My lord, will’t please you to fall to?
_Richard II._
A limp, drab-coloured group was assembled in the drawing-room at
Portland Place.
It was nearly half-past seven, and it only wanted the arrival of the
Samuel Sachses--who came from the St. John’s Wood synagogue--for the
whole party to descend into the dining-room, where the much-needed meal
awaited them.
The Leunigers were there, of course, with the exception of Ernest and
his mother, who had gone home; the Sachses; the Montague Cohens; Mrs.
Kohnthal and Esther, who had left her bed at the eleventh hour prompted
by a desire for society; Judith; Mr. and Mrs. Quixano, their son Jack,
and two young sisters.
Bertie Lee-Harrison, who had come in with Reuben, pale, exhausted, but
prepared to be impressed by every thing and every one he saw, confided
to his friend that the twenty-four hours’ fast had been the severest
ordeal he had as yet undergone in the service of religion--his
experiences in Asia Minor not excepted.
Leo, whose mood had changed, overheard this confidence with an
irresistible twitching of the lips. He was sitting on the big sofa with
his two little brothers, making jokes below his breath to their immense
delight; while Rose, at the other end of the same piece of furniture,
was maintaining an animated conversation with her cousin Jack.
Jack Quixano was a spruce, dapper, polite young man of some twenty-four
or twenty-five years of age. Perhaps he was a little too spruce, a
little too dapper, a little too anxious to put himself _en évidence_ by
his assiduity in picking up handkerchiefs and opening doors. But few of
his family noticed these defects, least of all Rose, on whom he was
beginning to cast aspiring eyes, and whom he closely resembled in
personal appearance.
The door opened at last, to every one’s relief, to admit the expected
guests: a party of six--father, mother, grown-up son and daughter, a
little girl and a little boy.
Samuel Sachs was the unsuccessful member of his family.
From the beginning, the atmosphere of the Stock Exchange had proved too
strong for his not very strong brains, and his career had been
inaugurated by a series of gambling debts.
His father paid his debts and forbade him the office, and he had gone
his own way for many years, settling down ultimately in a humble way of
business as a lithographer.
He had married a Polish Jewess with some money of her own, and in these
latter days old Solomon made him an allowance, so there was enough and
to spare in the home in Maida Vale where he and his family were
established.
They came now into the crowded drawing-room with a curious mixture of
deference and self-assertion.
To their eminently provincial minds, the Bayswater Sachses, the
Leunigers and the Kohnthals were very great people indeed, and they
derived no little prestige in Maida Vale from their connection with so
distinguished a family.
But as regarded their occasional admittance into the charmed circle,
that was a privilege which, though they would on no account have
foregone it, was certainly not without its drawbacks.
It was splendid, but it was not comfortable.
Mrs. Sachs was a stout, dark-haired matron, who entirely overshadowed
her shambling, neutral-tinted husband. Netta, the eldest daughter, was a
black-eyed, richly coloured, bouncing maiden of two or three-and-twenty,
wearing a white dress, with elbow sleeves, cut open a little at the
neck, and a great deal of silver jewellery.
Alec, her brother, was a short, fair, exuberant-looking youth, with a
complexion both glossy and florid, in whom the Sachses fitness for
survival had re-asserted itself. He practised painless dentistry with
great success in the heart of Maida Vale, and was writing a
manual--destined to pass through several editions--on _Diseases of the
Teeth and Gums_.
Adèle and Bernard (pronounced Adale and Bernàrd), the two children,
strutted in behind the others, in all the glory of white cambric and
black velveteen, respectively, much impressed by the situation, but no
less on the defensive than the elder members of their family.
There was languid greeting all round; languor, under the circumstances,
was excusable; and then the whole party poured down into the
dining-room, where an abundant meal was set out.
Old Solomon prided himself on his hospitality, and the great table,
which shone with snowy linen, gleaming china, and glittering silver,
groaned, as the phrase goes, with good things to eat.
There were golden-brown blocks of cold fried fish in heavy silver
dishes; rosy piles of smoked salmon; saffron-tinted masses of stewed
fish; long twisted loaves covered with seeds; innumerable little plates
of olives, pickled herrings, and pickled cucumbers; and the quick eyes
of Lionel and Sidney had lighted at once on the many coloured surfaces
of the almond puddings, which awaited the second course on the
sideboard.
Aunt Rebecca, faint and yellow, behind a the silver urns, dispensed tea
and coffee with rapid hand; while old Solomon, none the worse for his
rigid fast, wielded the fish slice at the other end of the table.
Bertie, respectful, wondering, interested through all his hunger, was
seated between Reuben and Mrs. Kohnthal.
Adelaide had chosen her seat as far as possible from the Samuel Sachses,
whose presence was an offence to her. They, on their part, regarded her
with a mixture of respect and dislike. She never gave them more than two
fingers in her grandfather’s house, and ignored them altogether when
she met them anywhere else. This conduct impressed them by its
magnificence, and they followed the ups and downs of her career, as far
as they were able, with a passionate interest that had in it something
of the pride of possession.
Nor was Adelaide above taking an interest in the affairs of her humbler
relatives behind their backs. I cannot help wishing that they had known
this; it would have been to them the source of so much innocent
gratification.
Reuben, who had his cousin Netta on the other side of him, and whose
vanity was a far subtler, more complicated affair than his sister’s, was
making himself agreeable with his accustomed urbanity, beneath which the
delighted maiden was unable to detect a lurking irony.
The humours of the Samuel Sachses, their appearance, gestures, their
excruciating method of pronouncing the English language, the hundred and
one tribal peculiarities which clung to them, had long served their
cousins as a favourite family joke into which it would have been
difficult for the most observant of outsiders to enter.
They were indeed, as Reuben had said, a remarkable survival.
Born and bred in the very heart of nineteenth century London, belonging
to an age and a city which has seen the throwing down of so many
barriers, the levelling of so many distinctions of class, of caste, of
race, of opinion, they had managed to retain the tribal characteristics,
to live within the tribal pale to an extent which spoke worlds for the
national conservatism.
They had been educated at Jewish schools, fed on Jewish food, brought up
on Jewish traditions and Jewish prejudice.
Their friends, with few exceptions, were of their own race, the making
of acquaintance outside the tribal barrier being sternly discouraged by
the authorities. Mrs. Samuel Sachs indeed had been heard more than once
to observe pleasantly that she would sooner see her daughters lying dead
before her than married to Christians.
Netta tossed her head defiantly at these remarks, but contented herself
with sowing her little crop of wild oats on the staircases of Bayswater
and Maida Vale, where she “sat out” by the hour with the very
indifferent specimens of Englishmen who frequented the dances in her
set.
Generally speaking, the race instincts of Rebecca of York are strong,
and she is less apt to give her heart to Ivanhoe, the Saxon knight, than
might be imagined.
Bernard Sachs, a very smug-looking little boy, with inordinately thick
lips and a disagreeable nasal twang, had been placed between the two
young Leunigers, who regarded him with a mixture of disgust and
amusement, which they were at small pains to conceal.
“Did you fast all day?” he said, by way of opening the conversation. “I
did. I was _bar-mitz-vah_ last month. Is either of you fellows
_bar-mitz-vah_?”
“I am thirteen, if that’s what you mean,” said Lionel, with his most man
of-the-world air. He considered the introduction of the popular tribal
phrases very bad form indeed.
“I suppose you were in _shool_ all day?” went on Bernard unabashed, and
much on his dignity.
“I was only in synagogue in the morning,” answered Lionel. Then he
kicked Sidney violently under the table, and the two little brothers
went off into a series of chuckles; while Bernard, with a vague sense
of being insulted, turned his attention to his fried salmon and Dutch
herring.
Meanwhile Alec, who had been rather subdued at the beginning of the
evening, was regaining his native confidence as the meal proceeded.
He happened to be sitting opposite Bertie, and having elicited from his
neighbour, Mrs. Quixano, the explanation of an alien presence among them
on such an occasion, had fixed his attention with great frankness on the
stranger.
Very soon he was leaning across the table, and with much use of his fat
red hands, and many liftings of his round shoulders, was expatiating to
the astonished Bertie on the beauties and advantages of the faith which
he had just embraced.
“Mr. Harrison,” he cried at last--he preferred to skip the difficulties
of the double-barrelled name--“Mr. Harrison, take my word for it, it is
the finest religion under the sun. Those who have left it for reasons of
their own have always come back in the end. They’re bound to, they’re
bound to!” (He pronounced the word “bound” with an indescribable twang.)
“Look at Lord Beaconsfield”--he pointed with his short
forefinger--“everyone knows he died with the _shemang_ on his lips!”
There was a sudden stifled explosion of laughter from Leo’s quarter of
the table; and Judith glanced across rather anxiously at Reuben, on
whose polite, impassive face she at once detected a look of annoyance.
She was sitting next to her father in the close-fitting white gown which
displayed to advantage the charming lines of her arms and shoulders.
Now and then she caught the glance of Mr. Lee-Harrison, who was far too
well-bred to obtrude his admiration by staring, fixed momentarily on her
face.
The hunger and weariness natural, under the circumstances, to her youth
and health had in no way marred the perfect freshness of her appearance;
and there was a gentle kindliness in her manner to her father which
added a charm, not always present, to her beauty.
Perhaps she felt instinctively, what Quixano himself was far too much in
the clouds to notice, that no one made much account of him, that it
behoved her to take him under her protection. He was one of this world’s
failures; and the Jewish people, so eager to crown success in any form,
so determined in laying claim to the successful among their number, have
scant love for those unfortunates who have dropped behind in the race.
The meal came to an end at last, and there was a pushing back of chairs
on the part of the men.
Bertie, about to rise, felt himself held down by main force; Reuben was
gripping him hard by the wrist with one hand, and with the other was
engaged in fishing out his hat from under the table; while Netta,
leaning across her cousin, explained with her most fascinating smile
that grandpa was going to _bench_.
Bertie, at a sign from Reuben, rose to the situation, and stooping for
his own hat with alacrity, drew it from its place of concealment and
placed it on his head. By this time all the men had unearthed and
assumed their head-gear, with the exception of Samuel Sachs, whose hat
by some mischance was not forthcoming; however, to avoid delay, he
covered his head in all gravity with his table-napkin.
Bertie glanced round him, from one face to another, puzzled and
inquiring.
It seemed to him a solemn moment, this gathering together of kinsfolk
after the long day of prayer, of expiation; this offering up of
thanksgiving; this performance of the ancient rites in the land of
exile.
He could not understand the spirit of indifference, of levity even,
which appeared to prevail.
A finer historic sense, other motives apart, should, it seemed, have
prevented so obvious a display of the contempt which familiarity had
bred.
Alec had put his hat on rakishly askew, and was winking across to him
re-assuringly, as though to intimate that the whole thing was not to be
taken seriously.
Rose, led on by Jack Quixano, giggled hysterically behind her
pocket-handkerchief.
Leo and Esther took on airs of aggressive boredom. Judith, lifting her
eyes, met Reuben’s in a smile, and even Montague Cohen permitted himself
to yawn.
Only old Solomon at the head of the table, mumbling and droning out the
long grace in his corrupt Hebrew--his great face impenetrably
grave--appeared to take any interest in the proceeding, with perhaps the
exception of his son Samuel, who joined in now and then from beneath the
drooping shelter of his table-napkin.
Bertie stared and Bertie wondered. Needless to state, he was completely
out of touch with these people whose faith his search for the true
religion had led him, for the time being, to embrace.
Grace over, the women went up stairs, the men, with the exception of old
Solomon, remaining behind to smoke.
Bertie, who was thoroughly tired out, soon rose to go.
“I will make your excuses up stairs,” said Reuben.
But the polite little man preferred to go to the drawing-room and
perform his farewells in person.
“Thanks so much,” he said in the hall, where Leo and Reuben were
speeding him.
“I hope you have been edified--that’s all.” Reuben laughed.
“I am deeply interested in the Jewish character,” answered Bertie; “the
strongly marked contrasts; the underlying resemblances; the elaborate
differentiations from a fundamental type--!”
“Ah, yes,” broke in Reuben, secretly irritated, his tribal sensitiveness
a little hurt, “you will find among us all sorts and conditions of men.”
“Except perhaps Don Quixote, or even King Cophetua,” added Leo.
“King Cophetua,” repeated Reuben in a slow, reflective tone, as the door
closed on Mr. Lee-Harrison; “King Cophetua had an assured position. It
isn’t every one that can afford to marry beggar-maids.”