speed your recovery. You are a brave man,” she added, cheeks flushing, before marching out.
Robert lay back on his pillows. Brave? He didn’t think so, but, if a young lady wanted to think it, he didn’t object. And now Miss Ada Byron would return to her world of dances and supper parties, and he to his lodgings – his family far away in Bristol.
He imagined himself at a supper party – and what a botch he would make of it – when he had a sudden thought: November the Fifth. That was a night when there would be crowds and bright lights, and a man with a political statement to make could set the largest number of tongues wagging. And perhaps even explosions of his own to make. He’d pass that on to the Sergeant for what it was worth.
But just for now he was feeling very uncomfortable and very tired. Time to have another sleep.
*
“Miss Byron! I did not send for you.” Charles Babbage fiddled irritably with the small microscope in front of him, not meeting her eyes.
So, he was in one of his moods, and she was Miss Byron today, not “my dear Ada”. The maid who’d announced her still hovered in the doorway, in case she had to show her out again. Ada stepped forward, taking off her bonnet and gloves and handing them to her. She would not be deterred by his grumpiness. The maid shrugged and left the room.
“I saw Constable Duckett two days ago,” she said sharply, noting that he wore his oldest smoking jacket, its elbows rubbed, and his stock was all askew. “In hospital.”
“What?” He sat up and looked at her, but not with his usual sociable warmth. “Oh yes, Clark said something to me, I don’t know what—”
“That’s right,” Ada said, sitting on the low Ottoman that now stood where the Difference Engine had been. The Engine had at last been moved to the building next door. “Mr Clark sent him there to find out more information. The Constable was very brave …”
Charles muttered something under his breath that sounded like, “Spare me another one of your heroes,” but she ignored him. A black mood was not to be indulged. Lady Byron had taught her that lesson well.
“I have not heard from you in three days. We must redouble our efforts on the cipher. The Prankster knows we have it, or he would not have set upon the Constable. We must—”
“It’s all folly. What can I do about it?” He stared gloomily at the blank wall above her head, where the Engine had stood.
She sat bolt upright. “You can do everything! Supposing Mr Clark is right and the code is warning of some terrible event to come. We can save lives, preserve the stability of this Government—”
“Why should I care what happens to this Government? Short-sighted fools that they are.” Charles jumped up. “None of them has any understanding of what I can do, of what I can achieve. My ideas – the new ideas of any inventor – are like pearls before swine to them. I’ve told Wellington I must start again, build a newer and better Engine; maybe he understands, but those around him are dolts and dullards.”
He must have had his latest request for funding rejected, Ada thought, and that coupled with his long running dispute with the engineer who built the Engine and who now refused to return the plans, would explain the black cloud over him.
“You will prevail eventually, Mr Babbage,” she told him. “With me at your side, we can achieve everything.”
He stared at her. The flush left his cheeks. He was about to speak when there was a knock at the door.
“Miss Byron, good morning.” Charles’s mother-in-law stood in the doorway with Dugald and Henry, Charles’s youngest sons. They wore warm coats. “Charles, I’m taking the boys out for fresh air and exercise. Say goodbye to Papa, now.”
Ada watched as he spoke fondly to his sons, patted their shoulders, and then went to the window to watch and wave as they crossed the street. His eldest son was visiting relatives in Devon.
Now can we get back to the code, she thought. It was like an itch in her brain, the longing to fill her mind with puzzles and patterns, calculations and calculus. She’d lain awake for most of the night yet again, with figures and numbers whirling and cascading through her mind – as if she was the Difference Engine herself – and till