Love stories; Nobility -- Great Britain -- Fiction; Switzerland -- Fiction
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?”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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