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 you 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.