In the meanwhile, other plans were proceeding apace, and that was reason he had come. Across the room, a redoubtable woman in her early fifties conversed with Mrs. Montagu. Galen waited for a suitable moment, then approached and bowed to her. “Mrs. Carter, good evening. My apologies for interrupting, but I was wondering if I might beg a favour of you.”
He didn’t have to feign respect. Elizabeth Carter’s learning and skill with words shamed that of most men; her translations of Stoic philosophy were renowned, and they said Greek was only one of the nine languages she spoke.
Of the other eight, one—according to rumour and Mrs. Montagu—was Arabic.
She gestured with her fan for him to continue. “I’ve recently come into possession of a strange item,” Galen said, “which the former owner claims comes from somewhere in the Ottoman lands. It’s a mirrored bowl, quite large, and bears an inscription in a language I believe to be Arabic. Might I prevail upon you to examine it, and translate the words if possible?”
If Abd ar-Rashid was telling the truth, the bowl would aid them in their attempts to veil the sky. No one wanted to use it, however, until they had some confirmation of that. Mrs. Carter said, “It might be a ‘magic bowl,’ as some call them; they have been used for centuries in that part of the world, and not just by the Arabs. Though usually they are quite small. I would be delighted to study it for you, Mr. St. Clair.”
Should the bowl prove to be what the genie claimed, it would be a great boon to Irrith’s plan. Galen thanked Mrs. Carter profusely, and made arrangements to have the bowl delivered to her house. These were scarcely completed when Galen felt a delicate hand upon his arm. “Mr. St. Clair, I believe you are acquainted with Miss Delphia Northwood?”
Galen was at the nadir of his bow before he realised he knew that name… sort of.
“My lady of the mixed metaphors,” he said, straightening in time to see Miss Northwood stifle a laugh. “Indeed, Mrs. Vesey, we met at Vauxhall, and have had the pleasure of each other’s company several times since then.”
Delphia. Had Cynthia used that nickname? It suited the young woman far better than the ponderous weight of “Philadelphia,” as did her gown tonight. The pale rose gave warmth to her complexion, and while nothing could transform her plainness to beauty, the simplicity of her dress at least suited her scholarly air. Miss Northwood smiled and said, “Indeed we have. Mama has been most… eager to see me in the company of new friends.”
“Is she here?” Galen asked, glancing about. A foolish question; his one previous encounter with Mrs. Northwood had established her as a woman not easily overlooked. She lost no opportunities to scrutinise any young man that came near her daughter.
“No, indeed. Our dear Sylph is a good friend of the family, and therefore, in Mama’s opinion, a sufficient chaperone for my good behavior.” Miss Northwood smiled at Mrs. Vesey.
The girl’s mother would probably not think that if she knew their dear Sylph kept company with an actual sylph, Lady Yfaen. Their hostess, smiling as if she had precisely that thought, excused herself to make certain Dr. Andrews had everything he needed. Watching her go, Miss Northwood added, “Of course, Mama thinks tonight is a harmless card party, with no topic more mentally strenuous than, say, the current fashion in hats.”
“You lied to her?”
She smiled at his shocked reply. “And do you tell your family the truth of everything you do, Mr. St. Clair? No, I thought not.”
He wanted to say he kept secrets for greater cause, but that would open him to far too many questions. Making comparisons between his father and her mother struck him as invidious, so instead he asked, “She would not approve of tonight’s presentation?”
“She fears—quite rightly—where it might lead me. As she has reminded me on many occasions, neither grasping for patronage nor battling with publishers is a suitable pastime for a young woman desiring respectability, and if I hope to make a worthwhile match, I should lay aside such dreams—at least until after my marriage, whereupon it will be my husband’s decision as to whether I may write or not.” Miss Northwood shrugged, with no particular rancor. “She is correct, of course. But I still flout her as I can.”
Galen could only gape. “You—you write, Miss Northwood?”
Her rueful smile came with a bit of a blush. “I put pen to paper, Mr. St. Clair. I do not publish. Not yet, at least.”
He could understand her mother’s concern. Learning in a woman was not a shameful thing—at least he did not think so—but the public activity that went with it could be, particularly when it involved wrangling over business like some common Grub Street hack. Elizabeth Carter had done it, but Galen suspected her quiet and retiring life at least partly a stratagem for maintaining her respectability. And was it coincidence that she had never married?
Grasping for some fragment of wit to lift the shadow from Miss Northwood’s face, he said, “If you would like, I can pretend I do not see you here, so as to preserve at least one of your marriage prospects.”
In the pause that followed, he realised what he had just said. It should not have mattered; Miss Northwood knew he was looking for a wife, as he knew she—or at least her mother, on her behalf—was hunting a husband; to say it out loud should change nothing. Yet it did, introducing a sudden and palpable awkwardness broken only by Mrs. Vesey’s voice. “Ladies and gentlemen, please be seated; we are ready to begin.”
Normally their hostess preferred to arrange her guests into scattered groups, the better for them to enjoy conversation with one another, but for Dr. Andrews’s presentation she had set the chairs in rows. Galen, fleeing embarrassment, took a seat next to Mrs. Montagu; Miss Northwood ended up two rows behind them. He tried not to wonder whether she was staring at his back as Dr. Andrews began his lecture.
He began by thanking Mrs. Vesey, but soon embarked upon his topic. “The French philosopher René Descartes,” Dr. Andrews said, “spoke in his writings of the division between Body and Mind. The body operates like a machine, according to the laws that govern physical things, while the the mind is immaterial, insubstantial, and is not constrained by physical laws. But each can influence the other: if I raise my hand, thus, it is because my mind directed my body to do so. The passions of the body can likewise influence the mind, as when anger leads a man to make a rash decision.
“But what is the means by which this interaction occurs?”
Mere abstraction would have been weighty enough for an evening’s lecture, but Dr. Andrews soon proceeded to detail, speaking first of Descartes’s obsolete notion that the pineal gland was the point of connection between Body and Mind. From there it was on to the ventricles of the brain and other matters Mrs. Northwood certainly would not have considered appropriate for ladies of any age.
And indeed, Galen saw some expressions of distaste when Andrews delved too far into anatomy. For others, though, fascination was the much stronger force. These were the same kinds of women for whom Mrs. Carter had translated Sir Isaac Newton’s Philosophy Explain’d for the Use of Ladies, from the Italian. Physics might be a cleaner subject, but their curiosity did not end there.
“There are times,” Andrews said, “when no physician can tell what has brought life to an end. No discernible cause explains it. Or one man suffers a wound that defeats him; another, wounded just the same, lives on. The ultimate cause of mortality, perhaps, lies not in the body, but in the mind: if it can transcend the body’s control, and become the sole master of the self…” He broke off with an embarrassed, affected laugh. “Well, short of a reversal of the Fall, that isn’t likely to happen. But we can at least dream of such a day.”