MOSTYN IS REBELLIOUS.
Father and son faced each other in the large oak-panelled study. The
storm had burst, raged, and subsided, but the calm which had followed
was an ominous one, and liable to be broken at any moment. Mostyn
recognised that the worst was yet to come.
John Clithero was unaccustomed to opposition. His rule had been
absolute; he had governed with an iron rod. He was that greatest of
tyrants, a man conscious of rectitude. But, perhaps, for the very
rarity of such an event, he could not control his temper when
thwarted. In this his son had the better of him.
Yet the situation was galling to Mostyn. It was undignified to be
standing there in his father's study just as if he were a child
awaiting punishment. His associations with this room were of no
pleasant order, and he hated it accordingly. John Clithero had been
stern with his children, and had not spared the rod.
Mostyn glanced about him: the study was just the same to-day as it
had been in those early years. There were the long book-shelves with
their array of handsomely-bound books, which, however, as far as
Mostyn knew, were never touched. The heavy oak panelling was
oppressive, and the chairs, covered with dark red morocco, were stiff
and uncomfortable. There were some plaster casts of classical
subjects on the top of the book-cases, casts that had become grimy
with age, and which Mostyn had always looked up to with peculiar
reverence. He glanced at them now, and noticed that Pallas Athene
had been badly cracked, evidently quite recently, and that the crack
had extended to her nose, part of which had been broken away. Pallas
Athene presented an absurd figure, and Mostyn felt inclined to laugh
at her. She was no longer glorified in his eyes.
John Clithero sat beside his great desk, a desk that was
old-fashioned in make, for he disdained modern and American
innovations in his own home, however much he might make use of them
in his business office. The desk was piled with papers, which were,
however, all carefully bound with tape--for the banker was, above
all, a man of method. He had not asked his son to be seated, nor had
Mostyn ventured to take a chair; during the whole of the stormy
interview he had stood facing his father, his feet firmly planted
together, his head high.
In appearance John Clithero was not the ascetic that he professed
himself. He was a stout, burly man, his head sunk low upon his
shoulders, his size and weight suggestive of ill-health. His hair
was thin and grey, while his eyes appeared imbedded in heavy masses
of flesh. He came of a good old country family, but one would not
have thought it to look at him; he was just the type that might be
found as the leading light of a nonconformist chapel. He affected
black broadcloth, and his clothes hung loosely even about his portly
form. It may be that his strict morality and his abhorrence of
worldly pleasures had stood him in good stead, and had helped him to
build up the reputation of his bank, incidentally making a fortune
for himself. He was no hypocrite, but he knew the commercial value
of his doctrines.
"Am I to understand, Mostyn," he said, pouting out his thick lip,
"that you refuse--you absolutely refuse--to give me your word never
again to attend a race meeting? If that is the case there is very
little more to be said between us."
"How can I give you my word, father?" Mostyn's voice was not raised,
but he spoke with dogged determination. "I am not a child. I am old
enough to see the world with my own eyes. What harm is there in a
race meeting?" he went on, though he knew that it was useless to
argue with such a man as his father. "If one is sensible and
moderate----"
John Clithero waved his large fleshy hand with a commanding gesture.
"I don't intend to discuss this matter with you, Mostyn," he
interrupted, "or to consider the rights and the wrongs of racing. I
disapprove of it, and that fact should be quite sufficient for you.
You have grievously offended me by your conduct to-day, and all the
more so since you had in mind to deceive me; you took advantage of my
absence to do a thing which you knew I would not permit; you thought
that I should be none the wiser."
"That is untrue!" Mostyn flashed out the words, resenting the
imputation upon his honour. "I should have told you what I had done
on your return to London. I made no secret of it."
John Clithero sneered. "I am at liberty to form my own conclusions,"
he remarked. "It is not usual for young men who disobey their
parents to confess to their misdeeds. Luckily, though I cannot trust
you, your brothers are to be relied upon."
A wave of anger passed over Mostyn, and his lips curved disdainfully.
He had quite expected to be "given away" by his brothers unless he
spoke first. Their minds were too narrow to give him credit for
honesty of purpose. Probably the mischief-maker was the fat and
unwholesome Charles, who had been addicted to sneaking ever since he
was a little boy. What was more, he had always been listened to, at
least by his father, who had never discouraged that sort of thing.
Mostyn kept his temper under control, however, and merely shrugged
his shoulders. "I can only repeat I should have told you that I had
been to the Derby, and that I see no ill whatever in what I did," he
said stolidly.
John Clithero drew himself upright in his chair, and his hands,
resting upon his knees, were trembling. It was just as if they were
itching for the cane, to the use of which they had been accustomed.
"So you absolutely refuse to make any promise?" he said sternly.
"You will continue to walk the evil path?"
"I don't admit the evil path," replied Mostyn doggedly, "and so I can
make no promise to keep from it."
"Very well." John Clithero's hands dropped from his knees and he
rose to his feet, pushing his chair violently aside. "Then I cut you
adrift, now and for ever! You are no longer son of mine. I wash my
hands of you. Hell is your portion and the portion of your
fellow-sinner!" As with all his kind, the word "hell" came glibly
and sonorously to the man's lips. There were times when he revelled
in biblical phrase, adopting it freely to the needs of the moment.
He sought to do so now, but, confused by his rage, he lost himself in
a maze of ambiguity. Once Mostyn, who stood quietly listening,
supplied him with the word he needed, a course naturally calculated
to aggravate the situation.
"Silence!" stammered John Clithero. "How dare you interrupt me,
sir?" He came close to his son, his hands clenched as though it was
with difficulty that he repressed a desire to strike. "Off with
you!" he yelled, quite oblivious of the fact that he was standing
between his son and the door; "and when you find yourself starving in
the gutter don't come to me, or to your brothers, for help. The door
shall be shut upon you, understand that, as if you were a beggar!"
All unconsciously the man was betraying his disposition--for none was
harder upon the beggar in the street than he.
"I quite understand. Will you allow me to pass?" In contrast to his
father, Mostyn had lost none of his dignity. As soon as John
Clithero moved away, recommencing his fierce raging up and down the
room, vowing his son to perdition in this world and the next, Mostyn
stepped firmly to the door.
John Clithero followed him, panting for breath, a sorry figure.
"Go!" he spluttered, "go to your vile haunts, to your race-courses!
Go!--go to the devil!" The final exclamation was not meant in the
ordinary vulgar sense, but the man was quite beyond the measuring of
his words.
Mostyn made no reply. He quietly left the room. His father slammed
the door behind him with a noise that re-echoed through the house.
It was the end; the rupture was irreparable.
Mostyn, biting his lip, pale but determined, made his way slowly
upstairs to his own room. He was glad of one thing--that he had not
lost his temper, and that he had not in any way failed in the respect
that he owed his father; for the rest he felt that he was in the
right, and that it was simply impossible for him to have given the
promise that was demanded of him. Never to attend another race
meeting, with his instincts, the instincts that had been aroused in
him that day--such an undertaking was absurd, impossible. Who could
say what the future might bring forth, especially after the events of
that day? And John Clithero would not have been content with any
half promise; what he had demanded was in the nature of a vow.
Mostyn had always feared that something of the sort might eventually
come to pass. His home, especially since his mother's death, had
never been a real home to him; he had always felt himself out of
sympathy with his father and brothers, disliked by them. There was
Cicely, whom he cared for, but that was all. He blamed himself now
for not having made provision for such an eventuality. What use to
him was his classical education, his reading for the Bar? He should
have devoted himself to a more practical method of earning his
living. For the rest he did not care: it was not as if his mother
were alive.
"He killed my mother!" Mostyn muttered the words between his
clenched teeth. He had often felt that such was indeed the case,
though he had never allowed himself, even in his own thoughts, to
give expression to the belief. "I can see it all now. She never
complained--oh, no, she never complained; but it was his treatment of
her that sent her to her grave."
Now that he was ready to admit this, little things, small events
which he had hardly noticed at the time, crowded into his brain.
Again and again he had found his mother weeping: he could remember it
even when he was quite a small boy, and she would never explain the
reason. He recalled how silent she was in her husband's presence,
how she had gradually lost her strength and beauty, how she had
quivered under the lash of his stern denunciations. John Clithero
had killed joy within her, then he had broken her spirit, till
finally she herself had drooped and died. Mostyn remembered the day
of her death; it was very soon after he had gone to Oxford. John
Clithero had shed no tear, and the day after the funeral he had gone
to business as usual.
"He killed my mother," Mostyn repeated bitterly; "he crushed the life
out of her; Mr. Royce is right to hate him."
Mostyn glanced at the clock upon his mantel-piece and realised that
it was after seven o'clock. At eight the family would meet for
dinner: well, they would not have his company, neither to-night nor
ever again. He decided that he would leave the house at once, taking
with him only a small hand-bag; later on he would send for the rest
of his belongings. Cicely would see that they were packed and
delivered to him. It was lucky, he reflected, that he was not quite
penniless--that he had, in fact, a sum that could not be much under a
hundred pounds lying to his credit at the bank, a sum that he had
saved out of his not ungenerous allowance; this would do to tide over
temporary difficulties, at any rate.
With feverish hands he began to pack, hoping that he would be able to
leave before the dinner hour. He would have liked a word with
Cicely; but as for his brothers, he trusted not to meet them. He had
kept his temper under control in the presence of his father, but it
would be different with James and Charles; with them he might express
himself in a manner that he would afterwards repent. "The mean
sneaks," he muttered to himself; "and Charles, who is so fond of
talking about his honour! I am glad to have done with Charles."
There was nothing that he regretted. He could not even feel that he
was deserting Cicely. Before very long she would be married to
Pierce Trelawny and then she, too, would be free.
As he thought of her, the girl herself burst into his room. Her eyes
were tear-stained, and her fair hair was dishevelled. She stood
still, breathing hard and staring at Mostyn, who was now struggling
with the straps of his dressing-case.
"I've told them what I think of them!" she panted, following the
train of her original thought. "It was Charles who gave you away,
Mostyn. He went straight up to father and told him that you were at
the Derby--the sneak!"
"It didn't matter," Mostyn said, glancing over his shoulder; "the
result would have been just the same."
"What are you doing, Mostyn?" Her eyes--they were gentle eyes of
china-blue--were round with horror. "Father is still in his study.
He hasn't come out, though the dressing-gong has sounded. I heard
him tramping about as I passed; was he furiously angry?" Then again,
as Mostyn had not yet replied to her first question, she asked, "What
are you doing?"
"You see." He tugged viciously at a strap and then stood erect,
facing the girl. "I am going, Cicely. I am leaving the house
to-night. I am never coming back." With a low cry she threw herself
into her brother's arms, and her sobs broke out anew. It was a long
while before Mostyn could comfort her. At last he dragged her down
on to a sofa by his side, and explained to her that it was for the
best that he should go. Luckily the thought of money and how he
should work for himself in the future did not seem to occur to the
girl; her grief was solely for the loss of her brother, the only one
in the household with whom she was in sympathy.
"It'll be all right, dear," he whispered. "You've got Pierce; and
when you are married--
She started from him, appalled by a new terror. "When we are
married!" she cried; then, her voice shaking with anxiety, "Will
Pierce and I ever be married, Mostyn? I--I never thought of it
before, but father knows that it was Pierce who took you to the
Derby. He won't forgive him either. He will break off the
engagement! and I--oh, what will become of me?"
Her sobs broke anew, and this time she refused to be consoled.