Zuleika Dobson Or, An Oxford Love Story by Sir Max Beerbohm
XX
Artistically, there is a good deal to be said for that old Greek friendof ours, the Messenger; and I dare say you blame me for having, as itwere, made you an eye-witness of the death of the undergraduates, whenI might so easily have brought some one in to tell you about it afterit was all over... Some one? Whom? Are you not begging the question?I admit there were, that evening in Oxford, many people who, when theywent home from the river, gave vivid reports of what they had seen. Butamong them was none who had seen more than a small portion of the wholeaffair. Certainly, I might have pieced together a dozen of the variousaccounts, and put them all into the mouth of one person. But credibilityis not enough for Clio's servant. I aim at truth. And so, as I by myZeus-given incorporeity was the one person who had a good view of thescene at large, you must pardon me for having withheld the veil ofindirect narration.
"Too late," you will say if I offer you a Messenger now. But it was notthus that Mrs. Batch and Katie greeted Clarence when, lamentably soakedwith rain, that Messenger appeared on the threshold of the kitchen.Katie was laying the table-cloth for seven o'clock supper. Neither shenor her mother was clairvoyante. Neither of them knew what had beenhappening. But, as Clarence had not come home since afternoon-school,they had assumed that he was at the river; and they now assumed from thelook of him that something very unusual had been happening there. As towhat this was, they were not quickly enlightened. Our old Greek friend,after a run of twenty miles, would always reel off a round hundred ofgraphic verses unimpeachable in scansion. Clarence was of degeneratemould. He collapsed on to a chair, and sat there gasping; and hisrecovery was rather delayed than hastened by his mother, who, in hersolicitude, patted him vigorously between the shoulders.
"Let him alone, mother, do," cried Katie, wringing her hands.
"The Duke, he's drowned himself," presently gasped the Messenger.
Blank verse, yes, so far as it went; but delivered without the slightestregard for rhythm, and composed in stark defiance of those laws whichshould regulate the breaking of bad news. You, please remember, werecarefully prepared by me against the shock of the Duke's death; and yetI hear you still mumbling that I didn't let the actual fact be told youby a Messenger. Come, do you really think your grievance against meis for a moment comparable with that of Mrs. and Miss Batch againstClarence? Did you feel faint at any moment in the foregoing chapter? No.But Katie, at Clarence's first words, fainted outright. Think a littlemore about this poor girl senseless on the floor, and a little lessabout your own paltry discomfort.
Mrs. Batch herself did not faint, but she was too much overwhelmed tonotice that her daughter had done so.
"No! Mercy on us! Speak, boy, can't you?"
"The river," gasped Clarence. "Threw himself in. On purpose. I was onthe towing-path. Saw him do it."
Mrs. Batch gave a low moan.
"Katie's fainted," added the Messenger, not without a touch of personalpride.
"Saw him do it," Mrs. Batch repeated dully. "Katie," she said, in thesame voice, "get up this instant." But Katie did not hear her.
The mother was loth to have been outdone in sensibility by the daughter,and it was with some temper that she hastened to make the necessaryministrations.
"Where am I?" asked Katie, at length, echoing the words used in thisvery house, at a similar juncture, on this very day, by another lover ofthe Duke.
"Ah, you may well ask that," said Mrs. Batch, with more force thanreason. "A mother's support indeed! Well! And as for you," she cried,turning on Clarence, "sending her off like that with your--" Shewas face to face again with the tragic news. Katie, remembering itsimultaneously, uttered a loud sob. Mrs. Batch capped this with a muchlouder one. Clarence stood before the fire, slowly revolving on oneheel. His clothes steamed briskly.
"It isn't true," said Katie. She rose and came uncertainly towards herbrother, half threatening, half imploring.
"All right," said he, strong in his advantage. "Then I shan't telleither of you anything more."
Mrs. Batch through her tears called Katie a bad girl, and Clarence a badboy.
"Where did you get THEM?" asked Clarence, pointing to the ear-rings wornby his sister.
"HE gave me them," said Katie. Clarence curbed the brotherly intentionof telling her she looked "a sight" in them.
She stood staring into vacancy. "He didn't love HER," she murmured."That was all over. I'll vow he didn't love HER."
"Who d'you mean by her?" asked Clarence.
"That Miss Dobson that's been here."
"What's her other name?"
"Zuleika," Katie enunciated with bitterest abhorrence.
"Well, then, he jolly well did love her. That's the name he called outjust before he threw himself in. 'Zuleika!'--like that," added the boy,with a most infelicitous attempt to reproduce the Duke's manner.
Katie had shut her eyes, and clenched her hands.
"He hated her. He told me so," she said.
"I was always a mother to him," sobbed Mrs. Batch, rocking to and fro ona chair in a corner. "Why didn't he come to me in his trouble?"
"He kissed me," said Katie, as in a trance. "No other man shall ever dothat."
"He did?" exclaimed Clarence. "And you let him?"
"You wretched little whipper-snapper!" flashed Katie.
"Oh, I am, am I?" shouted Clarence, squaring up to his sister. "Say thatagain, will you?"
There is no doubt that Katie would have said it again, had not hermother closed the scene with a prolonged wail of censure.
"You ought to be thinking of ME, you wicked girl," said Mrs. Batch.Katie went across, and laid a gentle hand on her mother's shoulder.This, however, did but evoke a fresh flood of tears. Mrs. Batch had akeen sense of the deportment owed to tragedy. Katie, by bickering withClarence, had thrown away the advantage she had gained by fainting. Mrs.Batch was not going to let her retrieve it by shining as a consoler.I hasten to add that this resolve was only sub-conscious in the goodwoman. Her grief was perfectly sincere. And it was not the less sobecause with it was mingled a certain joy in the greatness of thecalamity. She came of good sound peasant stock. Abiding in her was thespirit of those old songs and ballads in which daisies and daffodilliesand lovers' vows and smiles are so strangely inwoven with tombs andghosts, with murders and all manner of grim things. She had not hadeducation enough to spoil her nerve. She was able to take the rough withthe smooth. She was able to take all life for her province, and deathtoo.
The Duke was dead. This was the stupendous outline she had grasped: nowlet it be filled in. She had been stricken: now let her be racked. Soonafter her daughter had moved away, Mrs. Batch dried her eyes, and badeClarence tell just what had happened. She did not flinch. Modern Katiedid.
Such had ever been the Duke's magic in the household that Clarencehad at first forgotten to mention that any one else was dead. Ofthis omission he was glad. It promised him a new lease of importance.Meanwhile, he described in greater detail the Duke's plunge. Mrs.Batch's mind, while she listened, ran ahead, dog-like, into theimmediate future, ranging around: "the family" would all be hereto-morrow, the Duke's own room must be "put straight" to-night, "I wasof speaking"...
Katie's mind harked back to the immediate past--to the tone of thatvoice, to that hand which she had kissed, to the touch of those lips onher brow, to the door-step she had made so white for him, day by day...
The sound of the rain had long ceased. There was the noise of agathering wind.
"Then in went a lot of others," Clarence was saying. "And they allshouted out 'Zuleika!' just like he did. Then a lot more went in.First I thought it was some sort of fun. Not it!" And he told how,by inquiries further down the river, he had learned the extent of thedisaster. "Hundreds and hundreds of them--ALL of them," he summed up."And all for the love of HER," he added, as with a sulky salute toRomance.
Mrs. Batch had risen from her chair, the better to cope with suchmagnitude. She stood with wide-spread arms, silent, gaping. She seemed,by sheer force of sympathy, t
Intensive Katie recked little of all these other deaths. "I only know,"she said, "that he hated her."
"Hundreds and hundreds--ALL," intoned Mrs. Batch, then gave a suddenstart, as having remembered something. Mr. Noaks! He, too! She staggeredto the door, leaving her actual offspring to their own devices, and wentheavily up the stairs, her mind scampering again before her.... If hewas safe and sound, dear young gentleman, heaven be praised! and shewould break the awful news to him, very gradually. If not, there wasanother "family" to be solaced; "I'm a mother myself, Mrs. Noaks"...
The sitting-room door was closed. Twice did Mrs. Batch tap on the panel,receiving no answer. She went in, gazed around in the dimness, sigheddeeply, and struck a match. Conspicuous on the table lay a piece ofpaper. She bent to examine it. A piece of lined paper, torn from anexercise book, it was neatly inscribed with the words "What is Lifewithout Love?" The final word and the note of interrogation weresomewhat blurred, as by a tear. The match had burnt itself out. Thelandlady lit another, and read the legend a second time, that she mighttake in the full pathos of it. Then she sat down in the arm-chair. Forsome minutes she wept there. Then, having no more, tears, she went outon tip-toe, closing the door very quietly.
As she descended the last flight of stairs, her daughter had just shutthe front-door, and was coming along the hall.
"Poor Mr. Noaks--he's gone," said the mother.
"Has he?" said Katie listlessly.
"Yes he has, you heartless girl. What's that you've got in your hand?Why, if it isn't the black-leading! And what have you been doing withthat?"
"Let me alone, mother, do," said poor Katie. She had done her lowlytask. She had expressed her mourning, as best she could, there where shehad been wont to express her love.