The Ingenious Edgar Jones Read online

  “Then you must play your William at his own game, Mrs. Jones. Collect the evidence. Present him with the facts. You are vowed to take the troubles of life together, after all.”

  So Eleanor took to measuring Edgar every month. Before he was allowed out she would hold him against the wall with one hand, balance the Bible upon his head and score a line across the top of it. As summer pushed through to autumn, a mark grew on the parlor wall. It leached across the paper, tipping sideways, but was imperceptible in its upward growth.

  And that was not her only concern. When Edgar was shuttered up inside the house, there was not a moment’s peace. There would be the thump and wallop as he slid his way down the stairs. The bang-bang-banging of him jumping on his bed, hammering the ceiling of the workshop fit to break it. And the cascades of laughter as he ran to meet his father at the gate and was hauled up into the sky and down again, the roaring symphony of Edgar’s high squeals and William’s great bellowing “HO!”

  But as time ticked on, from five years toward six, Edgar still spoke not a word.

  It was just before Christmas that Eleanor gave voice to her fears. William and Eleanor were sitting by the fire. William was rubbing the cloth over his boots, readying himself for the watch. Every part of his preparation gave him a deep satisfaction. The swapping of the nightshirt for the dress shirt, the crisp crease of his trousers, the buttoning-up of his waistcoat. He could feel the authority gathering around him with the placing of every article. The polishing cloth snapped and cracked across the silence between husband and wife.

  Eleanor stared at William’s latest piece of scripture set upon the wall: Honor thy father and thy mother. She waited until her husband was lacing up his boots, fumbling over knots and eyeholes.

  “It’s time we looked at the facts,” she said softly.

  William blinked up at her from the fireside. “Facts? What facts might those be?”

  “About Edgar. About the way he’s turning out.”

  “From what I know of college life, lads come in all shapes and sizes, my love.”

  “There’s more to it than that, Will.” She sighed. “There’s an oddness about him. Running riot in the garden all day, not able to sit still for a moment.”

  “He’s a curious boy. It’s a sign of intelligence.”

  “I would have thought speaking might be a clearer one.”

  William frowned. Of course Edgar’s lack of speech was a slight concern. But he was rather hoping the boy was biding his time until he had something worthwhile to say.

  William took the dilemma with him to the nightwatch. He scanned the names ranging up the ranks of the pigeonholes. His wife’s analysis was misguided, he was sure of it. No two men in this world were alike—why should any two boys be? But even so, there was nothing to be lost by consulting someone who understood how children were put together. There was only one viable candidate: Doctor Carter, the master of physiognomy. In all his time at the lodge, William had never once seen the man pass by his station. But often, as he watched through the night, as one by one the scholars’ lamps were put out, there would be one light left, anchored in the corner of the quad like a guiding star, burning through till dawn: the lamp of Doctor Carter. He was a man who had set his mind on a life of learning, and no mistake.

  William began to write: “Dear Sir, I come to you as a respectful observer of your studies and wish for some illumination upon the curious subject of my only son….”

  SO IT WAS THAT THE FOLLOWING WEEK EDGAR WAS DRESSED BY his mother in his Sunday best and taken into Oxford for examination. William had the same attitude to the University streets that he had to the map in the parlor. There was a lesson to be learnt on every corner. They stood by the Martyrs’ Memorial and William pointed up at the men carved into the stone. Saintly men, who loved God so much that they would die rather than denounce him. “True heroes, son,” he said. “An example to us all.”

  Edger frowned up at the men, clutching their stone books, and the men frowned straight back at him.

  Every college gate was stopped at, and the name announced. St John’s. Balliol. Trinity. “This is the empire of learning, Edgar,” declared William. “It is behind these walls that the great minds of the future are forming, becoming the best kind of men possible.”

  Edgar looked up at the golden walls ranging above him. There were turrets and spires and battlements: a land of adventure set in the clouds. There were creatures up there: animals with the faces of men, grinning down at him. Edgar strained against his father’s grip. William pulled him onward. Under the arch of the college they went, round the edge of the lawn and into the mouth of a staircase, up to the top of the spiraling steps to a door embellished with a brass plaque: “Dr. Carter’s Rooms.”

  William pushed open the door and saw a room stuffed full of learning. Three windows stretched from floor to ceiling, framing a view of the quad. The wall opposite was lined with shelf upon shelf of leather-bound books with embossed spines. Perched among them were the instruments of Carter’s craft: a set of scales, measuring sticks, instruments with hooked ends, things made of levers and lenses. Opposite the door was a broad desk piled high with papers that were weighted down with more curiosities: bowls, lumps of rock, a decanter filled with a shimmering green liquid.

  The physiognomist sat behind the desk, the sleeves of his gown rolled back to reveal thin arms the color of parchment, his hands plunged deep into the papers. His head was hairless, a white globe floating above the sea of knowledge, nodding this way and that as he scanned the texts. On the table beside him sat a bust of pale porcelain with the cap of a scholar set upon its head. Above the desk two plinths stuck out from the wall. On one the head of a tiger snarled from its fixture. On the other an eagle soared, wings spread out, talons splayed as if at any moment it might swoop down and grab the papers from its master’s hand.

  If there was a place where questions might be answered, then this was surely it, thought William. He stepped inside.

  Edgar entered the room behind his father, and saw a man with two heads bent over a desk. He saw creatures trapped in the wall, fighting their way out with teeth and claws. He saw a wall of leather bricks wriggling with golden worms and spiked with bits of iron. One of the heads looked up.

  “Ah!” said Dr. Carter, “Porter Jones and his anomalous son. Edmund, is it?”

  “Edgar,” said William, holding out his hand. The Professor did not shake it.

  “What’s in a name, eh?” Carter chuckled. “Now, I must remind you, Porter Jones, that this is a most irregular privilege, most irregular indeed. But I must say, I was intrigued by your letter. An exceptional case warrants exceptional attention.”

  “And I am most grateful, sir,” said William, rolling his hat in one hand and holding Edgar’s shoulder with the other.

  “And you are welcome to it, but not a word to your fellows. Otherwise I will be beset by all the ills of the underlings, from the cook’s bunions to the scout’s distemper. And that will not do.”

  Carter crouched down so that he was level with Edgar. He placed his hands upon the boy’s skull. The long fingers wrapped around the circumference, burrowing this way and that, Edgar’s hair sprouting between the digits.

  Edgar could feel a hand clamped upon his head. He looked at the big bird flying out of the wall at him, claws sharp. He squirmed and he cried, but he was held tight.

  “Be still, boy,” barked Carter. “This is for your benefit.”

  Carter pulled the second head across the desk. It was a ghostly ornament. The sockets held lidless eyes, nothing but blind bulges of porcelain. Its lips were puckered together into something like a smile. Carter pulled the cap off to reveal a skull segmented and scrawled upon. The cranium was cut up into continents of character: emotion, thought, imagination declared the territories of the front dome. Deceit and watchfulness crept around the back.

  William frowned. “Do you mean to tell me you hope to diagnose Edgar’s condition from the shape of his head?”
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  “Precisely,” said Carter, with one hand upon Edgar, the other scribbling on paper. “The evidence is overwhelming. Studies have been undertaken across the Empire. From the savages of the islands to the criminals in the Oxford jail, the patterning of the skull is proved to be a portrait of the soul.”

  Carter plucked out an instrument from the shelf: a curved band of iron with pointed tips, held together by screws and springs.

  “Sir, please,” cried William, “that cannot be a thing to be placed upon a child!” He stood between the Professor and his son, wrapping his arm around Edgar.

  “It is merely a measuring device,” replied Carter briskly. “A craniometer. Its form is deceptive. It will cause little discomfort.”

  Edgar saw the silver claw coming down down down toward him. It would spike him, it would hurt him, it would catch him and never let him go. He jumped up, grabbed it, twisted it, and it came apart in his fist. He dropped the pieces on the floor and clung on to his father.

  Carter smacked his hands together and laughed. “The action supports the analysis!”

  He held his paper out to William. An exaggerated Edgar stared back from the page. His profile was bulbous and irregular. The right side of his head was swollen and his ear protruded at an extreme angle.

  “Your son is a most volatile mixture,” said Carter. His finger navigated the page as if it were a map of the land, and he announced every corrupt curvature. “Strong Secretiveness! Acquisitiveness! Individuality! Negative Affection! Destructiveness! Conscientiousness!”

  William looked from the paper to Edgar and back again. It was the same as when he looked down on Edgar in the cradle: he was staring at himself in miniature. If these elements ran through Edgar’s character, then surely they should run through his own. And he a watchman, the man with the key to the college. It was an absurd argument.

  “These are strong words, sir.”

  “Such tendencies do not stand alone, Porter Jones. The key to the character lies in the combination. The bulge above the ear, you see—that points to a destructive nature. This may lead to vengeance and violence, a primal cruelty. But it is also a potent energy and, if tempered by clear moral faculties, it might combine with his conscientiousness, apparent here.” Carter tapped Edgar’s head with the tip of his pen. “This irregularity of the forehead gives us hope. It shows a strong attachment to moral value. A clear desire for justice. An integrity of the self. And if this can be encouraged as the predominant trait, then even the most extreme tendencies, the ruthlessness of negative affection, and the hoarding greed of his acquisitiveness might be contained within a life lived with a proper moral purpose.”

  Vengeance. Violence. Greed. The words rang hollow in William’s ears. This was not the Edgar that he knew. Not his bonny boy, who loved to be swung up to the sky and back again.

  “It seems your son is destined to make a mark on the world, Porter Jones. What kind of impression that might be is another matter entirely. I would like to examine further, if I may.”

  And before William could answer, Carter was crouching behind Edgar and wrestling with his collar. William watched as the Professor poked and prodded, as if he were trying to push something out of the skin.

  “But what have we here?” exclaimed Carter. “I do declare, I have never seen anything the like!”

  Edgar squirmed, but Carter held fast, stripping Edgar of his jacket and shirt, and tossing them upon the floor so that Edgar stood in all his glory. The hair upon his spine stuck up on a thick line of bristle, like the hair on the back of a cat when it is cornered.

  “Fascinating,” said Carter, stroking Edgar’s spine. “Truly fascinating.”

  William took off his coat, draped it over Edgar, and pulled him close.

  “I did not bring the boy here for your amusement,” he told Carter firmly. “It is as I set out in the letter. I am in search of a cure.”

  “A cure?” Carter smirked. “Well, that is an ambitious demand, if ever I heard one.”

  “A hypothesis, at least. Anything that I might take back to my wife for her comfort.”

  “Of course no one knows why some men come into the world in such ill-fitting forms. I personally favor the theory of bad blood.”

  Bad blood. The words stirred up an anger deep in the heart of William. These were the words of superstition and nothing more. He felt his blood roaring in his ears. The blood that he had inherited from the man who left him stranded upon the college steps. The blood that he had passed on to Edgar. He looked down upon his son, who echoed him in form and feature. His son, who would not be subjected to any further indignity. William gathered the scattered garments and wrestled them on to Edgar’s back.

  Carter smiled. “Do not be disheartened, Porter Jones. Your son’s character is still forming. Nothing is altogether decided.” He pointed to the chart on his wall. On one axis was written Influence; the other, Nature. A crooked red line rose and fell between. A twisted seam. “Whilst the skull is still setting, and Edgar is shaping himself within and without, you must be sure of the influences you place him under. Tell me, does he have any playmates?”

  William shook his head. “My wife and I would not have him set among the street urchins. He spends most of his days in his own company, ranging around in the garden.”

  “And you wonder why he has not learnt the discipline of speech? A child is a vessel, Porter Jones! He will absorb whatever influence is poured into his soul and his mind. You must pay closer attention to him, if you wish his tendencies to turn out for the best. If you will not allow him his own companions, then you must encourage him in your own fashion.”

  “And this is all the guidance you can offer?”

  “Unless …” Carter tapped his fingers upon the porcelain skull. “Unless you would be willing to give the boy to my specific care. As an ongoing study. There are men I meet with in London, forward-thinking men, who would doubtless have opinions on his condition.”

  William looked at the spikes of the craniometer scattered on the floor. They looked like the severed limbs of an iron crab. He imagined this instrument and others beside it snapping away at his son’s skin. All in the pursuit of some theory. All in the pursuit of Carter’s reputation.

  “I am grateful for your attention, sir, but I do believe Edgar would be better cared for by his parents, who love him for who he is rather than for what anomalies he may manifest.”

  William slammed Carter’s door, and led Edgar briskly down the stairs and out on to the sunlit lawn.

  Edgar looked up at the line of the city wall, cutting up the clouds. He looked up at the college gate, the great carved arch of it, a forest of stone, with creatures grinning down at him from the branches. He clenched his fists in his pockets, fingers wrapped tight around stolen metal: the bits that he had undone from that iron claw.

  “Edgar,” said William, “this is not a place to loiter.”

  “Papa,” said Edgar softly.

  The world around William stopped. There was no college, no lawns, no gate, no street beyond. Just him and Edgar, standing side by side. Edgar pulling at his sleeve. Edgar speaking. Edgar saying his name again and again.

  “Papa. Papa.”

  William crouched down so he was face-to-face with his son and put his hand upon his cheek.

  “Edgar?”

  Edgar opened his mouth and the words came out, dropping one by one like pebbles into a stream. A high, clear voice, part birdsong almost. A voice that had been stoppered up.

  “Papa, am I a bad boy?”

  William laughed, and pulled Edgar to him.

  “No, no, Edgar! You are my perfect and precious son, and let no man tell you otherwise!”

  He took Edgar by the shoulder and steered him away from the gate. But as he did so another voice came calling down the wind. A voice like the scraping of steel against stone. “Place yer bets! Place yer bets!”

  He turned, looked back at the college. The lawns beyond the gate stretched wide and empty. But William understo
od Oxford well enough to know that it was a city of echoes. He shrugged the voice away and guided Edgar down to the crossroads. The streets were thronging with the passage of people: the students in their gowns, jostling alongside the men of trades; the carriages, with their shuttered windows, rolling down Broad Street; men and women walking side by side, peeping in through the shop windows. The rusted sign of the White Horse pub beckoned in the drinkers. There was all the world going about its business. Life, in all its roaring varied glory. William looked at the crowds. What quirks of the body, he wondered, might lie hidden beneath their garments? And how could Dr. Carter, locked away in his room, ever know about it—this man who had stripped Edgar of his dignity as surely as he had stripped him of his Sunday best?

  And yet Edgar had spoken. And not just the parroted speech of a newborn, but a question. A question phrased with consideration and attention to the matter at hand.

  By the time William reached the cottage, all unpleasantness was forgotten and there was only the thrill of Edgar’s first words. He burst into the parlor, calling: “A success! A veritable success!” He strode over to Eleanor and kissed her. Edgar hovered at the doorway, watching, listening.

  “The doctor knows of Edgar’s condition and can find a way to cure it?”

  “Ha! That charlatan! He would find anything in Edgar that might serve to fit his wild theories. But it seems that the process of examination itself has been cure enough.”

  Eleanor looked across at Edgar. He was standing in the doorway, wide-eyed, with his hair sticking out in all directions. His shirt was pulled out of his trousers and the buttons of his jacket were done up skewed. For a moment she was back in the tavern, watching as the old street lunatics peered through the glass, tongues lolling fit to lick the panes. “He does not look cured to me.”

  “You and Carter are one and the same. Too easily taken in by the appearance of things.”

  “Appearances matter, Will.” Eleanor knelt by Edgar and smoothed down his hair. “Is this true, Edgar? Did you speak to the Professor?”