At the Gate of Samaria

by William John Locke

CHAPTER XV.

A great writer has remarked, that between the acting of a dreadful thing and the first motion, all the interim is like a phantasma or a hideous dream, and that the state of man under those circumstances, like to a little kingdom, suffers the nature of an insurrection. Although the step that Clytie was about to take was not of the character that Brutus contemplated, it was sufficiently serious for the interval between her engagement and her marriage to be a time of great mental and moral upheaval. Her “genius and mortal instruments” had periods of fierce council, in which the latter always obtained turbulent victory. Dreading these inner conflicts, she shrank from introspection. When doubts began to creep over her she shook them off, and sat down and wrote letters to Thornton which she burned an hour or two afterwards. But it was only when she was alone in the studio hastily finishing the orders she had in hand, or during the few lonely evenings that she passed in her sitting-room, that these torturing misgivings arose. When Thornton was near she forgot that any had ever come to her. He overpowered her will and her senses, dominated her with a caressing word, a touch of the hand, a glance from the depths of his dark eyes. In the lucid intervals between these periods of dizzying surrender she did not recognise herself. It was almost as if some Morgan le Fay had cast around her a spell of woven paces, and changed her into she knew not what, while she saw the old Clytie fading like a dream-shape away. To women of finer temperament marriage looms shadowy, formless, a great enchanter that will change all things, deliver into their keeping the secrets of pain and delight. But to Clytie it was something less and something more. Its material responsibilities were less of a mystery to her than to most girls of her age, owing to the peculiarities of her self-training; but its spiritual and moral results were hidden from her in a cloud, denser, more lurid, more extensive. She loved Hammerdyke, not indeed as she would have loved Kent had he made one little effort to turn the wavering friendship into love—for then passion would have been finely tempered with tenderness, trust, and generous sympathy; but still certain chords of her nature vibrated fully in response to the touch of the man she was about to marry. The one might have, as it were, awakened the full organ, but the single diapason that was pulled rang out none the less true.

During the short period of their engagement Hammerdyke was unceasing in tokens of his love. It was the nature of the man to throw his whole being into the delight or danger of the moment. Many a woman who cares lukewarmly, perhaps reluctantly, is fired with a gratitude akin to love by unending, passionate devotion. All the more responsive is the woman of full blood and emotional temperament who already cares greatly. Thornton gave Clytie no reason to doubt his affection; if anything, he frightened her by its excess. She yielded to him in all things, sometimes half dreamily, indifferently, without regret and without sweetness; sometimes the surrender was infinite joy.

In one matter, however, she was called upon to exercise her will: Thornton did not care how or where the marriage was performed. A man loathes weddings, particularly his own. It is only the barbarian that lingers, as people say, in the heart of woman that demands ceremonies and pomps and vanities; a man, finer in some things, strangely enough, sees a certain indelicacy in the brazen publicity of the wedding rites. True, this view never presented itself to Thornton, who merely wanted to call Clytie his own and looked upon the formality of the marriage bond as a necessary nuisance, but it came vividly to Clytie, and caused her, as she was called upon to decide in the matter, to choose as quiet a wedding as possible. She shrank with repugnance from the meaningless ordeal of bridesmaids, favours, and a wedding-breakfast. It was only in deference to Durdleham susceptibilities that she did not entertain the idea of a civil marriage before a registrar.

The announcement of her engagement caused a flutter of excitement in the family. Mrs. Blather and Janet could not understand a girl's art life, but they could understand a wedding. They settled it between themselves that Clytie and her fiancé should come down to Durdleham to be there married in the orthodox fashion. They had already drawn up a list of guests and a scheme of wedding arrangements when a letter arrived from Clytie saying that she was to be married almost immediately, and that on no account could the ceremony take place at Durdleham. The sisters were disappointed. Mrs. Blather remonstrated, adding arguments and entreaties that brought tears of desperation to Clytie's eyes. She hated the thought of willingly giving pain to her father and sisters, but a family ceremony was more than she could bear. By trying to explain the inexplicable she made matters worse. If Mrs. Blather and Janet had failed to understand her simple needs of a free, untrammelled girlish life, how could they unravel the tangled complexities involving her repugnance to their proposals? At last she wrote that the day was definitely fixed, and that if her sisters would not come to town, no one but her friends the Farquharsons and Winifred would be present at the ceremony. To journey up to London for the purpose of standing in a bleak, empty church on a dismal March morning just to see Clytie married in a travelling dress was a prospect not pleasing enough to be entertained. The sisters resigned themselves with a sigh to circumstances and to a catalogue of Clytie's eccentricities from her earliest years. Mrs. Blather sent Clytie a pair of silver candlesticks, Janet sent her a tea-service, and old Mr. Davenant, who had been courteously addressed by Hammerdyke on the subject of the marriage, sent her a check for one hundred pounds. And that ended the matter.

Winifred spent the night before the marriage with Clytie.

“Do come, Winnie dear,” the latter had said. “I shall be so lonely and miserable.”

So Winnie came like a spirit of peace, and the two girls cried a little in each other's arms, and it was the weaker who comforted the stronger.

“I shall keep on the studio,” said Winifred,—“I am getting quite rich, you know,—and then you can come sometimes and take off your things and make believe to be back again. And I shall come and see you in your big house—if you will tell your big husband not to frighten me away.”

“You will always be my own sweet Winnie,” said Clytie tenderly, “and you will always get the very best out of me even if I change utterly to everybody else.”