“My Dear Friend,“I am about to imperil a situation the preservation of which is my greatest happiness. You have allowed me to talk to you freely about my cherished ambitions. You have even done me the honour of consulting me about your own. I would not throw away this position of confidence for any consideration whatever. Let me, however, venture to put before you a simple question. I ask you to consider the possibility of a change in this situation. This change—there is only one which we can consider—would not in any way affect this confidence, but should draw it more closely. How it would affect me I will tell you if you allow me.“Your friend,“L. C.”
“My Dear Friend,
“I am about to imperil a situation the preservation of which is my greatest happiness. You have allowed me to talk to you freely about my cherished ambitions. You have even done me the honour of consulting me about your own. I would not throw away this position of confidence for any consideration whatever. Let me, however, venture to put before you a simple question. I ask you to consider the possibility of a change in this situation. This change—there is only one which we can consider—would not in any way affect this confidence, but should draw it more closely. How it would affect me I will tell you if you allow me.
“Your friend,“L. C.”
Not a loverlike letter at all, is it? Yet there were possibilities about it. You see, he held out the hope that more would be told. The young lady answered by asking a few days for consideration. She was to send or bring her reply that morning.
Constance knocked at the door. She came in from her rooms without a hat. She took a chair—Leonard’s own wooden chair—and sat down, beginning to talk about other things, as if such a matter as a proposal of marriage was of no importance. But that was only her way, which was always feminine.
“I was told last night,” she said, “at the club—fancy, at the club!—that I have been compromising myself by dining night after night with you and letting you walk home with me. That is their idea of woman’s liberty. She is not to form friendships. Don’t abuse our members. Pray remember, Leonard, that I do not in the least mind what they say.”
At the first glance at her face, one could understand that this girl was not in the least alarmed as to what women might say of her. It was a proud face. There are many kinds of pride—she might have been proud of her family, had she chosen that form; or of her intellect and attainments; or of her beauty—which was remarkable. She was not proud in any such way; she had that intense self-respect which is pride of the highest kind. “She was a woman, therefore, to be wooed,” but the wooer must meet and equal that intense self-respect. This pride made her seem cold. Everybody thought her intensely cold. Leonard was perhaps the only man who knew by a thousand little indications that she was very far from cold. The pose of her head, the lines of the mouth, the intellectual look in her eyes,the clear-cut regularity of her features, proclaimed her pride and seemed to proclaim her coldness.
“I always remember what you say, Constance. And now tell me what you came to say.”
She rose from the chair and remained standing. She began by looking at the things over the mantel as if she was greatly interested in tobacco and cigarettes. Then she turned upon him abruptly, joining her hands. “What I came to say was this.”
He read the answer in her face, which was frank, hard, and without the least sign of embarrassment, confusion, or weakening. It is not with such a look that a girl gives herself to her lover. However, he pretended not to understand.
“What is it?”
“Well, it is just this. I have thought about it for a whole week, and it won’t do. That is my answer. It won’t do for either of us. I like you very much. I like our present relations. We dine together at the club. I come in here without fuss. You come to my place without fuss. We talk and walk and go about together. I do not suppose that I shall ever receive this kind of invitation from any man whom I regard so much. And yet——”
“ ‘Yet!’ Why this obstructive participle? I bring you”—but he spoke with coldness due to the discouragement in the maiden’s face—“the fullest worship of yourself.”
She shook her head and put up her hand. “Ohno!—no!” she said. “Worship? I want no worship. What do you mean by worship?”
“I mean the greatest respect—the greatest reverence—the greatest admiration——”
“For what?”
“For Constance Ambry.”
“Thank you, my friend. Some of the respect I accept with gratitude, not all of it. Still, I dare say, at this moment, you mean it all. But consider a little. Do you worship my intellect? Confess, now. You know that it is distinctly inferior to your own. I know it, I say. If you came to me pretending to worship an intellect inferior to your own, I should lose my respect for you, or I should lose my faith in your truthfulness. It cannot be my intellect. Is it, then, worship of my genius? But I have no genius. And that you know very well. Is it worship of my attainments? They are far below most of the scholars of your University and the Fellows of your college. You cannot possibly pretend to worship my attainments——”
“Let me worship Constance Ambry herself.”
She laughed lightly.
“It would be very foolish of you to do so. For you could not do so without lowering your standards and your character, by pretending what is not the case. For I am no higher than yourself in any of the virtues possible to us both: not a bit higher: I believe that my standards of everything—truth, honour, courage—patience—all—all—everything arelike my intellect, distinctly lower than your own. Such is the respect which I entertain for you. Therefore, my friend, do not, pray, think of offering me worship.”
“You wrong yourself, Constance. Your nature is far higher than mine.”
She laughed again. “If I were to marry you, in a week you would find out your mistake—and then you might fall into the opposite mistake.”
“How am I to make you understand?”
“I do understand. There is something that attracts you. Men are so, I suppose. It is face, or voice, or figure, or manner. No one can tell why a man is attracted.”
“Constance, is it possible that you are not conscious of your beauty?”
She looked him full in the face, and replied slowly: “I wish I understood things. I see very well that men are more easily moved to love than women. They make the most appalling mistakes: I know of some—mistakes not to be remedied. Do not let us two make a mistake.”
“It would be no mistake, believe me.”
“I don’t know. There is the question of beauty. Women are not fascinated by the beauty of other women. A man is attracted by a face, and straightway attributes to the soul behind that face all the virtues possible. Women can behold a pretty face without believing that it is the stamp of purity and holiness. Besides—a face! Why, in a dozenyears what will it be like? And in thirty years—— Oh! Terrible to think of!”
“Never, Constance. You could never be otherwise than wholly beautiful.”
She shook her head again, unconvinced. “I do not wish to be worshipped,” she repeated. “Other women may like it. To me it would be a humiliation. I don’t want worship; I want rivalry. Let me work among those who truly work, and win my own place. As for my own face, and those so-called feminine attractions, I confess that I am not interested in them. Not in the least.”
“If you will only let me go on admiring——”
“Oh!” she shook that admirable head impatiently, “as much as you please.”
Leonard sighed. Persuasion, he knew well, was of no use with this young lady; she knew her own mind.
“I will ask no more,” he said. “Your heart is capable of every emotion—except one. You are deficient in the one passion which, if you had it, would make you divine.”
She laughed scornfully. “Make me divine?” she repeated. “Oh, you talk like a man—not a scholar and a philosopher, but a mere man.” She left the personal side of the question, and began to treat it generally. “The whole of poetry is disfigured with the sham divinity, the counterfeit divinity, of the woman. I do not want that kind of ascribed divinity. Therefore I do not regretthe absence of this emotion which you so much desire; I can very well do without it.” She spoke with conviction, and she looked the part she played—cold, loveless, without a touch of Venus. “I was lecturing my class the other day on this very subject. I took Herrick for my text; but, indeed, there are plenty of poets who would do as well. I spoke of this sham divinity. I said that we wanted in poetry, as in human life, a certain sanity, which can only exist in a condition of controlled emotion.”
It was perhaps a proof that neither lover nor maiden really felt the power of the passion called Love that they could thus, at what to some persons would be a supreme moment, drop into a cold philosophic treatment of the subject.
“Perhaps love does not recognise sanity.”
“Then love had better be locked up. I pointed out in my lecture that these conceits and extravagancies may be very pretty set to the music of rhythm and rhyme and phrase, but that in the conduct of life they can have no place except in the brains of men who have now ceased to exist.”
“Ceased to exist?”
“I mean that the ages of ungoverned passion have died out. To dwell perpetually on a mere episode in life, to magnify its importance, to deify the poet’s mistress—that, I told my class, is to present a false view of life and to divert poetry from its proper function.”
“How did your class receive this view?”
“Well—you know—the average girl, I believe, likes to be worshipped. It is very bad for her, because she knows she isn’t worth it and that it cannot last. But she seems to like it. My class looked, on the whole, as if they could not agree with me.”
“You would have no love in poetry?”
“Not extravagant love. These extravagancies are not found in the nobler poets. They are not in Milton, nor in Pope, nor in Cowper, nor in Wordsworth, nor in Browning. I have not, as you say, experienced the desire for love. In any case, it is only an episode. Poetry should be concerned with the whole life.”
“So should love.”
“Leonard,” she said, the doubt softening her face, “there may be something deficient in my nature. I sincerely wish that I could understand what you mean by desiring any change.” No, she understood nothing of the sacred passion. “But there must be no difference in consequence. I could not bear to think that my answer even to such a trifle should make any difference between us.”
“Such a trifle! Constance, you are wonderful.”
“But it seems to me, if the poets are right, that men are always ready to make love: if one woman fails, there are plenty of others.”
“Would not that make a difference between us?”
“You mean that I should be jealous?”
“I could not possibly use the word ‘jealous’ in connection with you, Constance.”
She considered the point from an outside position. “I should not be jealous because you were making love to some unseen person, but I should not like another woman standing here between us. I don’t think I could stay here.”
“You give me hope, Constance.”
“No. It is only friendship. Because, you see, the whole pleasure of having a friend like yourself—a man friend—is unrestrained and open conversation. I like to feel free with you. And I confess that I could not do this if another woman were with us.”
She was silent awhile. She became a little embarrassed. “Leonard,” she said, “I have been thinking about you as well as myself. If I thought that this thing was necessary for you—or best for you—I might, perhaps—though I could not give you what you expect—I mean—responsive worship and the rest of it.”
“Necessary?” he repeated.
There was no sign of Love’s weakness in her face, which had now assumed the professional manner that is historical, philosophical, and analytical.
“Let us sit down and talk about yourself quite dispassionately, as if you were somebody else.”
She resumed the chair—Leonard’s own chair—beside the table; it was a revolving chair, and she turned it half round so that her elbow restedon the blotting-pad, while she faced her suitor. Leonard for his part experienced the old feeling of standing up before the Head for a little wholesome criticism. He laughed, however, and obeyed, taking the easy-chair at his side of the fireplace. This gave Constance the slight superiority of talking down to instead of up to him. A tall man very often forgets the advantage of his stature.
“I mean, if companionship were necessary for you. It is, I believe, to weaker and to less fortunate men—to poets, I suppose. Love means, I am sure, a craving for support and sympathy. Some men—weaker men than you—require sympathy as much as women. You do not feel that desire—or need.”
“A terrible charge. But how do you know?”
“I know because I have thought a great deal about you, and because I have conceived so deep a regard for you that, at first, when I received your letter I almost—almost—made a great mistake.”
“Well—but tell me something more. To learn how one is estimated may be very good for one. Self-conceit is an ever-present danger.”
“I think, to begin with, that of all young men that I know you are the most self-reliant and the most confident.”
“Well, these are virtues, are they not?”
“Of course, you have every right to be self-reliant. You are a good scholar, and you have been regarded at the University as one of the coming men. Youare actually already one of the men who are looked upon as arrived. So far you have justified your self-confidence.”
“So far my vanity is not wounded. But there is more.”
“Yes. You are also the most fortunate of young men. You are miles ahead of your contemporaries, because where they all lack something you lack nothing. One man wants birth—it takes a very strong man to get over a humble origin: another man wants manner: another has an unfortunate face—a harsh voice—a nervous jerkiness: another is deficient in style: another is ground down by poverty. You alone have not one single defect to stand in your way.”
“Let me be grateful, then.”
“You have that very, very rare combination of qualities which make the successful statesman. You are good-looking: you are even handsome: you look important: you have a good voice and a good manner as well as a good presence: you are a gentleman by birth and training: you have enough to live upon now: and you are the heir to a good estate. Really, Leonard, I do not know what else you could ask of fortune.”
“I have never asked anything of fortune.”
“And you get everything. You are too fortunate, Leonard. There must be something behind—something to come. Nature makes no man perfectly happy.”
“Indeed!” He smiled gravely. “I want nothing of that kind.”
“In addition to everything else, you are completely healthy, and I believe you are a stranger to the dentist; your hair is not getting prematurely thin. Really, Leonard, I do not think that there can be in the whole country any other young man so fortunate.”
“Yet you refuse to join your future with mine.”
“Perhaps, if there were any misfortunes or drawbacks one might not refuse. Family scandals, now—— Many noble houses have whole cupboards filled with skeletons: your cupboards are only filled with blue china. One or two scandals might make you more human.”
“Unfortunately, from your point of view, my people have no scandals.”
“Poor relations again! Many people are much pestered with poor relations. They get into scrapes, and they have to be pulled out at great cost. I have a cousin, for instance, who turns up occasionally. He is very expensive and most disreputable. But you? Oh, fortunate young man!”
“We have had early deaths; but there are no disreputable cousins.”
“That is what I complain of. You are too fortunate. You should throw a ring into the sea—like the too fortunate king, the only person who could be compared with you.”
“I dare say gout or something will come along in time.”
“It isn’t good for you,” she went on, half in earnest. “It makes life too pleasant for you, Leonard. You expect the whole of life to be one long triumphal march. Why, you are so fortunate that you are altogether outside humanity. You are out of sympathy with men and women. They have to fight for everything. You have everything tossed into your lap. You have nothing in common with the working world—no humiliations—no disgraces—no shames and no defeats.”
“I hardly understand——” he began, disconcerted at this unexpected array of charges and crimes.
“I mean that you are placed above the actual world, in which men tumble about and are knocked down and are picked up—mostly by the women. You have never been knocked down. You say that I do not understand Love. Perhaps not. Certainly you do not. Love means support on both sides. You and I do not want any kind of support. You are clad in mail armour. You do not—you cannot—even wish to know what Love means.”
He made no reply. This turning of the table was unexpected. She had been confessing that she felt no need of Love, and now she accused him—the wooer—of a like defect.
“Leonard, if fortune would only provide you with family scandals, some poor relations who would make you feel ashamed, something to make you like otherpeople, vulnerable, you would learn that Love might mean—and then, in that impossible case—I don’t know—perhaps——” She left the sentence unfinished and ran out of the room.
Leonard looked after her, his face expressing some pain. “What does she mean? Humiliation? Degraded relations? Ridiculous!”
Then, for the second time after many years, he heard the voices of his mother and his grandmother. They spoke of misfortunes falling upon one and another of their family, beginning with the old man of the country house and the terrace. Oh! oh! It was absurd. He sprang to his feet. It was absurd. Humiliations! Disgrace! Family misfortunes! Absurd! Well, Constance had refused him. Perhaps she would come round. Meanwhile his eyes fell upon the table and his papers. He sat down: he took up the pen. Love, who had been looking on sorrowfully from a lofty perch on a bookshelf, vanished with a sigh of despair. The lover heard neither the sigh nor the fluttering of Love’s wings. He bent over his papers. A moment, and he was again absorbed—entirely absorbed in the work before him.
In her own room the girl sat before her table and took up her pen. But she threw it down again. “No,” she said, “I could not. He is altogether absorbed in himself. He knows nothing and understands nothing—and the world isso full of miseries; and he is all happiness, and men and women suffer—how they suffer!—for their sins and for other people’s sins. And he knows nothing. He understands nothing. Oh, if he could be made human by something—by humiliation, by defeat! If he could be made human, like the rest, why, then—then——” She threw away her pen, pushed back the chair, put on her hat and jacket, and went out into the streets among the men and women.
IFyou have the rare power of being able to work at any time, and after any event to concentrate your thoughts on work, this is certainly a good way of receiving disappointments and averting chagrin. Two hours passed. Leonard continued at his table absorbed in his train of argument, and for the moment wholly forgetful of what had passed. Presently his pen began to move more slowly; he threw it down: he had advanced his position by another earthwork. He sat up; he numbered his pages; he put them together. And he found himself, after the change of mind necessary for his work, able to consider the late conversation without passion, though with a certain surprise. Some men—the weaker brethren—are indignant, humiliated, by such a rejection. That is because their vanity is built upon the sands. Leonard was not the kind of man to be humiliated by any answer to any proposal, even that which concerns the wedding-ring. He had too many excellent and solid foundations for the good opinion which he entertained of himself. It was impossible forany woman to refuse him, considering the standards by which women consider and estimate men. Constance had indeed acknowledged that in all things fortune had favoured him, yet owing to some feminine caprice or unexpected perversity he had not been able to touch her heart. Such a man as Leonard cannot be humiliated by anything that may be said or done to him: he is humiliated by his own acts, perhaps, and his own blunders and mistakes, of which most men’s lives are so full.
He was able to put aside, as an incident which would perhaps be disavowed in the immediate future, the refusal of that thrice fortunate hand of his. Besides, the refusal was conveyed in words so gracious and so kindly.
But there was this strange attack upon him. He found himself repeating in his own mind her words. Nature, Constance said, makes no man perfectly happy. He himself, she went on, presented the appearance of the one exception to the rule. He was well born, wealthy enough, strong and tall, sound of wind and limb, sufficiently well favoured, with proved abilities, already successful, and without any discoverable drawback. Was there any other man in the whole world like unto him? It would be better for him, this disturbing girl—this oracle—had gone on to prophesy, if something of the common lot—the dash of bitterness—had been thrown in with all these great and glorious gifts of fortune; something wouldcertainly happen: something was coming; there would be disaster: then he would be more human; he would understand the world. As soon as he had shared the sorrows and sufferings, the shames and the humiliations, of the world, he would become more in harmony with men and women. For the note of the common life is suffering.
At this point there came back to him again out of the misty glades of childhood the memory of those two women who sat together, widows both, in the garb of mourning, and wept together.
“My dear,” said the elder lady—the words came back to him, and the scene, as plainly as on that day when he watched the old man sleeping in his chair—“my dear, we are a family of misfortune.”
“But why—why—why?” asked the other. “What have we done?”
“Things,” said the elder lady, “are done which are never suspected. Nobody knows; nobody finds out: the arm of the Lord is stretched out, and vengeance falls, if not upon the guilty, then upon his children and——”
Leonard drove the memory back—the lawn and the garden: the two women sitting in the veranda: the child playing on the grass: the words—all vanished. Leonard returned to the present. “Ghosts!” he said. “Ghosts! Were these superstitious fears ever anything but ghosts?” He refused to think of these things: he put aside the oracle of the wisewoman, the admonition that he was too fortunate a youth.
You have seen how he opened the first of a small heap of letters. His eye fell upon the others: he took up the first and opened it: the address was that of a fashionable West-End hotel: the writing was not familiar. Yet it began “My dear nephew.”
“My dear nephew?” he asked; “who calls me his dear nephew?” He turned over the letter, and read the name at the end, “Your affectionate uncle, Fred Campaigne.”
Fred Campaigne! Then his memory flew back to another day of childhood, and he saw his mother—that gentle creature—flushing with anger as she repeated that name. There were tears in her eyes—not tears of sorrow, but of wrath—and her cheek was aflame. And that was all he remembered. The name of Frederick Campaigne was never more mentioned.
“I wonder,” said Leonard. Then he went on reading the letter:
“My dear Nephew,“I arrived here a day or two ago, after many years’ wandering. I lose no time, after the transaction of certain necessary business, in communicating with you. At this point, pray turn to my signature.”
“My dear Nephew,
“I arrived here a day or two ago, after many years’ wandering. I lose no time, after the transaction of certain necessary business, in communicating with you. At this point, pray turn to my signature.”
“I have done so already,” said Leonard. He putthe letter down, and tried to remember more. He could not. There arose before his memory once more the figure of his mother angry for the first and only time that he could remember. “Why was she angry?” he asked himself. Then he remembered that his uncle Christopher, the distinguished lawyer, had never mentioned Frederick’s name. “Seems as if there was a family scandal, after all,” he thought. He turned to the letter again.
“I am the long-lost wanderer. I do not suppose that you can possibly remember me, seeing that when I went away you were no more than four or five years of age. One does not confide family matters to a child of those tender years. When I left my country I was under a cloud—a light cloud, it is true—a sort of nebulous haze, mysteriously glowing in the sunshine. It was no more than the not uncommon mystery of debt, my nephew. I went off. I was shoved off, in fact, by the united cold shoulders of all the relations. Not only were there money debts, but even my modest patrimony was gone. Thus does fond youth foolishly throw good money after bad. I should have kept my patrimony to go abroad with, and spent nothing but my debts. I am now, however, home again. I should have called, but I have important appointments in the City, where, you may be pleased to learn, my name and my voice carry weight. Meantime, I hear that you will be asked to meet me at my brother Christopher’s on Wednesday. I shall, therefore, hope to see you then. My City friends claim all my time between this and Wednesday. The magnitude of certain operations renders it necessary to devote myself, for a day or two, entirely to matters ofhaute finance. It was, I believe, customary in former times for the prodigal son to return in rags. We have changed all that. Nowadays the prodigal son returns in broadcloth, with a cheque-book in his pocket and credit at his bank. The family will be glad, I am sure, to hear that I am prosperous exceedingly.”
“I am the long-lost wanderer. I do not suppose that you can possibly remember me, seeing that when I went away you were no more than four or five years of age. One does not confide family matters to a child of those tender years. When I left my country I was under a cloud—a light cloud, it is true—a sort of nebulous haze, mysteriously glowing in the sunshine. It was no more than the not uncommon mystery of debt, my nephew. I went off. I was shoved off, in fact, by the united cold shoulders of all the relations. Not only were there money debts, but even my modest patrimony was gone. Thus does fond youth foolishly throw good money after bad. I should have kept my patrimony to go abroad with, and spent nothing but my debts. I am now, however, home again. I should have called, but I have important appointments in the City, where, you may be pleased to learn, my name and my voice carry weight. Meantime, I hear that you will be asked to meet me at my brother Christopher’s on Wednesday. I shall, therefore, hope to see you then. My City friends claim all my time between this and Wednesday. The magnitude of certain operations renders it necessary to devote myself, for a day or two, entirely to matters ofhaute finance. It was, I believe, customary in former times for the prodigal son to return in rags. We have changed all that. Nowadays the prodigal son returns in broadcloth, with a cheque-book in his pocket and credit at his bank. The family will be glad, I am sure, to hear that I am prosperous exceedingly.”
Leonard read this letter with a little uneasiness. He remembered those tears, to begin with. And then there was a certain false ring in the words, an affectation of light-heartedness which did not sound true. There was an ostentation of success which seemed designed to cover the past. “I had forgotten,” he said, “that we had a prodigal son in the family. Indeed, I never knew the fact. ‘Prosperous exceedingly,’ is he? ‘Important appointments in the City.’ Well, we shall see. I can wait very well until Wednesday.”
He read the letter once more. Something jarred in it; the image of the gentle woman for once in her life in wrath real and undisguised did not agree with the nebulous haze spoken of by the writer. Besides, the touch of romance, the Nabob who returns with a pocket full of money havingprospered exceedingly, does not begin by making excuses for the manner of leaving home. Not at all: he comes home exultant, certain to be well received on account of his money-bags. “After all,” said Leonard, putting down the letter, “it is an old affair, and my poor mother will shed no more tears over that or anything else, and it may be forgotten.” He put down the letter and took up the next. “Humph!” he growled. “Algernon again! I suppose he wants to borrow again. And Constance said that I wanted poor relations.”
It is true that his cousin Algernon did occasionally borrow money of him: but he was hardly a poor relation, being the only son of Mr. Christopher Campaigne, of Lincoln’s Inn, Barrister-at-law, and in the enjoyment of a large and lucrative practice. It is the blessed privilege of the Bar that every large practice is lucrative; now, in the lower branch of the legal profession there are large practices which are not lucrative, just as in the lower branches of the medical profession there are sixpenny practitioners with a very large connection, and in the Church there are vicars with very large parishes.
Algernon, for his part, was studying with a great and ambitious object. He proposed to become the dramatist of the future. He had not yet written any dramas; he haunted the theatres, attended all the first nights, knew a good many actors and a few actresses, belonged to the Playgoers’ Club, spoke and posed as one who is on the stage, or at least asone to whom the theatre is his chosen home. Algernon was frequently stone-broke, was generally unable to obtain more than a certain allowance from his father, and was accustomed to make appeals to his cousin, the head of the family.
The letter was, as Leonard expected, an invitation to lend him money:
“Dear Leonard,“I am sorry to worry you, but things have become tight, and the pater refuses any advances. Why, with his fine practice, he should grudge my small expenses I cannot understand. He complains that I am doing no work. This is most unreasonable, as there is no man who works harder at his art than I myself. I go to a theatre nearly every evening; is it my fault that the stalls cost half a guinea? All this means that I want you to lend me a tenner until the paternal pride breaks or bends.“Yours,“Algernon.”
“Dear Leonard,
“I am sorry to worry you, but things have become tight, and the pater refuses any advances. Why, with his fine practice, he should grudge my small expenses I cannot understand. He complains that I am doing no work. This is most unreasonable, as there is no man who works harder at his art than I myself. I go to a theatre nearly every evening; is it my fault that the stalls cost half a guinea? All this means that I want you to lend me a tenner until the paternal pride breaks or bends.
“Yours,“Algernon.”
Leonard read and snorted.
“The fellow will never do anything,” he said. Nevertheless, he sat down, opened his cheque-book, and drew the cheque. “Take it, confound you!” he said.
And yet Constance had told him that for want of poor relations he was out of harmony with the rest of the world.
There was a third letter—from his aunt:
“Dear Leonard,“Will you look in, if you possibly can, on Wednesday to meet your uncle Fred? He has come home again. Of course, you cannot remember him. He was wild, I believe, in the old days, but he says that is over now. Indeed, it is high time. He seems to be doing well, and is most cheerful. As the acting head of the family, you will, I am sure, give him a welcome, and forget and forgive, if there is anything to forgive. Algernon is, I fear, working too hard. I could not have believed that the art of play-writing required such close attention to the theatres. He is making many acquaintances among actors and actresses, who will be able, he says, to help him tremendously. I tell his father, who sometimes grumbles, that when the boy makes up his mind to begin there will be no living dramatist who has more conscientiously studied his art.“Affectionately yours,“Dorothy Campaigne.”
“Dear Leonard,
“Will you look in, if you possibly can, on Wednesday to meet your uncle Fred? He has come home again. Of course, you cannot remember him. He was wild, I believe, in the old days, but he says that is over now. Indeed, it is high time. He seems to be doing well, and is most cheerful. As the acting head of the family, you will, I am sure, give him a welcome, and forget and forgive, if there is anything to forgive. Algernon is, I fear, working too hard. I could not have believed that the art of play-writing required such close attention to the theatres. He is making many acquaintances among actors and actresses, who will be able, he says, to help him tremendously. I tell his father, who sometimes grumbles, that when the boy makes up his mind to begin there will be no living dramatist who has more conscientiously studied his art.
“Affectionately yours,“Dorothy Campaigne.”
Leonard wrote a note accepting this invitation, and then endeavoured, but without success, to dismiss the subject of the returned prodigal from his mind. It was a relief to feel that he was at least prosperous and cheerful. Now, had Leonard been a person of wider experience, he would have remembered that cheerfulness in a prodigal is a most suspiciousattribute, because cheerfulness is the dominant note of the prodigal under all circumstances, even the most unpromising. His cheerfulness is his principal, sometimes his only, virtue. He is cheerful because it is always more pleasant to be cheerful than to be miserable; it is more comfortable to laugh than to cry. Only when the prodigal becomes successful—which is very, very seldom—does he lose his cheerfulness and assume a responsible and anxious countenance like the steady and plodding elder brother.
ITwas eleven o’clock that same evening. Leonard sat before his fire thinking over the day’s work. It was not a day on which he could congratulate himself. He had been refused: he had been told plain truths: he had been called too fortunate: he had been warned that the gods never make any man completely happy: he had been reminded that his life was not likely to be one long triumphal march, nor was he going to be exempt from the anxieties and the cares which beset other people. Nobody likes to be told that he is too fortunate, and that he wants defeated ambition, poor relations, and family scandals to make him level with the rest of mankind. Moreover, he had received, as if in confirmation of the oracle, the addition to his family of a doubtful uncle.
The Mansion was quiet: no pianos were at work: those of the people who were not out were thinking of bed.
Leonard sat over the fire feeling strangely nervous: he had thought of doing a little work: no time like the quiet night for good work. Yet somehowhe could not command his brain: it was a rebellious brain: instead of tackling the social question before him, it went off wandering in the direction of Constance and of her refusal and of her words—her uncomfortable, ill-boding words.
Unexpectedly, and without any premonitory sound of steps on the stair, there came a ring at his bell. Now, Leonard was not a nervous man, or a superstitious man, or one who looked at the present or the future with apprehension. But this evening he felt a chill shudder: he knew that something disagreeable was going to happen. He looked at the clock: his man must have gone to bed: he got up and went out to open the door himself.
There stood before him a stranger, a man of tall stature, wrapped in a kind of Inverness cape, with a round felt hat.
“Mr. Leonard Campaigne?” he asked.
“Certainly,” he replied snappishly. “Who are you? What do you want here at this time of night?”
“I am sorry to be so late. I lost my way. May I have half an hour’s talk with you? I am a cousin of yours, though you do not know me.”
“A cousin of mine? What cousin? What is your name?”
“Here is my card. If you will let me come in, I will tell you all about the relationship. A cousin I am, most certainly.”
Leonard looked at the card.
“Mr. Samuel Galley-Campaigne.” In the corner were the words, “Solicitor, Commercial Road.”
“I know nothing about you,” said Leonard. “Perhaps, however—will you come in?”
He led the way into the study, and turned on one or two more lights. Then he looked at his visitor.
The man followed him into the study, threw off his cape and hat, and stood before him—a tall, thin figure, with a face which instantly reminded the spectator of a vulture; the nose was long, thin, and curved; his eyes were bright, set too close together. He was dressed in a frock-coat which had known better days, and wore a black tie. He looked hungry, but not with physical pangs.
“Mr. Samuel Galley-Campaigne,” he repeated. “My father’s name was Galley; my grandmother’s maiden name was Campaigne.”
“Oh, your grandmother’s name was Campaigne. Your own name, then, is Galley?”
“I added the old woman’s name to my own; it looks better for business purposes. Also I took her family crest—she’s got a coat of arms—it looks well for business purposes.”
“You can’t take your grandmother’s family shield.”
“Can’t I? Who’s to prevent me? It’s unusual down our way, and it’s good for business.”
“Well, as you please—name and coat of arms and everything. Will you explain the cousinship?”
“In two words. That old man over there”—heindicated something in the direction of the north—“the old man who lives by himself, is my grandmother’s father. He’s ninety something, and she’s seventy something.”
“Oh! she is my great-aunt, then. Strange that I never heard of her.”
“Not at all strange. Only what one would expect. She went down in the world. You went up—or stayed up—of course they didn’t tell you about her.”
“Well—do you tell me about her. Will you sit down? May I offer you anything—a cigarette?”
The visitor looked about the room; there was no indication of whisky. He sighed and declined the cigarette. But he accepted the chair.
“Thank you,” he said. “It is more friendly sitting down. You’ve got comfortable quarters. No Mrs. C. as yet, is there? The old woman said that you were a bachelor. Now, then. It’s this way: She married my grandfather, Isaac Galley. That was fifty years ago—in 1849. No, 1850. Isaac Galley failed. His failure was remarked upon in the papers on account of the sum—the amount—of his liabilities. TheTimeswanted to know how he managed to owe so much.”
“Pray go on. I am interested. This part of our family history is new to me.”
Leonard continued standing, looking down upon his visitor. He became aware, presently, of a ridiculous likeness to himself, and he found himself hopingthat the vulture played a less prominent part in his own expression. All the Campaigne people were taller—much taller—than the average; their features were strongly marked; they were, as a rule, a handsome family. They carried themselves with a certain dignity. This man was tall, his features were strongly marked; but he was not handsome, and he did not carry himself with dignity. His shoulders were bent, and he stooped. He was one of the race, apparently, but gone to seed; looking “common.” No one could possibly mistake him for a gentleman by birth or by breeding. “Common” was the word to apply to Mr. Galley-Campaigne. “Common” is a word much used by certain ladies belonging to a certain stage of society about their neighbours’ children; it will do to express the appearance of this visitor.
“Pray go on,” Leonard repeated mechanically, while making his observations; “you are my cousin, clearly. I must apologise for not knowing of your existence.”
“We live at the other end of town. I’m a gentleman, of course, being in the Law—lower branch——”
“Quite so,” said Leonard.
“But the old woman—I mean my grandmother—takes jolly good care that I shall know the difference between you and me. You’ve had Eton and College to back you up. You’ve got the House of Commons and a swagger club. That’s your world. Mine is different. We’ve no swells where I live, down theCommercial Road. I’m a solicitor in what you would call a small way. There are no big men our way.”
“It is a learned profession.”
“Yes. I am not a City clerk, like my father.”
“Tell me more about yourself. Your grandfather, you say, was bankrupt. Is he living?”
“No. He went off about ten years ago, boastful to the end of his great smash. His son—that’s my father—was in the City. He was a clerk all his life to a wine-merchant. He died four or five years ago. He was just able to pay for my articles—a hundred pounds—and the stamp—another eighty—and that pretty well cleared him out, except for a little insurance of a hundred. When he died I was just beginning to get along; and I’ve been able to live, and to keep my mother and my grandmother—it’s a tight fit, though—with what I can screw out of Mary Anne.”
“Who is Mary Anne?”
“My sister, Mary Anne. She’s a Board School teacher. But she shoves all the expenses on to me.”
“Oh! I have a whole family of cousins, then, previously unknown. That is interesting. Are there more?”
He remembered certain words spoken only that morning, and he winced. Here were poor relations, after all. Constance would be pleased.
“No more—only me and Mary Anne. That is to say, no more that you would acknowledge as such. There’s all father’s cousins and their children: and allmother’s cousins and brothers and nephews and nieces: but you can’t rightly call them your cousins.”
“Hardly, perhaps, much as one would like....”
“Now, Mr. Campaigne. The old woman has been at me a long time to call upon you. I didn’t want to call. I don’t want to know you, and you don’t want to know me. But I came to please her and to let you know that she’s alive, and that she would like, above all things, to see you and to talk to you.”
“Indeed! If that is all, I shall be very pleased to call.”
“You see, she’s always been unlucky—born unlucky, so to speak. But she’s proud of her own family. They’ve never done anything for her, whatever they may have to do—have to do, I say.” He became threatening.
“Have to do,” repeated Leonard softly.
“In the future. It may be necessary to prove who we are, and that before many years—or months—or even days—and it might save trouble if you were to understand who she is, and who I am.”
“You wish me to call upon my great-aunt. I will certainly do so.”
“That’s what she wants. That’s why I came here to-night. Look here, sir: for my own part, I would not intrude upon you. I’ve not come to beg or to borrow. But for the old woman’s sake I’ve ventured to call and ask you to remember that she is your great-aunt. She’s seventy-two years of age, and now and then she frets a bit after a sight of herown people. She hasn’t seen any of them since your grandfather committed suicide. And that must have been about the year 1860, before you and I were born.”
Leonard started.
“My grandfather committed suicide? What do you mean? My grandfather died somewhere about 1860. What do you mean by saying that he killed himself?”
“What! Don’t you know? Your grandfather, sir,” said the other firmly, “died of cut-throat fever. Oh yes, whatever they called it, he died of cut-throat fever. Very sudden it was. Of that I am quite certain, because my grandmother remembers the business perfectly well.”
“Is it possible? Killed himself? Then, why did I never learn such a thing?”
“I suppose they didn’t wish to worry you. Your father was but a child, I suppose, at the time. Perhaps they never told him. All the same, it’s perfectly true.”
Committed suicide! He remembered the widow who never smiled—the pale-faced, heavy-eyed widow. He now understood why she went in mourning all the days of her life. He now learned in this unexpected manner, why she had retired to the quiet little Cornish village.
Committed suicide! Why? It seemed a kind of sacrilege to ask this person. He hesitated; he took up a trifling ornament from the mantelshelf, andplayed with it. It dropped out of his fingers into the fender, and was broken.
“Pray,” he asked, leaving the other question for the moment, “how came your grandmother to be separated from her own people?”
“They went away into the country. And her father went silly. She never knew him when he wasn’t silly. He went silly when his brother-in-law was murdered.”
“Brother-in-law murdered? Murdered! What is this? Good Lord, man! what do you mean with your murder and your suicide?”
“Why, don’t you know? His brother-in-law was murdered on his grounds. And his wife died of the shock the same day. What else was it that drove him off his old chump?”
“I—I—I—know nothing”—the vulgarity of the man passed unnoticed in the face of these revelations—“I assure you, nothing of these tragedies. They are all new to me. I have been told nothing.”
“Never told you? Well, of all the—— Why, the old woman over there is never tired of talking about these things. Proud of them she is. And you never to know anything!”
“Nothing. Is there more? And why do you call my great-grandfather mad?”
“He’s as much my great-grandfather as yours. Mad? Well, I’ve seen him over the garden wall half a dozen times, walking up and down his terrace like a Polar bear. I don’t know what you call mad.As for me, I’m a man of business, and if I had a client who never opened or answered a letter, never spoke a word to anybody, neglected his children, let his house go to ruin, never went to church, would have no servants about the place—why, I should have that mis’rable creature locked up, that’s all.”
Leonard put this point aside.
“But you have not told me about his wife’s death. It is strange that I should be asking you these particulars of my own family.”
“Mine as well, if you please,” the East End solicitor objected, with some dignity. “Well, sir, my grandmother is seventy-two years of age. Therefore it is just seventy-two years since her mother died. For her mother died in child-birth, and she died of the shock produced by the news of her own brother’s murder. Her brother’s name was Langley Holme.”
“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,” saidLeonard. “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.”
INone 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 manykinds 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 areaccustomed 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-writtenreply. 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 ofBarlow. 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 throughme 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.”