Born in Exile Page 39

  Sidwell breathed quickly. Nothing he could have urged for himself would have affected her more deeply than this. To date back and extend the period of his love for her was a flattery more subtle than Peak imagined.

  'Why didn't you tell me that the day before yesterday?' she asked, with tremulous bosom.

  'I had no wish to remind myself of baseness in the midst of a pure joy.'

  She was silent, then exclaimed, in accents of pain:

  'Why should you have thought it necessary to be other than yourself? Couldn't you see, at first meeting with us, that we were not bigoted people? Didn't you know that Buckland had accustomed us to understand how common it is nowadays for people to throw off the old religion? Would father have looked coldly on you if he had known that you followed where so many good and thoughtful men were leading?'

  He regarded her anxiously.

  'I had heard from Buckland that your father was strongly prejudiced; that you also were quite out of sympathy with the new thought.'

  'He exaggerated—even then.'

  'Exaggerated? But on what plea could I have come to live in this neighbourhood? How could I have kept you in sight—tried to win your interest? I had no means, no position. The very thought of encouraging my love for you demanded some extraordinary step. What course was open to me?'

  Sidwell let her head droop.

  'I don't know. You might perhaps have discovered a way.'

  'But what was the use, when the mere fact of my heresy would have forbidden hope from the outset?'

  'Why should it have done so?'

  'Why? You know very well that you could never even have been friendly with the man who wrote that thing in the review.'

  'But here is the proof how much better it is to behave truthfully! In this last year I have changed so much that I find it difficult to understand the strength of my former prejudices. What is it to me now that you speak scornfully of attempts to reconcile things that can't be reconciled? I understand the new thought, and how natural it is for you to accept it. If only I could have come to know you well, your opinions would not have stood between us.'

  Peak made a slight gesture, and smiled incredulously.

  'You think so now.'

  'And I have such good reason for my thought,' rejoined Sidwell, earnestly, 'that when you said you loved me, my only regret in looking to the future was—that you had resolved to be a clergyman.'

  He leaned back in the chair, and let a hand fall on his knee. The gesture seemed to signify a weary relinquishment of concern in what they were discussing.

  'How could I foresee that?' he uttered, in a corresponding tone.

  Sidwell was made uneasy by the course upon which she had entered. To what did her words tend? If only to a demonstration that fate had used him as the plaything of its irony—if, after all, she had nothing to say to him but 'See how your own folly has ruined you', then she had better have kept silence. She not only appeared to be offering him encouragement, but was in truth doing so. She wished him to understand that his way of thinking was no obstacle to her love, and with that purpose she was even guilty of a slight misrepresentation. For it was only since the shock of this disaster that she had clearly recognised the change in her own mind. True, the regret of which she spoke had for an instant visited her, but it represented a mundane solicitude rather than an intellectual scruple. It had occurred to her how much brighter would be their prospect if Peak were but an active man of the world, with a career before him distinctly suited to his powers.

  His contention was undeniably just. The influence to which she had from the first submitted was the same that her father felt so strongly. Godwin interested her as a self-reliant champion of the old faiths, and his personal characteristics would never have awakened such sympathy in her but for that initial recommendation. Natural prejudice would have prevented her from perceiving the points of kindred between his temperament and her own. His low origin, the ridiculous stories connected with his youth—why had she, in spite of likelihood, been able to disregard these things? Only because of what she then deemed his spiritual value.

  But for the dishonourable part he had played, this bond of love would never have been formed between them. The thought was a new apology for his transgression; she could not but defy her conscience, and look indulgently on the evil which had borne such fruit.

  Godwin had begun to speak again.

  'This is quite in keeping with the tenor of my whole life. Whatever I undertake ends in frustration at a point where success seems to have just come within my reach. Great things and trifles—it's all the same. My course at College was broken off at the moment when I might have assured my future. Later, I made many an effort to succeed in literature, and when at length something of mine was printed in a leading review, I could not even sign it, and had no profit from the attention it excited. Now—well, you see. Laughable, isn't it?'

  Sidwell scarcely withheld herself from bending forward and giving him her hand.

  'What shall you do?' she asked.

  'Oh, I am not afraid. I have still enough money left to support me until I can find some occupation of the old kind. Fortunately, I am not one of those men whose brains have no marketable value.'

  'If you knew how it pains me to hear you!'

  'If I didn't believe that, I couldn't speak to you like this. I never thought you would let me see you again, and if you hadn't asked me to come, I could never have brought myself to face you. But it would have been a miserable thing to go off without even knowing what you thought of me.'

  'Should you never have written to me?'

  'I think not. You find it hard to imagine that I have any pride, no doubt; but it is there, explain it how one may.'

  'It would have been wrong to leave me in such uncertainty.'

  'Uncertainty?'

  'About you—about your future.'

  'Did you quite mean that? Hadn't your brother made you doubt whether I loved you at all?'

  'Yes. But no, I didn't doubt. Indeed, indeed, I didn't doubt! But I felt such a need of hearing from your own lips that—Oh, I can't explain myself!'

  Godwin smiled sadly.

  'I think I understand. But there was every reason for my believing that your love could not bear such a test. You must regard me as quite a different man—one utterly unknown to you.'

  He had resolved to speak not a word that could sound like an appeal to her emotions. When he entered the room he felt a sincere indifference as to what would result from the interview, for to his mind the story was ended, and he had only to retire with the dignity still possible to a dishonoured man. To touch the note of pathos would be unworthy; to exert what influence might be left to him, a wanton cruelty. But he had heard such unexpected things, that it was not easy for him to remember how complete had seemed the severance between him and Sidwell. The charm of her presence was reasserting itself, and when avowal of continued love appeared so unmistakably in her troubled countenance, her broken words, he could not control the answering fervour. He spoke in a changed voice, and allowed his eyes to dwell longingly upon hers.

  'I felt so at first,' she answered. 'And it would be wrong to pretend that I can still regard you as I did before.'

  It cost her a great effort to add these words. When they were spoken, she was at once glad and fearful.

  'I am not so foolish, as to think it possible,' said Peak, half turning away.

  'But that is no reason,' she pursued, 'why we should become strangers. You are still so young a man; life must be so full of possibilities for you. This year has been wasted, but when you leave Exeter'——

  An impatient movement of Godwin's checked her.

  'You are going to encourage me to begin the struggle once more,' he said, bitterly. 'Where? How? It is so easy to talk of "possibilities".'

  'You are not without friends—I mean friends whose sympathy is of real value to you.'

  Saying this, she looked keenly at him.

  'Friends,' he replied, 'who pe
rhaps at this moment are laughing over my disgrace.'

  'How do they know of—what has happened?'

  'How did your brother get his information? I didn't care to ask him.—No, I don't even wish you to say anything about that.'

  'But surely there is no reason for keeping it secret. Why may I not speak freely? Buckland told me that he had heard you spoken of at the house of people named Moxey.'

  She endeavoured to understand the smile which rose to his lips. 'Now it is clear to me,' he said. 'Yes, I suppose that was inevitable, sooner or later.'

  'You knew that he had become acquainted with the Moxeys?'

  Her tone was more reserved than hitherto.

  'Yes, I knew he had. He met Miss Moxey by chance at Budleigh Salterton, and I happened to be there—at the Moorhouses'—on the same day.'

  Sidwell glanced at him inquiringly, and waited for something more.

  'I saw Miss Moxey in private,' he added, speaking more quickly, 'and asked her to keep my secret. I ought to be ashamed to tell you this, but it is better you should know how far my humiliation has gone.'

  He saw that she was moved with strong feeling. The low tone in which she answered had peculiar significance.

  'Did you speak of me to Miss Moxey?'

  'I must forgive you for asking that,' Peak replied, coldly. 'It may well seem to you that I have neither honour nor delicacy left.'

  There had come a flush on her cheeks. For some moments she was absorbed in thought.

  'It seems strange to you,' he continued at length, 'that I could ask Miss Moxey to share such a secret. But you must understand on what terms we were—she and I. We have known each other for several years. She has a man's mind, and I have always thought of her in much the same way as of my male companions.—Your brother has told you about her, perhaps?'

  'I have met her in London.'

  'Then that will make my explanation easier,' said Godwin, disregarding the anxious questions that at once suggested themselves to him. 'Well, I misled her, or tried to do so. I allowed her to suppose that I was sincere in my new undertakings, and that I didn't wish—Oh!' he exclaimed, suddenly breaking off, 'Why need I go any further in confession? It must be as miserable for you to hear as for me to speak. Let us make an end of it. I can't understand how I have escaped detection so long.'

  Remembering every detail of Buckland's story, Sidwell felt that she had possibly been unjust in representing the Moxeys as her brother's authority; in strictness, she ought to mention that a friend of theirs was the actual source of information. But she could not pursue the subject; like Godwin, she wished to put it out of her mind. What question could there be of honour or dishonour in the case of a person such as Miss Moxey, who had consented to be party to a shameful deceit? Strangely, it was a relief to her to have heard this. The moral repugnance which threatened to estrange her from Godwin, was now directed in another quarter; unduly restrained by love, it found scope under the guidance of jealousy.

  'You have been trying to adapt yourself,' she said, 'to a world for which you are by nature unfitted. Your place is in the new order; by turning back to the old, you condemned yourself to a wasted life. Since we have been in London, I have come to understand better the great difference between modern intellectual life and that which we lead in these far-away corners. You must go out among your equals, go and take your part with men who are working for the future.'

  Peak rose with a gesture of passionate impatience.

  'What is it to me, new world or old? My world is where you are. I have no life of my own; I think only of you, live only by you.'

  'If I could help you!' she replied, with emotion. 'What can I do—but be your friend at a distance? Everything else has become impossible.'

  'Impossible for the present—for a long time to come. But is there no hope for me?'

  She pressed her hands together, and stood before him unable to answer. 'Remember,' he continued, 'that you are almost as much changed in my eyes as I in yours. I did not imagine that you had moved so far towards freedom of mind. If my love for you was profound and absorbing, think what it must now have become! Yours has suffered by my disgrace, but is there no hope of its reviving—if I live worthily—if I——?'

  His voice failed.

  'I have said that we can't be strangers,' Sidwell murmured brokenly. 'Wherever you go, I must hear of you.'

  'Everyone about you will detest my name. You will soon wish to forget my existence.'

  'If I know myself, never!—Oh, try to find your true work! You have such abilities, powers so much greater than those of ordinary men. You will always be the same to me, and if ever circumstances'——

  'You would have to give up so much, Sidwell. And there is little chance of my ever being well-to-do; poverty will always stand between us, if nothing else.'

  'It must be so long before we can think of that.'

  'But can I ever see you?—No, I won't ask that. Who knows? I may have to go too far away. But I may write to you—after a time?'

  'I shall live in the hope of good news from you,' she replied, trying to smile and to speak cheerfully. 'This will always be my home. Nothing will be changed.'

  'Then you don't think of me as irredeemably base?'

  'If I thought you base,' Sidwell answered, in a low voice, 'I should not now be speaking with you. It is because I feel and know that you have erred only—that is what makes it impossible for me to think of your fault as outweighing the good in your nature.'

  'The good? I wonder how you understand that. What is there good in me? You don't mean mere intellect?'

  He waited anxiously for what she would say. A necessity for speaking out his inmost thoughts had arisen with the emotion, scarcely to be called hope, excited by Sidwell's magnanimity. Now, or never, he must stand before this woman as his very self, and be convinced that she loved him for his own sake.

  'No, I don't mean intellect,' she replied, with hesitation.

  'What then? Tell me of one quality in me strong enough to justify a woman's love.'

  Sidwell dropped her eyes in confusion.

  'I can't analyse your character—I only know'——

  She became silent.

  'To myself,' pursued Godwin, with the modulated, moving voice which always expressed his genuine feeling, 'I seem anything but lovable. I don't underrate my powers—rather the opposite, no doubt; but what I always seem to lack is the gift of pleasing—moral grace. My strongest emotions seem to be absorbed in revolt; for once that I feel tenderly, I have a hundred fierce, resentful, tempestuous moods. To be suave and smiling in common intercourse costs me an effort. I have to act the part, and this habit makes me sceptical, whenever I am really prompted to gentleness. I criticise myself ceaselessly; expose without mercy all those characteristics which another man would keep out of sight. Yes, and for this very reason, just because I think myself unlovable—the gift of love means far more to me than to other men. If you could conceive the passion of gratitude which possessed me for hours after I left you the other day! You cannot!'

  Sidwell regarded him fixedly.

  'In comparison with this sincerity, what becomes of the pretence you blame in me? If you knew how paltry it seems—that accusation of dishonesty! I believed the world round, and pretended to believe it flat: that's what it amounts to! Are you, on such an account as that, to consider worthless the devotion which has grown in me month by month? You—I was persuaded—thought the world flat, and couldn't think kindly of any man who held the other hypothesis. Very well; why not concede the trifle, and so at least give myself a chance? I did so—that was all.'

  In vain her conscience strove to assert itself. She was under the spell of a nature infinitely stronger than hers; she saw and felt as Godwin did.

  'You think, Sidwell, that I stand in need of forgiveness. Then be great enough to forgive me, wholly—once and for all. Let your love be strengthened by the trial it has passed through. That will mean that my whole life is yours, directed by the ever-present th
ought of your beauty, face and soul. Then there will be good in me, thanks to you. I shall no longer live a life of hypocrisy, of suppressed rage and scorn. I know how much I am asking; perhaps it means that for my sake you give up everything else that is dear to you'——

  The thought checked him. He looked at her despondently.

  'You can trust me,' Sidwell answered, moving nearer to him, tears on her cheeks. 'I must hear from you, and I will write.'

  'I can ask no more than that.'

  He took her hands, held them for a moment, and turned away. At the door he looked round. Sidwell's head was bowed, and, on her raising it, he saw that she was blinded with tears.

  So he went forth.

  Part VI

  CHAPTER I

  For several days after the scene in which Mr. Malkin unconsciously played an important part, Marcella seemed to be ill. She appeared at meals, but neither ate nor conversed. Christian had never known her so sullen and nervously irritable; he did not venture to utter Peak's name. Upon seclusion followed restless activity. Marcella was rarely at home between breakfast and dinner-time, and her brother learnt with satisfaction that she went much among her acquaintances. Late one evening, when he had just returned from he knew not where, Christian tried to put an end to the unnatural constraint between them. After talking cheerfully for a few minutes, he risked the question:

  'Have you seen anything of the Warricombes?'

  She replied with a cold negative.

  'Nor heard anything?'

  'No. Have you?'

  'Nothing at all. I have seen Earwaker. Malkin had told him about what happened here the other day.'

  'Of course.'

  'But he had no news.—Of Peak, I mean.'

  Marcella smiled, as if the situation amused her; but she would not discuss it. Christian began to hope that she was training herself to a wholesome indifference.

  A month of the new year went by, and Peak seemed to be forgotten. Marcella had returned to her studious habits, was fenced around with books, seldom left the house. Another month and the brother and sister were living very much in the old way, seeing few people, conversing only of intellectual things. But Christian concealed an expectation which enabled him to pass hours of retirement in the completest idleness. Since the death of her husband, Mrs. Palmer had been living abroad. Before the end of March, as he had been careful to discover, she would be back in London, at the house in Sussex Square. By that time he might venture, without indelicacy, to call upon her. And after the first interview——