There was trembling in that strong even voice, so that Frank felt powerless. How could he, for reasons they would never understand, destroy that edifice of hope on which they had spent so many years of striving? He could never cause them such bitter, bitter pain. So long as they lived he must bear the yoke which they had put upon him, and go on with the steady, not inglorious routine of his existence in London.
“You’ve been very good to me,” he said, “and I’ll try so to live as to prove to you that I’m grateful for all you’ve done. I’ll be very ambitious, so that you may not think you’ve wasted your time.”
But Frank’s humour was inclined to the satiric when he arrived at Jeyston, the Castillyons’ place in Dorsetshire. Miss Ley had finally decided that her health prevented her from indulging in any dissipation, but Mrs. Barlow-Bassett with Reggie came by the same train as himself, and Paul’s mother, who with her companion made up the small party, a few hours later.
A wizened little woman with white hair and a preposterous cap, the elder Mrs. Castillyon babbled incessantly of nothing in particular, but for the most part of her own family, the Bainbridges of Somersetshire, whereof now she was the only living representative. Immensely proud of her stock, she took small pains to hide her contempt for all whose names figured less importantly than her own in the Landed Gentry. Ignorant, narrow, ill-educated and ill-bred, she pursued her course through this vale of sorrow with a most comfortable assurance of her superiority to the world in general; and not only in her husband’s time, but even now that Paul reigned in his stead, by virtue of the purse-strings, whereof she kept tight hold, tyrannized systematically over Jeyston and all the villages surrounding. Her abominable temper, unchecked since in early youth she awoke to the fact that she was an heiress of old family, was freely vented on Miss Johnston, her companion, a demure maiden of forty, who ate with admirable complacency the bread of servitude; but also to some extent on her daughter-in-law, whom the old lady detested heartily, never hesitating to remind her that it was her good money which she so lightly squandered. Paul alone, whom she spoke of always as The Squire, had influence with her, for it was Mrs. Castillyon’s belief, innate as the capacity of ducks to swim, that the holder of this title was God’s representative on earth, a person of super-human attributes whose word was law, and whose commands must be obeyed; and Frank, who had seen Mr. Castillyon somewhat flouted in London as a notorious bore, was amazed to find that here he was ultimate arbiter of all questions. His judgment was unquestioned in matters of opinion as in matters of fact; his ideas upon art or science were as necessarily final as his political theories were the only ones an honest man could hold. When he had spoken all was said, and it would have been as rational to contradict him as to argue with an earthquake. But even Paul was relieved when his mother’s periodic visits came to an end, for her forcible and unique repartee made intercourse somewhat difficult.
“Thank God I’m not a Castillyon,” she said habitually. “I’m a Bainbridge, and I think you’ll have some difficulty in finding a better family in this part of England. You Castillyons hadn’t a penny to bless yourselves with till I married into you.”
At dinner on his first evening Frank attempted to join intelligently in the conversation, but soon found that nothing he could say in the least interested the company; he had imagined innocently that it was ill-mannered to speak of one’s ancestors, but now learned that there were households wherein it was the staple of conversation: this rested chiefly between the elder Mrs. Castillyon, the Squire, and his brother Bainbridge, agent for the property, an obese man with a straggling beard, rather untidy and dressed in shabby old clothes, who talked very slowly, with a broad Dorsetshire accent, and to Frank seemed not a whit better than the farmers with whom he mostly consorted. They spoke besides of local affairs, of the neighbouring gentry, and of the Rector’s vulgar independence. Afterwards Grace Castillyon went up to Frank.
“Aren’t they awful?” she asked. “I have to put up with this day after day for weeks at a time. Paul’s mother rubs her money and her family into me; Bainbridge, that lout who should dine with the housekeeper instead of with us, discusses the weather and the crops; and Paul plays at being God Almighty.”
But Mrs. Barlow-Bassett was somewhat impressed by the pomposity of her environment, and took an early opportunity again to peruse the account given by the worthy Burke of the family whose guest she was; she found the page much thumbed and boldly marked with blue pencil. Every article in the house had its history, which old Mrs. Castillyon the elder narrated with gusto, for though from her exalted standpoint despising the family into which she had married, she had no doubt they were a great deal better than anyone else. Here were books collected by Sir John Castillyon, grandfather of the present Squire; there the Eastern curiosities of the Admiral his great-uncle; in fine array were portraits of frail ladies in the time of Charles II., and of fox-hunting, red-faced gentlemen in the reign of King George. Mrs. Bassett had never so felt her own insignificance.
After two days Frank retired to his room to compose a wrathful letter to Miss Ley.
“O Wise Woman!
“I know now why the thought of a visit to Jeyston drove you to such a state of desperation; I am so bored that I feel perfectly hysterical, and except that I dare not risk to make myself ridiculous even in the privacy of my bedchamber, would fling myself on the floor and howl. It would have been charitable to warn me, but I take it that you had a base desire I should eat the bread of hospitable persons, and then betray to you all their secrets: to gain your ends you have stifled the voice of conscience, and deafened your ears to the promptings of good feeling. It would serve you right if I discoursed for six pages on things in general, but I so overflow with indignation that, even though I feel a mean swine because I abuse my hosts, I must let myself go a little. Imagine a Georgian house, spacious and well-proportioned and dignified, filled with the most delicate furniture of Chippendale and Sheraton, portraits on the walls by Sir Peter Lely and Romney, and splendid tapestries; a park with wide meadows and magnificent trees before which you feel it possible to kneel down and worship; all around the country is undulating, lovely and fertile; and it belongs, lock, stock, and barrel, to people who have not a noble idea, no thought above the commonplace, no emotion that is not petty and sordid. Pray observe also that they heartily despise me because I am what they call a materialist. It makes my blood boil to think that this wonderful place is enjoyed by a pompous ass, a silly woman, an ill-tempered harridan, and a loutish boor, all of whom, if things went by deserts, would inhabit the back-room of a grocer’s shop in Peckham Rye, Bainbridge, who will eventually come into the estate unless Mrs. Castillyon can bring herself so to endanger her figure as to produce an heir, is a curious phenomenon: he went to Eton and spent a year at Oxford, from which he was sent down because he could pass no examination, but in manners and conversation is no better than a labourer at thirteen shillings a week. He has lived all his life here, and goes to London once in two years to see the Agricultural Show. But let me not think of him. The day is passed by Mrs. Barlow-Bassett listening with open mouth to Mrs. Castillyon’s family anecdotes, by Reggie in eating and drinking and sucking up to the Squire, by myself in desperation, I fancied that I might get entertainment from Miss Johnston, the companion, and was at some pains to make myself amiable; but she has the soul of a sycophant. When I asked whether she was never bored, she looked at me severely, and answered: “Oh no, Dr. Hurrell, I’m never bored by gentlefolks.” Whenever there is a pause in the conversation or Mrs. Castillyon is out of temper, she points to some picture or ornament of which she has already heard the history a thousand times, and asks how it came into the family. “Fancy your not knowing that!” cries the old lady, and breaks into an endless rigmarole about some beery Squire, happily deceased, or about a simpering dame whose portrait shows that her liver from tight-lacing must have been quite out of shape. The things a single woman is driven to for thirty pounds a year and board and lodging! I would far sooner be a cook. Oh, how I long for the smoking-room in Old Queen Street and your conversation! I am coming to the conclusion that I only like two kinds of society—yours on the one hand, and that of the third-class actor on the other: where the men are all blackguards, the women frankly immoral, and no fuss is made when you drop an aitch, I feel thoroughly comfortable. I don’t think I have any overwhelming desire to omit aspirates, but it is a relief to be in company where no notice would be taken if I did.