On this day shall He make an atonement for you, to purify you; you
shall be clean from all your sins. _Leviticus_ xvi. 30.
Herbert, or, as he was generally spoken of, Bertie Lee-Harrison, called
at Lancaster Gate on the day of the New Year, to make acquaintance with
Reuben’s people and offer his best wishes for the year 564-.
He was a small, fair, fluent person, very carefully dressed, assiduously
polite, and bearing on his amiable, commonplace, neatly modelled little
face no traces of the spiritual conflict which any one knowing his
history might have supposed him to have passed through.
Esther, who happened to be calling on her aunt at the time of Bertie’s
visit, classified him at once as an intelligent fool; but Adelaide
professed herself delighted with the little man, and had had the joy of
informing him that she had once met his sister, Lady Kemys, at a
garden-party.
“Lady Kemys is charming,” Reuben said when the matter was being
discussed. “Sir Nicholas, too, is a good fellow. They have a place some
miles out of St. Baldwin’s.”
His mind ran a good deal on St. Baldwin’s in these days, and on poor
Ronaldson, its Conservative member, lying hopelessly ill in Grosvenor
Place.
Reuben, it may be added, was true to the traditions of his race, and
wore the primrose; while Leo, who knew nothing about politics, gave
himself out as a social democrat.
Mr. Lee-Harrison was to break his fast in Portland Place on the evening
of the Day of Atonement, when it was old Solomon’s custom to assemble
his family round him in great numbers.
Adelaide objected to this arrangement.
“It will give him such a bad impression,” she said.
“He asked for local colour, and local colour he shall have,” answered
Reuben, amused.
“It is disloyal to your own people to assume such an attitude regarding
them to a stranger. After all, he is not one of us,” cried Adelaide,
taking a high tone.
“Your accusations are a little vague, Addie; but to tell you the truth I
had no choice in the matter. I took him up yesterday to Portland Place,
and the old man gave him the invitation. He simply jumped at it.”
“Those dreadful Samuel Sachses!” groaned Adelaide.
“Oh, they are a remarkable survival. You should learn to take them in
the right spirit,” answered her brother.
He was dining that night at the house of an important Conservative M.P.,
and was disposed to take a cheerful view of things.
* * * * *
The Fast Day, or Day of Atonement, is the greatest national occasion of
the whole year.
Even those lax Jews who practise their callings on Saturdays and other
religious holidays, are withheld by public opinion on either side the
tribal barrier from doing so on this day of days.
The synagogues are thronged; and if the number of people who rigidly
adhere to total abstinence from food for twenty-four hours is rapidly
diminishing, there are still many to be found who continue to do so.
Solomon Sachs, his daughter Rebecca, and the Montague Cohens worshipped
in the Bayswater synagogue; the rest of the family had seats in the
Reformed synagogue in Upper Berkeley Street, an arrangement to which the
old man was too liberal-minded to take objection.
The Quixano family attended the synagogue of the Spanish and Portuguese
Jews in Bryanston Street, with the exception of Judith, who shared with
her cousins the simplified service, the beautiful music, and other
innovations of Upper Berkeley Street.
The morning of the particular Day of Atonement of which I write dawned
bright and clear; and from an early hour, in all quarters of the town,
the Chosen People--a breakfastless band--might have been seen making
their way to the synagogues.
Many of the women were in white, which is considered appropriate wear
for the occasion; and if traces of depression were discernible on many
faces, in view of the long day before them, it is scarcely to be
wondered at.
It was about ten o’clock when the Leunigers, who had all breakfasted,
made their way into the great hall of the synagogue in Upper Berkeley
Street, where the people were streaming in, in great numbers. As they
paused a moment at the bottom of the staircase leading to the ladies’
gallery, for their party to divide according to sex, Reuben came up to
them with Bertie Lee-Harrison in his wake.
There was a general hand-shaking, and Reuben, as he pressed her fingers,
smiled a half-humorous, half-rueful smile at Judith--a protest against
the rigours and _longueurs_ of the day which lay before them.
She managed to say to him over her shoulder:
“How is Mr. Ronaldson?”
“He has taken a turn for the better.”
They laughed in one another’s faces.
Bertie, struck by the effect of that sudden, rapidly checked wave of
mirth passing over the beautiful, serious face, remarked to Reuben as
they turned towards the entrance to their part of the building, that the
Jewish ladies were certainly very lovely. Reuben said nothing; they were
by this time well within the synagogue, but he glanced quickly and
coldly under his eyelids at Bertie picking his way jauntily to his seat.
Ernest Leuniger, who was very devout, and who loved the exercise of his
religion even more than the game of solitaire, had already enwound
himself in his _talith_, exchanged his tall hat for an embroidered cap,
and was muttering his prayers in Hebrew below his breath.
Leo, his small, slight, picturesque figure swathed carelessly in the
long white garment, with the fringes and the border of blue, his hat
tilted over his eyes, leaned against a porphyry column, lost to
everything but the glorious music which rolled out from the great organ.
He had come to-day under protest, to prevent a definite break with his
father, who exacted attendance at synagogue on no other day of the year.
The time was yet to come when he should acknowledge to himself the depth
of tribal feeling, of love for his race, which lay at the root of his
nature. At present he was aware of nothing but revolt against, almost of
hatred of, a people who, as far as he could see, lived without ideals,
and was given up body and soul to the pursuit of material advantage.
Behind him his two little brothers were quarrelling for possession of a
prayer-book. Near him stood his father, swaying from side to side, and
mumbling his prayers in the corrupt German-Hebrew of his youth--a
jargon not recognized by the modern culture of Upper Berkeley Street.
Reuben and his friend had seats opposite; seats moreover which commanded
a good view of the ladies of the Leuniger household in the gallery
above: Mrs. Leuniger, in a rich lace shawl, very much crumpled, and a
new bonnet hopelessly askew; Rose, in a tight-fitting costume of white,
with blue ribbons; Judith, in white also, her dusky hair, the clear,
soft oval of her face surmounted by a flippant French bonnet--the very
latest fashion.
It was a long day, growing less and less endurable as it went on; the
atmosphere getting thicker and hotter and sickly with the smell of stale
perfume.
The people, for the most part, stuck to their posts throughout. A few
disappeared boldly about lunch time, returning within an hour refreshed
and cheerful. Some--these were chiefly men--fidgeted in and out of the
building to the disturbance of their neighbours. One or two ladies
fainted; one or two others gossiped audibly from morning till evening;
but, on the whole, decorum was admirably maintained.
Judith Quixano went through her devotions upheld by that sense of
fitness, of obedience to law and order, which characterized her every
action.
But it cannot be said that her religion had any strong hold over her;
she accepted it unthinkingly.
These prayers, read so diligently, in a language of which her knowledge
was exceedingly imperfect, these reiterated praises of an austere tribal
deity, these expressions of a hope whose consummation was neither
desired nor expected, what connection could they have with the personal
needs, the human longings of this touchingly ignorant and limited
creature?
Now and then, when she lifted her eyes, she saw the bored, resigned face
of Reuben opposite, and the respectful, attentive countenance of Mr.
Lee-Harrison, who was going through the day’s proceedings with all the
zeal of a convert.
Leo had absented himself early in the day, and was wandering about the
streets in one of those intolerable fits of restless misery which
sometimes laid their hold on him.
Esther was not in synagogue. She had had a sharp wrangle with her mother
the night before, which had ended in her staying in bed with _Good-bye,
Sweetheart!_ for company.
She, poor soul, was of those who deny utterly the existence of the
Friend of whom she stood so sorely in need.