Fordhook, Ealing
August 1832

Mamma and all three Furies are taking tea in the garden, under the sycamore tree. Mamma might not think of them as Furies, but I personally cannot think of them as anything else, and truly I cannot stand them. They hang around the house like horse-flies, creeping down corridors, waiting to pounce on any perceived wrongdoing.

When the Furies first arrived at Fordhook, about three months ago, I thought they were house guests. I did not imagine myself to be under their watch; this realisation came upon me gradually. I was out in the garden, not long after their arrival, conversing with a boy who had come to attend to the yew hedges, when Fury the First – Frances Carr – happened upon us like a witch descending from a storm cloud on a broomstick and hauled me away, squawking all the while about propriety.

‘Why shouldn’t I talk to him?’ I demanded.

Rendered inarticulate by her haste, the Fury merely squawked again, dragging me along as though I were a puppy in need of training.

On another occasion, I was in the library, writing in my commonplace book. I moved away to fetch a German dictionary, wanting to translate a line of Goethe’s; I looked back towards the table to see Fury the Second – Selina Doyle – leaning over my notebook, attempting to decipher my writing. From then on, I adopted a kind of code to mitigate against such attempts: a feverish scramble of swapped letters and dog-eared Latin, as hard for me to understand as it would be – hopefully – to anyone else.

And then there was the incident with the Spanish Count, who so kindly gave me lessons on the guitar during our stay in Brighton. Alfonso Galiano had a rich collection of family histories that he recounted to me in thrilling detail – his brother was a renowned cartographer and explorer – and in me he recognised both an ardent listener and a willing pupil. I strove to match the tricks of his flickering fingers as they danced over the fretboard, and practised each scale and chord he gave me with brow-bent diligence. I thought it deeply unfair when the Furies pooled their investigative sensibilities and told Mamma that the Count and I were exchanging ‘looks of a perceptibly loving nature’. Only one Fury was even in Brighton at the time! I protested to Mamma that they were making up lies and nonsense, but the lessons were abruptly stopped.

(As for the loving looks: I, Ada Byron, have not yet experienced love. If I had, I’d have put up more of a protest at the termination of my guitar lessons. But there was something interesting in the way the Count would lay his long, elegant fingers on my wrist as he repositioned my hand, and he did like to look into my eyes for longer, perhaps, than was necessary, as he explained the constituent notes in the chord of D minor. I would find myself gazing into his eyes too, and thinking that it was something not unlike the gravitational pull between planets – two moons locked into mutual orbit, neither quite able to pull itself away.)

Now, as the Furies crowd around the wrought-iron tea-table, I, who have managed to my delight to climb up into the heart of the sycamore (I am getting stronger and stronger and stronger), peer down through the green-loaded branches and eavesdrop without remorse on their conversation. Since they are putting me under surveillance, I see no reason why I should not do the same to them. Intent as they are on their victuals, none of them has noticed me. Only Betty, the parlourmaid, glances up fleetingly in my direction from her position behind Mamma’s chair; but I don’t think that Betty looks especially kindly on the Furies, who are exacting and petulant, and I doubt that she will give me away.

‘It is my sincerest wish,’ Mamma is saying, ‘that Ada should not become... like her father.’

The Furies make clucking-sounds of agreement. ‘Why, yes, dear,’ they chorus, as unoriginal as braying donkeys. ‘Of course you must wish that.’

‘That is why I am so grateful for your vigilance,’ Mamma says. ‘Especially when my own health is not good,’ she adds forlornly, helping herself to some cake.

At this, I snort. I have come to the conclusion that there isn’t really very much wrong with Mamma’s health. She eats like an ox; her digestion is sound; she is a solid sleeper. She could walk a marathon if she wanted to with that fierce, fine energy that she can summon at a moment’s notice. She simply likes the attention of doctors, such as her physician, Dr King. Their attention warms her, as a lizard might be heated up in the sunlight. She also enjoys retreating to spa towns in order to take the waters there, and focus on the rituals of healing. For these reasons, she persists that her health is not good.

Fury the Third, Sophia Frend, looks up sharply. ‘What’s that?’

I freeze, solidifying the breath in my lungs, hugging the trunk of the tree.

‘Oh, a squirrel, perhaps. The woods around here are full of them,’ says Mamma, who has not looked up. ‘The fact is that we must all be on the look-out for any signs of moral deviance on Ada’s part,’ she goes on. ‘She is at that age, now, when one might reasonably expect such strains to emerge in her temperament.’

The Furies make wise noises, and it is all that I can do not to fall out of the tree with indignation. How dare she accuse me of... of moral deviance – or of having the potential to show such a thing? What have I ever done to make her think this might even be possible?

Later on, in my bedroom, I turn to my father’s verses for the answer. Is there moral deviance contained within these pages? Perhaps, yes, you could say so. I scan the pages almost at random, looking for particular details that I remember from previous readings of behaviour that my mother would find questionable. In Don Juan – an epic collection of sixteen cantos – I find more than enough examples of things that would send my mother’s eyebrows skywards, not least the proclivities of the hero. And then there is Manfred, a tortured soul who has committed some unspeakable wrongdoing by indulging in an illicit affair with Astarte. The more I read, the more I find. But why should my father be judged on the basis of the character of his creations? (For that, I am convinced, is what Mamma has done.) She ought to realise that the poet and his work are not the same. And furthermore, she does not realise that by alerting the Furies – and me, as well – to my potential moral deviance, she is only encouraging me, I think, to experiment with those boundaries. Yes: Mamma might view the prospect of my turning out like my father with horror and anxiety, but I, for my part, feel no such trepidation.

For would it not be a matter of considerable pride to follow in the footsteps of one of England’s greatest poets?