'Dear Sir,'Your man called upon me last night, asking for payment for four advertisements of my Passover groceries. But I have changed my mind about them and do not want them, and therefore beg to return the four numbers sent me. You will see I have not opened them or soiled them in any way, so please cancel the claim in your books.'Yours truly,'Isaac Wollberg.'
'Dear Sir,
'Your man called upon me last night, asking for payment for four advertisements of my Passover groceries. But I have changed my mind about them and do not want them, and therefore beg to return the four numbers sent me. You will see I have not opened them or soiled them in any way, so please cancel the claim in your books.
'Yours truly,'Isaac Wollberg.'
'He evidently thinks the vouchers sent himarethe advertisements,' screamed Little Sampson.
'But if he is as ignorant as all that, how could he have written the letter?' asked Raphael.
'Oh, it was probably written for him for twopence by the Shalotten Shammos, the begging-letter writer.'
'This is almost as funny as Karlkammer,' said Raphael.
Karlkammer had sent in a long essay on the 'Sabbatical Year Question,' which Raphael had revised and published, with Karlkammer's title at the head and Karlkammer's name at the foot. Yet, owing to the few rearrangements and inversions of sentences, Karlkammer never identified it as his own, and was perpetually calling to inquire when his article would appear. He brought with him fresh manuscripts of the article as originally written. He was not the only caller. Raphael was much pestered by visitors on kindly counsel bent or stern exhortation. The sternest were those who had never yet paid their subscriptions. De Haan also kept up proprietorial rights of interference. In private life Raphael suffered much from pillars of the Montagu Samuels type, who accused him of flippancy, and no communal crisis invented by Little Sampson ever equalled the pother and commotion that arose when Raphael incautiously allowed him to burlesque the notoriousMordecai Josephsby comically exaggerating its exaggerations. The community took it seriously as an attack upon the race. Mr. and Mrs. Henry Goldsmith were scandalised, and Raphael had to shield Little Sampson by accepting the whole responsibility for its appearance.
'Talking of Karlkammer's article, are you ever going to use up Herman's scientific paper?' asked Little Sampson.
'I'm afraid so,' said Raphael, 'I don't know how we can get out of it. But his eternalkoshermeat sticks in my throat. We are Jews for the love of God, not to be saved from consumption bacilli. But I won't use it to-morrow; we have Miss Cissy Levine's tale. It's not half bad. What a pity she has the expenses of her books paid! If she had to achieve publication by merit, her style might be less slipshod.'
'I wish some rich Jew would pay the expenses of my opera tour,' said Little Sampson ruefully. 'My style of doing the thing would be improved. The people who are backing me up are awfully stingy. Actually buying up battered old helmets for my chorus of Amazons.'
Intermittently the question of the sub-editor's departure for the provinces came up; it was only second infrequency to his 'victories.' About once a month the preparations for the tour were complete, and he would go about in a heyday of jubilant vocalisation; then his comicprima donnawould fall ill or elope, his conductor would get drunk, his chorus would strike, and Little Sampson would continue to sub-edit theFlag of Judah.
Pinchas unceremoniously turned the handle of the door and came in. The sub-editor immediately hurried out to get a cup of tea. Pinchas had fastened upon him the responsibility for the omission of an article last week, and had come to believe that he was in league with rival Continental scholars to keep Melchitzedek Pinchas's effusions out of print, and so Little Sampson dared not face the angry savant. Raphael, thus deserted, cowered in his chair. He did not fear death, but he feared Pinchas, and had fallen into the cowardly habit of bribing him lavishly not to fill the paper. Fortunately the poet was in high feather.
'Don't forget the announcement that I lecture at the Club on Sunday. You see, all the efforts of Reb Shemuel, of the Rev. Joseph Strelitski, of the Chief Rabbi, of Ebenezer vid his blue spectacles, of Sampson, of all the phalanx of English Men-of-the-Earth, they all fail. Ah, I am a great man.'
'I won't forget,' said Raphael wearily. 'The announcement is already in print.'
'Ah, I love you. You are the best man in the vorld. It is you who have championed me against those who are thirsting for my blood. And now I vill tell you joyful news. There is a maiden coming up to see you; she is asking in the publisher's office. Oh, such a lovely maiden!'
Pinchas grinned all over his face, and was like to dig his editor in the ribs.
'What maiden?'
'I do not know, but vai-r-r-y beaudiful. Aha, I vill go! Have you not been good tome? But vy come not beaudiful maidens tome?'
'No, no, you needn't go,' said Raphael, getting red.
Pinchas grinned, as one who knew better, and struck a match to rekindle a stump of cigar.
'No, no, I go write my lecture; oh, it vill be a great lecture. You vill announce it in the paper? You vill not leave it out like Sampson left out my article last week?'
He was at the door now, with his finger alongside his nose.
Raphael shook himself impatiently, and the poet threw the door wide and disappeared.
For a full minute Raphael dared not look towards the door, for fear of seeing the poet's cajoling head framed in the opening. When he did, he was transfixed to see Esther Ansell's there, regarding him pensively.
His heart beat painfully at the shock; the room seemed flooded with sunlight.
'May I come in?' she said, smiling.
Esther wore a neat black mantle, and looked taller and more womanly than usual in a pretty bonnet and a spotted veil. There was a flush of colour in her cheeks, her eyes sparkled. She had walked, in cold sunny weather, from the British Museum (where she was still supposed to be), and the wind had blown loose a little wisp of hair over the small shell-like ear. In her left hand she held a roll of manuscript—it contained her criticisms of the May Exhibitions. Whereby hung a tale.
In the dark days that followed the scene with Levi, Esther's resolution had gradually formed. The position had become untenable. She could no longer remain aSchnorrer, abusing the bounty of her benefactors into the bargain. She must leave the Goldsmiths, and at once. That was imperative; the second step could be thought over when she had taken the first. And yet she postponed taking the first. Once she drifted out of her present sphere, she could not answer for the future; could not be certain, for instance, that she would be able to redeem her promise to Raphael to sit in judgment upon the Academy and other picture-galleries that bloomed in May. At any rate, once she had severed connection with the Goldsmith circle she would not care to renew it, even in the case of Raphael. No; it was best to get this last duty off her shoulders, then to say farewell to him and all the other human constituents of her brief period of partial sunshine. Besides, the personal delivery of the precious manuscript would afford her the opportunity of this farewell to him. With his social remissness, it was unlikely he would call soon upon the Goldsmiths, and she now restricted her friendship with Addie to receiving Addie's visits, so as to prepare for its dissolution.
Addie amused her by reading extracts from Sidney's letters, for the brilliant young artist had suddenly gone off to Norway the morning after thedébutof the new Hamlet. Esther felt that it might be as well if she stayed on to see how the drama of these two lives developed. These things she told herself in the reaction from the first impulse of instant flight.
Raphael put down his pipe at the sight of her, and a frank smile of welcome shone upon his flushed face.
'This is so kind of you!' he said. 'Who would have thought of seeing you here? I am so glad. I hope you are well. You look better.' He was wringing her little gloved hand violently as he spoke.
'I feel better, too, thank you. The air is so exhilarating. I'm glad to see you're still in the land of the living. Addie has told me of your debauches of work.'
'Addie is foolish. I never felt better. Come inside. Don't be afraid of walking on the papers, they're all old.'
'I always heard literary people were untidy,' said Esther, smiling. 'Youmust be a regular genius.'
'Well, you see, we don't have many ladies coming here,' said Raphael deprecatingly, 'though we have plenty of old women.'
'It's evident you don't, else some of them would go down on their hands and knees and never get up till this litter was tidied up a bit.'
'Never mind that now, Miss Ansell. Sit down, won't you? You must be tired. Take the editorial chair—allow me a minute.' He removed some books from it.
'Is that the way you sit on the books sent in for review?' She sat down. 'Dear me! it's quite comfortable. You men like comfort, even the most self-sacrificing. But where is your fighting editor? It would be awkward if an aggrieved reader came in and mistook me for the editor, wouldn't it? It isn't safe for me to remain in this chair!'
'Oh yes, it is! We've tackled our aggrieved readers for to-day,' he assured her.
She looked curiously round.
'Please pick up your pipe; it's going out. I don't mindsmoke—indeed I don't. Even if I did, I should be prepared to pay the penalty of bearding an editor in his den.'
Raphael resumed his pipe gratefully.
'I wonder, though, you don't set the place on fire,' Esther rattled on, 'with all this mass of inflammable matter about.'
'It is very dry, most of it,' he admitted, with a smile.
'Why don't you have a real fire? It must be quite cold sitting here all day. What's that great ugly picture over there?'
'That steamer? It's an advertisement.'
'Heavens! what a decoration! I should like to have the criticism of that picture. I've brought you those picture-galleries, you know: that's what I've come for.'
'Thank you; that's very good of you! I'll send it to the printers at once.'
He took the roll, and placed it in a pigeon-hole without taking his eyes off her face.
'Why don't you throw that awful staring thing away?' she asked, contemplating the steamer with a morbid fascination; 'and sweep away the old papers, and have a few little water-colours hung up, and put a vase of flowers on your desk. I wish I had the control of the office for a week.'
'I wish you had,' he said gallantly. 'I can't find time to think of those things. I am sure you are brightening it up already.'
The little blush on her cheek deepened. Compliment was unwonted with him; and, indeed, he spoke as he felt. The sight of her seated so strangely and unexpectedly in his own humdrum sanctum, the imaginary picture of her beautifying it and evolving harmony out of the chaos with artistic touches of her dainty hands, filled him with pleasant, tender thoughts such as he had scarce known before. The commonplace editorial chair seemed to have undergone consecration and poetic transformation. Surely the sunshine that streamed through the dusty window would for ever rest on it henceforwards. And yet the whole thing appeared fantastic and unreal.
'I hope you are speaking the truth,' replied Esther, with a little laugh. 'You need brightening, you old dry-as-dust philanthropist, sitting poring over stupid manuscripts when you ought to be in the country enjoying the sunshine.' She spoke in airy accents, with an under-current of astonishment at her attack of high spirits on an occasion she had designed to be harrowing.
'Why, I haven'tlookedat your manuscript yet,' he retorted gaily, but as he spoke there flashed upon him a delectable vision of blue sea and waving pines with one fair wood-nymph flitting through the trees, luring him on from this musty cell of never-ending work to unknown ecstasies of youth and joyousness. The leafy avenues were bathed in sacred sunlight, and a low magic music thrilled through the quiet air. It was but the dream of a second—the dingy walls closed round him again; the great ugly steamer, that never went anywhere, sailed on. But the wood-nymph did not vanish; the sunbeam was still on the editorial chair, lighting up the little face with a celestial halo. And when she spoke again it was as if the music that thrilled the visionary glades was a reality, too.
'It's all very well, your treating reproof as a jest,' she said more gravely. 'Can't you see that it's false economy to risk a breakdown, even if you use yourself purely for others? You're looking far from well. You are over-taxing human strength. Come now, admit my sermon is just. Remember, I speak not as a Pharisee, but as one who made the mistake herself—a fellow-sinner.' She turned her dark eyes reproachfully upon him.
'I—I—don't sleep very well,' he admitted, 'but otherwise I assure you I feel all right.'
It was the second time she had manifested concern for his health. The blood coursed deliciously in his veins; a thrill ran through his whole form. The gentle, anxious face seemed to grow angelic. Could she really care if his health gave way? Again he felt a rush of self-pity that filled his eyes with tears. He was grateful to her for sharing his sense of the empty cheerlessness of his existence. He wondered why it had seemed so full and cheery just before.
'And you used to sleep so well,' said Esther slyly, remembering Addie's domestic revelations. 'My stupid manuscript should come in useful.'
'Oh, forgive my stupid joke!' he said remorsefully.
'Forgive mine!' she answered. 'Sleeplessness is too terrible to joke about. Again I speak as one who knows.'
'Oh, I'm sorry to hear that!' he said, his egoistic tenderness instantly transformed to compassionate solicitude.
'Never mind me—I am a woman and can take care of myself. Why don't you go over to Norway and join Mr. Graham?'
'That's quite out of the question,' he said, puffing furiously at his pipe. 'I can't leave the paper.'
'Oh, men always say that! Haven't you let your pipe out? I don't see any smoke.'
He started and laughed. 'Yes, there's no more tobacco in it.' He laid it down.
'No, I insist on your going on, or else I shall feel uncomfortable. Where's your pouch?'
He felt all over his pockets. 'It must be on the table.'
She rummaged among the mass of papers. 'Ha! there are your scissors!' she said scornfully, turning them up. She found the pouch in time and handed it to him. 'I ought to have the management of this office for a day,' she remarked again.
'Well, fill my pipe for me,' he said, with an audacious inspiration. He felt an unreasoning impulse to touch her hand, to smooth her soft cheek with his fingers, and press her eyelids down over her dancing eyes. She filled the pipe, full measure and running over; he took it by the stem, her warm gloved fingers grazing his chilly bare hand and suffusing him with a delicious thrill.
'Now you must crown your work,' he said. 'The matches are somewhere about.'
She hunted again, interpolating exclamations of reproof at the risk of fire.
'They're safety matches, I think,' he said. They proved to be wax vestas. She gave him a liquid glance of mute reproach that filled him with bliss as overbrimminglyas his pipe had been filled with bird's-eye; then she struck a match, protecting the flame scientifically in the hollow of her little hand. Raphael had never imagined a wax vesta could be struck so charmingly. She tip-toed to reach the bowl in his mouth, but he bent his tall form and felt her breath upon his face. The volumes of smoke curled up triumphantly, and Esther's serious countenance relaxed in a smile of satisfaction. She resumed the conversation where it had been broken off by the idyllic interlude of the pipe.
'But if you can't leave London, there's plenty of recreation to be had in town. I'll wager you haven't yet been to seeHamlet, in lieu of the night you disappointed us.'
'Disappointed myself, you mean,' he said, with a retrospective consciousness of folly. 'No, to tell the truth, I haven't been out at all lately. Life is so short.'
'Then, why waste it?'
'Oh, come, I can't admit I waste it,' he said, with a gentle smile that filled her with a penetrating emotion. 'You mustn't take such material views of life.' Almost in a whisper he quoted, '"To him that hath the kingdom of God all things shall be added"'; and went on, 'Socialism is, at least, as important as Shakespeare.'
'Socialism!' she repeated. 'Are you a Socialist, then?'
'Of a kind,' he answered. 'Haven't you detected the cloven hoof in my leaders? I'm not violent, you know; don't be alarmed. But I have been doing a little mild propagandism lately in the evenings—Land Nationalisation and a few other things which would bring the world more into harmony with the Law of Moses.'
'What! do you find Socialism, too, in orthodox Judaism?'
'It requires no seeking.'
'Well, you're almost as bad as my father, who found everything in the Talmud. At this rate you will certainly convert me soon; or, at least, I shall, like M. Jourdain, discover I've been orthodox all my life without knowing it!'
'I hope so,' he said gravely. 'But have you Socialistic sympathies?'
She hesitated. As a girl she had felt the crude Socialismwhich is the unreasoned instinct of ambitious poverty, the individual revolt mistaking itself for hatred of the general injustice. When the higher sphere has welcomed the Socialist, he sees he was but the exception to a contented class. Esther had gone through the second phase, and was in the throes of the third, to which only the few attain.
'I used to be a red-hot Socialist once!' she said. 'To-day I doubt whether too much stress is not laid on material conditions. High thinking is compatible with the plainest living. "The soul is its own place, and can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven." Let the people who wish to build themselves lordly treasure-houses do so, if they can afford it; but let us not degrade our ideals by envying them.'
The conversation had drifted into seriousness; Raphael's thoughts reverted to their normal intellectual cast; but he still watched with pleasure the play of her mobile features as she expounded her opinions.
'Ah, yes, that is a nice abstract theory,' he said. 'But what if the mechanism of competitive society works so that thousands don't get even the plainest living? You should just see the sights I have seen, then you would understand why for some time the improvement of the material condition of the masses must be the great problem. Of course, you won't suspect me of underrating the moral and religious considerations?'
Esther smiled almost imperceptibly. The idea of Raphael, who could not see two inches before his nose, tellingherto examine the spectacle of human misery would have been distinctly amusing, even if her early life had been passed amongst the same scenes as his. It seemed a part of the irony of things and the paradox of fate that Raphael, who had never known cold or hunger, should be so keenly sensitive to the sufferings of others; while she, who had known both, had come to regard them with philosophical tolerance. Perhaps she was destined ere long to renew her acquaintance with them. Well, that would test her theories, at any rate.
'Who is taking material views of life now?' she asked.
'It is by perfect obedience to the Mosaic Law that the kingdom of God is to be brought about on earth,' he answered. 'And in spirit orthodox Judaism is, undoubtedly, akin to Socialism.' His enthusiasm set him pacing the room, as usual, his arms working like the sails of a windmill.
Esther shook her head.
'Well, give me Shakespeare!' she said. 'I had rather seeHamletthan a world of perfect prigs!' She laughed at the oddity of her own comparison, and added, still smiling, 'Once upon a time I used to think Shakespeare a fraud. But that was merely because he was an institution. It is a real treat to find one superstition that will stand analysis!'
'Perhaps you will find the Bible turn out like that,' he said hopefully.
'Ihavefound it. Within the last few months I have read it right through again—Old and New. It is full of sublime truths, noble apophthegms, endless touches of nature, and great poetry. Our tiny race may well be proud of having given humanity its greatest, as well as its most widely-circulated, books. Why can't Judaism take a natural view of things and an honest pride in its genuine history, instead of building its synagogues on shifting sand?'
'In Germany—later in America—the reconstruction of Judaism has been attempted in every possible way; inspiration has been sought, not only in literature, but in archæology, and even in anthropology; it is these which have proved the shifting sand. You see, your scepticism is not even original.' He smiled a little, serene in the largeness of his faith. His complacency grated upon her. She jumped up.
'We always seem to get into religion, you and I,' she said. 'I wonder why! It is certain we shall never agree. Mosaism is magnificent, no doubt, but I cannot help feeling Mr. Graham is right when he points out its limitations. Where would the art of the world be if the Second Commandment had been obeyed? Is there any such thing as an absolute system of morality? How is it the Chinesehave got on all these years without religion? Why should Jews claim the patent in those moral ideas which you find just as well in all the great writers of antiquity? Why——' She stopped suddenly, seeing his smile had broadened.
'Which of all these objections am I to answer?' he asked merrily. 'Some I'm sure you don't mean.'
'I mean all those you can't answer. So please don't try. After all, you're not a professional explainer of the universe that I should heckle you thus.'
'Oh, but I set up to be,' he protested.
'No, you don't. You haven't called me a blasphemer once. I'd better go before you become really professional. I shall be late for dinner.'
'What nonsense! It is only four o'clock,' he pleaded, consulting an old-fashioned silver watch.
'As late as that!' said Esther in horrified tones. 'Good-bye. Take care to go through my "copy" in case any heresies have filtered into it.'
'Your "copy"? Did you give it me?' he inquired.
'Of course I did. You took it from me. Where did you put it? Oh, I hope you haven't mixed it up with those papers. It'll be a terrible task to find it!' cried Esther excitedly.
'I wonder if I could have put it in the pigeon-hole for copy,' he said. 'Yes; what luck.'
Esther laughed heartily.
'You seem tremendously surprised to find anything in its right place.'
The moment of solemn parting had come, yet she found herself laughing on. Perhaps she was glad to find the farewell easier than she had foreseen. It had certainly been made easier by the theological passage of arms, which brought out all her latent antagonism to the prejudiced young pietist. Her hostility gave rather a scornful ring to the laugh, which ended with a suspicion of hysteria.
'What a lot of stuff you've written,' he said. 'I shall never be able to get this into one number.'
'I didn't intend you should. It's to be used ininstalments, if it's good enough. I did it all in advance, because I'm going away.'
'Going away!' he cried, arresting himself in the midst of an inhalation of smoke. 'Where?'
'I don't know,' she said wearily.
He looked alarm and interrogation.
'I am going to leave the Goldsmiths,' she said. 'I haven't decided exactly what to do next.'
'I hope you haven't quarrelled with them.'
'No, no; not at all. In fact, they don't even know I am going. I only tell you in confidence. Please don't say anything to anybody. Good-bye. I may not come across you again. So this may be a last good-bye.'
She extended her hand; he took it mechanically.
'I have no right to pry into your confidence,' he said anxiously, 'but you make me very uneasy.' He did not let go her hand; the warm touch quickened his sympathy. He felt he could not part with her, and let her drift into Heaven knew what. 'Won't you tell me your trouble?' he went on. 'I am sure it is some trouble. Perhaps I can help you. I should be so glad if you would give me the opportunity.'
The tears struggled to her eyes, but she did not speak. They stood in silence, with their hands still clasped, feeling very near to each other, and yet still so far apart.
'Cannot you trust me?' he asked. 'I know you are unhappy, but I had hoped you had grown cheerfuller of late. You told me so much at our first meeting, surely you might trust me yet a little farther.'
'I have told you enough,' she said at last. 'I cannot any longer eat the bread of charity; I must go away and try to earn my own living.'
'But what will you do?'
'What do other girls do? Teaching, needlework, anything. Remember, I'm an experienced teacher, and a graduate to boot.'
Her pathetic smile lit up the face with tremulous tenderness.
'But you will be quite alone in the world,' he said, solicitude vibrating in every syllable.
'I am used to being quite alone in the world.'
The phrase threw a flash of light along the backward vista of her life with the Goldsmiths, and filled his soul with pity and yearning.
'But suppose you fail?'
'If I fail——' she repeated, and rounded off the sentence with a shrug.
It was the apathetic, indifferent shrug of Moses Ansell; only his was the shrug of faith in Providence, hers of despair. It filled Raphael's heart with deadly cold, and his soul with sinister forebodings. The pathos of her position seemed to him intolerable.
'No, no, this must not be!' he cried, and his hand gripped hers fiercely, as if he were afraid of her being dragged away by main force.
He was terribly agitated; his whole being seemed to be undergoing profound and novel emotions. Their eyes met; in one and the same instant the knowledge broke upon her that she loved him, and that if she chose to play the woman he was hers and life a Paradisian dream. The sweetness of the thought intoxicated her, thrilled her veins with fire. But the next instant she was chilled as by a grey cold fog. The realities of things came back—a whirl of self-contemptuous thoughts blent with a hopeless sense of the harshness of life. Who was she, to aspire to such a match? Had her earlier day-dream left her no wiser than that? TheSchnorrer'sdaughter setting her cap at the wealthy Oxford man, forsooth! What would people say? And what would they say if they knew how she had sought him out in his busy seclusion, to pitch a tale of woe and move him by his tenderness of heart to a pity he mistook momentarily for love? The image of Levi came back suddenly; she quivered, reading herself through his eyes. And yet would not his crude view be right—suppress the consciousness as she would in her maiden breast—had she not been urged hither by an irresistible impulse? Knowing what she felt now, she could not realise she had been ignorant of it when she set out. She was a deceitful, scheming little thing. Angry with herself, she averted her gaze from the eyesthat hungered for her, though they were yet unlit by self-consciousness; she loosed her hand from his, and, as if the cessation of the contact restored her self-respect, some of her anger passed unreasonably towards him.
'What right have you to say it must not be?' she inquired haughtily. 'Do you think I can't take care of myself, that I need any one to protect me or to help me?'
'No—I—I—only mean——' he stammered in infinite distress, feeling himself somehow a blundering brute.
'Remember I am not like the girls you are used to meet. I have known the worst that life can offer. I can stand alone—yes, and face the whole world. Perhaps you don't know that I wroteMordecai Josephs, the book you burlesqued so mercilessly!'
'Youwrote it!'
'Yes, I. I am Edward Armitage. Did those initials never strike you? I wrote it, and I glory in it. Though all Jewry cry out the picture is false, I say it is true. So now you know the truth. Proclaim it to all Hyde Park and Maida Vale, tell it to all your narrow-minded friends and acquaintances, and let them turn and rend me. I can live without them or their praise. Too long they have cramped my soul. Now at last I am going to cut myself free—from them and from you and all your petty prejudices and interests. Good-bye for ever!'
She went out abruptly, leaving the room dark and Raphael shaken and dumfounded; she went down the stairs and into the keen bright air with a fierce exultation at her heart, an intoxicating sense of freedom and defiance. It was over. She had vindicated herself to herself and to the imaginary critics. The last link that bound her to Jewry was snapped; it was impossible it could ever be reforged. Raphael knew her in her true colours at last. She seemed to herself a Spinoza the race had cast out.
The editor of theFlag of Judahstood for some minutes as if petrified; then he turned suddenly to the litter on his table and rummaged among it feverishly. At last, as with a happy recollection, he opened a drawer. What he sought was there. He started readingMordecai Josephs, forgetting to close the drawer. Passage after passagesuffused his eyes with tears; a soft magic hovered about the nervous sentences; he read her eager little soul in every line. Now he understood. How blind he had been! How could he have missed seeing? Esther stared at him from every page. She was the heroine of her own book; yes, and the hero, too, for he was but another side of herself translated into the masculine. The whole book was Esther, the whole Esther and nothing but Esther, for even the satirical descriptions were but the revolt of Esther's soul against mean and evil things. He turned to the great love-scene of the book, and read on and on, fascinated, without getting further than the chapter.
No need to delay longer; every need for instant flight. Esther had found courage to confess her crime against the community to Raphael; there was no seething of the blood to nerve her to face Mrs. Henry Goldsmith. She retired to her own room soon after dinner on the plea (which was not a pretext) of a headache. Then she wrote:
'Dear Mrs. Goldsmith,'When you read this I shall have left your house, never to return. It would be idle to attempt to explain my reasons. I could not hope to make you see through my eyes. Suffice it to say that I cannot any longer endure a life of dependence, and that I feel I have abused your favours by writing that Jewish novel of which you disapprove so vehemently. I never intended to keep the secret from you after publication. I thought the book would succeed and you would be pleased; at the same time, I dimly felt that you might object to certain things and ask to have them altered, and I have always wanted to write my own ideas, and not other people's. With my temperament, I see now that it was a mistake to fetter myself by obligations to anybody; but the mistake was made in my girlhood, when I knew little of the world and perhaps less of myself. Nevertheless, I wish you to believe, dear Mrs. Goldsmith, that all the blame for the unhappy situation which has arisen I put upon my own shoulders, and that I have nothing for you but the greatest affection and gratitude for all the kindnesses I have received at your hands. I beg you not to think that I make the slightest reproach against you; on the contrary, I shall always henceforth reproach myself with the thought that I have made you so poor a return for your generosityand incessant thoughtfulness. But the sphere in which you move is too high for me; I cannot assimilate with it, and I return, not without gladness, to the humble sphere whence you took me. With kindest regards and best wishes,'I am,'Yours ever gratefully,'Esther Ansell.'
'Dear Mrs. Goldsmith,
'When you read this I shall have left your house, never to return. It would be idle to attempt to explain my reasons. I could not hope to make you see through my eyes. Suffice it to say that I cannot any longer endure a life of dependence, and that I feel I have abused your favours by writing that Jewish novel of which you disapprove so vehemently. I never intended to keep the secret from you after publication. I thought the book would succeed and you would be pleased; at the same time, I dimly felt that you might object to certain things and ask to have them altered, and I have always wanted to write my own ideas, and not other people's. With my temperament, I see now that it was a mistake to fetter myself by obligations to anybody; but the mistake was made in my girlhood, when I knew little of the world and perhaps less of myself. Nevertheless, I wish you to believe, dear Mrs. Goldsmith, that all the blame for the unhappy situation which has arisen I put upon my own shoulders, and that I have nothing for you but the greatest affection and gratitude for all the kindnesses I have received at your hands. I beg you not to think that I make the slightest reproach against you; on the contrary, I shall always henceforth reproach myself with the thought that I have made you so poor a return for your generosityand incessant thoughtfulness. But the sphere in which you move is too high for me; I cannot assimilate with it, and I return, not without gladness, to the humble sphere whence you took me. With kindest regards and best wishes,
'I am,'Yours ever gratefully,'Esther Ansell.'
There were tears in Esther's eyes when she finished, and she was penetrated with admiration of her own generosity in so freely admitting Mrs. Goldsmith's and in allowing that her patron got nothing out of the bargain. She was doubtful whether the sentence about the high sphere was satirical or serious. People do not know what they mean almost as often as they do not say it.
Esther put the letter into an envelope and placed it on the open writing-desk she kept on her dressing-table. She then packed a few toilette essentials in a little bag, together with some American photographs of her brother and sisters in various stages of adolescence. She was determined to go back empty-handed as she came, and was reluctant to carry off the few sovereigns of pocket-money in her purse, and hunted up a little gold locket she had received while yet a teacher in celebration of the marriage of a communal magnate's daughter. Thrown aside seven years ago, it now bade fair to be the corner-stone of the temple; she had meditated pledging it and living on the proceeds till she found work, but when she realised its puny pretensions to cozen pawnbrokers, it flashed upon her that she could always repay Mrs. Goldsmith the few pounds she was taking away. In a drawer there was a heap of manuscript carefully locked away; she took it and looked through it hurriedly, contemptuously. Some of it was music, some poetry, the bulk prose. At last she threw it suddenly on the bright fire which good Mary O'Reilly had providentially provided in her room; then, as it flared up, stricken with remorse, she tried to pluck the sheets from the flames; only by scorching her fingers and raising blisters did she succeed, and then, withscornful resignation, she instantly threw them back again, warming her feverish hands merrily at the bonfire. Rapidly looking through all her drawers, lest perchance in some stray manuscript she should leave her soul naked behind her, she came upon a forgotten faded rose. The faint fragrance was charged with strange memories of Sidney. The handsome young artist had given it her in the earlier days of their acquaintanceship. To Esther to-night it seemed to belong to a period infinitely more remote than her childhood. When the shrivelled rose had been further crumpled into a little ball and then picked to bits, it only remained to inquire where to go; what to do she could settle when there. She tried to collect her thoughts. Alas! it was not so easy as collecting her luggage. For a long time she crouched on the fender and looked into the fire, seeing in it only fragmentary pictures of the last seven years—bits of scenery, great cathedral interiors arousing mysterious yearnings, petty incidents of travel, moments with Sidney, drawing-room episodes, strange passionate scenes with herself as single performer, long silent watches of study and aspiration—like the souls of the burnt manuscripts made visible. Even that very afternoon's scene with Raphael was part of the 'old unhappy far-off things' that could only live henceforwards in fantastic arcades of glowing coal, out of all relation to future realities. Her new-born love for Raphael appeared as ancient and as arid as the girlish ambitions that had seemed on the point of blossoming when she was transplanted from the Ghetto. That, too, was in the flames—and should remain there.
At last she started up with a confused sense of wasted time, and began to undress mechanically, trying to concentrate her thoughts the while on the problem that faced her. But they wandered back to her first night in the fine house—when a separate bedroom was a new experience and she was afraid to sleep alone, though turned fifteen. But she was more afraid of appearing a great baby, and so no one in the world would ever know what the imaginative little creature had lived down.
In the middle of brushing her hair she ran to the doorand locked it, from a sudden dread that she might oversleep herself and some one would come in and see the letter on the writing-desk. She had not solved the problem even by the time she got into bed; the fire opposite the foot was burning down, but there was a red glow penetrating the dimness. She had forgotten to draw the blind, and she saw the clear stars shining peacefully in the sky. She looked and looked at them, and they led her thoughts away from the problem once more. She seemed to be lying in Victoria Park, looking up with innocent mystic rapture and restfulness at the brooding blue sky. The blood-and-thunder boys' story she had borrowed from Solomon had fallen from her hand and lay unheeded on the grass. Solomon was tossing a ball to Rachel which he had acquired by a colossal accumulation of buttons, and Isaac and Sarah were rolling and wrangling on the grass. Oh, why had she deserted them? What were they doing now, without her mother-care, out and away beyond the great seas? For weeks together the thought of them had not once crossed her mind; to-night she stretched her arms involuntarily towards her loved ones, not towards the shadowy figures of reality—scarcely less phantasmal than the dead Benjamin—but towards the childish figures of the past. What happy times they had had together in the dear old garret!
In her strange half-waking hallucination, her outstretched arms were clasped round little Sarah. She was putting her to bed, and the tiny thing was repeating after her—in broken Hebrew—the children's night prayer, 'Suffer me to lie down in peace, and let me rise up in peace. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one,' with its unauthorised appendix in baby-English, 'Dod teep me and mate me a dood dirl, orways.'
She woke to full consciousness with a start; her arms chilled, her face wet. But the problem was solved.
She would go back to them—back to her true home, where loving faces waited to welcome her, where hearts were open and life was simple and the weary brain could find rest from the stress and struggle of obstinate questionings of destiny. Life was so simple at bottom; itwas she that was so perversely complex. She would go back to her father, whose naïve, devout face swam glorified upon a sea of tears; yea, and back to her father's primitive faith like a tired lost child that spies its home at last. The quaint, monotonous cadence of her father's prayers rang pathetically in her ears, and a great light—the light that Raphael had shown her—seemed to blend mystically with the once meaningless sounds. Yea, all things were from Him who created light and darkness, good and evil. She felt her cares falling from her, her soul absorbing itself in the sense of a Divine love—awful, profound, immeasurable—underlying and transcending all things, incomprehensibly satisfying the soul and justifying and explaining the universe. The infinite fret and fume of life seemed like the petulance of an infant in the presence of this restful tenderness diffused through the great spaces. How holy the stars seemed up there in the quiet sky, like so many Sabbath lights shedding visible consecration and blessing!
Yes, she would go back to her loved ones—back from this dainty room, with its white laces and perfumed draperies, back if need be to a Ghetto garret. And in the ecstasy of her abandonment of all worldly things, a great peace fell upon her soul.
In the morning the nostalgia of the Ghetto was still upon her, blent with a passion of martyrdom that made her yearn for a lower social depth than was really necessary. But the more human aspects of the situation were paramount in the grey chillness of a bleak May dawn. Her resolution to cross the Atlantic forthwith seemed a little hasty, and though she did not flinch from it, she was not sorry to remember she had not money enough for the journey. She must perforce stay in London till she had earned it; meantime she would go back to the districts and the people she knew so well, and accustom herself again to the old ways, the old simplicities of existence.
She dressed herself in her plainest apparel, though she could not help her spring bonnet being pretty. She hesitated between a hat and a bonnet, but decided that her solitary position demanded as womanly an appearanceas possible. Do what she would, she could not prevent herself looking exquisitely refined, and the excitement of adventure had lent that touch of colour to her face which made it fascinating. About seven o'clock she left her room noiselessly and descended the stairs cautiously, holding her little black bag in her hand.
'Och, be the holy mother, Miss Esther, phwat a turn ye gave me!' said Mary O'Reilly, emerging unexpectedly from the dining-room and meeting her at the foot of the stairs. 'Phwat's the matther?'
'I'm going out, Mary,' she said, her heart beating violently.
'Sure, an' it's rale purty ye look, Miss Esther; but it's divil a bit the marnin' for a walk. It looks a raw kind of a day, as if the weather was sorry for bein' so bright yisterday.'
'Oh, but I must go, Mary!'
'Ah, the saints bliss your kind heart!' said Mary, catching sight of the bag. 'Sure, then, it's a charity irrand you're bent on. I mind me how my blissed old masther, Mr. Goldsmith's father—Olov Hasholom—who's gone to glory, used to walk toShoolin all winds and weathers: sometimes it was five o'clock of a winter's marnin', and I used to git up and make him an iligant cup of coffee before he went toSelichoth; he niver would take milk and sugar in it, becaz that would be atin' belike, poor dear old ginthleman. Ah, the Holy Virgin be kind to him!'
'And may she be kind to you, Mary!' said Esther. And she impulsively pressed her lips to the old woman's seamed and wrinkled cheek, to the astonishment of the guardian of Judaism. Virtue was its own reward; for Esther profited by the moment of the loquacious creature's breathlessness to escape. She opened the hall-door and passed into the silent street, whose cold pavements seemed to reflect the bleak stony tints of the sky.
For the first few minutes she walked hastily, almost at a run. Then her pace slackened, she told herself there was no hurry, and she shook her head when a cabman interrogated her. The omnibuses were not running yet. When they commenced, she would take one toWhitechapel. The sign of awakening labour stirred her with new emotions—the early milkman with his cans, casual artisans with their tools, a grimy sweep, a work-girl with a paper lunch package, an apprentice whistling. Great sleeping houses lined her path like gorged monsters drowsing voluptuously. The world she was leaving behind her grew alien and repulsive, her heart went out to the patient world of toil. What had she been doing all these years—amid her books and her music and her rose-leaves—aloof from realities?
The first 'bus overtook her half-way, and bore her back to the Ghetto.