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

by which you approach New College. At sight of the great shut gate before her, she halted, and swerved to the wall. She set her brow and the palms of her hands against the cold stones. She threw back her head, and beat the stones with her fists.

It was not only what she had seen, it was what she had barely saved herself from seeing, and what she had not quite saved herself from hearing, that she strove so piteously to forget. She was sorrier for herself, angrier, than she had been last night when the Duke laid hands on her. Why should every day have a horrible ending? Last night she had avenged herself. Tonight’s outrage was all the more foul and mean because of its certain immunity. And the fact that she had in some measure brought it on herself did but whip her rage. What a fool she had been to taunt the man! Yet no, how could she have foreseen that he would⁠—do that? How could she have guessed that he, who had not dared seemly death for her in the gentle river, would dare⁠—that?

She shuddered the more as she now remembered that this very day, in that very house, she had invited for her very self a similar fate. What if the Duke had taken her word? Strange! she wouldn’t have flinched then. She had felt no horror at the notion of such a death. And thus she now saw Noaks’ conduct in a new light⁠—saw that he had but wished to prove his love, not at all to affront her. This understanding quickly steadied her nerves. She did not need now to forget what she had seen; and, not needing to forget it⁠—thus are our brains fashioned⁠—she was able to forget it.

But by removal of one load her soul was but bared for a more grievous other. Her memory harked back to what had preceded the crisis. She recalled those moments of doomed rapture in which her heart had soared up to the apocalyptic window⁠—recalled how, all the while she was speaking to the man there, she had been chafed by the inadequacy of language. Oh, how much more she had meant than she could express! Oh, the ecstasy of that self-surrender! And the brevity of it! the sudden odious awakening! Thrice in this Oxford she had been duped. Thrice all that was fine and sweet in her had leapt forth, only to be scourged back into hiding. Poor heart inhibited! She gazed about her. The stone alley she had come into, the terrible shut gate, were for her a visible symbol of the destiny she had to put up with. Wringing her hands, she hastened along the way she had come. She vowed she would never again set foot in Oxford. She wished herself out of the hateful little city tonight. She even wished herself dead.

She deserved to suffer, you say? Maybe. I merely state that she did suffer.

Emerging into Catherine Street, she knew whereabouts she was, and made straight for Judas, turning away her eyes as she skirted the Broad, that place of mocked hopes and shattered ideals.

Coming into Judas Street, she remembered the scene of yesterday⁠—the happy man with her, the noise of the vast happy crowd. She suffered in a worse form what she had suffered in the gallery of the Hall. For now⁠—did I not say she was not without imagination?⁠—her self-pity was sharpened by remorse for the hundreds of homes robbed. She realised the truth of what the poor Duke had once said to her: she was a danger in the world⁠ ⁠… Aye, and all the more dire now. What if the youth of all Europe were moved by Oxford’s example? That was a horribly possible thing. It must be reckoned with. It must be averted. She must not show herself to men. She must find some hiding-place, and there abide. Were this a hardship? she asked herself. Was she not sickened forever of men’s homage? And was it not clear now that the absorbing need in her soul, the need to love, would never⁠—except for a brief while, now and then, and by an unfortunate misunderstanding⁠—be fulfilled?

So long ago that you may not remember, I compared her favourably with the shepherdess Marcella, and pleaded her capacity for passion as an excuse for her remaining at large. I hope you will now, despite your rather evident animus against her, set this to her credit: that she did, so soon as she realised the hopelessness of her case, make just that decision which I blamed Marcella for not making at the outset. It was as she stood on the Warden’s doorstep that she decided to take the veil.

With something of a conventual hush in her voice, she said to the butler, “Please tell my maid that we are leaving by a very early train tomorrow, and that she must pack my things tonight.”

“Very well, Miss,” said the butler. “The Warden,” he added, “is in the study, Miss, and was asking for you.”

She could face her grandfather without a tremour⁠—now. She would hear meekly whatever reproaches he might have for her, but their sting was already drawn by the surprise she had in store for him.

It was he who seemed a trifle nervous. In his “Well, did you come and peep down from the gallery?” there was a distinct tremour.

Throwing aside her cloak, she went quickly to him, and laid a hand on the lapel of his coat. “Poor grand-papa!” she said.

“Nonsense, my dear child,” he replied, disengaging himself. “I didn’t give it a thought. If the young men chose to be so silly as to stay away, I⁠—I⁠—”

“Grand-papa, haven’t you been told yet?”

“Told? I am a Gallio for such follies. I didn’t inquire.”

“But (forgive me, grand-papa, if I seem to you, for the moment, pert) you are Warden here. It is your duty, even your privilege, to guard. Is it not? Well, I grant you the adage that it