THE HERITAGE
The speedster, a dark gray one with blue trimmings, nibbled its way in and out of the Sunday afternoon procession of automobiles down Lafayette Street. The driver, his blue eyes intent on the shifting stream of cars ahead, was conscious of the presence of the girl beside him simply because he knew she was there. The girl, slim, dark-skinned, blue-suited, was, as always, more acutely conscious of the boy. Her gray eyes, vivid, black-lashed, continually traveled with a thrill of pleasure from his clean-cut profile with the line of honey-colored hair showing beneath the rough brown hat to his broad-shouldered frame incased in a brown overcoat, the last word in English cut and cloth, and in every fiber of her being she was conscious of him; conscious that he was handsome, strong, well-born, and engaged to marry her—Miriam Heller, whose parents for years had stood behind the counter of the little stationery store where the children of the Monroe Street Public School went to buy their pads and pencils and lickrish shoe laces and marshmella doll babies. That is, he was going to marry her after he had won over his mother, who had been a De Lacey-Scovil and was not going to be easily won over to the idea of a Jewish daughter-in-law.
Not that Miriam was Jewish any more. Not since the time when, at the death of her mother, she had left the little old private house wedged between two tenements, the top floor of which had been the Heller home, and come to live in the spacious, white-stone, four-story residence of her uncle, Dr. Philip Broadstream, in the best section of Brooklyn, overlooking the park.
There was little in the new life to remind her of the old. All the tendencies, on the contrary, were to help her to forget; and she meant to forget. Mimi had not chosen to be born a Jew. She did not believe in the Jewish faith. So she did not see why, since it all meant nothing to her, she should go through life bearing the handicap of being a Jew; for it was a handicap, undeniably, she felt. Her cousins, Agatha and Bridgie Broadstream, with whom she had talked it over, agreed with her; and she knew that her Aunt Irene would have agreed with her too; and, too, she knew that her Uncle Philip would not.
For Dr. Philip Broadstream, though he had changed his name from Breitenbach, had never relinquished his identity as a Jew. That change, the price of Irene Langdon’s consent to marry him, had been merely a translation involving no change of faith. The doctor was a silent, reserved man, appearing only at meals—when his work did not interfere—his brown eyes behind rimless spectacles seeming perpetually to disapprove of something; but of what, Mimi had never been quite sure. And when she first came to live with them, Mimi had shared with his daughters a palpable desire to avoid him whenever possible. But within the last three years, because of his illness or her own growth into womanhood, she had succeeded in penetrating that reserve which in the bosom of his family always enshrouded him, seeing him as his patients saw him—warm, sympathetic, quizzically humorous. And a delightful comradeship had sprung up between them, until she wondered why, as a youngster, she had stood so terribly in awe of him; how, as a youngster, she had come so readily to join the family league against him.
When she was sixteen years old Clifford Van Buskirk, or Van, as he was known in the football heavens where he was a rapidly ascending star, all unwittingly usurped the stellar role in the dreams of Mimi Heller. Night after night her dark head with the two heavy, unruly braids would sink into her pillow full of thoughts of the blond young athlete, and she would drift into slumber on vague, delicious dreams of him, her bright gray eyes beneath the heavy black fringe of lash luminous with his image. At that time his picture, torn from the newspapers, adorned the dressers of half the season’s crop of subdebs. But long after all the other frames had disgorged his image to enshrine the likenesses of newer heroes—or mere fiancés—the silver frame on Mimi’s gray enameled dresser still contained a badly faded picture of Clifford Van Buskirk in football togs.
It was while he was in a captain’s uniform and she was helping at a canteen that Mimi met him for the first time; and a swift, cloudless courtship blossomed rapidly into an engagement—a secret one, of course, because of his mother. There had been other girls in Van’s life; there had even been a sort of understanding with Virginia Dresser, his mother’s godchild; but nothing like this. Mimi’s gray eyes, constantly changing with the constant change of her moods, always expressive, always provocative, affected him differently than did any eyes he had ever seen. And the vivid contrast of her coloring—red lips against pale dark skin, crystal-clear gray eyes against black lashes and straight black brows—struck him with a pleasurable sense of novelty every time he looked at her. She had a striking figure, too—small and slender, yet roundly developed, graceful, yet full of sturdy health. Wherever he took her she was a high light—beautiful, vivacious, talented. She combined all the best qualities of all the best girls he had ever known—good looks, brains, poise, character, charm—and still had some of her own left over; which is only another way of saying that he was very much in love with her. And some day, when his Uncle Ray would come across with a living wage and his mother outgrow her narrow-minded objections, he was going to marry her, though a full year had already passed and the thing had not come an inch nearer to fulfillment.
The car slowed down as they reached Brooklyn.
“Gee whiz, Mim,” the boy inquired reproachfully, “do you have to go home? Let’s go up the road.”
She regretfully shook her little dark fluffy head beneath the bright orange turban which called odd tawny lights into her gray eyes and contrasted vividly with the clear pale olive of her skin.
“Everyone’s gone for the day, and I can’t bear to think of Uncle Philip home alone all Sunday.”
“I wish you couldn’t bear to think of me home all Sunday night—”
“Why don’t you come in and have tea with uncle and me?”
He shook his head decisively.
“You know he can’t stand me.”
“Nonsense, dear. You just imagine it. He seems that way to everybody who doesn’t know him.”
“Well, let everybody come back for more of it if they like. But excuse me! Anyway, my old lady asked me to try to be home. She has company.”
“Who?”
“Dressers.”
“Oh—Virginia?” asked Miriam a trifle constrainedly, and was silent the rest of the way. As he stopped before her door, “I hope,” she remarked a little self-consciously, “you have a pleasant evening.”
“Thanks. I hope you do too. I suppose your friend Mr. Rosenstein be there?”
“You mean David? His name is Goldberg. No. What makes you think he’ll be here?”
“He usually is.”
“Well, he comes to see Uncle Philip.”
“Yes, so I noticed.”
“What do you mean?”
“Oh, nothing. I’m blind, of course.”
With a toss of her head she slipped her key into the lock and went in. How like a man to conjure up a hypothetical affair between herself and David! Why, Van seemed actually jealous of David—David, of all people! Now she, Mimi, wasn’t jealous of Virginia Dresser. Only, of course, she didn’t like to think of her there at the Van Buskirk table where she, Mimi, had never been invited—smiled upon by Van’s mother in the way she, Mimi, so longed to be smiled upon.
Inside the door she paused and sighed. What an ending for a wonderful day! It was so seldom she and Van had even the shadows of misunderstandings between them! She would telephone him later in the evening. For a second she almost regretted having come home. Her uncle did not expect it of her. For the last year of his illness he had been alone most of the time, and he never seemed to mind it. And perhaps David had come, making her own sacrifice needless. David was a Russian, a distant cousin of the doctor’s. He had a ready laugh and a slow, comfortable smile; and though at thirty he had achieved a remarkable success, he had none of the irritating assurance of the self-made young man. He possessed, on the contrary, a somewhat courtly deferen
ce which sat well on his big, heavy-shouldered frame and made him much liked among the older women.
Mimi, listening for his voice, heard nothing except her own light footfall up the carpeted stairs, and she felt deepening that curious clutch at her heart that she always felt of late when she stepped inside the house. Perhaps her uncle was—but she put the thought resolutely away from her. She would find him as always, seated before the window, apparently the same, reading or dreaming. As she passed his door she heard his voice calling her, and the tension lifted. Thank God, he was all right! She opened the door softly and looked in.
“I did not expect you home on such a beautiful day. Are you alone?”
“Yes, I’m alone.”
“Good! I want to speak to you. I have been thinking about you.”
She went upstairs to her own room to take off her coat and hat. She stopped before her mirror to run a comb through the dark, unruly fluff of her hair. About what would Uncle Philip want to speak to her except Van? For some time she had been making elaborate conversational detours when alone with her uncle to avoid his name. But now she was sure it had come, and it was bound to be trying. Slowly and with a sinking sensation she went down to the sick man’s room.
A pang shot through her as she noticed how very thin he was growing, his tall frame more and more stooped at the shoulders. His grizzled beard, which of late he had allowed to grow over his cheeks, no longer concealed the hollows that were daily eating into their contour. Nor did his spectacles hide the inroads which long illness and potent medicines had made on the clearness of his eyes, where white and brown now blurred faintly.
She pulled up the cushioned foot piece of his reclining chair and, snuggling against his feet, smiled up into his face. When Miriam smiled new lights broke into her bright gray eyes, a row of very even teeth shot out a sudden gleam of white between red lips, and a wholly unexpected dimple rippled into her smooth, pointed little chin. But for once her smile woke no echo, and with a deepening sense of foreboding she asked, “Where’s David?” thinking that would please him.
“He’s coming later, I believe.”
“David is fine, isn’t he?” she continued, hoping to avert the topic she dreaded.
“I’m afraid,” he answered musingly, stroking her dark hair with his wasted, yellowing hand—“I’m afraid you don’t quite realize how fine—”
A thin coating of ice spread itself over her.
“Miriam, it is of David I wished to speak—of David and you.”
The back of her throat contracted, and she sat there helplessly while he went on, every word causing a distaste in her like a spiritual nausea.
“You have much in common, you and David. I have watched you both. And he is fond of you. He spoke to me some time ago, asking me to wait until things happened of their own accord. But I was afraid to wait any longer. Miriam, it is my one wish to see you married to David.”
At that she roused herself.
“No, no!” she cried, her voice jangling unfamiliarly. “No, no, Uncle Philip—I—I couldn’t!” She cleared her throat, but the jangling continued: “I simply couldn’t! I’m sorry, but I just—couldn’t—ever!”
Her voice broke off jerkily, leaving the room heavy with an oppressive silence which he broke gently:
“Ever is a big word, my darling. What makes you think you couldn’t—ever?”
“Because I—I don’t care for him that way.”
“But—”
“No—no”—her voice dropped suddenly—“I—I—there’s somebody else.”
His hand on her head relaxed suddenly.
“You mean—Van Buskirk?” he asked at length. She nodded. “I was afraid—” he murmured, and shook his head from side to side. Then he sat up sharply, and some of his old decision of manner came back to him. “You must forget him, Miriam. It will never do.”
She did not know what to say.
“Uncle Philip,” she cried finally, “you don’t understand! We—we love each other. We’re going to be married.”
“Married? You mean you are engaged?”
She nodded eagerly.
“Then how is it,” he asked sternly, “I have never been told? How is it he has never spoken to me?”
“He—we—they don’t do it that way,” she explained respectfully.
“No”—his voice was harsh with bitterness—“and I do not care for the other way—long secret engagements without parental supervision. They permit a man to take the best years of a young girl’s life and spend them in the most trying intimacy—until he has robbed her of her bloom—and all the while he is free to toss her aside for someone else. I know that way. I have seen much of it—too much of it,” he added grimly—“in my office.”
A hot flush of mingled shame and anger swept over her.
“You don’t understand, Uncle Philip,” she replied with dignity. “We both agreed to keep our engagement secret.”
“Why?” he thundered. “Why?”
“Well, we—we’re not ready to get married yet.”
“Who isn’t ready—you? Why aren’t you ready?”
“Well, no—not me. But he—he isn’t—”
“Hah!” The monosyllable burned through her skin. “And when does he intend to be ready—the young lord—to marry my Miriam?”
Her gray eyes black with anger, she flung her answer at him:
“He’s not in a position to. Three years in the Army didn’t advance him very far in business. And besides”—she caught her red lower lip beneath a square white upper tooth—“well, there’s his mother.”
“What’s the matter with his mother?” he demanded, and answered for her: “His mother doesn’t want you—isn’t that it?—because you’re a Jew!”
Her tight-lipped silence offered no contradiction.
“I wouldn’t marry into a family that didn’t want me!” he told her scornfully.
“I’m not marrying the family!” she responded hotly, her eyes still dark. “I’m marrying Clifford!”
“It looks that way,” he retorted, and for the first time in her life she hated him. “No, Miriam, if you were not marrying the family you would be Mrs. Van Buskirk already—or at least the future Mrs. Van Buskirk.”
“I am—I am the future Mrs. Van Buskirk.”
“In whose eyes, except your own? How can you be so blind? You are Miriam Heller—no more, no less. And if five years from now he has failed to win his mother’s consent—or tired of you—you will still be Miriam Heller. I dare say he has been careful to see to that.”
She was about to answer angrily, but he glanced down at her ring-less finger with so much meaning that she snatched it away with a sudden shamed self-consciousness. And now she tried deliberately to shut her mind against what he was saying. She did not want to hear.
“If you love him and he wants to marry you, let him come to me like a man and tell me so. If it is a question of money, you will not have to wait until I am dead for yours. You can have it now. Only he must come to me openly—like a man. This secret business I forbid. Do you hear?” His voice rose angrily. “You tell him he must come to me and tell me that he intends to take care of you—to marry you—or—”
She shook her head. She knew Clifford would not.
“Then he cannot have you!” the doctor cried. “Do you hear? I am surprised at you, Miriam—to let a man put you in such a position! You, a Jewish girl—”
“I’m not a Jewish girl!”
“Not a—What then?”
“I’m an atheist.”
He laughed. Then sobering suddenly, “My poor little Miriam,” he said, and his patronage was more intolerable than his laughter.
“I am,” she went on hotly—“I’m an atheist! I don’t believe in the Jewish religion. I didn’t ask to be born a Jew, and so I don’t see why I should be made to suffer for somethi
ng I—”
“Suffer, Miriam?”
“Yes, suffer. If you’re a Jew you’re a sort of outcast and other people look down on you. I don’t want to be looked down on for something that isn’t my fault. I don’t follow the Jewish customs or anything. Even if I loved David, I wouldn’t marry him and be Mrs. Goldberg. I’m twenty-two, and I guess I’m old enough to pick out what I want to be.”
“Wait—a—minute,” his voice sounding very gentle after her outburst—“wait a minute.” And he went on musingly to himself:
“We think our children’s minds are summer pools reflecting blue skies and sunlight, and they are bogs—dark unhealthy bogs! It is my fault”—his voice rose—“for having left you so long to absorb this rotten poison of bigotry and smallness and lies! You say,” he went on, his eyes gleaming sternly out of his bearded, cavernous face, “you can pick out what you want to be? Too late! A thousand years too late! Not what you will be, but how well you will be it—that is all that has been left for you to pick out. The rest was all decided for you by something greater than your will.”
“I don’t believe in God,” she interposed firmly.
“And who is talking of God?” he inquired. “Have you then never thought of heredity?” And as she looked at him with wide eyes: “Has not your young man told you you are beautiful? You owe that beauty to your Jewish ancestry. Your eyes, your beautiful gray eyes—they were in your father’s family for generations. Jewish eyes burn and sparkle and smolder with generations of Jewish suffering; they melt and soften and move with generations of Jewish tears. Has not your Clifford told you you have a lovely form? Tell him it is from your Jewish mother you have it—from Bella Breitenbach and her Jewish mother before her! Jewish women mature early into that rounded fullness of development.
“You have a fine mind—clear, quick, honest—and the moral stamina that will make you the kind of wife any man should be proud to have at the head of his home. Are these a heritage to be ashamed of? No! If you could choose your birth you would have the right to pick out whatever you wanted to be. But since it has all been picked out for you, and since you have accepted all the richness that has come into your life through your Jewish blood, then be ashamed to be false to that blood! Since you have not blushed to profit by your great and wonderful heritage, then be ashamed to blush for its source! Be ashamed to let others dare to blush for it!
The Viola Brothers Shore Mystery Page 11
