Switzerland
September 1826

Staying up rather later than my usual bedtime, I am sitting at the foot of Mamma’s easy-chair in the furnished apartments we have taken in Canton Berne, listening to the conversation between three learned and lively-minded women. Mary Montgomery and Harriet Siddons have come to join us in our travels; Robert Noel, meanwhile, has left us to attend to other matters. In a couple of days, we are to visit Dr Fellenberg’s institution.

Mamma is in a visible state of anticipation – she is usually too self-possessed to be demonstrably excited – about visiting the famed academy. I can tell from her manner of speaking – faster than usual, and a little breathless. ‘Of course, dear Harriet, it is on your recommendation that I thought of arranging this visit,’ she is saying. She is drinking a cup of chocolate with her usual gusto – we have it at home, sometimes, but at home it is nothing like as rich and sweet as it is in Switzerland.

Harriet Siddons is an actress – she once played Juliet at Drury Lane – and always speaks with clarity and emphasis. ‘Why, everyone knows that education in our country is quite shockingly in need of reform,’ she says, her voice resonating in the room. ‘Impractical, ill-considered and, more than anything else, unfair. Think of how many people are simply denied the right to an education.’

‘What people?’ I say.

Harriet Siddons looks at me sternly (she is not, in fact, a stern person – just a rather emphatic one, as previously stated). ‘Poor people, for a start,’ she says, as though I am very foolish for not understanding this.

I sit up a little straighter, listening now with real interest. For so long I have allowed myself to stop listening as soon as Mamma brings up the subject of Dr Fellenberg. Now I am intrigued; I have never thought about this before. ‘Do poor people not... do they not receive an education at all, then?’

‘Why, no, Ada,’ says Mary Montgomery, from her corner. She is bolstered by cushions, to make her position more comfortable, for she is troubled by continual back pain. Her lovely face is a little tired-looking in the firelight. ‘How could they, when they must work for a living, often from childhood?’

Mamma says: ‘What is needed is useful, practical training: the provision of a set of skills that children might be able to use for the rest of their lives. That is what they aim to do at Hofwyl.’

‘No messing about with things like Latin,’ says Mrs Siddons, making a wry, disgusted face. ‘Not like—’

‘Indeed,’ says Mamma tightly. She goes on: ‘I am looking forward to seeing the place for myself. More than I can possibly say.’

‘Annabella,’ says Mrs Siddons, who is always outspoken, ‘you can’t deny that your husband’s Harrovian education is the very opposite of the model you seek to know more about; now, can you?’

My mother rises from her chair. ‘Let us not talk about him now; not here, not in front of Ada.’

Thinking about this later, I’m puzzled. Mamma showed me my father’s house on the lake not two days previously, but she cannot allow her friends to mention his education. Why? It doesn’t make any sense. I think about it, treating it as a riddle, for hours – then, I realise the difference. Harriet Siddons was criticising Byron, finding fault with the way that he was brought up, and that is something that Mamma cannot permit. Our little sailing-trip earlier in the week was something very different.

If anything, I decide, it was a pilgrimage.

I have other questions besides this one, and decide to ask Mrs Siddons, since she was the one to mention my father in conversation. I choose my moment carefully, waiting until Mamma is resting, and Mrs Siddons is sitting alone on the balcony with a small pile of correspondence.

‘Mrs Siddons,’ I say. ‘May I ask you a question about my father?’

‘Why, Ada, certainly you may,’ she says in her usual forthright way, though it strikes me that she looks a little hesitant.

‘I’ve been thinking about my father’s departure to the Continent, and I know now – though I hadn’t realised this before – that it was in 1816. That is right, isn’t it?’

Mrs Siddons replies: ‘I remember his departure, as a matter of fact, quite clearly – it was in the newspapers, you see.’ She smiles wryly. ‘Let me think. The war was over, of course... yes, it was 1816, Ada.’

‘And he... he never came back?’

‘No indeed.’

She picks up her pen, balancing it between her heavily-ringed fingers, but doesn’t write anything.

‘Why was it in the newspapers?’ I say.

‘Well,’ says Mrs Siddons. ‘He was famous – still is, of course, even after death. What he did was always of interest.’

‘And why did he never come back, not even once?’

‘Ah, Ada, I don’t know if I can answer that. Perhaps he preferred the ways of foreigners. Many do, you know.’

This doesn’t entirely convince me. Now she scans a piece of correspondence, and then starts a letter on a fresh piece of paper, and I don’t feel that I can disturb her further. But I can’t dismiss this new knowledge: Byron left England when I was the smallest of infants, and never returned... I hadn’t realised that he left so soon after my birth. For some reason I can’t quite express, I feel saddened by this. My existence was not enough to tempt him to stay.

Mamma is at her most voluble in the carriage on the way to the institute the following morning, telling Miss Stamp the history of Pestalozzi.

‘Pestalozzi championed something that he called Anschauung – “the perception of the senses”,’ she is saying, as the carriage slows to a halt outside a tall gate. ‘Dr Fellenberg then expanded the principle, adding the concept of action, as well as perception. Education by action! Just think, Miss Stamp. It was – and still is – a revolutionary approach.’

I listen with interest to this as we disembark, and the gates are unlatched to allow us to walk through. Education by action sounds very much like the sort of thing I would enjoy. I do not consider long hours at a table – education by inaction – to be particularly exciting, and this is how my own time is largely spent. Perhaps, as a result of our Grand Tour, Mamma will revise her ideas about how I, her own daughter, am meant to be educated? It’s an exciting thought.

On the other side of the gate is a group of lofty, generously-sized buildings, in the Swiss style, with pointed roofs; they are surrounded by a pleasantly-sized courtyard, in which is a tall climbing-frame and a number of trees. Regimented gardens lie beyond on three sides. The courtyard is full of boys – some of about my age, and many much older – running, playing, exercising... there are even a few on horseback, and I watch them curiously; I have always wanted to be able to ride, and have never been thought to be strong enough.

A wise-looking man with very little hair and a quiet, precise manner approaches us. This must be Dr Fellenberg himself. ‘Milady,’ he says, taking my mother’s hand.

‘It is a great pleasure to meet you,’ Mamma replies.

‘What an atmosphere of quiet industry,’ says Mary Montgomery, walking with the aid of her cane. Dr Fellenberg is taking us on a comprehensive tour of the institution. We speak to teachers and pupils alike, looking at what is taught, and how, and all express admiration for this peaceful, purposeful school.

‘This is a place of equals, as you know,’ says Dr Fellenberg. ‘We have rich pupils and poor ones; old pupils and young ones. They are friends, truly, each feeling sympathy and understanding towards the other, no matter what their circumstances are. This is a school for everyone.’

‘Dr Fellenberg,’ I ask, ‘why are there no girls?’

‘But there are indeed girls here,’ says Dr Fellenberg, smiling, with a gesture towards the garden, around the back of the largest building, and there we see at least a dozen young women going about the business of weeding a vegetable patch. ‘My wife is in charge of the girls,’ he adds. ‘They too are in need of the skills we aim to provide, especially if they are to earn a living.’

The girls are now walking in pairs across the garden. I admire their practical-looking dresses with big pockets for carrying things in, and the way each girl has a basket piled high with implements or produce. One girl, red-haired and long-legged, has a smear of dirt on her cheek. I envy it. She looks at me suddenly, and we smile at each other.

At the end of our visit, Mamma seems exhausted, but elated. Harriet Siddons and Mary Montgomery are talking excitedly as the carriage takes us back to our apartments, but Mamma sits back, hands folded. In her eyes is an expression that I know very well, for I recognise it as one of mine: that glittering, magical-potential look that speaks of ideas.

‘Mamma,’ I say, ‘is... is an idea coming upon you?’

I assume that she won’t answer me, or say she doesn’t understand, but she does. ‘I have so much money, Ada,’ she says simply. ‘As you know, I am determined – utterly determined – to do good with it. Well, I am quite resolved. I shall set up a school, following in the footsteps of Dr Fellenberg and Pestalozzi. I shall get the best advice, and find the best teachers. I’ve no doubt that I can do it.’

And I have no doubt, either. Mamma is a very determined person.