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

more than the usual glow of health, and hungry beyond her wont.

Yet, as she went down, her heart somewhat misgave her. Indeed, by force of the wide experience she had had as a governess, she never did feel quite at her ease when she was staying in a private house: the fear of not giving satisfaction haunted her; she was always on her guard; the shadow of dismissal absurdly hovered. And tonight she could not tell herself, as she usually did, not to be so silly. If her grandfather knew already the motive by which those young men had been actuated, dinner with him might be a rather strained affair. He might tell her, in so many words, that he wished he had not invited her to Oxford.

Through the open door of the drawing room she saw him, standing majestic, draped in a voluminous black gown. Her instinct was to run away; but this she conquered. She went straight in, remembering not to smile.

“Ah, ah,” said the Warden, shaking a forefinger at her with old-world playfulness. “And what have you to say for yourself?”

Relieved, she was also a trifle shocked. Was it possible that he, a responsible old man, could take things so lightly?

“Oh, grand-papa,” she answered, hanging her head, “what can I say? It is⁠—it is too, too, dreadful.”

“There, there, my dear. I was but jesting. If you have had an agreeable time, you are forgiven for playing truant. Where have you been all day?”

She saw that she had misjudged him. “I have just come from the river,” she said gravely.

“Yes? And did the College make its fourth bump tonight?”

“I⁠—I don’t know, grand-papa. There was so much happening. It⁠—I will tell you all about it at dinner.”

“Ah, but tonight,” he said, indicating his gown, “I cannot be with you. The bump-supper, you know. I have to preside in Hall.”

Zuleika had forgotten there was to be a bump-supper, and, though she was not very sure what a bump-supper was, she felt it would be a mockery tonight.

“But grand-papa⁠—” she began.

“My dear, I cannot dissociate myself from the life of the College. And, alas,” he said, looking at the clock, “I must leave you now. As soon as you have finished dinner, you might, if you would care to, come and peep down at us from the gallery. There is apt to be some measure of noise and racket, but all of it good-humoured and⁠—boys will be boys⁠—pardonable. Will you come?”

“Perhaps, grand-papa,” she said awkwardly. Left alone, she hardly knew whether to laugh or cry. In a moment, the butler came to her rescue, telling her that dinner was served.

As the figure of the Warden emerged from Salt Cellar into the Front Quadrangle, a hush fell on the group of gowned Fellows outside the Hall. Most of them had only just been told the news, and (such is the force of routine in an University) were still sceptical of it. And in face of these doubts the three or four dons who had been down at the river were now half ready to believe that there must, after all, be some mistake, and that in this world of illusions they had tonight been specially tricked. To rebut this theory, there was the notable absence of undergraduates. Or was this an illusion, too? Men of thought, agile on the plane of ideas, devils of fellows among books, they groped feebly in this matter of actual life and death. The sight of their Warden heartened them. After all, he was the responsible person. He was father of the flock that had strayed, and grandfather of the beautiful Miss Zuleika.

Like her, they remembered not to smile in greeting him.

“Good evening, gentlemen,” he said. “The storm seems to have passed.”

There was a murmur of “Yes, Warden.”

“And how did our boat acquit itself?”

There was a shuffling pause. Everyone looked at the Sub-Warden: it was manifestly for him to break the news, or to report the hallucination. He was nudged forward⁠—a large man, with a large beard at which he plucked nervously.

“Well, really, Warden,” he said, “we⁠—we hardly know,”5 and he ended with what can only be described as a giggle. He fell low in the esteem of his fellows.

Thinking of that past Sub-Warden whose fame was linked with the sundial, the Warden eyed this one keenly.

“Well, gentlemen,” he presently said, “our young men seem to be already at table. Shall we follow their example?” And he led the way up the steps.

Already at table? The dons’ dubiety toyed with this hypothesis. But the aspect of the Hall’s interior was hard to explain away. Here were the three long tables, stretching white towards the dais, and laden with the usual crockery and cutlery, and with pots of flowers in honour of the occasion. And here, ranged along either wall, was the usual array of scouts, motionless, with napkins across their arms. But that was all.

It became clear to the Warden that some organised prank or protest was afoot. Dignity required that he should take no heed whatsoever. Looking neither to the right nor to the left, stately he approached the dais, his Fellows to heel.

In Judas, as in other Colleges, grace before meat is read by the Senior Scholar. The Judas grace (composed, they say, by Christopher Whitrid himself) is noted for its length and for the excellence of its Latinity. Who was to read it tonight? The Warden, having searched his mind vainly for a precedent, was driven to create one.

“The Junior Fellow,” he said, “will read grace.”

Blushing to the roots of his hair, and with crablike gait, Mr. Pedby, the Junior Fellow, went and unhooked from the wall that little shield of wood on which the words of the grace are carven. Mr. Pedby was⁠—Mr. Pedby is⁠—a mathematician. His treatise on the Higher Theory of Short Division by Decimals had already won for him a European reputation. Judas was⁠—Judas is⁠—proud of Pedby. Nor is it denied that in undertaking the duty thrust on him he