Council.
“At the Court at Buckingham Palace, the 24th day of March, his
Lordship's Majesty, the Lord Regent, in Council.
“WHEREAS His Lordship's Majesty was pleased to declare in the name and
on behalf of His Majesty the King on the 23rd day of March: THAT if at
any time, after the expiration of the three months following, any of the
hereinafter mentioned trades, occupations, pursuits, or acts, shall
be carried on or done within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and
Ireland by any person being a person coming within the sense of the term
“Jew” as hereinafter defined, THEN and thereafter such person shall be
liable to the pains and penalties hereinafter specified”.
* * * * * * *
No Jew might own or work land, or teach in any Cheder or school, or
be entered at any Public School or University, or sign any stamped
document, or carry on certain trades, or vote, or officiate at any
public service, and so on: parentage, not religion, constituting a
“Jew”. Through Britain this piece of Russian despotism sent a wave of
quiet gladness, and an epidemic of jest broke out, in club, factory,
“Lane”, and drawing-room: “You hurry up--to Jericho!” became the
workman's answer to a Jew; it was remarked that the chimney of train and
steamship would furnish a new pillar of cloud by day, and pillar of fire
by night, to go before the modern Exodus; they were little to be pitied,
for even Heaven was their mortgagor in land, with promise to pay--the
Promised Land; a syndicate would be formed to “pool” milk and honey, and
either Sharon or Salem would become the new Get-O at any price; being a
rather Peculiar People, they would call the new Temple “the 'Ouse” (of
Prey-ers), and make contango-day coincide with Passover....But let him
laugh that is of a merry heart: as for Israel, with weary breast and
hunted stare he sandalled his foot for the final Exodus: yet not as
them without hope. Already--some days before the Order in Council--the
disappearance of Estrella's body, her daring prophecies, had led to the
embarkation of 700 Jews for Palestine; and when the Regent's Edict gave
startling confirmation of her prediction of “the Return”, in many a
million hearts thrilled the certainty: “the Day of the Lord is nigh!”
And with that their stoicism and organizing strength, they mutely turned
to follow the finger of Destiny: their _takifs_ (rich men), hard upon
the unchosen, were, as usual, liberal to their own, the fund swelled,
and a Committee left England for the accumulation of stores and
implements; at the same time two Parliament Bills were passed in two
sittings, empowering the purchase by Government of land “owned” by Jews
on Land Bill terms, and quickening the machinery for the collection of
debts due to Jews.
Whereupon, “You see”, said the Chief Rabbi, “he drives us out: but he
makes us aprons--if only of fig-leaves--to cover us. Let us bow to his
rod, and thank him, and go: he is God's Minister”.
So they went: the world's mercantile marine having been summoned,
sea-ports were turned into caravansaries of gabardine and ear-lock: the
Exodus began.
In the midst of which it came to the knowledge of the Regent that the
house of Frankl was making ready for departure.
And now Hogarth rebelled against Heaven: self-forgetfully he did his
best, and it returned and struck him dead: for what good, he thought,
would his life do him, she always in Asia, he in Europe?
He wrote to her, a passionate hotch-potch of command and grovelling
supplication: if she went, he would curse her; would go mad; would
blaspheme God; would throw up everything; would die.
He had promised to go down to Oxford to receive a degree, and as up to
the time of his departure she had not replied, he went half-unconscious
of himself and those about him.
Now, upon Adair Street the Expulsion had brought despair, the
second-reading now assured, the Jews' vote over, and new writs issued;
the second-reading debate was actually in progress at that date of the
Oxford visit; and though the four yachts, copies of the _Mahomet II_,
were being rapidly put together, the Bill, if at all pressed, must get
through before they could be ready; nor could the House of Lords long
delay its passage.
There remained Harris, so far ineffectual, but not therefore hopeless:
so he, spurred, went down to Oxford.
But what Harris could not do was to get near to Hogarth: his task was,
as it were, to pluck Venus from the firmament; but he mused, he mused
upon her, with musing astrologic eye, with grand patience, fascinated
by her very splendours, not without hope. When at 8 P.M. a banquet was
served to 250 guests in the Radcliffe Library, the upper gallery being
open to a crawling public to see the lions feed, Harris, watching thence
the unattainable under the blue of the canopy--blue always in honour of
the Sea--thought within himself: “Ah, Mr. 76, you've got it all, ain't
you?--for the time being. But 'ow'd you feel if I had a pistol now?
Gawd! I can just see him nicely curl and kick. Worse luck, I can't shoot
a bloomin' 'ouse”.
But the opportunity was so exquisite, that he resolved to try--the exit
reached, would run, get a pistol, and return; but at the door itself
a hand touched his shoulder, and, with a twist of guilty scare, he
saw--O'Hara.
“Good Gawd!” he whispered, “what you want to startle anybody like that
for? Don't you know that the wicked flea pursueth every man, but the
righteous shall escape his filthy snare?”
“What are you doing here, boy?” asked O'Hara.
“Thick-head! ain't I down 'ere after this precious Mr. 76?”--for
Hogarth, if Monarch of the Sun, would have remained for Harris only a
glorified 76, Colmoor being for him the reality of the universe, all
else mirage, such stuff as dreams are made of.
“Well”, said O'Hara, “come with me: want to talk to you”--he just come
from the _Mahomet_ through Spain and France, drawn to Hogarth as moths
to a candle, his petition for pardon not yet answered; and he assumed
that Hogarth's wrath still blazed, though, in fact, answer was only
delayed by competition of greater interests, Hogarth having forgotten
O'Hara; at any rate, O'Hara, with shrinking qualms, had come to Oxford,
thinking: “I will try and get at him for one more talk--I am not afraid
of your eyes, my son: tut! I've seen the great brow in a prison-cap. And
the haughty beast still loves old Pat at bottom, I do declare. Be bold,
be bold, but not _too_ bold....Well, I will! And, if I perish, I perish,
and he perishes, too, so help me, God”....
And to Harris, walking by the towing-path, he said: “No, boy, don't you.
Not now. Tut!--those lords: they are only making you their tool. Don't
you understand? Hogarth is robbing from them the land which they have
robbed from the British people, and they naturally wish to murder him:
but what have _you_, or I, to do with that? Let the thieves fight it out
between them, while we enjoy ourselves, if we can. Weren't we happy in
the _Mahomet_, boy--we two? Didn't you roll whole weeks drunk? That was
better than Colmoor, eh, Alfie? And didn't I have my incense, my grapes,
my little Circassian, and ten thousand pounds in yellow gold a
year? Wasn't that all right? Well, we may have it again!--not in the
_Mahomet_, perhaps, but somewhere. Do nothing--not yet: till I give the
word. If you _must_ kill, get a dog, or a horse, or an obscure old man,
not the Regent of England--”
“Dirty old swine!” cried Harris, angry, “'aven't I forbid you again and
again from making game of me? You're doing it now! You just try that on,
and go up thou bald-head, it _is_!”
“But is this understood between us?”
“Old duffer! you are one thing to-day, and another thing to-morrow:
there's no knowing how to tyke you. You're such a sinful old 'ypocrite,
that you play-act before yourself, I do believe. What is it you do mean?
You myke anyone sick of you; your incense and your burnt sacrifices are
an offence unto me. This Mr. 76 once put a knife into me, and I mean to
put another into him: 'ow's that?”
“Not now!”
“'Ow about your sweet friend, Frankl? I'm under contract with him, ain't
I?”
“Better put the knife into Frankl”.
“Into the pair of you, it strikes me!”
“Well, if you make the least attempt upon Hogarth now, you get not
another shilling--“.
“Bah! shut that--!”
But the threat won sullen consent; and when after the Banquet the
Oxford guests had driven to see the illuminations, spoiled by boisterous
Spring-winds, and when the Regent returned to his chambers, he caught
sight of O'Hara amid the throng that lined the stair; upon which, after
stepping up past, he stopped, twisted round, to say: “You, Admiral
Donald?”
“If I might speak ten minutes with your Lordship's Majesty--”
“What about?”
Those bold eyes of O'Hara dropped.
“Well”, said the Regent, “I will see. Come to-morrow--about five,” and
went on up.
The next morning the Degree was conferred in the theatre, Doctor of
Common Law--“an appropriate one”, the Master of Balliol remarked,
“though 'Surgeon' would perhaps be the _mot juste_”; and thus at last
Hogarth donned cap-and-tassel, though not Frankl's--a livery which drew
from Harris the reflection: “Sweet beauty!--in his mortarboard”. The nip
upon the brow of the college-cap peak resembled the nip of the Scotch
prison-cap, awaking memories: but the symbolism was different.
Meantime, the Regent's eye wandered, madness and folly in his heart, and
fear, till at four a letter came, he having left Loveday at Buckingham
Palace with instructions to open letters and send the One.
She had written:
“What you can expect of me I am unable to conceive. Have you not
expelled me? Let us be worthy of our long friendship, and 'play the
man'....'My exaltation to afflictions high'....With prayers for you, I
say good-bye: and will remember.
“REBEKAH FRANKL”.
Loveday had added: “She left London at noon for Southampton. Purchas
followed to spy. Machray's other detective waits in Palace for
instructions”.
As to the dinner in Christ Church Hall, and the Ball, which were to end
the program of this last day, at four-thirty the news spread that the
Regent had been taken ill.
“Have you not expelled me?”...Was she angry? Did _she_ not know that he
meant well? Hogarth, breaking into a rage, leapt up, with, “I swear to
God that not one step does she move out of this country--!” and rushed
to a bell: a gentleman-usher came.
“What about going?”
“All will be ready in fifteen minutes, my Lord King”.
“I feel bad: say ten minutes; tell the Lord Chamberlain”.
“Yes. I might mention--did your Lordship's Majesty grant a ten minutes'
audience to Admiral Donald for this hour?”
“_Who_? Yes, I think--Just kick him down the stairs! Or no--say I may
see him some day”.
This message, as the usher dashed through, was faithfully dropped at
O'Hara's consciousness; and O'Hara said: “Hoity-toity...!”
Bent-backed he descended to the Quadrangle, with a sense of defeat,
rebuff, contumely, rage, but quite sprightly said to Harris, waiting
beyond the Gateway: “Well, boy, how can we make a night of it? I feel
that way”.
“Seen Mr. 76?”
“Tut, no. Sharpen up that knife for his throat, boy!”
And Harris exclaimed: “Another chynge! Strike me silly!--what did I
sye? Give me a new 'eart, O Lawd, it _is_--you grey-haired old duffer.
Chopping and chynging, always the syme--to your old wife Jyne. I'd be
ashamed of myself in your plyce. But sharpen up the knife, it _is_”.
XLVII
THE EMIGRANTS
Late the same night the Regent received at the Palace a telegram about
Rebekah: She had travelled alone to Southampton, where a landau at the
station had awaited her, in which she had driven to a country-house near
the Itchen named “Silverfern”, two miles from Bitterne Manor, in which
lived an elderly gentleman, Mr. Abrahams, ark-opener and scroll-bearer
in the Synagogue, with his wife and two sons. The passage of these, and
of Rebekah, was booked by the _Calabria_, Jewish emigrant-ship, to sail
in four days.
Hogarth no sooner heard these tidings than he tumbled into crime:
resolved to kidnap Rebekah; to break his own law for his own behoof: one
of the basest acts of a King.
He had four days: and by the end of the second four men lay in wait
round “Silverfern”, one a sea-fort sub-lieutenant, one a detective, and
two others very rough customers: a cottage having been hired by them for
the reception of Rebekah in a dell a mile higher up the Itchen.
But something infects the world; and gravity badgers the bullet's
trajectory; and a magnetic “H” disturbs the needle; and “impossible”
roots turn up in the equation; and the finger of God is in every pie.
Hence, though the four ravishers lay in wait, and actually effected a
seizure, the Regent did not get his girl.
None of the four had ever seen her: but as there was no young lady
except her at “Silverfern”, that seemed of no importance, so she had
been only described to them as dark and pretty.
But on the night after Rebekah's arrival, there came to “Silverfern” a
new inmate: Margaret Hogarth.
_Her_ passage, too, was booked to Palestine.
For Frankl had said: “In expelling the Jews, he shall expel his own
sister. Oh, that's sweet, after all!”
At this time Frankl's interest in Land Bill and England was dead, two
interests only remaining to him: so to realize his share in the Western
world as to reach Jerusalem loaded with wealth; and also, not less
intense, to hurt Hogarth, to outwit him, to cry quits at the last.
It was hard--Hogarth being set so high; but he invoked the help of the
Holy One (blessed be He): and was not without resource.
Why had Hogarth never had him seized, racked? What restrained the Regent
_now_? That was a question with Frankl. Hogarth might say, even to
himself, that Frankl was vermin too small to be crushed, that he waited
for his sister from God; but lately the real reason had grown upon
Frankl: it was because Hogarth _was afraid_ of him! afraid that Frankl,
if persecuted beyond measure, might blurt out the Regent's convict past,
and raise a sensation of horror through the world not pleasant to face.
Harris, O'Hara, Rebekah and Frankl alone knew that past, and the motives
for silence of the first three were obvious; nor had Frankl whispered
that secret even to his own heart in his bed-chamber, conscious of his
own guilt in the matter of the Arab Jew's death, fearing that, if the
wit and power of Hogarth were given motive to move heaven and earth, the
real facts might not be undiscoverable: then would Frankl be ground
to fine powder by the grinders. But if he was going to Palestine, what
mattered?
Also, there was Margaret: she should go out as a Jewess.
She arrived at “Silverfern” in the charge of a Jewish clerk, and the
Abrahams received her as an afflicted orphan, committed to Frankl by her
father; she, like Rebekah, to go under their care.
Well, the evening before the departure, Mr. and Mrs. Abrahams, their
two sons, Rebekah and Margaret, all go for a stroll--about nine o'clock,
that morning one of the four ravishers having been to the house on some
pretence, seen Margaret with Mrs. Abrahams under the porch, and noted
her well, her grey tailor-gown, her brooch, her singing; and now, as all
walked out under the moon, they were watched, the watchers, surprised
at the presence of _two_ young ladies, concluding that the
smaller--Rebekah--must have arrived later: so upon the large and shapely
form of Margaret their gaze fastened, as the party passed near their
hedge of concealment, Margaret then remarking: “My name is Rachel
Oppenheimer--” and Mrs. Abrahams with gentle chiding answering her: “No,
be good: your name is Ruth Levi”.
For during two years at the Jewish Asylum at Wroxham they had
tilled into her shrieking brain, “Now, be good: your name is
Rachel Oppenheimer”, and one day she had said: “My name _is_ Rachel
Oppenheimer”, and had been saying it ever since.
In fact, there was a real Rachel Oppenheimer, a dependent of Frankl's,
at Yarmouth, who was rather mad, and when it had been necessary
that Margaret should be out of the way in order to secure Hogarth's
conviction, two doctors had examined this Rachel Oppenheimer, and given
the legal certificates by means of which Frankl had put away Margaret;
and she during two years of sanity in an atmosphere of lunacy had
screamed for pity, till one morning she had shewed the stare, the
unworldly rapture, and had started to sing her old songs.
After which, Frankl, hearing of it, and touched by some awe, had got her
out, and kept her in one retreat or another.
But in all her madness was mixed some memory of his devilish heart, and
every fresh sight of him inspired her with panic, she in his presence
hanging upon his eyes, instant to obey his slightest hint: hence her
beckoning down to Hogarth from that window in Market Street.
Now, on this last night of England the Abrahams party strolled far, two
days like Summer days having come, on hedge and tree now tripping
the shoots of Spring, the moon-haunted night of a mild mood: so from
“Silverfern” lawns they passed up a steep field northward, down a path
between village-houses, and idled within a pine-wood by the river-side.
The moon's glow was like one luminous ghost: and buttercup, daisy,
snowdrop, primrose gathered Margaret, vagrant, flighty, light to the
winds that wafted her as fluff, and tossed them suddenly aloft, and
back they came to be tangled in her bare hair; and now she was a tipsy
bacchante, singing:
“Will you come to the wedding?
Will you come?
Bring you own bread and butter,
And your own tea and sugar,
And we'll all pay a penny for the Rum”.
“Poor Ruth!”--from Rebekah, an arm about her waist.
“There is such a huge pool which is wheeling”, said Margaret, gazing
at it with surprise, “and it goes hollow in the middle: my goodness,
it does wheel! and there is a little grey duck in it ranging round and
round with it, and this little grey duck is singing like an angel”.
“Do you know where we are going to?” asked Rebekah: “to the land of our
fathers, Ruth, after all the exile in this ugly Western world; and it is
he who sends us, the fierce-willed master of men”.
“My name”, said Margaret, “is Rachel Oppenheimer”; and immediately,
wafted like a half-inflated balloon which leaps to descend a thousand
feet away, she sang:
“Happy day! Happy day!
When Jesus washed my sins away...”
Then, woe-begone, she shook her head, and let fall her abandoned hand;
and Rebekah, speaking more to herself: “Did you never hear of Hogarth,
the King, Ruth? or see him in some dream in shining white, with a face
like the face in the bush which burned and was not consumed?”
But now Margaret laughed, crying out: “Oh, there's a man riding a
shorthorn bull that has wings; white it is: and up they fly, the
bull pawing and snorting, all among the stars. Oh, and now the man is
falling!--my goodness--”
She stood still, gazing at that thing in heaven.
“Well, what has become of the man, dear?” asked Rebekah.
“I can't make out....But I should like to marry that man”.
“Ah, if wishes were fathers, we should all have babies, Ruth, to say our
_kaddish_”.
“Oh, look--!” cried Margaret.
A rabbit had rushed across a path ahead, and she ran that way beyond a
bend....When Rebekah followed she had disappeared.
On Rebekah's outcry all set to search wood, path, river--she was gone;
but after five minutes a voice a long way off in the wood, singing:
“O what a pretty place,
And what a graceful city....”
on which the two youths flew toward the sound, and presently the rest,
following, heard a shout, a cry, then silence, till one of the young
men came running back, his face washed in blood: he had seen some forms,
and, as he had approached, been struck on the brow, his brother felled.
When all came to where the brother lay insensible, no sign of Margaret;
nor could villagers and police, searching through the night, find her.
She had gone without surprise with her four captors, who had carried her
to a cottage of boarded-up windows: and the same hour Hogarth had the
news.
The next morning the four received detailed instructions at the village
_poste restante_: the lady-attendant at the cottage was to ask the
prisoner if she would go to London, try to persuade her, and, if she
consented, make her sign pledge of honour (enclosed) to go without any
attempt at escape during three days.
The men were surprised: for that Margaret was deranged they had seen at
once, and supposed that the Regent must know it: what, then, could her
pledge do? Their business, however, was to obey: and when Margaret
was asked: “Will you go quietly to the Palace in London with us?” she
answered: “Yes!” and sang:
“Here we go to London-town:
Tri-de-laddie! Tri-de-laddie!
See the King with his golden crown,
Tri-de-laddie, O!”
By noon the Abrahams and Rebekah were being tugged out of harbour, to
the hand-wavings and god-speeds of seven emigrant-boats by the quay; but
it was not till five that the Regent's emissaries could obtain a special
train on the thronged lines; and not till after seven did they arrive
with Margaret at the Palace-gates.
Now, that night the Lord Regent and the Prince of Wales were attending
a banquet at the Guildhall, given in honour of sea-rent reduction on
British ships, and at the moment when Margaret arrived Hogarth, already
_en route_, thinking of Rebekah, muttered: “By now she is here!”
But since Frankl, on getting news of the disappearance of Margaret, had
at once conjectured the hand of Hogarth, as Margaret was being handed
from the cab at the Palace-gates, she saw two terrible eyes, and,
snatching her hand free, flew screaming down the street--eyes of Frankl,
who, conjecturing that hither she would be brought, had taken stand
there half the afternoon, knowing precisely the effect upon her of
the sight of his face; and said he: “You see, you haven't got her
yet--though you _shall_ have her to your heart's content....”
As she could only run southward or northward, he had posted two
motor-cars, one containing a clerk to south, the other Harris, to north,
so that, as she ran, one or other should catch her, hustle her in, and
dash away.
In fact, she ran north, right into the arms of Harris, her surprised
guardians still ten yards behind; and “Quick!” hissed Harris, “come with
me, or 'e'll 'ave you!” and was off with her.
Upon which Frankl drove to the Market Street house, where he found
Harris and Margaret; and again, with screams, she sought to fly, though
her first terrors gave place to a quiet subservience after some minutes
of his presence.
“Oh Lawd!” said Harris, “she started singing in the car, you know. Sing
me songs of Araby, it _is_. Enough to give anybody the sicks”.
“You see this gentleman here?” said Frankl to Margaret.
“Yes”, she whispered: “oh my!”
“Well, it so happens that very likely you are going to live in the same
house as him--a big Palace with all gold and silver, where the King with
his crown lives, and all. So while you are there, I want you to be his
friend as if it was myself, and do everything he tells you, same as
myself, in fact. Do you see?”
“Yes”, she whispered, her large form towering above Frankl's, yet awe of
him widening her eyes.
“What's your name?” said he.
“My name is Rachel Oppenheimer”, said she.
“All right: come up and dress”.
She followed him up to a back room, where was a lamp, a glass, etc., and
on an old settee evening-dress complete, shoes, roses, head-wrap.
“Now”, said Frankl, leaving her, he, too, in evening-dress, “I give
you ten minutes to rig yourself out in that lot: a second more, and you
catch it”.
And in fifteen minutes they two were in a cab, _en route_ for the
Guildhall, Frankl, who had invitations for himself and daughter, saying:
“You understand? you keep your eye fixed upon me the whole time--never
mind about eating--and when I hold up my finger _so_, you rise and give
them a little song....”