Shadow Conspiracy

by Phyllis Irene

  “Gently,” said Ada.

  Bastion bent and tenderly scooped up the blackened corpse. Cradling Mr. Beale’s remains, Bastion moved to the open door and walked out into the garden. Ada, with the mastiff pacing beside her, closed the door behind it, turning the three locks.

  For a moment she stood there, her palm pressed flat against the cold glass. Ada King, Countess Lovelace was a fashionably slim woman, but unfashionably tall. Her wide-set brown eyes were called intelligent by her friends and cold by her detractors. Her features were regular, even pretty, but her coarse and ink-stained hands were the despair of her family and her lady’s maid.

  Ada wanted to pray, to grieve. She wanted to feel anything except the horrible wish that Mr. Beale had waited one more day to die.

  Gradually, the familiar steady ticking that filled the garden slipped inside her, calming the riot of thought and emotion. She was able to lift her head, more than a little relieved to find her cheeks were wet.

  I remain human after all.

  “Come, Vigilance,” she ordered softly.

  With the mastiff beside her, Ada left the garden by the interior door. She did not have to look back to know the spiders returned to their hiding places.

  Lovelace House was a stately edifice of the newest construction. Its beautiful proportions spoke to the care lavished on its design. The airy inside reflected clean lines, furnished in the comfortable, modern style. Ada moved quietly through the harmonious blend of creams and golds, dusky rose, and mint green. Stained glass trimmed the many windows so that rainbows tinted the thick Turkey carpets.

  Not really a home, Ada thought. It had the feeling of some grand hotel. A stopping place, a showpiece, empty of meaningful life. Tonight, Ada was grateful for this. It kept the household from being alerted to Mr. Beale’s entrance, and his death. The last thing she needed was for William or Mother to know what had happened in the garden.

  Moving carefully so as not to trigger any alarms built into the nightingale floors, Ada climbed to her studio on the third floor. This was the one place in the great house in which Mother had no influence. Ada thrived in the clutter; blueprints and mechanical drawings covered the walls. The makings of artificial skeletons glimmered in the flame of gaslight turned low; bronze and copper struts forming hands and legs; staring glass eyes; assemblages of gears that were hearts and bellows that were lungs. Jars for Leyden batteries, sheets of metal, and copper piping of various thicknesses occupied the far corner. Cabinets of gleaming tools stood between chests of drawers holding finished drawings or blank paper. Ink permanently stained the wooden floor and the scarred tabletops. She appreciated even a black thundercloud stain sprawling beneath the drawings on the eastern wall. She’d thrown an entire bottle of India ink in a moment of fury. The drawings on the northern wall more perfectly concealed the bullet hole from an invader who forced entry before she created the mastiff and the spiders. Against another wall, two keymen stood waiting in case they were ever needed.

  Ada inhaled the calming scents of dust and oil, metal and electricity, as she climbed the short flight of stairs to the library alcove filled with volumes both ancient and modern, covering every possible aspect of the mechanical sciences. Here there were leather chairs made soft and comfortable by much use. On the seat of one lay a loose bundle of ragged, water-stained pages. It was here she had been reading when Vigilance came to tell her of Mr. Beale’s...arrival.

  “...stioned P again this morning. Phoebus is a sterner judge than Diana, and what a man says beneath her light he may contradict once morning comes. But P remained steadfast. It can be done, he said, over and over. It can be done.”

  Ada’s hands, capable of bringing an assemblage of gears to miraculous life, trembled as she picked up the papers.

  “...Bysshe is all for it. Talks of incalculable benefits to mankind, &tc and he may be right, although I suspect he thinks mostly of putting an end to so much of his own fear...”

  The edges of the pages were uneven where they had been torn from their book. The handwriting on them alternated between dramatic waves of looped and curled letters and clusters of minuscule, crabbed words where the author was clearly in a hurry. Ada curled up in the chair, tucking her feet under the hem of her skirts, reading the dramatic words and trying to understand.

  When the morning came, she was still reading.

  “...Little Mary looked out of sorts though as Bysshe paced the room declaiming all the greatness to come. Curious, as P insists the initial idea was hers...”

  Floorboards creaked outside the workroom. Ada’s head snapped up and she automatically folded her papers away.

  But it was only the footman, Hollings, who entered. “Excuse me, m’lady. Mr. Babbage has arrived.”

  Yes, of course. It will be time to leave. “Please tell Mr. Babbage I will be with him shortly, and ask him to wait in the blue room.”

  When her servant departed, Ada strode across the workroom to a wide writing desk. She laid out the papers and then deftly manipulated the elaborate marquetry pattern on the desk’s right side, causing a drawer to slide smoothly open. She reached inside and pulled out a slim notebook. In her hand, it fell open to a particular page, covered in crabbed, blotted and scratched-out lines.

  “Is thy face like thy mother’s, my fair child!

  ADA! Sole daughter of my house and heart?”

  She laid the open notebook beside the loose sheets. Her eyes flickered from one to the other as her long fingers ran down the paper.

  Outside the door, the floorboards sighed.

  Ada pulled a sheaf of mechanical drawings across the notebook and the loose sheets. With them out of sight, she turned smoothly, her face a complaisant mask. But when the door opened and Charles Babbage marched across the threshold, the mask fell away.

  “Mr. Babbage. You gave me a turn.” Ada pressed her palm to her forehead. “I’m sure I told Hollings to ask you to wait.”

  “You did, Lady Lovelace.” Babbage laid his hat and walking stick on the nearest table. “I ignored him, and you. Have you forgotten what day it is?”

  “Of course not. As you see.” Ada indicated the spread of her fawn skirts trimmed elegantly with green lace and ribbons. She had taken time to dress, and to eat, although she had ignored her mother’s impatient messages about joining the rest of the household at table. “I am quite ready.”

  “Then why, may I ask, was I required to wait?”

  The vision of Mr. Beale’s ravaged body rose up in Ada’s mind, but she repressed it. “Something came up at the last moment.”

  “A matter of business?”

  Ada flicked the folds of her overskirt. “I would prefer not to discuss it at this time, Mr. Babbage.”

  Babbage’s craggy brow settled into a deep glower as he frowned at her. “You understand that we are at an exremely delicate stage. If today’s test fails with the Home Secretary and the Prime Minister watching...”

  “You and I will still be the richest industrialists in the Empire,” replied Ada wearily.

  But she might have saved her breath for all the notice Mr. Babbage took. “...Our patrons will begin looking to our competitors. The patents of Babbage & Lovelace will no longer be unrivalled. We will be marooned where we are, making toys for the nobility...”

  “Such as myself.”

  “ ...instead of creating the machines that will become the backbone of the British Empire for the next hundred years!”

  Ada sighed. “Mr. Babbage, you really must learn to do something about your overwhelming modesty.”

  “Countess Lovelace, it is that overwhelming modesty which has brought us both to this point.”

  “Pardon me,” she snapped back. “I thought it had something to do with your mechanical skills and my mathematical aptitude.”

  It was a small outburst, but it was enough. Mr. Babbage’s stance softened. “Tell me what has happened, my lady.”

  Ada sighed again. It really was none of his business. But who else do I confide in? My husban
d? Impossible.

  “Someone sent me these today.” She lifted the pages out from beneath impromptu coverings. “They are in my father’s handwriting...and they are not the first.”

  Babbage scanned the pages, his dark, clever eyes quickly deciphering the difficult hand. “When did this start?”

  “The day we announced we would be developing the automatic steamship.”

  “Have you made any attempt to trace...?”

  “I have employed several discreet agents. The first two failed absolutely. The third...” She hesitated. If Mr. Babbage knew Mr. Beale had died on the floor of the conservatory and accused her father of the murder, he’d be apoplectic. He’d raise a storm and bring the rest of the house up here. William would find out everything. Worse. Mother would. “My agent is dead. His personal flier crashed just after he took off from Dover.”

  Mr. Babbage read the curt telegram and laid it down on the desk beside the other papers. “You should have told me of this before.”

  “I suppose I should.” Ada began gathering the papers into a heap. “I had hoped...”

  “What?”

  “Nothing.” But her gaze drifted to a green baize curtain hanging in the library alcove.

  She felt Mr. Babbage watching her as she laid her papers in the secret drawer and closed it sharply. “It is the Luddites,” he announced firmly. “It stinks of their methods. Intimidation, and murder. The cowards have never shown any hesitation about attacking a woman.” He nodded pointedly toward the concealed bullet hole. “I’ll speak with the police and our men so they know to be especially vigilant.”

  “The Luddite threats always come with demands. This...” Ada’s hand trembled dangerously and she closed it in a fist. “This is something else.”

  “You have no way to know that. The timing of the announcement, the fact that more papers came today. What else could it be but the Luddites seeking to interrupt our demonstration for the Home Secretary?”

  Ada met Mr. Babbage’s gaze. You want to care, she thought. But you have too much on your mind now.

  But before she could speak, the floorboards sighed again, and the door opened.

  “Excuse me, my lady,” Hollings bowed. “Lady Byron bids me to say if you are quite ready, the carriages are waiting and so is...” Hollings hesitated.

  “The Home Secretary, the Prime Minister and half the world await my childish delays?” Ada finished for him.

  Hollings said nothing. Ada looked to Mr. Babbage and he nodded, dismissing Hollings.

  “We will talk more...at a later time,” Mr. Babbage said to her, reclaiming hat and stick. “You have the codex?”

  “Yes.” She indicated a locked iron box beside one of the still and silent keymen. “It arrived last night.”

  “And you have examined the cards?”

  “Yes, Mr. Babbage. They are perfect and complete.” She hesitated for a moment, and then risked a rare, truthful admission. “I wish I did not have to do this.”

  “I know.” Mr. Babbage covered her hand with his. “But you must understand, Ada, the public likes to see you with the machines. Such a young woman handling the language that commands them...it makes it seem less threatening. You don’t look as if you could do anything harmful.”

  “So you’ve told me.” If only they knew what I have built in this house... “Fear not, Mr. Babbage. I will do my part.” She arranged her face into a sunny smile for him. “After all, the play’s the thing.”

  “To open the pockets of a king. Just so, my lady.”

  III

  “Really, Ada, you should have informed me Mr. Babbage had arrived. I thought it was only the family you kept waiting.”

  Lady Byron, widow of the infamous Lord Byron, waited in the grand foyer as Ada and Mr. Babbage descended the stairs followed by one of the workroom keymen. Lady Byron was still a handsome woman, despite the thick black crepe she donned whenever she went forth in public. As if she mourned the man she helped drive from the country.

  Around Lady Byron stood her three confidantes, also dressed in fashionable but soberly coloured costumes. Mrs. Carr was fussing with the flower arrangement on the central table. Little Miss Doyle stood at Mother’s side, dabbing at her thin mouth with a handkerchief, while with needle-sharp awareness, Miss Frend simpered up at Ada’s husband, William, Earl of Lovelace, who towered over them all, thin and pale in his neat blue suit.

  Whenever her mother could not hear, Ada called the women The Furies.

  “It is entirely my fault that we are late, Lady Byron.” Mr. Babbage made his bow and then stepped up to shake hands with William. “I insisted on viewing the codex for the New Britannia once more before we left.”

  “A wise decision,” said Lady Byron. Her cool eyes never left Ada’s face as the maid helped Ada on with her coat. “One cannot be too careful on such a day.”

  “Of course Mr. Babbage will see to it that everything goes smoothly,” purred the plump and diminutive Mrs. Carr, first among the Furies. “He always organises events so splendidly.”

  Babbage bowed, acknowledging the compliment.

  “Shall we go?” William smoothed his coat sleeves and held out his arm to Ada.

  “If we are all quite ready, that is?” added Lady Byron.

  “Quite ready, Ma’am,” Ada replied. She turned to the automaton holding the codex chest. “Bastion. Take the box to Carriage Number One and load it securely onto the rack, then take your station.”

  Lady Byron’s lips thinned with disapproval. “Really, Ada, I should think one of the footmen...”

  “Forgive me, Lady Byron,” interrupted Mr. Babbage. “But I thought it advisable that Countess Lovelace be seen more frequently with her own automata.” He smiled conspiratorially at William. “There are still those who think they are somehow vulgar.”

  Which costs us business and consequently money. Ada watched the calculation flicker behind her mother’s hard eyes, as Mr. Babbage had known it would.

  “An excellent thought, Mr. Babbage,” said Mother promptly.

  Ada mentally set aside the sting from her mother’s disdain as she took her husband’s arm to walk out to the carriage. Lady Byron was a spectator today, nothing more. This day would prove to the world that Ada Lovelace, who could make bronze men walk and fight and sing, could make the greatest of machines dance to her command.

  This is my day. Mine.

  By the time their party reached the London Docks, Ada almost believed it.

  IV

  The launch of the New Britannia was a grand celebration, and the whole of the city turned out for it. The great blue dirigibles, the Flying Bobbies, floated in neat formation overhead while the personal fliers darted between them, their wings flapping like great copper albatrosses, plumes of steam trailing behind them. A full half of the Metropolitan Police had been brought out to attempt to hold back the crush of observers that strained and surged against their linked arms, struggling to keep a lane free for the carriages from Lovelace House.

  Ada twitched the carriage curtains closed, ignoring both William’s and Mr. Babbage’s frowns. She had to endure the mob, but she did not have to let them gawk.

  She wished there were a way to shut out the noise. There were cheers enough to satisfy Mr. Babbage—thankfully—but there were the other voices as well.

  “Jobs for men, not machines!”

  “Down with the Mathematical Witch!”

  “Trust God’s Creation, not Man’s!”

  Then there were the final set of voices, the ones that would never forget her paternal heritage.

  “Ada! I love you, Ada!”

  “Ada! I’ve a message from your father! He says not to believe her, Ada!”

  “Ada!” They called as the carriage halted and William helped her out. “Darling Ada!”

  It only got worse when Mother emerged from her carriage, the Furies in tight formation to create a wall of black crepe and silk at her back.

  “Witch!”

  “Liar!”

  �
��You drove him to his death!”

  Mr. Babbage doffed his hat to the friendly portion of the crowd, and they cheered in response. Ada wondered if he even heard the shouts of the Luddites and the Byron acolytes.

  Ada called on her well-honed powers of concentration to shut out the noise and fix her face into the serene and smiling mask that was expected in public situations. Ahead waited the new viewing platform built on the bank of the Thames. Flags and bunting draped the stage. Men in high hats and perfectly cut coats crowded together at the banister. Their wives stood with them, adorned in the latest fashions, parasols held high in case the sun should chance to peek through the grey clouds.

  But none of them really mattered, either. What mattered was the smooth, black sides of the New Britannia towering over them all.

  “Lady Lovelace!” Lord Normanby, the Home Secretary, stepped forward eagerly. “So elegant, as ever. We are greatly looking forward to your amazing us afresh with your new accomplishment.”

  “Thank you, Lord Normanby.” Ada took his hand briefly. Then, she turned to greet the Prime Minister, and her jaw nearly dropped.

  Lord Melbourne, Queen Victoria’s Prime Minister, was a tall, serious, conservative man. But beside him—wearing a dress of a cut that would have been difficult for a woman twenty years her junior to carry off—stood his wife, Lady Melbourne, Caroline Lamb, who also had been Lord Byron’s second most infamous lover.

  “Good Morning, Prime Minister,” Ada made herself say. “Thank you so much for coming to our demonstration.”

  “Good morning, Lady Lovelace,” Lord Melbourne replied. “Lord Lovelace. Mr. Babbage.” And with only the barest hint of a pause he added “Lady Byron.”

  “Lord Melbourne,” said her mother. There followed a heartbeat of hesitation, the barest flicker of an eye. “Lady Melbourne.”

  Of all her father’s affairs, the longest lasting and most public had been Caroline Lamb. She was the one who declared Byron “mad, bad and dangerous to know.” She had tried to prevent Lord Byron’s marriage to Lady Byron, but once that marriage was accomplished, she had thrown other women into Byron’s path in an attempt to break it.