 CHAPTER 1 OF ZULIKA DOBSON READING BY TERMIN DIARNE ZULIKA DOBSON An Oxford Love Story by Max Beerbone Note to the 1922 edition. I was in Italy when this book was first published. A year later, 1912, I visited London, and I found that most of my friends and acquaintances spoke to me of Zulika, a name which I hardly recognised and thoroughly disapproved. I had always thought of the lady as Zulika. Surely it was thus that Joseph thought of his wife and sell him of his bride, and I do hope that it is thus that any reader of these pages will think of Miss Dobson. M. B. Rapallo, 1922 Readers' Note We are told, in an authorial footnote, that the Duke's family name, called Tanville Tankerton, is to be pronounced Tavill-Takton, and one may assume that the name of his country-seat follows suit. The pronunciation of the name of the Oxford Dining Club, of which the Duke is President, is not specified, but I have chosen to use the pronunciation Junter, rather than the more correct Hunter, on the grounds that an aristocratic young Englishman of the Edwardian era would not stoop to use other than an anglicised pronunciation. All other unusual pronunciations derive from my own unaided ignorance. T. D. Wagga Wagga January, 2009 Chapter 1 That old bell, a presage of a train, had just sounded through Oxford Station, and the undergraduates who were waiting there — gay figures in tweed or flannel — moved to the margin of the platform and gazed idly up the line. Young and careless in the glow of the afternoon sunshine, they struck a sharp note of incongruity with the worn boards they stood on, with the fading signals, and grey external walls of that antique station, which, familiar to them and insignificant, does yet whisper to the tourist the last enchantments of the middle age. At the door of the first-class waiting-room, a loof and venerable stood the warden of Judas. An even pillar of tradition seemed he in his garb of old-fashioned cleric. A loft between the wide brim of his silk hat and the white extent of his shirt-front appeared those eyes which hawks that nose which eagles had often envied. He supported his years on an ebb and stick. He alone was worthy of the background. Came a whistle from the distance. The breast of an engine was described, and a long train curving after it under a flight of smoke. It grew and grew. Louder and louder its noise foreran it. It became a furious, enormous monster, and with an instinct for safety all men receded from the platform's margin. Yet came there with it, unknown to them, a danger far more terrible than itself. Into the station it came blustering the crowd and clanger. Air it had yet stopped, the door of one carriage flew open, and from it in a white travelling dress in a toque a twinkle with fine diamonds, a lithe and radiant creature slipped nimbly down to the platform. A sign assuring deed a hundred eyes were fixed on her and half as many hearts lost to her. The warden of Judas himself had mounted on his nose a pair of black-rimmed glasses. Him espying, the nymph darted in his direction. The throng made way for her. She was at his side. "'Grandpa Bar,' she cried, and kissed the old man on either cheek. Not a youth there but would have bartered fifty years of his future for that salute. "'My dear Zulika,' he said, "'welcome to Oxford. Have you no luggage?' Heaps,' she answered, and a maid who will find it. "'Then,' said the warden, "'let us drive straight to college.' He offered her his arm, and they proceeded slowly to the entrance. She chatted gaily, blushing not in the long avenues of eyes she passed through. All the youths under her spell were now quite oblivious of the relatives they had come to meet. Parents, sisters, cousins ran unclaimed about the platform. Undutiful, all the youths were forming a sered suite to their enchantress. In silence they followed her. They saw her leap into the warden's lander. They saw the warden seat himself upon her left. Nor was it until the lander was lost to sight that they turned, how slowly, and with how bad a grace, to look for their relatives. Through those slums which connect Oxford with the world, the lander rolled on towards Judas. Not many youths occurred, for nearly all it was the Monday of eights week were down by the river, cheering the crews. There did, however, come spurring by on a polo pony, a very splendid youth. His straw hat was encircled with a ribbon of blue and white, and he raised it to the warden. "'That,' said the warden, "'is the Duke of Dorset, a member of my college. He dines at my table to-night.' Zuleka, turning to regard his grace, saw that he had not rained in and was not even glancing back at her over his shoulder. She gave a little start of dismay, but scarcely had her lips pouted ere they curved to a smile, a smile with no malice in its corners. As the lander rolled into the corn, another youth, a pedestrian and very different, saluted the warden. He wore a black jacket, rusty and amorphous. His trousers were too short, and he himself was too short, almost a dwarf. His face was as plain as his gait was undistinguished. He squinted behind spectacles. "'And who is that?' asked Zuleka. A deep flush overspread the cheek of the warden. "'That,' he said, "'is also a member of Judas. His name, I believe, is Noakes. "'Is he dining with us tonight?' asked Zuleka. "'Certainly not,' said the warden, "'most decidedly not.' Noakes, unlike the duke, had stopped for an ardent retrospect. He gazed till the lander was out of his short sight. Then, sighing, resumed his solitary walk. The lander was rolling into the broad, over that ground which had once blackened under the faggots, lit for Latimer and Ridley. It rolled past the portals of Baleil and of Trinity, past the Ashmolean, from those pedestals which interspersed the railing of the Sheldonian, high grim busts of the Roman emperors stared down at the fair stranger in the equipage. Zuleka returned their stare with but a casual glance. The inanimate had little charm for her. A moment later a certain old don emerged from Blackwell's where he had been buying books. Looking across the road, he saw to his amazement great beads of perspiration glistening on the brows of those emperors. He trembled and hurried away. That evening in common room he told what he had seen, and no amount of polite scepticism would convince him that it was but the hallucination of one who had been reading too much Momsen. He persisted that he had seen what he described. It was not until two days had elapsed that some credence was accorded him. Yes, as the lander rolled by, sweat started from the brows of the emperors. They, at least, foresaw the peril that was overhanging Oxford, and they gave such warning as they could. Let that be remembered to their credit. Let that incline us to think more gently of them. In their lives we know they were infamous. Some of them. Nihildon commiserant, stupi sabieti impietatis. But are they too little punished after all? Here in Oxford, exposed eternally and inexorably to heat and frost, to the four winds that lashed them and the rains that wear them away, they are expiating, in effigy, the abominations of their pride and cruelty and lust. Who were lechers? They are without bodies. Who were tyrants? They are crowned never but with crowns of snow. Who made themselves even with the gods? They are by American visitors, frequently mistaken for the twelve apostles. It is but a little way down the road that the two bishops perished for their faith and even now we do not pass the spot without a tear for them. Yet how quickly they died in the flames to these emperors for whom none weeps time will give no surcease. Surely it is a sign of some grace in them that they rejoice not this bright afternoon in the evil that was to befall the city of their penance. End of chapter 1 chapter 2 of Zulika Dobson this LibriVox recording is in the public domain reading by Termin Diane Zulika Dobson by Max Birbone chapter 2 the sun streamed through the bay window of a best bedroom in the warden's house and glorified the pale crayon portraits on the wall the dimity curtains, the old fresh chints he invaded the many trunks which all painted ZD gape in various stages of excavation around the room the doors of the huge wardrobe stood like the doors of Janus's temple in time of war majestically open and the sun seized this opportunity of exploring the mahogany recesses but the carpet which had faded under his immemorial visitations was now almost entirely hidden from him hidden under layers of fair fine linen layers of silk, brocade, satin, chiffon, muslin all the colours of the rainbow materialised by modists were there stacked on chairs were I know of what of sachets, glovecases, fancases there were innumerable packages in silver paper and pink ribbons there was a pyramid of bandboxes there was a virgin forest of boot-trees and rustling quickly hither and thither in and out of this profusion with armfuls of finery was an obviously French maid alert, unerring, like a swallow she dipped and darted nothing escaped her and she never rested she had the air of the born unpacker swift and firm yet with all tender scarce had her arms been laden but their loads were lying lightly between shelves or tightly in drawers to calculate, catch, distribute seemed in her but a single process she was one of those who are born to make chaos cosmic in so much that ere the loud chapel-clock told another hour all the trunks had been sent empty away the carpet was unflecked by any scrap of silver paper from the mantelpiece photographs of Zuleka surveyed the room with a possessive air Zuleka's pin-cushion, a bristle with new pins lay on the dimity flounce to toilet-table and round it stood a multitude of multi-form glass vessels domed all of them with dull gold on which Z.D. in zionites and diamonds was encrusted on a small table stood a great casket of malachite initialed in like fashion on another small table stood Zuleka's library both books were in covers of dull gold on the back of one cover Bradshaw in barrels was encrusted on the back of the other A.B.C. Guide in amethysts, barrels, caraprices and garnets and Zuleka's great chauval-glass stood ready to reflect her always it travelled with her in a great case specially made for it it was framed in ivory and a fluted ivory were the slim columns it swung between of gold were its twin sconces and four tall tapers stood in each of them the door opened and the warden with hospitable words left his granddaughter at the threshold Zuleka wandered to her mirror Undress me, Mélissande, she said like all who are want to appear by night before the public she had the habit of resting towards sunset presently Mélissande withdrew her mistress in a white peignoir tied with a blue sash lay in a great chint's chair gazing out of the bay window the quadrangle below was very beautiful with its walls of rugged grey, its cloisters, its grass carpet but to her it was of no more interest than if it had been the rattling courtyard to one of those hotels in which she spent her life she saw it, but he did it not she seemed to be thinking of herself or something she desired or of someone she had never met there was only, and there was wistful thus in her gaze yet one would have guessed these things to be transient to be no more than the little shadows that sometimes pass between a bright mirror and the brightness it reflects Zuleka was not strictly beautiful her eyes were a trifle large and their lashes longer than they need have been an anarchy of small curls was her chevalure a dark upland of misrule every hair asserting its rights over a not discreditable brow for the rest her features were not at all original they seemed to have been derived from a gallimaufry of familiar models from Madame Lamarquis de Saint-Ois came the shapely tilt of the nose the mouth was a mere replica of Cupid's bow lacquered scarlet and strung with the littlest pearls no apple tree, no wall of peaches had not been robbed nor any Tyrion rose garden for the glory of Miss Dobson's cheeks her neck was imitation marble her hands and feet were of very mean proportions she had no waste to speak of yet though a Greek would have railed at her asymmetry and an Elizabethan have called her gypsy Miss Dobson now in the midst of the Edwardian era was the toast of two hemispheres late in her teens she had become an orphan and a governess her grandfather had refused her appeal for a home or an allowance on the ground that he would not be burdened with the upshot of a marriage which had once forbidden and not yet forgiven lately however, prompted by curiosity or by remorse he had asked her to spend a week or so of his declining years with him and she, resting between two engagements one at Hammerstein's Victoria NYC the other at the Follibertia of Paris and never having been in Oxford had so far let bygones be bygones as to come and gratify the old man's whim it may be that she still resented his indifference to those early struggles which even now she shuddered to recall for a governess's life she had been indeed notably unfit hard she had thought it that Penury should force her back into the schoolroom she was scarce out of there to champion the suns and maps and conjugations she had never tried to master hating her work she had failed signally to pick up any learning from her little pupils and had been driven from house to house a sullen and most ineffectual maiden the sequence of her situations was the swifter by reason of her pretty face was there a grown-up son? always he fell in love with her and she would let his eyes trifle boldly with hers across the dinner-table when he offered her his hand she would refuse it not because she knew her place but because she did not love him even had she been a good teacher her presence could not have been tolerated thereafter her corded trunk heavier by another packet of B.A.D.U. and a month's salary in advance was soon carried up the stairs of some other house it chanced that she came at length to be governess in a large family that had Gibbs for its name and Notting Hill for its background Edward the eldest son was a clerk in the city who spent his evenings in the practice of amateur conjuring he was a freckled youth with hair that bristled in places where it should have lain smooth and he fell in love with Zuleka Duley at first sight during high tea in the course of the evening he sought to win her admiration by a display of all his tricks these were familiar to this household and the children had been sent to bed the mother was dosing long before the séance was at an end but Miss Dobson unaccustomed to any gayities sat fascinated by the young man's sleight of hand marvelling that a top hat could hold so many goldfish and a handkerchief turned so swiftly into a silver florin all that night she lay awake haunted by the miracles he had wrought next evening when she asked him to repeat them nay, he whispered, I cannot bear to deceive the girl I love permit me to explain the tricks so he explained them his eyes sought hers across the bowl of goldfish his fingers trembled as he taught her to manipulate the magic canister one by one she mastered the paltry secrets her respect for him waned with every revelation he complimented her on her skill I could not do it more neatly myself, he said oh dear Miss Dobson, will you but accept my hand all these things shall be yours the cards, the canister, the goldfish, the demon-egg-cup, all yours Zulika, with ravishing coiness, answered that if he would give her them now she would think it over the swain consented and at bedtime she retired with the gift under her arm in the light of her bedroom candle Marguerite hung knotting greater ecstasy over the dual casket than hung Zulika over the box of tricks she clotted her hands over the tremendous possibilities it held for her manumission from her bondage, wealth, fame, power stealthily, so soon as the house slumbered she packed her small outfit embedding therein the precious gift noiselessly she shut the lid of her trunk corded it, shouldered it, stole down the stairs with it outside how that chain had grated and her shoulder how it was aching she soon found a cab she took a night's sanctuary in some railway hotel next day she moved into a small room in a lodging-house off the edgeware road and there for a whole week she was sedulous in the practice of her tricks then she inscribed her name on the books of a juvenile party entertainment agency the Christmas holidays were at hand and before long she got an engagement it was a great evening for her her repertory was it must be confessed old and obvious but the children in deference to their hostess pretended not to know how the tricks were done and assumed their prettiest heirs of wonder and delight one of them even pretended to be frightened howling from the room in fact the whole thing went off splendidly the hostess was charmed and told Zulika that a glass of lemonade would be served to her in the hall other engagements soon followed Zulika was very very happy I cannot claim for her that she had a genuine passion for her art the true country finds his go down in the consciousness of work done perfectly and for its own sake Zulika and applause are not necessary to him if he were set down with the materials of his art on a desert island he would yet be quite happy he would not cease to produce the barbers pole from his mouth to the indifferent winds he would still speak his patter and even in the last throes of starvation would not eat his live rabbit or his goldfish Zulika on a desert island would have spent most of her time in looking for a man's footprint she was indeed far too human a creature to care much for art I do not say that she took her work lightly she thought she had genius and she liked to be told that this was so but mainly she loved her work as a means of mere self-display the frank admiration which into what so ever how she entered the grown-up sons flashed on her their eagerness to see her to the door their impressive way of putting her into her omnibus these were the things she reveled in she was a nymph to whom men's admiration was the greater part of life by day whenever she went into the streets she was conscious that no man passed her without a stare and this consciousness gave a sharp zest to her outings sometimes she was followed to her door crude flattery which she was too innocent to fear even when she went into the haberdasher to make some little purchase of tape or ribbon or into the grocers for she was an epicure in her humble way to buy a tin of potted meat for her supper the homage of the young men behind the counter did flatter and exhilarate her as the homage of men became for her more and more a matter of course the more subtly necessary it was to her happiness the more she won of it the more she treasured it she was alone in the world and it saved her from any moment regret that she had neither home nor friends for her the streets that lay around her had no squalor since she paced them always in the gold nimbus of her fascinations her bedroom seemed not mean nor lonely to her since the little square of glass nailed above the wash stand was ever there to reflect her face therein too indeed she was ever peering she would droop her head from side to side she would bend it forward and see herself from beneath her eyelashes then tilt it back and watch herself over her supercilious chin and she would smile, frown, pout, languish let all the emotions hover upon her face and always she seemed to herself lovelier than she had ever been yet there was nothing narcissine in her spirit her love for her own image was not cold aestheticism she valued that image not for its own sake but for the sake of the glory it always won for her in the little remote music hall where she was soon appearing nightly as an early turn she reaped glory in a nightly harvest she could feel that all the gallery boys because of her were scornful of the sweet hearts wedged between them and she knew that she had but to say will any gentleman in the audience be so kind as to lend me his hat? for the stalls to rise as one man and rush towards the platform but greater things were in store for her she was engaged at two halls in the West End her horizon was fast receding and expanding homage became nightly tangible in bouquets, rings, brooches things acceptable and luckier than their donors accepted even Sunday was not barren for Zuleka British hostesses gave her a prosprandiality to their guests came that Sunday night, notander Candidissimo Calculo when she received certain guttural compliments which made absolute her vogue and enabled her to command thenceforth whatever terms she asked for already indeed she was rich she was living at the most exorbitant hotel in all Mayfair she had innumerable gowns and no necessity to buy jewels she also had which pleased her most the fine chivalglass I have described at the close of the season Paris claimed her for a month's engagement Paris saw her and was prostrate Baldini did a portrait of her Jules Bloch wrote a song about her and this for a whole month was howled up and down the cobbled alleys of Montmartre and all the little dandies were mad for La Zuleka the jewelers of the Rue de la Paix soon had nothing left to put in their windows everything had been bought for La Zuleka for a whole month Baccarat was not played at the Jockey Club every member had succumbed to a noble passion for a whole month the whole Démiment was forgotten for one English Virgin never even in Paris had a woman triumphed so when the day came for her departure the city wore such an air of sullen mourning as it had not worn since the Prussians marched to its Elise Zuleka quite untouched would not linger in the conquered city agents had come to her from every capital in Europe and for a year she ranged in triumphal nomedy from one capital to another in Berlin every night the students escorted her home with torches Prince Vierfuntseksy Bonachnoin offered her his hand and was condemned by the Kaiser to six months' confinement in his little castle in Yelditskyosk the tyrant who still drove there conferred on her the order of chastity and offered her the central couch in his Saraleo she gave her performance in the Querenal and from the Vatican the Pope launched against her a bull which fell utterly flat in Petersburg the Grand Duke Salamander Salmandrovich fell enamoured of her of every article in the apparatus of her conjuring tricks he caused a replica to be made in finest gold these treasures he presented to her in that great Malachite casket which now stood on the little table in her room and thenceforth it was with these that she performed her wonders they did not mark the limit of the Grand Duke's generosity he was for bestowing on Zulika the half of his immeasurable estates the Grand Duchess appealed to the Tsar Zulika was conducted across the frontier by an escort of love-sick Cossacks on the Sunday before she left Madrid a great bullfight was held in her honour fifteen bulls received the Kudagras and now Valles, the Matador of Matadors died in the arena with her name on his lips he had tried to kill the last bull without taking his eyes off la divina senorita a prettier compliment had never been paid her and she was immensely pleased with it for that matter she was immensely pleased with everything she moved proudly to the incessant music of a peon a peon that was always crescendo its echoes followed her when she crossed the Atlantic till they were lost in the louder, deeper, more blatant peon that rose for her from the shores beyond all the stops of that mighty organ many piped the New York press were pulled out simultaneously as far as they could be pulled in Zulika's honour she delighted in the din she read every line that was printed about her tasting her triumph as she had never tasted it before and how she reveled in the Brobdic naggy and drawings of her which printed in nineteen colours towered between the columns or sprawled across them there she was measuring herself back to back with the Statue of Liberty scudding through the firmament on a comet while a crowd of tiny men in evening dress stared up at her from the terrestrial globe peering through a microscope held by Cupid over a diminutive Uncle Sam teaching the American eagle to stand on its head and doing a hundred and one other things whatever suggested itself to the fancy of native art and through all this iridescent maze of symbolism were scattered many little slabs of realism at home on the street Zulika was the smiling target of all snapshooters and all the snapshots were snapped up by the press and reproduced with annotations Zulika Dobson walking on Broadway in the sables gifted her by Grand Duke Salamander she says you can bounce blizzards in them Zulika Dobson yawning over a love letter from millionaire Edelweiss relishing a cup of clam broth she says they don't use clams out there ordering her maid to fix her a warm bath finding a split in the gloves she has just drawn on before starting for the musical given in her honour by Mrs. Switonius X Mitersinger the most exclusive woman in New York chatting at the telephone to Miss Camille van Spook the best born girl in New York laughing over the recollection of a compliment made her by George Abivelech Post the best groomed man in New York meditating a new trick admonishing a waiter who was upset a cocktail over her skirt having herself manicured drinking tea in bed thus was Zulika enabled daily to be as one might say a spectator of her own wonderful life on her departure from New York the papers spoke no more than the truth when they said she had had a lovely time the further she went west millionaire Edelweiss had loaned her his private car the lovelier her time was Chicago drowned the echoes of New York final Frisco dwarfed the headlines of Chicago like one of its own prairie fires she swept the country from end to end then she swept back and sailed for England she was to return for a second season in the coming fall at present she was as I have said resting as she sat here in the bay window of her room she was not reviewing the splendid pageant of her past she was a young person whose reveries never were in retrospect for her the past was no treasury of distinct memories her whore didn't, classified some brighter than others and more highly valued all memories were for her but as the boats in one fused radiance that followed her and made more luminous the pathway of her future she was always looking forward she was looking forward now that shade of ennui had passed from her face to the week she was to spend in Oxford a new city was a new toy to her and for it was youth's homage that she loved best this city of youth's was a toy after her own heart I, and it was youth's who gave homage to her most freely she was of that high stepping and flamboyant type that captivates youth most surely old men and men of middle age admired her but she had not that flower-like quality of shyness and helplessness, that look of innocence so dear to men who carry life's secrets in their heads yet Zuleka was very innocent really she was as pure as that young Shepardess Marcella who, all unguarded, roved the mountains and was by all the shepherds adored like Marcella, she had given her heart to no man had preferred none youth's were reported to have died for the love of her as Chrysostom died for the love of the Shepardess and she, like the Shepardess, had shed no tear when Chrysostom was lying on his beard in the valley and Marcella looked down from the high rock Ambrosio, the dead man's comrade, cried out on her upraiding her with bitter words oh Basilisk of our mountains nor do I think Ambrosio spoke too strongly Marcella cared nothing for men's admiration and yet instead of retiring to one of those nunneries which are founded for her kind she chose to rove the mountains causing despair to all the Shepards Zuleka, with her peculiar temperament would have gone mad in the nunnery but, you may argue, ought not she to have taken the veil even at the cost of her reason rather than cause so much despair in the world if Marcella was a Basilisk as you seem to think how about Miss Dobson? ah, but Marcella knew quite well boasted even that she never would or could love any man Zuleka, on the other hand, was a woman of really passionate fibre she may not have had that conscious, separate and quite explicit desire to be a mother with which modern playwrights created every unmated member of her sex but she did know that she could love and surely no woman who knows that of herself can be rightly censured for not recluding herself from the world it is only women without the power to love who have no right to provoke men's love those who Zuleka had never given her heart strong in her were the desire and the need that it should be given with her so ever she had fared she had seen nothing but youths fatuously prostrate to her not one upright figure which she could respect there were the middle-aged men the old men who did not bow down to her but from middle age, as from old she had a sanguine aversion she could love none but a youth nor, though she herself womanly would utterly abase herself before her ideal could she love one who fell prone before her and before her all youths always did fall prone she was an empress and all youths were her slaves their bondage delighted her as I have said but no empress who has any pride can adore one of her slaves whom then could proud Zuleka adore it was a question which sometimes troubled her there were even moments when looking into her chauvel-glass she cried out against that arrangement in comely lines and tints which got for her the dulyers she delighted in but to be able to love once would not that be better than all the homage in the world but would she ever meet whom looking up to him she could love she the omnisubjugant would she ever ever meet him it was when she wondered thus that the wistfulness came into her eyes even now as she sat by the window that shadow returned to them she was wondering shyly had she met him at length that young equestrian who had not turned to look at her whom she was to meet at the dinner to-night was it he the ends of her blue sash lay across her lap and she was lazily unravelling their fringes blue and white she remembered they were the colours he wore round his hat and she gave a little laugh of cockatry she laughed and long after her lips were still parted in a smile so did she sit smiling wondering with the fringes of her sash between her windows while the sun sank behind the opposite wall of the quadrangle and the shadows crept out across the grass thirsty for the dew End of Chapter 2 Chapter 3 of Zuleka Dobson this LibriBox recording is in the public domain reading by Termin Diane Zuleka Dobson by Max Birbone Chapter 3 the clock in the Warden's drawing-room had just struck eight already the ducal feet were beautiful on the white Berskin heart-rug so slim and long were they of in-steps own nobly arched that only with a pair of glazed ox-tangs on a breakfast-table were they comparable incomparable quite the figure and face and vesture of him who ended in them the Warden was talking to him with all the deference of an elderly commoner to patrician boy the other guests, an Oriole Don and his wife were listening with earnest smile and submissive droop at a slight distance now and again to put themselves at their ease they exchanged in undertone a word or two about the weather the young lady whom you may have noticed with me the Warden was saying is my orphaned granddaughter the wife of the Oriole Don discarded her smile and sighed with a glance at the duke who was himself an orphan she has come to stay with me the duke glanced quickly round the room I cannot think why she is not down yet the Oriole Don fixed his eyes on the clock as though he suspected it of being fast I must ask you to forgive her she appears to be a bright pleasant young woman married? asked the duke no said the Warden and a cloud of annoyance crossed the boy's face so she devotes her life entirely to good works now hospital nurse? the duke murmured no, Zulika's appointed task is to induce delightful wonder rather than to alleviate pain she performs conjuring tricks not Miss Zulika Dobson? cried the duke oh yes, I forget that she had achieved some fame in the outer world perhaps she has already met you never said the young man coldly but of course I have heard of Miss Dobson I did not know she was related to you the duke had an intense horror of unmarried girls all his vacations were spent in eluding them and their chaperones that he should be confronted with one of them with such a one of them in Oxford seemed to him sheer violation of sanctuary the tone therefore in which he said I shall be charmed in answer to the Warden's request that he would take Zulika into dinner was very glacial so was his gaze when a moment later the young lady made her entry she did not look like an orphan said the wife of the Orialdon subsequently on the way home the criticism was a just one Zulika would have looked singular in one of those lowly double files of straw bonnets and drab cloaks which are so steadying a feature of our social system tall and listen she was sheathed from the bosom downwards in flamingo silk and she was liberally festooned with emeralds her dark hair was not even strained back from her forehead and behind her ears as an orphan should be parted somewhere at the side it fell in an avalanche of curls upon one eyebrow from her right ear drooped heavily a black pearl from her left a pink and their difference gave an odd bewildering witchery to the little face between was the young Duke bewitched? instantly utterly but none could have guessed as much from his cold stare his easy and impassive bow throughout dinner none guessed that his shirt front was but the screen of a fierce warfare waged between pride and passion Zulika at the foot of the table fondly supposed him indifferent to her though he sat on her right not one word or glance would he give her all his conversation was addressed to the unassuming lady who sat on his other side next to the warden her he edified and flustered beyond measure by his insistent courtesy her husband alone on the other side of the table was mortified by his utter failure to engage Zulika in small talk Zulika was sitting with her profile turned to him the profile with the pink pearl and was gazing full at the young Duke she was hardly more affable than the cameo yes no I don't know were the only answers she would vouch safe to his questions a vague oh really was all he got for his timid little offerings of information in vain he started the topic of modern conjuring tricks as compared with the conjuring tricks performed by the ancient Egyptians Zulika did not even say oh really when he told her about the metamorphosis of the bulls in the temple of Osiris he primed himself with a glass of sherry cleared his throat and what he asked with a note of firmness did you think of our cousins across the water Zulika said yes and then he gave in nor was she conscious that he ceased talking to her at intervals throughout the rest of the dinner she murmured yes and no and oh really though the poor little Don was now listening silently to the Duke and the Warden she was in a trance of sheer happiness at last she thought her hope was fulfilled that hope which although she had seldom remembered it in the joy of her constant triumphs had been always lurking in her lying near to her heart and chafing her like the shift of sackcloth which that young brilliant girl loved and lost of Giacarpone di Todi wore always in secret submission to her own soul under the fair soft robes and the rubies men saw on her at last here was the youth who would not bow down to her whom looking up to him she could adore she ate and drank automatically never taking her gaze from him she felt not one touch of peak at his behaviour she was tremulous with a joy that was new to her greater than any joy she had known her soul was as a flower in its opetide she was in love wrapped she studied every liniment of the pale and perfect face the brow from which bronze coloured hair rose in tears of burnished ripples the large steel coloured eyes with their carbon lids the carbon nose and the plastic lips she noted how long and slim were his fingers and how slender his wrists she noted the glint cast by the candles upon his shirt front the two large white pearls there seemed to her symbols of his nature they were like two moons cold, remote, radiant even when she gazed at the duke's face she was aware of them in her vision nor was the duke unconscious as he seemed to be of her scrutiny though he kept his head averse he knew that always her eyes were watching him obliquely he saw them saw to the contour of the face and the black pearl and the pink could not blind himself try as he would and he knew that he was in love like Zuleka herself this young duke was in love for the first time wooed though he had been by almost as many maidens as she by youth his heart, like hers, had remained cold but he had never felt as she had the desire to love he was not now rejoicing as she was in the sensation of first love nay, he was furiously mortified by it and struggled with all his might against it he had always fancied himself secure against any so vulgar peril he had always fancied that by him at least the proud old motto of his family patsy bit would not be belied and I dare say indeed that had he never met Zuleka the irresistible he would have lived and at a very ripe old age died a dandy without reproach for in him the dandiacal temper had been absolute hitherto quite untainted and unruffled he was too much concerned with his own perfection ever to think of admiring anyone else different from Zuleka he cared for his wardrobe and his toilet table not as a means to making others admire him the more but merely as a means through which he could intensify a ritual in which to express and realize his own idolatry at Eaton he had been called Peacock and this nickname had followed him up to Oxford it was not wholly apposite however for whereas the Peacock is a fool even among birds the Duke had already taken besides a particularly brilliant first-in-mods the Stanhope, the Nudigate, the Lothian and the Gatesford Prize for Greek verse and these things he had achieved, Corenticolamo, wielding his pen, a scotset of baron with the easy negligence of a nobleman he was now in his third year of residence and was reading a little for literary humaniores there is no doubt that but for his untimely death he would have taken a particularly brilliant first in that school also for the rest he had many accomplishments he was adroit in the killing of all birds and fishes, stags and foxes he played polo, cricket, rackets, chairs and billiards as well as such things can be played he was fluent in all modern languages had a very real talent in watercolour and was accounted by those who had had the privilege of hearing him the best amateur pianist on this side of the tweed little wonder then that he was idealised by the undergraduates of his day he did not however honour many of them with his friendship he had a theoretic liking for them as a class as the young barbarians all at play in that little antique city but individually they jarred on him and he saw little of them yet he sympathised with them always and on occasion would actively take their part against the dons in the middle of his second year he had gone so far that a college meeting had to be held and he was sent down for the rest of the term the warden placed his own lander at the disposal of the illustrious young exile who therein was driven to the station followed by a long vociferous procession of undergraduates in cabs now it happened that this was at a time of political excitement in London the Liberals who were in power had passed through the House of Commons a measure more than usually socialistic and this measure was down for its second reading in the Lords on the very day that the Duke left Oxford an exile it was but a few weeks since he had taken his seat in the Lords and this afternoon for the want of anything better to do he strayed in the leader of the House was already droning his speech for the bill and the Duke found himself on one of the opposite benches there sat his compares sullenly waiting to vote for a bill which every one of them detested as the speaker subsided the Duke for the fun of the thing rose he made a long speech against the bill his jibes at the government were so scathing so utterly destructive his criticism of the bill itself so lofty and so irresistible the flights of his eloquence that when he resumed his seat there was only one course left to the leader of the House he rose and in a few husky phrases moved that the bill be read this day six months all England rang with the name of the young Duke he himself seemed to be the one person unmoved by his exploit he did not reappear in the upper chamber and was heard to speak in slighting terms of its architecture as well as of its upholstery nevertheless the prime minister became so nervous that he procured for him a month later the sovereign's offer of a garter which had just fallen vacant the Duke accepted it he was, I understand, the only undergraduate on whom this order had ever been conferred he was very much pleased with the insignia and when on great occasions he wore them no one dared to say that the prime minister's choice was not fully justified but you must not imagine that he cared for them as symbols of achievement and power the dark blue ribbon and the star scintillating to eight points the heavy mantle of blue velvet with its lining of taffeta and shoulder knots of white satin the crimson circuit the great embellion tassels and the chain of linked gold and the plumes of ostrich and heron are prizing from the black velvet hat these things had for him little significance save as a fine setting a finer setting than the most elaborate smoking suit for that perfection of aspect which the gods had given him this was indeed the gift that he valued beyond all others he knew well, however, that women care little for a man's appearance and that what they seek in a man is strength of character and rank and wealth these three gifts the Duke had in high degree and he was by women much courted because of them conscious that every maiden he met was eager to be his duchess he had assumed always a manner of high austerity among maidens and even if he had wished to flirt with Zuleka he would hardly have known how to do it but he did not wish to flirt with her that she had bewitched him did but make it the more needful that he should shun all converse with her it was imperative that he should banish her from his mind quickly he must not dilute his own soul's essence he must not surrender to any passion his dandyhood the dandy must be celibate, cloistrope is indeed but a monk with a mirror for beads and a breviary an anchorite mortifying his soul that his body may be perfect till he met Zuleka the Duke had not known the meaning of temptation he fought now a St. Anthony against the apparition he would not look at her and he hated her he loved her and he could not help seeing her the black pearl and the pink seemed to dangle ever nearer and clearer to him mocking him and beguiling inexpellable was her image so fierce was the conflict in him that his outward nonchalance gradually gave way as dinner drew to its close his conversation with the wife of the Oriole Don flagged and halted he sank at length into a deep silence he sat with downcast eyes utterly distracted suddenly something fell, plump into the dark whirlpool of his thoughts he started the warden was leaning forward had just said something to him I beg your pardon asked the Duke dessert he noticed was on the table and he was pairing an apple the Oriole Don was looking at him with sympathy as at one who had swooned and was just coming to is it true, my dear Duke? the warden repeated that you have been persuaded to play tomorrow evening at the Judas concert ah, yes, I am going to play something Zulika bent suddenly forward addressed him ooh, she cried, clasping her hands beneath her chin will you let me come and turn over the leaves for you? he looked her full in the face it was like seeing suddenly at close quarters some great bright monument that one has long known only as a sun-court speck in the distance he saw the large violet eyes open to him and their lashes curling to him the vivid parted lips and the black pearl and the pink you are very kind, he murmured in a voice which sounded to him quite far away but I always play without notes Zulika blushed not with shame but with delirious pleasure for that snub she would just then have bartered all the homage she had hoarded this she felt was the climax she would not outstate she rose, smiling to the wife of the Oriole Don everyone rose the Oriole Don held open the door and the two ladies passed out of the room the Duke drew out his cigarette case as he looked down at the cigarettes he was vaguely conscious of some strange phenomenon somewhere between them and his eyes foredone by the agitation of the past hour he did not at once realize what it was that he saw his impression was of something in bad taste some discord in his costume a black pearl and a pink pearl in his shirt front just for a moment absurdly overestimating poor Zulika's skill he supposed himself a victim of legerdomain another moment and the import of the studs revealed itself he staggered up from his chair covering his breast with one arm and murmured that he was faint as he hurried from the room the Oriole Don was pouring out a tumbler of water and suggesting burnt feathers the warden, solicitous, followed him into the hall he snatched up his hat gasping that he had spent a delightful evening was very sorry was subject to these attacks once outside he took frankly to his heels at the corner of the broad he looked back over his shoulder he had half expected a scarlet figure skimming in pursuit there was nothing he halted before him the broad lay empty beneath the moon he went slowly mechanically to his rooms the high grim busts of the emperors stared down at him their faces more than ever tragically cavernous and distorted they saw and read in that moonlight the symbols on his breast as he stood on his doorstep waiting for the door to be opened he must have seemed to them a thing for infinite compassion for were they not privy to the doom that the morrow or the morrow's morrow held for him held not indeed for him alone yet for him especially as it were and for him most lamentably end of chapter 3 chapter 4 of Zulika Dobson this LibriBox recording is in the public domain reading by Turmin Diane Zulika Dobson by Max Birbone chapter 4 the breakfast-ings were not yet cleared away a plate freaked with fine strains of marmalade an empty toast rack, a broken roll these and other things bore witness to a day inaugurated in the right spirit away from them reclining along his window-seat was the duke blue spirals rose from his cigarette nothing in the still air to trouble them from there railing across the road the emperors gazed at him for a young man sleep is a sure solvent of distress their world's not for him in the night any so hideous a phantasmagoria as will not become in the clarity of the next morning a spruce procession for him to lead brief the vague horror of his awakening memory sweeps back to him and he sees nothing dreadful after all why not is the son's bright message to him and why not indeed his answer after hours of agony and doubt prolonged to cockroach sleep had stolen to the duke's bedside he awoke late with a heavy sense of disaster but lo when he remembered everything took on a new aspect he was in love why not he mocked himself for the morbid vigil he had spent in probing and vainly binding the wounds of his false pride the old life was done with he laughed as he stepped into his bath why should the decease in of his soul have seemed shameful to him he had had no soul till it passed out of his keeping his body thrilled to the cold water his soul as to a new sacrament he was in love and that was all he wished for there on the dressing table lay the two studs visible symbols of his love dear to him now the colours of them he took them in his hand one by one fondling them he wished he could wear them in the daytime but this of course was impossible his toilet finished he dropped them into the left pocket of his waistcoat therein near to his heart they were lying now as he looked out at the changed world the world that had become Zulika Zulika, his recurrent murmur was really an apostrophe to the whole world piled against the wall were certain boxes of black Japan tin which had just been sent to him from London at any other time he would certainly not have left them unopened for they contained the robes of the garter Thursday the day after tomorrow was the date fixed for the investiture of a foreign king who was now visiting England and the full chapter of nights had been commanded to Windsor for the ceremony yesterday the Duke had looked keenly forward to his excursion it was only in those two rarely required robes that he had the sense of being fully dressed but today not a thought had he of them some clock clove with silver the stillness of the morning there came the second stroke another a nearer clock was striking and now there were others chiming in the air was confused with the sweet babel of its many spires some of them booming deep measured sequences some tinkling impatiently and outwitting others which had begun before them and when this anthem of jealous antiphonies and uneven rhythms had dwindled quite away and fainted in one last solitary note of silver there started somewhere another sequence and this almost at its last stroke was interrupted by yet another which went on to tell the hour of noon in its own way quite slowly and significantly as though none knew it and now Oxford was a stir with footsteps and laughter the laughter and quick footsteps of youths released from lecture rooms the Duke shifted from the window somehow he did not care to be observed though it was usually at this hour that he showed himself for the setting of some new fashion in costume many an undergraduate looking up missed the picture in the window frame the Duke paced to and fro smiling ecstatically he took the two studs from his pocket and gazed at them he looked in the glass as one seeking the sympathy of a familiar for the first time in his life he turned impatiently aside it was a new kind of sympathy he needed today the front door slammed and the staircase creaked to the ascent of two heavy boots the Duke listened waited irresolute the boots passed his door but already clumping up the next flight nokes he cried the boots paused then clumped down again the door opened and disclosed that homely figure which Zuleka had seen on her way to Judas sensitive reader start not at the apparition Oxford is a plexus of anomalies these two youths were odd as it may seem to you subject to the same statutes affiliated to the same college reading for the same school I and though the one had inherited half a score of noble and castellated roofs whose mere repairs cost him annually thousands and thousands of pounds only others people had but one little mean square of lead from which the fireworks of the Crystal Palace were clearly visible every Thursday evening in Oxford one roof sheltered both of them furthermore there was even some measure of intimacy between them it was the Duke's whim to condescend further in the direction of nooks than in any other he saw in nooks his own foil and antithesis and made a point of walking up the high with him at least once in every term nooks for his part regarded the Duke with feelings mingled of idolatry and disapproval the Duke's first in mods oppressed him who by dint of dogged industry had scraped a second more than all the other differences between them but the Delards envy of brilliant men is always assuaged by the suspicion that they will come to a bad end nooks may have regarded the Duke as a rather pathetic figure on the whole come in nooks said the Duke you have been to a lecture Aristotle's politics nodded nooks and what were they asked the Duke he was eager for sympathy in his love but so little used was he to seeking sympathy that he could not unburden himself he temporized nooks muttered something about getting back to work and fumbled with the door handle oh my dear fellow don't go said the Duke sit down our schools don't come on for another year a few minutes can't make any difference in your class I want to tell you something nooks do sit down nooks sat down on the edge of a chair the Duke leaned against the mantelpiece facing him I suppose nooks he said you have never been in love why shouldn't I have been in love asked the little man angrily I can't imagine you in love said the Duke smiling I can't imagine you you're too pleased with yourself growled nooks spur your imagination nooks said his friend I am in love so am I was an unexpected answer and the Duke whose need of sympathy was too new to have taught him sympathy with others laughed aloud who do you love he asked throwing himself into an armchair I don't know who she is was another unexpected answer when did you meet her asked the Duke where what did you say to her yesterday in the corn I didn't say anything to her is she beautiful yes what's that to you dark or fair she's dark she looks like a foreigner she looks like like one of those photographs in the shop windows a rhapsody nooks what became of her was she alone she was with the old warden in his carriage two leaker nooks the Duke started as at an affront and glared next moment he saw the absurdity of the situation he relapsed into his chair smiling she is the warden's niece he said I dined at the wardens last night nooks sat still peering across at the Duke for the first time in his life he was resentful of the Duke's great elegance and average stature his high lineage and incomputable wealth hitherto these things had been too remote for envy but now suddenly they seemed nearer to him nearer and more overpowering than the first in mods had ever been and of course she's in love with you he snarled really this was for the Duke a new issue so salient was his own passion that he had not had time to wonder whether it were returned Zuleka's behaviour during dinner but that was how so many young women had behaved it was no sign of disinterested love it might mean merely yet no surely looking into her eyes he had seen their radiance finer than could have been lit by common ambition love none other must have lit in those purple depths the torches whose clear flames had leapt out to him she loved him she the beautiful the wonderful had not tried to conceal her love for him she had shown him all had shown all poor darling only to be snubbed by a prig driven away by a boar fled from by a fool to the nethermost corner of his soul he cursed himself for what he had done and for all he had left undone he would go to her on his knees he would implore her to impose on him insufferable penances there was no penance how bittersweet so ever could make him a little worthy of her come in he cried mechanically entered the landlady's daughter alighted yann stares she said ask him to see your grace says she'll step round again later if your grace is busy what is her name asked the duke vacantly he was gazing at the girl with pain-shot eyes Miss Suleyka Dobson pronounced the girl he rose show Miss Dobson up he said nooks had darted to the looking-glass and was smoothing his hair with a tremulous enormous hand go said the duke pointing to the door nooks went quickly echoes of his boots fell from the upper stairs and met the ascending suceress of a silk skirt the lovers met there was an interchange of ordinary greetings from the duke a comment on the weather from Suleyka a hope that he was well again they had been so sorry to lose him last night then came a pause the landlady's daughter was clearing away the breakfast things Suleyka glanced comprehensively at the room and the duke gazed at the hearthrug the landlady's daughter clattered out with her freight they were alone how pretty said Suleyka she was looking at his star of the garter which sparkled from a litter of books and papers on a small side-table yes he answered it's pretty isn't it awfully pretty she rejoined this dialogue led them to another hollow pause the duke's heart beat violently within him why had he not asked her to take the star and keep it as a gift too late now why could he not throw himself at her feet here were two beings, lovers of each other with non-bye and yet she was examining a water-colour on the wall seemed to be absorbed by it he watched her she was even lovelier than he had remembered or rather her loveliness had been in some subtle way transmuted something had given to her grave a noble beauty last night's nymph had become the Madonna of this morning despite her dress which was of a tremendous tartan she diffused the pale authentic radiance of a spirituality most high, most simple the duke wondered where lay the change in her he could not understand suddenly she turned to him and he understood no longer the black pearl and the pink but two white pearls he thrilled to his heart's core I hope, said Zulika you aren't awfully vexed with me for coming like this not at all, said the duke I am delighted to see you how inadequate the words sounded, how formal and stupid the fact is, she continued I don't know a soul in Oxford and I thought perhaps you would give me luncheon and take me to see the boat-races will you? I shall be charmed he said, pulling the bell-rope poor fool he attributed the shade of disappointment on Zulika's face to the coldness of his tone he would dispel that shade he would avow himself he would leave her no longer in this false position so soon as he had told them about the meal he would proclaim his passion the bell was answered by the landlady's daughter Miss Dobson will stay to luncheon said the duke the girl withdrew he wished he could have asked her not to he steeled himself Miss Dobson he said, I wish to apologise to you Zulika looked at him eagerly you can't give me luncheon you've got something better to do no, I wish to ask you to forgive me for my behaviour last night there is nothing to forgive there is my manners were vile what happened though you too cannot have forgotten I won't spare myself the recital you were my hostess and I ignored you magnanimous you paid me the prettiest compliment a woman ever paid to man and I insulted you I left the house in order that I might not see you again to the doorsteps down which he should have kicked me your grandfather followed me with words of kindliest courtesy if he had sped me with a kick so skillful that my skull had been shattered on the curb neither would he have outstepped those bounds set to the conduct of English gentlemen nor would you have garnered more than a trifle on account of your proper reckoning I do not say that you are the first person whom I have wantonly injured but it is a fact that I, in whom pride has ever been the topmost quality have never expressed sorrow to anyone for anything thus I might urge that my present abjectness must be intolerably painful to me and should incline you to forgive but such an argument was specious merely I will be quite frank with you I will confess to you that in this humbling of myself before you I take a pleasure as passionate as it is strange a confusion of feelings yet you with a woman's instinct will already have caught the clue to it it needs no mirror to assure me that the clue is here for you in my eyes it needs no dictionary or quotations to remind me that the eyes are the windows of the soul and I know that from two open windows my soul has been leaning and signalling to you in a code far more definitive and swifter than words of mine that I love you Zuleka, listening to him, had grown gradually paler and paler she had raised her hands and cowered as though he were about to strike her and then as he pronounced the last three words she had clasped her hands to her face and with a wild sob darted away from him she was leaning now against the window her head bowed and her shoulders quivering the duke came softly behind her why should you cry? why should you turn away from me? did I frighten you with the suddenness of my words? I am not versed in the tricks of wooing I should have been more patient but I love you so much that I could hardly have waited a secret hope that you loved me too emboldened me compelled me you do love me I know it and knowing it I do but ask you to give yourself to me to be my wife why should you cry? why should you shrink from me dear if there were anything any secret if you had ever loved and been deceived do you think I should honour you the less deeply should not cherish you the more tenderly enough for me that you are mine do you think I could ever reproach you for anything that may have Zuleka turned on him how dare you she gasped how dare you speak to me like that the duke reeled back horror had come into his eyes you do not love me he cried love you she retorted you you no longer love me why why what do you mean you love me don't trifle with me you came to me loving me with all your heart how do you know look in the glass she went at his bidding he followed her you see them he said after a long pause Zuleka nodded the two pearls quivered to her nod they were white when you came to me he sighed they were white because you loved me from them it was that I knew you loved me even as I loved you but their old colours have come back to them that is how I know that your love for me is dead Zuleka stood gazing pensively twitching the two pearls between her fingers tears gathered in her eyes she met the reflection of her lover's eyes and her tears brimmed over she buried her face in her hands and sobbed like a child like a child's her sobbing ceased quite suddenly she groped for her handkerchief angrily dried her eyes and straightened and smoothed herself now I'm going she said you came here with your own accord because you loved me you said the Duke and you shall not go till you have told me why you have left off loving me how did you know I loved you? she asked after a pause how did you know I hadn't simply put on another pair of earrings? the Duke with a melancholy laugh drew the two studs from his waistcoat pocket these are the studs I wore last night he said Zuleka gazed at them I see she said then looking up when did they become like that? it was when you left the dining-room that I saw the change in them how strange it was when I went into the drawing-room that I noticed mine I was looking in the glass and she started then you were in love with me last night I began to be in love with you from the moment I saw you then how could you have behaved as you did? because I was a pedant I tried to ignore you as pedants always do try to ignore any fact that they cannot fit into their pet system the basis of my pet system was celibacy I don't mean the mere state of being a bachelor I mean celibacy of the soul egoism in fact you have converted me from that I am now a confirmed tourist how dared you insult me? she cried with a stamp of her foot how dared you make a fool of me before those people? oh it is too infamous I have already asked you to forgive me for that you said there was nothing to forgive I didn't dream that you were in love with me what difference can that make? all the difference, all the difference in life sit down you bewilder me said the Duke explain yourself he commanded isn't that rather much for a man to ask of a woman? I don't know, I have no experience of women in the abstract it seems to me that every man has a right to some explanation from the woman who has ruined his life you're frightfully sorry for yourself said Zuleka with a bitter laugh of course it doesn't occur to you that I am at all to be pitted no, you are blind with selfishness you love me I don't love you, that's all you can realise probably you think you are the first man who has ever fallen on such a plight said the Duke bowing over a deprecatory hand if there were to pass my window one tithe of them whose hearts have been lost to Miss Dobson I should win no solace from that interminable parade Zuleka blushed yet, she said more gently be sure they would all be not a little envious of you not one of them ever touched the surface of my heart you stirred my heart to its very depths yes, you made me love you madly the pearls told you no lie you were my idol, the one thing in the wide world to me you were so different from any man I had ever seen except in dreams you did not make a fool of yourself I admired you, I respected you I was all afire without a ration of you and now she passed her hand across her eyes now it is all over the idol has come sliding down its pedestal to fawn and grovel with all the other infatuants in the dust about my feet the Duke looked thoughtfully at her I thought, he said, that you reveled in your power over men's hearts I had always heard that you lived for admiration oh, said Zuleka, of course I like being admired oh yes, I like all that very much indeed in a way I suppose I'm even pleased that you admire me but oh, what a little miserable pleasure that is in comparison with the rapture I have forfeited I had never known the rapture of being in love I had longed for it but I had never guessed how wonderfully wonderful it was it came to me, I shuddered and wavered like a fountain in the wind I was more helpless and flew nightlier than a shred of thistle down among the stars all night long I could not sleep for love of you nor had I any desire of sleep save it, it might take me to you in a dream I remember nothing that happened to me this morning before I found myself at your door why did you ring the bell? why didn't you walk away? why, I had come to see you, to be near you, to be with you to force yourself on me? yes you know the meaning of the term effective occupation having marched in, how could you have held your position unless oh, a man doesn't necessarily drive a woman away because he isn't in love with her yes, that was what you thought I had done to you last night yes, but I didn't suppose you would take the trouble to do it again and if you had, I should have only loved you the more I thought you would most likely be rather amused, rather touched by my importunity I thought you would take a listless advantage, make a plaything of me that I version of a few idolars in summer and then when you had tired of me would cast me aside forget me, break my heart, I desire nothing better than that that is what I must have been vaguely hoping for but I had no definite scheme, I wanted to be with you and I came to you it seems years ago now, how my heart beat as I waited on the doorstep is his grace at home? I don't know, and inquire, what name shall I say? I saw in the girl's eyes that she too loved you have you seen that? I have never looked at her, said the Duke no wonder then that she loves you besides Zuleka, she read my secret at a glance women who love the same man have a kind of bitter freemasonry we resented each other, she envied me my beauty, my dress I envied the little fool, her privilege of being always near to you loving you, I could conceive no life sweeter than hers to be always near you, to black your boots, carry up your coals scrub your doorstep, always to be working for you hard and humbly and without thanks if you had refused to see me I would have bribed that girl with all my jewels to cede me her position the Duke made a step towards her you would do it still? he said in a low voice Zuleka raised her eyebrows I would not offer her one garnet she said now you shall love me again? he cried I will force you to do so you said just now that you had ceased to love me because I was just like other men I am not, my heart is no tablet of mere wax from which an instant's heat can dissolve whatever impress it may bear leaving it blank and soft for another impress and another and another my heart is a bright hard gem proof against any dye came cupid with one of his arrow-points for a graver and what he cut on the gem's surface never can be effaced there deeply and forever your image is intagliated no years nor fires not cataclysm of total nature can efface from that great gem your image my dear Duke said Zuleka don't be so silly look at the matter sensibly I know that lovers don't try to regulate their emotions according to logic but they do, nevertheless, unconsciously conform with some sort of logical system I left off loving you when I found that you loved me there is the premise very well? is it likely that I shall begin to love you again because you can't leave off loving me? the Duke groaned there was a clatter of plates outside and she whom Zuleka had envied came to lay the table for luncheon a smile flickered across Zuleka's lips and not one garnet she murmured end of chapter four chapter five of Zuleka Dobson this LibriBox recording is in the public domain reading by Termin Diane Zuleka Dobson by Max Birbone luncheon passed in almost unbroken silence both Zuleka and the Duke were ravenously hungry as people often are after the stress of any great emotional crisis between them they made very short work of a cold chicken, a salad, a gooseberry tart and a camembert the Duke filled his glass again and again the cold classicism of his face had been routed by the new romantic movement which had swept over his soul he looked two or three months older than when first I showed him to my reader he drank his coffee at one draught, pushed back his chair threw away the cigarette he had just lit listen, he said Zuleka folded her hands on her lap you do not love me I accept as final your hint that you never will love me I need not say could not indeed ever say how deeply deeply you have pained me as lover I am rejected but that rejection he continued striking the table is no stopper to my suit it does but drive me to the use of arguments my pride shrinks from them love however is greater than pride and I John, Albert, Edward, Claude, Orr, Angus, Tacton, Tavel, Tacton Fourteenth Duke of Dorset Marquis of Dorset Earl of Grove, Earl of Chastomaine Viscount, Bruceby, Baron Grove Baron Pettstrap and Baron Wolock in the peerage of England offer you my hand do not interrupt me do not toss your head consider well what I am saying weigh the advantages you would gain by acceptance of my hand indeed they are manifold and tremendous they are also obvious do not shut your eyes to them you, Miss Dobson, what are you? a conjurer and a vagrant without means save such as you can earn by the sleight of your hand without position without a home all unguarded but by your own self-respect that you follow an honourable calling I do not for one moment deny I do however ask you to consider how great are its perils and hardships its fatigues and inconveniences from all these evils I offer you instant refuge I offer you, Miss Dobson a refuge more glorious and more augustly gilded than you in the airiest flights of fancy can ever have hoped for or imagined I own about three hundred and forty thousand acres my town residence is in St. James's Square Tacton, of which you may have seen photographs is the chief of my country's eats it is a Tudor house set on the ridge of a valley the valley, its park, is halved by a stream so narrow that the deer leap across the gardens are restrained upon the slope round the house runs a wide, pavement terrace there are always two or three peacocks trailing their sheathed feathers along the balustrade and stepping how stiffly as though they had just been unharnessed from Juno's chariot two flights of shallow steps lead down to the flowers and fountains oh the gardens are wonderful there is a Jacobian garden of white roses between the ends of two bleached alleys under a dome of branches is a little lake with a triton of black marble and with water lilies hither and thither under the archipelago of water lilies, dark goldfish tongues of flame in the dark water there is also a long straight alley of clipped ewe it ends in an alcove for a pagoda of painted porcelain which the prince regent peace to his ashes presented to my great grandfather there are many twisting paths and sudden aspects and devious fantastic harbours are you fond of horses? in my stables of pine wood and plated silver seventy are installed not all of them together could vie in power with one of the meanest of my motor-cars oh I never go in motors said Zuleka they make one look like nothing on earth and like everybody else I myself said that you use them very little for that reason are you interested in farming? at Taktun there is a model farm which would at any rate amuse you with its heifers and hens and pigs that are like so many big new toys there is a tiny dairy which is called hergraces you could make therein real butter with your own hands and round it into little pats and press every pat with a different device the boudoir that would be yours is a blue room four wattos hang in it in the dining room hang portraits of my forefathers in petto your forefathers in law by many masters are you fond of peasants my tenantry are delightful creatures and there is not one of them who remembers the bringing of the news of the battle of Waterloo when a new duchess is brought to Taktun the oldest elm in the park must be felled that is one of the many strange old customs as she is driven through the village the children of the tenantry must strew the road with daisies the bridal chamber must be lighted with as many candles as years have elapsed since the creation of the duke done if you came into it there would be and the youth closing his eyes made a rapid calculation exactly three hundred and eighty-eight candles on the eve of the death of a duke of dorset two black owls calm and perch on the battlements they remain there through the night hooting at dawn they fly away on those wither on the eve of the death of any other Tabletaktun comes no matter what bit the time of year a cuckoo it stays for an hour cooing then flies away on those wither whenever this portent occurs my steward telegraphs to me that I as head of the family be not unstealed against the shock of a bereavement and that my authority be sooner given for the unsealing and garnishing of the world not every father of mine rests quiet beneath his escutcheon marble there are they who revisit in their oath or their remorse the places wherein us they suffered or wrought evil there is one who every halloween flits into the dining hall and hovers before the portrait which Hans Holbein made of him and flings his diaphanous gray form against the canvas hoping maybe to catch from it the fiery flesh tints and solid limbs that were his and so to be reincarnate he flies against the painting only to find himself to the other side of the wall it hangs on there are five ghosts permanently residing in the right wing of the house two in the left and eleven in the park but all are quite noiseless and quite harmless my servants when they meet them in the corridors or on the stairs stand aside to let them pass paying them the respect due to guests of mine but not even the roist housemaid ever screams or flies at the sight of them I, their host often waylay them and try to commune with them but always they glide past me and how gracefully they glide these ghosts it is a pleasure to watch them it is a lesson in deportment may they never be laid of all my household pets they are the dearest to me I am Duke of Strathsporan and Cairngorm Marquess of Sorby and Earl Cairngorm in the period of Scotland in the glens of the hills about Strathsporan are many noble and nimble stags but I have never set foot in my house there for it is carpeted throughout with the tartan of my clan you seem to like tartan what tartan is it you are wearing Zulika looked down at her skirt I don't know she said I got it in Paris well said the Duke it is very ugly the Dalbraith tartan is harmonious in comparison and has at least the excuse of history if you married me you would have the right to wear it you would have many strange and fascinating rights and you would go to court I admit that the Hanoverian court is not much still it is better than nothing at your presentation moreover you would be given the entree is that nothing to you you would be driven to court in my state coach it is swung so high that the streetsters can hardly see its occupant it is lined with rose silk and on its panels and on its hammer cloth my arms are emblazoned no one has ever been able to count the quarterings you would be wearing the family jewels reluctantly surrendered to you by my aunt they are many and marvellous in their antique settings I don't want to brag it humiliates me to speak to you as I am speaking but I am heart set on you and to win you there is not a precious stone I would leave unturned conceive a parure of all the white stones diamonds, white sapphires white topazes, tourmalines another of rubies and amethysts set in gold filigree rings that once were poison combs on florentine fingers red roses for your hair every petal a hollowed ruby amulets and eight buckles zones and filets I know you would be weeping for wonder before you had seen a tithe of these gourds no tool, Miss Dobson that in the Perige of France I am duke d'Étrata et de la Roche Guillaume Louis Napoleon gave the title to my father for not cutting him and the boire I have a house in the Champs-Élysées there is a Swiss in its courtyard he stands six foot seven in his stockings and the chasseurs are hardly less tall than he whenever I go there are two chefs in my retinue both are masters in their art and furious with jealous of each other when I compliment either of them on some dish the other challenges him they fight with rapiers next morning in the garden of whatever house I am occupying I do not know whether you are greedy if so, it may interest you to learn that I have a third chef who makes only souffles and an Italian pastry cook to say nothing of a Spaniard for salads an English woman for roasts and an Abyssinian for coffee you found no trace of their handiwork in the meal you have just had with me no, for in Oxford it is a whim of mine I may say a point of honour to lead the ordinary life of an undergraduate what I eat in this room is a heavy and unaided hand of Mrs. Batch, my landlady it is set before me by the unaided and, or are you in error, loving hand of her daughter other ministers have I none here I dispense with my private secretaries I am unattended by a single valet so simple a way of life repels you you would never be called upon to share it if you married me I should take my name off the books of my college I propose that we should spend our honeymoon at a bayai I have a villa at bayai it is there that I keep my grandfather's collection of Majolica the sun shines there always a long olive grove secretes the garden from the sea when you walk in the garden you know the sea only in blue glimpses through the vacillating leaves white gleaming from the bosque shade of this grove are several goddesses do you care for cannibal I don't myself if you do these figures will appeal to you they are in his best manner do you love the sea this is not the only house of mine that looks out on it now on the coast of county claire am I not a very scary and barren shadrin in the peerage of Ireland I have an ancient castle sure from a rock stands it and the sea has always raged up against its walls many ships lie wrecked under that loud implacable sea but mine is a brave strong castle most of all the frights it are not the centuries clustering horrors with their caresses can seduce it from its hard austerity I have several titles which for the moment escape me barren lichwil I am and but you can find them yourself in de Bret in me you are behold a prince of the holy roman empire and knight of the most noble order of the garter look well at me I am hereditary coma of the queen's lap-dogs I am young I am handsome my temper is sweet and my character without blemish in fine miss dobson I am a most desirable party but said Zuleka I don't love you the duke stamped his foot I beg your pardon not to have done that but you seem to have enticed the point of what I was saying no I haven't said Zuleka and then what cried the duke standing over her what is your reply said Zuleka looking up at him my reply is that I think you are an awful snob the duke turned on his heel and strode to the other end of the room there he stood for some moments he's back to Zuleka I think she resumed in a slow meditative voice that you are with the possible exception of Mr. Idlebice the most awful snob I have ever met the duke looked back over his shoulder he gave Zuleka the stinging reprimand of silence she was sorry and showed it in her eyes she felt that she had gone too far true he was nothing to her now but she had loved him once she could not forget that come, she said let us be good friends give me your hand he came to her slowly there the duke withdrew his fingers before she unclasped them that twice-flung taunt rankled still it was monstrous to have been called a snob a snob he was never regarded as a shocking Miss Alliance ought to have stifled the charge not merely vindicated him from it he had forgotten in the blindness of his love how shocking the Miss Alliance would be perhaps she, unloving, had not been so forgetful perhaps her refusal had been made generously for his own sake nay, rather for her own evidently she had felt that the high sphere from which he beckoned the likes of her evidently she feared that she would pine away among these strange slenders never to be acclimatised always to be unworthy he had thought to overwhelm her and he had done his work too thoroughly now he must try to lighten the load he had imposed seating himself opposite to her ah, you remember he said that there is a dairy at Tecton a dairy? oh, yes do you remember what it is called? Zulika knit her brows he helped her out it is called her graces of course said Zulika do you know why it is called so? well, let's see I know you told me did I? I think not I will tell you now that cool outhouse dates from the middle of the 18th century my great-great-grandfather when he was a very old man married on Troziumnos a dairy maid on the Tecton estate Meg Speedwell was her name he had seen her walking across a field not many months after the interment of his second duchess Maria, that great and gifted lady I know not whether it was that her body mean found in him some embers of his youth or he was loath to be outdone in gracious eccentricity by his crony the Duke of Dulap who himself had just taken a bride from a dairy you have read Meredith's account of that affair? no, you should whether it was veritable love or mere modishness that formed my ancestors resolve presently the bells were ringing out and the oldest elm in the park was being felled in Meg Speedwell's honour and the children were stirring daisies on which Meg Speedwell trod a proud young hoidon of a bride with her head in the air and her heart in the seventh heaven the Duke had given her already a horde of fine gifts but these he had said were nothing trash in comparison with the gift that was to ensure for her a purdurable felicity after the wedding breakfast when all the squires had ridden away on their cobs and all the squires laders and their coaches the Duke led his bride forth from the hall leaning on her arms till they came to a little edifice of new white stone very spick and span with two lattice windows and a bright green door between this he made her enter a flutter with excitement she turned the handle in a moment she flounced back red with shame and anger flounced forth from the fairest whitest dapperest dairy wherein was all of the best dairy made by need the Duke bet her dry her eyes for it ill be fitted a great lady to be weeping on her wedding day as for gratitude he chuckled, Zarns this is a wine all the better for the keeping Duchess Meg soon forgot this unworthy wedding gift such was her rapture in the other the so old gusts of pertinences of her new life what with her fine silk gowns and pathing-gales and her powder-closet and a pit-bed she slept in a bed far bigger than the room she had slept in with her sisters and standing in a room far bigger than her father's cottage and what with Betty her maid who had pinched and teased her at the village school but now waited on her so meekly and trembled so fearfully at a scolding and what with the fine hot dishes that were set before her every day and the gallant speeches and glances of the fine young gentleman whom you've invited from London Duchess Meg was quite the happiest Duchess in all England for a while she was like a child in the hay-rick but anon as the sheer delight of novelty wore away she began to take a more serious view of her position she began to realise her responsibilities she was determined to do all that a great lady ought to do twice every day she assumed the vapours she schooled herself in the mysteries of the chamber of Macau she spent hours over the tambour frame she rode out on horseback with a riding-master she had a music-master to teach her the spin-it a dancing-master too to teach her the minuet and the tram from the Gordy all these accomplishments she found mighty hard she was afraid of her horse all the morning she dreaded the hour when it would be brought round from the stables she dreaded her dancing-lesson try as she would she could but stamp her feet flat on the parquet as though it had been the village green she dreaded her music-lesson her fingers, disobedient to her ambition clumsily thumped the keys of the spin-it and by the notes of the score propped up before her she was as cruel and perplexed as by the black and white pips of the card she conned at the gaming-table or by the red and gold threads that were always straying and snapping on her tambour frame still she persevered day in, day out sullenly she worked hard to be a great lady but skill came not to her and hope dwindled only the dull effort remained one accomplishment she did master to wit the vapours they became for her a dreadful reality she lost her appetite for the fine hot dishes all night long she lay awake restful, tearful under the fine silk canopy till dawn stared her into slumber she seldom scolded Betty she who had been so lusty and so blooming saw in her mirror that she was pale and thin now and the fine young gentleman seeing it too paid more heed now to their wine and their dice than to her and always when she met him the duke smiled the same mocking smile Duchess Meg was pining slowly and surely away one morning in springtime she altogether vanished Betty bringing the cup of chocolate to the bedside found the bed empty she raised the alarm among her fellows they searched high and low no where was their mistress the news was broken to their master who, without comment rose bad his man dress him and presently walked out to the place where he knew he would find her and there to be sure she was churning churning for dear life her sleeves were rolled above her elbows and her skirt was kilted high and as she looked back over her shoulder and saw the duke there was the flush of roses in her cheeks and the light of a thousand tanks in her eyes oh she cried what a curtsy I would drop you but the to let go the handle were to spoil all and every morning ever after she woke when the birds woke rose when they rose and went singing through the dawn to the dairy there to practice for her pleasure that sweet and lowly handicraft which she had once practiced for her need and every evening with her milking stool under her arm and her milk-pale in her hand she went into the field and called the cows to her as she had been want to do as other those so august accomplishment she no more pretended she gave them the go-by and all the old zest and joyousness of her life came back to her soundlier than ever slept she and sweetlier dreamed under the fine silk canopy till the birds called her to her work greater than ever was her love of the fine fur-belows that were hers to flaunt in and sharper her appetite for the fine hot dishes more tempestuous her scolding of Betty poor maid she was more than ever now the sign assure the adored of the fine young gentleman and as for her husband she looked up to him as the wisest kindest man in all the world and the fine young gentleman said Zulika did she fall in love with any of them or you forget said the duke coldly she was married to a member of my family who I beg your pardon but tell me did they all adore her yes every one of them wildly madly ah murmured Zulika with a smile of understanding a shadow crossed her face even so she said with some peak and don't suppose she had so very many adorers she never went out into the world attacked her said the duke dryly there's a large house and my great great grandfather was the most hospitable of men however he added marveling that she had again missed the point so utterly my purpose was not to confront you with a past rival in conquest but to set at rest a fear which I had I think roused in you by my somewhat full description of the high majestic life to which you as my bride would be translated a fear what sort of fear that you would not breathe freely that you would starve if I may use a somewhat fantastic figure among those strawberry leaves and so I told you the story of Meg Speedwell and how she lived happily ever after may hear me out the blood of Meg Speedwell's lord flows in my veins I think I may boast that I have inherited something of his sagacity in any case I can profit by his example do not fear that I if you were to wed me should demand a metamorphosis of your present self I should take you as you are gladly I should encourage you to be always exactly as you are a radiant irresponsible member of the upper middle class with a certain freedom of manner acquired through a life of peculiar liberty can you guess what would be my principal wedding gift to you Meg Speedwell had her dairy for you you would be built another outhouse a neat hall wherein you would perform your conjuring tricks every evening except Sunday before me and my tenants and my servants and before such of my neighbours as my caretaker none would respect you the less seeing that I have proved thus in you would the pleasant history of Meg Speedwell repeat itself you practicing for your pleasure may hear me out that sweet and lowly handicraft which I won't listen to another word you are the most insolent person I have ever met I happen to come of a particularly good family I move in the best society my manners are absolutely perfect if I found myself in the shoes of 20 duchies simultaneously I should know quite well how to behave that's for the one pair you can offer me and I kick them away so I kick them back at you I tell you you are over excited there will be a crowd under my window I am sorry I thought I know what you thought said Zuleka in a quieter tone I am sure you meant well I am sorry I lost my temper only you might have given me the credit for meaning what I said that I would not marry you because I did not love you I dare say there would be great advantages in being your duchess the fact is I have no worldly wisdom to me marriage is a sacrament I could no more marry a man about whom I could not make a fool of myself than I could marry one who made a fool of himself about me else I had long ceased to be a spinster oh my friend do not imagine that I have not rejected in my day a score of suitors quite as eligible as you as eligible who were they? frowned the duke oh watch Duke this and grand duke that and his serene highness the other I have a wretched memory for names and my name too will soon escape you perhaps no oh no I shall always remember yours you see I was in love with you you deceived me into loving you decide oh had you been as strong as I thought you still the sway in the war that is something she went forward smiling artfully those studs show me them again the duke displayed them in the hollow of his hand she touched them lightly reverently as a tourist touches a sacred relic in a church at length do give me them she said I will keep them in a little secret partition of my jewel case the duke had closed his fist do she pleaded my other jewels they have no separate meanings for me I never remember who gave me this one or that these would be quite different I should remember their history do ask me for anything else said the duke these are the one thing I could not part with even to you for whose sake they are hallowed Zulika pouted on the verge of persisting she changed her mind and was silent well she said abruptly races are you going to take me to see them races what races oh yes I had forgotten do you really mean you want to see them of course they are great fun aren't they and are you in the mood for great fun well there is plenty of time the second division is not road till half past four the second division why not take me to the first that is not road till six isn't this rather an odd arrangement no doubt but Oxford never pretended to be strong in mathematics why it's not three cried Zulika with a well begun stare at the clock what is to be done in the meantime am I not sufficiently diverting asked the duke bitterly quite candidly no have you any friend lodging with you here one overhead a man named Noakes a small man with spectacles very small with very large spectacles he was pointed out to me yesterday as I was driving from the station no I don't think I want to meet him what can you have in common with him one frailty at least he too Miss Dobson loves you but of course he does he saw me drive fast very few of the others she said rising and shaking herself have set eyes on me do let us go out and look at the colleges I need a change of scene if you were a doctor you would have prescribed that long ago it's very bad for me to be here a kind of Cinderella moping over the ashes of my love for you where is your hat looking round she caught sight of herself in the glass oh she cried what a fright I do look I must never be seen like this you look very beautiful I don't and that is a lover's illusion was perfectly hideous there was no need to tell me that I came thus because I was coming to see you I chose this frock in the deliberate fear that you if I made myself presentable might succumb at second sight of me I would have sent out for a sack and dressed myself in that I would have blacked my face all over with burnt cork only I was afraid of being mobbed on the way to you even so you would have been mobbed for your incorrigible beauty my beauty how I hate it sides of leaker still here it is and I must need to make the best of it come take me to Judas I will change my things then I shall be fit for the races as these two emerged side by side into the street the emperors exchanged so many side long glances for they saw the more than normal pallor of the Duke's face and something like desperation in his eyes they saw the tragedy progressing to its foregone close unable to stay its course they were grimly fascinated now End of chapter 5