Leonard remembered these words afterwards. For the moment they had no meaning for him.
“Granny says we’ve got hereditary misfortunes.”
“So she told me. Hereditary? Why?” His brow contracted. “I don’t know why. Hereditary misfortunes are supposed to imply ancestral crimes.”
“She puts it like this. If it hadn’t been hereditary misfortune she wouldn’t have married grandfather; he wouldn’t have been bankrupt; father wouldn’t have been only a small clerk; Sam would have been something in a large way; and I should be a lady instead of a Board School teacher.”
“You can be both, my cousin. Now look at the other side. Your grandfather was ruined, I take it, by his own incompetence; his poverty was his own doing. Your father never rose in the world, I suppose, because he had no power of fight. Your brother has got into a respectable profession; what right has he to complain?”
“That’s what I say sometimes. Granny won’t have it. She’s all for hereditary ill-luck, as if we are to suffer for what was done a hundred years ago. I don’t believe it, for my part. Do you?”
He thought of his talk with Constance in the country road.
“It is a dreadful question; do not let it trouble us. Let us go on with our work and not think about it.”
“It’s all very well to say ‘Don’t think about it,’ when she talks about nothing else, especially when she looks at Sam and thinks of you. There was something else I wanted to say.” She dropped her head, and began nervously to twitch with her fingertips. “I’m almost ashamed to say it. Sam would never forgive me, but I think of granny first and of all she has endured, and I must warn you.” She looked round; there was nobody else present. “It’s about Sam, my brother. I must warn you—I must, because he may make mischief between you and granny.”
“He will find that difficult. Well, go on.”