All Men of Genius

XXXIII.



FIONA lit a cigarette and smoked it lying in bed, staring at the ceiling. She didn’t usually smoke, especially now, as Drew would smell it on her, but she always kept a few cigarettes in her purse and some matches in her corset. They made her feel better when she was lonely, which was more often than she’d care to admit. Not as much lately, though. But tonight she was startled by how much she missed the feel of Drew’s hair. Though he seldom spent the night at the small apartment he had bought for her, he often fell asleep in her arms after making love to her, knowing she would wake him after an hour so he could get back to the college. As he slept, she would reach out, take the soft curls of his hair, and wrap them gently around her fingers. It hadn’t seemed like much at the time, but alone in her bed at the Adams estate, she found herself missing the feel of it, and his soft breathing on her shoulder.

The first man who had paid her for sex was a scientist. He had been a gentle lover, like Drew. He was older than she—she was only fifteen—but kind, and not bad looking. His name was Henry, and he smelled of chemicals and glass. He had taken his time with her, finding out which sensations caused her pleasure or laughter, trying to create the formula that would put her most at ease. The night had had its good moments, for what it was. He paid her and kissed her on the forehead, told her she was beautiful and that he would be back. She never saw him again.

The memory of him lingered when she made love to Drew, but with Drew, she always enjoyed herself. She liked his sweet round eyes and the feel of his hair. He had been sad when she said she was going away on family business for Easter, but she did what she could to cheer him up. At the time, she’d been focused on him. But now she realized she was a little sad about it, too. She liked the way she cradled his head in her lap as he slept or stared up at her. She liked how she could enchant him with the simplest of little games. Again, she thought of how he was sweet and child-like, somehow innocent and debauched all at once.

Fiona took a long drag on her cigarette, letting the smoke hang over her. She had never thought of herself as the motherly type. A long time ago, she had had a baby, but it died. She hadn’t really prepared for it, and the father claimed it couldn’t be his, so she feared it as it grew inside her, afraid that it would squeeze life out of her. But when he was born, fragile and hairless, with her same clear blue eyes and pointed nose, she had softened, tickled his belly and smiled as his eyes bulged in delight. So she slept with the baby every night, cradling him in her arms, until the fourth day, when she woke and found his dead body nestling into her still-breathing one. She had wanted to stop breathing with him then, but couldn’t, because of the ragged gasps her body took as she cried. The other girls she lived with gathered around her, massaged her shoulders, and took him from her arms. A priest came by, told Fiona it was all in God’s plan, and then took her son and buried him; Fiona still didn’t know where. And then, Fiona had gotten on with life. There was nothing else to do, after all. But she still dreamt of holding him sometimes, and would wake up, her arms cradling the air.

A soft rap on her bedroom door woke Fiona from her thoughts. She found she’d been twisting her own hair around her finger, in lieu of Drew’s. She looked at the door. The soft rap repeated itself. “Aye?” she called out softly.

“Fiona, it’s Violet. May I come in?”

“Aye,” Fiona said, sitting upright, stubbing out her cigarette on the bedframe. She was wearing only her nightshirt, but the room was dark. Violet softly opened the door and came in. She was in her nightshirt as well.

“May I turn on a light?” she asked Fiona.

“Aye,” Fiona said again. “What’s this about?”

Violet turned up a wall sconce so the room was cast in soft light. “I need your help.”

“Oh?”

“I know you have no reason to help me, but I hope you still will.”

“Course I will, if I can,” Fiona said. “You’ve been very friendly to me.”

“Because you blackmailed me,” Violet said with a raised eyebrow.

“I prefer ta think of it as an exchange of ideas. A meeting of minds. And that maybe ye’d have helped me even if I hadn’t known your secret.”

“Are you going to hurt Drew at all?”

“No,” Fiona said, a little offended.

“Then, yes, I would have helped you. If I’d known how happy it would make Drew.”

“Well, good. So how can I help you?”

“I…” Violet kneeled on the floor next to Fiona’s bed, as if she couldn’t bear to stand and puzzle through her request at the same time. “Well, I need to know how to change quickly from my costume to a dress.”

“That? Oh, that’s easy. Ye dinnae need my help with that. You can already change yourself right quick; just practice till it’s quicker. I mean, I could maybe alter some of your clothes so that they come off faster—like theater clothes.”

“That would be wonderful,” Violet said, then paused and looked at the ground.

“Was there something else?”

“Yes. I want … That is … there is a man. And he intends to court me. And I think I would like that very much. But I don’t know how to … how to behave. I don’t know anything about making love.”

“You want me to teach you about sex?” Fiona asked.

“No!” Violet said, her blush apparent even in the dim light. “I want you to show me how to attract a man’s attentions. How to keep him … how to make him fall in love with me.”

“Well, if he wants to court ye, I think you’ve already gotten that bit right.”

“But we’ve only spoken—that is, we’ve spoken when he knew who I was only twice. And I’m afraid I’ve been quite rude to him both times. It’s in our letters that I can be kind to him, but that is because the letters are filled with science. I don’t know how to behave in person. And I’m afraid that after a few days of talking to me as I am, he will realize his mistake and flee.”

Fiona snickered and Violet glared at her.

“It’s easy for you,” Violet said, “you know how to be a woman. How to walk in a dress.”

“Ye just walk,” Fiona said, “and try to forget that the dress is there. Men are always tryin’ to forget that your dress is there. But of course I’ll help ye. It’s going ta take a bit o’ practice, though. Lessons. We’ll do them in your room, as there’s more space there. But, Violet, I dinnae think you really need it. Sure, knowing the best way ta show off your wrist, or ta wave your fan about is useful at times, especially onstage, but you won’t be onstage. You’ll be with a fella who it seems already cares for you.”

“I just want to be able to be a fine lady for him,” Violet said.

“We’ll start tomorrow after breakfast, aye?”

Violet stood and sighed. “Thank you, Fiona,”

“It’ll be fun for me,” Fiona said. Violet shut the light and crept quietly out of the room again. Fiona smiled in the dark. It was easy to forget that Violet was just a young girl, what with her being so full of passion and fearlessness. But she had just turned eighteen, and had never had any women around her, save for the flighty Mrs. Wilks. No wonder she thought she needed lessons on being a lady.

* * *



THE next morning, the first thing Fiona instructed Violet to do was to write back to the duke. In plays, ladies were always revealing their hearts in letters. Also, they were often carrying fans, which they could use to coyly hide their faces or gossip behind, so she and Violet went and picked out a few fans and practiced opening and closing them with a flourish. She showed Violet what to do with her hands while walking with a man: loose, but down, with the wrist slightly extended, and always pointing out something interesting. For days they went over how to walk; enunciation—though Violet didn’t feel Fiona was quite on the mark in this regard; flirting; dancing; how to accept compliments and make interest known; what not to say; what not to do.

By the end of the four days, Violet felt dizzy. “Are you certain,” she asked Fiona one night as they lounged with Ashton in the sitting room, “that this is the way to behave when being courted?”

“I cannae be certain about anything, really,” Fiona said. “This is just acting. Genteel manners, so you don’t trip over yourself when dancing or wearing a dress. How to wear your hair. I like the Downy Dahlia best on you, though the Queen’s Best Castle was fine, too—”

“Everything she’s taught you has been quite correct in the world of plays and books,” Ashton interrupted. He had been finding much amusement in occasionally watching Violet’s Lady Lessons, as he called them.

“But, how do I behave like a real lady? The kind he’ll love?”

Fiona laughed. “He already loves ye,” she said, “so be yourself. These are just the, shall we say, tools of womanhood. I’ve only been showing you the proper ones, mind you.”

“And we thank you for that,” Ashton said. “Imagine what terrors Violet would wreak upon the men of the world if she had access to the improper tools. But, Violet, you do seem more like a lady now: the way you walk, how to be subtle in conversation. These are life skills Fiona has taught you.”

“Just don’t tell him he’s a brute and ye think he’s ugly, and ye should be fine,” Fiona said with a wave of her hand.

Violet arched an eyebrow. “What about the part where I tell him I’ve been disguised as a man the whole time?”

“Ah, well,” Fiona said. “I’ve never played that part. My Bristol Cities are too big.” She cupped one of them, emphasizing her point. Ashton laughed.

“I feel confused,” Violet said, crossing her arms, “and I don’t often feel confused.” She wanted the duke to feel for her as she felt for him—she didn’t want to be the greasy girl in the nightshirts any longer. She wanted to be something else.

Her brother smiled sympathetically at her. “I think you’ll be fine, sister.”

“Being in love can make anyone feel unsure of themselves,” Fiona said, grinning. “It’s even happened ta me, once or twice.”

Violet sighed and went to bed, leaving Ashton and Fiona, Ashton smoking his pipe and Fiona drinking brandy.

“Think she’ll be all right?” Fiona asked. “I mean, when she tells the duke her secret an’ all?”

“Oh, yes,” Ashton said. “No matter what you’ve taught her, Violet is incapable of being anything other than herself. She’s just unsure of herself because she’s been playing a man all year. But once she tells the world who she is at the faire, and everyone sees that she’s a genius, and a woman, and a thousand other things. I feel quite sure she’ll regain all her old confidence, and plow ahead with anything—even romance—entirely as herself. You’ve showed her a few tricks, and she’ll use them as she would a wrench, but in the end nothing will stop Violet from being Violet.”

“An’ the duke will love her for that?”

Ashton shrugged and puffed on his pipe. “Some people fall in love with lies, some with the truth. When you love a lie, you will always end up disappointed. When you love the truth, you will most likely be happy. I hope, that as the duke is a man of science, he is also a man who loves the truth.”

“Aye,” Fiona said. She had realized as she instructed Violet that somehow, unexpectedly, she had begun to love Drew. The part she played with him was who she was, and who she enjoyed being. She had played so many different parts that somewhere along the line she’d forgotten which was her. But not anymore. Ridiculous, brilliant Drew had helped her remember all the pleasures of not playing a part, and she loved him for it. She gazed over at Ashton, who was puffing contendedly on his pipe, and then she looked up at Violet’s room, hoping that the girl might one day experience some happiness like her own.