In that English countryside of my boyhood every human being had a
"place." It belonged to you from your birth like the colour of your
eyes, it was inextricably your destiny. Above you were your betters,
below you were your inferiors, and there were even an unstable
questionable few, cases so disputable that you might for the rough
purposes of every day at least, regard them as your equals. Head
and centre of our system was Lady Drew, her "leddyship," shrivelled,
garrulous, with a wonderful memory for genealogies and very, very
old, and beside her and nearly as old, Miss Somerville, her cousin and
companion. These two old souls lived like dried-up kernels in the great
shell of Bladesover House, the shell that had once been gaily full of
fops, of fine ladies in powder and patches and courtly gentlemen with
swords; and when there was no company they spent whole days in the
corner parlour just over the housekeeper's room, between reading and
slumber and caressing their two pet dogs. When I was a boy I used always
to think of these two poor old creatures as superior beings living, like
God, somewhere through the ceiling.
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