Walter Besant
The Fourth Generation
“Langley? My grandfather’s name.”
“Yes, Langley Holme. I think he was found lying dead on a hillside. So our great-grandfather, I say, lost in one day his wife and his brother-in-law, who was the best friend he had in the world. Why, sir, if you ever go down to see him and find him in that state, does it not occur to you to ask how it came about?”
“I confess – he is so old. I thought it eccentricity of age.”
“No!” His cousin shook his head. “Age alone would not make a man go on like that. I take it, sir, that extreme age makes a man care nothing about other people, not even his own children; but it does not cut him off from money matters.”
“You are perhaps right. Yet – well, I know nothing. So the old man’s mind was overthrown by the great shock of a double loss. Strange that they never told me! And his son, my grandfather, committed suicide. And his sister’s husband became a bankrupt.”
“Yes; there are misfortunes enough. The old woman is never tired of harping on the family misfortunes. The second son was drowned. He was a sailor, and was drowned. My father was never anything better than a small clerk. I’ve known myself what it is to want the price of a dinner. If you want to know what misfortune is like, wait till you’re hungry.”
“Indeed!” Leonard replied thoughtfully. “And all these troubles are new to me. Strange that they should be told me on this very day!”
“Then there’s your own father. He died young, too, and the last case that the old woman talks about is your father’s brother. I forget his name; they packed him off to Australia after he had forged your father’s name.”
“What?”
“Forged. That’s a pretty word to use, isn’t it? Yes, sir, there are misfortunes enough.” He got up. “Well, the point is, will you come and see the old woman?”
“Yes. I will call upon her. When shall I find her at home?”
“She lies down on the sofa beside the fire every afternoon from two to four or half-past four, then wakes up refreshed and able to talk. Come about half-past four. It’s the back-parlour; the front is my office, and my clerk – I have only one as yet – works in the room over the kitchen – the gal’s bedroom it is, as a rule. It is a most respectable house, with my name on a door-plate, so you can’t miss it.”
“I will call, then.”
“There is one thing more, Mr. Campaigne. We have not thrust ourselves forward, or tried to force ourselves on the family, and we shall not, sir, we shall not. We live six miles apart, and we have our own friends, and my friends are not yours. Still, in a business way, there is a question which I should like to ask. It is a business question.”
The man’s face became suddenly foxy. He leaned forward and dropped his voice to a whisper. Leonard was on his guard instinctively.
“If it has to do with the Campaigne estates, I have nothing whatever to say. Would it not be well to go to the lawyers who manage the estate?”
“No. They would not tell me anything. What I want to know is this. He has, I believe, a large estate?”
“He has, I believe. But he has no power to part with any portion of it.”
“The estate produces rents, I suppose?”
“That is no doubt the case.”
“Well, for seventy years the old man has spent nothing. There must be accumulations. In case of no will, these accumulations would be divided equally between your grandfather’s heirs and my grandmother. Do you know of any will, if I may be so bold as to ask?”
“I know nothing of any will.”
“It is most unlikely that there should be any will. A man who has been off his head for nearly seventy years can hardly leave a will. If he did, one could easily set it aside. Mr. Campaigne, it is on the cards that there may be enormous accumulations.”
“There may be, as you say, accumulations.”
“In that case, it is possible – I say possible – that my sister and I may become rich, very rich – I hardly dare to put the possibility upon myself – but there must be – there must be – accumulations, and the question which I would put to you, sir, is this: Where are those accumulations invested? And can a man find out what they amount to – what they are worth – who draws the dividends – how are they applied – and is there a will? Was it made before or after the old man went off his chump? And if the money is left out of the family, would you, sir, as the head of the family, be ready to take steps to set aside that will? Those are my questions, Mr. Campaigne.” He threw himself back again in the chair, and stuck his thumbs in his waistcoat armholes.
“These are very important questions,” said Leonard. “As a lawyer, you must be aware that I cannot give you any answer. As to the administration of the property, I believe I have no right to ask the lawyers and agents any questions. We must assume that the owner of the estate is in his right mind. As for disputing a will, we must wait till a will is produced.”
“Sir” – the cousin leaned over his knees and whispered hoarsely – “sir, the accumulations must be a million and a half. I worked it all out myself with an arithmetic book. I learned the rule on purpose. For I never got so far in the book as compound interest. It meant hundreds of sums; I did ’em all, one after the other. I thought I should never get to the end. Mary Anne helped. Hundreds of sums at compound interest, and it tots up to a million and a half – a million and a half! Think of that! A million and a half!”
He got up and put on his overcoat slowly.
“Sir,” he added, with deep emotion and a trembling voice, “this money must not be suffered to go out of the family. It must not. It would be sinful – sinful. We look to you to protect the rights of the family.”
Leonard laughed. “I fear I have no power to help you in this respect. Good-night. I hope to call upon my great-aunt as she wishes.”
He shut the door upon his visitor. He heard his feet going down the stairs. He returned to his empty room.
It was no longer empty. The man had peopled it with ghosts, all of whom he had brought with him.
There was the old man – young again – staggering under the weight of a double bereavement – wife and best friend in the same day. There was his own grandfather killing himself. Why? The young sailor going out to be drowned; his own father dying young; the returned colonial – the prosperous gentleman who, before going out, had forged his brother’s name. Forged! forged! The word rang in his brain. There was the daughter of the House – deserted by the House, married into such a family as Mr. Galley represented. Were not these ghosts enough to bring into a quiet gentleman’s flat?
Yes, he had been brought up in ignorance of these things. He knew nothing of the cause of the old man’s seclusion; not the reason of his grandfather’s early death; not any of those other misfortunes. He had been kept in ignorance of all. And now these things were roughly exploded upon his unsuspecting head.
He sat down before the fire; he worked at the “Subject” no more that night. And in his brain there rang still the strange warnings of Constance – that he wanted something of misfortune, such as harassed the rest of the world, in order to bring him down to a level with the men and women around him.
“I have got that something,” he said. “Poor relations, family scandals, and humiliations and all. But so far I feel no better.”
CHAPTER V
A LEARNED PROFESSION
IN one of the streets lying east of Chancery Lane is a block of buildings, comparatively new, let out as offices. They generally consist of three rooms, but sometimes there are four, five, or even six. The geographical position of the block indicates the character of the occupants: does not every stone in Chancery Lane and her daughters belong to the Law? Sometimes, however, there are exceptions. A few trading companies are established here, for instance; and occasionally one finds written across the door such an announcement as “Mr. George Crediton, Agent.” The clerks and people who passed up and down the stairs every day sometimes asked each other what kind of agency was undertaken in this office. But the clerks had their own affairs to think about. Such a mystery as a business conducted in a quiet office to which no clients ever come is a matter of speculation for a while, but soon ceases to excite any attention. Some twenty years and more had passed since that name had first appeared on the door and since the clerks began to wonder.
“Mr. George Crediton, Agent.” There are many kinds of agents. Land, houses, property of all kinds, may be managed by an agent; there are agents for taking out patents – several of these run offices near the Patent Office; there are literary agents – but Chancery Lane is not Parnassus; there are agents for the creation and the dissolution of partnership; there are theatrical agents – but what has law land to do with sock and buskin? And what kind of Agent was Mr. George Crediton?
Mr. George Crediton, Agent, sat in his inner office. The room was furnished solidly with a view to work. The large and ponderous table, covered with papers so dear to the solicitor, was not to be seen here; in its place was an ordinary study table. This was turned at an angle to the wall and window. There was a warm and handsome carpet, a sheepskin under the table, a wooden chair for the Agent, and two others for his visitors. A typewriter stood on the table. The walls were covered with books – not law books, but a miscellaneous collection. The Agent was apparently a man who revelled in light reading; for, in fact, all the modern humorists were there – those from America as well as those of our own production. There was also a collection of the English poets, and some, but not many, of France and Germany. On a table before him stood half a dozen bound folios with the titles on the back – “Reference A – E,” and so on. In one corner, stood an open safe, to which apparently belonged another folio, entitled “Ledger.”
The Agent, engaged upon his work, evidently endeavoured to present an appearance of the gravest responsibility. His face was decorated by a pair of small whiskers cut straight over and set back; the chin and lips were smooth-shaven. The model set before himself was the conventional face of the barrister. Unfortunately, the attempt was not successful, for the face was not in the least like that conventional type. It had no severity, it had no keenness; it was not set or grave or dignified. It might have been the face of a light comedian. In figure the man was over six feet high and curiously thin, with a slightly aquiline nose and mobile, sensitive lips.
He began his morning’s work by opening his letters; there were only two or three. He referred to his ledger and consulted certain entries; he made a few pencil notes. Then he took down from one shelf Sam Slick, Artemus Ward, and Mark Twain, and from another a collection of Burnand’s works and one or two of Frederick Anstey’s. He turned over the pages, and began to make brief extracts and more notes. Perhaps, then, a bystander might have thought he was about to write a paper on the comparative characteristics of English and American humour.
Outside, his boy – he had a clerk of fourteen at five shillings a week – sat before the fire reading the heroic jests and achievements of the illustrious Jack Harkaway. He was a nice boy, full of imagination, resolved on becoming another Jack Harkaway when the time should arrive, and for the moment truly grateful to fortune for providing him with a situation which demanded no work except to post letters and to sit before the fire reading in a warm and comfortable outer room to which no callers or visitors ever came except his employer and the postman; and if you asked that boy what was the character of the agency, he would not be able to tell you.
When Mr. George Crediton had finished making his extracts, he pinned the papers together methodically, and laid them on one side. Then he opened the last letter.
“He’s answered it,” he chuckled. “Fred’s handwriting. I knew it – I knew it. Called himself Barlow, but I knew it directly. Oh, he’ll come – he’ll come.” He sat down and laughed silently, shaking the room with his chuckling. “He’ll come. Won’t he be astonished?”
Presently he heard a step and a voice:
“I want to see Mr. George Crediton.”
“That’s Fred,” said the Agent, chuckling again. “Now for it.”
“There’s nobody with him,” the boy replied, not venturing to commit himself, and unaccustomed to the arrival of strangers.
The caller was a tall man of about forty-five, well set up, and strongly built. He was dressed with the appearance of prosperity, therefore he carried a large gold chain. His face bore the marks which we are accustomed to associate with certain indulgences, especially in strong drink. It is needless to dwell upon these evidences of frailty; besides, one may easily be mistaken. It was a kind of face which might be met with in a snug bar-parlour with a pipe and a glass of something hot – a handsome face, but not intellectual or refined. Yet it ought to have been both. In spite of broadcloth and white linen the appearance of this gentleman hardly extorted the immediate respect of the beholder.
“Tell Mr. Crediton that Mr. Joseph Barlow is outside.”
“Barlow?” said the boy. “Why don’t you go in, then?” and turned over now to his book of adventures.
Mr. Barlow obeyed, and passed into the inner office. There he stopped short, and cried:
“Christopher, by all that’s holy!”
The Agent looked up, sprang to his feet, and held out his hand.
“Fred! Back again, and become a Barlow!”
Fred took the outstretched hand, but doubtfully.
“Come to that, Chris, you’re a Crediton.”
“In the way of business, Crediton.”
“Quite so. In the way of business, Barlow.”
Then they looked at each other and burst into laughter.
“I knew your handwriting, Fred. When I got your letter I knew it was yours, so I sent you a type-written reply. Typewriting never betrays, and can’t be found out if you want to be secret.”
“Oh, it’s mighty funny, Chris. But I don’t understand it. What the devil does it all mean?”
“The very question in my mind, Fred. What does it mean? New rig-out, gold chain, ring – what does it mean? Why have you never written?”
“The circumstances of my departure – you remember, perhaps.”
The Agent’s face darkened.
“Yes, yes,” he replied hastily; “I remember. The situation was awkward – very.”
“You were much worse than I was, but I got all the blame.”
“Perhaps – perhaps. But it was a long time ago, and – and – well, we have both got on. You are now Barlow – Joseph Barlow.”
“And you are now Crediton – George Crediton.”
“Sit down, Fred; let us have a good talk. And how long have you been back?”
Fred took a chair, and sat down on the opposite side of the table.
“Only a fortnight or so.”
“And why didn’t you look me up before?”
“As I told you, there was some doubt – However, here I am. Barlow is the name of my Firm, a large and influential Firm.”
“In Sydney? or Melbourne?”
“No, up-country – over there.” He pointed over his left shoulder. “That’s why I use the name of Barlow. I am here on the business of the Firm – it brought me to London. It takes me every day into the City – most important transactions. Owing to the magnitude of the operation, my tongue is sealed.”
“Oh!” There was a little doubt implied by the interjection. “You a business man? You? Why, you never understood the simplest sum in addition.”
“As regards debts, probably not. As regards assets and property – But in those days I had none. Prosperity, Chris – prosperity brings out all a man’s better qualities. You yourself look respectable.”
“I’ve been respectable for exactly four-and-twenty years. I am married. I have a son of three-and-twenty, and a daughter of one-and-twenty. I live in Pembridge Crescent, Bayswater.”
“And you were by way of being a barrister.”
“I was. But, Fred, to be honest, did you ever catch me reading a law book?”
“I never did. And now you’re an Agent.”
“Say, rather, that I practice in the higher walks of Literature. What can be higher than oratory?”
“Quite so. You supply the world – which certainly makes a terrible mess of its speeches – with discourses and after-dinner oratory.”
“Oratory of all kinds, from the pulpit to the inverted tub: from the Mansion House to the Bar Parlour: from the House of Commons to the political gathering.”
“What does your wife say?”
“My wife? Bless you, my dear boy, she doesn’t know anything. She doesn’t suspect. At home I’m the prosperous and successful lawyer: they wonder why I don’t take silk.”
“What? Don’t they know?”
“Nobody knows. Not the landlord of these rooms. Not the boy outside. Not any of my clients. Not my wife, nor my son, nor my daughter.”
“Oh! And you are making a good thing out of it?”
“So good that I would not exchange it for a County Court Judgeship.”
“It’s wonderful,” said Fred. “And I always thought you rather a half-baked lump of dough.”
“Not more wonderful than your own success. What a blessing it is, Fred, that you have come home without wanting to borrow any money” – he watched his brother’s face: he saw a cloud as of doubt or anxiety pass over it, and he smiled. “Not that I could lend you any if you did want it – with my expensive establishment. Still, it is a blessing and a happiness, Fred, to be able to think of you as the Head – I believe you said the Head – of the great and prosperous Firm of Barlow & Co.” Fred’s face distinctly lengthened. “I suppose I must not ask a business man about his income?”
“Hardly – hardly. Though, if any man – But – I have a partner who would not like these private affairs divulged.”
“Well, Fred, I’m glad to see you back again – I am indeed.”
They shook hands once more, and then, for some unknown reason, they were seized with laughter, long and not to be controlled.
“Distinguished lawyer,” murmured Fred, when the laugh had subsided with an intermittent gurgle.
“Influential man of business,” said Christopher. “Oh! Ho, Lord!” cried he, wiping his eyes, “it brings back the old times when we used to laugh. What a lot we had to laugh at! The creditors and the duns – you remember?”
“I do. And the girls – and the suppers! They were good old times, Chris. You carried on shameful.”
“We did – we did. It’s pleasant to remember, though.”
“Chris, I’m thirsty.”
“You always are.”
His brother remembered this agreeable trait after five-and-twenty years. He got up, opened a cupboard, and took out a bottle and glasses and some soda-water. Then they sat opposite each other with the early tumbler and the morning cigar, beaming with fraternal affection.
“Like old times, old man,” said the barrister.
“It is. We’ll have many more old times,” said Fred, “now that I’m home again.”
In the words of the poet, “Alas! they had been friends in youth,” as well as brothers. And it might have been better had they not been friends in youth. And they had heard the midnight chimes together. And they had together wasted each his slender patrimony. But now they talked friendly over the sympathetic drink that survives the possibility of port and champagne, and even claret.
“Don’t they really suspect – any of them?” asked Brother Fred.
“None of them. They call me a distinguished lawyer and the Pride of the Family – next to Leonard, who’s in the House.”
“Isn’t there a danger of being found out?”
“Not a bit. The business is conducted by letter. I might as well have no office at all, except for the look of it. No, there’s no fear. Nobody ever comes here. How did you find me out?”
“Hotel clerk. He saw my name as a speaker at the dinner to-morrow, and suggested that I should write to you.”
“Good. He gets a commission. I say, you must come and see us, you know. Remember, no allusions to the Complete Speech-maker – eh?”
“Not a word. Though, I say, it beats me how you came to think of it.”
“Genius, my boy – pure genius. When you get your speech you will be proud of me. What’s a practice at the Bar compared with a practice at the after-dinner table? And now, Fred, why Barlow?”
“Well, you remember what happened?” His brother nodded, and dropped his eyes. “Absurd fuss they made.”
“Nobody has heard anything about you for five-and-twenty years.”
“I took another name – a fighting name. Barlow, I called myself – Joseph Barlow. Joe – there’s fight in the very name. No sympathy, no weakening about Joe.”
“Yes. For my own part, I took the name of Crediton. Respectability rather than aggressiveness in that name. Confidence was what I wanted.”
“Tell me about the family. Remember that it was in 1874 that I went away – twenty-five years ago.”
His brother gave him briefly an account of the births and deaths. His mother was dead; his elder brother was dead, leaving an only son.
“As for Algernon’s death,” said the speech-merchant, “it was a great blow. He was really going to distinguish himself. And he died – died at thirty-two. His son is in the House. They say he promises well. He’s a scholar, I believe; they say he can speak; and he’s more than a bit of a prig.”
“And about the old man – the ancient one – is he living?”
“Yes. He is nearly ninety-five.”
“Ninety-five. He can’t last much longer. I came home partly to look after things. Because, although the estate goes to Algernon’s son – deuced bad luck for me that Algernon did have a son – there’s the accumulations. I remembered them one evening out there, and the thought went through me like a knife that he was probably dead, and the accumulations divided, and my share gone. So I bundled home as fast as I could.”
“No – so far you are all right. For he’s hearty and strong, and the accumulations are still rolling up, I suppose. What will become of them no one knows.”
“I see. Well, I must make the acquaintance of Algernon’s son.”
“And about this great Firm of yours?”
“Well, it’s a – as I said – a great Firm.”
“Quite so. It must be, with Fred Campaigne at the head of it.”
“Never mind the Firm, but tell me about this astonishing profession of yours.”
The Professor smiled.
“Fortunately,” he said, “I am alone. Were there any competition I might be ruined. But I don’t know: my reputation by this time stands on too firm a basis to be shaken.”
“Your reputation? But people cannot talk about you.”
“They cannot. But they may whisper – whisper to each other. Why, just consider the convenience. Instead of having to rack their brains for compliments and pretty things and not to find them, instead of hunting for anecdotes and quotations, they just send to me. They get in return a speech just as long as they want – from five minutes to an hour – full of good things! In this way they are able to acquire it at a cheap, that is, a reasonable rate, for next to nothing, considering the reputation of wit and epigram and sparkles. Then think of the company at the dinner. Instead of having to listen to a fumbler and a stammerer and a clumsy boggler, they have before them a speaker easy in his mind, because he has learned it all by heart, bright and epigrammatic. He keeps them all alive, and when he sits down there is a sigh to think that his speech was so short.”
“You must give me just such a speech.”
“I will – I will. Fred, you shall start with a name that will make you welcome at every City Company’s dinner. It will help you hugely over your enormous transactions for the Firm. Rely on me. Because, you see, when a man has once delivered himself of a good speech, he is asked to speak again: he must keep it up; so he sends to me again. Look here” – he laid his hands upon a little pile of letters – “here are yesterday’s and to-day’s letters.” He took them up and played with them as with a pack of cards. “This man wants a reply for the Army. This is a return for Literature. This is a reply for the House of Commons. The Ladies, the American Republic, Science, the Colonies – see?”
“And the pay?”
“The pay, Fred, corresponds to the privilege conferred. I make orators. They are grateful. As for yourself, now – ”
“Mine is a reply for Australia. The dinner is on Friday at the Hotel Cecil – Dinner of Colonial Enterprise.”
“Really!” The Agent smiled and rubbed his hands. “This is indeed gratifying. Because, Fred – of course you are as secret as death – I may tell you that this request of yours completes the toast-list for the evening. The speeches will be all – all my own – all provided by the Agent. But the plums, my brother, the real plums, shall be stuffed in yours. I will make it the speech of the evening. Mr. Barlow – Barlow – Barlow of New South Wales.”
Fred rose. “Well,” he said, “I leave you to my speech. Come and dine with me to-night at the Hôtel Métropole – half-past seven. We might have a look round afterwards.”
They had that dinner together. It was quite the dinner of a rich man. It was also the dinner of one who loved to look upon the winecup.
After dinner Fred looked at his watch. “Half-past nine. I say, Chris, about this time we used to sally forth. You remember?”
“I believe I do remember. I am now so respectable that I cannot allow myself to remember.”
“There was the Holborn Casino and the Argyll for a little dance: the Judge and Jury, Evans’s, and the Coalhole for supper and a sing-song: Caldwell’s to take a shop-girl for a quiet dance: Cremorne – ”
“My dear Fred, these are old stories. All these things have gone. The Holborn and the Argyll are restaurants, Cremorne is built over, Evans’s is dead and gone: the Judge and Jury business wouldn’t be tolerated now.”
“What do the boys do now?”
“How should I know? They amuse themselves somehow. But it’s no concern of mine, or of yours. You are no longer a boy, Fred.”
“Hang it! What am I to do with myself in the evenings? I suppose I can go and look on if I can’t cut in any more?”
“No; you mustn’t even look on. Leave the boys to themselves. Join a club and sit by yourself in the smoking-room all the evening. That’s the amusement for you.”
“I suppose I can go to the theatre – if that’s all?”
“Oh yes! You must put on your evening clothes and go to the stalls. We used to go to the pit, you know. There are music-halls and variety shows of sorts – you might go there if you like. But, you know, you’ve got a character to maintain. Think of your position.”
“Hang my position, man! Get up and take me somewhere. Let us laugh and look on at something.”
“My dear Fred, consider. I am a respectable barrister with a grown-up son. Could I be seen in such a place? The head of the firm of Barlow and Co., allow me to point out, would not improve his chances in the City if he were seen in certain places.”
“Nobody knows me.”
“Remember, my dear brother, that if you mean to get money out of the City you must be the serious and responsible capitalist in the evening as well as in the morning.”
“Then we’ll go and have tobacco in the smoking-room. One is apt to forget, Chris, the responsibilities of success.”
“Quite so.” Christopher smiled. “Quite so. Well put. The responsibilities of success. I will introduce the phrase in your speech. The responsibilities of success.”
