Walter Besant
The Fourth Generation
“It is consequence, not punishment. We must not confuse the two. Take the case of crime. Body and mind and soul are all connected together, so that the face proclaims the mind and the mind presents the soul. The criminal is a diseased man. Body and mind and soul are all connected together. He lives in an evil atmosphere. Thought, action, impulse, are all evil. He is wrapped in a miasma, like a low-lying meadow on an autumn morning. The children may inherit the disease of crime just as they may inherit consumption or gout. That is to say, they are born with a tendency to crime, as they may be born with a tendency to consumption or gout. It is not punishment, I repeat. It is consequence. In such children there is an open door to evil of some kind or other.”
“Since all men have weaknesses or faults, there must be always such an open door to all children.”
“I suppose so. But the son of a man reputed blameless, whose weaknesses or faults are presumably light or venial, is less drawn towards the open door than the son of the habitual criminal. The son of the criminal naturally makes for the open door, which is the easy way. It is the consequence. As for our own troubles, perhaps, if we knew, they, too, may be the consequence – not the punishment. But we do not know – we cannot find the crime, or the criminal.”
CHAPTER XV
“BARLOW BROTHERS”
“The theory of consequence” – Leonard was arranging his thoughts on paper for better clearness – “while it answers most of the difficulties connected with hereditary trouble, breaks down, it must be confessed, in some cases. Given, for instance, a case in which a boy is carefully educated, has no bad examples before him, shows no signs of vice, and is ignorant of the family misfortunes. If that boy becomes a spendthrift and a prodigal, or worse, when there has never before been such a thing in the family, how can we connect the case with the faults or vices of a grandfather altogether unlike his own, and unknown to him? I should be inclined rather to ascribe the case to some influences of the past, not to be discovered, due to some maternal ancestry. A man, for instance, may be so completely unlike any other member of the family that we must search for the cause of his early life in the line of his mother or his grandmother.”
He was just then thinking of his uncle – the returned Colonial, in whom, except for his commanding stature and his still handsome face, there was nothing to remind the world of the paternal side. Whenever he thought of this cheerful person, with whom life seemed a pleasant play, certain doubts crossed his mind, and ran like cold water down his back. He had come home rich – that was something. He might have come home as poor as when he started. Rich or poor, he would have been the same – as buoyant, as loud, as unpresentable.
In fact, at this very moment, when these reflections were forming a part of Leonard’s great essay on the after-effects of evil – an essay which created only last month so great a stir that people talked of little else for a whole evening – the rich Australian was on his way to confess the fact that things were not exactly as he had chosen to present them.
He did confess the truth, or as much of the truth as he could afford to express, but in an easy and irresponsible manner, as if nothing mattered much. He was a philosopher, to whom nothing did matter. He came in, he shook hands and laughed buoyantly; he chose a cigar from Leonard’s box, he rang the bell for whisky and a few bottles of soda; when the whisky and the soda had arrived and were within reach, he took a chair, and laughed again.
“My boy,” he said, “I’m in a tight place again.”
“In what way?”
“Why, for want of money. That’s the only possible tight place at my age. At yours there are many. It is only a temporary tightness, of course.” He opened the soda-water and drank off the full tumbler at a gulp. “Temporary. Till the supplies arrive.”
“The supplies?” Leonard put the question in a nasty, cold, suspicious manner, which would have changed smiles into blankness in a more sensitive person. But uncle Fred was by no means sensitive or thin-skinned. He was also so much accustomed to temporary tightness that the incongruity of tightness with his pretensions of prosperity had not occurred to him.
“Supplies?” he replied. “Supplies from Australia, of course.”
“I thought that you were a partner in a large and prosperous concern.”
“Quite true – quite true. Barlow Brothers is both large and prosperous.”
“In that case it is easy for you to draw upon your bankers or the agents for your bank or some friends in the City. You go into the City every day, I believe. Your position must be well known. In other words, I mistrust this temporary tightness.”
“Mistrust? And from you? Really, Leonard – ”
“I put things together. I find in you none of the habits of a responsible merchant. I know that everywhere character is essential for commercial success – ”
“Character? What should I be without character?”
“You come home as the successful merchant: you drink: you talk as if you were a debauched youngster about town: your anecdotes are scandalous: your tastes are low. Those are the outward signs.”
“I am on a holiday. Out there – it’s very different. As for drink, of course in a thirsty climate like that of New South Wales – and this place – one must drink a little. For my own part, I am surprised at my own moderation.”
“Very well. I will not go on with the subject, only – to repeat – if you are in a tight place, those who know your solvency will be very willing to relieve you. I hope you are not here to borrow of me, because – ”
The man laughed again. “Not I. Nobody is likely to borrow of you, Leonard. That is quite certain – not even the stoniest broke. Make your mind quite easy. As for my friends in the City, I know very well what to do about them. No; I am here because I want to throw myself upon the family.”
“The family consists of your brother, who may be able to help you – ”
“I’ve asked him. He won’t – Christopher was always a selfish beast. Good fellow to knock about with and all that – ready for anything – but selfish – damned selfish.”
“And your aunt Lucy – ”
“I don’t know her. Who is she?”
“She is not able to assist you. And of myself.”
“You forget the Head of the Family – my old grandfather. I am going to him.”
“You will get nothing out of him – not even a word of recognition.”
“I know. I have been down there to look at him. I have been to see his solicitors.”
“You will get nothing from them without their client’s authority.”
“Well, you know the family affairs, of course. I suppose that a word from you authorising or advising the transfer of a few thousands – or hundreds – out of that enormous pile – ”
“I have no right to authorise or advise. I know nothing about my great-grandfather’s affairs.”
“Tell me, dear boy, what about those accumulations? We mentioned them the other day.”
“I know nothing about them.”
“Of course, of course. I’m not going to put questions. The bulk of everything will be yours, naturally. I have no objection. I am not going to interfere with you. Only, don’t you think you could go to the people, the agents or solicitors, and put it to them, that, as a son of the House, I should like an advance of – say a thousand pounds?”
“I am quite certain beforehand they will do nothing for you.”
“You’re a better man of the world than I thought, my boy. I respect you for it. Nobody is to have a finger in the pie but yourself. And you look so damned solemn over it, too.”
“I tell you that I know nothing.”
“Just so – just so. Well, you know nothing. I’ve made a rough calculation – but never mind. Let the accumulations be. Very good, then, I shall not interfere. Meantime, I want some money. Get me from those lawyers a thousand.”
“I cannot get you anything. As for myself, I have not got a thousand pounds in the world. You forget that all I have is my mother’s small fortune of a few hundreds a year. It is not in my power to lend you anything.”
He laughed again in his enjoyment of the situation. “Delicious!” he said. “And I said that I wasn’t going to borrow anything. This it is to be a British swell. Well, I don’t mind. I will draw upon you at six months. Come. Long before that time I shall be in funds again.”
“No. You shall not even draw upon me at six months,” Leonard replied, with some vague knowledge of what was implied. “You told me you were rich.”
“Every man is rich who is a partner in a going concern.”
“Then, again, why are you in this tight place?”
“My partner, you see, has been playing the fool. Barlow Brothers, General Stores, Colonial Produce, will be smashed if I can’t raise a few hundreds.”
“Your going concern, as you call it, is going to grief. And what will you do?”
“You shall just see what I wanted. Barlows’ is a General Store in a rising town. There are great capabilities in Barlow Brothers. I came over here to convert Barlow Brothers into a Limited Liability Company, capital £150,000. Branches everywhere. Our own sugar estates, our own tea and coffee plantations. That was my idea!”
“It was a bold idea, at any rate.”
“It was. As for Barlows’ General Store, I confess, between ourselves, and considering that you don’t belong to the City, I don’t mind owning up to you that it is little better than a shanty, where I sold sardines and tea-leaves and bacon. But the capabilities, my dear boy – the capabilities!”
“And you brought this project to London! Well, there have been greater robberies.”
Uncle Fred took another glass of whisky-and-soda. He laughed no more. He even sighed.
“I thought London was an enterprising city. It appears not. No promoter will so much as look at the Company. I was willing to let my interest in it go for £40,000. If you’ll believe me, Leonard, they won’t even look at it. A few hundreds would save it, a few thousands would make it a Colossal Success. For want of it we must go to the wall.”
“You were hoping to sell a bankrupt business as a flourishing business.”
“That is so. But it hasn’t come off.”
“Well, what shall you do?”
“I shall have to begin again at the bottom. That’s all.”
“Oh!” Leonard looked at him doubtfully, for he seemed in no way cast down. “You will go back to Australia, then.” There was some consolation in the thought.
“I shall go back. I don’t know my way about in London. I will go back and begin again, just as before, at the bottom rung. I shall have to do odd jobs, I dare say. I may possibly have to become a shepherd, or a night-watchman, or a sandwich-man. What does it matter? I shall only be down among the boys who can’t get any lower. There’s a fine feeling of brotherhood down there, which you swells would never understand.”
“Have you no money left at all?”
“None. Not more than I carry about with me. A few pounds.”
“Then the fine show of prosperity was all a sham?”
“All a sham. And it wouldn’t work. Nobody in the City will look at my Company.”
“Would it not be better to try for some definite kind of work? You can surely do something. You might write for the papers, with all your experience.”
“Write for the papers? I would rather go on tramp, which is much more amusing. Do something? What am I to do? Man, there isn’t on the face of the earth a more helpless person than a bankrupt trader at forty-five. He knows too much to be employed in his own trade. He’s got to go down below and to stay there. Never mind. I can turn my hand to anything. If I stayed at home I should have to be a sandwich-man. How would you like that? Even my old grandfather would come back to the present life, if it were only to burst with rage, if he met his grandson walking down Regent Street between a pair of boards. You wouldn’t like it yourself, would you? Come out to Sydney next year, and very likely you’ll see that, or something like it.”
“Then you go out to certain misery.”
“Misery? Certain misery?” The Colonist laughed cheerfully. “My nephew, you are a very narrow-minded person, though you are a scholar and a Member of Parliament. You think that it is misery to take off a frock-coat and a tall hat, and to put on a workingman’s jacket and bowler. Bless you, my boy! that’s not misery. The real misery is being hungry and cold. In Australia no one is ever cold, and very few are ever hungry. In my worst times I’ve always had plenty to eat, and though I’ve been many times without a shilling, I’ve never in all my life been miserable or ashamed.”
“But there is the companionship.”
“The companions? They are the best fellows in the world. Misery? There isn’t any with the fellows down below, especially the young fellows. And, mind you, it is exciting work, the hand-to-mouth life. Now, by the time I get out, the business will be sold up, and my partner, who is a young man, will be off on another lay; they always put out the old man as soon as they can. What shall I do? I shall go hawking and peddling. I shall become Autolycus.”
“And afterwards?”
“There is no afterwards, till you come to the hospital, which is a really pleasant place, and the black box. I’ve done it before, and I’ll do it again.” He mixed another soda-and-whisky and drank it off. “It’s thirsty work along the roads under the sun – a red-hot burning sun, not like your red frying-pan skulking behind a cloud. Wherever you stop you get a drink. Then you bring out your wares. I’ve got a tongue that runs like an engine newly oiled. And where you put up for the night there are the boys on the road, and there are songs and stories. Respectability go hang!”
He laughed again. He put on his hat and swung out of the room, laughing as at the very finest joke in the world – to come home as a gentleman, and to go back as a tramp.
CHAPTER XVI
AND ANOTHER CAME
ALMOST immediately after the colonial merchant – the wholesale trader in sardines and tea-leaves from a shanty – had departed, there came another. They might almost have passed each other on the stairs.
It was none other than the Counsel learned in the Law, the pride and prop of his family, the successful barrister, Mr. Christopher Campaigne.
“Good heavens!” cried Leonard, “what is the matter with this man?” For his uncle dropped speechless, limp, broken up, into a chair, and there lay, his hands dangling, his face filled with terror and care. “My dear Uncle Christopher,” he said, “what has happened?”
“The worst,” groaned the lawyer – “the very worst. The impossible has happened. The one thing that I guarded against. The thing which I feared. Oh, Leonard! how shall I tell you?”
Come with me to the chambers where the Professor of Oratory was preparing, as in a laboratory, his great effects of laughter and of tears. It was morning – high noon. He was engaged upon what is perhaps the most fascinating branch of a most delightful profession – a speech of presentation. Before him, in imagination, stood the mug; beside him the recipient; and in front of him a vast hall filled with sympathetic donors. Such a speech is the enunciation and the magnifying of achievements. It must be illustrated by poetical quotations; the better known and the more familiar they are, the more effective they will prove. The speaker should tell one funny story at least; he must also contrive, but not obtrusively – with modesty – to suggest his own personal importance as, if anything, superior to that of the recipient; he must not grovel before greatness.
All these points the professional manufacturer of oratory understood and had at his fingers’ ends. He was quite absorbed in his work, insomuch that he paid no kind of attention to footsteps outside, nor even, at first, to an angry voice in the outer office, which, as we have seen, was only protected by the boy, who had nothing else to do, unless the reading of Jack Harkaway’s adventures be considered a duty.
“Stand out of my way!” cried the voice, apparently infuriated. “Let me get at him!”
The professional man looked up wonderingly. Apparently a row on the stairs. But his own door burst open, and a young man, quite a little man, with hot cheeks and eyes aflame, rushed in brandishing a stick. The orator sprang to his feet, seizing the office ruler. He leaned over his table, six feet three in height, with this formidable weapon in his hand, and he faced the intruder with calm, cold face.
We must not blame the assailant; doubtless he was of tried and proved courage, but he was only five feet five. Before that calm face of inquiry, on which there was no line of terror or of repentance, his eyes fell. The fire and fury went out of him quite suddenly. Perhaps he had not developed his æsthetic frame by rude exercise. He dropped his stick, and stood irresolute.
“Oh,” said his enemy quietly, “you think better about the stick, do you? The horse-whipping is to stand over, is it? Now, sir” – he rapped the table horribly with the ruler, so that the little man trembled all over; the adventure unexpectedly promised pain as well as humiliation – “what do you mean? What do you come here for, making this infernal racket? What – ”
Here he stopped short, because to his unspeakable dismay he saw standing in the doorway none other than his own son, Algernon, and Algernon’s face was not good to look at, being filled with shame, amazement, and bewilderment – with shame because he understood, all in a moment, that his father’s life had been one long lie, and that by this way, and none other, the family income had been earned. Had not his friend on the way told him that the man Crediton was known in certain circles as the provider of good after-dinner speeches for those who could afford to pay for them? – how it was whispered that the rare and occasional evenings on which the speeches were crisp and fiery and witty and moving all through were those for which Crediton had supplied the whole? – and how for his own speech, about which he had been most shamefully treated, he had paid twenty guineas? So that he understood without more words, and looked on open-mouthed, having for the moment no power of speech or utterance.
The father first recovered. He went on as if his son was not present.
“Who are you, sir, I say, who come to my quiet office with this blackguard noise? If you don’t tell me on the spot, I will take you by the scruff of your miserable little neck and drop you over the banisters.”
“I – I – I wrote to you for a speech.”
“What speech? What name? What for?”
His client, whose eyes at first were blinded by excess of wrath, now perceived to his amazement that Mr. Crediton was none other than his friend’s father, whom, indeed, he had met at the family mansion in Pembridge Crescent.
“Good Lord!” he cried, “it’s – it’s Mr. Campaigne!” – he glanced from father to son, and back again – “Mr. Campaigne!”
“And why not, sir – why not? Answer me that.”
Again the ruler descended with a sickening resonance.
“Oh, I don’t know why not. How should I know?” the intruder stammered. “It’s no concern of mine, I’m sure.”
“Then come to the point. What speech? What name? What for?”
“The Company of Cartmakers. The speech that you sent me – it arrived by post.”
“A very good speech, too. I did send it. Much too good for you or for the fee you paid. I remember it. What is the matter with it? How dare you complain of it!”
“The matter, sir – the matter,” he stammered, feeling much inclined to sit down and cry, “is that you sent the same speech to the proposer. Mine was the reply. The same speech – do you hear? – the same speech to the proposer as to me, who had to reply. Now, sir, do you realise – Oh, I am not afraid of your ruler, I say;” but his looks belied his words. “Do you understand the enormity of your conduct?”
“Impossible! How could I do such a thing – I who have never made a mistake before in all my professional career?” He looked hard at his son, and repeated the words “professional career.” “Are you sure of what you say?” He laid down his ruler with a very serious air. “Are you quite sure?”
“Certain. The same speech, word for word. Everything – every single thing – was taken out of my mouth; I hadn’t a word to say.”
“How did that happen, I wonder? Stay, I have type-written copies of both speeches – the toast and the reply. Yes, yes, I always keep one copy. I am afraid I do understand how I may have blundered.” He opened a drawer, and turned over some papers. “Ah, yes, yes. Dear me! I sent out the second copy of your speech to the other man instead of his own. Here is his own duplicate – the two copies – which fully explains it. Dear, dear! Tut, tut, tut! I fear you were unable to rise to the occasion and make up a little speech for yourself?”
“I could not; I was too much astonished, and I may add disgusted, to do – er – justice to myself.”
“No doubt – no doubt. My clients never can do justice to their own genius without my help. Now sit down, sir, and let us talk this over for a moment.”
He himself sat down. His son meanwhile stood at the open door, still as one petrified.
“Now, sir, I confess that you have reason to complain. It was a most unfortunate accident. The other man must have observed something wrong about the opening words. However, most unfortunate.” He opened a safe standing beside him, and took out a small bundle of cheques. “Your cheque arrived yesterday morning. Fortunately, it is not yet paid in. I return it, sir – twenty guineas. That is all I can do for you except to express my regret that this accident should have occurred. I feel for you, young gentleman. I forgive your murderous intentions, and I assure you, if you will come to me again, I will make you the finest after-dinner orator in the town. And now, sir, I have other clients.”
He rose. The young man put the cheque in his pocket.
“It will be,” he said grandly, “my duty to expose you – everywhere.” He turned to his companion. “To expose you both.”
“And yourself, dear sir – and yourself at the same time.”
The Agent rattled the keys in his pocket, and repeated the words, “Yourself at the same time.”
“I don’t care – so long as I expose you.”
“You will care when you come to think about it. You will have to tell everybody that you came to me to buy a speech which you were about to palm off as your own. There are one or two transactions of the same nature standing over, so to speak. Remember, young gentleman, there are two persons to be exposed: myself, whom the exposure will only advertise, and you yourself, who will be ruined as an orator – or anything else.”
But the young man was implacable. He had his cheque back. This made him stiffer and sterner.
“I care nothing. I could never pretend again to be an orator after last night’s breakdown. I was dumfoundered. I could say nothing: they laughed at me, the whole Hall full of people – three hundred of them – laughed at me – and all through you – through you. I’ll be revenged – I’ll make you sorry for last night’s business – sick and sorry you shall be. As for you – ” He turned upon Algernon.
“Shut up, and get out,” said his friend. “Get out, I say, or – ”
Algernon made room for him, and the aggrieved client marched out with as much dignity as he could command.
Left together, father and son glared at each other icily. They were both of the same height, tall and thin, and closely resembling each other, with the strong type of the Campaigne face; and both wore pince-nez. The only difference was that the elder of the two was a little thin about the temples.
The consciousness of being in the wrong destroyed the natural superiority of the father. He replied with a weak simulacrum of a laugh.
“Surely the situation explains itself,” he said feebly, opening the door for explanation.
“Am I to understand that for money you write – write – write speeches for people who pretend – actually pretend – that they are their own?”
“Undoubtedly. Did not your friend confess to you why he was coming here?”
“Well – of course he did.”
“And did you remonstrate with him on account of his dishonesty?”
Mr. Algernon Campaigne shirked the question, and replied by another. “And do you regard this mode of money-making – I cannot call it a profession – this mode – honourable – a thing to be proud of?”
“Why not? Certain persons with no oratorical gifts are called upon to speak after dinner or on other occasions. They write to me for assistance. I send them speeches. I coach them. In fact, I am an oratorical coach. They learn what they have to say, and they say it. It is a perfectly honourable, laudable, and estimable way of making money. Moreover, my son, it makes money.”
“Then, why not conduct this – this trade – openly under your own name?”
“Because, in the nature of things, it is a secret business. My clients’ names are secret. So also is the nature of our transactions.”
“But this place is not Lincoln’s Inn. How do you spare the time from your law work?”
“My dear boy, there has been a little deception, pardonable under the circumstances. In point of fact, I never go to Lincoln’s Inn. There is no practice. I’ve got a garret which I never go near. There never has been any practice.”
“No practice?” The young man sank helplessly into a chair. “No practice? But we have been so proud all along of your distinguished career.”
“There has never been any legal practice at all. I adopted this line in the hope of making a little money at a time when the family was pretty hard up, and it succeeded beyond my expectations.”
Algernon sat down and groaned aloud.
“We are done for. That – that little beast is the most spiteful creature in the world, and the most envious. He is mad to be thought clever. He has published some things – I believe he bought them. He goes about; he poses. There isn’t a man in London more dangerous. He will tell everybody. How shall we face the storm?”
“People, my son, will still continue to want their after-dinner speeches.”
“I am thinking of my sister, myself, and our position. What will my mother say? What will our friends say? Good Lord! we are all ruined and shamed. We can never hold up our heads again. What on earth can we say? How can we get out of it? Who will call upon us?”
The parent was touched.
“My dear boy,” he said humbly, “I must think the matter over. There will be trouble, perhaps. Leave me for the present, and – still for the present – hold your tongue.”
His son obeyed. Then Mr. Crediton resumed his work, but the interruption was fatal. He was fain to abandon the speech of presentation, and to consider the prospect of exposure. Not that any kind of exposure would destroy his profession, for that had now become a necessity for the convenience of the social life – think what we should suffer if all the speeches were home-made! – but there was the position of his wife and family: the reproaches of his wife and family: the lowering of his wife and family in the social world. It would be fatal for them if he were known as a secret purveyor of eloquence; secrecy can never be considered honourable or ennobling: dress it up as you will, the cloven foot of fraud cannot be disguised.
He went out because he was too much agitated to keep still or to do any work, and he wandered through the streets feeling pretty small. How would the exposure come? This young fellow had been brought to the house; he called at the house; he came to their evenings and posed as poet, story-teller, orator, epigrammatist; he knew a whole lot of people in their set: he could certainly make things very disagreeable. And he was in such a rage of disappointment and humiliation – for he had broken down utterly and shamefully – that he certainly intended to be nasty.
After a tempestuous youth in company with his brother, this man had settled down into the most domestic creature in the world. Twenty-five years of domestic joys had been his portion; they were made possible by his secret profession. His wife adored and believed in him; his children, while they despised his æsthetics, respected his law. In a word, he occupied the enviable position of a successful barrister, a gentleman of good family, and the owner of a good income. This position was naturally more than precious: it was his very life. At home he was, in his own belief, a great lawyer; in his office he was Mr. Crediton the universal orator. They were separate beings; and now they were to be brought together. Crediton would be known to the world as Campaigne, Campaigne as Crediton. He was a forlorn and miserable object indeed.
As he passed along the street he discovered suddenly that he was passing one of the entrances to Bendor Mansions. A thought struck him.
“I must ask someone’s advice,” he murmured. “I cannot bear the trouble all alone and unsupported. I will tell Leonard everything.”
Leonard sprang to his feet, astonished at this extraordinary exhibition of despair.
“My dear uncle Christopher!” he exclaimed, “what does this mean? What has happened?”
The unhappy man, anxious to take counsel, yet shrinking from confession, groaned in reply.
“Has anything happened at home? My aunt? My cousins?”
“Worse – worse. It has happened to me.”
“Well… But what has happened? Man, don’t sit groaning there. Lift up your head and tell me what has happened.”
“Ruin,” he replied – “social ruin and disgrace. That is all. That is all.”
“Then, you are the second member of our truly fortunate family who has been ruined this very day. Perhaps,” Leonard added coldly, “it might be as well if you could let me know what form your ruin has taken.”
“Social ruin and disgrace. That is all. I shall never be able to look anyone in the face any more.”
“What have you done, then?”
“I have done only what I have been doing blamelessly, because no one ever suspected it, for five-and-twenty years. Now it has been found out.”
“You have been doing something disgraceful for five-and-twenty years, and now you have been found out. Well, why have you come to me? Is it to get my sympathy for disgracing your name?”
“You don’t understand, Leonard.”
He lost his temper.
“How the devil am I to understand if you won’t explain? You say that you are disgraced – ”
“Let me tell you all – everything – from the beginning. It came from knocking about London with my brother Fred. He was a devil: he didn’t care what he did. So we ran through our money – it wasn’t much – and Fred went away.”
