“Excuse me,” Catherine said, more loudly.
Mr. Frampton cleared his throat.
Mr. Hawley beamed at him. “Mr. Frampton, my dear sir?”
“I believe Lady Moth has something she wishes to say,” Mr. Frampton offered. Quite as if Mr. Hawley had not blatantly ignored Catherine a bare moment ago.
Mr. Hawley’s smile stayed put. He blinked once or twice, then turned toward Catherine without a single muscle changing the placid set of his features. “My lady?”
Catherine swallowed her nervousness. She rarely addressed the Society, even in so informal a setting, preferring to make arrangements with Mr. Hawley in private and allow him to convey them to the group at large. She wished she had thought to prepare remarks in advance. Best to be direct.
“I would like to propose Miss Lucy Muchelney as a translator,” she said.
A ripple of surprise ran around the table, as Lucy raised her chin and folded her hands serenely in front of her. Only Catherine, who was more than usually interested in Miss Muchelney’s hands, could see how the knuckles were white with strain.
Mr. Hawley chuckled as if Catherine had said something witty. “Miss Muchelney? Translate Oléron?”
“She is of anyone the most familiar with her father’s finely developed mathematics,” Catherine said.
Sir Eldon wheezed a hearty laugh through the brush beneath his nose. “Letting his daughter play at astronomy is just the sort of wild hair Arthur would have gotten, don’t you know.”
Lucy’s cheeks had twin spots of red, but her voice was measured when she replied. “He trained me first as an assistant, but in the last year before his death I was performing all of the calculations on my own.”
“While he sent us letters about Lunarians and life-forms and the rain clouds he spotted on the sun,” Mr. Chattenden broke in. Mr. Chattenden was a chemist and had taken the solar letters as a personal affront, Catherine recalled.
Sir Eldon laughed and Mr. Wilby openly snickered.
Mr. Hawley only turned his kindly eyes toward Catherine. “Miss Muchelney is not a Society Fellow.”
“Is Mr. Wilby?” she countered.
“Not yet,” Mr. Hawley replied easily, “but no doubt his uncle will sponsor his application shortly. Miss Muchelney has not the same recourse, since Society Fellowships are forbidden to the gentler sex.”
“And what if they weren’t?” Catherine blurted out.
Every eye at the table swiveled toward her: some in astonishment, others in horror. Anger gave her armor. She went on. “You all know Mrs. Kelmarsh is as talented a botanist as her husband ever was. He told us often how well they worked together on many of the papers he wrote for us. Why shouldn’t she have the benefit of Fellowship, as he did in his lifetime? Why shouldn’t the Society have the benefit of her insight and intelligence, simply because they’rehersrather thanhis?”
The widow’s eyes were bright as stars as she looked up, as though Catherine were speaking a new language. Emboldened, Catherine continued. “If Miss Muchelney has anything like her father’s gift for astronomy, surely she should be able to put it to use?”
“I think it’s an excellent suggestion,” said Mr. Frampton, folding his arms across his chest. There was an odd note of relief in his voice.
Mr. Hawley cut him a keen glance and sipped at his drink. “Perhaps.”
Sir Eldon huffed wordlessly.
Mr. Wilby leaned forward. “But let us go about it scientifically,” he said, his expression eager as a puppy on a new scent. “We must start not with assumptions, but with the fundamental questions. Several points need to be clearly determined at the outset: first, whether women are capable of astronomy; second, whether they would offer any particular benefit to astronomy; third, whether astronomy would be of any use or benefit to women; fourth, whether it would harm the needs of mankind to encourage women to put their efforts toward the sciences rather than the continuation of the species.”
Mr. Chattenden nodded. “That is a proper scientific line of enquiry, Mr. Wilby.”
Aunt Kelmarsh looked nauseated. Miss Muchelney reeled back as though she’d been slapped.
Catherine’s body went hot with rage. The men of the Society had almost always talked over her, of course—but she’d always thought that was because she was no expert in their chosen fields of study. She hadn’t known they’d been imagining she was inferior simply because she was a woman. But here was Miss Muchelney—brilliant, sensitive Lucy Muchelney—being talked about as if she had no more brain than a child, simply because she was wearing skirts instead of breeches.
Words like embers danced on her tongue and she feared the lightest breath would kindle them into flame.
Mr. Hawley stayed cool. “Fruitful as such a debate would be,” he declared, “I’m afraid that it can be no solution to our present quandary. You know, my dear Lady Moth,” he said, reaching a hand out and placing it on the table in front of Catherine, “the idea was for our translator to work with the men of the Society. Surely you will see the impropriety of Miss Muchelney being closeted for long stretches of time with so many single men, in what must be ardent and rather volatile circumstances?”
Catherine let her eyes narrow. It was one thing to worry about the girl living with a bachelor—but merely existing in the same room? “Are you suggesting not all Society Fellows are to be trusted to behave like gentlemen?” There was a jumbled general outcry at this. Catherine pressed her advantage. “If that is your only concern, then I would happily attend as chaperone whenever Miss Muchelney is working in consultation with the other translators. Her expertise with the mathematics is paramount, and not to be tossed aside.”
