Fordhook, Ealing
September 1834

I do not show it (I have learned that there is little point in doing so), but in the days that follow our return to Fordhook, I am angrier with my mother than I have ever been in my life. Even my resentment of the Fury Days can’t quite compare to the thought that, all this time, Mamma has known that I could never publish a book, even if I wanted to, because she has undertaken to prevent such a thing from happening...

When I am twenty-one, perhaps, whatever preventative method she has tried to ensure might cease. Yes: surely this could be true. And there are other publishers besides Mr Murray, I know. But I am so wounded by the knowledge of what she has done – writing to Mr Murray with her bald instruction – that I feel flattened, a feather-bed unceremoniously squashed by a stone elephant. She does not think me worthy of publication. Or else she cannot bear the thought of the life I might lead if I were to be a writer – the moral deviance in which I might indulge.

Or else: she is jealous. She cannot contemplate the thought of my doing something that she has not done herself.

Our daily Ealing life resumes – visits to Ealing Grove, the theatre, lectures and so on – and I fall into the pattern of it as best I can. I am outwardly monosyllabic and inwardly verbose, so much feeling stored up in my head that I feel I might burst from it. My dreams are blurred and vicious: spiders’ webs ripped apart by savage winds, books shorn of their pages, rainbows drained of their colour. I don’t believe that Mamma notices that I am unhappy, for all that I am very subdued. I bide my time. All the patience I acquired over the summer is finding its purpose.

I am sitting in the library when I hear the clop of hooves that betokens Mamma’s departure. I have been reading – rereading, actually – Mary Somerville’s book, On the Connexion of the Physical Sciences. I almost want to stay here and continue, for I am convinced that if I were able to digest the book in its entirety (it is very long) I might become a little bit more like Mary Somerville in the process. But I am equally minded to do what I want to do now, while Mamma is gone, and so I set the book down, promising to come back to it shortly.

Puff comes stalking up to the table in her funny, rickety, old-cat gait. (The Gosfords have lent her back to us, something that has pleased me more than I thought it would.) Puff and I greet each other with fondness. ‘Now, Puff,’ I say – and feel, for a while, like a much younger version of myself as I do so. ‘I must confide in you. Where do you suppose Mamma would hide a prayer-book – a gift that was sent to me by my Aunt Augusta, but that she never allowed me to have?’

Puff yawns, exposing a row of still-sharp teeth, although she has lost a few over the years.

Stroking her under her chin, I say, ‘Of course, she might have sent it back – but then if she did, Augusta never received it, and so I doubt that possibility. She might have thrown it away... but no. Mamma would never throw away a prayer-book. It stands to reason, therefore, that she must have kept it.’

I pick up my ancient cat and carry her upstairs, taking care not to be spotted by any of the servants and feeling grateful that the Furies are no longer a part of our household. Mamma is, conveniently, out at Ealing Grove, where there has recently been a new intake of pupils. Her bedchamber is not far from mine, but I haven’t actually gone into it much, and I enter now half-hesitant and half-bold – an explorer of some jagged ice-strewn land, desirous of finding out new things, but perhaps a little unsure of the terrain. Set down on the threshold, Puff winds herself between my ankles, pleased to be adventuring with me.

Mamma’s room is vast, yet stuffed with furniture. There are beechwood chairs, dressed in yellow silk, in a row against one wall. There’s a pretty ebony dressing table, stocked with glass bottles and silver brushes. An enormous bed: preposterously so – I can just imagine Mamma stranded in the centre of it, like a gnat in a lake of milk.

There are plenty of books on the writing-desk but I do not think that the book I am searching for will be anywhere but deeply concealed. I open drawers and doors, lifting things out, sifting through piles, always careful not to make a mess or break anything. The carved inkstand on the desk reminds me of the last time I did something forbidden, and how a puddle of ink (indelible blue-black) gave me away. I do not touch the inkstand. I prostrate myself on my stomach and peer under the bed, finding nothing but a single satin slipper that may possibly have been left by the previous inhabitant of Fordhook. There is a heavy rosewood box tucked away at the back of the cupboard – locked – and this draws my attention for some time. I shake it tentatively, trying to work out what is inside. It might be jewellery, but I don’t hear a rattle; just the faintest shuffle of paper, like ocean-whispers. After some time, I put the box back where I found it. I do not think that it contains a prayer-book.

I am on the point of giving up when something extraordinary happens – if I still wrote stories (here I think fondly of dear Miss Stamp), I might write such a scene, rather than believe it could possibly actually happen. I am sitting on the floor in front of Mamma’s wardrobe, looking among the shoes in their boxes, when sudden movement startles me: a flash of something dark and shadowy streaks like a comet from underneath the wardrobe in the direction of the bed. Puff is roused at once from her old-cat reverie, instantly a tigress, and before I’m even quite aware of what is happening, she has trapped the mouse between her paws and is toying with it rather unpleasantly.

‘Oh, Puff – don’t—’ I say, then stop mid-sentence.

The cat-mouse scuffle has revealed something hithertofore unnoticed: a corner of the carpet has been flipped back, and there is a broken floorboard underneath. One that I have never seen before. Slowly, carefully, I press the flat of my hand against the broken board. Nothing. Then, working at the splintered edge with my fingertips, I try to lever it upwards. It is tricky to do. I change the angle, the weight of my hand, and suddenly the broken board shifts, rises, and I am able to pull it away and set it to one side. A good deal of dust has spilled out over the floor, but no matter; a shallow space has been revealed, and there – just as though this were truly a story in a book – is the object I have been wanting to find.

The prayer-book is beautifully bound and engraved with my name, in the most elaborate writing I ever saw. There is a note too, hidden in the folds of packing-paper. It reads: ‘To the Hon. Miss Byron, with every kind and affectionate wish, from her loving Aunt Augusta. December 1830.’ In pencil, but still very neatly written, she has added: ‘With Lady Byron’s permission.’

The discovery chills me: so my aunt was not lying. She did send the book, just as she says she did. Of course, she might still be a liar; about this incident, however, she was telling the truth.

‘Well!’ I say aloud to Puff, who is still pawing at the mouse (presumably now dead) in a lazy, disinterested way. ‘And what do you make of this? Why was I never given this book?’

Puff doesn’t respond.

If Aunt Augusta told the truth about the prayer-book, could it be that Mamma was lying when she said that Aunt Augusta was a liar? I have always regarded my mother as a scrupulously honest person – sometimes to her own detriment, for tact is not one of her qualities. But it is possible that she might be, if not a liar, then certainly someone who is making sure that the truth is as carefully hidden as this little wrapped-up prayer-book...

Yes. I can certainly believe that. How many times have I asked her questions, over the years, to which she has provided no answer?

I make a point of reading the book – not cover to cover, but thoroughly enough – before, with regret, I re-wrap it and stow it in its hiding place. I leave Mamma’s room covertly, again careful not to be seen, and go back to my own room, where I sit and think for so long that I start to genuinely believe that I might have altered the shape of my skull from puzzlement, and that Dr Combe – were he to do a third reading of my head – would exclaim aloud in wonder at the physical transformation.