possessor of not only a considerable estate, but great accumulations. I was also the chief of an old and honoured name, and the holder of an ancient baronetcy.
I must not omit to reckon the love and care of a most fond and devoted mother, who was left my sole guardian at my father’s early death. Of that father I remembered nothing, nor was his name familiar to my ears, for my surviving parent never once mentioned, to my recollection, the slightest trait or memory connected with him she had lost. The servants observed the same strange reticence. Even the garrulous old nurse, who poured into my greedy ears her stores of gossip and tradition, never spoke of my dead father. His portrait did not hang among the many family pictures on the walls. Closely locked in a cabinet, and covered by a veil, my mother kept the likeness of the husband of her youth; nor did I ever become, during her lifetime, aware of its existence.
That father, unmentioned but unforgotten, must have died when I was in my fifth year, but not at Sherringham Priors. I have seldom doubted of the date, because, though I seem to remember my poor mother never dressed otherwise than in deep mourning, I can recollect that my white frock and pretty blue sash were exchanged for black, and that I was no longer called “Master Willy” by the menials about me. “Sir Wilfred” was my new designation; and I can recall that, child as I was, I was proud of the implied promotion, and provoked because no one would explain to me its cause or meaning.
If I may trust to the vague impressions of infancy, I was an object of affection, but also of something very like fear, to those about me. My mother, I am sure, was afraid of me; at least, such was the idea that I derived from the timid glances which she would cast at me as I sat apparently absorbed in my lesson-books or my toys. She was of a most gentle nature, but to me she behaved with a studied gentleness, an excess of patient kindness, that suggested even to an unformed mind the notion of extreme precaution. Although tenderly reared, I may say that I was humoured rather than indulged, and met with more compliance than spontaneous caresses. These are subtle distinctions to have suggested themselves to one so young, but children have a surprising keenness of instinct, especially when bred up alone. Such was my case.
I had no brothers or sisters whose play, and studies, and baby quarrels and reconciliations I could share: mine was a moody and wayward infancy, and my mind became the more active because healthy play seemed to be denied me. No one chid me; harshness and injustice were unknown to me, but at the same time I met with no real sympathy. With all my mother’s affection for me, I knew, I felt, that there was a gulf between us two. And with a strange perverseness I began to think of my dead father, to long for his presence, to canvass in my own mind his probable aspect and disposition. I should have loved him, I thought, better than I loved the fond patient mother. For I felt that he must have resembled myself, that there would have been a fellow-feeling between us.
It seems wonderful to me, in looking back, that I should, at so early an age, have so clearly comprehended my relationship to a person never openly mentioned. But children are for ever on the look-out for some fresh information about the new marvellous world which they have lately entered, and they catch up and piece together broken scraps of their elders’ talk in a manner hardly explicable. No doubt the servants at the Priors had been well drilled, but no authority can quite padlock women’s lips. Here and there I caught a stray phrase, such as—“how like old master,” or—“a true Sherringham all over,” and the warning “hush!” of the other persons present seldom failed to give point and weight to such utterances.
As I grew older, still stronger became the wish to learn what it was that made the Sherringhams a race apart, and why I was treated with a deference which instinct rather than experience assured me to be unusual. The servants were not only obsequious to their young master,—that was perhaps natural,—but they were grave and cautious, and never ventured on the jocose remarks so often heard from the old and privileged retainers who have known the heir from his cradle. The gardener was never testy when I trampled his flower-beds and made havoc among his peaches. The gamekeeper and grooms touched their hats as seriously as to a grown man. No provocation could induce my nurse to scold me, though I have often seen her crimson with anger, actually biting her lips to keep down the tart reproofs that rose to her tongue. My mother, hitherto my sole instructress, let me learn as much or as little as I pleased. If I complained of headache, or even if I had a whim for a walk or other pastime, the book was closed at once. It so chanced that I was a studious child, and I learned fast, but no coercion was ever attempted; my will was law, and I was in a fair way to become what is vulgarly called a spoiled urchin. That I did not become such was owing to the very peculiarity which made the curse and the burden of my life, to that viewless something that I was always trying, with my half-formed intellect, to grasp and grapple with, and which filled me with the first and only fear I have ever known.
I saw that the servants treated me less as a fellow-creature than as some valuable and frail property which might sustain injury from careless handling. My mother’s conduct was even harder to endure. She loved me, I knew, but she gave no free expansion to her love. Good conduct met with no hearty praise, such as wins a child’s allegiance when judiciously bestowed; idleness and peevishness elicited no blame. My mother watched me as if I had been a young wild beast, tame indeed, and reared in silken captivity, but which might at any unguarded moment break out into the bloodthirsty fierceness of its savage stock.
She was not a Sherringham, and therefore I felt that she could not be as I was, for I had gathered from hints and morsels of talk that I was the true type of my race. We lived in a midland county; the house and gardens of the Priors were one of the boasts of the countryside,