I was on the eve of revolting, but I remembered what there was lacerating his poor breast, and consented. And when I heard hints of our 'working the Welsh churches' my sudden enthusiasm for the rubber's art astonished even my father.
'My dear,' he said to my mother at dinner one day, 'what do you think? Henry has developed quite a sudden passion for rubbing.'
I saw an expression of perplexity and mystification overspread my mother's sagacious face.
'And in the spring,' continued my father, 'we are going into Wales to rub.'
'Into Wales, are you?' said my mother, in a tone of that soft voice whose meaning I knew so well.
My thoughts were continually upon Winifred, now that I was alone in the familiar spots. I had never seen her nor heard from her since we parted as children. She had only known me as a cripple. What would she think of me now? Did she ever think of me? She had not answered my childish letter, and this had caused me much sorrow and perplexity.
We did not go into Wales after all. But the result of this conversation took a shape that amazed me. I was sent to stay with my Aunt Prue in London in order that I might attend one of the Schools of Art. Yes, my mother thought it was better for me even to run the risk of becoming bohemianised like Cyril Aylwin, than to brood over Winnie or the scenes that were associated with our happy childhood.
In London I was an absolute stranger. We had no town house. On the few occasions when the family had gone to London, it was to stay in Belgrave Square with my Aunt Prue, who was an unmarried sister of my mother's.
'Since the death of the Prince Consort, to go no further back,' she used to say, 'a dreadful change has come over the tone of society; the love of bohemianism, the desire to take up any kind of people, if they are amusing, and still more if they are rich, is levelling everything. However, I'm nobody now; I say nothing.'
What wonder that from my very childhood my aunt took a prejudice against me, and predicted for me a career 'as deplorable as Cyril Aylwin's,' and sympathised with my mother in her terror of the Gypsy strain in my father's branch of the family?
Her tastes and instincts being intensely aristocratic, she suffered a martyrdom from her ever present consciousness of this disgrace. She had seen very much more of what is called Society than my mother had ever an opportunity of seeing. It was not, however, aristocracy, but Royalty that won the true worship of her soul.