Born in Exile (57 page)

'You are very like your father, Godwin,' she said, with a sigh.
'He couldn't rest, however well he seemed to be getting on. There
was always something he wanted, and yet he didn't know what it
was.'

'Yes, I must be like him,' Godwin replied, smiling.

He stayed five days, then returned to Bristol. A week after
that, his mother forwarded to him a letter which had come to
Twybridge. He at once recognised the writing, and broke the
envelope with curiosity.

'If you should be in London [the note began], I beg you to let
me see you. There is something I have to say. To speak to you for a
few minutes I would come any distance. Don't accuse me of behaving
treacherously; it was not my fault. I know you would rather avoid
me, but do consent to hear what I have to say. If you have no
intention of coming to London, will you write and let me know where
you are living?

What could Marcella have to say to him? Nothing surely that he
at all cared to hear. No doubt she imagined that he might be in
ignorance of the circumstances which had led to Buckland
Warricombe's discovery; she wished to defend herself against the
suspicion of 'treachery'. He laughed carelessly, and threw her note
aside.

Two months passed, and his efforts to find employment were still
vain, though he had received conditional promises The solitude of
his life grew burdensome. Several times he began a letter to
Sidwell, but his difficulty in writing was so great that he
destroyed the attempt. In truth, he knew not how to address her.
The words he penned were tumid, meaningless. He could not send
professions of love, for his heart seemed to be suffering a
paralysis, and the laborious artificiality of his style must have
been evident. The only excuse for breaking silence would be to let
her know that he had resumed honest work; he must wait till the
opportunity offered. It did not distress him to be without news of
her. If she wished to write, and was only withheld by ignorance of
his whereabouts, it was well; if she had no thought of sending him
a word, it did not matter. He loved her, and consciously nourished
hope, but for the present there was nothing intolerable in
separation. His state of mind resulted partly from nervous
reaction, and in part from a sense that only by silent suffering
could his dignity in Sidwell's eyes be ultimately restored. Between
the evil past and the hopeful future must be a complete break.

His thoughts kept turning to London, though not because Sidwell
might still be there. He felt urgent need of speaking with a
friend. Moxey was perhaps no longer to be considered one; but
Earwaker would be tolerant of human weaknesses. To have a long talk
with Earwaker would help him to recover his mental balance, to
understand himself and his position better. So one morning in
March, on the spur of the moment, he took train and was once more
in the metropolis. On his way he had determined to send a note to
Earwaker before calling at Staple Inn. He wrote it at a small hotel
in Paddington, where he took a room for the night, and then spent
the evening at a theatre, as the best way of killing time.

By the first post next morning came a card, whereon Earwaker had
written: 'Be here, if you can, at two o'clock. Shall be glad to see
you.'

'So you have been new-furnishing!' Godwin remarked, as he was
admitted to the chambers. 'You look much more comfortable.'

'I'm glad you think so. It is the general opinion.'

They had shaken hands as though this were one of the ordinary
meetings of old time, and their voices scarcely belied the
appearance. Peak moved about the study, glancing at pictures and
books, Earwaker eyeing him the while with not unfriendly
expression. They were sincerely glad to see each other, and when
Peak seated himself it was with an audible sigh of contentment.

'And what are you doing?' he inquired.

The journalist gave a brief account of his affairs, and Peak
brightened with pleasure.

'This is good news. I knew you would shake off the ragamuffins
before long. Give me some of your back numbers, will you? I shall
be curious to examine your new style.'

'And you?—Come to live in London?'

'No; I am at Bristol, but only waiting. There's a chance of an
analyst's place in Lancashire; but I may give the preference to an
opening I have heard of in Belgium. Better to go abroad, I
think.'

'Perhaps so.'

'I have a question to ask you. I suppose you talked about that
Critical
article of mine
before
you received my
request for silence?'

'That's how it was,' Earwaker replied, calmly.

'Yes; I understood. It doesn't matter.'

The other puffed at his pipe, and moved uneasily.

'I am taking for granted,' Peak continued, 'that you know how I
have spent my time down in Devonshire.'

'In outline. Need we trouble about the details?'

'No. But don't suppose that I should feel any shame in talking
to you about them. That would be a confession of base motive. You
and I have studied each other, and we can exchange thoughts on most
subjects with mutual understanding. You know that I have only
followed my convictions to their logical issue. An opportunity
offered of achieving the supreme end to which my life is directed,
and what scruple could stand in my way? We have nothing to do with
names and epithets.
Here
are the facts of life as I had
known it;
there
is the existence promised as the reward of
successful artifice. To live was to pursue the object of my being.
I could not feel otherwise; therefore, could not act otherwise. You
imagine me defeated, flung back into the gutter.' His words came
more quickly, and the muscles of his face worked under emotion. 'It
isn't so. I have a great and reasonable hope. Perhaps I have gained
everything I really desired. I could tell you the strangest story,
but there a scruple
does
interpose. If we live another
twenty years—but now I can only talk about myself.'

'And this hope of which you speak,' said Earwaker, with a grave
smile, 'points you at present to sober work among your retorts and
test-tubes?'

'Yes, it does.'

'Good. Then I can put faith in the result.'

'Yet the hope began in a lie,' rejoined Peak, bitterly. 'It will
always be pleasant to look back upon that, won't it? You see: by no
conceivable honest effort could I have gained this point. Life
utterly denied to me the satisfaction of my strongest instincts, so
long as I plodded on without cause of shame; the moment I denied my
faith, and put on a visage of brass, great possibilities opened
before me. Of course I understand the moralist's position. It
behoved me, though I knew that a barren and solitary track would be
my only treading to the end, to keep courageously onward. If I
can't
believe
that any such duty is imposed upon me, where
is the obligation to persevere, the morality of doing so? That is
the worst hypocrisy. I have been honest, inasmuch as I have acted
in accordance with my actual belief.'

'M—m—m,' muttered Earwaker, slowly. 'Then you have never been
troubled with a twinge of conscience?'

'With a thousand! I have been racked, martyred. What has that to
do with it? Do you suppose I attach any final significance to those
torments? Conscience is the same in my view as an inherited disease
which may possibly break out on any most innocent physical
indulgence.—What end have I been pursuing? Is it criminal? Is it
mean? I wanted to win the love of a woman—nothing more. To do that,
I have had to behave like the grovelling villain who has no desire
but to fill his pockets. And with success!—You understand that,
Earwaker? I have succeeded! What respect can I have for the common
morality, after this?'

'You have succeeded?' the other asked, thoughtfully. 'I could
have imagined that you had been in appearance successful'——

He paused, and Peak resumed with vehemence:

'No, not in appearance only. I can't tell you the story'——

'I don't wish you to'——

'But what I have won is won for ever. The triumph no longer
rests on deceit. What I insist upon is that by deceit only was it
rendered possible. If a starving man succeeds in stealing a loaf of
bread, the food will benefit him no less than if he had purchased
it; it is good, true sustenance, no matter how he got it. To be
sure, the man may prefer starvation; he may have so strong a
metaphysical faith that death is welcome in comparison with what he
calls dishonour. I—I have no such faith; and millions of other men
in this country would tell the blunt truth if they said the same. I
have
used means
, that's all. The old way of candour led me
to bitterness and cursing; by dissimulation I have won something
more glorious than tongue can tell.'

It was in the endeavour to expel the subtlest enemy of his peace
that Godwin dwelt so defiantly upon this view of the temptation to
which he had yielded. Since his farewell interview with Sidwell, he
knew no rest from the torment of a mocking voice which bade him
bear in mind that all his dishonour had been superfluous, seeing
that whilst he played the part of a zealous Christian, Sidwell
herself was drifting further and further from the old religion.
This voice mingled with his dreams, and left not a waking hour
untroubled. He refused to believe it, strove against the suggestion
as a half-despairing man does against the persistent thought of
suicide. If only he could obtain Earwaker's assent to the plan he
put forward, it would support him in disregard of idle regrets.

'It is impossible,' said the journalist, 'for anyone to
determine whether that is true or not—for you, as much as for
anyone else. Be glad that you have shaken off the evil and retained
the good, no use in saying more than that.'

'Yes,' declared the other, stubbornly, 'there is good in
exposing false views of life. I ought to have come utterly to grief
and shame, and instead'——

'Instead——? Well?'

'What I have told you.'

'Which I interpret thus: that you have permission to redeem your
character, if possible, in the eyes of a woman you have grievously
misled.'

Godwin frowned.

'Who suggested this to you, Earwaker?'

'You; no one else. I don't even know who the woman is of whom
you speak.'

'Grant you are right. As an honest man, I should never have won
her faintest interest.'

'It is absurd for us to talk about it. Think in the way that is
most helpful to you,—that, no doubt, is a reasonable rule. Let us
have done with all these obscurities, and come to a practical
question. Can I be of any use to you? Would you care, for instance,
to write an article now and then on some scientific matter that has
a popular interest? I think I could promise to get that kind of
thing printed for you. Or would you review an occasional book that
happened to be in your line?'

Godwin reflected.

'Thank you,' he replied, at length. 'I should be glad of such
work—if I can get into the mood for doing it properly. That won't
be just yet; but perhaps when I have found a place'——

'Think it over. Write to me about it.'

Peak glanced round the room.

'You don't know how glad I am,' he said, 'that your prosperity
shows itself in this region of bachelordom. If I had seen you in a
comfortable house, married to a woman worthy of you—I couldn't have
been sincere in my congratulations: I should have envied you so
fiercely.'

'You're a strange fellow. Twenty years hence—as you said just
now—you will one way or another have got rid of your astounding
illusions. At fifty—well, let us say at sixty—you will have a
chance of seeing things without these preposterous sexual
spectacles.'

'I hope so. Every stage of life has its powers and enjoyments.
When I am old, I hope to perceive and judge without passion of any
kind. But is that any reason why my youth should be frustrated? We
have only one life, and I want to live mine throughout.'

Soon after this Peak rose. He remembered that the journalist's
time was valuable, and that he no longer had the right to demand
more of it than could be granted to any casual caller. Earwaker
behaved with all friendliness, but their relations had necessarily
suffered a change. More than a year of separation, spent by the one
in accumulating memories of dishonour, had given the other an
enviable position among men; Earwaker had his place in the social
system, his growing circle of friends, his congenial labour;
perhaps—notwithstanding the tone in which he spoke of marriage—his
hopes of domestic happiness. All this with no sacrifice of
principle. He was fortunate in his temper, moral and intellectual;
partly directing circumstances, partly guided by their pressure, he
advanced on the way of harmonious development. Nothing great would
come of his endeavours, but what he aimed at he steadily perfected.
And this in spite of the adverse conditions under which he began
his course. Nature had been kind to him; what more could one
say?

When he went forth into the street again, Godwin felt his heart
sink. His solitude was the more complete for this hour of friendly
dialogue. No other companionship offered itself; if he lingered
here, it must be as one of the drifting crowd, as an idle and
envious spectator of the business and pleasure rife about him. He
durst not approach that quarter of the town where Sidwell was
living—if indeed she still remained here. Happily, the vastness of
London enabled him to think of her as at a great distance; by
keeping to the district in which he now wandered he was practically
as remote from her as when he walked the streets of Bristol.

Yet there was one person who would welcome him eagerly if he
chose to visit her. And, after all, might it not be as well if he
heard what Marcella had to say to him? He could not go to the
house, for it would be disagreeable to encounter Moxey; but, if he
wrote, Marcella would speedily make an appointment. After an hour
or two of purposeless rambling, he decided to ask for an interview.
He might learn something that really concerned him; in any case, it
was a final meeting with Marcella, to whom he perhaps owed this
much courtesy.