Life had been very kind to me. I had been born into a family with some social status and a modest income, I had been well educated by my father, and I had been blessed with a reasonably pleasant face and a sound, healthy physique. Moreover, I had experienced certain titillating events in my childhood that many men older than my current eighteen years would be overjoyed to be able to recount.
Nevertheless, I was not at all satisfied to be dispatched to far away places, albeit only ten miles outside of London, which was my father’s original home. Even worse was the necessity of assuming a life of toil, which was admittedly the rather easy, innocuous life of a school master. Partly, my displeasure was because I hated to be uprooted from the home I had occupied all of my rather comfortable life. Largely, however, was that I was not only recently enjoying a much broader scope of what I would consider licentious behavior within that rather pleasing household, but also just discovering the many, shall we say, hidden advantages that my situation might accord me in this parish that was poor in monetary terms, but so rich in attractive, obedient parishioners.
To briefly summarize, in my younger years I had discovered some rather startling facts about my father and his treatment of my mother and older sisters. In addition, I had recently been indulging myself in similar sorts of activities with other compliant females in the parish, whether they might be totally willing or not. While I shall not here describe those youthful experiences in detail, I shall reiterate that I was quite loathe to lose those opportunities – especially as I was now being required to trade those indulgences for a life of toil and, so I thought, complete self-denial.
How wrong I was. And how happy am I to have been so wrong!
However, as the pony cart in which I traveled plodded its weary way along the dusty, narrow road that led to the small town of Bruxton, I brooded with self-pity over the terrible fate I believed had befallen me. My father, having been the third son of a fairly wealthy land owner, had received the usual lot of a good education, a comfortable if rather plain place in life, and a total lack of inheritance for his own oldest (and in this case, only) son. Father had sent me off to the employ of an old childhood friend, a man named Aloyisis Nickleby. This man Nickleby owned a boarding school for young women, which my father described in the most glowing terms as being very large and successful. I could scarcely credit that description as I looked upon the small, nondescript town I approached at a pace even a snail would have been ashamed to set. Still, I had been assured a post as a teacher of the liberal arts (how liberal I would soon learn!), which included room, board, and the princely sum of £10 per annum, should I prove suitable to my new employer’s pleasure. Although I was not enthralled with the prospect of spending the better part of my young, lusty life teaching literature, philosophy, metaphysics and religious dogma to a gaggle of young, insipid girls, I was grimly determined that I would indeed suit my employer’s desires in order to ensure myself of a comfortable living.
Arriving at long last at my presumed destination, I was surprised that the pony cart did not stop at one of the tall, rather decrepit buildings within the town, but continued upon a small side road that I presumed carried me even closer to the fabled town of London, which at least promised to provide me with some pleasures and enlightenment during my leaves from the school. Another mile and a half down that road we entered a rather large copse of trees – a veritable forest, which I later found out surrounded the entire estate upon which Nickleby’s school was located – at which point the road actually became paved with cobblestones! This in turn eventually led to large wrought iron gates, which were connected to a high, spiked fence running entirely around the estate. Rather that standing open, as I certainly would have presumed, the gates seemed to be guarded by a small cottage, out of which emerged a large, burly man at the sound of our approaching cart. Not until this strange guard had ascertained my identity and purpose in approaching did he permit the cart to enter the vast, but well-kept grounds.
I confess, I was already terribly impressed by all of this even before the cart continued down another long cobble stoned pathway to eventually stop at a group of large, extremely handsome buildings. The cart driver stopped before the foremost of these, an incredibly huge, ornately articulated stone fortress – which I might have easily believed could have been a castle at some not too distant point! As I gaped at the building the driver gestured, and I stepped down from the cart. I heaved my trunk down upon the stones and picked up my small valise without a word. The driver did not pause for any sort of reward, but set off in the opposite direction as soon as I was safely clear of his cart.
Then the most strange thing of all! Rather than a butler and footmen emerging to assist me, three young women in long, rather modest garb descended from the wide entrance staircase. They kept their eyes down, their hands clasped in front of them, and spoke not a word as they curtsied in front of me. The largest of the three picked up my small trunk, the second timidly took my valise, and the third merely bobbed her head at me, indicating that I should follow. As the three silently headed back up the stairs, I did so.
We entered a vast entrance hallway, with more doors leading from this single room than my father’s entire house had contained. The two girls carrying my bags – I use that word now, although all three were at least five years older than myself – walked towards one door at the side. However, the smallest, whom I thought of as my guide, went directly to the center door in the farthest wall. Without hesitation, I followed.
Never looking back or speaking a word, she led me up several staircases, all both wide and impressive in dimensions and appearance. As we ascended, I could not help but notice that her young, womanly posterior swayed very seductively under that long, dull serving dress she wore. She herself seemed to take no notice whatsoever.
Finally, we arrived at what I took as the Master’s suite of apartments. The furnishings were noticeably more opulent than those incredibly fine furnishings we had already passed, and it seemed to me that even the landing on this floor was more spacious than those below.
The girl knocked softly on a large, hand-carved oak double door. At the word “Enter!” she did so. With some sense of wonder at all of this, I did the same.
At a large, solid cherry desk sat a man I presumed to be Aloyisis Nickleby. Although they must have been the same age, this man looked years younger than my father. He was also considerably more handsome, and even sitting I could tell he was taller and still well built.
As he looked up from his work, the girl meekly approached his desk. She actually knelt briefly on one knee, as though to a king! She then stood with her feet apart and hands clasped behind her, looking down at the floor, although Nickleby barely seemed to notice.
The man looked at me closely for several minutes, then nodded curtly as though satisfied at some sign I could not fathom. He flicked a hand, and the girl immediately glided out of the room, closing the door quietly behind her.
“So,” the man said in a moderate tone, with a voice not terribly deep yet still rich. “You must be Andrew Brown.” He did not seem to feel any need to introduce himself. “As I recall your father, you are both taller and better looking than he.”
My eyes rose in astonishment, both that he had virtually echoed by own thoughts about himself, as well as the implied insult to my father. He smiled at my reaction, not knowing the first reason, but obviously guessing the second.
