



Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed
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SINISTER STREET

BY

COMPTON MACKENZIE

AUTHOR OF "CARNIVAL," "YOUTH'S ENCOUNTER," ETC.

NEW YORK

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY

1919

COPYRIGHT, 1914, BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY




CONTENTS

BOOK ONE

DREAMING SPIRES

CHAPTER                           PAGE

I. THE FIRST DAY 3

II. THE FIRST WEEK                  32

III. THE FIRST TERM                 47

IV. CHEYNE WALK                     63

V. YOUTH'S DOMINATION               84

VI. GRAY AND BLUE                  110

VII. VENNER'S                      143

VIII. THE OXFORD LOOKING-GLASS     165

IX. THE LESSON OF SPAIN            183

X. STELLA IN OXFORD                209

XI. SYMPATHY                       225

XII. 202 HIGH                      245

XIII. PLASHERS MEAD                269

XIV. 99 ST. GILES                  288

XV. THE LAST TERM                  308

XVI. THE LAST WEEK                 319

XVII. THE LAST DAY                 333


BOOK TWO

ROMANTIC EDUCATION

CHAPTER                           PAGE

I. OSTIA DITIS                     349

II. NEPTUNE CRESCENT               371

III. THE CAFE D'ORANGE             401

IV. LEPPARD STREET                 427

V. THE INNERMOST CIRCLE            481

VI. TINDERBOX LANE                 496

VII. THE GATE OF IVORY             552

VIII. SEEDS OF POMEGRANATE         583

IX. THE GATE OF HORN               602

X. THE OLD WORLD                   652

EPILOGICAL LETTER TO
JOHN NICOLAS MAVROGORADATO         655




BOOK ONE

DREAMING SPIRES

    Bright memories of young poetic pleasure
      In free companionship, the loving stress
    Of all life-beauty, lull'd in studious leisure,
      When every Muse was jocund with excess
      Of fine delight and tremulous happiness;
    The breath of an indolent unbridled June,
    When delicate thought fell from the dreamy moon:
      But now strange care, sorrow, and grief oppress.

      ROBERT BRIDGES.




CHAPTER I

THE FIRST DAY


Michael felt glad to think he would start the adventure of Oxford from
Paddington. The simplicity of that railway station might faintly
mitigate alarms which no amount of previous deliberation could entirely
disperse. He remembered how once he had lightly seen off a Cambridge
friend from Liverpool Street and, looking back at the suburban tumult of
the Great Eastern Railway, he was grateful for the simplicity of
Paddington.

Michael had been careful that all his heavy luggage should be sent in
advance; and he had shown himself gravely exacting toward Alan in this
matter of luggage, writing several times to remind him of his promise
not to appear on the platform with more than a portmanteau of moderate
size and a normal kit-bag. Michael hoped this precaution would prevent
at any rate the porters from commenting upon the freshness of him and
his friend.

"Oxford train?" inquired a porter, as the hansom pulled up. Michael
nodded, and made up his mind to show his esteem when he tipped this
promethean.

"Third class?" the porter went on. Michael mentally doubled the tip, for
he had neglected to assure himself beforehand about the etiquette of
class, and nothing could have suited so well his self-consciousness as
this information casually yielded.

"Let me see, you didn't have any golf-clubs, did you, sir?" asked the
porter.

Michael shook his head regretfully, for as he looked hurriedly up and
down the platform in search of Alan, he perceived golf-clubs everywhere,
and when at last he saw him, actually even he had a golf-bag slung over
his shoulder.

"I never knew you played golf," said Michael indignantly.

"I don't. These are the governor's. He's given up playing," Alan
explained.

"Are you going to play?" Michael pursued. He was feeling rather envious
of the appearance of these veteran implements.

"I may have a shot," Alan admitted.

"You might have told me you were going to bring them," Michael grumbled.

"My dear old ass, I never knew I was, until the governor wanged them
into my lap just as I was starting."

Michael turned aside and bought a number of papers, far too many for the
short journey. Indeed, all the way they lay on the rack unregarded,
while the train crossed and recrossed the silver Thames. At first he was
often conscious of the other undergraduates in the compartment, who
seemed to be eying him with a puzzled contempt; but very soon, when he
perceived that this manner of looking at one's neighbor was general, he
became reconciled to the attitude and ascribed it to a habit of mind
rather than to the expression of any individual distaste. Then suddenly,
as Michael was gazing out of the window, the pearly sky broke into
spires and pinnacles and domes and towers. He caught his breath for one
bewitched moment, before he busied himself with the luggage on the rack.

On the platform Michael and Alan decided to part company, as neither of
them felt sure enough whether St. Mary's or Christ Church were nearer to
the station to risk a joint hansom.

"Shall I come and see you this afternoon?" Michael rashly offered.

"Oh, rather," Alan agreed, and they turned away from one another to
secure their cabs.

All the time that Michael was driving to St. Mary's, he was regretting
he had not urged Alan to visit him first. A growing sensation of shy
dread was making him vow that once safe in his own rooms at St. Mary's
nothing should drag him forth again that day. What on earth would he say
when he arrived at the college? Would he have to announce himself? How
would he find his rooms? On these points he had pestered several Old
Jacobeans now at Oxford, but none of them could remember the precise
ceremonies of arrival. Michael leaned back in the hansom and cursed
their inefficient memories.

Then the cab pulled up by the St. Mary's lodge, and events proceeded
with unexpected rapidity. A cheerful man with red hair and a round face
welcomed his luggage. The cabman was paid the double of his correct
fare, and to Michael's relief drove off instantly. From a sort of glass
case that filled half the interior of the lodge somebody very much like
a family butler inquired richly who Michael was.

"Mr. C. M. S. Fane?" rolled out the unctuous man.

Michael nodded.

"Is there another Fane?" he asked curiously.

"No, sir," said the head porter, and the negative came out with the
sound of a drawn cork. "No, sir, but I wished to hessateen if I had your
initials down correct in my list. Mr. C. M. S. Fane," he went on,
looking at a piece of paper. "St. Cuthbert's. Four. Two pair right. Your
servant is Porcher. Your luggage has arrived, and perhaps you'll settle
with me presently. Henry will show you to your rooms. Henry! St.
Cuthbert's. Four. Two pair right."

The red-headed under-porter picked up Michael's bag, and Michael was
preparing to follow him at once, when the unctuous man held up a warning
hand. Then he turned to look into a large square pigeon-hole labeled
Porcher.

"These letters are for you, sir," he explained pompously. Michael took
them, and in a dream followed Henry under a great gothic gateway, and
along a gravel path. In a doorway numbered IV, Henry stopped and shouted
"Porcher!" From an echoing vault came a cry in answer, and the scout
appeared.

"One of your gentlemen arrived," said Henry. "Mr. Fane." Then he touched
his cap and retired.

"Any more luggage in the lodge, sir?" Porcher asked.

"Not much," said Michael apologetically.

"There's a nice lot of stuff in your rooms," Porcher informed him. "Come
in yesterday morning, it did."

They were mounting the stone stairway, and on each of the floors Michael
was made mechanically aware by a printed notice above a water-tap that
no slops must be emptied there. This prohibition stuck in his mind
somehow as the first ascetic demand of the university.

"These are your rooms, sir, and when you want me, you'll shout, of
course. I'm just unpacking Mr. Lonsdale's wine."

Michael was conscious of pale October sunlight upon the heaped-up
packing-cases; he was conscious of the unnatural brilliancy of the fire
in the sunlight; he was conscious that life at Oxford was conducted with
much finer amenities than life at school. Simultaneously he was aware of
a loneliness; yet as he once more turned to survey his room, it was a
fleeting loneliness which quickly perished in the satisfaction of a
privacy that hitherto he had never possessed. He turned into the
bedroom, and looked out across the quad, across the rectangle of vivid
green grass, across the Warden's garden with its faint gaiety of
autumnal flowers and tufted gray walls, and beyond to where the elms of
the deer-park were massed against the thin sky and the deer moved in
leisurely files about the spare sunlight.

It did not take Michael long to arrange his clothes; and then the
problem of undoing the packing-cases presented itself. A hammer would be
necessary, and a chisel. He must shout for Porcher. Shouting in the
tremulous peace of this October morning would inevitably attract more
attention to himself than would be pleasant, and he postponed the
summons in favor of an examination of his letters. One after another he
opened them, and every one was the advertisement of a tailor or
hairdresser or tobacconist. The tailors were the most insistent; they
even went so far as to announce that representatives would call upon him
at his pleasure. Michael made up his mind to order his cap and gown
after lunch. Lunch! How should he obtain lunch? Where should he obtain
lunch? When should he obtain lunch? Obviously there must be some precise
manner of obtaining lunch, some ritual consecrated by generations of St.
Mary's men. The loneliness came back triumphant, and plunged him
dejectedly down into a surprisingly deep wicker-chair. The fire crackled
in the silence, and the problem of lunch remained insoluble. The need
for Porcher's advice became more desperate. Other freshmen before him
must have depended upon their scout's experience. He began to practice
calling Porcher in accents so low that they acquired a tender and
reproachful significance. Michael braced himself for the performance
after these choked and muffled rehearsals, and went boldly out on to the
stone landing. An almost entranced silence held the staircase, a
silence that he could not bring himself to violate. On the door of the
rooms opposite he read his neighbor's name--_Mackintosh_. He wished he
knew whether Mackintosh were a freshman. It would be delightful to make
him share the responsibility of summoning Porcher from his task of
arranging Lonsdale's wine. And who was Lonsdale? _No slops must be
emptied here! Mackintosh! Fane!_ Here were three announcements hinting
at humanity in a desolation of stillness. Michael reading his own name
gathered confidence and a volume of breath, leaned over the stone
parapet of the landing and, losing all his courage in a sigh, decided to
walk downstairs and take his chance of meeting Porcher on the way.

On the floor beneath Michael read _Bannerman_ over the left-hand door
and _Templeton-Collins_ over the right-hand door. While he was pondering
the personality and status of Templeton-Collins, presumably the
gentleman himself appeared, stared at Michael very deliberately, came
forward and, leaning over the parapet, yelled in a voice that combined
rage, protest, disappointment and appeal with the maximum of sound:
"Porcher!" After which, Templeton-Collins again stared very deliberately
at Michael and retired into his room, while Michael hurried down to
intercept the scout, hoping his dismay at Templeton-Collins' impatience
would not be too great to allow him to pay a moment's attention to
himself.

However, on the ground floor the silence was still unbroken, and
hopelessly Michael read over the right-hand door _Amherst_, over the
left-hand door _Lonsdale_. What critical moment had arrived in the
unpacking of Lonsdale's wine to make the scout so heedless of
Templeton-Collins' call? Again it resounded from above, and Michael
looking up involuntarily, caught the downward glance of
Templeton-Collins himself.

"I say, is Porcher down there?" the latter asked fretfully.

"I think he's unpacking Lonsdale's wine."

"Who's Lonsdale?" demanded Templeton-Collins. "You might sing out and
tell him I want him."

With this request Templeton-Collins vanished, leaving Michael in a
quandary. There was only one hope of relieving the intolerable
situation, he thought, which was to shout "Porcher" from where he was
standing. This he did at the very moment the scout emerged from
Lonsdale's rooms.

"Coming, sir," said Porcher in an aggrieved voice.

"I think Mr. Templeton-Collins is calling you," Michael explained,
rather lamely he felt, since it must have been obvious to the scout that
Michael himself had been calling him.

"And I say," he added hurriedly, "you might bring me up a hammer or
something to open my boxes, when you've done."

Leaving Porcher to appease the outraged Templeton-Collins, Michael
retreated to the security of his own rooms, where in a few minutes the
scout appeared to raise the question of lunch.

"Will you take commons, sir?"

Michael looked perplexed.

"Commons is bread and cheese. Most of my gentlemen takes commons. If you
want anything extra, you go to the kitchen and write your name down for
what you want."

This sounded too difficult, and Michael gratefully chose commons.

"Ale, sir?"

Michael nodded. If the scout had suggested champagne, he would have
assented immediately.

Porcher set to work and undid the cases; he also explained where the
china was kept and the wood and the coal. He expounded the theory of
roll-calls and chapels, and was indeed so generous with information on
every point of college existence that Michael would have been glad to
retain