Born in Exile Part 63

'To myself,' pursued G.o.dwin, with the modulated, moving voice which always expressed his genuine feeling, 'I seem anything but lovable. I don't underrate my powers--rather the opposite, no doubt; but what I always seem to lack is the gift of pleasing--moral grace. My strongest emotions seem to be absorbed in revolt; for once that I feel tenderly, I have a hundred fierce, resentful, tempestuous moods. To be suave and smiling in common intercourse costs me an effort. I have to act the part, and this habit makes me sceptical, whenever I am really prompted to gentleness. I criticise myself ceaselessly; expose without mercy all those characteristics which another man would keep out of sight. Yes, and for this very reason, just because I think myself unlovable--the gift of love means far more to me than to other men. If you could conceive the pa.s.sion of grat.i.tude which possessed me for hours after I left you the other day! You cannot!'

Sidwell regarded him fixedly.

'In comparison with this sincerity, what becomes of the pretence you blame in me? If you knew how paltry it seems--that accusation of dishonesty! I believed the world round, and pretended to believe it flat: that's what it amounts to! Are you, on such an account as that, to consider worthless the devotion which has grown in me month by month? You--I was persuaded--thought the world flat, and couldn't think kindly of any man who held the other hypothesis. Very well; why not concede the trifle, and so at least give myself a chance? I did so--that was all.'

In vain her conscience strove to a.s.sert itself. She was under the spell of a nature infinitely stronger than hers; she saw and felt as G.o.dwin did.

'You think, Sidwell, that I stand in need of forgiveness. Then be great enough to forgive me, wholly--once and for all. Let your love be strengthened by the trial it has pa.s.sed through. That will mean that my whole life is yours, directed by the ever-present thought of your beauty, face and soul. Then there _will_ be good in me, thanks to you.

I shall no longer live a life of hypocrisy, of suppressed rage and scorn. I know how much I am asking; perhaps it means that for my sake you give up everything else that is dear to you'----

The thought checked him. He looked at her despondently.

'You can trust me,' Sidwell answered, moving nearer to him, tears on her cheeks. 'I must hear from you, and I will write.'

'I can ask no more than that.'

He took her hands, held them for a moment, and turned away. At the door he looked round. Sidwell's head was bowed, and, on her raising it, he saw that she was blinded with tears.

So he went forth.

Part VI

CHAPTER I

For several days after the scene in which Mr. Malkin unconsciously played an important part, Marcella seemed to be ill. She appeared at meals, but neither ate nor conversed. Christian had never known her so sullen and nervously irritable; he did not venture to utter Peak's name. Upon seclusion followed restless activity. Marcella was rarely at home between breakfast and dinner-time, and her brother learnt with satisfaction that she went much among her acquaintances. Late one evening, when he had just returned from he knew not where, Christian tried to put an end to the unnatural constraint between them. After talking cheerfully for a few minutes, he risked the question:

'Have you seen anything of the Warricombes?'

She replied with a cold negative.

'Nor heard anything?'

'No. Have you?'

'Nothing at all. I have seen Earwaker. Malkin had told him about what happened here the other day.'

'Of course.'

'But he had no news.--Of Peak, I mean.'

Marcella smiled, as if the situation amused her; but she would not discuss it. Christian began to hope that she was training herself to a wholesome indifference.

A month of the new year went by, and Peak seemed to be forgotten.

Marcella had returned to her studious habits, was fenced around with books, seldom left the house. Another month and the brother and sister were living very much in the old way, seeing few people, conversing only of intellectual things. But Christian concealed an expectation which enabled him to pa.s.s hours of retirement in the completest idleness. Since the death of her husband, Mrs. Palmer had been living abroad. Before the end of March, as he had been careful to discover, she would be back in London, at the house in Suss.e.x Square. By that time he might venture, without indelicacy, to call upon her. And after the first interview----

The day came, when, ill with agitation, he set forth to pay this call.

For two or three nights he had scarcely closed his eyes; he looked ghastly. The weather was execrable, and on that very account he made choice of this afternoon, hoping that he might find his widowed Laura alone. Between ringing the bell and the opening of the door, he could hardly support himself. He asked for Mrs. Palmer in a gasping voice which caused the servant to look at him with surprise.

The lady was at home. At the drawing-room door, before his name could be announced, he caught the unwelcome sound of voices in lively conversation. It seemed to him that a score of persons were a.s.sembled.

In reality there were six, three of them callers.

Mrs. Palmer met him with the friendliest welcome. A stranger would have thought her pretty, but by no means impressive. She was short, anything but meagre, fair-haired, brisk of movement, idly vivacious in look and tone. The mourning she wore imposed no restraint upon her humour, which at present was not far from gay.

'Is it really Mr. Moxey?' she exclaimed. 'Why, I had all but forgotten you, and positively it is your own fault! It must be a year or more since you came to see me. No? Eight months?--But I have been through so much trouble, you know.' She sighed mechanically. 'I thought of you one day at Bordighera, when we were looking at some funny little sea-creatures--the kind of thing you used to know all about. How is your sister?'

A chill struck upon his heart. a.s.suredly he had no wish to find Constance sunk in the semblance of dolour; such hypocrisy would have pained him. But her sprightliness was a shock. Though months had pa.s.sed since Mr. Palmer's decease, a decent gravity would more have become her condition. He could reply only in broken phrases, and it was a relief to him when the widow, as if tiring of his awkwardness, turned her attention elsewhere.

He was at length able to survey the company. Two ladies in mourning he faintly recognised, the one a sister of Mr. Palmer's, comely but of dull aspect; the other a niece, whose laugh was too frequent even had it been more musical, and who talked of athletic sports with a young man evidently better fitted to excel in that kind of thing than in any pursuit demanding intelligence. This gentleman Christian had never met.

The two other callers, a grey-headed, military-looking person, and a lady, possibly his wife, were equally strangers to him.

The drawing-room was much changed in appearance since Christian's last visit. There was more display, a richer profusion of ornaments not in the best taste. The old pictures had given place to showily-framed daubs of the most popular school. On a little table at his elbow, he remarked the photograph of a jockey who was just then engrossing public affection. What did all this mean? Formerly, he had attributed every graceful feature of the room to Constance's choice. He had imagined that to her Mr. Palmer was indebted for guidance on points of aesthetic propriety. Could it be that----?

He caught a glance which she cast in his direction, and instantly forgot the troublesome problem. How dull of him to misunderstand her!

Her sportiveness had a double significance. It was the expression of a hope which would not be subdued, and at the same time a means of disguising the tender interest with which she regarded _him_. If she had been blithe before his appearance, how could she suddenly change her demeanour as soon as he entered? It would have challenged suspicion and remark. For the same reason she affected to have all but forgotten him. Of course! how could he have failed to see that? 'I thought of you one day at Bordighera'--was not that the best possible way of making known to him that he had never been out of her mind?

Sweet, n.o.ble, long-suffering Constance!

He took a place by her sister, and began to talk of he knew not what, for all his attention was given to the sound of Constance's voice.

'Yes,' she was saying to the man of military appearance, 'it's very early to come back to London, but I did get so tired of those foreign places.'

(In other words, of being far from her Christian--thus he interpreted.)

'No, we didn't make a single pleasant acquaintance. A shockingly tiresome lot of people wherever we went.'

(In comparison with the faithful lover, who waited, waited.)

'Foreigners are so stupid--don't you think so? Why should they always expect you to speak _their_ language?--Oh, of course I speak French; but it is such a disagreeable language--don't you think so?'

(Compared with the accents of English devotion, of course.)

'Do you go in for cycling, Mr. Moxey?' inquired Mrs. Palmer's laughing niece, from a little distance.

'For cycling?' With a great effort he recovered himself and grasped the meaning of the words. 'No, I--I'm sorry to say I don't. Capital exercise!'

'Mr. Dwight has just been telling me such an awfully good story about a friend of his. Do tell it again, Mr. Dwight! It'll make you laugh no end, Mr. Moxey.'

The young man appealed to was ready enough to repeat his anecdote, which had to do with a bold cyclist, who, after dining more than well, rode his machine down a steep hill and escaped destruction only by miracle. Christian laughed desperately, and declared that he had never heard anything so good.

But the tension of his nerves was unendurable. Five minutes more of anguish, and he sprang up like an automaton.

'Must you really go, Mr. Moxey?' said Constance, with a manner which of course was intended to veil her emotion. 'Please don't be another year before you let us see you again.'