THE THREE WESTCOTTS
I
The day crept, strangely and mysteriously, to its close. Peter, dulled
by misery, sat opposite his grandfather in the dining-room without
moving, conscious of the heavy twilight that the dark blinds flung about
the room, feeling the silence that was only accentuated by the old man's
uneasy “clack-clack” in his sleep and the clock's regular ticking. The
unhappiness that had been gradually growing about him since his last
term at Dawson's, was now all about him with the strength and horrible
appearance of some unholy giant. It was indeed with some consciousness
of Things that were flinging their shadows on the horizon and were not
as yet fully visible to him that he sat there. That evening at Stephen's
farm, realised only faintly at the time, hung before him now as a vivid
induction or prologue to the later terrors. He was doomed--so he felt in
that darkened and mysterious room--to a terrible time and horrors were
creeping upon him from every side. “Clack-clack” went his grandfather
beneath the rugs, as the cactus plant rattled in the window and the
silence through the stairs and passages of the house crept in folds
about the room.
Peter shivered; the coals fell from a dull gold into grey and crumbling
ashes. He shut everything in the surrounding world from his mind and
thought of his dead mother. There indeed there was strangeness enough,
for it seemed now that that wonderful afternoon had filled also all the
earlier years of his life. It seemed to him now that there had never
been a time when he had not known her and talked with her, and yet with
this was also a consciousness of all the joys that he had missed because
he had not known her before. As he thought of it the hard irretrievable
fact of those earlier empty years struck him physically with a sharp
agonising pain--toothache, and no possible way of healing it. The irony
of her proximity, of her desire for him as he, all unwittingly, had in
reality desired her, hit him like a blow. The picture of her waiting,
told that he did not wish to come, looking so sadly and lonely in that
white room, whilst he, on the other side of that door, had not the
courage to burst through those others and go to her, broke suddenly the
hard dry passivity that had held him during so many weeks.
He was very young, he was very tired, he was very lonely. He sobbed with
his hands pressed against his eyes.
Then his tears were quickly dried. There was this other thing to be
considered--his father. He hated his father. He was terrified, as he sat
there, at the fury with which he hated him. The sudden assurance of his
hatred reminded him of the thing that his grandfather had said about
the Westcotts ... was that true? and was this intensity of emotion that
filled all the veins in his body a sign that he too was a Westcott? and
were his father and grandfather mirrors of his own future years?... He
did not know. That was another question....
He wondered what they were about in the room where his mother lay and
it was curious that the house could remain silent during so many long
hours. It seemed held by the command of some strong power, and his
mind, overstrained and abnormal, waited for some outbreak of noise--many
noises, clattering, banging, whistling through the house. But his
grandfather slept on, no step was on the stairs, the room was very dark
and evening fell beyond the long windows and over the sea.
His youth made of a day eternity--there was no end nor term to his love,
to his hatred, to his loneliness, to his utter misery ... and also he
was afraid. He would have given his world for Stephen, but Stephen was
already off on his travels.
Very softly and stealthily the door opened and, holding a quivering
candle, with her finger to her mouth, there appeared his aunt. He looked
at her coldly as she came across the room towards him. He had never
felt any affection for her because she had always seemed to him weak
and useless--a frightened, miserable, vacillating, negative person--even
when he had been a very small boy he had despised her. Her eyes were red
and swollen with crying, her grey and scanty hair had fallen about her
collar, her old black blouse was unbuttoned at the top showing her bony
neck and her thin crooked hands were trembling in the candle-light. Her
eyes were large and frightened and her back was bent as though she
was cowering from a blow. She had never taken very much notice of her
nephew--of late she had been afraid of him; he was surprised now that
she should come to speak to him.
“Peter,” she said in a whisper, looking back over her shoulder at the
door.
“Yes,” he answered, staring at her.
“Oh, Peter!” she said again and began to cry--a whimpering noise and her
hands shaking so that the candle rocked in its stick.
“Well,” he said more softly, “you'd better put that candle down.”
She put it on the table and then stood beside him, crying pitifully,
jerking out little sentences--“I can't bear it.... I don't know what to
do.... I can't bear it.”
He got up from his chair and made her sit down on it and then he stood
by her and waited until she should recover a little. He felt suddenly
strangely tender towards her; she was his mother's sister, she had known
his mother all her life and perhaps in her weak silly way she had loved
her.
“No, aunt, don't cry.... It will be all right. I too am very unhappy. I
have missed so much. If I had only known earlier--”
The poor woman flung little distracted glances at the old man asleep on
the other side of the fire-place--
“Oh, dear, I had to come and talk to some one.... I was so frightened
upstairs. Your father's there with your mother. He sits looking at her
... and she was always so quiet and good and never did him any harm
or indeed any one ... and now he sits looking at her--but she's happy
now--he will be coming downstairs at any moment and I am afraid of what
he'll do if he sees me talking to you like this. But I feel as though I
must talk a little ... it's so quiet.”
“It's all right, aunt. There's no one to be frightened of. I am very
unhappy too. I'd like to talk about her to you.”
“No, no--your poor mother--I mustn't say anything. They'll be down upon
me if I say anything. They're very sharp. He's sitting up with her now.”
Peter drew another chair up close to her and took her thin hand in
his. She allowed him to do what he would and seemed to have no active
knowledge of her surroundings.
“We'll talk about her,” he said, “often. You shall tell me all about her
early life. I want to know everything.”
“Oh, no. I'm going away. Directly after the funeral. Directly after the
funeral I'm going away.”
Suddenly this frightened him. Was he to be left here entirely alone with
his father and grandfather?
“You're going away?” he said.
“Oh, yes--your Uncle Jeremy will come for the funeral. I shall go away
with him afterwards. I don't like your Aunt Agatha, but they always
said I could come to them when your mother died. I don't like your Aunt
Agatha but she means to be kind. Oh! I couldn't stay here after all that
has happened. I was only staying for your mother's sake and I'm sure
I've never gone to bed without wondering what would happen before the
morning--Oh, yes, your Uncle Jeremy's coming and I shall go away with
him after the funeral. I don't like your Aunt Agatha but I couldn't stay
after all that has happened.”
All this was said in a hurried frightened whisper. The poor lady shook
from head to foot and the little bracelets on her trembling wrists
jangled together.
“Then I shall be all alone here,” Peter said suddenly, staring at the
candle that was guttering in the breeze that came from behind the heavy
blinds.
“Oh, dear,” said his aunt, “I'm sure Uncle Jeremy will be kind if you
have to leave here, you know.”
“Why should I have to leave here?” asked Peter.
His aunt sunk her voice very low indeed--so low that it seemed to come
from the heart of the cactus plant by the window.
“He hasn't got your mother now, you know. He'll want to have
somebody....”
But she said nothing more--only gazed at the old man opposite her with
staring eyes, and cried in a little desolate whimper and jangled her
bracelets until at last Peter crept softly, miserably to bed.
II
The day of the funeral was a day of high wind and a furious sea. The
Westcotts lived in the parish of the strange wild clergyman whose church
looked over the sea; strange and wild in the eyes of Treliss because
he was a giant in size and had a long flowing beard, because he kept
a perfect menagerie of animals in his little house by the church, and
because he talked in such an odd wild way about God being in the sea and
the earth rather than in the hearts of the Treliss citizens--all these
things odd enough and sometimes, early in the morning, he might be seen,
mother-naked, going down the path to the sea to bathe, which was hardly
decent considering his great size and the immediate neighbourhood of the
high road. To those who remonstrated he had said that he was not ashamed
of his body and that God was worshipped the better for there being no
clothing to keep the wind away ... all mad enough, and there were never
many parishioners in the little hill church of a Sunday. However, it was
in the little windy churchyard that Mrs. Westcott was buried and it was
up the steep and stony road to the little church that the hearse and its
nodding plumes, followed by the two old and decrepit hackney carriages,
slowly climbed.
Peter's impressions of the day were vague and uncertain. There were
things that always remained in his memory but strangely his general
conviction was that his mother had had nothing to do with it. The black
coffin conveyed nothing to him of her presence: he saw her as he had
seen her on that day when he had talked to her, and now she was, as
Stephen was, somewhere away. That was his impression, that she had
escaped....
Putting on his black clothes in the morning brought Dawson's back to his
mind, and especially Bobby Galleon and Cards. He had not thought of
them since the day of his return--first Stephen and then his mother had
driven them from his mind. But now, with the old school black clothing
upon him, he stood for a long time by his window, wondering, sorrowfully
enough, where they were and what they were doing, whether they had
forgotten him, whether he would ever see them again. He seemed to be
surrounded by a wall of loneliness--some one was cutting everything off
from him ... from maliciousness! For pleasure!... Oh! if one only knew
about that God!
Meanwhile Uncle Jeremy and Aunt Agatha had arrived the night before.
Uncle Jeremy was big and stout and he wore clothes that were very black
and extremely bright. His face was crimson in colour and his eyes,
large and bulging, wore a look of perpetual surprise. He was bald and
an enormous gold watch chain crossed his stomach like a bridge. He had
obviously never cared for either of his sisters and he always shouted
when he spoke. Aunt Agatha was round and fat and comfortable, wore
gold-rimmed spectacles and a black silk dress, and obviously considered
that Uncle Jeremy had made the world.
Peter watched his father's attitude to these visitors. He realised that
he had never seen his father with any stranger or visitor--no one came
to the house and he had never been into the town with his father. With
this realisation came a knowledge of other things--of things half heard
at the office, of half looks in the street, of a deliberate avoidance of
his father's name--the Westcotts of Scaw House! There were clouds about
the name.
But his father, in contact with Uncle Jeremy and Aunt Agatha, was
strangely impressive. His square, thick-set body clothed in black--his
dark eyes, his short stiff hair, his high white forehead, his long
beautiful hands--this was no ordinary man, moving so silently with a
reserve that seemed nobly fitting on this sad occasion. The dark figure
filled the house, touching in its restrained grief, admirable in its
dignity, a fine spirit against the common clay of Uncle Jeremy and Aunt
Agatha.
Mr. Westcott was courteous but sparing of words--a strong man, you would
say, bowed down with a grief that demanded, in its intensity, silence.
Uncle Jeremy hated and feared his brother-in-law. His hatred he
concealed with difficulty but his fear was betrayed by his loud and
nervous laugh. He was obviously interested in Peter and stared at him,
throughout breakfast, with his large, surprised eyes. Peter felt
that this interest was a speculation as to his future and it made him
uncomfortable ... he hated his uncle but the black suit that the stout
gentleman wore on the day of the funeral was so black, so tight and so
shiny that he was an occasion for laughter rather than hatred.
The black coffin was brought down the long stairs, through the hall
and into the desolate garden. The sight of it roused no emotion in
Peter--_that_ was not his mother. The two aunts, Uncle Jeremy and his
father rode in the first carriage; Peter and Mrs. Trussit in the second.
Mrs. Trussit's bonnet and black silk dress were very fine and she wept
bitterly throughout the journey.
Peter only dismally wished that he could arrange his knees so that they
would not rub against her black silk. He did not think of his mother
at all but only of the great age of the cab, of the furious wind that
whistled about the road, and the roar that the sea, grey and furious far
below them, flung against their windows.
He would have liked to talk to her but her sobbing seemed to surround
her with a barrier. It was all inexpressibly dreary with the driving
wind, the rustling of the black silk dress, the jolting and clattering
of the old carriage. But he had no desire to cry--he was too miserable
for that.
On the hill in the little churchyard, a tempest of wind swept across
the graves. From the bending ground the cliff fell sheer to the sea and
behold! it was a tossing, furious carpet of white and grey. The wind
blew the spray up to the graveyard and stung the faces of the mourners
and in the roar of the waves it was hard to hear the voice of the
preacher. It was a picture that they made out there in the graveyard.
Poor Aunt Jessie, trembling and shaking, Mrs. Trussit, stout and stiff
with her handkerchief to her eyes, Uncle Jeremy with his legs apart,
his face redder than ever, obviously wishing the thing over, Aunt Agatha
concerned for her clothes in the streaming wind, Mr. Westcott unmoved
by the storm, cold, stern, of a piece with the grey stone at the
gravehead--all these figures interesting enough. But towering above them
and dominating the scene was the clergyman--his great beard streaming,
his surplice blowing behind him in a cloud, his great voice dominating
the tumult, to Peter he was a part of the day--the storm, the earth,
the flying, scudding clouds. All big things there, and somewhere sailing
with those clouds, on the storm, the spirit of his mother ... that
little black coffin standing, surely, for nothing that mattered.
But, strangely enough, when the black box had been lowered, at the
sharp rattling of the sods upon the lid, his sorrow leapt to his eyes.
Suddenly the sense of his loss drove down upon him. The place, the
people were swept away--he could hear her voice again, see her thin
white hands ... he wanted her so badly ... if he could only have his
chance again ... he could have flung himself there upon the coffin, not
caring whether he lived or died... his whole being, soul and body, ached
for her....
He knew that it was all over; he broke away from them all and he never,
afterwards, could tell where it was that he wandered during the rest
of that day. At last, when it was dark, he crept back to the house,
utterly, absolutely exhausted in every part of his body ... worn out.
III
On the following day Uncle Jeremy and Aunt Agatha departed and took Aunt
Jessie with them. She had the air of being led away into captivity and
seemed to be fastened to the buttons of Uncle Jeremy's tight black suit.
She said nothing further to Peter and showed no sense of having, at any
time, been confidential--she avoided him, he thought.
He of course returned to his office and tried to bury himself in the
work that he found there--but his attention wandered; he was overstrung,
excited abnormally, so that the whole world stood to him as a strange,
unnatural picture, something seen dimly and in exaggerated shapes
through coloured glass. That evening with Stephen shone upon him now
with all the vigour of colour of a real fact in a multitude of vague
shadows. The reality of that night was now of the utmost value.
Meanwhile there were changes at Scaw House. Mrs. Trussit had vanished a
few days after the funeral, no one said anything about her departure and
Peter did not see her go. He was vaguely sorry because she represented
in his memory all the earlier years, and because her absence left the
house even darker and more gloomy than it had been before. The cook,
a stout and slatternly person, given, Peter thought, to excessive
drinking, shared, with a small and noisy maid, the duties of the
house--they were most inefficiently performed.
But, with this clearing of the platform, the hatred between Peter and
his father became a definite and terrible thing. It expressed itself
silently. At present they very rarely spoke and except on Sundays met
only at breakfast and in the evening. But the air was charged with the
violence of their relationship; the boy, growing in body so strangely
like the man, expressed a sullen and dogged defiance in his every
movement ... the man watched him as a snake might watch the bird held
by its power. They stood, as wrestlers stand before the moment for their
meeting has arrived. The house, always too large for their needs, seemed
now to stretch into an infinity of echoing passages and empty rooms;
the many windows gathered the dust thick upon their sills. The old
grandfather stayed in his chair by the fire--only at night he was
wheeled out into his dreary bedroom by the cook who, now, washed and
tidied him with a vigour that called forth shrill screams and oaths
from her victim. He hated this woman with the most bitter loathing and
sometimes frightened her with the violence of his curses.
Christmas came and went and there followed a number of those wonderful
crisp and shining days that a Cornish winter gives to its worshippers.
Treliss sparkled and glittered--the stones of the market-place held
the heat of the sun as though it had been midsummer and the Grey Tower
lifted its old head proudly to the blue sky--the sea was so warm that
bathing was possible and in the heart of the brown fields there was a
whisper of early spring.
But all of this touched Scaw House not at all. Grey and hard in its
bundle of dark trees it stood apart and refused the sun. Peter, in spite
of himself, rejoiced in this brave weather. As the days slipped past,
curiously aloof and reserved though he was, making no friends and
seeking for none, nevertheless he began to look about him and considered
the future.
All this had in it the element of suspense, of preparation. During
these weeks one day slipped into another. No incidents marked their
preparation--but up at Scaw House they were marching to no mean
climax--every hour hurried the issue--and Peter, meanwhile, as February
came whistling and storming upon the world, grew, with every chiming
of the town clock, more morose, more sullen, more silent ... there were
times when he thought of ending it all. An instant and he would be free
of all his troubles--but after all that was the weakling's way; he had
not altogether forgotten those words spoken so long ago by old Moses....
So much for the pause. Suddenly, one dark February afternoon the curtain
was rung up outside Zachary Tan's shop and Peter was whirled into the
centre of the stage.
Peter had not seen Zachary Tan for a long time. He had grown into a
morbid way of avoiding everybody and would slink up side streets or go
round on leaving the office by the sea road. When he did meet people who
had once been kind to him he said as little as possible to them and left
them abruptly.
But on this afternoon Zachary was not to be denied. He was standing at
the door of his shop and shouted to Peter:
“Come away in, Mr. Peter. I haven't see you this long time. There's an
old acquaintance of yours inside and a cup of tea for you.”
The wind was whistling up the street, the first drops of a rain storm
starred the pavement, and there was a pleasant glow behind Mr. Tan's
window-panes. But there was something stronger yet that drove Peter into
the shop. He knew with some strange knowledge who that old acquaintance
was ... he felt no surprise when he saw in the little back room,
laughing with all his white teeth shining in a row, the stout and
cheerful figure of Mr. Emilio Zanti. Peter was a very different person
now from that little boy who had once followed Stephen's broad
figure into that little green room and stared at Mr. Zanti's cheerful
countenance, but it all seemed a very little time ago. Outside in the
shop there was the same suit of armour--on the shelves, the silver
candlesticks, the old coins, the little Indian images, the pieces of
tapestry--within the little room the same sense of mystery, the same
intimate seclusion from the outer world.... On the other occasion of
seeing him Mr. Zanti had been dimmed by a small boy's wonder. Now Peter
was old enough to see him very clearly indeed.
Mr. Zanti seemed fat only because his clothes were so tight. He was
bigly made and his legs and arms were round, bolster fashion--huge
thighs and small ankles, thick arms and slender wrists. His clothes were
so tight that they seemed in a jolly kind of way to protest. “Oh! come
now, must you really put us on to anything quite so big? We shall burst
in a minute--we really shall.”
The face was large and flat and shining like a sun, with a small nose
like a door knocker and a large mouth, the very essence of good-humoured
surprise. The cheeks and the chin were soft and rounded and looked as
though they might be very fat one day--a double chin just peeped round
the corner.
He was a little bald on the top of his head and round this bald patch
his black hair clustered protectingly. He gave you the impression that
every part of his body was anxious that every other part of his body
should have a good time. His suit was a very bright blue and his
waistcoat had little brass buttons that met a friend with all the
twinkling geniality of good wishes and numberless little hospitalities.
He had in his blue silk tie a pearl so large and so white that
sophisticated citizens might have doubted that it was a pearl at
all--but Peter swallowed Mr. Zanti whole, pearl and suit and all.
“Oh! it is ze little friend--my friend--'ow are you, young gentleman? It
is a real delight to be with you again.”
Mr. Zanti swung Peter's hand up and down as he would a pump handle and
laughed as though it were all the best joke in the world. Curiously
enough Peter did not resent this rapturous greeting. It moved him
strongly. It was such a long time now since any one had shown any
interest in him or expressed any pleasure at the sight of him that he
was foolishly moved by Mr. Zanti's warmth.
He blushed and stammered something but his eyes were shining and his lip
trembling.
Mr. Zanti fixed his gaze on the boy. “Oh! but you have grown--yes,
indeed. You were a little slip before--but now--not so 'igh no--not
'igh--but broad, strong. Oh! ze arms and legs--there's a back!”
Zachary interrupted his enthusiasm with some general remark, and they
had a pleasant little tea-party. Every now and again the shop bell
tinkled and Zachary went out to attend to it, and then Mr. Zanti drew
near to Peter as though he were going to confide in him but he never
said anything, only laughed.
Once he mentioned Stephen.
“You know where he is?” Peter broke in with an eager whisper.
“Ah, ha--that would be telling,” and Mr. Zanti winked his eye.
Peter's heart warmed under the friendliness of it all. There was very
much of the boy still in him and he began to look back upon the days
that he had spent with no other company than his own thoughts as cold
and friendless. Zachary Tan had been always ready to receive him warmly.
Why had he passed him so churlishly by and refused his outstretched
hand? But there was more in it than that. Mr. Zanti attracted him most
compellingly. The gaily-dressed genial man spoke to him of all the
glitter and adventure of the outside world. Back, crowding upon him,
came all those adventurous thoughts and desires that he had known
before in Mr. Zanti's company--but tinged now by that grey threatening
background of Scaw House and its melancholy inhabitants! What would he
not give to escape? Perhaps Mr. Zanti!... The little green room began
to extend its narrow walls and to include in its boundaries flashing
rivers, shining cities, wide and bounteous plains. Beyond the shop--dark
now with its treasures mysteriously gleaming--the steep little street
held up its lamps to be transformed into yellow flame, and at its foot
by the wooden jetty, as the night fell, the sea crept ever more secretly
with its white fingers gleaming below the shingles of the beach.
Here was wonder and glory enough with the wind tearing and beating
outside the windows, blowing the young flowers of the lamps up and down
inside their glass houses and screaming down the chimneys for sheer zest
of life.... But here it all had its centre in this little room “with Mr.
Emilio Zanti's chuckling for no reason at all and spreading his broad
fat hand over Peter Westcott's knee.
“Well, Mr. Peter, and 'ave you been to London in all these years? Or
perhaps you 'ave forgotten that you ever wanted to go there?”
No, Peter was still of the same mind but Treliss and a few miles up
and down the road were as much of the world as he'd had the pleasure of
seeing--except for school in Devonshire--
“And you'd still go, my leetle friend?”
“Yes--I want to go--I hate being in an office here.”
“And what is it zat you will do when you are there?”
Suddenly, in a flash, illuminating the little room, shining over the
whole world, Peter knew what it was that he would do.
“I will write.”
“Write what?”
“Stories.”
With that word muttered, his head hanging, his cheeks flushing, as
though it were something of which he was most mightily ashamed, he knew
what it was he had been wanting all these months. The desire had been
there, the impulse had been there ... now with the spoken word the blind
faltering impulse was changed into definite certainty.
Mr. Zanti thought it a tremendous joke. He roared, shouted with riotous
laughter. “Oh, ze boy--he will be the death of me--'I will write
stories'--Oh yes, so easy, so very simple. 'I will write stories'--Oh
yes.”
But Peter was very solemn. He did not like his great intention to be
laughed at.
“I mean it,” he said rather gruffly.
“Oh yes, that's of course--but that is enough. Oh dear, yes ... well,
my friend, I like you. You are very strong, you are brave I can see--you
have a fine spirit. One thing you lack--with all you English it is the
same.”
He paused interrogatively but Peter did not seem to wish to know what
this quality was.
“Yes, it is ze Humour--you do not see how funny life is--always--always
funny. Death, murder, robberies, violences--always funny--you are. Oh!
so solemn and per'aps you will be annoyed, think it tiresome, because I
laugh--”
“No,” said Peter gravely, “I like your laughing.”
“Ah! That is well.” Suddenly he jerked his body forward and stared into
Peter's face.
“Well!... Will you come?”
Peter hung back, his face white. He was only conscious that Zachary,
quiet and smiling in the background, watched him intently.
“What!... with you ... to London!”
“Yes ... wiz me--what of your father? Will he be furious, hey?”
“He won't like it--” Peter continued slowly. “But I don't care. I'll
leave him--But I should have no money--nothing!”
“An', no matter--I will take you to London for nothing and then--if you
like it--you may work for me. Two pounds a week--you would be useful.”
“What should I do?”
“I have a bookshop--you would look after ze books and also ze
customers.” This seemed to amuse Mr. Zanti very much. “Two pounds a week
is a lot of money for ze work--and you will have time--ho yes--much time
for your stories.”
Peter's eyes burned. London--a bookshop--freedom. Oh! wonderful world!
His heart was beating so that words would not come.
“Oh!” he murmured. “Oh!”
“Ah, that's well!” Mr. Zanti clapped him on the shoulder. “There is no
need for you to say now. On ze Wednesday in Easter week I go--before
then you will tell me. We shall get on together, I know it. If you will
'ave a leetle more of ze Humour you will be a very pleasant boy--and
useful--Ho, yes!”
To Peter then the shop was not visible--a mist hung about his eyes.
“Much time for your stories”... said Mr. Zanti, and he shouted with
laughter as his big form hung before Peter. The large white hand with
the flashing rings enclosed Peter's.
For a moment the hands were on his shoulders and in his nostrils was
the pungent scent of the hair-oil that Mr. Zanti affected--afterwards
silence.
Peter said farewell to Zachary and promised to come soon and see him
again. The little bell tinkled behind him and he was in the street.
The great wind caught him and blew him along the cobbles. The flying
mountains of cloud swept like galleons across the moor, and in Peter's
heart was overwhelming triumph ... the lights of London lit the black
darkness of the high sea road.
IV
The doors of Scaw House clanged behind him and at once he was aware that
his father had to be faced. Supper was eaten in silence. Peter watched
his father and his grandfather. Here were the three of them alone. What
his grandfather was his father would one day be, what his father was,
he ... yes, he must escape. He stared at the room's dreary furniture, he
listened to the driving rain and he was conscious that, from the other
side of the table, his father's eyes were upon him.
“Father,” he said, “I want to go away.” His heart was thumping.
Mr. Westcott got up from his place at the table and stood, with his legs
a little apart, looking down at his son.
“Why?”
“I'm doing no good here. That office is no use to me. I shall never be a
solicitor. I'm nearly eighteen and I shall never get on here. I remember
things... my mother...” his voice choked.
His father smiled. “And where do you want to go?”
“To London.”
“Oh! and what will you do there?”
“I have a friend--he has a bookshop there. He will give me two pounds a
week at first so that I should be quite independent--”
“All very nice,” Mr. Westcott was grave again. “And so you are tired of
Treliss?”
“Not only Treliss--this house--everything. I hate it.”
“You have no regret at leaving me?”
“You know--father--that...”
“Yes?”
Peter rose suddenly from the table--they faced one another.
“I want you to let me go. You have never cared in the least for me and
you do not want me here. I shall go mad if I stay in this place. I must
go.”
“Oh, you must go? Well, that's plain enough at any rate--and when do you
propose leaving us?”
“After Easter--the Wednesday after Easter,” he said. “Oh, father,
please. Give me a chance. I can do things in London--I feel it. Here I
shall never do anything.”
Peter raised his eyes to his father's and then dropped them. Mr.
Westcott senior was not pleasant to look at.
“Let us have no more of this--you will stay here because I wish it. I
like to have you here--father and son--father and son.”
He placed his hand on the boy's shoulder--“Never mention this again for
your own sake--you will stay here until I wish you to go.”
But Peter broke free.
“I _will_ go,” he shouted--“I _will_ go--you _shall_ not keep me here. I
have a right to my freedom--what have you ever done for me that I should
obey you? I want to leave you and never see you again. I ...” And then
his eyes fell--his legs were shaking. His father was watching him, no
movement in his short thick body--Peter's voice faltered--“I _will_ go,”
he said sullenly, his eyes on the ground.
His grandfather stirred in his sleep. “Oh, what a noise,” he muttered,
“with the rain and all.”
But Mr. Westcott removed with a careful hand the melodrama that his
young son had flung about the room.
“That's enough noise,” he said, “you will _not_ go to London--nor indeed
anywhere else--and for your own peace of mind I should advise you not
to mention the subject again. The hour is a little early but I recommend
your bedroom.”
Peter went. He was trembling from head to foot. Why? He undressed and
prepared himself for battle. Battle it was to be, for the Wednesday in
Easter week would find him in the London train--of that there was to be
no question.
Meanwhile, with the candle blown out, and no moon across the floor, it
was quite certain that courage would be necessary. He was fighting more
than his father.
V
He woke suddenly. A little wind, blowing through the open door flickered
the light of a candle that flung a dim circle about the floor. Within
the circle was his father--black clothes and white face, he was looking
with the candle held high, across the room to the bed.
He drew back the candle and closed the door softly behind him. His feet
made no sound as they passed away down the passage.
Peter lay quaking, wide eyed in his bed, until full morning and time for
getting up.
The opening, certainly, of a campaign.