Walter Besant
The Fourth Generation
“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.”
“I don’t want to hear it.”
“It isn’t what you want to hear; it’s what you’ve got to hear,” said uncle Fred impressively and earnestly. He had taken, even for him, a little more than was good for him: it made him obstinate: it also made his speech uncertain as to loudness and control: he carried off these defects with increased earnestness. “Character, Leonard, character is involved; and self-respect; also forgiveness. I am not come home to bear malice, as will be shown by my testamentary dispositions when Abraham calls me to his bosom – ”
“Oh! But really – ”
“Really – you shall hear! (Boy, why the devil do you keep me waiting for another whisky and soda?) Look here, Leonard. There was a money-lender in it – ”
“Never mind the money-lender – ”
“I must mind him. Man! he was in it. I quite forget at this moment where old Cent. per Cent. got in. But he was there – oh yes! he was there. He always was there in those days either for Chris or for me. Devil of a fellow, Chris! Now, then. The money-lending Worm – or Crocodile – wanted to be paid. He was always wanting to be paid. Either it was Chris or it was me. Let me think – ”
“Does it matter?”
“Truth, sir, and character always matter. What the money-lender said I forget at this moment. I dare say Chris knows; it was more his affair than mine. It amounted to this – ” He drained his glass again, and forgot what he had intended to say. “When the fellow was gone, ‘Chris,’ I said, ‘here’s a pretty hole you’re in.’ I am certain that he was in the hole, and not me, because what was done, you know, was intended to pull him out of the hole. So it must have been Chris, and not me. It is necessary,” he added with dignity, “to make this revolution – revelation. It is due to self-respect. My brother Chris, then, you understand, was in the hole. (Boy, I’ll take another whisky and soda.) I want you to understand exactly what happened.” Leonard groaned. “Of course, when it came to sticking a name on a paper, and that paper a cheque – ”
“For the Lord’s sake, man, stop!” Leonard whispered.
“I knew and told him that the world, which is a harsh world and never makes allowance, would call the thing by a bad name. Which happened. But who could foresee that they would tack that name on to me?”
Leonard sprang to his feet. The thing was becoming serious. “It is eleven o’clock,” he said. “I must go.”
“Go? Why, I’ve only just begun to settle down for a quiet talk. I thought we should go on till two or three. And I’ve nearly done; I’ve only got to show that the cheque – ”
“No – I must go at once. I have an appointment. I have work to do. I have letters to write.”
Uncle Fred slowly rose. “It’s a degenerate world,” he said. “We never thought the day properly begun before midnight. But if these are your habits – well, Leonard, you’ve done me well. The champagne was excellent. Boy – no, I’ll wait till I get back to the hotel. Then two or three glasses, and so to bed. Moderation – temperance – early hours. These are now my motto and my rule.”
“This way down the stairs,” said Leonard, for his uncle was starting off in the opposite direction.
“One warning. Don’t talk to Chris about that story, for you’ll hear a garbled version – garbled, sir – garbled.” He lurched a little as he walked down the stairs, but otherwise there were no indications of the profound and Gargantuan thirst that he had been assuaging all the evening.
Leonard went home in the deepest depression and shame. Why did he take such a man to such a club? He should have given him dinner in the rowdiest tavern, filled with the noisiest topers.
“He cannot be really what he pretends,” Leonard thought. “A man of wealth is a man of responsibility and position. This man talks without any dignity or reticence whatever. He seems to associate still with larrikins and cattle-drovers; he sits in bars and saloons; he ought to keep better company, if only on account of his prosperity.”
The Family History asserted itself again.
“You have entertained,” it said, “another Unfortunate. Here is a man nearly fifty years of age. He has revealed himself and exposed himself: he is by his own confession, although he is rich and successful, the companion and the friend of riffraff; his sentiments are theirs. He has no morals; he drinks without stint or measure; he has disgraced you in the Club. No doubt the Committee will interfere.”
It is, the moralist declares, an age of great laxity. A man may make a living in more ways than were formerly thought creditable; men are admitted to clubs who formerly would not have dared to put their names down. In Leonard’s mind there still remained, strong and clear, the opinion that there are some things which a gentleman should not do: things which he must not do: companions with whom he must not sit. Yet it appeared from the revelations of this man that, whatever he had done, he had habitually consorted with tramps, hawkers, peddlers, and shepherds.
CHAPTER XI
THE BOOK OF EXTRACTS
LEONARD turned up his light in the study. His eye fell upon the Book of Extracts. He looked at his watch. Nearly twelve. He took up the book resolutely. Another wave of loathing rolled over his mind. He beat it back; he forced himself to open the book, and to begin from the beginning.
The contents consisted, as he had already seen, of cuttings from a newspaper, with a connecting narrative in writing. On the title-page was written in a fine Italian hand the following brief explanation:
“This book was given to me by Mrs. Nicols, our housekeeper for thirty years. She cut out from the newspapers all that was printed about the crime and what followed. There are accounts of the Murder, the Inquest, and the Trial. She also added notes of her own on what she herself remembered and had seen. She made two cuttings of each extract, and two copies of her own notes; these she pasted in two scrap-books. She gave me one; the other I found in her room after her death. I sent the latter copy to my brother three days before he committed suicide.”
This statement was signed “Lucy Galley, née Campaigne.” The extracts and cuttings followed. Some of the less necessary details are here suppressed.
The first extract was from the weekly paper of the nearest county town:
“We are grieved to report the occurrence of a crime which brings the deepest disgrace upon our neighbourhood, hitherto remarkably free from acts of violence. The victim is a young gentleman, amiable and respected by everyone – Mr. Langley Holme, of Westerdene House, near the town of Amersham.
“The unfortunate gentleman had been staying for some days at the house of his brother-in-law, Mr. Algernon Campaigne, J.P., of Campaigne Park. On Tuesday, May 18, as will be seen from our Report of the Inquest, the two gentlemen started together for a walk after breakfast. It was about ten o’clock: they walked across the Park, they crossed the highroad beyond, they climbed over a stile into a large field, and they walked together along the pathway through the field, as far as a small wood which lies at the bottom of the field. Then Mr. Campaigne remembered some forgotten business or appointment and left his friend, returning by himself. When Mr. Holme was discovered – it is not yet quite certain how long after Mr. Campaigne left him, but it was certainly two hours – he was lying on the ground quite dead, his head literally battered in by a thick club – the branch of a tree either pulled off for the purpose, or lying on the ground ready to the hand of the murderer. They carried the body back to the house where he had been staying.
“It is sad to relate that the unfortunate man’s sister, Mr. Campaigne’s wife, was so shocked by the news, which seems to have been announced or shouted roughly, and without any precaution about breaking it gently, that she was seized with the pains of labour, and in an hour was dead. Thus the unfortunate gentleman, Mr. Algernon Campaigne, himself quite young, has been deprived in one moment, so to speak, of wife and brother-in-law. Mr. Langley Holme was also a married man, and leaves one young child, a daughter, to weep with her mother over their irreparable loss. The Inquest was held on Wednesday morning.”
Then followed a passage in writing:
“I was in my own room, the housekeeper’s room, which is the last room of the south wing on the ground-floor overlooking the garden; there is an entrance to the house at that end for servants and things brought to the house. At ten o’clock in the morning, just after the clock in the stables struck, I saw the master with Mr. Langley Holme walking across the Terrace, down the gardens, and so to the right into the park. They were talking together friendly and full of life, being, both of them, young gentlemen of uncommon vivacity and spirit; with a temper, too, both of them, as becomes the master of such a place as his, which cannot be ruled by a meek and lowly one, but calls for a high spirit and a temper becoming and masterful.
“Three-quarters of an hour afterwards I heard steps in the garden, and looked up from my work. It was the master coming home alone. He was walking fast, and he was swinging his arms, as I’d often seen him do. Now I think of it, his face was pale. One would think that he had a presentiment. He entered the house by the garden door and went into his study.
“Now, this morning, my lady, when we called her, was not at all well, and the question was whether we should send for the doctor at once. But she refused to consent, saying that it would pass away. And so she took breakfast in bed; but I was far from easy about her. I wish now, with all my heart, that I had sent a note to the doctor, who lived three miles away, if it was only for him to have driven over. Besides, as things turned out, he might have been with her when the news came.
“However, about twelve o’clock, or a little after, I heard steps in the garden, and I saw a sight which froze my very blood. For four men were carrying a shutter, walking slowly; and on the shutter was a blanket, and beneath the blanket was a form. Oh! there is no mistaking such a form as that – it was a human form. My heart fell, I say, like lead, and I ran out crying:
“ ‘Oh! in God’s name, what has happened?’
“Said one of them, John Dunning by name:
“ ‘It’s Mr. Holme. I found him dead. Someone’s murdered him.’
“I screeched. I ran back to the house; I ran into the kitchen; I told them, never thinking, in the horror of it, of my poor lady.
“Then all over the house, suddenly, the air was filled with the shrieks of women.
“Alas! my lady had got up; she was dressed: she was on the landing; she heard the cries.
“ ‘What has happened?’ she asked.
“ ‘Mr. Holme is murdered.’
“I do not know who told her. None of the maids confessed the thing, but when she heard the news she fell back, all of a sudden, like a woman knocked down.
“We took her up and carried her to bed. When the doctor came in an hour my lady was dead – the most beautiful, the kindest, the sweetest, most generous-hearted lady that ever lived. She was dead, and all we could do was to look after the new-born babe. And as for her husband, that poor gentleman sat in his study with haggard looks and face all drawn with his grief, so that it was a pity and a terror to look upon him. Wife and brother-in-law – wife and friend – both cut off in a single morning! Did one ever hear the like? As for the unfortunate victim, Mr. Holme that had been, they laid him in the dining-room to wait the inquest.”
At this point Leonard laid down the book and looked round. The place was quite quiet. Even from the street there came no noise of footsteps or of wheels. Once more he was overpowered by this strange loathing – a kind of sickness. He closed his eyes and lay back. Before him, as in a vivid dream, he saw that procession with the body of the murdered man; and he saw the murdered lady fall shrieking to the ground; and he saw the old recluse of the Park, then young, sitting alone, with haggard face, while one body lay in the dining-room and the other on the marriage-bed.
The feeling of sickness passed away. Leonard opened his eyes and forced himself, but with a beating heart and a dreadful feeling of apprehension, to go on with the reading:
“I remember that the house was very quiet, so quiet that we could hear in my room – the housekeeper’s room – the cries and shouts of the two little boys in the nursery, which was the room next to where the mother lay dead. The boys were Master Langley, the eldest, who was three, and Master Christopher, then a year and a half.
“Little did those innocents understand of the trouble that was coming upon them from the terrible tragedy of that day. They would grow up without a mother – the most terrible calamity that can befall a child: and they were to grow up, as well, without a father, for the master has never recovered the shock, and now, I fear, never will.
“On the Wednesday morning, the next day, the Coroner came with his jury and held the inquest. They viewed the body in the dining-room. I was present and heard it all. The report of the paper is tolerably accurate, so far as I remember.”
The newspaper began again at this point:
“On Wednesday last, the 19th inst., an inquest was held at Campaigne Park on the body of Langley Holme, Esquire, Justice of the Peace, of Westerdene House, near Amersham, aged twenty-eight years. The unfortunate gentleman, as narrated in our last number, was found dead under circumstances that pointed directly to murder, in a wood not far from Campaigne Park, where he was staying as the guest of his friend and brother-in-law, Mr. Algernon Campaigne.
“The cause of death was certified by Dr. Alden. He deposed that it was caused by a single blow from a heavy club or branch which had probably been picked up close by. The club was lying on the table – a jagged branch thick at one end, which was red with blood. The nature of the wound showed that it was one blow only, and that by a most determined and resolute hand, which had caused death, and that death must have been instantaneous.
“Mr. Algernon Campaigne, J.P., of Campaigne Park, deposed that the deceased, named Langley Holme, his brother-in-law – his wife’s brother, and his most intimate friend – was staying with them, and that on Tuesday morning the two started together after breakfast for a walk. They walked through the park, crossed the road, got over the stile on the other side, and followed the pathway under the hill. They were entering the wood in which the body was found when he himself recollected a letter which had to be written and posted that morning. He therefore stopped and explained that he must return immediately. Unfortunately, his brother-in-law chose to continue his walk alone. Mr. Campaigne turned and walked home as quickly as he could. He saw the deceased no more until he was brought back dead.
“The Coroner asked him if he had observed anyone in the wood: he said he had not looked about him carefully, but that he had seen nobody.
“A little boy, who gave the name of Tommy Dadd, and said that he knew the meaning of an oath, deposed that he was on the hillside scaring birds all day; that he saw the two gentlemen get over the stile, walk along the footpath together, talking fast and loud; that they came to the wood, and that one of them, Mr. Campaigne, turned back; that he looked up and down the path as if he was expecting somebody, and then walked away very fast.
“ ‘Stop!’ said the Coroner. ‘Let us understand these facts quite plainly. You saw Mr. Campaigne and the deceased get over the stile and walk as far as the wood?’
“ ‘Yes.’
“ ‘And you saw Mr. Campaigne turn back and walk away?’
“ ‘Yes.’
“ ‘Go on, then.’
“ ‘A long time after that I see John Dunning walking from the farm across the field to the pathway; he was carrying a basket of something over his shoulder; he wore his smock-frock. He went into the wood, too. Presently he came out and ran back to the farm-yard, and three other men came and carried something away.’
“ ‘Did nobody else go into the wood?’
“ ‘No; nobody.’
“John Dunning said that he was a labourer; that on the day in question he was on his way to some work, and had to pass through the wood; that half-way through he came upon what he thought was a man asleep. When he looked closer, he found that it was a gentleman, and he was dead, and he lay in a pool of blood. There was no scuffle of feet or sign of a struggle. That he tried to lift him, getting his hands and frock covered with blood-stains; that he found a bit of rough and jagged wood lying beside the body, which was covered with blood at one end; that on making this discovery he ran out of the wood, and made his way as fast as he could to the nearest farm, where he gave the alarm, and got four men to come with him, carrying a shutter and a blanket.
“The Coroner cross-examined this witness severely. Where did he work? Was he a native of the village? Had he ever been in trouble? What was it he was carrying on his shoulder? Would he swear it was not the club that had been found near the body?
“To all these questions the man gave a straightforward answer.
“The Coroner then asked him if he had searched the pockets of the deceased.
“At this point the deceased’s valet stood up, and said that his master had not been robbed; that his watch and rings and purse were all found upon him in his pockets.
