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“Now that would be a waste, Ada, and goes against your slowly forming vegetarian principles.”
“I’msodisappointed in you. Think of the pigs, Daddy. The poor, innocent pigs!”
Mr. Edwards finished the remainder of his sausage.
Bron’s settling into Greenwood Manor was not the best of beginnings, though it certainly could’ve been worse, and he soon fell quite in love with it and all its associations.
Mr. Edwards, he quickly realized, would not be the articulation of gruff masculinity he’d expected from such a character: there was never a furrow upon the brow or a harsh tone used against him. If anything, he thought him more flamboyant than impenetrable, less a man of the manor, with all their domineering ways, and more a liberal-minded man of the gentry. On consecutive occasions did Mr. Edwards come through the door after work (though it wasn’t entirely clear what his job was, or what it entailed) and, immediately changing out of his suit, move from room to room in his wine-and-green-tartan dressing gown, always with Ada at his side, and offer to read to her by the fireside or play tea parties before bed. In the evenings, he’d sink into the wing-backed armchair inthe library and laugh at the pages of his book—action-leaning titles and memoirs—and would even make the effort to hold light conversation with Bron.
Further to Bron’s expectations, the first week of his being there deviated from his initial determination of guiding Ada into her studies. As her governess (yes, he’d decided he liked the way it sounded), he was tasked with developing a bond with this overly precocious child, but she was easily distracted by the many excitements about the house, and while he tried his best to work with her, any attempt to sit still for more than half an hour was time well wasted. It was mostly play she was after: dressing her dolls, catch in the grounds, even hide-and-seek. On the third day, he’d lost her for almost two hours. Not that he could blame her—she breezed through the math worksheets he’d prepared, already understood the components of an atom, and could summarize to him a surprisingly good account of nearly every book on her reading list. She even had a fun fact to spout about each one: “Did you know thatAnimal Farmis actually about politics and not really about animals at all?” or “Did you know that Jekyll should be pronounced ‘Jee-kull’ as intreacle?”
Bron hadn’t known that at all, would even go on to verify the fact online—and indeed, he learned that an MGM film adaptation of the novel from the 1940s cemented ‘Jek-ul’ into our cultural consciousness forevermore. She declared Dickens to be “the most horrible writer,” andA Christmas Carolto be “the longest, most stupidest book in the whole wide world!”
“I didn’t understand half the words I read, and I know a lot of words because I’m smart.”
“You are very smart,” said Mr. Edwards, flipping through paperwork at his desk.
“Now I know not to suggestBleak House,” Bron said.
“Is it bleaker thanA Christmas Carol?”
“Much bleaker,” he answered.
“The bleakest,” said Mr. Edwards without looking up.
“And what doesbleakmean, exactly?”
He thought about its meaning, wanting at once to say “depressing” but thinking it not quite right. “Well, I suppose it means something like barren or cold, like a gray sky—”
“Think of Aunt Rosie,” Mr. Edwards supplied. “A mind-numbingly bleak woman.”
“Okay. And is it true that Charles Dickens was paid for every word he wrote? Is that why his books are sooooo long and sooooo boring? Maybe he’s just like Mr. Scrooge!”
“I think that’s just a myth. He might have been paid per installment—”
“Can I read something by a girl next?”
Later, Bron searched the shelves for something appropriate and picked out Louisa May Alcott. He was ready to show Ada his selection, when he found her at the kitchen island, scribbling away at a drawing. He made himself a mug of tea before setting the book at her elbow, peering over her shoulder while the bag diffused. Half expecting to find a work of genius, he smiled at the stick figures.
“I’ve got something for you,” she said, producing a little box from the plastic bag on the floor. “It’s another alarm clock, to help you wake up in the mornings—oh, and batteries for the other one. Whichever you prefer.”
“Thank you, that’s just what I needed,” he said, accepting them. “Hey, Ada? I’ve noticed that you know quite a lot of stuff. Much more than I did when I was nine. Why am I here if you know all these things already? What would you like to learn?”
“You’re here for company, I guess.Finished!” she declared, smacking down the crayon so hard it almost snapped it half. “See here—that’s me in pink, and there’s you. I didn’t want to use blue, so I thought how about a beautiful yellow? Like a daffodil or a sunflower.”
She had drawn a figure on each side of the page. Her own pink figure was short, wore a triangular skirt, and had long brown lines for hair. The figure representing him was tall and drawn aslant. It wasn’t clear if he was wearing trousers or a skirt;the squarishness of the bottom half kept it vague, and he liked it all the more for it. Shapes that she declared were books circled their heads like halos.
“It’s brilliant, Ada. Why don’t you draw Mr. Edwards now?”
“No, I’m tired, and it’s perfect as it is.”
“Company,”she’d said, but he didn’t think his company was much of a necessity. Mr. Edwards had plenty of time for Ada, and she had plenty of time for him. Bron would often declare it bedtime, only for Mr. Edwards to counter his misplaced authority by suggesting it to be too early (despite his having been the one to set her routine in the first place) and request she stay up just a bit longer. Sometimes he’d dance with her on the tips of his toes, jump to the muffled scratchings of a vinyl on the record player (often Whitney Houston’s “I Wanna Dance With Somebody” or ABBA’s “Dancing Queen,” at Ada’s request), and through the nights Bron would sit, pretending to enjoy the spectacle while keeping an eye on the decanter of whisky on the drinks trolley, which drained and replenished itself at an impressive speed.
“Ada, don’t you want to go to a real school and mix with people your own age?”
“Been there, done that,” she said, sticking the drawing on the industrial-size fridge with a magnet, only to pull it down and scribble at it again, adding her signature and the date. “School’s the worst. I was always getting in trouble with the other children, and it was awfully far away. All the way by the sea. Darcy liked it when I went away, but Papa never did.”
“I’m sure that isn’t true, Ada. I’m sure your brother loves having you around.”
