The sporting chance

by Alice Askew; Claude Askew

"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."