A Place of Secrets (33 page)

One freezing night towards the end of March I saw for the first time what seemed like a tiny disk passing close to Taurus. The following evening it was there again and I looked for it every clear night after that, measuring its progress towards Gemini. I believed it to be a comet but, if so, an unusual one with its regular shape and no tail. I did not realize what I had found until many months had passed.

Jude reached the bottom of the page and turned it
over, only to realize with dismay that there was no more. Esther’s story had finished! But how could it have? It didn’t feel finished. Although the sentence was complete, the story wasn’t. It was dreadful. She needed, she
had
, to know more. Anthony had died later in the year; that was common knowledge. But what had happened to Esther and the comet-thing she remembered reading about in the observation
journal, she still had no idea.

She sighed. This would have to do for the time being. There might be sufficient information for Bridget’s article. But still, she felt desolate. She closed the computer file containing this latest piece of transcription and e-mailed it to Cecelia.

How was Paris? You’ll be amazed by this final bit. What do you think it could be that they found?

Longing to hear from you.

With luck Cecelia would get the hint.

* * *

When she logged on during the evening a response pinged into her inbox.

Jude, Thank you for this, which is fascinating. I’ve read all the observation journals and I have sent you those letters you needed. It’ll be your turn to be amazed. They should be with you tomorrow. Call me when you’ve read them. There’s lots to talk about.

Oh, and Paris was wonderful.

On Friday morning a thick envelope addressed to Jude in Cecelia’s stylish handwriting arrived by special delivery. It contained photocopies of half a dozen letters in Esther’s italic hand, so familiar to her now.

“They’re the ones from the Cambridge library,” Jude explained to Chantal.

They repaired with them to the library where Jude spread them out on the table. They
were all signed “Esther Wickham” and addressed to one Josiah Bellingham.

“Remind me of who he was?” said Chantal.

“A London watchmaker and a grinder of optical lenses,” Jude told her. “An amateur astronomer of some reputation. He lived and worked in Whitechapel in the second half of the eighteenth century. I think Anthony Wickham bought equipment from him to make telescopes. Yes, look, that’s
what the first letter says.”

14 May 1778

Dear Mr Bellingham,

I write to you at the instigation of my father, Anthony Wickham of Starbrough Hall, who you will perhaps remember having many times bought from you lenses and specula for spyglasses. You will be surprised at my writing instead of my father, and to learn that my purpose is not to order goods from you but to crave your advice.

You may not know the sad news from Starbrough Hall, but on 28
^th
January inst. my father met with a terrible accident which has left him gravely cast down. Although he has recovered somewhat, thank God, he is yet an invalid, unable to rise from his bed without assistance or to walk, unable to write or to speak more than a few words. We pray that his progress will continue.

These last weeks he has proved hale enough to continue his stargazing, and this he has been determined to do. Many nights have we repaired to the park and now I must tell you of a curiosity we have seen. A strange object like a comet but with no tail or a nebula, but it moves, visible in the quartile near Tau Tauri. This we viewed with 460 magnifications, very well defined, and with 278 magnifications, sharp and a small star nearby.

My father’s suggestion was to write to you as the best of his acquaintances to investigate this further. He also believes you are an honourable man.

“So wouldn’t claim the credit, I suppose,” Jude muttered.

Bellingham must have replied in friendly fashion, because the next letter to him was dated a few days later and merely answered a few questions Bellingham had about measurements.
Jude concluded from it that he hadn’t been able to find this object through his own telescopes but was planning to visit an acquaintance who possessed a better telescope. The third letter indicated that this contact couldn’t see it either, or had concluded it was a nebula. “It’s important to watch it over a long period of time,” Esther had written. “A month, maybe, though it is now faded from
the sky.”

In July she wrote to him again, asking if there had been any developments, then again, to remind him in August.

In the final letter, dated October, the tone had changed. Bellingham must finally believe her for she said that she’d be eager to hear back from him “as soon as you have consulted with the Astronomical Society. I have never written such a thing as a paper and fear I would
need significant assistance.”

* * *

After lunch, when she was alone in the library, Jude rang Cecelia as requested.

“The transcription you sent me yesterday, and Esther’s letters to Bellingham exactly confirm my interpretations of that torn diary you sent me. Jude, it’s amazing. Has the penny dropped yet?”

“Not really, I’m afraid,” Jude replied. “You’ll have to tell me.”

“What she saw,”
Cecelia said, and Jude had never known her so animated, “was the planet we call Uranus. Just think, Jude. She saw it in 1778! Three years before Herschel discovered it and gave it a name. Though I don’t think it was called Uranus for a while. He and his sister Caroline thought it a comet at first as well, you know.”

“So Esther really was becoming a skilled astronomer.”

“Building on her father’s
expertise, yes. If she hadn’t so good a telescope she wouldn’t have been able to see it. I should also add that she wasn’t the only one before Herschel to have reported seeing this strange object. Herschel was the first to study it properly, though, and to draw official attention to it and that, I suppose, is the really important thing about a scientific discovery—to recognize its possible significance
and to follow it up. Think of Isaac Newton staring at that falling apple. People have always seen apples falling but no one before saw it as anything but commonplace. But he had the background knowledge and the intellectual curiosity to go away and experiment endlessly and construct from it the theory of gravity.”

“So why is it important that Esther saw this comet or planet or whatever you are
saying it is? After all, someone else discovered it a couple of years later, named it and took all the glory.”

But Cecelia wasn’t to be swayed. “In the history of astronomical discovery I suppose it’s not important. But in the context of the story around this collection you’re selling it’s fascinating. And being an historian of astronomy, I am really interested. It’s part of the whole endeavor
of scientific discovery at the time and Esther, let’s face it, is unusual being a woman. You know about Herschel’s sister Caroline, I suppose?”

“Not really,” Jude confessed.

“She’s a prime example of both the possibilities and the limitations for women operating in the man’s world of intellectual discovery. William Herschel was able to escape a very restrictive upbringing in Germany and set
up by himself as a musician and amateur astronomer in Bath. But he had tremendous trouble being allowed to bring his little sister to join him—she was expected to be the family skivvy. When she eventually came, her job was to be his assistant in what was often grueling physical work. He ground his own mirrors and built his own huge telescopes—like Wickham—and she had to help, and she was only this
tiny little woman. She took part in the stargazing and noting what they saw. She did get public recognition for her contributions and even became something of a celebrity for discovering a comet—the first ‘lady’s comet,’ as the writer Fanny Burney put it. But part of the celebration of her was the fact that she was a bit of a freak—a female astronomer—and it was more common to hear her referred to
as ‘the great William Herschel’s sister.’ It might even have helped her cause that she was so modest and tiny and self-effacing.”

“I wonder whether Esther was,” said Jude with a little smile. “The way she must have bossed that household about to do things for her father!”

“Yes, considering she was, as your latest transcriptions told me, a foundling and might have been regarded as the lowest
of the low, she seemed to earn everyone’s respect and obedience. If she was spirited she must also have been very clever and tactful. It is interesting to speculate what might have happened if her father hadn’t had that accident. They might have made discoveries that rivaled Herschel’s. It’s useless to speculate, of course. It’s much more interesting to read the correspondence with this man Bellingham.
I wonder whether he did anything more about the matter of the strange object she talked about.”

“I don’t know.” Jude felt despairing. “There is no more of Esther’s account to read.”

But when she ended the call and thought about all that Cecelia said, she felt brighter. At last there was something significant to write in her article. Esther and her father had made an important discovery, and
their work deserved to be presented to the world. She could hardly wait to sit down and revise the synopsis of her article and let Bridget know. But there wasn’t time for that right now. She had offered to cook the evening meal.

* * *

Their meal was early to accommodate the twins and because Robert had to rush off to chair an open meeting of the parish council. Chantal was to go with him.
While doling out strawberries and cream, which followed roast chicken—the twins’ favorite—Jude volunteered to put Max and Georgie to bed so that Alexia could go too, but she gently refused.

“It’s not really my sort of thing,” Alexia confessed. “Robert will do very well without me. Why don’t you go, Jude? You won’t be able to vote or anything, but you do know about the folly. And you’ve done enough,
cooking us this lovely meal.”

Robert added, “Yes, you’d be useful actually, Jude. Would you mind saying a little piece about the folly?”

Jude, who sometimes had to address auction rooms, agreed.

* * *

About fifty villagers gathered in the village hall opposite the church. Euan was an early arrival. He sat with Jude and Chantal but was immediately engaged in conversation by the woman sitting
on his other side. Jude, in between nodding and smiling at Chantal’s many acquaintances, was glad of a quiet moment to scribble a few notes on what she needed to say. As Robert called the meeting to order, she looked around for John Farrell or Marcia Vane, but there was no sign. Whether or not they knew about the occasion, she saw that they wouldn’t have been welcome. For once the meeting started
it was clear that most villagers were against the development, and certainly all of them hated the idea of the folly being knocked down. “It’s our best-known landmark,” one of the parish councilors put it.

Here, Robert invited Jude to speak, referring to her somewhat vaguely as an “historical expert” from London. Jude, at first hesitantly, duly described how the tower had been built for stargazing
and that significant discoveries had been made from it that added to the bank of knowledge at the time.

“Don’t forget, too,” she went on, warming to her subject, “it’s an important piece of architecture. Follies, as you might know, were a feature of the eighteenth-century great house, a way by which landowners demonstrated their wealth and sophistication. Starbrough folly is a particularly fine,
listed, example.”

After this, Euan spoke out against the development, beginning, “This application is another example of the creeping destruction of something vitally important: our rural heritage. Bite by bite, we are eating away at our precious wild places. If we start interfering with the habitat of the red admiral and the bee orchid we will lose them. And lose them, remember, forever.”

When he’d finished and the applause died down, Robert chaired a general discussion then summarized by saying, “It’s fairly unlikely that the planning authorities would allow the area to be built on extensively, but we can’t rely on that supposition. I propose that we resist the demolition of the folly and the development plan in its entirety. However, Farrell might fight back, asserting that, given
the folly, there is a precedent for building there.” It wasn’t long before this proposal was enthusiastically accepted, then Robert agreed to draft the necessary letter and the meeting was closed.

“Like a lift up the road, Euan?” Robert asked him as they walked to the car.

“Thank you,” he replied. In the back of the car, his arm stretched across the back of the seat, Jude felt terribly aware
of him.

Robert was praising his contribution to the debate. “It’s a vital aspect of the defense,” he said. “Perhaps I can consult you when I write that particular paragraph.”

“Sure,” Euan said.

“In fact, would you like to come to dinner tomorrow night? We can sketch it out then. I’m not as good on bee orchids and whatnot as you are.”

“I can call in tomorrow during the day, if you like,” Euan
said, “but I’m afraid I’m busy during the evening.”

He said to Jude. “Actually, Darcey, Summer and Claire are coming around. Summer finally got me to agree to her sleeping in the caravan, and Claire’s gamely volunteered to borrow my tent.”

“Oh, that sounds fun,” she said. Her sister hadn’t said anything about this when she’d spoken to her on the phone earlier, and, once again, she felt oddly
left out.

Euan, perhaps sensing this, said, “The tent’s got two sleeping compartments. Why don’t you come, too?”

“Thank you,” she replied, then regretted it, not feeling sure whether they really wanted her there. “Perhaps I ought to say no. I’m not great in tents,” is what she should have said. But Euan was so enthusiastic when he said, “Great! We’ll have a barbecue. My sister and her husband
might be free, too.”