"Dear me, Master Godfrey!" she said, "hadn't I heard that you were coming, I could never have been sure that it was you. Why, you've grown into a regular young gentleman in those foreign parts, and handsome, too, though I sez it. Who could have guessed that you are your father's son? Why, you'd make two of him. But there, they say that your mother was a good-looking lady and large built, though, as I never set eyes on her, I can't say for sure. Well, you must be tired after all this travelling in steamships and trains, so come into the dining-room and have some tea, for I have got the key to the sideboard."
He went, and, passing through the hall, left his alpenstock in the umbrella-stand. In due course the tea was produced, though for it he seemed to have little appetite. While he made pretence to eat the thick bread and butter, Mrs. Parsons told him the news, such as it was. Sir John was living in town and "flinging the money about, so it was said, not but what he had got lots to fling and plenty to catch it," she added meaningly. His poor, dear lady was dead, and "happy for her on the whole." Miss Isobel had "gone foreign," having, it was told, quarrelled with her father, and nothing had been heard of her since she went. She, too, had grown into a fine young lady.
That was all he gathered before Mrs. Parsons was obliged to depart to see to her business--except that she was exceedingly glad to see him.
Godfrey went up to his bedroom, which he found unprepared, for somebody else seemed to be sleeping there. While he was surveying it and wondering who this occupant might be, he heard his father in the hall asking the parlour-maid which of the young gentlemen had left that "ridiculous stick" in the stand. She replied that she did not know, whereupon the hard voice of his parent told her to take it away.
Afterwards Godfrey found it thrown into the wood-house to be chopped up for firewood, though luckily before this happened.
By this time a kind of anger had seized him. It was true that he had not said by what train he was coming, for the reason that until he reached London he could not tell, but he had written that he was to arrive that afternoon, and surely some note might have been taken of the fact.
He went downstairs and confronted his father, who alone amid so much change seemed to be exactly the same. Mr. Knight shook him by the hand without any particular cordiality, and at once attacked him for not having intimated the hour of his arrival, saying that it was too late to advise the carrier to call at the station for his baggage and that a trap would have to be sent, which cost money.
"Very well, Father, I will pay for it myself," answered Godfrey.
"Oh, yes, I forgot!" exclaimed Mr. Knight, with a sneer, "you have come into money somehow, have you not, and doubtless consider yourself independent?"
"Yes, and I am glad of it, Father, as now I hope I shall not be any more expense to you."
"As you have begun to talk business, Godfrey," replied his father in an acid manner, "we may as well go into things and get it over. You have, I presume, made up your mind to go into the Church in accordance with my wish?"
"No, Father; I do not intend to become a clergyman."
"Indeed. You seem to me to have fallen under very bad influences in Switzerland. However, it does not much matter, as I intend that you shall."
"I am sorry, but I cannot, Father."
Then, within such limits as his piety permitted, which were sufficiently wide, Mr. Knight lost his temper very badly indeed. He attacked his son, suggesting that he had been leading an evil life in Lucerne, as he had learned "from outside sources," and declared that either he should obey him or be cast off. Godfrey, whose temper by this time was also rising, intimated that he preferred the latter alternative.
"What, then, do you intend to do, young man?" asked Mr. Knight.
"I do not know yet, Father." Then an inspiration came to him, and he added, "I shall go to London to-morrow to consult my trustees under Miss Ogilvy's will."
"Really," said Mr. Knight in a rage. "You are after that ill-gotten money, are you? Well, as we seem to agree so badly, why not go to-@@night instead of to-morrow; there is a late train? Perhaps it would be pleasanter for both of us, and then I need not send for your luggage.
Also it would save my shifting the new boy from your room."
"Do you really mean that, Father?"
"I am not in the habit of saying what I do not mean. Only please understand that if you reject my plans for your career, which have been formed after much thought, and, I may add, prayer, I wash my hands of you who are now too old to be argued with in any other way."
Godfrey looked at his father and considered the iron mouth cut straight like a slit across the face, the hard, insignificant countenance and the small, cold, grey eyes. He realised the intensity of the petty anger based, for the most part, on jealousy because he was now independent and could not be ordered about and bullied like the rest of the little boys, and knew that behind it there was not affection, but dislike. Summing up all this in his quick mind, he became aware that father or not, he regarded this man with great aversion. Their natures, their outlook, all about them were antagonistic, and, in fact, had been so from the beginning. The less that they saw of each other the better it would be for both. Although still so young, he had ripened early, and was now almost a man who knew that these things were so without possibility of doubt.
"Very well, Father," he said, "I will go. It is better than stopping here to quarrel."
"I thought you would, now that your friend, Isobel, who did you so much harm with her bad influence, has departed to Mexico, where, I have no doubt, she has forgotten all about you. You won't be able to run after her money as you did after Miss Ogilvy's," replied Mr. Knight with another sneer.
"You insult me," said Godfrey. "It is a lie that I ran after Miss Ogilvy's money, and I will never forgive you for saying such a thing of me in connection with Isobel," and turning he left the room.