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It had been a few weeks since Bardroy had become employed at the Phantomhive manor. After a few initial hiccups, things had begun to progress rather smoothly; he felt like he fit in, and the other servants were more than welcoming to this poor man who couldn’t even roast a chicken.
One day, while gathering in the kitchen to receive their daily tasks from Sebastian, Finnian stood up with a shout.
“Mister Sebastian! Mister Sebastian! When’ll you give us reading lessons again?”
Sebastian sighed, running a hand down his face in exasperation. “I suppose that is another thing we need to work on. My schedule is full enough as is…” He turned to Bard with a smirk.
“Mister Bardroy, I do believe you are literate?”
“You’re telling me neither of you know how to read?”
“Afraid not, I am!”
Bard sighed, sitting down at the cramped wooden table with his younger coworkers. Mey-Rin and Finny, evidently, had such lives before the manor that they were not taught to read whatsoever. It hurt his heart to think about it too much, so he decided not to- instead, Bard tried to focus his attention onto the matter at hand.
“So…” He muttered, looking around the table curiously, “How’s Sebastian do this? Do you two have some sorta routine?”
Finny raised his hand cheerfully. “The- The young master said that my name came from this book!” He pointed to a book laying next to him on the table, labeled Fenian Cycle. “I’ve been trying really hard to learn how to read it, so I can understand where my name comes from!”
“Eh, the young master named you?” Bard asked, picking the book up and flipping through it. He cocked an eyebrow as he skimmed through the text. “Finny, this whole thing’s in Irish or something.”
“Irish? Don’t they speak English, though?”
“Er, no, the Irish have their own language. Garlic or whatever it’s called. Don’t you have any easier English books you’d like to learn to read?”
“This one’s in English, it is,” Mey-Rin sheepishly handed Bardroy a relatively short chapter book with a dark cover. Jane Eyre was inscribed on the front. “There’s… quite a bit of words I’m not sure of yet. But a romance… that’s the sort where they fall in love, isn’t it?”
Bard flipped through this book as well, nodding. “Yeah, this one’s a romance novel. If you don’t have much reading experience, won’t this be a bit daunting, though?”
Mey-Rin sighed, pointing at the first page of the book. “A lot of these words are daunting, they are. Some of them are just so long… Like this one, all the letters look awfully similar. I’m not sure how to pronounce it, no I’m not. But the story sounds interesting, so I want to try.”
“Well this one… the thing about reading is, you already know a lot of these words. It’s just harder to see them written out, I think.” Finny and Mey-Rin nodded eagerly- eyes sparkling, hands balled into fists- they were hanging onto every word.
“Like, Mey-Rin, this one says possibility. This one isn’t too bad because I think you can sound it out, right? Like, the ‘poss’ is like ‘moss’. It’s really long, but it’s not too hard if you take your time.” The young girl furrowed her eyebrows and looked at the page again, closer.
“I see it, I do! Can I sound this one out, too? Wayn-der-ing?”
“Ah, no, that one’s different. The ‘a’ makes an ‘ah’ sound, not an ‘ay’ sound. It’s…” Bard crossed his arms and huffed. “English is a frustrating language like that. Sometimes things are different across different words. But if you know the basics, you’ll be able to get the gist of what’s being written.”
“I can read the first sentence!” Finny declared, pointing to the book. “The..re? The-re was no… possibility? Of taking a walk that day!” He laughed, leaning back on his chair. “I got it!”
“You sure did!” Bard grinned and ruffled the younger boy’s hair, almost automatically. As soon as he made contact, though, he realized what he was doing- Bard quickly removed his hand and apologized for the contact.
“It’s fine, Mister Bard!” Finny laughed, waving his hand dismissively. “I really don’t mind! I’ve never had this much physical contact before, after all!”
“Your hugs are awfully crushing, yes they are…” Mey-Rin added, nudging the boy gently. In an attempt to return the favor, Finny pushed her out of her chair. She got up laughing.
“Oi! Are you alright, Mey-Rin?” Bard asked, holding out his hand to her. He fixed her glasses on her face- another gesture he didn’t even think of, but quickly apologized for.
“Between all this and you teaching us how to read, you’d be a great father, yes you would!” She answered, laughing. Bard laughed too, but soon felt a lump growing in his throat. He swallowed it down quickly.
“Ah, sure, anyway… we’re here to learn to be literate, right, guys?”
“Yeah!” Both students replied.
“So… what do you guys want to do?”
“I wanna work on writing!” Finny declared, grabbing a piece of paper and a jar of paint from the shelf behind him. “This one’s gonna be my best yet, I just know it!”
Mey-Rin chuckled, and grabbed some paper of her own. She leaned close to Bard. “He uses the finger paint because he kept breaking all the pens and pencils. You should look at some of the old sentences, he’s come awfully far, he has.”
Figuring he had nothing else to do as they worked, Bard stood up to look through their old writings. He grabbed the stack of paper labeled “Finnian”- of course, in pristine handwriting. That damn prissy butler. Each paper had a short sentence or two on it, written in thick, green paint. Plenty of red ink covered the sentences, indicating the many mistakes made by the boy.
“My name is Finnian ”
“ Frog was green”
“Grass is grow!! Its growing very very very green!”
“Trees also r green. Alot is green in the grden. My eyes green to!”
“My hair is
blawn blohm blond
yello!! It is grow
ing
kind ove long.”
“Sebasschin give me big sissors for plants. I have too be carefull.”
“Sebastian Sebastian Sebastian Sebastian Sebastian Sebastian Sebastian”
Bard chuckled at the last one- clearly someone wasn’t happy about having his name misspelled so poorly. It made him smile to think about how much Finny was enjoying being a gardener, and how amazed he was by all the greenery that surrounded him.
It did not make him smile to think about what sort of life he had before that caused grass and trees to be astounding discoveries.
“Mister Bard!” The aforementioned gardener called, “How do you spell ‘important’?”
“Jus’ Bard is fine…” He spelled out the word, and received a glowing thumbs-up in response. Mey-Rin was writing just as intently, though she seemed too immersed in her work to even begin to ask questions.
“So, what’re you writing about?” The chef asked, more put-off by the silence than anything else.
“Normally we just write about our jobs, yes we do,” Mey-Rin explained, tapping her pencil frustratedly. “Sebastian says a lady ought to have proper penmanship, but mine is just awful, it is!” Bard took her paper and looked at it curiously.
“It’s… I mean, I can read it, Mey-Rin.”
“It’s not very lady-like.”
“Doesn’t matter.” Bard took the red pen from the table and began to try and circle mistakes, just as Sebastian did. Missing punctuation here, a wrong tense there. He handed the paper back to her, and she smiled gratefully.
“Thank you! The next one will be even better, yes it will!”
Bard smiled at her and watched Finnian, lost in the intense paragraph he was producing.
Imagine if Joanna saw me now, he thought, leaning his chin on his hands. Teaching two kids to learn to read, and I could barely do it for Junior.
Finnian tapped on his shoulder- stronger than really necessary, but as light as he could muster. “I’m finished, Mister Bard.”
“I’m tellin’ you, you can drop the ‘mister’.” Despite himself, the man smiled and took the paper.
“Today we got to take a brake from our jobs to werk on reading and riting! I am very very happy that mey rin and mr bard are with me now. They
r
are very very
important
to me! I meet so meny new frends at the manor! Even thow I am not in the g
a
rden today, I am very very happy.”
“So… do you like it? Do you have to add a bunch of red ink?” Finny cocked his head curiously, watching as Bard stared at the paper for a while- not even reading, anymore.
Suddenly, the older man slammed the paper down and pulled Finny into an embrace. He beckoned Mey-Rin over, too, pulling her tight into the circle.
“Thank you, Finny. It’s lovely.”
The younger boy’s smile sparkled, infectious and huge and powerful. Mey-Rin glanced at the paper, and started tearing up.
“You’re getting so good with writing, Finny!” She excitedly gestured to the paper, pointing out how impressive it was that he thought to use big words like important and how he fixed some of the mistakes all on his own.
Bard still used some of the ink to correct mistakes, but was sure to add lots of stars, flowers, and “good job!”s.
The reason why any of it had to be done didn’t matter anymore to him, not really. Finnian’s joy radiated to all around them, and that was enough.