He was a man to whom solitude and retirement appeared to be the chief
essentials of existence. Though living in London, he very rarely
mingled in society, yet I have since heard that he always met with a
most cordial welcome when he did so--and it was seldom indeed that his
studio doors unfolded to admit anyone but their master. If he went into
the country, as of course was often the case, in search of subjects, he
never by any chance happened to be going in the same direction as any of
his brethren of the brush; his destination was invariably some wild
spot, unfrequented--possibly even unknown--alike by painter and tourist.
And there--if undisturbed--he would remain, diligently working all day
in the open air during favourable weather; and, when the elements were
unpropitious for work, taking long walks over solitary heaths and
desolate mountain sides, or along the lonely shore. And when the first
snows of winter came, reminding him that it was time to turn his face
homeward once more, he would pack up his paraphernalia and return to
town, laden with studies of skies and seas, of barren moorland, rocky
crag, and foaming mountain torrent which provoked alike the envy and the
admiration of his brother artists.
It will naturally be supposed that, to a man of such solitary habits as
these, the society of his only child would be an unspeakable comfort.
But, with my father, this did not appear to be by any means the case.
He never took me out of town with him on his annual pilgrimage to the
country; and, when he was at home, it often happened that I did not see
him, face to face, for weeks together. As a consequence of this
peculiar arrangement, almost the whole of the time which I spent indoors
was passed in the nursery, where also my meals were served, and wherein
my only companion was Mary, the nursemaid.
The only exceptions to this isolated state of existence were those rare
occasions when my father, without the slightest warning, and apparently
with as little reason, used to send for me to visit him in his studio.
It was during these interviews that his peculiar treatment of me became
most noticeable. As a general rule, when--after a vigorous cleansing of
my face and hands and a change of my raiment had been effected by the
nursemaid--I was introduced into the studio, my father would ensconce me
in a roomy old easy-chair by the fire; provide me with a picture-book of
some kind wherewith to amuse myself; and then take no further notice of
me. This, however, seemed to depend to some extent upon the greeting
which I received from him, and that proved to be a tolerably accurate
index of the humour which happened to possess him at the moment.
Sometimes the greeting would consist of a cold shake of the hand and an
equally cold "I hope you are well, boy," accompanied by a single keen
glance which seemed at once to take in every detail of my person and
clothing. Sometimes the shake of the hand would be somewhat warmer, the
accompanying remark being, perhaps, "I am glad to see you looking so
well, my boy." And occasionally--but very rarely--I was agreeably
surprised to find myself received with an affectionate embrace and
kiss--which I always somewhat timidly returned--and the words, "Lionel,
my son, how are you?"
When the greeting reached this stage of positive warmth, it usually
happened that, instead of being consigned at once to the arm-chair and
the picture-book, I was lifted to my father's knee, when, laying aside
palette and brushes, he would proceed to ask me all sorts of questions,
such as, What had I been doing lately; where had I been, and what had I
seen worthy of notice; did I want any new toys? and so on; enticing me
out of my reserve until he had coaxed me into talking freely with him.
On these especial occasions he had a curious habit of wheeling round in
front of us a large mirror which constituted one of his studio
"properties," and into this, whilst talking to me, he would intently
gaze at his own reflected image, and mine, laying his cheek beside mine
so as to bring both our faces to the same level, and directing me also
to look into the mirror. Sometimes this curious inspection terminated
satisfactorily; in which case, after perhaps an hour's chat on his knee,
I was tenderly placed in the easy-chair, in such a position that my
father could see me without his work being materially interfered with;
our conversation was maintained with unflagging spirit on both sides;
and the day was brought to a happy close by our dining together, and
perhaps going to the theatre or a concert afterwards. There were
occasions, however, when this pleasant state of affairs did not obtain--
when the ordeal of the mirror did not terminate so satisfactorily. It
occasionally happened that, whilst gazing at my father's reflected
features, I observed a stern and sombre expression settling like a heavy
thunder-cloud upon them; and this always sufficed to speedily reduce me
to silence, however garrulous I might before have been. The paternal
gaze would gradually grow more intense and searching; the thunder-cloud
would lower more threateningly; and unintelligible mutterings would
escape from between the fiercely clenched firm white teeth. And,
finally, I would either be placed--as in the last-mentioned instance--
where my father could look at me whilst at work--and where he _did_
frequently look at me with appalling sternness--or I was at once
dismissed with a short and sharp "Run away, boy; I am busy."
Looking back upon the first eight years of my existence, and
contemplating them by the light of my now matured knowledge, I am
inclined to regard them as quite an unique experience of child-life; at
all events I would fain hope that but few children have suffered so
keenly as I have from the lack of paternal love. And yet I cannot say
that I was absolutely unhappy, except upon and for a day or two after
those chilling dismissals from my father's presence to which I have
briefly referred; the _suffering_, although it existed, had by long
usage become a thing to which I had grown accustomed, and it consisted
chiefly in a yearning after those endearments and evidences of affection
which I instinctively felt were my due. The conviction that _my
father_--the one to whom my childish heart naturally turned for sympathy
in all my little joys and sorrows--regarded me coldly--for his
demonstrations of affection were indeed few and far between--exercised a
subduing and repressive influence upon me from which, even now, I have
not wholly recovered, and which will probably continue to affect me to
the latest hour of my life. What made my position decidedly worse was
that my father had, so far, not deemed it necessary to send me to
school; and I had, therefore, no companions of my own age, none of _any_
age, in fact, except Mary, the nursemaid aforementioned, and Mrs
Wilson, the housekeeper; the latter--good motherly body--so far
compassionating the state of utter ignorance in which I was growing up
that, in an erratic, unmethodical sort of way, she occasionally devoted
half an hour or so of her time of an evening to the task of forwarding
my education. In consequence of this state of things I often found it
difficult to effect a satisfactory disposal of the time left to lie
somewhat heavily on my hands.
I have said that Mrs Wilson was kind enough to undertake my education;
and very faithfully and to the best of her ability, poor soul, she
carried on the task. But nature had evidently intended the old lady to
be a housekeeper, and not an instructress of youth; for whilst she
performed the duties of the former post in a manner which left
absolutely nothing to be desired, it must be confessed that in her self-
imposed task of schoolmistress she failed most lamentably. Not through
ignorance, however, by any means. She was fairly well educated, having
"seen better days," so she was possessed of a sufficiency of knowledge
for her purpose had she but known how to impart it. Unfortunately,
however, for me she did not; she was entirely destitute of that tact
which is the great secret of successful instruction; she had not the
faintest conception of the desirability of investing my studies with the
smallest particle of interest; and they were in consequence dry as the
driest of dry bones and unattractive in the extreme. She never dreamed
that it might be advantageous to explain or point out the ultimate
purpose of my lessons to me, or to illustrate them by those apposite
remarks which are often found to be of such material assistance to the
youthful student; if I succeeded in repeating them perfectly "out of
book" the good woman was quite satisfied; she never attempted to
ascertain whether I understood them or not.
Under such circumstances it is probable that I should have derived
little or no advantage from my studies had not my preceptress possessed
a valuable ally in my own inclinations. Writing I was fond of; reading
I had an especial desire to master, for reasons which will shortly
become apparent; but arithmetic I at first found difficult, and utterly
detested--until I had mastered its rules, after which I soon reached a
point where the whole became clear as the noonday light; and then I fell
under the magical influence of that fascination which figures for some
minds is found to possess. But geography was my favourite study. There
was an old terrestrial globe in the nursery, the use of which my father
had taught me in one of his rare genial moments; and over this globe I
used to stand for hours, with my geography in my hand and a gazetteer on
a chair by my side, finding out the positions of the various places as
they occurred in the books.
It sometimes happened that Mrs Wilson went out to spend the evening
with a married daughter who resided somewhere within visiting distance;
and, when this was the case, my studies were of course interrupted, and
other means of employing my time had to be found. Thanks, chiefly, to
the fact that these occasions afforded Mary, my particular attendant, an
opportunity of escape from the somewhat dismal lonesomeness of the
nursery, these evenings were very frequently spent in the servants'
hall, where I had an opportunity of enjoying the conversation of the
housemaid Jane, the cook, and Tim, the presiding genius of the knife-
board and boot-brushes. I always greatly enjoyed these visits to the
lower regions, for two reasons; the first of which was that they were
surreptitious, and much caution was needed, or supposed to be needed, in
order that my journey down-stairs might be accomplished without
"master's" knowledge; the remaining reason for my enjoyment being that I
generally heard something which interested me. Whether the interest
excited was or was not of a healthy character the reader shall judge.
The cook, of course, reigned supreme in the servants' hall, the other
occupants taking their cue from her, and regulating their tastes and
occupations in accordance with hers. Now this woman--an obese, red-
armed, and red-visaged person of about forty years of age--was possessed
by a morbid and consuming curiosity concerning all those horrors and
criminal mysteries which appear from time to time in the public prints;
and the more horrible they were, the greater was her interest in them.
The evening, after all the work was done and there was opportunity to
give her whole attention to the subject, was the time selected by her
for the satisfaction of this curiosity; and it thus happened very
frequently that, when I made my appearance among the servants, they were
deep in the discussion of some murder, or mysterious disappearance, or
kindred matter. If the item under discussion happened to be fresh, the
boy Tim was delegated to search the newspaper and read therefrom every
paragraph bearing upon it, the remainder of the party listening intently
and open-mouthed as they sat in a semicircle before the blazing fire.
And if the item happened to be so stale as to have passed out of the
notice of the papers, the cook would recapitulate for our benefit its
leading features, together with any similar events or singular
coincidences connected with the case which might occur to her _memory_
at the moment. From the discussion of murders to the relation of ghost
stories is a natural and easy transition, and here Jane, the housemaid,
shone pre-eminent. She would sit there and discourse by the hour of
lonely and deserted houses, long silent galleries, down which misty
shapes had been seen to glide in the pallid moonlight, gaunt and ruinous
chambers, the wainscot of which rattled, and the tattered tapestry of
which swayed and rustled mysteriously; gloomy passages through which
unearthly sighs were audibly wafted; dismal cellars, with never-opened
doors, from whose profoundest recesses came at dead of night the muffled
sound of shrieks and groans and clanking chains; "of calling shapes, and
beckoning shadows dire, and airy tongues that syllable men's names on
sands, and shores, and desert wildernesses," until not one of the party,
excepting myself, dared move or look round for fear of seeing some dread
presence, some shapeless dweller upon the threshold, some horrible
apparition, the sight of which, Medusa-like, should blast them into
stone. Not infrequently the situation was rendered additionally
harrowing by the cook, who would suddenly interrupt the narrative, send
an icy thrill down our spines, and cause the unhappy Tim's scalp to
bristle even more than usual, by exclaiming in a low startling whisper:
"_Hark_! didn't you hear something move in the passage just then?"
Whereupon Jane and Mary would spring to their feet, and, with pallid
faces, starting eyes, and blanched lips, cling convulsively to each
other, convinced that at last their unspoken fears were about to be
dreadfully realised.
It will naturally be supposed that these _seances_ would have a
dreadfully trying effect upon my infantile nerves; but, strangely
enough, they did not. I never looked beneath my cot with the
expectation of discovering a midnight assassin; for, in the first place,
the outer doors of the house were always kept so carefully closed that I
did not see how such an individual could well get in; and, in the second
place, admitting, for argument's sake, the possibility of his effecting
an entrance, I did not for a moment believe he would give himself the
wholly unnecessary trouble of murdering a little boy, or girl either,
for that matter. Then, as to the ghosts, though it never occurred to me
to doubt their existence, I entirely failed to understand why people
should be afraid of them. I felt that, in regarding these beings as
objects of dread and apprehension, the housemaid, the cook, and in fact
everybody who took this view of them, entirely misunderstood them, and
were doing the poor shadows a most grievous injustice. My own
experience of ghosts led me to the conclusion that, so far from their
being inimical to mankind, they were distinctly benign. There was one
ghost in particular to whose visitations I used to look forward with the
greatest delight; and I was never so happy as when I awoke in the
morning with the vague remembrance that, at some time during the silent
watches of the past night, I had become conscious of a sweet and
gracious presence beside my cot, bending over me with eyes which looked
unutterable love into mine, and with lips which mingled kisses of
tenderest affection with softly-breathed blessings upon my infant head.
At first I used to mention these visitations to Mary, my nurse, but I
soon forbore to do so, noticing that she always looked uncomfortably
startled for a moment or two afterwards, and generally dismissed the
subject somewhat hurriedly by remarking:
"Ah, poor lamb! you've been dreaming about your mother."
Which remark annoyed me, for I felt convinced that so realistic an
experience could not possibly result from a mere dream.
It sometimes happened that there were no tragedies or other horrors in
the newspapers sufficiently piquant to tempt the cook's intellectual
palate; and in the absence of these, if it happened also to be Jane's
"evening out," Mary would occasionally produce a well-thumbed copy of
the _Arabian Nights_, or some old volume of fairy tales, from which she
read aloud.
How I enjoyed those evenings with the old Eastern romancist! How I
revelled in the imaginary delights and wonders of fairydom! Of course I
pictured myself the hero of every story, the truth of the most
outrageous of which it never occurred to me to doubt. Sitting at Mary's
feet, on a low stool before the fire, with the old cat blinking and
purring with drowsy satisfaction upon my knee, I used to gaze
abstractedly at the glowing coals, now thinking myself the prince in
"Cinderella," now the happy owner of "Puss in Boots," and now the
adventurous Sindbad. There was one story, however--I quite forget its
title--which, in strong contrast with the others, instead of affording
me gratification, was a source of keen annoyance and vexation to me
whenever I heard it. It related to a boy who on one occasion had the
good fortune to meet, in the depths of the forest, a little old man in
red cap and green jerkin--a gnome or fairy, of course--who with the
utmost good-nature offered to gratify any single wish that boy might
choose to express. Here was a glorious chance, the opportunity of a
lifetime! The boy's first thought was for ginger-bread, but before the
thought had time to clothe itself in words the vision of a drum and
trumpet flashed across his mind. He was about to express a wish for
these martial instruments, and a real sword, when it occurred to him
that the fairies were quite equal to the task of providing gifts of
infinitely greater value and splendour than even these coveted articles.
And then that unfortunate boy completely lost his head; his brain
became muddled with the endless variety of things which he found he
required; and he took so long a time to make up his mind that, when, in
desperation, he finally did so, the unwelcome discovery was made that
his fairy friend, disgusted at the delay and vacillation, had vanished
without bestowing upon him so much as even one poor ginger-bread
elephant. It was that boy's first and last opportunity, and he lost it.
He never again met a fairy, though he wandered through the forest, day
after day, week after week, and year after year, until he became an old
man, dying at last in a state of abject poverty.
The moral of this story was obvious even to my juvenile mind. It
plainly pointed to the necessity for being prepared to take the fullest
advantage of every opportunity, whenever it might present itself; and I
was resolved that, if ever I encountered a fairy, he should find me
fully prepared to tax his generosity to its utmost limit. And,
forthwith, I began to ask myself what was the most desirable thing at
all likely to be within a fairy's power of bestowal. At this point I,
for the first time, began to realise the difficulties of the situation
in which the unhappy boy of the story found himself. I thought of
several things; but none of them came quite up to my idea of a gift such
as would do full honour and justice to a fairy's power of giving; the
utmost I could imagine was a real ship full of real sailors, wherein I
might roam the seas and perform wonderful voyages like Sindbad; and, in
my efforts to achieve a still higher flight of imagination, I found
myself so completely at a loss that I was fain to turn to Mary for
counsel. Accordingly, as I was being escorted by that damsel upstairs
to bed one night, I broached the subject by saying:
"Mary, supposing you were to meet a fairy, what would you ask him to
give you?"
"Lor'! Master Lionel, I dun know," she replied. "That's a question I
shouldn't like to answer just off-hand; I should want to think it over a
good bit. I should read a lot of books, and find out what was the best
thing as was to be had."
"What sort of books?" I asked.
"Oh! any sort," was the reply; "books such as them down-stairs in your
pa's lib'ry; them's downright _beautiful_ books--your pa's--full of all
sorts of wonderful things such as you never heard tell of."
This reply afforded me food for a considerable amount of profound
reflection before I went to sleep that night; the result of which was
that on the following morning, as soon as I had taken my breakfast, I
descended to the "lib'ry," opened the doors of one of the book-cases,
and dragged down upon my curly pate the most bulky volume I could reach.
With the expenditure of a considerable amount of labour I conveyed it
to the nursery, and, flinging it and myself upon the floor, opened it
hap-hazard, feeling sure that, in a book of such imposing dimensions, I
should find something valuable wherever I might open it. It was an
English work of some kind, I remember; but, alas for my aspirations! it
might almost as well have been Greek. I was equal, just then, to the
mastery of words of two syllables, but no more; and the result was that,
though I occasionally caught a glimpse of the meaning of a sentence here
and there, the subject matter of the book, as a whole, remained a
profound mystery to me. My want of knowledge was at once made most
painfully apparent to myself; I discovered that I had a very great deal
to learn before the treasures of wisdom by which I was surrounded could
be made available; and I forthwith bent all my energies to the task of
perfecting myself in the art of reading as a first and indispensable
step.