Children of the Ghetto Part 38

Mendel caught Miriam's jacket which was slipping to the floor and laid it aside.

"It helps not to cry," said he gently, longing to cry with her. "This cannot be. He must marry the maiden whom his heart desires. Is it not enough that he feels that we have crippled his life for the sake of our Sabbath? He never speaks of it, but it smoulders in his veins."

"Wait a little!" moaned Beenah, still rocking to and fro.

"Nay, calm thyself." He rose and pa.s.sed his h.o.r.n.y hand tenderly over her white hair. "We must not wait. Consider how long Daniel has waited."

"Yes, my poor lamb, my poor lamb!" sobbed the old woman.

"If Daniel marries," said the old man, striving to speak firmly, "we have not a penny to live upon. Our Miriam requires all her salary.

Already she gives us more than she can spare. She is a lady, in a great position. She must dress finely. Who knows, too, but that we are in the way of a gentleman marrying her? We are not fit to mix with high people.

But above all, Daniel must marry and I must earn your and my living as I did when the children were young."

"But what wilt thou do?" said Beenah, ceasing to cry and looking up with affrighted face. "Thou canst not go glaziering. Think of Miriam. What canst thou do, what canst thou do? Thou knowest no trade!"

"No, I know no trade," he said bitterly. "At home, as thou art aware, I was a stone-mason, but here I could get no work without breaking the Sabbath, and my hand has forgotten its cunning. Perhaps I shall get my hand back." He took hers in the meantime. It was limp and chill, though so near the fire. "Have courage." he said. "There is naught I can do here that will not shame Miriam. We cannot even go into an almshouse without shedding her blood. But the Holy One, blessed be He, is good. I will go away."

"Go away!" Beenah's clammy hand tightened her clasp of his. "Thou wilt travel with ware in the country?"

"No. If it stands written that I must break with my children, let the gap be too wide for repining. Miriam will like it better. I will go to America."

"To America!" Beenah's heartbeat wildly. "And leave me?" A strange sense of desolation swept over her.

"Yes--for a little, anyhow. Thou must not face the first hards.h.i.+ps. I shall find something to do. Perhaps in America there are more Jewish stone-masons to get work from. G.o.d will not desert us. There I can sell ware in the streets--do as I will. At the worst I can always fall back upon glaziering. Have faith, my dove."

The novel word of affection thrilled Beenah through and through.

"I shall send thee a little money; then as soon as I can see my way dear I shall send for thee and thou shalt come out to me and we will live happily together and our children shall live happily here."

But Beenah burst into fresh tears.

"Woe! Woe!" she sobbed. "How wilt thou, an old man, face the sea and the strange faces all alone? See how sorely thou art racked with rheumatism.

How canst thou go glaziering? Thou liest often groaning all the night.

How shalt thou carry the heavy crate on thy shoulders?"

"G.o.d will give me strength to do what is right." The tears were plain enough in his voice now and would not be denied. His words forced themselves out in a husky wheeze.

Beenah threw her arms round his neck. "No! No!" she cried hysterically.

"Thou shalt not go! Thou shalt not leave me!"

"I must go," his parched lips articulated. He could not see that the snow of her hair had drifted into her eyes and was scarce whiter than her cheeks. His spectacles were a blur of mist.

"No, no," she moaned incoherently. "I shall die soon. G.o.d is merciful.

Wait a little, wait a little. He will kill us both soon. My poor lamb, my poor Daniel! Thou shalt not leave me."

The old man unlaced her arms from his neck.

"I must. I have heard G.o.d's word in the silence."

"Then I will go with thee. Wherever thou goest I will go."

"No, no; thou shall not face the first hards.h.i.+ps, I will front them alone; I am strong, I am a man."

"And thou hast the heart to leave me?" She looked piteously into his face, but hers was still hidden from him in the mist. But through the darkness the flash pa.s.sed again. His hand groped for her waist, he drew her again towards him and put the arms he had unlaced round his neck and stooped his wet cheek to hers. The past was a void, the forty years of joint housekeeping, since the morning each had seen a strange face on the pillow, faded to a point. For fifteen years they had been drifting towards each other, drifting nearer, nearer in dual loneliness; driven together by common suffering and growing alienation from the children they had begotten in common; drifting nearer, nearer in silence, almost in unconsciousness. And now they had met. The supreme moment of their lives had come. The silence of forty years was broken. His withered lips sought hers and love flooded their souls at last.

When the first delicious instants were over, Mendel drew a chair to the table and wrote a letter in Hebrew script and posted it and Beenah picked up Miriam's jacket. The crackling flames had subsided to a steady glow, the clock ticked on quietly as before, but something new and sweet and sacred had come into her life, and Beenah no longer wished to die.

When Miriam came home, she brought a little blast of cold air into the room. Beenah rose and shut the door and put out Miriam's supper; she did not drag her feet now.

"Was it a nice play, Miriam?" said Beenah softly.

"The usual stuff and nonsense!" said Miriam peevishly. "Love and all that sort of thing, as if the world never got any older."

At breakfast next morning old Hyams received a letter by the first post.

He carefully took his spectacles off and donned his reading-gla.s.ses to read it, throwing the envelope carelessly into the fire. When he had scanned a few lines he uttered an exclamation of surprise and dropped the letter.

"What's the matter, father?" said Daniel, while Miriam tilted her snub nose curiously.

"Praised be G.o.d!" was all the old man could say.

"Well, what is it? Speak!" said Beenah, with unusual animation, while a flush of excitement lit up Miriam's face and made it beautiful.

"My brother in America has won a thousand pounds on the lotter_ee_ and he invites me and Beenah to come and live with him."

"Your brother in America!" repeated his children staring.

"Why, I didn't know you had a brother in America," added Miriam.

"No, while he was poor, I didn't mention him," replied Mendel, with unintentional sarcasm. "But I've heard from him several times. We both came over from Poland together, but the Board of Guardians sent him and a lot of others on to New York."

"But you won't go, father!" said Daniel.

"Why not? I should like to see my brother before I die. We were very thick as boys."

"But a thousand pounds isn't so very much," Miriam could not refrain from saying.

Old Hyams had thought it boundless opulence and was now sorry he had not done his brother a better turn.

"It will be enough for us all to live upon, he and Beenah and me. You see his wife died and he has no children."

"You don't really mean to go?" gasped Daniel, unable to grasp the situation suddenly sprung upon him. "How will you get the money to travel with?"

"Read here!" said Mendel, quietly pa.s.sing him the letter. "He offers to send it."

"But it's written in Hebrew!" cried Daniel, turning it upside down hopelessly.

"You can read Hebrew writing surely," said his father.

"I could, years and years ago. I remember you taught me the letters. But my Hebrew correspondence has been so scanty--" He broke off with a laugh and handed the letter to Miriam, who surveyed it with mock comprehension. There was a look of relief in her eyes as she returned it to her father.