Born in Exile (26 page)

Peak, on reaching home about eleven, was surprised to see a
light in his sitting-room window. As he entered, his landlady
informed him that Mr. Moxey had been waiting upstairs for an hour
or two. Christian was reading. He laid down the book and rose
languidly. His face was flushed, and he spoke with a laugh which
suggested that a fit of despondency (as occasionally happened) had
tempted him to excess in cordials. Godwin understood these signs.
He knew that his friend's intellect was rather brightened than
impaired by such stimulus, and he affected not to be conscious of
any peculiarity.

'As you wouldn't come to me,' Christian began, 'I had no choice
but to come to you. My visit isn't unwelcome, I hope?'

'Certainly not. But how are you going to get home? You know the
time?'

'Don't trouble. I shan't go to bed to-night. Let me sit here and
read, will you? If I feel tired I can lie down on the sofa. What a
delightful book this is! I must get it.'

It was a history of the Italian Renaissance, recently
published.

'Where does this phrase come from?' he continued, pointing to a
scrap of paper, used as a book-mark, on which Godwin had pencilled
a note. The words were: '
Foris ut moris, intus ut
libet
.'

'It's mentioned there,' Peak replied, 'as the motto of those
humanists who outwardly conformed to the common faith.'

'I see. All very well when the Inquisition was flourishing, but
sounds ignoble nowadays.'

'Do you think so? In a half-civilised age, whether the sixteenth
or the nineteenth century, a wise man may do worse than adopt
it.'

'Better be honest, surely?'

Peak stood for a moment as if in doubt, then exclaimed
irritably:

'Honest? Honest? Who is or can be honest? Who truly declares
himself? When a man has learnt that truth is indeterminable, how is
it more moral to go about crying that you don't believe a certain
dogma than to concede that the dogma may possibly be true? This new
morality of the agnostics is mere paltry conceit. Why must I make
solemn declaration that I don't believe in absolute knowledge? I
might as well be called upon to inform all my acquaintances how I
stand with regard to the theories of chemical affinity. One's
philosophy has nothing to do with the business of life. If I chose
to become a Church of England clergyman, what moral objection could
be made?'

This illustration was so amusing to Moxey, that his surprise at
what preceded gave way to laughter.

'I wonder,' he exclaimed, 'that you never seriously thought of a
profession for which you are so evidently cut out.'

Godwin kept silence; his face had darkened, and he seated
himself with sullen weariness.

'Tell me what you've been doing,' resumed Moxey. 'Why haven't I
heard from you?'

'I should have come in a day or two. I thought you were probably
out of town.'

'Her husband is ill,' said the other, by way of reply. He leaned
forward with his arms upon the table, and gazed at Godwin with eyes
of peculiar brightness.

'Ill, is he?' returned Godwin, with slow interest. 'In the same
way as before?'

'Yes, but much worse.'

Christian paused; and when he again spoke it was hurriedly,
confusedly.

'How can I help getting excited about it? How can I behave
decently? You're the only man I ever speak to on the subject, and
no doubt I both weary and disgust you; but I
must
speak to
some one. My nerves are strung beyond endurance; it's only by
speaking that I can ease myself from the intolerable strain.'

'Have you seen her lately?'

'Yesterday, for a moment, in the street. It's ten months since
the last meeting.'

'Well,' remarked Godwin, abruptly, 'it's probable the man will
die one of these days, then your trials will have a happy end. I
see no harm in hoping that his life may be short—that's a
conventional feeling. If two people can be benefited by the death
of a single person, why shouldn't we be glad in the prospect of his
dying? Not of his suffering—that's quite another thing. But die he
must; and to curtail the life of a being who at length wholly
ceases to exist is no injury. You can't injure a nonentity. Do you
think I should take it ill if I knew that some persons were wishing
my death? Why, look, if ever I crush a little green fly that crawls
upon me in the fields, at once I am filled with envy of its
fate—sincerest envy. To have passed so suddenly from being into
nothingness—how blessed an extinction! To feel in that way,
instinctively, in the very depths of your soul, is to be a true
pessimist. If I had ever doubted my sincerity in pessimism, this
experience, several times repeated, would have reassured me.'

Christian covered his face, and brooded for a long time, whilst
Godwin sat with his eyes on vacancy.

'Come and see us to-morrow,' said the former, at length.

'Perhaps.';

'Why do you keep away?'

'I'm in no mood for society.'

'We'll have no one. Only Marcella and I.'

Again a long silence.

'Marcella is going in for comparative philology,' Christian
resumed, with the gentle tone in which he invariably spoke of his
sister. 'What a mind that girl has! I never knew any woman of half
her powers.'

Godwin said nothing.

'No,' continued the other fervently, 'nor of half her goodness.
I sometimes think that no mortal could come nearer to our ideal of
moral justice and purity. If it were not for her, I should long ago
have gone to perdition, in one way or another. It's her strength,
not my own, that has saved me. I daresay you know this?'

'There's some truth in it, I believe,' Peak answered, his eye
wandering.

'See how circumstances can affect one's judgment. If, just about
the time I first knew you, I had abandoned myself to a life of
sottish despair, of course I should have charged Constance with the
blame of it. Now that I have struggled on, I can see that she has
been a blessing to me instead of a curse. If Marcella has given me
strength, I have to thank Constance for the spiritual joy which
otherwise I should never have known.'

Peak uttered a short laugh.

'That is only saying that she
might
have been ruinous,
but in the course of circumstances has proved helpful. I envy your
power of deriving comfort from such reflections.'

'Well, we view things differently. I have the habit of looking
to the consolatory facts of life, you to the depressing. There's an
unfortunate lack in you, Peak; you seem insensible to female
influence, and I believe that is closely connected with your
desperate pessimism.'

Godwin laughed again, this time with mocking length of note.
'Come now, isn't it true?' urged the other. 'Sincerely, do you care
for women at all?'

'Perhaps not.'

'A grave misfortune, depend upon it! It accounts for nearly
everything that is unsatisfactory in your life. If you had ever
been sincerely devoted to a woman, be assured your powers would
have developed in a way of which you have no conception. It's no
answer to tell me that
I
am still a mere trifler, never
likely to do anything of account; I haven't it in me to be anything
better, and I might easily have become much worse. But you might
have made yourself a great position—I mean, you
might
do so;
you are still very young. If only you knew the desire of a woman's
help.'

'You really think so?' said Godwin, with grave irony.

'I am sure of it! There's no harm in repeating what you have
often told me—your egoism oppresses you. A woman's influence takes
one out of oneself. No man can be a better authority on this than
I. For more than eleven years I have worshipped one woman with
absolute faithfulness'——

'Absolute?' interrupted Godwin, bluntly.

'What exception occurs to you?'

'As you challenge inquiry, forgive me for asking what your
interest was in one of your cousins at Twybridge?'

Christian started, and averted his face with a look of
embarrassment.

'Do you mean to say that you knew anything about that?'

'I was always an observer,' Peak replied, smiling. 'You don't
remember, perhaps, that I happened to be present when a letter had
just arrived for you at your uncle's house—a letter which evidently
disturbed you?'

'This is astonishing! Peak, you're a terrible fellow! Heaven
forbid that I should ever be at your mercy! Yes, you are quite
right,' he continued, despondently. 'But that was no real
unfaithfulness. I don't quite know how to explain it. I
did
make love to poor Janet, and with the result that I have never
since seen any of the family. My uncle, when he found I had drawn
back, was very savage—naturally enough. Marcella and I never again
went to Twybridge. I liked Janet; she was a good, kind girl. I
believed just then that my love for Constance was hopeless; my mood
impelled me to the conviction that the best thing I could do was to
marry Janet and settle down to a peaceful domestic life. Then came
that letter—it was from Constance herself. It meant nothing, yet it
was enough to revive all my hopes. I rushed off—! How brutally I
had behaved! Poor little Janet!'

He let his face fall upon his hands.

'Allow me an indiscreet question,' said Peak, after a silence.
'Have you any founded hope of marrying Constance if she becomes a
widow?'

Christian started and looked up with wide eyes.

'Hope? Every hope! I have the absolute assurance of her
love.'

'I see.'

'But I mustn't mislead you,' pursued the other, hurriedly. 'Our
relations are absolutely pure. I have only allowed myself to see
her at very long intervals. Why shouldn't I tell you? It was less
than a year after her marriage; I found her alone in a room in a
friend's house; her eyes were red with weeping. I couldn't help
holding my hand to her. She took it, and held it for a moment, and
looked at me steadily, and whispered my name—that was all. I knew
then that she repented of her marriage—who can say what led her
into it? I was poor, you know; perhaps—but in spite of all, she
did
love me. There has never since been anything like a
scene of emotion between us—
that
her conscience couldn't
allow. She is a noble-minded woman, and has done her duty. But if
she is free'—

He quivered with passionate feeling.

'And you are content,' said Godwin, drily, 'to have wasted ten
years of your life for such a possibility?'

'Wasted!' Christian exclaimed. 'Come, come, Peak; why
will
you affect this wretched cynicism? Is it waste of years
to have lived with the highest and purest ideal perpetually before
one's mind? What can a man do better than, having found an
admirable woman, to worship her thenceforth, and defy every
temptation that could lead him astray? I don't like to seem
boastful, but I
have
lived purely and devotedly. And if the
test endured to the end of my life, I could sustain it. Is the
consciousness of my love nothing to Constance? Has it not helped
her?'

Such profound sincerity was astonishing to Peak. He did not
admire it, for it seemed to him, in this case at all events, the
fatal weakness of a character it was impossible not to love. Though
he could not declare his doubts, he thought it more than probable
that this Laura of the voiceless Petrarch was unworthy of such
constancy, and that she had no intention whatever of rewarding it,
even if the opportunity arrived. But this was the mere speculation
of a pessimist; he might be altogether wrong, for he had never
denied the existence of high virtue, in man or woman.

'There goes midnight!' he remarked, turning from the subject.
'You can't sleep, neither can I. Why shouldn't we walk into
town?'

'By all means; on condition that you will come home with me, and
spend to-morrow there.'

'Very well.'

They set forth, and with varied talk, often broken by long
silences, made their way through sleeping suburbs to the dark
valley of Thames.

There passed another month, during which Peak was neither seen
nor heard of by his friends. One evening in October, as he sat
studying at the British Museum, a friendly voice claimed his
attention. He rose nervously and met the searching eye of Buckland
Warricombe.

'I had it in mind to write to you,' said the latter. 'Since we
parted down yonder I have been running about a good deal, with few
days in town. Do you often read here?'

'Generally on Saturday afternoon.'

Buckland glanced at the open volume, and caught a heading,
'Apologetic Theology.'

'Still at the works?'

'Yes; I shall be there till Christmas—no longer.'

'Are you by chance disengaged to-morrow? Could you dine with me?
I shall be alone; perhaps you don't mind that? We could exchange
views on "fate, free-will, foreknowledge absolute".'

Godwin accepted the invitation, and Warricombe, unable to
linger, took leave of him.

They met the next evening in Buckland's rooms, not far from the
Houses of Parliament. Commonplace comfort was the note of these
quarters. Peak wondered that a man who had it in his power to
surround himself with evidences of taste should be content to dwell
thus. His host seemed to detect this thought in the glances Godwin
cast about him.

'Nothing but a
pied-a-terre
. I have been here three or
four years, but I don't think of it as a home. I suppose I shall
settle somewhere before long: yet, on the whole, what does it
matter where one lives? There's something in the atmosphere of our
time that makes one indisposed to strike roots in the old way. Who
knows how long there'll be such a thing as real property? We are
getting to think of ourselves as lodgers; it's as well to be
indifferent about a notice to quit.'

'Many people would still make a good fight for the old homes,'
replied Peak.