“Have I not brought you up? Have I not guarded you? Have I not—”
Keith set his feet on the floor and sat upright. “Listen, Dad, I’ve spent all my life, when at home, listening to your everlasting psalm-singing about the evils of the world and the baseness of everybody except yourself. In any case, even if I had not decided to marry Pat, I would have walked out on you. You don’t see as much of life as I do. You’re cooped up in this little ironmongery shop, passing judgment on your customers and spending the rest of your time reading Scripture. That isn’t religion; it’s self-centred bigotry. Down at the station I see folk as they are, and as I mean my own children to be, if I have any. All this may sound callous but—I’m sick of you!”
“‘When the wicked spring as the grass it is they who shall be destroyed for ever.…’”
“Oh—rats!” Keith snorted, and got to his feet. “I won’t listen to such stuff any longer. Where’s Pat gone?”
“I told her to leave.”
“You told her to! By what right?”
Ambrose Robinson’s cadaverous face turned. “By the right of a father, Keith. Listen to me, boy. Don’t you realize what you are doing? You are marrying a woman whose first thought upon becoming engaged was to make you insensible with drink! If you must marry—and I had hoped to God it would never come to it—at least choose one who doesn’t touch drink.”
“It was Mr. Taylor’s idea,” Keith said sourly. “And even if I did pass out, it was only a single glass. Don’t start magnifying things. I’m marrying to get out of this beastly circumscribed atmosphere. I’ll drink if I want to—and I’ll smoke—and if the necessity arises, I’ll swear! You’re living in a world that just doesn’t exist beyond these walls, Dad.”
“That you should say such things to me,” Ambrose Robinson whispered. “Would that your poor dear mother were alive.”
“Yes.…” Keith stared absently at the table. “Would that she were. She’d understand just how I feel. You’re driving me out just the same as you drove her to her death.”
Ambrose Robinson looked up sharply, his bulgy eyes narrowed.
“You have the brazen insolence to suggest that I caused her to pass away?”
“That’s right,” Keith responded, his handsome face cynical. “I can remember your psalm-smiting, the way you treated her, the money you kept back from her, the way you crushed out every little thing she treasured.”
“I have always lived to a rule, boy, and I always shall. In the name of decency keep your mother’s name out of this. The friction is between ourselves.”
“What you really mean is you’d rather not have Mother’s death brought to your notice.”
“Nothing of the kind—”
“It’s true!” Keith snapped. “Your parsimony was directly responsible for her death. Oh, I know you spun a fancy tale about her dying peacefully in the Sunbeam Home of Rest after a long illness. I know that was the story you told everybody—including Pat’s father and Aunt Lydia. It made you look the injured party. I don’t forget these things even if you do. Mother’s memory is sacred to me, and the only thing I regret is that you and I didn’t part sooner.”
Silence. The clock chimed quarter past eleven. Keith glanced up at it. His father got to his feet and brooded.
“You have things mixed up, Keith,” he said at length. “And particularly in regard to your mother. I didn’t drive her to her death. It was—”
“Let it drop!” Keith interrupted harshly. “I’ve had my own views about it ever since I was old enough to think for myself.”
“‘Hatred stirreth up strifes, but love covereth all sins’,” Ambrose Robinson muttered; and added, “Proverbs.”
Keith controlled an utterance and looked at the empty table. Without a word he went into the back kitchen and spent a few minutes getting together a supper for himself. He was seated eating it before his father spoke again.
“I take it, then, that you’ll be leaving?”
“Once I’m married nothing will stop me. I can’t go until then, unfortunately, because there’s nowhere to go.…” Keith’s grey eyes met his father’s across the table. “This isn’t the first row we’ve had, Dad, and it probably won’t be the last. I’m not taking anything back. I mean all I said, but don’t think I’m staying on here because of any consideration for you. It’s simply that I can’t help myself.”
“We have never understood each other,” Ambrose Robinson declared bitterly.
“You don’t understand anybody, nor do you try. Religion, the way you handle it, is plain poison.”
Ambrose Robinson meditated. “You’re satisfied that you are doing the right thing in marrying Pat Taylor?”
“Yes. Perfectly.” Keith smiled cynically. “Even if she does take a glass of wine; so don’t start that again!”
“I wasn’t thinking of that: she will suffer for whatever sins she commits, just as you will. I was wondering if she knows you half as well as you think she does.”
Keith lowered his knife and fork. “Meaning what?”
“Meaning, Keith, that you are a strange boy. You’re utterly jealous. You have strange fancies and moods. Everything else apart, I cannot visualize you as the ideal partner for any girl. For that reason, amongst others, I have tried to dissuade you from all thought of marriage.”
Keith got to his feet and threw down his knife and fork.
“I’m not sitting here any longer listening to your drivel!” he shouted. “What’s it got to do with you how I behave or what I do? Look at home, Dad: there’s plenty wants altering! I’m going to bed!”
He strode out and slammed the door. His father sat in silence, thinking, his lips tight.
“‘A wise son heareth his father’s instruction’,” he muttered, “‘but a scorner heareth not rebuke.…’ Proverbs.”
CHAPTER THREE
The following day Pat met Keith as usual at the restaurant on his return from work, and once he had reassured her that his recovery from the glass of wine was complete, she plunged into details of the intended celebration party on the following Wednesday. That he would be there was a certainty—in fact, as the prospective bridegroom he could not fail—but he was not so sure about his father.
“But you must bring him!” Pat insisted. “It’s Dad’s idea. After all, I suppose my dad and yours want to get together and discuss things. You know how it is.”
“Yes, I know,” Keith said moodily. “Can’t keep their noses out of their children’s affairs.”
“Oh, Keith, I’m sure it isn’t that bad—”
“Yes it is,” he insisted curtly, clearly decided. “They can call it by what name they like, but actually it’s interference.…” He shrugged. “All right, I’ll ask Dad and he can please himself. I’m also going to see if I can’t get my raise in under three months, then we can be married sooner. Every day I spend with the old man I get more nervy.…” He switched the subject suddenly. “I hope you’ve told Billy Cranston and Cliff Evans that they needn’t call on you any more? That we’re engaged?”
“As a matter of fact, I haven’t,” Pat answered coolly. “They haven’t called, and I’m certainly not going to run about after them. And do you have to be so confoundedly jealous?”
“Can’t help it,” he replied. “And tell ’em as soon as you can, Pat. If either of them try and remain friendly with you from now, I won’t be responsible for my actions.”