“You cannot think Ashlydyat so desirable a residence as the Folly. We must remove to the Folly, Sir George; I have set my heart upon it. Let Thomas and his sisters come back to Ashlydyat.”
“They would not come.”
“Not come! They were inwardly rebellious enough at having to leave it.”
“I am sure that Thomas would not take up his residence here, as the master of Ashlydyat, during my lifetime. Another thing: we should not be justified in keeping up two expensive establishments outside the town, leaving the house at the bank to lie idle. People might lose confidence in us, if they saw us launching forth into extravagance.”
“Oh, indeed! What did they think of the expense launched upon the Folly?” mockingly smiled my lady.
“They know it is your money which has built that: not mine.”
“If Thomas and the rest came to Ashlydyat you might let the house attached to the bank.”
“It would take a great deal more money to keep up Ashlydyat than it does the house at the bank. The public might lose confidence in us, I say. Besides, no one but a partner could be allowed to live at the bank.”
“You seem to find an answer to all my propositions,” said Lady Godolphin, in her softest and sweetest, and least true tone; “but I warn you, Sir George, that I shall win you over to my way of thinking before the paper shall be dry on the Folly’s walls. If Thomas cannot, or will not, live at Ashlydyat, you must let it.”
In every tittle did Lady Godolphin carry out her words. Almost before the Folly’s embellishments were matured to receive them, Sir George was won over to live at it: and Ashlydyat was advertised to be let. Thomas Godolphin would not have become its master in his father’s lifetime had Sir George filled its rooms with gold as a bribe. His mother had contrived to imbue him with some of the Ashlydyat superstition—to which she had lived a slave—and Thomas, though he did not bow down to it, would not brave it. If ruin was to come—as some religiously believed—when a reigning Godolphin voluntarily abandoned Ashlydyat, Thomas, at least, would not help it on by taking part in the step. So Ashlydyat, to the intense astonishment of Prior’s Ash, was put up in the market for hire.