"THE ENTHUSIASM OF YOUTH SICKLIED OVER WITH THE PRESCIENCE OF SENILE CYNICISM."
His voice failed suddenly. He had slightly raised himself on his pillow in his excitement, but now his head fell back, revealing the fatal white patches on the baby throat. I seized his hand quickly to feel his pulse. The little palm lay cold in mine. I started violently and sat up rigidly in my chair.
The child was dead. Downton was sobbing at my side.
As I was writing out the certificate, an odd thought came into my head. I scribbled what I thought an appropriate epitaph and showed it to Downton, but he glared at me furiously. I hastened home to bed.
My epitaph ran:
HERE LIESWILLIAM ("WILLY") STREETSIDE,WHO LED A DOUBLE LIFE,AND DIED IN BLAMELESS REPUTE,AT THE AVERAGE AGEOF 39 YEARS."And in their death they were not divided."
A CURIOUS COUPLE.
They say that a union of opposites makes the happiest marriage, and perhaps it is on the same principle that men who chum together are always so oddly assorted. You shall find a man of letters sharing diggings with an auctioneer, and a medical student pigging with a stockbroker's clerk. Perhaps each thus escapes the temptation to talk "shop" in his hours of leisure, while he supplements his own experiences of life by his companion's.
There could not be an odder couple than Tom Peters and Everard G. Roxdal—the contrast began with their names, and ran through the entire chapter. They had a bedroom and a sitting-room in common, but it would not be easy to find what else. To his landlady, worthy Mrs. Seacon, Tom Peters's profession was a little vague, but everybody knew that Roxdal was the manager of the City and Suburban Bank, and it puzzled her to think why a bank manager should live with such a seedy-looking person, who smoked clay pipes and sipped whisky-and-water all the evening when he was at home. For Roxdal was as spruce and erect as his fellow-lodger was round-shouldered and shabby; he never smoked, and he confined himself to a small glass of claret at dinner.
TOM PETERS. EVERARD G. ROXDAL.
It is possible to live with a man and see very little of him. Where each of the partners lives his own life in his own way, with his own circle of friends and external amusements, days may go by without the men having five minutes together. Perhaps this explains why these partnerships jog along so much more peaceably than marriages, where the chain is drawn so much tighter, and galls the partners rather than links them. Diverse, however, as were the hours and habits of the chums, they often breakfasted together, and they agreed in one thing—they never stayed out at night. For the rest Peters sought his diversions in the company of journalists, and frequented debating rooms, where he propoundedthe most iconoclastic views; while Roxdal had highly respectable houses open to him in the suburbs, and was, in fact, engaged to be married to Clara Newell, the charming daughter of a retired corn factor, a widower with no other child.
ASKED TWENTY-FIVE PER CENT MORE.
"FOR HIS SHAVING-WATER."Clara naturally took up a good deal of Roxdal's time, and he often dressed to go to the play with her, while Peters stayed at home in a faded dressing-gown and loose slippers. Mrs. Seacon liked to see gentlemen about the house in evening dress, and made comparisons not favourable to Peters. And this in spite of the fact that he gave her infinitely less trouble than the younger man. It was Peters who first took the apartments, and it was characteristic of his easy-going temperament that he was so openly and naïvely delighted with the view of the Thames obtainable from the bedroom window, that Mrs. Seacon was emboldened to ask twenty-five per cent more than she had intended. She soon returned to her normal terms, however, when his friend Roxdal called the next day to inspect the rooms, and overwhelmed her with a demonstration of their numerous shortcomings. He pointed out that their being on the ground floor was not an advantage, but a disadvantage, since theywere nearer the noises of the street—in fact, the house being a corner one, the noises of two streets. Roxdal continued to exhibit the same finicking temperament in the petty details of theménage. His shirt fronts were never sufficiently starched, nor his boots sufficiently polished. Tom Peters, having no regard for rigid linen, was always good-tempered and satisfied, and never acquired the respect of his landlady. He wore blue check shirts and loose ties even on Sundays. It is true he did not go to church, but slept on till Roxdal returned from morning service, and even then it was difficult to get him out of bed, or to make him hurry up his toilette operations. Often the mid-day meal would be smoking on the table while Peters would be still reading in bed, and Roxdal, with his head thrust through the folding-doors that separated the bedroom from the sitting-room, would be adjuring the sluggard to arise and shake off his slumbers, and threatening to sit down without him, lest the dinner be spoilt. In revenge, Tom was usually up first on week-days, sometimes at such unearthly hours that Polly had not yet removed the boots from outside the bedroom door, and wouldbawl down to the kitchen for his shaving-water. For Tom, lazy and indolent as he was, shaved with the unfailing regularity of a man to whom shaving has become an instinct. If he had not kept fairly regular hours, Mrs. Seacon would have set him down as an actor, so clean shaven was he. Roxdal did not shave. He wore a full beard, and, being a fine figure of a man to boot, no uneasy investor could look upon him without being reassured as to the stability of the bank he managed so successfully. And thus the two men lived in an economical comradeship, all the firmer, perhaps, for their mutual incongruities.
"FOR HIS SHAVING-WATER."
"FOR HIS SHAVING-WATER."
Clara naturally took up a good deal of Roxdal's time, and he often dressed to go to the play with her, while Peters stayed at home in a faded dressing-gown and loose slippers. Mrs. Seacon liked to see gentlemen about the house in evening dress, and made comparisons not favourable to Peters. And this in spite of the fact that he gave her infinitely less trouble than the younger man. It was Peters who first took the apartments, and it was characteristic of his easy-going temperament that he was so openly and naïvely delighted with the view of the Thames obtainable from the bedroom window, that Mrs. Seacon was emboldened to ask twenty-five per cent more than she had intended. She soon returned to her normal terms, however, when his friend Roxdal called the next day to inspect the rooms, and overwhelmed her with a demonstration of their numerous shortcomings. He pointed out that their being on the ground floor was not an advantage, but a disadvantage, since theywere nearer the noises of the street—in fact, the house being a corner one, the noises of two streets. Roxdal continued to exhibit the same finicking temperament in the petty details of theménage. His shirt fronts were never sufficiently starched, nor his boots sufficiently polished. Tom Peters, having no regard for rigid linen, was always good-tempered and satisfied, and never acquired the respect of his landlady. He wore blue check shirts and loose ties even on Sundays. It is true he did not go to church, but slept on till Roxdal returned from morning service, and even then it was difficult to get him out of bed, or to make him hurry up his toilette operations. Often the mid-day meal would be smoking on the table while Peters would be still reading in bed, and Roxdal, with his head thrust through the folding-doors that separated the bedroom from the sitting-room, would be adjuring the sluggard to arise and shake off his slumbers, and threatening to sit down without him, lest the dinner be spoilt. In revenge, Tom was usually up first on week-days, sometimes at such unearthly hours that Polly had not yet removed the boots from outside the bedroom door, and wouldbawl down to the kitchen for his shaving-water. For Tom, lazy and indolent as he was, shaved with the unfailing regularity of a man to whom shaving has become an instinct. If he had not kept fairly regular hours, Mrs. Seacon would have set him down as an actor, so clean shaven was he. Roxdal did not shave. He wore a full beard, and, being a fine figure of a man to boot, no uneasy investor could look upon him without being reassured as to the stability of the bank he managed so successfully. And thus the two men lived in an economical comradeship, all the firmer, perhaps, for their mutual incongruities.
A WOMAN'S INSTINCT.
It was on a Sunday afternoon in the middle of October, ten days after Roxdal had settled in his new rooms, that Clara Newell paid her first visit to him there. She enjoyed a good deal of liberty, and did not mind accepting his invitation to tea. The corn factor, himself indifferently educated, had an exaggerated sense of the value of culture, and so Clara, who had artistic tastes without much actual talent, had gone in for painting, and might be seen, in pretty toilettes, copying pictures in the Museum. At one time it looked as if she might be reduced to working seriously at her art, for Satan, who finds mischief still for idle hands to do, had persuaded her father to embark the fruits of years of toil in bubble companies. However, things turned out not so bad as they might have been, a little was saved from the wreck, and the appearance of a suitor, in the person of Everard G. Roxdal, ensured her a future of competence, if not of the luxury she had been entitled to expect. Shehad a good deal of affection for Everard, who was unmistakably a clever man, as well as a good-looking one. The prospect seemed fair and cloudless. Nothing presaged the terrible storm that was about to break over these two lives. Nothing had ever for a moment come to vex their mutual contentment, till this Sunday afternoon. The October sky, blue and sunny, with an Indian summer sultriness, seemed an exact image of her life, with its aftermath of a happiness that had once seemed blighted.
Everard had always been so attentive, so solicitous, that she was as much surprised as chagrined to find that he had apparently forgotten the appointment. Hearing her astonished interrogation of Polly in the passage, Tom shambled from the sitting-room in his loose slippers and his blue check shirt, with his eternal clay pipe in his mouth, and informed her that Roxdal had gone out suddenly earlier in the afternoon.
"TOM SHAMBLED FROM THE SITTING-ROOM."
"G-g-one out?" stammered poor Clara, all confused. "But he asked me to come to tea."
"Oh, you're Miss Newell, I suppose," said Tom.
"Yes, I am Miss Newell."
"He has told me a great deal about you, but I wasn't able honestly to congratulate him on his choice till now."
Clara blushed uneasily under the compliment, and under the ardour of his admiring gaze. Instinctively she distrusted the man. The very first tones of his deep bass voice gave her a peculiar shudder. And then his impoliteness in smoking that vile clay was so gratuitous.
"Oh, then you must be Mr. Peters," she said in return. "He has often spoken to me of you."
"Ah!" said Tom laughingly, "I suppose he's told you all my vices. That accounts for your not being surprised at my Sunday attire."
She smiled a little, showing a row of pearly teeth. "Everard ascribes to you all the virtues," she said.
"Now that's what I call a friend!" he cried ecstatically. "But won't you come in? He must be back in a moment. He surely would not break an appointment withyou." The admiration latent in the accentuation of the last pronoun was almost offensive.
She shook her head. She had a just grievance against Everard, and would punish him by going away indignantly.
"Do letmegive you a cup of tea," Tom pleaded. "Youmust be awfully thirsty this sultry weather. There! I will make a bargain with you! If you will come in now, I promise to clear out the moment Everard returns, and not spoil yourtête-à-tête." But Clara was obstinate; she did not at all relish this man's society, and besides, she was not going to throw away her grievance against Everard. "I know Everard will slang me dreadfully when he comes in if I let you go," Tom urged. "Tell me at least where he can find you."
"I am going to take the 'bus at Charing Cross, and I'm going straight home," Clara announced determinedly. She put up her parasol in a pet, and went up the street into the Strand. A cold shadow seemed to have fallen over all things. But just as she was getting into the 'bus, a hansom dashed down Trafalgar Square, and a well-known voice hailed her. The hansom stopped, and Everard got out and held out his hand.
"I'm so glad you're a bit late," he said. "I was called out unexpectedly, and have been trying to rush back in time. You wouldn't have found me if you had been punctual. But I thought," he added, laughing, "I could rely on you as a woman."
"Iwaspunctual," Clara said angrily. "I was not getting out of this 'bus, as you seem to imagine, but into it, and was going home."
"My darling!" he cried remorsefully. "A thousand apologies." The regret on his handsome face soothed her. He took the rose he was wearing in the buttonhole of his fashionably cut coat and gave it to her.
"Why were you so cruel?" he murmured, as she nestled against him in the hansom. "Think of my despair if I had come home to hear you had come and gone. Why didn't you wait a moment?"
"SHE NESTLED AGAINST HIM."
A shudder traversed her frame. "Not with that man, Peters!" she murmured.
"Not with that man, Peters!" he echoed sharply. "What is the matter with Peters?"
"I don't know," she said. "I don't like him."
"Clara," he said, half sternly, half cajolingly, "I thought you were above these feminine weaknesses; you are punctual, strive also to be reasonable. Tom is my best friend. From boyhood we have been always together.There is nothing Tom would not do for me, or I for Tom. You must like him, Clara; you must, if only for my sake."
"I'll try," Clara promised, and then he kissed her in gratitude and broad daylight.
"You'll be very nice to him at tea, won't you?" he said anxiously. "I shouldn't like you two to be bad friends."
"I don't want to be bad friends," Clara protested; "only the moment I saw him a strange repulsion and mistrust came over me."
"You are quite wrong about him—quite wrong," he assured her earnestly. "When you know him better, you'll find him the best of fellows. Oh, I know," he said suddenly, "I suppose he was very untidy, and you women go so much by appearances!"
"Not at all," Clara retorted. "'Tis you men who go by appearances."
"Yes, you do. That's why you care for me," he said, smiling.
She assured him it wasn't, and she didn't care for him so much as he plumed himself, but he smiled on. His smile died away, however, when he entered his rooms and found Tom nowhere.
"I daresay you've made him run about hunting for me," he grumbled.
"Perhaps he knew I'd come back, and went away to leave us together," she answered. "He said he would when you came."
"And yet you say you don't like him!"
She smiled reassuringly. Inwardly, however, she felt pleased at the man's absence.
POLLY RECEIVES A PROPOSAL.
If Clara Newell could have seen Tom Peters carrying on with Polly in the passage, she might have felt justified in her prejudice against him. It must be confessed, though, that Everard also carried on with Polly. Alas! it is to be feared that men are much of a muchness where women are concerned; shabby men and smart men, bank managers and journalists, bachelors and semi-detached bachelors. Perhaps it was a mistake after all to say the chums had nothing patently in common. Everard, I am afraid, kissed Polly rather more often than Clara, and although it was because he respected her less, the reason would perhaps not have been sufficiently consoling to his affianced wife. For Polly was pretty, especially on alternate Sunday afternoons, and she liked to receive the homage of real gentlemen, setting her white cap at all indifferently. Thus, just before Clara knocked on that memorable Sunday afternoon, Polly, being confined to the house by the unwritten code regulating the lives of servants, was amusing herself by flirting with Peters.
"CARRYING ON WITH POLLY."
"Youarefond of me a little bit," the graceless Tom whispered, "aren't you?"
"You know I am, sir," Polly replied.
"You don't care for anyone else in the house?"
"Oh no, sir. I wonder how it is, sir?" Polly replied ingenuously.
And that very evening, when Clara was gone and Tom still out, Polly turned without the faintest atom of scrupulosity, or even jealousy, to the more fascinating Roxdal.If it would seem at first sight that Everard had less excuse for such frivolity than his friend, perhaps the seriousness he showed in this interview may throw a different light upon the complex character of the man.
"You're quite sure you don't care for anyone but me?" he asked earnestly.
"Of course not, sir!" Polly replied indignantly. "How could I?"
"But you care for that soldier I saw you out with last Sunday?"
"Oh no, sir, he's only my young man," she said apologetically.
"Would you give him up?" he hissed suddenly.
Polly's pretty face took a look of terror. "I couldn't, sir! He'd kill me! He's such a jealous brute, you've no idea."
"Yes, but suppose I took you away from here?" he whispered eagerly. "Somewhere where he couldn't find you—South America, Africa, somewhere thousands of miles across the seas."
"Oh, sir, you frighten me!" whispered Polly, cowering before his ardent eyes, which shone in the dimly lit passage.
"Would you come with me?" he hissed. She did not answer; she shook herself free and ran into the kitchen, trembling with a vague fear.
THE CRASH.
One morning, earlier than his earliest hour of demanding his shaving-water, Tom rang the bell violently and asked the alarmed Polly what had become of Mr. Roxdal.
"How should I know, sir?" she gasped. "Ain't he been in, sir?"
"Apparently not," Tom answered anxiously. "He never remains out. We have been here three weeks now, and I can't recall a single night he hasn't been home before twelve. I can't make it out." All enquiries proved futile. Mrs. Seacon reminded him of the thick fog that had come on suddenly the night before.
"What fog?" asked Tom.
"Lord! didn't you notice it, sir?"
"No, I came in early, smoked, read, and went to bed about eleven. I never thought of looking out of the window."
"SCOTLAND YARD OPENED THE LETTER."
"It began about ten," said Mrs. Seacon, "and got thicker and thicker. I couldn't see the lights of the river from my bedroom. The poor gentleman has been and gone and walked into the water." She began to whimper.
"Nonsense, nonsense," said Tom, though his expression belied his words. "At the worst I should think he couldn't find his way home, and couldn't get a cab, so put up for thenight at some hotel. I daresay it will be all right." He began to whistle as if in restored cheerfulness. At eight o'clock there came a letter for Roxdal, marked "immediate," but as he did not turn up for breakfast, Tom went round personally to the City and Suburban Bank. He waited half-an-hour there, but the manager did not make his appearance. Then he left the letter with the cashier and went away with anxious countenance.
That afternoon it was all over London that the manager of the City and Suburban had disappeared, and that many thousand pounds of gold and notes had disappeared with him.
Scotland Yard opened the letter marked "immediate," and noted that there had been a delay in its delivery, for the address had been obscure, and an official alteration had been made. It was written in a feminine hand and said: "On second thoughts I cannot accompany you. Do not try to see me again. Forget me. I shall never forget you."
There was no signature.
Clara Newell, distracted, disclaimed all knowledge of this letter. Polly deposed that the fugitive had proposed flight to her, and the routes to Africa and South America were especially watched. Some months passed without result. Tom Peters went about overwhelmed with grief and astonishment. The police took possession of all the missing man's effects. Gradually the hue and cry dwindled, died.
FAITH AND UNFAITH.
"At last we meet!" cried Tom Peters, while his face lit up in joy. "Howareyou, dear Miss Newell?" Clara greeted him coldly. Her face had an abiding pallor now. Her lover's flight and shame had prostrated her for weeks. Her soul was the arena of contending instincts. Alone of all the world she still believed in Everard's innocence, felt that there was something more than met the eye, divined some devilish mystery behind it all. And yet that damning letter from the anonymous lady shook her sadly. Then, too, there was the deposition of Polly. When she heard Peters's voice accosting her all her old repugnance resurged. It flashed upon her that this man—Roxdal's boon companion—must know far more than he had told to the police. She remembered how Everard had spoken of him, with what affection and confidence! Was it likely he was utterly ignorant of Everard's movements? Mastering her repugnance, she held out her hand. It might be well to keep in touch with him; he was possibly the clue to the mystery. She noticed he was dressed a shade more trimly,and was smoking a meerschaum. He walked along at her side, making no offer to put his pipe out.
"You have not heard from Everard?" he asked. She flushed. "Do you think I'm an accessory after the fact?" she cried.
"No, no," he said soothingly. "Pardon me, I was thinking he might have written—giving no exact address, of course. Men do sometimes dare to write thus to women. But, of course, he knows you too well—you would have put the police on his track."
"Certainly," she exclaimed indignantly. "Even if he is innocent he must face the charge."
"Do you still entertain the possibility of his innocence?"
"I do," she said boldly, and looked him full in the face. His eyelids drooped with a quiver. "Don't you?"
"I have hoped against hope," he replied, in a voice faltering with emotion. "Poor old Everard! But I am afraid there is no room for doubt. Oh, this wicked curse of money—tempting the noblest and the best of us."
The weeks rolled on. Gradually she found herself seeing more and more of Tom Peters, and gradually, strange to say, he grew less repulsive. From the talks they had together, she began to see that there was really no reason to put faith in Everard; his criminality, his faithlessness, were too flagrant. Gradually she grew ashamed of her early mistrust of Peters; remorse bred esteem, and esteemultimately ripened into feelings so warm, that when Tom gave freer vent to the love that had been visible to Clara from the first, she did not repulse him.
"SHE DID NOT REPULSE HIM."
It is only in books that love lives for ever. Clara, so her father thought, showed herself a sensible girl in plucking out an unworthy affection and casting it from her heart. He invited the new lover to his house, and took to him at once. Roxdal's somewhat supercilious manner had always jarred upon the unsophisticated corn factor. With Tom the old man got on much better. While evidently quite as well informed and cultured as his whilom friend, Tom knew how to impart his superior knowledge with the accent on the knowledge rather than on the superiority, while he had the air of gaining much information in return. Those who are most conscious of defects of early education are most resentful of other people sharing their consciousness. Moreover, Tom'sbonhomiewas far more to the old fellow's liking than the studied politeness of his predecessor, so that on the whole Tom made more of a conquest of the father than of the daughter. Nevertheless, Clara was by no means unresponsiveto Tom's affection, and when, after one of his visits to the house, the old man kissed her fondly and spoke of the happy turn things had taken, and how, for the second time in their lives, things had mended when they seemed at their blackest, her heart swelled with a gush of gratitude and joy and tenderness, and she fell sobbing into her father's arms.
"WITH TOM THE OLD MAN GOT ON MUCH BETTER."
Tom calculated that he made a clear five hundred a year by occasional journalism, besides possessing some profitable investments which he had inherited from his mother, so that there was no reason for delaying the marriage. It was fixed for May-day, and the honeymoon was to be spent in Italy.
THE DREAM AND THE AWAKENING.
But Clara was not destined to happiness. From the moment she had promised herself to her first love's friend, old memories began to rise up and reproach her. Strange thoughts stirred in the depths of her soul, and in the silent watches of the night she seemed to hear Everard's accents, charged with grief and upbraiding. Her uneasiness increased as her wedding-day drew near. One night, after a pleasant afternoon spent in being rowed by Tom among the upper reaches of the Thames, she retired to rest full of vague forebodings. And she dreamt a terrible dream. The dripping form of Everard stood by her bedside, staring at her with ghastly eyes. Had he been drowned on the passage to his land of exile? Frozen with horror, she put the question.
"I have never left England!" the vision answered.
Her tongue clove to the roof of her mouth.
"Never left England?" she repeated, in tones which did not seem to be hers.
The wraith's stony eyes stared on, but there was silence.
"Where have you been then?" she asked in her dream.
"Very near you," came the answer.
"There has been foul play then!" she shrieked.
The phantom shook its head in doleful assent.
"I knew it!" she shrieked. "Tom Peters—Tom Peters has done away with you. Is it not he? Speak!"
"Yes, it is he—Tom Peters—whom I loved more than all the world."
Even in the terrible oppression of the dream she could not resist saying, woman-like:
"Did I not warn you against him?"
The phantom stared on silently and made no reply.
"But what was his motive?" she asked at length.
"Love of gold—and you. And you are giving yourself to him," it said sternly.
"No, no, Everard! I will not! I will not! I swear it! Forgive me!"
The spirit shook its head sceptically.
"You love him. Women are false—as false as men."
She strove to protest again, but her tongue refused its office.
"If you marry him, I shall always be with you! Beware!"
"IDENTIFIED THE BODY."
The dripping figure vanished as suddenly as it came, and Clara awoke in a cold perspiration. Oh, it was horrible! The man she had learnt to love, the murderer of the man she had learnt to forget! How her original prejudice had been justified! Distracted, shaken to her depths, she would not take counsel even of her father, but informed the policeof her suspicions. A raid was made on Tom's rooms, and lo! the stolen notes were discovered in a huge bundle. It was found that he had several banking accounts, with a large, recently deposited amount in each bank. Tom was arrested. Attention was now concentrated on the corpses washed up by the river. It was not long before the body of Roxdal came to shore, the face distorted almost beyond recognition by long immersion, but the clothes patently his, and a pocket-book in the breast-pocket removing the last doubt. Mrs. Seacon and Polly and Clara Newell all identified the body. Both juries returned a verdict of murder against Tom Peters, the recital of Clara's dream producing a unique impression in the court and throughout the country, especially in theological and theosophical circles. The theory of the prosecution was that Roxdal had brought homethe money, whether to fly alone or to divide it, or whether, even for some innocent purpose, as Clara believed, was immaterial; that Peters determined to have it all, that he had gone out for a walk with the deceased, and, taking advantage of the fog, had pushed him into the river, and that he was further impelled to the crime by love for Clara Newell, as was evident from his subsequent relations with her. The judge put on the black cap. Tom Peters was duly hung by the neck till he was dead.
THE CORPSE WASHED UP BY THE RIVER.
BRIEF RÉSUMÉ OF THE CULPRIT'S CONFESSION.
When you all read this I shall be dead and laughing at you. I have been hung for my own murder. I am Everard G. Roxdal. I am also Tom Peters. We two were one. When I was a young man my moustache and beard wouldn't come. I bought false ones to improve my appearance. One day, after I had become manager of the City and Suburban Bank, I took off my beard and moustache at home, and then the thought crossed my mind that nobody would know me without them. I was another man. Instantly it flashed upon me that if I ran away from the Bank, that other man could be left in London, while the police were scouring the world for a non-existent fugitive. But this was only the crude germ of the idea. Slowly I matured my plan. The man who was going to be left in London must be known to a circle of acquaintance beforehand. It would be easy enough to masquerade in the evenings in my beardless condition, with other disguises of dress and voice. But this was not brilliant enough. I conceivedthe idea of living with him. It was Box and Cox reversed. We shared rooms at Mrs. Seacon's. It was a great strain, but it was only for a few weeks. I had trick clothes in my bedroom like those of quick-change artistes; in a moment I could pass from Roxdal to Peters and from Peters to Roxdal. Polly had to clean two pairs of boots a morning, cook two dinners, &c., &c. She and Mrs. Seacon saw one or the other of us every moment; it never dawned upon them they never saw usboth together. At meals I would not be interrupted, ate off two plates, and conversed with my friend in loud tones. A slight ventriloquial gift enabled me to hold audible conversations with him when he was supposed to be in the bedroom. At other times we dined at different hours. On Sundays he was supposed to be asleep when I was in church. There is no landlady in the world to whom the idea would have occurred that one man was troubling himself to be two (and to pay for two, including washing). I worked up the idea of Roxdal's flight, asked Polly to go with me, manufactured that feminine letter that arrived on the morning of my disappearance. As Tom Peters I mixed with a journalistic set. I had another room where I kept the gold and notes till I mistakenly thought the thing had blown over. Unfortunately, returning from here on the night of my disappearance, with Roxdal's clothes in a bundle I intended to drop into the river, it was stolen from me in the fog, and the man into whose possession it ultimately came appears to have committed suicide, so that his body dressed in my clothes was taken for mine. What, perhaps, ruined me was my desire to keep Clara's love, and to transfer it to the survivor. Everard told her I was the best of fellows. Once married to her, I would not have had much fear. Even if she had discovered the trick, a wife cannot give evidence against her husband, and often doesnot want to. I made none of the usual slips, but no man can guard against a girl's nightmare after a day up the river and a supper at the Star and Garter. I might have told the judge he was an ass, but then I should have had penal servitude for bank robbery, and that is worse than death. The only thing that puzzles me, though, is whether the law has committed murder or I suicide. What is certain is that I have cheated the gallows.
A STORY FOR THE NURSERY.
Although Bob was asleep on the doorstep the children in the passage talked so loudly that they woke him up. They did not mean to do it, for they were nice, clean, handsome children. Bob was always pretty dirty, so nobody knew if he was pretty clean. He was not a dog, though you might think so from his name and the way he was treated. Nobody cared for Bob except Tommy whom he could fight one-hand. The lucky nice clean children had jam to lick, but Bob had only Tommy. Poor Tommy!
Bob sat up on his stony doorstep, drawing his rags around him. His toes were freezing. When you have no boots it is awkward to stamp your feet. That is why they are so cold. Bob's idea of heaven was a place with a fire in it. He lived before Free Education and his ideas were mixed.
Bob heard the children inside talking about Santa Claus and the presents they expected. Bob gathered that he was a kind-hearted old gentleman, and he thought to himself: "If I could find out Santa Claus's address, I'd go and arx 'im for some presents too." So he waited outside, shivering, till a pretty little girl and boy came out, when he said to them: "Please, can you tell me where Santa Claus lives?"
The little girl and boy drew back when he spoke to them, because they had strict orders to keep their pinafores clean. But when they heard his strange question, they looked at each other with large eyes. Then their pretty faces filled with smiling sunshine, and they said: "He lives in the sky. He is a spirit."
Bob's face fell. "Oh, then I carn't call upon 'im," he said. "But 'ow is itInever gets no presents like I 'ears yer sayyoudoes?"
"Perhaps you are not a good child," said the little girl gravely.
"Yes, look how you've torn your clothes," said the little boy reprovingly.
"Well, but 'ow isyougoin' to get presents from the sky?"
"We hang up our stockings to-night, just before Christmas, and in the night Santa Claus fills them," they explained, and just then the maid came out and led them away.
Now Bob understood. He had never had any stockings in his life. He felt mad to think how much else he had missed through the want of a pair. If he could only get a pair of stockings to hang up, he might be a rich boy and dine off bread and treacle. He wandered through the courts and alleys looking for stockings in the gutters and dustbins. They were not there. Old boots were to be found in abundance though not in couples (which was odd); but Bob soon discovered that people never throw away their stockings. At last he plucked up courage and begged from house to house, but nobody had a pair to spare. What becomes of all the old stockings? Not everybody hoards treasure in them. Bob met plenty of kind hearts; they offered him bread when he asked for a stocking.
At last, weary and footsore, he returned to his doorstep and pondered. He wondered if he could cheat Santa Clausby making a pair out of a piece of newspaper he had picked up. But perhaps Mr. Claus was particular about the material and admitted nothing under cotton. He thought of stepping deeply into the mud and caking a pair, but then he could only remove them at night by brushing them off in little pieces; he feared they would stick too tight to come off whole. He also thought of painting his calves with stripes from "wet paint," on the off chance that Mr. Claus would drop the presents carelessly down along his legs. But he concluded that if Mr. Claus lived in the sky he could look down and see all he was doing. So he began to cry instead.
"What are you crying about?" said a quavering voice, and Bob, startled, became aware of a wretched old creature dining on the doorstep at his side.
AN OLD WOMAN DINING ON THE DOORSTEP.
"I ain't got no stockings," he sobbed in answer.
"Well, I'll give you mine," said his neighbour.
Bob hesitated. The poor old woman looked so brokendown herself, it seemed mean to accept her offer.
"Won't you be cold?" he asked timidly.
"I shan't be warmer," mumbled the old woman. "But then you will."
"No, I won't have them, thank you kindly, mum," said Bob stoutly.
"Then I'll tell you what to do," said the old woman, who was really a fairy, though she had lost both wings—they had been amputated in a surgical operation. "It's easy enough to get stockings if you only know how. Run away now and pick out any person you meet and say, 'I wish that person's stockings were on my feet.' You can only wish once, so be careful, especially, not to wish for a pair of blue stockings, as they won't suit you."
She grinned and vanished. Bob jumped up and wasabout to wish off the stockings of the first man he met, when a horrible thought struck him. The man had nice clothes and looked rich, but what proof was there he had stockings on? Bob really could not afford to risk wasting his wish. He walked about and looked at all the people—the men with their long trousers, the women with their trailing skirts; and the more he walked, the more grew his doubt and his agony. A terrible scepticism of humanity seized him. They looked very prim and demure without, these men and women, with their varnished boots and their satin gowns, but what if they were all hypocrites, walking about without stockings! Night came on. Half distracted by distrust of his kind, he wandered on to the docks, and there to his joy he saw people coming off a steamer by a narrow plank. As they walked the ladies lifted up their skirts so as not to tumble over them, and he caught several glimpses of dainty stockings. At last he selected a lady with very broad stockings, that looked as if they would hold lots of Mr. Claus's presents, and wished. Instantly he felt very funny about the feet, and the lady wobbled about so in her big boots that she overbalanced herself and fell into the water and was drowned.
Bob ran back to his doorstep, and when it was dark slipped off his stockings carefully and hung them up on the knocker. And—sure enough!—in the morning they were fall of fine cigars and Spanish lace. Bob sold the lace for a penny, but he kept the cigars and smoked the first with his penn'uth of Christmas plum-duff.
Moral:—England expects every man to pay his duty.
One day it occurred to Leibel that he ought to get married. He went to Sugarman the Shadchan forthwith.
"I have the very thing for you," said the great marriage-broker.
"Is she pretty?" asked Leibel.
"Her father has a boot and shoe warehouse," replied Sugarman enthusiastically.
"Then there ought to be a dowry with her," said Leibel eagerly.
"Certainly a dowry! A fine man like you!"
"How much do you think it would be?"
"Of course it is not a large warehouse; but then you could get your boots at trade price, and your wife's, perhaps, for the cost of the leather."
"When could I see her?"
"I will arrange for you to call next Sabbath afternoon."
"You won't charge me more than a sovereign?"
"Not agroschenmore! Such a pious maiden! I'm sure you will be happy. She has so much way-of-the-country [breeding]. And, of course, five per cent on the dowry?"
"H'm! Well, I don't mind!" "Perhaps they won't give a dowry," he thought, with a consolatory sense of outwitting the Shadchan.
On the Saturday Leibel went to see the damsel, and on the Sunday he went to see Sugarman the Shadchan.
"But your maiden squints!" he cried resentfully.
"An excellent thing!" said Sugarman. "A wife who squints can never look her husband straight in the face and overwhelm him. Who would quail before a woman with a squint?"
"I could endure the squint," went on Leibel dubiously, "but she also stammers."
"Well, what is better, in the event of a quarrel? The difficulty she has in talking will keep her far more silent than most wives. You had best secure her while you have the chance."
"But she halts on the left leg," cried Leibel, exasperated.
"Gott in Himmel!Do you mean to say you do not see what an advantage it is to have a wife unable to accompany you in all your goings?"
Leibel lost patience.
"Why, the girl is a hunchback!" he protested furiously.
"My dear Leibel," said the marriage-broker, deprecatingly shrugging his shoulders and spreading out his palms. "You can't expect perfection!"
Nevertheless, Leibel persisted in his unreasonable attitude. He accused Sugarman of wasting his time, of making a fool of him.
"A fool of you!" echoed the Shadchan indignantly, "when I give you a chance of a boot and shoe manufacturer's daughter. You will make a fool of yourself if you refuse. I daresay her dowry would be enough to set you up as a master-tailor. At present you are compelled to slave away as a cutter for thirty shillings a week. It is most unjust. If you only had a few machines you would be able to employ your own cutters. And they can be got so cheap nowadays."
This gave Leibel pause, and he departed without havingdefinitely broken the negotiations. His whole week was befogged by doubt, his work became uncertain, his chalk-marks lacked their usual decision, and he did not always cut his coat according to his cloth. His aberrations became so marked that pretty Rose Green, the sweater's eldest daughter, who managed a machine in the same room, divined, with all a woman's intuition, that he was in love.
"What is the matter?" she said in rallying Yiddish, when they were taking their lunch of bread and cheese and ginger-beer, amid the clatter of machines, whose serfs had not yet knocked off work.
"They are proposing me a match," he answered sullenly.
"A match!" ejaculated Rose. "Thou!" She had worked by his side for years, and familiarity bred the second person singular. Leibel nodded his head, and put a mouthful of Dutch cheese into it.
"With whom?" asked Rose. Somehow he felt ashamed. He gurgled the answer into the stone ginger-beer bottle, which he put to his thirsty lips.
"With Leah Volcovitch!"
"Leah Volcovitch!" gasped Rose. "Leah, the boot and shoe manufacturer's daughter?"
Leibel hung his head—he scarce knew why. He did not dare meet her gaze. His droop said "Yes." There was a long pause.
"And why dost thou not have her?" said Rose. It was more than an enquiry. There was contempt in it, and perhaps even pique.
Leibel did not reply. The embarrassing silence reigned again, and reigned long. Rose broke it at last.
"Is it that thou likest me better?" she asked.
Leibel seemed to see a ball of lightning in the air; it burst, and he felt the electric current strike right throughhis heart. The shock threw his head up with a jerk, so that his eyes gazed into a face whose beauty and tenderness were revealed to him for the first time. The face of his old acquaintance had vanished—this was a cajoling, coquettish, smiling face, suggesting undreamed-of things.
"Nu, yes," he replied, without perceptible pause.
"Nu, good!" she rejoined as quickly.
And in the ecstasy of that moment of mutual understanding Leibel forgot to wonder why he had never thought of Rose before. Afterwards he remembered that she had always been his social superior.
The situation seemed too dreamlike for explanation to the room just yet. Leibel lovingly passed the bottle of ginger-beer and Rose took a sip, with a beautiful air of plighting troth, understood only of those two. When Leibel quaffed the remnant it intoxicated him. The relics of the bread and cheese were the ambrosia to this nectar. They did not dare kiss—the suddenness of it all left them bashful, and the smack of lips would have been like a cannon-peal announcing their engagement. There was a subtler sweetness in this sense of a secret, apart from the fact that neither cared to break the news to the master-tailor—a stern little old man. Leibel's chalk-marks continued indecisive that afternoon; which shows how correctly Rose had connected them with love.
Before he left that night Rose said to him: "Art thou sure thou wouldst not rather have Leah Volcovitch?"
"Not for all the boots and shoes in the world," replied Leibel vehemently.
"And I," protested Rose, "would rather go without my own than without thee."
The landing outside the workshop was so badly lighted that their lips came together in the darkness.
"Nay, nay, thou must not yet," said Rose. "Thou art still courting Leah Volcovitch. For aught thou knowest, Sugarman the Shadchan may have entangled thee beyond redemption."
"Not so," asserted Leibel. "I have only seen the maiden once."
"Yes. But Sugarman has seen her father several times," persisted Rose. "For so misshapen a maiden his commission would be large. Thou must go to Sugarman to-night, and tell him that thou canst not find it in thy heart to go on with the match."
"Kiss me, and I will go," pleaded Leibel.
"Go, and I will kiss thee," said Rose resolutely.
"And when shall we tell thy father?" he asked, pressing her hand, as the next best thing to her lips.
"As soon as thou art free from Leah."
"But will he consent?"
"He will not be glad," said Rose frankly. "But after mother's death—peace be upon her—the rule passed from her hands into mine."
"Ah, that is well," said Leibel. He was a superficial thinker.
Leibel found Sugarman at supper. The great Shadchan offered him a chair, but nothing else. Hospitality was associated in his mind with special occasions only, and involved lemonade and "stuffed monkeys."
He was very put out—almost to the point of indigestion—to hear of Leibel's final determination, and plied him with reproachful enquiries.
"You don't mean to say that you give up a boot and shoe manufacturer merely because his daughter has round shoulders!" he exclaimed incredulously.
"It is more than round shoulders—it is a hump!" cried Leibel.
"And suppose? See how much better off you will be when you get your own machines! We do not refuse to let camels carry our burdens because they have humps."
"Ah, but a wife is not a camel," said Leibel, with a sage air.
"And a cutter is not a master-tailor," retorted Sugarman.
"Enough, enough!" cried Leibel. "I tell you I would not have her if she were a machine warehouse."
"There sticks something behind," persisted Sugarman, unconvinced.
Leibel shook his head. "Only her hump," he said, with a flash of humour.
"Moses Mendelssohn had a hump," expostulated Sugarman reproachfully.
"Yes, but he was a heretic," rejoined Leibel, who was not without reading. "And then he was a man! A man with two humps could find a wife for each. But a woman with a hump cannot expect a husband in addition."
"Guard your tongue from evil," quoth the Shadchan angrily. "If everybody were to talk like you, Leah Volcovitch would never be married at all."
Leibel shrugged his shoulders, and reminded him that hunchbacked girls who stammered and squinted and halted on left legs were not usually led under the canopy.
"Nonsense! Stuff!" cried Sugarman angrily. "That is because they do not come to me."
"Leah Volcovitchhascome to you," said Leibel, "but she shall not come to me." And he rose, anxious to escape.
Instantly Sugarman gave a sigh of resignation. "Be it so! Then I shall have to look out for another, that's all."
"No, I don't want any," replied Leibel quickly.
Sugarman stopped eating. "You don't want any?" he cried. "But you came to me for one?"
"I—I—know," stammered Leibel. "But I've—I've altered my mind."
"One needs Hillel's patience to deal with you!" cried Sugarman. "But I shall charge you all the same for my trouble. You cannot cancel an order like this in the middle! No, no! You can play fast and loose with Leah Volcovitch. But you shall not make a fool of me."
"But if I don't want one?" said Leibel sullenly.
Sugarman gazed at him with a cunning look of suspicion. "Didn't I say there was something sticking behind?"
Leibel felt guilty. "But whom have you got in your eye?" he enquired desperately.
"Perhaps you may have some one in yours!" naïvely answered Sugarman.
Leibel gave a hypocritic long-drawn, "U-m-m-m. I wonder if Rose Green—where I work—" he said, and stopped.
"I fear not," said Sugarman. "She is on my list. Her father gave her to me some months ago, but he is hard to please. Even the maiden herself is not easy, being pretty."
"Perhaps she has waited for some one," suggested Leibel.
Sugarman's keen ear caught the note of complacent triumph.
"You have been asking her yourself!" he exclaimed in horror-stricken accents.
"And if I have?" said Leibel defiantly.
"You have cheated me! And so has Eliphaz Green—I always knew he was tricky! You have both defrauded me!"
"I did not mean to," said Leibel mildly.
"Youdidmean to. You had no business to take the matter out of my hands. What right had you to propose to Rose Green?"
"I did not," cried Leibel excitedly.
"Then you asked her father!"
"No; I have not asked her father yet."
"Then how do you know she will have you?"
"I—I know," stammered Leibel, feeling himself somehow a liar as well as a thief. His brain was in a whirl; he could not remember how the thing had come about. Certainly he had not proposed; nor could he say that she had.
"You know she will have you," repeated Sugarman, reflectively. "And doessheknow?"
"Yes. In fact," he blurted out, "we arranged it together."
"Ah! You both know. And does her father know?"
"Not yet."
"Ah! then I must get his consent," said Sugarman decisively.
"I—I thought of speaking to him myself."
"Yourself!" echoed Sugarman, in horror. "Are you unsound in the head? Why, that would be worse than the mistake you have already made!"
"What mistake?" asked Leibel, firing up.
"The mistake of asking the maiden herself. When you quarrel with her after your marriage, she will always throw it in your teeth that you wished to marry her. Moreover, if you tell a maiden you love her, her father will think you ought to marry her as she stands. Still, what is done is done." And he sighed regretfully.
"And what more do I want? I love her."
"You piece of clay!" cried Sugarman contemptuously. "Love will not turn machines, much less buy them. You must have a dowry. Her father has a big stocking—he can well afford it."
Leibel's eyes lit up. There was really no reason why he should not have bread-and-cheese with his kisses.
"Now, ifyouwent to her father," pursued the Shadchan, "the odds are that he would not even give you his daughter—to say nothing of the dowry. After all, it is a cheek of you to aspire so high. As you told me from the first, you haven't saved a penny. Even my commission you won't be able to pay till you get the dowry. But ifIgo, I do not despair of getting a substantial sum—to say nothing of the daughter."
"Yes, I think you had better go," said Leibel eagerly.
"But if I do this thing for you I shall want a pound more," rejoined Sugarman.
"A pound more!" echoed Leibel, in dismay. "Why?"
"Because Rose Green's hump is of gold," replied Sugarman oracularly. "Also, she is fair to see, and many men desire her."
"But you have always your five per cent on the dowry."
"It will be less than Volcovitch's," explained Sugarman. "You see, Green has other and less beautiful daughters."
"Yes; but then it settles itself more easily. Say five shillings."
"Eliphaz Green is a hard man," said the Shadchan instead.
"Ten shillings is the most I will give!"
"Twelve and sixpence is the least I will take. Eliphaz Green haggles so terribly."
They split the difference, and so eleven and threepence represented the predominance of Eliphaz Green's stinginess over Volcovitch's.
The very next day Sugarman invaded the Green work-room. Rose bent over her seams, her heart fluttering. Leibel had duly apprised her of the roundabout manner inwhich she would have to be won, and she had acquiesced in the comedy. At the least it would save her the trouble of father-taming.
Sugarman's entry was brusque and breathless. He was overwhelmed with joyous emotion. His blue bandanna trailed agitatedly from his coat-tail.
"At last!" he cried, addressing the little white-haired master-tailor, "I have the very man for you."
"Yes?" grunted Eliphaz, unimpressed. The monosyllable was packed with emotion. It said: "Have you really the face to come to me again with an ideal man?"
"He has all the qualities that you desire," began the Shadchan, in a tone that repudiated the implications of the monosyllable. "He is young, strong, God-fearing—"
"Has he any money?" grumpily interrupted Eliphaz.
"Hewillhave money," replied Sugarman unhesitatingly, "when he marries."
"Ah!" The father's voice relaxed, and his foot lay limp on the treadle. He worked one of his machines himself, and paid himself the wages so as to enjoy the profit. "How much will he have?"
"I think he will have fifty pounds; and the least you can do is to let him have fifty pounds," replied Sugarman, with the same happy ambiguity.
Eliphaz shook his head on principle.
"Yes, you will," said Sugarman, "when you learn how fine a man he is."
The flush of confusion and trepidation already on Leibel's countenance became a rosy glow of modesty, for he could not help overhearing what was being said, owing to the lull of the master-tailor's machine.
"Tell me, then," rejoined Eliphaz.
"Tell me, first, if you will give fifty to a young, healthy,hard-working, God-fearing man, whose idea it is to start as a master-tailor on his own account? And you know how profitable that is!"
"To a man like that," said Eliphaz, in a burst of enthusiasm, "I would give as much as twenty-seven pounds ten!"
Sugarman groaned inwardly, but Leibel's heart leaped with joy. To get four months' wages at a stroke! With twenty-seven pounds ten he could certainly procure several machines, especially on the instalment system. Out of the corners of his eyes he shot a glance at Rose, who was beyond earshot.
"Unless you can promise thirty it is waste of time mentioning his name," said Sugarman.
"Well, well—who is he?"
Sugarman bent down, lowering his voice into the father's ear.
"What! Leibel!" cried Eliphaz, outraged.
"Sh!" said Sugarman, "or he will overhear your delight, and ask more. He has his nose high enough as it is."
"B—b—b—ut," sputtered the bewildered parent, "I know Leibel myself. I see him every day. I don't want a Shadchan to find me a man I know—a mere hand in my own workshop!"
"Your talk has neither face nor figure," answered Sugarman sternly. "It is just the people one sees every day that one knows least. I warrant that if I had not put it into your head you would never have dreamt of Leibel as a son-in-law. Come now, confess."
Eliphaz grunted vaguely, and the Shadchan went on triumphantly. "I thought as much. And yet where could you find a better man to keep your daughter?"
"He ought to be content with her alone," grumbled her father.
Sugarman saw the signs of weakening, and dashed in, full strength. "It's a question whether he will have her at all. I have not been to him about her yet. I awaited your approval of the idea." Leibel admired the verbal accuracy of these statements, which he just caught.
"But I didn't know he would be having money," murmured Eliphaz.
"Of course you didn't know. That's what the Shadchan is for—to point out the things that are under your nose."
"But where will he be getting this money from?"
"From you," said Sugarman frankly.
"From me?"
"From whom else? Are you not his employer? It has been put by for his marriage-day."
"He has saved it?"
"He has notspentit," said Sugarman, impatiently.
"But do you mean to say he has saved fifty pounds?"
"If he could manage to save fifty pounds out of your wages he would be indeed a treasure," said Sugarman. "Perhaps it might be thirty."
"But you said fifty."
"Well,youcame down to thirty," retorted the Shadchan. "You cannot expect him to have more than your daughter brings."
"I never said thirty," Eliphaz reminded him. "Twenty-seven ten was my last bid."
"Very well; that will do as a basis of negotiations," said Sugarman resignedly. "I will call upon him this evening. If I were to go over and speak to him now he would perceive you were anxious and raise his terms, and that will never do. Of course, you will not mind allowing me a pound more for finding you so economical a son-in-law?"
"Not a penny more."
"You need not fear," said Sugarman resentfully. "It is not likely I shall be able to persuade him to take so economical a father-in-law. So you will be none the worse for promising."
"Be it so," said Eliphaz, with a gesture of weariness, and he started his machine again.
"Twenty-seven pounds ten, remember," said Sugarman, above the whirr.
Eliphaz nodded his head, whirring his wheelwork louder.
"And paid before the wedding, mind?"
The machine took no notice.
"Before the wedding, mind," repeated Sugarman. "Before we go under the canopy."
"Go now, go now!" grunted Eliphaz, with a gesture of impatience. "It shall be all well." And the white-haired head bowed immovably over its work.
In the evening Rose extracted from her father the motive of Sugarman's visit, and confessed that the idea was to her liking.
"But dost thou think he will have me, little father?" she asked, with cajoling eyes.
"Anyone would have my Rose."
"Ah, but Leibel is different. So many years he has sat at my side and said nothing."
"He had his work to think of; he is a good, saving youth."
"At this very moment Sugarman is trying to persuade him—not so? I suppose he will want much money."
"Be easy, my child." And he passed his discoloured hand over her hair.
Sugarman turned up the next day, and reported that Leibel was unobtainable under thirty pounds, and Eliphaz,weary of the contest, called over Leibel, till that moment carefully absorbed in his scientific chalk-marks, and mentioned the thing to him for the first time. "I am not a man to bargain," Eliphaz said, and so he gave the young man his tawny hand, and a bottle of rum sprang from somewhere, and work was suspended for five minutes, and the "hands" all drank amid surprised excitement. Sugarman's visits had prepared them to congratulate Rose. But Leibel was a shock.
The formal engagement was marked by even greater junketing, and at last the marriage-day came. Leibel was resplendent in a diagonal frock-coat, cut by his own hand, and Rose stepped from the cab a medley of flowers, fairness, and white silk, and behind her came two bridesmaids—her sisters—a trio that glorified the spectator-strewn pavement outside the Synagogue. Eliphaz looked almost tall in his shiny high hat and frilled shirt-front. Sugarman arrived on foot, carrying red-socked little Ebenezer tucked under his arm.
Leibel and Rose were not the only couple to be disposed of, for it was the thirty-third day of the Omer—a day fruitful in marriages.
But at last their turn came. They did not, however, come in their turn, and their special friends among the audience wondered why they had lost their precedence. After several later marriages had taken place, a whisper began to circulate. The rumour of a hitch gained ground steadily, and the sensation was proportionate. And, indeed, the rose was not to be picked without a touch of the thorn.
Gradually the facts leaked out, and a buzz of talk and comment ran through the waiting Synagogue. Eliphaz had not paid up!
At first he declared he would put down the money immediatelyafter the ceremony. But the wary Sugarman, schooled by experience, demanded its instant delivery on behalf of his other client. Hard-pressed, Eliphaz produced ten sovereigns from his trousers' pocket, and tendered them on account. These Sugarman disdainfully refused, and the negotiations were suspended. The bridegroom's party was encamped in one room, the bride's in another, and after a painful delay Eliphaz sent an emissary to say that half the amount should be forthcoming, the extra five pounds in a bright new Bank of England note. Leibel, instructed and encouraged by Sugarman, stood firm.
And then arose a hubbub of voices, a chaos of suggestions; friends rushed to and fro between the camps, some emerging from their seats in the Synagogue to add to the confusion. But Eliphaz had taken his stand upon a rock—he had no more ready money. To-morrow, the next day, he would have some. And Leibel, pale and dogged, clutched tighter at those machines that were slipping away momently from him. He had not yet seen his bride that morning, and so her face was shadowy compared with the tangibility of those machines. Most of the other maidens were married women by now, and the situation was growing desperate. From the female camp came terrible rumours of bridesmaids in hysterics, and a bride that tore her wreath in a passion of shame and humiliation. Eliphaz sent word that he would give an I O U for the balance, but that he really could not muster any more current coin. Sugarman instructed the ambassador to suggest that Eliphaz should raise the money among his friends.
And the short spring day slipped away. In vain the minister, apprised of the block, lengthened out the formulæ for the other pairs, and blessed them with more reposeful unction. It was impossible to stave off the Leibel-Greenitem indefinitely, and at last Rose remained the only orange-wreathed spinster in the Synagogue. And then there was a hush of solemn suspense, that swelled gradually into a steady rumble of babbling tongues as minute succeeded minute and the final bridal party still failed to appear. The latest bulletin pictured the bride in a dead faint. The afternoon was waning fast. The minister left his post near the canopy, under which so many lives had been united, and came to add his white tie to the forces for compromise. But he fared no better than the others. Incensed at the obstinacy of the antagonists, he declared he would close the Synagogue. He gave the couple ten minutes to marry in or quit. Then chaos came, and pandemonium—a frantic babel of suggestion and exhortation from the crowd. When five minutes had passed, a legate from Eliphaz announced that his side had scraped together twenty pounds, and that this was their final bid.
Leibel wavered; the long day's combat had told upon him; the reports of the bride's distress had weakened him. Even Sugarman had lost his cocksureness of victory. A few minutes more and both commissions might slip through his fingers. Once the parties left the Synagogue it would not be easy to drive them there another day. But he cheered on his man still—one could always surrender at the tenth minute.
At the eighth the buzz of tongues faltered suddenly, to be transposed into a new key, so to speak. Through the gesticulating assembly swept that murmur of expectation which crowds know when the procession is coming at last. By some mysterious magnetism all were aware that theBrideherself—the poor hysteric bride—had left the paternal camp, was coming in person to plead with her mercenary lover.
And as the glory of her and the flowers and the white draperies loomed upon Leibel's vision his heart melted in worship, and he knew his citadel would crumble in ruins at her first glance, at her first touch. Was it fair fighting? As his troubled vision cleared and as she came nigh unto him, he saw to his amazement that she was speckless and composed—no trace of tears dimmed the fairness of her face, there was no disarray in her bridal wreath.