Chapter One: Talents
If only I had stood up to Father from the first, things could have been different. Father applied his own interpretation of the biblical parable of the talents. Not coins, but gifts we would receive, assigned by Father instead of God. We dared not disobey or disappoint him, for we were not his children, but rather his belongings.
To Allegra, the eldest, went the gift of music; to Isadora beauty; and Sienna he commanded to be artistic. As for the boys, Alexander was to be charismatic and Hector instructed to be athletic; and Father decided that I, youngest of all, should be intelligent. He came to this decision chiefly on the basis of my visual impairment which necessitated the use of corrective lenses. It was a defect I shared with Allegra, and it may have been one reason for our special closeness. My spectacles gave me an owlish look, and owls are associated with Athena and wisdom, hence my name: Tito, meaning ‘owl’ in Latin. And while wisdom and intelligence are not always found in close company, it nonetheless seemed logical to Father that I should have the gift of intellect.
Allegra was confined to piano lessons, Hector endured a regime of cold showers, vigorous exercise and fresh air, and poor Isadora almost drowned in bath after bath of asses’ milk and was drugged to stupefaction with belladonna. Meanwhile, the rest of us were schooled elsewhere.
Alexander, Sienna, and I would be packed into the steam carriage by Parsons, the butler. We would turn and watch the crenulations, gables, and battlements of The Barony shrink behind us until the car turned a corner and the house was obscured by trees. Then we would drive on through the Bedford wetlands, east towards St. Neots, where each of us would be discharged into the care of our respective teachers and tutors until the car returned to collect us at mid-afternoon.
I spent each Monday to Thursday at the home of the famous Professor Agnew. The Professor’s house, The Cocoon, was built in the Art and Crafts style which had been fashionable a decade or so previously. The house had a delicacy that bordered on frailty, with its large glass windows constructed out of simple geometric motifs repeated over and over again. From the outside, the effect was reminiscent of a glass jewellery box, even though the white walls were stained with algae and dirt and in places the render belled and spalling.
The interior was quite the opposite. All of the windows were boarded over to prevent the ingress of excessive daylight and dissipation of heat. Professor Agnew had fallen on hard times and was always conscious of expense. His home was cold, dark, and under-ventilated. The air was also thick with dust. It blanketed the furniture, and cobwebs decorated not just the corners, but also the ceilings and windows. As a result, the house had an oppressive feel, one reinforced by the subject of my visits—mathematics.
I was not wholly inadequate at mathematics, but I did not demonstrate any numerical flair. As I was a banker’s son, compound interest and amortization came easily to me. I had been taught fractions while still in the cradle. I could deduce payback periods and penalty clauses and all manner of financial calculations. Professor Agnew claimed my ability was evidence of Lamarckian inheritance, due to the germ plasm that had been passed down from father to son. Thus, my achievement in this field was due not to my own effort, but to Father.
To go beyond these simple calculations was more of a struggle. Derivatives and integrals I found straightforward enough, but transformational decay functions completely escaped me. I found simultaneous equations exasperating, and even exponentials gave me difficulty.
Meanwhile, the Professor terrified me. His thin face and hollow eyes were unwelcoming, and he made mathematics into something dull and dry. He complained constantly about my lack of ability and application, once even sending a note to Father suggesting that continued investment in my education was likely to be fruitless.
Despite this, Father would not be swayed from his course. Calling me to his study, he made it abundantly clear that he would not be thwarted by my lack of ability. Any mental shortcomings that I had would have to be rectified either by greater endeavour on my part or by surgical intervention such as those inflicted on Hector and Mother.
I trembled before his raging bulk, for I knew Father’s threat was not idle. He could afford service of the world’s best surgeons and physicians, and they would do exactly as he demanded.
I had witnessed at close hand how that might go. I had sat with my older brother, Hector, as he recuperated from various corrective operations. Indeed, I had been required to assist in his electro-stimulation program. It had been necessary in order to promote nerve growth in Hector’s legs so there would be enough neural tissue to graft onto his mechanical enhancements. The procedure had been a great success, but I recalled the agonies that poor Hector had gone through. And I thought of the surgical interventions visited upon Mother in the hope of relieving her hysteria. Father had financed many experiments on the brain, and Mother had been a subject for many of them. Her current condition was, at least in part, due to their failure.
Fortunately, Professor Agnew refrained from taking his complaints to Father again, and while true mathematical genius evaded me, basic competence did not. Nor did the joy of numbers. Who can fail to love the glory of the world captured in computation?
Besides the satisfaction of learning, there were other attractions in that house. The first and most obvious of these was Professor Agnew’s collection of Lepidoptera specimens. Professor Agnew had travelled extensively in his youth to all corners of the globe and had collected moths and butterflies from every continent except Antarctica.
All of the walls in his house were lined with glass cases in which the dried carcasses of moths and butterflies were pinned through the abdomen onto a cork backing. The effect, though undoubtedly morbid, was spectacularly beautiful. The wings formed a rainbow-coloured backdrop and they seemed to shimmer in the candlelight. If I looked closely with my corrective lenses I could see that each wing consisted of minute scales that refracted the light into iridescent patterns. Some had begun to crumble, and many of the scales had fallen from the wings of the Lepidoptera and collected in piles at the bottom of the cases like fairy dust, leaving only a skeletal outline of veins and ribs. As for the crepuscular moths, I could have stood in the foyer and examined his collection of these for hours if given the chance.
But Lepidoptera was not the only pleasure that house brought me. Vanessa, Professor Agnew’s daughter, was as beautiful and precious as a pinned butterfly, but more so. Much more so.
The first time I saw Vanessa, her hair hung unbound down to her waist. She was dressed in a pinafore such as a schoolgirl might wear. She was only a little younger than my own eight years, and she came into the study bringing a collation of tea and cold meat for her father, and a glass of milk for myself. She said not a word but simply deposited the tray on her father’s desk and excused herself with a curtsey. Her presence was neither commented on nor acknowledged by her father, but she would disturb our studies briefly every day around the hour of two with some light meal to enable us to continue with our work.
From the moment we first met, I thought her beautiful. How tight was my breathing, how quick was my heartbeat! As a child, I knew not that this was love, but love it was.
She would on occasion make some small talk. I had difficulty replying or even thinking when she was near. When she entered the room, she floated in with quick fluttering movements. She had an air of calm that intensified as she grew tall and willowy. And her voice was as soft as the wind beneath a butterfly’s wing.
I thought of her as the fairest of all the fairer sex. Year by year, I became more aware of Vanessa’s sweet nature, and as I passed from the innocence of a child to the curiosity of boyhood, I became aware of other charms she possessed as well.
No form of attachment was made between us, although such would have been my wish. Our interaction was limited to polite nods and brief comments. Sometimes, she would join in discussion with myself and Professor Agnew on academic matters. Her quick mind always put me to shame.
On Sundays, when we attended the parish church, she sat with her father a few rows behind us. As ours was the most prominent family in the parish, our pew was foremost and furnished with cushions, which, given the length of sermon favoured by the pastor, were most welcome. Professor Agnew’s pew was much farther back and without cushions. During the hymns, I could not stop myself from peering behind in the hope of glimpsing her radiant face. When I did turn to catch sight of her, she would be studiously reading from her bible or hymnal, and despite all my hopes, I could not catch her eye, nor did I once observe her looking in my direction.
In the summer, the Professor took us out to the heath to capture the more common butterflies found there. He liked to record the pattern variations in the wings of hairstreaks and fritillaries. However, he soon tired of the endeavour and left us unattended. There, in awe of her beauty, I watched as Vanessa swept her net across the verdant meadow of vetch and clover while the sun shone like a halo around her angelic face.
On one occasion, after collecting many butterflies, she opened the glass canisters in which they were confined and let them escape.
“Why did you do that?” I asked.
“You have seen what their fate would be,” she said. “I cannot bear it. It is better that they go free.”
When we returned to The Cocoon empty-handed, Professor Agnew was most upset.
“What have you two been doing all this time?” he demanded.
“I am sorry, Father,” Vanessa said. “It was my fault. You must not blame Tito. I put the lids on too loose on the canisters and they fell over in the basket as I carried them home, letting the specimens fly away.”
Professor Agnew did not look convinced, but he said nothing. From then onwards, Vanessa did not accompany us when he took me to sweep the meadows for fritillaries, or when I spent a late night vigil over a malaise trap, while he lured moths to their doom by adjusting the lantern to strange wavelengths of the light spectrum. Nor when we collected sticky traps baited with exotic concoctions brewed from obscure species of herb.
The Professor’s collection of butterflies and moths was endlessly growing. Like Noah filling the Ark, he sought at least two of every kind, male and female. He caught more if he could find them, so as to document the variations within each species.
Just as no two of our race are identical, so too is the insect world infinitely diverse to those who take the time to look. And as older specimens decayed through age and the ravages of light and humidity, those specimens needed to be replaced. It was an endless task to maintain and expand the collection, and I was grateful to have played my small part, even if it caused distress to Vanessa to see the small creatures pinned and dead.
Even so, there were many times when the hunt was so complex and his methods so secret that he did not allow me to accompany him. Indeed, more and more, the Professor would leave Vanessa and myself unattended at the house while he conducted his research alone.
I was always left copious pages of mathematical exercises to complete, more than I could ever hope to finish. Sum after sum and equation after equation I would solve as best I could. Vanessa was usually elsewhere, no doubt attending to domestic duties. More rarely, upon seeing me struggle, she would assist with the work that had been left me.
Once, while she aided me with fractals, a bird flew down the chimney into the study. I was startled and called out in alarm. The bird appeared to be no more than a fledgling. It lay still and unmoving and I was certain it was dead, but Vanessa calmly picked it up from the hearth and held it in her hands. At this, the tiny creature chirruped, and the room became brighter in that moment.
“I will take this little chap outdoors and let him go,” she said. As she left, I could not speak for marvelling at her beauty.
* * *
Vanessa was not just beautiful. She was clever and kind. Without her surreptitious assistance, given willingly and with good grace, I would never have satisfied Professor Agnew academically. I had much to thank her for.
I tried to make my affections as clear to my beloved as possible, but there was little opportunity for that. So, I took to writing small notes and dropping them on the tray she collected after providing tea. These notes would contain some comment about her dress, or hair, or smile, or eyes, or voice, or bearing, or some other aspect of her delightful being.
Better still were those few occasions when she slipped some correspondence to me. Mostly these notes contained solutions to the mathematical problems that so perplexed me. Or they would warn me that the professor was in a dark mood and I should be on my guard. But from time to time, they would make some comment about my appearance, the colour of my coat, say, or thanks for my praises. It seemed she was not completely indifferent towards me.
For seven long years I studied with the Professor, and Vanessa made those years bearable. I recall little from my studies. The theorems and constants of Euler and Fibonacci have faded in my mind through disinterest and lack of use, such that I cannot recite them past the thirtieth decimal place. However, each touch of Vanessa’s hand as she collected my tray, each kind word or gentle laugh she uttered, each graceful gesture, such as when she brushed her long blonde hair from her eyes… those have stayed with me as if they had occurred mere moments ago. I loved her. There, it was as simple as that, and if I did nothing to act on that love, it made no difference, for love it remained.
At no time did she return or acknowledge my feelings, other than with that pure and sisterly affection that had been between us from the first. And yet, for me it was enough. I knew she read my notes. When she spied one on my desk, she would smile, pick it up, and hide it in her pinafore. And although I could not catch her eye at church, I occasionally caught her reflection in my spectacles, where I could see plain enough that she was looking in my direction. When I then turned towards her, she would smile briefly and look down at her hymnal.
As we grew older and approached maturity, my notes became more daring. I stated plainly the depth of my regard. And I noticed that when she was with us in studies she would blush if she noticed me staring at her.
“It is stuffy in here,” she would remark to cover her embarrassment, but I also flushed with happiness in those moments.
* * *
It was my sister Allegra’s habit to retire to the parish church on Saturdays and there practise on the organ. She was not the organist at church services—the church organist defended his position jealously—but Allegra would, on occasion, give recitals in the chapel to raise funds for keeping the church roof in good repair.
It was my duty to assist Allegra, and I spent many happy hours turning pages of sheet music for her while she practised. I cannot deny that Allegra’s playing was not my only cause of pleasure on those excursions. The decoration of the chapel with flowers followed a strict but incomprehensible schedule, with floral duties rotating among a limited number of ladies. Prominent on that list of names was Vanessa Agnew’s. However, I could not say for certain on which weekend Vanessa would attend to the flowers in the chapel, and I therefore made it my habit to accompany Allegra there as her page turner whenever possible.
If Vanessa was present, my eye would follow the slight figure of Miss Agnew as she flitted in and amongst the shadowed aisles, replacing withered lilies and dahlias with tutsan and balm. On those occasions the timing of my page-turning was not always as it should have been.
One Saturday, after I had failed again in my duties, my gentle sister, who never upbraided me, turned with some exasperation and hissed, “Why do you not just speak to her?”
Taken aback, I protested that I had no knowledge of what she meant.
“Of Vanessa,” said Allegra. “I know that you like her.”
Again I protested, adding, “Play on, dear sister.”
“I have a better idea.” She brought from her music case another sheet of music. “You have a passable voice, Tito,” she remarked, and indeed, it was not unusual for me to accompany Allegra with my contra tenor.
“Very well,” I agreed, trying to hide both my embarrassment and my delight, not wishing to attract Vanessa’s attention. Allegra played, and I sang, following along with the music, until suddenly Allegra stopped.
“Oh,” she said, sounding surprised. “It seems this piece is a duet.” And before I could halt her, Allegra called out, “Miss Agnew, we appear to be short of a second voice. Would you be so kind as to fill in, so that I can continue my rehearsal?”
“I’m afraid my voice is not of such a quality as to be able to render you assistance,” replied Vanessa.
“Nonsense.” Allegra pushed her spectacles firmly up the bridge of her nose. “I have heard you singing in church. You are quite the nightingale.”
“Hardly,” Vanessa said with a laugh.
“I shall not take no for an answer,” said Allegra.
“Well, in that case, I must agree,” replied Vanessa.
Once we were settled around the keyboard, Allegra resumed playing.
“La ci darem la mano,” I began. Here, I give you my hand.
“Mi trema un poco il cor,” Vanessa’s voice rose through the dark arches of the ancient church. But it was not her heart that trembled, it was mine.
“Vieni, mio bel diletto!” Come with me, my beautiful beloved.
“Non son più forte.”
But it was I who could not resist her.
“Andiam, andiam, mio bene.” Come, come my darling. As our voices united, so also, I hoped, one day would we.
“Le pene d’un innocente amor.” The joy of innocence and love. Our voices trailed off, and for a moment, one moment of perfect stillness, I turned and looked into Vanessa’s eyes.
“Well, that was very nice,” said Allegra. “With a bit of practice it will be quite good indeed. I’m sure it will be well received at the next recital.”
“No, no,” protested Vanessa. “I couldn’t sing in front of all those people.”
“With a voice like that,” said Allegra, “it would be a crime not to. Miss Agnew, you have been hiding your light under a bushel. You have the voice of an angel.”
“Tito has a good voice too,” Vanessa protested modestly.
“Indeed he does,” agreed Allegra. “So, shall we meet here again next Saturday and continue with our practice?”
Vanessa’s objection was stifled by a stern pushing of spectacles up the bridge of Allegra’s nose.
“Very well,” Vanessa conceded, and my heart leapt within me. What a chance to secure my love! It was with rejoicing that I returned with Allegra to The Barony.
“Thank you,” I told her, as we walked along the lanes in the summer air.
“For what?” said Allegra, but she knew full well for what, and smiled.
© 2026 David Rae
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