Read an Excerpt
Prologue London August 1836 The summer rain covers our faces like a fine gauze as we step down from the carriage. It’s a long time since I’ve been in London, and I’d forgotten how loud it is here: rattling coal- wagons, hurtling omnibuses; street sellers advertising their wares with guttural yells on either side of the Strand. I stand, a little hesitant, before the entrance of New Somerset House, not wanting to enter until I am ready. ‘Ada, are you feeling quite well?’ comes a voice from beside me. ‘Yes,’ I reply, for the sake of brevity. ‘Well then, let us not waste any more time on the pavement,’ says my mother. A small hand presses between my shoulders, urging me on. Short in stature, quick- footed, utterly formidable, Mamma is, today, in her element, as she leads me into the Annual Exhibition. ‘All the world and his wife seem to be here, don’t they?’ she says, surveying the scrabbling throng on the marble staircase: fine- feathered ladies calling out to each other, gentlemen in coal- black top hats, their tailcoats flurrying like ravens’ wings. We make our way slowly, Mamma stepping nimbly into vacant spaces, never letting go of my arm. (I am not as strong as I would like to be, and at the moment have difficulty walking, much to my irritation.) Mamma used to despise places like this one. When I was a little girl, we avoided them; she never wanted anyone to notice us, to point and stare and call attention to who we were, and gradually I came to despise them too. But there’s no evidence of that avoidance today on her part. ‘Oh, where have they put it?’ she mutters, as we reach the top of the stairs. A sequence of high- ceilinged rooms now opens out in several directions. The walls are a rich, forest- like green – not that much of them can be seen, for every inch, right up to the top, is covered in paintings. I am reminded of a magnified mosaic, or a patchwork quilt of extraordinary variegation – overwhelming at first glance, but quite wonderful too. It’s a shame, really, that there are so many people. The crush of bodies obscures so much that one might want to see. And the noise: I cannot hear myself think above the bellowing laughter, the shrill screeches of praise and recognition. ‘It is so nice,’ cries one woman, passing us, ‘to see which of one’s friends have been immortalised in the exhibition.’ I am just admiring one of Mr Turner’s paintings; it’s a view of Venice – a place I have never visited, although I would like to – when Mamma comes hurrying over with a programme and beckons for me to follow. Through the crowds we thread, until we reach a room with a domed ceiling, on which the rain pounds ominously. It is as though we are in the middle of a huge drum. ‘I still can’t see it,’ Mamma says crossly, as though the entire exhibition should really have been planned with her involvement. (Very Mamma, this: she likes to be in control of everything.) ‘Oh well,’ I say. ‘I never much liked it anyway.’ ‘Don’t say that, Ada; Mrs Carpenter might be here somewhere.’ ‘I never liked her much either.’ Wisely, Mamma decides to ignore me. I am sorry I was rude; there’s just something about being with Mamma sometimes – even though I am a woman of twenty, I still want to behave like a petulant child when I’m with her. Mamma cranes her neck upwards, to those sorry paintings that have been squashed unceremoniously close to the cornice. ‘I fully expect the painting to be in a position of prominence,’ she says. ‘Not, for example, near a doorway, or placed too high.’ ‘It’s called being “skyed”,’ says a kindly, grey- haired gentleman standing nearby. ‘The painters hate it, especially the well- known ones.’ Mamma turns to him eagerly. ‘Have you seen my daughter’s portrait, sir?’ He studies me curiously, not quite with an eyebrow raised, but with a certain amount of surprise. I have not, I admit, taken any particular care with my clothing today; why should I, when there are more interesting things to think about? Just this morning, for example, I reminded myself of the correct way in which to approach biquadratic equations, and lost myself quite blissfully in the process, at least for a while. Then, I think, the gentleman does recognise me, as people tend to do; he is just opening his mouth to speak, when Mamma gives a squeak of delight. ‘Oh, look! There.’ As she says the words, the crowd parts, with appropriately dramatic timing, and – for the first time since it was painted, last year – I come face to face with another Ada, in three-quarter profile, dressed in oyster- coloured silk. A rising staircase in the background is illuminated by a tempting square of daylight. That staircase promises far more interest, far more excitement, than dull, staid, pale- skinned Ada, who stands with a hand to her middle as though she is wrestling with the pains of indigestion. One foot pokes out from beneath my skirt, hinting at a step that I will not take. Oh, how incredibly I dislike it. Looking at it now, I have a brief, intense recollection of being painted by Mrs Carpenter late last summer, in Surrey. Margaret Carpenter was forthright and eccentric; she had a habit, when tired, of flinging down her brushes with a dramatic clatter, and of making me hold my position for far longer than was comfortable, even though she knew I was suffering from debilitating sickness. But I’d agreed willingly enough to the portrait. Mamma had commissioned it in a state of great excitement, pride and (I suppose) relief, and I couldn’t bear to deprive her of any of those emotions. ‘What a handsome thing it is,’ says Mamma, still staring with the fond- eyed indulgence of nursemaid to newborn. ‘It is quite – quite – perfect.’ Is she referring to the skill of the artist, the composition of the painting, or the appearance of the sitter? Is she referring to perfections that I myself have never personified? Is this the Ideal Ada – a person whom neither of us has ever met? ‘Well, Ada, and what do you think?’ she says. ‘I believe, Mamma,’ I say, with deliberate slowness, ‘that you told Mrs Carpenter to exaggerate my jaw.’ ‘I . . . well, I . . . No. Not exactly . . .’ She cannot lie – she is terrible at it – and so she does not quite know how to respond. But I can imagine the conversation so easily, knowing my mother and the way she works, and it would have gone something like this: ‘But of course, Mrs Carpenter, you’re acquainted with Mr Phillips’ renowned portrait of Ada’s father? Well, I hardly think it would be a mistake to, perhaps, heighten the resemblance to him a touch.’ ‘Why, yes, certainly, milady.’ ‘For example, around the . . . hmm. Around the jawline. Yes.’ So there we stand, one Ada facing another, and I see myself, familiar and yet unfamiliar: wide of jaw, and strangely dumb- looking, as though a clever thought never so much as skated around the periphery of my head. When I was a child, I longed to look more like my father than I actually did; now, Mrs Carpenter has deliberately enhanced my features to resemble his. It’s not the resemblance that I object to; it’s the fact that it is an artificial one. My jaw is wide, yes: so wide that you could write the word MATHEMATICS across it, if you so desired. As a friend of Mamma’s once told me, I really am not beautiful. But Mrs Carpenter has made it as broad as a boat’s hull; I loom, moon- faced, in my silks, and do not look like me in the slightest. Suddenly I long to be anywhere else but here, in the presence of this painted stranger. ‘I’m going for a walk,’ I say to my mother. ‘I won’t be long.’ Out in the street, I find that the rain has stopped. I walk along the Strand before turning left towards Waterloo Bridge, where I feel in my pocket for a couple of pennies for the toll. The bridge isn’t as busy as it normally is, and I make my way slowly to its midpoint. I feel unusual. The portrait has done something strange to me; it has reflected me to a gallery full of strangers with all the force of some darkly enchanted mirror. Captured in space and time, that Ada lays claim to every identity that I might hope to possess, leaving no room for anything else, or anything more. She is proud, bold, declarative . . . and yet, I do not know her. But if I do not know that Ada, do I know this Ada – the one who is, just now, walking over a bridge, unsure of her destination? And is this Ada different to those Adas who have gone before – I think of myself aged four, eight, twelve, sixteen, and reflect that in some ways there have indeed been many Adas – and, if so, then how different is she? It’s a thought of intriguing, almost mathematical complexity: I imagine a line of Adas, like dolls cut from card, each ever so slightly bigger than the last, stretched out alongside me.Do they form a progression, a pattern? Is it a pattern that must perpetuate, or might the pattern possibly . . . be changed? In short: who is the Actual Ada, and what does she intend to do with herself? In the absence of company; in the relative tranquillity afforded to me now by solitude, and the prospect of water, I stand perfectly still, and think about it. The sun comes out, faint behind the ever- present veil of yellowy smog, and I look – as I always do – for a rainbow. Sure enough (even as a small child, I used to believe, sometimes, that I was quite able to will rainbows into existence) that band of brilliant light spans the heavens like a pale smile. I lean for support against the stone wall, staring at the rainbow all the while. Then, briefly, I feel my eyes close, and – almost without any impulse, any intention on my part – an Ada comes to me . . . There she is: round- faced, snub- nosed, and quite innocent. Fittingly, she is by the sea – from the looks of it, Brighton beach. No – it’s Hastings. I remember now. Our hotel is not far away. How old is this Ada, who has appeared out of almost nowhere? I think, perhaps, she is five. She is building something out of stones and shells, examining each item with delicate care. It looks like a fortress of some kind, or a house. She is intent on her work. I watch her, breathing in the sweet- salt air, and suddenly I am her; I am her entirely, my own body forgotten. Her thoughts are mine. I am not alone. Mamma is somewhere not far away – I know this, somehow, although she cannot be seen; and perhaps my nurse, Nanny Briggs, is also keeping watch, somewhere in the shade, worrying that I may wet my feet. But there are others here too, a pair of women, as comfortable and gossipy as nesting hens. They are sitting perhaps ten feet away, and they are talking, and their voices carry. ‘My dear, do you know who that is? Why, she’s quite famous, you know. It’s little Ada Byron. Lord Byron’s daughter.’
