Collected Recollections Continued

A Lesson in Intemperance

My relationship with my father was not nearly so idyllic as that which I shared with Mother. In many ways I have always felt a certain sense of alienation with regard to the paternal factor of my parental equation. At times, I've felt we could not possibly related, that I had somehow sprung from Mother without inheriting any shred of his own person being. However, with the tempered distance of my current age, I know this to be merely the idle whimsy of a disenchanted son. In all honesty, Father had at least some meager share of virtues for all his manifold faults. Although I would not describe him as a handsome man, he possessed a particular charm of manner that made him quite attractive to some, perhaps too many. Unfortunately he was not as immune from carnal temptations as one expects of a married man; though it seems that marital bonds are all too often inadequate restraint against man’s baser impulses. Mother tolerated his indiscretions in her stoic, quiet sort of way, which evoked curiosity and respect in me in equal measure.

Father made liberal use of the hospitality offered him by the provincial squirearchy, and was frequently absent from home, meaning his influence upon me was mercifully limited. However, he did see to it that from my infancy onward I was amply aware that he considered me a grave mistake. I was a burden under which he was condemned to labor for the rest of his days. Although at the time I felt naught but the pain and suffering of a child scorned, the passage of time has a way of tempering one’s youthful passions. Perhaps it was understandable, from the unsteady philosophical standpoint of a cad, why he seized every available opportunity to abrogate his responsibilities.

One incident in particular comes to mind. It was the winter of my fifth year of life, and mother had taken ill. A month earlier she went for her daily constitutional about the grounds as was her habit until the very end. A dreadful squall had blown down from the Great Land Sea and she went out despite protestations from myself and the nurse that the weather would be too much even for a woman of her stalwart constitution. I remember crying in vain for her not to leave, but she was not one to be swayed by the tears of her only child on any account. She always frowned upon such displays of emotion from any quarter, but she was kind enough to forgive them in children, and suffered my wails with quiet indifference.

When she returned half an hour later, she was soaked to the bones, her teeth chattering uncontrollably. She said that she was fine, but instead of spending the evening writing bitingly satirical correspondence to the local government or perusing the latest tract on the scientific rearing of children, Mother went directly to bed. Within a few hours, her blood was boiling –a powerful fever had clutched her body and clouded her mind. My nurse immediately sent our valet, Desderan Fenwyck to fetch the local doctor.

Born and raised in Perejin, Fenwyck joined our family as a young man even before I was born, and would remain mother's faithful servant, confidante and friend for the rest of their lives. Despite the impediment of his modest position, he was of sufficient natural intellect to avoid the gaffes and indiscretions that have come to negatively color many people's view of the manservant. He was a handsome man, with broad muscular shoulders and a trim waist, a figure befitting a nobleman even in the humble accoutrement of his profession. The face of this extraordinary specimen was similarly well-crafted, its high cheekbones set beneath glittering blue eyes and luxuriant blonde hair. Honest and hardworking to a fault, Fenwyck’s character was as blemish free and evenly constituted as his corporeal form.

Fenwyck set off on the fastest horse left in the stable, my father having taken Argentus, his swiftest steed, whilst visiting the estate of some minor notable a few towns away. Despite Fenwyck’s daring riding, it still took a few hours for the doctor to fight his way through the storm, which continued beat down as hard as ever. The doctor, whose name escapes me, had a pinched, tired face. He examined mother in an altogether brief, even brusque manner before pronouncing quite definitively that she would be dead within the week. Naturally we were all horrified at the news, and a sodden Fenwyck was sent off again into the torrential rain and lashing wind, this time to fetch Father to his wife's deathbed. Mother lingered in her weakened condition for several days before Father returned. Though I am loathe to read such callous disregard into my father's actions, it seems all too likely to me now that he dallied, delaying the end of his licentious pleasures even in the face of Mother's grave illness. Finally he arrived, sullen and dissolute to pay his token respects.

Over the coming weeks Father grew more impatient with Mother's persistent, albeit tenuous grasp on life. He would visit her occasionally, usually when she was asleep in order to avoid conversation. He spent the bulk of his time pacing about the house and grounds, clearly wishing to be anywhere but with his family. There came a day about a month after Mother's ill-fated expedition when Father's somewhat frail sense of decency fell victim to his vile humors. I remember it well. I was busy building a reproduction of Neerhemhind's opera house based on a sketch from one of Mother's books -- she was always a great enthusiast and patron of the arts -- when Father came into the parlor and slumped into a chintz armchair.

"What are you doing?" he asked in a wholly uncurious tone of voice.

"Building an opera house. Do you think mother will like it?" I replied in the innocent manner of a child.

He laughed, a loud, raucous bray that I found frightening at the time, and patently uncouth as a grown man. "Like it? I shouldn't think so, I've never known her to be satisfied by anything."

"That isn't true!" I protested. "She derives enjoyment from all manner of things! Why must you always be so negative about her?"

"Don't chastize me you insolent whelp! You have no idea the burdens under which I must labor -- a sick shrew upstairs and a whining brat in front of me. I was free once!" he said, rising from his chair in a threatening manner. He hovered over me, debating whether to strike a blow across my ear, but I stared back at him as implacably as a young Gimmelthorpe.¹ After a moment he muttered some curses, poured himself a glass of port from a nearby decanter, drank it, and poured another. On his way back to the armchair he purposefully knocked over my carefully constructed facade, tumbling the graceful colonnades and all. He squatted down so that his face was level with mine. I could see every pore on his well-scrubbed face and smell the lingering scent of jasmine which he applied vigorously during his toilet. "Boy, I am going to give you two pieces of advice that I wish my father had given me."

"Yes?" I asked, admittedly terrified, and nearly distraught over the violence done to my opera house.

"Never marry. Never have children. You'll be a happier man without such encumbrances."

I was aghast. Even at such a young age I was able to identify cruelty when I saw it. "That's a dreadful thing to say."

He laughed at me again, and downed his port in a single go. "It's nothing but the truth," he said, before leaving me alone. I wanted to cry, to dash off to the nurse in the hopes that she would pull me to her bosom, and offer me the comfort for which I so desperately hungered. But something inside me stayed the tears. I realized then and there that abandoning myself to the caprices of emotion would accomplish nothing. An ocean of tears could change nothing but the disposition of various shipping interests -- matters that were of no import to me. It was at that precise moment, that I became a man of action. I committed myself to perseverance in the face of even the most daunting of obstacles, the preservation of dignity under pressure, and the maintenance of honor, no matter what its cost. I would not become him.


¹ Elothnin's great artist turned monarch, a beneficent ruler, and famously obstinate in his condemnation of the anti-modernist tendencies of the aristocracy.