I, Ada Page 3

  But I don’t know that my health is poor; this is simply something that I am told, and while it is true that sometimes things do ail me, when I am feeling well in myself, I forget that there was ever a time when I was not well. It’s also true that since we came to Hampstead, I have fallen prey to a number of colds, and many headaches, some of which were so pernicious and unpleasant that they caused me to be unable to read my grammar book as fluently as I’d have liked. After the worst such episode, Mamma sent word to my father and told him that I was not well, and although she said nothing to me of his response, I later heard her telling one of her friends that Lord Byron had professed himself unable to work until he had been informed of my recovery. This made me feel very strange inside – a little proud, and a little mystified also. Could my father really love me so much that news of my illness could incapacitate him completely? It didn’t seem possible, and yet I saw no reason why anyone concerned should have been lying. In any case, I was doubly relieved when I recovered from that particular period of ill-health.

  Puff and I have just reached the landing when we hear a strange, otherworldly wailing from the library on the ground floor. It is like no sound that I have ever heard before. It’s a ghostly sort of wail, like the cry of some disembodied spirit drifting over a windswept moor.

  ‘Puff, what in heaven’s name is happening?’ I whisper.

  My Persian cat looks thoughtfully at her paws. A minute passes; the wail continues, rising in volume and pitch, and only then do I realise that we are listening to my mother. There is someone with her, a man, talking in gentle, hesitant, conciliatory tones. It is Grandpapa. Mamma is distraught, and he is doing his best to console her. I want to run down the remaining stairs as fast as my feet can carry me; I want to see her, to see what troubles her, and to find out if I can help.

  I am just about to do exactly this, when I hear my own name.

  ‘He spoke only of Ada, I’m told, and left no other message.’

  ‘My dearest Anne,’ says my grandfather. (He often calls her Anne, though most other people know her as Annabella.) ‘I am sure that he—’

  ‘Oh, I can scarcely put into words the feeling – the sudden, vast desolation... It was a fever, they say. He couldn’t be saved.’

  Curiouser, I take a step or two towards the hallway. What is my mother talking about? Who spoke only of me, and why does it matter? Why is her tone so altered? I cannot remember the last time I saw my mother cry; she simply isn’t that kind of person. Puff lets out a delicate mew, and the voices, alerted to our presence, change at once. Footsteps resound on a polished floor, and then the oak door of the library opens and Grandpapa emerges. ‘Ada, come down. Your mother wishes to speak to you.’

  Now my concern for my mother shifts into something closer to alarm. ‘Is Mamma cross with me?’ I ask Grandpapa, although I cannot think why this would be the case, and know that it surely cannot be.

  ‘Goodness, no; she isn’t cross with you. Come, Ada, quickly, and leave the cat.’

  Mamma is standing by a bookcase, staring unseeingly at the unlit fire. As we enter, she looks up, and then comes over to me – almost dancing, despite the reddened patch on each cheek that implies recent tears – and takes hold of both my hands. She clasps them so tightly that it is painful.

  ‘Oh, Ada. Oh, my child.’

  ‘What’s the matter, Mamma? What has happened?’

  ‘England has lost a very fine poet,’ she says. ‘But we have lost something far dearer than that – although, of course, you never truly had him at all. When you were a young child, I always thought of you as... as fatherless... and now...’

  She is babbling, incoherent, as unlike her as I’ve ever known. I don’t know what she is saying, or how to make sense of it. Grandpapa coughs softly, and this is enough to bring her to her senses. Mamma holds herself a little straighter, and breathes with more purpose and control.

  ‘Dearest Ada, your father has died.’

  The news is quite shocking, by which I mean that I feel struck by it as though by lightning. For a good two minutes, I am unable to move or speak. I do not feel anything because I do not know how, or what, I am supposed to feel. Certainly, I cannot cry as she seems to have been doing. I would like to, I think, but I cannot. Instead, I say the words in my head, over and over again – my father is dead – and wait for something else to happen inside of me.

  ‘You said he spoke of me,’ I venture, at last.

  Mamma nods. ‘He said: “Give her my blessing”, or words to that effect.’

  Little by little, the high colour is fading from her cheeks. She is regaining control of herself. I try to take in what she has said: that my father, in his last living moments, thought of me, and sent me his blessing.

  ‘Where will he be buried?’ I ask. ‘When will the funeral be?’

  But it is clear that the conversation is over, and I have asked too many questions. Mamma only shakes her head, and then leans down to give me a kiss and tells me to run away. And run away I do, going outside to the long narrowish garden that borders the back of the house, whose beds are thick with roses. At the very bottom of the garden lies my Enchanted City, built from wooden blocks of all colours – not just brick-shaped blocks, but cylindrical and triangular ones too – and now I sit down beside it, comforted by its magnificence, and play quietly for quite some time, while everything that I have learned over the past hour circulates in my head, settling in my thoughts. I build a tower here, an archway there, losing myself in the possibilities. I think of my cousin George, who is two years younger than I, and how much I hope to be able to see him soon. Having no brother of my own, I find that I do occasionally want one, and George seems in many ways the likeliest candidate. The thought comes to me abruptly that George’s father (also named George) is the new Lord Byron, now that my father, who was once Lord Byron, is dead.

  The afternoon wears on; it’s a dull, cloudy kind of day, with not much sun to speak of, but I have a sense of it anyway, dipping down towards the horizon. Then, at last, in the act of fashioning a chimneypiece for a red-and-yellow roof, I feel a wave of sadness – a kind of lost, helpless sadness, because I am sad for a father I never knew, rather than one that I knew well – and I lay the blocks down on the grass and start to cry.

  Branch Lodge, Hampstead

  December 1824

  It is my ninth birthday and I am feeling full of magical potential. I am early to rise, stealing down the stairs of Branch Lodge, intending to make my way down to the kitchen, where I hope to find Cook and demand some kind of birthday-worthy confection. But at the windows on the upper landing, I pause.

  The windows are stained glass, and they have always held for me a real fascination. Mamma’s friend Joanna Baillie told me once that the windows were taken from a French convent during the French Revolution – and every time I pass the windows, I look for some hidden detail, something that I haven’t seen before. The pictures are of saints, against backgrounds of different colours – blue, green, purple, red – and angels too, and stories from the Bible. I press my nose right up against one of the saints until I can look through the tinted glass and out onto the streets of Frognal – our particular part of Hampstead – and beyond, to the heart of London itself. It’s snowing. Little, fluttery puffs of snow are gathering on rooftops, on garden squares. Through the stained glass, the snow looks blue. I start to imagine a world in which snow is always blue. It strikes me as an interesting idea; perhaps something to try to work into a poem.

  ‘Happy birthday, Ada.’

  It’s Mamma; I spin around, and there she is, in her housecoat. She doesn’t usually rise before nine. I run to her and we embrace. ‘Do you remember the glass factory?’ she says, nodding at the windows.

  ‘A little.’

  I do remember, although I was quite young, perhaps six. Mamma took me on an expedition to Birmingham. We went to see the glass being made; Mamma is always int
erested in developments, processes, and wants me to share her interest. I have a recollection of hand-operated machines in which wheels turned, making patterns upon the glass, and being entranced by it. I remember the Malvern hills that we journeyed through afterward too, and how the mist sat like a blanket on the hilltops, making it hard to see.

  We stand side by side in silence. Then I say: ‘I am imagining a world, Mamma, in which snow is always blue.’

  She sighs. ‘Oh, Ada. I would like you to notice the world for what it is, in an accurate fashion, and not in the fanciful way that you so often adopt.’ But she says it kindly. I have noticed, only in the past couple of years, that Mamma is sometimes a little sad on my birthday. It is as though she is remembering something to do with a time that I myself cannot remember. Sometimes I think that I would like to ask her about it.

  The Baillie sisters – Joanna and Agnes – come to take breakfast with us, in celebration of my birthday. In their sixties, perhaps – I find it hard to work out people’s ages, unless I’ve been told them – they smile as they come to the breakfast room, light on their feet and full of good wishes.

  ‘What a treat it is for us,’ says Joanna, who writes plays, ‘to see you on this illustrious day.’

  ‘You are looking especially well, Ada,’ adds Agnes.

  I hope so, for I like to look well. Mamma’s friend Louisa Chaloner told me only recently that I am not at all beautiful. I was rather saddened by the comment, and ever since have tried to make sure my hair is nicely brushed and my frock not too dishevelled-looking, even after an exploration of the garden. I thank the Baillie sisters for coming and accept their birthday gift with pleasure. It is an Atlas of Modern Geography – bigger than any other book I own, and heavy to hold. I balance it with care next to my plate, turning each page slowly, examining the worlds contained within it with such absorption that for a while I barely take any notice of the conversation.

  ‘There is so much to see,’ I say, more to myself than to anyone else.

  Grandpapa smiles at me over his kipper, of which he has not eaten much. He is not as amusing as he used to be, although he is rarely without a smile. Most of the time he dozes, as though there is not as much to incite his interest as there once was. He has also given me a gift – a set of ivory dominoes.

  ‘Anne,’ he says. ‘What about your gift?’

  Mamma smiles. She takes a fold of paper from beside her teacup and holds it out to me. I am not sure what to expect. A pamphlet of mathematical puzzles, perhaps – although that would not be anything out of the ordinary, since Mamma might offer me a puzzle any day of the year.

  But it is a pair of tickets to Drury Lane. For tonight! I get out of my chair to scamper around the table and give her a hug. ‘The theatre! Oh, Mamma!’ I have never been to the theatre; Mamma goes fairly often, and afterward writes criticisms of the productions she has seen in her notebook, but she has always left me behind. I am truly beside myself with gratitude. My mother can exasperate me somewhat, especially when I am thinking of a world in which snow is blue, and she is objecting to my free-roaming imagination, but in this moment, I utterly adore her.

  After breakfast, the day cannot go by too quickly. I play with Flora Davison in the morning – she is a dear friend of mine, and one whom I seldom see, as she does not live in London. In honour of my new atlas, we play at being World Explorers. We run out into the snow and pretend that we are traversing the vast, icy plains of Norway, with much shrieking and discoveries of bears and wolves and other Wild Things that Dwell in the Fjords, until we are summoned inside by Nanny Briggs. Then Flora goes home, and the hours begin to lengthen in an irritating fashion. In the afternoon, Mamma goes out to pay a few calls. The snow deepens, settling into hillocks and drifts, and I begin to worry that the carriage will not be able to take us to Drury Lane. But then, at about four o’clock, the sun comes out for a late appearance, just enough to melt the snow, and I see the sweepers come out to clear the roads.

  In the carriage on the way to the theatre, I look out of the window, delighting in this visit to the centre of a place that I do not as yet know at all. ‘What time of day was I born, Mamma?’ I say.

  ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘Because I have never known.’

  She half closes her eyes, recollecting. ‘At lunchtime. Perhaps a quarter past one. It wasn’t snowing that day, but it was bitterly cold. I found it a struggle to leave the house the day before, although I did go out, on an errand of sorts. I remember having to take great care not to slip; the pavements were so icy. By the time I got home, I was quite exhausted and the pains of labour had taken hold completely.’

  I can’t resist staring at her in the ill-lit carriage, my attention drawn entirely now to the story that she is telling, for it is one that I have never heard. I am rather sorry to have caused her pain.

  ‘What house were you in – Seaham?’

  ‘No,’ says Mamma. ‘We were in London, at Piccadilly Terrace.’

  She looks out of the window, scanning the streets with intent, as though seeing them differently. ‘We are not far from there now, in fact, although we shall not necessarily pass it.’

  I follow her gaze, seeing London through new eyes. I was born here. I never knew.

  ‘And who was there at my birth?’

  ‘Only the accoucheur, Dr Le Mann – an unfashionable choice, my friends said, but I liked him – and a nurse.’

  ‘What about my father?’ I say. ‘Was he at home?’

  ‘He was downstairs,’ she says. ‘There were others too. Augusta, and a cousin of mine, and perhaps some acquaintances whose names I presently forget.’

  I have the most curious sensation, as we are talking. It is as though I am turning the pages of an atlas of sorts, one by one and very slowly, uncovering territory that has, until now, lain undiscovered and totally secret. Augusta, I know, is my aunt – a sister, or half-sister, rather, of my father’s, whom I have never met. I consider my next question with delicacy.

  ‘Was my father... pleased when I was born?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ she says, rather sharply. ‘Of course. He was delighted. You were... you were very healthy. He was quite delighted with you.’

  This last repetition is said with weighty finality, and there is a sadness in her voice that is easy for me to hear. We fall back into silence until we reach the theatre. It is snowing again, lightly, as we descend from the carriage. The entrance to Drury Lane is crowded with theatre-goers; I wonder at the fine-feathered headdresses, the elaborate silks and luxuriant cloaks of the women, while the men are also quite elegantly attired. Everyone seems to be enjoying a heightened state of merriment; I hear a snatch of a Christmas carol echoing from the street corner as Mamma whisks me deftly through the crowds and into the theatre. Heads turn as we cross the foyer, and she keeps me close to her side, as though trying to protect me from scrutiny.

  ‘Why, Annabella, my dear!’

  Mamma freezes; I can feel the muscles in her hand tensing as she keeps hold of my arm. A woman is bearing down on us – she looks to be of a similar age to Mamma, but in appearance quite different. She is slender, with a face dominated by dark eyes that glitter like charcoal, and fair ringlets cut rather short. She reminds me of a fairy – a dark one.

  ‘Caroline,’ says Mamma. ‘I am delighted to see you.’

  But I know from the tone of her voice that she is not delighted.

  ‘And this must be Augusta Ada Byron,’ says the fairy-woman, looking at me with interest and adding heavy emphasis to her words.

  ‘I am known simply as Ada,’ I say, not afraid at all to speak, although she has unsettled me somewhat. I tend to forget that I am known by people; that my name precedes me in certain circles.

  The woman laughs, so loudly that several people look over in our direction. My mother’s grip tightens again on my arm.

  ‘Why, of course!’ says the
fairy-woman. ‘Ada... the name suits you very well, my dear. Better, perhaps, than—’

  ‘I believe the curtain is due to be raised at any minute now,’ says Mamma quickly. ‘Come, Ada.’

  ‘Mamma,’ I say, as we take our seats in the private box, whose upholstery is extraordinarily rich to the touch, like the top of Puff’s head. ‘Who was that?’

  ‘A cousin of mine,’ she replies. ‘Lady Caroline Lamb.’

  ‘What did she mean, about my name suiting me?’

  ‘The woman is quite unbalanced. I would have thought that would have been obvious to you,’ says Mamma tersely. ‘I hear, besides, that she is not at all well.’

  After this, she falls into silence. I begin to fear that I have angered or upset her, although I don’t know how or why I have done so. I shouldn’t have mentioned my father, I realise; but it doesn’t seem fair, when I hear her mention him, unbidden, from time to time. Why should she be allowed to talk of him, but when I do, I am silenced? Surely I should be allowed to ask about my own birth – an event that by definition concerns me quite centrally? Or indeed, why we were not present at his funeral, when so many other people, with connections far weaker than ours to him, were present? I study my programme, abashed and baleful. The play is called The Road to Ruin, and no doubt it is sombre, devout and moralistic – just the sort of thing Mamma, who likes nothing more than to reform people, or to study long religious screeds, will enjoy.

  I start to wish that I were at home with my new atlas and Mistress Puff.

  But as the heavy curtains lurch upwards, Mamma takes my hand and gives it a squeeze, and I remember that this is my special birthday treat, and that I love her very much.

  The play turns out to be a comedy, and before the end of the first act we are both laughing fit to burst.