Scattered, p.1
Scattered, page 1
Copyright © 2023 Katherine Benfante
All rights reserved.
This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form or by any means without written permission from the author, except for brief passages for purposes of reviews. For more information, contact the publisher at office@publishandgo.com.
The views and opinions expressed here in belong to the author and do not necessarily represent those of the publisher.
This novel’s story and characters are fictitious. Certain long-standing institutions, agencies, public offices are mentioned, but the characters involved are wholly imaginary.
Author Photo credit JRW Designs
ISBN 978-1-961093-16-4 (Hardcover Book)
ISBN 978-1-961093-17-1 (eBook)
Published by Silversmith Press–Houston, Texas
www.silversmithpress.com
This digital document has been produced by Nord Compo.
To mom, my biggest cheerleader
for this book and everything
Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication Page
1 - Sunday, August 19, 1906 Montreal, Quebec, Canada Eileen Rutherford
2 - Friday, August 24, 1906 Elie
3 - Friday, August 25, 2006 Montreal, Quebec, Canada Will Hertz
4 - Friday Elie
5 - Friday Will
6 - Friday Elie
7 - Friday Will
8 - Friday Elie
9 - Saturday, August 26, 2006 Elie
10 - Monday, August 28, 2006 Elie
11 - Monday, August 28, 2006 Will
12 - Monday Elie
13 - Monday Will
14 - Tuesday, August 29, 2006 Elie
15 - Tuesday, August 29, 2006 William
16 - Tuesday, August 29, 2006 Elie
17 - Wednesday, August 30, 2006 Elie
18 - Wednesday Elie
19 - Friday, September 1, 2006 Elie
20 - Saturday, September 2, 2006 William
21 - Tuesday, September 5, 2006 Elie
22 - Wednesday, September 6, 2006 William
23 - Saturday, September 9, 2006 William
24 - Saturday, September 9, 2006 Elie
25 - Wednesday, September 27, 2006 William
26 - Thursday, October 12, 2006 Elie
27 - Saturday, November 4, 2006 William
28 - Friday, November 10, 2006 Elie
29 - Thursday, November 16, 2006 William
30 - Thursday, November 16, 2006 Elie
31 - Friday, November 17, 2006 Elie
32 - Friday, November 17, 2006 William
33 - Friday, November 17, 2006 Elie
34 - Friday, November 17, 2006 William
35 - Sunday, November 18, 1906 Elie
36 - November 22, 2006 William
37 - Monday, November 19, 1906 Elie
38 - Sunday, November 26 Elie
Author's Note
Photos from Rutherford's Life
1
Sunday, August 19, 1906
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Eileen Rutherford
Walking lightly on my toes to avoid Mother’s ears, I sneak back into our house and hear excited voices inside the parlor. Fantastic, I’m not too late to eavesdrop on their discussion. Listening in on my father’s meeting with his student researchers is a weekly thrill for me which I won’t let be diminished by Ralph Fowler’s presence today.
As I move my right hand up to crack open the double doors, my mother steps into the hall from the kitchen, startling me into a little jump. In her arms is a walnut tea tray loaded with our large China teapot, milk and sugar, and a plate piled with shortcake biscuits and whole strawberries.
“Eileen! Do you know how long you were gone? And your skirt—twenty years old and you still come home with a hem rimmed with dirt!”
I shake off a few specks of brown from the ivory muslin. “I was busy discussing MacBeth with Emma at the Mont Royal promenade, Mother. Our British Literature class starts next week, and we want to be prepared.”
“You can’t be seen today of all days looking like a lady who doesn’t take care of herself. Oh, never mind that now. Please bring the tea in for them before it gets cold, then come back to the kitchen.”
When I push the door open with laden arms and step into the parlor, nobody pays me any attention besides a small smile from Father and Ralph—who is clearly distracted enough to momentarily ignore the conversation around him. I don’t dare let my eyes meet his, but rather keep my gaze to either my father or the floor, although I can feel Ralph’s eyes following me as I step silently to the coffee table to set down the tray. He can’t very well start a conversation without interrupting the ongoing discussion all around him. I’m glad for that small complication. I can listen in on the powwow in relative peace. Except for the fact Ralph’s eyes sear my skin like a sunburn, it feels like any other Sunday. Today they’re ironing out technical details of the “scattering experiments”—as Father named them—they’ve been working on for the past few months.
My father is Ernest Rutherford, the brilliant physicist and chair of the Physics Department at McGill University. He’s still young, but he has more acclaim than most of his colleagues, like the Curies in France, and maybe even more than his mentor, J.J. Thompson. I’m astonished at the way his brain works, especially his incredible intuition that’s led him to make so many discoveries in the last twenty or so years. From my visits to his labs and listening in on his Sunday afternoon teas, I think his work ethic helps too.
“The mica sheet can’t be too thin, Ernest, or we’ll never be able to mount it in the chamber. It’ll flake apart when we touch it. There’s no alternative than to keep it as thick as it is, but it’s microns thick, if that,” argues Frederick Soddy, his top research assistant. Last Thursday he and Father showed me the mica sheet through which radioactive particles travel. It’s mounted in front of a small lead chamber, completely enclosed except for a thin slit on one face that holds a radioactive lump of radium.
“Yes, but the scintillations on the screen are simply too fuzzy at this point to be sure of what we’re seeing. The screen looks as if you lobbed the dregs from your teacup straight at it. We must do better!” My father pounds his fist into the palm of his other hand for emphasis as he thunders his signature encouragement.
I would’ve loved to have seen last Thursday what he’s describing, but I can’t be in the lab when they run the scattering experiment, which they run in pitch darkness anyway. They need darkness to see what the physicists call “scintillations”—a phosphorescent dot on a screen, coated in zinc sulfide, which curves nearly three-hundred-and-sixty degrees around the mica sheet. Those scintillations mark the path of the radioactive alpha particles, a recent discovery by Father and Mr. Soddy describing positively charged emanations from a decaying radioactive source.
“Ernest, if you consider the emanation rate of the alpha particles, we should be seeing a clearly defined, constant glow on the screen. This fuzziness along the edges that flickers a bit . . . it’s all very curious and doesn’t at all fit with the theory,” Mr. Soddy says.
Essentially, my father and Mr. Soddy explained to me they’re trying to describe the makeup of an atom—the smallest indestructible amount of matter. They hypothesized they would see a thin line of scintillations exactly mirroring the shape of the slit. Father taught me that’s because negative charges moving around the atom are balanced by the positively charged substrate. But for months they haven’t gotten the clean line they expected.
Once I make my rounds with the teapot as slowly as I can, I know it’s time to return to the kitchen. I catch Father’s eye to wink my thanks; he beams at me, his lips pressed together and corners of his mouth turned up with happiness that I care about his work. It’s at those moments I feel my heart tethered more tightly to his.
How I want to be a permanent member of that group instead of an “illegal” hanger-on! I’ve always wished my classes generated this vigorous of a discussion.
But Mother is waiting for me in the kitchen. She immediately puts me to work helping her prepare dinner. Her hands are full dressing an enormous leg of lamb to barbeque, a specialty of her and Father’s home country of New Zealand. The barbeque pit is already set up in the backyard—our makeshift enclosed coal fire grill is a shortcut to the traditional slow-cooking, in-ground barbeque pit. She puts me in charge of helping get the vegetables prepared. After I finish, I wander into the back garden to cut enough daisies for a generous table centerpiece.
“That’s lovely, Elie. Thank you for thinking of flowers for the table,” Mother praises me as she walks over to wrap an arm around me. “I’m sure Ralph will enjoy these too.”
I can’t stop my face hardening, and a scowl replaces my joy-filled expression in a flash.
“Mother, did you and Father invite Ralph Fowler to dinner? When did this happen? Why didn’t you tell me?” My voice squeaks higher than I thought possible.
She looks genuinely surprised and turns straight at me to reply. “Why, Eileen Rutherford, I thought you’d be happy. He’s been courting you for some months now. And ever since he began teaching in the Mathematics Department, your father’s taken quite a liking to him. He’s such pleasant company, and three is really too small for a barbeque, after all.”
“That’s why you bought such a large leg of lamb.”
My mother looks only slightly guilty. “I thought you’d assume Ralph would stay for dinner at this point. Why wouldn’t he?”
&n bsp; “Why would he?” I retort in amazement. “Does he have a standing invitation now?”
This time my mother’s expression is one of slight alarm. “Elie, I don’t understand why this is a problem. Ralph Fowler is a kind man, a wonderful guest, and a friend of your father. I don’t think I have to add that he’s particularly smitten with you; I know you don’t express your emotions clearly, but you don’t complain when in his company either,” she answers. Her reaction to my quick and defensive questions is genuine, but I can tell she wants to believe what she said.
I have absolutely no counter to that; Ralph is indeed a fine man, just not one I believe I’m capable of falling in love with. If I have, however unintentionally, led Ralph and everyone else to think my polite attentions to him have been in fact signs of my deep interest in him, then I can’t outright deny what she has said. Moreover, this isn’t the time or place to have an argument with my mother, what with there being a handful of esteemed men down the hall and dinner with a guest forthcoming.
“I guess I’ll put on fresh dinner clothes in a while,” I say with a simple nod at half-speed and half-vigor.
“Wear that light-blue dress with the little ruffles down the front and the ribbon at the waist. That’ll bring out your eyes nicely.” She’s content with, if wary of, my sudden calm and alacrity in relenting to her argument.
Again I nod, though I’m determined to choose an ill-flattering dress instead.
Dinner passes slowly, if somewhat better than I had dreaded. Despite a cooling breeze blowing across the dining table set up in the garden, I’m not able to breathe when his eyes meet mine. The pressure of being pushed into the welcome arms of a man I haven’t even a faint swelling of emotion for suffocates me. At least the scientific conversation and food distracts me. The barbeque is delicious, and I would inhale my succulent lamb and crispy potatoes if I possessed less manners. The meal takes me back to my childhood when my mother used to often cook her traditional dishes rather than fare from Britain and Canada, where I’ve spent my entire lifetime.
While eating and conversing politely, I practice what I had devised while dressing: to act civil tonight toward Ralph but display no emotion that can possibly be conceived as encouragement of his affection. This is my only hope to sway Ralph—and my parents—I’ve either changed my mind or never felt strongly for Ralph in the first place. My father surely wishes me to be with Ralph, but I also hold out hope he loves and respects me enough to want me to choose what I think is best. Of all people, Father understands the need to sow your own seeds in life and listen to your inner guide. That belief, as now, settles my nerves.
Throughout the meal Father plays The Great Ernest Rutherford and peppers Ralph with questions about his research plans at McGill; apparently he hadn’t gotten to ask Ralph anything specific earlier at tea. Ralph politely and patiently explains several hypotheses of statistical methods he plans on expanding upon with his new colleagues in the mathematics department. My father is completely absorbed and is posing experiments with radioactive materials with which he can test Ralph’s theories.
Trying to keep my face expressionless and emotionless, so as not to give an inch to Ralph, I’m inwardly dying to join in and interrogate Father on how exactly he’s planning to test statistical methods in his work. I’ve always been naturally curious to hear what my father finds interesting in the realm of nuclear physics, and I genuinely find Ralph’s theories fascinating even though I can’t follow everything he explains.
“Now Mr. Fowler,” my mother interjects for the third time, clearly bored by all the science talk. “Have you been to the theater at all since you’ve arrived in Montreal? Ernest and I enjoyed a show last month at—”
“Mary, Ralph doesn’t have time for the theater! He’s got important work to do! Great men can’t waste all their time at teas and social dinners, can they, eh?” Father claps Ralph on the back, not taking Mother’s bait. His brain, when exposed to matters dealing with physics and most sciences, closes down to all non-scientific comments, unlike Ralph’s. He’s been trying almost as hard as Mother to steer the conversation to include myself, which to him necessarily means the high level intellectual discussion has to end.
Mostly, Ralph keeps trying to ask me about my upcoming school week. He knows I take literature classes at the Donalda Department, in the all-female Royal Victoria College at McGill. I answer blandly to each inquiry to thwart any attempt he might make to meet me after my classes. Humorously to me, Father actually saves me from having to divulge many details by interrupting with questions of his own, much to my mother’s evident annoyance.
At one point, Ralph asks, “Miss Rutherford, you’ll be able to get a nice reprieve from all of this physics talk during your poetry classes, won’t you?”
Behind my placid face his insinuation that somehow I don’t enjoy scientific discussion or worse, can’t comprehend any of it, causes my jaw to clench.
“Well,” I begin, trying to come up with a diplomatic answer, “the study of the written word can often be a strenuous and very technical process. I suppose it may actually be analogous to physics or mathematics in that regard. However, there is nothing ‘new’ to discover, per se, so the advancement in the subject may merely be to reinterpret a work—hardly as earth-shattering as discovering elemental decay.”
Ralph’s thick eyebrows arch, but he recovers well. “That’s true. I wouldn’t have thought literary analysis and scientific experimentation have much in common, but I may be wrong.”
He may have been about to expand upon this vein of thought with me a little further, but just then Father jumps in, to my relief.
“Yes, yes, my dear boy! And that’s how Frederick and I first came across the decay phenomenon with thorium back in 1899, I believe it was. It takes a dedicated application of the theory, sometimes recursive, to find patterns such as what we found. But she’s right, it is a very technical process, and never easy or straightforward. You must always dig deep, and always question what you are doing to make sure you have considered everything!” His passionate voice reverberates against the back of the house and the white spruces lining our yard.
And so begins a discussion on the scientific method. On this note I’m happy to let my mind wander out of the conversation. Father, content to discuss work matters with Ralph, monopolizes the conversation. He normally wouldn’t do so if the guest wasn’t such a fascinating subject to him. My mother first scowls at my father, then starts nagging him about his usual messy eating habits—dribbling lamb jus onto the yellow tablecloth, dropping potato bits into his lap. I try not to roll my eyes at her constant harping.
At the end of the night I bid him an uninterested good night and make my excuses for needing to prepare for my classes early the next morning. As I turn away a faint wash of alarm and something else—hurt, perhaps—fills his expression, and guilt weighs me down heavier than the dessert dishes in my arms. The distance between us is ballooning, though his dejected face dampens my satisfaction.
I do not want to injure a kind man, and yet. . . .
Ralph’s comments to me tonight and his general inability to see me as having intellectual value replay in my head like a needle stuck at the end of a record. In spite of his polite inquiries about my classes, I know Ralph doesn’t see any point to my pursuits with the other women students at McGill. The previous week he had said to me, after starting to tell me about his research, “But you don’t care about that, Elie. Women needn’t be bothered with subjects like mathematics and statistics.” Despite what I’m sure was an insulted frown on my face, a few breaths later he tagged my studies as “for recreation.”
He’s the sort to be perfectly content with a wife who sits at home and takes calls in the morning and cleans the house in the afternoon—and later, cares for his children. Not that I don’t plan to bear and raise children, but I do take exception to not being free to pursue studies as I please.
What I want to get out of life from those studies is anyone’s guess at the moment. All I know is I want to make a mark somehow in the world, like Father is doing. Unfortunately, my status as a female prevents me from chasing the highest of heights, but I figure if Marie Curie can be a famous nuclear physicist and do something as fantastic as discover entire new elements, then I have the prospect to do something significant with my life as well. While I have no idea yet what that significant thing might be, I know I can’t achieve anything if I marry a man who’d rather close doors to it.
