Buxton, Derbyshire
August 1834

I rise earlier than I usually do the following morning, sharply awake for no particular reason. The hotel is quiet. I can hear a horse neighing; a man unloading coal from a wagon in the street below. Footsteps somewhere overhead suggest that the chambermaids have risen.

It’s too early to go downstairs. The harp is next to my bed, occupying an entire corner of the room (I have taken possession of it while we are here, and no one seems to mind) and for a few minutes I practise the sonata that I have been learning, enjoying the way the music seems to kindle my brain into being; each note awakens another filament of thought, and then another... until I am fully focused, my body correctly positioned, delighted by the music that I am learning to make. But something is weighing on me – a kind of shadow at the edge of my thoughts – and suddenly – it’s a suddenness that shocks me – I remember my dream. I do not often dream of my father, and the recollection is enough to quicken my heartbeat and slow my fingers to a standstill.

Abandoning the sonata, I reach for my commonplace book, sit on the edge of the bed and scribble down all that I remember of our conversation. Oh, I know that it was not ‘real’; I know that I was not speaking to some kind of cloud-swaddled angel... but there was something in that conversation that I cannot bear to dismiss – something that sent through me a channel of pure emotion, not unlike what I experienced when I stood in the Bifrons gallery and felt his presence beside me.

I wanted you to be all kinds of things. And you are all kinds of things...

There is more than one kind of poetical...

There is more than one kind of bridge too.

I sit there, chewing on the end of my pencil until I feel soft-splintered wood on my tongue. What does this all mean? I think about the word ‘poetical’ and all that it might signify, writing a short list:

1. Adjective pertaining to a poet, or to the poetry the poet writes

2. Adjective pertaining to the sort of life a poet might lead

Is that what my father meant? Or is there something else, some other, more codified, meaning contained in his words? I have not done a lot of Greek, but I am fairly convinced that the word poet derives from the Greek verb that means ‘to make’. Could my father somehow have been trying to tell me that there is more than one way that I could make things?

What kind of bridge is there, other than a real bridge?

(A rainbow flickers across my consciousness, burning with the intensity of fireworks... )

Is there more than one way that I could make something of myself?

But no. I am trying to find things that are not really there, like an astronomer whose view through the telescope is sadly occluded by poor workmanship, or an unforgiving smog-filled sky.

There are to be no arithmetic lessons today; the Gosfords have gone out for the day. Mamma is in her room; I linger downstairs, wanting to read for a while before lunch. As I scan the library shelves for something new to read, I notice a rather beautiful elderly lady with tightly-curled white hair. She is looking at me, as people often do; but I do not feel that skin-tingling sense of being whispered about and pointed at that I so often feel. I smile at her encouragingly, and she bows her head, draws nearer, and says in a surprisingly girlish voice how much she admired my father’s poetry.

‘Oh!’ I say. ‘Thank you. That is most gratifying to hear.’

The old lady looks at me quizzically for a moment and says: ‘I am an acquaintance of dear Mrs Leigh. She speaks of you with such fondness, Ada.’

That is all she has time to say; she is swept away then by a tall man who must be her son, or son-in-law, perhaps. I remain on the couch, my book unopened, wondering who on earth Mrs Leigh might be. Then I remember: that is the name of Aunt Augusta.

‘A lady came to talk to me just now,’ I say to Mamma over lunch. ‘She wanted to tell me how much she admired my father’s poetry.’

Mamma smiles at this. ‘How nice,’ she says. There is a smudge of artichoke soup on her upper lip.

‘She also mentioned that she knew my Aunt Augusta,’ I add.

If I was hoping for a favourable reaction, I do not get one. Mamma stops smiling at the mention of the name. More: she looks anxious, as though she fears what I am about to say next.

Persisting nonetheless, I say: ‘Why can I not make the acquaintance of Mrs Leigh?’

‘Because... she is not a suitable person for you to know.’

‘Is she a gambler?’

Mamma sniffs. ‘She is a liar.’

I’ve never heard such a word on my mother’s lips; truly, it has all the novelty of the word scientist.

Throughout the rest of our stay, I look for the elderly white-haired lady, but do not see her again. I find myself nonetheless returning, over and over, to the question of my Aunt Augusta Leigh. If she really is a liar, as Mamma claims, then it must be proved or disproved. Somehow.

Mary Montgomery, I know, would advise me to think no more of this matter. But – as much as I love Mary, and respect her advice – I don’t know if I can do that. Why is it so important to discover the truth, if I can? Firstly, because I do not know the truth. Wanting to know should be justification enough. (After all, this is what scientists do.) I have thought, over and over, about what might have taken place between my parents, and for a long time my theories have concerned the actions of my mother. I suspect her of wrongdoing of some kind – though I cannot imagine what – that she will not admit to. Somehow – through her coldness of manner, most likely – she alienated my father and drove him away. About this, and about many other matters, she has not told me the truth – and has counselled others to reveal nothing – because she is embarrassed and ashamed; she does not want the truth to be known by anyone. Those lapses into nostalgic sorrow and affection and her refusal to speak ill of him are markers of her guilt – easier, of course, now that he is dead.

So: it is more important than ever to discover whether Aunt Augusta is truly a liar, or whether she is something else – another victim, perhaps, of my mother’s behaviour. Remembering that encounter, long ago now, on the Strand – the plump, kindly, almost stupid expression on the woman’s face – I struggle to imagine her as a liar. On the contrary, she seemed well-meaning and gentle. She said something to me, but what was it?

‘I sent a prayer-book to you for your birthday – two or three years ago. Did you never get it?’

Yes; it was something like that.