XXII
Stroke by stroke, the great familiar monody of that incomparable curfewrose and fell in the stillness.
Nothing of Oxford lingers more surely than it in the memory of Oxfordmen; and to one revisiting these groves nothing is more eloquent of thatscrupulous historic economy whereby his own particular past is utilisedas the general present and future. "All's as it was, all's as it willbe," says Great Tom; and that is what he stubbornly said on the eveningI here record.
Stroke by measured and leisured stroke, the old euphonious clangourpervaded Oxford, spreading out over the meadows, along the river,audible in Iffley. But to the dim groups gathering and dispersing oneither bank, and to the silent workers in the boats, the bell's messagecame softened, equivocal; came as a requiem for these dead.
Over the closed gates of Iffley lock, the water gushed down, eager forthe sacrament of the sea. Among the supine in the field hard by, therewas one whose breast bore a faint-gleaming star. And bending over him,looking down at him with much love and pity in her eyes, was the shadeof Nellie O'Mora, that "fairest witch," to whose memory he had to-dayatoned.
And yonder, "sitting upon the river-bank o'ergrown," with questioningeyes, was another shade, more habituated to these haunts--the shadeknown so well to bathers "in the abandoned lasher," and to dancers"around the Fyfield elm in May." At the bell's final stroke, the ScholarGipsy rose, letting fall on the water his gathered wild-flowers, andpassed towards Cumnor.
And now, duly, throughout Oxford, the gates of the Colleges were closed,and closed were the doors of the lodging-houses. Every night, for manyyears, at this hour precisely, Mrs. Batch had come out from her kitchen,to turn the key in the front-door. The function had long ago becomeautomatic. To-night, however, it was the cue for further tears. Thesedid not cease at her return to the kitchen, where she had gatheredabout her some sympathetic neighbours--women of her own age andkind, capacious of tragedy; women who might be relied on founts ofejaculation, wells of surmise, downpours of remembered premonitions.
With his elbows on the kitchen table, and his knuckles to his brow, satClarence, intent on belated "prep." Even an eye-witness of disaster maypall if he repeat his story too often. Clarence had noted in the lastrecital that he was losing his hold on his audience. So now he satcommitting to memory the names of the cantons of Switzerland, and wavingaside with a harsh gesture such questions as were still put to him bythe women.
Katie had sought refuge in the need for "putting the gentlemen's roomsstraight," against the arrival of the two families to-morrow. Dusterin hand, and by the light of a single candle that barely survived thedraught from the open window, she moved to and fro about the Duke'sroom, a wan and listless figure, casting queerest shadows on theceiling. There were other candles that she might have lit, but thisambiguous gloom suited her sullen humour. Yes, I am sorry to say, Katiewas sullen. She had not ceased to mourn the Duke; but it was even moreanger than grief that she felt at his dying. She was as sure as everthat he had not loved Miss Dobson but this only made it the moreoutrageous that he had died because of her. What was there in this womanthat men should so demean themselves for her? Katie, as you know, had atfirst been unaffected by the death of the undergraduates at large. But,because they too had died for Zuleika, she was bitterly incensed againstthem now. What could they have admired in such a woman? She didn't evenlook like a lady. Katie caught the dim reflection of herself in themirror. She took the candle from the table, and examined the reflectionclosely. She was sure she was just as pretty as Miss Dobson. It was onlythe clothes that made the difference--the clothes and the behaviour.Katie threw back her head, and smiled brilliantly, hand on hip. Shenodded reassuringly at herself; and the black pearl and the pink danceda duet. She put the candle down, and undid her hair, roughly partingit on one side, and letting it sweep down over the further eyebrow. Shefixed it in that fashion, and posed accordingly. Now! But gradually hersmile relaxed, and a mist came to her eyes. For she had to admit thateven so, after all, she hadn't just that something which somehow MissDobson had. She put away from her the hasty dream she had had of a wholefuture generation of undergraduates drowning themselves, every one, inhonour of her. She went wearily on with her work.
Presently, after a last look round, she went up the creaking stairs, todo Mr. Noaks' room.
She found on the table that screed which her mother had recited so oftenthis evening. She put it in the waste-paper basket.
Also on the table were a lexicon, a Thucydides, and some note-books.These she took and shelved without a tear for the closed labours theybore witness to.
The next disorder that met her eye was one that gave her pause--seemed,indeed, to transfix her.
Mr. Noaks had never, since he came to lodge here, possessed more thanone pair of boots. This fact had been for her a lasting source ofannoyance; for it meant that she had to polish Mr. Noaks' boots alwaysin the early morning, when there were so many other things to be done,instead of choosing her own time. Her annoyance had been all the keenerbecause Mr. Noaks' boots more than made up in size for what they lackedin number. Either of them singly took more time and polish than anyother pair imaginable. She would have recognised them, at a glance,anywhere. Even so now, it was at a glance that she recognised the toesof them protruding from beneath the window-curtain. She dismissed thetheory that Mr. Noaks might have gone utterly unshod to the river. Shescouted the hypothesis that his ghost could be shod thus. By processof elimination she arrived at the truth. "Mr. Noaks," she said quietly,"come out of there."
There was a slight quiver of the curtain; no more. Katie repeated herwords. There was a pause, then a convulsion of the curtain. Noaks stoodforth.
Always, in polishing his boots, Katie had found herself thinking of himas a man of prodigious stature, well though she knew him to be quitetiny. Even so now, at recognition of his boots, she had fixed her eyesto meet his, when he should emerge, a full yard too high. With a sharpdrop she focussed him.
"By what right," he asked, "do you come prying about my room?"
This was a stroke so unexpected that it left Katie mute. It equallysurprised Noaks, who had been about to throw himself on his knees andimplore this girl not to betray him. He was quick, though, to clinch hisadvantage.
"This," he said, "is the first time I have caught you. Let it be thelast."
Was this the little man she had so long despised, and so superciliouslyserved? His very smallness gave him an air of concentrated force. Sheremembered having read that all the greatest men in history had been ofless than the middle height. And--oh, her heart leapt--here was theone man who had scorned to die for Miss Dobson. He alone had held outagainst the folly of his fellows. Sole and splendid survivor he stood,rock-footed, before her. And impulsively she abased herself, kneeling athis feet as at the great double altar of some dark new faith.
"You are great, sir, you are wonderful," she said, gazing up to him,rapt. It was the first time she had ever called him "sir."
It is easier, as Michelet suggested, for a woman to change her opinionof a man than for him to change his opinion of himself. Noaks, despitethe presence of mind he had shown a few moments ago, still saw himselfas he had seen himself during the past hours: that is, as an arrantlittle coward--one who by his fear to die had put himself outside thepale of decent manhood. He had meant to escape from the house at dead ofnight and, under an assumed name, work his passage out to Australia--aland which had always made strong appeal to his imagination. No one, hehad reflected, would suppose because his body was not retrieved fromthe water that he had not perished with the rest. And he had looked toAustralia to make a man of him yet: in Encounter Bay, perhaps, or in theGulf of Carpentaria, he might yet end nobly.
Thus Katie's behaviour was as much an embarrassment as a relief; and heasked her in what way he was great and wonderful.
"Modest, like all heroes!" she cried, and, still kneeling, proceeded tosing his praises with a so infectious fervour that Noaks did begin tofeel he had done a fine thing in not
dying. After all, was it not moralcowardice as much as love that had tempted him to die? He had wrestledwith it, thrown it. "Yes," said he, when her rhapsody was over, "perhapsI am modest."
"And that is why you hid yourself just now?"
"Yes," he gladly said. "I hid myself for the same reason," he added,"when I heard your mother's footstep."
"But," she faltered, with a sudden doubt, "that bit of writing whichMother found on the table--"
"That? Oh, that was only a general reflection, copied out of a book."
"Oh, won't poor Mother be glad when she knows!"
"I don't want her to know," said Noaks, with a return of nervousness."You mustn't tell any one. I--the fact is--"
"Ah, that is so like you!" the girl said tenderly. "I suppose it wasyour modesty that all this while blinded me. Please, sir, I have aconfession to make to you. Never till to-night have I loved you."
Exquisite was the shock of these words to one who, not without reason,had always assumed that no woman would ever love him. Before he knewwhat he was doing, he had bent down and kissed the sweet upturned face.It was the first kiss he had ever given outside his family circle. Itwas an artless and a resounding kiss.
He started back, dazed. What manner of man, he wondered, was he? Acoward, piling profligacy on poltroonery? Or a hero, claiming exemptionfrom moral law? What was done could not be undone; but it could berighted. He drew off from the little finger of his left hand that ironring which, after a twinge of rheumatism, he had to-day resumed.
"Wear it," he said.
"You mean--?" She leapt to her feet.
"That we are engaged. I hope you don't think we have any choice?"
She clapped her hands, like the child she was, and adjusted the ring.
"It is very pretty," she said.
"It is very simple," he answered lightly. "But," he added, with a changeof tone, "it is very durable. And that is the important thing. For Ishall not be in a position to marry before I am forty."
A shadow of disappointment hovered over Katie's clear young brow, butwas instantly chased away by the thought that to be engaged was almostas splendid as to be married.
"Recently," said her lover, "I meditated leaving Oxford for Australia.But now that you have come into my life, I am compelled to drop thatnotion, and to carve out the career I had first set for myself. A yearhence, if I get a Second in Greats--and I SHALL" he said, with afierce look that entranced her--"I shall have a very good chance of anassistant-mastership in a good private school. In eighteen years, if Iam careful--and, with you waiting for me, I SHALL be careful--my savingswill enable me to start a small school of my own, and to take a wife.Even then it would be more prudent to wait another five years, no doubt.But there was always a streak of madness in the Noakses. I say 'Prudenceto the winds!'"
"Ah, don't say that!" exclaimed Katie, laying a hand on his sleeve.
"You are right. Never hesitate to curb me. And," he said, touching thering, "an idea has just occurred to me. When the time comes, let thisbe the wedding-ring. Gold is gaudy--not at all the thing for aschoolmaster's bride. It is a pity," he muttered, examining her throughhis spectacles, "that your hair is so golden. A schoolmaster's brideshould--Good heavens! Those ear-rings! Where did you get THEM?"
"They were given to me to-day," Katie faltered. "The Duke gave me them."
"Indeed?"
"Please, sir, he gave me them as a memento."
"And that memento shall immediately be handed over to his executors."
"Yes, sir."
"I should think so!" was on the tip of Noaks' tongue, but suddenly heceased to see the pearls as trinkets finite and inapposite--saw them,in a flash, as things transmutable by sale hereafter into desks, forms,black-boards, maps, lockers, cubicles, gravel soil, diet unlimited, andspecial attention to backward pupils. Simultaneously, he saw how meanhad been his motive for repudiating the gift. What more despicable thanjealousy of a man deceased? What sillier than to cast pearls beforeexecutors? Sped by nothing but the pulse of his hot youth, he had wooedand won this girl. Why flinch from her unsought dowry?
He told her his vision. Her eyes opened wide to it. "And oh," she cried,"then we can be married as soon as you take your degree!"
He bade her not be so foolish. Who ever heard of a head-master agedthree-and-twenty? What parent or guardian would trust a stripling? Theengagement must run its course. "And," he said, fidgeting, "do you knowthat I have hardly done any reading to-day?"
"You want to read NOW--TO-NIGHT?"
"I must put in a good two hours. Where are the books that were on mytable?"
Reverently--he was indeed a king of men--she took the books down fromthe shelf, and placed them where she had found them. And she knew notwhich thrilled her the more--the kiss he gave her at parting, or thetone in which he told her that the one thing he could not and would notstand was having his books disturbed.
Still less than before attuned to the lugubrious session downstairs, shewent straight up to her attic, and did a little dance there in thedark. She threw open the lattice of the dormer-window, and leaned out,smiling, throbbing.
The Emperors, gazing up, saw her happy, and wondered; saw Noaks' ring onher finger, and would fain have shaken their grey heads.
Presently she was aware of a protrusion from the window beneath hers.The head of her beloved! Fondly she watched it, wished she could reachdown to stroke it. She loved him for having, after all, left his books.It was sweet to be his excuse. Should she call softly to him? No, itmight shame him to be caught truant. He had already chidden her forprying. So she did but gaze down on his head silently, wondering whetherin eighteen years it would be bald, wondering whether her own hair wouldstill have the fault of being golden. Most of all, she wondered whetherhe loved her half so much as she loved him.
This happened to be precisely what he himself was wondering. Not thathe wished himself free. He was one of those in whom the will does not,except under very great pressure, oppose the conscience. What pressurehere? Miss Batch was a superior girl; she would grace any station inlife. He had always been rather in awe of her. It was a fine thing to besuddenly loved by her, to be in a position to over-rule her every whim.Plighting his troth, he had feared she would be an encumbrance, only tofind she was a lever. But--was he deeply in love with her? How was itthat he could not at this moment recall her features, or the tone of hervoice, while of deplorable Miss Dobson, every lineament, every accent,so vividly haunted him? Try as he would to beat off these memories, hefailed, and--some very great pressure here!--was glad he failed; gladthough he found himself relapsing to the self-contempt from which MissBatch had raised him. He scorned himself for being alive. And again, hescorned himself for his infidelity. Yet he was glad he could not forgetthat face, that voice--that queen. She had smiled at him when sheborrowed the ring. She had said "Thank you." Oh, and now, at this verymoment, sleeping or waking, actually she was somewhere--she! herself!This was an incredible, an indubitable, an all-magical fact for thelittle fellow.
From the street below came a faint cry that was as the cry of his ownheart, uttered by her own lips. Quaking, he peered down, and dimly saw,over the way, a cloaked woman.
She--yes, it was she herself--came gliding to the middle of the road,gazing up at him.
"At last!" he heard her say. His instinct was to hide himself from thequeen he had not died for. Yet he could not move.
"Or," she quavered, "are you a phantom sent to mock me? Speak!"
"Good evening," he said huskily.
"I knew," she murmured, "I knew the gods were not so cruel. Oh man of myneed," she cried, stretching out her arms to him, "oh heaven-sent, I seeyou only as a dark outline against the light of your room. But I knowyou. Your name is Noaks, isn't it? Dobson is mine. I am your Warden'sgrand-daughter. I am faint and foot-sore. I have ranged this desert cityin search of--of YOU. Let me hear from your own lips that you love me.Tell me in your own words--" She broke off with a little scream, and didnot stand with forefinger pointed at hi
m, gazing, gasping.
"Listen, Miss Dobson," he stammered, writhing under what he took to bethe lash of her irony. "Give me time to explain. You see me here--"
"Hush," she cried, "man of my greater, my deeper and nobler need!Oh hush, ideal which not consciously I was out for to-night--idealvouchsafed to me by a crowning mercy! I sought a lover, I find a master.I sought but a live youth, was blind to what his survival would betoken.Oh master, you think me light and wicked. You stare coldly down at methrough your spectacles, whose glint I faintly discern now that the moonpeeps forth. You would be readier to forgive me the havoc I have wroughtif you could for the life of you understand what charm your friendsfound in me. You marvel, as at the skull of Helen of Troy. No, you don'tthink me hideous: you simply think me plain. There was a time when Ithought YOU plain--you whose face, now that the moon shines full on it,is seen to be of a beauty that is flawless without being insipid. Ohthat I were a glove upon that hand, that I might touch that cheek! Youshudder at the notion of such contact. My voice grates on you. You tryto silence me with frantic though exquisite gestures, and with noisesinarticulate but divine. I bow to your will, master. Chasten me withyour tongue."
"I am not what you think me," gibbered Noaks. "I was not afraid to diefor you. I love you. I was on my way to the river this afternoon, butI--I tripped and sprained my ankle, and--and jarred my spine. Theycarried me back here. I am still very weak. I can't put my foot to theground. As soon as I can--"
Just then Zuleika heard a little sharp sound which, for the fraction ofan instant, before she knew it to be a clink of metal on the pavement,she thought was the breaking of the heart within her. Looking quicklydown, she heard a shrill girlish laugh aloft. Looking quickly up,she descried at the unlit window above her lover's a face which sheremembered as that of the land-lady's daughter.
"Find it, Miss Dobson," laughed the girl. "Crawl for it. It can't haverolled far, and it's the only engagement-ring you'll get from HIM," shesaid, pointing to the livid face twisted painfully up at her from thelower window. "Grovel for it, Miss Dobson. Ask him to step down and helpyou. Oh, he can! That was all lies about his spine and ankle. Afraid,that's what he was--I see it all now--afraid of the water. I wish you'dfound him as I did--skulking behind the curtain. Oh, you're welcome tohim."
"Don't listen," Noaks cried down. "Don't listen to that person. I admitI have trifled with her affections. This is her revenge--these wickeduntruths--these--these--"
Zuleika silenced him with a gesture. "Your tone to me," she said up toKatie, "is not without offence; but the stamp of truth is on what youtell me. We have both been deceived in this man, and are, in some sort,sisters."
"Sisters?" cried Katie. "Your sisters are the snake and the spider,though neither of them wishes it known. I loathe you. And the Dukeloathed you, too."
"What's that?" gasped Zuleika.
"Didn't he tell you? He told me. And I warrant he told you, too."
"He died for love of me: d'you hear?"
"Ah, you'd like people to think so, wouldn't you? Does a man who loves awoman give away the keepsake she gave him? Look!" Katie leaned forward,pointing to her ear-rings. "He loved ME," she cried. "He put them in withhis own hands--told me to wear them always. And he kissed me--kissed megood-bye in the street, where every one could see. He kissed me," shesobbed. "No other man shall ever do that."
"Ah, that he did!" said a voice level with Zuleika. It was the voice ofMrs. Batch, who a few moments ago had opened the door for her departingguests.
"Ah, that he did!" echoed the guests.
"Never mind them, Miss Dobson," cried Noaks, and at the sound of hisvoice Mrs. Batch rushed into the middle of the road, to gaze up. "_I_love you. Think what you will of me. I--"
"You!" flashed Zuleika. "As for you, little Sir Lily Liver, leaningout there, and, I frankly tell you, looking like nothing so much as agargoyle hewn by a drunken stone-mason for the adornment of a MethodistChapel in one of the vilest suburbs of Leeds or Wigan, I do butfelicitate the river-god and his nymphs that their water was savedto-day by your cowardice from the contamination of your plunge."
"Shame on you, Mr. Noaks," said Mrs. Batch, "making believe you weredead--"
"Shame!" screamed Clarence, who had darted out into the fray.
"I found him hiding behind the curtain," chimed in Katie.
"And I a mother to him!" said Mrs. Batch, shaking her fist. "'What islife without love?' indeed! Oh, the cowardly, underhand--"
"Wretch," prompted her cronies.
"Let's kick him out of the house!" suggested Clarence, dancing for joy.
Zuleika, smiling brilliantly down at the boy, said "Just you run up andfight him!"
"Right you are," he answered, with a look of knightly devotion, anddarted back into the house.
"No escape!" she cried up to Noaks. "You've got to fight him now. He andyou are just about evenly matched, I fancy."
But, grimly enough, Zuleika's estimate was never put to the test. Isit harder for a coward to fight with his fists than to kill himself? Oragain, is it easier for him to die than to endure a prolonged cross-fireof women's wrath and scorn? This I know: that in the life of even theleast and meanest of us there is somewhere one fine moment--one highchance not missed. I like to think it was by operation of this law thatNoaks had now clambered out upon the window-sill, silencing, sickening,scattering like chaff the women beneath him.
He was already not there when Clarence bounded into the room. "Come on!"yelled the boy, first thrusting his head behind the door, then divingbeneath the table, then plucking aside either window-curtain, vowingvengeance.
Vengeance was not his. Down on the road without, not yet looked at butby the steadfast eyes of the Emperors, the last of the undergraduateslay dead; and fleet-footed Zuleika, with her fingers still pressed toher ears, had taken full toll now.