Ada, or Ador: A Family Chronicle

Van braced himself to see Ada thus, hoping to use his magic wand for transforming whatever young spinster came along into a spoon or a turnip. Those ‘dates’ had to be approved by the victim’s mother at least a fortnight in advance. Soft-toned Miss Cleft, the headmistress, rang up Marina who told her that Ada could not possibly need a chaperone to go out with a cousin who had been her sole companion on day-long rambles throughout the summer. ‘That’s exactly it,’ Cleft rejoined, ‘two young ramblers are exceptionally prone to intertwine, and a thorn is always close to a bud.’

‘But they are practically brother and sister,’ ejaculated Marina, thinking as many stupid people do that’ practically’ works both ways — reducing the truth of a statement and making a truism sound like the truth. ‘Which only increases the peril,’ said soft Cleft. ‘Anyway, I’ll compromise, and tell dear Cordula de Prey to make a third: she admires Ivan and adores Ada — consequently can only add zest to the zipper’ (stale slang — stale even then).

‘Gracious, what figli-migli’ (mimsey-fimsey), said Marina, after having hung up.

In a dark mood, unwarned of what to expect (strategic foreknowledge might have helped to face the ordeal), Van waited for Ada in the school lane, a dismal back alley with puddles reflecting a sullen sky and the fence of the hockey ground. A local high-school boy, ‘dressed to kill,’ stood near the gate, a little way off, a fellow waiter.

Van was about to march back to the station when Ada appeared — with Cordula. La bonne surprise! Van greeted them with a show of horrible heartiness (‘And how goes it with you, sweet cousin? Ah, Cordula! Who’s the chaperone, you, or Miss Veen?’). The sweet cousin sported a shiny black raincoat and a down-brimmed oilcloth hat as if somebody was to be salvaged from the perils of life or sea. A tiny round patch did not quite hide a pimple on one side of her chin. Her breath smelled of ether. Her mood was even blacker than his. He cheerily guessed it would rain. It did — hard. Cordula remarked that his trench coat was chic. She did not think it worth while to go back for umbrellas — their delicious goal was just round the corner. Van said corners were never round, a tolerable quip. Cordula laughed. Ada did not: there were no survivors, apparently.

The milk-bar proved to be so crowded that they decided to walk under The Arcades toward the railway station café. He knew (but could do nothing about it) that all night he would regret having deliberately overlooked the fact — the main, agonizing fact — that he had not seen his Ada for close to three months and that in her last note such passion had burned that the cryptogram’s bubble had burst in her poor little message of promise and hope, baring a defiant, divine line of uncoded love. They were behaving now as if they had never met before, as if this was but a blind date arranged by their chaperone. Strange, malevolent thoughts revolved in his mind. What exactly — not that it mattered but one’s pride and curiosity were at stake — what exactly had they been up to, those two ill-groomed girls, last term, this term, last night, every night, in their pajama-tops, amid the murmurs and moans of their abnormal dormitory? Should he ask? Could he find the right words: not to hurt Ada, while making her bed-filly know he despised her for kindling a child, so dark-haired and pale, coal and coral, leggy and limp, whimpering at the melting peak? A moment ago when he had seen them advancing together, plain Ada, seasick but doing her duty, and Cordula, apple-cankered but brave, like two shackled prisoners being led into the conqueror’s presence, Van had promised himself to revenge deceit by relating in polite but minute detail the latest homosexual or rather pseudo-homosexual row at his school (an upper-form boy, Cordula’s cousin, had been caught with a lass disguised as a lad in the rooms of an eclectic prefect). He would watch the girls flinch, he would demand some story from them to match his. That urge had waned. He still hoped to get rid for a moment of dull Cordula and find something cruel to make dull Ada dissolve in bright tears. But that was prompted by his amour-propre, not by their sale amour. He would die with an old pun on his lips. And why ‘dirty’? Did he feel any Proustian pangs? None. On the contrary: a private picture of their fondling each other kept pricking him with perverse gratification. Before his inner bloodshot eye Ada was duplicated and enriched, twinned by entwinement, giving what he gave, taking what he took: Corada, Adula. It struck him that the dumpy little Countess resembled his first whorelet, and that sharpened the itch.

They talked about their studies and teachers, and Van said: