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16.

In the early autumn of 1998, having completed my education at Ludgrove the previous spring, Ientered Eton.

A profound shock.

The finest school in the world for boys, Eton was meant to be a shock, I think. Shock must’vebeen part of its original charter, even perhaps a part of the instructions given to its first architectsby the school’s founder, my ancestor Henry VI. He deemed Eton some sort of holy shrine, asacred temple, and to that end he wanted it to overwhelm the senses, so visitors would feel likemeek, abased pilgrims.

In my case, mission accomplished.

(Henry even vested the school with priceless religious artifacts, including part of Jesus’sCrown of Thorns. One great poet called the place “Henry’s holy shade.”)Over the centuries Eton’s mission had become somewhat less pious, but the curriculum hadbecome more shockingly rigorous. There was a reason Eton now referred to itself not as a schoolbut simply as…School. For those in the know, there simply was no other choice. Eighteen primeministers had been molded in Eton’s classrooms, plus thirty-seven winners of the Victoria Cross.

Heaven for brilliant boys, it could thus only be purgatory for one very unbrilliant boy.

The situation became undeniably obvious during my very first French lesson. I was astoundedto hear the teacher conducting the entire class in rapid, nonstop French. He assumed, for somereason, that we were all fluent.

Maybe everyone else was. But me? Fluent? Because I did passably well on the entrance exam?

Au contraire, mon ami!

Afterwards I went up to him, explained that there’d been a dreadful mistake and I was in thewrong class. He told me to relax, assured me I’d be up to speed in no time. He didn’t get it; he hadfaith in me. So I went to my housemaster, begged him to put me with the slower talkers, the moreglacial learners, boys exactement comme moi.

He did as I asked. But it was a mere stopgap.

Once or twice I’d confess to a teacher or fellow student that I wasn’t merely in the wrong classbut in the wrong location. I was in way, way over my head. They’d always say the same thing:

Don’t worry, you’ll be all right. And don’t forget you always have your brother here!

But I wasn’t the one forgetting. Willy told me to pretend I didn’t know him.

What?

You don’t know me, Harold. And I don’t know you.

For the last two years, he explained, Eton had been his sanctuary. No kid brother taggingalong, pestering him with questions, pushing up on his social circle. He was forging his own life,and he wasn’t willing to give that up.

None of which was all that new. Willy always hated it when anyone made the mistake ofthinking us a package deal. He loathed it when Mummy dressed us in the same outfits. (It didn’thelp that her taste in children’s clothes ran to the extreme; we often looked like the twins fromAlice in Wonderland.) I barely took notice. I didn’t care about clothes, mine or anyone else’s. Solong as we weren’t wearing kilts, with that worrisome knife in your sock and that breeze up yourarse, I was good. But for Willy it was pure agony to wear the same blazer, the same tight shorts, asme. And now, to attend the same school, was pure murder.

I told him not to worry. I’ll forget I ever knew you.

But Eton wasn’t going to make that easy. Thinking to be helpful, they put us under the samebloody roof. Manor House.

At least I was on the ground floor.

Willy was way upstairs, with the older boys.

 
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