Born in Exile Part 18

'Now, if I were a clergyman'--

But his eye met Earwaker's, and they broke into laughter.

'Why not?' pursued G.o.dwin. 'Did I ever tell you that my people originally wished to make a parson of me? Of course I resisted tooth and nail, but it seems to me now that I was rather foolish in doing so.

I wish I _had_ been a parson. In many ways the position would have suited me very well.'

'M--m--m!'

'I am quite serious. Well, if I were so placed, I should preach Church dogma, pure and simple. I would have nothing to do with these reconciliations. I would stand firm as Jeremy Taylor; and in consequence should have an immense and enthusiastic congregation.'

'I daresay.'

'Depend upon it, let the dogmas do what they still can. There's a vast police force in them, at all events. A man may very strongly defend himself for preaching them.'

The pursuit of this argument led Earwaker to ask:

'What proportion of the clergy can still take that standing in stolid conscientiousness?'

'What proportion are convinced that it is untenable?' returned Peak.

'Many wilfully shut their eyes to the truth.'

'No, they don't shut their eyes!' cried G.o.dwin. 'They merely lower a nict.i.tating membrane which permits them to gaze at light without feeling its full impact.'

'I recommend you to bring that into your paper,' said the journalist, with his deep chuckle.

An hour later they were conversing with no less animation, but the talk was not so critical. Christian Moxey had come up as a topic, and Earwaker was saying that he found it difficult to divine the man's personality.

'You won't easily do that,' replied Peak, 'until you know more of his story. I can't see that I am bound to secrecy--at all events with you.

Poor Moxey imagines that he is in love, and the fancy has lasted about ten years.

'Ten years?'

'When I first knew him he was paying obvious attentions to a rather plain cousin down at Twybridge. Why, I don't know, for he certainly was devoted to a girl here in London. All he has confessed to me is that he had given up hopes of her, but that a letter of some sort or other revived them, and he hastened back to town. He might as well have stayed away; the girl very soon married another man. Less than a year later she had bitterly repented this, and in some way or other she allowed Moxey to know it. Since then they have been Platonic lovers--nothing more, I am convinced. They see each other about once in six months, and presumably live on a hope that the obnoxious husband may decease. I only know the woman as "Constance"; never saw her.'

'So that's Moxey? I begin to understand better.'

'Admirable fellow, but deplorably weak. I have an affection for him, and have had from our first meeting.'

'Women!' mused Earwaker, and shook his head.

'You despise them?'

'On the whole, I'm afraid so.'

'Yes, but _what_ women?' cried the other with impatience. 'It would be just as reasonable to say that you despise men. Can't you see that?'

'I doubt it.'

'Now look here; the stock objections to women are traditional. They take no account of the vast change that is coming about. Because women were once empty-headed, it is a.s.sumed they are all still so _en ma.s.se_.

The defect of the female mind? It is my belief that this is nothing more nor less than the defect of the uneducated human mind. I believe most men among the brutally ignorant exhibit the very faults which are cried out upon as exclusively feminine. A woman has. .h.i.therto been an ignorant human being; that explains everything.'

'Not everything; something, perhaps. Remember your evolutionism. The preservation of the race demands in women many kinds of irrationality, of obstinate instinct, which enrage a reasoning man. Don't suppose I speak theoretically. Four or five years ago I had really made up my mind to marry; I wasted much valuable time among women and girls, of anything but low social standing. But my pa.s.sions were choked by my logical faculty. I foresaw a terrible possibility--that I might beat my wife. One thing I learned with certainty was that the woman, _qua_ woman, hates abstract thought--hates it. Moreover (and of consequence) she despises every ambition that has not a material end.'

He enlarged upon the subject, followed it into all its ramifications, elaborated the inconsistencies with which it is rife. Peak's reply was deliberate.

'Admitting that some of these faults are rooted in s.e.x, I should only find them intolerable when their expression took a vulgar form. Between irrationality and coa.r.s.eness of mind there is an enormous distinction.'

'With coa.r.s.e minds I have nothing to do.'

'Forgive me if I ask you a blunt question,' said Peak, after hesitating. 'Have you ever a.s.sociated with women of the highest refinement?'

Earwaker laughed.

'I don't know what that phrase means. It sounds rather odd on your lips.'

'Well, women of the highest cla.s.s of commoners. With peeresses we needn't concern ourselves.'

'You imagine that social precedence makes all that difference in women?'

'Yes, I do. The daughter of a county family is a finer being than any girl who can spring from the nomad orders.'

'Even supposing your nomads produce a Rachel or a Charlotte Brontee?'

'We are not talking of genius,' Peak replied.

'It was irrelevant, I know.--Well, yes, I _have_ conversed now and then with what you would call well-born women. They are delightful creatures, some of them, in given circ.u.mstances. But do you think I ever dreamt of taking a wife drenched with social prejudices?'

Peak's face expressed annoyance, and he said nothing.

'A man's wife,' pursued Earwaker, 'may be his superior in whatever you like, _except_ social position. That is precisely the distinction that no woman can forget or forgive. On that account they are the obstructive element in social history. If I loved a woman of rank above my own she would make me a renegade; for her sake I should deny my faith. I should write for the _St. James's Gazette_, and at last poison myself in an agony of shame.'

A burst of laughter cleared the air for a moment, but for a moment only. Peak's countenance clouded over again, and at length he said in a lower tone:

'There are men whose character would defy that rule.'

'Yes--to their own disaster. But I ought to have made one exception.

There is a case in which a woman will marry without much regard to her husband's origin. Let him be a parson, and he may aim as high as he chooses.'

Peak tried to smile. He made no answer, and fell into a fit of brooding.

'What's all this about?' asked the journalist, when he too had mused awhile. 'Whose acquaintance have you been making?'

'No one's.'

The suspicion was inevitable.

'If it were true, perhaps you would be justified in mistrusting my way of regarding these things. But it's the natural tendency of my mind. If I ever marry at all, it will be a woman of far higher birth than my own.'