Frances, loyal,
honorable creature, had kept silence; and beyond saying that house and
grounds--he altered one and laid out the other--distressed her as an
expression of his personality somehow ('distressed' was the word she
used), no further explanation had passed her lips. Our dislike of his personality was easily accounted for--up to a point,
since both of us shared the artist's point of view that a creed, cut to
measure and carefully dried, was an ugly thing, and that a dogma to
which believers must subscribe or perish everlastingly was a barbarism
resting upon cruelty. But while my own dislike was purely due to an
abstract worship of Beauty, my sister's had another twist in it, for
with her "new" tendencies, she believed that all religions were an
aspect of truth and that no one, even the lowest wretch, could escape
"heaven" in the long run. Samuel Franklyn, the rich banker, was a man universally respected and
admired, and the marriage, though Mabel was fifteen years his junior,
won general applause; his bride was an heiress in her own right--
breweries--and the story of her conversion at a revivalist meeting where
Samuel Franklyn had spoken fervidly of heaven, and terrifyingly of sin,
hell and damnation, even contained a touch of genuine romance. She was a
brand snatched from the burning; his detailed eloquence had frightened
her into heaven; salvation came in the nick of time; his words had
plucked her from the edge of that lake of fire and brimstone where their
worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched. She regarded him as a hero,
sighed her relief upon his saintly shoulder, and accepted the peace he
offered her with a grateful resignation. For her husband was a "religious man" who successfully combined great
riches with the glamour of winning souls. He was a portly figure, though
tall, with masterful, big hands, his fingers rather thick and red; and
his dignity, that just escaped being pompous, held in it something that
was implacable. A convinced assurance, almost remorseless, gleamed in
his eyes when he preached especially, and his threats of hell fire must
have scared souls stronger than the timid, receptive Mabel whom he
married. He clad himself in long frock-coats hat buttoned unevenly, big
square boots, and trousers that invariably bagged at the knee and were a
little short; he wore low collars, spats occasionally, and a tall black
hat that was not of silk. His voice was alternately hard and unctuous;
and he regarded theaters, ballrooms, and racecourses as the vestibule of
that brimstone lake of whose geography he was as positive as of his
great banking offices in the City. A philanthropist up to the hilt,
however, no one ever doubted his complete sincerity; his convictions
were ingrained, his faith borne out by his life--as witness his name
upon so many admirable Societies, as treasurer, patron, or heading the
donation list. He bulked large in the world of doing good, a broad and
stately stone in the rampart against evil. And his heart was genuinely
kind and soft for others--who believed as he did. Yet, in spite of this true sympathy with suffering and his desire to
help, he was narrow as a telegraph wire and unbending as a church
pillar; he was intensely selfish; intolerant as an officer of the
Inquisition, his bourgeois soul constructed a revolting scheme of heaven
that was reproduced in miniature in all he did and planned. Faith was
the sine qua non of salvation, and by "faith" he meant belief in his own
particular view of things--"which faith, except every one do keep whole
and undefiled, without doubt he shall perish everlastingly." All the
world but his own small, exclusive sect must be damned eternally--a
pity, but alas, inevitable. He was right. Yet he prayed without ceasing, and gave heavily to the poor--the only
thing he could not give being big ideas to his provincial and suburban
deity. Pettier than an insect, and more obstinate than a mule, he had
also the superior, sleek humility of a "chosen one." He was churchwarden
too. He read the lesson in a "place of worship," either chilly or
overheated, where neither organ, vestments, nor lighted candles were
permitted, but where the odor of hair-wash on the boys' heads in the
back rows pervaded the entire building. This portrait of the banker, who accumulated riches both on earth and in
heaven, may possibly be overdrawn, however, because Frances and I were
"artistic temperaments" that viewed the type with a dislike and distrust
amounting to contempt. The majority considered Samuel Franklyn a worthy
man and a good citizen. The majority, doubtless, held the saner view. A
few years more, and he certainly would have been made a baronet. He
relieved much suffering in the world, as assuredly as he caused many
souls the agonies of torturing fear by his emphasis upon damnation. Had there been one point of beauty in him, we might have been more
lenient; only we found it not, and, I admit, took little pains to
search. I shall never forget the look of dour forgiveness with which he
heard our excuses for missing Morning Prayers that Sunday morning of our
single visit to The Towers. My sister learned that a change was made
soon afterwards, prayers being "conducted" after breakfast instead of
before. The Towers stood solemnly upon a Sussex hill amid park-like modern
grounds, but the house cannot better be described--it would be so
wearisome for one thing--than by saying that it was a cross between an
overgrown, pretentious Norwood villa and one of those saturnine
Institutes for cripples the train passes as it slinks ashamed through
South London into Surrey. It was "wealthily" furnished and at first
sight imposing, but on closer acquaintance revealed a meager
personality, barren and austere. One looked for Rules and Regulations on
the walls, all signed By Order. The place was a prison that shut out
"the world." There was, of course, no billiard-room, no smoking-room, no
room for play of any kind, and the great hall at the back, once a
chapel, which might have been used for dancing, theatricals, or other
innocent amusements, was consecrated in his day to meetings of various
kinds, chiefly brigades, temperance or missionary societies. There was a
harmonium at one end--on the level floor--a raised dais or platform at
the other, and a gallery above for the servants, gardeners, and
coachmen. It was heated with hot-water pipes, and hung with Doré's
pictures, though these latter were soon removed and stored out of sight
in the attics as being too unspiritual. In polished, shiny wood, it was
a representation in miniature of that poky exclusive Heaven he took
about with him, externalizing it in all he did and planned, even in the
grounds about the house.