Born in Exile Read Online Free PDF Page B

Nicholas with a fulfilment of hopeless desires. By the death
of Mrs Peak's brother, they came into possession of a freehold
house and about nine hundred pounds. The property was situated some
twelve miles from the Midland town of Twybridge, and thither they
at once removed. At Twybridge lived Mrs. Peak's elder sister, Miss
Cadman; but between this lady and her nearest kinsfolk there had
been but slight correspondence—the deceased Cadman left her only a
couple of hundred pounds. With capital at command, Nicholas Peak
took a lease of certain fields near his house, and turned farmer.
The study of chemistry had given a special bent to his economic
speculations; he fancied himself endowed with exceptional aptitude
for agriculture, and the scent of the furrow brought all his
energies into feverish activity—activity which soon impoverished
him: that was in the order of things. 'Ungainly integrity' and
'headlong irascibility' wrought the same results for the
ex-dispenser as for the Ayrshire husbandman. His farming came to a
chaotic end; and when the struggling man died, worn out at
forty-three, his wife and children (there was now a younger boy,
Oliver, named after the Protector) had no very bright
prospects.
    Things went better with them than might have been anticipated.
To Mrs. Peak her husband's death was not an occasion of unmingled
mourning. For the last few years she had suffered severely from
domestic discord, and when left at peace by bereavement she turned
with a sense of liberation to the task of caring for her children's
future. Godwin was just thirteen, Oliver was eleven; both had been
well schooled, and with the help of friends they might soon be put
in the way of self-support. The daughter, Charlotte, sixteen years
of age, had accomplishments which would perhaps be profitable. The
widow decided to make a home in Twybridge, where Miss Cadman kept a
millinery shop. By means of this connection, Charlotte presently
found employment for her skill in fine needlework. Mrs. Peak was
incapable of earning money, but the experiences of her early
married life enabled her to make more than the most of the pittance
at her disposal.
    Miss Cadman was a woman of active mind, something of a
busy-body—dogmatic, punctilious in her claims to respect, proud of
the acknowledgment by her acquaintances that she was not as other
tradespeople; her chief weakness was a fanatical ecclesiasticism,
the common blight of English womanhood. Circumstances had allowed
her a better education than generally falls to women of that
standing, and in spite of her shop she succeeded in retaining the
friendship of certain ladies long ago her schoolfellows. Among
these were the Misses Lumb—middle-aged sisters, who lived at
Twybridge on a small independence, their time chiefly devoted to
the support of the Anglican Church. An eldest Miss Lumb had been
fortunate enough to marry that growing potentate of the Midlands,
Mr. Job Whitelaw. Now Lady Whitelaw, she dwelt at Kingsmill, but
her sisters frequently enjoyed the honour of entertaining her, and
even Miss Cadman the milliner occasionally held converse with the
baronet's wife. In this way it came to pass that the Widow Peak and
her children were brought under the notice of persons who sooner or
later might be of assistance to them.
    Abounding in emphatic advice, Miss Cadman easily persuaded her
sister that Godwin must go to school for at least two years longer.
The boys had been at a boarding-school twenty miles away from their
country home; it would be better for them now to be put under the
care of some Twybridge teacher—such an one as Miss Cadman's
acquaintances could recommend. For her own credit, the milliner was
anxious that these nephews of hers should not be running about the
town as errand-boys or the like, and with prudence there was no
necessity for such degradation. An uncommon lad like Godwin (she
imagined him named after the historic earl) must not be robbed of
his fair chance in life; she