William John Locke

“ The impulse driving them to nunnery, Whitechapel, or Caxton Hall has always been merely a reaction of sex; and the duration of the period of reaction is proportionate to the degree of brokenness of the heart. As soon as the heart is mended, sex has her triumphant way again and leaps in response to the eternal foolishness that the maiden blushes to read in the eyes of a comely creature in trousers. This Clementina knew, as all those—and only those—whose youth is behind them know it; and so, when Etta with an air of cold finality said that she had made up her mind, Clementina sighed. ”

“ Now there is a reason for most things, even for a parlour-maid’s tilt of the nose. The personal appearance of the guests would have tilted the nose of any self-respecting parlour-maid in Russell Square. They were a strange trio. All were shabby and out-at-elbows. All wore the insecure, apologetic collar which is one of the most curious badges of the down-at-heel. All bore on their faces the signs of privation and suffering; Huckaby, lantern-jawed, black-bearded and watery-eyed; Vandermeer, small, decrepit, pinched of feature, with crisp, sparse red hair and the bright eyes of a hungry wolf ”

“ Where could he find adequate wickedness? When he reached Charing Cross again it was dark and deserted. A square mile of London has every night about an hour of tearing, surging, hectic life. Then all of a sudden the thousands of folk are swept away to the four comers of the mighty city, and all is still. A woman, as Quixtus passed, quickened her pace and murmured words. Here was a partner in wickedness to his hand. But the flesh of the delicately fibred man revolted simultaneously with the thought. No. That did not come within his scheme of wickedness. ”

“ For all her cynical depreciation of her art, she was a portrait-painter of high rank, possessing the portrait-painter’s magical gift of getting at essentials, of splashing the very soul, miserable or noble, of the subject upon the canvas. She had a rough, brilliant method, direct and uncompromising as her speech. To see her at work was at once Tommy Burgrave’s delight and his despair. Had she been a young and pretty woman, his masculine vanity might have smarted. But Clementina, with her ugliness, gruffness, and untidiness, scarcely ranked as a woman in his disingenuous mind. ”

“ Quixtus opened the door for her to pass out and returned to his straight-backed chair. Tommy handed him a box of cigarettes.
“Won’t you smoke? I tried one cigarette to-day for the first time, but the beastly thing tasted horrid—just as if I were smoking oatmeal.”
Quixtus declined the cigarette. He remained silent; looking gloomily at the young, eager face which masked heaven knows what faithlessness and guile. Being in league with Clementina, whom he knew now was his enemy, Tommy was his enemy too. And yet, for the life of him, he could not carry out the malignant object of his visit. ”

“ They were halcyon days for Clementina. There were neglected portraits to complete, new sitters for whom to squeeze in appointments, a host of stimulating things, not the least of which was the beloved atmosphere, half-turpentine, half-poetry, of the studio. Only the painter can know the delight of the mere feel of the long-forsaken brush, and the sight of the blobs of colour oozing out from the tubes on to the palette. Most of us, returning to toil after holiday, sigh over departed joys. To the painter the joy of getting back to his easel is worth all the joys that have departed. ”

“ Huckaby bent forward, quivering, in his chair. “As there’s a God in Heaven, Quixtus, I wouldn’t accept a penny from you on those terms.”
“And why not?”
“Because I don’t want your money. I want to be put in a position to earn some honourably for myself. I want your help as a man, your sympathy as a human being. I want you to help me to live a clean, straight life. I kept the promise, the important promise I made you, ever since we started. You can’t say I haven’t. And since you left I’ve not touched a drop of alcohol—and, if you promise to help me, I swear to God I never will as long as I live. ”

“ But Quixtus remained for some time in the club deep in thought, scanning a newspaper with unseeing eyes. He had been injudicious in his conversation with Wonnacott. He had almost betrayed his secret. It behoved him to walk warily. In these days the successful serpent has to assume not only the voice, but the outer semblance and innocent manners of the dove. If he went crawling and hissing about the world, proclaiming his venomousness aloud like a rattle-snake, humanity would either avoid him altogether, or hit him over the head out of self-protection. ”

“ A vehement passionate nature is the easiest thing in the world to keep under control. A respectable piece of British tape ought to be strong enough leash for any tiger of the jungle.
That Clementina, ill-favoured and dour, should have given herself up, in the solitude of her room, to her intoxication is, no doubt, a matter for censure. It was mad and bad and sad, but it was sweet. It was human. The rare ones from whom no secrets of a woman’s pure heart are hid might say that it was divine. But the many who pity let them not grudge her hour of joy to a woman of barren life. ”

“ Of the former you have the Palais de Justice at Rouen—which everybody knows—and the west front of the Cathedral at Vendôme.”
“But I’ve just been to Vendôme!” cried Clementina. “That wonderful flamboyant window!”
“The last word of Gothic,” said Quixtus. “The funeral pyre of Gothic—that tracery—the whole thing is on fire—it’s all leaping flame—as if some God had said ‘Let this noble thing that is dead have a stupendous end.’ Vendôme always seems to me like the end of the Viking. They sent the hero away to sea in a blaze of fire.” ”

“ But when he gravely prescribed a large bath powder-puff for his uncle she upbraided him for making a jest of solemn things and dismissed him from her counsels. Her painting suffered from these inroads on her time and thoughts; but Clementina cared not. The happiness of the trustful men around her was of more consequence than the successful application of paint to canvas. Sometimes, sitting at the head of her table she would feel herself a mother to them all, and her lips would twist themselves into a new smile.
Her happiest hours were those which she spent alone with Sheila and Quixtus. ”

“ The indiscreet jesting of a friend, a tragedy causing both to come hard against the bed-rock facts of life, may shatter the guileless shell of their love. I know of two young things who came by the knowledge through bumping their heads together beneath a table while searching for a fallen penny. A shock, a jar is all that is needed. But with Tommy and Etta nothing yet had happened. They walked along together sweetly imagining themselves to be fancy-free. If the truth were known it would be found that the main subject of their conversation was Clementina. ”

“ Quixtus calmly repeated the last sentence. Vandermeer’s face went a shade paler. He wrung his hands, which were naturally damp, until they grew as bloodless as putty. He had never done any wanton harm in his life. All the meanness and sharp-dealing he had practised were but a poor devil’s shifts to fill an empty belly. Quixtus’s behest covered him with dismay. It was unexpected. It is one thing to suggest to a crazy and unpractical patron a theoretical fantasia of wickedness, and another to be commanded to put it oneself into execution. ”

“ It was during this visit of Clementina to the fairy bower in Cheyne Walk that Etta informed her of her intention of becoming a hospital nurse.
“Lord have mercy upon us!” cried Clementina.
“I don’t see why I shouldn’t,” said Etta.
“The idea is preposterous,” replied Clementina. “What need have you to work for your living?”
“I want to do something useful in the world.”
“You’ll do much better by remaining ornamental,” said Clementina. “It’s only when a woman is as ugly as sin and as poor as charity that she need be useful; that’s to say while she’s unmarried. ”

“ At the thronged cafés, too, men and women found comfort in the swelter of gregariousness. Night had fallen over the baking city, and the great thoroughfare blazed in light—from shop windows, cafés, street lamps, from the myriad whirling lamps of trams and motors. Above it all the full moon shone splendid from the intense sky of a summer night. Quixtus and the moon appeared to be the only lonely things in the Cannebière.
He wandered down to the quay and back again in ever-growing depression. He felt lost, an alien among this humanity that clung together for mutual happiness ”

“ For in his eyes these were proved to be essential qualities. Had they not been revealed to him, not by fitful gleams, but in one steady lurid glare, in the nature of those who had been nearest to him in the world—Angela, Will Hammersley, Marrable, Huckaby, Vandermeer, Billiter, Mathew Quixtus? If the same hell-streak ran through the souls of these, surely it must run through the souls of all the sons and daughters of Adam. Now here came the great puzzle. Why should he, Ephraim Quixtus, (as far as he could tell) vary from the unkindly race of man? ”

“ I am floundering in quicksands. The meaning of the earth has gone from me. I’m in a land of grotesques—shapes that mop and mow at me and have no reality. The things they do the human brain can’t conceive. They have been driving me mad, mad!” he cried, beating his head with his knuckles, “and yet I am sane now. Did you ever know what it was to be so sane that your soul was tortured with sanity? Oh, my God!”
He walked about the room quivering from the outburst. Clementina regarded him with amazed interest. This was a new, undreamed of Quixtus, a human creature that had passed through torment. ”

“ Clementina enjoyed a little triumph, the flush of which mounted to her dark face. With the flush, and in the setting she had prepared for herself, she looked radiant. Her late entrance had produced a dramatic effect; the immediate concentration of every one on her work, added to the commonplace of her reputation, had at once established her as the central figure in the room; and she sat as hostess at the foot of the table a symphony in ambergris, gold and black. Woman, in the use of woman’s weapons, has evolved no laws of fence. ”

“ Vandermeer,—You, who were an old friend of my husband’s in our better days and know how valiantly I have struggled to keep the home together, can’t you help me now? I am ill in bed, my children are starving. The little ones are lying now even too weak to cry out for bread. It would break a wolf’s heart to see them. If you can’t help me, for I know how things are with you, can’t you bring my case before your rich friend, Mr. Quixtus, of whose kindness and generosity you have so often spoken? ”

“ At the flash of the old Clementina, Tommy laughed.
“I’m not going to deny that there’s good in me. Why should I? If there wasn’t, I shouldn’t be here. You wouldn’t have asked me to be your companion,” he added quickly, fearing lest she might put a wrong construction on his words. “When a good woman does a man the honour of admitting him to her intimate companionship, he knows he’s good—and it makes him feel better.” ”

“ Voicelessness and wonder provoked an inarticulate wheeze like the spitting of a cat. The man was still gaping at the unaccustomed coin in his hand when the cab drove off. But Quixtus had not been many minutes on his way when a thought smote him like a sledge-hammer. He brought his fist down furiously on the leathern seat.
“What a fool! What a monumental fool I’ve been!” he cried.
He had just realised that the devil had offered him as pretty a little chance of sheer wickedness as could be met with on a May morning, which he had not taken. ”

“ To have Sheila all to herself, without let or hindrance from her impossible co-trustee! She was staggered by the sudden, swift temptation which struck at the roots of her unfulfilled womanhood. For a while she dallied with it deliciously.
“If it’s agreeable to you, I’ll decline to act,” said Quixtus, after the spell of silence.
Clementina strangled the serpent in a flash and cast it from her. To purchase happiness at the price of human infirmity? No. She would play squarely with life. Feminine instinct told her that the care of the child was needful for this weary man’s salvation. ”

“ And as soon as they were disengaged and Clementina turned to Lady Louisa, she felt the other’s swift glance travel from the soles of her feet to the rickety old rose in her hat. There are moments when sex gives a woman eyes in the back of her head. She turned round quickly and surprised the most elusive ghost of a smile imaginable. For the first time in her life Clementina felt herself at a disadvantage. ”

“ The telegram announcing Mathew Quixtus’s sudden death had brought a gleam of light into a soul which for a week had been black with misery. It awakened him to a sense of outer things. A sincere affection for the old man had been a lifelong habit. It was a shock to realise that he was no longer alive. Besides having always unconsciously taken a child’s view of death, he felt genuinely sorry, for his uncle’s sake, that he should have died. ”

“ I have very few friends,” she added with a sigh.
“If I am one, I esteem it a great honour,” said Quixtus.
“I wonder whether you’ll care to see me when you get back to Paris.”
“Will you still be here?”
“If you promise to stay a little while and finish up our holiday.”
He met her upturned alluring eyes. For all his visionary malignancy he was a man—and a man who never before had been in the hands of the seductress; an unaccustomed thrill ran through him, causing him to catch his breath.
“I promise,” said he huskily, “to stay here as long as it is your good pleasure.” ”

“ This paint-brush walloping—after all, what is it? What’s the good of painting these fools’ portraits?”
“Each of them is work of genius,” said Tommy.
“Rot and rubbish,” said Clementina. “Let me clear your mind of a lot of foolish nonsense you hear at your high-art tea-parties, where women drivel and talk of their mission in the world. A woman has only one mission; to marry and get babies. Keep that fact in front of you when you’re taking up with any of ’em. Genius! I can’t be a genius for the simple reason that I’m a woman. Did you ever hear of a man-mother? ”

“ Clementina staggered into the little garden; her brain reeling. She, who thought she had fathomed the depths of life, and, scornful of her knowledge thereof, rode serene on the surface, knew nothing. Nothing of the wolf instinct of man when hunger drives. Nothing of the degradation of a man when the drink fiend clutches at his throat. Lord! How sweet the air, even in this ridiculous little London garden, after the awful atmosphere of that beast of prey!
Quixtus! ”

“ The great train thundered on through the country which Clementina had traversed a month or so before with Tommy—Dijon, Macon, Lyons. . . . Things had changed since then. Then a sweet rejuvenescence had crept through her veins; then she had amused herself with the idea of being a lady. The towns, whose names shouted through the awful stillness of the stations otherwise only broken by the eerie clank of the wheel-testers’ hammers were now but abstract stages on her journey, then had a magical significance. . . . That must be Vienne through which they were dashing. ”