Sons of the convenant; a tale of London Jewry

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Son s

GORDON

UNIVERSITY^

CHAPTER I " Diamond," said his wife

" What's up now? " came the grudging answer from over the top of a newspaper.

" I want you to do a Httle something for me."

" You and your httle somethings — just the proper thing for a man after twelve hours" work down at the Deptford Meat Market, killing seventeen bullocks. . . ."

Mr. Diamond was a " ritual slaughterer," whose office it is to make beef, mutton, or veal out of live cattle for his coreligionists' consumption, in accordance with Mosaic traditional precept.

"Seventeen bullocks? Well, nobody's going to make you the eighteenth; so you needn't bellow like that," broke in Mrs. Diamond with her Thursday-morning voice.

" I ain't bellowing, Becky, my dear," remonstrated Mr. Diamond, who had allowed himself by a rapt perusal of an interesting libel case to forget who his interlocutor was.

Mrs. Diamond, it was notorious, possessed three sizes of voice. Size number one she reserved exclusively for the wife of the local M. P., a coreligionist, with whom she came into contact at election times, and whom she had inveigled into the belief that Mr.

Diamond was a man of influence in the constitnency. Size number two she employed in speaking to ordinary people — her husband included. The third size, the one referred to above as her Thursday-morning voice, stood her in good stead while l)attling" with extortionate fishmongers for her Sabbath fish; but she also made it serve her on occasions when things were not going entirely her way, especially with Mr. Diamond; and then ]\lr. Diamond answered with humility— that is, if he answered at all.

" Why can't you do a thing without first arguing about it? " continued IMrs. Diamond, somewhat mollified. " Don't I do enough for you? I wonder what sort of a reputation you'd have, if I didn't use all my spare time going round to people and telling them you're the best husband in the world? And they believe me, don't you make a mistake; I don't leave ofif talking till they do. Wish I could believe it myself."

" Wish you could, Becky, my dear," echoed Mr. Diamond, piously.

" Shocking, the way you put yourself out to make me — eh?" And Mrs,. Diamond exhaled irony from every pore. " Diamond, I know what you're after. You want to make yourself precious. You want to show me — fling it down my throat, even if I choke over it — what a treasure it is for a woman that never had no schooling herself to have a man to do her a bit of writing at times — if he wants to, that is. Don't you fear; I can see your little game. One of these days you think I'll talk myself dead begging a favor from you, and then ])erhaps you won't mind writing something to be put on my tombstone. . . ."

" But I'll write it this instant, Beckv, mv dear."

"What, the tombstone?"

" How can you be so stupid? — the letter, of course. Quick, I'm ready."

Mr. Diamond had hastily extracted a sheet of note-paper from the table-drawer, and sat, his pen as it were cocked like a trigger, ready for the word of command. But the torrent of dictation which, judging from past experience, he expected to deluge him was not forthcoming. Instead, Mrs. Diamond seemed possessed by a strange hesitation.

" I wish you wouldn't be so sharp — you've quite flustered me," she observed, glarmgly inconsistent.

" Take your time, my dear; I know how hard it is to start a letter properly."

" Who said it was a letter? " asked Mrs. Diamond.

"You did, didn't you?"

" Of course you always know better what I mean than I do myself."

" Becky, my dear, you haven't made up any poetry, have you? "

"Poetry? Stuff! Diamond, listen to me: I want you to commit a forgery."

Here Mr. Diamond ought to have exclaimed. " My prophetic soul," but unfortunately he was not acquainted with the quotation, which was a pity. It would have been such a nice way of expressing the little thrills of vague apprehension at the circumlocutory fashion in which his wife had preferred her request — a fashion varying so signally from all precedent. But if he could not cap the situation with any apt quotation, he did something similar: he got up and fitted his hat on his head.

"W^hv! where are you off to?" exclaimed Mrs, Diamond.

" To the police station," replied Mr. Diamond calmly. "You ask me to commit a forgery; that means the thing is as good as done. I may as well start doing my ten years as soon as possible."

Airs. Diamond sat silent, awed by her husband's loyalty to the laws of his country or by the patent tribute to her domestic ascendancy — she did not exactly know which. To solve her indecision she got into a temper.

" What a hurry he's in to make me out a piece of God-help-us! There's an opinion to have of vour wife that's worried and fretted and slaved alongside of you twenty-seven years come next Passover. Now out with it — what d'you think I'm more of, a rogue or a fool? You won't say — I dare say you won't; you know when you're well off. Forgery — prison — Becky Diamond. To heaven I want to bring you, and you won't let me! "

" I do want to let you, but not just yet," replied her husband, who, of course, had no intention whatever of gratuitously delivering himself over to justice, but was fain to utilize the incident as an excuse for stepping across the way to take a hand in a " friendly game."

Mrs. Diamond listened in vain for the least little tinge of flippancy in his reply. But Mr. Diamond's luck held good that day, and his wife conjectured from his "not just yet" a reverent reluctance to part with this life, which could only be construed into an indirect compliment to her. Thus appeased, she came at once to the business in hand, wherein a square printed form she submitted to him apparently was to take a leading part.

" Fill that in," she dictated,.

" Uoard of Guardians for the Relief of the Jewish Poor," read Air. Diamond. " hirst Application."

" Who's appl3ing? As }ou say it's to be a forgery, it can't be ni}self."

Mrs. Diamond bit dead a sarcastic connnent on his powers of inference.

" No, not 3'ourself, it's Mrs. Lipcott," she replied instead.

" Mrs,. Lipcott? " Mr. Diamond laid aside the pen. " Why doesn't she make her youngsters write it? They're through the sixth standard, or one of 'em is."

" Uecause she doesn't know anything about it; it's my own idea, and I am doing it on my own little hook. See?"

" Can't say I do. Don't think you've got the right to make people paupers behind their backs," answered Mr. Diamond (|uite resolutely,.

" Better they should make corpses of themselves, eh? And that's what she'll do: on my blessed word, she'll wash herself dead before she's a year older. Perhaps you don't know she goes to bed with mustard plasters on her arms? "

"How should I? But even that doesn't explain why you should take this responsibility on yourself."

" Yes, it does," snapped Mrs. Diamond; " she's one of those stupid persons you've got to protect against themselves. She'll work and work and not once ask what the clock says. And what'll be the end? Another bed will be wanted at the Home for Incurables, and her two youngsters will be in the scramble for the orphan asylum, and there'll be more charity appeals, and more money'll be wanted, and — I wonder where lO SONS OF THE COVENANT:

the community would be if there wasn't myself and one or two others to remember that ' a stitch in time saves nine.' Perhaps you've dawdled long enough now? "

" Oh, I'm quite ready, but — just a moment. Suppose you put the case like that to the woman herself? "

" Put it to her? Pve rammed it down her throat."

" Well?"

" She shakes her head and smiles. If she'd at least answer me, and make a big fuss about wanting to be independent, and then go begging on the quiet! But she doesn't, she just smiles, and lets you guess anything you like. That's what I call pride peeping out through broken boot-tips. Who doesn't help herself from the Soup Kitchen during the winter? Mrs. Lipcott. Who doesn't go to the Thursday grocery distribution? The identical. Who doesn't let her children take the boots and corduroys that's to be had for the asking at the school? I needn't mention the name. That's the kind of creature she is, and — you'll make me choke. Diamond; haven't you started yet?"

" Why, Pm starting as fast as I can. Where's that Evening News? It's all right," he replied hastily. " I'm only looking for the date. Oh, by the w^ay, how do you think the Board can help her? "

" P)y lending or giving her a few pounds to open a little all-sorts shop with, Then, as the boys grow up, they'll help her or get apprenticed to a trade, and she'll yet have a chance of knowing what it's like to have grav hairs on her head. It's a sensible plan, or it wouldn't be me that had thought of it. Diamond, will you or won't you? "

In genuine trepidation Mr. Diamond applied him-

A TALE OF LONDON JEWRY n

self to his task. He called out the queries by which the applicant is catechized, and Mrs. Diamond supplied the requisite answers. As to her accuracy there could be no possible doubt, because she notoriously made it a duty to acquaint herself intimately with the life-histories of all who came into her personal cognizance. Cupboard skeletons she had made a specialty.

The details of information thus collected formed a tolerable biography of Mrs. Lipcott to date. From them it appeared that she was thirty-four years old, that she had been a widow for half a decade, that she had two male children aged thirteen and twelve respectively. There were also items concerning place of abode, occupation, genealogy, the last to the effect that she derived herself from foreign parents, and had immigrated at the age of four. It also transpired that she had no relatives living in London or, in fact, anywhere else.

Mrs. Diamond did not desist till she had the document read to her four times, and had seen it safely enveloped. It was to be posted first thing next morning. She generously consented to defray postage out of her housekeeping allowance. By that time it was ten o'clock. Desperately Mr. Diamond tried to summon up courage to ask for furlough to snatch an hour's transport from the hazard of the card-game across the way; but at the critical moment his heart failed him, and, as the nearest alternative, he went and smothered his chagrin under the bedclothes.

Chapter II

Thrust away somewhere amid the architectural tangle of the Spitalfields district is Narrow Alley. It bears a disconsolate, dumbfounded look, like that of a child which has lost its way among a crowd, and its score or so of hovel houses seem to be spending their time all day in manufacturing apologies for surviving. The top stories on either side sloped yearningly forward towards one another, and had the dwellings been but a little taller, the alley would have been a tunnel; as it was, the daylight managed to squeeze itself through the slit by dint of much exertion, which reduced it to the very shadow of itself.

Just at present that did not so much matter, because it was evening, the same evening, in fact, whereon Mrs. Lipcott's application for relief was being fabricated by the Diamond couple. The interior of IVIrs. Lipcott's house in Narrow Alley, of which house she shared tenancy with an infinite number of other families, could not be said to disprove violenth' her fitness to rank as a recipient of charity. Its furniture was severely simple, with a leaning toward the antique and a desire to resolve itself once more into its constituent elements. But besides its decrepit chairs, beds, and table, the room contained healthier and more able-bodied effects in the shape of the two little boys figuring in the report as aged thirteen and twelve respectively. As far as the consumptive-looking lamplight enabled one to be sure of one's impression, it

Ain't I i'ei:i.ing as hard as I can?"

appeared that these two little boys were engaged in preparing a meal. The angry crackle of seething oil tended to give color, as well as odor, to the conjecture.

" Hurry up there, Leuw," said Phil, the younger of the brothers, " mother'll be here presently."

" All right; ain't I peeling as hard as I can? " came the reply, somewhat gruffly. " Anybody would think it was my fault we started so late."

" I don't," asseverated Phil.

But Leuw would not be deprived of the right to exculpate himself in detail.

" Think Pve been larking about all the two hours Pve been away? Pd like to hear anybody say so. Hanging round the 'tater shop, that's what Pve been, waiting for old Solomon to go indoors. He doesn't give us any tick, you know, the old miser. Well, at last he changes off with his missis, and you bet I took my chance quick enough. She lets me run up to a shilling now — used to be sixpence; getting up in the world, ain't we, Phil?"

" Looks like it," said Phil dubiously.

" Well, then, don't tell me to hurry up. when it ain't any fault of mine that things are a bit behindhand."

" But I never said . . ." protested Phil, blanklv.

"Shut up! Who said you did? Think Pve been 'pologizing to you for being late? Don't you believe it. Never seems to have entered your head, though I can't call it a fat head — but there are times when a fellow has got to make excuses to himself."

"Oh!" said Phil, beginning to catch his drift. " Now, if I hadn't got those 'taters, and there would have been nothin' for mother's supper, not to mention yours, think it would have been any excuse for me that old Solomon wouldn't budge from the shop? Not a bit of it. Because something inside would have told me that I'm the — the — what's the word? Oh, yes, the responsible party, being the head of the family by right of being the oldest man in it, though I've got to let mother do the money earning till I've left school."

" And that will be in. a fortnight," supplemented Phil.

" In a fortnight," echoed Leuw, with a certain grim emphasis.

" Are you sorry? " asked Phil, almost timidly.

" Not exactly sorry, but sort of — and you'll just keep it to yourself, do you hear? — sort of frightened like. It seems to me I'll have to do all my thinking for myself, 'stead of letting the teacher do it for me. It's enough to make one feel a bit anxious, isn't it, Phil?"

" Still, most people have got to start doing their thinking some time or other. I've done so mvself already," replied Phil re-assuringly.

" Gel away — I don't niean your kind of it. w'hich is just dreaming with your eyes open. No dreaming for me, thank you. The way I'm going to do my thinking is to take hold of my brain with both hands, and worry it till I find out what the world's like, and what a fellow can get out of it, and how much he's got to give in exchange,. That'll be a i)retty hard day's work, what do you say?"

Phil gave him a puzzled look, and was very glad to find from Leuw's absent air thai he was not really expected to express an opinion ; and presently Leuw continued:

" No, I ain't sorry, and what concerns the funk, I haven't got it so very badly either. You know that door-knocker on the last house across the way? Well, when the moon shines on it, it looks like a grinning bogy, and I've got to go close up to it to know it's only a stupid old knocker. Strikes me in the same way the world looks a bit dangerous from a distance. I'll be all right once I'm close enough to look it in the face. And then I'm going to fight it."

" But you'll be very careful, Leuw, won't you," asked Phil apprehensively.

" I'll try not to hurt it," replied Leuw, jauntily, " because, mind you, I think I'm pretty tough. Do you know, Phil, I've been sort of feeling myself grow up for the last couple of years, though I didn't show it so nnich outside, because there's half a dozen chaps in the class what's got longer legs than me. Many a time I seem to myself a cheat and a humbug, knowing I had no business to go monkeying around the playground with a pack of kids. Thank God, I'll be able to feel more honest in a fortnight."

He paused and relapsed into a reverie, during which Phil bestowed his undivided attention on the potato chips in the saucepan, till Leuw finally voiced the conclusion which he had been driving at with the words: " No, it isn't at all nice."

"What isn't?" asked Phil, a little scared, thinking that the remark might apply to his cooking.

" Living on tick isn't,. It doesn't do you any good; one-half of you feels choked and the other half starved, and you never know which way it's going to be the death of you. That's why I grew up in such a hurry, because I must start paying cash before it's got time to kill one of us."

" I don't like tick cither," rejoined I'hil thoughtfully, " but 1 wouldn't mind being a boy all my life."

" (Jh, indeed, what for? "

" So that I needn't leave school."

'* Yes. I've got that down on the list — with the other things."

" Hope the total won't come too big," said Phil anxiously.

"The bigger the better: I'll roll up my shirt sleeves a bit higher, that's all."

" Perhaps I could help you."

" Yes, by keeping out of the way. I'd have to waste lialf my time in seeing that nothing happens to you. You tackle the books, and I'll tackle the people. Books take some fighting, too."

" I know', but I'll roll up my shirt sleeves as well."

"Right }Ou are, young 'un; you'll do. Hurray, only one more! " said Leuw as his knife uncoated the last of the potatoes.. Just as he finished cutting it small, something seemed to happen, for he got up rather quickly, and looked searchingly about the room.

" What do you want? " asked Phil, following his gaze.

" Bit of rag — notched my finger, by way of a windup. Ah, here it is."

" Bleeding much- — is it?"

" Buckets; the room will swim in a minute," joked Leuw.

" Hadn't you better hold it under the pump downstairs? " asked Phil, his anxiety only partially allayed.

" Good idea. that. Then T shan't want the rag, and mother needn't know," replied Leuw, hurrying of¥,

" Hold a minute, I'm coming with you."

"What? afraid to stop in the room alone?"

" Not that,", faltered Phil, " but you see I'll be by myself with the chips, and you might think perhaps "

" Oh, might I?" said Leuw, breaking in on his embarrassment. " 1 'spose that's a nice polite way of calling yourself brother to a blackguard and a greedyguts. Take you long to think of it? Now, in the time you've kept me here jawing, you've wasted at least three drops of my precious — I've got a good mind to make you pay for them in chips."

Five minutes afterwards he was about to re-enter the doorway, but paused and waited for the slow-stepping woman of whom he had just caught sight at the mouth of the alley.

" Here, mother, I'll give you a lift," he said, taking her by the arm.

" Thank you, dear. Have you been to Solomon's?" asked Mrs. Lipcott.

" I have; it's all right."

" I'm glad, because Mrs. Daniels had no change and . . ."

" I knew it." said Leuw, bitterly, " she never has. ' Pay you to-morrow,' she said, didn't she? I wonder how many more houses her husband's been buying this week."

"Don't be unkind. Leuw; it was only a little thoughtless of her."

" That's right, whitewash her. Jingo. I'd make her think if . . ."

P)Ut what particular reflections Leuw wished to instil into the said Mrs. Daniels, and under what conditions he could have done so, remained unuttered, 2 because at this moment Phil opened the door to Hght them up the few remaining stairs. Eagerly he pulled his mother into the room, which presently resounded with vigorous kissing.

" Here, stop that," came a peremptory command from Leuw.

" Don't you care, mother; he's only jealous," laughed Phil disrespectfully.

" Perhaps — perhaps not ; but what I am certain about is that you are keeping mother standing quite a minute longer than she need; and in the second place, it's time you started learning to keep your feelings a bit dark, and not give yourself away before everybody. It isn't safe with such a lot of bad people waiting round to take a rise out of you."

Phil looked to see how his mother was taking Leuw's homily on the necessity of cultivating emotional discipline. He himself felt quite incapable of answering him. For the voices that talked to him in his day-dreams he always had a pat and accurate reply; but before the voice of the world, which now spoke to him in the words of his brother Leuw, he cowered tongue-tied and helpless. How good it nnist feel to be strong and of ready speech like his brother Leuw! He must watch and learn the secret of it from him.

Mrs. Lipcott, too, had been thinking how to answer her son. Not infrequently was she thus at a loss. But that never troubled her. However nmch this boy of hers seemed a stranger to her at times, however much in him she had to guess at, her heart told her that, from the little that was revealed, she could safelv take the rest on trust. And so she contented her-

A TALE OF LONDON JKWRY u)

self with saying: '' Come, children, supper's getting cold."

Through the business-like silence which followed ran three trains of thought, all on more or less diverging lines.

Mrs. Lipcott wondered how her life would have shaped but for the cold which grew angry at being neglected, and worked itself up into the rapid lungtrouble that carried her husband off. Perhaps she might have owned by now as much jewelry as Mrs. Daniels; the little boot-factory had just begun to make headway.. As it was, her concern was not with precious stones, but with soap and stove polish, and if these were of superior cpiality, and saved her a pro- I)ortionate amount of bodily wear and tear, she considered it enough good fortune for one day. She had not remained very long in the stupor wherewith she had been smitten by the downfall of her prop and stay. The cries of two healthy young appetites for bread had acted as an efficient restorative. But the energy to which they had roused her she felt at best to be only artificial, and gave no guarantee of reserve force. Of late she had more than once cast involuntary questioning looks at her future as personified in her two sons — especially the elder; and each time she had felt re-assured, nay, elated and triumphant. For the things that make us happiest are the anxieties which carry their own comfortings for cargo.

Leuw, for his part, ate his supper with teeth that mutinied. The truculent mood of before had come back to him. As it was, it served as the keynote of his heart — this protest against the bleak sordidness, the cheese-rind paring, the rag-and-patch routine he had to call life. He knew it required a certain amount of courage to protest, and he was proportionately proud of it. All the other people in Xarrow Alley were afraid to put their burdens on the broad back of the future. They groaned along beneath them in apparent content. True, they did their fair share of grumbling, but it was only in a sort of hole-and-corner wa}-; that is. they complained about the slackness of trade, about the low rate of wages, and the high price of bread and coal. But they never went to head- (piarters. They never, so to speak, put their grievances down black on white, and dropped them into Fate's letter-box, where they would have a fair chance of receiving consideration. ()n the contrar\-, they seemed afraid of drav/ing the attention of Providence to their existence, for fear of reminding it that their power of endurance had not yet been strained to its uttermost. That was what the pious called a godly resignation. Leuw believed in the godliness but not in the resignation. He had l)een created, and therefore had a right to live; or at least, he should not have been born with the knowledge that there were better things on earth, if it was never intended that he should enjoy them. Xo knock-kneed compromise fen- him. He had begun early to shake his fist at I*"ate. Tt was just a;s well that they both should know exactly how accounts stood between them: and that was — everything or nothing.

And little I'hil. meantime, vaguely foreboding the disadvantage at which the dreamer of dreams is ])laccd in the midst of a wide-awake world, was busily rehearsing to himself the first maxim of self-defense, which, according to brother Leuw. consisted in not giving way to your feelings before people,

CHAPTER HI

In those days the London headquarters of Jewish charity, the so-called Board of Guardians, did not yet consist of the palatial premises in which its manysided and far-reaching operations are being carried on now. A commodious, unof^cial-looking house, in a square at the northwest point of the Jewish area, served for that purpose, till the growth of its scope threatened to make havoc of, and cast confusion into, its organization for want of more elbow room.

It does not take the Jew long to acclimatize himself, morally and physically, in the country of his adoption. If anything, he has a tendency, which would be amusing if it were not pathetic, to out-royal the king, that is, to accentuate his acquired characteristics more than is quite necessary. He is, perhaps, over-anxious to impress his fellow-citizen with the compliment he is paying him — the highest one man can pay another — in tarring himself with the same brush. But of his sincerity there can be no doubt; he does not stop at the external and superficial,. In the coimtries where he is allowed to come in by the front door, and can fearlessly show himself at the windows, there is no heart more truly in accord than his with all the phases of the national destiny. He rejoices in his country's joys, he sorrows in her calamities, as though they were part and parcel of his individual self. For her sake he plucks from his heart his prejudices — a hard wrench where the roots go down century-deep. He sacrifices for her both retrospect and prospect, his pride in a great past and his God-guaranteed hope of a specific redemption. But two things he keeps for his inahenable possession: the right to pray his prayers and the privilege of helping his poor.

The first of these reservations needs no explaining; the second is not so self-obvious. There is a narrow view wliich ascribes it to the desire of the communit} to avoid incurring unnecessary prejudices by throwing its destitute on the already heavily burdened shoulders of the British taxpayer. This is a gratuitous aspersion on the resources and generosity of a great people which is ever ready to accept the responsibilities which are. as it were, the penalty of its largehcartedness. The cynic and worldly-wise regard it as an ingenious device of purse-proud selfishness to pile up the largest possible total on the credit side in the ledgers of eternity. But sneer and pusillanimity are wrong, as usual. This clannish philanthropy is essentially a matter of sentiment, and sentiment is a property which must not be grudged to a race which has had its heart-strings so often played upon. Perhaps the forel)ear of this poor alien wretch spoke a word of comfort to your ancestor by the waters of Babylon; perhaps the one heartened the other for the roaring death in the arenas of Rome; or perhaps he writhed and died on the inquisitorial rack because he would not incriminate the Marrano from whom you trace vour descent. All these things are more than possibilities, and one never finds it easier to pay a del)t than when the heart is the only T. O. U. No set policy of temporal or spiritual import could avail as much as these vague promptings to settle accounts with an obligation which, even if it ever had any warrant, distances of time and space ought to have rendered legendary. And though the watchword which speeds from mouth to mouth during the Passover ceremonial — " He who is hungry, let him come and eat " — must of necessity remain a formula of the lip, the sentiment of the Jew makes him practical enough to attempt the spirit where the effecting of the letter would be absurd.