The Fourth Generation
TextCHAPTER VI
THE RETURN OF THE PRODIGAL
Mrs. Christopher Campaigne was at home. The rooms were filled with people – chiefly young people, friends of her son and daughter. Most of them were endowed with those literary and artistic leanings which made them severe critics, even if they had not yet produced immortal works of their own. The chief attraction of the evening, however, was the newly-returned Australian, said to be a millionaire, who took up a large space in the room, being tall and broad; he also took up a large space in the conversation: he talked loud and laughed loud. He presented successfully the appearance he desired, namely, that of a highly prosperous gentleman, accustomed to the deference due to millions.
Leonard came late.
“I am glad to see you here,” said his hostess. “Frederick, you can hardly remember your other nephew, son of Algernon.”
Frederick held out a manly grasp. “When I left England,” he said, “you were a child of four or five; I cannot pretend to remember you, Leonard.”
“Nor can I remember you.” He tried to dismiss from his mind a certain ugly word. “But you are welcome home once more. This time, I hope, to stay.”
“I think not. Affairs – affairs are sometimes peremptory, particularly large affairs. The City may insist upon my staying a few weeks, or the City may allow me to go back. I am wholly in the hands of the City.”
If you come to think of it, a man must be rich indeed to be in the hands of the City.
The people gazed upon the speaker with increased interest, and even awe. They were not in the hands of the City.
“I confess,” he went on, “that I should like to remain. Society, when one returns to it after many years, is pleasing. Some people say that it is hollow. Perhaps. The frocks vary” – he looked round critically – “they are not the same as they were five-and-twenty years ago; but the effect remains the same. And the effect is everything. We must not look behind the scenes. The rough old colonist” – yet no one in the room was better groomed – “looks on from the outside and finds it all delightful.”
“Can things unreal ever be delightful?” murmured a lady in the circle with a sigh.
“At all events,” Leonard continued, “you will not leave us for a time.”
“There, again, I am uncertain. I have a partner in Australia. I have connections to look up in the City. But for a few weeks I believe I may reckon on a holiday and a look round, for Colonials have to show the City that all the enterprise is not theirs, nor all the wealth – nor all the wealth. And what,” he asked with condescension, “what are you doing, Leonard?”
“I am in the House.”
“As your father was – and your grandfather. It is a great career.”
“It may be a great career.”
“True – true. There must be many failures – many failures. Where and when are you most likely to be found?”
Leonard told him.
“Give me a note of it before we go to-night. I dare say I can get round some time.”
The ugly word once more unpleasantly returned to Leonard’s mind.
Mr. Frederick Campaigne proceeded with his interrupted discourse, which proved the necessity of the existence of the poor in order to make the condition of the rich possible and enviable. He took the millionaire’s point of view, and dwelt not only on the holiness of wealth, but also on the duties of the poor towards their superiors.
Leonard slipped away. He felt uncomfortable. He could not forget what had been told him about this loud and prosperous and self-satisfied person. Besides, he seemed to be overdoing it – acting a part. Why?
In the inner drawing-room he found his two cousins, Algernon and Philippa. The former, a young man of three-or four-and-twenty, was possessed of a tall figure, but rather too small a head. He smiled a good deal, and talked with an easy confidence common to his circle of friends. It was a handsome face, but it did not suggest possibilities of work.
Leonard asked him how he was getting on.
“Always the same,” he replied, with a laugh. “The study of the dramatic art presents endless difficulties. That is why we are loaded up with plays.”
“Then it remains for you to show the world what a play should be.”
“That is my mission. I shall continue my studies for a year or so more; and then – you shall see. My method is to study the art on the stage itself, not in books. I go to men and women on the stage. I sit in various parts of the stalls and watch and learn. Presently I shall sit down to write.”
“Well, I look forward to the result.”
“Look here, Leonard” – he dropped his voice. “I hear that you go to see the old man sometimes. He is nearly ninety-five. He can’t last much longer. Of course the estate is yours. But how about the accumulations.”
“I know nothing about the accumulations.”
“With the pater’s large practice and our share of the accumulations, don’t you think it is too bad of him to keep up this fuss about my work? Why should I trouble my head about money? There will be – there must be – plenty of money. My work,” he said proudly, “shall be, at least, the work of one who is not driven by the ignoble stimulus of necessity. It will be entirely free from the ignoble stimulus of necessity. It will be free from the commercial taint – the curse of art – the blighting incubus of art – the degrading thought of money.”
Leonard left him. In the doorway stood his cousin Philippa.
“You have just been talking to Algernon,” she said. “You see, he is always stretching out his hands in the direction of dramatic art.”
“So I observe,” he replied dryly. “Some day, perhaps, he will grasp it. At present, as you say, he is only stretching out arms in that direction. And you?”
“I have but one dream – always one dream,” she replied, oppressed with endeavour.
“I hope it will come true, then. By the way, Philippa, I have just found a whole family of new cousins.”
“New cousins? Who are they?”
“And a great aunt. I have seen one of the cousins; and I am going to-morrow to see the great-aunt and perhaps the other cousin.”
“Who are they? If they are your cousins, they must be cousins on papa’s side. I thought that we three were the only cousins on his side.”
“Your uncle Fred may have children. Have you asked him if he is married?”
“No; he has promised to tell all his adventures. He is a bachelor. Is it not interesting to get another uncle, and a bachelor, and rolling in money? Algernon has already – ” She stopped, remembering a warning. “But who are these cousins?”
“Prepare for a shock to the family pride.”
“Why, we have no poor relations, have we? I thought – ”
“Listen, my cousin. Your grandfather’s sister Lucy married one Isaac Galley about the year 1847. It was not a good marriage for her. The husband became a bankrupt, and as by this time her father had fallen into his present condition or profession of a silent hermit, there was no help from him. Then they fell into poverty. Her son became a small clerk in the City, her grandson is a solicitor in the Commercial Road – not, I imagine, in the nobler or higher walks of that profession – and her grand-daughter is a teacher in a Board School.”
“Indeed!” The girl listened coldly; her eyes wandered round the room filled with well-dressed people. “A teacher in a Board School! And our cousin! A Board School teacher! How interesting! Shall we tell all these people about our new cousins?”
“No doubt they have all got their own second cousins. It is, I believe, the duty of the second cousin to occupy a lower rank.”
“I dare say. At the same time, we have always thought our family a good deal above the general run. And it’s rather a blow, Leonard, don’t you think?”
“It is, Philippa. But, after all, it remains a good old family. One second cousin cannot destroy our record. You may still be proud of it.”
He left the girl, and went in search of his uncle, whom he found, as he expected, in his study apart from the throng.
“Always over your papers,” he said. “May I interrupt for a moment?”
The barrister shuffled his papers hurriedly into a drawer.
“Always busy,” he said. “We lawyers work harder than any other folk, I believe, especially those with a confidential practice like my own, which makes no noise and is never heard of.”
“But not the less valuable, eh?”
The barrister smiled.
“We make both ends meet,” he said meekly – “both ends meet. Yes, yes, both ends meet.”
“I went to see the old man the other day,” Leonard went on, taking a chair. “I thought you would like to know. He remains perfectly well, and there is no change in any respect. What I want to ask you is this. It may be necessary before long to get the question decided. Is he in a condition to make a will?”
The lawyer took time to give an opinion. Backed by his long legal experience and extensive practice, it was an opinion carrying weight.
“My opinion,” he said gravely, and as one weighing the case judicially – in imagination he had assumed the wig and gown – “my opinion,” he repeated, “would be, at first and on the statement of the case, that he is unfit and has been unfit for the last seventy years, to make a will. He is undoubtedly on some points so eccentric as to appear of unsound mind. He does nothing; he allows house and gardens and furniture and pictures to fall into decay; he never speaks; he has no occupation. This points, I say, to a mind unhinged by the shock of seventy years ago.”
“A shock of which I only heard the other day.”
“Yes – I know. My sister-in-law – your mother and your grandfather – thought to screen you from what they thought family misfortune by never telling you the truth – that is to say, the whole truth. I have followed the same rule with my children.”
“Family misfortune! I hardly know even now what to understand by it.”
“Well, they are superstitious. Your father died young, your grandfather died young; like you, they were young men of promise. Your great-grandfather at the age of six-and-twenty or thereabouts was afflicted, as you know.”
“And they think – ”
“They think that it is the visiting of the unknown sins of the fathers upon the children. They think that the old man’s father must have done something terrible.”
“Oh, but this is absurd.”
“Very likely – very likely. Meantime, as to the power of making a will, we must remember that during all these years the old man has never done anything foolish. I have seen the solicitors. They tell me that from father to son, having acted for him all these years, they have found him perfectly clear-headed about money matters. I could not ask them what he has done with all his money, nor what he intends to do with it. But there is the fact – the evidence of the solicitors as to the clearness of his intellect. My opinion, therefore, is that he will do something astonishing, unexpected, and disgusting with his money, and that it will be very difficult, if not impossible, to set aside his will.”
“Oh, that is your opinion, is it? The reason why I ask is that I have just discovered a family of hitherto unknown cousins. Do you know the name of Galley?”
“No. It is not a name, I should say, of the highest nobility.”
“Possibly not. It is the name of our cousins, however. One of them is a solicitor of a somewhat low class, I should say; the man has no pretensions whatever to be called a gentleman. He practises and lives in the Commercial Road, which is, I suppose, quite out of the ordinary quarter where you would find a solicitor of standing.”
“Quite, quite; as a place of residence – deplorable from that point of view.”
“He has a sister, it appears, who is a Board School teacher.”
“A Board School teacher? It is at least respectable. But who are these precious cousins of ours?”
“They are the grandchildren of an aunt of yours – Lucy by name.”
“Lucy! Yes. I have heard of her; I thought she was dead long ago.”
“She married a man named Galley. They seem to have gone down in the world.”
“More family misfortune.” The lawyer shuddered. “I am not superstitious,” he said, “but really – more misfortunes.”
“Oh, misfortunes! Nonsense! There are always in every family some who go down – some who go up – some who stay there. You yourself have been borne steadily upwards to name and fortune.”
“I have,” said the lawyer, with half a groan. “Oh yes – yes – I have.”
“And my uncle Fred, you see, comes home – all his wild oats sowed – with a great fortune.”
“Truly.” The lawyer’s face lengthened. “A great fortune. He told you so, didn’t he? Yes; we have both been most fortunate and happy, both Fred and I. Go on, Leonard. About these cousins – ”
“These are the grandchildren of Lucy Campaigne. I am to see the old lady in a day or two.”
“Do they want anything? Help? Recognition?”
“Nothing, so far as I know. Not even recognition.”
“That is well. I don’t mind how many poor relations we’ve got, provided they don’t ask for money, or for recognition. If you give them money, they will infallibly decline to work, and live upon you. If you call upon them and give them recognition, they will infallibly disgrace you.”
“The solicitor asked for nothing. This cousin of ours has been building hopes upon what he calls accumulations. He evidently thinks that the old man is not in a condition to make a will, and that all that is left of personal property will be divided in two equal shares, one moiety among your father’s heirs on our side, while the other will go to the old lady his grandmother on the other side.”
“That is, I am afraid, quite true. But there may have been a Will before he fell into – eccentricity. It is a great pity, Leonard, that these people have turned up – a great misfortune – because we may have to share with them. Still, there must be enormous accumulations. My mother did not tell us anything about possible cousins; yet they do exist, and they are very serious and important possibilities. These people will probably interfere with us to a very serious extent. And now Fred has turned up, and he will want his share, too. Another misfortune.”
“How came my grandfather to die so young?” Leonard passed on to another point.
“He fell into a fever. I was only two years old at the time.”
Leonard said nothing about the suicide. Clearly, not himself only, but his uncles also, had been kept in the dark about the true cause of that unexpected demise.
He departed, closing the door softly, so as not to shake up and confuse the delicate tissues of a brain always occupied in arriving at an opinion.
As soon as he was gone the barrister drew out his papers once more, and resumed the speech for which he had prepared half a dozen most excellent stories. In such a case the British public does not ask for all the stories to be new.
Leonard rejoined the company upstairs.
His uncle Fred walked part of the way home with him.
“I hadn’t expected,” he said, “to find the old man still living. Of course, it cannot go on much longer. Have you thought about what may happen – when the end comes?”
“Not much, I confess.”
“One must. I take it that he does not spend the fiftieth part of his income. I have heard as a boy that the estate was worth £7,000 a year.”
“Very likely, unless there has been depression.”
“Say he spends £150 a year. That leaves £5,850 a year. Take £800 for expenses and repairs – that leaves £5,000 a year. He has been going on like this for seventy years. Total accumulations, £420,000. At compound interest for all these years, it must reach two millions or so. Who is to have it?”
“His descendants, I suppose.”
“You, my brother Christopher, and myself. Two millions to divide between us. A very pretty fortune – very pretty indeed. Good-night, my boy – good-night.”
He walked away cheerfully and with elastic step.
“Accumulations – accumulations!” said Leonard, looking after him. “They are all for accumulations. Shall I, too, begin to calculate how much has been accumulated? And how if the accumulations turn out to be lost – wasted – gone – to somebody else?”
CHAPTER VII
THE CHILD OF SORROWS
ON a cold day, with a grey sky and an east wind, Leonard for the first time walked down the Commercial Road to call upon the newly-found cousins. It is a broad thoroughfare, but breadth does not always bring cheerfulness with it; even under a warm summer sun some thoroughfares cannot be cheerful. Nothing can relieve the unvarying depression of the Commercial Road. It is felt even by the children, who refuse to play in it, preferring the narrow streets running out of it; the depression is felt even by the drivers and the conductors of the tram-cars, persons who are generally superior to these influences. Here and there is a chapel, here and there is a model lodging-house or a factory, or a square or a great shop. One square was formerly picturesque when the Fair of the Goats was held upon it; now it has become respectable; the goats are gone, and the sight provokes melancholy. North and south of the road branch off endless rows of streets, crossed by streets laid out in a uniform check pattern. All these streets are similar and similarly situated, like Euclid’s triangles. One wonders how a resident finds his own house; nevertheless, the houses, though they are all turned out according to the same pattern, are neat and clean and well kept. The people in them are prosperous, according to their views on prosperity; the streets are cheerful, though the road to which they belong is melancholy. “Alas!” it says, “how can such a road as myself be cheerful? I lead to the Docks, and Limehouse, and Poplar, and Canning Town, and the Isle of Dogs.”
Mr. Galley’s house was on the north side, conveniently near to a certain police-court, in which he practised daily, sometimes coming home with as much as three or four half-crowns in his pocket, sometimes with less – for competition among the professional solicitors in the police-courts is keen, and even fierce. Five shillings is a common fee for the defence of a prisoner, and rumour whispers that even this humble sum has to be shared secretly with a certain functionary who must be nameless.
A brass plate was on the door: “Mr. Samuel Galley-Campaigne, Solicitor.” It was a narrow three-storied house, quite respectable, and as depressing as the road in which it stood.
Leonard knocked doubtfully. After a few moments’ delay the door was opened by a boy who had a pen stuck behind his ear.
“Oh, you want Mrs. Galley!” he said. “There you are – back-parlour!” and ran up the stairs again, leaving the visitor on the doormat.
He obeyed instructions, however, and opened the door indicated. He found himself in a small back room – pity that the good old word “parlour” has gone out! – where there were sitting three ladies representing three stages of human life – namely, twenty, fifty, and seventy.
The table was laid for tea; the kettle was on the old-fashioned hob – pity that the hospitable hob has gone! – and the kettle was singing; the buttered toast and the muffins were before the fire, within the high old-fashioned fender; the tea-things and the cake and the bread-and-butter were on the table, and the ladies were in their Sunday “things,” waiting for him. It was with some relief that Leonard observed the absence of Mr. Samuel.
The eldest of the three ladies welcomed him.
“My grand-nephew Leonard,” she said, giving him her hand, “I am very glad – very glad indeed to make your acquaintance. This” – she introduced the lady of middle life – “is my daughter-in-law, the widow – alas! – of my only son. And this” – indicating the girl – “is my grand-daughter.”
The speaker was a gentlewoman. The fact was proclaimed in her speech, in her voice, in her bearing, in her fine features. She was tall, like the rest of her family; her abundant white hair was confined by a black lace cap, the last of the family possessions; her cheek was still soft, touched with a gentle colour and a tender bloom; her eyes were still full of light and warmth; her hands were delicate; her figure was still shapely; there were no bending of the shoulders, no dropping of the head. She reminded Leonard of the Recluse; but her expression was different: his was hard and defiant; hers was gentle and sad.
The second lady, who wore a widow’s cap and a great quantity of black crape, evidently belonged to another class. Some people talk of a lower middle class. The distinction, I know, is invidious. Why do we say the lower middle class? We do not say the lower upper class. However, this lady belonged to the great and numerous class which has to get through life on slender means, and has to consider, before all things, the purchasing power of sixpence. This terrible necessity, in its worst form, takes all the joy and happiness out of life. When every day brings its own anxieties about this sixpence, there is left no room for the graces, for culture, for art, for poetry, for anything that is lovely and delightful. It makes life the continual endurance of fear, as dreadful as continued pain of body. Even when the terror of the morrow has vanished, or is partly removed by an increase of prosperity, the scars and the memory remain, and the habits of mind and of body.
Mrs. Galley the younger belonged to that class in which the terror of the morrow has been partly removed. But she remembered. In what followed she sat in silence. But she occupied, as of right, the proud position of pouring out the tea. She was short of stature, and might have been at one time pretty.
The third, the girl, who was Mary Anne, the Board School teacher, in some respects resembled her mother, being short and somewhat insignificant of aspect. But when she spoke she disclosed capacity. It is not to girls without capacity and resolution that places in Board Schools are offered.
“Let me look at you, Leonard.” The old lady still held his hand. “Ah! what a joy it is to see once more one of my own people! You are very tall, Leonard, like the rest of us: you have the Campaigne face: and you are proud. Oh yes! – you are full of pride – like my father and my brothers. It is fifty years – fifty years and more – since I have seen any of my own people. We have suffered – we have suffered.” She sighed heavily. She released his hand. “Sit down, my dear,” she said gently, “sit down, and for once take a meal with us. Mary Anne, give your cousin some cake – it is my own making – unless he will begin with bread-and-butter.”
The tea was conducted with some ceremony; indeed, it was an occasion: hospitalities were not often proffered in this establishment. Leonard was good enough to take some cake and two cups of tea. The old lady talked while the other two ministered.
“I know your name, Leonard,” she said. “I remember your birth, seven-and-twenty – yes, it was in 1873, about the same time as Samuel was born. Your mother and your grandmother lived together in Cornwall. I corresponded with my sister-in-law until she died; since then I have heard nothing about you. My grandson tells me that you are in the House. Father to son – father to son. We have always sent members to the House. Our family belongs to the House. There were Campaignes in the Long Parliament.” So she went on while the cups went round, the other ladies preserving silence.
At last the banquet was considered finished. Mary Anne herself carried out the tea-things, Mrs. Galley the younger followed, and Leonard was left alone with the old lady, as had been arranged. She wanted to talk with him about the family.
“Look,” she said, pointing to a framed photograph on the wall, “that is the portrait of my husband at thirty. Not quite at his best – but – still handsome, don’t you think? As a young man he was considered very handsome indeed. His good looks, unfortunately, like his good fortune and his good temper – poor man! – went off early. But he had heavy trials, partly redeemed by the magnitude of his failure.”
Leonard reflected that comeliness may go with very different forms of expression. In this case the expression was of a very inferior City kind. There also appeared to be a stamp or brand upon it already at thirty, as of strong drinks.
“That is my son at the side. He was half a Campaigne to look at, but not a regular Campaigne. No; he had too much of the Galley in him. None of the real family pride, poor boy!”
The face of the young man, apparently about twenty years of age, was handsome, but weak and irresolute, and without character.
“He had no pride in himself and no ambition, my poor boy! I could never understand why. No push and no ambition. That is why he remained only a clerk in the City all his life. If he had had any pride he would have risen.”
“I must tell you,” said Leonard, “that I have been kept, no doubt wisely, in ignorance of my own family history. It was only yesterday that I heard from your son that there have been troubles and misfortunes in our records.”
“Troubles and misfortunes? And you have never heard of them! Why, my children, who haven’t nearly so much right as you to know, have learned the history of my people better than that of their own mother or their grandfather’s people. To be sure, with the small folk, like those who live round here, trouble is not the same thing as with us. Mostly they live up to the neck in troubles, and they look for nothing but misfortune, and they don’t mind it very much so long as they get their dinners. And you haven’t even heard of the family misfortunes? I am astonished. Why, there never has been any family like ours for trouble. And you might have been cut off in your prime, or struck off with a stroke, or been run over with a waggon, and never even known that you were specially born to misfortune as the sparks fly upwards.”
“Am I born to misfortune? More than other people?”
It was in a kind of dream that Leonard spoke. His brain reeled; the room went round and round: he caught the arms of a chair. And for a moment he heard nothing except the voice of Constance, who warned him that Nature makes no one wholly happy: that he had been too fortunate: that something would fall upon him to redress the balance: that family scandals, poor relations, disgraces and shames, were the lot of all mankind, and if he would be human, if he would understand humanity, he must learn, like the rest of the world, by experience and by suffering. Was she, then, a Prophetess? For, behold! a few days only had passed, and these things had fallen upon him. But as yet he did not know the full extent of what had happened and what was going to happen.
He recovered. The fit had lasted but a moment; but thought and memory are swifter than time.
The old lady was talking on. “To think that you’ve lived all these years and no one ever told you! What did they mean by keeping you in the dark? And I’ve always thought of you as sitting melancholy, waiting for the Stroke whenever it should fall.”
“I have been ignorant of any Stroke, possible or actual. Let me tell you that I have no fear of any Stroke. This is superstition.”
“No – no!” The old lady shook her head, and laid her hand on his. “Dear boy, you are still under the curse. The Stroke will fall. Perhaps it will be laid in mercy. On me it fell with wrath. That is our distinction. That’s what it is to be a Campaigne. The misfortunes, however, don’t go on for ever. They will leave off after your generation. It will be when I am dead and gone; but I should like, I confess, to see happiness coming back once more to the family.”
“Your grandson spoke of a murder and of a suicide among other things.”
“Other things, indeed! Why, there was my husband’s bankruptcy. There was your uncle Fred, my nephew, and what he did, and why he was bundled out of the country. I thought your mother would have fallen ill with the shame of it. And there was my poor father, too; and there was the trial. Did they not tell you about the trial?”
“What trial?”
“The great trial for the murder. It’s a most curious case. I believe the man who was tried really did it, because no one else was seen about the place. But he got off. My father was very good about it. He gave the man Counsel, who got him off. I’ve got all the evidence in the case – cut out of newspapers and pasted in a book. I will lend it to you, if you like.”
“Thank you. It might be interesting,” he said carelessly.
“It is interesting. But don’t you call these things enough misfortunes for a single family?”
“Quite enough, but not enough to make us born to misfortune.”
“Oh, Leonard! If you had seen what I have seen, and suffered what I have suffered! I’ve been the most unfortunate of all. My brothers gone; poor dear Langley by his own hand; Christopher, dear lad, drowned; my father a wreck. Like him, I live on. I live on, and wait for more trouble.” She shook her head, and the tears came into her eyes.
“I was a poor neglected thing with no mother, and as good as no father, to look after me. Galley came along; he was handsome, and I thought, being a silly girl, that he was a gentleman; so I married him. I ran away with him and married him. Then I found out. He thought I had a large fortune, and I had nothing; and father would not answer my letters. Well, he failed, and he used me cruelly – most cruelly, he did. And poverty came on – grinding, horrible poverty. You don’t know, my dear nephew, what that means. I pray that you never may. There is no misfortune so bad as poverty, except it is dishonour. He died at last” – the widow heaved a sigh of relief, which told a tale of woe in itself – “and his son was a clerk, and kept us all. Now he’s dead, and my grandson keeps me. For fifty years I have been slave and housemaid and cook and drudge and nurse to my husband and my son and my grandson. And, oh! I longed to speak once more with one of my own people.”
Leonard took her hand and pressed it. There was nothing to be said.
“Tell me more,” she said, “about yourself.”
He told her, briefly, his position and his ambitions.
“You have done well,” she said, “so far – but take care. There is the Family Luck. It may pass you over, but I don’t know. I doubt. I fear. There are so many kinds of misfortune. I keep thinking of them all.” She folded her hands, resigned. “Let trouble come to me,” she said, “not to you or the younger ones. To me. That is what I pray daily. I am too old to mind much. Trouble to me means pain and suffering. Rather that than more trouble to you young people. Leonard, I remember now that your grandmother spoke in one of her letters of keeping the children from the knowledge of all this trouble. Yes, I remember.”