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Next morning found Wynne ill and feverish. The mental excitement and bodily pain of the previous day had proved more than his constitution could endure. Wherefore he tossed in bed, lying chiefly on his side for obvious reasons. Mr. Rendall was thorough, of that there was no question. Wynne was able to reassure himself of his father’s thoroughness when he touched his small flank with tentative finger-tips.
As the fever burnt within him he felt mightily sorry for himself. The world had used him hardly when he sought to offer rare and wonderful gifts. That this should be so was a great tragedy—and a great mystery—also it was infinitely sad. The sadness appealed to him most, and he wept. He wept very copiously and for a long time. The weeping was a pleasant relief and a compensation for misery. He felt, if the world could behold his tears, they would assemble about his bedside and realize the injustice wrought by their deafness and stupidity—they would be compassionate and anxious to atone. Then, maybe, the great god of expression would provide him with the words to make his meaning clear. With this conviction he wept the louder, hoping to attract attention, but none came nigh him. Accordingly he wept afresh, and this time from disappointment. In the midst of this final mood of tears his brother, Wallace, came into the room.
Wallace had been privileged to see the state of the drawing-room, and although he knew Wynne’s features well enough, he felt the need to scrutinize afresh the appearance of one who had wilfully produced such havoc. The characteristic is common to humanity—a man’s deeds create a revival of interest in his externals, hence the success of Madame Tussaud’s and the halfpenny illustrated press.
At the sight of his brother, Wynne stopped crying, and composed himself to the best of his ability.
“What do you want?” he asked.
Wallace found some difficulty in replying. No one cares to admit they are visiting the Chamber of Horrors for pleasure, although that is the true explanation of their presence. At length he said:
“Shut up—” and added in support of his command, “you silly fool.”
“You needn’t stare at me if I’m a silly fool,” said Wynne.
“A cat may look at a king,” was Wallace’s considered retort.
“Well, I’d rather a cat looked at me than you did,” said Wynne, feeling he had nearly brought off something very telling.
Wallace’s intention had not been to excite an argument on reciprocal lines. He desired to get at his brother’s reasons for the wholesale smash-up downstairs, consequently he allowed the remark to pass unchallenged.
“Why did you break the overmantel and all those vases?” he demanded.
“Because they were beastly and ugly.”
“Beastly and ugly?”
“Yes, horrid—and there were two of each of them.”
Wallace began to feel out of his depth.
“But they were in the drawing-room,” he said.
Since the drawing-room in every house is, or should be, the abode of art, it was obviously absurd to say that the appointments thereof were beastly or ugly.
Wynne did not answer, so Wallace fell back on his beginnings.
“You must be a fool. Father gave you a good hiding, didn’t he?”
“Yes.”
“Did it hurt?”
“Yes.”
“I’ve never had a hiding.” There was rich pride in the avowal.
“You’ve never done anything worth getting one for.”
“Haven’t I? ’Tany rate, I bet you don’t behave like this again.”
“I bet I do,” said Wynne.
“When will you?” exclaimed Wallace, conscious of great excitement, and hoping that on the next occasion he might be privileged to witness the work of destruction in full swing.
“Not yet.”
Wallace hesitated. “What room will you smash up next time?” he asked.
“Oh, it isn’t for that,” cried Wynne, “you can’t see—nobody understands—”
“Then shut up,” said Wallace, and departed.
Strange as it may seem, this interview had great results in moulding Wynne Rendall’s character. From his brother’s obvious inability to realize any motive in his action, other than a wilful desire to destroy, he turned to an active consideration of what his motives had been.
What was this message he had wished to convey to the world, and had stumbled so hopelessly in endeavouring to express? It was the first time he had put the question directly to himself. He knew he had had a quarrel with many existing matters, but in what manner did he propose to better them? And the answer came that he did not know.
He had committed the very error against which Uncle Clem had warned him—the error of breaking down an old régime before he was able to supply an agreeable alternative. Small wonder, then, if his actions had savoured of lunacy to those who had beheld them. In imagination he pictured the drawing-room as it appeared after he had dealt with it, and was bound to confess that his labours had rendered no service to the shrine of comfort, art or beauty. Had he himself come suddenly upon such a room he would have been disgusted by its foolish and wanton disorder.
The revolution had been a failure—complete and utter. Sobriety had been dragged from his throne, and havoc and ruin reigned instead. Havoc and Ruin—deplorable monarchs both, of senseless countenance and destructive hands. Small wonder if their subjects struck at them with sticks and staves. Small wonder if they could not see the ideals that lay hidden behind the wreckage of the great upheaval.
The fact stood out clearly that his talents were not ripe. The time had not come when his song should thrill the world. But come it should, some day. To that end all his energies should be conserved. Yes, he would make the world a listener, but he would give it full measure for its attention, and even though each note should cut them as a knife—it should not be the gross stab of a maniac lurking in a dark doorway, but as the cut of a surgeon’s scalpel, who cuts to cure.
Wynne sat up in bed, although to do so caused him pain, and registered a vow that he would learn all there was to learn, whereby in the end he might teach the more.