Enchantress of Numbers

by Jennifer Chiaverini

  By March I was feeling much improved, but William was often away from Ockham on business in London or off supervising construction at Ashley Combe, so he was not there to see flesh returning to my frame and color to my cheeks. I wrote to him almost every day, cheerful accounts of playtime with Annabella and Byron, leaving unwritten the pang of grief I felt when, at seemingly arbitrary moments, our daughter shied away from me and reached for Mrs. Grimes. “Byron is exceedingly mischievous, & more independent than ever,” I told William instead. “The baby grows more beautiful than ever. I wonder how she will strike you after this absence.”

  I also wondered how I would strike him, but I left that unwritten too.

  Visits from friends were rare, because everyone worried about exhausting me, but amusing, interesting letters came in droves, and I was grateful for every page. Mr. Dickens visited several times and kindly sat at my bedside and read aloud to me the latter chapters of his delightful Pickwick Papers, as I had read the first few before my illness and had thoroughly enjoyed them. My convalescence persisted so long that he was able to read me the entirety of his next major work, Oliver Twist, as well.

  Mr. Babbage, too, offered me a welcome diversion by sending me a copy of his most recent book, the second edition of The Ninth Bridgewater Treatise, an intriguing work of natural theology in which he discussed ostensible contradictions between science and religion. I found it fascinating and quite illuminating, but I had no doubt that he would stir up outrage among the clergy and the masses for his assertion that the book of Genesis was not meant to be interpreted literally as a geologic history of the Earth. I thanked him kindly for his gift and sent him one in turn, a folding umbrella to shield himself from the inundation of pious outrage sure to come.

  In April I departed Ockham with the children and Mrs. Grimes, and William left Ashley Combe with his plans and drawings, and we reunited in London at 12 Saint James’s Square. I was very glad to see William, for I had missed him, and his embraces, terribly. We had been reunited less than two months when, in late June, we received astonishing, wonderful news. In the Coronation Honors in the celebration of the accession of Victoria to the throne, William, the eighth Lord King, was elevated to the rank of earl, for a peerage had been created for him.

  There was no question but that Lord Melbourne had brought about this honor in acknowledgment of our kinship. In gratitude, William searched my mother’s family tree for an appropriate title and soon chose the earldom of Lovelace. At first my mother had suggested that he select Byron, but that would have created untold confusion for our son when he inherited the title, and a seventh Lord Byron already existed. Then William discovered among my mother’s ancestors a Lord Lovelace of Hurley, whose line had become extinct, and he thought it would be right and proper to revive the name. Thus he became William King, first Earl of Lovelace. I would thenceforth be known as Ada Byron King, Countess of Lovelace. Our son became Byron King, Viscount Ockham, and our daughter Lady Annabella.

  As a countess, I now outranked my mother and would take precedence over her in all formal and semiformal occasions. It was an astonishing notion, but if she had in any way objected, I doubt very much that William’s peerage would have been created. Although my mother never declared herself the agent of our good fortune, I did not doubt that she had finally made use of the familial connection she had patiently refrained from exploiting for so many years. At last I understood why she had refused to appeal to her cousin on Mr. Babbage’s behalf. She had nurtured much greater ambitions all along.

  But as Lord Melbourne giveth, Lord Melbourne taketh away. I did not learn this until several years later, but as one branch of my family prospered, another had been reduced to poverty. A few months before my mother’s cousin arranged for William to become the Earl of Lovelace, he had eliminated the three hundred pounds my aunt Augusta received per annum in recognition for her past service as a lady-in-waiting to Queen Caroline, and he also abolished the pension she and her husband, Colonel Leigh, had been awarded many years before. These emoluments were their only source of income not mortgaged to the extreme, and thus with a few strokes of the pen, they had become paupers.

  I was aware that Colonel Leigh had wronged the prince regent in the past, and I hoped that Lord Melbourne had leveled this devastating blow for just cause rather than personal enmity. I prayed that my mother had nothing to do with it. But again, I was not in touch with my aunt Augusta anymore, for my mother had forbade her to contact me. Thus I did not learn of the Leigh family’s pecuniary sufferings until years afterward, or I could not have enjoyed William’s preferment without some remorse.

  Soon after Queen Victoria’s coronation, William and I attended a ball at Buckingham Palace. I wore a gown of emerald silk brocade, which suited my fair skin and dark hair and evoked satisfactory compliments from my husband. Lady Byron had assured me that we would not be presented to the queen but would only pass by to make our bow and curtsey. This we did, in a lengthy procession of others who had been raised in the Coronation Honors, but when William and I took our turn, the queen made a little gesture implying that she wished me to go up to her. I thought that I must have misunderstood her, for there was no reason why I should have been distinguished out of that illustrious company.

  “Go up to the queen,” William urged through clenched teeth, barely moving his lips. “Why would you keep her waiting?”

  Startled, I promptly obeyed, ignoring the sudden tremulous fluttering in my chest. The queen looked serene, regal, and very pretty, with glossy dark hair and alabaster skin, but also very young. As I drew near she graciously held out her hand to me, which fortunately I had enough presence of mind to take. She spoke only very briefly, but it was very kind of her to take any notice of me at all, and soon I curtseyed again and backed away to resume my place at William’s side.

  There were other balls that summer, and dances, parties, and evenings at the opera, but I preferred Mr. Babbage’s soirées and small dinner parties at Mrs. Somerville’s. My intellectual friends kept me apprised of all the most fascinating exhibits and demonstrations in London, such as the model of the new electrical telegraph at Exeter Hall, experiments in mesmerism at University College Hospital, and displays of exotic animals at the Surrey Zoological Gardens. I reveled in the certainty that every day I could go out to observe a new scientific marvel and never exhaust the possibilities.

  In August, as the Season drew to a close, we escaped the suffocating heat of the city by withdrawing to Ashley Combe. My expectation of enjoying the tranquility of nature was shattered, however, by our young viscount and lady, who had entered a period of naughtiness unprecedented in our family. Even now my head aches remembering the impudent retorts, the raucous antics, the bickering and whining, and the perpetual disobedience. Mrs. Grimes simply could not manage them on her own, and I cannot fault her for that, as the children were simply impossible.

  “If I had behaved so badly, my governess would have tied bags around my hands and locked me in the closet,” I muttered through clenched teeth as we tried to wrestle the hooligans through their baths. “And my mother would have fled to a spa and I would not have seen her for months.”

  “Why, Lady Lovelace, I never did such a dreadful thing,” exclaimed Mrs. Grimes, forgetting to hold tight to Annabella in her shock. The young miss squirmed away and darted out of reach, jeering.

  “Not you,” I said, scrubbing behind Byron’s ears as he howled that I was murdering him. “One of those who came after you.”

  She sank back onto her heels, stricken. “You were locked in a closet?”

  “Yes, many times,” I said shortly. “I survived.”

  But there were many days I did not think I would survive motherhood. It can well be imagined, then, how I felt back at Ockham Park on the eve of my twenty-third birthday when I realized that I was again expecting a child.

  William was thrilled. “A boy this time,” he declared, kissing me. “I’m c
ertain of it.”

  “I’ll do my very best,” I said wearily, but I had to smile at his happiness and at the warm enthusiasm of his kisses.

  William was happier yet on the second day of July 1839 when I gave birth to a robust baby boy with a strong voice and a thick shock of dark hair that bore a startling resemblance to my father’s. “You have given me another fine son,” he declared at my bedside, smiling tenderly upon our boy as he slept peacefully in my arms. “I trust you will soon give me back the graceful, slender girl I married.”

  Though I sat up in bed supported by soft pillows and covered in quilts, I stiffened from a sudden chill. Suddenly, inexplicably, my thoughts flew to Wills, who had loved me and desired me when I was a plump, clumsy girl of sixteen, still recovering from illness and certain that I would never be pretty. I felt a crushing weight of disappointment so sharp that tears sprang into my eyes, but I blinked them away, unwilling to spoil my son’s first day with recriminations for his father.

  We christened him Ralph Gordon, and from the first he was a darling, content to snuggle up to me and nurse blissfully while his elder brother and sister shrieked and snatched away each other’s toys. At two weeks, I swear he smiled at me as I sang him a lullaby, and when he was able to sit up on his own, he would clutch a toy, wave it in the air, and crow for joy as if he thought life could never be more perfect. Or he would sit on my lap while his brother and sister tore a path of destruction through the nursery, regarding them with calm bewilderment as if he could not fathom why they did not find a better way to occupy themselves.

  If Ralph had not been such a sweet angel of a boy, I think I would have gone quite mad.

  My feelings shamed me. I had fulfilled my life’s most important duty by marrying and giving my family not one but three healthy heirs. Should I not have been happier than ever before in my life? Should I not have been so besotted with my darling children that I needed nothing else? But I had learned so little of mothering from my own mother. I wanted so badly to love and care for my children as I had always wished I had been, but I felt uncertain and inadequate.

  My sinking certainty that I was not up to the task seemed confirmed one summer afternoon when Annabella was confined to her bed, afflicted with some simple childhood ailment. To ease her symptoms, I gave her some calomel, a mercury purgative prescribed by the doctor. She swallowed it down like a good girl, but almost immediately she began vomiting so violently that I thought she would turn herself inside out.

  “Mrs. Grimes,” I shouted, alarmed. “Come at once!”

  Within moments she hurried into the nursery, and quickly assessing the scene, she promptly took over, easing Annabella into a more comfortable position, holding her hair back, positioning the basin in her lap where she could better retch into it. “What happened to bring this on?” Mrs. Grimes asked, breathless and bewildered.

  “Nothing,” I said, tears in my eyes. “I simply gave her the medicine as the doctor ordered—”

  “How much did you give her?”

  I told her, and her eyes widened in horror. “Send for the doctor at once,” she exclaimed.

  I obeyed, and the doctor came within the hour, and soon thereafter he informed me that I had given my helpless daughter more than twice the proper dose. As he swiftly administered an antidote, I sank into a chair, faint from shock. I had poisoned my daughter. How could I have made such a stupid mistake?

  Later, when the danger had passed and the doctor was packing his satchel, he scolded me and ordered me to follow his instructions more carefully next time. William was adamant that there would not be a next time. “Perhaps administering medicines is a task better entrusted to Mrs. Grimes,” he said, but although his phrasing was mild enough, his expression made it clear that this was no mere suggestion.

  In the days that followed, I overheard the servants murmuring about how Lady King had almost done in Miss Annabella, and thank goodness Mrs. Grimes had prevented a murder. My incompetence as a mother confirmed, I became hesitant even to cross the threshold of the nursery, and I deferred more often to Mrs. Grimes’s superior wisdom and skill. Thus, instead of acquiring greater confidence and proficiency as I grew into the role, I stepped away from it, plagued by uncertainty, terrified that I might unwittingly do my children some injury for which there was no remedy.

  As the children grew, time seemed to distort, for although the days stretched endlessly from the moment I dragged myself wearily from bed until I dropped exhausted into it at night, the months seemed to pass with astonishing swiftness, accumulating relentlessly, leaving me wondering where the time had gone and why I had so little to show for its passage.

  I loved my children dearly, I loved my husband, I was grateful for our wealth and position—and yet I felt as constrained and restricted and subjected to the dictatorial whims of others as I ever had.

  Once upon a time, a little girl named Ada had dreamed of flight. She had called the new science she invented Flyology, she had designed wings to carry her through the skies, and she had believed that through the power of mathematics and science and imagination, she would one day fly above the patchwork countryside of England delivering packages for her absent mother, or soar to the top of Mont Blanc to observe the Alps as no one had ever done before.

  I wondered what had become of that audacious girl, and if I could find her again.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Rumours Strange, and of Unholy Nature, Are Abroad

  September 1839–February 1841

  By the autumn of 1839, I had resolved to resume my mathematical studies in earnest. At first I toiled on my own as I had done intermittently for the past few years, but by November I realized that in order to make steady progress, I required a tutor, a distinguished mathematician and scientist to guide me.

  I realized, too, that unless I had sufficient time to study, the best tutor in the world would avail me nothing. I needed to be relieved of some of my maternal duties, even if this meant hiring another governess to assist Mrs. Grimes.

  I had come to this conclusion after dining with Mrs. Somerville one evening, and in a private moment when she asked me why I seemed so harried and tense, I poured out my heart to her. “Annabella is an intolerable torment,” I lamented. “I cannot endure her constant noise! The chatter, chatter, chatter to herself is incessant and prevents me from thinking, much less carrying on any occupation.”

  Mrs. Somerville smiled sympathetically. “Some little girls do enjoy conversation more than others.”

  “If it were conversation, I would not mind it so much, but she just talks and talks without waiting for a reply. I don’t think she even cares if anyone hears her, as long as she can hear herself. She is constantly plaguing and interrupting me.” Close to tears, I reached out to touch Mrs. Somerville’s arm imploringly. “You have accomplished so much. How did you manage it when your children were young? How were you able to be both a mathematician and a mother?”

  “You forget that for many years, I couldn’t,” she said, regarding me with frank sympathy. “My first husband discouraged me, and I rarely read anything mathematical except in stolen moments. It was not until after I returned to Edinburgh as a widow that I found a circle of like-minded friends to encourage me.”

  “I have the friends,” I said, patting her arm to indicate that she was foremost among them. “What I lack is time.”

  “It seems to me that Lord Lovelace is very like Dr. Somerville in his support for women’s education. Perhaps if you explain to him how the current arrangement is untenable, he’ll offer to help.”

  I had to laugh at the idea of William changing nappies and wiping dirty faces so that I would be free to study, but he could certainly afford to hire someone who would. Thus I concluded that I needed a governess for the children as well as a tutor for myself. The only other alternative was to wait until the children were much older before I resumed my studies, but I truly feared I might go mad in
the meantime.

  Although I was a countess, I could never afford these expenses on the pittance of pin money I was granted each year, so I was obliged to swallow my pride and petition William to pay the costs. At first he was reluctant, but I persisted, noting that he could have paid for an entire year’s wages for a tutor and a governess for a fraction of the cost of one of the tunnels he had recently completed at Ashley Combe—and I circumspectly reminded him that the money for those improvements had come from my mother, who had always wished me to continue my studies. Eventually he agreed.

  Next I turned to the task of finding a tutor. While my mother inquired among various intellectual acquaintances she had met through her work in education, I consulted Mr. Babbage. “I have quite made up my mind to have some instruction next year in Town,” I explained in my letter, “but the difficulty is to find the tutor. I have a peculiar way of learning, and I think it must be a peculiar person to teach me successfully. I believe I have the power of going just as far as I like in such pursuits, where there is so very decided a taste, I should almost say a passion, as I have for mathematics.”

  I heard nothing for so long that I suspected my letter had gone astray, but before I could send another, Mr. Babbage replied with apologies for the delay, explaining that he had been traveling and upon his return had become preoccupied with the Analytical Engine. “I have just arrived at an improvement which will throw back my drawings a full six months unless I succeed in carrying out some new views which may shorten my labor,” he wrote. “I think your taste for Mathematics is so decided that it ought not to be checked. I have been making inquiries but cannot find at present anyone at all to recommend to assist you. I will however not forget the search.”