The Grandchildren of the Ghetto Part 24

THE ENDS OF A GENERATION

The same evening Leonard James sat in the stalls of the Colosseum Music-Hall, sipping champagne and smoking a cheroot. He had not been to his chambers (which were only round the corner) since the hapless interview with Esther, wandering about in the streets and the clubs in a spirit compounded of outraged dignity, remorse, and recklessness.

All men must dine; and dinner at the Flamingo Club soothed his wounded soul and left only the recklessness, which is a sensation not lacking in agreeableness. Through the rosy mists of the Burgundy there began to surge up other faces than that cold pallid little face which had hovered before him all the afternoon like a tantalising phantom; at the Chartreuse stage he began to wonder what hallucination, what aberration of sense, had overcome him that he should have been stirred to his depths and distressed so hugely. Warmer faces were these that swam before him, faces fuller of the joy of life. The devil take all stuck-up little saints!

About eleven o'clock, when the great ballet of 'Venetia' was over, Leonard hurried round to the stage-door, saluted the doorkeeper with a friendly smile and a sixpence, and sent in his card to Miss Gladys Wynne, on the chance that she might have no supper engagement. Miss Wynne was only a humble _coryphee_, but the admirers of her talent were numerous, and Leonard counted himself fortunate in that she was able to afford him the privilege of her society to-night. She came out to him in a red fur-lined cloak, for the air was keen. She was a majestic being, with a florid complexion not entirely artificial, big blue eyes, and teeth of that whiteness which is the practical equivalent of a sense of humour in evoking the possessor's smiles.

They drove to a restaurant a few hundred yards distant, for Miss Wynne detested using her feet except to dance with. It was a fas.h.i.+onable restaurant, where the prices obligingly rose after ten, to accommodate the purses of the supper _clientele_. Miss Wynne always drank champagne, except when alone, and in politeness Leonard had to imbibe more of this frothy compound. He knew he would have to pay for the day's extravagance by a week of comparative abstemiousness, but recklessness generally meant magnificence with him. They occupied a cosy little corner behind a screen, and Miss Wynne bubbled over with laughter like an animated champagne-bottle. One or two of his acquaintances espied him and winked genially, and Leonard had the satisfaction of feeling that he was not dissipating his money without purchasing enhanced reputation. He had not felt in gayer spirits for months than when, with Gladys Wynne on his arm and a cigarette in his mouth, he sauntered out of the brilliantly-lit restaurant into feverish dusk of the midnight street, shot with points of fire.

'Hansom, sir?'

'_Levi!_'

A great cry of anguish rent the air. Leonard's cheeks burnt.

Involuntarily he looked round. Then his heart stood still. There, a few yards from him, rooted to the pavement, with stony, staring face, was Reb Shemuel. The old man wore an unbrushed high hat and an uncouth, unb.u.t.toned overcoat. His hair and beard were quite white now, and the strong countenance, lined with countless wrinkles, was distorted with pain and astonishment. He looked a cross between an ancient prophet and a shabby street-lunatic. The unprecedented absence of the son from the _Seder_ ceremonial had filled the Reb's household with the gravest alarm. Nothing short of death or mortal sickness could be keeping the boy away. It was long before the Reb could bring himself to commence the _Agadah_ without his son to ask the time-honoured opening question, and when he did he paused every minute to listen to footsteps or the voice of the wind without. The joyous holiness of the Festival was troubled; a black cloud overshadowed the s.h.i.+ning table-cloth; at supper the food choked him. But _Seder_ was over, and yet no sign of the missing guest, no word of explanation. In poignant anxiety the old man walked the three miles that lay between him and tidings of the beloved son. At his chambers he learnt that their occupant had not been in all day. Another thing he learnt there, too; for the _Mezuzah_ which he had fixed up on the door-post when his boy moved in had been taken down, and it filled his mind with a dread suspicion that Levi had not been eating at the kosher restaurant in Hatton Garden, as he had faithfully vowed to do. But even this terrible thought was swallowed up in the fear that some accident had happened to him. He haunted the house for an hour, filling up the intervals of fruitless inquiry with little random walks round the neighbourhood, determined not to return home to his wife without news of their child. The restless life of the great twinkling streets was almost a novelty to him; it was rarely his perambulations in London extended outside the Ghetto, and the radius of his life was proportionately narrow, with the intensity that narrowness forces on a big soul. The streets dazzled him; he looked blinkingly hither and thither in the despairing hope of finding his boy. His lips moved in silent prayer; he raised his eyes beseechingly to the cold glittering heavens. Then all at once, as the clocks pointed to midnight, he found him. Found him coming out of an unclean place, where he had violated the Pa.s.sover. Found him--fit climax of horror--with the 'strange woman' of the _Proverbs_, for whom the faithful Jew has a hereditary hatred.

His son--his, Reb Shemuel's! He, the servant of the Most High, the teacher of the Faith to reverential thousands, had brought a son into the world to profane the Name! Verily, his grey hairs would go down with sorrow to a speedy grave! And the sin was half his own; he had weakly abandoned his boy in the midst of a great city. For one awful instant, that seemed an eternity, the old man and the young faced each other across the chasm which divided their lives. To the son the shock was scarcely less violent than to the father. The _Seder_, which the day's unwonted excitement had clean swept out of his mind, recurred to him in a flash, and by the light of it he understood the puzzle of his father's appearance. The thought of explaining rushed up only to be dismissed. The door of the restaurant had not yet ceased swinging behind him; there was too much to explain. He felt that all was over between him and his father. It was unpleasant, terrible even, for it meant the annihilation of his resources. But though he still had an almost physical fear of the old man, far more terrible even than the presence of his father was the presence of Miss Gladys Wynne. To explain, to brazen it out--either course was equally impossible. He was not a brave man, but at that moment he felt death were preferable to allowing her to be the witness of such a scene as must ensue. His resolution was taken within a few brief seconds of the tragic _rencontre_. With wonderful self-possession, he nodded to the cabman who had put the question, and whose vehicle was drawn up opposite the restaurant. Hastily he helped the unconscious Gladys into the hansom.

He was putting his foot on the step himself, when Reb Shemuel's paralysis relaxed suddenly. Outraged by this final pollution of the Festival, he ran forward and laid his hand on Levi's shoulder. His face was ashen, his heart thumped painfully; the hand on Levi's cloak shook as with palsy.

Levi winced; the old awe was upon him. Through a blinding whirl he saw Gladys staring wonderingly at the queer-looking intruder. He gathered all his mental strength together with a mighty effort, shook off the great trembling hand, and leapt into the hansom.

'Drive on!' came in strange guttural tones from his parched throat.

The driver lashed the horse; a rough jostled the old man aside and slammed the door to; Leonard mechanically threw him a coin; the hansom glided away.

'Who was that, Leonard?' said Miss Wynne curiously.

'n.o.body; only an old Jew who supplies me with cash.'

Gladys laughed merrily--a rippling, musical laugh. She knew the sort of person.

CHAPTER IX

THE 'FLAG' FLUTTERS

The _Flag of Judah_, price one penny, largest circulation of any Jewish organ, continued to flutter, defying the battle, the breeze, and its communal contemporaries. At Pa.s.sover there had been an illusive augmentation of advertis.e.m.e.nts proclaiming the virtues of unleavened everything. With the end of the Festival most of these fell out, staying as short a time as the daffodils. Raphael was in despair at the meagre attenuated appearance of the erst prosperous-looking pages. The weekly loss on the paper weighed upon his conscience.

'We shall never succeed,' said the sub-editor, shaking his romantic hair, 'till we run it for the Upper Ten. These ten people can make the paper, just as they are now killing it by refusing their countenance.'

'But they must surely reckon with us sooner or later,' said Raphael.

'It will be a long reckoning, I fear; you take my advice, and put in more b.u.t.ter. It'll be _kosher_ b.u.t.ter, coming from us.'

The little Bohemian laughed as heartily as his eyegla.s.s permitted.

'No; we must stick to our guns. After all, we have had some very good things lately. Those articles of Pinchas's are not bad, either.'

'They're so beastly egotistical. Still, his English is improving, and his theories are ingenious, and far more interesting than those terribly dull long letters of Goldsmith, which you will put in.'

Raphael flushed a little, and began to walk up and down the new and superior sanctum with his ungainly strides, puffing furiously at his pipe. The appearance of the room was less bare; the floor was carpeted with old newspapers and sc.r.a.ps of letters. A huge picture of an Atlantic liner, the gift of a steams.h.i.+p company, leaned c.u.mbrously against a wall.

'Still, all our literary excellences,' pursued Sampson, 'are outweighed by our shortcomings in getting births, marriages, and deaths. We are gravelled for lack of that sort of matter. What is the use of your elaborate essay on the Septuagint, when the public is dying to hear who's dead?'

'Yes, I am afraid it is so,' said Raphael, emitting a huge volume of smoke.

'I'm sure it is so. If you would only give me a freer hand I feel sure I could work up that column. We can, at least, make a better show. I would avoid the danger of discovery by s.h.i.+fting the scene to foreign parts. I could marry some people in Bombay, and kill some in Cape Town, redressing the balance by bringing others into existence at Cairo and Cincinnati. Our contemporaries would score off us in local interest, but we should take the s.h.i.+ne out of them in cosmopolitanism.'

'No, no; remember that _Meshumad_,' said Raphael, smiling.

'He was real; if you had allowed me to invent a corpse we should have been saved that contretemps. We have one death this week, fortunately, and I am sure to fish out another in the daily papers. But we haven't had a birth for three weeks running; it's just ruining our reputation.

Everybody knows that the orthodox are a fertile lot, and it looks as if we hadn't got the support even of our own party. Ta-ra-ra-ta! Now, you must really let me have a birth. I give you my word n.o.body'll suspect it isn't genuine. Come now! How's this?'

He scribbled on a piece of paper and handed it to Raphael, who read:

'BIRTH.

'On the 15th inst., at 17 East Stuart Lane, Kennington, the wife of Joseph Samuels of a son.'

'There!' said Sampson proudly. 'Who would believe the little beggar had no existence? n.o.body lives in Kennington, and that East Stuart Lane is a master-stroke. You might suspect Stuart Lane, but n.o.body would ever dream there's no such place as _East_ Stuart Lane. Don't say the little chap must die; I begin to take quite a paternal interest in him. May I announce him? Don't be too scrupulous. Who'll be a penny the worse for it?'

He began to chirp, with bird-like trills of melody.

Raphael hesitated; his moral fibre had been weakened. It is impossible to touch print and not be defiled.

Suddenly Sampson ceased to whistle, and smote his head with his chubby fist.

'a.s.s that I am!' he exclaimed.

'What new reason have you discovered to think so?' said Raphael.

'Why, we dare not create boys. We shall be found out; boys must be circ.u.mcised, and some of the periphrastically styled "Initiators into the Abrahamic Covenant" may spot us. It was a girl that Mrs. Joseph Samuels was guilty of.'

He amended the s.e.x.

Raphael laughed heartily.

'Put it by--there's another day yet--we shall see.'

'Very well,' said Sampson resignedly. 'Perhaps by to-morrow we shall be in luck, and able to sing "Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given." By the way, did you see the letter complaining of our using that quotation on the ground it was from the New Testament?'

'Yes,' said Raphael, smiling. 'Of course the man doesn't know his Old Testament, but I trace his misconception to his having heard Handel's _Messiah_. I wonder he doesn't find fault with the Morning Service for containing the Lord's prayer, or with Moses for saying, "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself."'

'Still, that's the sort of man newspapers have to cater for,' said the sub-editor. 'And we don't. We have cut down our Provincial Notes to a column. My idea would be to make two pages of them, not cutting out any of the people's names and leaving in more of the adjectives.

Every man's name we mention means at least one copy sold. Why can't we drag in a couple of thousand names every week?'

'That would make our circulation altogether nominal,' laughed Raphael, not taking the suggestion seriously.