I
The day came when old Daniel Peyser could no longer withstand his
wife's desire for a wider social sphere and a horizon blacker with
advancing bachelors. For there were seven daughters, and not a man to
the pack. Indeed, there had been only one marriage in the whole
Portsmouth congregation during the last five years, and the Christian
papers had had reports of the novel ceremony, with the ritual bathing
of the bride and the breaking of the glass under the bridegroom's
heel. To Mrs. Peyser, brought up amid the facile pairing of the
Russian pale, this congestion of celibacy approached immorality.
Portsmouth with its careless soldiers and sailors might be an
excellent town for pawnbroking, especially when one was not too
punctiliously acceptant of the ethics of the heathen, but as a market
for maidens--even with dowries and pretty faces--it was hopeless. But
it was not wholly as an emporium for bachelors that London appealed.
It was the natural goal of the provincial Jew, the reward of his
industry. The best people had all drifted to the mighty magic city,
whose fascination survived even cheap excursions to it.
Would father deny that they had now made enough to warrant the
migration? No, father would not deny it. Ever since he had left
Germany as a boy he had been saving money, and his surplus he had
shrewdly invested in the neighbouring soil of Southsea, fast growing
into a watering-place. Even allowing three thousand pounds for each
daughter's dowry, he would still have a goodly estate.
Was there any social reason why they should not cut as great a dash as
the Benjamins or the Rosenweilers? No, father would not deny that his
girls were prettier and more polished than the daughters of these
pioneers, especially when six of them crowded around the stern granite
figure, arguing, imploring, cajoling, kissing.
"But I don't see why we should waste the money," he urged, with the
cautious instincts of early poverty.
"Waste!" and the pretty lips made reproachful "Oh's!"
"Yes, waste!" he retorted. "In India one treads on diamonds and gold,
but in London the land one treads on costs diamonds and gold."
"But are we never to have a grandson?" cried Mrs. Peyser.
The Indian item was left unquestioned, so that little Schnapsie, whose
childish imagination was greatly impressed by these eventful family
debates, had for years a vivid picture of picking her way with bare
feet over sharp-pointed diamonds and pebbly gold. Indeed, long after
she had learned to wonder at her father's naive geography the word
"India" always shone for her with barbaric splendour.
Environed by so much persistent femininity, the rugged elderly toiler
was at last nagged into accepting a leisured life in London.