Ghetto Tragedies Part 41

"It isn't her money--your father made it on the Stock Exchange."

"Who told you so?"

"Didn't you hear Lazarus say so yourself?"

Then a horrible suspicion came to Salvina. "He doesn't set father at you when you go there?" she cried.

Mrs. Brill flushed furiously. "I'd like to see him try it on," she murmured.

Salvina stooped to kiss her. "But he tells you tales of father's riches, I suppose."

"Who wants his riches? If he offered me my own horse and carriage, I wouldn't be seen with him after the disgrace he's put upon me."

"I wish, mother, Lazarus had inherited your sense of honour."

Mrs. Brill was pleased. "There isn't a woman in the world with more pride! Your father made a mistake when he began with me!"

XIII

A horse and carriage did come, one flamboyant afternoon, but it was the Samuelsons', and brought the long-absent Kitty. And Kitty as usual brought a present. This time it was a bracelet, and Mrs. Brill clasped and unclasped it ecstatically, feeling that she had at least one daughter who loved her and did not domineer. Salvina was at school, and Mrs. Brill took Kitty all over the house, enjoying her approval, and accepting all the praise for the lighter and more artistic furniture. She told her of the episode of the return of the old furniture--"And didn't have the decency to put new castors on the sofa she had sprawled on!"

Kitty's laughter was as loud and ringing as Salvina had antic.i.p.ated; Mrs. Brill coloured under it, as though _she_ were found food for laughter. "What a ridiculous person he is!" Kitty added hastily.

"Yes," said Mrs. Brill with eager pride and relief. "He thought he could coax me back like a dog with a bit of sugar."

"It would be too funny to live with him again." And Kitty's eyes danced.

"Do you think so?" said Mrs. Brill anxiously. And under the suns.h.i.+ne of her daughter's approval she confided to her that he had really turned up twice at Lazarus's, beautifully costumed, with diamonds on his fingers and a white flower in his b.u.t.ton-hole, but that she had repulsed him as she would repulse a drunken heathen. He had put his arms round her, but she had shaken him off as one shakes off a black beetle.

Kitty turned away and stuffed her handkerchief into her mouth. She knew there was a tragic side, but the comic aspect affected her more.

"Then you think I was right?" Mrs. Brill wound up.

"Of course," Kitty said soothingly. "What do you want of him?"

"But don't tell Salvina, or she'd eat my head off." And then, the eager upleaping fountain of her mother's egoistic babblings beginning at last to trickle thinly, Kitty found a breathing-s.p.a.ce in which to inform her of the great news that throbbed in her own breast.

"Lily Samuelson's dead! Mrs. Rosenstein, you know!"

"Oh, my G.o.d!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Mrs. Brill, trembling like a leaf. Nothing upset her more than to find that persons within her ken could actually die.

"Yes, we had a cable from the Cape yesterday."

"Hear, O Israel! Let me see--yes, she must have died in child-birth."

"She did--the house is all in hysterics. I couldn't stand it any longer. I ordered the carriage and came here."

"My poor Kitty! That Lily was too old to have a baby. And now he will marry Mabel."

"Oh, no, mother."

"Oh, yes, he will. Mabel will jump at him, you'll see."

"But it isn't legal--you can't marry your deceased wife's sister."

"I know you can't in England--what foolishness! But they'll go to Holland to be married."

"Don't be so absurd, mother."

"Absurd!" Mrs. Brill glared. "You mark my words. They'll be in Holland before the year's out, like Hyam Emanuel's eldest brother-in-law and the red-haired sister of Samuel, the p.a.w.nbroker."

"Well, I don't care if they are," said Kitty, yawning.

"Don't care! Why, you'll lose your place. They kept you on for Mabel, but now--"

Kitty cut her short. "Don't worry, mother. I'll be all right. He's not married Mabel yet."

This reminder seemed to come to Mrs. Brill like a revelation, so fast had her imagination worked. She calmed down and Kitty took the opportunity to seek to escape. "Tell Salvina the news," she said.

"She'll be specially interested in it. In fact, judging by the last time, she'll be more excited than I am," and she smiled somewhat mysteriously. "Tell her I'm sorry I missed her--I was hoping to find her having a holiday, but apparently I haven't been lucky enough to strike some Jewish fast."

But partly because Mrs. Brill was enraptured by her beautiful daughter, partly to keep the pompous equipage outside her door as long as possible, she detained Kitty so unconscionably that Salvina arrived from school. Kitty flew to embrace her as usual, but arrested herself, shocked.

"Why, Sally!" she cried. "You look like a ghost! What's the matter?"

"Nothing," said Salvina with a wan smile. "Just the excitement of seeing you, I suppose."

Kitty performed the postponed embrace but remained dubious and shaken.

Was it that her mind was morbidly filled with funereal images, or was it that her fresh eye had seen what her mother's custom-blinded vision had missed--that there was death in Salvina's face?

This face of death-in-life stirred up unwonted emotions in Kitty and made her refrain apprehensively from speaking again of Lily's death; and some days later, when the first bustle of grief had subsided in Bedford Square, Kitty, still haunted by that grewsome vision, wrote Salvina a letter.

"MY DEAR OLD SALLY,--You must really draw in your horns. You were not looking at all well the other day. You are burning the candle at both ends, I am sure. That horrid Board School is killing you. I am going to beg a fortnight's holiday for you, and I am going to take you to Boulogne for a week, and then, when you are all braced up again, we can have the second week at Paris."

"MY DEAREST AND BEST OF SISTERS," [Salvina replied,] "How shocking the news mother has told me of the death of poor Lily!

If she did wrong she was speedily punished. But let us hope she really loved him. I am sure that your brooding on her sad fate and your sympathy with the family in this terrible affliction has made you fancy all sorts of things about me, just as mother is morbidly apprehensive of that horrible creature marrying Mabel and thus robbing you of your place. But your sweet letter did me more good than if I had really gone to Paris. How did you know it was the dream of my life? But it cannot be realized just yet, for it would be impossible for me to be spared from school just now. Miss Green is away with diphtheria, and as this is examination time, Miss Rolver has her hands full. Besides, mother would be left alone. Don't worry about me, darling. I always feel like this about this time of year, but the summer holiday is not many weeks off and Ramsgate always sets me up again.

"Your loving sister, "SALVINA.

"P.S. Mother told me you advised her not to go to Lazarus's any more, and she isn't going. I am so glad, dear. These visits have worried her, as Lazarus is so persistent. I am only sorry I didn't think of enlisting your influence before--it is naturally greater than mine. Good-bye, dear.

"P.P.S. I find I have actually forgotten to thank you for your generous offer. But you know all that is in my heart, don't you, darling?"

All the same Kitty's alarm began to communicate itself to Salvina, especially after repeated if transient premonitions of fainting in her cla.s.s-room. For what would happen if she really fell ill? She could get sick leave of course for a time; though that would bring her under the eagle eye of the Board Doctor, before which every teacher quailed.

He might brutally p.r.o.nounce her unfit for service. And how if she did break down permanently? Or if she died! Her savings were practically nil; her salary ceased with her breath. Who would support her mother?

Kitty of course would n.o.bly take up the burden, but it would be terribly hard on her, especially when Mabel Samuelson should come to marry. Not that she was going to die, of course; she was too used to being sickly. Death was only a shadow, hovering far off.

XIV