Wimpole Street, London
November 1834

‘Good news, Ada,’ says Mamma, approaching with a letter in her hand. She has the rosy, excited expression that she usually reserves for mutton chops, or syllabub. ‘Mary Somerville has written.’

‘Does Mr Babbage make progress with the building of the new machine?’

‘There is no mention of Mr Babbage,’ says Mamma. ‘I wish you would abandon your fervid interest in it. I have seen you studying the plans – yes, don’t pretend that you haven’t been, Ada.’

A wave of heat rises in me at once. I wish she wouldn’t do that – notice everything. It makes me feel as trapped as a prisoner in Mr Bentham’s panopticon.

‘I must tell you that you are mistaken in your excitement about it,’ Mamma goes on. ‘I am convinced, as I’ve told you before, that Mr Babbage’s ideas are fundamentally unsound. And now: do you not wish to hear what Mrs Somerville has to say?’

‘Very well,’ I say, resigned, wondering inwardly how she could possibly have decided that Mr Babbage’s ideas are unsound.

A dramatic in-breath. ‘Mary’s son Woronzow has identified a suitable candidate for marriage!’ Squinting down at the letter, my mother reads aloud: ‘ “Lord King is an old acquaintance of mine from our Trinity days. He will inherit large estates in both Surrey and Somerset. A tall, genial young man, some eleven or twelve years Ada’s senior, he is quite clearly in want of a wife.” ’

Tall, genial. Is he a giraffe? I am already resolved to hate him. I am very fond of Woronzow, and consider him to have excellent judgement, but he is doing this for Mamma, and not for me. This Lord King will no doubt please the mother and not the daughter; I do not see how he can possibly appeal to both of us. Also, if he is so clearly in want of a wife, why does he not already have one? There must be something wrong with him. I amuse myself by thinking about what this might be.

‘There are other points in his favour too,’ Mamma goes on, ‘apart from wealth and title, both of which are a sine qua non. Firstly, he has lived abroad for some time, and thus will most likely be quite unaware of the... Events of Last Year.’

Mamma has always such difficulty referring to the affair with James Hopkins that her awkwardness about it has infected my own memories of it, and I am now as acutely embarrassed about the shed and everything that went on there as she is herself.

‘What else?’ I say. An ache starts behind my eyes, the kind of hollow burning sensation with which I am only too familiar these days.

‘She... Now, where did... ah. Here it is. “The most amusing part of all this is that Lord King cherishes an affection for all things Byronic that borders on a delightful obsession. Not only does he possess a charming portrait of himself done up to look as much like Lord Byron as possible (which he commissioned while working for Lord Nugent in Corfu); he has also named the fields of his Surrey estate, Ockham Park, after Lord Byron’s poems. I have spoken to Woronzow at length and we both agree: it is impossible to imagine a suitor who could be a better match for our precious Ada than William King.” ’

My mother lays the letter down and beams at me. ‘Well?’ she says.

I am momentarily without the faculty of speech. Then I say: ‘There is no possible way that I will be prevailed upon to marry this man.’

‘Ada, but why not?’

‘For a start, he sounds like a collector. Fields named after my father’s poems – a portrait in the Byronic style – he... he sounds like the kind of man who would lie in wait for Harriet Siddons outside Drury Lane with an autograph-book!’

‘Oh, don’t be absurd—’

‘He wouldn’t be marrying me; he’d be marrying an Idea.’ The longer I think about it, the more furious I feel – that Woronzow, an intelligent man, and Mary, the woman whose intellect I revere more than anyone’s – could have come up with this. ‘He would build a glass case for me, and prod me, and show me off, and watch me for all traits Byronic – those very traits which you have always discouraged in me – and assess me for moral deviance, just as you have always done.’

Mamma is staring at me, face drained of its rosiness. ‘I have never – oh, Ada, be reasonable...’

But I do not feel reasonable, because this is not a reasonable proposition. I stamp my foot, on the verge of tears. ‘You never wanted me to turn out like my father, but now that a suitor has appeared who worships him you are all enthusiasm! It is baffling, Mamma. Oh, I have never understood your attitude towards him – never! Nostalgic one moment, and buttoned-up like an oyster the next... he must have found you as maddening as I do. Why, I have an aunt you’ve never let me meet – who sent me a prayer-book that you wouldn’t let me have...’

She looks quite astonished by this.

I go on, reaching blindly for words: ‘And... and cousins besides. Do they hate you too? As much as he must have done? For he went an awfully long way to get away from you, didn’t he?’

‘Don’t... don’t speak to me like that, Ada,’ says Mamma. She is very pale now; she looks angry, but there’s something else in her face that I am struggling to read.

‘I have always been convinced of it: you drove my father away,’ I say, very quietly, knowing at the same time that I have surely gone too far.

We stand facing each other. I am taller than she is, now. I never noticed that before.

I say, more quietly but with all the conviction that I can summon: ‘I will not meet Lord King, and let that be the end of it.’

Then I walk past her and out of the room, heart thundering against my ribs so loudly that I’m sure she can hear it, and leave her standing there, robbed of speech, the letter dangling helplessly from her fingers.