X
Sounds of a violin, drifting out through the open windows of theHall, suggested that the second part of the concert had begun. All theundergraduates, however, except the few who figured in the programme,had waited outside till their mistress should re-appear. The sistersand cousins of the Judas men had been escorted back to their places andhurriedly left there.
It was a hushed, tense crowd.
"The poor darlings!" murmured Zuleika, pausing to survey them. "And oh,"she exclaimed, "there won't be room for all of them in there!"
"You might give an 'overflow' performance out here afterwards,"suggested the Duke, grimly.
This idea flashed on her a better. Why not give her performance here andnow?--now, so eager was she for contact, as it were, with this crowd;here, by moonlight, in the pretty glow of these paper lanterns. Yes,she said, let it be here and now; and she bade the Duke make theannouncement.
"What shall I say?" he asked. "'Gentlemen, I have the pleasure toannounce that Miss Zuleika Dobson, the world-renowned She-Wizard, willnow oblige'? Or shall I call them 'Gents,' tout court?"
She could afford to laugh at his ill-humour. She had his promise ofobedience. She told him to say something graceful and simple.
The noise of the violin had ceased. There was not a breath of wind. Thecrowd in the quadrangle was as still and as silent as the night itself.Nowhere a tremour. And it was borne in on Zuleika that this crowd hadone mind as well as one heart--a common resolve, calm and clear, as wellas a common passion. No need for her to strengthen the spell now. Nowaverers here. And thus it came true that gratitude was the sole motivefor her display.
She stood with eyes downcast and hands folded behind her, moonlit inthe glow of lanterns, modest to the point of pathos, while the Dukegracefully and simply introduced her to the multitude. He was, he said,empowered by the lady who stood beside him to say that she would bepleased to give them an exhibition of her skill in the art to whichshe had devoted her life--an art which, more potently perhaps than anyother, touched in mankind the sense of mystery and stirred the facultyof wonder; the most truly romantic of all the arts: he referred to theart of conjuring. It was not too much to say that by her mastery of thisart, in which hitherto, it must be confessed, women had made no verygreat mark, Miss Zuleika Dobson (for such was the name of the lady whostood beside him) had earned the esteem of the whole civilised world.And here in Oxford, and in this College especially, she had a peculiarclaim to--might he say?--their affectionate regard, inasmuch as she wasthe grand-daughter of their venerable and venerated Warden.
As the Duke ceased, there came from his hearers a sound like therustling of leaves. In return for it, Zuleika performed that gracefulact of subsidence to the verge of collapse which is usually kept for thedelectation of some royal person. And indeed, in the presence of thisdoomed congress, she did experience humility; for she was not altogetherwithout imagination. But, as she arose from her "bob," she was her ownbold self again, bright mistress of the situation.
It was impossible for her to give her entertainment in full. Some of hertricks (notably the Secret Aquarium, and the Blazing Ball of Worsted)needed special preparation, and a table fitted with a "servante" orsecret tray. The table for to-night's performance was an ordinary one,brought out from the porter's lodge. The MacQuern deposited on it thegreat casket. Zuleika, retaining him as her assistant, picked nimblyout from their places and put in array the curious appurtenances of herart--the Magic Canister, the Demon Egg-Cup, and the sundry other vesselswhich, lost property of young Edward Gibbs, had been by a Romanofftransmuted from wood to gold, and were now by the moon reducedtemporarily to silver.
In a great dense semicircle the young men disposed themselves aroundher. Those who were in front squatted down on the gravel; those who werebehind knelt; the rest stood. Young Oxford! Here, in this mass of boyishfaces, all fused and obliterated, was the realisation of that phrase.Two or three thousands of human bodies, human souls? Yet the effect ofthem in the moonlight was as of one great passive monster.
So was it seen by the Duke, as he stood leaning against the wall,behind Zuleika's table. He saw it as a monster couchant and enchanted,a monster that was to die; and its death was in part his own doing.But remorse in him gave place to hostility. Zuleika had begun herperformance. She was producing the Barber's Pole from her mouth. Andit was to her that the Duke's heart went suddenly out in tendernessand pity. He forgot her levity and vanity--her wickedness, as he hadinwardly called it. He thrilled with that intense anxiety which comes toa man when he sees his beloved offering to the public an exhibition ofher skill, be it in singing, acting, dancing, or any other art. Wouldshe acquit herself well? The lover's trepidation is painful enough whenthe beloved has genius--how should these clods appreciate her? and whoset them in judgment over her? It must be worse when the beloved hasmediocrity. And Zuleika, in conjuring, had rather less than that. Thoughindeed she took herself quite seriously as a conjurer, she brought toher art neither conscience nor ambition, in any true sense of thosewords. Since her debut, she had learned nothing and forgotten nothing.The stale and narrow repertory which she had acquired from Edward Gibbswas all she had to offer; and this, and her marked lack of skill, sheeked out with the self-same "patter" that had sufficed that impossibleyoung man. It was especially her jokes that now sent shudders up thespine of her lover, and brought tears to his eyes, and kept him ina state of terror as to what she would say next. "You see," she hadexclaimed lightly after the production of the Barber's Pole, "how easyit is to set up business as a hairdresser." Over the Demon Egg-Cup shesaid that the egg was "as good as fresh." And her constantly reiteratedcatch-phrase--"Well, this is rather queer!"--was the most distressingthing of all.
The Duke blushed to think what these men thought of her. Would lovewere blind! These her lovers were doubtless judging her. They forgaveher--confound their impudence!--because of her beauty. The banality ofher performance was an added grace. It made her piteous. Damn them, theywere sorry for her. Little Noaks was squatting in the front row, peeringup at her through his spectacles. Noaks was as sorry for her as the restof them. Why didn't the earth yawn and swallow them all up?
Our hero's unreasoning rage was fed by a not unreasonable jealousy. Itwas clear to him that Zuleika had forgotten his existence. To-day, assoon as he had killed her love, she had shown him how much less to herwas his love than the crowd's. And now again it was only the crowd shecared for. He followed with his eyes her long slender figure as shethreaded her way in and out of the crowd, sinuously, confidingly,producing a penny from one lad's elbow, a threepenny-bit from betweenanother's neck and collar, half a crown from another's hair, and alwaysrepeating in that flute-like voice of hers "Well, this is rather queer!"Hither and thither she fared, her neck and arms gleaming white from theluminous blackness of her dress, in the luminous blueness of the night.At a distance, she might have been a wraith; or a breeze made visible; avagrom breeze, warm and delicate, and in league with death.
Yes, that is how she might have seemed to a casual observer. But to theDuke there was nothing weird about her: she was radiantly a woman; agoddess; and his first and last love. Bitter his heart was, but onlyagainst the mob she wooed, not against her for wooing it. She was cruel?All goddesses are that. She was demeaning herself? His soul welled upanew in pity, in passion.
Yonder, in the Hall, the concert ran its course, making a feebleincidental music to the dark emotions of the quadrangle. It endedsomewhat before the close of Zuleika's rival show; and then the stepsfrom the Hall were thronged by ladies, who, with a sprinkling of dons,stood in attitudes of refined displeasure and vulgar curiosity. TheWarden was just awake enough to notice the sea of undergraduates.Suspecting some breach of College discipline, he retired hastily to hisown quarters, for fear his dignity might be somehow compromised.
Was there ever, I wonder, an historian so pure as not to have wishedjust once to fob off on his readers just one bright fable for effect?I find myself sorely tempted to tell you that on Zuleik
a, as herentertainment drew to a close, the spirit of the higher thaumaturgydescended like a flame and found in her a worthy agent. SpeciousApollyon whispers to me "Where would be the harm? Tell your readersthat she cast a seed on the ground, and that therefrom presently arosea tamarind-tree which blossomed and bore fruit and, withering, vanished.Or say she conjured from an empty basket of osier a hissing and bridlingsnake. Why not? Your readers would be excited, gratified. And you wouldnever be found out." But the grave eyes of Clio are bent on me, herservant. Oh pardon, madam: I did but waver for an instant. It is not toolate to tell my readers that the climax of Zuleika's entertainment wasonly that dismal affair, the Magic Canister.
It she took from the table, and, holding it aloft, cried "Now, before Isay good night, I want to see if I have your confidence. But you mustn'tthink this is the confidence trick!" She handed the vessel to TheMacQuern, who, looking like an overgrown acolyte, bore it after her asshe went again among the audience. Pausing before a man in the frontrow, she asked him if he would trust her with his watch. He held itout to her. "Thank you," she said, letting her fingers touch his for amoment before she dropped it into the Magic Canister. From another manshe borrowed a cigarette-case, from another a neck-tie, from another apair of sleeve-links, from Noaks a ring--one of those iron rings whichare supposed, rightly or wrongly, to alleviate rheumatism. And when shehad made an ample selection, she began her return-journey to the table.
On her way she saw in the shadow of the wall the figure of her forgottenDuke. She saw him, the one man she had ever loved, also the firstman who had wished definitely to die for her; and she was touched byremorse. She had said she would remember him to her dying day; andalready... But had he not refused her the wherewithal to rememberhim--the pearls she needed as the clou of her dear collection, the greatrelic among relics?
"Would you trust me with your studs?" she asked him, in a voice thatcould be heard throughout the quadrangle, with a smile that was for himalone.
There was no help for it. He quickly extricated from his shirt-front theblack pearl and the pink. Her thanks had a special emphasis.
The MacQuern placed the Magic Canister before her on the table. Shepressed the outer sheath down on it. Then she inverted it so that thecontents fell into the false lid; then she opened it, looked into it,and, exclaiming "Well, this is rather queer!" held it up so that theaudience whose intelligence she was insulting might see there wasnothing in it.
"Accidents," she said, "will happen in the best-regulated canisters!But I think there is just a chance that I shall be able to restore yourproperty. Excuse me for a moment." She then shut the canister, releasedthe false lid, made several passes over it, opened it, looked into itand said with a flourish "Now I can clear my character!" Again she wentamong the crowd, attended by The MacQuern; and the loans--priceless nowbecause she had touched them--were in due course severally restored.When she took the canister from her acolyte, only the two studs remainedin it.
Not since the night of her flitting from the Gibbs' humble home hadZuleika thieved. Was she a back-slider? Would she rob the Duke, and hisheir-presumptive, and Tanville-Tankertons yet unborn? Alas, yes. Butwhat she now did was proof that she had qualms. And her way of doing itshowed that for legerdemain she had after all a natural aptitude which,properly trained, might have won for her an honourable place in at leastthe second rank of contemporary prestidigitators. With a gesture of herdisengaged hand, so swift as to be scarcely visible, she unhooked herear-rings and "passed" them into the canister. This she did as sheturned away from the crowd, on her way to the Duke. At the same moment,in a manner technically not less good, though morally deplorable, shewithdrew the studs and "vanished" them into her bosom.
Was it triumph, or shame, or of both a little that so flushed her cheeksas she stood before the man she had robbed? Or was it the excitementof giving a present to the man she had loved? Certain it is that thenakedness of her ears gave a new look to her face--a primitive look,open and sweetly wild. The Duke saw the difference, without noticingthe cause. She was more adorable than ever. He blenched and swayed as inproximity to a loveliness beyond endurance. His heart cried out withinhim. A sudden mist came over his eyes.
In the canister that she held out to him, the two pearls rattled likedice.
"Keep them!" he whispered.
"I shall," she whispered back, almost shyly. "But these, these are foryou." And she took one of his hands, and, holding it open, tilted thecanister over it, and let drop into it the two ear-rings, and wentquickly away.
As she re-appeared at the table, the crowd gave her a long ovationof gratitude for her performance--an ovation all the more impressivebecause it was solemn and subdued. She curtseyed again and again, notindeed with the timid simplicity of her first obeisance (so familiaralready was she with the thought of the crowd's doom), but rather in themanner of a prima donna--chin up, eyelids down, all teeth manifest, andhands from the bosom flung ecstatically wide asunder.
You know how, at a concert, a prima donna who has just sung insists onshaking hands with the accompanist, and dragging him forward, to showhow beautiful her nature is, into the applause that is for herselfalone. And your heart, like mine, has gone out to the wretched victim.Even so would you have felt for The MacQuern when Zuleika, on theimplied assumption that half the credit was his, grasped him by thewrist, and, continuing to curtsey, would not release him till the lastechoes of the clapping had died away.
The ladies on the steps of the Hall moved down into the quadrangle,spreading their resentment like a miasma. The tragic passion of thecrowd was merged in mere awkwardness. There was a general movementtowards the College gate.
Zuleika was putting her tricks back into the great casket, The MacQuernassisting her. The Scots, as I have said, are a shy race, but a resoluteand a self-seeking. This young chieftain had not yet recovered from whathis heroine had let him in for. But he did not lose the opportunity ofasking her to lunch with him to-morrow.
"Delighted," she said, fitting the Demon Egg-Cup into its groove.Then, looking up at him, "Are you popular?" she asked. "Have you manyfriends?" He nodded. She said he must invite them all.
This was a blow to the young man, who, at once thrifty and infatuate,had planned a luncheon a deux. "I had hoped--" he began.
"Vainly," she cut him short.
There was a pause. "Whom shall I invite, then?"
"I don't know any of them. How should I have preferences?" Sheremembered the Duke. She looked round and saw him still standing in theshadow of the wall. He came towards her. "Of course," she said hastilyto her host, "you must ask HIM."
The MacQuern complied. He turned to the Duke and told him that MissDobson had very kindly promised to lunch with him to-morrow. "And," saidZuleika, "I simply WON'T unless you will."
The Duke looked at her. Had it not been arranged that he and she shouldspend his last day together? Did it mean nothing that she had given himher ear-rings? Quickly drawing about him some remnants of his tatteredpride, he hid his wound, and accepted the invitation.
"It seems a shame," said Zuleika to The MacQuern, "to ask you to bringthis great heavy box all the way back again. But--"
Those last poor rags of pride fell away now. The Duke threw a prehensilehand on the casket, and, coldly glaring at The MacQuern, pointed withhis other hand towards the College gate. He, and he alone, was going tosee Zuleika home. It was his last night on earth, and he was not to betrifled with. Such was the message of his eyes. The Scotsman's flashedback a precisely similar message.
Men had fought for Zuleika, but never in her presence. Her eyes dilated.She had not the slightest impulse to throw herself between the twoantagonists. Indeed, she stepped back, so as not to be in the way. Ashort sharp fight--how much better that is than bad blood! She hoped thebetter man would win; and (do not misjudge her) she rather hoped thisman was the Duke. It occurred to her--a vague memory of some play orpicture--that she ought to be holding aloft a candelabra of lit tapers;no, that was only done indoors, and in the e
ighteenth century. Oughtshe to hold a sponge? Idle, these speculations of hers, and based oncomplete ignorance of the manners and customs of undergraduates. TheDuke and The MacQuern would never have come to blows in the presence ofa lady. Their conflict was necessarily spiritual.
And it was the Scotsman, Scots though he was, who had to yield. Cowedby something demoniac in the will-power pitted against his, he foundhimself retreating in the direction indicated by the Duke's forefinger.
As he disappeared into the porch, Zuleika turned to the Duke. "You weresplendid," she said softly. He knew that very well. Does the stag in hishour of victory need a diploma from the hind? Holding in his hands themalachite casket that was the symbol of his triumph, the Duke smileddictatorially at his darling. He came near to thinking of her as achattel. Then with a pang he remembered his abject devotion to her.Abject no longer though! The victory he had just won restored hismanhood, his sense of supremacy among his fellows. He loved this womanon equal terms. She was transcendent? So was he, Dorset. To-nightthe world had on its moonlit surface two great ornaments--Zuleika andhimself. Neither of the pair could be replaced. Was one of them to beshattered? Life and love were good. He had been mad to think of dying.
No word was spoken as they went together to Salt Cellar. She expectedhim to talk about her conjuring tricks. Could he have been disappointed?She dared not inquire; for she had the sensitiveness, though no otherquality whatsoever, of the true artist. She felt herself aggrieved. Shehad half a mind to ask him to give her back her ear-rings. And by theway, he hadn't yet thanked her for them! Well, she would make allowancesfor a condemned man. And again she remembered the omen of which he hadtold her. She looked at him, and then up into the sky. "This same moon,"she said to herself, "sees the battlements of Tankerton. Does she seetwo black owls there? Does she hear them hooting?"
They were in Salt Cellar now. "Melisande!" she called up to her window.
"Hush!" said the Duke, "I have something to say to you."
"Well, you can say it all the better without that great box in yourhands. I want my maid to carry it up to my room for me." And again shecalled out for Melisande, and received no answer. "I suppose she's inthe house-keeper's room or somewhere. You had better put the box downinside the door. She can bring it up later."
She pushed open the postern; and the Duke, as he stepped across thethreshold, thrilled with a romantic awe. Re-emerging a moment later intothe moonlight, he felt that she had been right about the box: it wasfatal to self-expression and he was glad he had not tried to speakon the way from the Front Quad: the soul needs gesture; and the Duke'sfirst gesture now was to seize Zuleika's hands in his.
She was too startled to move. "Zuleika!" he whispered. She was too angryto speak, but with a sudden twist she freed her wrists and darted back.
He laughed. "You are afraid of me. You are afraid to let me kiss you,because you are afraid of loving me. This afternoon--here--I all butkissed you. I mistook you for Death. I was enamoured of Death. I was afool. That is what YOU are, you incomparable darling: you are a fool.You are afraid of life. I am not. I love life. I am going to live foryou, do you hear?"
She stood with her back to the postern. Anger in her eyes had givenplace to scorn. "You mean," she said, "that you go back on yourpromise?"
"You will release me from it."
"You mean you are afraid to die?"
"You will not be guilty of my death. You love me."
"Good night, you miserable coward." She stepped back through thepostern.
"Don't, Zuleika! Miss Dobson, don't! Pull yourself together! Reflect! Iimplore you... You will repent..."
Slowly she closed the postern on him.
"You will repent. I shall wait here, under your window..."
He heard a bolt rasped into its socket. He heard the retreat of a lighttread on the paven hall.
And he hadn't even kissed her! That was his first thought. He ground hisheel in the gravel.
And he had hurt her wrists! This was Zuleika's first thought, as shecame into her bedroom. Yes, there were two red marks where he hadheld her. No man had ever dared to lay hands on her. With a sense ofcontamination, she proceeded to wash her hands thoroughly with soap andwater. From time to time such words as "cad" and "beast" came throughher teeth.
She dried her hands and flung herself into a chair, arose and wentpacing the room. So this was the end of her great night! What had shedone to deserve it? How had he dared?
There was a sound as of rain against the window. She was glad. The nightneeded cleansing.
He had told her she was afraid of life. Life!--to have herself caressedby HIM; humbly to devote herself to being humbly doted on to be theslave of a slave; to swim in a private pond of treacle--ugh! If thethought weren't so cloying and degrading, it would be laughable.
For a moment her hands hovered over those two golden and gemmed volumesencasing Bradshaw and the A.B.C. Guide. To leave Oxford by an earlytrain, leave him to drown unthanked, unlooked at... But this couldnot be done without slighting all those hundreds of other men ... Andbesides...
Again that sound on the window-pane. This time it startled her. Thereseemed to be no rain. Could it have been--little bits of gravel? Shedarted noiselessly to the window, pushed it open, and looked down. Shesaw the upturned face of the Duke. She stepped back, trembling withfury, staring around her. Inspiration came.
She thrust her head out again. "Are you there?" she whispered.
"Yes, yes. I knew you would come."
"Wait a moment, wait!"
The water-jug stood where she had left it, on the floor by thewash-stand. It was almost full, rather heavy. She bore it steadily tothe window, and looked out.
"Come a little nearer!" she whispered.
The upturned and moonlit face obeyed her. She saw its lips forming theword "Zuleika." She took careful aim.
Full on the face crashed the cascade of moonlit water, shooting out onall sides like the petals of some great silver anemone.
She laughed shrilly as she leapt back, letting the empty jug roll overon the carpet. Then she stood tense, crouching, her hands to her mouth,her eyes askance, as much as to say "Now I've done it!" She listenedhard, holding her breath. In the stillness of the night was a faintsound of dripping water, and presently of footsteps going away. Thenstillness unbroken.