Born in Exile Page 12

  'Pretend! I make no pretences of any kind,' was his scornful answer.

  'You are ungracious this evening.'

  'Yes—and can't hide it.'

  'Don't try to, I beg. But at least tell me what troubles you.'

  'That's impossible,' Peak replied, drily.

  'Then friendship goes for nothing,' said Marcella, with a little forced laugh.

  'Yes—in all but a very few human concerns. How often could you tell me what it is that prevents your taking life cheerfully?'

  He glanced at her, and Marcella's eyes fell; a moment after, there was a suspicion of colour in her cheek.

  'What are you reading?' Peak asked abruptly, but in a voice of more conventional note.

  'Still Hafiz.'

  'I envy your power of abstraction.'

  'Yet I hear that you are deeply concerned about the locomotive powers of the diatomaceaoe?'

  Their eyes met, and they laughed—not very mirthfully.

  'It preserves me from worse follies,' said Peak. 'After all, there are ways more or less dignified of consuming time'—

  As he spoke, his ear caught a familiar name, uttered by Christian Moxey, and he turned to listen. Moxey and Earwaker were again talking of the Rev. Bruno Chilvers. Straightway disregarding Marcella, Peak gave attention to the men's dialogue, and his forehead wrinkled into scornful amusement.

  'It's very interesting,' he exclaimed, at a moment when there was silence throughout the company, 'to hear that Chilvers is really coming to the front. At Whitelaw it used to be prophesied that he would be a bishop, and now I suppose he's fairly on the way to that. Shall we write letters of congratulation to him, Earwaker?'

  'A joint epistle, if you like.'

  Mr. Morton, who had brightened since dinner, began to speak caustically of the form of intellect necessary nowadays in a popular clergyman.

  'He must write a good deal,' put in Earwaker, 'and that in a style which would have scandalised the orthodox of the last century. Rationalised dogma is vastly in demand.'

  Peak's voice drew attention.

  'Two kinds of books dealing with religion are now greatly popular, and will be for a long time. On the one hand there is that growing body of people who, for whatever reason, tend to agnosticism, but desire to be convinced that agnosticism is respectable; they are eager for anti-dogmatic books, written by men of mark. They couldn't endure to be classed with Bradlaugh, but they rank themselves confidently with Darwin and Huxley. Arguments matter little or nothing to them. They take their rationalism as they do a fashion in dress, anxious only that it shall be "good form". Then there's the other lot of people—a much larger class—who won't give up dogma, but have learnt that bishops, priests, and deacons no longer hold it with the old rigour, and that one must be "broad"; these are clamorous for treatises which pretend to reconcile revelation and science. It's quite pathetic to watch the enthusiasm with which they hail any man who distinguishes himself by this kind of apologetic skill, this pious jugglery. Never mind how washy the book from a scientific point of view. Only let it obtain vogue, and it will be glorified as the new evangel. The day has gone by for downright assaults on science; to be marketable, you must prove that The Origin of Species was approvingly foreseen in the first chapter of Genesis, and that the Apostles' Creed conflicts in no single point with the latest results of biblical criticism. Both classes seek to avoid ridicule, and to adapt themselves to a standard of respectability. If Chilvers goes in for the newest apologetics, he is bound to be enormously successful. The man has brains, and really there are so few such men who still care to go into the Church.'

  There was a murmur of laughing approval. The speaker had worked himself into eloquent nervousness; he leaned forward with his hands straining together, and the muscles of his face quivering.

  'And isn't it surprising,' said Marcella, 'in how short a time this apologetic attitude has become necessary?'

  Peak flashed a triumphant look at her.

  'I often rejoice to think of it!' he cried. 'How magnificent it is that so many of the solemn jackasses who brayed against Darwin from ten to twenty years ago should live to be regarded as beneath contempt! I say it earnestly: this thought is one of the things that make life tolerable to me!'

  'You have need of charity, friend Peak,' interposed Earwaker. 'This is the spirit of the persecutor.'

  'Nothing of the kind! It is the spirit of justified reason. You may say that those people were honestly mistaken;—such honesty is the brand of a brainless obstructive. They would have persecuted, but too gladly! There were, and are, men who would have committed Darwin to penal servitude, if they had had the power. Men like Lyell, who were able to develop a new convolution in their brains, I respect heartily. I only speak of the squalling mass, the obscene herd of idiot mockers.'

  'Who assuredly,' remarked Earwaker, 'feel no shame whatever in the retrospect of their idiocy. To convert a mind is a subject for high rejoicing; to confute a temper isn't worth the doing.'

  'That is philosophy,' said Marcella, 'but I suspect you of often feeling as Mr. Peak does. I am sure I do.'

  Peak, meeting an amused glance from the journalist, left his seat and took up a volume that lay on one of the tables. It was easy to see that his hands shook, and that there was perspiration on his forehead. With pleasant tact, Moxey struck into a new subject, and for the next quarter of an hour Peak sat apart in the same attitude as before his outburst of satire and invective. Then he advanced to Miss Moxey again, for the purpose of taking leave. This was the signal for Earwaker's rising, and in a few minutes both men had left the house.

  'I'll go by train with you,' said Earwaker, as they walked away. 'Farringdon Street will suit me well enough.'

  Peak vouchsafed no reply, but, when they had proceeded a little distance, he exclaimed harshly:

  'I hate emancipated women!'

  His companion stopped and laughed loudly.

  'Yes, I hate emancipated women,' the other repeated, with deliberation. 'Women ought neither to be enlightened nor dogmatic. They ought to be sexual.'

  'That's unusual brutality on your part.'

  'Well, you know what I mean.'

  'I know what you think you mean,' said Earwaker. 'But the woman who is neither enlightened nor dogmatic is only too common in society. They are fools, and troublesome fools.'

  Peak again kept silence.

  'The emancipated woman,' pursued his friend, 'needn't be a Miss Moxey, nor yet a Mrs. Morton.'

  'Miss Moxey is intolerable,' said Peak. 'I can't quite say why I dislike her so, but she grows more antipathetic to me the better I know her. She has not a single feminine charm—not one. I often feel very sorry for her, but dislike her all the same.'

  'Sorry for her,' mused Earwaker. 'Yes, so do I. I can't like her either. She is certainly an incomplete woman. But her mind is of no low order. I had rather talk with her than with one of the imbecile prettinesses. I half believe you have a sneaking sympathy with the men who can't stand education in a wife.'

  'It's possible. In some moods.'

  'In no mood can I conceive such a prejudice. I have no great attraction to women of any kind, but the uneducated woman I detest.'

  'Well, so do I,' muttered Peak. 'Do you know what?' he added, abruptly. 'I shall be off to the Pacific. Yes, I shall go this next winter. My mind is made up.'

  'I shan't try to dissuade you, old fellow, though I had rather have you in sight. Come and see Malkin. I'll drop you a note with an appointment.'

  'Do.'

  They soon reached the station, and exchanged but few more words before Earwaker's leaving the train at Farringdon Street. Peak pursued his journey towards the south-east of London.

  On reaching home, the journalist flung aside his foolish coat of ceremony, indued a comfortable jacket, lit a pipe with long stem, and began to glance over an evening newspaper. He had not long reposed in his arm-chair when the familiar appeal thundered from without. Malkin once more shook his hand effusively.

 
; 'Had my journey to Fulham for nothing. Didn't matter; I ran over to Putney and looked up my old landlady. The rooms are occupied by a married couple, but I think we shall succeed in persuading them to make way for me. I promised to find them lodgings every bit as good in two days' time.'

  'If that is so easy, why not take the new quarters yourself?'

  'Why, to tell you the truth, I didn't think of it!—Oh, I had rather have the old crib; I can do as I like there, you know. Confound it! Now I shall have to spend all to-morrow lodging-hunting for other people. Couldn't I pay a man to do it? Some confidential agent—private police—you know what I mean?'

  'A man of any delicacy,' replied Earwaker, with grave countenance, 'would feel bound by such a promise to personal exertion.'

  'Right; quite right! I didn't mean it; of course I shall hunt conscientiously. Oh, I say; I have brought over a couple of armadilloes. Would you like one?'

  'Stuffed, do you mean?'

  'Pooh! Alive, man, alive! They only need a little care. I should think you might keep the creature in your kitchen; they become quite affectionate.'

  The offer was unhesitatingly declined, and Malkin looked hurt. There needed a good deal of genial explanation before Earwaker could restore him to his sprightly mood.

  'Where have you been dining?' cried the traveller. 'Moxey's—ah, I remember. But who is Moxey? A new acquaintance, eh?'

  'Yes; I have known him about six months. Got to know him through Peak.'

  'Peak? Peak? What, the fellow you once told me about—who disappeared from Whitelaw because of his uncle, the cat's-meat man?'

  'The man's-meat man, rather.'

  'Yes, yes—the eating-house; I remember. You have met him again? Why on earth didn't you tell me in your letters? What became of him? Tell me the story.'

  'Certainly, if you will cease to shake down plaster from the ceiling.—We met in a restaurant (appropriate scene), happening to sit at the same table. Whilst eating, we stared at each other fitfully. "I'll be hanged if that isn't Peak," I kept saying to myself. And at the same moment we opened our lips to question each other.'

  'Just the same thing happened once to a friend of mine and a friend of his. But it was on board ship, and both were devilish seasick. Walker—you remember my friend Walker?—tells the story in a side-splitting way. I wonder what has become of Walker? The last time I met him he was travelling agent for a menagerie—a most interesting fellow, Walker.—But I beg your pardon. Go on, old fellow!'

  'Well, after that we at once saw a good deal of each other. He has been working for years at a chemical factory down on the river; Moxey used to be there, and got him the place.'

  'Moxey?—Oh yes, the man you dined with. You must remember that these are new names to me. I must know all these new people, I say. You don't mind?'

  'You shall be presented to the whole multitude, as soon as you like. Peak wants to see you. He thinks of an excursion like this last of yours.'

  'He does? By Jove, we'll go together! I have always wanted a travelling companion. We'll start as soon as ever he likes!—well, in a month or two. I must just have time to look round. Oh, I haven't done with the tropics yet! I must tell him of a rattling good insect-powder I have invented; I think of patenting it. I say, how does one get a patent? Quite a simple matter, I suppose?'

  'Oh, always has been. The simplest and least worrying of all business enterprises.'

  'What? Eh? That smile of yours means mischief.'

  In a quarter of an hour they had got back to the subject of Peak's history.

  'And did he really run away because of the eating-house?' Malkin inquired.

  'I shall never venture to ask, and it's not very likely he will admit it. It was some time before he cared to talk much of Whitelaw.'

  'But what is he doing? You used to think he would come out strong, didn't you? Has he written anything?'

  'A few things in The Liberator, five or six years ago.'

  'What, the atheistic paper?'

  'Yes. But he's ashamed of it now. That belongs to a bygone stage of development.'

  'Turned orthodox?'

  Earwaker laughed.

  'I only mean that he is ashamed of the connection with street-corner rationalism.'

  'Quite right. Devilish low, that kind of thing. But I went in for it myself once. Did I ever tell you that I debated with a parson on Mile-end Waste? Fact! That was in my hot-headed days. A crowd of coster-mongers applauded me in the most flattering way.—I say, Earwaker, you haven't any whisky?'

  'Forgive me; your conversation makes me forget hospitality. Shall I make hot water? I have a spirit-kettle.'

  'Cold for me. I get in such a deuced perspiration when I begin to talk.—Try this tobacco; the last of half a hundred-weight I took in at Bahia.'

  The traveller refreshed himself with a full tumbler, and resumed the conversation cheerily.

  'Has he just been wasting his time, then, all these years?'

  'He goes in for science—laboratory work, evolutionary speculations. Of course I can't judge his progress in such matters; but Moxey, a clever man in the same line, thinks very highly of him.'

  'Just the fellow to travel with. I want to get hold of some solid scientific ideas, but I haven't the patience to work steadily. A confounded fault of mine, you know, Earwaker,—want of patience. You must have noticed it?'

  'Oh—well, now and then, perhaps.'

  'Yes, yes; but of course I know myself better. And now tell me about Moxey. A married man, of course?'

  'No, lives with a sister.'

  'Unmarried sister?—Brains?'

  'Pretty well supplied with that commodity.'

  'You must introduce me to her. I do like women with brains.—

  'Orthodox or enlightened?'

  'Bitterly enlightened.'

  'Really? Magnificent! Oh, I must know her. Nothing like an emancipated woman! How any man can marry the ordinary female passes my understanding. What do you think?'

  'My opinions are in suspense; not yet precipitated, as Peak might say.'

  One o'clock sounded from neighbouring churches, but Malkin was wide awake as ever. He entered upon a detailed narrative of his travels, delightful to listen to, so oddly blended were the strains of conscious and unconscious humour which marked his personality. Two o'clock; three o'clock;—he would have talked till breakfast-time, but at last Earwaker declared that the hour had come for sleep. As Malkin had taken a room at the Inns of Court Hotel, it was easy for him to repair to his quarters. The last his friend heard of him was an unexplained laugh, echoing far down the staircase.

  CHAPTER II

  Peak's destination was Peckham Rye. On quitting the railway, he had a walk of some ten minutes along a road which smelt of new bricks and stucco heated by the summer sun; an obscure passage led him into a street partly of dwelling-houses, partly of shops, the latter closed. He paused at the side door of one over which the street lamp dimly revealed—'Button, Herbalist'.

  His latch-key admitted him to total darkness, but he moved forward with the confidence of long use. He softly ascended two flights of stairs, opened a door, struck a match, and found himself in a comfortable sitting-room, soon illumined by a reading-lamp. The atmosphere, as throughout the house, was strongly redolent of dried simples. Anyone acquainted with the characteristics of furnished lodgings must have surmised that Peak dwelt here among his own moveables, and was indebted to the occupier of the premises for bare walls alone; the tables and chairs, though plain enough, were such as civilisation permits; and though there were no pictures, sundry ornaments here and there made strong denial of lodging-house affinity. It was at once laboratory, study, and dwelling-room. Two large cabinets, something the worse for transportation, alone formed a link between this abode and the old home at Twybridge. Books were not numerous, and a good microscope seemed to be the only scientific instrument of much importance. On door-pegs hung a knapsack, a botanist's vasculum, and a geologist's wallet.

  A round table was spread with t
he materials of supper, and here again an experienced lodger must have bestowed contemplative scrutiny, for no hand of common landlady declared itself in the arrangement. The cloth was spotless, the utensils tasteful and carefully disposed. In a bowl lay an appetising salad, ready for mingling; a fragment of Camembert cheese was relieved upon a setting of green leafage; a bottle of ale, with adjacent corkscrew, stood beside the plate; the very loaf seemed to come from no ordinary baker's, or was made to look better than its kin by the fringed white cloth in which it nestled.

  The custom of four years had accustomed Peak to take these things as a matter of course, yet he would readily have admitted that they were extraordinary enough. Indeed, he even now occasionally contrasted this state of comfort with the hateful experiences of his first six years in London. The subject of lodgings was one of those on which (often intemperate of speech) he spoke least temperately. For six years he had shifted from quarter to quarter, from house to house, driven away each time by the hateful contact of vulgarity in every form,—by foulness and dishonesty, by lying, slandering, quarrelling, by drunkenness, by brutal vice,—by all abominations that distinguish the lodging-letter of the metropolis. Obliged to practise extreme economy, he could not take refuge among self-respecting people, or at all events had no luck in endeavouring to find such among the poorer working-class. To a man of Godwin's idiosyncrasy the London poor were of necessity abominable, and it anguished him to be forced to live among them.

  Rescue came at last, and in a very unexpected way. Resident in the more open part of Bermondsey (winter mornings made a long journey to Rotherhithe intolerable), he happened to walk one day as far as Peckham Rye, and was there attracted by the shop window of a herbalist. He entered to make a purchase, and got into conversation with Mr. Button, a middle-aged man of bright intelligence and more reading than could be expected. The herbalist led his customer to an upper room, in which were stored sundry curiosities, and happened casually to say that he was desirous of finding a lodger for two superfluous chambers. Peak's inquiries led to his seeing Mrs. Button, whom he found to be a Frenchwoman of very pleasing appearance; she spoke fluent French-English, anything but disagreeable to an ear constantly tormented by the London vernacular. After short reflection he decided to take and furnish the rooms. It proved a most fortunate step, for he lived (after the outlay for furniture) at much less expense than theretofore, and in comparative luxury. Cleanliness, neatness, good taste by no means exhausted Mrs. Button's virtues; her cooking seemed to the lodger of incredible perfection, and the infinite goodwill with which he was tended made strange contrast with the base usage he had commonly experienced.