KNIGHTLEY ACADEMY

by Violet Haberdasher

  It was nearly six o’clock when the train shuddered into the station and Henry gently shook Professor Stratford awake.

  “Kumquats or hobgoblins, please,” Professor Stratford mumbled sleepily, and Henry bit back a laugh.

  “Professor? We’re here.”

  As if in agreement, the train’s shrill whistle blew and a conductor out in the hall yelled, “Hammersmith Cross Station, end o’ the line. All passengers alight here.”

  Professor Stratford gave an enormous and rather loud yawn, then lurched to his feet, eyes still half closed. In a sleepy stupor, he groped blindly in the air for his suitcase, which sat stubbornly out of his reach on the overhead rack.

  Henry snorted with laughter. He’d seen Professor Stratford fall asleep at the High Table over a plate of jam and toast, but he had clearly underestimated the professor’s ability to wake up and function. Rather, he had underestimated the lag time between the two.

  Standing on tiptoe, Henry heaved both of their suitcases off the luggage rack and, with one in each hand, somehow managed to coax the professor out onto the platform.

  As they stepped onto the platform and were jostled from all angles by the surging crowd, Professor Stratford came awake at last.

  “Good heavens, Henry, you can’t be carrying both suitcases? I’m awake. Here, hand me my bag.”

  Hefting his book-filled suitcase, Professor Stratford wove his way in the direction of a sign that helpfully read way out and depicted a pointing hand.

  This sign led them into the station proper, which bustled with travelers. Henry and the professor threaded through the crowded, tunnel-shaped building, all the while following posted arrows that finally deposited them at a vast set of doors.

  Outside, a line of hansom cabs stood at the curb.

  “Where to, guv’nor?” a cabdriver asked Professor Stratford, politely doffing his cap to give a brief glimpse of his shiny bald head.

  The professor gave an address and slid into the carriage, leaving his luggage on the curb. Sighing, Henry heaved the professor’s bag into the back of the cab along with his own.

  It was only when Henry climbed onto the cool bench seat next to Professor Stratford that he realized the cabdriver had been expected to handle their bags.

  Reddening slightly, Henry stared out the window as the horse and driver jostled their way down the road. He’d never been in a carriage before, but that experience paled when compared with what he saw on the other side of the window.

  Skinny town houses crowded together on opposite sides of narrow alleyways, their chimney tops nearly touching. And along the sidewalks: carts selling everything you could imagine, from wind-up toys to books so tiny they would fit in the palm of your hand to exotic-looking fruits and newspaper cones of fresh-roasted chestnuts. Carved wooden signs shaped like animals marked the entrances to darkened taverns, and ragged children played in the streets.

  All too soon, the cab came to a stop. Henry looked around. They were in front of a pleasant four-story brick building with cheery red shutters and a dusty shop on the ground floor bearing a hand-lettered sign that read alabaster & sons, purveyors of rare books since 1782.

  “Where are we?” Henry asked.

  “A shot in the dark, actually,” Professor Stratford admitted, climbing out of the taxi. “After university, I rented a small flat above this bookshop for a summer. I was hoping it might be available.”

  Professor Stratford paid the driver and, with his suitcase banging purposefully against his leg, pushed open the door to the shop.

  Mrs. Alabaster, the widow who ran the bookshop, did indeed have a set of rooms available on the third story that she’d be delighted to let out. Before Henry knew it, he’d been hired for the summer to help out in the shop and was unpacking his bags into a small wardrobe in his new room.

  His room. For the first time, Henry had a room all to himself. It was an undreamt-of luxury. Between them, Henry and the professor shared a small washroom, two bedrooms, and a cramped sort of parlor. Never mind that the carpets smelled slightly of cats or that the wallpaper had begun to peel in the corners, to Henry, it was the finest flat he had ever seen.

  And before he knew it, Henry came to think of the flat as his home. He and Professor Stratford settled into a routine: steaming mugs of tea together in the mornings during brief tutoring sessions, which always seemed to focus on history these days, and then Henry would spend his afternoons downstairs in the shop, cataloging, mending torn spines, helping customers, and often curling up in a threadbare armchair with any book he pleased. Professor Stratford found work tutoring a young woman who had just moved from abroad and had apparently learned everything backward and all wrong—she spoke of measurements in inches instead of centimeters and didn’t understand Celsius at all.

  In the evenings, Henry got to know the City: He learned the footpaths and alleyways, the hour at which the gaslights came on, and the moment when the baker down the road put fresh pastries on the counter. He learned the smell of the wharf and the sound of the bridge rising to let tall ships pass beneath, which parks were good for sitting and thinking, and which parks were good for losing one’s wallet. He learned which alleyways led to the slums, and which to the darkened pubs where you could hire men to do anything for a price. He learned how to avert his eyes when ragged women begged for change in the streets, or the rouged ladies in low-cut gowns leered and called him “young master.” He learned that the factories, more often than not, employed boys half his age for wages that oftentimes made petty theft their only option for survival. And he learned that fearful whispers about the Nordlands were not limited to the Midsummer School kitchen, and had their place among other dark legends—of knife-happy burglars and deranged murderers—in the city taverns.

  But I would be a very bad narrator indeed if I led you to believe that the quiet life Henry and the professor shared in the City was without a very surprising interruption.

  Curses, as you surely remember, are meant to be broken. And once they break, unlike satchel straps or pairs of spectacles, they do not need to be fixed. However, to break something has consequences, and curses are no exception.

  The twelve trustees of Knightley Academy sat around a battered circular table, staring distastefully at their chipped teacups. Lord Winter was late, and until he arrived, the trustees couldn’t start yelling at him. It is very difficult, you see, to yell at someone who isn’t present.

  Lord Winter hadn’t meant to be late. In fact, he’d planned to be early, but that was before his daughter had shown up on the doorstep, kicked out of finishing school for the second time in three years.

  “What was the problem this time, Francesca?” Lord Winter asked, frowning at his angelic-looking daughter.

  “I’d rather not say.”

  Frankie grinned and, without waiting for a servant to help with her things, dragged her trunk along the once-grand carpet in the entryway.

  “Careful!” her father warned.

  “Of what?” Frankie snorted. “This ratty old rug? Be honest, Father, everything in this place is falling apart and worthless.”

  She abandoned her trunk in the middle of the foyer and swaggered into the parlor.

  “It’s like a furnace in here,” Frankie complained, pushing up the sleeves of her traveling dress and collapsing into a wingback chair.

  “Your mother loved this house,” Lord Winter said forlornly, his voice scarcely more than a whisper.

  Frankie sighed. It had been six years since her mother died of influenza. Six years since Lord Winter had become ill as well—with grief that turned into a permanent depression.

  Frankie remembered many days during her childhood when her father did not stir from his bed and would not so much as lift a cup of tea to his lips. She remembered other days when he would seem to be perfectly fine, and then suddenly he wouldn’t be. Lord Winter cried at the opera and the theater, and sometimes, he cried at the sight of cherry tarts, his wife’s favorite. The tears collected in his ginger beard
, and when Frankie hugged him, she used to think her father smelled of salt, like the sea.

  During his depression, Lord Winter had badly managed his accounts, and their once lovely home fell into disrepair. While Frankie was off at various schools, learning how to curtsy and embroider, leaks sprang and were rarely patched, the garden became a snarl and soon a tangle, and as if in response, the manor slowly began to tilt, until Lord Winter’s neighbors referred to the place as “that lopsided old manor house” behind the backs of their hands.

  But these days, Lord Winter seemed depressed less and less frequently. In fact, he had applied for the headmastership of Knightley Academy when their grand chevalier announced he would be retiring just after his eighty-second birthday.

  And now Lord Winter had made a mess of being headmaster barely two weeks into the summer. When Sir Frederick had sent a telegram with the scores from that beastly Midsummer School, Lord Winter had agreed to let him admit the servant boy with the startlingly high marks. After all, with a new headmaster, why shouldn’t Knightley undergo some changes?

  And then Lord Winter had started thinking. That servant, Harold or Henry or What-have-you, had been the first commoner allowed to take the exam. Perhaps there were more boys who would have scored just as high if they’d only had the chance to try.

  There was no rule against letting common-born boys take the exam. Not expressly. It wasn’t like he was overthrowing the monarchy by giving them the chance to try. After all, the academy reserved three places each year to admit late students, and after taking on the military history master’s nephew, two late places still remained unfilled. But the trustees were in the other room, waiting to convey their dour disapproval.

  The trustees! In all the excitement of his daughter’s return, Lord Winter had forgotten the hour.

  “Wait here,” he instructed Frankie. “I’m late to meet with the Knightley trustees, and they’ll likely hand me my head on a platter, but you and I aren’t finished with this discussion.”

  “We aren’t?” Frankie queried, raising an eyebrow. “Because I can continue this talk on my own, thanks. ‘Oh, Francesca, you’re such a disappointment. Oh, Francesca, you’re running out of schools to be kicked out of.’ Believe me, Father, I’ve heard it all before.”

  Lord Winter resisted a very strong urge to sigh. “Just wait here,” he instructed, striding purposefully toward the dining room and pushing open the vast carved doors.

  “Terribly sorry, gentlemen, but something unexpected came up,” Lord Winter said, taking his place in the only empty chair at the large round table.

  “That’s quite all right, Anthony,” Sir Frederick said merrily, helping himself to another cup of tea.

  But the others didn’t share Sir Frederick’s outlook. In fact, the looks on their faces were quite sour indeed.

  “Come now, Lord Winter, what is the meaning of all this?” A particularly wizened old man asked, slamming a newspaper onto the table so forcefully that his teacup rattled in its saucer, sloshing cold tea over the side.

  “Really, Lord Winter, what were you thinking?” another ancient gentleman asked, banging the table with his fist so that his teacup trembled in its saucer.

  “I was thinking,” Lord Winter said, raising a hand for silence, “that the times are changing, and if we’re not careful, Knightley could very well become a relic of the past. Look how few countries have held on to their history of training knights.”

  “Or held on to the notion of polite society at all,” the man with the newspaper muttered to the gentleman on his left.

  “This isn’t about other countries,” Sir Frederick put in. “It’s about progress. You can’t stand in the way of progress, gentlemen. I fully support Anthony’s decision to admit a few common students. In fact, I’ve thought for some years now that Knightley could do with widening its applicant pool. Diversifying and all that.”

  “Next thing, he’ll suggest we abolish the aristocracy, like Mors did in the Nordlands,” muttered the man with the newspaper again to the gentleman on his left.

  “This isn’t about the Nordlands, Lord Ewing,” Lord Winter said sharply. “Truly, it isn’t. You greatly throw off the proportions of what we’re trying to accomplish. I’m not saying that we do away with our class system, but merely that you allow this one opportunity for a few worthy commoners to better the lot they’ve been cast. Surely even you can’t see any harm in that.”

  “You’d understand where Anthony is coming from if you’d met the boy from Midsummer,” Sir Frederick put in.

  “Ah, yes, that ghastly servant we’ve taken as a pupil,” Lord Ewing said, drumming his fingers on the newspaper.

  “He speaks five languages with remarkable fluency, and they kept him in the kitchen washing dishes,” Sir Frederick said. “What a waste of talent! He’d be there still if I hadn’t let him take the exam. And that ‘ghastly servant,’ as you call him, managed to earn the highest score that we’ve seen in five years.”

  A few of the men seated around the table exchanged glances; they’d heard that some servant had passed the exam, but they’d never dreamed that the boy had beaten every other student at Knightley.

  But still, one could always be counted as a fluke. What would people think if they let more commoners into the academy?

  “Everyone is so sensitive toward change these days,” Lord Winter pointed out. “But have you ever stopped to think that this might give people hope that the turn of the century is nothing to fear? That it may, in fact, bring more good than harm?”

  “I still don’t like this,” Lord Ewing conceded. “But so long as these common boys score well on our exam, I propose we see what happens when they actually attend Knightley. If they succeed, then perhaps you men might be right about letting anyone take the exam next year. But if they fail, this year’s ‘progress,’ as you put it, is an experiment we won’t be repeating in my lifetime. If they fail, Lord Winter, you’d better not become too comfortable with your new job.”

  After Henry and Professor Stratford had been in the city for two weeks, there was a most curious edition of the evening post.

  As Henry walked back toward the bookshop after delivering a parcel of encyclopedias, he ran into a newsboy selling penny posts with the cry of “Extra! Extra! Knightley Academy now admitting commoners!”

  Henry bought a paper and unfolded it where he stood, scanning the article in disbelief.

  The newsboy hadn’t lied. In the wake of admitting their first common student, “a member of the serving staff at a local boys’ school who had been allowed to sit the exam along with the school’s pupils,” Knightley Academy was administering their exam to any fourteen-year-old boys who wished to take it, regardless of social standing. In three days, all desiring applicants would report to the Royal Museum for the examination, and the two boys with the highest scores would be admitted.

  According to Lord Anthony Winter, the newly

  appointed grand chevalier of Knightley Academy,

  “Perhaps this adaptation of centuries-old tradition

  is precisely the ‘common’ denominator

  that Knightley needs in these changing times.

  Here’s to new tradition, and to progress!”

  Henry tucked the newspaper under his arm and turned down one of the shortcut alleyways that led from the high street to his flat, his cheeks burning in embarrassment. People all over the country would be reading about him in their newspapers, and true, they wouldn’t know his name, but there he was, immortalized in print—a member of the serving staff.

  None of the other boys who had passed the Knightley Exam that year was mentioned in the article. No, it had just been him. Already singled out. Already different.

  Henry sighed, walking the familiar cobblestones that led back to the bookshop. At least he wouldn’t be the only commoner at Knightley—that was good news. There would be two others with whom he could share the experience, with whom he could become friends if the other boys were as haughty as he feared
. It was a relief, and yet, it also held the capacity to go terribly, horribly wrong.

  Perhaps the two boys would become fast friends when they took the exam together, and then Henry would spend the next four years as a permanent outsider, unable to gain the most crucial acceptance of all—that of potential friends. Henry hadn’t wanted to be the only boy with his background at Knightley, but then again, he hadn’t expected not to be either. Now he didn’t know what to expect.

  When Henry arrived back at the flat, he found Professor Stratford curled in his favorite chair, peering at an article in a gossip magazine. A copy of the evening post lay open on the nearby credenza, rumpled and probably read cover to cover, per usual.

  “Back already?” Professor Stratford murmured, frowning at the magazine. He glanced up at Henry, then grinned.

  “No, actually, I’m not here at all. You’re merely imagining my presence,” Henry joked.

  “Am I? Pity. My imagination could be put to such better use.”

  “Oh, very funny.” Henry rolled his eyes.

  The professor mock scowled, and then grinned. “It’s a good thing you’re home early. I’ve just received some exciting news.”

  Henry sank into the plush armchair across from Professor Stratford, wondering if this was going to be another of the professor’s inane jokes.

  “Well?” Henry urged.

  “I’ve accepted a new job. A more permanent one.”

  Henry’s face fell. This was no joke at all—in fact, it was horribly serious. Henry knew what this meant; Professor Stratford was leaving. Soon. They’d say good-bye and promise to write, and before Henry knew it, he would be alone in the City, living by himself in this drafty old flat for the rest of the summer, with no one to quell his nerves or assure him that everything would turn out all right at Knightley.

  “Congratulations.” Henry’s mouth was so dry that he nearly choked on the word.

  “Thanks, awfully,” the professor said, ignoring Henry’s dejection. “Sir Frederick just sent a telegram. You remember him—the Knightley examiner? Apparently Lord Winter’s daughter will be staying at home and will require a tutor this year, and Sir Frederick put in a few good words on my behalf.”