________________________________________________
_ "The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with
their bones." At any rate, the sinner has a better chance than the
saint of being hereafter remembered. We, in whom original sin
preponderates, find him easier to understand. He is near to us, clear
to us. The saint is remote, dim. A very great saint may, of course, be
remembered through some sheer force of originality in him; and then
the very mystery that involves him for us makes him the harder to
forget: he haunts us the more surely because we shall never understand
him. But the ordinary saints grow faint to posterity; whilst quite
ordinary sinners pass vividly down the ages.
Of the disciples of Jesus, which is he that is most often remembered
and cited by us? Not the disciple whom Jesus loved; neither of the
Boanerges, nor any other of them who so steadfastly followed Him and
served Him; but the disciple who betrayed Him for thirty pieces of
silver. Judas Iscariot it is who outstands, overshadowing those other
fishermen. And perhaps it was by reason of this precedence that
Christopher Whitrid, Knight, in the reign of Henry VI., gave the name
of Judas to the College which he had founded. Or perhaps it was
because he felt that in a Christian community not even the meanest and
basest of men should be accounted beneath contempt, beyond redemption.
At any rate, thus he named his foundation. And, though for Oxford men
the savour of the name itself has long evaporated through its local
connexion, many things show that for the Founder himself it was no
empty vocable. In a niche above the gate stands a rudely carved statue
of Judas, holding a money-bag in his right hand. Among the original
statutes of the College is one by which the Bursar is enjoined to
distribute in Passion Week thirty pieces of silver among the needier
scholars "for saike of atonynge." The meadow adjoining the back of the
College has been called from time immemorial "the Potter's Field." And
the name of Salt Cellar is not less ancient and significant.
Salt Cellar, that grey and green quadrangle visible from the room
assigned to Zuleika, is very beautiful, as I have said. So tranquil is
it as to seem remote not merely from the world, but even from Oxford,
so deeply is it hidden away in the core of Oxford's heart. So tranquil
is it, one would guess that nothing had ever happened in it. For five
centuries these walls have stood, and during that time have beheld,
one would say, no sight less seemly than the good work of weeding,
mowing, rolling, that has made, at length, so exemplary the lawn.
These cloisters that grace the south and east sides--five centuries
have passed through them, leaving in them no echo, leaving on them no
sign, of all that the outer world, for good or evil, has been doing so
fiercely, so raucously.
And yet, if you are versed in the antiquities of Oxford, you know that
this small, still quadrangle has played its part in the rough-and-
tumble of history, and has been the background of high passions and
strange fates. The sun-dial in its midst has told the hours to more
than one bygone King. Charles I. lay for twelve nights in Judas; and
it was here, in this very quadrangle, that he heard from the lips of a
breathless and blood-stained messenger the news of Chalgrove Field.
Sixty years later, James, his son, came hither, black with threats,
and from one of the hind-windows of the Warden's house--maybe, from
the very room where now Zuleika was changing her frock--addressed the
Fellows, and presented to them the Papist by him chosen to be their
Warden, instead of the Protestant whom they had elected. They were not
of so stern a stuff as the Fellows of Magdalen, who, despite His
Majesty's menaces, had just rejected Bishop Farmer. The Papist was
elected, there and then, al fresco, without dissent. Cannot one see
them, these Fellows of Judas, huddled together round the sun-dial,
like so many sheep in a storm? The King's wrath, according to a
contemporary record, was so appeased by their pliancy that he deigned
to lie for two nights in Judas, and at a grand refection in Hall "was
gracious and merrie." Perhaps it was in lingering gratitude for such
patronage that Judas remained so pious to his memory even after smug
Herrenhausen had been dumped down on us for ever. Certainly, of all
the Colleges none was more ardent than Judas for James Stuart. Thither
it was that young Sir Harry Esson led, under cover of night, three-
score recruits whom he had enlisted in the surrounding villages. The
cloisters of Salt Cellar were piled with arms and stores; and on its
grass--its sacred grass!--the squad was incessantly drilled, against
the good day when Ormond should land his men in Devon. For a whole
month Salt Cellar was a secret camp. But somehow, at length--woe to
"lost causes and impossible loyalties"--Herrenhausen had wind of it;
and one night, when the soldiers of the white cockade lay snoring
beneath the stars, stealthily the white-faced Warden unbarred his
postern--that very postern through which now Zuleika had passed on the
way to her bedroom--and stealthily through it, one by one on tip-toe,
came the King's foot-guards. Not many shots rang out, nor many swords
clashed, in the night air, before the trick was won for law and order.
Most of the rebels were overpowered in their sleep; and those who had
time to snatch arms were too dazed to make good resistance. Sir Harry
Esson himself was the only one who did not live to be hanged. He had
sprung up alert, sword in hand, at the first alarm, setting his back
to the cloisters. There he fought calmly, ferociously, till a bullet
went through his chest. "By God, this College is well-named!" were the
words he uttered as he fell forward and died.
Comparatively tame was the scene now being enacted in this place. The
Duke, with bowed head, was pacing the path between the lawn and the
cloisters. Two other undergraduates stood watching him, whispering to
each other, under the archway that leads to the Front Quadrangle.
Presently, in a sheepish way, they approached him. He halted and
looked up.
"I say," stammered the spokesman.
"Well?" asked the Duke. Both youths were slightly acquainted with him;
but he was not used to being spoken to by those whom he had not first
addressed. Moreover, he was loth to be thus disturbed in his sombre
reverie. His manner was not encouraging.
"Isn't it a lovely day for the Eights?" faltered the spokesman.
"I conceive," the Duke said, "that you hold back some other question."
The spokesman smiled weakly. Nudged by the other, he muttered "Ask him
yourself!"
The Duke diverted his gaze to the other, who, with an angry look at
the one, cleared his throat, and said "I was going to ask if you
thought Miss Dobson would come and have luncheon with me to-morrow?"
"A sister of mine will be there," explained the one, knowing the Duke
to be a precisian.
"If you are acquainted with Miss Dobson, a direct invitation should be
sent to her," said the Duke. "If you are not--" The aposiopesis was
icy.
"Well, you see," said the other of the two, "that is just the
difficulty. I AM acquainted with her. But is she acquainted with ME? I
met her at breakfast this morning, at the Warden's."
"So did I," added the one.
"But she--well," continued the other, "she didn't take much notice of
us. She seemed to be in a sort of dream."
"Ah!" murmured the Duke, with melancholy interest.
"The only time she opened her lips," said the other, "was when she
asked us whether we took tea or coffee."
"She put hot milk in my tea," volunteered the one, "and upset the cup
over my hand, and smiled vaguely."
"And smiled vaguely," sighed the Duke.
"She left us long before the marmalade stage," said the one.
"Without a word," said the other.
"Without a glance?" asked the Duke. It was testified by the one and
the other that there had been not so much as a glance.
"Doubtless," the disingenuous Duke said, "she had a headache . . . Was
she pale?"
"Very pale," answered the one.
"A healthy pallor," qualified the other, who was a constant reader of
novels.
"Did she look," the Duke inquired, "as if she had spent a sleepless
night?"
That was the impression made on both.
"Yet she did not seem listless or unhappy?"
No, they would not go so far as to say that.
"Indeed, were her eyes of an almost unnatural brilliance?"
"Quite unnatural," confessed the one.
"Twin stars," interpolated the other.
"Did she, in fact, seem to be consumed by some inward rapture?"
Yes, now they came to think of it, this was exactly how she HAD
seemed.
It was sweet, it was bitter, for the Duke. "I remember," Zuleika had
said to him, "nothing that happened to me this morning till I found
myself at your door." It was bitter-sweet to have that outline filled
in by these artless pencils. No, it was only bitter, to be, at his
time of life, living in the past.
"The purpose of your tattle?" he asked coldly.
The two youths hurried to the point from which he had diverted them.
"When she went by with you just now," said the one, "she evidently
didn't know us from Adam."
"And I had so hoped to ask her to luncheon," said the other.
"Well?"
"Well, we wondered if you would re-introduce us. And then
perhaps . . ."
There was a pause. The Duke was touched to kindness for these fellow-
lovers. He would fain preserve them from the anguish that beset
himself. So humanising is sorrow.
"You are in love with Miss Dobson?" he asked.
Both nodded.
"Then," said he, "you will in time be thankful to me for not affording
you further traffic with that lady. To love and be scorned--does Fate
hold for us a greater inconvenience? You think I beg the question? Let
me tell you that I, too, love Miss Dobson, and that she scorns me."
To the implied question "What chance would there be for you?" the
reply was obvious.
Amazed, abashed, the two youths turned on their heels.
"Stay!" said the Duke. "Let me, in justice to myself, correct an
inference you may have drawn. It is not by reason of any defect in
myself, perceived or imagined, that Miss Dobson scorns me. She scorns
me simply because I love her. All who love her she scorns. To see her
is to love her. Therefore shut your eyes to her. Strictly exclude her
from your horizon. Ignore her. Will you do this?"
"We will try," said the one, after a pause.
"Thank you very much," added the other.
The Duke watched them out of sight. He wished he could take the good
advice he had given them . . . Suppose he did take it! Suppose he went
to the Bursar, obtained an exeat, fled straight to London! What just
humiliation for Zuleika to come down and find her captive gone! He
pictured her staring around the quadrangle, ranging the cloisters,
calling to him. He pictured her rustling to the gate of the College,
inquiring at the porter's lodge. "His Grace, Miss, he passed through a
minute ago. He's going down this afternoon."
Yet, even while his fancy luxuriated in this scheme, he well knew that
he would not accomplish anything of the kind--knew well that he would
wait here humbly, eagerly, even though Zuleika lingered over her
toilet till crack o' doom. He had no desire that was not centred in
her. Take away his love for her, and what remained? Nothing--though
only in the past twenty-four hours had this love been added to him.
Ah, why had he ever seen her? He thought of his past, its cold
splendour and insouciance. But he knew that for him there was no
returning. His boats were burnt. The Cytherean babes had set their
torches to that flotilla, and it had blazed like match-wood. On the
isle of the enchantress he was stranded for ever. For ever stranded on
the isle of an enchantress who would have nothing to do with him!
What, he wondered, should be done in so piteous a quandary? There
seemed to be two courses. One was to pine slowly and painfully away.
The other . . .
Academically, the Duke had often reasoned that a man for whom life
holds no chance of happiness cannot too quickly shake life off. Now,
of a sudden, there was for that theory a vivid application.
"Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer" was not a point by which
he, "more an antique Roman than a Dane," was at all troubled. Never
had he given ear to that cackle which is called Public Opinion. The
judgment of his peers--this, he had often told himself, was the sole
arbitrage he could submit to; but then, who was to be on the bench?
Peerless, he was irresponsible--the captain of his soul, the despot of
his future. No injunction but from himself would he bow to; and his
own injunctions--so little Danish was he--had always been peremptory
and lucid. Lucid and peremptory, now, the command he issued to
himself.
"So sorry to have been so long," carolled a voice from above. The Duke
looked up. "I'm all but ready," said Zuleika at her window.
That brief apparition changed the colour of his resolve. He realised
that to die for love of this lady would be no mere measure of
precaution, or counsel of despair. It would be in itself a passionate
indulgence--a fiery rapture, not to be foregone. What better could he
ask than to die for his love? Poor indeed seemed to him now the
sacrament of marriage beside the sacrament of death. Death was
incomparably the greater, the finer soul. Death was the one true
bridal.
He flung back his head, spread wide his arms, quickened his pace
almost to running speed. Ah, he would win his bride before the setting
of the sun. He knew not by what means he would win her. Enough that
even now, full-hearted, fleet-footed, he was on his way to her, and
that she heard him coming.
When Zuleika, a vision in vaporous white, came out through the
postern, she wondered why he was walking at so remarkable a pace. To
him, wildly expressing in his movement the thought within him, she
appeared as his awful bride. With a cry of joy, he bounded towards
her, and would have caught her in his arms, had she not stepped nimbly
aside.
"Forgive me!" he said, after a pause. "It was a mistake--an idiotic
mistake of identity. I thought you were . . ."
Zuleika, rigid, asked "Have I many doubles?"
"You know well that in all the world is none so blest as to be like
you. I can only say that I was over-wrought. I can only say that it
shall not occur again."
She was very angry indeed. Of his penitence there could be no doubt.
But there are outrages for which no penitence can atone. This seemed
to be one of them. Her first impulse was to dismiss the Duke forthwith
and for ever. But she wanted to show herself at the races. And she
could not go alone. And except the Duke there was no one to take her.
True, there was the concert to-night; and she could show herself there
to advantage; but she wanted ALL Oxford to see her--see her NOW.
"I am forgiven?" he asked. In her, I am afraid, self-respect
outweighed charity. "I will try," she said merely, "to forget what you
have done." Motioning him to her side, she opened her parasol, and
signified her readiness to start.
They passed together across the vast gravelled expanse of the Front
Quadrangle. In the porch of the College there were, as usual, some
chained-up dogs, patiently awaiting their masters. Zuleika, of course,
did not care for dogs. One has never known a good man to whom dogs
were not dear; but many of the best women have no such fondness. You
will find that the woman who is really kind to dogs is always one who
has failed to inspire sympathy in men. For the attractive woman, dogs
are mere dumb and restless brutes--possibly dangerous, certainly
soulless. Yet will coquetry teach her to caress any dog in the
presence of a man enslaved by her. Even Zuleika, it seems, was not
above this rather obvious device for awaking envy. Be sure she did not
at all like the look of the very big bulldog who was squatting outside
the porter's lodge. Perhaps, but for her present anger, she would not
have stooped endearingly down to him, as she did, cooing over him and
trying to pat his head. Alas, her pretty act was a failure. The
bulldog cowered away from her, horrifically grimacing. This was
strange. Like the majority of his breed, Corker (for such was his
name) had ever been wistful to be noticed by any one--effusively
grateful for every word or pat, an ever-ready wagger and nuzzler, to
none ineffable. No beggar, no burglar, had ever been rebuffed by this
catholic beast. But he drew the line at Zuleika.
Seldom is even a fierce bulldog heard to growl. Yet Corker growled at
Zuleika. _
Read next: CHAPTER 7
Read previous: CHAPTER 5
Table of content of Zuleika Dobson
GO TO TOP OF SCREEN
Post your review
Your review will be placed after the table of content of this book
