Kitabı oku: «The Fourth Generation», sayfa 3

“I think, to begin with, that of all young men that I know you are the most self-reliant and the most confident.”

“Well, these are virtues, are they not?”

“Of course, you have every right to be self-reliant. You are a good scholar, and you have been regarded at the University as one of the coming men. You are actually already one of the men who are looked upon as arrived. So far you have justified your self-confidence.”

“So far my vanity is not wounded. But there is more.”

“Yes. You are also the most fortunate of young men. You are miles ahead of your contemporaries, because where they all lack something you lack nothing. One man wants birth – it takes a very strong man to get over a humble origin: another man wants manner: another has an unfortunate face – a harsh voice – a nervous jerkiness: another is deficient in style: another is ground down by poverty. You alone have not one single defect to stand in your way.”

“Let me be grateful, then.”

“You have that very, very rare combination of qualities which make the successful statesman. You are good-looking: you are even handsome: you look important: you have a good voice and a good manner as well as a good presence: you are a gentleman by birth and training: you have enough to live upon now: and you are the heir to a good estate. Really, Leonard, I do not know what else you could ask of fortune.”

“I have never asked anything of fortune.”

“And you get everything. You are too fortunate, Leonard. There must be something behind – something to come. Nature makes no man perfectly happy.”

“Indeed!” He smiled gravely. “I want nothing of that kind.”

“In addition to everything else, you are completely healthy, and I believe you are a stranger to the dentist; your hair is not getting prematurely thin. Really, Leonard, I do not think that there can be in the whole country any other young man so fortunate.”

“Yet you refuse to join your future with mine.”

“Perhaps, if there were any misfortunes or drawbacks one might not refuse. Family scandals, now – Many noble houses have whole cupboards filled with skeletons: your cupboards are only filled with blue china. One or two scandals might make you more human.”

“Unfortunately, from your point of view, my people have no scandals.”

“Poor relations again! Many people are much pestered with poor relations. They get into scrapes, and they have to be pulled out at great cost. I have a cousin, for instance, who turns up occasionally. He is very expensive and most disreputable. But you? Oh, fortunate young man!”

“We have had early deaths; but there are no disreputable cousins.”

“That is what I complain of. You are too fortunate. You should throw a ring into the sea – like the too fortunate king, the only person who could be compared with you.”

“I dare say gout or something will come along in time.”

“It isn’t good for you,” she went on, half in earnest. “It makes life too pleasant for you, Leonard. You expect the whole of life to be one long triumphal march. Why, you are so fortunate that you are altogether outside humanity. You are out of sympathy with men and women. They have to fight for everything. You have everything tossed into your lap. You have nothing in common with the working world – no humiliations – no disgraces – no shames and no defeats.”

“I hardly understand – ” he began, disconcerted at this unexpected array of charges and crimes.

“I mean that you are placed above the actual world, in which men tumble about and are knocked down and are picked up – mostly by the women. You have never been knocked down. You say that I do not understand Love. Perhaps not. Certainly you do not. Love means support on both sides. You and I do not want any kind of support. You are clad in mail armour. You do not – you cannot – even wish to know what Love means.”

He made no reply. This turning of the table was unexpected. She had been confessing that she felt no need of Love, and now she accused him – the wooer – of a like defect.

“Leonard, if fortune would only provide you with family scandals, some poor relations who would make you feel ashamed, something to make you like other people, vulnerable, you would learn that Love might mean – and then, in that impossible case – I don’t know – perhaps – ” She left the sentence unfinished and ran out of the room.

Leonard looked after her, his face expressing some pain. “What does she mean? Humiliation? Degraded relations? Ridiculous!”

Then, for the second time after many years, he heard the voices of his mother and his grandmother. They spoke of misfortunes falling upon one and another of their family, beginning with the old man of the country house and the terrace. Oh! oh! It was absurd. He sprang to his feet. It was absurd. Humiliations! Disgrace! Family misfortunes! Absurd! Well, Constance had refused him. Perhaps she would come round. Meanwhile his eyes fell upon the table and his papers. He sat down: he took up the pen. Love, who had been looking on sorrowfully from a lofty perch on a bookshelf, vanished with a sigh of despair. The lover heard neither the sigh nor the fluttering of Love’s wings. He bent over his papers. A moment, and he was again absorbed – entirely absorbed in the work before him.

In her own room the girl sat before her table and took up her pen. But she threw it down again. “No,” she said, “I could not. He is altogether absorbed in himself. He knows nothing and understands nothing – and the world is so full of miseries; and he is all happiness, and men and women suffer – how they suffer! – for their sins and for other people’s sins. And he knows nothing. He understands nothing. Oh, if he could be made human by something – by humiliation, by defeat! If he could be made human, like the rest, why, then – then – ” She threw away her pen, pushed back the chair, put on her hat and jacket, and went out into the streets among the men and women.

CHAPTER III
SOMETHING TO COME

IF you have the rare power of being able to work at any time, and after any event to concentrate your thoughts on work, this is certainly a good way of receiving disappointments and averting chagrin. Two hours passed. Leonard continued at his table absorbed in his train of argument, and for the moment wholly forgetful of what had passed. Presently his pen began to move more slowly; he threw it down: he had advanced his position by another earthwork. He sat up; he numbered his pages; he put them together. And he found himself, after the change of mind necessary for his work, able to consider the late conversation without passion, though with a certain surprise. Some men – the weaker brethren – are indignant, humiliated, by such a rejection. That is because their vanity is built upon the sands. Leonard was not the kind of man to be humiliated by any answer to any proposal, even that which concerns the wedding-ring. He had too many excellent and solid foundations for the good opinion which he entertained of himself. It was impossible for any woman to refuse him, considering the standards by which women consider and estimate men. Constance had indeed acknowledged that in all things fortune had favoured him, yet owing to some feminine caprice or unexpected perversity he had not been able to touch her heart. Such a man as Leonard cannot be humiliated by anything that may be said or done to him: he is humiliated by his own acts, perhaps, and his own blunders and mistakes, of which most men’s lives are so full.

He was able to put aside, as an incident which would perhaps be disavowed in the immediate future, the refusal of that thrice fortunate hand of his. Besides, the refusal was conveyed in words so gracious and so kindly.

But there was this strange attack upon him. He found himself repeating in his own mind her words. Nature, Constance said, makes no man perfectly happy. He himself, she went on, presented the appearance of the one exception to the rule. He was well born, wealthy enough, strong and tall, sound of wind and limb, sufficiently well favoured, with proved abilities, already successful, and without any discoverable drawback. Was there any other man in the whole world like unto him? It would be better for him, this disturbing girl – this oracle – had gone on to prophesy, if something of the common lot – the dash of bitterness – had been thrown in with all these great and glorious gifts of fortune; something would certainly happen: something was coming; there would be disaster: then he would be more human; he would understand the world. As soon as he had shared the sorrows and sufferings, the shames and the humiliations, of the world, he would become more in harmony with men and women. For the note of the common life is suffering.

At this point there came back to him again out of the misty glades of childhood the memory of those two women who sat together, widows both, in the garb of mourning, and wept together.

“My dear,” said the elder lady – the words came back to him, and the scene, as plainly as on that day when he watched the old man sleeping in his chair – “my dear, we are a family of misfortune.”

“But why – why – why?” asked the other. “What have we done?”

“Things,” said the elder lady, “are done which are never suspected. Nobody knows; nobody finds out: the arm of the Lord is stretched out, and vengeance falls, if not upon the guilty, then upon his children and – ”

Leonard drove the memory back – the lawn and the garden: the two women sitting in the veranda: the child playing on the grass: the words – all vanished. Leonard returned to the present. “Ghosts!” he said. “Ghosts! Were these superstitious fears ever anything but ghosts?” He refused to think of these things: he put aside the oracle of the wise woman, the admonition that he was too fortunate a youth.

You have seen how he opened the first of a small heap of letters. His eye fell upon the others: he took up the first and opened it: the address was that of a fashionable West-End hotel: the writing was not familiar. Yet it began “My dear nephew.”

“My dear nephew?” he asked; “who calls me his dear nephew?” He turned over the letter, and read the name at the end, “Your affectionate uncle, Fred Campaigne.”

Fred Campaigne! Then his memory flew back to another day of childhood, and he saw his mother – that gentle creature – flushing with anger as she repeated that name. There were tears in her eyes – not tears of sorrow, but of wrath – and her cheek was aflame. And that was all he remembered. The name of Frederick Campaigne was never more mentioned.

“I wonder,” said Leonard. Then he went on reading the letter:

“My dear Nephew,

“I arrived here a day or two ago, after many years’ wandering. I lose no time, after the transaction of certain necessary business, in communicating with you. At this point, pray turn to my signature.”

“I have done so already,” said Leonard. He put the letter down, and tried to remember more. He could not. There arose before his memory once more the figure of his mother angry for the first and only time that he could remember. “Why was she angry?” he asked himself. Then he remembered that his uncle Christopher, the distinguished lawyer, had never mentioned Frederick’s name. “Seems as if there was a family scandal, after all,” he thought. He turned to the letter again.

“I am the long-lost wanderer. I do not suppose that you can possibly remember me, seeing that when I went away you were no more than four or five years of age. One does not confide family matters to a child of those tender years. When I left my country I was under a cloud – a light cloud, it is true – a sort of nebulous haze, mysteriously glowing in the sunshine. It was no more than the not uncommon mystery of debt, my nephew. I went off. I was shoved off, in fact, by the united cold shoulders of all the relations. Not only were there money debts, but even my modest patrimony was gone. Thus does fond youth foolishly throw good money after bad. I should have kept my patrimony to go abroad with, and spent nothing but my debts. I am now, however, home again. I should have called, but I have important appointments in the City, where, you may be pleased to learn, my name and my voice carry weight. Meantime, I hear that you will be asked to meet me at my brother Christopher’s on Wednesday. I shall, therefore, hope to see you then. My City friends claim all my time between this and Wednesday. The magnitude of certain operations renders it necessary to devote myself, for a day or two, entirely to matters of haute finance. It was, I believe, customary in former times for the prodigal son to return in rags. We have changed all that. Nowadays the prodigal son returns in broadcloth, with a cheque-book in his pocket and credit at his bank. The family will be glad, I am sure, to hear that I am prosperous exceedingly.”

Leonard read this letter with a little uneasiness. He remembered those tears, to begin with. And then there was a certain false ring in the words, an affectation of light-heartedness which did not sound true. There was an ostentation of success which seemed designed to cover the past. “I had forgotten,” he said, “that we had a prodigal son in the family. Indeed, I never knew the fact. ‘Prosperous exceedingly,’ is he? ‘Important appointments in the City.’ Well, we shall see. I can wait very well until Wednesday.”

He read the letter once more. Something jarred in it; the image of the gentle woman for once in her life in wrath real and undisguised did not agree with the nebulous haze spoken of by the writer. Besides, the touch of romance, the Nabob who returns with a pocket full of money having prospered exceedingly, does not begin by making excuses for the manner of leaving home. Not at all: he comes home exultant, certain to be well received on account of his money-bags. “After all,” said Leonard, putting down the letter, “it is an old affair, and my poor mother will shed no more tears over that or anything else, and it may be forgotten.” He put down the letter and took up the next. “Humph!” he growled. “Algernon again! I suppose he wants to borrow again. And Constance said that I wanted poor relations.”

It is true that his cousin Algernon did occasionally borrow money of him: but he was hardly a poor relation, being the only son of Mr. Christopher Campaigne, of Lincoln’s Inn, Barrister-at-law, and in the enjoyment of a large and lucrative practice. It is the blessed privilege of the Bar that every large practice is lucrative; now, in the lower branch of the legal profession there are large practices which are not lucrative, just as in the lower branches of the medical profession there are sixpenny practitioners with a very large connection, and in the Church there are vicars with very large parishes.

Algernon, for his part, was studying with a great and ambitious object. He proposed to become the dramatist of the future. He had not yet written any dramas; he haunted the theatres, attended all the first nights, knew a good many actors and a few actresses, belonged to the Playgoers’ Club, spoke and posed as one who is on the stage, or at least as one to whom the theatre is his chosen home. Algernon was frequently stone-broke, was generally unable to obtain more than a certain allowance from his father, and was accustomed to make appeals to his cousin, the head of the family.

The letter was, as Leonard expected, an invitation to lend him money:

“Dear Leonard,

“I am sorry to worry you, but things have become tight, and the pater refuses any advances. Why, with his fine practice, he should grudge my small expenses I cannot understand. He complains that I am doing no work. This is most unreasonable, as there is no man who works harder at his art than I myself. I go to a theatre nearly every evening; is it my fault that the stalls cost half a guinea? All this means that I want you to lend me a tenner until the paternal pride breaks or bends.

“Yours,

“Algernon.”

Leonard read and snorted.

“The fellow will never do anything,” he said. Nevertheless, he sat down, opened his cheque-book, and drew the cheque. “Take it, confound you!” he said.

And yet Constance had told him that for want of poor relations he was out of harmony with the rest of the world.

There was a third letter – from his aunt:

“Dear Leonard,

“Will you look in, if you possibly can, on Wednesday to meet your uncle Fred? He has come home again. Of course, you cannot remember him. He was wild, I believe, in the old days, but he says that is over now. Indeed, it is high time. He seems to be doing well, and is most cheerful. As the acting head of the family, you will, I am sure, give him a welcome, and forget and forgive, if there is anything to forgive. Algernon is, I fear, working too hard. I could not have believed that the art of play-writing required such close attention to the theatres. He is making many acquaintances among actors and actresses, who will be able, he says, to help him tremendously. I tell his father, who sometimes grumbles, that when the boy makes up his mind to begin there will be no living dramatist who has more conscientiously studied his art.

“Affectionately yours,

“Dorothy Campaigne.”

Leonard wrote a note accepting this invitation, and then endeavoured, but without success, to dismiss the subject of the returned prodigal from his mind. It was a relief to feel that he was at least prosperous and cheerful. Now, had Leonard been a person of wider experience, he would have remembered that cheerfulness in a prodigal is a most suspicious attribute, because cheerfulness is the dominant note of the prodigal under all circumstances, even the most unpromising. His cheerfulness is his principal, sometimes his only, virtue. He is cheerful because it is always more pleasant to be cheerful than to be miserable; it is more comfortable to laugh than to cry. Only when the prodigal becomes successful – which is very, very seldom – does he lose his cheerfulness and assume a responsible and anxious countenance like the steady and plodding elder brother.

CHAPTER IV
THE COMPLETE SUPPLY

IT was eleven o’clock that same evening. Leonard sat before his fire thinking over the day’s work. It was not a day on which he could congratulate himself. He had been refused: he had been told plain truths: he had been called too fortunate: he had been warned that the gods never make any man completely happy: he had been reminded that his life was not likely to be one long triumphal march, nor was he going to be exempt from the anxieties and the cares which beset other people. Nobody likes to be told that he is too fortunate, and that he wants defeated ambition, poor relations, and family scandals to make him level with the rest of mankind. Moreover, he had received, as if in confirmation of the oracle, the addition to his family of a doubtful uncle.

The Mansion was quiet: no pianos were at work: those of the people who were not out were thinking of bed.

Leonard sat over the fire feeling strangely nervous: he had thought of doing a little work: no time like the quiet night for good work. Yet somehow he could not command his brain: it was a rebellious brain: instead of tackling the social question before him, it went off wandering in the direction of Constance and of her refusal and of her words – her uncomfortable, ill-boding words.

Unexpectedly, and without any premonitory sound of steps on the stair, there came a ring at his bell. Now, Leonard was not a nervous man, or a superstitious man, or one who looked at the present or the future with apprehension. But this evening he felt a chill shudder: he knew that something disagreeable was going to happen. He looked at the clock: his man must have gone to bed: he got up and went out to open the door himself.

There stood before him a stranger, a man of tall stature, wrapped in a kind of Inverness cape, with a round felt hat.

“Mr. Leonard Campaigne?” he asked.

“Certainly,” he replied snappishly. “Who are you? What do you want here at this time of night?”

“I am sorry to be so late. I lost my way. May I have half an hour’s talk with you? I am a cousin of yours, though you do not know me.”

“A cousin of mine? What cousin? What is your name?”

“Here is my card. If you will let me come in, I will tell you all about the relationship. A cousin I am, most certainly.”

Leonard looked at the card.

“Mr. Samuel Galley-Campaigne.” In the corner were the words, “Solicitor, Commercial Road.”

“I know nothing about you,” said Leonard. “Perhaps, however – will you come in?”

He led the way into the study, and turned on one or two more lights. Then he looked at his visitor.

The man followed him into the study, threw off his cape and hat, and stood before him – a tall, thin figure, with a face which instantly reminded the spectator of a vulture; the nose was long, thin, and curved; his eyes were bright, set too close together. He was dressed in a frock-coat which had known better days, and wore a black tie. He looked hungry, but not with physical pangs.

“Mr. Samuel Galley-Campaigne,” he repeated. “My father’s name was Galley; my grandmother’s maiden name was Campaigne.”

“Oh, your grandmother’s name was Campaigne. Your own name, then, is Galley?”

“I added the old woman’s name to my own; it looks better for business purposes. Also I took her family crest – she’s got a coat of arms – it looks well for business purposes.”

“You can’t take your grandmother’s family shield.”

“Can’t I? Who’s to prevent me? It’s unusual down our way, and it’s good for business.”

“Well, as you please – name and coat of arms and everything. Will you explain the cousinship?”

“In two words. That old man over there” – he indicated something in the direction of the north – “the old man who lives by himself, is my grandmother’s father. He’s ninety something, and she’s seventy something.”

“Oh! she is my great-aunt, then. Strange that I never heard of her.”

“Not at all strange. Only what one would expect. She went down in the world. You went up – or stayed up – of course they didn’t tell you about her.”

“Well – do you tell me about her. Will you sit down? May I offer you anything – a cigarette?”

The visitor looked about the room; there was no indication of whisky. He sighed and declined the cigarette. But he accepted the chair.

“Thank you,” he said. “It is more friendly sitting down. You’ve got comfortable quarters. No Mrs. C. as yet, is there? The old woman said that you were a bachelor. Now, then. It’s this way: She married my grandfather, Isaac Galley. That was fifty years ago – in 1849. No, 1850. Isaac Galley failed. His failure was remarked upon in the papers on account of the sum – the amount – of his liabilities. The Times wanted to know how he managed to owe so much.”

“Pray go on. I am interested. This part of our family history is new to me.”

Leonard continued standing, looking down upon his visitor. He became aware, presently, of a ridiculous likeness to himself, and he found himself hoping that the vulture played a less prominent part in his own expression. All the Campaigne people were taller – much taller – than the average; their features were strongly marked; they were, as a rule, a handsome family. They carried themselves with a certain dignity. This man was tall, his features were strongly marked; but he was not handsome, and he did not carry himself with dignity. His shoulders were bent, and he stooped. He was one of the race, apparently, but gone to seed; looking “common.” No one could possibly mistake him for a gentleman by birth or by breeding. “Common” was the word to apply to Mr. Galley-Campaigne. “Common” is a word much used by certain ladies belonging to a certain stage of society about their neighbours’ children; it will do to express the appearance of this visitor.

“Pray go on,” Leonard repeated mechanically, while making his observations; “you are my cousin, clearly. I must apologise for not knowing of your existence.”

“We live at the other end of town. I’m a gentleman, of course, being in the Law – lower branch – ”

“Quite so,” said Leonard.

“But the old woman – I mean my grandmother – takes jolly good care that I shall know the difference between you and me. You’ve had Eton and College to back you up. You’ve got the House of Commons and a swagger club. That’s your world. Mine is different. We’ve no swells where I live, down the Commercial Road. I’m a solicitor in what you would call a small way. There are no big men our way.”

“It is a learned profession.”

“Yes. I am not a City clerk, like my father.”

“Tell me more about yourself. Your grandfather, you say, was bankrupt. Is he living?”

“No. He went off about ten years ago, boastful to the end of his great smash. His son – that’s my father – was in the City. He was a clerk all his life to a wine-merchant. He died four or five years ago. He was just able to pay for my articles – a hundred pounds – and the stamp – another eighty – and that pretty well cleared him out, except for a little insurance of a hundred. When he died I was just beginning to get along; and I’ve been able to live, and to keep my mother and my grandmother – it’s a tight fit, though – with what I can screw out of Mary Anne.”

“Who is Mary Anne?”

“My sister, Mary Anne. She’s a Board School teacher. But she shoves all the expenses on to me.”

“Oh! I have a whole family of cousins, then, previously unknown. That is interesting. Are there more?”

He remembered certain words spoken only that morning, and he winced. Here were poor relations, after all. Constance would be pleased.

“No more – only me and Mary Anne. That is to say, no more that you would acknowledge as such. There’s all father’s cousins and their children: and all mother’s cousins and brothers and nephews and nieces: but you can’t rightly call them your cousins.”

“Hardly, perhaps, much as one would like…”

“Now, Mr. Campaigne. The old woman has been at me a long time to call upon you. I didn’t want to call. I don’t want to know you, and you don’t want to know me. But I came to please her and to let you know that she’s alive, and that she would like, above all things, to see you and to talk to you.”

“Indeed! If that is all, I shall be very pleased to call.”

“You see, she’s always been unlucky – born unlucky, so to speak. But she’s proud of her own family. They’ve never done anything for her, whatever they may have to do – have to do, I say.” He became threatening.

“Have to do,” repeated Leonard softly.

“In the future. It may be necessary to prove who we are, and that before many years – or months – or even days – and it might save trouble if you were to understand who she is, and who I am.”

“You wish me to call upon my great-aunt. I will certainly do so.”

“That’s what she wants. That’s why I came here to-night. Look here, sir: for my own part, I would not intrude upon you. I’ve not come to beg or to borrow. But for the old woman’s sake I’ve ventured to call and ask you to remember that she is your great-aunt. She’s seventy-two years of age, and now and then she frets a bit after a sight of her own people. She hasn’t seen any of them since your grandfather committed suicide. And that must have been about the year 1860, before you and I were born.”

Leonard started.

“My grandfather committed suicide? What do you mean? My grandfather died somewhere about 1860. What do you mean by saying that he killed himself?”

“What! Don’t you know? Your grandfather, sir,” said the other firmly, “died of cut-throat fever. Oh yes, whatever they called it, he died of cut-throat fever. Very sudden it was. Of that I am quite certain, because my grandmother remembers the business perfectly well.”

“Is it possible? Killed himself? Then, why did I never learn such a thing?”

“I suppose they didn’t wish to worry you. Your father was but a child, I suppose, at the time. Perhaps they never told him. All the same, it’s perfectly true.”

Committed suicide! He remembered the widow who never smiled – the pale-faced, heavy-eyed widow. He now understood why she went in mourning all the days of her life. He now learned in this unexpected manner, why she had retired to the quiet little Cornish village.

Committed suicide! Why? It seemed a kind of sacrilege to ask this person. He hesitated; he took up a trifling ornament from the mantelshelf, and played with it. It dropped out of his fingers into the fender, and was broken.

“Pray,” he asked, leaving the other question for the moment, “how came your grandmother to be separated from her own people?”

“They went away into the country. And her father went silly. She never knew him when he wasn’t silly. He went silly when his brother-in-law was murdered.”

“Brother-in-law murdered? Murdered! What is this? Good Lord, man! what do you mean with your murder and your suicide?”

“Why, don’t you know? His brother-in-law was murdered on his grounds. And his wife died of the shock the same day. What else was it that drove him off his old chump?”

“I – I – I – know nothing” – the vulgarity of the man passed unnoticed in the face of these revelations – “I assure you, nothing of these tragedies. They are all new to me. I have been told nothing.”

“Never told you? Well, of all the – Why, the old woman over there is never tired of talking about these things. Proud of them she is. And you never to know anything!”

“Nothing. Is there more? And why do you call my great-grandfather mad?”

“He’s as much my great-grandfather as yours. Mad? Well, I’ve seen him over the garden wall half a dozen times, walking up and down his terrace like a Polar bear. I don’t know what you call mad. As for me, I’m a man of business, and if I had a client who never opened or answered a letter, never spoke a word to anybody, neglected his children, let his house go to ruin, never went to church, would have no servants about the place – why, I should have that mis’rable creature locked up, that’s all.”

Leonard put this point aside.

“But you have not told me about his wife’s death. It is strange that I should be asking you these particulars of my own family.”

“Mine as well, if you please,” the East End solicitor objected, with some dignity. “Well, sir, my grandmother is seventy-two years of age. Therefore it is just seventy-two years since her mother died. For her mother died in child-birth, and she died of the shock produced by the news of her own brother’s murder. Her brother’s name was Langley Holme.”