The Fourth Generation. Walter Besant
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 having prospered 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 as one 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.”
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.”
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 suspicious attribute, 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.
CHAPTER IV
THE COMPLETE SUPPLY
IT was 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 somehow he 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,