Born in Exile (59 page)

It was still 'Yours sincerely'; but Godwin felt that the letter
meant more. In re-reading it he was pleasantly thrilled with a
stirring of the old emotions. But his first impulse, to write an
ardent reply, did not carry him away; he reflected and took counsel
of the experience gained in his studious solitude. It was evident
that by keeping silence he had caused Sidwell to throw off
something of her reserve. The course dictated by prudence was to
maintain an attitude of dignity, to hold himself in check. In this
way he would regain what he had so disastrously lost, Sidwell's
respect. There was a distinct pleasure in this exercise of
self-command; it was something new to him; it flattered his pride.
'Let her learn that, after all, I am her superior. Let her fear to
lose me. Then, if her love is still to be depended upon, she will
before long find a way to our union. It is in her power, if only
she wills it.'

So he sat down and wrote a short letter which seemed to him a
model of dignified expression.

Sidwell took no one into her confidence. The case was not one
for counsel; whatever her future action, it must result from the
maturing of self-knowledge, from the effect of circumstance upon
her mind and heart. For the present she could live in silence.

'We hear,' she wrote from London to Sylvia Moorhouse, 'that Mr.
Peak has left Exeter, and that he is not likely to carry out his
intention of being ordained. You, I daresay, will feel no
surprise.' Nothing more than that; and Sylvia's comments in reply
were equally brief.

Martin Warricombe, after conversations with his wife and with
Buckland, felt it impossible not to seek for an understanding of
Sidwell's share in the catastrophe. He was gravely perturbed,
feeling that with himself lay the chief responsibility for what had
happened. Buckland's attitude was that of the man who can only keep
repeating 'I told you so'; Mrs. Warricombe could only lament and
upbraid in the worse than profitless fashion natural to women of
her stamp. But in his daughter Martin had every kind of faith, and
he longed to speak to her without reserve. Two days after her
return from Exeter, he took Sidwell apart, and, with a distressing
sense of the delicacy of the situation, tried to persuade her to
frank utterance.

'I have been hearing strange reports,' he began, gravely, but
without show of displeasure. 'Can you help me to understand the
real facts of the case, Sidwell?—What is your view of Peak's
behaviour?'

'He has deceived you, father,' was the quiet reply.

'You are convinced of that?—It allows of no——?'

'It can't be explained away. He pretended to believe what he did
not and could not believe.'

'With interested motives, then?'

'Yes.—But not motives in themselves dishonourable.'

There was a pause. Sidwell had spoken in a steady voice, though
with eyes cast down. Whether her father could understand a position
such as Godwin's, she felt uncertain. That he would honestly
endeavour to do so, there could be no doubt, especially since he
must suspect that her own desire was to distinguish between the man
and his fault. But a revelation of all that had passed between her
and Peak was not possible; she had the support neither of intellect
nor of passion; it would be asking for guidance, the very thing she
had determined not to do. Already she found it difficult to recover
the impulses which had directed her in that scene of parting; to
talk of it would be to see her action in such a doubtful light that
she might be led to some premature and irretrievable resolve. The
only trustworthy counsellor was time; on what time brought forth
must depend her future.

'Do you mean, Sidwell,' resumed her father, 'that you think it
possible for us to overlook this deception?'

She delayed a moment, then said:

'I don't think it possible for you to regard him as a
friend.'

Martin's face expressed relief.

'But will he remain in Exeter?'

'I shouldn't think he can.'

Again a pause. Martin was of course puzzled exceedingly, but he
began to feel some assurance that Peak need not be regarded as a
danger.

'I am grieved beyond expression,' he said at length. 'So
deliberate a fraud—it seems to me inconsistent with any of the
qualities I thought I saw in him.'

'Yes—it must.'

'Not—perhaps—to you?' Martin ventured, anxiously.

'His nature is not base.'

'Forgive me, dear.—I understand that you spoke with him after
Buckland's call at his lodgings——?'

'Yes, I saw him.'

'And—he strove to persuade you that he had some motive which
justified his conduct?'

'Excused, rather than justified.'

'Not—it seems—to your satisfaction?'

'I can't answer that question, father. My experience of life is
too slight. I can only say that untruthfulness in itself is
abhorrent to me, and that I could never try to make it seem a light
thing.'

'That, surely, is a sound view, think as we may on speculative
points. But allow me one more question, Sidwell. Does it seem to
you that I have no choice but to break off all communication with
Mr Peak?'

It was the course dictated by his own wish, she knew. And what
could be gained by any middle way between hearty goodwill and
complete repudiation? Time—time alone must work out the
problem.

'Yes, I think you have no choice,' she answered.

'Then I must make inquiries—see if he leaves the town.'

'Mr. Lilywhite will know, probably.'

'I will write before long.'

So the dialogue ended, and neither sought to renew it.

Martin enjoined upon his wife a discreet avoidance of the
subject. The younger members of the family were to know nothing of
what had happened, and, if possible, the secret must be kept from
friends at Exeter. When a fortnight had elapsed, he wrote to Mr.
Lilywhite, asking whether it was true that Peak had gone away. 'It
seems that private circumstances have obliged him to give up his
project of taking Orders. Possibly he has had a talk with you?' The
clergyman replied that Peak had left Exeter. 'I have had a letter
from him, explaining in general terms his change of views. It
hardly surprises me that he has reconsidered the matter. I don't
think he was cut out for clerical work. He is far more likely to
distinguish himself in the world of science. I suspect that
conscientious scruples may have something to do with it; if so, all
honour to him!'

The Warricombes prolonged their stay in London until the end of
June. On their return home, Martin was relieved to find that
scarcely an inquiry was made of him concerning Peak. The young
man's disappearance excited no curiosity in the good people who had
come in contact with him, and who were so far from suspecting what
a notable figure had passed across their placid vision. One person
only was urgent in his questioning. On an afternoon when Mrs
Warricombe and her daughters were alone, the Rev. Bruno Chilvers
made a call.

'Oh!' he exclaimed, after a few minutes' conversation, 'I am so
anxious to ask you what has become of Mr. Peak. Soon after my
arrival in Exeter, I went to see him, and we had a long talk—a most
interesting talk. Then I heard all at once that he was gone, and
that we should see no more of him. Where is he? What is he
doing?'

There was a barely appreciable delay before Mrs. Warricombe made
answer.

'We have quite lost sight of him,' she said, with an artificial
smile. 'We know only that he was called away on some urgent
business—family affairs, I suppose.'

Chilvers, in the most natural way, glanced from the speaker to
Sidwell, and instantly, without the slightest change of expression,
brought his eyes back again.

'I hope most earnestly,' he went on, in his fluty tone, 'that he
will return. A most interesting man! A man of
large
intellectual scope, and really
broad
sympathies. I looked
forward to many a chat with him. Has he, I wonder, been led to
change his views? Possibly he would find a secular sphere more
adapted to his special powers.'

Mrs. Warricombe had nothing to say. Sidwell, finding that Mr
Chilvers' smile now beamed in her direction, replied to him with
steady utterance:

'It isn't uncommon, I think, nowadays, for doubts to interfere
with the course of study for ordination?'

'Far from uncommon!' exclaimed the Rector of St. Margaret's,
with almost joyous admission of the fact. 'Very far from uncommon.
Such students have my profound sympathy. I know from experience
exactly what it means to be overcome in a struggle with the modern
spirit. Happily for myself, I was enabled to recover what for a
time I lost. But charity forbid that I should judge those who think
they must needs voyage for ever in sunless gulfs of doubt, or even
absolutely deny that the human intellect can be enlightened from
above.'

At a loss even to follow this rhetoric, Mrs. Warricombe, who was
delighted to welcome the Rev. Bruno, and regarded him as a gleaming
pillar of the Church, made haste to introduce a safer topic. After
that, Mr. Chilvers was seen at the house with some frequency. Not
that he paid more attention to the Warricombes than to his other
acquaintances. Relieved by his curate from the uncongenial burden
of mere parish affairs, he seemed to regard himself as an apostle
at large, whose mission directed him to the households of
well-to-do people throughout the city. His brother clergymen held
him in slight esteem. In private talk with Martin Warricombe, Mr.
Lilywhite did not hesitate to call him 'a mountebank', and to add
other depreciatory remarks.

'My wife tells me—and I can trust her judgment in such
things—that his sole object just now is to make a good marriage.
Rather disagreeable stories seem to have followed him from the
other side of England. He makes love to all unmarried women—never
going beyond what is thought permissible, but doing a good deal of
mischief, I fancy. One lady in Exeter—I won't mention names—has
already pulled him up with a direct inquiry as to his intentions;
at her house, I imagine, he will no more be seen.'

The genial parson chuckled over his narrative, and Martin, by no
means predisposed in the Rev. Bruno's favour, took care to report
these matters to his wife.

'I don't believe a word of it!' exclaimed Mrs. Warricombe. 'All
the clergy are jealous of Mr. Chilvers.'

'What? Of his success with ladies?'

'Martin! It is something new for you to be profane!—They are
jealous of his high reputation.'

'Rather a serious charge against our respectable friends.'

'And the stories are all nonsense,' pursued Mrs. Warricombe.
'It's very wrong of Mr. Lilywhite to report such things. I don't
believe any other clergyman would have done so.'

Martin smiled—as he had been accustomed to do all through his
married life—and let the discussion rest there. On the next
occasion of Mr. Chilvers being at the house, he observed the
reverend man's behaviour with Sidwell, and was not at all pleased.
Bruno had a way of addressing women which certainly went beyond the
ordinary limits of courtesy. At a little distance, anyone would
have concluded that he was doing his best to excite Sidwell's
affectionate interest. The matter of his discourse might be
unobjectionable, but the manner of it was not in good taste.

Mrs. Warricombe was likewise observant, but with other emotions.
To her it seemed a subject for pleasurable reflection, that Mr.
Chilvers should show interest in Sidwell. The Rev. Bruno had bright
prospects. With the colour of his orthodoxy she did not concern
herself. He was ticketed 'broad', a term which carried with it no
disparagement; and Sidwell's sympathies were altogether with the
men of 'breadth'. The time drew near when Sidwell must marry, if
she ever meant to do so, and in comparison with such candidates as
Mr Walsh and Godwin Peak, the Rector of St. Margaret's would be an
ideal husband for her. Sidwell's attitude towards Mr. Chilvers was
not encouraging, but Mrs. Warricombe suspected that a lingering
regard for the impostor, so lately unmasked, still troubled her
daughter's mind: a new suitor, even if rejected, would help the
poor girl to dismiss that shocking infatuation.

Sidwell and her father nowadays spent much time together, and in
the autumn days it became usual for them to have an afternoon
ramble about the lanes. Their talk was of science and literature,
occasionally skirting very close upon those questions which both
feared to discuss plainly—for a twofold reason. Sidwell read much
more than had been her wont, and her choice of authors would alone
have indicated a change in her ways of thinking, even if she had
not allowed it to appear in the tenor of her talk. The questions
she put with reference to Martin's favourite studies were sometimes
embarrassing.

One day they happened to meet Mr. Chilvers, who was driving with
his eldest child, a boy of four. The narrowness of the road made it
impossible—as Martin would have wished—to greet and pass on.
Chilvers stopped the carriage and jumped out. Sidwell could not but
pay some attention to the youthful Chilvers.

'Till he is ten years old,' cried Bruno, 'I shall think much
more of his body than of his mind. In fact, at this age the body
is
the mind. Books, books—oh, we attach far too much
importance to them. Over-study is one of the morbific tendencies of
our time. Some one or other has been trying to frown down what he
calls the excessive athleticism of our public schools. No, no! Let
us rejoice that our lads have such an opportunity of vigorous
physical development. The culture of the body is a great part of
religion.' He always uttered remarks of this kind as if suggesting
that his hearers should note them in a collection of aphorisms. 'If
to labour is to pray, so also is the practice of open-air
recreation.