Read Ebook: The Fourth Generation by Besant Walter

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Ebook has 2000 lines and 88131 words, and 40 pages

The young man went on thinking of what he had heard of this old man, who was at once the pride and the shame of the family. No one can help being proud of having a recluse, an anchorite, in the family--it is uncommon, like an early Shakespeare; moreover, the recluse was the head of the family, and lived in the place where the family had always lived from time beyond the memory of man.

He remembered his mother, a sad-faced widow, and his grandmother, another sad-faced widow. A certain day came back to him--it was a few weeks after his father's early death, when he was a child of seven--when the two women sat together in sorrow, and wept together, and conversed, in his presence--but the child could not understand--and said things which he recalled at this moment for the first time.

"My dear," said the elder lady, "we are a family of misfortune."

"But why--why--why?" asked the other. "What have we done?"

"The helpless, innocent children? Oh! It is cruel."

"We have Scripture for it."

These words--this conversation--came back suddenly and unexpectedly to the young man. He had never remembered them before.

"Who did what?" he asked. "The guilty person cannot be this venerable patriarch, because this affliction has fallen upon him and still abides with him after seventy years. But they spoke of something else. Why do these old words come back to me? Ancestor, sleep on."

In the hall he saw the old housekeeper, and stopped to ask her after the master.

"He spoke just now," he said.

"Spoke, sir? Spoke? The master spoke?"

"He sat up in his sleep and spoke."

"What in the name o' mercy did he say?"

"He said, quite clearly, 'That will end it.'"

"Say it again."

He said it again.

"Sir," she said, "I don't know what he means. It's most time to end it. Master Leonard, something dreadful will happen. It is the first time for seventy years that he have spoken one single word."

"It was in his sleep."

"The first time for seventy years! Something dreadful, for sure, is going to happen."

WHAT HE WANTED

In the lightest and sunniest rooms of an unpretending flat forming part of the Bendor Mansions, Westminster, sat a young man of six-and-twenty. You have already seen him when he called upon his irresponsive ancestor at the family seat in the shire of Buckingham. He was now in his study and seated at what used to be called his desk. This simple piece of the scholar's furniture has long since given way to a table as big as the dimensions of the room permit--in this case one of eight feet long and five broad. It did not seem to be any too large for the object of its construction, because it was completely covered with books, papers, Blue-books, French and German journals, as well as Transactions of English learned and scientific societies. There was no confusion. The papers were lying in orderly arrangement; the books stood upright along the back of the table facing the writer. They were all books of political history, political economy, or of reference. A revolving bookcase stood ready at hand filled with other books of reference. These, it might have been observed, were principally concerned with statistics of trade--histories of trade, books on subjects connected with trade, Free Trade, Protection, the expansion of trade, and points connected with manufactures, industries, exports, and imports.

Mr. Leonard Campaigne was already in the House. It would be too much to say that he had already arrived at a position of authority, but he was so far advanced that on certain subjects of the more abstruse kind, which he endeavoured to make his own and to speak upon them with the manner of a specialist, he was heard with some deference and reported at some length. More than this is not permitted to six-and-twenty.

The study was pleasantly furnished with two or three easy chairs and the student's wooden chair. Books lined the walls; two or three cups stood on the mantelshelf, showing that the tenant of the room was no pale student, consumer of the midnight oil; above it there was a drawing of a country house, the same house which you have already seen. One observed also, with pleasure, further proofs that the occupant had his hours of relaxation. Tobacco and that vulgar thing the briar-root were conspicuously present. That a young man who hoped to rise by the most severe of all studies should habitually smoke a pipe should be, to any well-regulated mind, a most promising circumstance. The study opened into the dining-room, which was a dining-room only, and a formal, even a funereal place, with a few books and a few pictures--evidently not a room which was inhabited. The tenant took his breakfast in it, and sometimes his luncheon, and that was all. There were two bedrooms; beyond them, the kitchen and the room for the man and wife who "did" for Mr. Campaigne.

The occupant of the flat presently laid down his pen, and sat up turning his face to the light. Then he rose and paced the chamber.

He was a young man of somewhat remarkable appearance. In stature, as you have seen, he was much above the average, being at least six feet two and of strong build, though not so massive a man as his great-grandfather, the hermit of Campaigne Park. His features were good and strongly marked; his forehead was broad rather than high; his eyes, small rather than large, were keen and bright, the eyebrows were nearly straight. His appearance at this moment was meditative; but, then, he was actually meditating; in conversation and in debate his expression was alert, and even eager. He did not, in fact, belong to that school which admires nothing, desires nothing, and believes in nothing. He believed strongly, for instance, that the general standard of happiness could be raised by wise laws--not necessarily new laws--and by good education--not necessarily that of the School Boards. And he ardently desired to play his part in the improvement of that standard. That is a good solid lump of belief to begin with. For a statesman such a solid lump of belief is invaluable.

Presently he sat down again and renewed the thread of his investigations. After an hour or so he threw aside his pen; he had accomplished what he had proposed to do that morning. If a man is going to succeed, you will generally find that he knows what he means to do and the time that he will take over it, and that he sets to work with directness as well as resolution.

Leonard had already written on this subject, and with success, as a student; he was now to write upon it with authority. You will understand from all this that Leonard was a young man whose mind was fully occupied, even absorbed, with work which was at once his greatest delight and the ladder for his ambitions; that he occupied a good position in society, and that his work, his thoughts, his relaxations were those of one who lived and moved habitually on a high level, free from meanness or sordid cares or anxieties of any kind.

On the same staircase and the same floor was a flat exactly corresponding in every particular to his own except that the windows looked out towards the opposite pole. This flat, into which we will not penetrate, was occupied by a young lady, who lived in it, just as Leonard lived in his, with a man and his wife to look after her. People may be neighbours in a "Mansion" and yet not know each other. It is not likely that Leonard would have made the acquaintance of Miss Constance Ambry but for the fortunate circumstance that he belonged to the same club as well as the same collection of flats; that he was introduced to her at the club; that he met her at dinner day after day; that he speedily discovered the fact that they were neighbours; that they became friends; that they often dined together at the club, and that they frequently walked home together.

It will be understood, therefore, that Miss Constance Ambry would have been called, a few years ago, an emancipated young woman. The word has already become belated; in a year or two it will be obsolete. Emancipation has ceased to carry any reproach or to excite any astonishment. Many girls and unmarried women live alone in flats and mansions and similar places; they have their latch-key; they marvel that there could have been formerly a time when the latch-key was withheld from girls; they go where they like; they see what they wish to see; they meet people they wish to meet. The emancipated woman twenty years ago thought it necessary, in order to prove her superiority of intellect, to become at least an atheist. That was part of the situation; other prancings and curvettings there were; now she has settled down, the question of comparative intellect being no longer discussed, and goes on, in many respects, almost as if she were still in the ancient House of Bondage. In this case there were strong reasons, comfortably running into a good many hundreds a year, why Constance Ambry should dare to go her own way and live at her own will. She began her independent career by three years at Girton. During her studentship she distinguished herself especially by writing critical essays, in which it was remarked that the passion of Love, as depicted and dwelt upon by poets, was entirely ignored by the critic; not so much, her friends explained, from maidenly reserve, as from a complete inability to sympathize even with the woman's point of view--which, indeed, women who write poetry and love-songs have always done their utmost to conceal, or mendaciously to represent in the same terms and under the same form as the masculine passion. On leaving Girton she accepted a post as Lecturer on English Literature in a women's college. It was a poorly-paid office, and hitherto it had been difficult to find a good lecturer to keep it. Constance could afford not only to take it, but also to make it the sole object of her work and thoughts. One is pleased to add that her ideas of the liberty of women included their liberty to dress as well as they can afford. She presented to her admiring and envious class the constant spectacle of a woman dressed as she should be--not splendidly, but beautifully. The girls regarded their lecturer, clad, like a summer garden, in varied beauty, with far greater awe than they had entertained for her predecessor, who was dumpy, wore her hair short, and appeared habitually in a man's jacket.

The two were friends close and fast. Leonard was not afraid of compromising her by taking tea in her drawing-room, nor was Constance afraid of compromising herself by venturing alone into the opposite flat if she wanted to talk about anything. It is a dangerous position even for a young man whose ambitions absorb his thoughts; who has put the question of marriage into the background--to be taken up at some convenient moment not yet arrived. It is dangerous also for a girl even when she is emancipated.

As regards the young man the usual consequences happened. First he perceived that it gave him a peculiar pleasure to sit beside her at dinner and to walk home with her: then he became disappointed if he did not meet her: presently he found himself thinking a great deal about her: he also detected himself in the act of confiding his ambitions to her sympathetic ear--this is one of the worst symptoms possible. He had now arrived at that stage when the image of the girl is always present in a young man's mind: when it sometimes interferes with work: when an explanation becomes absolutely necessary if there is to be any peace or quiet work. The Victorian lover no longer speaks or writes about flames and darts, but he is still possessed and held by the dominant presence in his mind, night and day, of his mistress.

In these matters, there comes a time, the one moment, when words have to be spoken. As with a pear which has half an hour of perfect ripeness, so in love there is a day--an hour--a moment--when the words that mean so much must be spoken. It is a most unfortunate thing if the lover chooses the wrong moment. It is also very unfortunate if the ripeness is on one side only.

Leonard Campaigne made this mistake. Being a self-contained young man, he thought about himself a great deal more than he thought of other people: it is not necessarily a sign of selfishness or of obtuseness--not at all; it is a defect with men of strong natures and ambitious aims to think habitually about themselves and their aims. Therefore, while he himself was quite ripe for a declaration, he did not ask himself whether the ripeness was also arrived at by the other person concerned. Unfortunately, it was not. The other person concerned was still in the critical stage: she could consider her friend from the outside: she felt, as yet, no attraction towards the uncritical condition, the absorption of love.

"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?"

"'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. "Oh no!--no!" she said. "Worship? I want no worship. What do you mean by worship?"

"For what?"

"For Constance Ambry."

"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 are like 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."

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