Shadow Conspiracy (14 page)

I miscalculated. I misunderstood. He loves her. God help him, he loves her and can never have her love.

“I am sorry, Lord Melbourne,” she said. “Truly.”

“Years ago.” The Prime Minister leaned forward. “I warned the government that development of the automatic sciences should not be left in your hands. I reminded them how dangerously unstable your father was, with his wild conduct and unceasing perversions.”

“Lord Melbourne...”

“I warned them, Lady Lovelace, that madness can run in families. That the strains of such an enterprise on the female mind could bring on hysteria and instability. Especially if any additional, unforeseen pressures should be brought to bear.”

His eyes did not flicker once from hers. This was a man of power, of privilege, and a man who would protect what was his, whatever the cost.

“You are an intelligent woman, Lady Lovelace. You will think about what I’ve said.” Lord Melbourne stood. “Keep your seat. I will see myself out.”

Ada
did keep her seat. She sat in perfect stillness as the light faded around her, and she heard the gong ring for dinner. She sat alone, seeing her mother, and Lady Melbourne, and Lord Melbourne.

And her father hovering over them all, his arms outstretched, his hands open to claim them for his own.

IX

After the Prime Minister’s visit, the atmosphere at Lovelace House became almost unbearable. Mother or the Furies patrolled the corridors constantly to watch for Ada’s comings and goings. William had gone so far as to insist that she not leave the house unaccompanied, and she found she did not have the strength to argue with him.

She spent more and more time in the Garden of the Automatic Sciences, among the blooming trees and the silent keymen. She adjusted the mechanisms and considered improvements, listened to the ticking and the birdsong. She did everything she could to try to shield herself from the sense of impotence gnawing at her heart.

In midafternoon the peacocks opened their tails and the mastiff raised its head.

The door opened a heartbeat later. Mr. Worth walked in. She suppressed a smile as she saw his glass-blue eyes widen.

“Vigilance,” said Ada to the Mastiff. Its bronze ears pricked up. “This is Mr. Worth. He is welcome here.”

Mr. Worth bowed, but he was not really looking at her. The great stag peeked from behind the lemon trees. Mr. Worth caught his breath. For the first time in days, Ada smiled.

But the smile was fleeting. Mr. Worth still wore his brown suit and his stained collar. He had not shaved today, possibly for several days, and his eyes were sunken deep into his skull.

She did not have to ask. “There has been no word.”

Mr. Worth dropped onto the edge of the nearest fountain and tossed his battered bowler down beside him.

“Nothing. No demands, no corpse... Forgive me, Lady Lovelace.” He smoothed his hair back. “It’s as if he’s vanished from the face of the earth.”

“Did you receive my letter?”

He nodded. “And then I received one from the Prime Minister informing me if I continued to harass his wife, or permitted you to do so, he would make it his business to ruin me.” He spoke with calm disinterest, but his eyes were fixed and purposeful.

“He made similar threats to me.” Ada sat on the wrought iron bench across from him. Vigilance, ever alert, lay down at her feet.

Slowly, Mr. Worth’s shoulders straightened. Slowly, his tired eyes grew hard.

“Lady Lovelace, is Mr. Babbage a man who can be worked upon? Is there anything he could be threatened with?”

“Aside from drowning in the Thames?” she snapped back. But the words made no change in Mr. Worth.

“In truth, no.” She sighed. “He lost his wife and three of his children in ‘27. Since then...since then he’s only cared about the automata. About creating the machines to make the empire great.”

Whatever happens after this, we have succeeded, Ada. We have done it!

“And in fact, since his public and dramatic disappearance I understand Babbage & Lovelace stands to gain several lucrative new contracts?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Does Mr. Babbage want to be found, Lady Lovelace? Do
you
want him found?”

Anger surged through Ada’s blood as she realised the extent of the accusation, but Mr. Worth sat as still as if he had been trained by Mother.

“Lady Lovelace, you know a great deal about hidden commands and how small actions propagate across a much larger mechanism. You appear to live entirely in this house, and yet when I look, I find all manner of strange investments and involvements: an unusual bookshop in Charring Cross, journeys of exploration in Africa, scholars in Amsterdam and Vienna... Then I find you’ve gained great benefit from this untoward disappearance of your partner, and might even be able to raise a scandal that could bring down the Prime Minister.”

Ada
’s throat seized tight, but before she could clear it and formulate a reply, the nearest peacock spread its tail and Vigilance lifted smoothly to his feet.

William strode into the garden.

He marched straight up to Mr. Worth. Ada saw how his hands clenched into fists.

“This is most irregular, Mr. Worth.”

Mr. Worth bowed, as calm and controlled as if he had never accused her of fraud. “I beg your pardon, Lord Lovelace. I had business with Lady Lovelace.”

“Then your business is with me,” William spat.

“William...” began Ada, but when he turned toward her, she found she barely recognised him. This was not mild, politic William, but a man made reckless by fear.

“I have permitted this up until now because I had hoped my wife might be able to assist in the recovery of Mr. Babbage,” he said to Mr. Worth. “But clearly you have failed in that, and your impertinence and insistence on private meetings have become intolerable. You may leave the house.”

Ada
felt her cheeks flush. With William ordering him out of the house, Mr. Worth’s suspicions toward her would only increase.

Mr. Worth bowed again. “As you wish, my lord.”

And he was gone. Ada faced her husband.

“What do you think you’re playing?” William demanded before she could get a word out. “Your mother’s been conspiring with those women of hers for days now. I can’t get her to say three words to me!”

“You place a great deal of store on my mother’s regard for you,” she sneered.

“God Almighty, Ada!” he cried. “I would think you of all people would understand what she’s capable of? She mounted an utterly ruthless campaign against her husband so she could keep hold of you. Do you think she will not mount an equally ruthless campaign against you, against
us
if you threaten her?”

“What threat have I made against her?”

“You went to see Lady Melbourne. You are holding secret conference with Mr. Worth.”

“I want to find Mr. Babbage!”

“Hang Mr. Babbage, Ada! It’s ourselves and our children you should be troubled about.” He scrubbed at his scalp. “You must pull everything apart. You can never let it
be
and just do your part!”

An idea slotted into place. “Has Lord Melbourne been talking with you?”

“Worse. He’s been talking with your mother, Ada.”

Ada
felt the strength drain out of her knees. She sat down abruptly.

“Now you understand.” William made no move toward her. “You have never realised how important you truly are, how important it is that you of all people keep up appearances!”

“I never asked for this,” she murmured.

“Well, you’ve got it, Ada, and now you might be ruined by it.”

She looked up at him, looming over her, his hands clenching and unclenching. “Why did you marry me, William?”

He regarded her with a bleak honesty of expression she had never before seen in him. “You were Byron’s brilliant daughter. You were going to change the world. Everyone knew it. I wanted to shape that change.” He shook his head. “The more fool I.”

He left her there. Around her, the garden ticked and the birds sang and the mastiff sat still as the machine it was, as still as her mother had always wanted her to be.

I built this world.
She wrapped her arms around herself.
I taught it to move and think and speak. I hold its keys and commands. Why have I done so much and it still means so little? Nothing matters but the blood in my veins. That’s all anyone sees.

The play’s the thing...

No matter what happens, Ada, we did this.

There are half a dozen people with the technical expertise for this. You are one of them. Mr. Babbage is another.

Does Mr. Babbage
want
to be found?

She saw it, cascading into place, a perfect formation, as perfect as any arrangement of commands. It was perfectly clear, interconnected, and clean.

Her first thought was to call Mr. Worth back. But she hesitated. To bring in Mr. Worth would be to remove affairs from her own hands, and enough had slipped out of her control already. Whatever happened that day on the river, she still owed Mr. Babbage a great deal—too much to permit him to be exposed without warning.

But she could not do what was necessary alone.

But she was not alone.

The world out there was her world, her Garden.

You’re wrong, William. I understand appearances perfectly. I understand that if you appear powerless, people will underestimate you.
It was unsurprising, really, that the person who came closest to deciphering this was Mr. Worth.

Ada
rose. What she did now might be a mistake. She might risk exposure of her most carefully constructed secrets. She would certainly never be able to hide behind the mask of the retiring lady of numbers and languages again.

But if she stayed inside, then the Prime Minister and Mr. Worth, and even William and Mother, would make of her what they could. Which might very well be a Judas Goat.

“Keymen, come here.”

Smoothly the three keymen moved to stand in front of her. She opened their backs and extracted from each of them three golden cards. These she slotted into the back of the mastiff. When this was done, she spoke one word. A moment later, three sparkling black spiders, each as big as a pigeon, scuttled down from the trees. Ada picked them up gently, one by one, and tucked them into the folds of her crinoline petticoat.

“Come, Vigilance.”

With her dog following close behind her, Ada Lovelace unlocked the central window of the conservatory and walked out into the night.

X

The
New Britannia
still stood at the London docks, with naval men to guard it. They were highly reluctant to allow anyone onto the ship, being under orders, as they repeatedly told her. But she was Ada Lovelace, and when she said she had thought of something that might help recover Mr. Babbage, they believed her and let her pass, carriage lantern in hand and automatic dog pacing close behind.

In the pilot house, the analytic engine cast long shadows across her, giving the place the feel of a pagan temple. Ada stopped at the codex console, which was too big for the ten cards she had inserted into it. She closed her eyes and ran her hands over the teakwood fittings and brass flourishes. One was loose. She turned it, and heard the click.

The back of the cabinet came open, revealing the second codex rack, with its second set of cards still in place.

Oh, Charles.

“I told them you would find me.” His voice reached her a moment before his shadow crossed her.

Ada
straightened up. A gentle sorrow filled her as she saw him standing there, holding a second flickering lantern, his clothing rumpled and his hair uncombed.

Sorrow, but no surprise.

“You should have disappeared more quietly, Charles.”

“Perhaps.”

“I see now how you moved the commands.” She gestured at the second codex rack. “How did you conceal the tentacle?”

“There are at least a dozen spools of cable in the hold; it was easy enough.”

“I see. And you were drawn back into the ship through one of the water in-take ports for the boilers?”

“Just so.”

“They must have searched the ship.”

“But they did not search inside the boilers, or look at the fittings closely enough to see that one of them was false.” He smiled weakly. “They should have sent George and the steam monkeys down. They would have spotted my little house in an instant. As would you.”

“Are you going to tell me why, Mr. Babbage?”

“I thought perhaps you might like to come and see.” He gestured towards the hatch to the lower decks. Ada frowned and lifted the lantern.

“Vigilance will not be able to negotiate the ladders.”

“Then Vigilance can wait here.”

She looked into Mr. Babbage’s eyes. They were tired and sad, but otherwise they were as they had always been, clever, bright and sure: sure of himself, and sure of her.

For who knows me better?

“Stay, Vigilance.”