Stories by English Authors: London Part 15

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 all be 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.

"Any one 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 pa.s.sed his discoloured hand over her hair.

Sugarman turned up the next day, and reported that Leibel was un.o.btainable 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 frockcoat, 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 s.h.i.+ny high hat and frilled s.h.i.+rt-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 immediately after 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 pa.s.sion 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 amba.s.sador 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 formulae for the other pairs, and blessed them with more reposeful unction. It was impossible to stave off the Leibel-Green item 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 pa.s.sed a legate from Eliphaz announced that his side had sc.r.a.ped 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 c.o.c.ksureness 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 a.s.sembly swept that murmur of expectation which crowds know when the procession is coming at last. By some mysterious magnetism all were aware that the BRIDE herself--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 wors.h.i.+p, 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.

The clock showed the ninth minute.

She put her hand appeallingly on his arm, while a heavenly light came into her face--the expression of a Joan of Arc animating her country.

"Do not give in, Leibel!" she said. "Do not have me! Do not let them persuade thee! By my life, thou must not! Go home!"

So at the eleventh minute the vanquished Eliphaz produced the balance, and they all lived happily ever afterward.

AN IDYL OF LONDON, By Beatrice Harraden

It was one o'clock, and many of the students in the National Gallery had left off work and were refres.h.i.+ng themselves with lunch and conversation. There was one old worker who had not stirred from his place, but he had put down his brush, and had taken from his pocket a small book, which was like its owner--thin and shabby of covering. He seemed to find pleasure in reading it, for he turned over its pages with all the tenderness characteristic of one who loves what he reads. Now and again he glanced at his unfinished copy of the beautiful portrait of Andrea del Sarto, and once his eyes rested on another copy next to his, better and truer than his, and once he stopped to pick up a girl's prune-coloured tie, which had fallen from the neighbouring easel.

After this he seemed to become unconscious of his surroundings, as unconscious, indeed, as any one of the pictures near him. Any one might have been justified in mistaking him for the portrait of a man, but that his lips moved; for it was his custom to read softly to himself.

The students pa.s.sed back to their places, not troubling to notice him, because they knew from experience that he never noticed them, and that all greetings were wasted on him and all words were wanton expenditure of breath. They had come to regard him very much in the same way as many of us regard the wonders of nature, without astonishment, without any questionings, and often without any interest. One girl, a new-comer, did chance to say to her companion:

"How ill that old man looks!"

"Oh, he always looks like that," was the answer. "You will soon get accustomed to him. Come along! I must finish my 'Blind Beggar' this afternoon."

In a few minutes most of the workers were busy again, although there were some who continued to chat quietly, and several young men who seemed reluctant to leave their girl friends, and who were by no means encouraged to go! One young man came to claim his book and pipe, which he had left in the charge of a bright-eyed girl, who was copying Sir Joshua's "Angels." She gave him his treasures, and received in exchange a dark-red rose, which she fastened in her belt; and then he returned to his portrait of Mrs. Siddons. But there was something in his disconsolate manner which made one suspect that he thought less of Mrs.

Siddons's beauty than of the beauty of the girl who was wearing the dark-red rose! The strangers, strolling through the rooms, stopped now and again to peer curiously at the students' work. They were stared at indignantly by the students themselves, but they made no attempt to move away, and even ventured sometimes to pa.s.s criticisms of no tender character on some of the copies. The fierce-looking man who was copying "The Horse Fair" deliberately put down his brushes, folded his arms, and waited defiantly until they had gone by; but others, wiser in their generation, went on painting calmly. Several workers were painting the new Raphael; one of them was a white-haired old gentlewoman, whose hand was trembling, and yet skilful still. More than once she turned to give a few hints to the young girl near her, who looked in some distress and doubt. Just the needful help was given, and then the girl plied her brush merrily, smiling the while with pleasure and grat.i.tude. There seemed to be a genial, kindly influence at work, a certain homeliness too, which must needs a.s.sert itself where many are gathered together, working side by side. All made a harmony; the wonderful pictures, collected from many lands and many centuries, each with its meaning and its message from the past; the ever-present memories of the painters themselves, who had worked and striven and conquered; and the living human beings, each with his wealth of earnest endeavour and hope.

Meanwhile the old man read on uninterruptedly until two hands were put over his book and a gentle voice said:

"Mr. Lindall, you have had no lunch again. Do you know, I begin to hate Lucretius. He always makes you forget your food."

The old man looked up, and something like a smile pa.s.sed over his joyless face when he saw Helen Stanley bending over him.

"Ah," he answered, "you must not hate Lucretius. I have had more pleasant hours with him than with any living person."

He rose and came forward to examine her copy of Andrea del Sarto's portrait.

"Yours is better than mine," he said, critically; "in fact, mine is a failure. I think I shall only get a small price for mine; indeed, I doubt whether I shall get sufficient to pay for my funeral."

"You speak dismally," she answered, smiling.

"I missed you yesterday," he continued, half dreamily. "I left my work, and I wandered through the rooms, and I did not even read Lucretius.

Something seemed to have gone from my life. At first I thought it must be my favourite Raphael, or the Murillo; but it was neither the one nor the other; it was you. That was strange, wasn't it? But you know we get accustomed to anything, and perhaps I should have missed you less the second day, and by the end of a week I should not have missed you at all. Mercifully, we have in us the power of forgetting."

"I do not wish to plead for myself," she said, "but I do not believe that you or any one could really forget. That which outsiders call forgetfulness might be called by the better name of resignation."

"I don't care about talking any more now," he said, suddenly, and he went to his easel and worked silently at his picture; and Helen Stanley glanced at him, and thought she had never seen her old companion look so forlorn and desolate as he did to-day. He looked as if no gentle hand had ever been placed on him in kindliness and affection, and that seemed to her a terrible thing; for she was one of those prehistorically minded persons who persist in believing that affection is as needful to human life as rain to flower life. When first she came to work at the gallery--some twelve months ago--she had noticed this old man, and had wished for his companions.h.i.+p; she was herself lonely and sorrowful, and, although young, had to fight her own battles, and had learned something of the difficulties of fighting, and this had given her an experience beyond her years. She was not more than twenty-four years of age, but she looked rather older, and, though she had beautiful eyes, full of meaning and kindness, her features were decidedly plain as well as unattractive. There were some in the gallery who said among themselves that, as Mr. Lindall had waited so many years before talking to any one, he might have chosen some one better worth the waiting for! But they soon became accustomed to seeing Helen Stanley and Mr. Lindall together, and they laughed less than before; and meanwhile the acquaintance ripened into a sort of friends.h.i.+p, half sulky on his part and wholly kind on her part. He told her nothing about himself, and he asked nothing about herself; for weeks he never even knew her name. Sometimes he did not speak at all, and the two friends would work silently side by side until it was time to go; and then he waited until she was ready, and walked with her across Trafalgar Square, where they parted and went their own ways.

But occasionally, when she least expected it, he would speak with glowing enthusiasm on art; then his eyes seemed to become bright, and his bent figure more erect, and his whole bearing proud and dignified.

There were times, too, when he would speak on other subjects: on the morality of free thought--on Bruno, of blessed memory, on him, and scores of others too. He would speak of the different schools of philosophy; he would laugh at himself, and at all who, having given time and thought to the study of life's complicated problems, had not reached one step further than the Old-World thinkers. Perhaps he would quote one of his favourite philosophers, and then suddenly relapse into silence, returning to his wonted abstraction and to his indifference to his surroundings. Helen Stanley had learned to understand his ways and to appreciate his mind, and, without intruding on him in any manner, had put herself gently into his life as his quiet champion and his friend.

No one in her presence dared speak slightingly of the old man, or to make fun of his tumble-down appearance, or of his worn-out silk hat with a crack in the side, or of his rag of a black tie, which, together with his overcoat, had "seen better days." Once she brought her needle and thread, and darned the torn sleeve during her lunch-time; and, though he never knew it, it was a satisfaction to her to have helped him.

To-day she noticed that he was painting badly, and that he seemed to take no interest in his work; but she went on busily with her own picture, and was so engrossed in it that she did not at first observe that he had packed up his brushes and was preparing to go home.

"Three more strokes," he said, quietly, "and you will have finished your picture. I shall never finish mine; perhaps you will be good enough to set it right for me. I am not coming here again. I don't seem to have caught the true expression; what do you think? But I am not going to let it worry me, for I am sure you will promise to do your best for me. See, I will hand over these colours and these brushes to you, and no doubt you will accept the palette as well. I have no further use for it."

Helen Stanley took the palette which he held out toward her, and looked at him as though she would wish to question him.