5. V
LUNCHEON passed in almost unbroken silence.
Both Zuleika and the Duke were ravenously
hungry, as people always 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.
Zuleika 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,
Orde, Angus, Tankerton,
[1]
Tanville-Tankerton,
[2]
fourteenth Duke of Dorset, Marquis of Dorset,
Earl of Grove, Earl of Chastermaine, Viscount
Brewsby, Baron Grove, Baron Petstrap, 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 your airiest flights of fancy,
can ever have hoped for or imagined. I own
about 340,000 acres. My town-residence is in
St. James's Square. Tankerton, of which you
may have seen photographs, is the chief of my
country-seats. 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 estraded upon the slope. Round
the house runs a wide paven 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 Jacobean garden of white roses. Between
the ends of two pleached 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, dart
gold-fish — tongues of flame in the dark water.
There is also a long strait alley of clipped yew. It
ends in an alcove for a pagoda of painted porcelain
which the Prince Regent — peace be to his
ashes! — presented to my great-grandfather.
There are many twisting paths, and sudden aspects,
and devious, fantastic arbours. 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 Zuleika.
"They make one look like nothing on earth, and
like everybody else."
"I myself," said the Duke, "use them little for
that very reason. Are you interested in farming?
At Tankerton 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 'Her
Grace's.' 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
Watteaus hang in it. In the dining-hall hang portraits
of my forefathers —
in petto, your fore-fathers-in-law — of by many masters. Are you fond
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
Tankerton, the oldest elm in the park must be
felled. That is one of 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 Dukedom. 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 come and
perch on the battlements. They remain there
through the night, hooting. At dawn they fly
away, none knows whither. On the eve of the
death of any other Tanville-Tankerton, comes
(no matter what be the time of year) a cuckoo.
It stays for an hour, cooing, then flies away, none
knows whither. Whenever this portent occurs,
my steward telegraphs to me, that I, as head of
the family, be not unsteeled against the shock of a
bereavement, and that my authority be sooner
given for the unsealing and garnishing of the
family-vault. Not every forefather of mine rests
quiet beneath his escutcheoned marble. There
are they who revisit, in their wrath or their remorse,
the places wherein erst 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 grey form against the
canvas, hoping, maybe, to catch from it the fiery
flesh-tints and the solid limbs that were his, and
so to be re-incarnate. He flies against the painting,
only to find himself t'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, thus paying them
the respect due to guests of mine; but not even the
rawest housemaid ever screams or flees at 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 Strathsporran and Cairngorm,
Marquis of Sorby, and Earl Cairngorm, in the
Peerage of Scotland. In the glens of the hills
about Strathsporran 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?"
Zuleika 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. 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 entrée. 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 all of 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 ape-buckles, zones and fillets. Aye!
know that you would be weeping for wonder
before you had seen a tithe of these gauds. Know,
too, Miss Dobson, that in the Peerage of France
I am Duc d'Etretat et de la Roche Guillaume.
Louis Napoleon gave the title to my father for
not cutting him in the Bois. I have a house in
the Champs Elysées. There is a Swiss in its
courtyard. He stands six-foot-seven in his stockings,
and the chasseurs are hardly less tall than
he. Wherever I go, there are two chefs in my
retinue. Both are masters in their art, and furiously
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 soufflés, and an Italian pastry-cook;
to say nothing of a Spaniard for salads, an
Englishwoman 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
cooked by the 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 Baiae. I have a villa at Baiae. 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 bosky shade of this grove are
several goddesses. Do you care for Canova? 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. On the coast of County Clare — am
I not Earl of Enniskerry and Baron Shandrin
in the Peerage of Ireland? — I have an ancient
castle. Sheer 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. No storm affrights
it; and not the centuries, clustering houris, with
their caresses can seduce it from its hard austerity.
I have several titles which for the moment
escape me. Baron Llffthwchl am I, and. . .and
. . .but you can find them for yourself in Debrett.
In me you behold a Prince of the Holy Roman
Empire, and a Knight of the Most Noble Order
of the Garter. Look well at me! I am Hereditary
Comber 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
parti."
"But," said Zuleika, "I don't love you."
The Duke stamped his foot. "I beg your pardon,"
he said hastily. "I ought not to have done
that. But — you seem to have entirely missed the
point of what I was saying."
"No, I haven't," said Zuleika.
"Then what," cried the Duke, standing over
her, "what is your reply?"
Said Zuleika, 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, his back to Zuleika.
"I think," she resumed in a slow, meditative
voice, "that you are, with the possible exception
of a Mr. Edelweiss,
the most awful snob I have
ever met."
he Duke looked back over his shoulder. He
gave Zuleika the stinging reprimand of silence.
She was sorry, and showed it in her eyes. She
felt 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, whose readiness to form
what would certainly be regarded as a shocking
misalliance ought to have stifled the charge, not
merely vindicated him from it! He had forgotten,
in the blindness of his love, how shocking the
misalliance 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 was no
place for the likes of her. Evidently, she feared
she would pine away among those strange splendours,
never be acclimatised, always 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, "You remember,"
he said, "that there is a dairy at
Tankerton?"
"A dairy? Oh yes."
"Do you remember what it is called?"
Zuleika knit her brows.
He helped her out. "It is called 'Her
Grace's'."
"Oh, of course!" said Zuleika.
"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 out-house dates from the middle of the
eighteenth century. My great-great-grandfather,
when he was a very old man, married en troisièmes
noces a dairy-maid on the Tankerton 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 bonny mien fanned in him some embers of his
youth, or that he was loth to be outdone in gracious
eccentricity by his crony the Duke of Dewlap,
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 ancestor's 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 strewing daisies on which Meg Speedwell trod, a
proud young hoyden 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 perdurable felicity. After
the wedding-breakfast, when all the squires had ridden away on their
cobs, and all the squires' ladies in their coaches, the Duke led his
bride forth from the hall, leaning on her arm, 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 bade 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 that
the keenest dairy-maid might need. The Duke bade her dry her eyes,
for that it ill befitted a great lady to be weeping on her
wedding-day. 'As for gratitude,' he chuckled, 'zounds! that 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 august, appurtenances of her new life.
What with her fine silk gowns and farthingales,
and her powder-closet, and the canopied bed she
slept in — a bed bigger far 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 gentlemen whom
the Duke invited from London, Duchess Meg
was quite the happiest Duchess in all England.
For a while, she was like a child in a 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 Ombre, of Macao. 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 spinet; a dancing-master, too, to
teach her the Minuet and the Triumph and the
Gaudy. 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 spinet,
and by the notes of the score propped up before her she was as cruelly
perplexed as by the black and red pips of the cards 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, restless, 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 gentlemen, 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
Spring-time, 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. Nowhere was their
mistress. The news was broken to their master, who, without comment,
rose, bade 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 thanks in her eyes. 'Oh,' she cried,
'what a curtsey I would drop you, but that 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 practise
for her pleasure that sweet and lowly handicraft
which she had once practised for her need. And
every evening, with her milking-stool under her
arm, and her milk-pail in her hand, she went into
the field and called the cows to her, as she had
been wont to do. To those other, those so august,
accomplishments 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 furbelows that were hers to flaunt in, and
sharper her appetite for the fine hot dishes, and
more tempestuous her scolding of Betty, poor
maid. She was more than ever now the cynosure,
the adored, of the fine young gentlemen. And as
for her husband, she looked up to him as the
wisest, kindest man in all the world."
"And the fine young gentlemen," said Zuleika,
"did she fall in love with any of them?"
"You forget," said the Duke coldly, "she was
married to a member of my family."
"Oh, I beg your pardon. But tell me: did they
all adore her?"
"Yes. Every one of them, wildly, madly."
"Ah," murmured Zuleika, with a smile of understanding.
A shadow crossed her face, "Even
so," she said, with some pique, "I don't suppose
she had so very many adorers. She never went
out into the world."
"Tankerton," said the Duke drily, "is a large
house, and my great-great-grandfather was the
most hospitable of men. However," he added,
marvelling 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 a 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. Nay, 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, irresistible 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, would be built another out-house — 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 might care to come. None would respect you
the less, seeing that I approved. Thus in you would the pleasant
history of Meg Speedwell repeat itself. You, practising for your
pleasure — nay, hear me out! — that sweet and lowly handicraft
which — "
"I won't listen to another word!" cried Zuleika.
"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 twenty Duchesses simultaneously,
I should know quite well how to behave. As for
the one pair you can offer me, I kick them away — so.
I kick them back at you. I tell you — "
"Hush," said the Duke, "hush! You are over-excited.
There will be a crowd under my window.
There, there! I am sorry. I thought — "
"Oh, I know what you thought," said Zuleika,
in a quieter tone. "I am sure you meant well.
I am sorry I lost my temper. Only, you might
have given me credit for meaning what I said:
that I would not marry you, because I did not
love you. I daresay there would be great advantages
in being your Duchess. But 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 had I 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, Archduke 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. . ." She sighed. "Oh, had
you but been as strong as I thought you. . . Still,
a swain the more. That is something." She
leaned forward, smiling archly. "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 always 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."
Zuleika pouted. On the verge of persisting,
she changed her mind, and was silent.
"Well!" she said abruptly, "how about these
races? Are you going to take me to see them?"
"Races? What races?" murmured the Duke.
"Oh yes. I had forgotten. Do you really mean
that you want to see them?"
"Why, of course! They are great fun, aren't
they?"
"And you are in a mood for great fun? Well,
there is plenty of time. The Second Division is
not rowed till half-past four."
"The Second Division? Why not take me to
the First?"
"That is not rowed till six."
"Isn't this rather an odd arrangement?"
"No doubt. But Oxford never pretended to
be strong in mathematics."
"Why, it's not yet three!" cried Zuleika, with
a woebegone stare at the clock. "What is to be
done in the meantime?"
"Am not I sufficiently diverting?" asked the
Duke bitterly.
"Quite candidly, no. Have you any friend
lodging with you here?"
"One, overhead. A man named Noaks."
"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 past.
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 do need
change of scene. If you were a doctor, you would
have prescribed that long ago. It is 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. That is a lover's illusion. You yourself
told me that this tartan 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 but have been mobbed
for your incorrigible beauty."
"My beauty! How I hate it!" sighed Zuleika.
"Still, here it is, and I must needs 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 stony sidelong
glances. For they saw the more than normal
pallor of the Duke's face, and something very
like desperation in his eyes. They saw the tragedy
progressing to its foreseen close. Unable to stay
its course, they were grimly fascinated now.
[1]
Pronounced as Tacton.
[2]
Pronounced as Tavvle-Tacton.