At the Gate of Samaria

by William John Locke

Clytie waited, but the subject did not come. Meanwhile she had her hands full with orders, both for pictures and for magazine illustrations. Her life was full, as far as work could make it. Winifred came regularly to the studio, as usual, cheering her with sweet companionship. She had spent her summer holiday at the seaside, treating out of her own purse her two little brothers to a holiday. She came back with glowing reminiscences of her adventures, the humorous naughtinesses of the children, the odds and ends of character she had met with. Her only regret was that her dear Clytie had not been there too.

“I should have thrown those horrid children, Reggie and Arthur, into the sea!” exclaimed Clytie.

“Oh, no, you wouldn't. They simply adore you. They are nice children, aren't they, now?”

“You little goose!” cried Clytie, kissing the warm brown cheek. “They are like you, the sweetest little children in the world. When are they coming to tea?”

These teas in the studio were red-letter days for Winifred's brothers and sisters. They worshipped Clytie, who had keen sympathy with the unconventionalities of childhood. She made grotesque caricatures of them, at which they screamed with laughter, or sat on the hearthrug with them and talked the nonsense that bright children love. Their joy was complete if Kent came in. They called him “Kent,” took complete possession of him, presented him to Clytie as a pet trifle they carried about with them. He, too, was fond of these debauches, and seldom missed attending them if he could leave the Museum in time. He loved to see Clytie take her part in them. She seemed to him even more sweet and womanly than Winifred when she had a child on her lap, and her dark red hair was touching the black ruffled curls. He told her so one day, and the colour came into her cheeks as she laughed.

Another occasional visitor in the studio was Treherne, the young clergyman whom Clytie had met at the Farquharson's numismatic dinner-party. Kent and herself had run across him at a Bond Street gallery where some paintings by the impressionists Degas and Monet were on view. He was looking ill and overworked. He replied to their inquiries that he had been forced to give up his North London parish and take lighter duties near Victoria. As he lived in her neighbourhood, he hoped that Clytie would allow him to call one day and see her pictures; “Jack” at the exhibition had aroused his admiration. Clytie readily gave him her “day,” when Miss Marchpane and herself were at home to their friends, and hoped he would come. He called, found a certain charm in the bright talk of the studio, exhilarating after the dull rounds among his parishioners, and soon became a constant visitor. Perhaps the charm of a pair of soft brown eyes attracted him more than he thought of confessing. Towards the end of the year, however, he bought, through a dealer, two of Winifred's dainty pictures.

The days shortened, the painting light grew less and less, and the time came for Clytie to pay her Christmas visit to Durdleham. She had not been there for a year, and her heart longed at times for the familiar faces and the voices of her own kith and kin. She thought that, perhaps, now she had grown older, her father and sisters would think her mode of life less unnatural, less likely to result in moral shipwreck. The letters, too, she had been receiving from them lately were kinder, more affectionate in tone. Mrs. Blather longed to have her dear Clytie back amongst them once more, and Janet wrote touchingly of the vacant chair at the dinner table. Clytie anticipated much quiet pleasure from her visit. The need of an attitude of rebellion was past, and she could throw herself lovingly, with no fear of compromising her independence, into all the mild interests of the household. There were times when a tenderer, softer chord vibrated in her heart, suggesting sadly the sweetness of home and loved family ties. She was human, with the foolish human craving for things that are not. She could not abandon her free artistic life; but if she could fill it with gentler, softer graces! In these moods she clung to Winifred, loving her for this element of sweet womanliness she brought into the rooms in the King's Road that were her home. It was with this range of feelings uppermost in her heart that she went to Durdleham.

For the first few days after Clytie's departure Kent laboured honestly and doggedly in his old way. But gradually he began to feel a lack of interest in his pursuits, to be vaguely conscious that the conditions of things were upset, and then he wished that Clytie had not gone.

One evening he was sitting in his room with a litter of proof-sheets lying idly before him. He felt depressed. It was a new sensation. It puzzled him, annoyed him, made him angry with himself, like a man's first unsuspected attack of the gout. He rose and walked about. His fire had nearly gone out, his lamp had been flaring and the room was filled with its acrid smoke. He could not open the window, for the sleet and rain were beating against the panes. He stopped for a moment watching the water dribble outside down the glass. Then he turned away impatiently, seeking solace from his book-backs and pictures. But they seemed to look back upon him unsympathetically, as if reproaching him for the bare floor, the untidy dresser, and the cheerless hearth. He rekindled his fire, filled a pipe, and sat down to think.

Kent was not given to introspection. His external interests in life were too engrossing for him to think deeply or continuously about himself. Such a habit of mind he used vehemently to deprecate as morbid, egotistical. But now this strange depression, this vague sense of loss, compelled him to account for it to his reason. He began in a sober, materialistic way to review his general health (there are philosophers amongst us who refer all moods to the liver, not looking upon it, however, like the ancients, as the seat of the affections!), to question some little disappointments he had had with regard to his great work, and to dwell upon the futility of existence—the suggestion of which he should have been logical enough to see was the result and not the cause of his state of mind. But he was not logical. Few men are when the great facts of inner life are in question; for in the course of logic “none of us would see salvation,” as far as this world's happiness is concerned. Gradually a truth dawned upon him. He missed the ever-ready companionship he had enjoyed for nearly a year. He missed Clytie. He found that for the first time in his life since he was a baby he had been depending for something on a woman. He had never realised until then the strength of that unknown subtle influence, the withdrawal of which left him so weak, so unable to put forth all his powers. At first he thought that it was merely the abrupt interruption of pleasant habits, the sudden jerk out of a well-oiled groove. Telling himself he was satisfied with this solution, he resolutely went back to his writing and began to correct his proof-sheets. But gradually his attention wandered again. These sudden impulses to work against the grain soon spend themselves out and produce greater lassitude than before.