flung open without warning to reveal a small intruder in a nightshirt.
“You’re wanted, “said my youngest brother Thomas, and seeing the toy in my arms he added, “I want that dog. I took him last week but Papa said I had to ask you if you minded. We had a tug-of-war over it actually and his tail came off. The dog’s, I mean, not Papa’s. Well, Papa doesn’t have a tail. Anyway it didn’t matter because Mama sewed it on again. Can I have him?”
“No. Who wants me?”
“Mama. She’s in her room. Why can’t I have Dodo?”
“Because you haven’t said Please and you didn’t knock before you came in. Run away and learn how to behave.”
“Yah!” said the infant, sticking out his tongue at me, and stumped off angrily to the nurseries.
In a large family it is not uncommon to find a sting in the tail and the sting is usually referred to as an “afterthought.” This afterthought, far from being ignored as befits the youngest and least significant member of a tribe, is often most foolishly pampered until he has ideas far above his station. Thomas was six and his ideas of his own importance were so elevated that they probably, like the occupants of the recent record-breaking balloon, needed oxygen to survive.
How he had come to enter the world was a mystery to me, and not a pleasant mystery, either. In fact I had been much disturbed when in my mid-twenties I was informed that my mother was expecting another child. My feelings arose not because I felt it was in poor taste for my mother to indulge in parturition at an advanced age; at that time she was still only forty-two, a curious but by no means preposterous age at which to embark on pregnancy. The truth was that I was disturbed by the news because it seemed my father had lied to me about his private life.
I was twenty when I found out he was unfaithful to my mother. There was no dramatic scene. The denouement arose from my observation that he had formed the regular habit of going up to town once a month and staying three or four days at his club. My mother said this was a good idea because he tended to work too hard at home and now that he was older she felt it was important that he should go away to relax occasionally. I thought no more about this reasonable explanation for his absences, but one day during the long vacation when he and I were out riding together I said casually, “What do you do with yourself when you’re up in town, Papa?” and he had answered with regret but without hesitation: “I knew you’d ask me that one day and I made up my mind that when you did I’d be honest with you.”
He then told me he kept a woman in Maida Vale.
“Of course,” he said, “your natural reaction will be to think me a hypocrite after all I’ve said to you on the subject of reserving that sort of pleasure for marriage but in fact my views haven’t changed. I don’t like what I’m doing and I don’t ask you to condone it. All I ask is that you should try to understand and not judge me too harshly.”
He said the intimate side of marriage had become repugnant to my mother and added that this was hardly surprising after so many pregnancies.
“… certainly I don’t blame her, how could I, she’s the most wonderful wife in the world and I’m the luckiest man on earth and I love her with all my heart, as you know. But … well, on religious grounds your mother don’t hold with anticonception, and as for chastity that’s a gift I don’t possess, not at the age of forty after twenty-one years of perfect married life.”
He revealed that my mother herself had suggested that he kept a mistress.
“She said she wouldn’t mind so long as it was a business arrangement conducted a long way from home—she said it would even be a relief to her because the last thing she wanted was to make me unhappy. So … well, we thought London would be best. I didn’t want to go into Swansea. In fact I couldn’t. You see, my father used to go into Swansea
“You’re wanted, “said my youngest brother Thomas, and seeing the toy in my arms he added, “I want that dog. I took him last week but Papa said I had to ask you if you minded. We had a tug-of-war over it actually and his tail came off. The dog’s, I mean, not Papa’s. Well, Papa doesn’t have a tail. Anyway it didn’t matter because Mama sewed it on again. Can I have him?”
“No. Who wants me?”
“Mama. She’s in her room. Why can’t I have Dodo?”
“Because you haven’t said Please and you didn’t knock before you came in. Run away and learn how to behave.”
“Yah!” said the infant, sticking out his tongue at me, and stumped off angrily to the nurseries.
In a large family it is not uncommon to find a sting in the tail and the sting is usually referred to as an “afterthought.” This afterthought, far from being ignored as befits the youngest and least significant member of a tribe, is often most foolishly pampered until he has ideas far above his station. Thomas was six and his ideas of his own importance were so elevated that they probably, like the occupants of the recent record-breaking balloon, needed oxygen to survive.
How he had come to enter the world was a mystery to me, and not a pleasant mystery, either. In fact I had been much disturbed when in my mid-twenties I was informed that my mother was expecting another child. My feelings arose not because I felt it was in poor taste for my mother to indulge in parturition at an advanced age; at that time she was still only forty-two, a curious but by no means preposterous age at which to embark on pregnancy. The truth was that I was disturbed by the news because it seemed my father had lied to me about his private life.
I was twenty when I found out he was unfaithful to my mother. There was no dramatic scene. The denouement arose from my observation that he had formed the regular habit of going up to town once a month and staying three or four days at his club. My mother said this was a good idea because he tended to work too hard at home and now that he was older she felt it was important that he should go away to relax occasionally. I thought no more about this reasonable explanation for his absences, but one day during the long vacation when he and I were out riding together I said casually, “What do you do with yourself when you’re up in town, Papa?” and he had answered with regret but without hesitation: “I knew you’d ask me that one day and I made up my mind that when you did I’d be honest with you.”
He then told me he kept a woman in Maida Vale.
“Of course,” he said, “your natural reaction will be to think me a hypocrite after all I’ve said to you on the subject of reserving that sort of pleasure for marriage but in fact my views haven’t changed. I don’t like what I’m doing and I don’t ask you to condone it. All I ask is that you should try to understand and not judge me too harshly.”
He said the intimate side of marriage had become repugnant to my mother and added that this was hardly surprising after so many pregnancies.
“… certainly I don’t blame her, how could I, she’s the most wonderful wife in the world and I’m the luckiest man on earth and I love her with all my heart, as you know. But … well, on religious grounds your mother don’t hold with anticonception, and as for chastity that’s a gift I don’t possess, not at the age of forty after twenty-one years of perfect married life.”
He revealed that my mother herself had suggested that he kept a mistress.
“She said she wouldn’t mind so long as it was a business arrangement conducted a long way from home—she said it would even be a relief to her because the last thing she wanted was to make me unhappy. So … well, we thought London would be best. I didn’t want to go into Swansea. In fact I couldn’t. You see, my father used to go into Swansea
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