A Blindefellows Chronicle
Here's the opening of my new novel, enjoy....
It was midday on 31 August, and the new history master had arrived at Blindefellows, a former charity school for poor blind boys, now a second-division private school for anyone who could pay. Twenty-six-year-old
Charles Sedgewick gingerly carried one little cardboard box at a time into his assigned rooms in Loaghtan Wing, nervously
avoiding the oddly prominent incisors of a flock of a few-dozen miniature black sheep that jostled around him. A flock had been there for generations, deployed by the school’s founder to crop the grass of
the grounds, and were now trotting along baa-ing for a possible treat. Sedgewick, who sported tortoiseshell-rimmed glasses and unkempt wavy black hair, had selected a casual outfit suitable for heavy lifting
on his arrival: Bermuda shorts, buckled sandals and an orange T-shirt he’d grown out of, which rode up as he carried the boxes, revealing the loose musculature of his midriff.
The deputy head, Reverend Beaulieu ‘Bunny’ Hareton, and William Japes, the physics master, watched from one of the neoGothic
leaded-glass windows of the Oak Room as Sedgewick – assisted by a middle-aged couple, the female of which kept referring
to him as ‘Charl’, omitting the ‘es’ – ponderously unpacked a purple Austin Allegro Estate.
‘Are those his parents he’s brought with him? Are you sure about this one, Bunny?’ Japes asked.
‘Yes, I believe those are his parents,’ Bunny replied. ‘And, yes, I am quite sure about Sedgewick. He lives and breathes history; it’s his life.’
‘Mm, I can tell, and that’s precisely the problem.’ Japes sighed. ‘I’ll go and see him tomorrow. Help him to get settled.’
‘Settled?’ Bunny glanced down at him, revealing a tinge of anxiety. There was nothing settled about Japes. With his receding sandy Brylcreemed hair, a mischievous twinkle in his hazel eyes and an
ironic smile ever-playing about his lips, he had the look of a vampiric sprite. An ex-military man, he was always dapper, with a silk handkerchief in the breast pocket of his brass-buttoned blazer, which showed off his still-powerful torso. Despite having now turned 40, his circle of lady friends was ever-growing and he displayed not the faintest flicker of ever settling down himself.
‘They really have brought absolutely everything for the lad,’ Bunny remarked as he
observed Sedgewick’s parents carrying in groceries, tea towels and an ironing board. ‘You’d think at twenty-six he’d be making a move like this for himself. Well, I trust he’ll become a man of the world with your expert guidance, Japes.’
Auriel Roe
https://unbound.com/books/a-blindefel...
It was midday on 31 August, and the new history master had arrived at Blindefellows, a former charity school for poor blind boys, now a second-division private school for anyone who could pay. Twenty-six-year-old
Charles Sedgewick gingerly carried one little cardboard box at a time into his assigned rooms in Loaghtan Wing, nervously
avoiding the oddly prominent incisors of a flock of a few-dozen miniature black sheep that jostled around him. A flock had been there for generations, deployed by the school’s founder to crop the grass of
the grounds, and were now trotting along baa-ing for a possible treat. Sedgewick, who sported tortoiseshell-rimmed glasses and unkempt wavy black hair, had selected a casual outfit suitable for heavy lifting
on his arrival: Bermuda shorts, buckled sandals and an orange T-shirt he’d grown out of, which rode up as he carried the boxes, revealing the loose musculature of his midriff.
The deputy head, Reverend Beaulieu ‘Bunny’ Hareton, and William Japes, the physics master, watched from one of the neoGothic
leaded-glass windows of the Oak Room as Sedgewick – assisted by a middle-aged couple, the female of which kept referring
to him as ‘Charl’, omitting the ‘es’ – ponderously unpacked a purple Austin Allegro Estate.
‘Are those his parents he’s brought with him? Are you sure about this one, Bunny?’ Japes asked.
‘Yes, I believe those are his parents,’ Bunny replied. ‘And, yes, I am quite sure about Sedgewick. He lives and breathes history; it’s his life.’
‘Mm, I can tell, and that’s precisely the problem.’ Japes sighed. ‘I’ll go and see him tomorrow. Help him to get settled.’
‘Settled?’ Bunny glanced down at him, revealing a tinge of anxiety. There was nothing settled about Japes. With his receding sandy Brylcreemed hair, a mischievous twinkle in his hazel eyes and an
ironic smile ever-playing about his lips, he had the look of a vampiric sprite. An ex-military man, he was always dapper, with a silk handkerchief in the breast pocket of his brass-buttoned blazer, which showed off his still-powerful torso. Despite having now turned 40, his circle of lady friends was ever-growing and he displayed not the faintest flicker of ever settling down himself.
‘They really have brought absolutely everything for the lad,’ Bunny remarked as he
observed Sedgewick’s parents carrying in groceries, tea towels and an ironing board. ‘You’d think at twenty-six he’d be making a move like this for himself. Well, I trust he’ll become a man of the world with your expert guidance, Japes.’
Auriel Roe
https://unbound.com/books/a-blindefel...
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