by Julia Gray
‘Truly,’ says Mary, ‘it’s a treasure trove of knowledge. Don’t you think, Ada?’
I am about to agree that these gardens are indeed rich in learning opportunities, when something catches my attention. A young man and a young woman are leaning over the wall of the bear pits. While they are clearly supposed to be inspecting the bears – who have retreated, rather shyly, from view –
I can see that they have only really got eyes for each other. How well are they acquainted? I wonder. They are being chaperoned discreetly by a kind-faced middle-aged woman (not unlike Mary in appearance), who stands at a little distance, her gloved hands folded. Have they ever stolen away to an allotment shed in the middle of the night? Probably not. They don’t look as though they possess enough imagination for that kind of gesture. But I envy them all the same, for Mamma would never have allowed me to come here with James for a decorous stroll under watchful supervision. At the thought of Mamma, I sigh rather loudly, and Mary asks me what the matter is.
‘Mamma says I am to be presented at Court,’ I tell her.
‘Well?’ says Mary. ‘You are seventeen now. Do you not wish to be?’
‘Not especially,’ I say.
‘Why not?’
But I can’t quite explain why not. It is something to do with convention. Being presented at Court is the correct thing to do; somehow, this makes me not want to do it. ‘Why should I be like everyone else?’ I say, as much to myself as to Mary. ‘It seems such an obvious thing to do. A dull thing to do.’
‘It will make it far easier for you to find a husband,’ says Mary practically.
I open my mouth, and close it again. I did find a husband, I think, remembering that dear, fire-warmed room where James Hopkins’ family must still sit, every evening, singing songs and telling stories and uttering kind words. He just wasn’t the right husband. And so, given the fact that Mamma and I obviously disagree about what might make a suitable husband, why should her method meet with my approval?
‘Does it really matter so much whether I find a husband or not? You don’t have one.’
‘You are right, Ada. I am an old maid,’ says Mary. ‘Dependent on my own wits, and the kindness of others, and an invalid besides. Is that the sort of life that you want?’
I tell her truthfully that if I end up half as wise and perspicacious as she is then I will have been very lucky indeed. The lovers have moved on, and in their place are a mother and daughter, both rather overdressed for a walk in the gardens on a fine morning. They don’t seem to be much interested in bears, and instead are looking around at all and sundry, pointing out anything that catches their eye.
‘I hear that the Governor of Barbados has donated a pair of panthers to the zoo,’ says the mother. She has a strident voice, easily heard.
‘Oh, let us go and find them, Mamma!’ giggles the girl, who is, I think, a little older than me.
‘As you like, Clara,’ says her mother. They walk right past us, and for a moment the mother’s gaze travels over us – first me, then Mary, and then back to me again. I’ve seen that kind of look – half-lazy and half-alert – before. It means, sure as anything, that I’ve been recognised. Really, I don’t know why I am recognised so often. It’s not as though my portrait appears in the Morning Post every week, and I don’t bear much of a resemblance at all to my father, though I still, quite often, go to look at his portrait to check. And yet there is something about me that makes people take notice. They stop and stare, and nudge each other. People have been doing this for as long as I can remember.
‘Ada, what’s wrong?’ says Mary, when I hang back, turning on one heel.
I hold a hand up, as though to say: wait, please. Sure enough, a moment later the mother’s voice competes with the birdcalls of the gardens – impossible for us not to hear, and probably for many other bystanders too.
‘Clara, did you see that young woman? Very pale, with brown hair, just there by the bear pits? Why, that was Ada Byron. Oh, the things I’ve read about her lately – it would curl the hair on your head, it really would! It is said that she is the most vulgar woman in all England – some rumour, you know, about an affair... It’s been hushed up very nicely by Lady Byron. But frankly, I shall be amazed if anyone marries her now.’
Mary and I stare at each other. I say: ‘Is this... was that true, what she said?’
Mary Montgomery, who is always pale, has coloured like a boiled lobster. ‘Oh, that wretched, prurient woman! Idle gossip – really, it is the worst thing. Ada, don’t give it a thought.’
‘But... she mentioned a rumour. Something she’d read.’
‘I believe there was something in one of the papers,’ says Mary. ‘Your mother tried her best. But someone, somewhere, heard of the affair, and the newspapers got wind of it. That’s what happens in this country. They’ll print anything, and mostly lies... and people do believe what they read, unfortunately. Oh, Ada, don’t look so stricken.’
She clicks ahead, hoping that briskness will stir me. She is also, I think, implying that I really ought not to have stolen away to a shed at midnight and run off to the home of my tutor if I really minded what people would say about me. And, of course, she’s right. I didn’t realise how it would feel: the shame-dark unpleasantness of being read about by those who don’t know me. Which newspaper was it? Perhaps she doesn’t know; perhaps it doesn’t matter. But I can imagine that newspaper, spread open to the pages reserved for gossip and speculation, wedged beneath a saucer, sluiced by tea... a paragraph to be read out at breakfast, laughed over, shared...
Ada Byron is the most vulgar woman in all England.
I’ve always liked a superlative, but not that one, not for myself.
Mary has got some way ahead; I run to catch her up, my feet marking the pebbled pathway with urgent dimples.
‘Mary,’ I say carelessly. ‘I wonder if perhaps I should be presented to the King, after all.’
Mary Montgomery smiles. ‘Why not, Ada? I think it a very good idea indeed. And your mother will be delighted.’
Brighton
May 1833
And so we are returned to Brighton, to the hotel on Preston Street that Mamma favours. It is the eve of my presentation to King William, and I cannot quite believe all that has happened in a year. I sit on the windowsill, wishing that I could see the sea – it makes its presence felt, tantalisingly close, with its water-whispers and gull chorus, but is not quite within view. I remember the Ada who rode her horse alongside the water, who danced at the edge of the sea, so relieved to be released from the clutches of illness. That Ada was newly free, and rejoicing in the sensation of it; to her I made a promise, which was to wriggle out of the bounds and strictures in any way that I could, and live. Did I keep my promise? Well... I tried.
I did what I could, and I thought I was free, but I wasn’t really.
Watching the evening merrymakers jostle and wander along the road towards the seafront, I reflect that my attempts to live and be free came at a certain cost – to my reputation, and to Mamma’s happiness and sense of pride. And as much as I might pretend not to care about how my mother feels, I do care. I feel that same sense that I’ve always felt of wanting two things: to please her, and to please myself. Those two irreconcilable things. Tomorrow, then, I will try to make amends – to rebalance our relationship, which is never an easy one.
A knock on my door. ‘Come in,’ I say.
It’s Mamma. She has my white dress over one arm; Nanny Briggs has been letting it out at the hips. It’s my best dress, rich satin overlaid with embroidered tulle. With it, I shall wear a headdress of feathers with blond lappets, as well as Mamma’s diamonds. Fleetingly, I wish that my shorthand tutor could have seen me in such an outfit.
‘There,’ says Mamma, hanging it with care in the wardrobe. ‘Nanny Briggs has done a very nice job. You’ll look beautiful, Ada.’
‘What will yo
u wear?’ I say.
‘Dark crimson, I think, and my white-feather hat.’
‘That will look very fetching,’ I say, meaning it.
Mamma sits down delicately on the chaise longue. ‘I don’t want to be an embarrassment to you,’ she says. ‘My own mother was never dressed quite right, somehow, when she accompanied me during my London Seasons. She used to talk too much, and too loudly – I could see people laughing at her, discreetly, and it made me feel terribly self-conscious.’
If this is supposed to make me feel sorry for her, it doesn’t; I feel sorrier for Grandmama, whose heart was far bigger than Mamma’s ever will be. But I do recognise what she is doing, by coming to my room this evening; a bridge, delicate as one fashioned from matchsticks and crepe paper, is being built. We haven’t spoken, she and I, not properly, for weeks, apart from an emotional, twisting conversation in which she tried to exact from me a promise that I would behave myself at the ceremony.
‘I am grateful, Ada, that you’ve agreed to do this,’ Mamma says.
Gratitude isn’t her strong suit; more likely, she is glad, and relieved. Does she know that I know about the story in the paper? I wonder if Mary has told her that I knew; I think perhaps that Mary has not. But I imagine she will never forget it, and neither will I. Ada Byron is the most vulgar woman in all England. If presentation at Court can go some way to addressing the coarseness of this comment, then I will be glad to make such an appearance.
‘I... I thought it as well,’ I say.
Not everyone reads the papers, after all; and not everyone believes what they read. In time, Mamma must be thinking, that harsh, vindictive little paragraph will be forgotten, buried under the weight of other harsh, vindictive little paragraphs with other people as their targets.
‘And one day – not soon, perhaps, but one day – you will make the right kind of match, I’m sure of it. A man with money, and a title. An old title, preferably – a hundred years or more. Yes: that is what we must hope for.’
She bids me goodnight, and goes out. I stay at my spot by the window, watching the lights of Brighton as they grow dim, and the moon that shows whitely in the clouds like a chipped china saucer. I picture a wedding: Mamma dabbing a genteel tear from her cheek as I make my eternal vows and an old title is bestowed upon me. Me, stout and finely gowned, at the head of a long, polished table, raising a glass by candlelight to a shadow-faced man who sits at the other end, so far away that I’m sure he will barely be able to hear me if I tell him a secret. A brood of titled children, pursuing me fatly, like ducklings, as I stride across some ancestral lawn in search of solitude.
And now another picture: scenes of tomorrow. A hushed, ceremonial chamber, bedecked in finery. Rows of dutiful debutantes, as nicely-trussed as Christmas geese, hair braided and bright. Me on Mamma’s arm, making slow-steady progress – shuffle, shuffle – towards the throne. Will there be music? Singing? An announcement, I think: ‘Miss Ada Byron, presented by her mother, Lady Noel Byron.’ Yes. Will King William – genial, grey-haired – and Queen Adelaide – namesake of one of my favourite places, some thirty years younger than the King – raise their royal hands for me to kiss? Or shall I simply curtsey, and then look up at them through lowered lashes? What will they say? Will I be thrilled, cast for once as the princess in the fairy tale, rather than the changeling? Will I be relieved to have appeased, if only temporarily, my feather-hatted mother? (And what bittersweet relief it will be, when I scarcely know from minute to minute whether I want to kiss, comfort or condemn her.)
Or will I, perhaps, feel nothing at all?
I blink, and the picture fades, as quickly as it assembled, and now there’s only the moon, watching me over the water. I think about hope; of all of the things to hope for, to dream about, to long for... is this really the only thing? A man with money and an old title?
I wonder.
Part Three: 1833-1835
Age seventeen to nineteen
Fordhook, Ealing
June 1833
My favourite letter has always been the letter I. The simplest of strokes, middle vowel in a family of five, it stands upright as a soldier, boasting its lines of symmetry. It’s a near-relation of the number 1, another marker of primacy. I is a pronoun: not the foghorn-blast of me, me – just a simple proclamation. I am the centre of my own universe. I am the most important person in my own world. It echoes in my head, a lyrical bending of tongue to palate.
I, Ada.
I think it so often – I, Ada, have ridden a horse; I, Ada, have kissed my tutor – and I love the way it sounds. Perhaps it is because I’m an only child; I grew up thinking only (or else mostly) of myself, because I had no sibling.
And now I, Ada, have been presented at Court, it seems that a husband must be found for me. One of the first events that I attended was a state ball at the Palace at St James’ – no small affair; someone told me afterward that over seven hundred guests had been present. Proceedings began at ten o’clock. For once, I was glad of Mamma’s company; there was such an air of ornate splendour about the occasion that I was in danger of being entirely overwhelmed. I gazed in wonder at the gentlemen in full court-dress, the knights laden with insignia, the ladies in their dresses of impossible finery, as they entered the state rooms. All along the staircase stood the Yeomen of the Guard, motionless as bronze casts as we passed.
‘There is the Prince Royal of France,’ whispered Mamma. ‘That gentlemen there – no, don’t stare, Ada – is the Russian Ambassador. And there is the Duchess of Kent.’
The throne room had been prepared for dancing; the throne and platform had been temporarily removed, and in the corner was stationed the quadrille band. In the ballroom there was another band (a special piece of music had apparently been composed for the Duke of Orléans), and a raised platform on which had been placed seats of gold and red damask for their majesties. Between the two ballrooms was a drawing room, and I noticed a smaller room set out for cards, and another with tables stocked with ices and other refreshments.
When the King and Queen entered, the band played God Save the King, and then the dancing began. First a gallopade, and then a quadrille... I participated in neither of these, preferring to watch as the Duke of Brunswick made his way into the centre of the room with his dancing partner. Then a young man approached with a low bow, introducing himself as Mr Edward Cowley, and I accepted his invitation to dance, for I knew the steps to the mazurka quite well, and was keen to demonstrate them. I don’t remember what we spoke about as we danced – the usual formulaic pleasantries, no doubt. Mr Cowley danced quite well, with both elegance and confidence. Midway through the mazurka, I felt a sudden, sharp jolt of unhappiness – it struck me with all the haste of a fever – that I was dancing with someone who was not James.
‘Are you quite well, Miss Byron?’
‘Oh, yes,’ I said. But I could see Mamma watching me now, from the edge of the dancing.
‘Who was that young man?’ she asked, when the dance was over and my partner had excused himself.
‘A Mr Cowley,’ I said.
‘A man with no title,’ she said at once, as I had known she would.
‘Mamma,’ I protested. ‘It does not to me seem fair that your thoughts should advance to matrimony so quickly. It was only a mazurka.’
But after that, my enjoyment of the evening faded, and by the time supper was served at one o’clock, I was longing to go home. Mamma had reminded me of the purpose of my attendance at such things as state balls – not to eat, and dance, and wear fur-trimmed dresses and pearls – but to be seen by the right people and, in time, to meet the right person.
Now, some weeks later, I still find myself unsure about how I truly feel about it all. I am supposed to look attractive, rather than merely presentable – something I’ve never thought too much about. There are so many formalities to be observed that I feel positively baffled at times and long to do w
hat Mamma always does when she’s had enough of something, and lie down for an hour or so in a darkened room. Sometimes, indeed, I do slip away early, pleading a headache that is no lie; but at other times I enter into the spirit of the proceedings as best I can, because that is what I promised that I would do.
Wherever I go, whomever I meet, Mamma is never more than six feet away, watching me discreetly as she converses with one of her acquaintances. Ever since the James Hopkins Affair, she has dispensed with the Furies and now prefers to chaperone me herself – although there are occasional excursions with Mary Montgomery to look forward to still.
But my Ada-brain longs for something else; something more. There’s only so much enthusiasm I can summon for dresses and slippers, refreshments and dance steps, over and over again, a pattern that becomes a parody of repetition.
And then there are the things that I actively dislike, such as the women who sit clustered in a corner, bosoms heaving in low-cut dresses, flapping their fans in front of their faces. Sometimes – I am sure of it – one of them leans in to the others, cheeks salmon-pink with pleasure, and hisses:
That’s Ada Byron, my dear!
