Born in Exile (24 page)

'I confess my ignorance of everything of the kind—unless you
include Bishop Blougram among the philosophers?'

Godwin bore the gaze which accompanied this significant inquiry.
For a moment he smiled, but there followed an expression of gravity
touched with pain.

'I hadn't thought of broaching this matter,' he said, with slow
utterance, but still in a tone of perfect friendliness. 'Let us put
it aside.'

Warricombe seemed to make an effort, and his next words had the
accent of well-bred consideration which distinguished his ordinary
talk.

'Pray forgive my bad joke. I merely meant that I have no right
whatever to argue with anyone who has given serious attention to
such things. They are altogether beyond my sphere. I was born an
agnostic, and no subtlety of demonstration could incline me for a
moment to theological views; my intellect refuses to admit a single
preliminary of such arguments. You astonish me, and that's all I am
justified in saying.'

'My dear Warricombe, you are justified in saying whatever your
mind suggests. That is one of the principles which I hold
unaltered—let me be quite frank with you. I should never have
decided upon such a step as this, but for the fact that I have
managed to put by a small sum of money which will make me
independent for two or three years. Till quite lately I hadn't a
thought of using my freedom in this way; it was clear to me that I
must throw over the old drudgery at Rotherhithe, but this resolve
which astonishes you had not yet ripened—I saw it only as one of
the possibilities of my life. Well, now, it's only too true that
there's something of speculation in my purpose; I look to the
Church, not only as a congenial sphere of activity, but as a means
of subsistence. In a man of no fortune this is inevitable; I hope
there is nothing to be ashamed of. Even if the conditions of the
case allowed it, I shouldn't present myself for ordination
forthwith; I must study and prepare myself in quietness. How the
practical details will be arranged, I can't say; I have no family
influence, and I must hope to make friends who will open a way for
me. I have always lived apart from society; but that isn't natural
to me, and it becomes more distasteful the older I grow. The
probability is that I shall settle somewhere in the country, where
I can live decently on a small income. After all, it's better I
should have let you know this at once. I only realised a few
minutes ago that to be silent about my projects was in a way to be
guilty of false pretences.'

The adroitness of this last remark, which directed itself, with
such show of candour, against a suspicion precisely the opposite of
that likely to be entertained by the listener, succeeded in
disarming Warricombe; he looked up with a smile of reassurance, and
spoke encouragingly.

'About the practical details I don't think you need have any
anxiety. It isn't every day that the Church of England gets such a
recruit. Let me suggest that you have a talk with my father.'

Peak reflected on the proposal, and replied to it with grave
thoughtfulness:

'That's very kind of you, but I should have a difficulty in
asking Mr. Warricombe's advice. I'm afraid I must go on in my own
way for a time. It will be a few months, I daresay, before I can
release myself from my engagements in London.'

'But I am to understand that your mind is really made up?'

'Oh, quite!'

'Well, no doubt we shall have opportunities of talking. We must
meet in town, if possible. You have excited my curiosity, and I
can't help hoping you'll let me see a little further into your mind
some day. When I first got hold of Newman's
Apologia
, I
began to read it with the utmost eagerness, flattering myself that
now at length I should understand how a man of brains could travel
such a road. I was horribly disappointed, and not a little enraged,
when I found that he began by assuming the very beliefs I thought
he was going to justify. In you I shall hope for more logic.'

'Newman is incapable of understanding such an objection,' said
Peak, with a look of amusement.

'But you are not.'

The dialogue grew chatty. When they exchanged good-night, Peak
fancied that the pressure of Buckland's hand was less fervent than
at their meeting, but his manner no longer seemed to indicate
distrust. Probably the agnostic's mood was one of half-tolerant
disdain.

Godwin turned the key in his bedroom door, and strayed aimlessly
about. He was fatigued, but the white, fragrant bed did not yet
invite him; a turbulence in his brain gave warning that it would be
long before he slept. He wound up his watch; the hands pointed to
twelve. Chancing to come before the mirror, he saw that he was
unusually pale, and that his eyes had a swollen look.

The profound stillness was oppressive to him; he started
nervously at an undefined object in a dim corner, and went nearer
to examine it; he was irritable, vaguely discontented, and had even
a moment of nausea, perhaps the result of tobacco stronger than he
was accustomed to smoke. After leaning for five minutes at the open
window, he felt a soothing effect from the air, and could think
consecutively of the day's events. What had happened seemed to him
incredible; it was as though he revived a mad dream, of ludicrous
coherence. Since his display of rhetoric at luncheon all was
downright somnambulism. What fatal power had subdued him? What
extraordinary influence had guided his tongue, constrained his
features? His conscious self had had no part in all this comedy;
now for the first time was he taking count of the character he had
played.

Had he been told this morning that—Why, what monstrous folly was
all this? Into what unspeakable baseness had he fallen? Happily, he
had but to take leave of the Warricombe household, and rush into
some region where he was unknown. Years hence, he would relate the
story to Earwaker.

For a long time he suffered the torments of this awakening.
Shame buffeted him on the right cheek and the left; he looked about
like one who slinks from merited chastisement. Oh, thrice ignoble
varlet! To pose with unctuous hypocrisy before people who had
welcomed him under their roof, unquestioned, with all the grace and
kindliness of English hospitality! To lie shamelessly in the face
of his old fellow-student, who had been so genuinely glad to meet
him again!

Yet such possibility had not been unforeseen. At the times of
his profound gloom, when solitude and desire crushed his spirit, he
had wished that fate would afford him such an opportunity of
knavish success. His imagination had played with the idea that a
man like himself might well be driven to this expedient, and might
even use it with life-long result. Of a certainty, the Church
numbered such men among her priests,—not mere lukewarm sceptics who
made religion a source of income, nor yet those who had honestly
entered the portal and by necessity were held from withdrawing,
though their convictions had changed; but deliberate schemers from
the first, ambitious but hungry natures, keen-sighted,
unscrupulous. And they were at no loss to defend themselves against
the attack of conscience. Life is a terrific struggle for all who
begin it with no endowments save their brains. A hypocrite was not
necessarily a harm-doer; easy to picture the unbelieving priest
whose influence was vastly for good, in word and deed.

But he, he who had ever prided himself on his truth-fronting
intellect, and had freely uttered his scorn of the credulous mob!
He who was his own criterion of moral right and wrong! No wonder he
felt like a whipped cur. It was the ancestral vice in his blood,
brought out by over-tempting circumstance. The long line of
base-born predecessors, the grovelling hinds and mechanics of his
genealogy, were responsible for this. Oh for a name wherewith
honour was hereditary!

His eyes were blinded by a rush of hot tears. Down, down—into
the depths of uttermost despondency, of self-pity and
self-contempt! Had it been practicable, he would have fled from the
house, leaving its occupants to think of him as they would; even
as, ten years ago, he had fled from the shame impending over him at
Kingsmill. A cowardly instinct, this; having once acted upon it
gave to his whole life a taint of craven meanness. Mere bluster,
all his talk of mental dignity and uncompromising scorn of
superstitions. A weak and idle man, whose best years were already
wasted!

He gazed deliberately at himself in the glass, at his red
eyelids and unsightly lips. Darkness was best; perhaps he might
forget his shame for an hour or two, ere the dawn renewed it. He
threw off his garments heedlessly, extinguished the lamp, and crept
into the ready hiding-place.

'Why are you obstinately silent? [wrote Earwaker, in a letter
addressed to Godwin at his Peckham lodgings]. I take it for granted
that you must by this time be back from your holiday. Why haven't
you replied to my letter of a fortnight ago? Nothing yet from
The Critical
. If you are really at work as usual, come and
see me to-morrow evening, any time after eight. The posture of my
affairs grows dubious; the shadow of Kenyon thickens about me. In
all seriousness I think I shall be driven from
The Weekly
Post
before long. My quarrels with Runcorn are too frequent,
and his blackguardism keeps more than pace with the times. Come or
write, for I want to know how things go with you.

Tuissimus
, J.E.E.'

Peak read this at breakfast on a Saturday morning. It was early
in September, and three weeks had elapsed since his return from the
west of England. Upon the autumn had fallen a blight of cold and
rainy weather, which did not enhance the cheerfulness of daily
journeying between Peckham Rye and Rotherhithe. When it was
necessary for him to set forth to the train, he muttered
imprecations, for a mood of inactivity possessed him; he would
gladly have stayed in his comfortable sitting-room, idling over
books or only occupied with languid thought.

In the afternoon he was at liberty to follow his impulse, and
this directed him to the British Museum, whither of late he had
several times resorted as a reader. Among the half-dozen books for
which he applied was one in German, Reusch's
Bibel und
Natur
. After a little dallying, he became absorbed in this
work, and two or three hours passed before its hold on his
attention slackened. He seldom changed his position; the volume was
propped against others, and he sat bending forward, his arms folded
upon the desk. When he was thus deeply engaged, his face had a
hard, stern aspect; if by chance his eye wandered for a moment, its
look seemed to express resentment of interruption.

At length he threw himself back with a sudden yielding to
weariness, crossed his legs, sank together in the chair, and for
half-an-hour brooded darkly. A fit of yawning admonished him that
it was time to quit the atmosphere of study. He betook himself to a
restaurant in the Strand, and thence about eight o'clock made his
way to Staple Inn, where the journalist gave him cheerful
welcome.

'Day after day I have meant to write,' thus he excused himself.
'But I had really nothing to say.'

'You don't look any better for your holiday,' Earwaker
remarked.

'Holiday? Oh, I had forgotten all about it. When do
you
go?'

'The situation is comical. I feel sure that if I leave town, my
connection with the
Post
will come to an end. I shall have a
note from Runcorn saying that we had better take this opportunity
of terminating my engagement. On the whole I should be glad, yet I
can't make up my mind to be ousted by Kenyon—that's what it means.
They want to get me away, but I stick on, postponing holiday from
week to week. Runcorn can't decide to send me about my business,
yet every leader I write enrages him. But for Kenyon, I should gain
my point; I feel sure of it. It's one of those cases in which
homicide would be justified by public interest. If Kenyon gets my
place, the paper becomes at once an organ of ruffiandom, the
delight of the blackguardry.'

'How's the circulation?' inquired Peak.

'Pretty sound; that adds to the joke. This series of stories by
Doubleday has helped us a good deal, and my contention is, if we
can keep financially right by help of this kind, why not make a
little sacrifice for the sake of raising our political tone?
Runcorn won't see it; he listens eagerly to Kenyon's assurance that
we might sell several thousand more by striking the true pot-house
note.'

'Then pitch the thing over! Wash your hands, and go to cleaner
work.'

'The work I am doing is clean enough,' replied Earwaker. 'Let me
have my way, and I can make the paper a decent one and a useful
one. I shan't easily find another such chance.'

'Your idealism has a strong root,' said Godwin, rather
contemptuously. 'I half envy you. There must be a distinct pleasure
in believing that any intellectual influence will exalt the English
democracy.'

'I'm not sure that I do believe it, but I enjoy the experiment.
The chief pleasure, I suppose, is in fighting Runcorn and
Kenyon.'

'They are too strong for you, Earwaker. They have the spirit of
the age to back them up.'

The journalist became silent; he smiled, but the harassment of
conflict marked his features.

'I hear nothing about "The New Sophistry",' he remarked, when
Godwin had begun to examine some books that lay on the table.
'Dolby has the trick of keeping manuscripts a long time. Everything
that seems at the first glance tolerable, he sends to the printer,
then muses over it at his leisure. Probably your paper is in
type.'

'I don't care a rap whether it is or not. What do you think of
this book of Oldwinkle's?'

He was holding a volume of humorous stories, which had greatly
taken the fancy of the public.