Zuleika Dobson - Max Beerbohm (good e books to read txt) 📗

of all these young lives cut short without my having done a thing to 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. “Mélisande!” she called.

A figure appeared at the window. “Mademoiselle desire?”

“My tricks, Mélisande! Bring down the box, quick!” She turned excitedly to the two young men. “It is all I can do in return, you see. If I could dance for them, I would. If I could sing, I would sing to them. I do what I can. You,” she said to the Duke, “must go on to the platform and announce it.”

“Announce what?”

“Why, that I am going to do my tricks! All you need say is ‘Ladies and gentlemen, 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 the b-beastliest person I ever met,” Zuleika sobbed at him through her hands. The MacQuern glared reproaches at him. So did Mélisande, who had just appeared through the postern, holding in her arms the great casket of malachite. A painful scene; and the Duke gave in. He said he would do anything⁠—anything. Peace was restored.

The MacQuern had relieved Mélisande of her burden; and to him was the privilege of bearing it, in procession with his adored and her quelled mentor, towards the Hall.

Zuleika babbled like a child going to a juvenile party. This was the great night, as yet, in her life. Illustrious enough already it had seemed 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 had sufficed to flood her pink pearl with the right hue. And now not on him alone need she ponder. Now he was but the centre of a group⁠—a group that might grow and grow⁠—a group that might with a little encouragement be a multitude⁠ ⁠… With such hopes dimly whirling in the recesses of her soul, her beautiful red lips babbled.

X

Sounds of a violin, drifting out through the open windows of the Hall, suggested that the second part of the concert had begun. All the undergraduates, however, except the few who figured in the programme, had waited outside till their mistress should reappear. The sisters and cousins of the Judas men had been escorted back to their places and hurriedly 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 and now?⁠—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 the announcement.

“What shall I say?” he asked. “ ‘Gentlemen, I have the pleasure to announce that Miss Zuleika Dobson, the world-renowned She-Wizard, will now oblige’? Or shall I call them ‘Gents,’ tout court?”

She could afford to laugh at his ill-humour. She had his promise of obedience. She told him to say something graceful and simple.

The noise of the violin had ceased. There was not a breath of wind. The crowd 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 had one mind as well as one heart⁠—a common resolve, calm and clear, as well as a common passion. No need for her to strengthen the spell now. No waverers here. And thus it came true that gratitude was the sole motive for her display.

She stood with eyes downcast and hands folded behind her, moonlit in the glow of lanterns, modest to the point of pathos, while the Duke gracefully and simply introduced her to the multitude. He was, he said, empowered by the lady who stood beside him to say that she would be pleased to give them an exhibition of her skill in the art to which she had devoted her life⁠—an art which, more potently perhaps than any other, touched in mankind the sense of mystery and stirred the faculty of wonder; the most truly romantic of all the arts: he referred to the art of conjuring. It was not too much to say that by her mastery of this art, in which hitherto, it must be confessed, women had made no very great mark, Miss Zuleika Dobson (for such was the name of the lady who stood beside him) had earned the esteem of the whole civilised world. And here in Oxford, and in this College especially, she had a peculiar claim to⁠—might he say?⁠—their affectionate regard, inasmuch as she was the granddaughter of their venerable and venerated Warden.

As the Duke ceased, there came from his hearers a sound like the rustling of leaves. In return for it, Zuleika performed that graceful act of subsidence to the verge of collapse which is usually kept for the delectation of some royal person. And indeed, in the presence of this doomed congress, she did experience humility; for she was not altogether without imagination. But, as she arose from her “bob,” she was her own bold self again, bright mistress of the situation.

It was impossible for her to give her entertainment in full. Some of her tricks (notably the Secret Aquarium, and the Blazing Ball of Worsted) needed special preparation, and a table fitted with a “servante” or secret tray. The table for tonight’s performance was an ordinary one, brought out from the porter’s lodge. The MacQuern deposited on it the great casket. Zuleika, retaining him as her assistant, picked nimbly out from their places and put in array the curious appurtenances of