Europe
July 1826

For the duration of the Channel crossing, Mamma and Miss Chaloner huddle together in the small, cramped cabin of the boat, groaning weakly and complaining about the smell. I myself am not troubled by seasickness, and am thus free to explore the deck with my governess. It’s raining – not a lot; just enough to fleck our faces with moisture – as we admire the hull, and the great funnel.

‘The engine of the boat is powered by steam,’ I say, remembering what I have read with Miss Stamp about the inventions of Watt and Trevithick. ‘The engine turns the paddles of the boat, and this propels it forwards.’

‘It’s a simple idea,’ says Miss Stamp, ‘but such a powerful one. It makes you wonder what else could be accomplished with steam.’

‘Just you wait,’ says Robert Noel, lounging against the rail next to us. I’ve always liked Robert Noel, who is a kind of cousin of Mamma’s; he has a way of making everything sound exciting, even dull things. ‘Soon – mark my words – people will be able to travel up and down the country by steam locomotive. Letters delivered in a day! Goods carted from town to town! Imagine it!’

I can imagine it. ‘There are other things you could do with steam,’ I say. ‘What about a giant, steam-powered music box, so big that it could be heard across a vast expanse of countryside... or steam-powered ice skates that could propel the skater incredibly fast along a frozen river?’ This is the kind of thing that I would normally say to Miss Stamp alone, but I recognise that Robert Noel is a fellow traveller, and as such may share in our conversation.

He chuckles in an avuncular fashion. ‘What an imagination you have, Ada. Be sure it doesn’t get you into trouble, now.’

The boat chugs and chatters, cutting a steady-paced pathway through the grey-green waves, until at last the Continent appears: a blurred sweep of distant cliffs, with a ruffle of cloud above it.

I stare at it, awe-stricken. ‘I, Ada, have crossed an entire sea,’ I whisper, to no one.

‘It’s amazing to think,’ says Miss Stamp, ‘of these two countries being at war for so many years.’

‘And it’s cost this country dearly,’ adds Robert Noel.

It is only as we are disembarking that I remember that my father also crossed this same stretch of water. When I do remember, it doubles my sense of adventure and magical promise.

I don’t recall much about Calais, or the carriage journey we take thereafter, but the Dutch port of Rotterdam, which we reach within a few days’ time, is a revelation to me. I am enchanted by the houses – slimmer, for the most part, than London townhouses, but with an abundance of windows, as though every occupant is a dreamer, perching wistfully on a windowsill and looking out towards the harbour.

‘Even the air is different here,’ I tell Miss Stamp delightedly, as we watch the boats in the port, the gulls darting and looping overhead. Everything is different. The windmills, for example, have a character that is altogether their own; they seem more colourful than English windmills, and bolder. I adore them. There is one particular windmill that catches my imagination: De Blauwe Molen. For days, it inhabits my thoughts.

‘Use it in a story,’ urges Miss Stamp; I think this a very sound idea.

Mamma, meanwhile, eats prodigiously hearty breakfasts every day, all the while poring over literature about the educational institute that we are to visit in Switzerland, and reminding me to exercise diligence with my lessons. I do try, working each morning with Miss Stamp, but I also find time to attempt my first short story, entitled ‘The Mystery of the Blue Windmill’.

After Baden and Heidelberg, we travel to Geneva. It’s a long, tiring, dusty journey over the mountainside of Jura; Louisa Chaloner has been reading to us from Mariana Starke’s guide for travellers, and although I have grown sick of listening to her at times, there’s no denying how excited I am that I will shortly see the lake.

‘Geneva is a town of some thirty-thousand inhabitants,’ Louisa Chaloner intones in her dry, no-nonsense voice, as we begin to descend the mountain.

‘I don’t know how you can read in these conditions,’ says Mamma, whose face is pale with nausea. It is a horribly bumpy road; even Robert Noel and Miss Stamp are quiet and subdued.

Undeterred, Louisa goes on: ‘Soon, we shall pass a villa that belonged to the philosopher Voltaire.’

Twisting away from her, I divert my attention to the small carriage window and all that can be seen through it: a thicket of fir trees... pretty little cottages sticking like limpets to the mountainside... I note these visual treasures, keeping silent count in my head, marking them down to be remembered always. Presently I let out a squeal of joy, so loudly that Louisa stops, annoyed, in the middle of her monologue.

‘Oh, Mamma, the lake!’

It has suddenly appeared beneath us – crystalline, tranquil, exquisite – surrounded by glaciers so tall and graceful that they almost defy belief. Robert Noel asks in French for the coachman to stop. We get out, unsteady on our legs, and a moment of silence enshrouds our little group.

‘Can it be real?’ I say.

‘Of course it is real,’ says Mamma. ‘The evidence of your own eyes should suffice to convince you of that. Don’t make fanciful remarks, Ada.’

But it is the almost-unrealness that I find so spellbinding, as I stand on the mountainside, with its carpet of tiny flowers, and gaze at the lake. If only I could paint well, I think – or write symphonies, or words of extraordinary beauty; if only I could do something, make something,achieve something that could come close to the majesty of this body of water...

I nudge my governess. ‘This is why people write poetry, isn’t it?’ I whisper, so that Mamma will not overhear (for I am not sure that she will share my opinion). ‘To try to capture a feeling... like this.’

Miss Stamp gives me a beauteous smile.

Louisa Chaloner interrupts my thoughts. ‘Geneva itself,’ she says, still reading aloud, ‘is divided by the river RhÔne. On entering the city, we shall cross over two bridges...’

Throughout our stay in Geneva, I try, when I can, to work on my story. The Blue Windmill is now situated, naturally, beside a lake of great size and wonder, visited by hundreds of birds, and home to all manner of freshwater fish. But in spite of my ambition, I struggle with the writing. Sometimes the words come easily to me, and I am pleased by the fluency of my ideas; at other times I feel as stale as old Bath cakes, and find myself indulging in frenzies of revising and crossings-out that leave me exhausted at the end of my efforts, and with nothing to show for them but an ache that spreads sharply across my hand, as though I have taxed its bones too greatly.

One Tuesday morning – it’s a sultry day with a sticky heat that make my undergarments cling unpleasantly to my legs – Mamma and Miss Stamp and I go to visit Geneva’s public library. There’s a silver Roman shield on display; we are drawn to it as bees might be to a particularly prominent sunflower, and hover around it in silence.

‘How are you finding Ada’s thoughts, Miss Stamp?’ Mamma says, with customary abruptness, as though I am not there.

Miss Stamp seems temporarily at a loss for words. ‘Well,’ she says, ‘I don’t know if I can speak for Ada about her own thoughts, but those thoughts of hers to which I am privy seem to me to be of great interest and originality.’

‘But what about the arrangement of her thoughts?’ Mamma persists. ‘Witnessing my daughter, it seems to me that she veers from exclamations on the prettiness of the view to a meditation on some question of arithmetic, pausing to sing a scale or draw an outline of a chimney in chalk, and then declaring that she might, perhaps, like to learn a new instrument or two!’

‘Indeed,’ says Miss Stamp cautiously. It’s true, I do behave like this, and she can’t really deny it.

Mamma carries on: ‘It seems to me, in short, that Ada’s mind is most worryingly disorganised.’

At this, she squints furiously at the Roman shield, and then at me, as though comparing us both, and finding me wanting by contrast. There is a pause. Rather morosely, I gaze at the shield. It is a handsome, shiny, heavy-looking thing – exactly what I’d expect the Romans to have made. Someone has beaten away at it for hours, I see, marking it with tiny, identical indentations. In just the same way does Mamma wish my mind to be moulded. It is entirely clear.

What is Miss Stamp going to say to Mamma? I’ve always thought of her as an ally; someone who will come to my defence – to shield me, even – if I need it. And, sure enough, Miss Stamp tells Mamma, very prettily, that my mind has no shortcomings insofar as its organisation is concerned.

‘Well, Miss Stamp,’ says Mamma. ‘You do satisfy me with this response, although it remains my strong conviction that my daughter’s time would be better employed in mathematical pursuits than, for example, in writing romantic and fanciful stories.’

At no point has she asked me what I think about my own mind, but that doesn’t surprise me; she is paying my governess to educate me, and therefore she can regard my intellect as a purchase, a possession, of her own. But if she were to ask me whether I agree – what would I say? In a way, I consider her observations of the way my mind flits from place to place to be quite accurate. But what she calls disorganisation, I call something different: the feeling of allowing my thoughts to fly from one passion to another, not allowing themselves to be tied down by doubt, or digression, or ideas about rules – well, that, to me, feels more like freedom.

Mamma has not upset me, and I tell myself that I will not worry about what she thinks about my mind – but, somehow, her comments in the public library work their way a little more deeply under my skin than I would like. I work on my story for another few days, and then – without mentioning it to Miss Stamp – fold the pages in half, tear them twice, and throw them away.