Born in Exile (29 page)

What he proposed to himself was a life of deliberate baseness.
Godwin Peak never tried to play the sophist with this fact. But he
succeeded in justifying himself by a consideration of the
circumstances which had compelled him to a vile expedient. Had his
project involved conscious wrong to other persons, he would
scarcely even have speculated on its possibilities. He was
convinced that no mortal could suffer harm, even if he accomplished
the uttermost of his desires. Whom was he in danger of wronging?
The conventional moralist would cry: Everyone with whom he came in
slightest contact! But a mind such as Peak's has very little to do
with conventional morality. Injury to himself he foresaw and
accepted; he could never be the man nature designed in him; and he
must frequently submit to a self-contempt which would be very hard
to bear. Those whom he consistently deceived, how would they
suffer? Martin Warricombe to begin with. Martin was a man who had
lived his life, and whose chief care would now be to keep his mind
at rest in the faiths which had served him from youth onwards. In
that very purpose, Godwin believed he could assist him. To see a
young man, of strong and trained intellect, championing the old
beliefs, must doubtless be a source of reassurance to one in
Martin's position. Reassurance derived from a lie?—And what matter,
if the outcome were genuine, if it lasted until the man himself was
no more? Did not every form of content result from illusion? What
was truth without the mind of the believer?

Society, then—at all events that part of it likely to be
affected by his activity? Suppose him an ordained priest,
performing all the functions implied in that office. Why, to think
only of examples recognised by the public at large, how would he
differ for the worse from this, that, and the other clergyman who
taught Christianity, all but with blunt avowal, as a scheme of
human ethics? No wolf in sheep's clothing he! He plotted against no
man's pocket, no woman's honour; he had no sinister design of
sapping the faith of congregations—a scheme, by-the-bye, which
fanatic liberators might undertake with vast self-approval. If by a
word he could have banished religious dogma from the minds of the
multitude, he would not have cared to utter it. Wherein lay,
indeed, a scruple to be surmounted. The Christian priest must be a
man of humble temper; he must be willing, even eager, to sit down
among the poor in spirit as well as in estate, and impart to them
his unworldly solaces. Yes, but it had always been recognised that
some men who could do the Church good service were personally
unfitted for those meek ministrations. His place was in the
hierarchy of intellect; if he were to be active at all, it must be
with the brain. In his conversation with Buckland Warricombe, last
October, he had spoken not altogether insincerely. Let him once be
a member of the Church militant, and his heart would go with many a
stroke against that democratic movement which desired, among other
things, the Church's abolition. He had power of utterance. Roused
to combat by the proletarian challenge, he could make his voice
ring in the ears of men, even though he used a symbolism which he
would not by choice have adopted.

For it was natural that he should anticipate distinction.
Whatever his lot in life, he would not be able to rest among an
inglorious brotherhood. If he allied himself with the Church, the
Church must assign him leadership, whether titular or not was of
small moment. In days to come, let people, if they would, debate
his history, canvass his convictions. His scornful pride invited
any degree of publicity, when once his position was secure.

But in the meantime he was leaving aside the most powerful of
all his motives, and one which demanded closest scrutiny. Not
ambition, in any ordinary sense; not desire of material luxury; no
incentive recognised by unprincipled schemers first suggested his
dishonour. This edifice of subtle untruth had for its foundation a
mere ideal of sexual love. For the winning of some chosen woman,
men have wrought vehemently, have ruined themselves and others,
have achieved triumphs noble or degrading. But Godwin Peak had for
years contemplated the possibility of baseness at the impulse of a
craving for love capable only of a social (one might say, of a
political) definition. The woman throned in his imagination was no
individual, but the type of an order. So strangely had
circumstances moulded him, that he could not brood on a desire of
spiritual affinities, could not, as is natural to most cultivated
men, inflame himself with the ardour of soul reaching to soul; he
was pre-occupied with the contemplation of qualities which
characterise a class. The sense of social distinctions was so burnt
into him, that he could not be affected by any pictured charm of
mind or person in a woman who had not the stamp of gentle birth and
breeding. If once he were admitted to the intimacy of such women,
then, indeed, the canons of selection would have weight with him;
no man more capable of disinterested choice. Till then, the ideal
which possessed him was merely such an assemblage of qualities as
would excite the democrat to disdain or fury.

In Sidwell Warricombe this ideal found an embodiment; but Godwin
did not thereupon come to the conclusion that Sidwell was the wife
he desired. Her influence had the effect of deciding his career,
but he neither imagined himself in love with her, nor tried to
believe that he might win her love if he set himself to the
endeavour. For the first time he was admitted to familiar
intercourse with a woman whom he
could
make the object of
his worship. He thought much of her; day and night her figure stood
before him; and this had continued now for half a year. Still he
neither was, nor dreamt himself, in love with her. Before long his
acquaintance would include many of her like, and at any moment
Sidwell might pale in the splendour of another's loveliness.

But what reasoning could defend the winning of a wife by false
pretences? This, his final aim, could hardly be achieved without
grave wrong to the person whose welfare must in the nature of
things be a prime motive with him. The deception he had practised
must sooner or later be discovered; lifelong hypocrisy was
incompatible with perfect marriage; some day he must either involve
his wife in a system of dishonour, or with her consent relinquish
the false career, and find his happiness in the obscurity to which
he would then be relegated. Admit the wrong. Grant that some woman
whom he loved supremely must, on his account, pass through a harsh
trial—would it not be in his power to compensate her amply? The
wife whom he imagined (his idealism in this matter was of a crudity
which made the strangest contrast with his habits of thought on
every other subject) would be ruled by her emotions, and that part
of her nature would be wholly under his governance. Religious
fanaticism could not exist in her, for in that case she would never
have attracted him. Little by little she would learn to think as he
did, and her devotedness must lead her to pardon his deliberate
insincerities. Godwin had absolute faith in his power of dominating
the woman whom he should inspire with tenderness. This was a
feature of his egoism, the explanation of those manifold
inconsistencies inseparable from his tortuous design. He regarded
his love as something so rare, so vehement, so exalting, that its
bestowal must seem an abundant recompense for any pain of which he
was the cause.

Thus, with perfect sincerity of argument, did Godwin Peak face
the undertaking to which he was committed. Incidents might perturb
him, but his position was no longer a cause of uneasiness—save,
indeed, at those moments when he feared lest any of his old
acquaintances might hear of him before time was ripe. This was a
source of anxiety, but inevitable; one of the risks he dared.

Had it seemed possible, he would have kept even from his mother
the secret of his residence at Exeter; but this would have
necessitated the establishment of some indirect means of
communication with her, a troublesome and uncertain expedient. He
shrank from leaving her in ignorance of his whereabouts, and from
passing a year or two without knowledge of her condition. And, on
the whole, there could not be much danger in this correspondence.
The Moxeys, who alone of his friends had ever been connected with
Twybridge, were now absolutely without interests in that quarter.
From them he had stolen away, only acquainting Christian at the
last moment, in a short letter, with his departure from London. 'It
will be a long time before we again see each other—at least, I
think so. Don't trouble your head about me. I can't promise to
write, and shall be sorry not to hear how things go with you; but
may all happen as you wish!' In the same way he had dealt with
Earwaker, except that his letter to Staple Inn was much longer, and
contained hints which the philosophic journalist might perchance
truly interpret. '"He either fears his fate too much"—you know the
old song. I have set out on my life's adventure. I have gone to
seek that without which life is no longer worth having. Forgive my
shabby treatment of you, old friend. You cannot help me, and your
displeasure would be a hindrance in my path. A last piece of
counsel: throw overboard the weekly rag, and write for people
capable of understanding you.' Earwaker was not at all likely to
institute a search; he would accept the situation, and wait with
quiet curiosity for its upshot. No doubt he and Moxey would discuss
the affair together, and any desire Christian might have to hunt
for his vanished comrade would yield before the journalist's
surmises. No one else had any serious reason for making inquiries.
Probably he might dwell in Devonshire, as long as he chose, without
fear of encountering anyone from his old world.

Occasionally—as to-night, under the full moon—he was able to
cast off every form of trouble, and rejoice in his seeming liberty.
Though every step in the life before him was an uncertainty, an
appeal to fortune, his faith in himself grasped strongly at
assurance of success. Once more he felt himself a young man, with
unwearied energies; he had shaken off the burden of those ten
frustrate years, and kept only their harvest of experience. Old in
one sense, in another youthful, he had vast advantages over such
men as would henceforth be his competitors—the complex brain, the
fiery heart, passion to desire, and skill in attempting. If with
such endowment he could not win the prize which most men claim as a
mere matter of course, a wife of social instincts correspondent
with his own, he must indeed be luckless. But he was not doomed to
defeat! Foretaste of triumph urged the current of his blood and
inflamed him with exquisite ardour. He sang aloud in the still
lanes the hymns of youth and of love; and, when weariness brought
him back to his lonely dwelling, he laid his head on the pillow,
and slept in dreamless calm.

As for the details of his advance towards the clerical state, he
had decided to resume his career at the point where it was
interrupted by Andrew Peak. Twice had his education received a
check from hostile circumstances: when domestic poverty compelled
him to leave school for Mr. Moxey's service, and when shame drove
him from Whitelaw College. In reflecting upon his own character and
his lot he gave much weight to these irregularities, no doubt with
justice. In both cases he was turned aside from the way of natural
development and opportunity. He would now complete his academic
course by taking the London degree at which he had long ago aimed;
the preliminary examination might without difficulty be passed this
summer, and next year he might write himself Bachelor of Arts. A
return to the studies of boyhood probably accounted in some measure
for the frequent gaiety which he attributed to improving health and
revived hopes. Everything he undertook was easy to him, and by a
pleasant self-deception he made the passing of a school task his
augury of success in greater things.

During the spring he was indebted to the Warricombes' friendship
for several new acquaintances. A clergyman named Lilywhite, often
at the Warricombes' house, made friendly overtures to him; the
connection might be a useful one, and Godwin made the most of it.
Mr. Lilywhite was a man of forty well—read, of scientific tastes,
an active pedestrian. Peak had no difficulty in associating with
him on amicable terms. With Mrs. Lilywhite, the mother of six
children and possessed of many virtues, he presently became a
favourite,—she saw in him 'a great deal of quiet moral force'. One
or two families of good standing made him welcome at their houses;
society is very kind to those who seek its benefits with recognised
credentials. The more he saw of these wealthy and tranquil
middle-class people, the more fervently did he admire the
gracefulness of their existence. He had not set before himself an
imaginary ideal; the girls and women were sweet, gentle, perfect in
manner, and, within limits, of bright intelligence. He was
conscious of benefiting greatly, and not alone in things extrinsic,
by the atmosphere of such homes.

Nature's progress towards summer kept him in a mood of healthful
enjoyment. From the window of his sitting-room he looked over the
opposite houses to Northernhay, the hill where once stood Rougemont
Castle, its wooded declivities now fashioned into a public garden.
He watched the rooks at their building in the great elms, and was
gladdened when the naked branches began to deck themselves, day by
day the fresh verdure swelling into soft, graceful outline. In his
walks he pried eagerly for the first violet, welcomed the earliest
blackthorn blossom; every common flower of field and hedgerow gave
him a new, keen pleasure. As was to be expected he found the same
impulses strong in Sidwell Warricombe and her sister. Sidwell could
tell him of secret spots where the wood-sorrel made haste to
flower, or where the white violet breathed its fragrance in
security from common pilferers. Here was the safest and pleasantest
matter for conversation. He knew that on such topics he could talk
agreeably enough, revealing without stress or importunity his
tastes, his powers, his attainments. And it seemed to him that
Sidwell listened with growing interest. Most certainly her father
encouraged his visits to the house, and Mrs. Warricombe behaved to
him with increase of suavity.