Born in Exile (52 page)

'He said that.'

'It was natural enough.—And you were disposed to believe
it?'

'I thought it impossible. But I should have thought the same of
the other things.'

Peak nodded, and moved away. Watching him, Sidwell was beset
with conflicting impulses. His assurance had allayed her worst
misgiving, and she approved the self-restraint with which he bore
himself, but at the same time she longed for a passionate
declaration. As a reasoning woman, she did her utmost to remember
that Peak was on his defence before her, and that nothing could
pass between them but grave discussion of the motives which had
impelled him to dishonourable behaviour. As a woman in love, she
would fain have obscured the moral issue by indulgence of her
heart's desire. She was glad that he held aloof, but if he had
taken her in his arms, she would have forgotten everything in the
moment's happiness.

'Let us sit down, and tell me—tell me all you can.'

He delayed a moment, then seated himself opposite to her. She
saw now that his movements were those of physical fatigue; and the
full light from the window, enabling her to read his face more
distinctly, revealed the impress of suffering. Instead of calling
upon him to atone in such measure as was possible for the wrong he
had done her, she felt ready to reproach herself for speaking
coldly when his need of solace was so great.

'What can I tell you,' he said, 'that you don't know, or that
you can't conjecture?'

'But you wrote that there was so much I could not be expected to
understand. And I can't, can't understand you. It still seems
impossible. Why did you hide the truth from me?'

'Because if I had begun by telling it, I should never have won a
kind look or a kind thought from you.'

Sidwell reflected.

'But what did you care for me then—when it began?'

'Not so much as I do now, but enough to overthrow all the
results of my life up to that time. Before I met you in this house
I had seen you twice, and had learned who you were. I was sitting
in the Cathedral when you came there with your sister and Miss
Moorhouse—do you remember? I heard Fanny call you by your name, and
that brought to my mind a young girl whom I had known in a slight
way years before. And the next day I again saw you there, at the
service; I waited about the entrance only to see you. I cared
enough for you then to conceive a design which for a long time
seemed too hateful really to be carried out, but—at last it was,
you see.

Sidwell breathed quickly. Nothing he could have urged for
himself would have affected her more deeply than this. To date back
and extend the period of his love for her was a flattery more
subtle than Peak imagined.

'Why didn't you tell me that the day before yesterday?' she
asked, with tremulous bosom.

'I had no wish to remind myself of baseness in the midst of a
pure joy.'

She was silent, then exclaimed, in accents of pain:

'Why should you have thought it necessary to be other than
yourself? Couldn't you see, at first meeting with us, that we were
not bigoted people? Didn't you know that Buckland had accustomed us
to understand how common it is nowadays for people to throw off the
old religion? Would father have looked coldly on you if he had
known that you followed where so many good and thoughtful men were
leading?'

He regarded her anxiously.

'I had heard from Buckland that your father was strongly
prejudiced; that you also were quite out of sympathy with the new
thought.'

'He exaggerated—even then.'

'Exaggerated? But on what plea could I have come to live in this
neighbourhood? How could I have kept you in sight—tried to win your
interest? I had no means, no position. The very thought of
encouraging my love for you demanded some extraordinary step. What
course was open to me?'

Sidwell let her head droop.

'I don't know. You might perhaps have discovered a way.'

'But what was the use, when the mere fact of my heresy would
have forbidden hope from the outset?'

'Why should it have done so?'

'Why? You know very well that you could never even have been
friendly with the man who wrote that thing in the review.'

'But here is the proof how much better it is to behave
truthfully! In this last year I have changed so much that I find it
difficult to understand the strength of my former prejudices. What
is it to me now that you speak scornfully of attempts to reconcile
things that can't be reconciled? I understand the new thought, and
how natural it is for you to accept it. If only I could have come
to know you well, your opinions would not have stood between
us.'

Peak made a slight gesture, and smiled incredulously.

'You think so now.'

'And I have such good reason for my thought,' rejoined Sidwell,
earnestly, 'that when you said you loved me, my only regret in
looking to the future was—that you had resolved to be a
clergyman.'

He leaned back in the chair, and let a hand fall on his knee.
The gesture seemed to signify a weary relinquishment of concern in
what they were discussing.

'How could I foresee that?' he uttered, in a corresponding
tone.

Sidwell was made uneasy by the course upon which she had
entered. To what did her words tend? If only to a demonstration
that fate had used him as the plaything of its irony—if, after all,
she had nothing to say to him but 'See how your own folly has
ruined you', then she had better have kept silence. She not only
appeared to be offering him encouragement, but was in truth doing
so. She wished him to understand that his way of thinking was no
obstacle to her love, and with that purpose she was even guilty of
a slight misrepresentation. For it was only since the shock of this
disaster that she had clearly recognised the change in her own
mind. True, the regret of which she spoke had for an instant
visited her, but it represented a mundane solicitude rather than an
intellectual scruple. It had occurred to her how much brighter
would be their prospect if Peak were but an active man of the
world, with a career before him distinctly suited to his
powers.

His contention was undeniably just. The influence to which she
had from the first submitted was the same that her father felt so
strongly. Godwin interested her as a self-reliant champion of the
old faiths, and his personal characteristics would never have
awakened such sympathy in her but for that initial recommendation.
Natural prejudice would have prevented her from perceiving the
points of kindred between his temperament and her own. His low
origin, the ridiculous stories connected with his youth—why had
she, in spite of likelihood, been able to disregard these things?
Only because of what she then deemed his spiritual value.

But for the dishonourable part he had played, this bond of love
would never have been formed between them. The thought was a new
apology for his transgression; she could not but defy her
conscience, and look indulgently on the evil which had borne such
fruit.

Godwin had begun to speak again.

'This is quite in keeping with the tenor of my whole life.
Whatever I undertake ends in frustration at a point where success
seems to have just come within my reach. Great things and
trifles—it's all the same. My course at College was broken off at
the moment when I might have assured my future. Later, I made many
an effort to succeed in literature, and when at length something of
mine was printed in a leading review, I could not even sign it, and
had no profit from the attention it excited. Now—well, you see.
Laughable, isn't it?'

Sidwell scarcely withheld herself from bending forward and
giving him her hand.

'What shall you do?' she asked.

'Oh, I am not afraid. I have still enough money left to support
me until I can find some occupation of the old kind. Fortunately, I
am not one of those men whose brains have no marketable value.'

'If you knew how it pains me to hear you!'

'If I didn't believe that, I couldn't speak to you like this. I
never thought you would let me see you again, and if you hadn't
asked me to come, I could never have brought myself to face you.
But it would have been a miserable thing to go off without even
knowing what you thought of me.'

'Should you never have written to me?'

'I think not. You find it hard to imagine that I have any pride,
no doubt; but it is there, explain it how one may.'

'It would have been wrong to leave me in such uncertainty.'

'Uncertainty?'

'About you—about your future.'

'Did you quite mean that? Hadn't your brother made you doubt
whether I loved you at all?'

'Yes. But no, I didn't doubt. Indeed, indeed, I didn't doubt!
But I felt such a need of hearing from your own lips that—Oh, I
can't explain myself!'

Godwin smiled sadly.

'I think I understand. But there was every reason for my
believing that
your
love could not bear such a test. You
must regard me as quite a different man—one utterly unknown to
you.'

He had resolved to speak not a word that could sound like an
appeal to her emotions. When he entered the room he felt a sincere
indifference as to what would result from the interview, for to his
mind the story was ended, and he had only to retire with the
dignity still possible to a dishonoured man. To touch the note of
pathos would be unworthy; to exert what influence might be left to
him, a wanton cruelty. But he had heard such unexpected things,
that it was not easy for him to remember how complete had seemed
the severance between him and Sidwell. The charm of her presence
was reasserting itself, and when avowal of continued love appeared
so unmistakably in her troubled countenance, her broken words, he
could not control the answering fervour. He spoke in a changed
voice, and allowed his eyes to dwell longingly upon hers.

'I felt so at first,' she answered. 'And it would be wrong to
pretend that I can still regard you as I did before.'

It cost her a great effort to add these words. When they were
spoken, she was at once glad and fearful.

'I am not so foolish, as to think it possible,' said Peak, half
turning away.

'But that is no reason,' she pursued, 'why we should become
strangers. You are still so young a man; life must be so full of
possibilities for you. This year has been wasted, but when you
leave Exeter'——

An impatient movement of Godwin's checked her.

'You are going to encourage me to begin the struggle once more,'
he said, bitterly. 'Where? How? It is so easy to talk of
"possibilities".'

'You are not without friends—I mean friends whose sympathy is of
real value to you.'

Saying this, she looked keenly at him.

'Friends,' he replied, 'who perhaps at this moment are laughing
over my disgrace.'

'How do they know of—what has happened?'

'How did your brother get his information? I didn't care to ask
him.—No, I don't even wish you to say anything about that.'

'But surely there is no reason for keeping it secret. Why may I
not speak freely? Buckland told me that he had heard you spoken of
at the house of people named Moxey.'

She endeavoured to understand the smile which rose to his lips.
'Now it is clear to me,' he said. 'Yes, I suppose that was
inevitable, sooner or later.'

'You knew that he had become acquainted with the Moxeys?'

Her tone was more reserved than hitherto.

'Yes, I knew he had. He met Miss Moxey by chance at Budleigh
Salterton, and I happened to be there—at the Moorhouses'—on the
same day.'

Sidwell glanced at him inquiringly, and waited for something
more.

'I saw Miss Moxey in private,' he added, speaking more quickly,
'and asked her to keep my secret. I ought to be ashamed to tell you
this, but it is better you should know how far my humiliation has
gone.'

He saw that she was moved with strong feeling. The low tone in
which she answered had peculiar significance.

'Did you speak of me to Miss Moxey?'

'I must forgive you for asking that,' Peak replied, coldly. 'It
may well seem to you that I have neither honour nor delicacy
left.'

There had come a flush on her cheeks. For some moments she was
absorbed in thought.

'It seems strange to you,' he continued at length, 'that I could
ask Miss Moxey to share such a secret. But you must understand on
what terms we were—she and I. We have known each other for several
years. She has a man's mind, and I have always thought of her in
much the same way as of my male companions.—Your brother has told
you about her, perhaps?'

'I have met her in London.'

'Then that will make my explanation easier,' said Godwin,
disregarding the anxious questions that at once suggested
themselves to him. 'Well, I misled her, or tried to do so. I
allowed her to suppose that I was sincere in my new undertakings,
and that I didn't wish—Oh!' he exclaimed, suddenly breaking off,
'Why need I go any further in confession? It must be as miserable
for you to hear as for me to speak. Let us make an end of it. I
can't understand how I have escaped detection so long.'

Remembering every detail of Buckland's story, Sidwell felt that
she had possibly been unjust in representing the Moxeys as her
brother's authority; in strictness, she ought to mention that a
friend of theirs was the actual source of information. But she
could not pursue the subject; like Godwin, she wished to put it out
of her mind. What question could there be of honour or dishonour in
the case of a person such as Miss Moxey, who had consented to be
party to a shameful deceit? Strangely, it was a relief to her to
have heard this. The moral repugnance which threatened to estrange
her from Godwin, was now directed in another quarter; unduly
restrained by love, it found scope under the guidance of
jealousy.