THE DEAD MONKEY AGAIN
Esther woke early, little refreshed. The mattress was hard, and in her
restricted allowance of space she had to deny herself the luxury of
tossing and turning lest she should arouse Debby. To open one's eyes
on a new day is not pleasant when situations have to be faced. Esther
felt this disagreeable duty could no longer be shirked. Malka's words
rang in her ears. How, indeed, could she earn a living? Literature had
failed her; with journalism she had no point of contact save the _Flag
of Judah_, and that journal was out of the question. Teaching--the
last resort of the hopeless--alone remained. Maybe even in the Ghetto
there were parents who wanted their children to learn the piano; and
who would find Esther's mediocre digital ability good enough. She
might teach as of old in an elementary school. But she would not go
back to her own--all the human nature in her revolted at the thought
of exposing herself to the sympathy of her former colleagues. Nothing
was to be gained by lying sleepless in bed, gazing at the discoloured
wall-paper and the forlorn furniture. She slipped out gently and
dressed herself, the absence of any apparatus for a bath making her
heart heavier with reminders of the realities of poverty. It was not
easy to avert her thoughts from her dainty bedroom of yesterday. But
she succeeded; the cheerlessness of the little chamber turned her
thoughts backwards to the years of girlhood, and when she had finished
dressing she almost mechanically lit the fire and put the kettle to
boil. Her childish dexterity returned, unimpaired by disuse. When
Debby awoke, she awoke to a cup of tea ready for her to drink in
bed--an unprecedented luxury which she received with infinite
consternation and pleasure.
'Why, it's like the duchesses who have lady's-maids,' she said, 'and
read French novels before getting up.' To complete the picture, her
hand dived underneath the bed and extracted a _London Journal_ at the
risk of upsetting the tea. 'But it's you who ought to be in bed, not
me.'
'I've been a sluggard too often,' laughed Esther, catching the
contagion of good spirits from Debby's radiant delight. Perhaps the
capacity for simple pleasures would come back to her, too.
At breakfast they discussed the situation.
'I'm afraid the bed's too small,' said Esther, when Debby kindly
suggested a continuance of hospitality.
'Perhaps I took up too much room,' said the hostess.
'No, dear; you took up too little. We should have to have a wider bed,
and, as it is, the bed is almost as big as the room.'
'There's the back-garret overhead! It's bigger, and it looks on the
back-yard just as well. I wouldn't mind moving there,' said Debby,
'though I wouldn't let old Guggenheim know that I value the view of
the back-yard, or else he'd raise the rent.'
'You forget the _Greeners_ who moved in yesterday.'
'Oh, so I do!' answered Debby, with a sigh.
'Strange,' said Esther musingly, 'that I should have shut myself out
of my own home.'
The postman's knuckles rapping at the door interrupted her
reflections. In Royal Street the poor postmen had to mount to each
room separately; fortunately the tenants got few letters. Debby was
intensely surprised to get one.
'It isn't for me at all,' she cried at last, after a protracted
examination of the envelope; 'it's for you, care of me.'
'But that's stranger still,' said Esther. 'Nobody in the world knows
my address.'
The mystery was not lessened by the contents. There was simply a blank
sheet of paper, and when this was unfolded a half-sovereign rolled
out. The postmark was Houndsditch. After puzzling herself in vain, and
examining at length the beautiful copy-book penmanship of the address,
Esther gave up the enigma. But it reminded her that it would be
advisable to apprise her publishers of her departure from the old
address, and to ask them to keep any chance letter till she called.
She betook herself to their office, walking. The day was bright, but
Esther walked in gloom, scarcely daring to think of her position. She
entered the office, apathetically hopeless. The junior partner
welcomed her heartily.
'I suppose you've come about your account,' he said. 'I have been
intending to send it you for some months, but we are so busy bringing
out new things before the dead summer season comes on.' He consulted
his books. 'Perhaps you would rather not be bothered,' he said, 'with
a formal statement. I have it all clearly here--the book's been doing
fairly well--let me write you a cheque at once!'
She murmured assent, her cheeks blanching, her heart throbbing with
excitement and surprise.
'There you are--sixty-two pounds ten,' he said. 'Our profits are just
one hundred and twenty-five. If you'll endorse it, I'll send a clerk
to the bank round the corner and get it cashed for you at once.'
The pen scrawled an agitated autograph that would not have been
accepted at the foot of a cheque, if Esther had had a banking account
of her own.
'But I thought you said the book was a failure,' she said.
'So it was,' he answered cheerfully, 'so it was at first. But
gradually, as its nature leaked out, the demand increased. I
understand from Mudie's that it was greatly asked for by their Jewish
clients. You see, when there's a run on a three-volume book, the
profits are pretty fair. I believed in it myself, or I should never
have given you such good terms nor printed five hundred copies. I
shouldn't be surprised if we find ourselves able to bring it out in
one-volume form in the autumn. We shall always be happy to consider
any further work of yours; something on the same lines I should
recommend.'
The recommendation did not convey any definite meaning to her at the
moment. Still in a pleasant haze, she stuffed the twelve five-pound
notes and the three gold-pieces into her purse, scribbled a receipt,
and departed. Afterwards the recommendation rang mockingly in her
ears. She felt herself sterile, written out already. As for writing
again on the same lines, she wondered what Raphael would think if he
knew of the profits she had reaped by bespattering his people. But
there! Raphael was a prig like the rest. It was no use worrying about
_his_ opinions. Affluence had come to her--that was the one important
and exhilarating fact. Besides, had not the hypocrites really enjoyed
her book? A new wave of emotion swept over her--again she felt strong
enough to defy the whole world.
When she got 'home,' Debby said, 'Hannah Jacobs called to see you.'
'Oh, indeed; what did she want?'
'I don't know, but from something she said I believe I can guess who
sent the half-sovereign.'
'Not Reb Shemuel?' said Esther, astonished.
'No, your cousin Malka. It seems that she saw Hannah leaving Zachariah
Square with you, and so went to her house last night to get your
address.'
Esther did not know whether to laugh or to be angry; she compromised
by crying. People were not so bad, after all, nor the fates so hard to
her. It was only a little April shower of tears, and soon she was
smiling and running upstairs to give the half-sovereign to the
_Greeners_. It would have been ungracious to return it to Malka, and
she purchased all the luxury of doing good, including the effusive
benedictions of the whole family, on terms usually obtainable only by
professional almoners.
Then she told Debby of her luck with the publishers. Profound was
Debby's awe at the revelation that Esther was able to write stories
equal to those in the _London Journal_. After that Debby gave up the
idea of Esther living or sleeping with her; she would as soon have
thought of offering a share of her bed to the authoresses of the tales
under it. Debby suffered scarce any pang when her one-night companion
transferred herself to Reb Shemuel's.
For it was to suggest this that Hannah had called. The idea was her
father's; it came to him when she told him of Esther's strange
position. But Esther said she was going to America forthwith, and she
only consented on condition of being allowed to pay for her keep
during her stay. The haggling was hard, but Esther won. Hannah gave up
her room to Esther, and removed her own belongings to Levi's bedroom,
which, except at Festival seasons, had been unused for years, though
the bed was always kept ready for him. Latterly the women had had to
make the bed from time to time, and air the room, when Reb Shemuel was
at synagogue. Esther sent her new address to her brothers and sisters,
and made inquiries as to the prospects of educated girls in the
States. In reply she learnt that Rachel was engaged to be married. Her
correspondents were too taken up with this gigantic fact to pay
satisfactory attention to her inquiries. The old sense of protecting
motherhood came back to Esther when she learnt the news. Rachel was
only eighteen, but at once Esther felt middle-aged. It seemed of the
fitness of things that she should go to America and resume her
interrupted maternal duties. Isaac and Sarah were still little more
than children, perhaps they had not yet ceased bickering about their
birthdays. She knew her little ones would jump for joy, and Isaac
still volunteer sleeping accommodation in his new bed, even though the
necessity for it had ceased. She cried when she received the cutting
from the American Jewish paper; under other circumstances she would
have laughed. It was one of a batch headed 'Personals,' and ran: 'Sam
Wiseberg, the handsome young drummer of Cincinnati, has become engaged
to Rachel Ansell, the fair eighteen-year-old typewriter and daughter
of Moses Ansell, a well-known Chicago Hebrew. Life's sweetest
blessings on the pair! The marriage will take place in the Fall.'
Esther dried her eyes and determined to be present at the ceremony. It
is so grateful to the hesitant soul to be presented with a landmark.
There was nothing to be gained now by arriving before the marriage;
nay, her arrival just in time for it would clinch the festivities.
Meantime she attached herself to Hannah's charitable leading-strings,
alternately attracted to the Children of the Ghetto by their misery,
and repulsed by their failings. She seemed to see them now in their
true perspective, correcting the vivid impressions of childhood by the
insight born of wider knowledge of life. The accretion of pagan
superstition was greater than she had recollected. Mothers averted
fever by a murmured charm and an expectoration, children in new
raiment carried bits of coal or salt in their pockets to ward off the
evil-eye. On the other hand, there was more resourcefulness, more
pride of independence. Her knowledge of Moses Ansell had misled her
into too sweeping a generalisation. And she was surprised to realise
afresh how much illogical happiness flourished amid penury, ugliness,
and pain. After school-hours the muggy air vibrated with the joyous
laughter of little children, tossing their shuttlecocks, spinning
their tops, turning their skipping-ropes, dancing to barrel-organs or
circling hand-in-hand in rings to the sound of the merry traditional
chants of childhood. Esther often purchased a pennyworth of exquisite
pleasure by enriching some sad-eyed urchin. Hannah (whose own scanty
surplus was fortunately augmented by an anonymous West-End Reform Jew
who employed her as his agent) had no prepossessions to correct; no
pendulum-oscillations to distract her, no sentimental illusions to
sustain her. She knew the Ghetto as it was; neither expected gratitude
from the poor, nor feared she might 'pauperise them,' knowing that the
poor Jew never exchanges his self-respect for respect for his
benefactor, but takes by way of rightful supplement to his income. She
did not drive families into trickery, like the ladies of the West, by
being horrified to find them eating meat. If she presided at a stall
at a charitable sale of clothing, she was not disheartened if articles
were snatched from under her hand, nor did she refuse loans because
borrowers sometimes merely used them to evade the tallyman by getting
their jewellery at cash prices. She not only gave alms to the poor,
but made them givers, organising their own farthings into a powerful
auxiliary of the institutions which helped them. Hannah's sweet
patience soothed Esther, who had no natural aptitude for personal
philanthropy; the primitive ordered pieties of the Reb's household
helping to give her calm. Though she accepted the inevitable and had
laughed in melancholy mockery at the exaggerated importance given to
love by the novelists (including her cruder self), she dreaded meeting
Raphael Leon. It was very unlikely her whereabouts would penetrate to
the West; and she rarely went outside the Ghetto by day, or even
walked within it in the evening. In the twilight, unless prostrated by
headache, she played on Hannah's disused old-fashioned grand piano. It
had one cracked note which nearly always spoiled the melody; she would
not have the note repaired, taking a morbid pleasure in a fantastic
analogy between the instrument and herself. On Friday nights after the
Sabbath-hymns she read the _Flag of Judah_. She was not surprised to
find Reb Shemuel beginning to look askance at his favourite paper. She
noted a growing tendency in it to insist mainly on the ethical side of
Judaism, salvation by works being contrasted with the salvation by
spasm of popular Christianity. Once Kingsley's line, 'Do noble things,
not dream them all day long,' was put forth as 'Judaism _versus_
Christianity in a nutshell' and the writer added, 'for so thy dreams
shall become noble, too.' Sometimes she fancied phrases and lines of
argument were aimed at her. Was it the editor's way of keeping in
touch with her, using his leaders as a medium of communication--a
subtly sweet secret known only to him and her? Was it fair to his
readers? Then she would remember his joke about the paper being
started merely to convert her, and she would laugh. Sometimes he
repeated what he had already said to her privately, so that she seemed
to hear him talking.
Then she would shake her head, and say, 'I love you for your
blindness, but I have the terrible gift of vision.'