The Fourth Generation

“I have heard that a man was tried for the crime.”

“He was tried, but he got off. Everybody knows he never done it. But they never found out who done it.”

“That is all you know about it?”

“That is all, sir. Many a hundred times I’ve told that story. Thank you, sir. Mornin’, miss. You’ll have a handsome partner, miss, and he’ll have a proper missus.”

“So,” said Leonard, as they walked away, “the murder is still remembered, and will be, I suppose, so long as anyone lives who can talk about it. It is strange, is it not, that all these discoveries should fall together; that I should learn the truth about my own people, and only a day or two afterwards that you should learn the truth about your own ancestors? We are cousins, Constance, and a common tragedy unites us.”

They mounted their wheels and rode away in silence. But the joy had gone out of the day. The evening fell. The wind in the trees became a dirge; their hearts were full of violence and blood and death; in their ears rang the cries of a bereaved woman, and the groans of a man gone mad with trouble.

CHAPTER IX

MARY ANNE

IT was the Sunday afternoon after these visits to the ancestor and to the group in the Commercial Road. Leonard was slowly returning home after a solitary lunch. He walked with drooping head, touching the lamp-posts as he passed with his umbrella. This, as everybody knows, is a certain sign of preoccupation and dejection.

He was becoming, in fact, conscious of a strange obsession of his soul. The Family History sat upon him like a nightmare: it left him not either by day or by night. He was beginning to realise that he could not shake it off, and that it was come to stay.

When a man is born to a Family History, and has to grow up with it, in full consciousness of it, he generally gets the better of it, and either disregards it or treats it with philosophy, or laughs at it, or even boasts of it. The illustrious Mr. Bounderby was one of the many who boast of it. But, then, he had grown up with it, and it had become part of him, and he was able to present his own version of it.

Very different is the case when a man has a Family History suddenly and quite unexpectedly sprung upon him. What could have been more desirable than the position of this young man for a whole quarter of a century? Sufficiently wealthy, connected for generations with gentlefolk, successful, with nothing whatever to hamper him in his career, with the certainty of succeeding to a large property – could mortal man desire more?

And then, suddenly, a Family History of the darkest and most gloomy kind – murder, sudden death, suicide, early death, the shattering of a strong mind, bankruptcy, poverty, cousins whom no kindliness could call presentable – all this fell upon him at one blow. Can one be surprised that he touched the lamp-posts as he went along?

Is it wonderful that he could not get rid of the dreadful story? It occupied his whole brain; it turned everything else out – the great economical article for the Nineteenth Century, all his books, all his occupations. If he read in the printed page, his eyes ran across the lines and up and down the lines, but nothing reached his brain. The Family History was a wall which excluded everything else; or it was a jealous tenant who drove every intruder out as with a broom. If he tried to write, his pen presently dropped from his fingers, for the things that lay on his brain were not allowed by that new tenant to escape. And all night long, and all day long, pictures rose up and floated before his eyes; terrible pictures – pictures of things that belonged to the History; pictures that followed each other like animated photographs, irrepressible, not to be concealed, or denied, or refused admission.

This obsession was only just beginning: it intended to become deeper and stronger: it was going to hold him with grip and claw, never to let him go by night or day until – But the end he could not understand.

You know how, at the first symptoms of a long illness, there falls upon the soul a premonitory sadness: the nurses and the doctors utter words of cheerfulness and hope: there is a loophole, there always is a loophole, until the climax and the turning-point. The patient hears, and tries to receive solace. But he knows better. He knows without being told that he stands on the threshold of the torture chamber: the door opens, he steps in, because he must: he will lie there and suffer – O Lord! how long?

With such boding and gloom of soul – boding without words, gloom inarticulate – Leonard walked slowly homewards.

It was about three in the afternoon that he mounted his stairs. In his mood, brooding over the new-found tragedies, it seemed quite natural, and a thing to be expected, that his cousin Mary Anne should be sitting on the stairs opposite his closed door. She rose timidly.

“The man said he could not tell when you would come home, so I waited,” she explained.

“He ought to have asked you to wait inside. Did you tell him who you were?”

“No. It doesn’t matter. I’m sorry to disturb your Sabbath calm.”

“My – Oh yes! Pray come in.”

She obeyed, and sat down by the fire, glancing round the room curiously. In her lap lay a brown-paper parcel.

“I thought you would come home to dinner after chapel,” she began, “so I got here about one.”

She observed that his face showed some trouble, and she hesitated to go on.

“Have you come to tell me of more family misfortunes?” he asked abruptly.

“Oh,” she said, “I wish I hadn’t come. I told her you didn’t want it and you wouldn’t like it. Besides, what’s the use? It all happened so long ago. But granny would have it. I’ve brought you a book. She says you must read it. If you’d rather not have it, I will take it back again. Granny ought to know that you don’t want to be worried about these old things.”

He pulled himself together, and assumed a mask of cheerfulness.

“Nonsense!” he said. “Why should I not read about these old things which are to me so new? They belong to me as much as to you.”

He observed the girl more narrowly while he spoke. Her words and her hesitation showed perception and feeling at least. As for her appearance, she was short and sturdy; her features were cast in one of the more common moulds. She wore a black cloth jacket and a skirt of dark green serge, a modest hat with black plumes nodding over her head in the hearse-like fashion of the day before yesterday, and her gloves were doubtful.

The first impression was of complete insignificance; the second impression was of a girl who might interest one. Her eyes were good – they were the eyes of her grandmother; her hands were small and delicate – they were the hands of her grandmother; her voice was clear and soft, with a distinct utterance quite unlike the thick and husky people among whom she lived. In all these points she resembled her grandmother. Leonard observed these things – it was a distraction to think of the cousin apart from the Family History – and became interested in the girl.

“My cousin,” he said unexpectedly, “you are very much like your grandmother.”

“Like granny?” She coloured with pleasure. As she was not a girl who kept company with anyone, she had never before received a compliment. “Why, she is beautiful still, and I – Oh!”

She laughed.

“You have her voice and her eyes. She seems to be a very sweet and gentle lady.”

“She is the sweetest old lady in the world and the gentlest, and, oh! she’s had an awful time.”

“I am sorry to think so.”

“She cried with pleasure and pride when you went away. For fifty years not a single member of her family has been to see her. I never saw her take on so, and you so kind and friendly. Sam said you had as much pride as a duke.”

“Your brother should not judge by first appearances.”

“And you were not proud a bit. Well, granny said: ‘Nobody ever told him of the family misfortunes, and it’s shameful. I’ve told him some, but not all, and now I’ll send him my Scrap-book with the trial in it – the trial, you know, of John Dunning for the wilful murder of Langley Holme.’ And I’ve brought it; here it is.” She handed him the parcel in her lap. “That’s why I came.”

“Thank you,” said Leonard, laying it carelessly on the table: “I will read it or look at it some time. But I own I am not greatly interested in the trial; it took place too long ago.”

“Once she had another copy, but she gave it to your grandfather a few days before he killed himself.”

Leonard remembered these words afterwards. For the moment they had no meaning for him.

“Granny says we’ve got hereditary misfortunes.”

“So she told me. Hereditary? Why?” His brow contracted. “I don’t know why. Hereditary misfortunes are supposed to imply ancestral crimes.”

“She puts it like this. If it hadn’t been hereditary misfortune she wouldn’t have married grandfather; he wouldn’t have been bankrupt; father wouldn’t have been only a small clerk; Sam would have been something in a large way; and I should be a lady instead of a Board School teacher.”

“You can be both, my cousin. Now look at the other side. Your grandfather was ruined, I take it, by his own incompetence; his poverty was his own doing. Your father never rose in the world, I suppose, because he had no power of fight. Your brother has got into a respectable profession; what right has he to complain?”

“That’s what I say sometimes. Granny won’t have it. She’s all for hereditary ill-luck, as if we are to suffer for what was done a hundred years ago. I don’t believe it, for my part. Do you?”

He thought of his talk with Constance in the country road.

“It is a dreadful question; do not let it trouble us. Let us go on with our work and not think about it.”

“It’s all very well to say ‘Don’t think about it,’ when she talks about nothing else, especially when she looks at Sam and thinks of you. There was something else I wanted to say.” She dropped her head, and began nervously to twitch with her fingertips. “I’m almost ashamed to say it. Sam would never forgive me, but I think of granny first and of all she has endured, and I must warn you.” She looked round; there was nobody else present. “It’s about Sam, my brother. I must warn you – I must, because he may make mischief between you and granny.”

“He will find that difficult. Well, go on.”

“He goes to your village in the country. He sits and talks with the people. He pretends that he goes to see how the old man is getting on. But it is really to find out all he can about the property.”

“What has he to do with the property?”

“He wants to find out what is to become of all the money.”

“Does he think that the rustics can tell him?”

“I don’t know. You see, his head is filled with the hope of getting some of the money. He wants to get it divided among the heirs. It’s what he calls the ‘accumulations.’ ”

“Accumulations!” Leonard repeated impatiently. “They are all in a tale. I know nothing about these accumulations, or what will be done with them.”

“Sam is full of suspicions. He thinks there is a conspiracy to keep him out.”

“Oh, does he? Well, tell him that my great-grandfather’s solicitor receives the rents and deals with them as he is instructed. I, for one, am not consulted.”

“I said you knew nothing about it. Granny was so angry. You see, Sam can think of nothing else. He’s been unlucky lately, and he comforts himself with calculating what the money comes to. He’s made me do sums – oh! scores of sums – in compound interest for him: Sam never got so far himself. If you’ve never worked it out – ”

“I never have. Like Sam, I have not got so far.”

“Well, it really comes to a most wonderful sum. Sometimes I think that the rule must be wrong. It mounts up to about a million and a half.”

“Does it?” Leonard replied carelessly. “Let your brother understand, if you can, that he builds his hopes on a very doubtful succession.”

“Half of it he expects to get. Granny and you, he says, are the only heirs. What is hers, he says, is his. So he has made her sign a paper giving him all her share.”

“Oh! And where do you come in?”

“There will be nothing for me, because it will all be granny’s: and she has signed that paper, so that it is to be all his.”

“I am sorry that she has signed anything, though I do not suppose such a document would stand.”

“Sam says she owes the family for fifty years’ maintenance: that is, £20,000, without counting out-of-pocket expenses, incidentals, and rent. How he makes it out I don’t know, because poor old granny doesn’t cost more than £30 a year, and I find that. Can’t he claim that money?”

“Of course not. She owes him nothing. Your brother is not, I fear, quite a – a straight-walking Christian, is he?”

She sighed.

“He’s a Church member; but, then, he says it’s good for business. Mother sides with Sam. They are both at her every day. Oh, Mr. Campaigne, is it all Sam’s fancy? Will there be no money at all? When he finds it out, he’ll go off his head for sure.”

“I don’t know. Don’t listen to him. Don’t think about the money.”

“I must sometimes. It’s lovely to think about being rich, after you’ve been so poor. Why, sometimes we’ve had to go for days – we women – with a kippered herring or a bloater and a piece of bread for dinner. And as for clothes and gloves and nice things – ”

“But now you have an income, and you have your work. Those days are gone. Don’t dream of sudden wealth.”

She got up.

“I won’t think about it. It’s wicked to dream about being rich.”

“What would you do with money if you had it?”

“First of all, it would be so nice not to think about the rent and not to worry, when illness came into the house, how the Doctor was to be paid. And next, Sam would be always in a good temper.”

“No,” said Leonard decidedly; “Sam would not always be in a good temper.”

“Then I should take granny away, and leave mother and Sam.”

“You would have to give up your work, you know – the school and the children and everything.”

“Couldn’t I go on with the school?”

“Certainly not.”

“I shouldn’t like that. Oh, I couldn’t give up the school and the children!”

“Well – but what would you buy?”

“Books – I should buy books.”

“You can get them at the Free Library for nothing. Do you want fine clothes?”

“Every woman likes to look nice,” she said. “But not fine clothes – I couldn’t wear fine clothes.”

“Then you’d be no better off than you are now. Do you want a carriage?”

“No; I’ve got my bike.”

“Do you want money to give away?”

“No. It only makes poor people worse to give them money.”

“Very well. Now, my cousin, you have given yourself a lesson. You have work that you like: you have a reasonably good salary: you have access to books – as many as you want: you can dress yourself as you please and as you wish: would you improve your food?”

“Oh, the food’s good enough! We women don’t care much what we eat. As for Sam, he’s always wanting more buttered toast with his tea.”

“Rapacious creature! Now, Mary Anne, please to reflect on these things, and don’t talk about family misfortunes so long as you yourself are concerned. And just think what a miserable girl you would be if you were to become suddenly rich.”

She laughed merrily.

“Miserable!” she said. “I never thought of that. You mean that I shouldn’t know what to do with the money?”

“No, not that. You wouldn’t know what to do with yourself. You have been brought up to certain standards. If you were rich, you would have to change them. The only way to be rich,” said this philosopher who was going to inherit a goodly estate, “is to be born rich, and so not to feel the burden of wealth.”

“I suppose so. I wish you would say it all over again for Sam to hear. Not that he would listen.”

“And how would you like just to have everything you want by merely calling for it? There is no desire for anything with a rich girl: no trying to get it: no waiting for it: no getting it at last, and enjoying it all the more. Won’t you think of this?”

“I will. Yes, I will.”

“Put the horrid thought of the money out of your head altogether, and go on with your work. And be happy in it.”

She nodded gravely.

“I am happy in it. Only, sometimes – ”

“And remember, please, if there is anything – anything at all that it would please your grandmother to have, let me know. Will you let me know? And will you have the pleasure of giving it to her?”

“Yes, I will – I will. And will you come again soon?”

“I will call again very soon.”

“I will tell granny. It will please her – oh! more than I can say. And you’ll read the book, won’t you, just to please her?”

“I will read the book to please her.”

“She longs to see you again. And so do I. Oh, Mr. Campaigne – cousin, then – it’s just lovely to hear you talk!”

CHAPTER X

A DINNER AT THE CLUB

LEONARD stood looking straight before him when the girl had gone. Well, the omissions so much regretted by Constance seemed to be fully supplied. He was now exactly like other people, with poor relations and plenty of scandals and people to be ashamed of. Only a week ago he had none of these things. Now he was supplied with all. Nothing was wanting. He was richly, if unexpectedly, endowed with these gifts which had been at first withheld. As yet he hardly rose to the situation: he felt no gratitude: he would have resigned these new possessions willingly: the tragedies, the new cousins, the ennobling theory of hereditary sorrow.

He remembered the brown-paper parcel which he had promised to read; he tore off the covering. Within there was a foolscap volume of the kind called “scrap-book.” He opened it, and turned over the pages. It was more than half filled with newspaper cuttings and writing between and before and after the cuttings. As he turned the pages there fell upon him a sense of loathing unutterable. He threw the book from him, and fell back upon an easy-chair, half unconscious.

When he recovered, he picked up the book. The same feeling, but not so strong, fell upon him again. He laid it down gently as a thing which might do him harm. He felt cold; he shivered: for the first time in his life, he was afraid of something. He felt that deadly terror which superstitious men experience in empty houses and lonely places in the dark – a terror inexplicable, that comes unasked and without cause.

This young man was not in the least degree superstitious. He had no terror at all concerning things supernatural; he would have spent a night alone in a church vault, among coffins and bones and grinning skulls, without a tremor. Therefore this strange dread, as of coming evil, astonished him. It seemed to him connected with the book. He took it up and laid it down over and over again. Always that shiver of dread, that sinking of the heart, returned.

He thought that he would leave the book and go out; he would overcome this weakness on his return. And he remembered that the returned Australian – the man of wealth, the successful man of the family – was to dine with him at the club. He left the book on the table; he took his hat, and he sallied forth to get through the hours before dinner away from the sight of this enchanted volume charged with spells of fear and trembling.

Uncle Fred arrived in great spirits, a fine figure of Colonial prosperity, talking louder than was considered in that club to be good form. He called for a brandy and bitters, and then for another, which astonished the occupants of the morning-room. Then he declared himself ready for dinner.

He was; he displayed not only an uncommon power of putting away food, but also an enviable power of taking his wine as a running stream never stopping. He swallowed the champagne, served after the modern fashion with no other wine, as if it was a brook falling continuously into a cave, without pause or limit.

When the dinner was over, a small forest of bottles had been successively opened and depleted. Never had the club-waiters gazed upon a performance so brilliant in a house where most men considered a mere little pint of claret to be a fair whack, a proper allowance. After dinner this admirable guest absorbed a bottle of claret. Then, on adjourning to the smoking-room, he took coffee and three glasses of curaçoa in rapid succession. Then he lit a cigar, and called for a soda and whisky. At regular intervals of a quarter of an hour he called for another soda and whisky. Let us not count them. They were like the kisses of lovers, never to be counted or reckoned, either for praise or blame. It was half-past nine when this phenomenal consumption of wine and whisky began, and it lasted until half-past eleven.

Leonard was conscious that the other men in the room were fain to look on in speechless wonder; the increased seriousness in the waiters’ faces showed their appreciation and envy. The club-waiter loveth most the happy few who drink with freedom. His most serious admiration and respect go forth to one who becomes a mere cask of wine, and yet shows no signs of consequences. Now, this performer, from start to finish, turned not a hair; there was no thickness in his speech; there was no sign of any effect of strong drink upon this big man.

That he talked more loudly than was at this club generally liked is true. But, then, he always talked loud enough to be heard in every part of the largest room. The things of which he spoke; the stories he told; the language in which he clothed these stories, astonished the other members who were present – astonished and delighted them beyond measure, because such a loud and confident guest had never before been known in the place, and because it had been the fortune of Campaigne, Leonard Campaigne – the blameless, the austere, the cold – who had brought this elderly Bounder, this empty hogshead or barrel to be filled with strong drink, this trumpet-voiced utterer of discreditable stories. Next day there were anecdotes told in the club by those who had been present, and scoffers laughed, and those who had not been present envied those who had.

“Leonard,” said this delightful guest, late in the evening, and in a louder voice than ever, “I suppose someone has told you about the row – you know – when I had to leave the country. There had been plenty of rows before; but I mean the big row. You were only three or four years old at the time. I suppose you can’t remember.”

The other men lifted their heads. They were like Mrs. Cluppins. Listening they scorned, but the words were forced upon them.

“No one told me – that is to say, I heard something the other day. No details – something alleged as the cause.”

“Would you like to know the real truth?”

“No! Good heavens, no! Let bygone scandals rest,” he replied, in a murmur as low as extreme indignation would allow. “Let the thing die – die and be forgotten.”

“My dear nephew” – he laid a great hand on Leonard’s knee – “I dare say they told you the truth. Only, you see” – he said this horrid thing loud enough to gratify the curiosity of all present – “the real truth is that the fellow who put the name at the bottom of you know what, and did the rest of it, was not me, but the other fellow – Chris. That’s all. Chris the respectable it was – not me.”

“I tell you I want to know nothing about it.”

“I don’t care. You must. After all these years, do you think now that I am home again, with my pile made, that I’m going to labour under such an imputation any longer? No, sir. I’ve come to hold up my head like you. Chris may hang his if he likes. I won’t. (Boy, another whisky and soda.) In those days Chris and I hunted in couples. Very good sport we had, too. Then we got through the money, and there was tightness. Chris did it. Run him in if you like. For, you see – ”

“Enough said – enough said.” Leonard looked round the room. There were only three or four men present: they sat singly, each with a magazine in his hand: they preserved the attitude of those who read critically, but there was a je-ne-sais-quoi about them which suggested that they had heard the words of this delightful guest. Indeed, he spoke loud enough for all to hear. It is not every day that one can hear in a respectable club revelations about putting somebody’s name on the front and on the back of a document vaguely described as “you know what.”

“Enough said,” Leonard repeated impatiently.

“My dear fellow, you interrupt. I am going to set the whole thing right, if you’ll let me.”