The Grandchildren of the Ghetto Part 32

'You won't remember me,' said Esther. 'Tell me--your aunt is called Mrs. Levine, isn't she?'

'Oh yes! but,' with a shade of contempt, 'she hasn't got any children.'

'How many brothers and sisters have _you_ got?' said Esther, with a little laugh.

'Heaps. Oh, but you won't see them if you go in; they're in school, most of 'em.'

'And why aren't you at school?'

The redeemed son became scarlet.

'I've got a bad leg,' ran mechanically off his tongue. Then, administering a savage thwack to his hoop, he set out in pursuit of it. 'It's no good calling on mother!' he yelled back, turning his head unexpectedly. 'She ain't in.'

Esther walked into the Square, where the same big-headed babies were still rocking in swings suspended from the lintels, and where the same ruddy-faced septuagenarians sat smoking short pipes and playing nap on trays in the sun. From several doorways came the reek of fish-frying.

The houses looked ineffably petty and shabby. Esther wondered how she could ever have conceived this a region of opulence, still more how she could ever have located Malka and her family on the very outskirt of the semi-divine cla.s.ses. But the semi-divine persons themselves had long since shrunk and dwindled.

She found Malka brooding over the fire; on the side-table was the clothes-brush. The great events of a crowded decade of European history had left Malka's domestic interior untouched. The fall of dynasties, philosophies and religions had not shaken one china dog from its place. She had not turned a hair of her wig: the black silk bodice might have been the same; the gold chain at her bosom was. Time had written a few more lines on the tan-coloured equine face, but his influence had been only skin-deep. Everybody grows old; few people grow. Malka was of the majority.

It was only with difficulty that she recollected Esther, and she was visibly impressed by the young lady's appearance.

'It's very good of you to come and see an old woman,' she said in her mixed dialect, which skipped irresponsibly from English to Yiddish and back again. 'It's more than my own _Kinder_ do. I wonder they let you come across and see me.'

'I haven't been to see them yet,' Esther interrupted.

'Ah, that explains it,' said Malka with satisfaction. 'They'd have told you, "Don't go and see the old woman; she's _meshuggah_, she ought to be in the asylum." I bring children into the world, and buy them husbands and businesses and bedclothes, and this is my profit.

The other day my Milly--the impudent face! I would have boxed her ears if she hadn't been suckling Nathaniel! Let her tell me again that ink isn't good for the ringworm, and my five fingers shall leave a mark on her face worse than any of Gabriel's ringworms. But I have washed my hands of her--she can go her way, and I'll go mine. I've taken an oath I'll have nothing to do with her and her children--no, not if I live a thousand years. It's all through Milly's ignorance she has had such heavy losses.'

'What! Mr. Phillips's business been doing badly? I'm so sorry.'

'No, no! my family never does bad business. It's my Milly's children.

She lost two. As for my Leah, G.o.d bless her! she's been more unfortunate still. I always said that old beggar-woman had the evil-eye! I sent her to Liverpool with her Sam.'

'I know,' murmured Esther.

'But she is a good daughter. I wish I had a thousand such! She writes to me every week, and my little Ezekiel writes back--English they learn them in that heathen school,' Malka interrupted herself sarcastically; 'and it was I who had to learn him to begin a letter properly, with--"I write you these few lines, hoping to find you in good health, as, thank G.o.d, it leaves me at present." He used to begin anyhow.'

She came to a stop, having tangled the thread of her discourse, and bethought herself of offering Esther a peppermint. But Esther refused, and bethought herself of inquiring after Mr. Birnbaum.

'My Michael is quite well, thank G.o.d!' said Malka, 'though he is still pigheaded in business matters! He buys so badly, you know--gives a hundred pounds for what's not worth twenty.'

'But you said business was all right?'

'Ah, that's different. Of course he sells at a good profit, thank G.o.d!

If I wanted to provoke Providence, I could keep my carriage like any of your grand West-End ladies. But that doesn't make him a good buyer.

And the worst of it is he always thinks he has got a bargain. He won't listen to reason at all,' said Malka, shaking her head dolefully. 'He might be a child of mine instead of my husband. If G.o.d didn't send him such luck and blessing we might come to want bread, coal, and meat tickets ourselves, instead of giving them away. Do you know, I found out that Mrs. Isaacs, across the Square, only speculates her guinea in the drawings to give away the tickets she wins to her poor relations, so that she gets all the credit of charity and her name in the papers while saving the money she'd have to give to her poor relations all the same. n.o.body can say I give my tickets to my poor relations. You should just see how much my Michael vows away at _Shool_. He's been _Parna.s.s_ for the last twelve years straight off, all the members respect him so much; it isn't often you see a business man with such fear of Heaven. Wait! my Ezekiel will be _Bar-mitzvah_ in a few years; then you shall see what I will do for that _Shool_. You shall see what an example of _Yiddishkeit_ I will give to a _link_ generation. Mrs.

Benjamin, of the Ruins, purified her knives and forks for Pa.s.sover by sticking them between the boards of the floor. Would you believe, she didn't make them red-hot first! I gave her a bit of my mind. She said she forgot. But not she! She's no cat's head. She's a regular Christian, that's what she is. I shouldn't wonder if she becomes one like that blackguard David Brandon. I always told my Milly he was not the sort of person to allow across the threshold. It was Sam Levine who brought him. You see what comes of having the son of a proselyte in the family. Some say Reb Shemuel's daughter narrowly escaped being engaged to him. But that story has a beard already. I suppose it's the sight of you brings up _Olov Hasholom_ times. Well, and how are you?'

she concluded abruptly, becoming suddenly conscious of imperfect courtesy.

'Oh, I'm very well, thank you,' said Esther.

'Ah, that's right. You're looking very well, _imbeschreer_--quite a grand lady. I always knew you'd be one some day. There was your poor mother--peace be upon him! She went and married your father, though I warned her he was a _Schnorrer_ and only wanted her because she had a rich Family; he'd have sent you out with matches if I hadn't stepped in. I remember saying to him, "That little Esther has Aristotle's head, let her learn all she can; as sure as I stand here she will grow up to be a lady: I shall have no need to be ashamed of owning her for a cousin." He was not so pig-headed as your mother, and you see the result.'

She surveyed the result with an affectionate smile, feeling genuinely proud of her share in its production.

'If my Ezekiel were only a few years older!' she added musingly.

'Oh, but I am not a great lady,' said Esther, hastening to disclaim false pretensions to the hand of the hero of the hoop; 'I've left the Goldsmiths, and come back to live in the East End.'

'What!' said Malka, 'left the West End!'

Her swarthy face grew darker; the skin about her black eyebrows was wrinkled with wrath.

'Are you _meshuggah_?' she asked after an awful silence. 'Or have you, perhaps, saved up a tidy sum of money?'

Esther flushed and shook her head.

'Then it's no use coming to me. I'm not a rich woman, far from it, and I have been blessed with _Kinder_ who are helpless without me. It's as I always said to your father. "Meshe," I said, "you're a _Schnorrer_, and your children'll grow up _Schnorrers_."'

Esther turned white, but the dwindling of Malka's semi-divinity had diminished the old woman's power of annoying her.

'I want to earn my own living,' she said, with a smile that was almost contemptuous. 'Do you call that being a _Schnorrer_?'

'Don't argue with me. You're just like your poor mother--peace be upon him!' cried the irate old woman. 'You G.o.d's fool! you were provided for in life, and you have no right to come upon the Family.'

'But isn't it _schnorring_ to be dependent on strangers?' inquired Esther with bitter amus.e.m.e.nt.

'Don't stand there with your impudence-face!' cried Malka, her eyes blazing fire. 'You know as well as I do that a _Schnorrer_ is a person you give sixpences to. When a rich family takes in a motherless girl like you and clothes her and feeds her, why, it's mocking Heaven to run away and want to earn your own living! Earn your living! Pooh!

what living can you earn, you with your gloves? You're all by yourself in the world now--your father can't help you any more. He did enough for you when you were little, keeping you at school when you ought to have been out selling matches. You'll starve and come to me, that's what you'll do.'

'I may starve, but I'll never come to you,' said Esther, now really irritated by the truth in Malka's words. What living, indeed, could she earn! She turned her back haughtily on the old woman, not without a recollection of a similar scene in her childhood. History was repeating itself on a smaller scale than seemed consistent with its dignity. When she got outside she saw Milly in conversation with a young lady at the door of her little house, diagonally opposite. Milly had noticed the strange visitor to her mother, for the rival camps carried on a system of espionage from behind their respective gauze blinds, and she had come to the door to catch a better glimpse of her when she left. Esther was pa.s.sing through Zachariah Square without any intention of recognising Milly. The daughter's flaccid personality was not so attractive as the mother's; besides, a visit to her might be construed into a mean revenge on the old woman. But as if in response to a remark of Milly's, the young lady turned her face to look at Esther, and then Esther saw that it was Hannah Jacobs. She felt hot and uncomfortable, and half reluctant to renew acquaintance with Levi's family; but with another impulse she crossed over to the group and went through the inevitable formulae. Then, refusing Milly's warm-hearted invitation to have a cup of tea, she shook hands and walked away.

'Wait a minute, Miss Ansell,' said Hannah. 'I'll come with you.'

Milly gave her a s.h.i.+lling with a facetious grimace, and she rejoined Esther.

'I'm collecting money for a poor family of _Greeners_ just landed,'

she said. 'They had a few roubles, but they fell among the usual sharks at the docks, and the cabman took all the rest of their money to drive them to the Lane. I left them all crying and rocking themselves to and fro in the street while I ran round to collect a little to get them a lodging.'

'Poor things,' said Esther.

'Ah, I can see you've been away from Jews,' said Hannah, smiling. 'In the olden days you would have said _Achi nebb.i.+.c.h_.'

'Should I?' said Esther, smiling in return, and beginning to like Hannah. She had seen very little of her in those olden days, for Hannah had been an adult and well-to-do as long as Esther could remember; it seemed amusing now to walk side by side with her in perfect equality and apparently little younger. For Hannah's appearance had not aged perceptibly, which was, perhaps, why Esther recognised her at once. She had not become angular like her mother, nor coa.r.s.e and stout like other mothers. She remained slim and graceful, with a virginal charm of expression. But the pretty face had gained in refinement; it looked earnest, almost spiritual, telling of suffering and patience, not unblent with peace.

Esther silently extracted half a crown from her purse and handed it to Hannah.

'I didn't mean to ask you, indeed I didn't,' said Hannah.

'Oh, I am glad you told me,' said Esther tremulously.