{"product_id":"2940013691612","title":"No. 11 Welham Square","description":"We were sitting in the drawing-room of our house at Bayswater one\u003cbr\u003eevening after dinner, in high good-humour. I had that day been\u003cbr\u003eappointed to a certain post at the British Museum which would afford\u003cbr\u003eme ample opportunity for the studies in which I was most interested,\u003cbr\u003eand put me in possession of what I expected to find an ample\u003cbr\u003ecompetence. We had been talking over my prospects, and the only cloud\u003cbr\u003eI could discern upon the horizon was that I should have to be at my\u003cbr\u003epost at an earlier hour in the morning than was comfortably compatible\u003cbr\u003ewith the three-mile walk from our house to the Museum.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"What a pity,\" said my youngest sister Patricia, \"that we don't still\u003cbr\u003elive in the dear old house in Welham Square! You could have got to the\u003cbr\u003eMuseum from there in five minutes.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI was born after we left Welham Square, but Patricia was six years my\u003cbr\u003esenior, and could remember her nursery days there.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Not at all,\" said my father, very abruptly; \"the walk will do you all\u003cbr\u003ethe good in the world.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs the old gentleman had been, to all appearance, fast asleep for at\u003cbr\u003eleast ten minutes, I was rather surprised at the energy with which he\u003cbr\u003espoke. Looking up, I saw my mother making anxious signals to Patricia,\u003cbr\u003ewhich she followed up by instantly changing the subject.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA few days afterwards, as I descended reluctantly into the bowels of\u003cbr\u003ethe earth at the Edgware Road Metropolitan Station, on the way to my\u003cbr\u003enew work for the first time, this episode recurred to my mind, and I\u003cbr\u003ebegan to speculate upon what might be the reasons that made the\u003cbr\u003emention of Welham Square distasteful to my parents. I determined to\u003cbr\u003econsult my eldest sister Ellen on the subject, and from her, and some\u003cbr\u003eother sources, I gradually accumulated the facts which I will present\u003cbr\u003ehere in the form of a continuous narrative.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNo. 11 Welham Square has always been the freehold property of my\u003cbr\u003efamily. It was built, together with several adjoining houses, about\u003cbr\u003ethe beginning of the eighteenth century by the owner of a plot of land\u003cbr\u003ein which the houses stand, a retired attorney, who had two nephews.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThese were Andrew Masey, my great-great-great-grandfather, and his\u003cbr\u003ecousin, Ronald Masey.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRonald, who was generally thought to be his uncle's favourite, and\u003cbr\u003eprobable heir, was an exceedingly tall and powerful young man, with a\u003cbr\u003eforbidding and melancholy expression of coun-tenance.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs a boy he was singularly backward, and his incapacity for mental\u003cbr\u003eexertion seemed to develop, as he grew up, into something not far\u003cbr\u003eremoved from downright idiocy. His weakness of mind caused him to be\u003cbr\u003eremarkably subject to the influence of those with whom he lived, and\u003cbr\u003ein particular his cousin Andrew, my ancestor, was supposed to exercise\u003cbr\u003eover him an influence almost amounting to fascination, and to be able\u003cbr\u003eto mould him to all the purposes of an exceptionably vigorous will.\u003cbr\u003eShortly after the building of the houses in what is now Welham Square,\u003cbr\u003ethe uncle of these young men died, and Andrew took possession of all\u003cbr\u003ehis property under the provisions, as he asserted, of a will, the\u003cbr\u003eexistence of which no one except Ronald had any interest in disputing,\u003cbr\u003eand which no one except Andrew, the sole executor and devisee, ever\u003cbr\u003esaw.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShortly before his uncle's death, Ronald had become engaged to a young\u003cbr\u003elady named Lettice White, to whom he was passionately attached, and it\u003cbr\u003ewas generally supposed among the neighbours that upon his accession to\u003cbr\u003ethe avuncular wealth the marriage would take place. But when a barely\u003cbr\u003edecent interval had occurred since the old gentleman's obsequies, the\u003cbr\u003efair Lettice was led to the altar, not by the impecunious Ronald, but\u003cbr\u003eby his more fortunate cousin Andrew.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe newly married pair took up their residence in No. 11, and Ronald\u003cbr\u003ecame to live with them.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen it was represented to Andrew by some of his few intimate\u003cbr\u003eacquaintances that this arrangement was so singular as almost to be\u003cbr\u003ethought improper, he curtly gave them to understand that Ronald's\u003cbr\u003emental condition was not such as to permit of his only living relation\u003cbr\u003eallowing him to live alone, and that he was compelled by the merest\u003cbr\u003econsiderations of family affection to take the unfortunate young man\u003cbr\u003einto his own household. So the three lived on in the stately and\u003cbr\u003esomewhat gaunt mansion, Andrew collecting his rents with methodical\u003cbr\u003eregularity, and otherwise giving his neighbours but little concern. As\u003cbr\u003efor Ronald, there soon came to be little doubt in anyone's mind of his\u003cbr\u003econfirmed imbecility.","brand":"WDS Publishing","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47083153359088,"sku":"2940013691612","price":2.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940013691612_p0.jpg?v=1763584072","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940013691612","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}