Chapter IX: Part II: I (3)

“Merely that discretion is the better part of valour. They say that proverbs are the wealth of nations.”

“That’s just the sort of thing you’d do—to ’it a feller smaller than yourself.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t hit you for worlds,” laughed Basil bitterly. “I should merely throw you downstairs.”

“I should just like to see you try it on,” cried the other, edging a little towards the door.

“Don’t be silly, James. You know you wouldn’t like it at all.”

“I’m not afraid of you.”

“Of course not. But still—you’re not very muscular, are you?”

Rage driving away prudence, James shook his fist in Basil’s face.

“Oh, I’ll pay you out before I’ve done. I’ll pay you out.”

“James, I told you to get out five minutes ago,” said Basil, in a more peremptory fashion.

Jimmie looked at him for one moment, furious and impotent; then, without another word, flung out of the room, slamming the door behind him. Basil smiled quietly and shrugged his shoulders. He felt almost as disgusted with himself as with James, but supposed that as such scenes grew more frequent he would acquire a certain callousness. In his self-contempt he told himself that without doubt the time would come when he would be proud of his triumph in repartee over an auctioneer’s clerk. He glanced at Jenny, who sat with sewing in her hands, but without working gazed straight out of window.

“The only compensation in brother James is that he causes one a little mild amusement,” he murmured.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with him,” she answered. “Why d’you treat him as if he was a dog?”

“My dear child, I don’t. I’m very fond of dogs.”

“Isn’t he as good as I am? And you condescended to marry me.”

“I really can’t see that because I married you I must necessarily take the whole of your amiable family to my bosom.”

“Why don’t you like them? They’re honest and respectable.”

Basil gave a little sigh of fatigue. They had discussed the matter often during the last month, and though he did his best to curb his tongue, his patience was nearly exhausted.

“My dear Jenny,” he said, “we don’t choose our friends because they’re honest and respectable, any more than we choose them because they change their linen daily. But I’m willing to acknowledge that they have every grace and every virtue, only they rather bore me.”

“They wouldn’t if they were swells.”

He looked at her curiously, wondering why she imputed to him such despicable motives, and reflected that he could have been very good friends with his wife’s relations if they had been simple country folk, unassuming and honest; but the family of Bush joined the most vulgar pretentiousness to a code of honour which could only in charity be called eccentric. Jenny brooded over his words, and after a silence of some minutes burst out impatiently.

“After all, we’re not in such a bad position as all that. My mother’s father was a gentleman.”

“I wish your mother’s son were,” answered Basil, without looking up from the letter he wrote.

“D’you know what Jimmie says _you_ are?”

“I don’t vastly care, but if it pleases you very much you may tell me.”

She shot at him an angry glance, but did not answer. Then Basil got up, and going to her, placed his hands on her shoulders. Making his tone very gentle, he explained that it was really not his fault if he did not care for her people. Could she not resign herself to the fact, and make the best of it? Surely it would be better than to make themselves miserable. But Jenny, refusing the offer of reconciliation, turned away.

“You don’t think they’re good enough for you to associate with because they’re not in swell positions.”

“I don’t in the least object to their being grocers and haberdashers,” he answered, with a flush of annoyance. “I only wish they’d sell us things at cost price.”

“Jimmie isn’t a grocer or a haberdasher. He’s an auctioneers clerk.”

“I humbly apologize. I thought he was a grocer, because last time he did us the honour of calling he asked how much a pound we paid for our tea, and offered to sell us some at the same price. But then he also offered to insure our house against fire, and to sell me a gold-mine in Australia.”

“Well, it’s better to make a bit as best one can than to moon around like you do.”

“Really, even to please you I’m afraid I can’t go about with little samples of tea in my pocket, and sell my friends a pound or two when I call upon them. Besides, I don’t believe they’d ever pay me.”

“Oh no,” cried Jenny scornfully, “you’re a gentleman, and a barrister, and an author, and you couldn’t do anything to dirty those white hands that you’re so proud about. How do other fellows manage to get briefs?”

“The simplest way, I believe, is to marry the wily solicitor’s daughter.”

“Instead of a barmaid?”

“I didn’t say that, Jenny,” he answered very gravely.

“Oh no, you didn’t say it. But you hinted it. You never say anything, but you’re always hinting and insinuating till you drive me out of my senses.”

He held out his hands.

“I’m very sorry if I hurt your feelings. I promise you I don’t mean to. I always try to be kind to you.”

He looked at her wistfully, expecting some word of regret or affection; but sullenly, with tight-closed lips, she cast down her eyes, and went on with her sewing.

With darkened brows he returned to his letters, and for an hour they remained silent. Then Jenny, unable any longer to bear that utter stillness, which seemed more marked because he sat so near, hostile and unapproachable, went out to sit in her own room. Her anger was past, and she was frightened at herself. She wanted to think the matter out, and with despair remembered that there was none to whom she could go for advice. It would be impossible to make her own folk understand these difficulties, and instead of help they would give only floats and cruel jibes. It crossed her mind to go to Frank, the only friend of Basil whom she knew with any intimacy, for he came not infrequently to Barnes, and his manner, always so kind and gentle, made her think that she could trust him; but what should he care for her misery, and what assistance could he offer? She knew well enough the expressions of helpless sympathy he would use. It seemed that she stood quite alone in the world, weak and without courage, separated at once from those among whom her life had been spent, and from those into whose class her marriage had brought her. With throbbing brain, like a puppet driven round endlessly in a circle of pain, she could not see an end to her troubles. But the very confusion, the terror and uncertainty of it, forced her to make some desperate attempt, and she sought within herself for strength to gain the happiness she so woefully desired. She pondered over the events of the last year, picturing distinctly each passing scene, and saw the gradual bitterness that darkened the bliss of the beginning; then she told herself that some great effort was needed, or it would be too late. She was losing her husband’s love, and in bitter self-reproach took all the blame therefor upon her own shoulders. The only chance now was to change herself completely. She must try to be less exacting, less insanely jealous; she must at least attempt to be more worthy of him. In an agony of repentance she reviewed all her faults. At last, with flushed cheeks and eyes still shining with tears, she went to Basil, and laid her hand on his shoulder.

“Basil, I’ve come to beg your pardon for what I said just now. I was carried away, and forgot myself.”

There was a gentleness in her voice which he had almost forgotten. He stood up and took her hands, smiling brightly.

“My dear girl, what does it matter? I’d forgotten all about it.”

“I’ve been thinking it all over. We haven’t been getting on very well of late, and I’m afraid I’ve been to blame. I did things I regret. I have been reading your letters”—she blushed deeply with intense shame—“but I swear I won’t do it any more. I will try to be a good wife to you. I know I’m not your equal, but I want to try to get up to you. And you must be patient with me—you must remember I’ve got a lot to learn.”

“Oh, Jenny, don’t talk like that; you make me feel such a cad.”

She smiled through her tears. He spoke in just the same eager tone which in time past had so charmed her. But then a wistful look came to her face.

“You do love me still a little, Basil, don’t you?”

“My darling, you know I do.”

He took her in his arms and kissed her. She burst into tears, but they were tears of joy, for she thought, poor thing! that there ended their troubles. The future would be brighter and quite different.

VI

Part of Frank’s work as assistant-physician was to make post-mortem examinations of patients who died in the hospital, and in the performance of this duty, some time after Easter, he contracted a septic inflammation of the throat. Characteristically making nothing of it till quite seriously ill, he was at length taken to St. Luke’s in a high fever, delirious, and there for more than a week remained in a somewhat dangerous condition. For a fortnight more he found himself so languid that, though with vexation rebelling against his weakness, he was obliged to keep his bed; but finally convalescent, he arranged to go for a little to Ferne, near Tercanbury, where his father had a large general practice; then he meant to stay at Jeyston in Dorsetshire, where the Castillyons were giving a small house-party for Whitsun. Nor was there much inconvenience in his taking then a needed holiday, for the absence during August and September of the physician whose place in the wards he must fill would keep him in town for the hottest months.

The night before his departure Frank dined with Miss Ley, alone as both preferred, and during the meal, as was their wont, they discussed the weather and the crops. Each was sufficiently fond of his own ideas to brook no interruption from the service of food, and chose rather to keep till afterwards any topic that needed free discussion. But when the coffee was brought into the library, Miss Ley being comfortably stretched on a sofa, and Frank, with his legs on an armchair, lit his cigar, they looked at one another with a sigh of relief and a smile of self-satisfaction.

“You are going down to Jeyston, aren’t you?” he asked.

“I don’t think I can face it. As the time grows nearer, I begin to feel more wretched at the prospect, and I’m convinced I shall have worried myself into a dangerous illness by the appointed day. I don’t see why at my age I should deliberately expose myself to the tedium of a house-party. Paul Castillyon has notions of old-fashioned hospitality, and every morning after breakfast asks what you would like to do; (as if any sensible woman knew at that preposterous hour what she wanted to do in the afternoon!) but it’s a mere form, because he has already mapped out your day, and you’ll find every minute has its fixed entertainment. Then, it bores me to extinction to be affable to people I despise, and polite—— Oh, how I hate having to be polite! A visit of two days makes me feel as if I should like to swear like a Billingsgate fishwife, just to relieve the monotony of good manners.”

Frank smiled, and drinking his Benedictine, settled himself still more comfortably in his chair.

“By the way, talking of good manners, did I tell you that just before I grew seedy I went to three dances?”

“I thought you hated them?”

“So I do, but I went with a special object. The chief thing that struck me was the execrable breeding of the people. Supper was to be ready at midnight, and at half-past eleven they began to gather round the closed doors of the supper-room; by twelve there was as large a crowd as at the pit-entrance of a theatre, and when the doors were thrown open they struggled and pushed and fought like wild beasts. I’m sure the humble pittite is never half so violent, and they just flung themselves on the tables like ravening wolves. Now, I should have thought polite persons showed no excessive anxiety to be fed. By Jove! they made a greater clamour than the animals at the Zoo.”

“You’re so _bourgeois_, dear Frank,” smiled Miss Ley. “Why do you suppose people go to a dance, if not to have a good square meal for nothing? But that was surely not your object.”

“No; I went because I’d made up my mind to marry.”

“Good heavens!”

“Having arrived at the theoretical conclusion that marriage is desirable, I determined to go to three dances to see whether I could find anyone with whom it was possible, without absolute distaste, to contemplate passing the rest of my days. I danced and sat out with seventy-five different persons, Miss Ley, ranging in age from seventeen to forty-two, and I can honestly say I’ve never been so hideously bored in my life. It’s no good; I’m doomed to a career of single blessedness. I didn’t think I should fall desperately in love on the spot, but it seemed possible that one of those five-and-seventy blooming maidens would excite in me some faint thrill: not one disturbed my equilibrium for a single moment. Besides, they were mostly phthisical or anæmic or ill-developed; I hardly saw one who appeared capable of bearing healthy children.”

For a moment they were silent, while Miss Ley, not without amusement, pondered over Frank’s fantastic scheme for finding a wife.

“And what are you going to do now?” she asked.

“Shall I tell you?” He put aside the light manner which prevented one from seeing how much of what he said was seriously meant, and how much deliberate nonsense, and leaned forwards, his square strong chin on his hand, looking at Miss Ley with steady gaze. “I think I’m going to chuck everything.”

“What on earth d’you mean?”

“I’ve been thinking of it more or less for some months, and during this last fortnight in bed I’ve put two and two together. I’m going home partly to sound my people. You know my father has toiled year after year, saving every penny he could, so that I might have the best possible medical education, and take at once to consulting work without any anxiety about my bread-and-butter. He knew it entailed earning very little for a long time, but he was determined to give me a chance; it’s a poorish practice round Ferne, and he’s never had a holiday for thirty years. I want to find out if he could bear it if I told him I intend to abandon my profession.”

“But, my dear boy, d’you realize that you wish to give up a very brilliant career?” exclaimed Miss Ley in some consternation.

“I’ve considered it pretty carefully. I suppose no one of my years in the medical has quite such a brilliant chance as I. Luck has been on my side throughout. I fell into the post of resident at St. Luke’s by the death of the man above me, and at the end of my time got the assistant-physicianship at a very early age. I have friends and connections in the world of fashion, so that I shall soon have a rich and important practice. In due course, I dare say, if I stick to it, I may earn ten or fifteen thousand a year, be appointed a royal physician, and eventually be baroneted; and then I shall die, and be buried, and leave rather a large fortune. That is the career that awaits me: I can see myself in the future portly and self-complacent, rather bald, with the large watch-chain, the well-cut frock-coat, and the suave manner of the modish specialist; I shall be proud of my horses, and fond of giving anecdotes about the royal personages I treat for over-eating.”

He paused, looking straight in front of him at this imaginary Sir Francis Hurrell who strutted pompously, sleek and prosperous, under a load of honours. Miss Ley, deeply interested in all stirrings of the soul, observed keenly his look of scorn.

“But it seems to me at the end of it I may look back, intensely bored with my success, and say to myself that, after all, I haven’t really lived a single day. I’m thirty now, and my youth is beginning to slip away—callow students in their first year think I’m quite middle-aged—and I haven’t lived yet; I’ve only had time to work, and by Jove! I have worked—like the very devil. When my fellow-students spent their nights in revelry, at music-halls, kicking up a row and getting drunk, or making love to pretty wantons, when they played poker into the small hours of the morning, reckless and light of heart, I sat working, working, working. Now, for the most part, they’ve settled down as sober, tedious general practitioners, eminently worthy members of society, and respectably married; and a fool would say I have my reward because I’m successful and somewhat distinguished, while they for past dissipation must pay to their life’s end with the stupidest mediocrity. But sometimes their nerves must tingle when they look back on those good days of high spirits and freedom; I have nothing to look back on but the steady acquirement of knowledge. Oh, how much wiser I should have been to go to the deuce with them! But I was just a virtuous prig. I’ve worked too much, I’ve been altogether too exemplary, and now my youth is going, and I’ve known none of its follies; my blood burns for the hot, mad riot of the devil-may-cares. And this medical life isn’t as I thought once, broad and catholic; it’s warped and very narrow. We only see one side of things; to us the world is a vast hospital of sick people, and we come to look upon mankind from the exclusive standpoint of disease; but the wise man occupies himself, not with death, but with life—not with illness, but with radiant health. Disease is only an accident; and how can we lead natural lives when we deal entirely with the abnormal? I feel I never want to see sick persons again; I can’t help it, they horrify and disgust me, I thought I’d busy myself with science, but that, too, seems dead to me and irksome; it wants men of different temper from mine to be scientists. There are plenty to whom the world and its glories are nothing, but I have passions—hot, burning passions; my senses are all alert, and I want to live. I wish life were some rich fruit, that I could take it in my hands and tear it apart, and eat it piece by piece. How can you expect me to sit down at my microscope hour after hour when the blood is racing through my veins and my muscles are throbbing for sheer manual labour?”

In his excitement he jumped up, and walked up and down, blowing out the smoke furiously in white clouds. The old fable of the ant and the grasshopper came to Miss Ley’s mind, and she reflected that so at the approach of autumn might have reasoned the ant when she contemplated her store of food laboriously collected; perhaps she, bitterly envied the grasshopper who had spent the glorious days in idle singing, and in her heart, notwithstanding an empty larder and the cold winter to come, felt that the careless songster had made a better use than she of the summer-time.

“Do you think you’ll have the same ideas after a fortnight in the country has brought you back again your full health?” asked Miss Ley meditatively.

She was astonished at the effect of this question, for he turned on her with an anger which she had never seen in him before.

“D’you think I’m an absolute fool, Miss Ley?” he cried. “D’you think these are mere idle womanish fancies? I’ve been thinking of this for months, and my illness has left my brain clearer than ever it was. We’re all tied to the wheel, and when one of us tries to escape the rest do all they can by jibes and sneers to hold him back.”

“I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings, my son,” smiled Miss Ley indulgently. “You know I have a certain discreet affection for you.”

“I beg your pardon; I didn’t mean to be so violent,” he answered, quickly penitent. “But I feel as though chains were eating into my flesh, and I want to get free.”

“I should have thought London offered a fairly spirited and various life.”

“London doesn’t offer life at all—it offers culture. Oh, they bore me to extinction, the people I go and see, all talking of the same things and so self-satisfied in their narrow outlook! Just think what culture is. It means that you go to first-nights at the theatre and to private views at the Academy; you rave over Eleonora Duse and read the _Saturday Review;_ you make a point of wading through the latest novel talked of in Paris, discuss glibly the books that come out here, and occasionally meet at tea the people who write them. You travel along the beaten track in Italy and France, much despising the Cook’s Tourist, but really no better than a vulgar tripper yourself; you’re very fond of airing your bad French, and you have a smattering of worse Italian. Occasionally, to impress the vulgar, you consent to be bored to death by a symphony concert; you go into fashionable raptures over Wagner, collect paste buckles, and take in the _Morning Post._”

“Spare me,” cried Miss Ley, throwing up her hands; “I recognise a particularly unflattering portrait of myself.”

Frank in his vehemence paid no attention to her remark.

“And the dull stupidity of it just chokes me, so that I pant for the fresh air. I want to sail in ships, and battle with hurricane and storm; I want to go far away among men who actually do things—to new countries, Canada and Australia, where they fight hand to hand with primitive nature; I desire the seething scum of great cities, where there’s no confounded policeman to keep you virtuous. My whole soul aches for the East, for Egypt and India and Japan; I want to know the corrupt, eager life of the Malays and the violent adventures of South Sea Islands, I may not get an answer to the riddle of life out in the open world, but I shall get nearer to it than here; I can get nothing more out of books and civilization. I want to see life and death, and the passions, the virtues and vices, of men face to face, uncovered; I want really to live my life while there’s time; I want to have something to look back on in my old age.”

“That’s all very fine and romantic,” replied Miss Ley; “but where are you going to get the money?”

“I don’t want money; I’ll earn my living as I go, I’ll ship before the mast to America, and there I’ll work as a navvy; and I’ll tramp from end to end picking up odd jobs. And when I know that, I’ll get another ship to take me East. I’m sick to death of your upper classes; I want to work with those who really know life at the bottom, with its hunger and toil, its primitive love and hate.”

“That’s nonsense, my dear. Poverty is a more exacting master than all the conventions of society put together, I dare say one voyage before the mast would be interesting, and would certainly teach you the advantage of ample means and the comfort of useless luxuries. But remember that as soon as anything becomes a routine it ceases to be true.”

“That sounds epigrammatic,” interrupted Frank; “but does it by any chance mean something?”

Miss Ley, uncertain that it did, went on quickly.

“I assure you that no one can be free who isn’t delivered from the care of getting money. For myself, I have always thought the philosophers talk sheer silliness when they praise the freedom of a man content with little; a man with no ear for music will willingly go without his stall at the opera, but an obtuseness of sense is no proof of wisdom. No one can really be free, no one can even begin to get the full value out of life, on a smaller income than five hundred a year.”

Frank looked straight in front of him, without answering; his quick mind still thrilled with the prospect his imagination offered. Miss Ley continued reflectively.

“On the other hand, it seems to me proof of great dulness that a person of ample fortune should devote himself to any lucrative occupation, and I have no patience with the man of means who from sheer habit or in poverty of spirit pursues a monotonous and sordid industry. I know a millionaire who makes his only son work ten hours a day in a bank, and thinks he gives him a useful training! Now, I would have the rich leave the earning of money to such as must make their daily bread, and devote their own energies exclusively to the spending thereof. I should like a class, leisured and opulent, with time for the arts and graces, in which urbanity and wit and comeliness of manner might be cultivated; I would have it attempt curious experiments in life, and like the Court of Louis XV., offer a frivolous, amiable contrast to the dark strenuousness in which of necessity the world in general must exist. A deal of nonsense is now talked about the dignity of labour, but I wonder that preachers and suchlike have ever had the temerity to tell a factory hand there is anything exalting in his dreary toil. I suppose it is praised usually because it takes men out of themselves, and the stupid are bored when they have nothing to do. Work with the vast majority is merely a refuge from ennui, but surely it is absurd to call it noble on that account; on the contrary, there is probably far more nobility in indolence, which requires many talents, much cultivation, and a mind of singular and delicate constitution.”

“And now for the application of your harangue,” suggested Frank, smiling.

“It’s merely that in this short life of ours it’s never worth while to be bored. I set no such value on regular occupations as to blame you if you abandon your profession; and for my part neither honours nor wealth would tempt me to a career wherein I was imprisoned by any kind of habit, tie, or routine. There’s no reason why you should continue to be a doctor if it irks you, but for Heaven’s sake don’t on that account despise the fleshpots of Egypt. Now, I have a proposition to make. As you know, my income is much greater than my needs, and if you will graciously accept it, I shall be charmed to settle upon you five hundred a year—the smallest sum, as I have often told you, on which may be played the entertaining game of life.”

He shook his head, smiling.

“It’s awfully good of you, but I couldn’t take it. If I can bring my father round, I shall go to Liverpool, and get on a ship as ordinary seaman. I don’t want anybody’s money.”

Miss Ley sighed.

“Men are so incurably romantic.”

Frank bade her good-night, and next day went to Ferne. But Miss Ley considered what he had said, and the morning solemnly visited her solicitor at Lancaster Gate—an elderly, rubicund gentleman with mutton-chop whiskers.

“I wish to make my will,” she said, “but I really don’t know what to do with this blessed fortune of mine; no one much wants it, and now my brother is dead there’s no one I can even annoy by leaving him nothing. By the way, can I during my lifetime settle an annuity on a person against his will?”

“I’m afraid you can’t force anyone to take money,” answered the solicitor, with a chuckle.

“How tiresome your laws are!”

“I should have said they applied perfectly, because a man who refuses an income is certainly fit only for a lunatic asylum.”

Beside her house in Old Queen Street, Miss Ley had somewhat less than four thousand a year, and the necessity of leaving it in a more or less rational fashion had of late much tormented her.

“I think,” she said, after a moment’s thought, “I’ll just divide it into three—one part to my niece, Bertha Craddock, who won’t in the least know what to do with it; one part to my nephew, Gerald Vaudrey, who’s a scamp and will squander it in riotous living; and one part to my friend, Francis Hurrell.”

“Very well; I’ll have it drawn out, and send it down to you.”

“Fiddlesticks! Take a sheet of paper and write it now. I’ll wait till you’re ready.”

The solicitor, sighing over this outrage to the decorum of legal delays, but aware that his client was of a peremptory nature, did her bidding, and calling in a clerk, with him witnessed her signature. She departed, feeling singularly pleased with herself, for whatever happened Frank would never suffer from financial difficulties, and she thought, not without sly amusement, of his extreme surprise when he found himself at her demise a man in comfortable circumstances.

VII

During his fortnight at home Frank observed his father and mother with great attention, and realized, really for the first time, how enormous were the sacrifices they had made for his sake. Every day, fine or rainy, old Dr. Hurrell drove out to visit his scattered patients, and in the afternoon trudged round on foot. From five till seven he saw patients in the surgery, and often enough was called up in the middle of the night to go to a farmhouse five miles away in the very heart of the country. To all these people he dispensed the fruits of his long experience, medical knowledge perhaps a little rough-and-ready, but serviceable enough; and of a surety his old-fashioned drugs, his somewhat drastic surgery, were more popular with yokel and farmer than would have been any new-fangled methods of treatment. Besides, he gave to all and sundry good, cheery advice, and a piece of his mind when they did what they shouldn’t, so that it was no wonder not a practitioner for twenty miles around was so beloved and trusted. But it was a monotonous life, without rest, without a single break from year’s end to year’s end, ill-paid if paid at all; and for thirty years the good man and his wife had looked upon every sovereign earned as held in trust for their only son. They had demanded economy neither at Oxford nor afterwards in London, but rather pressed money upon him. They had received with proud enthusiasm his desire to take up consulting practice, though knowing he must for a long time still be a charge upon them, and insisted that he should rent in Harley Street the very best rooms obtainable. The constant drudgery had been happiness unalloyed, because it gave every chance to the beloved boy whose brilliant talents seemed a thing so surprising that they could only thank God humbly for an unmerited mercy.

“Don’t you get tired of the practice sometimes, father!” asked Frank.

“It’s a matter of habit, and it’s all I’m fit for—a country practice. And then I have my reward, because some day you may be at the head of the profession; and when afterwards they write your life, a chapter will be devoted to the old G.P. at Ferne, who first gave you a love for medicine.”

“But we shan’t work very much longer,” said Mrs. Hurrell, “for soon we shall be able to afford to retire and live close to you. Sometimes we do want to see you often, Frank. It’s very hard to be separated from you for so long at a time.”

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.

“Yours ever, “FRANK HURRELL.”

Miss Ley would have used her sharp eyes at Jeyston to more purpose than Frank, and seen enacted a little comedy which on one side verged somewhat to the tragic. Tired and unhappy, Grace Castillyon with all her soul looked forward to Reggie’s visit as a respite from the anxiety of her life; for of late more than ever tormented by her conscience, only the actual presence of her lover was able to make her forget how abominably she treated Paul. She had learnt to see the tenderness behind her husband’s pompous manner, and his complete loving confidence gave a very despicable air to her behaviour; she felt guilty before him and vile. But with Reggie by her side Grace knew she would forget everything save her insatiable passion; she resolved only to see his good points, and forget how ill he had used her; it seemed that she could only keep the bare shreds of her self-respect by holding on to his love, and if she lost that nothing would remain but the dark night of despair and shame. And her heart rejoiced because at Jeyston no conflicting desires would take Reggie from her side; they could walk together delightfully, and in the quiet country enjoy somewhat of that great bliss which glorified the memories of their early friendship.

But to her dismay, Mrs. Castillyon found that Reggie systematically avoided to be alone with her. The morning after his arrival she asked him to come for a stroll in the park, and he accepted with alacrity; but after going upstairs to put on her hat she found that Paul and Mrs. Bassett waited for her in the hall.

“Reggie says you’ve offered to show us the park,” said Mrs. Bassett. “It’ll be so nice for us all to go together.”

“Charming,” answered Mrs. Castillyon.

She shot an angry glance at Reggie, which he sought not to elude, but took calmly, with a faint smile of amusement; and when they walked he dawdled so as to be well within earshot of the others. After luncheon again he remained with Frank, and it was not till the evening that Mrs. Castillyon had opportunity even to say half a dozen words.

“Why did you ask your mother to come out with us this morning?” she asked hurriedly, in a low voice. “You knew I wanted to talk to you alone.”

“My dear girl, we must be careful. Your mother-in-law is watching us like a cat, and I’m sure she suspects something. I don’t want to get you into a mess.”

“I _must_ see you alone; I must talk to you,” cried Mrs. Castillyon desperately.

“Don’t be a fool!”

“Well, I shall wait for you here after the others have gone to bed.”

“You’ll jolly well have to wait, because _I_’m not going to take any risks.”

She gave him a look of hatred, but could not answer, for at that moment Miss Johnston joined them, and Reggie, with alertness unusual to him, engaged her in the conversation. Grace, for the moment discountenanced, and careless if she betrayed her distress, stared at him fixedly, wondering what was in that mind which revelled in crooked ways. She felt horribly powerless in his hands, and knew, though it sickened her to know it, that now he would play with her cruelly, catlike, till he was sufficiently amused, and not till then deal the final blow. For two days more he pursued the same tactics, more carefully still, so that he never saw Mrs. Castillyon, even for a moment, except when others were present; and he appeared to take a malicious pleasure in hurting her. He made extravagant compliments which excited Paul’s ponderous hilarity, and using her like an intimate friend with whom he was on confidential terms, chaffed and bantered and laughed at her. Old Mrs. Castillyon, who liked to be amused, took a great fancy to him, which was no way diminished when she discovered, with the clear vision of dislike, that her daughter-in-law winced at these good-natured jokes. Grace bore them with a smiling face, with little shrieks of laughter; but it seemed there was a great raw wound in her heart, which Reggie, callously joyful because he inflicted pain, probed with a red-hot knife. When she was alone and could surrender to her wretchedness, she wept bitterly, wondering, half mad with agony, why her passionate love should be repaid by this inexplicable hatred. She had done everything possible to make Reggie love her, and beside giving him her whole soul, had been very, very good to him.

“He’s found me a real brick all through,” she sobbed. “I’d have done anything to help him.”

Of late even she had sought to influence him for his own weal, persuading him to drink less and to be less extravagant. In her adoration she was capable of any sacrifice for his sake; and the result was only that he loathed her. She could not understand. At length she could bear the torment no longer, and since Reggie gave no opportunity, determined at all costs to make one. But it was the last day of the visit, and he doubled his precautions. With an inkling that Grace would force an interview, he took care not to be alone for one moment, and sighed with relief when, after a smiling good-night, he retired with the other men to the smoking-room. But Mrs. Castillyon was decided not to let him go without an explanation of his behaviour; and although the danger of her contemplated step was enormous, her frame of mind was so desperate that she did not hesitate. When Reggie, chuckling slily because he had circumvented her, went to his bedroom, he found Grace quietly seated, waiting for him.

“Good Lord! what are you doing here?” he cried, for once startled from his self-possession. “Frank might very well have come in with me.”

She did not answer his question, but stood up and faced him, more haggard and pale for the magnificence of her gown and the brilliancy of her diamonds. She sought to compose herself and to talk deliberately.

“Why have you been avoiding me all these days?” she asked. “I want an explanation. What are you up to?”

“Oh, for God’s sake, don’t bring that up again! I’m sick to death of it. You didn’t suppose I was coming down here to stay with your husband, and then play the fool with you? After all, I flatter myself I’m a gentleman.”

Mrs. Castillyon gave a low angry laugh.

“It’s rather late in the day to develop honourable sentiments, isn’t it? Haven’t you got some better story to me than that?”

“What d’you take me for? Why should you always think I’m lying to you?”

“Because experience has shown me that you generally are.”

He shrugged his shoulders and lit a cigarette, then looked at Grace with deliberation, as though meditating what he should now do.

“Haven’t you got anything to say to me at all?” she asked, her voice suddenly breaking.

“Nothing, except that you’d better go back to your own room. It’s devilish unsafe for you to be here, and I can you _I_ don’t want to get into a mess.”

But what does it all mean?” she cried desperately. “Don’t you care for me any more?”

“Well, if you insist, it means that I think the whole thing had better stop.”

“Reggie!”

“I want to turn over a new leaf, I’m going to give up racketing about, and settle down. I’m sick of the whole thing.”

He did not look at her now, but kept his eyes away nervously. A sob caught Grace’s throat, for what she feared was true.

“I suppose you’re gone on somebody else.”

“That’s no business of yours, is it?”

“Oh, you cad! I wonder how I could ever have been such a fool as to care for you.”

He gave a short, dry laugh, but did not answer. She went up to him quickly and took hold of his arms.

“You’re hiding something from me, Reggie. For God’s sake, tell me the whole truth now!”

He turned his eyes to her slowly, that sulky look of anger on his face which she knew so well.

“Well, if you want to know, I’m going to be married.”

“What?” For a moment she could not believe him. “Your mother never said a word about it.”

He laughed.

“You don’t suppose she knows, do you?”

“And what if I tell her?” whispered Grace hurriedly, distracted, only knowing that this horror must be prevented. “You can’t marry; you haven’t the right to now. It’s too infamous. I won’t let you. I’ll do anything to stop it. Oh, Reggie, Reggie, don’t leave me! I can’t bear it.”

“Don’t be a fool! It had got to come to an end some day or other. I want to marry and settle down.”

Mrs. Castillyon looked at him, and despair and anger and vehement hatred chased one another across her mobile face.

“We’ll see about that,” she whispered vindictively.

Reggie went up to her and caught her violently by the shoulders, so that she could hardly bear the pain.

“Look here, none of your little games! If I find out that you’ve been putting a spoke in my wheel, I’ll give you away. You’d better hold your tongue, my dear; and if you don’t, every letter you’ve written to me shall be sent to your mother-in-law.”

Grace turned deathly pale.

“You promised me you’d burn them.”

“I dare say, but you’re not the only woman I’ve had to do with. I always like to have a weapon or two in my hands, and I thought it might be useful if I kept your letters. They’d make pretty reading, wouldn’t they?”

He saw the effect of his words on Grace, and let go; she tottered to a chair, shaken with terror. Reggie rubbed it in.

“I’m not a bad-tempered chap, but when people put my back up I know how to get even with them.”

For a moment she gazed straight in front of her, then looked up with a curious expression in her eyes. She spoke in a hoarse voice, jerkily.

“I don’t think you’d come out of it very well if there were a public scandal.”

“Don’t you have any fear about me, my girl,” he answered. “What d’you suppose I care if I’m made a co? The mater would be a bit sick, but it don’t really matter a button to a man.”

“Not if it gets known that he’s taken a good deal of money off the woman unlucky enough to fall in his clutches? You forget that I’ve paid you—paid you, my friend, paid you. In the last six months you’ve had two hundred pounds out of me; d’you think anyone would ever speak to you again if they knew?”

She saw the deep blush of shame which coloured his dark cheeks, and with a ring of bitter triumph in her voice, continued.