Born in Exile (35 page)

A few minutes after this decision was taken, he set off towards
the Old Tiverton Road, walking at great speed, flourishing his
stick—symptoms of the nervous cramp (so to speak) which he was
dispelling. He reached the house, and his hand was on the bell,
when an unexpected opening of the door presented Louis Warricombe
just coming forth for a walk. They exchanged amiabilities, and
Louis made known that his father and mother were away on a visit to
friends in Cornwall.

'But pray come in,' he added, offering to re-enter.

Peak excused himself, for it was evident that Louis made a
sacrifice to courtesy. But at that moment there approached from the
garden Fanny Warricombe and her friend Bertha Lilywhite, eldest
daughter of the genial vicar; they shook hands with Godwin, Fanny
exclaiming:

'Don't go away, Mr. Peak. Have a cup of tea with us—Sidwell is
at home. I want to show you a strange sort of spleenwort that I
gathered this morning.'

'In that case,' said her brother, smiling, 'I may confess that I
have an appointment. Pray forgive me for hurrying off, Mr.
Peak.'

Godwin was embarrassed, but the sprightly girl repeated her
summons, and he followed into the house.

Having led the way to the drawing-room, Fanny retired again for
a few moments, to fetch the fern of which she had spoken, leaving
Peak in conversation with little Miss Lilywhite. Bertha was a
rather shy girl of fifteen, not easily induced, under circumstances
such as these, to utter more than monosyllables, and Godwin,
occupied with the unforeseen results of his call, talked about the
weather. With half-conscious absurdity he had begun to sketch a
theory of his own regarding rain-clouds and estuaries (Bertha
listening with an air of the gravest attention) when Fanny
reappeared, followed by Sidwell. Peak searched the latter's face
for indications of her mood, but could discover nothing save a
spirit of gracious welcome. Such aspect was a matter of course, and
he knew it. None the less, his nervousness and the state of mind
engendered by a week's miserable solitude, tempted him to believe
that Sidwell did not always wear that smile in greeting a casual
caller. This was the first time that she had received him without
the countenance of Mrs. Warricombe. Observing her perfect manner,
as she sat down and began to talk, he asked himself what her age
really was. The question had never engaged his thoughts. Eleven
years ago, when he saw her at the house near Kingsmill and again at
Whitelaw College, she looked a very young girl, but whether of
thirteen or sixteen he could not at the time have determined, and
such a margin of possibility allowed her now to have reached—it
might be—her twenty-seventh summer. But twenty-seven drew
perilously near to thirty; no, no, Sidwell could not be more than
twenty-five. Her eyes still had the dewy freshness of flowering
maidenhood; her cheek, her throat, were so exquisitely young——

In how divine a calm must this girl have lived to show, even at
five-and-twenty, features as little marked by inward perturbation
as those of an infant! Her position in the world considered, one
could forgive her for having borne so lightly the inevitable
sorrows of life, for having dismissed so readily the spiritual
doubts which were the heritage of her time; but was she a total
stranger to passion? Did not the fact of her still remaining
unmarried make probable such a deficiency in her nature? Had she a
place among the women whom coldness of temperament preserves in a
bloom like that of youth, until fading hair and sinking cheek
betray them——?

Whilst he thought thus, Godwin was in appearance busy with the
fern Fanny had brought for his inspection. He talked about it, but
in snatches, with intervals of abstractedness.

Yet might he not be altogether wrong? Last year, when he
observed Sidwell in the Cathedral and subsequently at home, his
impression had been that her face was of rather pallid and dreamy
cast; he recollected that distinctly. Had she changed, or did
familiarity make him less sensible of her finer traits? Possibly
she enjoyed better health nowadays, and, if so, it might result
from influences other than physical. Her air of quiet happiness
seemed to him especially noticeable this afternoon, and as he
brooded there came upon him a dread which, under the circumstances,
was quite irrational, but for all that troubled his views. Perhaps
Sidwell was betrothed to some one? He knew of but one likely
person—Miss Moorhouse's brother. About a month ago the Warricombes
had been on a visit at Budleigh Salterton, and something might then
have happened. Pangs of jealousy smote him, nor could he assuage
them by reminding himself that he had no concern whatever in
Sidwell's future.

'Will Mr. Warricombe be long away?' he asked, coldly.

'A day or two. I hope you didn't wish particularly to see him
to-day?'

'Oh, no.'

'Do you know, Mr. Peak,' put in Fanny, 'that we are all going to
London next month, to live there for half a year?'

Godwin exhibited surprise. He looked from the speaker to her
sister, and Sidwell, as she smiled confirmation, bent very slightly
towards him.

'We have made up our minds, after much uncertainty,' she said.
'My brother Buckland seems to think that we are falling behind in
civilisation.'

'So we are,' affirmed Fanny, 'as Mr. Peak would admit, if only
he could be sincere.'

'Am I never sincere then, Miss Fanny?' Godwin asked.

'I only meant to say that nobody can be when the rules of
politeness interfere. Don't you think it's a pity? We might tell
one another the truth in a pleasant way.'

'I agree with you. But then we must be civilised indeed. How do
you think of London, Miss Warricombe? Which of its aspects most
impresses you?'

Sidwell answered rather indefinitely, and ended by mentioning
that in
Villette
, which she had just re-read, Charlotte
Bronte makes a contrast between the City and the West End, and
greatly prefers the former.

'Do you agree with her, Mr. Peak?'

'No, I can't. One understands the mood in which she wrote that;
but a little more experience would have led her to see the contrast
in a different light. That term, the West End, includes much that
is despicable, but it means also the best results of civilisation.
The City is hateful to me, and for a reason which I only understood
after many an hour of depression in walking about its streets. It
represents the ascendency of the average man.'

Sidwell waited for fuller explanation.

'A liberal mind,' Peak continued, 'is revolted by the triumphal
procession that roars perpetually through the City highways. With
myriad voices the City bellows its brutal scorn of everything but
material advantage. There every humanising influence is
contemptuously disregarded. I know, of course, that the trader may
have his quiet home, where art and science and humanity are the
first considerations; but the
mass
of traders, corporate and
victorious, crush all such things beneath their heels. Take your
stand (or try to do so) anywhere near the Exchange; the hustling
and jolting to which you are exposed represents the very spirit of
the life about you. Whatever is gentle and kindly and meditative
must here go to the wall—trampled, spattered, ridiculed. Here the
average man has it all his own way—a gross utilitarian power.'

'Yes, I can see that,' Sidwell replied, thoughtfully. 'And
perhaps it also represents the triumphant forces of our time.'

He looked keenly at her, with a smile of delight.

'That also! The power which centres in the world's
money-markets—plutocracy.'

In conversing with Sidwell, he had never before found an
opportunity of uttering his vehement prejudices. The gentler side
of his character had sometimes expressed itself, but those impulses
which were vastly more significant lay hidden beneath the
dissimulation he consistently practised. For the first time he was
able to look into Sidwell's face with honest directness, and what
he saw there strengthened his determination to talk on with the
same freedom.

'You don't believe, then,' said Sidwell, 'that democracy is the
proper name for the state into which we are passing?'

'Only if one can understand democracy as the opening of social
privileges to free competition amongst men of trade. And social
privilege is everything; home politics refer to nothing else.'

Fanny, true to the ingenuous principle of her years, put a
direct question:

'Do you approve of real democracy, Mr. Peak?'

He answered with another question:

'Have you read the "Life of Phokion" in Plutarch?'

'No, I'm sorry to say.'

'There's a story about him which I have enjoyed since I was your
age. Phokion was once delivering a public speech, and at a certain
point the majority of his hearers broke into applause; whereupon he
turned to certain of his friends who stood near and asked, "What
have I said amiss?"'

Fanny laughed.

'Then you despise public opinion?'

'With heart and soul!'

It was to Sidwell that he directed the reply. Though overcome by
the joy of such an utterance, he felt that, considering the
opinions and position of Buckland Warricombe, he was perhaps guilty
of ill manners. But Sidwell manifested no disapproval.

'Did you know that story?' Fanny asked of her.

'It's quite new to me.'

'Then I'm sure you'll read the "Life of Phokion" as soon as
possible. He will just Suit you, Sidwell.'

Peak heard this with a shock of surprise which thrilled in him
deliciously. He had the strongest desire to look again at Sidwell
but refrained. As no one spoke, he turned to Bertha Lilywhite and
put a commonplace question.

A servant entered with the tea-tray, and placed it on a small
table near Fanny. Godwin looked at the younger girl; it seemed to
him that there was an excess of colour in her cheeks. Had a glance
from Sidwell rebuked her? With his usual rapidity of observation
and inference he made much of this trifle.

Contrary to what he expected, Sidwell's next remark was in a
tone of cheerfulness, almost of gaiety.

'One advantage of our stay in London will be that home will seem
more delightful than ever when we return.'

'I suppose you won't be back till next summer?'

'I am afraid not.'

'Shall you be living here then?' Fanny inquired.

'It's very doubtful.'

He wished to answer with a decided negative, but his tongue
refused. Sidwell was regarding him with calm but earnest eyes, and
he knew, without caring to reflect, that his latest projects were
crumbling.

'Have you been to see our friends at Budleigh Salterton yet?'
she asked.

'Not yet. I hope to in a few days.'

Pursuing the subject, he was able to examine her face as she
spoke of Mr. Moorhouse. His conjecture was assuredly baseless.

Fanny and Bertha began to talk together of domestic affairs, and
presently, when tea-cups were laid aside, the two girls went to
another part of the room; then they withdrew altogether. Peak was
monologising on English art as represented at the Academy, but
finding himself alone with Sidwell (it had never before happened)
he became silent. Ought he to take his leave? He must already have
been sitting here more than half-an-hour. But the temptation of
teae-a-teae
was irresistible.

'You had a visit from Mr. Chilvers the other day?' he remarked,
abruptly.

'Yes; did he call to see you?'

Her tone gave evidence that she would not have introduced this
topic.

'No; I heard from Mrs. Lilywhite. He had been to the vicarage.
Has he changed much since he was at Whitelaw?'

'So many years must make a difference at that time of life,'
Sidwell answered, smiling.

'But does he show the same peculiarities of manner?'

He tried to put the question without insistency, in a tone quite
compatible with friendliness. Her answer, given with a look of
amusement, satisfied him that there was no fear of her taking Mr
Chilvers too seriously.

'Yes. I think he speaks in much the same way.'

'Have you read any of his publications?'

'One or two. We have his lecture on
Altruism
.'

'I happen to know it. There are good things in it, I think. But
I dislike his modern interpretation of old principles.'

'You think it dangerous?'

He no longer regarded her frankly, and in the consciousness of
her look upon him he knit his brows.

'I think it both dangerous and offensive. Not a few clergymen
nowadays, who imagine themselves free from the letter and wholly
devoted to spirit, are doing their best in the cause of
materialism. They surrender the very points at issue between
religion and worldliness. They are so blinded by a vague
humanitarian impulse as to make the New Testament an oracle of
popular Radicalism.'

Sidwell looked up.

'I never quite understood, Mr. Peak, how you regard Radicalism.
You think it opposed to all true progress?'

'Utterly, as concerns any reasonable limit of time.'

'Buckland, as you know, maintains that spiritual progress is
only possible by this way.'

'I can't venture to contradict him,' said Godwin; 'for it may be
that advance is destined only to come after long retrogression and
anarchy. Perhaps the way
does
lie through such miseries. But
we can't foresee that with certainty, and those of us who hate the
present tendency of things must needs assert their hatred as
strongly as possible, seeing that we
may
have a more hopeful
part to play than seems likely.'

'I like that view,' replied Sidwell, in an undertone.

'My belief,' pursued Godwin, with an earnestness very agreeable
to himself, for he had reached the subject on which he could speak
honestly, 'is that an instructed man can only hold views such as
your brother's—hopeful views of the immediate future—if he has
never been brought into close contact with the lower classes.
Buckland doesn't know the people for whom he pleads.'