All Men of Genius

XXXIV.



GARETH Bracknell had not had a nice Easter. It was the same as his past seven Easters, wherein he and his wife went out to see his mother in the country. His mother, who had been both fathered by a barrister and widowed by one, had never really felt that stargazing, as she called it, was real work, or a profession worthy of any member of her family, so she spent most of the time criticizing him, or talking about the remarkable deeds of his brother, the diplomat to Switzerland. Or, for some reason, asking after Valentine, whom she had apparently met once or twice at charity functions and thought of very highly. Valentine was a scientist; Bracknell just looked at stars.

And his wife, who was quiet as a mouse at home—just a slip of a thing in a white dress who always had a headache—would join in with his mother, picking apart the little pieces of him that his mother had dislodged, like a rat feeding on carrion after the lion had had its fill. The Mass had been dull, and the vicar had come back to the house and been dull there, too, except when he had fallen asleep and drooled a little. A dreadful Easter all around.

And so, coming back to London, Bracknell was in a dreadful mood. Looking about at the cheerful, relaxed expressions of his students, all of whom had clearly had wonderful Easter holidays, filled him again with a sense of rage about how unfair the world was and how, in all the vastness of the universe, of which he was keenly aware, he was the thing that was always pissed upon.

It seemed only right for him to piss back on the students a bit.

“All right, you little buggers,” he said when they were all sitting down, “let’s see if your brains haven’t run out your ears during that little holiday. Adams—what is the gravitational pull of Saturn?” He liked picking on Ashton in particular, since Ashton’s father had once made a joke at Bracknell’s expense at an astronomy gathering.

“Pardon me, sir, but I don’t believe we’ve covered that.”

“‘Pardon me, sir, but I don’t believe we’ve covered that,’” Bracknell repeated in a high squeaky voice. “I don’t give a f*ck. Check your book, and we’ll all wait for you to find the answer.”

Merriman’s hand shot up, squirming in the air with the answer. Bracknell ignored it.

“I think Mr. Merriman has the answer, Professor Bracknell,” came a voice from the door to the roof. Bracknell looked over, ready to spit venom, but swallowed when he saw it was the duke.

“Oh! Sir,” Bracknell said uneasily. “I didn’t see you there.”

“I often go out on the roof to think, once spring has turned the air fresh enough for it.”

“How … pleasant for you, sir,” Bracknell said. “Very poetic.”

“I suppose,” the duke said with a furrowed brow. “Well, don’t mind me. But, as I said, I think Mr. Merriman has the answer.”

“Yes,” Bracknell said. “Mr. Merriman?”

The duke left as Merriman recited the answer in an excited rush. He certainly wouldn’t be asking Bracknell to substitute if Professor Cardew left again, not after that performance. But the duke had suspected this sort of unprofessional behavior from Bracknell for ages; this had merely been confirmation. Ernest had hoped to interrupt the class and find it going well, but he wasn’t surprised by Bracknell’s brutish teaching style. However, he had not lied when he said he had gone out on the roof to enjoy the air. In spring, he found that the smell of the water and flowers from the garden below often drifted up and overwhelmed the usual stink of the city. The flowers weren’t quite strong enough yet, probably because many of them were still in pots in his residence. He would fix that today. It was a nice day for gardening, and he enjoyed gardening in a good mood. And his most recent letter from Violet had put him in a very good mood.

But how to respond? With the faire coming up, he had little time for courtship in person. Could one declare one’s romantic intentions through a letter? Certainly it was the sort of thing that happened in books. But it seemed to Ernest that it wasn’t quite right to say “I love you, and shall do whatever it takes to win your hand” in a letter. He wanted to say it to her face, and see her gray eyes gleam. He knew they would gleam, but he still wasn’t sure what she would say. The last letter had said that she adored the gift, that it was the best present she had ever received, and that she was flattered by how well he knew her, but she hadn’t said that she adored him, only the gift. But perhaps she was being coy. Women were often coy, weren’t they? He didn’t care. He would pursue her anyway. He knew that there was a spark between them, and if she rejected him now, it was only because he’d done something wrong. He had never felt so content as when he thought about Violet.

In his apartments, he changed into work clothes, filled his wheelbarrow with potted plants, and took them out to the garden. The April air was damp and fresh, and the soil came up easily as he dug places for each plant and fit them into their holes. It was when he was replanting the dahlia bulbs that the idea came to him: He would court her at the faire. He would send her an invitation, and put her down as the co-inventor of his own exhibit, the æthership. “A Model of a Craft Built for Traveling the Stars, presented by the Duke of Illyria and Miss Violet Adams.” That would surely win her heart. He felt light and airy to think of it. Next year, their exhibition at the faire could simply read “Presented by the Duke and Duchess of Illyria.”

He packed the soil tightly around the dahlia and looked up to survey his work. The garden was full again. He went back to the residence and found a watering can, which he filled and brought back to the garden. It was a nice enough day that some of the students were going out for lunch, trying to hold on to the last bit of their holiday. Ashton was one of them, and he smiled at Ernest. Ernest smiled back.

“What are you doing, sir?” Ashton asked.

“I just transferred some plants back to the garden,” Ernest said. “Now I’m going to water them.”

“Only some plants come back after the winter,” said Merriman, who was standing with them. Ernest nodded, and curbed his desire to pat Merriman on the head.

“May I help?” Ashton asked.

Ernest stared for a moment in surprise. “Why, certainly,” he said, and handed Ashton the watering can. “Come do. I’ll show you.” He led Ashton to the garden and instructed him in pouring water—not too much—on each of the plants.

Violet listened carefully and did her best. She had asked if she could help without thinking, just trying to be close to him for a bit longer. He grinned at her as she poured the water, and she tried not to blush.

“There, that’s enough—more is too much; you’ll drown the plant.”

“Sorry, sir.”

“No need to apologize.” He would enjoy having Ashton as a brother-in-law, now that the awkwardness of the kiss had been explained away. Mostly explained away. The duke was still very aware of Ashton’s smooth skin, but he felt almost positive that this awareness was because Ashton’s smooth skin reminded him of Violet’s.

“Sir, if I may ask, why do you maintain the garden yourself? You have servants who I’m sure would do it for you.”

“That’s true,” Ernest said, “but I think it’s important to work in the earth, to understand the plants and ground personally, not just scientifically. When I create something, I try to work with nature, not against it. Why, in a few letters between your sister and me, we quite argued over the shell of the craft I’m building—we’re building, really. You see, I wanted to follow an organic pattern of metal sheeting, somewhat like a pineapple—it would make the structure sturdier, I think. The way the shell of a pineapple grows, or how petals bloom in a flower: their overlap is nature’s genius, a brilliant mathematical design. Much more resilient than the simple sheets of metal your sister argued for.”

“Simple?” Violet asked, slightly offended.

“I didn’t mean your sister was simple. Anything but; she’s incredibly brilliant. But on this point I disagreed; the layering of the metal may make the device a little heavier, but it will also keep it stronger.”

“I see,” Violet said, pleased with his answer. “You study nature to improve your science.”

“Well,” Ernest said, “yes. That, and I like it. Nothing smells sweeter than a flower you’ve grown yourself.”

Violet considered that. “Like building something yourself,” she said.

“Yes, like that. But when you grow a flower, you don’t work alone, you work with nature. It is less controlled. And because of that, I enjoy it. I think I’ve kept you from lunch, Mr. Adams.”

“Oh, don’t worry, sir.”

“Nonsense. Everyone should eat. Come inside, I’ll have the chef prepare something simple for both of us.”

The dining hall was nearly empty when they entered it, as lunch was almost over. Only Cecily and Miriam remained.

Cecily grinned as Ernest led Ashton to the professor’s table. “Are you hiring Ashton, Ernest?” she asked.

“He helped me in the garden and skipped lunch for it,” Ernest said. “I thought he should eat.”

“I think Ashton would make a fine professor,” Cecily said. “You should have had him replace Professor Bunburry, instead of that mysterious Professor Forney. He smokes in class, did you know?”

“He does?” Ernest asked.

“He does,” Cecily said. “At least, that’s what the students were saying at lunch.”

“Well, we all have our quirks,” Ernest said. A servant approached them and, after a murmured conversation with the duke, ran back to the kitchen.

“How was your Easter, Ashton?” Cecily asked.

“Very good,” Violet said. “And yours?”

“Well, Ernest was working for most of it, but Miriam and Aunt Ada kept me company.”

“Do you celebrate Easter, Mrs. Isaacs?” Violet asked.

“Oh no,” Miriam said, “but I like painting the eggs.”

The servant brought out some sandwiches for the duke and Violet, and they ate them happily. Violet was quite content to be eating, drinking, and socializing with the duke, Cecily, and Miriam. She felt pleasantly at ease, as though they all knew she was Violet, and not Ashton. She could see Cecily as a sister, Miriam as a friend, and Ernest … the word husband was a heavy one to her, weighed down with implications of ownership and captivity, but if anyone could wear it and have it mean something else—have it mean partner, equal—then it was Ernest. Violet wanted to grasp his hand and declare the truth, and not just the truth of her gender, but of her adoration of him. Instead, she bit down on her sandwich.

* * *



AFTERWARDS, Ernest walked Ashton down to the mechanics lab to explain his tardiness to Forney, who was indeed smoking as he supervised the students working independently.

“Eh? No problem, then,” Forney said. He was poring over engine plans.

“You’re Matthias Forney?” Ashton asked. “The American train designer?” Ernest smiled, proud that his student knew international scientific figures.

“Yep, that’s me. And you’re Ashton Adams, right?” Ashton nodded. “Good to meet you. If you want me to look over whatever it is that you’re building, I’d be happy to, but if you want me to mind my own business, I’m good at that, too.”

Ashton grinned. “If you’d like to look over my plans, it would be an honor, sir.”

“Sure,” Forney said, taking his cigar out of his mouth.

“But the duke has to leave first,” Ashton said with a sly look. Ernest widened his eyes and looked at Ashton. “I would prefer that you didn’t see it until it’s finished, sir,” Ashton explained.

Ernest shrugged. “Very well. See you at dinner, Matthias. Mr. Adams.”

Ernest left, shaking his head. Other students would have jumped at the chance to have Ernest critique their work early. Ashton was confident, like his sister, whom he owed a letter. He would write it tonight, but now he had to work on the craft, and then he had to search for that damned key. The key didn’t worry his thoughts much anymore, though. He felt as though he knew where and what it was, and that if he just relaxed, it would pop into his mind like an old memory. So he worked on the æthership, thinking as he did so of what he would write to Violet that evening, and what she would say when she saw her name on the exhibit at the faire.