Chatsworth House

By Christopher Patrick Lydon

The day he started Cavendish Secondary School, he had never expected what was to come. The life that would unfold for him, and the choices that would eventually be his and his alone to make.

That day had been a typical late summer day, sun soaking down on new school uniforms as they lined up in front of the school, first year students waiting desperately for their class and house assignments that would validate their lives at Primary school. They had been assured, when they had first been told which of the two Secondary Schools they would be attending, that they would be placed in the same class as their friends.

Peter knew that was a lie.

Both of his closest friends had been sent to the other school, Ratton, and the rest of his friends Edward and Neil were destined for another house. He was an academic, they weren't.

That left him alone, and the imposing old brick structure with its green copper roof and dark doorways gaping like a dark maw to consume him. It was terrifying, to start again, he'd never been good at making new friends. The ones he had lost had taken so long to become his friends. He steadied his quivering lip, trying his best not to cry as his name was read out for Chatsworth House, and he stepped forward, hands in his grey pockets, very aware that his uniform didn't quite match the others. They wore crisp white shirts, dark blue sweaters and black pants neatly ironed. He wore greys, plain grey shirt, charcoal slacks and a grey sweater. It was still permissible as a uniform, but showed his parents lack of money, and standing out like he did, he knew he was in trouble.

* * *

Peter stood with his hands in his suit pockets staring up at the old school. It hadn't changed much after ten years. A place he had come to hate, a place where he had been completely miserable. But there he stood, almost ten years to the day, wearing a grey suit, on the same patch of grass where he had first received his house assignment.

He wasn't the poor boy any more. He studied the old stones through expensive designer sunglasses, and his BMW was parked a short distance away. How things had changed in such a short time. So many years, several oceans, and so many people. And yet he found himself standing there, under the sun, relaxing in its warmth, remembering.

He walked down the grassy hill, towards the stone pathway that led around the school. Aware that he was technically trespassing. But considering he was old alumni, a sizeable check donated to keep the schools doors open for future students, he figured they wouldn't mind so much.

Funny, donating money to a place he had despised as a child, a place where he had been bullied, tormented and tortured just for being a little different. Well he was taller now, he had money, and his differences were what made him who he was.

He had been moulded in that place, in the darkened corners when the teachers weren't around, and the only instruction came at the end of a pair of fists. He'd learned a lot about how the world worked, wiping blood from his lip as he tried to give as good as he got, but was too small, too weak.

His eyes squinted as he crossed a playground, watching kids bouncing balls to each other and catching them in their matching shorts and white shirts. Carbon copies of the system. Xeroxed human beings all trying so determinedly to find themselves when their individuality was so rigidly suppressed in a Victorian system.

His knee ached, and he glanced down it, walking past the concrete steps that he had been shoved down. An accident the other boy had claimed, Peter shook his head again, knowing that the "accident" had cost him any chance of becoming an athlete, robbed of that at the tender age of twelve because of some other boys spite.

Even ten years later, the injury reminded him of the pain of being different.

This place had broken his body, but it had never broken his spirit. His head was high, as a smile played across his face. There were good memories in that place, the quad where he had first seen blue eyes shyly looking at him.

He flushed warmly at the memory taking a moment to sit down in what had been his favourite corner, staring across to where a young man used to sit. Hair draped across one eye, allowing him to hide himself from the world, nose stuck in a book. Neat uniform and perfectly tied tie.

Peter smiled to himself, remembering the shyness of a first conversation with a boy that was so shy he blended into the background of the school. Never venturing more than a few words as he hid himself away. A companion for Peter's own solitude. The outcast and the bookworm.

It hadn't mattered that they were from two different classes. Jason's father had been a barrister with a London firm, working so hard that he never had time to acknowledge the wonder that had been his own son. Peter had been from a low class military family, scraping for everything they had while his father travelled the world doing the Queens duty, abandoning his son to his fate.

They had clung to each other, two lost souls in the raging ocean of adolescence. Relying on each other's strengths to see them through the long school days, just to get to that blessedly peaceful walk home. Peter always electing to take the long way, walking Jason home first, just to enjoy a few stolen moments of time till he reached that garden gate, come rain, sleet or sun.

Peter smiled as he sat back on that low stone wall, remembering the laughter and the tears. Last minute homework being done as they sat pressed up against one another frantically trying to copy from one to the other. One strong in English, the other strong at Math, he chuckled, it was a wonder they had managed to get anything done, put them together and you would have had one student, not two.

He stood up again, stretching as he walked on, looking over at the field, and the cricket game in full swing. The distinctive Yellow shirts playing Green. Chatsworth getting creamed by Gilbert, something's never changed.

He had, at first, disliked the system the school had devised for putting all the academics in one house, all the athletes in another, and the slower students in the last. It was a class system within a class system. But he could recognize it for what it was, an attempt to keep similar students together and cultivate their natural talents. Type cast from the age of twelve to fit perfectly into a society after school was done.

Except the school had done nothing to adequately prepare any of them for the truth that lay outside those school gates; the confusion and regret over the decisions that they would have to make.

He watched the bat connect squarely with the red ball, sending it sailing away, bouncing and rolling an easy four. Not bad for a bunch of academics that the school had never bothered to teach how to play properly. After all what did a scientist know about sportsmanship or teamwork?

No, the other houses taught that to them. Jason had been cornered in the area behind the kitchens, the huge barrels for rubbish that was supposedly off limits to the students, and naturally because a teacher had said it was off limits, they never bothered to patrol, after all what student would disobey the rules?

Gilbert bullies, naturally, it was a house built around competition after all. They had cornered the mousy Chatsworth with the intent of inflicting pain upon him because he wore yellow. A big sign that said he was a target for anyone in green. It had been that first punch that had snapped Peter.

He had been looking for Jason, and coming around to find his one friend, the person he shared everything with, being picked on by three bullies had been enough to force the rough military brat into rushing to the defence of his friend. Never mind that they were bigger than he was, never mind that they out numbered him. That had been his Jason crying in the corner.

Black eyes, bloodied lips and more bruises than either side could account for; a teacher had broken up the fight, good old Mister Wilson. Tossing people aside as he pulled a flailing Peter off of the lead Gilbert student, dragging the lot of them down before the Headmaster.

Peter chuckled to himself, shaking his head, instead of being angry, something about old Mister Wilson, one of the teachers from Chatsworth House, had been especially pleased that one of his weakling academics had managed to give as good as he got.

Peter's father hadn't been as forgiving. There was something about those late spring nights, Jason's mother working late to pay the bills. Peter using the time to escape his family and spending it nursing his injuries as Jason had tended those bruises dutifully, grateful to the friend that had come charging into the midst of it all, just to rescue him.

Those hands gingerly touching the bruises to make sure they were going away, concern in those blue eyes. Worry whenever new ones appeared. But while Peter's bruises lay on the outside, Jason's father had inflicted far worse. His neglect turned into abandonment.

Those late nights had allowed them to become tight, and when Jason's mother had finally divorced her negligent husband, it had been Peter Jason had turned to. Clutching onto his grey sweater and burying those tear filled blue eyes into his friends shoulder, sobbing about the end of his world.

Those bruises couldn't be treated so easily. And while Peter's faded with time as his father was once again shipped over seas. Jason's could only be healed with Peter's constant attention. An absent father and an overworked mother left it up to Peter to show affection to those sapphire eyes that had come to mean so much to him.

Peter stopped as he saw a man, walking from the cover of the schools doorway to meet him. Those hooded eyes, and wizened features. Time hadn't been kind to Mister Wilson's face, but recognition glimmered in those sharp eyes as the headmaster of the school recognized one of his former students.

They exchanged a few words, Peter with his hands in his pockets, nodding to a man that had helped to shape him. Taught him the meaning of duty and honour, and had guided him down the path to believing that he could be more than the sum of his parts.

They ended the conversation with Mister Wilson asking one simple question, "So how's Jason?"

Peter turned his head, looking across to his car, and the tall man. Hair draped across one eye, allowing him to hide himself from the world, blue eyes shyly watching him as he talked with their former teacher.

"He's happy." Was Peter's simple reply.

Story MMIV Christopher Patrick Lydon; Layout © MMII-MMV CRVBOY. All Rights Reserved.