All Men of Genius

XIX.



IN his private lab, the duke was attempting to fold softened bronze into a shell for his space vessel, but found that his mind was not on the work. His hands kept slipping on the edges of the metal, cutting them. Outside, the sky was turning from gray to blue, and he could hear the river rushing faster past Illyria. He had been trying to work for the better part of the day, skipping dinner and supper, but had accomplished nothing. His mind kept wandering to Ashton Adams, their kiss.

The duke had bedded many women. When Ernest was sixteen, his father had put him in a coach and told him it was time for him to become a man. The coach had arrived at Mrs. Williams’s, a brothel for clients of good society. Mrs. Williams herself was a woman approaching sixty, with hair dyed a bright scarlet, heavy makeup, and a sometimes smudged fake birthmark drawn on her left cheek. She had greeted Ernest with open arms and told him that his father had arranged for him to have an evening of pleasure. The pleasure, thankfully, was not provided by Mrs. Williams, but by a girl called Ocean, with long black hair, warm tanned skin, and striking gray blue eyes. She was about the same age as Ernest at the time, but much more experienced than he in sexual relations. His father had purchased several hours with the girl, so though Earnest was done with her after a few minutes, she coaxed him into staying so that she might give him instruction in the ways of pleasuring women. He learned a variety of acts pleasurable to both him and Ocean, and she was kind enough to note when they were participating in an activity in which a proper lady would never partake. He went back to her regularly for a whole year before she vanished, apparently purchased to be a full-time mistress to another client.

After her departure, Ernest had decided to educate himself further. Ocean had taught him the elementary lessons, but as in all the sciences, further experimentation was needed before he felt truly competent. He visited a variety of whorehouses, and a variety of whores around the city: elegant and dirty, thin and fat, young and old. He tried various combinations, once even involving another man, though he found that particular experiment to be a failure, and flagged when he attempted to pay any attention to the other man. For two years, he whored about London with a detached civility. He didn’t compare whores or read guides to the best prostitutes in London as other young men did, but merely found the women on his own, sampled them as many times as he liked, and moved on.

Then, after he turned twenty, his mother began to throw elaborate parties and invite the families of various eligible young women to them. She held thirteen of these parties, one a month, until she was found expired in the kitchen, a bottle of her favorite whiskey still in her hand, her body slumped, as though she’d just fallen asleep drinking again.

The parties were uncomfortable for Ernest. The young women he knew he was supposed to mingle with were for the most part insipid, with overly large teeth and a tendency to giggle whenever he talked about science.

“Oh, you do go on, don’t you?” said Miss Murchison-Pinch, at the third party. “Wouldn’t you rather tell me how pretty my eyes are?” She batted her eyelashes. Her eyes were a dull brown color, lacking in both luster and intelligence. Ernest sighed and walked away.

After the first party, Ernest’s father had insisted on being able to invite his own friends, so he had something to do at the parties besides talk to the equally stupid parents of the stupid girls the parties were for. He stood with a group of his scientist friends in a corner, and Ernest joined them after leaving Miss Murchinson-Pinch, who stood in the middle of the family parlor, looking confused.

“… but that is not the point, is it?” said one of the men, a Dr. Rastail, as Ernest approached. “The point is that if we, as a people, think bad decisions are being made on our behalf, we have the right—no, the responsibility—to speak up, to demand that the right decisions be made. And if we are not heard, we must make ourselves heard. And us being brilliant men of science”—and here the men all chuckled knowingly—“we have the means to make ourselves heard, not to mention the intellect to make the right decisions.” Ernest sidled behind his father, unnoticed, listening to the men’s argument.

“I think you’re being idealistic, Rastail,” said the cranelike Dr. Knox in his low voice. “Why bother talking with the Queen at all? Or with anyone else? If you have the power to take more power—just take it. We may be a … group of highly intelligent men, but we don’t agree on everything. So we waste time fighting each other. If Algernon here would just help Alfie instead of fighting him, all our plans could progress, and we could succeed in—”

“And we’ll all be destroyed in the process,” interrupted Ernest’s father with some cold anger. “The idea is madness, Knox, and—”

“Look who’s joined us!” interrupted the massive Dr. Pluris, his voice booming from behind Ernest.

“Ah, young Illyria,” said Dr. Rastail, looking at Ernest. “What do you think? Should we not make ourselves heard, if poor decisions are being made in our name?” Ernest felt his face go warm at being addressed by one of his father’s peers. He looked to his father, who stared at him, waiting.

“I think that when decisions are made for us, we must talk with the ones making them, discover why such decisions have been made, and then we can come to an understanding, the best decision for everyone.”

“For everyone?” Dr. Rastail repeated, as though the words were new to him. He paused, and then started to laugh. “Right so. Everyone. Everyone who is our equal!” All the men began to laugh around him, and his father stepped forward, pulling Ernest by the arm out of the crowd.

“Why don’t you go entertain the womenfolk, Ernest?” his father said coolly. “They’re here for you, after all.” And then he turned back to his peers. Ernest had turned from them, his face warmer than before, and looked to the women all hovering at the other side of the room. They looked over at him anxiously. Ernest turned from them, as well, and left the room for the garden, hoping to take some fresh air.

Outside, it was dark and cool and smelled of flowers and dirt.

“Oh, bloody ’ell.” A voice came from behind the willow tree. Ernest walked toward the voice, curious. A girl around his age sat on a low stone wall, trying to roll a cigarette. She was in a maid’s uniform, but her long orange curls fell loose over her shoulders.

“Need some help?” Ernest asked. The girl looked up at him with a grin, but seeing his face, her eyes widened in panic. She stood quickly and looked at the ground. “Sorry, sir … Your Grace … young Illyria. I was just trying to roll a cigarette—I only snuck off for a few minutes—the kitchen gets so hot, you see, and—”

Her stammering made Ernest smile. “I can roll your cigarette, if you’d like,” he said.

She looked up at him curiously. “That would be wonderful,” she said with a sigh of relief. Ernest sat down on the low wall, took the tobacco and paper in his hand, and rolled it quickly and simply.

“Cor, you’re good at that.”

“My godmother taught me.”

She took the cigarette, stuck it in her mouth, produced a match from her pocket, and lit it. She inhaled deeply, and blew the smoke out her nose. “Ah … thank you, Your Grace. I’ve been needing a smoke since I got here.”

“You’re new?”

“Arrived day before last. Kitchen maid. Adelaide Moth.” She looked at him, an honest, friendly expression on her face, and brought the cigarette back to her lips.

“I’m Ernest,” he said, taking out a cigarette case from his pocket, producing a cigarette, and lighting it.

She laughed. “As if I’d call you that,” she said. “You can call me Del, though. I mean, if you want to. Miss Moth, too. But if you want to call me Del, you’re welcome to. Cor, that’s a nice cigarette. You roll that one, too?”

“I did. Good tobacco, too. Want to try one?”

“One of your cigarettes? I’d die, I would.”

“I hope you won’t,” he said, took out another cigarette, and gave it to her. She took it, and he lit it for her. She inhaled deeply and closed her eyes. “I wish I were a duke,” she said.

He laughed. “Now you have to call me Ernest,” he said. She nodded. He liked her smile, her freckles, the leanness of her body. They finished their cigarettes in silence, and she stood up.

“I have to go back to the kitchen,” she said, leaning down and kissing him on the cheek. “Thanks for the cigarette, Ernest.” She grinned, and he leaned up and kissed her on the mouth. She kissed him back and left. Ernest had another cigarette before going back to the party.

Del came to his room that night, and many nights after that for the next year and a half. She was a wonderful lover with a quick mind. She listened to Ernest talk about his inventions, asking questions when she didn’t understand him, the long fan of her orange curls on the pillow, her arm around his chest. She was the one he cried in front of, when, eleven months later, his mother died, and the one whose arms he slept in after the funeral. He never thought he loved her, and she told him quite clearly that she wasn’t fool enough to let herself fall for a duke, but they were friends, and they laughed together, smoked, and made love. Then she left the house, married a butcher, and moved to the country.

She couldn’t meet his eye when she told him she was getting married, but he could tell she was happy, which made him smile as he lifted her chin to look at her. “Course, I’ll be sad to leave you behind,” she said, pinching his cheek. “You’re a good fella, Ernest. A nice bloke. You’re almost like a big brother, I think. Except for when we’re naked. I think I do love you a little. But don’t think I’m going to call off this wedding.”

“I wouldn’t ask you to,” Ernest said honestly. “I just want you to be happy.”

“I am,” Del said, glowing.

“I’ll miss you, too.”

After she left, Ernest quit smoking and went back to paid sex, sometimes indulging in another maid, or a young widow, but he rarely made any sort of connection as he had with Del.

And then, one day, he decided it had all been enough for him, and he turned all his energies to science and the school. He had been chaste for nearly two years now. He dragged himself to his quarters and prepared for bed. He wondered if he had ever experienced passion. He had read a poem or two in his time, and the way they described love seemed quite absurd to him—the longing of hearts and bodies, the need involved. Ernest had never felt need like that, never felt a desire he could not quell with reason. Why, then, when his lips reached for Ashton’s, did it feel as strong as magnetic force, completely unavoidable? Is that what the poets meant? How horrible, to have every love affair be so overwhelming and out of one’s control.

Kissing Ashton did not make sense in the list of his experiments, either. Even now, lying in bed in his pajamas, he was aroused by thoughts of Ashton in ways he could not explain. He had never felt this way toward other women, and he had certainly never felt this way about any man. He reimagined the argument, and then the kiss, and touched his own lips as he did so. But as he thought more and more about it, Ashton blurred, his hair growing longer, his body curvier, the passion in his eyes unchanged—and taking on a guise strikingly similar to Ashton’s sister, Violet. He was no invert, Ernest told himself, tossing in bed; it was just the confusing nature of twins. The thought was quite a relief. True, he had behaved badly with a student, but he hoped that awkwardness would pass with time. He would just have to avoid Ashton for a while.

He was suddenly aware of how hungry he was. Cecily had brought him a dinner plate, but he had left it in the lab. He glanced at the clock. It was nearly ten. Supper would be cold, but edible. He walked downstairs to his lab and turned on the lights. Miriam stood alone in the room, looking surprised and guilty for a moment before her face returned to its usual passive gaze.

“What are you doing here, Mrs. Isaacs?” he asked, heading for his dinner plate.

“Miss Cecily asked that I retrieve certain materials from your lab for her experiments, sir,” Mrs. Isaacs said, bowing her head slightly. The duke wondered when she changed out of her black high-collared dresses, or if she ever let her hair out of its tight bun.

“Well, take what you need from the cabinets. But not from the tables, please. I’m working with what is on the tables.”

“I already searched, sir; you don’t have what she needs. I will need to go to the chemical lab.”

“Very well. Good night, Mrs. Isaacs.”

“Good night, sir.”

Mrs. Isaacs bowed and swept out of the room like a shadow while the duke took a bite of his chicken.

* * *



OUT in the hall, Miriam headed for the basement. She had lied to the duke, but she had her reasons. She had been searching his lab not for materials, but for evidence, an explanation for what she had seen in the basement.

Miriam had tried to repress her curiosity. She had tried to distract herself by making Cecily’s German lessons harder for both of them, by studying Cecily’s complex chemical formulae, or in long weekends in bed with Toby and his achingly skillful hands, but the truth was, Miriam wasn’t very good at being restrained. She could cover things up, but actually restraining of any part of her for very long wasn’t in her grasp. She couldn’t restrain her desires, she couldn’t restrain her confidence, and she couldn’t restrain her curiosity.

And unfortunately, she thought, wandering the basement halls alone, she couldn’t restrain her stupidity. Ashton had gladly made her a mechanical torch, but hadn’t explained that to keep the light constant would require constant squeezing of the trigger. Miriam nervously squeezed it every other second or so, more often than she needed to, so that the light stayed steady, though her finger was tight and cramped. She spent some time trying to find the mark she had left previously, an uneven line through the dust on the walls. Already it had begun to fill in with more dust, but it was still visible with the light shining on it. She ran her finger through it again as she stalked through the halls, making it deeper, easier to see. The friction of the rough stone and dust made her fingertip raw. She had come alone because she needed to see the automata again, needed to verify that it was the duke’s features she had seen, but she couldn’t tell anyone that. It implied a secret too dark for her to share with anyone, even Toby. And she liked the duke. He was a good man to work for, and if her fears were proved true—if he wasn’t entirely human—then she would weigh that information against what she knew of him as … if not a man, as a being. And a good one, overall. She didn’t need to reveal his nature to anyone else. She just needed to know for herself.

Miriam wasn’t a scientist. She didn’t know how one could make a mechanical man as lifelike as the duke, or if it was even possible, but she had seen many things she thought previously impossible since coming to work at Illyria, and one more didn’t seem out of the question. There was one time last year when she had walked in on him in his lab with what seemed to be a metal thigh on his own leg. He had seemed flustered, and told her that he was merely making a part for Bunburry, in case he had another accident, which at the time seemed reasonable, but Miriam wondered if maybe she had been seeing something else—the duke making a new part for himself, or perhaps his actual skin, under his clothes.

Miriam stopped walking as something brushed against her dress. She pointed the torch at her feet, but saw nothing. The beam of light seemed very small compared to the vastness of the basement. It seemed to get darker every time she was down here. Distantly, she heard a door swing shut, and something that sounded like giggling. She could hear the sound of the wall of gears, too, pulsing dimly in the darkness, like soft footsteps.

What else was happening in the basement? She had asked a few of the other servants about it, but they just shrugged or walked away. The only one who had spoken to her, the girl who made her bed, told her that she didn’t think anyone went very far into the basement. Anything that was stored down there was a few yards from the stairs. The other servants weren’t fond of Miriam. They didn’t like that a Jew with dark skin seemed to have more rank than they did, that they had to change her sheets and serve her meals. She wished now that she could have made the servants like her more. Perhaps one of them had made a map of the basement, or at least knew something about it, but all of them claimed it was unused.

But it wasn’t. There were closing doors and laughter with no sources and warm, unseen things that brushed against her dress and a cluster of skeletal automata. Except—Miriam saw as she came to the point where the line in the wall ended—those seemed to be gone, too. It was definitely the right place, a turn in the hall with a small alcove sticking out of it and a strange handleless door. But the automata were gone.

Quietly, Miriam crept forward, pointing the torch at the floor. It was clean all around the door and alcove. Everywhere else, inches of dust lay undisturbed. Someone had swept. And taken the automata away.

She approached the door. It was more like a doorway, sealed over with metal. There was no handle, no gap, just a great archway with smooth bronze behind it. If it was a door, the door behind which the automata were taken, she could see no way to open it. She swept her palm over the front of the door, searching for some sort of keyhole. In the center, she found a slight circular depression, about the size of her thumb. The back of the depression seemed to have some sort of engraving in it, and when Miriam shone her light directly at it, she could see a small pattern of gears. The pattern seemed familiar, though, so Miriam leaned in closer. Then she heard footsteps behind her. She froze, and her torch flickered out. She held her breath, waited for another noise.

More footsteps, from somewhere down the hall. Miriam backed into a corner, pressed herself flat against the wall. It was almost completely dark, but she could see a shadow—the shadow of a tall man, she thought—at the end of the hall. He walked slowly, but because he was only a shadow, Miriam did not recognize him. She swallowed, wondering if it was the duke, come down here to check on his brothers. But the shadow passed by, leaving her alone in the darkness. She put her hand on her chest, feeling her heartbeat pound quickly. It was time to leave.

After waiting for what seemed a long enough time—maybe five minutes, maybe an hour—Miriam walked slowly back to the entrance. She turned her torch on only when she absolutely needed to, and listened carefully for footsteps. When she finally emerged from the basement, she was coated in dust, grime, and sweat. Her hair, normally bound back tightly, had fallen loose and was wet. Her hands shook and her back ached. She walked back to her room and drew a bath for herself.

Christmas break would be upon Illyria soon. Toby was going to take her to the south of France, where they could pretend to be a married couple, and no one would really care anyway. She was looking forward to leaving behind eerie basements and blackmailing students and the constant grinding of gears. Illyria was beautiful and wondrous when she first arrived. Now she saw beyond the brightly lit bronze-and-gold halls filled with genius, and into the shadows produced by the tooth of each turning gear, the shadows themselves turning, sliding over the walls and gears, like a net wavering in the breeze.