COMEDY OR TRAGEDY?
The weeks went on and Passover drew nigh. The recurrence of the feast
brought no thrill to Esther now. It was no longer a charmed time, with
strange things to eat and drink, and a comparative plenty of
them--stranger still. Lack of appetite was the chief dietary want now.
Nobody had any best clothes to put on, in a world where everything was
for the best in the way of clothes. Except for the speckled Passover
cakes, there was hardly any external symptom of the sacred Festival.
While the Ghetto was turning itself inside out, the Kensington Terrace
was calm in the dignity of continuous cleanliness. Nor did Henry
Goldsmith himself go prowling about the house in quest of vagrant
crumbs. Mary O'Reilly attended to all that, and the Goldsmiths had
implicit confidence in her fidelity to the traditions of their faith.
Wherefore the evening of the day before Passover, instead of being
devoted to frying fish and provisioning, was free for more secular
occupations. Esther, for example, had arranged to go to see the
_debut_ of a new Hamlet, with Addie. Addie had asked her to go,
mentioning that Raphael, who was taking her, had suggested that she
should bring her friend--for they had become great friends, had Addie
and Esther, ever since Esther had gone to take that cup of tea, with
the chat that is more essential than milk or sugar.
The girls met or wrote every week. Raphael Esther never met nor heard
from directly. She found Addie a sweet, lovable girl, full of frank
simplicity and unquestioning piety. Though dazzlingly beautiful, she
had none of the coquetry which Esther, with a touch of jealousy, had
been accustomed to associate with beauty, and she had little of the
petty malice of girlish gossip. Esther summed her up as Raphael's
heart without his head. It was unfair, for Addie's own head was by no
means despicable. But Esther was not alone in taking eccentric
opinions as the touchstone of intellectual vigour. Anyhow, she was
distinctly happier since Addie had come into her life, and she admired
her as a mountain torrent might admire a crystal pool, half envying
her happier temperament.
The Goldsmiths were just finishing dinner when the expected ring came.
To their surprise the ringer was Sidney. He was shown into the
dining-room.
'Good-evening, all,' he said. 'I've come as a substitute for Raphael.'
Esther grew white.
'Why, what has happened to him?' she asked.
'Nothing. I had a wire to say he was unexpectedly detained in the
City, and asking me to take Addie and to call for you.'
Esther turned from white to red. How rude of Raphael! How
disappointing not to meet him after all! And did he think she could
thus unceremoniously be handed over to somebody else? She was about to
beg to be excused, when it struck her a refusal would look too
pointed. Besides, she did not fear Sidney now. It would be a test of
her indifference. So she murmured instead:
'What can detain him?'
'Charity, doubtless. Do you know that after he is fagged out with
upholding the _Flag_ from early morning till late eve, he devotes the
later eve to gratuitous tuition, lecturing, and the like?'
'No,' said Esther, softened. 'I knew he came home late, but I thought
he had to report communal meetings.'
'That too. But Addie tells me he never came home at all one night last
week. He was sitting up with some wretched dying pauper.'
'He'll kill himself,' said Esther anxiously.
'People are right about him. He is quite hopeless,' said Percy
Saville, the solitary guest, tapping his forehead significantly.
'Perhaps it is we who are hopeless,' said Esther sharply.
'I wish we were all as sensible,' said Mrs. Henry Goldsmith, turning
on the unhappy stockbroker with her most superior air. 'Mr. Leon
always reminds me of Judas Maccabaeus.'
He shrank before the blaze of her mature beauty, the fulness of her
charms revealed by her rich evening dress, her hair radiating strange
subtle perfume. His eyes sought Mr. Goldsmith's for refuge and
consolation.
'That is so,' said Mr. Goldsmith, rubbing his red chin. 'He is an
excellent young man.'
'May I trouble you to put on your things at once, Miss Ansell?' said
Sidney. 'I have left Addie in the carriage, and we are rather late. I
believe it is usual for ladies to put on "things" even when in evening
dress. I may mention that there is a bouquet for you in the carriage,
and, however unworthy a substitute I may be for Raphael, I may at
least claim he would have forgotten to bring you that.'
Esther smiled despite herself as she left the room to get her cloak.
She was chagrined and disappointed, but she resolved not to inflict
her ill-humour on her companions.
She had long since got used to carriages, and when they arrived at the
theatre she took her seat in the box without heart-fluttering. It was
an old discovery now that boxes had no connection with oranges nor
stalls with costers' barrows.
The house was brilliant. The orchestra was playing the overture.
'I wish Mr. Shakespeare would write a new play,' grumbled Sidney. 'All
these revivals make him lazy--heavens! what his fees must tot up to!
If I were not sustained by the presence of you two girls, I should no
more survive the fifth act than most of the characters. Why don't they
brighten the piece up with ballet-girls?'
'Yes, I suppose you blessed Mr. Leon when you got his telegram,' said
Esther. 'What a bore it must be to you to be saddled with his duties!'
'Awful!' admitted Sidney gravely. 'Besides, it interferes with my
work.'
'Work?' said Addie. 'You know you only work by sunlight.'
'Yes, that's the best of my profession--in England. It gives you such
opportunities of working--at other professions.'
'Why, what do you work at?' inquired Esther, laughing.
'Well, there's amusement--the most difficult of all things to achieve!
Then there's poetry. You don't know what a dab I am at rondeaux and
barcarolles. And I write music, too--lovely little serenades to my
lady-loves, and reveries that are like dainty pastels.'
'All the talents!' said Addie, looking at him with a fond smile. 'But
if you have any time to spare from the curling of your lovely silken
moustache, which is entirely like a delicate pastel, will you kindly
tell me what celebrities are present?'
'Yes, do,' added Esther. 'I have only been to two first-nights, and
then I had nobody to point out the lions.'
'Well, first of all I see a very celebrated painter in a box--a man
who has improved considerably on the weak draughtsmanship displayed by
Nature in her human figures, and the amateurishness of her glaring
sunsets.'
'Who's that?' inquired Addie and Esther eagerly.
'I think he calls himself Sidney Graham; but that, of course, is only
a _nom de pinceau_.'
'Oh!' said the girls, with a reproachful smile.
'Do be serious,' said Esther. 'Who is that stout gentleman with the
bald head?' She peered down curiously at the stalls through her
opera-glass.
'What, the lion without the mane? That's Tom Day, the dramatic critic
of a dozen papers. A terrible Philistine! Lucky for Shakespeare he
didn't flourish in Elizabethan times!'
He rattled on till the curtain rose, and the hushed audience settled
down to the enjoyment of the tragedy.
'This looks as if it is going to be the true Hamlet,' said Esther,
after the first act.
'What do you mean by the true Hamlet?' queried Sidney cynically.
'The Hamlet for whom life is at once too big and too little,' said
Esther.
'And who was at once mad and sane,' laughed Sidney. 'The plain truth
is that Shakespeare followed the old tale, and what you take for
subtlety is but the blur of uncertain handling. Aha! you look shocked.
Have I found your religion at last?'
'No; my reverence for our national bard is based on reason,' rejoined
Esther seriously. 'To conceive Hamlet, the typical nineteenth-century
intellect, in that bustling picturesque Elizabethan time was a
creative feat bordering on the miraculous. And then look at the
solemn, inexorable march of Destiny in his tragedies, awful as its
advance in the Greek dramas. Just as the marvels of the old
fairy-tales were an instinctive prevision of the miracles of modern
science, so this idea of Destiny seems to me an instinctive
anticipation of the formulas of modern science. What we want to-day is
a dramatist who shall show us the great natural silent forces, working
the weal and woe of human life through the illusions of consciousness
and freewill.'
'What you want to-night, Miss Ansell, is black coffee,' said Sidney;
'and I'll tell the attendant to get you a cup, for I dragged you away
from dinner before the crown and climax of the meal. I have always
noticed myself that when I am interrupted in my meals all sorts of
bugbears, scientific or otherwise, take possession of my mind.'
He called the attendant.
'Esther has the most nonsensical opinions,' said Addie gravely. 'As if
people weren't responsible for their actions! Do good, and all shall
be well with thee, is sound Bible teaching and sound common-sense.'
'Yes, but isn't it the Bible that says, "The fathers have eaten a sour
grape, and the teeth of the children are set on edge"?' Esther
retorted.
Addie looked perplexed. 'It sounds contradictory,' she said honestly.
'Not at all, Addie,' said Esther. 'The Bible is a literature, not a
book. If you choose to bind Tennyson and Milton in one volume that
doesn't make them a book. And you can't complain if you find
contradictions in the text. Don't you think the sour grape text the
truer, Mr. Graham?'
'Don't ask me, please. I'm prejudiced against anything that appears in
the Bible.'
In his flippant way Sidney spoke the truth. He had an almost physical
repugnance for his fathers' ways of looking at things.
'I think you're the two most wicked people in the world,' exclaimed
Addie gravely.
'We are,' said Sidney lightly. 'I wonder you consent to sit in the
same box with us. How you can find my company endurable I can never
make out.'
Addie's lovely face flushed; and her lip quivered a little.
'It's your friend who's the wickeder of the two,' pursued Sidney, 'for
she's in earnest, and I'm not. Life's too short for us to take the
world's troubles on our shoulders, not to speak of the unborn
millions. A little light and joy, the flush of sunset or of a lovely
woman's face, a fleeting strain of melody, the scent of a rose, the
flavour of old wine, the flash of a jest, and, ah, yes, a cup of
coffee--here's yours, Miss Ansell--that's the most we can hope for in
life. Let us start a religion with one commandment, "Enjoy thyself."'
'That religion has too many disciples already,' said Esther, stirring
her coffee.
'Then why not start it if you wish to reform the world?' asked Sidney.
'All religions survive merely by being broken. With only one
commandment to break, everybody would jump at the chance. But so long
as you tell people they mustn't enjoy themselves, they will. It's
human nature, and you can't alter that by Act of Parliament or
Confession of Faith. Christ ran amuck at human nature, and human
nature celebrates his birthday with pantomimes.'
'Christ understood human nature better than the modern young man,'
said Esther scathingly, 'and the proof lies in the almost limitless
impress he has left on history.'
'Oh, that was a fluke,' said Sidney lightly. 'His real influence is
only superficial. Scratch the Christian and you find the
pagan--spoiled.'
'He divined by genius what science is slowly finding out,' said
Esther, 'when he said, "Forgive them, for they know not what they
do."'
Sidney laughed heartily. 'That seems to be your King Charles's head,
seeing divinations of modern science in all the old ideas. Personally
I honour him for discovering that the Sabbath was made for man, not
man for the Sabbath. Strange he should have stopped half-way to the
truth.'
'What is the truth?' asked Addie curiously.
'Why, that morality was made for man, not man for morality,' said
Sidney. 'That chimera of meaningless virtue which the Hebrew has
brought into the world is the last monster left to slay. The Hebrew
view of life is too one-sided. The Bible is a literature without a
laugh in it. Even Raphael thinks the great Radical of Galilee carried
spirituality too far.'
'Yes, he thinks he would have been reconciled to the Jewish doctors,
and would have understood them better,' said Addie, 'only he died so
young.'
'That's a good way of putting it,' said Sidney admiringly. 'One can
see Raphael is my cousin, despite his religious aberrations. It opens
up new historical vistas. Only it is just like Raphael to find excuses
for everybody, and Judaism in everything. I am sure he considers the
devil a good Jew at heart. If he admits any moral obliquity in him, he
puts it down to the climate.'
This made Esther laugh outright, even while there were tears for
Raphael in the laugh. Sidney's intellectual fascination reasserted
itself over her; there seemed something inspiring in standing with him
on the free heights that left all the clogging vapours and fogs of
moral problems somewhere below, where the sun shone and the clear wind
blew, and talk was a game of bowls with Puritan ideals for ninepins.
He went on amusing her till the curtain rose, with a pretended theory
of Mohammedology which he was working at. Just as for the Christian
apologist the Old Testament was full of hints of the New, so he
contended was the New Testament full of foreshadowings of the Koran,
and he cited as a most convincing text, 'In heaven there shall be no
marrying, nor giving in marriage.' He professed to think Mohammedanism
was the dark horse that would come to the front in the race of
religions, and win in the West, as it had won in the East.
'There's a man staring dreadfully at you, Esther,' said Addie, when
the curtain fell on the second act.
'Nonsense,' said Esther, reluctantly returning from the realities of
the play to the insipidities of actual life. 'Whoever it is, it must
be at you.'
She looked affectionately at the great glorious creature at her side,
tall and stately, with that winning gentleness of expression which
spiritualises the most voluptuous beauty.
Addie wore pale sea-green, and there were lilies of the valley at her
bosom, and a diamond star in her hair. No man could admire her more
than Esther, who felt quite vain of her friend's beauty, and happy to
bask in its reflected sunshine. Sidney followed her glance, and his
cousin's charms struck him with almost novel freshness. He was so much
with Addie that he always took her for granted. The semi-unconscious
liking he had for her society was based on other than physical traits.
He let his eyes rest upon her for a moment in half-surprised
appreciation, figuring her as half-bud, half-blossom. Really, if Addie
had not been his cousin--and a Jewess! She was not much of a cousin
when he came to cipher it out, but then she was a good deal of a
Jewess.
'I'm sure it's you he's staring at,' persisted Addie.
'Don't be ridiculous!' persisted Esther. 'Which man do you mean?'
'There! The fifth row of stalls, the one, two, four, seven--the
seventh man from the end. He's been looking at you all through, but
now he's gone in for a good long stare. There! next to that pretty
girl in pink.'
'Do you mean the young man with the dyed carnation in his buttonhole
and the crimson handkerchief in his bosom?'
'Yes, that's the one. Do you know him?'
'No,' said Esther, lowering her eyes and looking away. But when Addie
informed her that the young man had renewed his attentions to the girl
in pink, she levelled her opera-glass at him. Then she shook her head.
'There seems something familiar about his face, but I cannot for the
life of me recall who it is.'
'The "something familiar about his face" is his nose,' said Addie,
laughing, 'for it is emphatically Jewish.'
'At that rate,' said Sidney, 'nearly half the theatre would be
familiar, including a goodly proportion of the critics, and Hamlet and
Ophelia themselves. But I know the fellow.'
'You do? Who is he?' asked the girls eagerly.
'I don't know. He's one of the mashers of the _Frivolity_. I'm
another, and so we often meet. But we never speak as we pass by. To
tell the truth, I resent him.'
'It's wonderful how fond Jews are of the theatre,' said Esther, 'and
how they resent other Jews going.'
'Thank you,' said Sidney. 'But as I am not a Jew, the arrow glances
off.'
'Not a Jew?' repeated Esther in amaze.
'No. Not in the current sense. I always deny I'm a Jew.'
'How do you justify that?' said Addie incredulously.
'Because it would be a lie to say I was. It would be to produce a
false impression. The conception of a Jew in the mind of the average
Christian is a mixture of Fagin, Shylock, Rothschild, and the
caricatures of the American comic papers. I am certainly not like
that, and I'm not going to tell a lie and say I am. In conversation
always think of your audience. It takes two to make a truth. If an
honest man told an old lady he was an atheist, that would be a lie,
for to her it would mean he was a dissolute reprobate. To call myself
Abrahams would be to live a daily lie. I am not a bit like the picture
called up by Abrahams. Graham is a far truer expression of myself.'
'Extremely ingenious,' said Esther, smiling. 'But ought you not rather
to utilise yourself for the correction of the portrait of Abrahams?'
Sidney shrugged his shoulders.
'Why should I subject myself to petty martyrdom for the sake of an
outworn creed and a decaying sect?'
'We are not decaying,' said Addie indignantly.
'Personally you are blossoming,' said Sidney, with a mock bow. 'But
nobody can deny that our recent religious history has been a series of
dissolving views. Look at that young masher there, who is still ogling
your fascinating friend, rather, I suspect, to the annoyance of the
young lady in pink, and compare him with the old hard-shell Jew. When
I was a lad named Abrahams, painfully training in the way I wasn't
going to go, I got an insight into the lives of my ancestors. Think of
the people who built up the Jewish Prayer-Book, who added line to line
and precept to precept, and whose whole thought was intertwined with
religion; and then look at that young fellow with the dyed carnation
and the crimson silk handkerchief, who probably drives a drag to the
Derby, and for aught I know runs a music-hall. It seems almost
incredible he should come of that Puritan old stock!'
'Not at all,' said Esther. 'If you knew more of our history, you would
see it is quite normal. We were always hankering after the gods of the
heathen, and we always loved magnificence--remember our Temples. In
every land we have produced great merchants and rulers, prime
ministers, viziers, nobles. We built castles in Spain (solid ones) and
palaces in Venice. We have had saints and sinners, free-livers and
ascetics, martyrs and money-lenders. "Polarity" Graetz calls the
self-contradiction which runs through our history. I figure the Jew as
the eldest-born of Time, touching the Creation and reaching forward
into the Future, the true _blase_ of the universe--the Wandering Jew
who has been everywhere, seen everything, done everything, led
everything, thought everything, and--suffered everything.'
'Bravo! Quite a bit of Beaconsfieldian fustian,' said Sidney, laughing
yet astonished. 'One would think you were anxious to assert yourself
against the ancient peerage of this mushroom realm!'
'It is the bare historical truth,' said Esther quietly. 'We are so
ignorant of our own history--can we wonder at the world's ignorance of
it? Think of the part the Jew has played: Moses giving the world its
morality, Jesus its religion, Isaiah its millennial visions, Spinoza
its cosmic philosophy, Ricardo its political economy, Karl Marx and
Lassalle its Socialism, Heine its loveliest poetry, Mendelssohn its
most restful music, Rachel its supreme acting; and then think of the
stock Jew of the American comic papers! There lies the real comedy,
too deep for laughter.'
'Yes; but most of the Jews you mention were outcasts or apostates,'
retorted Sidney. 'There lies the real tragedy, too deep for tears. Ah!
Heine summed it up best: "Judaism is not a religion--it is a
misfortune." But do you wonder at the intolerance of every nation
towards its Jews? It is a form of homage. Tolerate them, and they
spell "Success"--and patriotism is an ineradicable prejudice. Since
when have you developed this extraordinary enthusiasm for Jewish
history? I always thought you were an anti-Semite.'
Esther blushed, and meditatively sniffed at her bouquet, but
fortunately the rise of the curtain relieved her of the necessity for
a reply. It was only a temporary relief, however, for the quizzical
young artist returned to the subject immediately the act was over.
'I know you're in charge of the aesthetic department of the _Flag_,' he
said. 'I had no idea you wrote the leaders.'
'Don't be absurd!' murmured Esther.
'I always told Addie Raphael could never write so eloquently--didn't
I, Addie? Ah, I see you're blushing to find it fame, Miss Ansell.'
Esther laughed, though a bit annoyed.
'How can you suspect me of writing orthodox leaders?' she asked.
'Well, who else is there?' urged Sidney with mock _naivete_. 'I went
down there once and saw the shanty. The editorial sanctum was crowded.
Poor Raphael was surrounded by the queerest-looking set of creatures
I ever clapped eyes on. There was a quaint lunatic in a check suit,
describing his apocalyptic visions; a dragoman with sore eyes and a
grievance against the Board of Guardians; a venerable son of
Jerusalem, with a most artistic white beard, who had covered the
editorial table with carved nick-nacks in olive and sandalwood; an
inventor who had squared the circle and the problem of perpetual
motion, but could not support himself; a Roumanian exile with a scheme
for fertilising Palestine; and a wild-eyed, hatchet-faced Hebrew poet
who told me I was a famous patron of learning, and sent me his book
soon after with a Hebrew inscription which I couldn't read, and a
request for a cheque, which I didn't write. I thought I just capped
the company of oddities, when in came a sallow, red-haired chap, with
the extraordinary name of Karlkammer, and kicked up a deuce of a shine
with Raphael for altering his letter. Raphael mildly hinted that the
letter was written in such unintelligible English that he had to
grapple with it for an hour before he could reduce it to the coherence
demanded of print. But it was no use--it seems Raphael had made him
say something heterodox he didn't mean, and he insisted on being
allowed to reply to his own letter! He had brought the counterblast
with him--six sheets of foolscap, with all the _t's_ uncrossed--and
insisted on signing it with his own name. I said: "Why not? Set a
Karlkammer to answer to a Karlkammer." But Raphael said it would make
the paper a laughing-stock, and between the dread of that and the
consciousness of having done the man a wrong, he was quite unhappy. He
treats all his visitors with angelic consideration, when in another
newspaper office the very office-boy would snub them. Of course,
nobody has a bit of consideration for him, or his time, or his purse.'
'Poor Raphael!' murmured Esther, smiling sadly at the grotesque images
conjured up by Sidney's description.
'I go down there now whenever I want models,' concluded Sidney
gravely.
'Well, it is only right to hear what these poor people have to say,'
Addie observed. 'What is the paper for, except to right wrongs?'
'Primitive person!' said Sidney. 'A paper exists to make a profit.'
'Raphael's doesn't,' retorted Addie.
'Of course not,' laughed Sidney. 'It never will so long as there's a
conscientious editor at the helm. Raphael flatters nobody, and
reserves his praises for people with no control of the communal
advertisements. Why, it quite preys upon his mind to think that he is
linked to an advertisement canvasser with a gorgeous imagination, who
goes about representing to the unwary Christian that the _Flag_ has a
circulation of fifteen hundred.'
'Dear me!' said Addie, a smile of humour lighting up her beautiful
features.
'Yes,' said Sidney, 'I think he salves his conscience by an extra
hour's slumming in the evening. Most religious folks do their moral
book-keeping by double entry. Probably that's why he's not here
to-night.'
'It's too bad!' said Addie, her face growing grave again. 'He comes
home so late and so tired that he always falls asleep over his books.'
'I don't wonder,' laughed Sidney. 'Look what he reads! Once I found
him nodding peacefully over Thomas a Kempis.'
'Oh, but he often reads that,' said Addie. 'When we wake him up and
tell him to go to bed, he says indignantly he wasn't sleeping, but
thinking, turns over a page and falls asleep again.'
They all laughed.
'Oh, he's a famous sleeper,' Addie continued. 'It's as difficult to
get him out of bed as into it. He says himself he's an awful lounger,
and used to idle away whole days before he invented time-tables. Now
he has every hour cut and dried--he says his salvation lies in regular
hours.'
'Addie, Addie, don't tell tales out of school!' said Sidney.
'Why, what tales?' asked Addie, astonished. 'Isn't it rather to his
credit that he has conquered his bad habits?'
'Undoubtedly; but it dissipates the poetry in which I am sure Miss
Ansell was enshrouding him. It shears a man of his heroic proportions
to hear he has to be dragged out of bed. These things should be kept
in the family.'
Esther stared hard at the house. Her cheeks glowed as if the limelight
man had turned his red rays on them. Sidney chuckled mentally over his
insight. Addie smiled.
'Oh, nonsense! I'm sure Esther doesn't think less of him because he
keeps a time-table.'
'You forget your friend has what you haven't--artistic instinct. It's
ugly. A man should be a man, not a railway system. If I were you,
Addie, I'd capture that time-table, erase "lecturing," and substitute
"cricketing." Raphael would never know, and every afternoon, say at 2
P.M., he'd consult his time-table, and, seeing he had to cricket, he'd
take up his stumps and walk to Regent's Park.'
'Yes, but he can't play cricket!' said Esther, laughing, and glad of
the opportunity.
'Oh, can't he?' Sidney whistled. 'Don't insult him by telling him
that. Why, he was in the Harrow eleven, and scored his century in the
match with Eton--those long arms of his sent the ball flying as if it
were a drawing-room ornament.'
'Oh yes,' affirmed Addie. 'Even now cricket is his one temptation.'
Esther was silent. Her Raphael seemed toppling to pieces. The silence
seemed to communicate itself to her companions. Addie broke it by
sending Sidney to smoke a cigarette in the lobby.
'Or else I shall feel quite too selfish,' she said. 'I know you're
just dying to talk to some sensible people.--Oh, I beg your pardon,
Esther!'
The squire of dames smiled but hesitated.
'Yes, do go,' said Esther. 'There's six or seven minutes' more
interval. This is the longest wait.'
'Ladies' will is my law,' said Sidney gallantly, and taking a
cigarette-case from his cloak, which was hung on a peg at the back of
the box, he strolled out. 'Perhaps,' he said, 'I shall skip some
Shakespeare if I meet a congenial intellectual soul to gossip with.'
He had scarce been gone two minutes when there came a gentle tapping
at the door, and the visitor being invited to come in, the girls were
astonished to behold the young gentleman with the dyed carnation and
the crimson silk handkerchief. He looked at Esther with an affable
smile.
'Don't you remember me?' he said. The ring of his voice woke some
far-off echo in her brain. But no recollection came to her.
'I remembered you almost at once,' he went on, in a half-reproachful
tone, 'though I didn't care about coming up while you had another
fellow in the box. Look at me carefully, Esther.'
The sound of her name on the stranger's lips set all the chords of
memory vibrating--she looked again at the dark oval face with the
aquiline nose, the glittering eyes, the neat black moustache, the
close-shaved cheeks and chin, and in a flash the past resurged, and
she murmured almost incredulously, 'Levi!'
The young man got rather red.
'Ye-e-es!' he stammered. 'Allow me to present you my card.'
He took it out of a little ivory case and handed it to her. It read:
'Mr. Leonard James.'
An amused smile flitted over Esther's face, passing into one of
welcome. She was not at all displeased to see him.
'Addie,' she said, 'this is Mr. Leonard James, a friend I used to know
in my girlhood.'
'Yes, we were boys together, as the song says,' said Leonard James,
smiling facetiously.
Addie inclined her head in the stately fashion which accorded so well
with her beauty, and resumed her investigation of the stalls.
Presently she became absorbed in a tender reverie induced by the
passionate waltz music, and she forgot all about Esther's strange
visitor, whose words fell as insensibly on her ears as the ticking of
a familiar clock. But to Esther Leonard James's conversation was full
of interest. The two ugly ducklings of the back-pond had become to all
appearance swans of the ornamental water, and it was natural that they
should gabble of auld lang syne and the devious routes by which they
had come together again.
'You see, I'm like you, Esther,' explained the young man; 'I'm not
fitted for the narrow life which suits my father and mother and my
sister. They've got no ideas beyond the house and religion, and all
that sort of thing. What do you think my father wanted me to be? A
minister! Think of it--ha! ha! ha! Me a minister! I actually did go
for a couple of terms to Jews' College. Oh yes, you remember! Why, I
was there when you were a school-teacher and got taken up by the
swells. But our stroke of fortune came soon after yours. Did you never
hear of it? My! you must have dropped all your old acquaintances if no
one ever told you that. Why, father came in for a couple of thousand
pounds! I thought I'd make you stare. Guess who from!'
'I give it up,' said Esther.
'Thank you. It was never yours to give,' said Leonard, laughing
jovially at his wit. 'Old Steinwein--you remember his death. It was in
all the papers--the eccentric old buffer who was touched in the upper
story, and used to give so much time and money to Jewish affairs,
setting up lazy old Rabbis in Jerusalem to shake themselves over their
Talmuds. You remember his gifts to the poor--six and sevenpence each,
because he was seventy-nine years old, and all that. Well, he used to
send the pater a basket of fruit every _Yomtov_; but he used to do
that to every Rabbi all round, and my old man had not the least idea
he was the object of special regard till the old chap pegged out. Ah,
there's nothing like Torah, after all.'
'You don't know what you may have lost through not becoming a
minister,' suggested Esther slyly.
'Ah, but I know what I've gained. Do you think I could stand having my
hands and feet tied--with phylacteries?' asked Leonard, becoming
vividly metaphoric in the intensity of his repugnance to the galling
bonds of orthodoxy. 'Now I do as I like, go where I please, eat what I
please. Just fancy not being able to join fellows at supper because
you mustn't eat oysters or steak! Might as well go into a monastery
at once. All very well in ancient Jerusalem, where everybody was
rowing in the same boat. Have you ever tasted pork, Esther?'
'No,' said Esther, with a faint smile.
'I have,' said Leonard. 'I don't say it to boast, but I have had it
times without number. I didn't like it the first time--thought it
would choke me, you know; but that soon wears off. Now I breakfast off
ham and eggs regularly. I go the whole hog, you see. Ha! ha! ha!'
'If I didn't see from your card you're not living at home, that would
have apprised me of it,' said Esther.
'Of course I couldn't live at home. Why, the guv'nor couldn't bear to
let me shave. Ha! ha! ha! Fancy a religion that makes you keep your
hair on unless you use a depilatory. I was articled to a swell
solicitor. The old man resisted a long time, but he gave in at last
and let me live near the office.'
'Ah, then I presume you came in for some of the two thousand, despite
your non-connection with Torah.'
'There isn't much left of it now,' said Leonard, laughing. 'What's two
thousand in seven years in London? There were over four hundred
guineas swallowed up by the premium and the fees and all that.'
'Well, let us hope it'll all come back in costs.'
'Well, between you and me,' said Leonard seriously, 'I should be
surprised if it does. You see, I haven't yet scraped through the
Final--they're making the beastly exam. stiffer every year. No, it
isn't to that quarter I look to recoup myself for the outlay on my
education.'
'No?' said Esther.
'No. Fact is--between you and me--I'm going to be an actor.'
'Oh!' said Esther.
'Yes. I've played several times in private theatricals--you know we
Jews have a knack for the stage; you'd be surprised to know how many
pros. are Jews. There's heaps of money to be made nowadays on the
boards. I'm in with lots of 'em, and ought to know. It's the only
profession where you don't want any training, and these law books are
as dry as the _Mishnah_ the old man used to make me study. Why, they
say to-night's Hamlet was in a counting-house four years ago.'
'I wish you success,' said Esther somewhat dubiously. 'And how is your
sister Hannah? Is she married yet?'
'Married! Not she! She's got no money, and you know what our Jewish
young men are. Mother wanted her to have the two thousand pounds for a
dowry, but fortunately Hannah had the sense to see that it's the man
that's got to make his way in the world. Hannah is always certain of
her bread-and-butter, which is a good deal in these hard times.
Besides, she's naturally grumpy, and she doesn't go out of her way to
make herself agreeable to young men. It's my belief she'll die an old
maid. Well, there's no accounting for tastes.'
'And your mother and father?'
'They are all right, I believe. I shall see them to-morrow
night--Passover, you know. I haven't missed a single _Seder_ at home,'
he said with conscious virtue. 'It's an awful bore, you know. I often
laugh to think of the chappies' faces if they could see me leaning on
a pillow and gravely asking the old man why we eat Passover cakes.' He
laughed now to think of it. 'But I never miss--they'd cut up rough, I
expect, if I did.'
'Well, that's something in your favour,' murmured Esther gravely.
He looked at her sharply, suddenly suspecting that his auditor was not
perfectly sympathetic. She smiled a little at the images passing
through her mind, and Leonard, taking her remark for badinage, allowed
his own features to relax to their original amiability.
'You're not married, either, I suppose,' he remarked.
'No,' said Esther. 'I'm like your sister Hannah.'
He shook his head sceptically.
'Ah, I expect you'll be looking very high,' he said.
'Nonsense!' murmured Esther, playing with her bouquet.
A flash passed across his face, but he went on in the same tone.
'Ah, don't tell me! Why shouldn't you? Why, you're looking perfectly
charming to-night.'
'Please don't,' said Esther. 'Every girl looks perfectly charming when
she's nicely dressed. Who and what am I? Nothing. Let us drop the
subject.'
'All right; but you _must_ have grand ideas, else you'd have sometimes
gone to see my people, as in the old days.'
'When did I visit your people? You used to come and see me sometimes.'
A shadow of a smile hovered about the tremulous lips. 'Believe me, I
didn't consciously drop any of my old acquaintances. My life
changed--my family went to America--later on I travelled. It is the
currents of life, not their wills, that bear old acquaintances
asunder.'
He seemed pleased with her sentiments, and was about to say something,
but she added:
'The curtain's going up. Hadn't you better go down to your friend?
She's been looking up at us impatiently.'
'Oh no, don't bother about her,' said Leonard, reddening a little.
'She--she won't mind. She's only--only an actress, you know. I have to
keep in with the profession in case any opening should turn up. You
never know. An actress may become a lessee at any moment. Hark! The
orchestra is striking up again--the scene isn't set yet. Of course
I'll go if you want me to!'
'No, stay by all means, if you want to,' murmured Esther. 'We have a
chair unoccupied.'
'Do you expect that fellow Sidney Graham back?'
'Yes, sooner or later. But how do you know his name?' queried Esther
in surprise.
'Everybody about town knows Sidney Graham, the artist. Why, we belong
to the same club, the Flamingo, though he only turns up for the great
glove-fights. Beastly cad, with all due respect to your friends,
Esther. I was introduced to him once, but he stared at me next time so
haughtily that I cut him dead. Do you know, ever since then I've
suspected he's one of us; perhaps you can tell me, Esther? I dare say
he's no more Sidney Graham than I am.'
'Hush!' said Esther, glancing warningly towards Addie, who, however,
betrayed no sign of attention.
'Sister?' asked Leonard, lowering his voice to a whisper.
Esther shook her head.
'Cousin. But Mr. Graham is a friend of mine as well, and you mustn't
talk of him like that.'
'Ripping fine girl!' murmured Leonard irrelevantly. 'Wonder at his
taste!'
He took a long stare at the abstracted Addie.
'What do you mean?' said Esther, her annoyance increasing.
Her old friend's tone jarred upon her.
'Well, I don't know what he could see in the girl he's engaged to.'
Esther's face became white. She looked anxiously towards the
unconscious Addie.
'You are talking nonsense,' she said in a low, cautious tone. 'Mr.
Graham is too fond of his liberty to engage himself to any girl.'
'Oho!' said Leonard, with a subdued whistle. 'I hope you're not sweet
on him yourself.'
Esther gave an impatient gesture of denial. She resented Leonard's
rapid resumption of his old familiarity.
'Then take care not to be,' he said. 'He's engaged privately to Miss
Hannibal, a daughter of the M.P. Tom Sledge, the sub-editor of the
_Cormorant_, told me. You know they collect items about everybody, and
publish them at what they call the psychological moment. Graham goes
to the Hannibals' every Saturday afternoon. They're very strict
people; the father, you know, is a prominent Wesleyan, and she's not
the sort of girl to be played with.'
'For Heaven's sake speak more softly!' said Esther, though the
orchestra was playing _fortissimo_ now, and they had spoken so quietly
all along that Addie could scarcely have heard without a special
effort. 'It can't be true. You are repeating mere idle gossip.'
'Why, they know everything at the _Cormorant_,' said Leonard
indignantly. 'Do you suppose a man can take such a step as that
without its getting known? Why, I shall be chaffed--enviously--about
you two to-morrow! Many a thing the world little dreams of is an open
secret in club smoking-rooms. Generally more discreditable than
Graham's, which must be made public of itself sooner or later.'
To Esther's relief the curtain rose. Addie woke up and looked round,
but seeing that Sidney had not returned, and that Esther was still in
colloquy with the invader, she gave her attention to the stage. Esther
could no longer bend her eye on the mimic tragedy; her eyes rested
pityingly upon Addie's face, and Leonard's eyes rested admiringly upon
Esther's. Thus Sidney found the group, when he returned in the middle
of the act, to his surprise and displeasure. He stood silently at the
back of the box till the act was over. Leonard James was the first to
perceive him; knowing he had been telling tales about him, he felt
uneasy under his supercilious gaze. He bade Esther good-bye, asking
and receiving permission to call upon her. When he was gone,
constraint fell upon the party. Sidney was moody; Addie pensive;
Esther full of stifled wrath and anxiety. At the close of the
performance Sidney took down the girls' wrappings from the pegs. He
helped Esther courteously, then hovered over his cousin with a
solicitude that brought a look of calm happiness into Addie's face,
and an expression of pain into Esther's. As they moved slowly along
the crowded corridors, he allowed Addie to get a few paces in advance.
It was his last opportunity of saying a word to Esther alone.
'If I were you, Miss Ansell, I wouldn't allow that cad to presume on
any acquaintance he may have----'
All the latent irritation in Esther's breast burst into a flame at the
idea of Sidney's constituting himself a judge. 'If I had not
cultivated his acquaintance I should not have had the pleasure of
congratulating you on your engagement,' she replied, almost in a
whisper.
To Sidney it sounded like a shout. His colour heightened; he was
visibly taken aback.
'What are you talking about?' he murmured automatically.
'About your engagement to Miss Hannibal.'
'That blackguard told you!' he whispered angrily, half to himself.
'Well, what of it? I am not bound to advertise it, am I? It's my
private business, isn't it? You don't expect me to hang a placard
round my breast like those on concert-room chairs, "Engaged"?'
'Certainly not,' said Esther. 'But you might have told your friends,
so as to enable them to rejoice sympathetically.'
'You turn your sarcasm prettily,' he said mildly; 'but the sympathetic
rejoicing was just what I wanted to avoid. You know what a Jewish
engagement is--how the news spreads like wildfire from Piccadilly to
Petticoat Lane, and the whole house of Israel gathers together to
discuss the income and the prospects of the happy pair. I object to
sympathetic rejoicing from the slums, especially as in this case it
would probably be exchanged for curses. Miss Hannibal is a Christian,
and for a Jew to embrace a Christian is, I believe, the next worst
thing to his embracing Christianity, even when the Jew is a pagan.'
His wonted flippancy rang hollow. He paused suddenly, and stole a look
at his companion's face in search of a smile, but it was pale and
sorrowful. The flush on his own face deepened; his features expressed
internal conflict. He addressed a light word to Addie in front. They
were nearing the portico; it was raining outside, and a cold wind blew
in to meet them. He bent his head down to the delicate little face at
his side, and his tones were changed.
'Miss Ansell,' he said tremulously, 'if I have in any way misled you
by my reticence, I beg you to believe it was unintentionally. The
memory of the pleasant quarters of an hour we have spent together will
always----'
'Good God!' said Esther hoarsely, her cheeks flaming, her ears
tingling. 'To whom are you apologising?' He looked at her, perplexed.
'Why have you not told Addie?' she forced herself to say.
In the press of the crowd, on the edge of the threshold, he stood
still. Dazzled as by a flash of lightning, he gazed at his cousin--her
beautifully poised head, covered with its fleecy white shawl,
dominating the throng. The shawl became an aureole to his misty
vision.
'Have you told her?' he whispered with answering hoarseness.
'No,' said Esther.
'Then don't tell her,' he whispered eagerly.
'I must. She must hear it soon. Such things must ooze out sooner or
later.'
'Then let it be later. Promise me this.'
'No good can come of concealment.'
'Promise me--for a little while, till I give you leave.'
His pleading, handsome face was close to hers. She wondered how she
could ever have cared for a creature so weak and pitiful.
'So be it,' she breathed.
'Miss Leon's carriage!' bawled the commissionaire. There was a
confusion of rain-beaten umbrellas, gleaming carriage-lamps, zigzag
reflections on the black pavements, and clattering omnibuses full
inside. But the air was fresh.
'Don't go into the rain, Addie,' said Sidney, pressing forward
anxiously. 'You're doing all my work to-night. Hullo! where did _you_
spring from?'
It was Raphael who had elicited the exclamation. He suddenly loomed
upon the party, bearing a decrepit, dripping umbrella.
'I thought I should be in time to catch you--and to apologise,' he
said, turning to Esther.
'Don't mention it,' murmured Esther, his unexpected appearance
completing her mental agitation.
'Hold the umbrella over the girls, you beggar!' said Sidney.
'Oh, I beg your pardon,' said Raphael, poking the rim against a
policeman's helmet in his anxiety to obey.
'Don't mention it,' said Addie, smiling.
'All right, sir,' growled the policeman good-humouredly.
Sidney laughed heartily.
'Quite a general amnesty,' he said. 'Ah! here's the carriage. Why
didn't you get inside it out of the rain, or stand in the entrance?
You're wringing wet!'
'I didn't think of it,' said Raphael. 'Besides, I've only been here a
few minutes. The buses are so full when it rains. I had to walk all
the way from Whitechapel.'
'You're incorrigible,' grumbled Sidney. 'As if you couldn't have taken
a hansom.'
'Why waste money?' said Raphael. They got into the carriage. 'Well,
did you enjoy yourselves?' he asked cheerfully.
'Oh yes; thoroughly,' said Sidney. 'Addie wasted two
pocket-handkerchiefs over Ophelia--almost enough to pay for that
hansom. Miss Ansell doted on the finger of destiny; and I chopped
logic and swopped cigarettes with O'Donovan. I hope you enjoyed
yourself equally.'
Raphael responded with a melancholy smile. He was seated opposite
Esther, and ever and anon some flash of light from the street revealed
clearly his sodden, almost shabby garments, and the weariness of his
expression. He seemed quite out of harmony with the dainty pleasure
party, but just on that account the more in harmony with Esther's old
image, the heroic side of him growing only more lovable for the human
alloy. She bent towards him at last, and said:
'I am sorry you were deprived of your evening's amusement. I hope the
reason didn't add to the unpleasantness.'
'It was nothing,' he murmured awkwardly--'a little unexpected work.
One can always go to the theatre.'
'Ah, I am afraid you overwork yourself too much. You mustn't. Think of
your own health.'
His look softened. He was in a harassed, sensitive state. The sympathy
of her gentle accents, the concern upon the eager little face, seemed
to flood his own soul with a self-compassion new to him.
'My health doesn't matter,' he faltered. There were sweet tears in his
eyes, a colossal sense of gratitude at his heart. He had always meant
to pity her and help her--it was sweeter to be pitied, though of
course she could not help him. He had no need of help, and on second
thoughts he wondered what room there was for pity.
'No, no; don't talk like that,' said Esther. 'Think of your
parents--and Addie.'