Carrie Brown - The Stargazer's Sister

She thinks again about what he had said to her earlier that day as they had sat at the hotel, that the difficulty with man’s understanding of the universe is not what man can see. It is that he believes that what he can see is all there is to be seen.

There had been such a look on William’s face as he had spoken to her, his expression fervent. Against her legs she had felt the heat of the fire.

“There is an art to seeing, Lina,” William had said this evening. “It involves the human eye and the astronomer’s tools and his familiarity with what is known, of course. But true vision— true vision — rests with what can be imagined beyond what is known. Do you not agree?”

She thinks of her brother in his own room now, closing his eyes. What moves against those closed eyes? she wonders. William’s dreaming life…it must not be like the dreaming life of other people. Though they are of the same flesh and blood, there is really no comparing them beyond that. Their father was right. William is a genius.

—

YEARS LATER, reading through William’s daybook from that time, she will find a single reference to their voyage from Hanover to England, those first days of her emancipation that had been — for her — so full of revelations.

Set off on my return to England, William had written, in company with my sister.

The brevity of this mention of herself — not even her name — does not take her by surprise when she discovers it. By then, she knows intimately that though her gaze had been trained always — and only — on him, his mind forever had been elsewhere.

William’s voice reaching her in her attic bedroom wakes her, but she is caught in a dream’s paralysis: a storm on the Channel, the sound of rain, one of the twin babies crying somewhere out of sight, a lantern swinging in the darkness and then going out.

The dream dissolves finally at the sound of William’s voice, calling her again.

She opens her eyes. Watery morning light brims in the room’s dormer window. There are drops of rain on the glass. In bed, her nose and cheeks are cool, but she is warm under the quilt.

Last night it had been too dark to see her surroundings clearly, but in daylight the room reveals itself. The walls are not papered, though one plastered wall has been painted the color of egg yolk. A brown stain like a spider’s web darkens the ceiling in a corner. Arranged against the far wall is a battered three-panel screen decorated with elaborate urns of flowers with drooping blossoms and scattered petals. One panel bears a dent as though kicked by a careless foot. A small chair and a wooden table holding a basin and pitcher, very plain, have also been supplied. Someone has thought of her comfort, she sees, but perhaps there is not much in the way of resources.

In the carriage last night they had driven over the Avon and into Bath across a long humped bridge, the horses moving fast, Lina holding on to the strap. William had asked the driver to make a turn around the Royal Crescent, so that Lina could see the houses arranged in their astonishing, beautiful arc. It was past dark by then, and the driver had gone around the enormous circus once and then again to satisfy William. Lina had sat forward in amazement, looking out the window at the curved façade of the splendid houses, a lamp at every door, seemingly every window lit, a galaxy of lights.

Throughout the evening’s ride, William had asked the driver to stop from time to time. He had leapt out, trained a small collapsible telescope at the sky for a few minutes, made notations in a book.

“Tremendous,” he’d said, getting back inside and shaking his head like a dog coming in after a rain. The night’s cool air had flown off him.

He had given her the telescope on one of their stops, but she had trouble focusing it.

“With practice,” William had said, “your eye will become accustomed.”

—

LAST NIGHT she had been too tired to take in much of the new world she now inhabits. William had led the way up four flights of stairs to her bedroom in the attic. There was no room available on the lower floors, he had explained. All the others have been given over to work on the telescopes.

“The kitchen is on the ground floor,” he’d said, “as well as the workshop. And there is a garden behind the house.”

Apparently the vegetable garden is to be her responsibility as well, she had learned. Soon, too — when there is enough money — work will commence on construction of a larger, separate workshop in the garden to accommodate the size of the furnaces he will need if he is to fire mirrors of the dimensions he imagines.

He had been full of plans and purpose, talking away as they climbed up the stairs, his hand cupped around a candle’s flame.

She’d looked up at his shadow on the ceiling, at her own, trailing behind his.

“You’ll see it all tomorrow,” he’d said. “I have furnished a parlor for the instruments, and the harpsichord is truly excellent. I’ve recently acquired a good harp, too. Mrs. Bulwer has seen the room papered in stripes. I think it suitable for the ladies who come for lessons. But you will recommend further improvements, I know.”

He had turned on the stairs to look at her.

She’d thought of the plain rooms of their house in Hanover, the uneven floors and rough furnishings, soot stains on the walls, snow drifting through the roof. She’d thought of the horse in his stall.

“Of course,” she had said. “Yes.”

—

NOW HE CALLS AGAIN from below.

“Caroline! Lina! Prepare yourself!”

An eruption of sound — hammers, saws — explodes from the formerly silent floors below. She hears men’s voices.

She gets out of bed quickly, wrapping the quilt around her. Is this the usual din of her brother’s household? She has no idea of the time. Last night she’d been so exhausted that she’d fallen asleep without writing in her journal. She will have to build greater endurance, she knows, if she is to keep pace with William.

She is still buttoning her gown when a boy appears on the landing outside her door, carrying her trunk on his back. His ears are enormous, curved outward as if they would catch things flying past his head. His chestnut hair is roughly cropped. He’s a happy-looking child, no more than ten years old. A forest creature, she thinks…with lovely blue eyes.

He looks up at her from under the trunk, which seems far too large and heavy for a boy of his size, his cheeks puffed with exertion.

“Say guten Morgen to our friend Stanley on this Saturday morning,” William calls from the landing below.

The child smiles. He appears delighted to be there, in fact, heavy trunk or no.

Herr Herschel’s house in Bath is a great adventure, she supposes. In what other household are they sawing and hammering inside?

She is forced to retreat further into her room to allow him to ascend the remaining steps.

“Good day, missus!” he says.

“ Danke schön, Stanley. Danke, ” she says, trying to help him slide the trunk from his shoulder. “Thank you very much.”

He gives her a comically exaggerated bow.

She gathers up the garments she had shed last night and heaps them on the chair.

William calls again from downstairs.

“I made everyone give you an extra hour to sleep,” he says, “but that is the limit of my consideration. It is time to work. Come down!”

She glances out the window. The cobbles in the street are wet, gleaming in the morning’s opaque light. A finely dressed lady — blue hat, matching dress, a little white dog on a lead, and carrying a folded umbrella beneath her elbow — hurries past on the far side of the street.