I, Ada

by Julia Gray

  At night, I crept out onto the terrace and stared up at the stars – in the heart of London, the smog would mask them almost completely, but out in Ealing they were jewel-distinct, mapped across the heavens, twinkling with secrets – as though they contained in their constellations codes which only the brightest minds could discern. Caroline Herschel was much talked-about at gatherings – a few years ago she became the first woman to be awarded a Gold Medal by the Royal Astronomical Society – and I was longing to acquaint myself better with astronomy. Ever since my correspondence with William Frend about the stars, I’d been deeply fascinated by the heavens. But I could see that I needed more than a telescope and a casual interest to improve my understanding.

  In the end, I wrote to Dr King, whom Mamma had appointed as my moral guardian. Far better Dr King than the Furies, any day, but even so it irked me that Mamma should continue to appeal to her friends to watch over me – as though I might turn into a ravening demon at a moment’s notice! I supposed the James Hopkins Affair would be brought up – not in so many words, of course; merely with the sad slanting of a knowing brow, an I-told-you-so expression – as evidence, for ever, of my potential to transgress. But there were notable benefits to a correspondence with Dr King – he might have been concerned with my morals, but the substance of our discussions was mathematical. Indeed, that was entirely the point: by focusing my mind on arithmetic, said Dr King, I would keep my more passionate, poetical tendencies at bay.

  I wasn’t sure that I agreed.

  ‘I need a solid foundation upon which to build,’ I wrote to him. ‘My aim is to understand astronomy, but there are places where my knowledge of mathematics is weak.’

  Dr King wrote back immediately, prescribing a course of Euclid. I was pleased to take up those propositions again, but even so, there was something missing.

  I was still waiting.

  One miserable, wet afternoon – the rain scissoring down so heavily that the view of London is nearly blotted out by it – Mrs Mary Somerville, a friend of Mamma’s who has very recently returned to England from Paris, comes to take tea with us and Mary Montgomery.

  Mary Somerville is older than Mamma by perhaps a decade or so, but I can see that she was once (and still is) very pretty, with dark curls all over her head, and an unusual, even eccentric, way of dressing. There’s a bird-like delicacy to her that reminds me of Mamma, and – like my mother – she is a mathematician. She has recently published a book entitled On the Connexion of the Physical Sciences. Mamma has read it, and – after no longer than five minutes in the company of Mary Somerville – I am resolved to read it too. In her gentle Scottish accent, she talks about her work, and her self-deprecating tone cannot disguise the magnificence of her mind.

  She says: ‘I have not one jot of originality or genius. Not one.I am the first to admit it. We women simply don’t possess such things.’

  ‘But, Mary,’ counters Mamma, ‘you were the translator of Laplace’s Mécanique Celeste! Without your contribution, no one who was unable to read French would have been able to immerse themselves in that immense set of books. It was an exceptional undertaking.’

  ‘Oh, there is nothing so special about the act of translation,’ says Mary Somerville.

  ‘I don’t agree,’ says Mary Montgomery. ‘You added to Laplace’s work your preliminary dissertation. Laplace himself said the book was unreadable – and not because it was in French. You clarified his writing; your introduction served to make the mathematics in the book more understandable to the reader. That was without doubt an act of originality.’

  Mary Somerville only smiles. Is she falsely modest, I wonder, or genuinely so? She says: ‘What do you think, Ada? Are women capable of originality?’

  Answering truthfully, I say: ‘I see absolutely no reason why women should not be capable of such a thing; why should a woman not think with as much originality as a man, if not more? Yes: we might not be able, for example, to lift a heavy weight, or to ride into battle. Those are physical distinctions. But there should be no such distinctions as far as the mind is concerned.’

  Silence falls on our little gathering, and I am more aware than ever of the rain, and the three women in their different positions... Mary Montgomery’s smiling unspoken approval of what I have just said... Mamma’s perfectly-poised figure, on the edge of her chair, wanting me to impress the visitor, and not to say the wrong thing, even if she doesn’t know what the ‘wrong thing’ might be in this context.

  And then there is Mary Somerville, whose cheeks have the bloom of a young girl. She leans forward. A little tea spills unnoticed from her cup. ‘Do you like puzzles, Ada?’ she says.

  ‘I love puzzles,’ I say.

  ‘Euclid?’

  ‘Yes, indeed; I might do three or four Euclidian propositions a day. I love other kinds of puzzle too.’

  ‘Tell me more,’ says Mary Somerville.

  I pause, wanting to explain myself clearly. ‘I love anything that isn’t clear-cut,’ I say. ‘A problem you have to work at, perhaps look at in a different way in order to understand. I love anything that doesn’t seem to have an obvious answer. Take rainbows, for example. Why does a rainbow always appear in an arc of a circle? Why a circle, rather than another kind of curve? And why is it curved in the first place?’

  ‘Is that the sort of thing that you think about often?’

  ‘It’s the sort of thing that I always think about,’ I reply.

  Mamma says: ‘Ada’s mind, for all its capabilities, flits from one thing to another rather too quickly, like a butterfly.’

  ‘Butterflies,’ says Mrs Somerville, ‘are utterly enchanting creatures.’

  So now there is another Mary in my life, and I will grow just as attached to Mrs Somerville as I have long been to Miss Montgomery. I hadn’t realised that my long-anticipated teacher would be a woman, but I am so pleased that she is a woman; Miss Stamp was, after all, one of my most fondly-remembered instructors.

  Mary Somerville is like no one I have ever met before. I visit her at her home at the Royal Hospital in Chelsea, where the army pensioners live and where her husband is a physician, and I stay for perhaps two nights each time. Mary has a son named Woronzow Greig, a young man of nearly thirty, from her first marriage. Theirs is a damp though prettily-furnished house; we often sit in the parlour, books and papers spread about us, and talk for hours, sometimes only stopping when Dr Somerville comes home, whistling under his breath as he enters the house.

  The first few sessions are shy ones, in which we – teacher and student – get to know one another. I tell Mary a little about the regime of my early studies – the governesses who came and went with clockwork regularity; the tickets and punishments; the subjects I studied; the things I enjoyed, and the things I didn’t.

  ‘Mamma hopes – has always hoped – to... trammel my mind somewhat,’ I say carefully.

  ‘What does that mean, Ada?’

  ‘It means that she thinks I lack rigour and organisation,’ I say. I am not trying to complain about Mamma (well, perhaps I am complaining very slightly); I do, however, want to give Mary a clear picture of how Mamma feels about my abilities. ‘She thinks my interests are too many, and too varied. That I am too passionate. I can’t help it, though; truly, I can’t.’

  Mary says nothing, encouraging me to continue.

  I go on, emboldened and warming to my theory: ‘It is because we are not so very alike, Mamma and I. I was learning some Latin verbs a few months ago, and I realised the fundamental difference between me and Mamma. The right verb for Mamma is cogitare – “to think”. If I had to choose only one, I mean.’

  ‘And for you?’ says Mrs Somerville.

  ‘Sentire,’ I reply without hesitation. ‘ “To feel”.’

  ‘I see,’ says Mary Somerville, and I think that perhaps she does.

  She tells me about her life, different to mine in many
ways – her early love of nature and the outdoors, and watching things grow; her study of Latin and Greek and mathematics; the uncle that took an interest in her education. I have met the Queen, but I do not think that I have ever known a more impressive person than this woman. Astronomy, chemistry, geography, trigonometry... is there nothing to which she cannot turn her hand? She has published books; her translation of Laplace – known in English as The Mechanism of the Heavens – made her rightly famous. I have begun reading On the Connexion of the Physical Sciences and find myself bewitched by both its breadth and depth: there is more information contained within its covers than I could absorb in a lifetime. Lunar theory; light and sound; tides, crystals, volcanoes and electricity...

  I am reminded of the way that Miss Stamp, with her enthusiasm and detailed knowledge, would talk to me about the world, for the book speaks to me in the warm, engaging tones of a born educator. More than anything else, I like the way in which Mrs Somerville seeks to trace the links between physical and scientific phenomena. It is as though I have discovered another kind of governess – one whose knowledge is unsurpassed. But in spite of all this, Mary Somerville is – as she showed when she first came to tea with us – as modest as she is accomplished.

  ‘You must understand, Ada,’ she says, ‘that whatever my achievements are – if we can call them that – they rely wholly on the achievements of others.’

  She talks to me about William and Caroline Herschel, who discovered so much about the stars; about Michael Faraday, about Joseph Banks, botanist and explorer, and Humphry Davy, inventor of the safety lamp. I ask if she believes that we are living in a Mechanical Age.

  ‘I’ve heard it called that, certainly,’ says Mrs Somerville. ‘And certainly, we are seeing changes the likes of which we have never seen before in this country. Why, every factory in Britain – more or less – now possesses a rotary steam engine. Industries are undergoing vast transformations; new discoveries are made every day. But it’s more than mechanical, in my view. It’s an age of—’

  ‘Ideas,’ I say.

  She looks at me delightedly. ‘Yes, Ada. Yes. Ideas.’

  ‘Mrs Somerville,’ I say. ‘Do you know Mr Babbage?’

  ‘Why, Ada, certainly I do.’

  Dorset Street, London

  March 1834

  By the time of my second visit, about nine months after the first, to Mr Babbage’s Dorset Street home, I have learned a good deal more about him.

  Charles Babbage’s family were originally from the Devon town of Totnes. His father was a banker and goldsmith who moved his business to London in the year that Babbage was born, where his businesses continued to thrive. On his father’s death in 1827, Charles Babbage inherited the vast sum of a hundred thousand pounds. He studied at the same Cambridge college – Trinity – as my father; and although he never had to struggle for money, he did become possessed of a profound desire to contribute to some of the changes that were taking place in society.

  He has four surviving children, one of whom is named Herschel (after John Herschel, who was a great friend of his at university). He is well-known for his soirées, at which all sorts of interesting people might be encountered; in spite of my occasional hints, Mamma and I have not attended any of them – not, I think, because of any reluctance or disinterest on her part, but simply due to the intricacies of our calendar of social engagements. Now, thanks to Mary Somerville, who knows perfectly well how dearly I wish to see the demonstration piece again, we are making our way to Dorset Street in a carriage after dinner.

  ‘Why are you smiling in that secretive manner, Ada?’ asks Mary Somerville.

  ‘Oh,’ I say. ‘I was just thinking how infinitely I prefer the thought of one of Mr Babbage’s soirées to another dull ball.’

  My companion laughs gently. Mrs Somerville is, above all else, a very reasonable person. From her I am learning more than I ever have – from anyone – and I truly believe that I can call myself, with great pride, her protégée. I am growing very fond of her daughters, Martha and Mary – as well as Woronzow, her son – and sometimes I find myself actually running along the pathway to her house in Chelsea, while the mist rises thickly from the river that lies beyond it, so desperate am I to see them all, and to talk about a sum or equation or mathematical conundrum.

  One of the reasons why I like her so much is because she is Not Mamma. She is far warmer and more personable than my mother; in fact, sometimes I find myself wanting to reach for her hand, or for her to embrace me with a mother’s tenderness. These moments both surprise me and don’t surprise me at all. But just as much as she is Not Mamma, nor is she anything like me. For example, she would never have done what I did with James Hopkins – she would never have acted so rashly, and with such disregard to propriety and reputation, and the expectations of others. She might have recognised her feelings, but she would have found a way to contain them. I find it so hard to contain anything.

  ‘Balance, Ada, is the key to everything,’ says Mary Somerville. ‘Everything in moderation – that, I believe, was the phrase in Ancient Greece. A dance one day, a discussion about mathematics or engineering the next, but nothing taken to excess, is a wise path.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ I say. Oh, it sounds reasonable enough, but I cannot bring myself to feel enthusiastic about an ancient axiom that proposes moderation.

  ‘You are, after all, not necessarily likely to meet a suitable husband at Dorset Street,’ says Mrs Somerville. She knows very well that this is Mamma’s chief desire. I know this too, and I suppose it is unlikely to change.

  But for the moment, all I want – more than anything else – is to see the model of the Difference Engine again, and I am grateful to Mrs Somerville for facilitating the encounter.

  Charles Babbage is just as I remember him. ‘My dear Miss Byron,’ he says, looming over me and Mrs Somerville like a genial bear. ‘You must meet another young lady – one who might possibly be as enchanting as you yourself.’

  Somewhat taken aback by this – I am not here to enchant anyone, and am sorry that Mr Babbage thinks that I might be – I am at first relieved when he spins around to reveal, with all the dramatic flourishes for which he is famous, an automated dancer on a podium, rotating merrily for the benefit of the room. She stands about a foot high, and on one hand perches a little bird that opens and closes its beak as she rotates.

  ‘This, Miss Byron, is my Silver Lady. Is she not a thing of beauty?’

  I smile rather thinly, realising that I must look exactly like my mother, for whom thin smiles are a speciality. ‘Mr Babbage, she is a wonder indeed, but there is another wonder that I would much prefer to see.’

  ‘Oh? And what wonder is that?’

  ‘Why, your Difference Engine – the model piece, I mean.’

  Now Mr Babbage looks taken aback, but only a little. Then he looks positively delighted. It is amusing to watch the differing emotions cross his face; he reassesses me, perhaps moving me from one category in his mind to another. It has been said that in order to merit an invitation to one of these soirées one must possess beauty, intellect or good breeding. Mr Babbage might have thought that my birth is the sole justification for my presence (for certainly I am not beautiful). But now, perhaps, he is reconsidering. Minutes later, we are again in the presence of the model Difference Engine, which I notice has been moved to another part of the room, rather less on display than it was last June. Has he lost interest in his invention? I wonder. Or has he lost heart, let down by the government and unable to find the right kind of assistance?

  I realise that I am actually trembling as I stretch out a hand towards it. Oh, I have dreamed of it: strange, to think that a construction of interlaced cogwheels could become the stuff of dreams.

  ‘When you were a child, Mr Babbage, did you dream of designing such a machine?’ I ask him, suddenly rather timid.

  ‘I wanted to know what was inside of everythi
ng,’ Mr Babbage replies, quite seriously. ‘I would quite happily break anything apart in order to satisfy my curiosity as to its workings.’

  ‘Were you the same, Ada?’ says Mary Somerville, who has come to stand next to me.

  ‘I never... I don’t think I ever broke anything apart,’ I tell them, feeling sad at the realisation, wishing that I could have broken things. I do not think that I ever wanted to – but if I had, I don’t think it would have been well-received by Mamma.

  ‘Neither did I,’ says Mrs Somerville, and I feel better again. ‘Observation: that was what I enjoyed, more than anything. Just standing in the garden, watching the birds, the trees. Seeing nature weave her spells.’

  And suddenly I remember myself – five, six – squatting, dirt-kneed, in the vegetable garden at Kirkby Mallory, captivated by the gossamer strands of a spider’s web.

  ‘Have you made any progress since last we met?’ Mrs Somerville says to Mr Babbage.

  ‘With funding? Alas, no,’ he replies, in his leonine growl of a voice. ‘And besides, money is not my only problem.’

  ‘What a pity,’ says Mary Somerville. ‘It would be far more economical for the government to have tabulated calculations at their disposal.’

  ‘As it happens, though, I have just recently begun to conceive of another machine,’ says Mr Babbage, and I hear, suddenly, a streak of excitement in his voice that was absent a moment ago.

  ‘Oh yes?’ says Mary Somerville.

  ‘It will operate on similar principles... I can’t go into any details about it as yet, but...’

  Charles Babbage sinks into himself, ruminating; I can almost hear the internal cogwheels whirring behind his eyes. Then he opens his eyes wide, frowns, and says: ‘If I’m right – the next machine I have in mind will be able to do more than the Difference Engine. Yes, yes; a lot more.’

  Only later, on the edge of sleep, do I realise the difference between the mind-sets of Mr Babbage and Mrs Somerville. She might advise caution and restraint; she might speak of moderation and tempered excesses... all well and good, I suppose, if not especially exciting. Then there’s Charles Babbage’s approach, and how much do I prefer it, for there was all the excitement of a child at Christmas in his expression as he uttered that single syllable, richer than plum-pudding: more.