WHEN he was gone Leonard threw himself into the nearest chair, and looked around him. He gazed with bewildered face, not upon the study full of books, the papers which showed the man of learning, the reports which spoke of the man of affairs, the engravings on the wall which spoke of the man of culture. These are accidental: anyone may show them. The artist sprung from the gutter, the self-made scholar, the mere mushroom, might possess and exhibit all these things. He saw strewn around him the wreck and ruin of all that he had hitherto considered the essential, namely, the family honour.
There are none so full of family pride as those who show it least. To Leonard it had always been the greatest happiness merely to feel that the records of his family went back to times beyond the memory of man. It was not a thing to be talked about, but a prop, a stay, a shield, anything that helps to make a man at peace with himself. No one knew when the Campaignes first obtained their estate; in every century he found his ancestors—not distinguished—indeed, they had never produced a man of the first rank—but playing a part, and that not an unworthy one. It was the record of an honourable line. There were no traitors or turncoats in it: the men were without reproach, the women without a spot or stain among them all.
I suppose that nobody, either at school or college, ever knew or suspected the profound pride which lay at the heart of this quiet and self-possessed scholar. It was the kind of pride which is free from arrogance. He was a gentleman; all his people had been gentlemen. By gentlemen he meant people of good birth and breeding, and of blameless life. The word, we well know, is now used so as to include the greater part of male man. To most people it means nothing and matters nothing. Even with people who use limitations the door is always open to those who choose to lead the gentle life, and are privileged to follow the work which belongs to the gentle life.
He was a gentleman—he and all his people. He had no feeling of superiority, not the least—no more than a man may entertain a feeling of superiority on account of his stature. Nor had he the least feeling of contempt for those who have no such advantages. A man who has a grandfather may affect to despise one who has no grandfather, but not a man who has a long line terminating like the ancestry of a Saxon king in dim shapes which are probably Woden, Thor, and Freyya.
The grand essentials of family pride are ancestry and honour. The former cannot very well be taken away, but without the latter it is not worth much. One might as well take pride in belonging to a long line in which gallant highwaymen, footpads, costers, hooligans, and Marylebone boys have succeeded each other for generations with the accompaniments and distinctions of Tyburn Tree and the cart-tail.
Therefore, I say, Leonard sat among the ruins of the essentials regardless of the accidentals. The man who had just left him had stripped off all that was left of his former pride; he could feel no further support or solace in the contemplation of his forefathers. Think what he had learned and endured in less than a month. It was line upon line, precept upon precept. It was like unto the patriarch to whom, while one messenger of evil was speaking, there came also another, saying, “Thus and thus has it been done. Where is now thy pride?”
First, he learned that he had cousins living in one of the least desirable quarters of London; the man-cousin could not by any possible stretch be considered as possessing any of the attributes of a gentleman; the girl occupied a station and followed a calling which was respectable, but belonging to those generally adopted by the Poor Relation. He was thus provided with poor relations. Constance had said that he wanted poor relations in order to be like other people. And then they came as if in answer to her words.
He had learned also that his grandfather almost at the outset of a promising career had committed suicide for no reason that could be discovered; that his father had died young, also at the outset of a promising career, was a misfortune, but not a blot.
Two persons were left of his father’s generation. He had welcomed one as the prodigal, who had gone forth to the husks and returned bearing sheaves of golden grain. At least there was the pretence of the golden grain. The other he had regarded all his life with respect as one in successful practice in a most honourable profession. Where were they now? One was a bankrupt grocer or general store-keeper, the owner of a shanty in an Australian township, a miserable little general shop selling sardines and tea and oil and blacking, which he wanted to turn into a company as a great business; one who made no pretence at truth or honesty; the companion of tramps; devoid of honour or even the respect or care for honour. He had been driven out by his family as a spendthrift, a profligate, and a forger. He had come home unchanged and unrepentant and ready to swindle and to cheat if he could do so without the customary penalties.
As for the other man, the pretended barrister, he stood revealed as one who was living under false pretences. He had an equal right to stand in pillory beside his brother. Once a prodigal and a spendthrift like him: now living a daily lie which he had carried on for five-and-twenty years. Good heavens! Christopher Campaigne, Barrister-at-Law of Lincoln’s Inn, the successful Lawyer, on whom his family reposed a confidence so profound and a pride so unbounded—who does not take pride in a successful lawyer?—was nothing more than a common pretender and an impostor. He wrote speeches and sold them to humbugs who wished to be thought clever speakers. Honourable occupation! Delightful work! A proud and distinguished career!