The Blind Astronomer's Daughter

by John Pipkin

The man’s kindness overwhelmed her. This is what it feels to be part of a family, she thought, to be known, and recognized, and looked after. She should tell Mr. Cullendon the truth, that she had no claim on any promise he had made to Gordon Ainsworth, that she was not who she pretended to be.

  “I will need to find a position of some sort,” she said instead. “Perhaps as a domestic.”

  “A servant? Nonsense. You are Arthur Ainsworth’s daughter.”

  “Mr. Cullendon, I have little in common with him.”

  The bookseller smiled. His teeth were edged like worn paving stones, as though he ground them day and night. “When your father came to me after his own father passed, he said something very similar. He wanted nothing to do with the life his father had planned for him. But if you have read only half of the books we sent, Miss Ainsworth, I suspect you have a remarkable knowledge of the sky. We ought put that to good use.”

  She told him that even if she wanted to continue her astronomical work—which she did not—there would be no position for any woman in an observatory.

  Mr. Cullendon chuckled and pointed toward a teetering stack of books against the far wall. “I know these men who stare at the stars and scribble through the night, and they have a desperate need for computers to tally their findings. If you are skilled in mathematics, I would gladly make inquiries among my friends on your behalf.”

  Though she wanted nothing more to do with gazing at the heavens, she could think of no other talents that she might put to immediate use, and so she nodded and thanked him, and then she felt a welling of gratitude, so unexpected and strong that she pressed her fist into the hollow of her throat.

  He leaned in close again to study her face, and he placed his hand gently on her folded arm, and if it startled him to feel the sharp bones beneath the withered flesh, he gave no indication.

  “Are you acquainted with anyone in the city? A woman in London should not be alone.”

  Caroline shook her head and the bookseller stood and disappeared into the stacks and returned a moment later with a card between his fingers. “There is someone you should meet. If you have an interest in etchings like Mr. Blake’s, you will find much of interest in her print shop, but more importantly, she knows what is required for a woman to survive in the city on her own.”

  Caroline blinked hard, wiped a tear from her cheek with her thumb.

  Mr. Cullendon pretended not to notice, and he looked at his feet as she composed herself. “When I arrived in London,” he said softly, “some fifty years ago, newly married with no prospects, I had only a sixpence in my pocket, and I spent all of it on a book of poetry. Had I purchased a meal, I would have dispatched it within the hour. But today that little volume of poems nourishes me still.”

  He pressed the small book by Mr. Blake into her hands.

  “Take this, Miss Ainsworth. Mr. Blake will make us another.”

  “But I cannot—”

  “Please. It is a gift. For keeping promises. For the children you will read to one day. And as a reminder of where you started.”

  Caroline carries William Moore’s tattered letter to Mrs. Hannah Humphrey’s Print Shop in St. James Street, a half-hour walk through the busiest part of London. She already suspects what Mrs. Humphrey will say when she shows her the letter, but seeking her advice seems natural to her now.

  On her first visit to the shop, Caroline had found the windows so plastered with prints and engravings that she could not see inside: landscapes and portraits and architectural drawings, caricatures satirizing politicians and kings and princes, soldiers and farmers, doctors and lawyers and artists, and all manner of men in between. A bell tinkled above the door when Caroline entered and she found a crazed confusion of images covering the walls and stacked on tables and propped on easels, a stark contrast to the orderly bookshelves of the Pillars of the Muses. There was no one inside, and Caroline hesitated until she heard a woman’s voice shout something unintelligible from the half open door at the back. Caroline wandered the cramped space and soon found herself drifting toward a display of prints showing a gaunt and aged man hunched over a telescope, and in the background of each scene a younger man was taking the astronomer’s wife into his arms or pulling her to the couch or carrying her into the bedroom. In another print, the same old man leapt in surprise to see a skeleton with an hourglass dancing at the other end of his telescope. Caroline wondered if this what was people had secretly thought of Arthur Ainsworth, and if so, had they thought the same about her? She blushed when she found another print in which the skirts of the astronomer’s wife had been pulled over her head.

  She turned from the cartoons at the same moment that a woman emerged from the back of the shop, small and serious and wearing round spectacles low on her pointed nose, an ink-splattered apron over her dress and her hair a tangle of black and silver beneath a lace cap that seemed too large for her head. She introduced herself as Mrs. Hannah Humphrey, said that she owned the shop, and she asked Caroline if she was interested in astronomical prints.

  “If that’s what you’re looking for, I have a sizeable collection at good prices.”

  Caroline shook her head, but before she could answer Mrs. Humphrey pointed at a colorful print of two naked fat men, dancing arm in arm against a background of stars. “Castor and Pollux,” she said and told Caroline that the artist was James Gillray. “He’s one of mine, by the way. Best there is for that sort of thing. I’m his printer and publisher both. This one gives me a chuckle every time. I cannot look up at Gemini now without thinking of them like that. That’s what a good caricature will do, change the way you see things. So then, is there a specific size that you are looking for? If price is a concern, I have some to suit every purse.”

  Reluctantly, Caroline explained that she had not come to purchase anything, that she had only recently arrived in London, and that Mr. Cullendon had sent her. She showed the woman his card.

  Mrs. Humphrey frowned, then exhaled slowly in disappointment. “Mr. Cullendon is a good sort, but what does he expect me to do for you, if you’re not here to buy a print?”

  “He suggested I make your acquaintance, since I know no one else in London and—”

  “I’m not about to take in a lodger. It’s a print shop I run, not a boarding house.”

  “I have a room already, Mrs. Humphrey.”

  The woman stepped back and held up her hands, palms out and thumbs extended, as if she were framing Caroline’s face for a portrait, and she closed one eye and squinted through the other.

  “You have no idea what you want, do you?” she said.

  “I should go.” Caroline said, but then Mrs. Humphrey stopped her.

  “Wait.” The print seller sighed as if already regretting what she was about to say next. “It won’t cost you a penny to look around. But don’t think that I can offer you employment, if that’s what you’re after. This is a difficult business, and I manage my accounts closely.”

  “So this is truly your own shop, entirely?”

  Caroline thought it remarkable that a woman could run such a business on her own, and her expression must have conveyed disbelief, for Mrs. Humphrey frowned and told her that a woman must take charge of the making of things if she wished to get a living from the selling of them.

  “When I was a girl, my father owned a curiosity shop, and he taught me the business of it. He showed me how willingly people will spend their money on useless trinkets that prick at their thoughts. People come here not just to buy a picture, but to acquire the story behind it.”

  Mrs. Humphrey asked her how she planned to make a living in London, and Caroline explained that Mr. Cullendon had already found work for her as a computer for the Royal Observatory.

  “Ah, I thought I noticed a spark of interest in the astronomical prints. I’ve made it my business to recognize what people want even if they don’t know it themselves.”

  Caroline tried to convince the woman that she was no longer interested in observing the stars and as sh
e spoke she watched Mrs. Humphrey’s expression change. Something softened around her eyes. “What’s that you have hidden there beneath your coat?”

  Caroline let her coat fall open to reveal her arm tied up in its sling.

  Mrs. Humphrey shoved her hands into the pockets of her apron. “You poor thing,” she said and studied Caroline’s face again as if she thought she had missed something earlier. “Good Lord! Why did I not see it from the first?” She glanced at a nearby print in which a lanky man slipped his hands into the pockets of an old woman whose dress appeared to be made entirely of bank notes, and then the print seller pushed her spectacles close to her eyes and leaned in toward Caroline.

  “It’s a mother you’ve come here looking for.”

  Soon thereafter, Caroline began visiting Mrs. Humphrey once a week, to seek her opinion on everyday matters and sometimes just to watch her bustle about the shop. The woman was a study in contradiction. She had no children, but dispensed wisdom with maternal authority; she was unmarried, yet she carried herself through the world as though she were all the better for it; she was accused of libel and suspected of treason, and she countered these attacks by printing more illustrations on libelous and treasonous subjects. Now and then, when Caroline had set aside enough money from her work as a computer, she bought a print to hang in her room in Finsbury Square, and always she chose something by James Gillray or Thomas Rowlandson mocking the distracted men of science and their devices, and she did so as a reminder that she had left this foolishness behind.

  And so there is no question where Caroline will turn for advice on the unexpected letter from William Moore. Along the way to St. James Street she passes scores of men and women all bound to their own purposes, and none of them notice her or know anything of her history and Caroline relishes the anonymity to be had in the city. There is no duty attached to the letter in her pocket. She could toss it to the curb and her new life would continue without pause. She slips her hand into her pocket and fingers the worn envelope and thinks she might do it now—a flick of her wrist and she would be rid of her former life for good. As she nears the shop, the door opens and the lanky figure of Mr. Gillray hurries out with a portfolio under his arm. He smiles and Caroline can tell by the arc of his eyebrows that he already has one of his peculiar comments at the ready. He is an odd man, given to speaking in serpentine riddles, and he seems to enjoy nothing more than posing a question that begets further questions.

  “Miss Ainsworth,” he says in a high voice, “what chance do you calculate of our witnessing the end of all days on this day today?”

  Mrs. Humphrey has shown her a rough sketch of his new work, an apocalyptic scene featuring the prime minister, skeletal and demon-eyed, helming a flaming chariot across the sky while the leaders of England fall into the sea like meteors. Prime Minister Pitt was sure to be displeased, Mrs. Humphrey gleefully told her.

  Caroline knows that the man’s questions always beg for more than one answer. “The chances of that depend upon the intentions of men,” she says carefully, “which I have ever found to be incalculable. Wouldn’t you agree?”

  Mr. Gillray touches the tip of his sharp nose with a long, bony forefinger. “Would you say, then, that it is easier to foretell the intentions of women?”

  “They are somewhat less inscrutable,” Caroline says. She is still clutching the envelope in her pocket, and she wonders what the artist would have to say about the intentions of the man who has written it.

  Mr. Gillray rocks onto his toes, clearly pleased with her answer. “So tell me, then, Miss Ainsworth, what reply dare I expect from Mrs. Humphrey this time?”

  Caroline regards the man’s long face and his broad forehead, and she thinks there is a hint of dejection at the corners of his eyes. He has asked Mrs. Humphrey to marry him at least once a week for the past year, and she has refused every time.

  “Did you pose the question of union again today, Mr. Gillray?”

  The illustrator smiles tight-lipped, and the creases at the corner of his mouth make him look older than he is. Even so, he seems a poor match for the woman. Mrs. Humphrey is fifteen years his senior, and Caroline has seen her grab a rude man by his waistcoat and throw him bodily from her shop, whereas the slight Mr. Gillray seems as though he might lose his footing in a strong wind. The two make an unlikely pair, Caroline thinks, but the nature of marriage has ever escaped her understanding.

  “I shall put my proposal before Mrs. Humphrey again this evening. There are favorable signs,” he says, shifting his large portfolio from one arm to the other. “We will have a new moon tonight. The devil Napoleon has not yet landed upon our shores. And my gout is newly in retreat.”

  “And what if Mrs. Humphrey is simply not meant to wed?”

  “Oh, but I most definitely am.” Mr. Gillray tilts his chin upward, catches the sunlight on his cheeks. He is not much taller than Caroline. “The burden of this handsome countenance will only find relief in marital succor. Do you think I should have a secondary plan?” He looks at her seriously, scratches his jaw. “What say you to this opportunity, Miss Ainsworth, in the event that Mrs. Humphrey continues to refuse the good fortune I bring to her door?”

  “Why, Mr. Gillray, are you asking me to marry you?”

  He places a hand to his heart and lifts his eyebrows in mock astonishment. “Only in the interest of practicality. I would no more have your beauty wasted than my own, and I cannot understand why you are not daily fighting away suitors. Perhaps I should press my advantage before you are discovered by lesser men?”

  It is not the first time he has said such outlandish things to her. After a lifetime at New Park, she finds talking to people in the world an awkward endeavor, as their intentions seem ever hidden behind their expressions. But Mr. Gillray puts her at ease, for she knows that he is seldom to be taken seriously. She knows the style of his caricatures—as does most of London—and they are laced with a wit so thoroughly sardonic that she never expects him to mean exactly what he says.

  “I do not think,” Caroline says, “that Mrs. Humphrey would care to have both of us living together under her roof.”

  “Very well, Miss Ainsworth. Then I must beg your aid. What further enticement can we provide to secure her agreement?”

  Although Mrs. Humphrey has rejected his proposals time and again, she shares the apartments above her print shop with him, as though they were husband and wife. It seems to Caroline an advantageous arrangement, as Mrs. Humphrey need never dispute the ownership of her business and property. Still, Caroline wonders what it would feel like, to be sought after so ardently.

  “I can only assume, Mr. Gillray, that Mrs. Humphrey is content with things as they are.”

  “Ah, but at present Mrs. Humphrey and I are together alone, spousal yet singular.” Mr. Gillray holds aloft his index finger as if to inscribe a caption in the air. “I have thought long on it. I believe I might yet convince her of the improvement to be had, that in marriage, the plural form of spouse becomes spice.”

  Caroline frowns. “I would not tell her that, Mr. Gillray.”

  Inside the shop, Mrs. Humphrey stands on a chair, hammering a nail into one of the few blank spaces left on the walls. Upon seeing Caroline she grunts and points to the framed print lying on the floor: a brightly colored illustration in which a ship flying French flags founders in a storm off the northern coast of Ireland, and in the swirling waves, members of the British Parliament fight for driftwood. Caroline hands the frame to Mrs. Humphrey, and in the corner she sees the familiar signature of James Gillray. A few months earlier, Napoleon had tried to land an expeditionary force in Ireland to help the Catholics, who were reported to be arming themselves for an all-out rebellion against the government in Dublin. Mrs. Humphrey hangs the frame on the nail, and the new print encroaches upon another already on the wall.

  “End of the Irish Invasion,” she reads from the bottom of the print, tapping the hammer against her palm. “So, Miss Ainsworth, what news do you bring of the stars and
their movements? Is everything in order?”

  “Everything is just as it should be,” Caroline says as she fingers the letter in her pocket. There really is nothing to be done about it. Her life is just as it should be and she will do nothing to change it. And that seems so obviously the right decision, that Caroline pulls the letter from her pocket and holds it out for her friend to inspect, anticipating the reassurance to be had in hearing the woman come to the same conclusion.

  “I can manage it on my own,” Mrs. Humphrey says sharply as she steps down from the chair, waving off Caroline’s outstretched hand, until she notices that Caroline is not trying to offer assistance. “What do you have there?”

  “I have come for your opinion,” Caroline says. “But I have already settled the question.”

  “Of course you have.”

  Mrs. Humphrey unfolds the letter and rummages her pockets for her spectacles. She sighs when she cannot find them and holds the letter close to her eyes. Caroline watches the woman’s lips move silently around the awkward formality of the sentences, the explanation of how William Moore and his wife arrived at New Park in the past year, though the property had come into their possession some time ago, and how they are seeking her advice regarding the contents of the observatory:

  … The boards are to be pulled down, as it is near to collapsing. Should this letter find you, may I request your return, so that you might assist in determining what is of value, and claim what is rightly your own? Else, the contents shall be disposed of in due course …

  Mrs. Humphrey’s fingertips are stained black with printer’s ink, and there is another dark smear on the soft hairs above her lip. “This closet on the roof is the observatory you have spoken of? What is in there?”

  Caroline shakes her head. “I should think the devices are ruined by now.”

  “And yet you wish to return one last time?”

  Caroline starts, as though the woman has slapped her. “Not at all.”