An unkind man would have pointed out some glaring errors in her statement, but there was an certain etiquette in dealing with the Revived. Not to mention common compassion.
‘What can I say, madam?’ said Julius, drawing back from claw range. ‘You enjoyed the very finest serum known. More than that I cannot bestow.’
Ada thought on, studying him all the while, rubbing her wrists to which not even Julius’ grip had restored colour.
‘Hmmm…’
‘I swear to it, madam.’
‘Do you now? But shall we believe him? What do you think, Foxglove?’
The servant had a very cool appraising gaze when he chose to lift the mask.
‘I believe him, milady.’
‘Damn!’ she said.
Frankenstein gasped. He’d not heard a female swear since his army days: and even then only from ‘camp-wives’ and pipe-smoking whores.
Ada Lovelace waved him away—out of sight and out of mind.
‘I take it,’ she observed to Foxglove, ‘from all this folle-de-rol that my husband, his Lordship, is going to be of no use to us.’
‘Alas no, milady. He sought permission for your revival and the refusal contained no ambiguity. A gentlemen from the Home Office even called in person at Horsley Towers to stress the point. And Lord Lovelace, though he protested, is a very law-abiding sort of gentleman…’
‘Not to mention Lord-Lieutenant of the County of Surrey,’ Ada added in contempt. ‘With a position in society to consider. Which is why,’ she turned to Frankenstein to point out an important lesson to a poor foreigner, ‘there’ll never be a revolution in this rotten country. Someone might have to walk on the grass!’
Having been in countries where civic unrest crammed the mortuaries Julius felt inclined to see that as a blessing, but didn’t say so.
‘Also,’ added Foxglove, ‘there were the… circumstances of your demise, milady.’
‘Circumstances? Explain!’
Foxglove looked embarrassed and advanced to whisper in her ear. Her eyes widened still further, although blushes were now out of the question.
‘As a mere bachelor,’ commented Julius (who knew all already), ‘it may not be for me to say, but I think you are a little harsh on Lord Lovelace. Evidence of a Lazaran lover is hardly calculated to fire his love for you…’
Ada withered him with a glance.
‘On the contrary,’ she countered enigmatically, ‘I’d say the scene was “calculated” with exquisite precision.’
But she left it at that and thought on, rapt and in a world all her own.
‘Very well,’ came her eventual decision. ‘I divorce him, I divorce him, I divorce him. And that’s that and his Lordship out of the way, Mohammedan style. Next thing is getting my spark back: I can’t live other than as a genius. We’ll go see the only other one I know and see what he suggests.’
Mr Babbage wasn’t at home. Or if he was he’d have to stay there, because a Metropolitan Police ribbon sealed the front door.
Ada Lovelace hammered away even so. Julius could hear the knocker echo through an obviously empty house.
They’d driven the coach to Westminster in the face of Frankenstein’s vehement protests. Lady Lovelace still hadn’t got it into her head that she was Lady Lovelace no longer, not in the eyes of the Law, nor probably those of her husband who, moreover, she’d just self-service divorced. That meant the liveried coach was bogus as well as unwise. Yet Ada’s confidence had trampled all over Frankenstein’s bleatings. They arrived at Dorset Street in style.
To no welcome. Lady Lovelace was puzzled. She associated empty houses with the owners decamping to their country estates, or maybe departure on a grand tour. Yet she knew Babbage was too obsessed for either. The police barrier was worrisome too.
Though surely coincidence, the militia galloon choosing just then to slowly traverse the sky above their heads, did nothing for their peace of mind. It probably was looking for riots and revolutionaries, not them—not yet. Still, the low lament of its frantically pedalling Lazaran crew slung below the canopy was hardly confidence building. Julius cast about for help or shelter.
It is a cross-cultural truth that guttersnipes are better informed than governments. One arrived unbidden at precisely the right moment bearing newspapers and intelligence.
‘‘Oi, toffs!’ the boy called from beyond the railings. ‘Are you friends of the bloke wot lived there?’
Julius acted as spokesman: his companions didn’t care to acknowledge such converse.
‘We might be. What of it?’
The boy blew Frankenstein a great big kiss and ran off laughing.
‘Mmmm,’ mused Ada.
Foxglove sought out fuller particulars in nearby shops and hostelries whilst Ada and Julius waited in the coach. They sat in silence, not even of the companionable sort.
Eventually, her manservant returned and told all with a most becoming blush. Among other upshots, apparently the members of Babbage’s Gentlemen’s club had left a loaded pistol in his pigeon-hole, for use in the unlikely event he ever darkened their doors again. Plus a note spelling out their flattering confidence that he would ‘do the decent thing.’
‘Spark or no spark,’ said Lady Lovelace, ‘I begin to perceive patterns…’
‘Pretty patterns?’ enquired Julius.
‘Hardly: but consistent ones, suggesting intelligent design. Death and disgrace are the predominant themes. You must take my word for it, herr doctor, but my friend and collaborator, Mr Babbage, was a man of science; not a Uranian or deviant of any kind. Just as I am no jezebel lazarophile consorting with undead lovers. Someone is weaving a story to our detriment and I must calculate who and why. It is therefore all the more imperative I retrieve my spark of inspiration.’
Julius Frankenstein nodded surrender to her imperatives. Short of drawing pictures, he had explained the limitations of his reviving powers as clearly as could be.
‘If you say so, madam. And how do you propose to do it, may I ask?’
Lady Lovelace looked at him like he was an idiot.
‘Yes, you may.’
Seconds of silence ensued —unless Julius’ teeth grinding was audible to the others. His will broke first.
‘How-do-you-propose-to-do-it,’ he said, through powdered enamel.
Ada’s answer was bright and breezy, considering.
‘Why,’ she said, ‘the way I always got everything, of course. By buying it. Foxglove! To the Bank!’
In a curious parallel to Ada’s revived life-force, everything was as before for her at Baring’s Bank—save for the heart of the matter. Recognition was there, and courtesy; even obsequious service likewise—but not her money.
Whilst Julius was about his own business elsewhere, Lady Lovelace went through a succession of clerks as her voice ascended the octaves, but still no funds were forthcoming. At last she saw someone so senior he could speak the plain truth.
The melancholy fact was, the manager explained, that Lady Lovelace was dead—or legally so. Her whey face and the Times both confirmed it. He did not know how it came about that she was here demanding access to the family account, nor would he dream of daring to enquire. However, one thing was certain: people came into the world with nothing and left it likewise. Both scripture and Baring’s Bank said so. Accordingly, and with the profoundest, the politest, of regrets, he could not oblige her.
Ada swore for the second time that day.