Born in Exile (15 page)

'It's unfortunate,' he said, 'that I have to go out to
dinner.'

'Dinner! Pooh! we can get dinner anywhere.'

'No doubt, but I am engaged.'

'The devil you are! Who is she? Why didn't you write to tell
me?'

'The word has a less specific meaning, my dear fellow,' replied
Earwaker, laughing. 'Only you of all men would have rushed at the
wrong one. I mean to say—if your excitement can take in so common a
fact—that I have promised to dine with some people at Notting Hill,
and mustn't disappoint them.'

Malkin laughed at his mistake, then shouted:

'Notting Hill! Isn't that somewhere near Fulham? We'll take a
cab, and I can drop you on my way.'

'It wouldn't be on the way at all.'

The journalist's quiet explanation was cut short by a petulant
outcry.

'Oh, very well! Of course if you want to get rid of me! I should
have thought after sixteen months'—

'Don't be idiotic,' broke in the other. 'There's a strong
feminine element in you, Malkin; that's exactly the kind of talk
with which women drive men to frenzy.'

'Feminine element!' shouted the traveller with hot face. 'What
do you mean? I propose to take a cab with you, and you'—

Earwaker turned away laughing. 'Time and distance are nothing to
you, and I shall be very glad of your company. Come by all
means.'

His friend was instantly appeased.

'Don't let me make you late, Earwaker. Must we start this
moment? Come along, then. Can I carry anything for you? Lord! if
you could only see a tropical forest! How do you get on with old
Runcorn?
Write
? What the devil was the use of my writing,
when words are powerless to describe—? What a rum old place this
seems, after experiences like mine; how the deuce can you live
here? I say, I've brought you a ton of curiosities; will make your
rooms look like a museum. Confound it! I've broken my shin against
the turn in the staircase! Whew! Who are you going to dine
with?—Moxey? Never heard the name.'

In Holborn a hansom was hailed, and the friends continued their
dialogue as they drove westward. Having at length effervesced,
Malkin began to exchange question and answer with something of the
calm needful for mutual intelligibility.

'And how do you get on with old Runcorn?'

'As well as can be expected where there is not a single subject
of agreement,' Earwaker replied. 'I have hopes of reducing our
circulation.'

'What the deuce do you mean?'

'In other words, of improving the paper. Runcorn is strong on
the side of blackguardism. We had a great fight the other day over
a leader offered by Kenyon,—a true effusion of the political
gutter-snipe. I refused point-blank to let it go in; Runcorn swore
that, if I did not,
I
should go
out
. I offered to
retire that moment. "We must write for our public," he bellowed.
"True," said I, "but not necessarily for the basest among them. The
standard at the best is low enough." "Do you call yourself a
Radical?" "Not if this be Radicalism." "You ought to be on the
Morning
instead of the
Weekly Post
." I had my way,
and probably shall end by sending Mr Kenyon back to his tinker's
work shop. If not, I must look out for cleaner occupation.'

'Go it, my boy! Go it!' cried Malkin, slapping his companion's
knee violently. 'Raise the tone! To the devil with mercenary
considerations! Help the proletariat out of its grovelling
position.'

They approached the street where Earwaker had to alight. The
other declared his intention of driving on to Fulham in the hope of
finding a friend who lived there.

'But I must see you again. When shall you be home to-night?'

'About half-past eleven, I dare say.'

'Right! If I am free I'll come out to Staple Inn, and we'll talk
till three or four.'

The house at which the journalist presented himself was such as
might be inhabited by a small family of easy means. As he was
taking off his overcoat, a door opened and Christian Moxey came
forward to greet him. They shook hands like men who stood on
friendly, but not exactly on intimate, terms.

'Will you come up to the laboratory for a moment?' said Moxey.
'I should like to show you something I have under the
microscope.'

The room he spoke of was at the top of the house; two chambers
had been made into one, and the fittings were those required by a
student of physical science. Various odours distressed the air. A
stranger to the pursuits represented might have thought that the
general disorder and encumberment indicated great activity, but the
experienced eye perceived at once that no methodical work was here
in progress. Mineralogy, botany, biology, physics, and probably
many other sciences, were suggested by the specimens and apparatus
that lay confusedly on tables, shelves, or floor.

Moxey looked very slim and elegant in his evening costume. When
he touched any object, his long, translucent fingers seemed soft
and sensitive as a girl's. He stepped with peculiar lightness, and
the harmonious notes of his voice were in keeping with these other
characteristics. Ten years had developed in him that graceful
languor which at four-and-twenty was only beginning to get mastery
over the energies of a well-built frame.

'This stuff here,' he said, pointing to an open box full of mud,
'is silt from down the Thames. It's positively loaded with
diatomaceoe
,—you remember our talking about them when you
were last here? I am working at the fabric of the valves. Now, just
look!'

Earwaker, with attentive smile, followed the demonstration.

'Peak is busy with them as well,' said Christian, presently.
'Has he told you his theory of their locomotion? Nobody has found
out yet how the little beggars move about. Peak has a bright
idea.'

They spent ten minutes in the laboratory, then went downstairs.
Two other guests had meanwhile arrived, and were conversing with
the hostess, Miss Moxey. The shy, awkward, hard-featured girl was
grown into a woman whose face made such declaration of intellect
and character that, after the first moment, one became indifferent
to its lack of feminine beauty. As if with the idea of compensating
for personal disadvantages, she was ornately dressed; her abundant
tawny hair had submitted to much manipulation, and showed the gleam
of jewels; expense and finished craft were manifest in every detail
of her garb. Though slightly round-shouldered, her form was
well-proportioned and suggested natural vigour. Like Christian, she
had delicate hands.

'Do you know a distinguished clergyman, named Chilvers?' she
asked of Earwaker, with a laugh, when he had taken a place by
her.

'Chilvers?—Is it Bruno Chilvers, I wonder?'

'That's the name!' exclaimed one of the guests, a young married
lady of eager face and fidgety manners.

'Then I knew him at College, but I had no idea he was become
distinguished.'

Miss Moxey again laughed.

'Isn't it amusing, the narrowness of a great clerical
reputation? Mrs. Morton was astonished that I had never heard his
name.'

'Please don't think,' appealed the lady, looking anxiously at
Earwaker, 'that I consider it shameful not to know him. I only
happened to mention a very ridiculous sermon of his, that was
forced upon me by a distressingly orthodox friend of mine. They
tell me, he is one of the newest lights of the Church.'

Earwaker listened with amusement, and then related anecdotes of
Bruno Chilvers. Whilst he was talking, the door opened to admit
another arrival, and a servant's voice announced 'Mr. Peak'. Miss
Moxey rose, and moved a step or two forward; a change was visible
on her countenance, which had softened and lightened.

'I am very sorry to be late,' said the new-comer, in a dull and
rather husky voice, which made strong contrast with the humorous
tones his entrance had interrupted.

He shook hands in silence with the rest of the company, giving
merely a nod and a smile as reply to some gracious commonplace from
Mrs. Morton.

'Has it come to your knowledge,' Earwaker asked of him, 'that
Bruno Chilvers is exciting the orthodox world by his defence of
Christianity against neo-heathenism?'

'Chilvers?—No.'

'Mrs. Morton tells us that all the Church newspapers ring with
his name.'

'Please don't think,' cried Mrs. Morton, with the same anxious
look as before, 'that I read such papers. We never have such a
thing in our house, Mr. Peak. I have only been told about it.'

Peak smiled gravely, but made no other answer. Then he turned to
Earwaker.

'Where is he?'

'I can't say. Perhaps Mrs. Morton'—

'They tell me he is somewhere in Norfolk,' replied the lady. 'I
forget the town.'

A summons to dinner broke off the conversation. Moxey offered
his arm to the one lady present as guest, and Earwaker did the same
courtesy to the hostess. Mr. Morton, a meditative young man who had
been listening with a smile of indifference, sauntered along in the
rear with Godwin Peak.

At the dinner-table Peak was taciturn, and seemed to be musing
on a disagreeable subject. To remarks, he answered briefly and
absently. As Moxey, Earwaker, and Mrs. Morton kept up lively
general talk, this muteness was not much noticed, but when the
ladies had left the room, and Peak still frowned over his
wineglass, the journalist rebuked him.

'What's the matter with you? Don't depress us.'

The other laughed impatiently, and emptied his glass.

'Malkin has come back,' pursued Earwaker. 'He burst in upon me,
just as I was leaving home—as mad as a March hare. You must come
and meet him some evening.'

'As you please.'

Returned to the upper room, Peak seated himself in a shadowy
corner, crossed his legs, thrust his hands into his pockets, and
leaned back to regard a picture on the wall opposite. This attitude
gave sufficient proof of the change that had been wrought in him by
the years between nineteen and nine-and-twenty; even in a
drawing-room, he could take his ease unconcernedly. His face would
have led one to suppose him an older man; it was set in an
expression of stern, if not morose, thoughtfulness.

He had small, hard lips, indifferent teeth (seldom exhibited), a
prominent chin, a long neck; his body was of firm, not ungraceful
build. Society's evening uniform does not allow a man much scope in
the matter of adornments; it was plain, however, that Godwin no
longer scorned the tailor and haberdasher. He wore a suit which
confidently challenged the criticism of experts, and the silk socks
visible above his shoes might have been selected by the most
fastidious of worldlings.

When he had sat there for some minutes, his eyes happened to
stray towards Miss Moxey, who was just then without a companion.
Her glance answered to his, and a smile of invitation left him no
choice but to rise and go to a seat beside her.

'You are meditative this evening,' she said, in a voice subdued
below its ordinary note.

'Not very fit for society, to tell the truth,' Godwin answered,
carelessly. 'One has such moods, you know. But how would you take
it if, at the last moment, I sent a telegram, "Please excuse me.
Don't feel able to talk"?'

'You don't suppose I should be offended?'

'Certainly you would.'

'Then you know less of me than I thought.'

Her eyes wandered about the room, their smile betokening an
uneasy self-consciousness.

'Christian tells me,' she continued, 'that you are going to take
your holiday in Cornwall.'

'I thought of it. But perhaps I shan't leave town at all. It
wouldn't be worth while, if I go abroad at the end of the
year.'

'Abroad?' Marcella glanced at him. 'What scheme is that?'

'Haven't I mentioned it? I want to go to South America and the
Pacific islands. Earwaker has a friend, who has just come back from
travel in the tropics; the talk about it has half decided me to
leave England. I have been saving money for years to that end.'

'You never spoke of it—to me, Marcella replied, turning a
bracelet on her wrist. 'Should you go alone?'

'Of course. I couldn't travel in company. You know how
impossible it would be for me to put up with the moods and
idiosyncrasies of other men.'

There was a quiet arrogance in his tone. The listener still
smiled, but her fingers worked nervously.

'You are not so unsocial as you pretend,' she remarked, without
looking at him.

'Pretend! I make no pretences of any kind,' was his scornful
answer.

'You are ungracious this evening.'

'Yes—and can't hide it.'

'Don't try to, I beg. But at least tell me what troubles
you.'

'That's impossible,' Peak replied, drily.

'Then friendship goes for nothing,' said Marcella, with a little
forced laugh.

'Yes—in all but a very few human concerns. How often could
you
tell
me
what it is that prevents your taking life
cheerfully?'

He glanced at her, and Marcella's eyes fell; a moment after,
there was a suspicion of colour in her cheek.

'What are you reading?' Peak asked abruptly, but in a voice of
more conventional note.

'Still Hafiz.'

'I envy your power of abstraction.'

'Yet I hear that you are deeply concerned about the locomotive
powers of the
diatomaceaoe
?'

Their eyes met, and they laughed—not very mirthfully.

'It preserves me from worse follies,' said Peak. 'After all,
there are ways more or less dignified of consuming time'—

As he spoke, his ear caught a familiar name, uttered by
Christian Moxey, and he turned to listen. Moxey and Earwaker were
again talking of the Rev. Bruno Chilvers. Straightway disregarding
Marcella, Peak gave attention to the men's dialogue, and his
forehead wrinkled into scornful amusement.