Chapter IV: 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.