All Men of Genius

XXXVI.



IT wasn’t until morning that Violet really realized what she had done. She woke up suddenly and gasped.

“What is it?” Jack asked. He was already awake, wearing a towel around his waist.

“I told him,” Violet said, not quite believing it. “Maybe it was a dream.”

“What?” Jack asked.

“Bugger,” said Oscar.

“Last night … I went walking, and I found the duke, and I told him the truth, about me being Violet and Ashton.”

“You what?” Jack screamed.

“Bugger!” Oscar screamed.

“At least, I think I did,” Violet said. Her memory was hazy. All she could remember was the unfeeling face of the duke, bronze in the light, and the chiming of the clock.

“You better remember,” Jack said. “This could affect me, too, Vi. I could be in trouble.”

“I know. I’m sorry,” Violet said. Jack and Oscar stared at her. “I did. I think I did. I need to leave!” Violet sprang up and opened all the drawers on her armoire, then took her bags from her closet and began shoving everything from the drawers into them.

Jack and Oscar continued to stare at her. “Bend over so I can bugger your arse,” Oscar suggested.

“No,” Jack said to Oscar, “not what I would recommend.” He walked over, knelt beside Violet, and laid his hand on her shoulder. “I wouldn’t recommend running, either,” he said.

“I’m not running. I’m leaving before I’m kicked out. It lessens the scandal. And this way, I won’t have to see him again. I don’t think—” She stopped packing. “—I don’t think I could stand that.”

Jack saw her eyes shimmering. “Maybe he won’t expel you,” Jack said. “Maybe your plan worked, just a little earlier than expected.”

“He didn’t say a word. He just ran off,” Violet said, now leaning into Jack’s arms. “As though he couldn’t bear to be around me. Oh, I’ve ruined it all,” she said, and started weeping.

Jack had never seen her cry before, so he wasn’t sure how to comfort her, but he wrapped his arms around her, let her cry into him, and stroked her back. “He’s had a whole night to think it over. And to expel you. But he didn’t. Go to class. Act like nothing happened. Let fate come to you. Perhaps it won’t be as bad as you think.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, her tears dying down. “I know this could get you in trouble, too.”

“Well … I’ll just claim extreme stupidity. If they didn’t find you out, I don’t know why I would’ve, just because we share a bedroom. What man pays attention to the person in the bed next to him, anyway?”

“Don’t let Cecily hear you say that.”

“Is this really the time to be mocking me about my undying-but-considerably-more-constrained-than-yours love for Cecily?”

“I don’t love Cecily.”

“For Ernest, then. I assume that’s why you told him.”

“Yes,” Violet said, looking down.

“Well, hopefully you just dreamed the whole thing. If so, you most definitely should not tell him in real life. Go dress. We’ll get breakfast.”

The duke was not in the dining hall at breakfast, and no one stared at Violet any more than usual, or ran up to her and shouted, You’re a bloody bird, ain’t cha? She still found herself walking through the dining hall hunched over, as if expecting a blow.

Jack elbowed her as they sat down. “Maybe it was just a dream,” he whispered.

She knew, of course, that it hadn’t been a dream. It was easy to think of it as one, it had all been so unreal—the chiming of the clock, the shadows, the hard angles of his face as he turned from her. But there were also concrete things, like the dust from the floor she had found in her hair when bathing. It had not been a dream. She had confessed her secret to the duke, and he was surely not at breakfast because he had called the police to arrest her for fraud. Or maybe he was locked in his bedroom feeling hurt and betrayed, and he would come down later and quietly banish her from Illyria, and from seeing him again.

Violet didn’t know which she could stand the thought of less. She worried not just for herself and her family—the shame she’d bring on her father and his reputation, the collapse of her scheme, and the end of her goals—but for the pain she might have caused the duke. Even if he stripped her of her right to be a student, she hoped he could still love her. To lose both would be terrible. She wondered if he was sitting alone in his lab staring at her letters, before throwing them into the fire and watching them burn.

When they got to the astronomy tower, Bracknell was tapping his foot nervously and looking out at the duke, who was standing on the roof, still as a statue among the various figures. The morning light turned him a bright gold.

“He’s been out there all morning,” Bracknell said anxiously. “I think he’s testing me.” He turned to look at the students, who were all sitting at their desks. “All right. Well, let’s give him a real good show, then. Kind, gentle teacher; studious, intelligent students. We’ll both be lying through our teeth, but if I can do it, so can you.”

The duke didn’t move for most of the first part of class, but Violet kept looking at him anyway. His back was to them, and he was looking out over London. At ten o’clock, the clocks all through Illyria began to chime, and the great clock of statues that the duke stood among started to move. The duke moved with them. First he just stood on the platform, but then his head moved down, staring at his feet. And then, as suddenly as he had last night, he turned and ran for the edge of the roof overlooking the river.

Violet was out the door to the roof in a second, but she wasn’t fast enough. “Ernest!” she shouted after him. He turned at the last minute and looked her silently in the eye, his expression cold and empty, and then he fell.

The other students had by now come out onto the roof, screaming and unbelieving, running to the edge to see where the duke had fallen. “Christ!” Lane said.

Violet was the first to reach the edge of the roof. She looked over it just in time to see Ernest plunge into the river and not come up again. She felt dizzy, but Jack was beside her, leading her away from the edge.

“Bloody hell,” Bracknell said.

“Why would he do that?” Merriman asked. Violet knew the answer, but she couldn’t say it aloud. Instead, she just leaned against Jack and said nothing. But in her mind, she was saying the answer over and over: He did it because of me. He jumped because of me. He killed himself because of me.