Page 89 of Oddity of the Ton
“Why does he sit on his own?” Eleanor asked.
“It’s where he’s happiest. I tried to sit the children together at first, but Joe was terribly distressed. At first I thought he didn’t want to come to school at all. It took me a week to work out that he was only happy in that particular seat. He won’t tell mewhyhe prefers it, but I think it’s because he likes to be set apart from the others. He doesn’t like it if you’re too close to him.”
“And he doesn’t like loud noises, either,” Eleanor said.
Miss FitzRoy raised her brows, astonishment in her eyes. “How do you knowthat?”
“He looked almost in pain when the others scraped their chairs back,” Eleanor said. “The noise set me on edge also—it almost made my teeth hurt. I’ve always detested loud noises.”
She set her sketch aside, picked up the sheaf of papers, and circulated around the classroom. The children in the front row had all attempted to draw the vase, with William’s attempt the closest likeness—by virtue, perhaps, of his being the eldest.
“Very good, William,” she said. “Perhaps you could add some of the grasses to your vase—it seems a shame for it to be empty, doesn’t it? And Betsy, you’ve done well to include the grasses, though some of them look as if they’re floating in midair—you need to make sure the stems are drawn right up to the mouth of the vase.”
After handing out a second piece of paper to Fanny, who insisted that she’d finished her drawing and wanted to start another, Eleanor moved to the second row, commenting on each child’s artwork.
When she reached the back of the classroom, she approached the solitary little boy, taking care not to encroach on his space. She glanced at his handiwork and drew in a sharp breath.
The boy couldn’t have been older than ten, yet he’d drawn a perfect likeness of the items on the desk, right down to the individual grasses and the crack in the vase, with its jagged edges that stretched halfway across the belly, then split into two.
“That’s wonderful, Joe,” Eleanor said, keeping her voice soft. “May I come closer, to take a proper look?”
The boy nodded, his attention fixed on his drawing. Eleanor approached, taking care to remain in the boy’s eyeline. There was nothing worse than someone hovering in the background, out of sight. Eleanor had never liked the feeling of being watched—her mother had a habit of watching her, which elicited a sensation of discomfort, as if she could feel the disapproving and judgmental gaze burning into her skin.
She picked up a chair, placed it close to Joe’s desk, and sat.
“Do you like drawing, Joe?”
The boy flicked his gaze up, narrowed his eyes, then looked down once more.
“Shall we play a game?” Eleanor suggested. “How about I ask questions and youdrawyour answers?”
She placed a second piece of paper on Joe’s desk, then drew a smiling face at the top. “When I’m not in the mood for conversation, this is my way of saying that I like something. See? The smiling face means that drawing makes me happy. How about you, Joe?”
The boy reached over and scribbled something on the paper. Eleanor’s heart lifted with joy—he’d drawn a smiling face and, beside it, the outline of a pencil.
“So youdolike drawing,” she said. “Do you draw at home?”
The boy shook his head. Then he drew a rectangle, followed by a diagonal line striking through it.
“Perhaps you could write your name, or just the letter J, at the bottom of your drawing of the vase—then we’ll know who the artist is,” Eleanor suggested. “Did you know that Stubbs, an artist who painted beautiful pictures of horses, wrote his name at the bottom of each of his paintings?”
The boy leaned over his drawing and wrote at the bottom.
“May I see?” Eleanor leaned over and smiled at the inscription.
Joseph Swift pinxit 25thAugust 1815.
An extraordinary child indeed.
Then he pointed to his name and held his pencil out to Eleanor.
“You want me to writemyname?”
He nodded, and she scribbled her name at the bottom of her piece of paper.
Eleanor.
“Hello, Joe,” she whispered. “I’d like to shake your hand—which is how we make new friends. But only if you want me to. Or is there another way you say hello to a new friend?”
