The Center of the World by Thomas van Essen Page A

him Mrs. Spencer, who took my mother’s place before the sod had fairly sprouted on her grave. He had her carve, and installed her at the head of the table where by all rights my wife should have been. Mrs. Spencer was known in London for a beauty and had fine gold hair and good teeth. When we first met she held out her hand to me but I refused it, knowing that she was taking shameful advantage of an old man’s lechery. During the course of my father’s lifetime I had known many of his amours and liaisons and always made an effort to be civil to them if it was needed for form’s sake. But Mrs. Spencer I could not abide because she was younger than I was and because she showed no deference to those of a higher station. Once when my father was travelling to some distant estates Mrs. Spencer and I quarrelled most fiercely. My temper got the better of me and I said that she was no more than one of my father’s whores. She stayed as cool as could be and said we were too alike to quarrel as I was merely one of my father’s bastards
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    From that time on we never spoke unless we were required to for decency’s sake in front of my father or company. Not wishing to expose my own children and Mary to the licence and uproar of the house, I retired as much as possible during that time to our quarters and only mingled with them when required to for the sake of form
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    At around this time Turner was much in attendance and had become a great favourite of my father and Mrs. Spencer. Turner was an ill-formed little man with a great nose, black teeth, and a dirty coat, but Mrs. Spencer favoured him above all the other artists and pushed him forward towards my father. She spent more time with him alone than a decent woman would but she was not a decent woman. Her Vanity was such that she convinced Turner and my father that Turner should paint her portrait. He did and the result was a poor likeness called “Jessica,” after the character in Shakespeare, that was much mocked and scorned, with one clever fellow saying it looked like the woman had just climbed out of a mustard pot
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    I knew privately from my father that he was displeased with the painting and that he had half a mind not to pay for it, but in the end he did, no doubt because of Mrs. Spencer’s pleading and her taking advantage of his weaknesses
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    My father’s lechery continued unabated with Mrs. Spencer and with others when she was away in town which was a great miracle in a man of seventy-four. The house was full with a most disagreeable Miscellany of artists and other worthless fellows who ate and drank each one like two Guardsmen who had no care for the estate. The conversation at dinner was most indiscriminate with no recognition that there were those present such as Mary who had no desire to have their ears sullied by Scandal and Impiety. Over all this Riot Mrs. Spencer presided using her wiles and her smile to encourage the conversation whenever it threatened to flag and approach Decency
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    One day I noticed that carriages had been called for and a number of the party departed. The next day the same thing occurred and no new arrivals came to take their place. I had the strange Fancy that reason had prevailed and that my father had seen the error of his ways. But I was much abashed and annoyed when the next day my father called me into his study. At first the conversation was indifferent and concerned with matters of the estate. Then my father suggested that it might be pleasant for me to go to London at this time and that he had need of me to look after some matters there. I protested that I did not enjoy London at this time of year, that the matters he wanted attending to could surely wait until a better season, that the Cost of living in London was high and for reasons of Economy it seemed more reasonable for me to stay at Petworth with my family. As soon as I had uttered these words I could see that I had displeased him. All we Wyndhams have a temper; his was the