The Glory of Clementina Wing

by William John Locke

“The very best, but the most enigmatic woman in the world,” said he.

Which was a very sweeping statement for a man of his scientific accuracy.

Entirely ignorant of the word of the enigma, he went back to the spotless flower of insulted womanhood, who took him off to lunch with her French friends. She welcomed his undivided homage. That fishfag of a creature, as she characterised Clementina in conversation with Lady Louisa, made her feel uncomfortable. Even now that she had gone, the problem of Quixtus’s removal from her sphere of influence remained. The child was the stake to which he was fettered within that sphere. Could she break the chains? Therein seemed to lie the only solution—unless by audacity and adroitness she uprooted the stake and carried it, with Quixtus, chains and all, into her own territory.

She had a talk after lunch with Huckaby. The luncheon-party had broken up into groups of two or three, who wandered about the cool enclosure of the Bois de Boulogne restaurant where the feast had been given, and, half by chance, half by design, the two had joined company. Their conversation on the evening of Quixtus’s departure from Paris had deeply affected their mutual relations. Each felt conscious of presenting a less tarnished front to the other, and each, not hypocritically, began to assume a little halo of virtue in the pathetic hope that the other would be impressed by its growing radiance. During the few days of Quixtus’s absence they had become friends and exchanged confidences. Huckaby convinced her of the sincerity of his desire to reform. He described his life. He had worked when work came his way—but work has a curious habit of shrinking from the drunkard’s way; a bit of teaching, a bit of free-lance journalism, a bit of hack compilation in the British Museum; he had borrowed far and wide; he had not been over-scrupulous on the point of financial honour. Hunger had driven him. Lena Fontaine shivered at the horrors through which he had struggled. All he desired was cleanliness in life and body and surroundings. She understood. Material cleanliness had been and would be hers; but cleanliness of life she yearned for as much as he did. But for him, the man, with the given boon of honourable employment, it was an easy matter. For her, the woman, tired and soul-sick, what avenue lay open? She, in her turn, told him of incidents in her career at which he shuddered. “Throw it up, throw it up,” he counselled. She smiled bitterly. What could be the end of the bird of prey who assumed the habits of the dove? She could marry, he replied, before it was too late. Marry, ay! But whom? She had not dared confide to him her hope. So close, however, being their relations, Huckaby had not failed to acquaint her with the important scope of his conversation with Quixtus the day before. Quixtus’s changed demeanour, obvious to her at once, confirmed his announcement. She welcomed it with more joy than Huckaby could appreciate. For behind the pity that had paralysed beak and talon, the new-born hope and the curious liking she had conceived for the mild, crazy gentleman, stalked the instinctive aversion which the sane feel towards those whose wits have gone ever so little astray. The news had come as an immense relief. Now she could meet him on normal ground. All was fair.

They found two chairs by a little table under a tree, at the back of the Châlet Restaurant and secluded from the gaiety and laughter of the front. Nothing human was in sight save, through the tall, masking acacias and shrubs, the white gleams of cooks and hurrying, aproned waiters.

“Let us sit,” she said. “How good it is to get a little cool and quiet. This vie de cabaret is getting on my nerves. I’m weary to death of it.”

Huckaby laughed. “It’s still enough novelty to me to be pleasant.”

She accepted a cigarette. They smoked for a while.

“How’s goodness getting on?” she asked.

“By leaps and bounds daily. I’m becoming a fanatical believer in the copy-book. I’m virtuous. I’m happy. Industry is a virtue. My virtue is to be rewarded by industry. Therefore virtue is its own reward.”