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.