A Female Genius: How Ada Lovelace Started the Computer Age Read Online Free PDF Page B

very same night, Annabella later recalled, Byron enquired ‘with an appearance of aversion, if I meant to sleep in the same bed with him.’ He often complained to Annabella, during the marriage, ‘it’s done,’ ‘it’s too late now’, and, ‘it cannot be undone’.
    Byron grew a little calmer as the weeks wore on, but when living with Annabella he was always prone to terrible moods. Byron took Annabella to Six Mile Bottom and introduced her to Augusta. It was torture. Byron and Augusta often left Annabella alone, even all night, and sometimes Byron even taunted his wife that he and Augusta had ‘no need’ of her.
    He liked to play off the women against each other. For example, on one occasion, according to Annabella’s testimony for a Deed of Separation from her husband, he threatened to ‘work them both well’ and lay himself down on the sofa, then ordered them to take it in turns to embrace him, while he made comparisons between them in gross language.
    Strangely when Annabella finally suspected that her husband was having sexual relations with Augusta as well as with her, Annabella didn’t blame Augusta, telling herself (and, eventually, others) that Augusta submitted to Byron, but that Augusta was not gratified by his affection. Some biographers have even suggested that Annabella and Augusta had lesbian feelings for each other, for which there is no unassailable evidence.
    Augusta, during the rest of her life, wrote Annabella hundreds of letters; Augusta was always weirdly fascinated by Annabella, and although Annabella didn’t reciprocate as keenly, she still had a great fondness for Byron’s half-sister. There were even some times of affection between Byron and Annabella. During one of these episodes in March 1815, or possibly late February, Ada was conceived.
    In April 1815 the Byrons settled in London, in a house on 13 Piccadilly Terrace which they could not remotely afford, even though Lord Wentworth conveniently died on 17 April. From now on regular harassment by bailiffs and other creditors became part of their married life.
    In the persisting absence of the dowry (estates such as her uncle’s took years to settle before funds would become available; it would take about a decade), Byron remained fearsomely in debt. While Byron and Annabella still managed to find time for occasional moments of passion and togetherness – Byron and Annabella both added her mother’s family name ‘Noel’ as a double-barrel to theirs upon the death of her uncle –, these moments were snatched more and more in the face of stress caused by debts, Byron’s emotional instability, and his sexual infidelity.
    On Sunday December 10 1815, at 1 pm, Annabella gave birth to a girl, Augusta Ada, though soon Annabella preferred to call her only ‘Ada’.
    Byron and Annabella had decided Augusta would be godmother. The very fact that Annabella agreed to this (she was not the kind of woman to be coerced into something so major) suggests that her sympathies for, and perhaps liking for, Augusta, were strong.
    When Byron was shown his healthy new-born daughter, he reputedly said, ‘Oh! What an instrument of torture I have acquired in you!’
    Annabella had by now decided that her husband had been her own instrument of torture for long enough. But she kept her intentions carefully secret, and on the night of Sunday January 14 1816, she went to bed with Byron as usual.
    Early in the morning, Annabella wrapped herself and her month-old baby daughter up warmly. Without waking her husband, she stole out of their London house with baby Ada in the company of a maidservant and into a carriage that would take the three of them away from Byron and to Annabella’s parents.
    Byron would never see his wife, or Ada, again.

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    Ada’s early life was spent in the public spotlight of a scandalised and titillated Britain, though her mother did her utmost to keep her out of its glare. To some extent, Lady Byron (as