The Mammoth Book of Historical Crime Fiction (39 page)

*

Ada stared at her breakfast plate. Half a slice of toast was left. If she cut it in tiny squares and chewed each one as long and as slowly as she could, she would be able to complete the task she’d set herself at the same time as finishing her toast. Why was the 47 times-table such a tricky one? She continued reciting it in her mind. Although she tried to stop them, her lips kept trying to form the numbers, but chewing the toast helped hide that.

Across the table, her mother rustled
The Times
newspaper and gave a noise of disgust. Ada tried to shut out the sound, and speeded up her mental exercise. With her mother’s three friends all taking their breakfasts in bed, claiming they’d come down with autumnal colds, she’d seized advantage of her freedom from having to respond to their remarks about the weather, or the minutiae of the life lived by their Mortlake neighbours, to allow her mind to continue to play with numbers. She enjoyed not having their eyes constantly watching her, checking her behaviour and how much she ate. Her mother’s watchdogs – whom to herself she called the Three Furies.

Her mother gave another snort of rage, folded the newspaper and tossed it down. It was no good, she’d only reached 47 times 23, and her mother was about to launch into a tirade.

“Yet another one of these meetings by those uncouth ruffians usurping the name of Robert Owen for their own ends. When are the government going to put a stop to it? That’s what I want to know. The Police Force had to go in and break it up when they should have been out on the streets catching thieves and murderers. And it’s my taxes that pay for that. It will give the Co-operative movement a bad name, and set back all the good work of Owen, and Feargus O’Connor with his Northern Star newspaper.” She thumped the pink tablecloth for emphasis, making the silver spoons rattle in their delicate Crown Derby porcelain saucers. Ada sensed the footman wincing as he feared for the whole breakfast service.

“Their meeting place, some tavern or other, was set fire to; only the quick thinking of the Metropolitan Police managed to put it out. Irish malcontents or extreme radicals, that’s what they were. You’d think that the example set by what happened to those farm-workers in Dorset would have been enough to deter them, whether you think their fate was the right thing or not, but, oh no—”

“Tolpuddle. They were from Tolpuddle, Dorset. Twenty men sentenced to transportation to Australia for seven years’ apiece. In March this year,” Ada said.

“Yes, yes, I know all that. Don’t interrupt me.” Her mother settled her lace cap more firmly on her dark hair, then fixed her fierce eyes on Ada. “The point I’m making, Ada dear, is that some unscrupulous men, pretending to be allied to O’Connor and Owen and Cobbett, with their talk of combining into unions, are instead using the common man for their own ends, not for his good. Their purpose is to destabilize the government and bring down the monarchy. They want to incite the mobs into a rabble running through the streets of London, burning and pillaging. Why, they’re nothing but … but Republicans!”

The word hung dangerously in the air. This was the spectre her mother hated and feared the most. Would England become infected by the Revolutions of 1830?

“I believe they only talk of rights and wages and conditions, Mama, not of – of that,” Ada said. “Especially as the Reform Act has not extended suffrage very much.”

“And what right do they have to question the natural order of things? The men who run the factories and mines bring prosperity, jobs and advance for everyone. They should be praised, not attacked.”

Ada pushed her plate away, abandoning the last two small squares of toast. She would not complete her task now. “They create wealth through their knowledge and daring, and invention. They carry the risk with their own money. Without them there would be no jobs, and starving families. A logical equation, it seems.” This was what her tutors taught her, even though the words sometimes had a hollow ring. Her mother espoused the Co-operative Movement, yet still feared what she called the “ungoverned elements”.

“And another thing.” As usual her mother didn’t listen to her, and her tirade was not yet over. “Here we are, spending money building workhouses for the poor to give them shelter and food – again out of my taxes – and yet they’ve done nothing but complain about them for the past two years.”

Ada looked around their comfortable breakfast room. The walls were a delicate shade of
eau de nil
and white, with mouldings of fruit and flowers. A coal fire burned in the grate, and they sat at a walnut table. Everything in this room spoke of good taste and good quality – and money. Money her mother had inherited. Servants stood, unmoving, by the wall, ready to fulfil any order their mistress might have.

Ada had seen, by contrast, illustrations of workhouses, with their bare stone walls and high windows, and had read how men and women were separated and that families were not allowed to live together. But she must not think about those things. For that way madness lay, and her mother did everything she could, for her daughter’s own good, to keep her from the possibility of that downward spiral …

“Lady Byron, a message for Miss Ada.” The footman, John, had entered carrying a silver tray on which lay a small white envelope.

Ada knotted her fingers together under the table and squeezed them, starting to count backwards from one hundred, to stop herself from feeling faint. She was not angry that her mother now read all her invitations first – “It really is for your own good.” She felt herself flush at the memory of last year’s folly. She felt again William’s caresses, his kisses – the adventurous thrill as they planned their elopement. Quickly, having counted back to one, she focused on
The Times
’s headlines, reading upside-down: “October 1834”, she read, then made out the words “King William and the Royal Party … Wellington …”

“It’s from our friend Charles Babbage.” Her mother’s pursed lips had broken into a smile. “He requests your company today to stimulate his mind in the discussion of logarithms and calculus.”

Ada held her breath and squeezed her fingers even tighter.

“I suppose I can let you go today. It is Saturday, and you are far enough ahead in your studies, your tutors tell me. But tonight is Lady Conway’s Ball, a fancy dress masque, so be sure you’re back in plenty of time to prepare for it.”

Ada managed to hold in her shriek of pleasure, but couldn’t stop herself clapping her hands. “Shall I wear my new red dress, Mama?”

“It goes well with your dark hair, and you might be seen while in the carriage, so, yes.”

What have I done to deserve such a day, Ada wondered as she left the breakfast room, giving a skip as she crossed the threshold. She was wanted, she was needed, and by the one man in whose company she could release all her passion for mathematics and know she would be understood. They could share their love for the arithmetical world. Furthermore, she would wear her new dress, and tonight there was her favourite – a fancy dress ball.

As she passed through the drawing room, her eyes slid over the painting above the fireplace which was covered by a green curtain. It was a portrait of her father, but she had never defied her mother’s wishes and looked at it. She did not want to gaze into the face of that wicked darkness …

*

“Welcome, welcome, my dear Ada.” Charles Babbage held out his hands in greeting and she felt their warmth coursing through her. His black wavy hair framed an attractive face with a fresh complexion. He was of medium build, with strong shoulders. “Is that a new dress? Most becoming.”

Ada smoothed down the folds of red silk decorated with yellow flowers. The sleeves were fashionably widely puffed at the shoulder and the skirt flared from the high waist, finishing just above her ankles. It had not creased in the journey from Mortlake to Marylebone.

“Let me ring for refreshments – hot chocolate? – and then I’ll show you the equations I’ve been working on, which only my mathematical muse will be able to fully appreciate.”

Ada took a chair beside the glowing mahogany table which was strewn with Charles’s papers. One wall of the room was lined with books covering all the sciences. There was a miniature cosmology on a side table, given to him by his friend the astronomer Herschal, showing the position of the planets around the sun. Around the room were various inventions both abandoned and in progress, such as the shoes for walking on water, and instruments for examining eyes. But towering above them all was the Difference Engine, awaiting its move into the new building next door, created especially for it and paid for by public funds. Solid and foursquare, with its brass columns and cogs, its ivory numbers and black plates, it seemed to Ada to be a machine in waiting, longing to have its mechanisms clicking and slotting into place and providing answers at astonishing speed to those mathematical sums it took the human brain so long to work out. If only Charles could persuade the government to release more money for its development.

As soon as she’d heard about it – the machine that was the talk of London society – she’d longed to see it, but her mother had at first refused. Then, finally, when she’d gone to see it on one of Charles’s Open Days, she had understood it instantly, and she and Charles had recognized each others’ passion for the world of numbers. And now she had another dream. She was eighteen, soon to be nineteen, but when she was twenty-one – surely, then, he would hire her as his official assistant.

As they bent their heads over pages of diagrams and figures, forgotten chocolate congealing in its cup, Ada sensed that this was as much an escape for Charles as it was for her. He grieved still for the loss of three of his sons – following that of his wife – and very recently her namesake, his daughter Georgiana. But in the pure precision, the light and air of mathematics, they were given respite from worldly emotions. Charles Babbage, inventor, mathematician, astronomer, and – yes, surely – his able assistant, Ada.

The knock on the door made them both jump.

“Mr Clark, Under Secretary to the Home Secretary, wishes to see you.” Barely had Charles’s manservant spoken, than a tall thin man was pushing his way past him, followed by a young stocky man in the dark blue uniform of the Metropolitan Police. When he saw Ada, the young man removed his tall hat and placed it under his arm, and then took up a position standing at ease beside the door.

“I apologize for intruding Mr Babbage,” Clark said. There was a gleam of excitement in his pale blue eyes and this, with an agitation in his manner, gave a sense of urgency. “We met at dinner at the Prime Minister’s house.”

“I do recall it, yes. Some Madeira wine perhaps?” Charles nodded to his manservant, who withdrew. “Sit down, sit down.” Charles waved a hand towards a chair, but Clark continued striding about the room, casting glances at the Difference Engine.

“I need to consult with you over a Government matter,” Clark said. “Can it be now?” He looked at Ada.

“May I introduce Miss Ada Byron, my assistant in all things?”

“Miss Byron!” Clark took her hand and bowed his head. “I am sure I can speak freely in front of you,” he said, then rushed on. “I remember well how you talked about ciphers and codes, Mr Babbage, and how you are amassing notes to write a book on them.”

Charles exchanged glances with Ada, his face lighting up. “Indeed. I have a short paper in preparation already, and I exercise my mind regularly by attempting to decipher the codes used in
The Times
personal column. Some messages are easily solved, but others prove wonderfully challenging.”

“I knew you were the right man to see this, and to tell us – is it some kind of code, or is it gibberish? And if it is indeed a code or cipher, can you break it to reveal its secrets? I thought perhaps the Engine could help us.”

Ada held her breath. Charles could be very touchy on the matter of the Difference Engine. But he laughed. “The purpose of my machine is to help us with speed and accuracy in reaching mathematical answers. It cannot make those leaps of judgement that the human mind can. And at the moment, it cannot even make those mathematical sums. I am thinking of a new Analyser but without the money that—”

“What codes are you talking about, Mr Clark?” Ada interrupted him, to distract Charles from the subject of research funding.

“Ah yes. Constable Duckett, step forward and give your account of last night’s events at the White Hart tavern near Holborn, and give Mr Babbage the piece of paper.”

Ada noticed that the young policeman was not intimidated by his surroundings. He was clean-shaven, and he’d made an attempt to slick down his springy brown hair. His eyes were a darker blue than Clark’s.

“That was the Union meeting where there was a fire,” Ada said. “Mama was reading about it in the paper this morning.”

“A lamp was dropped, but the flames were quickly put out, Miss,” the constable told her, then continued. “But just before then, towards the end of the fracas, when the men attending the meeting was dispersing, I received a blow to the stomach and then this here paper was pushed inside my tunic. At first I thought I was stabbed, but then I found this piece of paper. Because I was bent over I did not see who put it there. I decided to give it to the Sergeant in case it was important.”

“Bravo,” Charles said, and took the piece of paper. “Did you see anything of the man who gave this to you?”

Constable Duckett hesitated. “Not really, I was bent double. He may’ve had a missing finger. Something like that.”

Constable Duckett then returned to his place by the door, as the Madeira wine arrived. As Ada sipped hers, the young constable met her glance equably, then looked away awkwardly. He’d not been offered refreshments; was that because he was only a constable?

“Look here, Ada, what do you make of this?” Charles said. He spread the paper on his work table and together they bent over it. Immediately she saw a pattern. There were four quadrants, each with its own distinct features. The upper left was composed of hieroglyphs, the upper right and lower left were what seemed to her random groups of letters. The lower right was some sort of equation with complex polyhedrons on one side, symbols and a rhyme on the other. Underneath were two shapes.