VII
The matter was not broached again until after breakfast on the following day, when Wynne and his father were left alone over the empty cups and dishes.
“Discuss your future!” announced Mr. Rendall. He rose and placed a lump of sugar between the bars of the canary’s cage. The canary chirruped to signify gratitude for the gift.
“Seems to me there is no advantage keeping you at school any longer. Bit of practical experience in life will lick you into shape quicker than anything else.”
“One minute,” said Wynne, “I believe I could get a University scholarship if you gave me another term.”
“Scholarship be damned! I never went to a University; no reason why you should go. Not going anyway—”
“Yes, but—”
“Quiet. D’y’hear! There can be altogether too much of a good thing—too much altogether. I have my own plans for you.”
“And so have I,” said Wynne.
“Then you’ll make them fit in with mine—got that?”
Wynne’s foot began to tap on the ground and his mouth straightened thinly.
“Go on.”
“I’ll go on in my own damned time. A little hard discipline is what you want and it’s what you’ll get.”
“Well?”
“I spoke to Kessles on the ’phone last night about putting you there.”
“Kessles?”
“The warehouse people—don’t you know that?”
“No.”
“What do you know? Nothing.”
“A bit hard on Mr. Kessles then.”
“Quiet. He’s prepared to give you an opening, and I’ve accepted it.”
“That’s just as well, because I certainly shouldn’t have done so.”
“I’m not putting up with any argument. You can have a couple of weeks holiday, then go up to the City like any one else.”
Wynne shook his head resolutely.
“There is no question about the matter, my boy, it is a case of ‘having to.’ High time you began to make a way in the world.”
“Yes,” said Wynne. “I’ll make a way in the world—I want to and I shall—but it will be my way, not yours.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“I mean that I am not going to the City—I absolutely refuse—absolutely.”
“Continue like that and I won’t be answerable for my actions,” cried Mr. Rendall.
“And you shan’t be for mine.”
The determination in Wynne’s tone was extraordinary considering his age and fragility. Without raising his voice he dominated his father by every means of expression. Mr. Rendall felt this to be so, and the shame of it scarleted his features.
“Since you were born,” he shouted, “you have been perverse and maddening—ever since the day you were born!”
“Never once since the day I was born have you tried to see how my mind worked,” came the retort. “You have done no more than force your mental workings on me. All I know or shall know will be in spite of you.”
“Have you no proper feelings?”
“No, not as you read the word. Proper feelings are free feelings, new thoughts and fresh touches of all that is wonderful and unexplored. You think in a circle—an inner circle that constricts everything worth while like the coils of a snake. And now I’ve had enough of it—enough of you—more than enough.”
“Enough!”
“Yes, I’m going—I’m going to clear out and find some atmosphere where I can breathe.”
“D’you dare to suggest running away?”
“Yes, I’m clearing out.”
Some half-formed thought drove Mr. Rendall to seize the handle and put his back against the door.
“That won’t stop me,” said Wynne. “It isn’t a race for the front door, which I lose if you’re quick enough to stop me.”
“Very well,” conceded Mr. Rendall. “Very well—and how the devil do you think you’d live! Hey?”
“I shall manage.”
“Manage be damned! Not a penny shall you have from me—not a farthing—not a bean.”
“Then take back what I have already.”
Wynne’s hands dived into his trousers’ pockets and pulled out the linings. Two or three florins and a few odd pence tumbled to the floor and circled in all directions.
Something in the action deprived Mr. Rendall of the last of his self-control. Seizing the silver entrée dish he sent it hurtling through the lower pane of the dining-room window. It was the first time his temper had risen to such heights.
“Let in the air,” cried Wynne, with a note of hysteria, and picking up the pair of candlesticks from the mantelshelf he flung first one then the other through the remaining panes.
The south-west wind bellied the Nottingham lace curtains and stirred the feathers in the canary’s back.
“Twirrup,” he chirped, and hopping to the upper perch broke into a fine song of the palms that bow so statelily in the islands of the south.
“Get out!” said Mr. Rendall. “I’ve done with you—get out!”