical Engine,” he told me, promising to show me his latest drawings the next time I called. He had nothing to report about his long-delayed funding.

  “I suppose that could be considered good news,” I remarked. “At least Sir Robert Peel has not canceled your grants.”

  “Only because he has not thought of it yet, I’m sure,” said Mr. Babbage. “He’s been too busy dealing with his failure to win a majority in the House of Commons to bother with me. If he cannot even control his own party, how can he expect to lead a nation?”

  “Or to properly fund scientific research for the public good?”

  “Exactly so.”

  “Political winds are ever shifting,” I reminded him. “They did not blow your way last winter, but perhaps soon they shall.”

  I had never claimed to possess the gift of prophecy, but my words soon proved to be curiously prescient. Unbeknownst to us, that same evening Sir Robert Peel’s Tories concluded that his dismal showing in the January elections had rendered it impossible for him to govern. The Whigs returned to power, and two days after Mr. Babbage’s soirée, Lord Melbourne was once again prime minister.

  When I read the story in the newspaper, I gasped aloud. “Mama—”

  “No, Ada,” she replied calmly, sipping her coffee. She had already read the paper, and she had prepared her response before I knew I would be asking the question. “I shall not trouble my cousin about Mr. Babbage’s funding.”

  Her refusal did not surprise me, but I’d had to try. It was my duty to Mr. Babbage and to science. I consoled myself with the awareness that circumstances had turned in Mr. Babbage’s favor despite my mother’s refusal to use our family connections on his behalf. Simply having the scornful Sir Robert Peel out of office was no small triumph.