A Star Out Of Focus by Moussemymind
The doubters said it couldn’t be done. A woman less than five feet tall. Past her prime. A spinster marked by smallpox. What could a woman such as this achieve?
Caroline kept herself busy. It silenced the doubting voices. She ordered the domestics. Paid the gardener. Oiled the machinery. But at night. At night she had leisure. At night she had the heavens.
The footman held the ladder while Caroline climbed to the flat roof. He followed with the telescope. After the instrument was set towards the sun the footman settled his back against the chimney stack, warm from the kitchen fire below, and allowed himself to nod while his little mistress fussed over her books and inkwell and cranked the controls of the dainty telescope.
Caroline heard the footman’s snores. She was alone.
The night was still. No theatres or benefits or Pump Rooms of Bath disgorging onto rain soaked streets to the clamour of link boys and licensed chairmen crying their services to the crowd. No. This was the countryside. Though the palace lay across the fields, the lights and hubbub of the court did not stretch to their humble corner. Until the King came to visit with his placemen and titled servants. But the King would not come this night. By his order William had gone to Gottingen with the ten foot reflector.
William’s absence gave Caroline the leisure her protestant soul desired to fill with work.
Caroline leant into the eyepiece and began her observation. Looking for new phenomena. She sang as she worked. An aria from Handel’s Messiah. It was ever popular at Bath. How many times had she copied the score and learned the part, ready to step from chorus to solo? For the castrato Rauzzini, like her brother William, would arrive breathlessly late for performances. He sang like a trilling bird, voice soaring to the vaulted ceiling of the Abbey Church. Like her his chance for nuptials had been cut short in childhood. They were fashioned for a different purpose. His to praise God with song. Hers. Caroline still sought her purpose.
If God be for us, who can be against us?
Did she blaspheme with her investigations? The question vexed her. It was her nature to explore. Searching gave her liberty. But was it merely feminine curiosity? Society held that the weaker sex should not aspire to the likes of Cook, discovering unseen horizons.
In her excitement Caroline was apt to forget Society.
It looked like a star out of focus. She must note it. Forthwith. Caroline stepped away from the eyepiece, breaking her song to repeat the observation. Unlike William she had no assistant. Dear William. She was ever in his debt. But she wished. How she wished. No matter. Caroline stepped to the eyepiece again. Looked. The fuzzy star. Was gone. The object must be moving.
There is more to the heavens than stars.
Caroline swept again. Steady, steady with the telescope. Searching. She could not find it. She swept again, slowly cranking the handle. The object had vanished. Caroline straightened and rubbed her aching back. With a covert glance at the sleeping footman she loosened her stays to make her habit more comfortable. Above the heavens continued their dance.
She would find it. She would.
Caroline woke the footman. “Get me bread. Cheese. A pot of hot. I cannot observe without victuals.”
The footman, glad to abandon his post, creaked down the ladder.
In her solitude she found it. A comet. Moving through Leo. For almost four hours she tracked it, heart beating in her ears. A comet! When she went to bed she could not sleep. She rose and wrote in her diary…..
The following night was cloudy. No chasing stars. The rain misted her cheeks already damp with frustration. She must wait. And hope some other hunter would not pin their appellation to the comet first and claim the glory.
It was a race against the clouds.
The following night was clear. Caroline did not wait for the footman to hold the ladder steady. She clambered single handed, telescope shoved under her arm, pocket weighed down with Alexander’s clock for noting the exact time. And yes. There is was. It could not be mistaken.
By the time the footman reached bottom of the ladder Caroline was bustling down it again, petticoats hoiked to unseemly heights. “Madam?”
She brushed aside the offered victuals. “Get me paper. Ink. Prepare the horse!”
The domestics flustered under her torrent of orders. In the centre of it she wrote. And wrote. Dropped sand to dry the ink. Impatient. On sealing she pushed the letters into the footman’s hand with a coin. “Go now! Make haste!” She stood on the front step watching his tri-cornered hat disappear between the the hedgerow. Then she returned to her observations. And waited.
One day. Two days. Three days. Four.
On the fifth the bell pull rang. On the doorstep, hat in hand, was Sir Joshua Banks. Head of the Royal Astronomical Society. The gentleman at his shoulder, Lord Palmerstone.
They held the ladder, discretely looking down at their buckles while Caroline climbed. The footman did not sleep but waited with great attention on his lordship who rewarded him only with a smile. Caroline set the little telescope to the heavens. And showed them.
When William returned, a messenger in royal livery diverted his coach to the palace. His homecoming was an audience with the King.
All work in the cottage stopped when the kitchen maid spied the royal carriage drawing up outside. The carriage spilled princesses, then His Majesty, and finally William. He took Caroline’s hands. “Dear sister. The King demands that He see the lady comet.”
Some years later the King awarded Caroline an annual salary. England’s first lady Astronomer. Later there would be more. Many more.
The doubters said it couldn’t be done. A woman less than five feet tall. Past her prime. A spinster marked by smallpox. What could a woman such as this achieve?
further reading: Caroline Herschel As Observer, Hoskin, Michael -  Journal for the History of Astronomy (ISSN 0021-8286), Vol. 36, Part 4, No. 125, p. 373 - 406 (2005)
