Enchantress of Numbers

by Jennifer Chiaverini

  “I think I have some idea! You’re aren’t alone in this—this thwarted desire.” I kissed him, hard. “Wills—”

  “We can’t, Ada.” He stroked my cheek. “What if I got you with child?”

  Only if my mother had suddenly walked into the greenhouse would my desire have been more swiftly quenched. “That would be . . . very difficult to explain.”

  “The explanation would be the easy part. Everything that followed—”

  He did not need to say more.

  He helped me back into my dress and pulled his own clothes on as I tried in vain to arrange my hair. I gave up when I realized that it hardly mattered; if the Furies discovered me sneaking back into the house in the middle of the night, unkempt hair would not be what condemned me.

  Before we left the greenhouse, Wills cupped my face in his hands and kissed me. “Ada, my love, this can’t happen again.”

  A tide of regret and grief washed over me, although I had expected this. “I know,” I choked out, blinking away tears. I put my arms around his neck and pulled him close for one last kiss, soft and lingering. How I loved the scent of him, paper and graphite and something indefinably male. How I ached to be his, and for him to be mine.

  That was meant to be our last kiss, and as he escorted me back to the scullery door, my hand tucked into the crook of his elbow, I wondered how I could return to what we had been before. How could I trace the strokes of his pen with mine, how could I sit and transcribe what he read to me, without remembering his taste, the feel of his lips on mine, the strong, supple muscles of his naked back beneath my hands?

  In the days that followed, during our lessons we upheld the strictest propriety, which was necessary for another reason, as my outburst and impudence to Miss Montgomery had prompted the Three Furies to watch me more closely than ever. Then, when we found ourselves alone on the second day after our encounter in the greenhouse, he suddenly pulled me behind the drawing room door and kissed me, long and deep, until I thought I might melt into bliss. I had never felt so thoroughly loved, so wanted, so . . . so entirely accepted for who and what I was. Of all the people I cared about, of all the people surrounding me, only Wills looked at me that way.

  More stolen kisses followed, and twice more we met in the greenhouse under the cover of night. Wills’s touch awakened dormant passions that I never could have imagined dwelt within me, but although we brought each other to ecstasy, he did not enter me. “Someday, perhaps,” he murmured, kissing my face while I clung to him. I knew he meant if we were ever married, but that seemed an utter impossibility. My heart ached to think that the most we could ever have would be our lessons and our clandestine passion.

  As our intimacy grew, it became more difficult to conceal our affections from the Furies. Smiles, glances, banter, little jokes spilled over into our lessons and our conversations before and after. We became careless—or rather, I did. We were practicing dictation in a secluded spot in the garden when Wills compared me to the lady in the story he was reading aloud, a generous and flattering comparison that warmed my heart and made me laugh aloud for joy. And so it happened that I was sitting on his lap, one arm around his shoulders, the other tickling his chin with a daisy I had plucked, when Miss Doyle came upon us.

  “Ada,” she exclaimed, striding toward us as we scrambled to our feet. “Mr. Turner, I am shocked. I would expect such impropriety from this willful child, but you—”

  “He didn’t do anything,” I protested as she seized me by the upper arm and pulled me away from him. “He was just sitting there reading and I decided to play a trick on him.”

  “A fine trick it is too.” Miss Doyle glared at Wills. “Mr. Turner. You are her tutor, and a gentleman, or so we believed. How dare you take advantage of a foolish, impetuous girl? How dare you betray the trust Lady Byron placed in you?”

  He held up his hands, a futile attempt to calm her. “Miss Doyle, please—”

  “Don’t say another word. Gather your things and leave Fordhook at once.” She propelled me toward the house, and in my distress, I did not struggle. “You will hear from Lady Byron soon enough.”

  “Wills,” I cried out, but Miss Doyle spun me around and drove me ahead of her down the gravel path and into the house.

  I was ordered to my room, and there I suffered, pacing anxiously, worrying about Wills, pounding my pillow in rage. My mother was summoned from Brighton, and she reached Fordhook by twilight. I expected to be called to her study, but she punished me by obliging me to wait, anguished and alone, until I finally dropped off to sleep, utterly dispirited.

  The next day I rose early and began to wash and dress, but I had not quite finished when Miss Doyle knocked on my door and announced that my mother awaited me in her study. “I will escort you,” she said primly. On any other occasion, I would have laughed and assured her that I would not get lost along the way, but I was too upset and apprehensive to refuse.

  My many hours of solitude had given me time to compose and rehearse my defense, but when I finally stood before my mother, seated behind her desk with all the solemn dignity of a judge, she refused to hear it. “Mr. Turner will be discharged at once,” she told me, her expression that of someone whose expectations of disappointment have been fulfilled. “Given the circumstances, I could not possibly offer him a character.”

  “That’s not fair,” I protested. “He’s an excellent teacher. How will he find another situation without a reference?”

  “An excellent teacher does not become overly familiar with a pupil.”

  If only she knew. My knees nearly buckled when I imagined what punishment she would have arranged for Wills if the Furies had discovered us in the greenhouse. “Please don’t make him suffer for my wrongdoing. As I told Miss Doyle, Mr. Turner was sitting and reading aloud when I dropped myself onto his lap. It was only meant to be a joke, but he was so startled that he did not push me away, and that’s when she discovered us.”

  “Miss Doyle has already told me your excuse.” Sighing, she interlaced her fingers and rested her hands on the desktop. “However, Miss Carr informed me that she had previously observed you flirting with him, and he did nothing to discourage you.”

  “There was nothing to discourage! Whatever Miss Carr thinks she saw—”

  “Ada, enough,” my mother interrupted wearily. “I’ve made my decision. After you’ve had time to reflect, you’ll be thankful, as I am, that this flirtation was nipped in the bud. Whatever tendency for reckless passion you might have inherited from—” She broke off, inhaled deeply, and continued. “Whatever your natural inclinations might be, you can and must control them.”

  She dismissed me, sending me off with suggestions for books and tracts to help me understand fully the ruinous consequences I had narrowly avoided. I could not promise to read them, so I clenched my jaw and offered a sharp nod that might have been interpreted as submission.

  My presence was required at breakfast, but my stomach was in knots and I could not bring myself to swallow more than a few mouthfuls. My poor, darling Wills. How would he explain to potential employers why he had been peremptorily dismissed from Lady Byron’s service? What would become of his dream to continue his studies? I seethed with anger as I watched my mother serenely sip her tea at the head of the table, untroubled by the slightest pang of conscience for having arranged to destroy a man’s future.

  After breakfast I was ordered back to my bedroom to contemplate my transgressions, but instead I burned with resentment even as my heart twisted in anguish. How could I carry on as before, cowed into obedience, when the man I loved stood to lose everything?

  By the time I was commanded to join my mother and the Furies for supper, I had decided.

  That evening I packed a few necessities into a small satchel—two dresses, undergarments, the locket and ring my father had given me, my favorite geometry text—and concealed it beneath my bed. Then I waited. The h
ours passed, darkness descended upon Fordhook, and as soon as I was certain the household slumbered, I took my satchel in hand and stole from my room and out the scullery door into the night.

  I knew his parents’ home was about two miles away, and I knew which road to take to get there, and I fervently hoped that when I reached the village, I would recognize the Turner house from Wills’s descriptions. I walked with great haste in the light of a quarter moon, stumbling now and then when the shadows concealed the edge of the road. My satchel was not unduly heavy, but I was not accustomed to the exercise and my arms and shoulders began to ache, even though I shifted my burden from hand to hand when one grew weary. A cramp pinched my side, and my right shoe began to rub a blister on my heel, but it never occurred to me to turn back.

  At last I came to the village, and I wandered about, searching the houses for the details my beloved Wills had mentioned—a two-story stone farmhouse with red shutters, lush blackberry bushes in the side garden, an abandoned rope swing dangling from an ancient oak out front. When I finally found it, I grew faint with relief—but then my heart began to pound with trepidation. I had not planned my arrival, only my escape.

  I stood there for several minutes, uncertain, but then I began to shiver from the chill and the mist despite my warm shawl. I could not stand there until morning hoping Wills would appear, and I refused to go home, so I summoned up my courage and knocked on the front door.

  A young woman with hair the same golden hue as Wills’s answered, and I knew at once she was his sister, Marjorie. “Yes, miss?” she greeted me, her eyebrows drawn together in concern.

  “I beg your pardon for disturbing you at such a late hour,” I said, breathless. “May I please speak with Mr. William Turner?”

  “Of course.” She opened the door wider. “Please come in out of the damp. Did your carriage break down?”

  “No—no carriage,” I said, looking about the cozy sitting room for a place to rest. Without another question but with a thorough, appraising look, she offered me a chair, excused herself, and disappeared down the hall. It seemed an age until Wills appeared, his sister trailing after him.

  “Ada,” he greeted me, astonished. Remembering his sister, he quickly amended, “Miss Byron. What’s the matter?”

  “What’s the matter?” I echoed. “Haven’t you been told?”

  “Yes, of course I have.” He knelt beside my chair and took my hands, and to his sister he said, “Marjorie, would you excuse us, please?”

  “I think that’s the last thing I should do,” Marjorie said, eyeing us, “but I’ll put the kettle on and be back soon with tea.”

  She shot her brother a look of warning as she left, but Wills’s gaze was on me and he missed it. “You’re cold,” he said, rubbing my hands, transferring warmth to them from his own.

  “Wills, what are we to do?”

  “I don’t know that there’s anything we can do,” he said, avoiding my gaze. “I’m finished as your tutor. As anyone’s tutor, I suppose.”

  “Wills, I’m sorry, so very sorry—”

  “It’s all right.” He cupped my cheek with his hand, and I closed my eyes and pressed my face against it. “It’s not your fault. I should have—resisted.”

  “I’m heartily glad you didn’t,” I exclaimed. “Wills, I love you. Don’t you love me?”

  “Of course I do.” To prove it, he kissed me, and I believed. “I want to marry you.”

  “Done! I accept,” I said, my laugh a little frantic.

  He smiled, and I quickly kissed his cheek before the dimple vanished. “I could ask your mother for your hand,” he said. “I have nothing to lose at this point. She could say no, or she could take pity on us and say yes.”

  “She shall refuse,” I said bitterly. “There is nothing to compel her to consent.”

  He took both of my hands in his and raised them to his lips. “Perhaps—” He hesitated. “Perhaps we could provide the impetus. If we eloped—”

  “Yes,” I said, a thrill of hope racing through me. “She would have to let us marry. But—” I could not mislead him. “My mother controls my fortune. She could disinherit me. She cares so little for me, she probably will.”

  He kissed me so long and tenderly that my head spun. “I don’t love your fortune. I love you. I can provide for us, if you can reconcile yourself to a more modest way of life.”

  “Happily,” I said. “I can help too. I can tutor young girls—mathematics, science—”

  “Ada,” he said, suddenly serious, “are you sure this is what you want? I wouldn’t want to coerce you down a path you’ll later regret taking.”

  “Look where I am,” I said, lifting my hands and letting them fall to my lap. “I’ve run away. I’ve half eloped already.”

  We laughed together, and we kissed. Just as Marjorie returned with the tea, Wills seized my hand and led me off to a small bedchamber on the upper story, where he took a traveling bag from the wardrobe, set it open on the bed, and began filling it with clothing.

  “We’ll go to Edinburgh,” he said, striding back and forth between wardrobe, bureau, and bag. “I have an uncle there, my mother’s younger brother. We’ll tell him we married here, and he’ll take us in. By the time anyone thinks to look for us there, too much time will have passed, and our parents will realize that allowing us to marry is the only option.”

  “Oh, yes, Wills, yes,” I said, overcome by happiness.

  He grinned at me and looked as if he were about to speak, but then he froze, his smile fading. He hurried to the window, and as he did I heard it too—a carriage halting before the house. “Stay here,” he urged, his expression darkening as he strode from the room.

  “Wills—” I darted to the window and peered outside, where I discovered my mother’s carriage parked at the front door. Reeling away, I stumbled to the bed and sank down upon it. Our elopement had been thwarted before it had properly begun.

  Later I learned that someone within the Turner household had overheard us planning and had sent word to Fordhook. My mother had not come herself, of course, but had dispatched Miss Doyle and Miss Montgomery to collect me. After an ugly, angry scene in which Wills stormed and I wept and his parents and sister stood resolutely against us and the two Furies glared with cold malevolence and made veiled threats, my hand was torn from Wills’s and I was forced from the house and into the carriage. The Furies scolded me the entire way home, but I scarcely heard them. Our plans lay in ruins, my hopes shattered beyond repair.

  As soon as I crossed the threshold, the waiting for my mother’s judgment commenced. It would not come that night, for the Furies would have their way with me first, whisking me upstairs, undressing me, subjecting me to horrid questions and humiliating examinations, all to determine how much damage had been done.

  Once the ordeal was concluded, they saw me to bed, and after they left and shut the door, I heard a chair scrape the floor in the hall outside my room. I knew one of the Furies would be stationed at that post throughout the night.

  The next day my breakfast was brought up to me on a tray, and my luncheon. I could not touch them. I spent the hours pacing, writing desperate, passionate letters to Wills, brooding over our plan to elope, despairing of bringing it to fruition. Then, when I had exhausted myself with anger and worry, the summons finally came.

  My mother sat behind her desk, looking every inch the adjudicator. She gestured to a seat, I declared that I preferred to stand, she waited with infinite patience, and eventually I gave up and sat down, scowling.

  “You will be pleased to know, I’m sure,” she began, “that I have decided not to press charges against Mr. Turner.”

  I stared at her, aghast. That possibility had never occurred to me.

  “Not because he did not break the law,” she continued, “but because if this incident is brought before the courts, the press will seize upon it, and we will
lose whatever small chance we might yet have to keep this matter quiet.”

  “He has done nothing wrong,” I said levelly. “I’m seventeen, a woman grown. I consented to everything.”

  “You don’t have enough understanding to consent to anything.”

  I shook my head, disbelieving. “How can you believe that when you’re planning to have me married off within the year?”

  “Yes, about that,” she said brittlely. “You do realize that you’ve cast aside any chance you had of making a good match, do you not? You are ruined. Do you understand me?”

  “I understand what you’re implying, but I vehemently disagree. There was no—” I flushed with anger and embarrassment, but I forced myself to say it. “I am still a virgin.”

  She shook her head, rendered incredulous by my immeasurable ignorance. “There is virginity, and there is purity. Do you think Society cares whether you actually consummated your foolish little affair? You fled to his house in the middle of the night. He took you in. When you were discovered, you were preparing to elope. That’s all anyone would need to know. How things look matters as much as how things are, perhaps more so.”

  I could not believe what I was hearing. “You shouldn’t have come after me. I’ve always disappointed you, and this was your chance to be rid of me.”

  “I don’t want to be rid of you. I want you to stop acting like a foolish child and live up to my expectations, to do your duty.”

  “What about my duty to myself? I love him.”

  “‘Love him’?” she echoed. “Do you think your Mr. Turner loves you? He has ruined you. He has destroyed all hope of your future happiness, just for a few ephemeral moments of pleasure. Would love do that?”

  “If I am ruined,” I retorted, my voice shaking, “then let me marry Wills.”

  “I shall not. It is out of the question. Ruined or not, no daughter of mine will marry a tutor.” She uttered the last word as if it were an epithet.