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| - The eldest daughter of the American Clement Dodge, a wealthy, absent-minded inventor, Vertiline was raised by a weak-willed but socially-ambitious mother (Mary) in a house full of broken inventions and odd tools. Her mother is a British woman of good family who moved to America upon her marriage. Verdie’s earliest playthings had cranks and hinges, and she learned to use tools as extensions of her own hands. As she grew older, her shyness and apparent stupidity made her an easy target of neighborhood bullies; she endured the abuse with stubborn ignorance, until she was set upon and defended herself with her fists. Her younger, sweet-natured sister, Adelaide, pretty and more socially adept, tried to defend her and made the locals ignore her, and Verdie is wordlessly devoted to her.
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| abstract
| - The eldest daughter of the American Clement Dodge, a wealthy, absent-minded inventor, Vertiline was raised by a weak-willed but socially-ambitious mother (Mary) in a house full of broken inventions and odd tools. Her mother is a British woman of good family who moved to America upon her marriage. Verdie’s earliest playthings had cranks and hinges, and she learned to use tools as extensions of her own hands. As she grew older, her shyness and apparent stupidity made her an easy target of neighborhood bullies; she endured the abuse with stubborn ignorance, until she was set upon and defended herself with her fists. Her younger, sweet-natured sister, Adelaide, pretty and more socially adept, tried to defend her and made the locals ignore her, and Verdie is wordlessly devoted to her. Their father squandered the family’s money, gleefully anticipating fame and wealth from his next successful invention, a success that never came. Eventually, a cad calling himself Hiram Lewis offered marriage to Adelaide and a business opportunity in canals to their father, but stole the money and vanished; their father died shortly thereafter and their mother moved them across the Atlantic to a tiny cottage in Dorset where she barely earns a living as a seamstress. Aged sixteen, Adelaide was sent off to a girl’s school as a part-time tutor and student; Vertiline wants to send most money she earns to support both of them in better luxury. Her strongest motivation is to prove her father’s genius (he may have had one or two good ideas but most of them were impractical, impossible monstrosities, probably very dangerous). She has a prized set of his notebooks, smeared with grease and almost illegible. She would also love to take revenge on Hiram Lewis, if she can ever find him again.
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