“We have arrived at the St. Blaise Royal Academy, sir.”
The driver tapped through the small window, his voice much more polite than it had been in the East End. In the West End, even a guest wearing a secondhand frock coat could be connected to some MP or baron at any moment.
Ryan paid the fare, picked up his battered leather suitcase filled with old books and a change of shirt, and stepped onto the stone stairs.
For the first time, the full view of the St. Blaise Royal Academy unfolded before his eyes.
Passing through the tall, black iron archway, he was greeted by a long, deep stone corridor.
On both sides of the corridor stood historical statues and monuments sculpted from marble and bronze—the most prominent prime ministers, colonial governors, and chief justices of the British Empire over the past century. Their statues were meticulously polished, their hollow eyes staring down at every young person passing beneath them.
The lawns in the courtyard were trimmed to perfection, and the holly trees maintained their dark green curves amidst the snow.
Carrying his suitcase, Ryan followed the signposts into the registrar's office on the first floor of the main building.
The hall of the registrar's office was tall and chilly. Behind several long rosewood tables sat a few academy clerks dressed in dark, round-collared robes. Their tables were piled high with thick parchment files and quill pens, and the air was filled with the scent of high-grade ink and dry paper—a stark contrast to the musty stench of the East Port Archive.
“Name.”
A young clerk with meticulously combed hair and gold-rimmed glasses didn't even look up, his quill making a soft rustling sound on the parchment.
“Ryan. Recommended by the East End parish.”
The clerk's fingers paused imperceptibly for a second. He looked up, his grey eyes behind the lenses sweeping over the collar of Ryan's frock coat—which was washed to the point of being slightly faded—before immediately returning to a mechanical, formulaic coldness.
“Number thirty-one. Preparatory Class One.”
“This is your dormitory key, library card, and your course schedule quota for this term.” The clerk pushed forward a heavy brass key and a gold-stamped, hardbound booklet. “Your dormitory is on the third floor of the west wing, Room 304. Please complete your check-in before four in the afternoon. Tonight at six, there is an opening banquet in the main hall.”
“Thank you.”
Ryan took the key, said nothing more, and turned to walk toward the west wing.
The corridors of the wing were even quieter than those of the main building. His footsteps on the black oak floorboards made a dull, solid sound.
Ryan inserted the brass key into the keyhole, gave it a gentle turn, and with a click, pushed open the door to Room 304.
The room was a long, narrow rectangle. The layout was not luxurious, but it was extremely decent and had a sense of history.
The walls were made of unpainted grey stone bricks. Directly opposite the door was a narrow, paned glass window, through which one could look out at the black bell tower and the quiet central courtyard in the distance.
Placed against the wall was a single wooden plank bed made up with clean linen sheets. The black oak desk was mottled yet polished, with a brass oil lamp and an unopened box of ink sitting on top. Next to the desk was a row of empty black wooden bookshelves, and in the corner stood a small fireplace with a black iron door.
On the washstand sat a white porcelain basin and a copper pitcher, with two dry white towels hanging nearby.
Ryan set his suitcase on the desk, walked over to the fireplace, and used a match to light the two pieces of coal the academy had prepared in advance.
The flames rose slowly, bringing a faint, clean warmth.
Ryan walked to the window and pushed open a corner of it.
The icy winter wind, mixed with snowflakes, blew against his pale face. In the distance, the black bell tower let out a low “dong—”, startling several pigeons perched on the shoulders of the statues in the courtyard.
He looked down from above at this massive, ancient, and austere complex of black stone buildings, his palm gently stroking the cold stone windowsill.
“Dong— Dong— Dong—”
At five-thirty in the afternoon, the evening bell on the black bell tower rang on time. The heavy tolling penetrated the narrow corridors of the wing, sending ripples of echoes bouncing off the stone walls.
Ryan tidied his clothes. Having no other formal attire, he still wore that same frock coat. When he pushed open his door, the figures of other preparatory students were already beginning to appear in the corridor one after another.
Most of those young men were seventeen or eighteen, wearing fine dark blue wool coats and leather boots polished to a mirror shine. They walked in groups of twos and threes, conversing in low, familiar London accents.
Ryan stood quietly at the very back of the group, blending into the background.
The opening banquet was held in the academy's main hall.
The massive hall was dozens of meters high, with dozens of intricate, colossal bronze chandeliers hanging from the vaulted ceiling. Hundreds of white candles burned, lighting the entire hall with a bright and brilliant glow.
Black oak tables extending fifty feet long were lined up in the center of the hall, covered with spotless, snowy white linen tablecloths, and set with gleaming silver cutlery and crystal-clear goblets.
Hanging on the stone walls on both sides of the hall were massive oil paintings—portraits of past headmasters, patron nobles, and highly decorated lords of the empire from St. Blaise's century-long history. The preparatory students took their seats one after another according to the seating arrangement assigned by the registrar's office.
Ryan found his seat—at the very edge of the long table, in a corner close to the massive fireplace but far from the central circle of light.
Once seated, Ryan quietly observed his peers around him.
These young people who were able to sit in the hall of St. Blaise were naturally divided into several distinct social circles:
Sitting at the very center of the long table, subtly surrounded and supported by the others, were several young men with lazy and arrogant postures. In their conversation, phrases like “a certain peerage,” “bills in the House of Lords,” and “family stables” appeared frequently—they were from traditional noble families.
Right next to them was a group of young men with extremely standard, almost rigid manners. They discussed the “Third Cabinet Bill,” “positions in the Foreign Office,” and “the preferences of a certain undersecretary”—clearly from high-ranking civil servant families.
On another side, a few sharp-eyed young men dressed in the most fashionably tailored clothes of the day were whispering about “the interest rates of the Bank of England,” “rubber futures in the West Indies,” and “dividends from the Suez Canal”—presumably the new money.
In another corner, there were even a few slightly dark-skinned, cold-eyed youths speaking in low tones about “colonial tariffs” and “native pacification.”
There was no childish mockery like in web novels, nor did any wealthy heirs run over to vulgarly provoke or humiliate Ryan for his secondhand coat.
In the top academies of the Victorian era, the upbringing and arrogance of the upper class were seamlessly fused.
A public school boy sitting next to Ryan even bowed slightly to him in a polite manner when reaching for the salt cellar, murmuring a standard, “After you, sir.”
Over the next hour of the banquet, the people around him enthusiastically discussed the private life of some MP or a certain professor's background in the cabinet. Yet, not a single person proactively spoke a word to Ryan, nor did any gaze linger on him for more than half a second.
Ryan did not show the slightest hint of awkwardness or unease. He calmly used his silver knife and fork to cut the medium-rare roast beef on his plate, spread mashed potatoes onto his rye bread, and swallowed it down bite by bite.
Rate on N.U.
