At the Gate of Samaria

by William John Locke

And blundering John Kent misread the oracle, accepting it as a reproach for brotherly unkindness.

Meanwhile Clytie's “own” picture of the model Jack was developing into a more finished and more ambitious work than she had originally intended. On Kent's suggestion she had toned down some of its brutality without rendering less vivid the presentation of the problem. She thought of trying to exhibit the picture when it was completed; Jack therefore continued to appear in the studio at irregular intervals. Winifred encouraged him now, trying to humanise him with picture-books, stories, and simple talk, but Clytie shook her head at her gentle friend's efforts, conceiving them, with her fuller and more materialistic knowledge, to be entirely futile. Still Winifred obtained from him more details of what Clytie called his private life than she herself could do. With both of them he was fierce and sullen, but with Winifred he was more cynically expansive. These details only supplemented the data afforded by his own personality. Sometimes he went to the board school, where he was in the third standard; oftener he stayed away. He slept in his mother's room, ate his desultory food there with the fierceness of a young wolf; but his real home was in the street. Once he had been given a situation as satellite to a thriving costermonger, but the restraints of regular employment had chafed him into resignation of his post. Besides, his employer had thrashed him unmercifully. As for his parentage, he was entirely ignorant; he did not care. To his mind it was a merciful dispensation of Providence that he only had one parent to irritate and annoy him. He liked to come to the studio because it was warm and comfortable, besides which he obtained a shilling at the end of the day to be expended on inferior tobacco when together with his playmates.

One morning, earlier than usual, he slouched up the stairs and, contrary to custom, found the studio door open and the apartment empty. He entered, swinging the door with him, which, being caught by the draught from an open skylight, slammed with sudden violence. If he had heard the quick rattle of a falling door-knob, his subsequent conduct would doubtless have been modified. He was alone in the studio; he waited idly, lying in front of the stove; but as no one came, he began to feel restless. He rose to his feet, wandered about, shut the skylight, examined the contents of the studio. He found a packet of cigarettes lying about, which he pocketed; an investigation of the cupboard in the wall rewarded him with some lumps of sugar and some sweet biscuits. Still no one came, which was not extraordinary, as his employer had not yet thought of breakfasting. No further resources being offered to his predatory instincts, he proceeded to look at the pictures, with which he had already a contemptuous familiarity. The only one for which he had a genuine admiration, or rather the barbarian's feeling of awe at any counterfeit presentment of himself, was his own portrait. At this he seldom tired of looking.

He took down from the wall a little painted mirror, and, sitting on the stool in front of the picture, proceeded to compare the original and the portrait. He saw that the resemblance was not quite perfect, and like a monkey he grimaced into the looking-glass until he had reproduced the expression that Clytie had fixed upon the canvas. Then he laughed in great glee, scratched his black curly head, and went in quest of further occupation. He crossed over to Winifred's easel and took off the cloth. He had no great idea of “the other one's” picture. It did not interest him. But, unfortunately, in his simian mood, an idea shot through his mind. Why should he not try to paint too?

He mounted upon Winifred's seat, took her palette in his hand as he had seen her hold it, with his small, dirty thumb through the hole in the white porcelain, gathered the little sheaf of brushes, arranged the mahl-stick imitatively, and, dipping a brush into the remains of some Chinese white, tried to fill in some anemones. They were only splotches of white paint, but the occupation absorbed him. In a very few moments the whole canvas was starred with Jack's white dabs. Then, growing tired of the monotony of white,—the colours on the palette did not attract him,—he fetched Clytie's, which was more richly prepared, and painted in strokes of crimson and yellow. The delight of colour fascinated him. He obliterated all the white, daubed the canvas over and over with heavy streaks, laughing aloud with the spirit of diabolical mischief. Then, with a fox terrier's or a monkey's instinct of destruction, he took up the palette-knife and stabbed holes through the canvas.

He contemplated his work for a moment, and then, the very human anticipation of consequences occurring to his mind, he bethought himself of flight. But, to his dismay, he found the door-handle had fallen off when the door had slammed, and that he was a prisoner until someone should open it from outside. He paused for a moment in the middle of the room, reflecting. Then he covered up his handiwork carefully with a cloth, scrupulously replaced the palettes and brushes, and curled himself up in his usual doglike attitude by the stove, there to await events.

After a time there came a rattle of the knob-screw being fitted into the vacant hole in the lock, which made his heart beat, and Clytie entered the room humming a song. She was surprised to find him there, and elicited a monosyllabic explanation of his presence. She was in a good humour and talked lightly to him as she moved about the studio, changing the water of some flowers. The errand-boy from the shop below came up with Winnie's anemones that had been put in a cool place over night to keep them fresh one day longer. Clytie set them on the stand beside Winifred's easel. Jack watched her, looked at the door, measuring the distance.

“Where are you going?” Clytie asked sharply as she turned round and caught him stealing across the room.

He was terribly afraid of her. Those great dark blue eyes seemed to command him. He never could meet them with his own. He relapsed doggedly into his position by the stove. Clytie touched the anemones daintily, picking some faded leaves, still humming her song. In lightness of heart she took off the cloth to look at Winnie's work, and then fell back with a cry of horror and anger. A swift glance at Jack brought her knowledge.

“You little fiend!” she cried with eyes aflame, and catching the cowering, sullen urchin by the collar of shirt and jacket, she dragged him out of the studio, on to the landing.