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

the Duke had paused and, impulsively looking back into the hall, had beckoned Katie to him; and she had come (she knew not how) to him; and there, standing on the doorstep whose whiteness was the symbol of her love, he⁠—very lightly, it is true, and on the upmost confines of the brow, but quite perceptibly⁠—had kissed her. XIX

And now he had passed under the little arch between the eighth and the ninth Emperor, rounded the Sheldonian, and been lost to sight of Katie, whom, as he was equally glad and sorry he had kissed her, he was able to dismiss from his mind.

In the quadrangle of the Old Schools he glanced round at the familiar labels, blue and gold, over the iron-studded doors⁠—Schola Theologiae et Antiquae Philosophiae; Museum Arundelianum; Schola Musicae. And Bibliotheca Bodleiana⁠—he paused there, to feel for the last time the vague thrill he had always felt at sight of the small and devious portal that had lured to itself, and would always lure, so many scholars from the ends of the earth, scholars famous and scholars obscure, scholars polyglot and of the most diverse bents, but none of them not stirred in heart somewhat on the found threshold of the treasure-house. “How deep, how perfect, the effect made here by refusal to make any effect whatsoever!” thought the Duke. Perhaps, after all⁠ ⁠… but no: one could lay down no general rule. He flung his mantle a little wider from his breast, and proceeded into Radcliffe Square.

Another farewell look he gave to the old vast horse-chestnut that is called Bishop Heber’s tree. Certainly, no: there was no general rule. With its towering and bulging masses of verdure tricked out all over in their annual finery of catkins, Bishop Heber’s tree stood for the very type of ingenuous ostentation. And who should dare cavil? who not be gladdened? Yet awful, more than gladdening, was the effect that the tree made today. Strangely pale was the verdure against the black sky; and the multitudinous catkins had a look almost ghostly. The Duke remembered the legend that every one of these fair white spires of blossom is the spirit of some dead man who, having loved Oxford much and well, is suffered thus to revisit her, for a brief while, year by year. And it pleased him to doubt not that on one of the topmost branches, next spring, his own spirit would be.

“Oh, look!” cried a young lady emerging with her brother and her aunt through the gate of Brasenose.

“For heaven’s sake, Jessie, try to behave yourself,” hissed her brother. “Aunt Mabel, for heaven’s sake don’t stare.” He compelled the pair to walk on with him. “Jessie, if you look round over your shoulder⁠ ⁠… No, it is not the Vice-Chancellor. It’s Dorset, of Judas⁠—the Duke of Dorset⁠ ⁠… Why on earth shouldn’t he?⁠ ⁠… No, it isn’t odd in the least⁠ ⁠… No, I’m not losing my temper. Only, don’t call me your dear boy⁠ ⁠… No, we will not walk slowly so as to let him pass us⁠ ⁠… Jessie, if you look round⁠ ⁠…”

Poor fellow! However fond an undergraduate be of his womenfolk, at Oxford they keep him in a painful state of tension: at any moment they may somehow disgrace him. And if throughout the long day he shall have had the added strain of guarding them from the knowledge that he is about to commit suicide, a certain measure of irritability must be condoned.

Poor Jessie and Aunt Mabel! They were destined to remember that Harold had been “very peculiar” all day. They had arrived in the morning, happy and eager despite the menace of the sky, and⁠—well, they were destined to reproach themselves for having felt that Harold was “really rather impossible.” Oh, if he had only confided in them! They could have reasoned with him, saved him⁠—surely they could have saved him! When he told them that the “First Division” of the races was always very dull, and that they had much better let him go to it alone⁠—when he told them that it was always very rowdy, and that ladies were not supposed to be there⁠—oh, why had they not guessed and clung to him, and kept him away from the river?

Well, here they were, walking on Harold’s either side, blind to fate, and only longing to look back at the gorgeous personage behind them. Aunt Mabel had inwardly calculated that the velvet of the mantle alone could not have cost less than four guineas a yard. One good look back, and she would be able to calculate how many yards there were⁠ ⁠… She followed the example of Lot’s wife; and Jessie followed hers.

“Very well,” said Harold. “That settles it. I go alone.” And he was gone like an arrow, across the High, down Oriel Street.

The two women stood staring ruefully at each other.

“Pardon me,” said the Duke, with a sweep of his plumed hat. “I observe you are stranded; and, if I read your thoughts aright, you are impugning the courtesy of that young runagate. Neither of you, I am very sure, is as one of those ladies who in Imperial Rome took a saucy pleasure in the spectacle of death. Neither of you can have been warned by your escort that you were on the way to see him die, of his own accord, in company with many hundreds of other lads, myself included. Therefore, regard his flight from you as an act not of unkindness, but of tardy compunction. The hint you have had from him let me turn into a counsel. Go back, both of you, to the place whence you came.”

“Thank you so much,” said Aunt Mabel, with what she took to be great presence of mind. “Most kind of you. We’ll do just what you tell us. Come, Jessie dear,” and she hurried her niece away with her.

Something in her manner of fixing him with her eye had made the Duke suspect what was in her mind. Well,