Born in Exile. George Gissing
distressed the air. A stranger to the pursuits represented might have thought that the general disorder and encumberment indicated great activity, but the experienced eye perceived at once that no methodical work was here in progress. Mineralogy, botany, biology, physics, and probably many other sciences, were suggested by the specimens and apparatus that lay confusedly on tables, shelves, or floor.
Moxey looked very slim and elegant in his evening costume. When he touched any object, his long, translucent fingers seemed soft and sensitive as a girl's. He stepped with peculiar lightness, and the harmonious notes of his voice were in keeping with these other characteristics. Ten years had developed in him that graceful languor which at four-and-twenty was only beginning to get mastery over the energies of a well-built frame.
'This stuff here,' he said, pointing to an open box full of mud, 'is silt from down the Thames. It's positively loaded with diatomaceoe,—you remember our talking about them when you were last here? I am working at the fabric of the valves. Now, just look!'
Earwaker, with attentive smile, followed the demonstration.
'Peak is busy with them as well,' said Christian, presently. 'Has he told you his theory of their locomotion? Nobody has found out yet how the little beggars move about. Peak has a bright idea.'
They spent ten minutes in the laboratory, then went downstairs. Two other guests had meanwhile arrived, and were conversing with the hostess, Miss Moxey. The shy, awkward, hard-featured girl was grown into a woman whose face made such declaration of intellect and character that, after the first moment, one became indifferent to its lack of feminine beauty. As if with the idea of compensating for personal disadvantages, she was ornately dressed; her abundant tawny hair had submitted to much manipulation, and showed the gleam of jewels; expense and finished craft were manifest in every detail of her garb. Though slightly round-shouldered, her form was well-proportioned and suggested natural vigour. Like Christian, she had delicate hands.
'Do you know a distinguished clergyman, named Chilvers?' she asked of Earwaker, with a laugh, when he had taken a place by her.
'Chilvers?—Is it Bruno Chilvers, I wonder?'
'That's the name!' exclaimed one of the guests, a young married lady of eager face and fidgety manners.
'Then I knew him at College, but I had no idea he was become distinguished.'
Miss Moxey again laughed.
'Isn't it amusing, the narrowness of a great clerical reputation? Mrs. Morton was astonished that I had never heard his name.'
'Please don't think,' appealed the lady, looking anxiously at Earwaker, 'that I consider it shameful not to know him. I only happened to mention a very ridiculous sermon of his, that was forced upon me by a distressingly orthodox friend of mine. They tell me, he is one of the newest lights of the Church.'
Earwaker listened with amusement, and then related anecdotes of Bruno Chilvers. Whilst he was talking, the door opened to admit another arrival, and a servant's voice announced 'Mr. Peak'. Miss Moxey rose, and moved a step or two forward; a change was visible on her countenance, which had softened and lightened.
'I am very sorry to be late,' said the new-comer, in a dull and rather husky voice, which made strong contrast with the humorous tones his entrance had interrupted.
He shook hands in silence with the rest of the company, giving merely a nod and a smile as reply to some gracious commonplace from Mrs. Morton.
'Has it come to your knowledge,' Earwaker asked of him, 'that Bruno Chilvers is exciting the orthodox world by his defence of Christianity against neo-heathenism?'
'Chilvers?—No.'
'Mrs. Morton tells us that all the Church newspapers ring with his name.'
'Please don't think,' cried Mrs. Morton, with the same anxious look as before, 'that I read such papers. We never have such a thing in our house, Mr. Peak. I have only been told about it.'
Peak smiled gravely, but made no other answer. Then he turned to Earwaker.
'Where is he?'
'I can't say. Perhaps Mrs. Morton'—
'They tell me he is somewhere in Norfolk,' replied the lady. 'I forget the town.'
A summons to dinner broke off the conversation. Moxey offered his arm to the one lady present as guest, and Earwaker did the same courtesy to the hostess. Mr. Morton, a meditative young man who had been listening with a smile of indifference, sauntered along in the rear with Godwin Peak.
At the dinner-table Peak was taciturn, and seemed to be musing on a disagreeable subject. To remarks, he answered briefly and absently. As Moxey, Earwaker, and Mrs. Morton kept up lively general talk, this muteness was not much noticed, but when the ladies had left the room, and Peak still frowned over his wineglass, the journalist rebuked him.
'What's the matter with you? Don't depress us.'
The other laughed impatiently, and emptied his glass.
'Malkin has come back,' pursued Earwaker. 'He burst in upon me, just as I was leaving home—as mad as a March hare. You must come and meet him some evening.'
'As you please.'
Returned to the upper room, Peak seated himself in a shadowy corner, crossed his legs, thrust his hands into his pockets, and leaned back to regard a picture on the wall opposite. This attitude gave sufficient proof of the change that had been wrought in him by the years between nineteen and nine-and-twenty; even in a drawing-room, he could take his ease unconcernedly. His face would have led one to suppose him an older man; it was set in an expression of stern, if not morose, thoughtfulness.
He had small, hard lips, indifferent teeth (seldom exhibited), a prominent chin, a long neck; his body was of firm, not ungraceful build. Society's evening uniform does not allow a man much scope in the matter of adornments; it was plain, however, that Godwin no longer scorned the tailor and haberdasher. He wore a suit which confidently challenged the criticism of experts, and the silk socks visible above his shoes might have been selected by the most fastidious of worldlings.
When he had sat there for some minutes, his eyes happened to stray towards Miss Moxey, who was just then without a companion. Her glance answered to his, and a smile of invitation left him no choice but to rise and go to a seat beside her.
'You are meditative this evening,' she said, in a voice subdued below its ordinary note.
'Not very fit for society, to tell the truth,' Godwin answered, carelessly. 'One has such moods, you know. But how would you take it if, at the last moment, I sent a telegram, "Please excuse me. Don't feel able to talk"?'
'You don't suppose I should be offended?'
'Certainly you would.'
'Then you know less of me than I thought.'
Her eyes wandered about the room, their smile betokening an uneasy self-consciousness.
'Christian tells me,' she continued, 'that you are going to take your holiday in Cornwall.'
'I thought of it. But perhaps I shan't leave town at all. It wouldn't be worth while, if I go abroad at the end of the year.'
'Abroad?' Marcella glanced at him. 'What scheme is that?'
'Haven't I mentioned it? I want to go to South America and the Pacific islands. Earwaker has a friend, who has just come back from travel in the tropics; the talk about it has half decided me to leave England. I have been saving money for years to that end.'
'You never spoke of it—to me, Marcella replied, turning a bracelet on her wrist. 'Should you go alone?'
'Of course. I couldn't travel in company. You know how impossible it would be for me to put up with the moods and idiosyncrasies of other men.'
There was a quiet arrogance in his tone. The listener still smiled, but her fingers worked nervously.
'You