by Max Beerbohm
At the word “scoundrel,” Humphrey Greddon had sprung forward, drawing his sword, and loudly, in a voice audible to himself alone, challenged the American to make good his words. Then, as this gentleman took no notice, with one clean straight thrust Greddon ran him through the heart, shouting “Die, you damned psalm-singer and traducer! And so die all rebels against King George!”† Withdrawing the blade, he wiped it daintily on his cambric handkerchief. There was no blood. Mr. Oover, with unpunctured shirt-front, was repeating “I say he was not a white man.” And Greddon remembered himself—remembered he was only a ghost, impalpable, impotent, of no account. “But I shall meet you in Hell to-morrow,” he hissed in Oover’s face. And there he was wrong. It is quite certain that Oover went to Heaven.
Unable to avenge himself, Greddon had looked to the Duke to act for him. When he saw that this young man did but smile at Oover and make a vague deprecatory gesture, he again, in his wrath, forgot his disabilities. Drawing himself to his full height, he took with great deliberation a pinch of snuff, and, bowing low to the Duke, said “I am vastly obleeged to your Grace for the fine high Courage you have exhibited in the behalf of your most Admiring, most Humble Servant.” Then, having brushed away a speck of snuff from his jabot, he turned on his heel; and only in the doorway, where one of the club servants, carrying a decanter in each hand, walked straight through him, did he realise that he had not spoilt the Duke’s evening. With a volley of the most appalling eighteenth-century oaths, he passed back into the nether world.
To the Duke, Nellie O’Mora had never been a very vital figure. He had often repeated the legend of her. But, having never known what love was, he could not imagine her rapture or her anguish. Himself the quarry of all Mayfair’s wise virgins, he had always—so far as he thought of the matter at all—suspected that Nellie’s death was due to thwarted ambition. But to-night, while he told Oover about her, he could see into her soul. Nor did he pity her. She had loved. She had known the one thing worth living for—and dying for. She, as she went down to the mill-pond, had felt just that ecstasy of self-sacrifice which he himself had felt to-day and would feel to-morrow. And for a while, too—for a full year—she had known the joy of being loved, had been for Greddon “the fairest witch that ever was or will be.” He could not agree with Oover’s long disquisition on her sufferings. And, glancing at her well-remembered miniature, he wondered just what it was in her that had captivated Greddon. He was in that blest state when a man cannot believe the earth has been trodden by any really beautiful or desirable lady save the lady of his own heart.
The moment had come for the removal of the table-cloth. The mahogany of the Junta was laid bare—a clear dark lake, anon to reflect in its still and ruddy depths the candelabras and the fruit-cradles, the slender glasses and the stout old decanters, the forfeit-box and the snuff-box, and other paraphernalia of the dignity of dessert. Lucidly, and unwaveringly inverted in the depths these good things stood; and, so soon as the wine had made its circuit, the Duke rose and with uplifted glass proposed the first of the two toasts traditional to the Junta. “Gentlemen, I give you Church and State.”
The toast having been honoured by all—and by none with a richer reverence than by Oover, despite his passionate mental reservation in favour of Pittsburg-Anabaptism and the Republican Ideal—the snuff-box was handed round, and fruit was eaten.
Presently, when the wine had gone round again, the Duke rose and with uplifted glass said “Gentlemen, I give you—” and there halted. Silent, frowning, flushed, he stood for a few moments, and then, with a deliberate gesture, tilted his glass and let fall the wine to the carpet. “No,” he said, looking round the table, “I cannot give you Nellie O’Mora.”
“Why not?” gasped Sir John Marraby.
“You have a right to ask that,” said the Duke, still standing. “I can only say that my conscience is stronger than my sense of what is due to the customs of the club. Nellie O’Mora,” he said, passing his hand over his brow, “may have been in her day the fairest witch that ever was—so fair that our founder had good reason to suppose her the fairest witch that ever would be. But his prediction was a false one. So at least it seems to me. Of course I cannot both hold this view and remain President of this club. MacQuern—Marraby—which of you is Vice-President?”
“He is,” said Marraby.
“Then, MacQuern, you are hereby President, vice myself resigned. Take the chair and propose the toast.”
“I would rather not,” said The MacQuern after a pause.
“Then, Marraby, you must.”
“Not I!” said Marraby.
“Why is this?” asked the Duke, looking from one to the other.
The MacQuern, with Scotch caution, was silent. But the impulsive Marraby—Madcap Marraby, as they called him in B.N.C.—said “It’s because I won’t lie!” and, leaping up, raised his glass aloft and cried “I give you Zuleika Dobson, the fairest witch that ever was or will be!”
Mr. Oover, Lord Sayes, Mr. Trent-Garby, sprang to their feet; The MacQuern rose to his. “Zuleika Dobson!” they cried, and drained their glasses.
Then, when they had resumed their seats, came an awkward pause. The Duke, still erect beside the chair he had vacated, looked very grave and pale. Marraby had taken an outrageous liberty. But “a member of the Junta can do no wrong,” and the liberty could not be resented. The Duke felt that the blame was on himself, who had elected Marraby to the club.
Mr. Oover, too, looked grave. All the antiquarian in him deplored the sudden rupture of a fine old Oxford tradition. All the chivalrous American in him resented the slight on that fair victim of the feudal system, Miss O’Mora. And, at the same time, all the Abimelech V. in him rejoiced at having honoured by word and act the one woman in the world.
Gazing around at the flushed faces and heaving shirt-fronts of the diners, the Duke forgot Marraby’s misdemeanour. What mattered far more to him was that here were five young men deeply under the spell of Zuleika. They must be saved, if possible. He knew how strong his influence was in the University. He knew also how strong was Zuleika’s. He had not much hope of the issue. But his new-born sense of duty to his fellows spurred him on. “Is there,” he asked with a bitter smile, “any one of you who doesn’t with his whole heart love Miss Dobson?”
Nobody held up a hand.
“As I feared,” said the Duke, knowing not that if a hand had been held up he would have taken it as a personal insult. No man really in love can forgive another for not sharing his ardour. His jealousy for himself when his beloved prefers another man is hardly a stronger passion than his jealousy for her when she is not preferred to all other women.
“You know her only by sight—by repute?” asked the Duke. They signified that this was so. “I wish you would introduce me to her,” said Marraby.
“You are all coming to the Judas concert tonight?” the Duke asked, ignoring Marraby. “You have all secured tickets?” They nodded. “To hear me play, or to see Miss Dobson?” There was a murmur of “Both—both.” “And you would all of you, like Marraby, wish to be presented to this lady?” Their eyes dilated. “That way happiness lies, think you?”
“Oh, happiness be hanged!” said Marraby.
To the Duke this seemed a profoundly sane remark—an epitome of his own sentiments. But what was right for himself was not right for all. He believed in convention as the best way for average mankind. And so, slowly, calmly, he told to his fellow-diners just what he had told a few hours earlier to those two young men in Salt Cellar. Not knowing that his words had already been spread throughout Oxford, he was rather surprised that they seemed to make no sensation. Quite flat, too, fell his appeal that the syren be shunned by all.
Mr. Oover, during his year of residence, had been sorely tried by the quaint old English custom of not making public speeches after private dinners. It was with a deep sigh of satisfaction that he now rose to his feet.
“Duke,” he said in a low voice, which yet penetrated to every corner o
f the room, “I guess I am voicing these gentlemen when I say that your words show up your good heart, all the time. Your mentality, too, is bully, as we all predicate. One may say without exaggeration that your scholarly and social attainments are a by-word throughout the solar system, and beyond. We rightly venerate you as our boss. Sir, we worship the ground you walk on. But we owe a duty to our own free and independent manhood. Sir, we worship the ground Miss Z. Dobson treads on. We have pegged out a claim right there. And from that location we aren’t to be budged—not for bob-nuts. We asseverate we squat—where—we—squat, come—what—will. You say we have no chance to win Miss Z. Dobson. That—we—know. We aren’t worthy. We lie prone. Let her walk over us. You say her heart is cold. We don’t pro-fess we can take the chill off. But, Sir, we can’t be diverted out of loving her—not even by you, Sir. No, Sir! We love her, and—shall, and—will, Sir, with—our—latest breath.”
This peroration evoked loud applause. “I love her, and shall, and will,” shouted each man. And again they honoured in wine her image. Sir John Marraby uttered a cry familiar in the hunting-field. The MacQuern contributed a few bars of a sentimental ballad in the dialect of his country. “Hurrah, hurrah!” shouted Mr. Trent-Garby. Lord Sayes hummed the latest waltz, waving his arms to its rhythm, while the wine he had just spilt on his shirt-front trickled unheeded to his waistcoat. Mr. Oover gave the Yale cheer.
The genial din was wafted down through the open window to the passers-by. The wine-merchant across the way heard it, and smiled pensively. “Youth, youth!” he murmured.
The genial din grew louder.
At any other time, the Duke would have been jarred by the disgrace to the Junta. But now, as he stood with bent head, covering his face with his hands, he thought only of the need to rid these young men, here and now, of the influence that had befallen them. To-morrow his tragic example might be too late, the mischief have sunk too deep, the agony be life-long. His good breeding forbade him to cast over a dinner-table the shadow of his death. His conscience insisted that he must. He uncovered his face, and held up one hand for silence.
“We are all of us,” he said, “old enough to remember vividly the demonstrations made in the streets of London when war was declared between us and the Transvaal Republic. You, Mr. Oover, doubtless heard in America the echoes of those ebullitions. The general idea was that the war was going to be a very brief and simple affair—what was called ‘a walk-over.’ To me, though I was only a small boy, it seemed that all this delirious pride in the prospect of crushing a trumpery foe argued a defect in our sense of proportion. Still, I was able to understand the demonstrators’ point of view. To ‘the giddy vulgar’ any sort of victory is pleasant. But defeat? If, when that war was declared, every one had been sure that not only should we fail to conquer the Transvaal, but that it would conquer us—that not only would it make good its freedom and independence, but that we should forfeit ours—how would the cits have felt then? Would they not have pulled long faces, spoken in whispers, wept? You must forgive me for saying that the noise you have just made around this table was very like to the noise made on the verge of the Boer War. And your procedure seems to me as unaccountable as would have seemed the antics of those mobs if England had been plainly doomed to disaster and to vassalage. My guest here to-night, in the course of his very eloquent and racy speech, spoke of the need that he and you should preserve your ‘free and independent manhood.’ That seemed to me an irreproachable ideal. But I confess I was somewhat taken aback by my friend’s scheme for realising it. He declared his intention of lying prone and letting Miss Dobson ‘walk over’ him; and he advised you to follow his example; and to this counsel you gave evident approval. Gentlemen, suppose that on the verge of the aforesaid war, some orator had said to the British people ‘It is going to be a walk-over for our enemy in the field. Mr. Kruger holds us in the hollow of his hand. In subjection to him we shall find our long-lost freedom and independence’—what would have been Britannia’s answer? What, on reflection, is yours to Mr. Oover? What are Mr. Oover’s own second thoughts?” The Duke paused, with a smile to his guest.
“Go right ahead, Duke,” said Mr. Oover. “I’ll re-ply when my turn comes.”
“And not utterly demolish me, I hope,” said the Duke. His was the Oxford manner. “Gentlemen,” he continued, “is it possible that Britannia would have thrown her helmet in the air, shrieking ‘Slavery for ever’? You, gentlemen, seem to think slavery a pleasant and an honourable state. You have less experience of it than I. I have been enslaved to Miss Dobson since yesterday evening; you, only since this afternoon; I, at close quarters; you, at a respectful distance. Your fetters have not galled you yet. My wrists, my ankles, are excoriated. The iron has entered into my soul. I droop. I stumble. Blood flows from me. I quiver and curse. I writhe. The sun mocks me. The moon titters in my face. I can stand it no longer. I will no more of it. Tomorrow I die.”
The flushed faces of the diners grew gradually pale. Their eyes lost lustre. Their tongues clove to the roofs of their mouths.
At length, almost inaudibly, The MacQuern asked “Do you mean you are going to commit suicide?”
“Yes,” said the Duke, “if you choose to put it in that way. Yes. And it is only by a chance that I did not commit suicide this afternoon.”
“You—don’t—say,” gasped Mr. Oover.
“I do indeed,” said the Duke. “And I ask you all to weigh well my message.”
“But—but does Miss Dobson know?” asked Sir John.
“Oh yes,” was the reply. “Indeed, it was she who persuaded me not to die till to-morrow.”
“But—but,” faltered Lord Sayes, “I saw her saying good-bye to you in Judas Street. And—and she looked quite—as if nothing had happened.”
“Nothing had happened,” said the Duke. “And she was very much pleased to have me still with her. But she isn’t so cruel as to hinder me from dying for her to-morrow. I don’t think she exactly fixed the hour. It shall be just after the Eights have been rowed. An earlier death would mark in me a lack of courtesy to that contest … It seems strange to you that I should do this thing? Take warning by me. Muster all your will-power, and forget Miss Dobson. Tear up your tickets for the concert. Stay here and play cards. Play high. Or rather, go back to your various Colleges, and speed the news I have told you. Put all Oxford on its guard against this woman who can love no lover. Let all Oxford know that I, Dorset, who had so much reason to love life—I, the nonpareil—am going to die for the love I bear this woman. And let no man think I go unwilling. I am no lamb led to the slaughter. I am priest as well as victim. I offer myself up with a pious joy. But enough of this cold Hebraism! It is ill-attuned to my soul’s mood. Self-sacrifice—bah! Regard me as a voluptuary. I am that. All my baffled ardour speeds me to the bosom of Death. She is gentle and wanton. She knows I could never have loved her for her own sake. She has no illusions about me. She knows well I come to her because not otherwise may I quench my passion.”
There was a long silence. The Duke, looking around at the bent heads and drawn mouths of his auditors, saw that his words had gone home. It was Marraby who revealed how powerfully home they had gone.
“Dorset,” he said huskily, “I shall die too.”
The Duke flung up his hands, staring wildly.
“I stand in with that,” said Mr. Oover.
“So do I!” said Lord Sayes. “And I!” said Mr. Trent-Garby; “And I!” The MacQuern.
The Duke found voice. “Are you mad?” he asked, clutching at his throat. “Are you all mad?”
“No, Duke,” said Mr. Oover. “Or, if we are, you have no right to be at large. You have shown us the way. We—take it.”
“Just so,” said The MacQuern, stolidly.
“Listen, you fools,” cried the Duke. But through the open window came the vibrant stroke of some clock. He wheeled round, plucked out his watch—nine!—the concert!—his promise not to be late!—Zuleika!
All other thoughts vanishe
d. In an instant he dodged beneath the sash of the window. From the flower-box he sprang to the road beneath. (The facade of the house is called, to this day, Dorset’s Leap.) Alighting with the legerity of a cat, he swerved leftward in the recoil, and was off, like a streak of mulberry-coloured lightning, down the High.
The other men had rushed to the window, fearing the worst. “No,” cried Oover. “That’s all right. Saves time!” and he raised himself on to the window-box. It splintered under his weight. He leapt heavily but well, followed by some uprooted geraniums. Squaring his shoulders, he threw back his head, and doubled down the slope.
There was a violent jostle between the remaining men. The MacQuern cannily got out of it, and rushed downstairs. He emerged at the front-door just after Marraby touched ground. The Baronet’s left ankle had twisted under him. His face was drawn with pain as he hopped down the High on his right foot, fingering his ticket for the concert. Next leapt Lord Sayes. And last of all leapt Mr. Trent-Garby, who, catching his foot in the ruined flower-box, fell headlong, and was, I regret to say, killed. Lord Sayes passed Sir John in a few paces. The MacQuern overtook Mr. Oover at St. Mary’s and outstripped him in Radcliffe Square. The Duke came in an easy first.
Youth, youth!
* As Edward VII was at this time on the throne, it must have been to George III that Mr. Greddon was referring.
† The Junta has been reconstituted. But the apostolic line was broken, the thread was snapped; the old magic is fled.
IX
ACROSS THE FRONT QUADRANGLE, HEEDLESS OF the great crowd to right and left, Dorset rushed. Up the stone steps to the Hall he bounded, and only on the Hall’s threshold was he brought to a pause. The doorway was blocked by the backs of youths who had by hook and crook secured standing-room. The whole scene was surprisingly unlike that of the average College concert.