All Men of Genius

IV.



ERNEST, the Duke of Illyria, considered the dahlia, and its repulsive effect on women. It had been nearly a month since they had driven away Miss Adams, and now he had a vase of them in the study, and his cousin and ward, Cecily, hadn’t come to see him all day, even though she had only just arrived back the day before last after spending the summer with Aunt Ada.

He knew that it wasn’t really the dahlia’s fault. He had sent Cecily off to enjoy nature as a girl, hair in braids, and she had returned, inexplicably, a young woman. Before, having Cecily in the college seemed fine, for while she was technically female, she was still a child, and that made her genderless in principle. But in those short months, a sixteen-year-old child had become a sixteen-year-old woman. It probably hadn’t all happened while she was in the country. The duke was far too clever a man to think that the blooming roses had resulted in Cecily’s blooming. No, more likely it was just that he hadn’t seen it until he sent her away, and when she had come back it had struck him dumb: suddenly he had a woman in his care, and women were often distracting to young scientists. And so he had politely suggested to her last night at supper that perhaps she should go away to school in the coming year, causing her to become quite upset with him for even suggesting the idea. She had run off to her room without even staying for pudding, and hadn’t come to see him since.

Women, he thought, sitting at his desk, were difficult. Cecily was especially difficult, as she was so many things: a cousin and a sister, for she had been put into his father’s care eight years prior, following the death of her mother and the disappearance of her father, a renowned explorer who had vanished searching for the lost world of Lemuria. And now, Cecily was like a daughter, as he had taken over her care when his father passed away two years later.

But still, the dahlias. He had nearly finished sorting through the applications for the incoming class, well over a hundred this year. When he got to Ashton Adams’s file, he had, without thinking, looked up at the vase of dahlias. It was clear that young Adams was brilliant and deserved an interview, but the duke wondered if he was as peculiar, as fickle, as his mysterious sister. The duke had thought on Violet in the past month or so, remembered the green ribbon around her hat, and the deep silver of her eyes. He was not one to spend hours daydreaming about a young woman, but he wondered about her, and her sudden departure. He was intrigued. She was like a machine that seems to be in perfect working order but suddenly stops. Had he knocked against it? How could he repair whatever damage he had done? It was a puzzle.

He looked at the clock on the wall. Nearly supper time. With a sigh, he stood up and pulled the cord that summoned his footman. The footman, like most of his staff, had first worked for the duke’s father. The duke often felt that he held him in a sort of contempt, that he was not as great as his father. But the duke could never dismiss him, either, because he secretly suspected that he was correct, and it would set a poor precedent to get rid of people just because they were right.

“Please go and bring Mrs. Isaacs, and tell her I’d like a word with her before supper?” he asked the footman, who nodded, and possibly sneered, then vanished from view. Miriam Isaacs was Cecily’s governess, and the duke could consult her on the problem of letting Cecily stay at Illyria. She would know best.

Mrs. Isaacs appeared quickly and silently, her hands clasped in front of her. Though she was younger than the duke—in her mid-twenties, perhaps; she had an ageless quality about her, and he had never asked—she intimidated him.

She was a Jewess born in Persia. Her family had moved to Paris when she was young, and then to London when she was sixteen. She had married, and been widowed, before she was nineteen, and both her parents had died as well. And yet she stood strong and steady, with a certain foreign dignity the duke found far more serious than any local, English dignity. She always wore what seemed to be the same black dress, though it was never dirty, with a high collar and long sleeves, and her thick black hair was always pulled back in a bun. She was thin and dark, with large almond eyes, so she wasn’t what anyone would call fashionably pretty, but she possessed a certain sense of restrained exoticness, and she spoke English—and French, and German, and Persian, not to mention reading Hebrew and Latin—with a lilting, musical tone. She was clever, she had seen the world, and she had loved and lost. For all these reasons, he had hired her. She was also an excellent governess, always calm and serious, but still affectionate toward Cecily. The duke found her to be reassuring, and thought of her as the mother figure he could consult on the rearing of young women, especially when Cecily seemed to hate him.

“You asked for me, Your Grace?” Mrs. Isaacs said, stepping into the room.

“Will you convince Cecily to join me at supper tonight?”

“She is most upset with your talk of sending her away, Your Grace. I’m not sure she can be convinced to attend.” Mrs. Isaacs paused, waiting for the duke’s resigned sigh, which came a moment later. “Should I bring her supper in her room or would you prefer to let her come and eat what is left when you are finished?”

“I would prefer she eat with me, so I can discuss this matter with her. Do you think it is inappropriate for me to send her away to school?”

“Speaking frankly, sir, I think sending her away from the world’s finest educational institution to go to school seems backwards.”

The duke nodded and put his hand to his chin, scratching below his lip. “But she’s a young woman now. Surely it isn’t appropriate for her to spend all her time in an institution filled entirely with young men?”

“I think, sir, that as long as she is chaperoned, that time around young men is normal and healthy. You wouldn’t have her shut up in a nunnery, would you?”

“Well, no. But won’t she be a distraction to the students?”

“Sir, she has been a distraction to the students for the past two years, when she first started becoming a young woman. You notice it now only because she has begun wearing her hair up, instead of in braids.”

The duke nodded again. “I suppose you are right.”

“Sir, you must do what you think is best for both Cecily and Illyria. If you choose for her to remain here, I assure you I shall keep guard over her virtue and instruct her in proper behavior. If any of the students try to take inappropriate liberties with her, I will report them to you immediately.”

“Yes, of course. I trust you, Mrs. Isaacs.”

“You honor me, Your Grace,” Miriam said with a small curtsey. “And may I also point out that Cecily is approaching the age where suitors are not uncommon. Would it be such a terrible thing if her suitors were among the most brilliant scientists in the world?”

“No, I suppose it wouldn’t…,” the duke said.

“Your Grace hasn’t noticed any decline in the aptitude of the students these past years, have you?”

“No.”

“And yet Cecily has received over a dozen love letters last year alone,” Miriam said with an arched eyebrow.

The duke started up in his chair, leaning forward with shock. “Really?”

“Yes. And may I suggest that perhaps an optional poetry class be offered? Some of the letters are really quite droll.”

The duke smiled. Miriam found the whole thing amusing, he could tell, and that made it all seem like harmless children’s games. The students were young, after all: the eldest was twenty-one. Let them woo Cecily. If their grades declined, he would expel them.

“Thank you, Mrs. Isaacs. You may bring a tray up to Cecily if she does not feel like coming down for supper.”

“Of course, Your Grace,” Miriam said. She bowed, then turned to leave.

“Oh, and Mrs. Isaacs…,” the duke called after her.

She spun back around, her hands still clasped in front of her. “Yes, Your Grace?”

“Do women find the dahlia to be a particularly repulsive flower?” he asked.

Miriam stared at him for a moment. “I wouldn’t know, Your Grace,” she said, and walked back into the shadows beyond his door. The duke looked back at the dahlias in the vase, glowing pink and yellow in the light of the gas lamps. He took one out and put it in his buttonhole before heading down to supper.