Born in Exile (5 page)

'Godwin, how would you like to go to College and be a
clergyman?' she asked one Sunday afternoon, when an hour or two of
congenial reading seemed to have put the boy into a gentle
humour.

'To go to College' was all very well (diplomacy had prompted
this preface), but the words that followed fell so alarmingly on
Godwin's ear that he looked up with a resentful expression, unable
to reply otherwise.

'You never thought of it, I suppose?' his mother faltered; for
she often stood in awe of her son, who, though yet but fourteen,
had much of his father's commanding severity.

'I don't want to be a parson,' came at length, bluntly.

'Don't use that word, Godwin.'

'Why not? It's quite a proper word. It comes from the Latin
persona
.'

The mother had enough discretion to keep silence, and Godwin,
after in vain trying to settle to his book again, left the room
with disturbed countenance.

He had now been attending the day-school for about a year, and
was distinctly ahead of his coevals. A Christmas examination was on
the point of being held, and it happened that a singular test of
the lad's moral character coincided with the proof of his
intellectual progress. In a neighbouring house lived an old man
named Rawmarsh, kindly but rather eccentric; he had once done a
good business as a printer, and now supported himself by such
chance typographic work of a small kind as friends might put in his
way. He conceived an affection for Godwin; often had the boy to
talk with him of an evening. On one such occasion, Mr. Rawmarsh
opened a desk, took forth a packet of newly printed leaves, and
with a mysterious air silently spread them before the boy's eyes.
In an instant Godwin became aware that he was looking at the
examination papers which a day or two hence would be set before him
at school; he saw and recognised a passage from the book of Virgil
which his class had been reading.

'That is
sub rosa
, you know,' whispered the old printer,
with half averted face.

Godwin shrank away, and could not resume the conversation thus
interrupted. On the following day he went about with a feeling of
guilt. He avoided the sight of Mr. Rawmarsh, for whom he had
suddenly lost all respect, and suffered torments in the thought
that he enjoyed an unfair advantage over his class-mates. The Latin
passage happened to be one which he knew thoroughly well; there was
no need, even had he desired, to 'look it up'; but in sitting down
to the examination, he experienced a sense of shame and
self-rebuke. So strong were the effects of this, that he
voluntarily omitted the answer to a certain important question
which he could have 'done' better than any of the other boys, thus
endeavouring to adjust in his conscience the terms of competition,
though in fact no such sacrifice was called for. He came out at the
head of the class, but the triumph had no savour for him, and for
many a year he was subject to a flush of mortification whenever
this incident came back to his mind.

Mr. Rawmarsh was not the only intelligent man who took an
interest in Godwin. In a house which the boy sometimes visited with
a school-fellow, lodged a notable couple named Gunnery the husband
about seventy, the wife five years older; they lived on a pension
from a railway company. Mr. Gunnery was a dabbler in many sciences,
but had a special enthusiasm for geology. Two cabinets of stones
and fossils gave evidence of his zealous travels about the British
isles; he had even written a little hand-book of petrology which
was for sale at certain booksellers' in Twybridge, and probably
nowhere else. To him, about this time, Godwin began to resort,
always sure of a welcome; and in the little uncarpeted room where
Mr. Gunnery pursued his investigations many a fateful lesson was
given and received. The teacher understood the intelligence he had
to deal with, and was delighted to convey, by the mode of suggested
inference, sundry results of knowledge which it perhaps would not
have been prudent to declare in plain, popular words.

Their intercourse was not invariably placid. The geologist had
an irritable temper, and in certain states of the atmosphere his
rheumatic twinges made it advisable to shun argument with him.
Godwin, moreover, was distinguished by an instability of mood
peculiarly trying to an old man's testy humour. Of a sudden, to Mr
Gunnery's surprise and annoyance, he would lose all interest in
this or that science. Thus, one day the lad declared himself unable
to name two stones set before him, felspar and quartz, and when his
instructor broke into angry impatience he turned sullenly away,
exclaiming that he was tired of geology.

'Tired of geology?' cried Mr. Gunnery, with flaming eyes. 'Then
I
am tired of
you
, Master Peak! Be off, and don't
come again till I send for you!'

Godwin retired without a word. On the second day he was summoned
back again, but his resentment of the dismissal rankled in him for
a long time; injury to his pride was the wrong he found it hardest
to forgive.

His schoolmaster, aware of the unusual pursuits which he added
to the routine of lessons, gave him as a prize the English
translation of a book by Figuier—
The World before the
Deluge
. Strongly interested by the illustrations of the volume
(fanciful scenes from the successive geologic periods), Godwin at
once carried it to his scientific friend. 'Deluge?' growled Mr.
Gunnery. '
What
deluge?
Which
deluge?' But he
restrained himself, handed the book coldly back, and began to talk
of something else. All this was highly significant to Godwin, who
of course began the perusal of his prize in a suspicious mood. Nor
was he long before he sympathised with Mr Gunnery's distaste.
Though too young to grasp the arguments at issue, his prejudices
were strongly excited by the conventional Theism which pervades
Figuier's work. Already it was the habit of his mind to associate
popular dogma with intellectual shallowness; herein, as at every
other point which fell within his scope, he had begun to scorn
average people, and to pride himself intensely on views which he
found generally condemned. Day by day he grew into a clearer
understanding of the memories bequeathed to him by his father; he
began to interpret remarks, details of behaviour, instances of
wrath, which, though they had stamped themselves on his
recollection, conveyed at the time no precise significance. The
issue was that he hardened himself against the influence of his
mother and his aunt, regarding them as in league against the free
progress of his education.

As women, again, he despised these relatives. It is almost
impossible for a bright-witted lad born in the lower middle class
to escape this stage of development. The brutally healthy boy
contemns the female sex because he sees it incapable of his own
athletic sports, but Godwin was one of those upon whose awaking
intellect is forced a perception of the brain-defect so general in
women when they are taught few of life's graces and none of its
serious concerns,—their paltry prepossessions, their vulgar
sequaciousness, their invincible ignorance, their absorption in a
petty self. And especially is this phase of thought to be expected
in a boy whose heart blindly nourishes the seeds of poetical
passion. It was Godwin's sincere belief that he held girls, as
girls, in abhorrence. This meant that he dreaded their personal
criticism, and that the spectacle of female beauty sometimes
overcame him with a despair which he could not analyse. Matrons and
elderly unmarried women were truly the objects of his disdain; in
them he saw nothing but their shortcomings. Towards his mother he
was conscious of no tenderness; of as little towards his sister,
who often censured him with trenchant tongue; as for his aunt,
whose admiration of him was modified by reticences, he could never
be at ease in her company, so strong a dislike had he for her look,
her voice, her ways of speech.

He would soon be fifteen years old. Mrs. Peak was growing
anxious, for she could no longer consent to draw upon her sister
for a portion of the school fees, and no pertinent suggestion for
the lad's future was made by any of the people who admired his
cleverness. Miss Cadman still clung in a fitful way to the idea of
making her nephew a cleric; she had often talked it over with the
Misses Lumb, who of course held that 'any sacrifice' was
justifiable with such a motive, and who suggested a hope that, by
the instrumentality of Lady Whitelaw, a curacy might easily be
obtained as soon as Godwin was old enough. But several years must
pass before that Levitical stage could be reached; and then, after
all, perhaps the younger boy, Oliver, placid of temper and notably
pliant in mind, was better suited for the dignity of Orders. It was
lamentable that Godwin should have become so intimate with that
earth-burrowing Mr. Gunnery, who certainly never attended either
church or chapel, and who seemed to have imbued his pupil with
immoral theories concerning the date of creation. Godwin held more
decidedly aloof from his aunt, and had been heard by Charlotte to
speak very disrespectfully of the Misses Lumb. In short, there was
no choice but to discover an opening for him in some secular
pursuit. Could he, perhaps, become an assistant teacher? Or must he
'go into an office'?

No common lad. A youth whose brain glowed like a furnace, whose
heart throbbed with tumult of high ambitions, of inchoate desires;
endowed with knowledge altogether exceptional for his years; a
nature essentially militant, displaying itself in innumerable forms
of callow intolerance—apt, assuredly, for some vigorous part in
life, but as likely as not to rush headlong on traverse roads if no
judicious mind assumed control of him. What is to be done with the
boy?

All very well, if the question signified, in what way to provide
for the healthy development of his manhood. Of course it meant
nothing of the sort, but merely: What work can be found for him
whereby he may earn his daily bread? We—his kinsfolk even, not to
think of the world at large—can have no concern with his growth as
an intellectual being; we are hard pressed to supply our own mouths
with food; and now that we have done our recognised duty by him, it
is high time that he learnt to fight for his own share of
provender. Happily, he is of the robust sex; he can hit out right
and left, and make standing-room. We have armed him with
serviceable weapons, and now he must use them against the
enemy—that is to say, against all mankind, who will quickly enough
deprive him of sustenance if he fail in the conflict. We neither
know, nor in great measure care, for what employment he is
naturally marked. Obviously he cannot heave coals or sell dogs'
meat, but with negative certainty not much else can be resolved,
seeing how desperate is the competition for minimum salaries. He
has been born, and he must eat. By what licensed channel may he
procure the necessary viands?

Paternal relatives Godwin had as good as none. In quitting
London, Nicholas Peak had ceased to hold communication with any of
his own stock save the younger brother Andrew. With him he
occasionally exchanged a letter, but Andrew's share in the
correspondence was limited to ungrammatical and often
unintelligible hints of numerous projects for money-making. Just
after the removal of the bereaved family to Twybridge, they were
surprised by a visit from Andrew, in answer to one of whose letters
Mrs. Peak had sent news of her husband's death. Though her dislike
of the man amounted to loathing, the widow could not refuse him
hospitality; she did her best, however, to prevent his coming in
contact with anyone she knew. Andrew declared that he was at length
prospering; he had started a coffee-shop at Dalston, in north-east
London, and positively urged a proposal (well-meant, beyond doubt)
that Godwin should be allowed to come to him and learn the
business. Since then the Londoner had once again visited Twybridge,
towards the end of Godwin's last school-year. This time he spoke of
himself less hopefully, and declared a wish to transfer his
business to some provincial town, where he thought his metropolitan
experience might be of great value, in the absence of serious
competition. It was not difficult to discover a family likeness
between Andrew's instability and the idealism which had proved the
ruin of Nicholas.

On this second occasion Godwin tried to escape a meeting with
his uncle. Unable to do so, he sat mute, replying to questions
monosyllabically. Mrs. Peak's shame and annoyance, in face of this
London-branded vulgarian, were but feeble emotions compared with
those of her son. Godwin hated the man, and was in dread lest any
school-fellow should come to know of such a connection. Yet
delicacy prevented his uttering a word on the subject to his
mother. Mrs Peak's silence after Andrew's departure made it
uncertain how she regarded the obligation of kindred, and in any
such matter as this the boy was far too sensitive to risk giving
pain. But to his brother Oliver he spoke.

'What is the brute to us? When I'm a man, let him venture to
come near me, and see what sort of a reception he'll get! I hate
low, uneducated people! I hate them worse than the filthiest
vermin!—don't you?'

Oliver, aged but thirteen, assented, as he habitually did to any
question which seemed to await an affirmative.

'They ought to be swept off the face of the earth!' pursued
Godwin, sitting up in bed—for the dialogue took place about eleven
o'clock at night. 'All the grown-up creatures, who can't speak
proper English and don't know how to behave themselves, I'd
transport them to the Falkland Islands,'—this geographic precision
was a note of the boy's mind,—'and let them die off as soon as
possible. The children should be sent to school and purified, if
possible; if not, they too should be got rid of.'