IX
Across the Front Quadrangle, heedless of the great crowd to right andleft, Dorset rushed. Up the stone steps to the Hall he bounded, andonly on the Hall's threshold was he brought to a pause. The doorwaywas blocked by the backs of youths who had by hook and crook securedstanding-room. The whole scene was surprisingly unlike that of theaverage College concert.
"Let me pass," said the Duke, rather breathlessly. "Thank you. Make wayplease. Thanks." And with quick-pulsing heart he made his way down theaisle to the front row. There awaited him a surprise that was like adouche of cold water full in his face. Zuleika was not there! It hadnever occurred to him that she herself might not be punctual.
The Warden was there, reading his programme with an air of greatsolemnity. "Where," asked the Duke, "is your grand-daughter?" His tonewas as of a man saying "If she is dead, don't break it gently to me."
"My grand-daughter?" said the Warden. "Ah, Duke, good evening."
"She's not ill?"
"Oh no, I think not. She said something about changing the dress shewore at dinner. She will come." And the Warden thanked his young friendfor the great kindness he had shown to Zuleika. He hoped the Duke hadnot let her worry him with her artless prattle. "She seems to be a good,amiable girl," he added, in his detached way.
Sitting beside him, the Duke looked curiously at the venerable profile,as at a mummy's. To think that this had once been a man! To think thathis blood flowed in the veins of Zuleika! Hitherto the Duke had seennothing grotesque in him--had regarded him always as a dignifiedspecimen of priest and scholar. Such a life as the Warden's, yearfollowing year in ornamental seclusion from the follies and fusses ofthe world, had to the Duke seemed rather admirable and enviable. Oftenhe himself had (for a minute or so) meditated taking a fellowship at AllSouls and spending here in Oxford the greater part of his life. He hadnever been young, and it never had occurred to him that the Warden hadbeen young once. To-night he saw the old man in a new light--saw thathe was mad. Here was a man who--for had he not married and begotten achild?--must have known, in some degree, the emotion of love. How, afterthat, could he have gone on thus, year by year, rusting among hisbooks, asking no favour of life, waiting for death without a sign ofimpatience? Why had he not killed himself long ago? Why cumbered he theearth?
On the dais an undergraduate was singing a song entitled "She Loves NotMe." Such plaints are apt to leave us unharrowed. Across the footlightsof an opera-house, the despair of some Italian tenor in red tights anda yellow wig may be convincing enough. Not so, at a concert, the despairof a shy British amateur in evening dress. The undergraduate on thedais, fumbling with his sheet of music while he predicted that only whenhe were "laid within the church-yard cold and grey" would his ladybegin to pity him, seemed to the Duke rather ridiculous; but not half soridiculous as the Warden. This fictitious love-affair was less nugatorythan the actual humdrum for which Dr. Dobson had sold his soul to thedevil. Also, little as one might suspect it, the warbler was perhapsexpressing a genuine sentiment. Zuleika herself, belike, was in histhoughts.
As he began the second stanza, predicting that when his lady died toothe angels of heaven would bear her straight to him, the audience hearda loud murmur, or subdued roar, outside the Hall. And after a few barsthe warbler suddenly ceased, staring straight in front of him as thoughhe saw a vision. Automatically, all heads veered in the direction of hisgaze. From the entrance, slowly along the aisle, came Zuleika, brilliantin black.
To the Duke, who had rapturously risen, she nodded and smiled asshe swerved down on the chair beside him. She looked to him somehowdifferent. He had quite forgiven her for being late: her mere presencewas a perfect excuse. And the very change in her, though he could notdefine it, was somehow pleasing to him. He was about to questionher, but she shook her head and held up to her lips a black-glovedforefinger, enjoining silence for the singer, who, with dogged Britishpluck, had harked back to the beginning of the second stanza. When histask was done and he shuffled down from the dais, he received a greatovation. Zuleika, in the way peculiar to persons who are in the habit ofappearing before the public, held her hands well above the level ofher brow, and clapped them with a vigour demonstrative not less of herpresence than of her delight.
"And now," she asked, turning to the Duke, "do you see? do you see?"
"Something, yes. But what?"
"Isn't it plain?" Lightly she touched the lobe of her left ear. "Aren'tyou flattered?"
He knew now what made the difference. It was that her little face wasflanked by two black pearls.
"Think," said she, "how deeply I must have been brooding over you sincewe parted!"
"Is this really," he asked, pointing to the left ear-ring, "the pearlyou wore to-day?"
"Yes. Isn't it strange? A man ought to be pleased when a woman goesquite unconsciously into mourning for him--goes just because she reallydoes mourn him."
"I am more than pleased. I am touched. When did the change come?"
"I don't know. I only noticed it after dinner, when I saw myself in themirror. All through dinner I had been thinking of you and of--well, ofto-morrow. And this dear sensitive pink pearl had again expressed mysoul. And there was I, in a yellow gown with green embroideries, gayas a jacamar, jarring hideously on myself. I covered my eyes and rushedupstairs, rang the bell and tore my things off. My maid was very cross."
Cross! The Duke was shot through with envy of one who was in a positionto be unkind to Zuleika. "Happy maid!" he murmured. Zuleika replied thathe was stealing her thunder: hadn't she envied the girl at his lodgings?"But I," she said, "wanted only to serve you in meekness. The idea ofever being pert to you didn't enter into my head. You show a side ofyour character as unpleasing as it was unforeseen."
"Perhaps then," said the Duke, "it is as well that I am going to die."She acknowledged his rebuke with a pretty gesture of penitence. "Youmay have been faultless in love," he added; "but you would not have laiddown your life for me."
"Oh," she answered, "wouldn't I though? You don't know me. That is justthe sort of thing I should have loved to do. I am much more romanticthan you are, really. I wonder," she said, glancing at his breast, "ifYOUR pink pearl would have turned black? And I wonder if YOU would havetaken the trouble to change that extraordinary coat you are wearing?"
In sooth, no costume could have been more beautifully Cimmerian thanZuleika's. And yet, thought the Duke, watching her as the concertproceeded, the effect of her was not lugubrious. Her darkness shone.The black satin gown she wore was a stream of shifting high-lights.Big black diamonds were around her throat and wrists, and tiny blackdiamonds starred the fan she wielded. In her hair gleamed a greatraven's wing. And brighter, brighter than all these were her eyes.Assuredly no, there was nothing morbid about her. Would one even(wondered the Duke, for a disloyal instant) go so far as to say she washeartless? Ah no, she was merely strong. She was one who could tread thetragic plane without stumbling, and be resilient in the valley of theshadow. What she had just said was no more than the truth: she wouldhave loved to die for him, had he not forfeited her heart. She wouldhave asked no tears. That she had none to shed for him now, that she didbut share his exhilaration, was the measure of her worthiness to havethe homage of his self-slaughter.
"By the way," she whispered, "I want to ask one little favour of you.Will you, please, at the last moment to-morrow, call out my name in aloud voice, so that every one around can hear?"
"Of course I will."
"So that no one shall ever be able to say it wasn't for me that youdied, you know."
"May I use simply your Christian name?"
"Yes, I really don't see why you shouldn't--at such a moment."
"Thank you." His face glowed.
Thus did they commune, these two, radiant without and within. And behindthem, throughout the Hall, the undergraduates craned their necks fora glimpse. The Duke's piano solo, which was the last item in the firsthalf of the programme, was eagerly awaited. Already, whispered firstfrom the lips of Oo
ver and the others who had come on from the Junta,the news of his resolve had gone from ear to ear among the men. He, forhis part, had forgotten the scene at the Junta, the baleful effect ofhis example. For him the Hall was a cave of solitude--no one there butZuleika and himself. Yet almost, like the late Mr. John Bright, he heardin the air the beating of the wings of the Angel of Death. Not awfulwings; little wings that sprouted from the shoulders of a rosy andblindfold child. Love and Death--for him they were exquisitely one. Andit seemed to him, when his turn came to play, that he floated, ratherthan walked, to the dais.
He had not considered what he would play tonight. Nor, maybe, was heconscious now of choosing. His fingers caressed the keyboard vaguely;and anon this ivory had voice and language; and for its master, and forsome of his hearers, arose a vision. And it was as though in delicateprocession, very slowly, listless with weeping, certain figures passedby, hooded, and drooping forasmuch as by the loss of him whom they werefollowing to his grave their own hold on life had been loosened. Hehad been so beautiful and young. Lo, he was but a burden to be carriedhence, dust to be hidden out of sight. Very slowly, very wretchedly theywent by. But, as they went, another feeling, faint at first, an all butimperceptible current, seemed to flow through the procession and nowone, now another of the mourners would look wanly up, with cast-backhood, as though listening; and anon all were listening on their way,first in wonder, then in rapture; for the soul of their friend wassinging to them: they heard his voice, but clearer and more blithe thanthey had ever known it--a voice etherealised by a triumph of joy thatwas not yet for them to share. But presently the voice receded, itsechoes dying away into the sphere whence it came. It ceased; and themourners were left alone again with their sorrow, and passed on allunsolaced, and drooping, weeping.
Soon after the Duke had begun to play, an invisible figure came andstood by and listened; a frail man, dressed in the fashion of 1840; theshade of none other than Frederic Chopin. Behind whom, a moment later,came a woman of somewhat masculine aspect and dominant demeanour,mounting guard over him, and, as it were, ready to catch him if he fell.He bowed his head lower and lower, he looked up with an ecstasy moreand more intense, according to the procedure of his Marche Funebre. Andamong the audience, too, there was a bowing and uplifting of heads, justas among the figures of the mourners evoked. Yet the head of the playerhimself was all the while erect, and his face glad and serene. Noblysensitive as was his playing of the mournful passages, he smiledbrilliantly through them.
And Zuleika returned his gaze with a smile not less gay. She was notsure what he was playing. But she assumed that it was for her, and thatthe music had some reference to his impending death. She was one of thepeople who say "I don't know anything about music really, but I knowwhat I like." And she liked this; and she beat time to it with her fan.She thought her Duke looked very handsome. She was proud of him. Strangethat this time yesterday she had been wildly in love with him! Strange,too, that this time to-morrow he would be dead! She was immensely gladshe had saved him this afternoon. To-morrow! There came back to her whathe had told her about the omen at Tankerton, that stately home: "On theeve of the death of a Duke of Dorset, two black owls come always andperch on the battlements. They remain there through the night, hooting.At dawn they fly away, none knows whither." Perhaps, thought she, atthis very moment these two birds were on the battlements.
The music ceased. In the hush that followed it, her applause rang sharpand notable. Not so Chopin's. Of him and his intense excitement none buthis companion was aware. "Plus fin que Pachmann!" he reiterated, wavinghis arms wildly, and dancing.
"Tu auras une migraine affreuse. Rentrons, petit coeur!" said GeorgeSand, gently but firmly.
"Laisse-moi le saluer," cried the composer, struggling in her grasp.
"Demain soir, oui. Il sera parmi nous," said the novelist, as shehurried him away. "Moi aussi," she added to herself, "je me promets unbeau plaisir en faisant la connaissance de ce jeune homme."
Zuleika was the first to rise as "ce jeune homme" came down from thedais. Now was the interval between the two parts of the programme.There was a general creaking and scraping of pushed-back chairs as theaudience rose and went forth into the night. The noise aroused fromsleep the good Warden, who, having peered at his programme, complimentedthe Duke with old-world courtesy and went to sleep again. Zuleika,thrusting her fan under one arm, shook the player by both hands. Also,she told him that she knew nothing about music really, but that sheknew what she liked. As she passed with him up the aisle, she said thisagain. People who say it are never tired of saying it.
Outside, the crowd was greater than ever. All the undergraduates fromall the Colleges seemed now to be concentrated in the great FrontQuadrangle of Judas. Even in the glow of the Japanese lanterns that hungaround in honour of the concert, the faces of the lads looked a littlepale. For it was known by all now that the Duke was to die. Even whilethe concert was in progress, the news had spread out from the Hall,through the thronged doorway, down the thronged steps, to the confinesof the crowd. Nor had Oover and the other men from the Junta made anysecret of their own determination. And now, as the rest saw Zuleikayet again at close quarters, and verified their remembrance of her, thehalf-formed desire in them to die too was hardened to a vow.
You cannot make a man by standing a sheep on its hind-legs. But bystanding a flock of sheep in that position you can make a crowd of men.If man were not a gregarious animal, the world might have achieved, bythis time, some real progress towards civilisation. Segregate him, andhe is no fool. But let him loose among his fellows, and he is lost--hebecomes just an unit in unreason. If any one of the undergraduates hadmet Miss Dobson in the desert of Sahara, he would have fallen in lovewith her; but not one in a thousand of them would have wished to diebecause she did not love him. The Duke's was a peculiar case. For him tofall in love was itself a violent peripety, bound to produce a violentupheaval; and such was his pride that for his love to be unrequitedwould naturally enamour him of death. These other, these quite ordinary,young men were the victims less of Zuleika than of the Duke's example,and of one another. A crowd, proportionately to its size, magnifies allthat in its units pertains to the emotions, and diminishes all that inthem pertains to thought. It was because these undergraduates were acrowd that their passion for Zuleika was so intense; and it was becausethey were a crowd that they followed so blindly the lead given to them.To die for Miss Dobson was "the thing to do." The Duke was going to doit. The Junta was going to do it. It is a hateful fact, but we must facethe fact, that snobbishness was one of the springs to the tragedy herechronicled.
We may set to this crowd's credit that it refrained now from followingZuleika. Not one of the ladies present was deserted by her escort. Allthe men recognised the Duke's right to be alone with Zuleika now. We mayset also to their credit that they carefully guarded the ladies from allknowledge of what was afoot.
Side by side, the great lover and his beloved wandered away, beyond thelight of the Japanese lanterns, and came to Salt Cellar.
The moon, like a gardenia in the night's button-hole--but no! why shoulda writer never be able to mention the moon without likening her tosomething else--usually something to which she bears not the faintestresemblance?... The moon, looking like nothing whatsoever but herself,was engaged in her old and futile endeavour to mark the hours correctlyon the sun-dial at the centre of the lawn. Never, except once, late onenight in the eighteenth century, when the toper who was Sub-Warden hadspent an hour in trying to set his watch here, had she received theslightest encouragement. Still she wanly persisted. And this was themore absurd in her because Salt Cellar offered very good scope for thoselegitimate effects of hers which we one and all admire. Was it nothingto her to have cut those black shadows across the cloisters? Wasit nothing to her that she so magically mingled her rays with thecandle-light shed forth from Zuleika's bedroom? Nothing, that shehad cleansed the lawn of all its colour, and made of it a platform ofsilver-grey, fit for fairies to dance on?
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br /> If Zuleika, as she paced the gravel path, had seen how transfigured--hownobly like the Tragic Muse--she was just now, she could not have gone onbothering the Duke for a keepsake of the tragedy that was to be.
She was still set on having his two studs. He was still firm in hisrefusal to misappropriate those heirlooms. In vain she pointed out tohim that the pearls he meant, the white ones, no longer existed; thatthe pearls he was wearing were no more "entailed" than if he had gotthem yesterday. "And you actually DID get them yesterday," she said."And from me. And I want them back."
"You are ingenious," he admitted. "I, in my simple way, am but head ofthe Tanville-Tankerton family. Had you accepted my offer of marriage,you would have had the right to wear these two pearls during yourlife-time. I am very happy to die for you. But tamper with the propertyof my successor I cannot and will not. I am sorry," he added.
"Sorry!" echoed Zuleika. "Yes, and you were 'sorry' you couldn't dinewith me to-night. But any little niggling scruple is more to you than Iam. What old maids men are!" And viciously with her fan she struck oneof the cloister pillars.
Her outburst was lost on the Duke. At her taunt about his not diningwith her, he had stood still, clapping one hand to his brow. The eventsof the early evening swept back to him--his speech, its unforeseen andhorrible reception. He saw again the preternaturally solemn face ofOover, and the flushed faces of the rest. He had thought, as he pointeddown to the abyss over which he stood, these fellows would recoil,and pull themselves together. They had recoiled, and pulled themselvestogether, only in the manner of athletes about to spring. He wasresponsible for them. His own life was his to lose: others he mustnot squander. Besides, he had reckoned to die alone, unique; aloft andapart... "There is something--something I had forgotten," he said toZuleika, "something that will be a great shock to you"; and he gave heran outline of what had passed at the Junta.
"And you are sure they really MEANT it?" she asked in a voice thattrembled.
"I fear so. But they were over-excited. They will recant their folly. Ishall force them to."
"They are not children. You yourself have just been calling them 'men.'Why should they obey you?"
She turned at sound of a footstep, and saw a young man approaching. Hewore a coat like the Duke's, and in his hand he dangled a handkerchief.He bowed awkwardly, and, holding out the handkerchief, said to her "Ibeg your pardon, but I think you dropped this. I have just picked itup."
Zuleika looked at the handkerchief, which was obviously a man's, andsmilingly shook her head.
"I don't think you know The MacQuern," said the Duke, with sulky grace."This," he said to the intruder, "is Miss Dobson."
"And is it really true," asked Zuleika, retaining The MacQuern's hand,"that you want to die for me?"
Well, the Scots are a self-seeking and a resolute, but a shy, race;swift to act, when swiftness is needed, but seldom knowing quite what tosay. The MacQuern, with native reluctance to give something for nothing,had determined to have the pleasure of knowing the young lady for whomhe was to lay down his life; and this purpose he had, by the simplestratagem of his own handkerchief, achieved. Nevertheless, in answer toZuleika's question, and with the pressure of her hand to inspire him,the only word that rose to his lips was "Ay" (which may be roughlytranslated as "Yes").
"You will do nothing of the sort," interposed the Duke.
"There," said Zuleika, still retaining The MacQuern's hand, "you see, itis forbidden. You must not defy our dear little Duke. He is not used toit. It is not done."
"I don't know," said The MacQuern, with a stony glance at the Duke,"that he has anything to do with the matter."
"He is older and wiser than you. More a man of the world. Regard him asyour tutor."
"Do YOU want me not to die for you?" asked the young man.
"Ah, _I_ should not dare to impose my wishes on you," said she, droppinghis hand. "Even," she added, "if I knew what my wishes were. And Idon't. I know only that I think it is very, very beautiful of you tothink of dying for me."
"Then that settles it," said The MacQuern.
"No, no! You must not let yourself be influenced by ME. Besides, I amnot in a mood to influence anybody. I am overwhelmed. Tell me," shesaid, heedless of the Duke, who stood tapping his heel on the ground,with every manifestation of disapproval and impatience, "tell me, is ittrue that some of the other men love me too, and--feel as you do?"
The MacQuern said cautiously that he could answer for no one buthimself. "But," he allowed, "I saw a good many men whom I know, outsidethe Hall here, just now, and they seemed to have made up their minds."
"To die for me? To-morrow?"
"To-morrow. After the Eights, I suppose; at the same time as the Duke.It wouldn't do to leave the races undecided."
"Of COURSE not. But the poor dears! It is too touching! I have donenothing, nothing to deserve it."
"Nothing whatsoever," said the Duke drily.
"Oh HE," said Zuleika, "thinks me an unredeemed brute; just because Idon't love him. YOU, dear Mr. MacQuern--does one call you 'Mr.'? 'The'would sound so odd in the vocative. And I can't very well call you'MacQuern'--YOU don't think me unkind, do you? I simply can't bear tothink of all these young lives cut short without my having done a thingto brighten them. What can I do?--what can I do to show my gratitude?"
An idea struck her. She looked up to the lit window of her room."Melisande!" she called.
A figure appeared at the window. "Mademoiselle desire?"
"My tricks, Melisande! Bring down the box, quick!" She turned excitedlyto the two young men. "It is all I can do in return, you see. If I coulddance for them, I would. If I could sing, I would sing to them. I dowhat I can. You," she said to the Duke, "must go on to the platform andannounce it."
"Announce what?"
"Why, that I am going to do my tricks! All you need say is 'Ladies andgentlemen, I have the pleasure to--' What is the matter now?"
"You make me feel slightly unwell," said the Duke.
"And YOU are the most d-dis-disobliging and the unkindest and theb-beastliest person I ever met," Zuleika sobbed at him through herhands. The MacQuern glared reproaches at him. So did Melisande, who hadjust appeared through the postern, holding in her arms the great casketof malachite. A painful scene; and the Duke gave in. He said he would doanything--anything. Peace was restored.
The MacQuern had relieved Melisande of her burden; and to him was theprivilege of bearing it, in procession with his adored and her quelledmentor, towards the Hall.
Zuleika babbled like a child going to a juvenile party. This was thegreat night, as yet, in her life. Illustrious enough already it hadseemed to her, as eve of that ultimate flattery vowed her by the Duke.So fine a thing had his doom seemed to her--his doom alone--that it hadsufficed to flood her pink pearl with the right hue. And now not on himalone need she ponder. Now he was but the centre of a group--a groupthat might grow and grow--a group that might with a little encouragementbe a multitude... With such hopes dimly whirling in the recesses of hersoul, her beautiful red lips babbled.
Zuleika Dobson Or, An Oxford Love Story Page 9