Grimm's School for the Erratically Gifted: Chapter 1

There is clearly no greater tragedy in this, our fine Anglican society, that the Great Fire of Brackenburg not only consumed Moulde Hall, but also claimed the collected journals and correspondence of Sir Edmund’s long and fruitful life — save a single slightly-singed diary.

Historians have used many separate pages in this diary as evidence of countless pet-theories, including Sir Edmund’s use of powerful narcotics, an obsession with the Gilded Queen of Spain, and the Ouroborocal belief that the crown of the British Empire should follow those they lead.

What has never been done, I have been assured by my book club, is a thorough and careful study of Sir Edmund’s surviving diary by a woman. Therefore, rather than advance my own theory, I propose in this section to take a holistic view of the surviving pages in and of themselves: as a diary of what I believe may have been the most pivotal moment in Sir Edmund’s life: his education at Grimm’s School for the Erratically Gifted.

While many noted scholars may scoffed at this approach, I assure you, dear reader, that being the Duchess of Hepsborrough, I am very rich; and as such I am well within my rights to behave in any number of eccentric and unorthodox manners.

Indeed, if I were not a Duchess, this book might be considered inappropriate.

~ Excerpt from ‘A Study of Sir Edmund Moulde’s Personal Effects, Unabridged,’ by Lady Ilsie Vandervan, Duchess of Hepsborrough

Editor’s note: this is the first re-printing of this book to not abide by the redactions mandated by the Female Propriety Act of 1823. Therefore, the names of the Editor and Publishing Company have been changed to protect those involved.

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Edmund was an orphan from birth, as was fashionable at the time.

Not for the lower classes, of course. As is so often the case in life, what was fashionable for the upper-class was an embarrassment at best — a hang-able offense at worst — for the poor. Fashion was a jealously guarded quality for the nobility.

For the upper-class, being orphaned from birth suggested a life full of mystery, excitement, adventure, and discovery. It hinted at intrigue, interest, and amusement. The label “Orphan” implied a state of constant suspense.¹ A life full of uncertainty, never knowing when a hitherto unknown figure from the past or surprise revelation would blossom in full view of pleasant company, and shock the ennui out of the gentried gossips, supplying them with subject matter for months to come.

Unbeknownst to the landed gentry, Edmund would never provide them with this fuel. Despite what is bandied about between back-street historians and guttersnipe librarians, it is accepted historical fact that his life as an orphan had been, for the first eight years, intensely boring. He had spent it in seclusion at a fashionable orphanage — which is to say it was outside the city limits of Brackenburg — named Mrs. Mapleberry’s Home for Wayward Lads and Ladies. The most excitement Edmund ever experienced was when the autumn winds blew with characteristic gusto, and the building threatened to fall to the ground along with the dying leaves.

Edmund became a Moulde at the end of his eighth year as an orphan. The process by which this occurred is far to complicated and painful to recount outside of historical lectures and tin-penny music halls. Suffice it to say his new home was Moulde Hall, the massive mansion on the peak of Haggard Hill in the Squatling district of Brackenburg, and it was never in danger of blowing down. The building was centuries old and had resisted regicides, revolutions, and social upheavals with pedigrees superior to that of most monarchs. Moulde Hall was an oak tree tested by raging fires, tempered in hurricanes, and strengthened by lightning strikes; as constant a landmark as any mountain.

In the span of one summer, Edmund metamorphosed from an orphan to the heir to one of the most prestigious and powerful families in British History. He met six of his ruthless family members, re-discovered the forgotten Tomb of the Mouldes, and managed to fool three of the nine Founding Families that the Moulde family’s temporarily disadvantaged situation — an embarrassing situation for any rich family, and therefore not to be spoken of — was well on the mend.

The four years following this summer, while less boring than his years as an orphan,² were no less secluded.

Edmund spent his days inside the wrought-iron fence surrounding Haggard Hill, reading in the giant library and listening to the poetry of Aoide, the statuesque automaton built generations ago. He wandered the grounds, explored the many rooms of Moulde Hall, mapped the abandoned coal-mine beneath the mansion, and wrote strange poetry while staring at the empty fireplace in the giant east-wing sitting room.

Every day at six he would be dressed for dinner by Ung — the Hall’s butler, gardener, and footman, among other things — and take his place in the giant dining hall to wait for the meal cooked by Mrs. Kippling — the Hall’s two-hundred-year-old³ house-keeper, maid, and cook, among other things. Dinner was inevitably soup.

Guests to the Moulde mansion were unheard of as few were daring, foolish, or gauche enough to arrive without an invitation, and Matron never invited anyone to visit.

Matron Mander Moulde, Edmund’s adopted mother, (though she was old enough to be his great-grandmother) had been tested, tempered, and strengthened by forces stronger than fire and lightning. She had survived for almost a hundred years as Matron of the Moulde Family, in spite of their constant feuding, subterfuge, and impatience for their inheritance. After living with her for no more than a single year, Edmund appreciated that Matron was a force of nature herself, an unyielding will among a whirlwind of opposition.

Edmund regularly saw Matron only four times a week, when he brought her lunch. When Matron didn’t grab her lunch-tray away from Edmund and slam her door in his face, they shared Mrs. Kippling’s leftover soup in the finest British tradition; with Edmund sitting silently while Matron ate her soup with all the quiet grace of a swamp-muck clogged steam-pump.

On the few occasions they did converse, it inevitably became a test. With rhetorical flourish usually reserved for poets, Matron would ask about the weather, social events, or a recent well-publicized piece of news. When he was young, Edmund had tried to answer correctly and honestly. It wasn’t until he became practiced at being a Moulde that he realized she was never actually asking the question he thought she was.

Though subtle and elegant metaphor, code, and properly pitched tone-of-voice, Edmund and Matron held entire conversations hidden in others, subtextually exploring hidden motives of their clandestine relatives. Together they teased out strands of subterfuge that knotted so tightly in the Gordian mess of High-Society.

Sometimes, after she finished her leftover soup, Matron would write a short letter or send Ung on a quick errand, and that was that. The Moulde Estate was safe from financial, legal, or social threats for another week.

If, on the other hand, she asked a question Edmund could not answer, Matron’s eyes would narrow and her tongue would lash with a sting sharper than any whip.

“Haven’t you been reading your post?”

Edmund hated reading his post. While he typically adored reading in all its forms, the post was an exercise in tedium.

Half of it went to Mrs. Kippling, as she was an avid letter writer to friends and colleagues from every corner of the globe.⁴ The other half was all for Edmund, or more often, “to the current heir of the Moulde estate.”

There were five, seven, sometimes ten letters each week, far more than Edmund had ever seen in his whole life. He was only eight years old, then nine, ten, eleven, and now twelve, and those were very young ages indeed to have anyone write letters to you. Nevertheless, Matron insisted that Edmund read every one. After all, Edmund would some day be Patron Moulde, and being comfortable with the letters of the peerage would be a vital skill.

It wasn’t that Edmund was bad at deciphering the surreptitious language of the upper-class; he was quite deft at it. Being both a scientist and a poet at heart, his skills at dissecting the written word and interpreting the hidden truths were impressive in one so young.

That didn’t make it pleasant. The letters of the upper-class were either boring etiquette-laden diatribes or detailed invitations to a ball that managed to both encourage Edmund attendance, while reassuring him that he would undoubtedly be too busy or disinterested to accept.

Out of morbid curiosity, when Edmund was ten, he accepted one such invitation after Matron refused to dissuade him from doing so. It was largely a disappointing affair, consisting of a bland pair of purportedly important old women and one old man asleep in his chair. The whole evening had been largely silent, dreadfully boring, and convinced Edmund once and for all that answering his post was some form of punishment. Besides, what possible reason could anyone have to write to Edmund that wasn’t boring or trite?

Of course, when such rhetorical questions are asked by the naive, the universe inevitably conspires to answer in the most unpleasant manner possible. As such, on the first of August, 1875 — the middle of a particularly brisk summer — just such a letter did arrive; a yellowing leaf on chill winds that promised a very hard Autumn to come.

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“Master Edmund?”

Edmund looked up from his book — an ancient treatise on mineral-water emulsions and their effect on the bodily humors. Just inside the sitting-room door, a properly respectful distance away, stood Ung carrying the unpleasantly familiar silver tray.

With a resigned sigh, Edmund placed a thin ribbon to mark his place and closed the book.

Ung, experienced butler that he was, took this for Edmund’s sign to approach. He advanced towards his young master, holding the tray low so Edmund could observe the single letter that occupied it.

Plucking the envelope from the tray, Edmund felt the paper, studied the seal, and performed several other simple observations. The paper was of simple quality, strongly folded, and rough to the touch. This told Edmund a great deal about the sender of this letter, but nowhere near as much as the seal itself.

Perhaps most disconcerting was the fact that the seal was unfamiliar — made up of a circular belt surrounding an open book with Latin words written on the side — as was the brown-colored wax, a color no Founding Family would dream of touching. Edmund had learned a good deal of sigillography at Matron’s insistence; he knew the seals and coat-of-arms of all the important families, and their histories, associates, and financial situations. He could even recite the names of all seven types of wax and their hidden meanings. The language of heraldry and seals was more intricate than even that of flowers.

He had never seen this seal before, and that was unnerving.

Finally, he snapped the wax and unfolded the letter:

Dear Master Edmund Moulde, Heir apparent to the Moulde Family Estate,

Please be informed that Professors Aquinas and Babbages will be arriving for your testing between the hours of seven and eight of the clock in the morning on the fifth day of the eighth month of the year of our Lord, 1875.

~ Professor Arcturus Lynch, Headmaster, Grimm’s School for the Erratically Gifted.

Before delving into this significant development, it is important to explain exactly what Grimm’s School for the Erratically Gifted was. While a great number of papers and scholarly works have been devoted to the school and its significance now, an understanding of the institution at the time is paramount to understanding what happened after, lest significant events pass by unnoticed.

What Grimm’s School for the Erratically Gifted was, was the single most influential educational institution in the world.

This is not to say Grimm’s was the only school for burgeoning geniuses. Glenscruffish, to the north, boasted more scholars and historians per square meter than any other school. Across the Channel lay Fleischgrabben’s Universitat, producer of more than sixty patents a month; and even in its early days, Université de la Folie du Poncey was already beginning to make a name for itself as a mecca for the new sciences.⁵

But no school had a greater pedigree than Grimm’s. Among their alumni were Kings and Queens of nations. Nobles sent their children from across the globe to study the fascinating and impossible sciences that bubbled up from its turgid swamp of education.

This is what Edmund knew: he was going to Grimm’s School for the Erratically Gifted. He had known this ever since he was eight. Matron had explained very clearly after that summer four years ago as they shared a pot of tea.

“They think you are a genius.”

“They?” he had asked.

“The other Founding Families,” Matron spoke with the same ire she always had whenever Edmund asked for any clarification. “With everything you’ve done…they have to think you’re a genius. No other explanation would be palatable to their gilded gullets.”

“Am I a genius?” Edmund had learned that, especially in matters concerning himself, a second opinion was always helpful.

“An academic point, to say the least.” Matron snorted, spitting a glob of green into her empty teacup. “They expect you to be a genius, and if you don’t give the Founding Families what they expect, things will be all the worse for us.”

Edmund had felt a little thrill in his chest. To hear her use a plural pronoun was amazing for its rarity, and inspiring that it had been used to include Edmund.

“How do I… seem a genius?” Edmund had asked, after carefully considering each word he could have used.

Matron had smirked; the closest to a smile she ever got. “You already seem a genius. Now you have to maintain that image, and there is only one way for an heir to a Founding Family to do that. Graduate.”

She had pronounced the word like an officer of the court pronouncing sentence.

Now, four years later, Edmund held a letter from this venerable institution in his hands.

Even though he had known it was coming, the practical reality of holding the yellow letter was unsettling. His research had told him that most students tested into Grimm’s at the age of fourteen or fifteen. Edmund was only twelve. That was a very young age.

Rising from his seat, he wandered the labyrinthine halls of Moulde Hall until he reached Matron’s door, and knocked as loud as he dared.

When Matron opened the door, her eye immediately darted to the pale yellow paper in his hands.

“Good,” She nodded, raising a lit pipe to her mouth. “That’s taken care of.”

“What is the testing?” Edmund asked. It was only one of several questions the letter had formed in Edmund’s mind.

“A farce,” Matron snorted, blowing a plume of smoke from her nostrils. “A pretense. A pantomimed threat that if you answer their questions incorrectly, they won’t accept you.”

Then Edmund would never graduate, and his status as a genius would forever be held in question. The entire future of the Moulde Family would be in doubt. “That doesn’t sound like a farce.”

“Pah!” Matron shook her head. “They wouldn’t dare refuse someone from a Founding Family. No, you are going to Grimm’s, no matter what they say.”

“Then I don’t have to worry?” Edmund asked.

Matron’s eyes glittered. “Oh, you’ll have to worry, boy. The Nine Founding Families of Brackenburg will be watching you, as will the whole of the Moulde Family; distant relatives even I’ve forgotten will be watching your education with interest. They’ll be waiting for you to prove yourself once and for all; to show that you really are the promised genius of Moulde Hall that everyone expects you to be.”

Edmund did not need to ask what would happen if that proof never arose.

In spite of Matron’s assurances that the testing was no serious matter, Edmund wasn’t going to risk it. If he gave a wrong answer and wasn’t accepted to Grimm’s, then all his successes so far would be exposed as nothing but luck.

The Founding Families would never forgive him for that.

Perhaps worse, the Moulde Family would lose what little standing they had. Worse then poor, they would become used-to-be-rich. Edmund wouldn’t just be an orphan again, he would be a failed Moulde; the boy who ruined the centuries old family by driving the final nail in the coffin.

Fortunately, Edmund had the tools to prepare. He was a voracious reader and spent most of his time in the giant five-floor Library of Moulde Hall, reading everything from the classical sciences to the new and exotic chemistries and physics. Sometimes he read alone in his favorite chair on the third-floor balcony, other times in one of the many reading-rooms sprinkled throughout Moulde Hall. In the warmer months he periodically read outside in the decaying gardens or the rotting gazebo, but it was far too cold for that now. He needed to concentrate. He resolved to spend as much time studying as he could between now and the arrival of Professors Acquinous and Babbages.

Not five minutes afterwards, Edmund realized he usually spent most of his time reading anyways, so he revised his plan to simply keeping calm and carrying on.

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On the fifth day of the eighth month of 1875, as the massive clock buried deep in the thick walls of Moulde Hall struck seven in the morning, Ung appeared at Edmund’s elbow with two cards on the thin silver plate in his hand.

One of the cards was bone white with a thin spidery border that glinted in the light. An ornate scrawl of text spanned the whole card; Professor Aqueous Aquinas, Dean of Methods, Head of Alternate Geometries, Grimm’s School for the Erratically Gifted. The other card was a shadowy gray with silver emboss, the only text a tiny P. Bartolamew Babbages in the center of the card.

“I will meet them in the eastern sitting-room,” Edmund said.

It was a choice made out of fear. In spite of his persistent study, he did not know what these gentlemen would ask of him, and where there is uncertainty there is potential for failure.

While his first memory of the sitting-room had been his cousins shouting and spitting at each other like a bag of cats during a family meeting, his second memory was terrifying evening when he manipulated his family and three — three — Founding Families, making it known he was worthy of the name Moulde. He had felt like a king in that moment, the sitting-room his throne-room.

True, it wasn’t what he thought of as his real throne — the small wooden chair that currently sat next to Aoide in the library — but even with the dozens of sitting- and visiting-rooms in Moulde Hall, he knew he would meet guests and visitors only in the eastern sitting-room. It was his, full of the totemic power of his first brilliant success.

Less than a minute after he sat down in his favorite chair, the sitting-room door opened and the butler ushered in two well-dressed men.

The first was tall, thin, and clothed like a mortician. His clean scowling face was leathery and lightly wrinkled. He took off his top hat, revealing a half-bald head and thin wisps of white hair.

The second man was dressed in a velvet smoking jacket, a small stubby pipe in his lips. He was thicker and shorter than his companion, and wore a purple bowler hat pulled tightly down over his head. He had a thick bristly mustache, and gazed about with the bemused look of a man who had accidentally wondered into a beautiful museum.

“Master Edmund Moulde,” the first man said, his mouth twitching uncomfortably, “I am Dean Aquinas and this is Professor Babbages.”

Edmund took a deep breath. For four years he hadn’t spoken to anyone except Matron, Ung, or Mrs. Kippling. The man’s voice was strange in Edmund’s ears, his tone and cadence bizarre.

Drawing on his poetic skills, as well as the charm and etiquette lessons his cousins had begrudgingly given him, Edmund constructed his reply.

“It is a pleasure, meeting both of you,” he said, iambicly.

Aquinas sat down as Edmund gestured towards two empty chairs, with no apparent notice of Edmund’s use of proper British meter. Babbages continued to look around the room before suddenly realizing what his partner had done and moving to join him.

“Thank you for agreeing to meet us.” Aquinas twitched. “You are of course a very busy person as are we so without further distraction I would ask that the testing begin immediately.”

Edmund carefully sorted through the unpunctuated stream of words that flowed like a fountain from Aquinas’s mouth. When he was certain he had not misunderstood, he nodded his agreement.

Aquinas reached out his hand towards Babbages, who stared at it for a moment. Then, with sudden understanding, he reached into his pocket and produced a small leather-bound book and a thick fountain pen.

“Now,” Aquinas began, opening the book and narrowing his eyes at the pages. “Question one is as follows: Have you ever preformed any post-encardiocephelographic revivification?”

It is testament to Edmund’s innate inquisitive nature that even after four years as a Moulde, his first instinct was to ask what post-encardiocephelographic revivification was. It is further testament to Edmund’s training that he stopped himself, and instead truthfully answered: “Not intentionally.”

Aquinas’s hand twitched as he made a small purposeful mark on the page. “Are you proficient in all forms of the ten core branches of science?”

Which ten are those, I wonder? “I’m afraid I cannot answer that without knowing what your standards of proficiency are,” Edmund said.

Aquinas marked the page again. “Have you read any number of the following papers: Kingsly’s Treatise on the Klinger Hornbill, Professor Hottot’s Perspecacious, Glenwald Glen’s amendments to The Definative Docteration, Victor Von Blemfeld’s series on the Junput Islands in the South Pacific ocean, Flatly Couchman’s Journeys of a Gentleman, Beyond the Pale by Jenner Highly, or any five books of the Complete Solarium series?”

Edmund thought for a moment. “Yes.”

“When was the last time you experienced the state of discovery in study, named ‘Eurekish’ by Professor Jugenhein III in his book The Study of Study?”

“Two days ago.”

“Do you smoke drink or eat rare red meat?”

The lessons in proper etiquette supplied by Edmund’s cousin Wislydale flooded forward in his memory. “No,” he said, snapping his fingers in theatrical remembrance, “and please forgive my poor manners. Ung? Would you please fetch an aperitif for my guests?”

“We are not your guests, Master Edmund,” Aquinas’s firm gaze slowly rose from the book to meet Edmund’s. “We are not here for drinks or food and neither are we porters to be tipped nor politicians to be bribed. We are here to test you for admittance into one of the most prestigious and respected institutions of learning that this world has ever seen. Thank you,” he added, taking the small glass of creamy golden liquid from Ung’s offered tray. Babbages accepted his with a grateful nod.

Aquinas set aside the glass after it was quickly drained. “Now if I may be permitted to continue, is there a giraffe in the house or anywhere on the grounds?”

The questions lasted for hours, the mansion chiming away as they talked. Aquinas rarely looked up from his notebook, making small marks down the page as he spoke. Babbages simply settled back into his chair and listened, looking around the room like a bemused house cat.

As time wore on, Edmund became more and more relaxed. To think; he had been worried! After four years as Matron’s heir, Edmund knew how to handle strange and incoherent questions; and these…these were simple. He was spending more time making sure his responses were poetically and strategically sound than on the answers themselves.

As they entered the third hour, his relaxation became irritation. Why were these questions so simple? Did these two men honestly believe that these questions would confound him? Did they think he was a fool? Didn’t they know who he was?

Finally, after the mansion struck eleven, Aquinas gave a sharp nod, flipped the notebook closed, and held it out to his partner. There was a pause while Babbages stared blankly before a glint lit his eye and he took the book from Aquinas’s hand.

More questions? Edmund forced himself to breathe calmly. It wouldn’t be proper to shout at a guest, even if they did deserve it.

Babbages shifted his hips from side to side, walking himself forward on the chair; and reached carefully into his jacket pocket. Plucking forth a monocle, he set it carefully into his eye. Then, he lay his hand on the cover of the notebook and cleared his throat.

“Fine weather today, yes?” he asked, his deep voice flopping out of his throat like a thick rag.

Edmund gave an appropriately non-committal response.

Babbages nodded in return, and took a deep breath, cleared his throat again, sniffled a few times, rubbed his nose, pulled out a handkerchief, blew into it, wiped his nose again, cleared his throat again, and replaced the handkerchief.

Edmund waited patiently.

“How rich is the Moulde family?” Babbages finally asked.

It is here we must pause to discuss the intricate and delicate details that describe the inner-workings of the upper-class mind; for it is this mind that Edmund had, over four years of experience and practical education, begun to inhabit.

The first thing that crossed Edmund’s mind was astonishment. To even suggest an awareness of money was, for the upper-classes, a heartless insult. The idea that the Mouldes had so little money that they would be able to count it… well!

The second thing, less than a heartbeat behind the first, was pure choleric fury. To think, after opening his doors to these gentlemen, that they would take up his time with patronizing insults in the form of questions, drink his liquor after refusing his generosity, only to suggest — no, to imply that the Mouldes were…were…

The third, chilling and soothing in its certainty, was the truth: the Mouldes were. For more than fifty years there had not been a single coin in the family coffers. Debts and credit had lengthened to the point that the family now only had their name and a few ramshackle properties in the city. True, Edmund had plans to regain both the family’s prestige and fortune, but he was still young and hadn’t been able to put all of them into practice yet.

Fourth, blossoming from this seed of truth came cold reality, a holistic view of the Moulde family that now lay on Edmund’s shoulders. Squabbling relatives, incredulous peers, unstable allies, and all of Edmund’s plans to fix things were dependent on whether Edmund could convince these two men that he was deserving of a place in Grimm’s hallowed halls. A hundred responses all burned through Edmund’s brain as he sought to discover the answer that wasn’t true, per se, but that would get Edmund what he needed.

Fifth, which did not cross his mind, was that Babbages was still waiting for an answer.⁶

“Master Edmund?”

Edmund blinked out of his thoughts, and cleared his throat as authoritatively as he could manage. Being twelve, he could not manage much. “How do you find your pen?”

“Pen?” With the air of a man just realizing what his hands were doing, Babbages looked at the pen in his hands. “Oh. Pen. Yes, I find it suitable. A Jethman Gold. They only started making them a few months ago. Do you know, they’ve managed to create hundreds of these pens with only one factory? They call it ‘mass-production.’”

“I know.” Edmund had designed the machine as well as the pen. “My machine will revolutionize industry in Britannia.”

“Will it?” Babbages looked surprised. “Will it really? With pens?”

“Not just pens, but eventually other things as well. People made things, then people made tools to make things. Now we can make machines that make tools.” Will we ever make something that makes machines? What would that be like? He waved a hand, brushing the errant thought away. “Like Plinkerton Moulde before me, I will re-shape industry in Brackenburg, for all it people.”

“I assure you, Master Edmund,” Dean Aquinas frowned sharply, “that we are not… people. We are professors!”

“A distinction too many seem unwilling to make,” Master Babbages bobbed his head with a sign. “Never-the-less, one soldiers on, doesn’t one? Yes… one does,” Master Babbages glanced back at the book. “So…the Mouldes must be rich, then?”

“I would have to disagree with those who said otherwise,” Edmund said, perfectly truthfully while still managing to lie.

“Excellent,” Master Babbages snapped the book shut, and pulled the monocle from his eye. “You will receive our written decision within the week.”

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