Miss Muchelney lowered her head. “He would be touched to hear you say so—he had no better friend than you, Mr. Hawley.”
The president’s florid face folded into an indulgent smile.
Miss Muchelney turned to Mr. Frampton. “My father was also a musician, sir, before astronomy diverted him. He always said music and mathematics were two sides of a single tongue.”
Mr. Frampton’s smile was slight, but sincere. “I would agree, but my father would turn up his nose and insist that music is an art, not a science.”
Miss Muchelney laughed in recognition.
Catherine left them talking under Mr. Hawley’s eager supervision and went to greet her aunt Kelmarsh, who was on the other side of the room with the chemist Mr. Chattenden and his wife.
“Catherine, my love,” said the older woman, gray hair piled high and green eyes twinkling. “It’s been an age.”
Catherine bent to kiss the smaller woman’s parchment cheek, a flash of warmth making her relax a little beneath the tension. Aunt Kelmarsh wasn’t a blood relative, but she’d lived at Ruche Abbey with Catherine’s mother for fully the last decade of the seventh countess’s life. She’d been Aunt Attleborough then. Twice widowed, she often still dressed in black for Mr. Kelmarsh, a quiet parson with a brilliant gift for botany whom she’d married while Catherine and George were away on their Egyptian expedition.
Before long the sallow Sir Eldon Wilby arrived to join them, along with his pleasingly plump and pinkish wife. For a while all was talk, until a noise at the door had all eyes turning: a young man burst in—color high, white forehead gleaming beneath a shock of brown hair, tugging at his slightly askew cravat. “My apologies for being so late,” he said with a hasty bow.
“Nonsense,” Sir Eldon said, and waved the young man over.
He turned out to be Mr. Richard Wilby, Sir Eldon’s nephew. Catherine eyed him consideringly as he joined the conversation flowing around her. So this was one of Miss Muchelney’s fellow candidates for the translation work? He seemed bright enough and talked a great deal—but the impression he gave was of still being slightly underbaked. He tugged at his hair and twitched at the cuffs of his coat as if it had been borrowed from someone of greater stature.
Surely Miss Muchelney had very little to fear from him as a rival.
Dinner was announced, served, and enjoyed. Conversation remained general until the courses were carried away, then Mr. Hawley sat back with a fresh glass of his favorite honey-wine and turned to the more serious subject of the evening. “Ladies and gentlemen, it is time to talk about Monsieur Oléron. Mrs. Kelmarsh, will you take notes?”
Aunt Kelmarsh smiled tightly and nodded acquiescence. She was not a Society Fellow—women had never been admitted—but she was an avid botanical illustrator and never went anywhere without a sketchbook and a pencil. She flipped past all her ferns and flowers to the next empty page, and began jotting in her elegant shorthand.
“Thank you,” said Mr. Hawley. “For those of you who missed our last discussion—” nodding at Mr. Wilby “—the Society is undertaking an English edition of Gervais Oléron’sMéchanique céleste. This book builds on Newton’s greatPrincipiaand has collected the past fifty years’ worth of advances in mathematics, gravitation, and astronomy. Which, it must be admitted, are mostly on the French side of things. It is a definite masterwork, and if our English astronomers are to catch up to our Continental counterparts, this is the absolute best place for us to begin.”
“Hear hear,” said Sir Eldon, raising his port. A general murmur of approval followed.
Mr. Hawley inclined his head humbly. “Now: Lady Moth has generously offered to bear half the cost of the publication, in honor of her late husband, the much-missed George St. Day. The Society membership will raise the other half of the funds. Only one question remains: Who shall we ask to undertake the translation? We shall select two names.”
Sir Eldon put a hand on his nephew’s slender shoulder. “Richard took a double first in mathematics and physics at Oxford. He’s read Newton and replicated all the experiments in thePrincipia. He’s young, I’ll grant you, but that only means his mind is fresher. More flexible and full of the juices of youth than us wizened old balloons.” Sir Eldon chuckled, including both himself and Mr. Hawley in this description.
The president’s smile was slight. “Does he have the French for it?”
Sir Eldon huffed into his mustaches. “His French was good enough for the Tour—and anyway, the language is the easier part of the thing, is it not? Any mind that can grapple with the mathematics will surely have no trouble with mere French.”
The president nodded, lips pursed. “Mr. Richard Wilby,” Mr. Hawley said to Aunt Kelmarsh.
She noted it down.
Mr. Wilby’s ears were red but his chin was high, as he peered around the table for any challengers.
The president rested one hand magisterially on his lapel. “I have a candidate of my own to suggest. Mr. William Frampton has been a Society Fellow for the past six months, and has already contributed several letters to ourPolite Philosophiesin that short span of time. He is a gifted autodidact who would have made a great sensation at Oxford, had his race permitted him to attend.”
Mr. Frampton crooked a sardonic eyebrow at this phrasing.
Mr. Hawley continued blithely. “His grandmother was from Saint-Domingue, so he speaks French like a native, and his residence here in London makes it a simple matter to consult with him whenever an issue with the manuscript should arise.” For a moment his cloud-like brow furrowed with remembered storms. “We all are, I’m sure, anxious to avoid a repetition of the kind of results Mr. Grenfuller presented us with, when we trusted him with Captain Lateshaw’s papers.”
The company murmured agreement. Aunt Kelmarsh looked up, her green eyes acid-bright, before returning to her notebook and jotting down Mr. Frampton’s name.
Mr. Hawley took another sip of honey-wine and set the tiny cup aside. “So, shall we designate our translators in the official Society record—?”
Catherine straightened in her chair. “Excuse me.”
“—or are there any objections?”
