THE CHILD OF SORROWS
On a cold day, with a grey sky and an east wind, Leonard for the first
time walked down the Commercial Road to call upon the newly-found
cousins. It is a broad thoroughfare, but breadth does not always bring
cheerfulness with it; even under a warm summer sun some thoroughfares
cannot be cheerful. Nothing can relieve the unvarying depression of the
Commercial Road. It is felt even by the children, who refuse to play in
it, preferring the narrow streets running out of it; the depression is
felt even by the drivers and the conductors of the tram-cars, persons
who are generally superior to these influences. Here and there is a
chapel, here and there is a model lodging-house or a factory, or a
square or a great shop. One square was formerly picturesque when the
Fair of the Goats was held upon it; now it has become respectable; the
goats are gone, and the sight provokes melancholy. North and south of
the road branch off endless rows of streets, crossed by streets laid out
in a uniform check pattern. All these streets are similar and similarly
situated, like Euclid’s triangles. One wonders how a resident finds his
own house; nevertheless, the houses, though they are all turned out
according to the same pattern, are neat and clean and well kept. The
people in them are prosperous, according to their views on prosperity;
the streets are cheerful, though the road to which they belong is
melancholy. “Alas!” it says, “how can such a road as myself be cheerful?
I lead to the Docks, and Limehouse, and Poplar, and Canning Town, and
the Isle of Dogs.”
Mr. Galley’s house was on the north side, conveniently near to a certain
police-court, in which he practised daily, sometimes coming home with as
much as three or four half-crowns in his pocket, sometimes with
less--for competition among the professional solicitors in the
police-courts is keen, and even fierce. Five shillings is a common fee
for the defence of a prisoner, and rumour whispers that even this humble
sum has to be shared secretly with a certain functionary who must be
nameless.
A brass plate was on the door: “Mr. Samuel Galley-Campaigne, Solicitor.”
It was a narrow three-storied house, quite respectable, and as
depressing as the road in which it stood.
Leonard knocked doubtfully. After a few moments’ delay the door was
opened by a boy who had a pen stuck behind his ear.
“Oh, you want Mrs. Galley!” he said. “There you are--back-parlour!” and
ran up the stairs again, leaving the visitor on the doormat.
He obeyed instructions, however, and opened the door indicated. He
found himself in a small back room--pity that the good old word
“parlour” has gone out!--where there were sitting three ladies
representing three stages of human life--namely, twenty, fifty, and
seventy.
The table was laid for tea; the kettle was on the old-fashioned
hob--pity that the hospitable hob has gone!--and the kettle was singing;
the buttered toast and the muffins were before the fire, within the high
old-fashioned fender; the tea-things and the cake and the
bread-and-butter were on the table, and the ladies were in their Sunday
“things,” waiting for him. It was with some relief that Leonard observed
the absence of Mr. Samuel.
The eldest of the three ladies welcomed him.
“My grand-nephew Leonard,” she said, giving him her hand, “I am very
glad--very glad indeed to make your acquaintance. This”--she introduced
the lady of middle life--“is my daughter-in-law, the widow--alas!--of my
only son. And this”--indicating the girl--“is my grand-daughter.”
The speaker was a gentlewoman. The fact was proclaimed in her speech, in
her voice, in her bearing, in her fine features. She was tall, like the
rest of her family; her abundant white hair was confined by a black lace
cap, the last of the family possessions; her cheek was still soft,
touched with a gentle colour and a tender bloom; her eyes were still
full of light and warmth; her hands were delicate; her figure was still
shapely; there were no bending of the shoulders, no dropping of the
head. She reminded Leonard of the Recluse; but her expression was
different: his was hard and defiant; hers was gentle and sad.
The second lady, who wore a widow’s cap and a great quantity of black
crape, evidently belonged to another class. Some people talk of a lower
middle class. The distinction, I know, is invidious. Why do we say the
lower middle class? We do not say the lower upper class. However, this
lady belonged to the great and numerous class which has to get through
life on slender means, and has to consider, before all things, the
purchasing power of sixpence. This terrible necessity, in its worst
form, takes all the joy and happiness out of life. When every day brings
its own anxieties about this sixpence, there is left no room for the
graces, for culture, for art, for poetry, for anything that is lovely
and delightful. It makes life the continual endurance of fear, as
dreadful as continued pain of body. Even when the terror of the morrow
has vanished, or is partly removed by an increase of prosperity, the
scars and the memory remain, and the habits of mind and of body.
Mrs. Galley the younger belonged to that class in which the terror of
the morrow has been partly removed. But she remembered. In what followed
she sat in silence. But she occupied, as of right, the proud position of
pouring out the tea. She was short of stature, and might have been at
one time pretty.
The third, the girl, who was Mary Anne, the Board School teacher, in
some respects resembled her mother, being short and somewhat
insignificant of aspect. But when she spoke she disclosed capacity. It
is not to girls without capacity and resolution that places in Board
Schools are offered.
“Let me look at you, Leonard.” The old lady still held his hand. “Ah!
what a joy it is to see once more one of my own people! You are very
tall, Leonard, like the rest of us: you have the Campaigne face: and you
are proud. Oh yes!--you are full of pride--like my father and my
brothers. It is fifty years--fifty years and more--since I have seen any
of my own people. We have suffered--we have suffered.” She sighed
heavily. She released his hand. “Sit down, my dear,” she said gently,
“sit down, and for once take a meal with us. Mary Anne, give your cousin
some cake--it is my own making--unless he will begin with
bread-and-butter.”
The tea was conducted with some ceremony; indeed, it was an occasion:
hospitalities were not often proffered in this establishment. Leonard
was good enough to take some cake and two cups of tea. The old lady
talked while the other two ministered.
“I know your name, Leonard,” she said. “I remember your birth,
seven-and-twenty--yes, it was in 1873, about the same time as Samuel was
born. Your mother and your grandmother lived together in Cornwall. I
corresponded with my sister-in-law until she died; since then I have
heard nothing about you. My grandson tells me that you are in the House.
Father to son--father to son. We have always sent members to the House.
Our family belongs to the House. There were Campaignes in the Long
Parliament.” So she went on while the cups went round, the other ladies
preserving silence.
At last the banquet was considered finished. Mary Anne herself carried
out the tea-things, Mrs. Galley the younger followed, and Leonard was
left alone with the old lady, as had been arranged. She wanted to talk
with him about the family.
“Look,” she said, pointing to a framed photograph on the wall, “that is
the portrait of my husband at thirty. Not quite at his best--but--still
handsome, don’t you think? As a young man he was considered very
handsome indeed. His good looks, unfortunately, like his good fortune
and his good temper--poor man!--went off early. But he had heavy trials,
partly redeemed by the magnitude of his failure.”
Leonard reflected that comeliness may go with very different forms of
expression. In this case the expression was of a very inferior City
kind. There also appeared to be a stamp or brand upon it already at
thirty, as of strong drinks.
“That is my son at the side. He was half a Campaigne to look at, but not
a regular Campaigne. No; he had too much of the Galley in him. None of
the real family pride, poor boy!”
The face of the young man, apparently about twenty years of age, was
handsome, but weak and irresolute, and without character.
“He had no pride in himself and no ambition, my poor boy! I could never
understand why. No push and no ambition. That is why he remained only a
clerk in the City all his life. If he had had any pride he would have
risen.”
“I must tell you,” said Leonard, “that I have been kept, no doubt
wisely, in ignorance of my own family history. It was only yesterday
that I heard from your son that there have been troubles and misfortunes
in our records.”
“Troubles and misfortunes? And you have never heard of them! Why, my
children, who haven’t nearly so much right as you to know, have learned
the history of my people better than that of their own mother or their
grandfather’s people. To be sure, with the small folk, like those who
live round here, trouble is not the same thing as with us. Mostly they
live up to the neck in troubles, and they look for nothing but
misfortune, and they don’t mind it very much so long as they get their
dinners. And you haven’t even heard of the family misfortunes? I am
astonished. Why, there never has been any family like ours for trouble.
And you might have been cut off in your prime, or struck off with a
stroke, or been run over with a waggon, and never even known that you
were specially born to misfortune as the sparks fly upwards.”
“Am I born to misfortune? More than other people?”
It was in a kind of dream that Leonard spoke. His brain reeled; the room
went round and round: he caught the arms of a chair. And for a moment he
heard nothing except the voice of Constance, who warned him that Nature
makes no one wholly happy: that he had been too fortunate: that
something would fall upon him to redress the balance: that family
scandals, poor relations, disgraces and shames, were the lot of all
mankind, and if he would be human, if he would understand humanity, he
must learn, like the rest of the world, by experience and by suffering.
Was she, then, a Prophetess? For, behold! a few days only had passed,
and these things had fallen upon him. But as yet he did not know the
full extent of what had happened and what was going to happen.
He recovered. The fit had lasted but a moment; but thought and memory
are swifter than time.
The old lady was talking on. “To think that you’ve lived all these years
and no one ever told you! What did they mean by keeping you in the dark?
And I’ve always thought of you as sitting melancholy, waiting for the
Stroke whenever it should fall.”
“I have been ignorant of any Stroke, possible or actual. Let me tell you
that I have no fear of any Stroke. This is superstition.”
“No--no!” The old lady shook her head, and laid her hand on his. “Dear
boy, you are still under the curse. The Stroke will fall. Perhaps it
will be laid in mercy. On me it fell with wrath. That is our
distinction. That’s what it is to be a Campaigne. The misfortunes,
however, don’t go on for ever. They will leave off after your
generation. It will be when I am dead and gone; but I should like, I
confess, to see happiness coming back once more to the family.”
“Your grandson spoke of a murder and of a suicide among other things.”
“Other things, indeed! Why, there was my husband’s bankruptcy. There was
your uncle Fred, my nephew, and what he did, and why he was bundled out
of the country. I thought your mother would have fallen ill with the
shame of it. And there was my poor father, too; and there was the trial.
Did they not tell you about the trial?”
“What trial?”
“The great trial for the murder. It’s a most curious case. I believe the
man who was tried really did it, because no one else was seen about the
place. But he got off. My father was very good about it. He gave the man
Counsel, who got him off. I’ve got all the evidence in the case--cut out
of newspapers and pasted in a book. I will lend it to you, if you like.”
“Thank you. It might be interesting,” he said carelessly.
“It is interesting. But don’t you call these things enough misfortunes
for a single family?”
“Quite enough, but not enough to make us born to misfortune.”
“Oh, Leonard! If you had seen what I have seen, and suffered what I have
suffered! I’ve been the most unfortunate of all. My brothers gone; poor
dear Langley by his own hand; Christopher, dear lad, drowned; my father
a wreck. Like him, I live on. I live on, and wait for more trouble.” She
shook her head, and the tears came into her eyes.
“I was a poor neglected thing with no mother, and as good as no father,
to look after me. Galley came along; he was handsome, and I thought,
being a silly girl, that he was a gentleman; so I married him. I ran
away with him and married him. Then I found out. He thought I had a
large fortune, and I had nothing; and father would not answer my
letters. Well, he failed, and he used me cruelly--most cruelly, he did.
And poverty came on--grinding, horrible poverty. You don’t know, my dear
nephew, what that means. I pray that you never may. There is no
misfortune so bad as poverty, except it is dishonour. He died at
last”--the widow heaved a sigh of relief, which told a tale of woe in
itself--“and his son was a clerk, and kept us all. Now he’s dead, and my
grandson keeps me. For fifty years I have been slave and housemaid and
cook and drudge and nurse to my husband and my son and my grandson.
And, oh! I longed to speak once more with one of my own people.”
Leonard took her hand and pressed it. There was nothing to be said.
“Tell me more,” she said, “about yourself.”
He told her, briefly, his position and his ambitions.
“You have done well,” she said, “so far--but take care. There is the
Family Luck. It may pass you over, but I don’t know. I doubt. I fear.
There are so many kinds of misfortune. I keep thinking of them all.” She
folded her hands, resigned. “Let trouble come to me,” she said, “not to
you or the younger ones. To me. That is what I pray daily. I am too old
to mind much. Trouble to me means pain and suffering. Rather that than
more trouble to you young people. Leonard, I remember now that your
grandmother spoke in one of her letters of keeping the children from the
knowledge of all this trouble. Yes, I remember.”
She went on talking; she told the whole of the family history. She
narrated every misfortune at length.
To Leonard, listening in that little back room with the gathering
twilight and the red fire to the soft, sad voice of the mournful lady,
there came again the vision of two women, both in widows’ weeds, in the
cottage among the flowers--tree fuchsias, climbing roses, myrtles, and
Passion-flowers. All through his childhood they sat together, seldom
speaking, pale-faced, sorrowful. He understood now. It was not their
husbands for whom they wept; it was for the fate which they imagined to
be hanging over the heads of the children. Once he heard his mother
say--now the words came back to him--“Thank God! I have but one.”
“Leonard,” the old woman was going on, “for fifty years I have been
considering and thinking. It means some great crime. The misfortunes
began with my father; his life has been wrecked and ruined in punishment
for someone else’s crime. His was the first generation; mine was the
second. All our lives have been wrecked in punishment for that crime.
His was the first generation, I say”--she repeated the words as if to
drive them home--“mine was the second; all our lives have been wrecked
in punishment for that crime. Then came the third--your father died
early, and his brother ran away because he was a forger. Oh! to think of
a Campaigne doing such a thing! That was the third generation. You are
the fourth--and the curse will be removed. Unto the third and
fourth--but not the fifth.”
“Yes,” said Leonard. “I believe--I now remember--they thought--at
home--something of this kind. But, my dear lady, consider. If misfortune
falls upon us in consequence of some great crime committed long ago, and
impossible to be repaired or undone, what is there for us but to sit
down quietly and to go on with our work?”
She shook her head.
“It is very well to talk. Wait till the blows begin. If we could find
out the crime--but we never can. If we could atone--but we cannot. We
are so powerless--oh, my God! so powerless, and yet so innocent!”
She rose. Her face was buried in her handkerchief. I think it consoled
her to cry over the recollection of her sorrows almost as much as to
tell them to her grand-nephew.
“I pray daily--day and night--that the hand of wrath may be stayed.
Sitting here, I think all day long. I have forgotten how to read, I
think----”
Leonard glanced at the walls. There were a few books.
“Until Mary Anne began to study, there were no books. We were so poor
that we had to sell everything, books and all. This room is the only one
in the house that is furnished decently. My grand-daughter is my only
comfort; she is a good girl, Leonard. She takes after the Galleys to
look at, but she’s a Campaigne at heart, and she’s proud, though you
wouldn’t think it, because she’s such a short bunch of a figure, not
like us. She’s my only comfort. We talk sometimes of going away and
living together--she and I--it would be happier for us. My grandson is
not--is not--altogether what one would wish. To be sure, he has a
dreadful struggle. It’s poverty, poverty, poverty. Oh, Leonard!”--she
caught his hand--“pray against poverty. It is poverty which brings out
all the bad qualities.”
Leonard interrupted a monologue which seemed likely to go on without
end. Besides, he had now grasped the situation.
“I will come again,” he said, “if I may.”
“Oh, if you may! If you only knew what a joy, what a happiness, it is
only to look into your face! It is my brother’s face--my father’s
face--oh, come again--come again.”
“I will come again, then, and soon. Meantime, remember that I am your
nephew--or grand-nephew, which is the same thing. If in any way I can
bring some increase to your comforts----”
“No, no, my dear boy. Not that way,” she cried hastily. “I have been
poor, but never--in that way. My father, who ought to help me, has done
nothing, and if he will not, nobody shall. I would, if I could, have my
rights; no woman of our family, except me, but was an heiress. And,
besides--_he_”--she pointed to the front of the house, where was the
office of her grandson--“he will take it all himself.”
“Well, then, but if----”
“If I must, I will. Don’t give him money. He is better without it. He
will speculate in houses and lose it all. Don’t, Leonard.”
“I will not--unless for your sake.”
“No--no--not for my sake. But come again, dear boy, and we will talk
over the family history. I dare say there are quantities of misfortunes
that I have left out--oh, what a happy day it has been to me!”
He pressed her hand again. “Have faith, dear lady. We cannot be crushed
in revenge for any crime by any other person. Do not think of past
sorrows. Do not tremble at imaginary dangers. The future is in the hands
of Justice, not of Revenge.”
They were brave words, but in his heart there lurked, say, the
possibilities of apprehension.
In the hall Samuel himself intercepted him, running out of his office.
“I had my tea in here,” he said, “because I wanted her to have a talk
with you alone; and I’m sick of her family, to tell the truth, except
for that chance of the accumulations. Did she mention them?” he
whispered. “I thought she wouldn’t. I can’t get her to feel properly
about the matter. Women have got no imagination--none. Well, a man like
that can’t make a will. He can’t. That’s a comfort. Good-evening, Mr.
Campaigne. We rely entirely upon you to maintain the interests of the
family, if necessary, against madmen’s wills. Those accumulations--ah!
And he’s ninety-five--or is it ninety-six? I call it selfish to live so
long unless a man’s a pauper. He ought to be thinking of his
great-grandchildren.”