Part 46 (1/2)

Harris, O'Hara, Rebekah and Frankl alone knew that past, and the motives for silence of the first three were obvious; nor had Frankl whispered that secret even to his own heart in his bed-chamber, conscious of his own guilt in the matter of the Arab Jew's death, fearing that, if the wit and power of Hogarth were given motive to move heaven and earth, the real facts might not be undiscoverable: then would Frankl be ground to fine powder by the grinders. But if he was going to Palestine, what mattered?

Also, there was Margaret: she should go out as a Jewess.

She arrived at ”Silverfern” in the charge of a Jewish clerk, and the Abrahams received her as an afflicted orphan, committed to Frankl by her father; she, like Rebekah, to go under their care.

Well, the evening before the departure, Mr. and Mrs. Abrahams, their two sons, Rebekah and Margaret, all go for a stroll--about nine o'clock, that morning one of the four ravishers having been to the house on some pretence, seen Margaret with Mrs. Abrahams under the porch, and noted her well, her grey tailor-gown, her brooch, her singing; and now, as all walked out under the moon, they were watched, the watchers, surprised at the presence of _two_ young ladies, concluding that the smaller--Rebekah--must have arrived later: so upon the large and shapely form of Margaret their gaze fastened, as the party pa.s.sed near their hedge of concealment, Margaret then remarking: ”My name is Rachel Oppenheimer--” and Mrs. Abrahams with gentle chiding answering her: ”No, be good: your name is Ruth Levi”.

For during two years at the Jewish Asylum at Wroxham they had tilled into her shrieking brain, ”Now, be good: your name is Rachel Oppenheimer”, and one day she had said: ”My name _is_ Rachel Oppenheimer”, and had been saying it ever since.

In fact, there was a real Rachel Oppenheimer, a dependent of Frankl's, at Yarmouth, who was rather mad, and when it had been necessary that Margaret should be out of the way in order to secure Hogarth's conviction, two doctors had examined this Rachel Oppenheimer, and given the legal certificates by means of which Frankl had put away Margaret; and she during two years of sanity in an atmosphere of lunacy had screamed for pity, till one morning she had shewed the stare, the unworldly rapture, and had started to sing her old songs.

After which, Frankl, hearing of it, and touched by some awe, had got her out, and kept her in one retreat or another.

But in all her madness was mixed some memory of his devilish heart, and every fresh sight of him inspired her with panic, she in his presence hanging upon his eyes, instant to obey his slightest hint: hence her beckoning down to Hogarth from that window in Market Street.

Now, on this last night of England the Abrahams party strolled far, two days like Summer days having come, on hedge and tree now tripping the shoots of Spring, the moon-haunted night of a mild mood: so from ”Silverfern” lawns they pa.s.sed up a steep field northward, down a path between village-houses, and idled within a pine-wood by the river-side.

The moon's glow was like one luminous ghost: and b.u.t.tercup, daisy, snowdrop, primrose gathered Margaret, vagrant, flighty, light to the winds that wafted her as fluff, and tossed them suddenly aloft, and back they came to be tangled in her bare hair; and now she was a tipsy bacchante, singing:

”Will you come to the wedding?

Will you come?

Bring you own bread and b.u.t.ter, And your own tea and sugar, And we'll all pay a penny for the Rum”.

”Poor Ruth!”--from Rebekah, an arm about her waist.

”There is such a huge pool which is wheeling”, said Margaret, gazing at it with surprise, ”and it goes hollow in the middle: my goodness, it does wheel! and there is a little grey duck in it ranging round and round with it, and this little grey duck is singing like an angel”.

”Do you know where we are going to?” asked Rebekah: ”to the land of our fathers, Ruth, after all the exile in this ugly Western world; and it is he who sends us, the fierce-willed master of men”.

”My name”, said Margaret, ”is Rachel Oppenheimer”; and immediately, wafted like a half-inflated balloon which leaps to descend a thousand feet away, she sang:

”Happy day! Happy day!

When Jesus washed my sins away...”

Then, woe-begone, she shook her head, and let fall her abandoned hand; and Rebekah, speaking more to herself: ”Did you never hear of Hogarth, the King, Ruth? or see him in some dream in s.h.i.+ning white, with a face like the face in the bush which burned and was not consumed?”

But now Margaret laughed, crying out: ”Oh, there's a man riding a shorthorn bull that has wings; white it is: and up they fly, the bull pawing and snorting, all among the stars. Oh, and now the man is falling!--my goodness--”

She stood still, gazing at that thing in heaven.

”Well, what has become of the man, dear?” asked Rebekah.

”I can't make out....But I should like to marry that man”.

”Ah, if wishes were fathers, we should all have babies, Ruth, to say our _kaddish_”.

”Oh, look--!” cried Margaret.

A rabbit had rushed across a path ahead, and she ran that way beyond a bend....When Rebekah followed she had disappeared.