Enchantress of Numbers

by Jennifer Chiaverini

  “Of course I would,” I breathed, setting the box upon the bed and carefully removing the inkstand so I could examine it more closely. I possessed so few mementos of my father—the small emerald ring, the locket with his dark brown curl, and little else. To think that he had dipped his pen in this inkwell as he composed a great poem—the first cantos of Childe Harold perhaps, or earlier works, poems he had written before his exile to the Continent. He had surely used it to write letters too—to court my mother, to plan with his publisher, to beg for news of me.

  “Take good care of it,” my mother said, turning to the door.

  “Of course,” I said. “I shall cherish it.”

  Her departing nod and almost imperceptible frown told me that she did not want me to cherish it too much. It was a relic not only of my father but also of her husband, who had hurt her deeply. All my life she had interpreted any interest in or affection for him as tacit approval of his behavior. She required me—not only me, but everyone of her acquaintance—to choose a side.

  On a cool, rain-swept morning in mid-October, I departed for Ockham, and upon my arrival William welcomed me so affectionately, and with such tender concern for my health and for our child, that I entirely forgave him for not writing as often as he should have.

  “Do you think we might go to London sometime soon?” I asked him later that night, after I had put him in a particularly amenable mood. “I miss Mr. Babbage and Mrs. Somerville, and I believe my brain is atrophying from the lack of intellectual stimulation. If my mother’s phrenologist friends examined my head, I’ve no doubt they would find new bumps and dips in all the wrong places.”

  William laughed, for although he would never admit this to my revered mother, he shared my skepticism of phrenology. “I don’t know when I could get away,” he said. “I have much to do around Ockham before I return to Ashley Combe.”

  “You’re going back?”

  “Of course, darling.” He kissed me. “Our honeymoon is over but the improvements go on.”

  “Shall I go with you?”

  “I’d love to have you with me, Birdie, but you shouldn’t hazard the rough journey in your condition.”

  “I was in this condition when we traveled home from our honeymoon,” I pointed out, concealing a sting of annoyance behind a teasing smile.

  “True enough, but we didn’t know about the little hatchling then.” Gently William rested his hand upon my abdomen, which had scarcely begun to swell. “And considering that the alternative would have been to leave you in that remote place throughout your confinement until you and the child were strong enough to travel, we really had no choice.”

  I knew I would never persuade him to let me accompany him to Ashley Combe, but I still held out hope for London. “Darling, I need company and intellectual activity. You don’t want me to become a dull little wife, do you?”

  “You could never be dull.” He kissed me again and regarded me with fond amusement. “Why don’t you invite Mr. Babbage and Mrs. Somerville to visit us here?”

  My spirits rose. “May I?”

  “Certainly. Invite Woronzow and his sisters, too, for that matter. Have them all come at once and make a party of it, or arrange separate visits so you’ll always have someone here.”

  Promptly after breakfast the next morning, I sent invitations and commenced anxiously awaiting their replies. Mrs. Somerville wrote back within a few days to say that she and her daughters would love to visit me as soon as they could possibly arrange it, perhaps in late October. Woronzow, too, accepted, and after a few letters back and forth we fixed a date for Saturday, 28 November. Soon after that Mr. Babbage wrote to say that he was heartily glad for the invitation, and he thought he could come out to Surrey in early December.

  When it was all said and done and the dates were recorded in my diary, my happiness dimmed somewhat, for although I had pleasant visits to look forward to, the first was nearly a fortnight away, and I missed my absent friends no less than before.

  I knew my mother and my husband would agree that I should fill my days with useful work and study. I had many duties as the mistress of Ockham Park, of course, and I was still learning what they were. I resumed my mathematical correspondence with Mrs. Somerville, determined to progress as much as I could before the arrival of my hatchling interrupted my studies indefinitely—but not, I prayed, forever. I read mathematics every day, focusing on trigonometry and cubic and biquadratic equations and working through Dionysius Lardner’s Analytical Treatise on Plane and Spherical Trigonometry. I also sang with my voice master and played the harp for at least an hour each morning and afternoon, often more, finding joy and solace in the music.

  As the autumn days passed, and at my mother’s and husband’s urging rather than from any wish of my own, I sat for my portrait with the celebrated artist Mrs. Margaret Carpenter, who had studied at the Royal Academy and had won several medals from the Society of Arts. I should say that I stood for my portrait, for I posed at the bottom of the staircase in our grand hall, as if I had swept down from my boudoir on my way to a ball. I wore an elegant gown of ivory silk with a claret overskirt trimmed in gold, with a wide, open neckline and full sleeves gathered at the elbow, and my hair was styled in an elegant chignon with a bandeau of silver filigree and diamonds encircling my head. I had wanted to wear it slightly longer on the sides to make my face appear more narrow, but Mrs. Carpenter insisted that I style my hair up and away from my face. I had also wanted to wear my peeress’s robes, but my mother discouraged me from doing so, arguing that they would obscure my slender figure, age me by at least a decade, and look overly formal. “Furthermore, you have never appeared in them publicly,” she had written. “If you were painted in them, one could accuse you of desiring too eagerly a Coronation, which smacks of disloyalty to the present King and Queen.”

  I certainly would not want my portrait to provoke accusations of treason, so I wore the ivory silk gown instead, which had been a particular favorite of mine ever since William had told me I looked exquisitely lovely in it. Even if he had not told me, the way his face lit up with eager desire when he beheld me in it told me all I needed to know.

  When Mrs. Carpenter invited me to see her preliminary sketches, I knew that the ivory silk gown had been the right choice. She had captured the graceful draping of the fabric on my figure to perfection, and I knew she would make the colors so luminous and real that an observer would almost expect to hear the rustle of silk. My hair looked elegant, my neck long and graceful, so I admitted that I had been wise to heed Mrs. Carpenter’s recommendation in that regard too. The only element I regretted—and this was the fault of Nature, not the artist—was my bold chin, but I had never been one to gaze into the looking glass mournfully and fret about my looks. I was too relieved that I had not turned out as plain as Miss Chaloner had predicted.

  I did not know it then, but this was not the only portrait, or perhaps even the most important one, that would occupy my thoughts in the last months of 1835.

  In the first week of December, William left for Ashley Combe to supervise work on the clock tower and the water gardens, and rather than have me spend my birthday alone, it was decided that I should stay with my mother at Fordhook. I missed William, but it was strangely pleasant to return home as a married woman, and stranger still that I considered Fordhook another home, after stubbornly refusing to do so throughout my youth. Better still, Fordhook was close enough to London that I was able to visit Town and call on Mrs. Somerville and her daughters, and to attend one of Mr. Babbage’s soirées.

  “Married life agrees with you, Lady King,” said Mr. Babbage when we met in his drawing room. “I’ve never seen you more radiant.”

  I smiled, for although I had not shared my news with anyone outside of the family, and my voluminous dress hid what little evidence there was, his knowing look told me that he had guessed my secret. “Thank you, Mr. Babbage. I have come to agree
with married life.”

  “Are you still studying mathematics and science, or do your duties as mistress of Ockham Park consume all of your waking hours?”

  I felt a pang of loss when I recalled how many hours I had once been able to devote to my studies, how many delightful evenings I had spent in that very room discussing new scientific discoveries and mechanical wonders. “Matrimony has by no means lessened my taste for those pursuits,” I said, “nor my determination to carry them on, although it has necessarily diminished the time I have to devote to them.”

  He nodded sympathetically, and I felt a wistful ache when I considered how, in a few months’ time, motherhood would greedily consume even more of those hours. Then it occurred to me that Mrs. Somerville had managed to balance motherhood and mathematics, so such a thing was evidently not impossible. Mrs. Somerville was so generous that I had no doubt she would be willing to guide me through this new and uncharted landscape.

  Shortly after my twentieth birthday William and I reunited at Ockham Park and merrily prepared to celebrate our first Christmas together. “Is it not strange to think that last year at this time we had not even met?” I said as we crossed paths in the foyer, where I was supervising the servants as they decorated the hall and he was bringing in evergreen boughs to adorn the mantelpieces. “Yet here we are now, with the festive season approaching, husband and wife, with a child on the way.”

  “It’s astonishing to contemplate how much can happen in a year,” he agreed, craning his neck to kiss me over an armload of fragrant greenery.

  We had invited my mother to join us, as well as William’s mother and siblings, but my mother was indisposed again and planned to spend Christmas in Brighton with Miss Carr. Of the Kings, only his sisters Hester and Charlotte would be joining us, so I invited Mr. Babbage and the Somerville family as well, and to my delight, they readily accepted. Soon after these invitations were confirmed, William informed me that he and my mother had also arranged for Dr. King to stay with us for a few days before Christmas, but not for the holiday itself. I found the timing curious but not objectionable, as I had always liked Dr. King. Perhaps my mother and husband simply wanted him to confirm that I was healthy and that the baby was growing well.

  On the twentieth of December, Dr. King arrived, and although the air was frosty and a thin layer of icy snow covered the grounds, the paths were clear enough for us to walk and converse as we had done so often at Fordhook. He queried me about my moods, which had never been more contented, and my concerns about impending motherhood, of which I had several, certainly, but nothing that struck me as unusual or extreme. “I’m very pleased to find you so well,” Dr. King said heartily as we turned back toward the house, but I thought I detected a note of wariness in his voice. It puzzled me, but I surmised that I had turned out to be a better wife than he and his wife—especially his wife—had expected, and he wondered why.

  The following afternoon, a gray and blustery day, when each gust of wind carried the scent of approaching snow, I was seated by the fireplace poring over an especially complex chapter of Lardner’s Trigonometry when William appeared in the doorway of my study. “Hello, darling,” he said. “Your mother’s Christmas present has just been delivered. Would you like to come down and see it?”

  He smiled, but his expression was guarded. “What is it?” I asked, setting the heavy book aside and pulling myself up out of my chair.

  “You’ll see,” he said, offering me his arm.

  I took it, hiding my sudden apprehension. Dr. King’s wariness, my husband’s evasiveness—something was afoot, and I suspected everyone in the household but I knew what it was.

  William escorted me to the drawing room, where Dr. King was supervising two footmen as they pried open a large rectangular crate. “Easy, now,” William warned as they removed the lid and carefully withdrew a thin, flat object wrapped in protective muslin.

  As the two footmen slowly unwound the wrappings, I released William’s arm and drew closer. The dimensions of the object steadily became more apparent, and before long I was able to see that they concealed a painting. The last of the muslin was drawn away until only a draping of green velvet covered canvas and frame. Suddenly I thought I smelled faint tobacco smoke and heard the distinctive click of billiard balls, but it was only a memory from the distant past, beckoning me home to Kirkby Mallory.

  I halted before the painting, which the two servants held waist high between them, their glances shifting from Lord King to me and back again.

  “Shall I see what my mother has sent me?” I asked the room, and when no one replied, I glanced over my shoulder to William and raised my eyebrows in inquiry. He nodded.

  Rising on tiptoe, I removed the green velvet curtain and stepped back. Before me was a portrait of a man, a strikingly handsome man with a strong jaw and a cleft chin and a full, sensuous mouth. He had a thin, neat, tapered mustache and dark hair, most of which was concealed beneath a turban with a braided silk tassel that fell to his shoulders, the native headdress of some foreign land. He held a ceremonial sword, and his eyes were dark and expressive, his face in partial profile as he looked off to his right—and suddenly I imagined this portrait hanging above the mantelpiece next to the sketch Mrs. Anderson had made of me, and the two faces, so similar in the eyes and the hair and the chin and the jaw, the two faces gazing at each other—

  “Ada?”

  I tore my gaze away from my father’s portrait and found William at my side, his brow furrowed, his hand outstretched, his expression apprehensive. My gaze traveled from him to Dr. King, and I suddenly understood why he had been summoned to Ockham Park: They all feared how I would react when I beheld my father’s visage for the first time. My mother and Dr. King must have told William what an excitable child I had been, prone to manias and hysterical illnesses. One could only imagine what I would do when the portrait was so dramatically unveiled—I might swoon, or burst into frantic sobs, or suffer an onset of my former paralytic illness.

  This was a test, and only by appearing perfectly calm and rational would I pass it.

  Even as my mind raced to determine the appropriate response, I realized that Dr. King would report every detail of my reaction to my mother, whose conflicted, contradictory feelings about her husband I must consider. I must show enough feeling and gratitude to prove that I respected and appreciated the significance of the gift, and yet not too much emotion, which would indicate that my father’s romantic image had made me forget his crimes against my mother. I must honor his genius while condemning his wickedness. It was a fine line to tread, but with my mother, it always had been.

  “What a remarkable portrait,” I said, when I could speak. Turning to Dr. King, I inquired, “Is it a good likeness?”

  “Very much so,” he replied, drawing nearer.

  “And his costume?”

  “Albanian.” Dr. King indicated the turban and the sword. “Lord Byron acquired it while on his Grand Tour of the Mediterranean in 1809. The artist is Thomas Phillips, and it has been said that this is one of the very few portraits of himself that Lord Byron approved.”

  “It’s excellent work.” It seemed safe to praise the artistry without reflecting upon the character of the subject. “The rich texture of the fabrics, the play of light and shadow, Lord Byron’s expression—it’s masterfully accomplished. If I’m not mistaken, my grandparents displayed this portrait in Kirkby Mallory years ago.”

  “Indeed,” said Dr. King. “Your grandmother bequeathed it to you, with the stipulation that you should not receive it until your twenty-first birthday. However, since you are now married, your mother decided that you should have it.”

  “How generous of her, how very kind.” To William I added, “Where do you think we should display it, darling? We must hang it before my mother’s next visit so that she will know how much we appreciate her gift.”

  As William proposed a few suitable locations
, I watched from the corner of my eye as Dr. King looked on approvingly, smiling slightly with satisfaction and nodding. Apparently my well-chosen words had hit the mark. I had passed the test so well that they did not realize that I knew I had been tested, or that it vexed me to have been tested. They saw only a sensible amount of appreciation and interest. They had no idea the profound, powerful emotions the portrait evoked in me, the strange sense of kinship and recognition, the wistful longing and deep ache of loss, the inexplicable love, the barely perceptible stirring of anger—directed toward whom or what, I could not say.

  His mission fulfilled, Dr. King departed the following day, but soon thereafter, the Somervilles, Mr. Babbage, and Hester, Charlotte, and their mother arrived to celebrate the holidays with us. We enjoyed a joyful, festive Christmas and rang in the New Year merrily, with songs and games, delicious food and drink, fond reminiscences of holidays past, and grand hopes and expectations for the year to come. It was the merriest festive season I could remember.

  I was sorry to bid our guests farewell in January, but I kept myself busy throughout the winter studying mathematics, corresponding with friends, and preparing my little one’s nursery and layette. At the end of April, William and I moved to our home at Saint James’s Square for my confinement, and remembering how my mother had canceled her trip abroad rather than miss her grandchild’s arrival, William wrote to invite her to join us at home to await the imminent event. If she preferred to remain at Fordhook, he offered to send a messenger racing with the news as soon as my trials began.

  “I was very glad to hear from King,” my mother wrote to me in reply, “and both his invitation and his offer were kindly received, but pray tell him that I do not wish to have a nocturnal announcement of the first act of your performance. I would much rather be notified during the coda than the prelude.”