Dusty purlieus of the law.
TENNYSON.
Leopold Leuniger came slouching down Chancery Lane, his hat at the back
of his head, a woe-begone air on his expressive face, dejection written
in his graceless, characteristic walk, and in the droop of his
picturesque head, which was, it must be owned, a little too large for
his small, slight figure. He turned up under the archway leading to
Lincoln’s Inn, and made his way to New Square, where Reuben’s chambers
were situated.
Reuben, the clerk told him, was in court, but was expected every
minute, and Leo passed into the inner room, which was his cousin’s
private sanctum. It was two or three days after the Day of Atonement,
and in less than a week he would be back in Cambridge.
He paced restlessly to and fro in the little dingy room with its
professional litter of books and papers, pausing now and then to look
out of window, or to examine the mass of cards, photographs, notes and
tickets which adorned the mantelpiece.
Leo was by no means free from the tribal foible of inquisitiveness.
It was not long before the door burst open, and Reuben rushed in, in his
wig and gown. The former decoration imparted a curious air of sageness
to his keen face, and brought out more strongly its peculiarities of
colour: the clear, dark pallor of the skin, the red lights in the eyes
and moustache.
“Hullo!” said Leo, still standing by the mantelpiece, his hat tilted
back at a very acute angle, his restless fingers busy with the cards on
the mantelpiece, “a nice gay time you appear to be having, old man:
Jewish Board of Guardians, committee meeting; Anglo-Jewish Association,
committee meeting; Bell Lane Free Schools, committee meeting--shall I go
on?”
Reuben laughed.
“You see, it consolidates one’s position both ways to stand well with
the Community; and I am a very good Jew at heart, as I have often told
you. But if you continue your investigations among my list of
engagements you will find a good many meetings of all sorts, which are
not communal; not to speak of first nights at the Terpischore and the
Thalian.”
Leo, abandoning the subject, flung himself into a chair and said: “Ah,
by the by, how is Ronaldson?”
“Much the same as ever. It may be a long business. The doctors have left
off issuing bulletins.”
Reuben took the chair opposite his cousin, then said shortly:
“You have come to tell me something.”
“Yes. I have been having it out with my governor.”
“Ah?” interrogatively.
“I told him,” went on Leo, leaning forward and speaking with some
excitement, “that I hadn’t the faintest idea of going on the Stock
Exchange, or even of reading for the bar; that my plan was this: to work
hard for my degree, and then stay on, on chance of a fellowship. Every
one up there seems to think the matter lies virtually in my own hands.”
“What did my uncle say to that?”
“Oh, he was furious; wouldn’t listen to reason for a moment. I
think”--with a boyish, bitter laugh--“that he rather confounds a fellow
of Trinity with the assistant-master at a Jewish boarding-school. The
word ‘usher’ figured very largely in his arguments.”
“I think,” said Reuben slowly, “that you are making a mistake.”
“Ah,” cried Leo, flinging out his hand, “you don’t understand. I can’t
live--I can’t breathe in this atmosphere; I should choke. Up there,
somehow, it is freer, purer; life is simpler, nobler.”
Reuben looked down: “I quite agree with you on that point. All the same,
you were never cut out for a University don. Do you want me to tell you
that you are a musician?”
Leo blushed like a girl, and his face quivered. He did not altogether
approve of Reuben, but Reuben’s approval was very precious to him.
Moreover he greatly respected his cousin’s intelligent appreciation of
music.
“Do you think so?” he cried. “That’s what Norwood says. But there is
plenty of opportunity for cultivating music; we have Silver up there,
remember. He is immensely kind.”
“You might talk it over with Silver. But think it well over and do
nothing rash. There is plenty of time between now and taking your
degree.”
He rose and proceeded to take off his wig and gown.
“I don’t know that my advice is worth much,” he said, “but I should say
a year or two in Germany--Leipsic, Berlin, Vienna--and if by then you
feel justified in setting your face against the substantial attractions
of Capel Court, no doubt your governor can be brought round.”
“You will have to put it to him, Reuben. He believes in no one as he
does in you.”
“Very handsome of him. But doubtless he will welcome the idea after the
usher scheme.”
“You will have to paint the splendours of a musical success,” cried Leo,
his spirits rising, his white teeth flashing as he smiled. “You must
employ rather crude colours, and go in for obvious effects--such as the
Prince of Wales, the Lord Mayor, and the Archbishop of Canterbury seated
in the front row of the stalls at St. James’s Hall.”
Reuben laughed as he put on his well brushed hat before the glass.
“I will impress upon him how fashionable is the pursuit of the arts in
these democratic days.” He added slowly, looking furtively at the lad:
“And shall I tell him that one of these days you will marry very well
indeed?”
Leo rose hastily, jarred discomposed.
“Aren’t you coming to lunch, Reuben?”
“Yes, I am ready.” He smiled to himself, and the two young men passed
out together into the paved court-yard of the old inn.
They made their way up Chancery Lane into Holborn. Leo hated London
almost as vehemently as his cousin loved it. It was the place, he said,
which had succeeded better than any other in reducing life to a huge
competitive examination. Its busy, characteristic streets, which Reuben
regarded with an interest both passionate and affectionate, filled him
with a dreary sensation of disgust and depression.
As they sat down to lunch at the First Avenue Hotel, Lord Norwood came
into the dining-room. He was a tall, fair, aristocratic-looking young
man, with a refined and thoughtful face, which, as he advanced towards
his friend, broke into a peculiarly charming smile.
Leo exclaimed with impetuosity: “Oh, there’s Norwood!” But as the latter
approached he stiffened into self-consciousness; somehow, he did not
welcome the juxtaposition of his cousin and his friend. Acting on a
sudden impulse he rose and met the latter half-way, and the two young
men stood talking together in the middle of the room.
Reuben, after a moment’s hesitation, rose also and joined them. He
greeted Lord Norwood, whom he had met once or twice before, with a
little emphasis of deference, which was not lost on poor Leo, who hated
himself at the same time for noticing it. Lord Norwood returned
Reuben’s greeting with marked _hauteur_; that cousin of Leuniger’s was a
snob, was not a person to be encouraged. In the young nobleman’s
delicate, fastidious, but exceedingly _borné_ mind there was no mercy
for such as he.
Reuben, though he showed no signs of it, was keenly alive to the fact
that he had been snubbed; was alive no less keenly to the many points in
favour of the offender.
The Norwoods were people whom it hurt the subtler part of his vanity not
to stand well with.
They were not rich, not “smart,” not politically important; but in their
own fashion they were people of the very best sort, true aristocrats,
such as few remain to us in these degenerate days.
For generations they had borne the reputation of high personal character
and of scholarly attainment. They were, in the true sense of the word,
exclusive; and their pride was of that nature which, as the poet has it,
asserts an inward honour by denying outward show.
The friendship existing between Lord Norwood and Leo was founded on
mutual admiration.
The Jew’s many-sided talent, his brilliant scholarship, his mental
quickness and versatility, above all, his musical genius, had fairly
dazzled the scholarly young Englishman, who loved art, but had not a
drop of artist’s blood in his veins.
Leo, on his part, had fallen down before the other’s refinement of mind
and soul and body, and before the delicate strength of his character.
It was a strange friendship perhaps, but one which had stood, and was
destined long to stand, the test of time.
Meanwhile Reuben, who knew that it is half the battle not to know when
you are vanquished, quietly invited Lord Norwood to join them at table.
He pleaded, coldly, an appointment with a friend, and after a few words
with Leo withdrew to a further apartment.
Leo had taken in the slight, brief, yet significant episode in all its
bearings, hating himself meanwhile for his own shrewdness, which he
considered a mark of latent meanness.
Reuben returned thoughtfully, if quite composedly, to the discussion of
his roast pheasant and potato chips.
His method of wiping out a snub was the grandly simple one of making a
conquest of the snubber. Persons less completely equipped for the battle
of life have been known to prefer certain defeat to the chances of such
a victory.
But Reuben was possessed of a bottomless fund of silent energy, of
quiet resistance and persistence, which had stood him ere now in good
stead under like circumstances.
He appraised Lord Norwood very justly; recognized instinctively the
charms of mind and manner which had cast such glamour over him in his
cousin’s eyes; recognized also his limitations, with an irritated
consciousness that he, Reuben, was being judged at a far less
open-minded tribunal. In such cases, it is always the more intelligent
person who is at a disadvantage--he appreciates, and is not appreciated.
I have no intention of following out Reuben’s relations with Lord
Norwood, throughout which, it may be added, he had little to gain, even
in the matter of social prestige, for he numbered people far more
important among his acquaintance. But it was not long before an
invitation to Norwood Towers was given and accepted. By one at least of
the people concerned however, the circumstances which had marked the
earlier stages of their acquaintance were never forgotten.
* * * * *
A few days later saw Leo back at Trinity with his lexicon, his violin,
and the friend of his heart. Here he alternately worked furiously and
gave himself up to spells of complete idleness; to sauntering, sociable
days spent in cheerful, excited discussion of the vexed problems of the
universe, or long days of moody solitude. At these latter times he
pondered deeply on the unsatisfactoriness of life in general, and of his
own life in particular, and underwent a good many uncomfortable
sensations which he ascribed to a hopeless passion for his friend’s
sister.
Lady Geraldine Sydenham was a gentle, kindly, cultivated young woman,
who had not the faintest idea of having inspired any one with hopeless
passion, least of all young Leuniger.
She was two or three years older than Leo--a thin, pale person, with
faint colouring, a rather receding chin, and slightly prominent teeth.
She dressed dowdily, and even Leo did not credit her with being pretty.
Indeed he took a fanciful pleasure in dwelling on the fact that she was
plain, and in quoting to himself the verse from Browning’s _Too Late_:
“ ... There never was to my mind
Such a funny mouth, for it would not shut;
And the dented chin too--what a chin!...
You were thin, however; like a bird’s
Your hand seemed--some would say the pounce
Of a scaly-footed hawk--all but!
The world was right when it called you thin.”
Meanwhile in London Bertie Lee-Harrison was celebrating the Feast of
Tabernacles as best he could.
He had given up with considerable reluctance his plan of living in a
tent, the resources of his flat in Albert Hall Mansions not being able
to meet the scheme.
He consoled himself by visits to the handsome _succouth_ which the
Montague Cohens had erected in their garden in the Bayswater Road.