OF THE PARENTAGE OF THOMAS WINGFIELD
I, Thomas Wingfield, was born here at Ditchingham, and in this very
room where I write to-day. The house of my birth was built or added to
early in the reign of the seventh Henry, but long before his time some
kind of tenement stood here, which was lived in by the keeper of the
vineyards, and known as Gardener’s Lodge. Whether it chanced that the
climate was more kindly in old times, or the skill of those who tended
the fields was greater, I do not know, but this at the least is true,
that the hillside beneath which the house nestles, and which once was
the bank of an arm of the sea or of a great broad, was a vineyard in
Earl Bigod’s days. Long since it has ceased to grow grapes, though the
name of the “Earl’s Vineyard” still clings to all that slope of land
which lies between this house and a certain health-giving spring that
bubbles from the bank the half of a mile away, in the waters of which
sick folks come to bathe even from Norwich and Lowestoft. But sheltered
as it is from the east winds, to this hour the place has the advantage
that gardens planted here are earlier by fourteen days than any others
in the country side, and that a man may sit in them coatless in the
bitter month of May, when on the top of the hill, not two hundred paces
hence, he must shiver in a jacket of otterskins.
The Lodge, for so it has always been named, in its beginnings having
been but a farmhouse, faces to the south-west, and is built so low that
it might well be thought that the damp from the river Waveney, which
runs through the marshes close by, would rise in it. But this is not
so, for though in autumn the roke, as here in Norfolk we name ground
fog, hangs about the house at nightfall, and in seasons of great flood
the water has been known to pour into the stables at the back of it,
yet being built on sand and gravel there is no healthier habitation in
the parish. For the rest the building is of stud-work and red brick,
quaint and mellow looking, with many corners and gables that in summer
are half hidden in roses and other creeping plants, and with its
outlook on the marshes and the common where the lights vary continually
with the seasons and even with the hours of the day, on the red roofs
of Bungay town, and on the wooded bank that stretches round the Earsham
lands; though there are many larger, to my mind there is none
pleasanter in these parts. Here in this house I was born, and here
doubtless I shall die, and having spoken of it at some length, as we
are wont to do of spots which long custom has endeared to us, I will go
on to tell of my parentage.
First, then, I would set out with a certain pride—for who of us does
not love an ancient name when we happen to be born to it?—that I am
sprung from the family of the Wingfields of Wingfield Castle in
Suffolk, that lies some two hours on horseback from this place. Long
ago the heiress of the Wingfields married a De la Pole, a family famous
in our history, the last of whom, Edmund, Earl of Suffolk, lost his
head for treason when I was young, and the castle passed to the De la
Poles with her. But some offshoots of the old Wingfield stock lingered
in the neighbourhood, perchance there was a bar sinister on their coat
of arms, I know not and do not care to know; at the least my fathers
and I are of this blood. My grandfather was a shrewd man, more of a
yeoman than a squire, though his birth was gentle. He it was who bought
this place with the lands round it, and gathered up some fortune,
mostly by careful marrying and living, for though he had but one son he
was twice married, and also by trading in cattle.
Now my grandfather was godly-minded even to superstition, and strange
as it may seem, having only one son, nothing would satisfy him but that
the boy should be made a priest. But my father had little leaning
towards the priesthood and life in a monastery, though at all seasons
my grandfather strove to reason it into him, sometimes with words and
examples, at others with his thick cudgel of holly, that still hangs
over the ingle in the smaller sitting-room. The end of it was that the
lad was sent to the priory here in Bungay, where his conduct was of
such nature that within a year the prior prayed his parents to take him
back and set him in some way of secular life. Not only, so said the
prior, did my father cause scandal by his actions, breaking out of the
priory at night and visiting drinking houses and other places; but,
such was the sum of his wickedness, he did not scruple to question and
make mock of the very doctrines of the Church, alleging even that there
was nothing sacred in the image of the Virgin Mary which stood in the
chancel, and shut its eyes in prayer before all the congregation when
the priest elevated the Host. “Therefore,” said the prior, “I pray you
take back your son, and let him find some other road to the stake than
that which runs through the gates of Bungay Priory.”
Now at this story my grandfather was so enraged that he almost fell
into a fit; then recovering, he bethought him of his cudgel of holly,
and would have used it. But my father, who was now nineteen years of
age and very stout and strong, twisted it from his hand and flung it
full fifty yards, saying that no man should touch him more were he a
hundred times his father. Then he walked away, leaving the prior and my
grandfather staring at each other.
Now to shorten a long tale, the end of the matter was this. It was
believed both by my grandfather and the prior that the true cause of my
father’s contumacy was a passion which he had conceived for a girl of
humble birth, a miller’s fair daughter who dwelt at Waingford Mills.
Perhaps there was truth in this belief, or perhaps there was none. What
does it matter, seeing that the maid married a butcher at Beccles and
died years since at the good age of ninety and five? But true or false,
my grandfather believed the tale, and knowing well that absence is the
surest cure for love, he entered into a plan with the prior that my
father should be sent to a monastery at Seville in Spain, of which the
prior’s brother was abbot, and there learn to forget the miller’s
daughter and all other worldly things.
When this was told to my father he fell into it readily enough, being a
young man of spirit and having a great desire to see the world,
otherwise, however, than through the gratings of a monastery window. So
the end of it was that he went to foreign parts in the care of a party
of Spanish monks, who had journeyed here to Norfolk on a pilgrimage to
the shrine of our Lady of Walsingham.
It is said that my grandfather wept when he parted with his son,
feeling that he should see him no more; yet so strong was his religion,
or rather his superstition, that he did not hesitate to send him away,
though for no reason save that he would mortify his own love and flesh,
offering his son for a sacrifice as Abraham would have offered Isaac.
But though my father appeared to consent to the sacrifice, as did
Isaac, yet his mind was not altogether set on altars and faggots; in
short, as he himself told me in after years, his plans were already
laid.
Thus it chanced that when he had sailed from Yarmouth a year and six
months, there came a letter from the abbot of the monastery in Seville
to his brother, the prior of St. Mary’s at Bungay, saying that my
father had fled from the monastery, leaving no trace of where he had
gone. My grandfather was grieved at this tidings, but said little about
it.
Two more years passed away, and there came other news, namely, that my
father had been captured, that he had been handed over to the power of
the Holy Office, as the accursed Inquisition was then named, and
tortured to death at Seville. When my grandfather heard this he wept,
and bemoaned himself that his folly in forcing one into the Church who
had no liking for that path, had brought about the shameful end of his
only son. After that date also he broke his friendship with the prior
of St. Mary’s at Bungay, and ceased his offerings to the priory. Still
he did not believe that my father was dead in truth, since on the last
day of his own life, that ended two years later, he spoke of him as a
living man, and left messages to him as to the management of the lands
which now were his.
And in the end it became clear that this belief was not ill-founded,
for one day three years after the old man’s death, there landed at the
port of Yarmouth none other than my father, who had been absent some
eight years in all. Nor did he come alone, for with him he brought a
wife, a young and very lovely lady, who afterwards was my mother. She
was a Spaniard of noble family, having been born at Seville, and her
maiden name was Donna Luisa de Garcia.
Now of all that befell my father during his eight years of wandering I
cannot speak certainly, for he was very silent on the matter, though I
may have need to touch on some of his adventures. But I know it is true
that he fell under the power of the Holy Office, for once when as a
little lad I bathed with him in the Elbow Pool, where the river Waveney
bends some three hundred yards above this house, I saw that his breast
and arms were scored with long white scars, and asked him what had
caused them. I remember well how his face changed as I spoke, from
kindliness to the hue of blackest hate, and how he answered speaking to
himself rather than to me.
“Devils,” he said, “devils set on their work by the chief of all devils
that live upon the earth and shall reign in hell. Hark you, my son
Thomas, there is a country called Spain where your mother was born, and
there these devils abide who torture men and women, aye, and burn them
living in the name of Christ. I was betrayed into their hands by him
whom I name the chief of the devils, though he is younger than I am by
three years, and their pincers and hot irons left these marks upon me.
Aye, and they would have burnt me alive also, only I escaped, thanks to
your mother—but such tales are not for a little lad’s hearing; and see
you never speak of them, Thomas, for the Holy Office has a long arm.
You are half a Spaniard, Thomas, your skin and eyes tell their own
tale, but whatever skin and eyes may tell, let your heart give them the
lie. Keep your heart English, Thomas; let no foreign devilments enter
there. Hate all Spaniards except your mother, and be watchful lest her
blood should master mine within you.”
I was a child then, and scarcely understood his words or what he meant
by them. Afterwards I learned to understand them but too well. As for
my father’s counsel, that I should conquer my Spanish blood, would that
I could always have followed it, for I know that from this blood
springs the most of such evil as is in me. Hence come my fixedness of
purpose or rather obstinacy, and my powers of unchristian hatred that
are not small towards those who have wronged me. Well, I have done what
I might to overcome these and other faults, but strive as we may, that
which is bred in the bone will out in the flesh, as I have seen in many
signal instances.
There were three of us children, Geoffrey my elder brother, myself, and
my sister Mary, who was one year my junior, the sweetest child and the
most beautiful that I have ever known. We were very happy children, and
our beauty was the pride of our father and mother, and the envy of
other parents. I was the darkest of the three, dark indeed to
swarthiness, but in Mary the Spanish blood showed only in her rich eyes
of velvet hue, and in the glow upon her cheek that was like the blush
on a ripe fruit. My mother used to call me her little Spaniard, because
of my swarthiness, that is when my father was not near, for such names
angered him. She never learned to speak English very well, but he would
suffer her to talk in no other tongue before him. Still, when he was
not there she spoke in Spanish, of which language, however, I alone of
the family became a master—and that more because of certain volumes of
old Spanish romances which she had by her, than for any other reason.
From my earliest childhood I was fond of such tales, and it was by
bribing me with the promise that I should read them that she persuaded
me to learn Spanish. For my mother’s heart still yearned towards her
old sunny home, and often she would talk of it with us children, more
especially in the winter season, which she hated as I do. Once I asked
her if she wished to go back to Spain. She shivered and answered no,
for there dwelt one who was her enemy and would kill her; also her
heart was with us children and our father. I wondered if this man who
sought to kill my mother was the same as he of whom my father had
spoken as “the chief of the devils,” but I only answered that no man
could wish to kill one so good and beautiful.
“Ah! my boy,” she said, “it is just because I am, or rather have been,
beautiful that he hates me. Others would have wedded me besides your
dear father, Thomas.” And her face grew troubled as though with fear.
Now when I was eighteen and a half years old, on a certain evening in
the month of May it happened that a friend of my father’s, Squire
Bozard, late of the Hall in this parish, called at the Lodge on his
road from Yarmouth, and in the course of his talk let it fall that a
Spanish ship was at anchor in the Roads, laden with merchandise. My
father pricked up his ears at this, and asked who her captain might be.
Squire Bozard answered that he did not know his name, but that he had
seen him in the market-place, a tall and stately man, richly dressed,
with a handsome face and a scar upon his temple.
At this news my mother turned pale beneath her olive skin, and muttered
in Spanish:
“Holy Mother! grant that it be not he.”
My father also looked frightened, and questioned the squire closely as
to the man’s appearance, but without learning anything more. Then he
bade him adieu with little ceremony, and taking horse rode away for
Yarmouth.
That night my mother never slept, but sat all through it in her nursing
chair, brooding over I know not what. As I left her when I went to my
bed, so I found her when I came from it at dawn. I can remember well
pushing the door ajar to see her face glimmering white in the twilight
of the May morning, as she sat, her large eyes fixed upon the lattice.
“You have risen early, mother,” I said.
“I have never lain down, Thomas,” she answered.
“Why not? What do you fear?”
“I fear the past and the future, my son. Would that your father were
back.”
About ten o’clock of that morning, as I was making ready to walk into
Bungay to the house of that physician under whom I was learning the art
of healing, my father rode up. My mother, who was watching at the
lattice, ran out to meet him.
Springing from his horse he embraced her, saying, “Be of good cheer,
sweet, it cannot be he. This man has another name.”
“But did you see him?” she asked.
“No, he was out at his ship for the night, and I hurried home to tell
you, knowing your fears.”
“It were surer if you had seen him, husband. He may well have taken
another name.”
“I never thought of that, sweet,” my father answered; “but have no
fear. Should it be he, and should he dare to set foot in the parish of
Ditchingham, there are those who will know how to deal with him. But I
am sure that it is not he.”
“Thanks be to Jesu then!” she said, and they began talking in a low
voice.
Now, seeing that I was not wanted, I took my cudgel and started down
the bridle-path towards the common footbridge, when suddenly my mother
called me back.
“Kiss me before you go, Thomas,” she said. “You must wonder what all
this may mean. One day your father will tell you. It has to do with a
shadow which has hung over my life for many years, but that is, I
trust, gone for ever.”
“If it be a man who flings it, he had best keep out of reach of this,”
I said, laughing, and shaking my thick stick.
“It is a man,” she answered, “but one to be dealt with otherwise than
by blows, Thomas, should you ever chance to meet him.”
“May be, mother, but might is the best argument at the last, for the
most cunning have a life to lose.”
“You are too ready to use your strength, son,” she said, smiling and
kissing me. “Remember the old Spanish proverb: ‘He strikes hardest who
strikes last.’”
“And remember the other proverb, mother: ‘Strike before thou art
stricken,’” I answered, and went.
When I had gone some ten paces something prompted me to look back, I
know not what. My mother was standing by the open door, her stately
shape framed as it were in the flowers of a white creeping shrub that
grew upon the wall of the old house. As was her custom, she wore a
mantilla of white lace upon her head, the ends of which were wound
beneath her chin, and the arrangement of it was such that at this
distance for one moment it put me in mind of the wrappings which are
placed about the dead. I started at the thought and looked at her face.
She was watching me with sad and earnest eyes that seemed to be filled
with the spirit of farewell.
I never saw her again till she was dead.