Part 32 (1/2)

'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.