Prompt #2: Family
I have mentioned my brother, Mycroft, who is seven years my senior. The seven years between us would seem to put a damper on our relationship, one would think, and I suppose it did, at first. As children, I recall that Mycroft was away at public school before I myself was sent away. I vaguely remember some sort of jealousy, as if he were privileged to be sent off to some strange unknown place. Of course, the realities of the educational system left all of those petty envious thoughts behind.
Naturally, I also have a father and a mother, although I do not often speak of them. Even between Mycroft and myself we do not speak of them. It is as if there were a silent agreement between us about such matters, which suits me. I have no other siblings although I've been told that my mother suffered through a very trying labour when I was four. The child would have been my sister had she lived. I do not remember it.
I had made mention to Watson which subsequently has found its way into the publication of my cases that my ancestors were country squires. This seems to have led people to believe that my immediate family holds an estate and therefore a certain deal of money. Considering that both my brother and I work in our own niches, it would seem logical for a learned person to deduce that the matter of family money is obviously an unlikely one.
The truth of the matter is that Father's father was a younger brother and therefore of the cadet branch of the family. My grandfather's elder brother apparently suffered from many illnesses as a child and it was always thought he would pass away one day, leaving his younger brother heir to the estate. That was not to be, however, and it would seem that my grandfather having been groomed for the rĂ´le was very much vexed by the fact. His elder brother always made allowances for his younger brother in light of this inconvenience, but somehow my paternal grandfather never recovered from his apparent changed state of social status.
Father, although used to the idea that we ourselves were not country squires, had ingrained the sense that we must uphold our status as ancestors to the estate in every way but deed. It was my father's firm belief that one could achieve greater status simply by exemplifying the characteristics of that which one wished to obtain. Which is why, despite our family's financial needs, Father ran the household much as if he were a squire of a country estate. As his children, we were expected to be exemplary in every way as we were also given the best educational opportunities his personal salary could muster. It was always his intention that Mycroft and I would go forth and obtain status in politics, law, medicine or some other respectable employment.
Perhaps it was this need to be greater than what he truly was that had caused Father to propose marriage to my mother. As a French woman, she was prone to fits of anger and jealousy, but as she was a close relative to the artisan family of the Vernets, Father held a much more respectable status within our country community with her at his side.
My mother's mother was sister to Horace Vernet, and due to this French connection, my brother Mycroft and I spent a great deal of time in our childhoods in France visiting family. I also have some recollection of visiting Rome when I was five or perhaps six years of age. I remember people speaking in a new language and great monuments and lavish rooms that were likely the summer home of my Vernet ancestors. I also recall a rather lewd scene when Father announced we must return to England immediately; my mother begged and pleaded not to leave. It was a humiliating experience.
The last I had seen of my mother and father was when I was accepted at University. Certain circumstances did not allow me to return home during my second year at college, and a year and a half afterward my mother passed away. I did not attend her funeral. She was a petty woman and certainly deserved no sympathies from me.
I have not bothered to reconnect with my father considering that I had chosen a different path than the future he designed for me. He is not a forgiving man in many regards. He expected much from his children as well as his servants. It does not trouble me that I could not live up to his expectations.
Out of all of my family, I only keep in regular contact with Mycroft. After my college days, it was Mycroft who offered to put me up in my own rooms while I devised means for my own future and schools of thought. Frequently our communication is via telegraph, although now that he has all but retired, he seems to have taken to living out his last days in his private rooms. He had found the telephone as useful a tool as I, and often I have utilized it to contact him for advice on some case or another.
I do not feel that family has played an important part in my life, although I feel as Father has that one makes one's own Destiny through conscious effort and intention.