Dorset Street, London
March 1834

By the time of my second visit, about nine months after the first, to Mr Babbage’s Dorset Street home, I have learned a good deal more about him.

Charles Babbage’s family were originally from the Devon town of Totnes. His father was a banker and goldsmith who moved his business to London in the year that Babbage was born, where his businesses continued to thrive. On his father’s death in 1827, Charles Babbage inherited the vast sum of a hundred thousand pounds. He studied at the same Cambridge college – Trinity – as my father; and although he never had to struggle for money, he did become possessed of a profound desire to contribute to some of the changes that were taking place in society.

He has four surviving children, one of whom is named Herschel (after John Herschel, who was a great friend of his at university). He is well-known for his soirées, at which all sorts of interesting people might be encountered; in spite of my occasional hints, Mamma and I have not attended any of them – not, I think, because of any reluctance or disinterest on her part, but simply due to the intricacies of our calendar of social engagements. Now, thanks to Mary Somerville, who knows perfectly well how dearly I wish to see the demonstration piece again, we are making our way to Dorset Street in a carriage after dinner.

‘Why are you smiling in that secretive manner, Ada?’ asks Mary Somerville.

‘Oh,’ I say. ‘I was just thinking how infinitely I prefer the thought of one of Mr Babbage’s soirées to another dull ball.’

My companion laughs gently. Mrs Somerville is, above all else, a very reasonable person. From her I am learning more than I ever have – from anyone – and I truly believe that I can call myself, with great pride, her protégée. I am growing very fond of her daughters, Martha and Mary – as well as Woronzow, her son – and sometimes I find myself actually running along the pathway to her house in Chelsea, while the mist rises thickly from the river that lies beyond it, so desperate am I to see them all, and to talk about a sum or equation or mathematical conundrum.

One of the reasons why I like her so much is because she is Not Mamma. She is far warmer and more personable than my mother; in fact, sometimes I find myself wanting to reach for her hand, or for her to embrace me with a mother’s tenderness. These moments both surprise me and don’t surprise me at all. But just as much as she is Not Mamma, nor is she anything like me. For example, she would never have done what I did with James Hopkins – she would never have acted so rashly, and with such disregard to propriety and reputation, and the expectations of others. She might have recognised her feelings, but she would have found a way to contain them. I find it so hard to contain anything.

‘Balance, Ada, is the key to everything,’ says Mary Somerville. ‘Everything in moderation – that, I believe, was the phrase in Ancient Greece. A dance one day, a discussion about mathematics or engineering the next, but nothing taken to excess, is a wise path.’

‘Perhaps,’ I say. Oh, it sounds reasonable enough, but I cannot bring myself to feel enthusiastic about an ancient axiom that proposes moderation.

‘You are, after all, not necessarily likely to meet a suitable husband at Dorset Street,’ says Mrs Somerville. She knows very well that this is Mamma’s chief desire. I know this too, and I suppose it is unlikely to change.

But for the moment, all I want – more than anything else – is to see the model of the Difference Engine again, and I am grateful to Mrs Somerville for facilitating the encounter.

Charles Babbage is just as I remember him. ‘My dear Miss Byron,’ he says, looming over me and Mrs Somerville like a genial bear. ‘You must meet another young lady – one who might possibly be as enchanting as you yourself.’

Somewhat taken aback by this – I am not here to enchant anyone, and am sorry that Mr Babbage thinks that I might be – I am at first relieved when he spins around to reveal, with all the dramatic flourishes for which he is famous, an automated dancer on a podium, rotating merrily for the benefit of the room. She stands about a foot high, and on one hand perches a little bird that opens and closes its beak as she rotates.

‘This, Miss Byron, is my Silver Lady. Is she not a thing of beauty?’

I smile rather thinly, realising that I must look exactly like my mother, for whom thin smiles are a speciality. ‘Mr Babbage, she is a wonder indeed, but there is another wonder that I would much prefer to see.’

‘Oh? And what wonder is that?’

‘Why, your Difference Engine – the model piece, I mean.’

Now Mr Babbage looks taken aback, but only a little. Then he looks positively delighted. It is amusing to watch the differing emotions cross his face; he reassesses me, perhaps moving me from one category in his mind to another. It has been said that in order to merit an invitation to one of these soirées one must possess beauty, intellect or good breeding. Mr Babbage might have thought that my birth is the sole justification for my presence (for certainly I am not beautiful). But now, perhaps, he is reconsidering. Minutes later, we are again in the presence of the model Difference Engine, which I notice has been moved to another part of the room, rather less on display than it was last June. Has he lost interest in his invention? I wonder. Or has he lost heart, let down by the government and unable to find the right kind of assistance?

I realise that I am actually trembling as I stretch out a hand towards it. Oh, I have dreamed of it: strange, to think that a construction of interlaced cogwheels could become the stuff of dreams.

‘When you were a child, Mr Babbage, did you dream of designing such a machine?’ I ask him, suddenly rather timid.

‘I wanted to know what was inside of everything,’ Mr Babbage replies, quite seriously. ‘I would quite happily break anything apart in order to satisfy my curiosity as to its workings.’

‘Were you the same, Ada?’ says Mary Somerville, who has come to stand next to me.

‘I never... I don’t think I ever broke anything apart,’ I tell them, feeling sad at the realisation, wishing that I could have broken things. I do not think that I ever wanted to – but if I had, I don’t think it would have been well-received by Mamma.

‘Neither did I,’ says Mrs Somerville, and I feel better again. ‘Observation: that was what I enjoyed, more than anything. Just standing in the garden, watching the birds, the trees. Seeing nature weave her spells.’

And suddenly I remember myself – five, six – squatting, dirt-kneed, in the vegetable garden at Kirkby Mallory, captivated by the gossamer strands of a spider’s web.

‘Have you made any progress since last we met?’ Mrs Somerville says to Mr Babbage.

‘With funding? Alas, no,’ he replies, in his leonine growl of a voice. ‘And besides, money is not my only problem.’

‘What a pity,’ says Mary Somerville. ‘It would be far more economical for the government to have tabulated calculations at their disposal.’

‘As it happens, though, I have just recently begun to conceive of another machine,’ says Mr Babbage, and I hear, suddenly, a streak of excitement in his voice that was absent a moment ago.

‘Oh yes?’ says Mary Somerville.

‘It will operate on similar principles... I can’t go into any details about it as yet, but...’

Charles Babbage sinks into himself, ruminating; I can almost hear the internal cogwheels whirring behind his eyes. Then he opens his eyes wide, frowns, and says: ‘If I’m right – the next machine I have in mind will be able to do more than the Difference Engine. Yes, yes; a lot more.’

Only later, on the edge of sleep, do I realise the difference between the mind-sets of Mr Babbage and Mrs Somerville. She might advise caution and restraint; she might speak of moderation and tempered excesses... all well and good, I suppose, if not especially exciting. Then there’s Charles Babbage’s approach, and how much do I prefer it, for there was all the excitement of a child at Christmas in his expression as he uttered that single syllable, richer than plum-pudding: more.