A SHEAF OF SEQUELS
Within half an hour Esther was smiling pallidly, and drinking tea out
of Debby's own cup, to Debby's unlimited satisfaction. Debby had no
spare cup, but she had a spare chair without a back, and Esther was of
course seated on the other. Her bonnet and cloak were on the bed.
'And where is Bobby?' inquired the young lady visitor.
Debby's joyous face clouded.
'Bobby is dead,' she said softly; 'he died four years ago come next
_Shevuos_.'
'I'm so sorry,' said Esther, pausing in her tea-drinking with a pang
of genuine emotion. 'At first I was afraid of him, but that was before
I knew him.'
'There never beat a kinder heart on God's earth,' said Debby
emphatically; 'he wouldn't hurt a fly.'
Esther had often seen him snapping at flies, but she could not smile.
'I buried him secretly in the back-yard,' Debby confessed; 'see!
there, where the paving-stone is loose!'
Esther gratified her by looking through the little back window into
the sloppy enclosure where washing hung. She noticed a cat sauntering
quietly over the spot without any of the satisfaction it might have
felt had it known it was walking over the grave of a hereditary enemy.
'So I don't feel as if he was far away,' said Debby. 'I can always
look out and picture him squatting above the stone instead of beneath
it.'
'But didn't you get another?'
'Oh, how can you talk so heartlessly!'
'Forgive me, dear! of course you couldn't replace him. And haven't you
had any other friends?'
'Who would make friends with me, Miss Ansell?' Debby asked quietly.
'I shall "make out friends" with you, Debby, if you call me that,'
said Esther, half laughing, half crying. 'What was it we used to say
in school? I forget, but I know we used to wet our little fingers in
our mouths and jerk them abruptly towards the other party; that's what
I shall have to do with you.'
'Oh, well, Esther, don't be cross! But you do look such a real lady. I
always said you would grow up clever, didn't I, though?'
'You did, dear, you did. I can never forgive myself for not having
looked you up.'
'Oh, but you had so much to do, I have no doubt!' said Debby
magnanimously, though she was not a little curious to hear all
Esther's wonderful adventures, and to gather more about the reasons of
the girl's mysterious return than had yet been vouchsafed her. All she
had dared to ask was about the family in America.
'Still it was wrong of me,' said Esther, in a tone that brooked no
protest. 'Suppose you had been in want and I could have helped you?'
'Oh, but you know I never take any help!' said Debby stiffly.
'I didn't know that,' said Esther, touched. 'Have you never taken soup
at the kitchen?'
'I wouldn't dream of such a thing. Do you ever remember me going to
the Board of Guardians? I wouldn't go there to be bullied, not if I
were starving. It's only the cadgers who don't want it who get relief.
But, thank God, in the worst seasons I have always been able to earn a
crust and a cup of tea. You see, I am only a small family,' concluded
Debby, with a sad smile, 'and the less one has to do with other people
the better.'
Esther started slightly, feeling a strange new kinship with this
lonely soul.
'But surely you would have taken help of me?' she said.
Debby shook her head obstinately.
'Well, I'm not so proud,' said Esther, with a tremulous smile, 'for,
see, I have come to take help of you!'
Then the tears welled forth, and Debby with an impulsive movement
pressed the little sobbing form against her faded bodice, bristling
with pin-heads. Esther recovered herself in a moment and drank some
more tea.
'Are the same people living here?' she said.
'Not altogether. The Belcovitches have gone up in the world; they live
on the first floor now.'
'Not much of a rise that,' said Esther, smiling, for the Belcovitches
had always lived on the third floor.
'Oh, they could have gone to a better street altogether,' explained
Debby, 'only Mr. Belcovitch didn't like the expense of a van.'
'Then Sugarman the Shadchan must have moved too,' said Esther; 'he
used to have the first floor.'
'Yes; he's got the third now. You see, people get tired of living in
the same place. Then Ebenezer, who became very famous through writing
a book--so he told me--went to live by himself, so they didn't want to
be so grand. The back apartment at the top of the house you used to
inhabit,' Debby put it as delicately as she could, 'is vacant. The
last family had the brokers in.'
'Are the Belcovitches all well? I remember Fanny married and went to
Manchester before I left here.'
'Oh yes, they are all well!'
'What! even Mrs. Belcovitch?'
'She still takes medicine, but she seems just as strong as ever.'
'Becky married yet?'
'Oh no, but she has won two breach of promise cases.'
'She must be getting old.'
'She is a fine young woman, but the young men are afraid of her now.'
'Then they don't sit on the stairs in the morning any more?'
'No; young men seem so much less romantic nowadays,' said Debby,
sighing; 'besides, there is one flight less now, and half the stairs
face the street door. The next flight was so private----'
'I suppose I shall look in and see them all,' said Esther, smiling;
'but tell me, is Mrs. Simons living here still?'
'No.'
'Where, then? I should like to see her; she was so very kind to little
Sarah, you know. Nearly all our fried fish came from her.'
'She is dead; she died of cancer; she suffered a great deal.'
'Oh!' Esther put her cup down and sat back with face grown white. 'I
am afraid to ask about any one else,' she said at last. 'I suppose the
Sons of the Covenant are getting on all right; _they_ can't be
dead--at least, not all of them.'
'They have split up,' said Debby gravely, 'into two communities. Mr.
Belcovitch and the Shalotten Shammos quarrelled about the sale of
_Mitzvahs_ at the Rejoicing of the Law two years ago. As far as I
could gather, the carrying of the smallest scroll of the Law was
knocked down to the Shalotten Shammos for eighteenpence, but Mr.
Belcovitch, who had gone outside a moment, said he had bought up the
privilege in advance, to present to Daniel Hyams, who was a visitor,
and whose old father had just died in Jerusalem. There was nearly a
free fight in the _Shool_. So the Shalotten Shammos seceded with
nineteen followers and their wives and set up a rival _Chevrah_ round
the corner. The other twenty-five still come here. The deserters tried
to take Greenberg the Chazan with them, but Greenberg wanted a
stipulation that they wouldn't engage an extra Reader to do his work
during the High Festivals; he even offered to do it cheaper if they
would let him do all the work, but they wouldn't consent. As a
compromise, they proposed to replace him only on the Day of Atonement,
as his voice was not agreeable enough for that. But Greenberg was
obstinate. Now I believe there is a movement for the Sons of the
Covenant to connect their _Chevrah_ with the Federation of Minor
Synagogues, but Mr. Belcovitch says he won't join the Federation
unless the term "Minor" is omitted. He is a great politician now.'
'Ah! I dare say he reads the _Flag of Judah_,' said Esther, laughing,
though Debby recounted all this history quite seriously. 'Do you ever
see that paper?'
'I never heard of it before,' said Debby simply. 'Why should I waste
money on new papers when I can always forget the _London Journal_
sufficiently? Perhaps Mr. Belcovitch buys it; I have seen him with a
Yiddish paper. The "hands" say that instead of breaking off suddenly
in the middle of a speech, as of old, he sometimes stops pressing for
five minutes together to denounce Gideon, the member for Whitechapel,
and to say that Mr. Henry Goldsmith is the only possible saviour of
Judaism in the House of Commons.'
'Ah, then he does read the _Flag of Judah_! His English must have
improved.'
'I was glad to hear him say that,' added Debby, when she had finished
struggling with the fit of coughing brought on by too much monologue,
'because I thought it must be the husband of the lady who was so good
to you. I never forgot her name.'
Esther took up the _London Journal_ to hide her reddening cheeks.
'Oh, read some of it aloud,' cried Dutch Debby. 'It'll be like old
times.'
Esther hesitated, a little ashamed of such childish behaviour. But,
deciding to fall in for a moment with the poor woman's humour, and
glad to change the subject, she read:
'"Soft scents steeped the dainty conservatory in delicious drowsiness.
Reclining on a blue silk couch, her wonderful beauty rather revealed
than concealed by the soft, clinging drapery she wore, Rosaline smiled
bewitchingly at the poor young peer, who could not pluck up courage to
utter the words of flame that were scorching his lips. The moon
silvered the tropical palms, and from the brilliant ball-room were
wafted the sweet penetrating strains of the 'Blue Danube' waltz."'
Dutch Debby heaved a great sigh of rapture.
'And you have seen such sights?' she said in awed admiration.
'I have been in brilliant ball-rooms and moonlit conservatories,' said
Esther evasively. She did not care to rob Dutch Debby of her ideals by
explaining that high life was not all passion and palm-trees.
'I am so glad,' said Debby affectionately. 'I have often wished to
myself, only a make-believe wish, you know, not a real wish, if you
understand what I mean, for of course I know it's impossible. I
sometimes sit at that window before going to bed and look at the moon
as it silvers the swaying clothes-props, and I can easily imagine they
are great tropical palms, especially when an organ is playing round
the corner. Sometimes the moon shines straight down on Bobby's
tombstone, and then I am glad. Ah, now you're smiling! I know you
think me a crazy old thing.'
'Indeed, indeed, dear, I think you are the darlingest creature in the
world!' and Esther jumped up and kissed her to hide her emotion. 'But
I mustn't waste your time,' she said briskly; 'I know you have your
sewing to do. It's too long to tell you my story now; suffice it to
say, as the _London Journal_ says, that I am going to take a lodging
in the neighbourhood. Oh dear, don't make those great eyes! I want to
live in the East End.'
'You want to live here like a princess in disguise; I see.'
'No, you don't, you romantic old darling! I want to live here like
everybody else. I'm going to earn my own living.'
'Oh, but you never can live by yourself.'
'Why not? Now from romantic you become conventional. _You've_ lived by
yourself.'
'Oh, but I'm different!' said Debby, flushing.
'Nonsense, I'm just as good as you. But if you think it
improper'--here Esther had a sudden idea--'come and live with me.'
'What, be your chaperon?' cried Debby in responsive excitement; then
her voice dropped again. 'Oh no! how could I?'
'Yes, yes, you must,' said Esther eagerly.
Debby's obstinate shake of the head repelled the idea.
'I couldn't leave Bobby,' she said. After a pause she asked timidly,
'Why not stay here?'
'Don't be ridiculous,' Esther answered. Then she examined the bed.
'Two couldn't sleep here,' she said.
'Oh yes, they could,' said Debby thoughtfully bisecting the blanket
with her hand; 'and the bed's quite clean, or I wouldn't venture to
ask you. Maybe it's not so soft as you've been used to.'
Esther pondered; she was fatigued, and she had undergone too many
poignant emotions already to relish the hunt for a lodging. It was
really lucky this haven offered itself.
'I'll stay for to-night, anyhow,' she announced, while Debby's face
lit up as with a bonfire of joy. 'To-morrow we'll discuss matters
further; and now, dear, can I help you with your sewing?'
'No, Esther, thank you kindly. You see, there's only enough for one,'
said Debby apologetically; 'to-morrow there may be more. Besides, you
were never as clever with your needle as your pen. You always used to
lose marks for needlework, and don't you remember how you herring-boned
the tucks of those petticoats instead of feather-stitching them? Ha,
ha, ha! I have often laughed at the recollection.'
'Oh, that was only absence of mind!' said Esther, tossing her head in
affected indignation. 'If my work isn't good enough for you, I think
I'll go down and help Becky with her machine.'
She put on her bonnet, and not without curiosity descended a flight of
stairs and knocked at a door which, from the steady whirr going on
behind it, she judged to be that of the workroom.
'Art thou a man or a woman?' came in Yiddish the well-remembered tones
of the valetudinarian lady.
'A woman,' answered Esther in German.
She was glad she had learned German; it would be the best substitute
for Yiddish in her new old life.
'_Herein!_' said Mrs. Belcovitch with sentry-like brevity.
Esther turned the handle, and her surprise was not diminished when she
found herself, not in the workroom, but in the invalid's bedroom. She
almost stumbled over the pail of fresh water, the supply of which was
always kept there. A coarse, bouncing, full-figured young woman with
frizzly black hair paused with her foot on the treadle of her machine
to stare at the new-comer. Mrs. Belcovitch, attired in a skirt and
a nightcap, stopped aghast in the act of combing out her wig, which
hung over an edge of the back of a chair that served as a barber's
block. Like the apple-woman, she fancied the apparition a lady
philanthropist; and though she had long ceased to take charity, the
old instincts leapt out under the sudden shock.
'Becky, quick, rub my leg with liniment--the thick one,' she whispered
in Yiddish.
'It's only me--Esther Ansell!' cried the visitor.
'What! Esther!' cried Mrs. Belcovitch; 'Gott in Himmel!' and throwing
down the comb, she fell in excess of emotion upon Esther's neck. 'I
have so often wanted to see you,' cried the sickly-looking little
woman, who hadn't altered a wrinkle. 'Often have I said to my Becky,
"Where is little Esther? Gold one sees and silver one sees, but Esther
sees one not." Is it not so, Becky? Oh, how fine you look! Why, I
mistook you for a lady! You are married--not? Ah, well, you'll find
wooers as thick as the street-dogs! And how goes it with the father
and the family in America?'
'Excellently,' answered Esther. 'How are you, Becky?'
Becky murmured something, and the two young women shook hands. Esther
had an olden awe of Becky, and Becky was now a little impressed by
Esther.
'I suppose Mr. Weingott is getting a good living now in Manchester?'
Esther remarked cheerfully to Mrs. Belcovitch.
'No, he has a hard struggle,' answered his mother-in-law; 'but I have
seven grandchildren, God be thanked! and I expect an eighth. If my poor
lambkin had been alive now she would have been a great-grandmother. My
eldest grandchild, Hertzel, has a talent for the fiddle. A gentleman is
paying for his lessons, God be thanked! I suppose you have heard I won
four pounds on the lotter_ee_. You see, I have not tried thirty years
for nothing. If I only had my health, I should have little to grumble
at. Yes, four pounds; and what think you I have bought with it? You
shall see it inside. A cupboard with glass doors, such as we left
behind in Poland, and we have hung the shelves with pink paper and made
loops for silver forks to rest in; it makes me feel as if I had just
cut off my tresses. But then I look on my Becky, and I remember
that--go thou inside, Becky, my life! Thou makest it too hard for him.
Give him a word while I speak with Esther.'
Becky made a grimace and shrugged her shoulders, but disappeared
through the door that led to the real workshop.
'A fine maid,' said the mother, her eyes following the girl with
pride. 'No wonder she is so hard to please! She vexes him so that he
eats out his heart. He comes every morning with a bag of cakes or an
orange or a fat Dutch herring, and now she has moved her machine to my
bedroom, where he can't follow her, the unhappy youth!'
'Who is it now?' inquired Esther in amusement.
'Shosshi Shmendrik.'
'Shosshi Shmendrik! Wasn't that the young man who married the Widow
Finkelstein?'
'Yes, a very honourable and seemly youth; but she preferred her first
husband,' said Mrs. Belcovitch, laughing, 'and followed him only four
years after Shosshi's marriage. Shosshi has now all her money--a very
seemly and honourable youth.'
'But will it come to anything?'
'It is already settled; Becky gave in two days ago. After all, she
will not always be young. The _Tanaim_ will be held next Sunday.
Perhaps you would like to come to see the betrothal contract signed.
The Kovna Maggid will be here, and there will be rum and cakes to the
heart's desire. Becky has Shosshi in great affection--they are just
suited; only she likes to tease, poor little thing! And then she is so
shy. Go in and see them, and the cupboard with glass doors.'
Esther pushed open the door, and Mrs. Belcovitch resumed her loving
manipulation of the wig.
The Belcovitch workshop was another of the landmarks of the past that
had undergone no change, despite the cupboard with the glass doors and
the slight difference in the shape of the room. The paper roses still
bloomed in the corners of the mirror; the cotton-labels still adorned
the wall around it; the master's new umbrella still stood unopened in
a corner. The 'hands' were other--but, then, Mr. Belcovitch's hands
were always changing. He never employed 'union men,' and his hirelings
never stayed with him longer than they could help. One of the present
batch, a bent, middle-aged man with a deeply-lined face, was Simon
Wolf, long since thrown over by the Labour party he had created, and
fallen lower and lower till he returned to the Belcovitch workshop
whence he sprang. Wolf, who had a wife and six children, was grateful
to Mr. Belcovitch in a dumb, sullen way, remembering how that
capitalist had figured in his red rhetoric, though it was an extra
pang of martyrdom to have to listen deferentially to Belcovitch's
numerous political and economical fallacies. He would have preferred
the curter dogmatism of earlier days. Shosshi Shmendrik was chatting
quite gaily with Becky, and held her finger-tips cavalierly in his
coarse fist without obvious objection on her part. His face was still
pimply, but it had lost its painful shyness and its readiness to blush
without provocation. His bearing, too, was less clumsy and uncouth.
Evidently to love the Widow Finkelstein had been a liberal education
to him. Becky had broken the news of Esther's arrival to her father,
as was evident from the odour of turpentine emanating from the opened
bottle of rum on the central table. Mr. Belcovitch, whose hair was
grey now, but who seemed to have as much stamina as ever, held out his
left hand--the right was wielding the pressing-iron--without moving
another muscle.
'_Nu_, it gladdens me to see you are better off than of old,' he said
gravely in Yiddish.
'Thank you. I am glad to see you looking so fresh and healthy,'
replied Esther in German.
'You were taken away to be educated, was it not?'
'Yes.'
'And how many tongues do you know?'
'Four or five,' said Esther, smiling.
'Four or five!' repeated Mr. Belcovitch, so impressed that he stopped
pressing. 'Then you can aspire to be a clerk! I know several firms
where they have young women now.'
'Don't be ridiculous, father!' interposed Becky. 'Clerks aren't so
grand nowadays as they used to be. Very likely she would turn up her
nose at a clerkship.'
'I'm sure I wouldn't,' said Esther.
'There, thou hearest!' said Mr. Belcovitch, with angry satisfaction.
'It is thou who hast too many flies in thy nostrils. Thou wouldst
throw over Shosshi if thou hadst thine own way. Thou art the only
person in the world who listens not to me. Abroad my word decides
great matters. Three times has my name been printed in the _Flag of
Judah_. Little Esther had not such a father as thou, but never did she
make mock of him.'
'Of course, everybody's better than me,' said Becky petulantly, as she
snatched her fingers away from Shosshi.
'No; thou art better than the whole world,' protested Shosshi
Shmendrik, feeling for the fingers.
'Who spoke to thee?' demanded Belcovitch, incensed.
'Who spoke to thee?' echoed Becky.
And when Shosshi, with empurpled pimples, cowered before both, father
and daughter felt allies again, and peace was re-established at
Shosshi's expense. But Esther's curiosity was satisfied. She seemed to
see the whole future of this domestic group; Belcovitch accumulating
gold-pieces, and Mrs. Belcovitch medicine-bottles, till they died, and
the lucky but hen-pecked Shosshi gathered up half the treasure on
behalf of the buxom Becky. Refusing the glass of rum, she escaped.
The dinner, which Debby (under protest) did not pay for, consisted of
viands from the beloved old cookshop, the potatoes and rice of
childhood being supplemented by a square piece of baked meat, likewise
knives and forks. Esther was anxious to experience again the magic
taste and savour of the once-coveted delicacies. Alas! the preliminary
sniff failed to make her mouth water; the first bite betrayed the
inferiority of the potatoes used. Even so the unattainable tart of
infancy mocks the moneyed but dyspeptic adult. But she concealed her
disillusionment bravely.
'Do you know,' said Debby, pausing in her voluptuous scouring of the
gravy-lined plate with a bit of bread, 'I can hardly believe my eyes.
It seems a dream, that you are sitting at dinner with me. Pinch me,
will you?'
'You have been pinched enough,' said Esther sadly. Which shows that
one can pun with a heavy heart. This is one of the things Shakespeare
knew and Dr. Johnson didn't.
In the afternoon Esther went round to Zachariah Square. She did not
meet any of the old faces as she walked through the Ghetto, though a
little crowd that blocked her way at one point turned out to be merely
spectators of an epileptic performance by Meckish. Esther turned away
in amused disgust. She wondered whether Mrs. Meckish still flaunted it
in satins and heavy necklaces, or whether Meckish had divorced her, or
survived her, or something equally inconsiderate. Hard by the old
Ruins (which she found 'ruined' by a railway) Esther was almost run
over by an iron hoop driven by a boy with a long swarthy face that
irresistibly recalled Malka's.
'Is your grandmother in town?' she said at a venture.
'Y-e-s,' said the driver wonderingly. 'She is over in her own house.'
Esther did not hasten towards it.
'Your name's Ezekiel, isn't it?'
'Yes,' replied the boy; and then Esther was sure it was the redeemed
son of whom her father had told her.
'Are your mother and father well?'
'Father's away travelling.' Ezekiel's tone was a little impatient; his
feet shuffled uneasily, itching to chase the flying hoop.
'How's your aunt--your aunt--I forget her name.'
'Aunt Leah? She's gone to Liverpool.'
'What for?'
'She lives there; she has opened a branch store of granma's business.
Who are you?' concluded Ezekiel candidly.
'You won't remember me,' said Esther. 'Tell me--your aunt is called
Mrs. Levine, isn't she?'
'Oh yes! but,' with a shade of contempt, 'she hasn't got any
children.'
'How many brothers and sisters have _you_ got?' said Esther, with a
little laugh.
'Heaps. Oh, but you won't see them if you go in; they're in school,
most of 'em.'
'And why aren't you at school?'
The redeemed son became scarlet.
'I've got a bad leg,' ran mechanically off his tongue. Then,
administering a savage thwack to his hoop, he set out in pursuit of
it. 'It's no good calling on mother!' he yelled back, turning his head
unexpectedly. 'She ain't in.'
Esther walked into the Square, where the same big-headed babies were
still rocking in swings suspended from the lintels, and where the same
ruddy-faced septuagenarians sat smoking short pipes and playing nap on
trays in the sun. From several doorways came the reek of fish-frying.
The houses looked ineffably petty and shabby. Esther wondered how she
could ever have conceived this a region of opulence, still more how
she could ever have located Malka and her family on the very outskirt
of the semi-divine classes. But the semi-divine persons themselves had
long since shrunk and dwindled.
She found Malka brooding over the fire; on the side-table was the
clothes-brush. The great events of a crowded decade of European
history had left Malka's domestic interior untouched. The fall of
dynasties, philosophies and religions had not shaken one china dog
from its place. She had not turned a hair of her wig: the black silk
bodice might have been the same; the gold chain at her bosom was. Time
had written a few more lines on the tan-coloured equine face, but his
influence had been only skin-deep. Everybody grows old; few people
grow. Malka was of the majority.
It was only with difficulty that she recollected Esther, and she was
visibly impressed by the young lady's appearance.
'It's very good of you to come and see an old woman,' she said in her
mixed dialect, which skipped irresponsibly from English to Yiddish
and back again. 'It's more than my own _Kinder_ do. I wonder they let
you come across and see me.'
'I haven't been to see them yet,' Esther interrupted.
'Ah, that explains it,' said Malka with satisfaction. 'They'd have
told you, "Don't go and see the old woman; she's _meshuggah_, she
ought to be in the asylum." I bring children into the world, and buy
them husbands and businesses and bedclothes, and this is my profit.
The other day my Milly--the impudent face! I would have boxed her ears
if she hadn't been suckling Nathaniel! Let her tell me again that ink
isn't good for the ringworm, and my five fingers shall leave a mark on
her face worse than any of Gabriel's ringworms. But I have washed my
hands of her--she can go her way, and I'll go mine. I've taken an oath
I'll have nothing to do with her and her children--no, not if I live a
thousand years. It's all through Milly's ignorance she has had such
heavy losses.'
'What! Mr. Phillips's business been doing badly? I'm so sorry.'
'No, no! my family never does bad business. It's my Milly's children.
She lost two. As for my Leah, God bless her! she's been more
unfortunate still. I always said that old beggar-woman had the
evil-eye! I sent her to Liverpool with her Sam.'
'I know,' murmured Esther.
'But she is a good daughter. I wish I had a thousand such! She writes
to me every week, and my little Ezekiel writes back--English they
learn them in that heathen school,' Malka interrupted herself
sarcastically; 'and it was I who had to learn him to begin a letter
properly, with--"I write you these few lines, hoping to find you in
good health, as, thank God, it leaves me at present." He used to begin
anyhow.'
She came to a stop, having tangled the thread of her discourse, and
bethought herself of offering Esther a peppermint. But Esther refused,
and bethought herself of inquiring after Mr. Birnbaum.
'My Michael is quite well, thank God!' said Malka, 'though he is still
pigheaded in business matters! He buys so badly, you know--gives a
hundred pounds for what's not worth twenty.'
'But you said business was all right?'
'Ah, that's different. Of course he sells at a good profit, thank God!
If I wanted to provoke Providence, I could keep my carriage like any
of your grand West-End ladies. But that doesn't make him a good buyer.
And the worst of it is he always thinks he has got a bargain. He won't
listen to reason at all,' said Malka, shaking her head dolefully. 'He
might be a child of mine instead of my husband. If God didn't send him
such luck and blessing we might come to want bread, coal, and meat
tickets ourselves, instead of giving them away. Do you know, I found
out that Mrs. Isaacs, across the Square, only speculates her guinea in
the drawings to give away the tickets she wins to her poor relations,
so that she gets all the credit of charity and her name in the papers
while saving the money she'd have to give to her poor relations all
the same. Nobody can say I give my tickets to my poor relations. You
should just see how much my Michael vows away at _Shool_. He's been
_Parnass_ for the last twelve years straight off, all the members
respect him so much; it isn't often you see a business man with such
fear of Heaven. Wait! my Ezekiel will be _Bar-mitzvah_ in a few years;
then you shall see what I will do for that _Shool_. You shall see what
an example of _Yiddishkeit_ I will give to a _link_ generation. Mrs.
Benjamin, of the Ruins, purified her knives and forks for Passover by
sticking them between the boards of the floor. Would you believe, she
didn't make them red-hot first! I gave her a bit of my mind. She said
she forgot. But not she! She's no cat's head. She's a regular
Christian, that's what she is. I shouldn't wonder if she becomes one
like that blackguard David Brandon. I always told my Milly he was not
the sort of person to allow across the threshold. It was Sam Levine
who brought him. You see what comes of having the son of a proselyte
in the family. Some say Reb Shemuel's daughter narrowly escaped being
engaged to him. But that story has a beard already. I suppose it's the
sight of you brings up _Olov Hasholom_ times. Well, and how are you?'
she concluded abruptly, becoming suddenly conscious of imperfect
courtesy.
'Oh, I'm very well, thank you,' said Esther.
'Ah, that's right. You're looking very well, _imbeschreer_--quite a
grand lady. I always knew you'd be one some day. There was your poor
mother--peace be upon him! She went and married your father, though I
warned her he was a _Schnorrer_ and only wanted her because she had a
rich Family; he'd have sent you out with matches if I hadn't stepped
in. I remember saying to him, "That little Esther has Aristotle's
head, let her learn all she can; as sure as I stand here she will grow
up to be a lady: I shall have no need to be ashamed of owning her for
a cousin." He was not so pig-headed as your mother, and you see the
result.'
She surveyed the result with an affectionate smile, feeling genuinely
proud of her share in its production.
'If my Ezekiel were only a few years older!' she added musingly.
'Oh, but I am not a great lady,' said Esther, hastening to disclaim
false pretensions to the hand of the hero of the hoop; 'I've left the
Goldsmiths, and come back to live in the East End.'
'What!' said Malka, 'left the West End!'
Her swarthy face grew darker; the skin about her black eyebrows was
wrinkled with wrath.
'Are you _meshuggah_?' she asked after an awful silence. 'Or have you,
perhaps, saved up a tidy sum of money?'
Esther flushed and shook her head.
'Then it's no use coming to me. I'm not a rich woman, far from it, and
I have been blessed with _Kinder_ who are helpless without me. It's as
I always said to your father. "Meshe," I said, "you're a _Schnorrer_,
and your children'll grow up _Schnorrers_."'
Esther turned white, but the dwindling of Malka's semi-divinity had
diminished the old woman's power of annoying her.
'I want to earn my own living,' she said, with a smile that was almost
contemptuous. 'Do you call that being a _Schnorrer_?'
'Don't argue with me. You're just like your poor mother--peace be upon
him!' cried the irate old woman. 'You God's fool! you were provided
for in life, and you have no right to come upon the Family.'
'But isn't it _schnorring_ to be dependent on strangers?' inquired
Esther with bitter amusement.
'Don't stand there with your impudence-face!' cried Malka, her eyes
blazing fire. 'You know as well as I do that a _Schnorrer_ is a person
you give sixpences to. When a rich family takes in a motherless girl
like you and clothes her and feeds her, why, it's mocking Heaven to
run away and want to earn your own living! Earn your living! Pooh!
what living can you earn, you with your gloves? You're all by yourself
in the world now--your father can't help you any more. He did enough
for you when you were little, keeping you at school when you ought to
have been out selling matches. You'll starve and come to me, that's
what you'll do.'
'I may starve, but I'll never come to you,' said Esther, now really
irritated by the truth in Malka's words. What living, indeed, could
she earn! She turned her back haughtily on the old woman, not without
a recollection of a similar scene in her childhood. History was
repeating itself on a smaller scale than seemed consistent with its
dignity. When she got outside she saw Milly in conversation with a
young lady at the door of her little house, diagonally opposite. Milly
had noticed the strange visitor to her mother, for the rival camps
carried on a system of espionage from behind their respective gauze
blinds, and she had come to the door to catch a better glimpse of her
when she left. Esther was passing through Zachariah Square without any
intention of recognising Milly. The daughter's flaccid personality was
not so attractive as the mother's; besides, a visit to her might be
construed into a mean revenge on the old woman. But as if in response
to a remark of Milly's, the young lady turned her face to look at
Esther, and then Esther saw that it was Hannah Jacobs. She felt hot
and uncomfortable, and half reluctant to renew acquaintance with
Levi's family; but with another impulse she crossed over to the group
and went through the inevitable formulae. Then, refusing Milly's
warm-hearted invitation to have a cup of tea, she shook hands and
walked away.
'Wait a minute, Miss Ansell,' said Hannah. 'I'll come with you.'
Milly gave her a shilling with a facetious grimace, and she rejoined
Esther.
'I'm collecting money for a poor family of _Greeners_ just landed,'
she said. 'They had a few roubles, but they fell among the usual
sharks at the docks, and the cabman took all the rest of their money
to drive them to the Lane. I left them all crying and rocking
themselves to and fro in the street while I ran round to collect a
little to get them a lodging.'
'Poor things,' said Esther.
'Ah, I can see you've been away from Jews,' said Hannah, smiling. 'In
the olden days you would have said _Achi nebbich_.'
'Should I?' said Esther, smiling in return, and beginning to like
Hannah. She had seen very little of her in those olden days, for
Hannah had been an adult and well-to-do as long as Esther could
remember; it seemed amusing now to walk side by side with her in
perfect equality and apparently little younger. For Hannah's
appearance had not aged perceptibly, which was, perhaps, why Esther
recognised her at once. She had not become angular like her mother,
nor coarse and stout like other mothers. She remained slim and
graceful, with a virginal charm of expression. But the pretty face had
gained in refinement; it looked earnest, almost spiritual, telling of
suffering and patience, not unblent with peace.
Esther silently extracted half a crown from her purse and handed it to
Hannah.
'I didn't mean to ask you, indeed I didn't,' said Hannah.
'Oh, I am glad you told me,' said Esther tremulously.
The idea of _her_ giving charity, after the account of herself she had
just heard, seemed ironical enough. She wished the transfer of the
coin had taken place within eyeshot of Malka, then dismissed the
thought as unworthy.
'You'll come in and have a cup of tea with us, won't you, after we've
lodged the _Greeners_?' said Hannah. 'Now don't say no. It'll brighten
up my father to see Reb Moshe's little girl.'
Esther tacitly assented.
'I heard of all of you recently,' she said, when they had hurried on a
little farther. 'I met your brother at the theatre.'
Hannah's face lit up.
'How long was that ago?' she inquired anxiously.
'I remember exactly. It was the night before the first _Seder_ night.'
'Was he well?'
'Perfectly.'
'Oh, I am so glad.'
She told Esther of Levi's strange failure to appear at the annual
family festival. 'My father went out to look for him. Our anxiety was
intolerable. He did not return till half-past one in the morning. He
was in a terrible state. "Well," we asked, "have you seen him?" "I
have seen him," he answered. "He is dead."'
Esther grew pallid. Was this the sequel to the strange episode in Mr.
Henry Goldsmith's library?
'Of course he wasn't really dead,' pursued Hannah, to Esther's relief.
'My father would hardly speak a word more, but we gathered he had seen
him doing something very dreadful, and that henceforth Levi would be
dead to him. Since then we dare not speak his name. Please don't refer
to him at tea. I went to his rooms on the sly a few days afterwards,
but he had left them, and since then I haven't been able to hear
anything of him. Sometimes I fancy he's gone off to the Cape.'
'More likely to the provinces with a band of strolling players. He
told me he thought of throwing up the law for the boards, and I know
you cannot make a beginning in London.'
'Do you think that's it?' said Hannah, looking relieved in her turn.
'I feel sure that's the explanation, if he's not in London. But what
in Heaven's name can your father have seen him doing?'
'Nothing very dreadful, depend upon it,' said Hannah, a slight shade
of bitterness crossing her wistful features. 'I know he's inclined to
be wild, and he should never have been allowed to get the bit between
his teeth; but I dare say it was only some ceremonial crime Levi was
caught committing.'
'Certainly; that would be it,' said Esther. 'He confessed to me that
he was very _link_. Judging by your tone, you seem rather inclined
that way yourself,' she said, smiling and a little surprised.
'Do I? I don't know,' said Hannah simply. 'Sometimes I think I'm very
_froom_.'
'Surely you know what you are?' persisted Esther.
Hannah shook her head.
'Well, you know whether you believe in Judaism or not?'
'I don't know what I believe. I do everything a Jewess ought to do, I
suppose. And yet, oh, I don't know.'
Esther's smile faded; she looked at her companion with fresh interest.
Hannah's face was full of brooding thought, and she had unconsciously
come to a standstill.
'I wonder whether anybody understands herself,' she said reflectively.
'Do you?'
Esther flushed at the abrupt question without knowing why.
'I--I don't know,' she stammered.
'No, I don't think anybody does, quite,' Hannah answered. 'I feel sure
I don't; and yet--yes, I do. I must be a good Jewess; I must believe
my life.'
Somehow the tears came into her eyes; her face had the look of a
saint. Esther's eyes met hers in a strange subtle glance; then their
souls were knit. They walked on rapidly.
'Well, I do hope you'll hear from him soon,' said Esther.
'It's cruel of him not to write,' replied Hannah, knowing she meant
Levi; 'he might easily send me a line in a disguised hand. But then,
as Miriam Hyams always says, brothers are so selfish.'
'Oh, how is Miss Hyams? I used to be in her class.'
'I could guess that from you still calling her Miss,' said Hannah,
with a gentle smile.
'Why, is she married?'
'No, no; I don't mean that. She still lives with her brother and his
wife; he married Sugarman the Shadchan's daughter, you know.'
'Bessie, wasn't it?'
'Yes; they are a devoted couple, and I suspect Miriam is a little
jealous; but she seems to enjoy herself, any way. I don't think there
is a piece at the theatres she can't tell you about, and she makes
Daniel take her to all the dances going.'
'Is she still as pretty?' asked Esther. 'I know all her girls used to
rave over her and throw her in the faces of girls with ugly teachers.
She certainly knew how to dress.'
'She dresses better than ever,' said Hannah evasively.
'That sounds ominous,' observed Esther laughingly.
'Oh, she's good-looking enough! Her nose seems to have turned up more;
but perhaps that's an optical illusion; she talks so sarcastically
nowadays that I seem to see it.' Hannah smiled a little. 'She doesn't
think much of Jewish young men. By the way, are you engaged yet,
Esther?'
'What an idea!' murmured Esther, blushing beneath her spotted veil.
'Well, you're very young,' said Hannah, glancing down at the smaller
figure with a sweet matronly smile.
'I shall never marry,' Esther said in low tones.
'Don't be ridiculous, Esther! There's no happiness for a woman without
it. You needn't talk like Miriam Hyams--at least, not yet. Oh yes, I
know what you're thinking----'
'No, I'm not,' faintly protested Esther.
'Yes, you are,' said Hannah, smiling at the paradoxical denial. 'But
who'd have _me_? Ah, here are the _Greeners_!' and her smile softened
to angelic tenderness.
It was a frouzy, unsightly group that sat on the pavement, surrounded
by a semi-sympathetic crowd--the father in a long grimy coat; the
mother covered, as to her head, with a shawl, which also contained the
baby. But the elders were naively childish, and the children uncannily
elderly; and something in Esther's breast seemed to stir with a
strange sense of kinship. The race instinct awoke to consciousness of
itself. Dulled by contact with cultured Jews, transformed almost to
repulsion by the spectacle of the coarsely prosperous, it leapt into
life at the appeal of squalor and misery. In the morning the Ghetto
had simply chilled her; her heart had turned to it as to a haven and
the reality was dismal. Now that the first ugliness had worn off, she
felt her heart warming. Her eyes moistened. She thrilled from head to
foot with the sense of a mission--of a niche in the temple of human
service which she had been predestined to fill. Who could comprehend
as she these stunted souls, limited in all save suffering? Happiness
was not for her; but service remained. Penetrated by the new emotion,
she seemed to herself to have found the key to Hannah's holy calm.
With the money now in hand, the two girls sought a lodging for the
poor waifs. Esther suddenly remembered the empty back-garret in No. 1
Royal Street, and here, after due negotiations with the
pickled-herring dealer next door, the family was installed. Esther's
emotions at the sight of the old place were poignant; happily the
bustle of installation, of laying down a couple of mattresses, of
borrowing Dutch Debby's tea-things, and of getting ready a meal,
alloyed their intensity. That little figure with the masculine boots
showed itself but by fits and flashes. But the strangeness of the
episode formed the undercurrent of all her thoughts; it seemed to
carry to a climax the irony of her initial gift to Hannah.
Escaping from the blessings of the _Greeners_, she accompanied her new
friend to Reb Shemuel's. She was shocked to see the change in the
venerable old man; he looked quite broken-up. But he was chivalrous as
of yore; the vein of quiet humour was still there, though his voice
was charged with gentle melancholy. The Rebbitzin's nose had grown
sharper than ever; her soul seemed to have fed on vinegar. Even in
the presence of a stranger, the Rebbitzin could not quite conceal her
dominant thought. It hardly needed a woman to divine how it fretted
Mrs. Jacobs that Hannah was an old maid; it needed a woman like Esther
to divine that Hannah's renunciation was voluntary; though even Esther
could not divine her history, nor understand that her mother's daily
nagging was the greater because the pettier part of her martyrdom.
* * * * *
They all jumbled themselves into grotesque combinations, the things of
to-day and the things of endless yesterdays, as Esther slept in the
narrow little bed next to Dutch Debby, who squeezed herself into the
wall, pretending to revel in exuberant spaciousness. It was long
before she could get to sleep. The excitement of the day had brought
on her headache; she was depressed by restriking the courses of so
many narrow lives; the glow of her new-found mission had already faded
in the thought that she was herself a pauper, and she wished she had
let the dead past lie in its halo, not peered into the crude face of
reality. But at bottom she felt a subtle melancholy joy in
understanding herself at last, despite Hannah's scepticism, in
penetrating the secret of her pessimism, in knowing herself a Child of
the Ghetto.
And yet Pesach Weingott played the fiddle merrily enough when she went
to Becky's engagement-party in her dreams, and galloped with Shosshi
Shmendrik, disregarding the terrible eyes of the bride to be; when
Hannah, wearing an aureole like a bridal veil, paired off with
Meckish, frothing at the mouth with soap, and Mrs. Belcovitch,
whirling a medicine-bottle, went down the middle on a pair of huge
stilts, one a thick one and one a thin one, while Malka spun round
like a teetotum, throwing Ezekiel in long-clothes through a hoop! what
time Moses Ansell waltzed superbly with the dazzling Addie Leon, quite
cutting out Levi and Miriam Hyams, and Raphael awkwardly twisted the
Widow Finkelstein to the evident delight of Sugarman the Shadchan, who
had effected the introduction. It was wonderful how agile they all
were, and how dexterously they avoided treading on her brother
Benjamin, who lay unconcernedly in the centre of the floor, taking
assiduous notes in a little copy-book for incorporation in a great
novel, while Mrs. Henry Goldsmith stooped down to pat his brown hair
patronisingly.
Esther thought it very proper of the grateful _Greeners_ to go about
offering the dancers rum from Dutch Debby's tea-kettle, and very
selfish of Sidney to stand in a corner refusing to join in the dance
and making cynical remarks about the whole thing for the amusement of
the earnest little figure she had met on the stairs.