Describing the beginning of his life-long romance with Ada, Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Ada, 1969) mentions Ben Wright, the English coachman in "Ardis the First" who was fired after letting winds go free while driving Marina (Van's, Ada's and Lucette's mother) and Mlle Larivière (Lucette's governess who writes fiction under the penname Guillaume de Monparnasse) home from the Vendange Festival at Brantôme near Ladore: