Flitting between Somerset, London, Esher and Brighton, Ada was kept informed of the improvements by which her husband hoped to lure her back into captivity at Horsley. In August 1845, Lovelace described the turret chamber in which, perched above her own swan-studded lake, he wished his brilliant wife to renew her mathematical studies. He had, he tempted her, equipped one of the lancet windows with a telescope through which Ada might enjoy a splendid view of the queen’s quarters at Windsor Castle.
Lovelace’s blandishments were resisted. On 15 November 1848, Ada cautiously told her mother about the anticipated pleasure of inhabiting what sounded to be the ‘most delightful’ new tower room at Horsley, so long as it was warm and dry. A year later, however, Lovelace was informed of his delicate wife’s continued reluctance to shiver to death in a dank lakeside chamber.
Ada’s absence could be overlooked by a man who now cared for almost nothing beyond his own grand designs. (The Lovelace children’s letters from this time are filled with references to Papa’s obsession with tunnels, earthworks and brickmaking.) Seated next to the Archdeacon of Westminster (Wordsworth’s nephew) at a London dinner in May 1849 hosted by Lord Rosse, Lovelace paid scant attention to accounts of the scientifically minded Irish peer’s remarkable new telescope, the largest ever yet designed. ‘We talked architecture & monuments all through dinner,’ William boasted to his mother-in-law; the next day, the earl toured the abbey’s roof with the Dean, before setting out for a further round of architectural exchanges with like-minded friends at Trinity, his old Cambridge college. Back in Surrey, Lovelace swapped views about chromatic brickwork with Henry Drummond of Albury, a rich, witty and ardently religious banker for whom Augustus Pugin was embellishing an old manor house with no less than sixty-three differently decorated chimneys. Architectural historians tend to sneer at Albury (just as they do at East Horsley). William worshipped it.
Few aspects of his own most idiosyncratic creation pleased William more than the tall tower in which he aspired to house (or imprison) his wife. By December 1849, a huge window had been opened above Horsley’s new grand staircase. Its sole purpose was to shed a glare of daylight into the entrance to Ada’s ‘Mathematics Room’. A month later, after five years of remodelling – and with thought at last given to the degree of warmth required for such a slender and sickly inhabitant – Ada’s study was complete. Four new paintings of Ashley Combe had been recessed into the panelled and mirrored walls, while a new-fangled speaking tube had been installed, through which Ada might issue commands for her daily needs. As a final touch, a portrait of Lord Lovelace himself, dashingly attired in the scarlet-and-gold dress uniform of his official position as Lord Lieutenant of Surrey, surveyed the room from above the entrance door. ‘You will,’ the artist’s proud sitter promised a once-again absent Ada on 6 January 1850, ‘be very gay.’
Back in 1838, Annabella Byron had believed that she was doing the right thing when she persuaded Prime Minister Melbourne to upgrade an ill-treated William King to the rank of Earl of Lovelace. She rejoiced when her son-in-law became Lord Lieutenant of Surrey, while his younger brother had to content himself with the less significant role of high sheriff. What Lady Byron had not fully grasped was the damage that might be done by the persistent social rivalry between Locke King and his detested older brother, William Lovelace.
Throughout the 1840s, the mischief-making Lady Hester King continued to fuel hostility between her sons. Stories leaked out that William had unjustifiably held back items of furniture that legally belonged to Locke; that he was destroying the beautiful old woods around Ockham for timber sales; that he was selling off the family house. Every single time, the story was traced back to William’s mother at Woburn Park.
Lady Hester’s mind was clear upon one particular point: William Lovelace was never going to overshadow his sibling in Surrey, the county most closely associated with the King family’s history. If William bought a village near Guildford, then his brother must have one near Weybridge. If William built a fine new house near Ockham, then Locke must have a bigger one near Woburn. (Designed by Sir Arthur Blomfield, the immense Brooklands Park was finally completed in 1862.) There was one crucial difference: money. Locke King, always his mother’s pet, was lavishly subsidised both by the generous legacy left to his mother when Lord King died, and by the considerable personal wealth of Lady Hester’s own West Country family, the Fortescues. William Lovelace, who usually raised money by selling off parcels of his land, was due to receive no more than Ada’s fairly modest wedding dowry until the time of Lady Byron’s death. Locke could afford to be extravagant. His elder brother had been tempted into living far, far beyond his means. As the 1840s drew to a close, William Lovelace was confronting the possibility of financial ruin.
Even before the demands made upon her by John Crosse, Ada herself was struggling to make ends meet on an allowance of merely £300 a year. It’s hard to see how she managed. In London, she was still paying for John Thomas’s musical tuition. At Ashley Combe and East Horsley, she was responsible for the upkeep and maintenance of several horses and six dogs, including a Dalmatian called Sirius, a spaniel called Luna and a large, beloved dog called Nelson. Harps; textbooks; day clothes and shoes; the wages of a maid whom she was once again employing; extra tuition in languages, music and art for the
