Born in Exile (61 page)

A fortnight later, she wrote from Royat to Sylvia Moorhouse. It
was a long epistle, full of sunny descriptions, breathing renewed
vigour of body and mind. The last paragraph ran thus:

'Yesterday was my birthday; I was twenty-eight. At this age, it
is wisdom in a woman to remind herself that youth is over. I don't
regret it; let it go with all its follies! But I am sorry that I
have no serious work in life; it is not cheerful to look forward to
perhaps another eight-and-twenty years of elegant leisure—that is
to say, of wearisome idleness. What can I do? Try and think of some
task for me, something that will last a lifetime.'

At the close of a sultry day in September, when factory fumes
hung low over the town of St. Helen's, and twilight thickened
luridly, and the air tasted of sulphur, and the noises of the
streets, muffled in their joint effect, had individually an ominous
distinctness, Godwin Peak walked with languid steps to his lodgings
and the meal that there awaited him. His vitality was at low ebb.
The routine of his life disgusted him; the hope of release was a
mockery. What was to be the limit of this effort to redeem his
character? How many years before the past could be forgotten, and
his claim to the style of honourable be deemed secure? Rubbish! It
was an idea out of old-fashioned romances. What he was, he was, and
no extent of dogged duration at St. Helen's or elsewhere, could
affect his personality. What, practically, was to be the end? If
Sidwell had no money of her own, and no expectations from her
father, how could she ever become his wife? Women liked this kind
of thing, this indefinite engagement to marry when something should
happen, which in all likelihood never would happen—this fantastic
mutual fidelity with only the airiest reward. Especially women of a
certain age.

A heavy cart seemed to be rumbling in the next street. No, it
was thunder. If only a good rattling storm would sweep the
bituminous atmosphere, and allow a breath of pure air before
midnight.

She could not be far from thirty. Of course there prevails much
conventional nonsense about women's age; there are plenty of women
who reckon four decades, and yet retain all the essential charm of
their sex. And as a man gets older, as he begins to persuade
himself that at forty one has scarce reached the prime of
life——

The storm was coming on in earnest. Big drops began to fall. He
quickened his pace, reached home, and rang the bell for a
light.

His landlady came in with the announcement that a gentleman had
called to see him, about an hour ago; he would come again at seven
o'clock.

'What name?'

None had been given. A youngish gentleman, speaking like a
Londoner.

It might be Earwaker, but that was not likely. Godwin sat down
to his plain meal, and after it lit a pipe. Thunder was still
rolling, but now in the distance. He waited impatiently for seven
o'clock.

To the minute, sounded a knock at the house-door. A little
delay, and there appeared Christian Moxey.

Godwin was surprised and embarrassed. His visitor had a very
grave face, and was thinner, paler, than three years ago; he
appeared to hesitate, but at length offered his hand.

'I got your address from Earwaker. I was obliged to see you—on
business.'

'Business?'

'May I take my coat off? We shall have to talk.'

They sat down, and Godwin, unable to strike the note of
friendship lest he should be met with repulse, broke silence by
regretting that Moxey should have had to make a second call.

'Oh, that's nothing! I went and had dinner.—Peak, my sister is
dead.'

Their eyes met; something of the old kindness rose to either
face.

'That must be a heavy blow to you,' murmured Godwin, possessed
with a strange anticipation which he would not allow to take clear
form.

'It is. She was ill for three months.' Whilst staying in the
country last June she met with an accident. She went for a long
walk alone one day, and in a steep lane she came up with a carter
who was trying to make a wretched horse drag a load beyond its
strength. The fellow was perhaps half drunk; he stood there beating
the horse unmercifully. Marcella couldn't endure that kind of
thing—impossible for her to pass on and say nothing. She
interfered, and tried to persuade the man to lighten his cart. He
was insolent, attacked the horse more furiously than ever, and
kicked it so violently in the stomach that it fell. Even then he
wouldn't stop his brutality. Marcella tried to get between him and
the animal—just as it lashed out with its heels. The poor girl was
so badly injured that she lay by the roadside until another carter
took her up and brought her back to the village. Three months of
accursed suffering, and then happily came the end.'

A far, faint echoing of thunder filled the silence of their
voices. Heavy rain splashed upon the pavement.

'She said to me just before her death,' resumed Christian, '"I
have ill luck when I try to do a kindness—but perhaps there is one
more chance." I didn't know what she meant till afterwards. Peak,
she has left nearly all her money to you.'

Godwin knew it before the words were spoken. His heart leaped,
and only the dread of being observed enabled him to control his
features. When his tongue was released he said harshly:

'Of course I can't accept it.'

The words were uttered independently of his will. He had no such
thought, and the sound of his voice shook him with alarm.

'Why can't you?' returned Christian.

'I have no right—it belongs to you, or to some other relative—it
would be'——

His stammering broke off. Flushes and chills ran through him; he
could not raise his eyes from the ground.

'It belongs to no one but you,' said Moxey, with cold
persistence. 'Her last wish was to do you a kindness, and I, at all
events, shall never consent to frustrate her intention. The legacy
represents something more than eight hundred a year, as the
investments now stand. This will make you independent—of everything
and everybody.' He looked meaningly at the listener. 'Her own life
was not a very happy one; she did what she could to save yours from
a like doom.'

Godwin at last looked up.

'Did she speak of me during her illness?'

'She asked me once, soon after the accident, what had become of
you. As I knew from Earwaker, I was able to tell her.'

A long silence followed. Christian's voice was softer when he
resumed.

'You never knew her. She was the one woman in ten thousand—at
once strong and gentle; a fine intellect, and a heart of rare
tenderness. But because she had not the kind of face that'——

He checked himself.

'To the end her mind kept its clearness and courage. One day she
reminded me of Heine—how we had talked of that "conversion" on the
mattress-grave, and had pitied the noble intellect subdued by
disease. "I shan't live long enough," she said, "to incur that
danger. What I have thought ever since I could study, I think now,
and shall to the last moment." I buried her without forms of any
kind, in the cemetery at Kingsmill. That was what she wished. I
should have despised myself if I had lacked that courage.'

'It was right,' muttered Godwin.

'And I wear no mourning, you see. All that kind of thing is
ignoble. I am robbed of a priceless companionship, but I don't care
to go about inviting people's pity. If only I could forget those
months of suffering! Some day I shall, perhaps, and think of her
only as she lived.'

'Were you alone with her all the time?'

'No. Our cousin Janet was often with us.' Christian spoke with
averted face. 'You don't know, of course, that she has gone in for
medical work—practises at Kingsmill. The accident was at a village
called Lowton, ten miles or more from Kingsmill. Janet came over
very often.'

Godwin mused on this development of the girl whom he remembered
so well. He could not direct his thoughts; a languor had crept over
him.

'Do you recollect, Peak,' said Christian, presently, 'the talk
we had in the fields by Twybridge, when we first met?'

The old friendliness was reappearing in his manner, He was
yielding to the impulse to be communicative, confidential, which
had always characterised him.

'I remember,' Godwin murmured.

'If only my words then had had any weight with you! And if only
I had acted upon my own advice! Just for those few weeks I was
sane; I understood something of life; I saw my true way before me.
You and I have both gone after ruinous ideals, instead of taking
the solid good held out to us. Of course, I know your story in
outline. I don't ask you to talk about it. You are independent now,
and I hope you can use your freedom.—Well, and I too am free.'

The last words were in a lower tone. Godwin glanced at the
speaker, whose sadness was not banished, but illumined with a ray
of calm hope.

'Have you ever thought of me and my infatuation?' Christian
asked.

'Yes.'

'I have outlived that mawkish folly. I used to drink too much;
the two things went well together. It would shame me to tell you
all about it. But, happily, I have been able to go back about
thirteen years—recover my old sane self—and with it what I then
threw away.'

'I understand.'

'Do you? Marcella knew of it, just before her death, and it made
her glad. But the waste of years, the best part of a lifetime! It's
incredible to me as I look back. Janet called on us one day in
London. Heaven be thanked that she was forgiving enough to do so!
What would have become of me now?'

'How are you going to live, then?' Godwin asked, absently.

'How? My income is sufficient'——

'No, no; I mean, where and how will you live in your married
life?'

'That's still uncertain. Janet mustn't go on with professional
work. In any case, I don't think she could for long; her strength
isn't equal to it. But I shouldn't wonder if we settle in
Kingsmill. To you it would seem intolerable? But why should we live
in London? At Kingsmill Janet has a large circle of friends; in
London we know scarcely half-a-dozen people—of the kind it would
give us any pleasure to live with. We shall have no lack of
intellectual society; Janet knows some of the Whitelaw professors.
The atmosphere of Kingsmill isn't illiberal, you know; we shan't be
fought shy of because we object to pass Sundays in a state of coma.
But the years that I have lost! The irrecoverable years!'

'There's nothing so idle as regretting the past,' said Godwin,
with some impatience. 'Why groan over what couldn't be otherwise?
The probability is, Janet and you are far better suited to each
other now than you ever would have been if you had married long
ago.'

'You think that?' exclaimed the other, eagerly. 'I have tried to
see it in that light. If I didn't feel so despicable!'

'She, I take it, doesn't think you so,' Godwin muttered.

'But how can she understand? I have tried to tell her
everything, but she refused to listen. Perhaps Marcella told her
all she cared to know.'

'No doubt.'

Each brooded for a while over his own affairs, then Christian
reverted to the subject which concerned them both.

'Let us speak frankly. You will take this gift of Marcella's as
it was meant?'

How
was
it meant? Critic and analyst as ever, Godwin
could not be content to see in it the simple benefaction of a woman
who died loving him. Was it not rather the last subtle device of
jealousy? Marcella knew that the legacy would be a temptation he
could scarcely resist—and knew at the same time that, if he
accepted it, he practically renounced his hope of marrying Sidwell
Warricombe. Doubtless she had learned as much as she needed to know
of Sidwell's position. Refusing this bequest, he was as far as ever
from the possibility of asking Sidwell to marry him. Profiting by
it, he stood for ever indebted to Marcella, must needs be grateful
to her, and some day, assuredly, would reveal the truth to whatever
woman became his wife. Conflict of reasonings and emotions made it
difficult to answer Moxey's question.

'I must take time to think of it,' he said, at length.

'Well, I suppose that is right. But—well, I know so little of
your circumstances'——

'Is that strictly true?' Peak asked.

'Yes. I have only the vaguest idea of what you have been doing
since you left us. Of course I have tried to find out.'

Godwin smiled, rather gloomily.

'We won't talk of it. I suppose you stay in St. Helen's for the
night?'

'There's a train at 10.20. I had better go by it.'

'Then let us forget everything but your own cheerful outlook. At
ten, I'll walk with you to the station.'

Reluctantly at first, but before long with a quiet abandonment
to the joy that would not be suppressed, Christian talked of his
future wife. In Janet he found every perfection. Her mind was
something more than the companion of his own. Already she had begun
to inspire him with a hopeful activity, and to foster the elements
of true manliness which he was conscious of possessing, though they
had never yet had free play. With a sense of luxurious safety, he
submitted to her influence, knowing none the less that it was in
his power to complete her imperfect life. Studiously he avoided the
word 'ideal'; from such vaporous illusions he had turned to the
world's actualities; his language dealt with concretes, with homely
satisfactions, with prospects near enough to be soberly
examined.

A hurry to catch the train facilitated parting. Godwin promised
to write in a few days.

He took a roundabout way back to his lodgings. The rain was
over, the sky had become placid. He was conscious of an effect from
Christian's conversation which half counteracted the mood he would
otherwise have indulged,—the joy of liberty and of an outlook
wholly new. Sidwell might perchance be to him all that Janet was to
Christian. Was it not the luring of 'ideals' that prompted him to
turn away from his long hope?