_Flutter-Duck._
_A GHETTO GROTESQUE._
CHAPTER I.
FLUTTER-DUCK IN FEATHER.
"So sitting, served by man and maid, She felt her heart grow prouder."
--TENNYSON: _The Goose_.
Although everybody calls her "Flutter-Duck" now, there was a time whenthe inventor had exclusive rights in the nickname, and used it only inthe privacy of his own apartment. That time did not last long, for theinventor was Flutter-Duck's husband, and his apartment was apublic work-room among other things. He gave her the name inYiddish--_Flatterkatchki_--a descriptive music in syllables, full ofthe flutter and quack of the farm-yard. It expressed hisdissatisfaction with her airy, flighty propensities, her love ofgaiety and gadding. She was a butterfly, irresponsible, off to ballsand parties almost once a month, and he, a self-conscious ant,resented her. From the point of view of piety she was also sadly toseek, rejecting wigs in favour of the fringe. In the weak moments ofearly love her husband had acquiesced in the profanity, but later allthe gain to her soft prettiness did not compensate for the twinges ofhis conscience.
Flutter-Duck's husband was a furrier--a master-furrier, for did he notrun a workshop? This workshop was also his living-room, and thisliving-room was also his bedroom. It was a large front room on thefirst floor, over a chandler's shop in an old-fashioned house inMontague Street, Whitechapel. Its shape was peculiar--an oblongstretching streetwards, interrupted in one of the longer walls by asquare projection that might have been accounted a room in itself (bythe landlord), and was, indeed, used as a kitchen. That the fireplacehad been built in this corner was thus an advantage. Entering throughthe door on the grand staircase, you found yourself nearest the windowwith the bulk of the room on your left, and the square recess at theother end of your wall, so that you could not see it at first. At thewindow, which, of course, gave on Montague Street, was the bare woodentable at which the "hands"--man, woman, and boy--sat and stitched. Thefinished work--a confusion of fur caps, boas, tippets, andtrimmings--hung over the dirty wainscot between the door and therecess. The middle of the room was quite bare, to give the workersfreedom of movement, but the wall facing you was a background forluxurious furniture. First--nearest the window--came a sofa, on whicheven in the first years of marriage Flutter-Duck's husband sometimeslay prone, too unwell to do more than superintend the operations, forhe was of a consumptive habit. Over the sofa hung a large gilt-framedmirror, the gilt protected by muslin drapings, in the corners of whichflyblown paper flowers grew. Next to the sofa was a high chest ofdrawers crowned with dusty decanters, and after an interval filled upwith the Sabbath clothes hanging on pegs and covered by a white sheet;the bed used up the rest of the space, its head and one side touchingthe walls, and its foot stretching towards the kitchen fire. On thewall above this fire hung another mirror,--small and narrow, and fullof wavering, watery reflections,--also framed in muslin, though thistime the muslin served to conceal dirt, not to protect gilt. Thekitchen-dresser, decorated with pink needle-work paper, was at rightangles to the fireplace, and it faced the kitchen table, at whichFlutter-Duck cleaned fish, peeled potatoes, and made meat _kosher_ bysalting and soaking it, as Rabbinic law demanded.
By the foot of the bed, in the narrow wall opposite the window, was adoor leading to a tiny inner room. For years this door remainedlocked; another family lived on the other side, and the furrier hadneither the means nor the need for an extra bedroom. It was a roommade for escapades and romances, connected with the back-yard by asteep ladder, up and down which the family might be seen going, andfrom which you could tumble into a broken-headed water-butt, or, by adexterous back-fall, arrive in a dustbin. Jacob's ladder theneighbours called it, though the family name was Isaacs.
And over everything was the trail of the fur. The air was full of afine fluff--a million little hairs floated about the room coveringeverything, insinuating themselves everywhere, getting down the backsof the workers and tickling them, getting into their lungs and makingthem cough, getting into their food and drink and sickening them tillthey learnt callousness. They awoke with "furred" tongues, and theywent to bed with them. The irritating filaments gathered on theirclothes, on their faces, on the crockery, on the sofa, on the mirrors(big and little), on the bed, on the decanters, on the sheet that hidthe Sabbath clothes--an impalpable down overlaying everything,penetrating even to the drinking-water in the board-covered zincbucket, and covering "Rebbitzin," the household cat, with foreignfur. And in this room, drawing such breath of life, they sat--man,woman, boy--bending over boas bewitching young ladies would skate in;stitch, stitch, from eight till two and from three to eight, withoccasional overtime that ran on now and again far into the next day;till their eyelids would not keep open any longer, and they couched onthe floor on a heap of finished work; stitch, stitch, winter andsummer, all day long, swallowing hirsute bread and butter at nine inthe morning, and pausing at tea-time for five o'clock fur. And whentwilight fell the gas was lit in the crowded room, thickening stillfurther the clogged atmosphere, charged with human breaths and streetodours, and wafts from the kitchen corner and the leathery smell ofthe dyed skins; and at times the yellow fog would steal in tocontribute its clammy vapours. And often of a winter's morning the fogarrived early, and the gas that had lighted the first hours of workwould burn on all day in the thick air, flaring on the Orientalfigures with that strange glamour of gas-light in fog, and throwingheavy shadows on the bare boards; glazing with satin sheen the pendentsnakes of fur, illuming the bowed heads of the workers and themaster's sickly face under the tasselled smoking-cap, and touching upthe faded fineries of Flutter-Duck, as she flitted about, chatteringand cooking.
Into such an atmosphere Flutter-Duck one day introduced a daughter,the "hands" getting an afternoon off, in honour not of the occasionbut of decency. After that the crying of an infant became a feature ofexistence in the furrier's workshop; gradually it got rarer, as littleRachel grew up and reconciled herself to life. But the fountain oftears never quite ran dry. Rachel was a passionate child, and did notenjoy the best of parents.
Every morning Flutter-Duck, who felt very grateful to Heaven for thiscrowning boon,--at one time bitterly dubious,--made the child say herprayers. Flutter-Duck said them word by word, and Rachel repeatedthem. They were in Hebrew, and neither Flutter-Duck nor Rachel had theleast idea what they meant. For years these prayers preluded stormyscenes.
"_Mediani!_" Flutter-Duck would begin.
"_Mediani!_" little Rachel would lisp in her piping voice. It was twowords, but Flutter-Duck imagined it was one. She gave the syllables inrecitative, the _ani_ just two notes higher than the _medi_, and sheaccented them quite wrongly. When Rachel first grew articulate,Flutter-Duck was so overjoyed to hear the little girl echoing her,that she would often turn to her husband with an exclamation of "Thouhearest, Lewis, love?"
And he, impatiently: "Nee, nee, I hear."
Flutter-Duck, thus recalled from the pleasures of maternity to itsduties, would recommence the prayer. "_Mediani!_"
Which little Rachel would silently ignore.
"_Mediani!_" Flutter-Duck's tone would now be imperative andill-tempered.
Then little Rachel would turn to her father querulously. "She thaythit again, _Mediani_, father!"
And Flutter-Duck, outraged by this childish insolence, would exclaim,"Thou hearest, Lewis, love?" and incontinently fall to clouting thechild. And the father, annoyed by the shrill ululation consequent uponthe clouting: "Nee, nee, I hear too much." Rachel's refusal to becoerced into giving devotional over-measure was not merely due to hersense of equity. Her appetite counted for more. Prayers were theavenue to breakfast, and to pamper her featherheaded mother inrepetitions was to put back the meal. Flutter-Duck was quite capableof breaking down, even in the middle, if her attention was distractedfor a moment, and of trying back from the very beginning. She would,for example, get as far as "Hear--my daughter--the instruction--of thymother," giving out the words one by one in the sacred lang
uage whichwas to her abracadabra.
And little Rachel, equally in the dark, would repeat obediently,"Hear--my daughter--the instruction of--thy mother." Then the kettlewould boil, or Flutter-Duck would overhear a remark made by one of the"hands," and interject: "Yes, I'd _give_ him!" or, "A fat lot _she_knows about it," or some phrase of that sort; after which she wouldgrope for the lost thread of prayer, and end by ejaculatingdesperately:--
"_Mediani!_"
And the child sternly setting her face against this flippancy, therewould be slapping and screaming, and if the father protested,Flutter-Duck would toss her head, and rejoin in her most dignifiedEnglish: "If I bin a mother, I bin a mother!"
To the logical adult it will be obvious that the little girl'sobstinacy put the breakfast still further back; but then, obstinatelittle girls are not logical, and when Rachel had been beaten shewould eat no breakfast at all. She sat sullenly in the corner, herpretty face swollen by weeping, and her great black eyes suffused withtears. Only her father could coax her then. He would go so far as toallow her to nurse "Rebbitzin," without reminding her that thecreature's touch would make her forget all she knew, and convert herinto a "cat's-head." And certainly Rachel always forgot not to touchthe cat. Possibly the basis of her father's psychological superstitionwas the fact that the cat is an unclean animal, not to be handled,for he would not touch puss himself, though her pious title of"Rebbitzin," or Rabbi's wife, was the invention of this master ofnicknames. But for such flashes no one would have suspected the sternlittle man of humour. But he had it--dry. He called the cat"Rebbitzin" ever since the day she refused to drink milk after meat.Perhaps she was gorged with the meat. But he insisted that the cat hadcaught religion through living in a Jewish family, and he developed atheory that she would not eat meat till it was _kosher_, so that inits earlier stages it might be exposed without risk of feline larceny.
Cats are soothing to infants, but they ceased to satisfy Rachel whenshe grew up. Her education, while it gratified Her Majesty'sInspectors, was not calculated to eradicate the domestic rebel in her.At school she learnt of the existence of two Hebrew words, called_Moudeh ani_, but it was not till some time after that it flashed uponher that they were closely related to _Mediani_, and the discovery didnot improve her opinion of her mother. She was a bonny child, whopromised to be a beautiful girl, and her teachers petted her. Theydressed well, these teachers, and Rachel ceased to considerFlutter-Duck's Sabbath shawl the standard of taste and splendour. Ereshe was in her teens she grumbled at her home surroundings, and evenfell foul of the all-pervading fur, thereby quarrelling with herbread and butter in more senses than one. She would open thewindow--strangely fastidious--to eat her bread and butter off thebroad ledge outside the room, but often the fur only came flying thefaster to the spot, as if in search of air; and in the winter herpretentious queasiness set everybody remonstrating and shivering inthe sudden draught.
Her objection to fur did not, however, embrace the preparation of it,for after school hours the little girl sat patiently stitching tilllate at night, by way of apprenticeship to her future, buoyed up byher earnings, and adding strip to strip, with the hair going all thesame way, till she had made a great black snake. Of course she did notget anything near three-halfpence for twelve yards, like the real"hands," but whatever she earnt went towards her Festival frocks,which she would have got in any case. Not knowing this, she was happyto deserve the pretty dresses she loved, and was least impatient ofher mother's chatter when Flutter-Duck dinned into her ears how prettyshe looked in them. Alas! it is to be feared Lewis was right, thatFlutter-Duck was a rattle-brain indeed. And the years which broughtFlutter-Duck prosperity, which emancipated her from personalparticipation in the sewing, and gave Rachel the little bedroom toherself, did not bring wisdom. When Flutter-Duck's felicity culminatedin a maid-servant (if only one who slept out), she was like a childwith a monkey-on-a-stick. She gave the servant orders merely to seeher arms and legs moving. She also lay late in bed to enjoy thespectacle of the factotum making the nine o'clock coffee it had beenfor so many years her own duty to prepare for the "hands." How sweetlythe waft of chicory came to her nostrils! At first her husbandremonstrated.
"It is not beautiful," he said. "You ought to get up before the'hands' come."
Flutter-Duck flushed resentfully. "If I bin a missis, I bin a missis,"she said with dignity. It became one of her formulae. When the servantdeveloped insolence, as under Flutter-Duck's fostering familiarity shedid, Flutter-Duck would resume her dignity with a jerk.
"If I bin a missis," she would say, tossing her flighty headhaughtily, "I bin a missis."
CHAPTER II.
A MIGRATORY BIRD.
"There strode a stranger to the door, And it was windy weather."
--TENNYSON: _The Goose_.
One day, when Rachel was nineteen, there came to the workshop ahandsome young man. He had been brought by a placard in the window ofthe chandler's shop, and was found to answer perfectly to its wants.He took his place at the work-table, and soon came to the front as awage-earner, wielding a dexterous needle that rarely snapped, even inwhite fur. His name was Emanuel Lefkovitch, and his seat was next toRachel's. For Rachel had long since entered into her career, and thebeauty of her early-blossoming womanhood was bent day after day overstrips of rabbit-skin, which she made into sealskin jackets. Forcompensation to her youth Rachel walked out on the Sabbath elegantlyattired in the latest fashion. She ordered her own frocks now, havinga banking account of her own, in a tin box that was hidden away in herlittle bedroom. Her father honourably paid her a wage as large as shewould have got elsewhere--otherwise she would have gone there. HerSabbath walks extended as far as Hyde Park, and she loved to watch thefine ladies cantering in the Row, or lolling in luxurious carriages.Sometimes she even peeped into fashionable restaurants. She became theadmiring disciple of a girl who worked at a Jewish furrier's in RegentStreet, and whose occidental habitat gave her a halo of aristocracy.Even on Friday nights Rachel would disappear from the sacreddomesticity of the Sabbath hearth, and Flutter-Duck suspected thatshe went to the Cambridge Music Hall in Spitalfields. This led todramatic scenes, for Rachel's frowardness had not decreased with age.If she had only gone out with some accredited young man, Flutter-Duckcould have borne the scandal in view of the joyous prospect ofbecoming a grandmother. But no! Rachel tolerated no matrimonialadvances, not even from the most seductive of _Shadchanim_, thoughher voluptuous figure and rosy lips marked her out for themarriage-broker's eye. Her father had grown sterner with the growth ofhis malady, and though at the bottom of his heart he loved and wasproud of his beautiful Rachel, the words that rose to his lips wereoften as harsh and bitter as Flutter-Duck's own, so that the girlwould withdraw sullenly into herself and hold no converse with herparents for days.
Nevertheless, there were plenty of halcyon intervals, especially inthe busy season, when the extra shillings made the whole work-roombrisk and happy, and the furriers gossiped of this and that, and toldstories more droll than decorous. And then, too, every day was adelightfully inevitable sweep towards the Sabbath, and every Sabbathwas a spoke in the great revolving wheel that brought round to thempicturesque Festivals, or solemn Fasts, scarcely less enjoyable. Andso there was an undercurrent of poetry below the sordid prose of dailylife, and rifts in the grey fog, through which they caught glimpses ofthe azure vastness overarching the world. And the advent of EmanuelLefkovitch distinctly lightened the atmosphere. His handsome face, hisgay spirits, were like an influx of ozone. Rachel was perceptibly thebrighter for his presence. She was gentler to everybody, even to herparents, and chatted vivaciously, and walked with an airier step! Thesickly master-furrier's face lit up with pleasure as from his sofa hewatched Emanuel's assiduous attentions to his girl in the way ofpicking up scissors and threading needles, and he frowned whenFlutter-Duck hovered about the young man, chattering and monopolisinghis conversation.
But one fine morning, some months after Emanuel's arrival, a changecame over the spir
it of the scene. There was a knock at the door, andan ugly, shabby woman, in a green tartan shawl, entered. Shescrutinised the room sharply, then uttered a joyful cry of "Emanuel,my love!" and threw herself upon the handsome young man with anaffectionate embrace. Emanuel, flushed and paralysed, was a ludicrousfigure, and the workers tittered, not unfamiliar with marital_contretemps_.
"Let me be," he said sullenly at last, as he untwined her dogged arms."I tell you I won't have anything to do with you. It's no use."
"Oh no, Emanuel, love, don't say that; not after all these months?"
"Go away!" cried Emanuel hoarsely.
"Be not so obstinate," she persisted, in wheedling accents, strokinghis flaming cheeks. "Kiss little Joshua and little Miriam."
Here the spectators became aware of two woebegone infants dragging ather skirts.
"Go away!" repeated Emanuel passionately, and pushed her from him withviolence.
The ugly, shabby woman burst into hysterical tears.
"My own husband, dear people," she sobbed, addressing the room. "Myown husband--married to me in Poland five years ago. See, I have the_Cesubah_!" She half drew the marriage parchment from her bosom. "Andhe won't live with me! Every time he runs away from me. Last time Isaw him was in Liverpool, on the eve of Tabernacles. And before thatI had to go and find him in Newcastle, and he promised me never to goaway again--yes, you did, you know you did, Emanuel, love. And herehave I been looking weeks for you at all the furriers and tailors,without bread and salt for the children, and the Board of Guardianswon't believe me, and blame me for coming to London. Oh, Emanuel,love, God shall forgive you."
Her dress was dishevelled, her wig awry; big tears streamed down hercheeks.
"How can I live with an old witch like that?" asked Emanuel, in brutalself-defence.
"There are worse than me in the world," rejoined the woman meekly.
"Nee, nee," roughly interposed the master-furrier, who had risen fromhis sofa in the excitement of the scene. "It is not beautiful not tolive with one's wife." He paused to cough. "You must not put her toshame."
"It's she who puts me to shame." Emanuel turned to Rachel, who had lether work slip to the floor, and whose face had grown white and stern,and continued deprecatingly, "I never wanted her. They caught me by atrick."
"Don't talk to me," snapped Rachel, turning her back on him.
The woman looked at her suspiciously--the girl's beauty seemed toburst upon her for the first time. "He is my husband," she repeated,and made as if she would draw out the _Cesubah_ again.
"Nee, nee, enough!" said the master-furrier curtly. "You are wastingour time. Your husband shall live with you, or he shall not work withme."
"You have deceived us, you rogue!" put in Flutter-Duck shrilly.
"Did I ever say I was a single man?" retorted Emanuel, shrugging hisshoulders.
"There! He confesses it!" cried his wife in glee. "Come, Emanuel,love," and she threw her arms round his neck, and kissed himpassionately. "Do not be obstinate."
"I can't come now," he said, with sulky facetiousness. "Where are youliving?"
She told him, and he said he would come when work was over.
"On your faith?" she asked, with another uneasy glance at Rachel.
"On my faith," he answered.
She moved towards the door, with her draggle-tail of infants. As shewas vanishing, he called shame-facedly to the departing children,--
"Well, Joshua! Well, Miriam! Is this the way one treats a father? Anice way your mother has brought you up!"
They came back to him dubiously, with unwashed, pathetic faces, and hekissed them. Rachel bent down to pick up her rabbit-skin. Work wasresumed in dead silence.
CHAPTER III.
FLIGHT.
"The goose flew this way and flew that, And filled the house with clamour."
--TENNYSON: _The Goose_.
Flutter-Duck could not resist rushing in to show the gorgeous gooseshe had bought from a man in the street--a most wonderful bargain.Although it was only a Wednesday, why should they not have a goose?They were at the thick of the busy season, and the winter promised tobe bitter, so they could afford it.
"Nee, nee; there are enough Festivals in our religion already,"grumbled her husband, who, despite his hacking cough, had been drivento the work-table by the plentifulness of work and the scarcity of"hands."
"Almost as big a goose as herself!" whispered Emanuel Lefkovitch tohis circle. He had made his peace with his wife, and was again becomethe centre of the work-room's gaiety. "What a bargain!" he said aloud,clucking his tongue with admiration. And Flutter-Duck, consoled forher husband's criticism, scurried out again to have her bargain killedby the official slaughterer.
When she returned, doleful and indignant, with the goose still in herbasket, and the news that the functionary had refused it Jewishexecution, and pronounced it _tripha_ (unclean) for some minute ritualreason, she broke off her denunciation of the vendor from a suddenperception that some graver misfortune had happened in her absence.
"Nee, nee," said Lewis, when she stopped her chatter. "Decidedly Godwill not have us make Festival to-day. Even you must work."
"Me?" gasped Flutter-Duck.
Then she learnt that Emanuel Lefkovitch, whom she had left so gay, hadbeen taken with acute pains--and had had to go home. And work pressed,and Flutter-Duck must under-study him in all her spare moments. Shewas terribly vexed--she had arranged to go and see an old crony'sdaughter married in the Synagogue that afternoon, and she would haveto give that up, if indeed her husband did not even expect her to giveup the ball in the evening. She temporarily tethered the goose's legto a bed-post by a long string, so that for the rest of the day thebig bird waddled pompously about the floor and under the bed,unconscious to what or whom it owed its life, and blissfully unawarethat it was _tripha_.
"Nee, nee," sniggered Lewis, as Flutter-Duck savagely kicked the catout of her way. "Don't be alarmed, Rebbitzin won't attack it.Rebbitzin is a better judge of _triphas_ than you."
It was another cat, but it was the same joke.
Flutter-Duck began to clean the fish with intensified viciousness. Shehad bought them as a substitute for the goose, and they were aconstant reminder of her complex illhap. Very soon she cut her finger,and scoured the walls vainly in search of cobweb ligature. Bitter washer plaint of the servant's mismanagement; when she herself had lookedafter the house there had been no lack of cobwebs in the corners. Norwas this the end of Flutter-Duck's misfortunes. When, in the course ofthe afternoon, she sent up to Mrs. Levy on the second floor to remindher that she would be wanting her embroidered petticoat for theevening, answer came back that it was the anniversary of Mrs. Levy'smother's death, and she could not permit even her petticoat to go to awedding. Finally, the gloves that Flutter-Duck borrowed from thechandler's wife were split at the thumbs. And so the servant was keptrunning to and fro, spoiling the neighbours for the greater glory ofFlutter-Duck. It was only at the eleventh hour that an embroideredpetticoat was obtained.
Altogether there was electricity in the air, and Emanuel was notpresent to divert it down the road of jocularity. The furriers stitchedsullenly, with a presentiment of storm. But it held over all day, andthere was hope the currents would pass harmlessly away.
With the rising of Flutter-Duck from the work-table, however, thefirst rumblings began. Lewis did not attempt to restrain her from hersociety dissipation, but he fumed inwardly throughout her toilette.More than ever he realised, as he sat coughing and bending over theermine he was tufting with black spots, the incompatibility of thisunion between ant and butterfly, and occasionally his thought wouldshoot out in dry sarcasm. But Flutter-Duck had passed beyond the planein which Lewis existed as her husband. All day she had talked freely,if a whit condescendingly, to her fellow-furriers, lamenting themischances of the day; but in proportion as she began to get clean andbeautiful, as the muslins of the great mirror became a frame for agorgeous picture of a lady, Flutter-Duck grew more and more aloof fr
omworkaday interests, felt herself borne into a higher world of radianceand elegance, into a rarefied atmosphere of gentility, that froze herto statue-like frigidity.
She was not Flutter-Duck then.
And when she was quite dressed for the wedding, and had put on theearrings with the coloured stones and the crowning glory of thechignon of false plaits, stuck over with little artificial whiteflowers, the female neighbours came crowding into the work-roomboudoir to see how she looked, and she revolved silently for theirinspection like a dressmaker's figure, at most acknowledging theircompliments with monosyllables. She had invited them to come andadmire her appearance, but by the time they came she had grown tooproud to speak to them. Even the women of whose finery she worefragments, and who had contributed to her splendour, seemed to herpoor dingy creatures, whose contact would sully her embroideredpetticoat. In grotesque contrast with her peacock-like stateliness,the big _tripha_ goose began to get lively, cackling and flappingabout within its radius, as if the soul of Flutter-Duck had passedinto its body.
The moment of departure had come. The cab stood at the street-door,and a composite crowd stood round the cab. In the Ghetto a cab hasspecial significance, and Flutter-Duck would have to pass to hersthrough an avenue of polyglot commentators. At the last moment,adjusting her fleecy wrap over her head like any _grande dame_ (fromwhom she differed only in the modesty of her high bodice and her fullsleeves), Flutter-Duck discovered that there was a great rent in onepart of the wrap and a great stain in another. She uttered anexclamation of dismay--this seemed to her the climax of the day'smisfortunes.
"What shall I do? What shall I do?" she cried, her dignity almostmelting in tears.
The by-standers made sympathetic but profitless noises.
"Oh, double it another way," jerked Rachel from the work-table. "Comehere, I'll do it for you."
"Are you too lazy to come here?" replied Flutter-Duck irritably.Rachel rose and went towards her, and rearranged the wrap.
"Oh no, that won't do," complained Flutter-Duck, attitudinising beforethe glass. "It shows as bad as ever. Oh, what shall I do?"
"Do you know what I'll tell you?" said her husband meditatively:"Don't go!"
Flutter-Duck threw him a fiery look.
"Oh well," said Rachel, shrugging her shoulders and thrusting forwardher lip contemptuously, "it'll have to do."
"No, it won't--lend me your pink one."
"I'm not going to have my pink one dirtied, too," grumbled Rachel.
"Do you hear what I say?" exclaimed Flutter-Duck, with increasingwrath. "Give me the pink wrap! When the mother says is said!" And shelooked around the group of spectators, in search of sympathy with hertrials and admiration for her maternal dignity.
"I can never keep anything for myself," said Rachel sullenly. "Younever take care of anything."
"I took care of you," screamed Flutter-Duck, goaded beyond enduranceby the thought that her neighbours were witnessing this filialdisrespect. "And a fat lot of good it's done me."
"Yes, much care you take of me. You only think of enjoying yourself.It's young girls who ought to go out, not old women."
"You impudent face!" And with an irresistible impulse of savagery, areversion to the days of _Mediani_, Flutter-Duck swung round her arm,and struck Rachel violently on the cheek with her white-gloved hand.
"'YOU IMPUDENT FACE!'"]
The sound of the slap rang hollow and awful through the room.
The workers looked up and paused, the neighbours held their breath;there was a dread silence, broken only by the hissings of the excitedgoose, and the half involuntary apologetic murmurings ofFlutter-Duck's lips: "If I bin a mother, I bin a mother."
For an instant Rachel's face was a white mask, on which five fingersstood out in fire; the next it was one burning mass of angry blood.She clenched her fist, as if about to strike her mother, then let thefingers relax; half from a relic of filial awe, half from respect forthe finery. There was a peculiar light in her eyes. Without a word sheturned slowly on her heel and walked into her little room, emerging,after an instant of general suspense, with the pink wrap in herhand. She gave it to her mother, without looking at her, and walkedback to her work, and poor foolish Flutter-Duck, relieved, triumphant,and with an irreproachable head-wrap, passed majestically from theroom, amid the buzz of the neighbours (who accompanied her downstairswith valedictory brushings of fur-fluff from her shoulders), throughthe avenue of polyglot commentators, into the waiting cab.
All this time Flutter-Duck's husband had sat petrified, but now agreat burst of coughing shook him. He did not know what to say or do,and prolonged the cough artificially to cover his embarrassment. Thenhe opened his mouth several times, but shut it indecisively. At lasthe said soothingly, with kindly clumsiness: "Nee, nee; you shouldn'tirritate the mother, Rachel. You know what she is."
Rachel's needle plodded on, and the uneasy silence resumed its sway.
Presently Rachel rose, put down her piece of work finished, andwithout a word passed back to her bedroom, her beautiful figure erectand haughty. Lewis heard her key turn in the lock. The hours passed,and she did not return. Her father did not like to appear anxiousbefore the "hands," but he had a discomforting vision of her lying onher bed, in a dumb agony of shame and rage. At last eight o'clockstruck, and, backward as the work was, Lewis did not suggest overtime.He even dismissed the servant an hour before her time. He was in afever of impatience, but delicacy had kept him from intruding on hisdaughter's grief before strangers. Now he hastened to her door, andknocked timidly, then loudly.
"Nee, nee, Rachel," he cried, with sympathetic sternness, "Enough!"
But a chill silence alone answered him.
He burst open the rickety door, and saw a dark mass huddled up in theshadow on the bed. A nearer glance showed him it was only clothes. Heopened the door that led on to Jacob's ladder, and called her name.Then by the light streaming in from the other apartment he hastilyexamined the room. It was obvious that she had put on her bestclothes, and gone out.
Half relieved, he returned to the sitting-room, leaving the door ajar,and recited his evening prayer. Then he began to prepare a little mealfor himself, telling himself that she had gone for a walk, after hermanner; perhaps was shaking off her depression at the Cambridge MusicHall. Supper over and grace said, he started doing the overwork, andthen, when sheer weariness forced him to stop, he drew his comfortlesswooden chair to the kitchen fire, and studied Rabbinical lore from aminutely printed folio.
The Whitechapel Church clock, suddenly booming midnight, awoke himfrom these sacred subtleties with a start of alarm. Rachel had notreturned.
The fire burnt low. He shivered, and threw on some coal. Half an hourmore he waited, listening for her footstep. Surely the music-hall mustbe closed by now. He crept down the stairs, and wandered vaguely intothe cold, starless night, jostled by leering females, and returnedforlorn and coughing. Then the thought flashed upon him that his girlhad gone to her mother, had gone to fetch her from the wedding ball,and to make it up with her. Yes; that would be it. Hence the bestclothes. It could be nothing else. He must not let any other thoughtget a hold on his mind. He would have run round to the festive scene,only he did not know precisely where it was, and it was too late toask the neighbours.
One o'clock!
A mournful monotone, stern in its absoluteness, like the clang of agate shutting out a lost soul.
One more hour of aching suspense, scarcely dulled by the task ofmaking hot coffee, and cutting bread and butter for his returningwomankind; then Flutter-Duck came back. Alone!
Came back in her cab, her fading features flushed with the joy oflife, with the artificial flowers in her false chignon, and the pinkwrap over her head.
"Where is Rachel?" gasped poor Lewis, meeting her at the street-door.
"Rachel! isn't she here? I left her with you," answered Flutter-Duck,half sobered.
"Merciful God!" ejaculated her husband, and put his hand to hisbreast, pierced by a shooting pain.
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"I left her with you," repeated Flutter-Duck with white lips. "Why didyou let her go out? Why didn't you look after her?"
"Silence, you sinful mother!" cried Lewis. "You shamed her beforestrangers, and she has gone out--to drown herself--what do I know?"
Flutter-Duck burst into hysterical sobbing.
"Yes, take her part against me! You always make me out wrong."
"Restrain yourself!" he whispered imperiously. "Do you wish to havethe neighbours hear you again?"
"I daresay she's only hiding somewhere, sulking, as she did when achild," said Flutter-Duck. "Have you looked under the bed?"
Foolish as he knew her words were, they gave him a gleam of hope. Heled the way upstairs without answering, and taking a candle, examinedher bedroom again with ludicrous minuteness. This time the sight ofher old clothes was comforting; if she had wanted to drown herself,she would not--he reasoned with perhaps too masculine a logic--havetaken her best clothes to spoil. With a sudden thought he displacedthe hearthstone. He had early discovered where she kept her savings,though he had neither tampered with them nor betrayed his knowledge.The tin box was broken open, empty! In the drawers there was not asingle article of her jewellery. Rachel had evidently left home! Shehad gone by way of Jacob's ladder--secretly.
Prostrated by the discovery, the parents sat down in helpless silence.Then Flutter-Duck began to wring her white-gloved hands, and to babbleincoherent suggestions and reproaches, and protestations that she wasnot to blame. The hot coffee cooled untasted, the pink wrap laycrumpled on the floor.
Lewis revolved the situation rapidly. What could be done? Evidentlynothing--for that night at least. Even the police could do nothingtill the morning, and to call them in at all would be to publish thescandal to the whole world. Rachel had gone to some lodging--therecould be no doubt about that. And yet he could not go to bed, hisheart still expected her, though his brain had given up hope. Hewalked about restlessly, racked by fits of coughing, then he droppedback into his seat before the decaying fire. And Flutter-Duck,frightened into silence at last, sat on the sofa, dazed, in hertrappings and gewgaws, with the white flowers glistening in her falsehair, and her pallid cheeks stained with tears.
And so they waited in the uncouth room in the solemn watches of thenight, pricking up their ears at a rare footstep in the street, andhastening to peep out of the window; waiting for the knock that camenot, and the dawn that was distant. The silence lay upon them like apall.
Suddenly, in the weird stillness, they heard a fluttering and askurrying, and, looking up, they saw a great white thing floatingthrough the room. Flutter-Duck uttered a terrible cry. "Hear, OIsrael!" she shrieked.
"Nee, nee," said Lewis reassuringly, though scarcely less startled."It is only the _tripha_ goose got loose."
"Nay, nay, it is the Devil!" hoarsely whispered Flutter-Duck, who hadcovered her face with her hands, and was shaking as with palsy.
Her terror communicated itself to her husband. "Hush, hush! Talk notso," he said, shivering with indefinable awe.
"Say psalms, say psalms!" panted Flutter-Duck. "Drive him out."
Lewis opened the window, but the unclean bird showed no desire toflit. It was evidently the Not-Good-One himself.
"Hear, O Israel!" wailed Flutter-Duck. "Since he came in this morningeverything has been upside down."
The goose chuckled.
Lewis was seized with a fell terror that gave him a mad courage.Murmuring a holy phrase, he grabbed at the goose, which eluded him,and fluttered flappingly hither and thither. Lewis gave chase, hislips praying mechanically. At last he caught it by a wing, haled it,hissing and struggling and uttering rasping cries, to the window,flung it without, and closed the sash with a bang. Then he fellimpotent against the work-table, and spat out a mouthful of blood.
"God be praised!" said Flutter-Duck, slowly uncovering her eyes. "NowRachel will come back."
And with renewed hope they waited on, and the deathly silence againpossessed the room.
All at once they heard a light step under the window; the father threwit open and saw a female form outlined in the darkness. There was arat-tat-tat at the door.
"Ah, there she is!" hysterically ejaculated Flutter-Duck, starting up.
"The Holy One be blessed!" cried Lewis, rushing down the stairs.
A strange figure, the head covered by a green tartan shawl, greetedhim. A cold ague passed over his limbs.
"Thank God, it's all right," said Mrs. Lefkovitch. "I see from yourlight you are still working; but isn't it time my Emanuel left off?"
"Your Emanuel?" gasped Lewis, with a terrible suspicion. "He went homeearly in the day; he was taken ill."
Flutter-Duck, who had crept at his heels bearing a candle, cried out,"God in Israel! She has flown away with Emanuel."
"Hush, you piece of folly!" whispered Lewis furiously.
"Yes, it was already arranged, and you blamed me!" gaspedFlutter-Duck, with a last instinct of self-defence ere consciousnessleft her, and she fell forward.
"Silence," Lewis began, but there was an awful desolation at his heartand the salt of blood was in his mouth as he caught the falling form.The candlestick rolled to the ground, and the group was left in theheavy shadows of the staircase and the cold blast from the open door.
"God have mercy on me and the poor children! I knew all along it wouldcome to that!" wailed Emanuel's wife.
"And I advanced him his week's money on Monday," Lewis remembered inthe agony of the moment.
CHAPTER IV.
POOR FLUTTER-DUCK.
"Her cap blew off, her gown blew up, And a whirlwind cleared the larder."
--TENNYSON: _The Goose_.
It was New Year's Eve.
In the Ghetto, where "the evening and the morning are one day," NewYear's Eve is at its height at noon. The muddy market-places roar, andthe joyous medley of squeezing humanity moves slowly through the crushof mongers, pickpockets, and beggars. It is one of those festivaloccasions on which even those who have migrated from the Ghettogravitate back to purchase those dainties whereof the heathen have notthe secret, and to look again upon the old familiar scene. There is astir of goodwill and gaiety, a reconciliation of old feuds in view ofthe solemn season of repentance, and a washing-down of enmities inrum.
At the point where the two main market-streets met, a grey-hairedelderly woman stood and begged.
Poor Flutter-Duck!
Her husband dead, after a protracted illness that frittered away hissavings; her daughter lost; her home a mattress in the corner of astrange family's garret; her faded prettiness turned to ugliness: herfigure thin and wasted; her yellow-wrinkled face framed in a frowsyshawl; her clothes tattered and flimsy; Flutter-Duck stood and_schnorred_.
But Flutter-Duck did not do well. Her feather-head was not equal tothe demands of her profession. She had selected what was ostensiblythe coign of most vantage, forgetting that though everybody in themarket must pass her station, they would already have been mulcted inthe one street or the other.
MARKET-DAY IN THE GHETTO.]
But she held out her hand pertinaciously, appealing to every passer-byof importance, and throwing audible curses after those that ignoredher. The cold of the bleak autumn day and the apathy of the publicchilled her to the bone; the tears came into her eyes as she thoughtof all her misery and of the happy time--only a couple of yearsago--when New Year meant new dresses. Only a grey fringe--the lastvanity of pauperdom--remained of all her fashionableness. No more theplaited chignon, the silk gown, the triple necklace,--thedazzling exterior that made her too proud to speak to admiringneighbours,--only hunger and cold and mockery and loneliness. Noplumes could she borrow, now that she really needed them to cover hernakedness. She who had reigned over a work-room, who had owned ahusband and a marriageable daughter, who had commanded a maid-servant,who had driven in shilling cabs!
Oh, if she could only find her daughter--that lost creature by whosewedding-canopy she should have stood, radiant, the e
nvy of MontagueStreet! But this was not a thought of to-day. It was at the bottom ofall her thoughts always, ever since that fatal night. During the firstyear she was always on the lookout, peering into every woman's face,running after every young couple that looked like Emanuel and Rachel.But repeated disappointment dulled her. She had no energy for anythingexcept begging. Yet the hope of finding Rachel was the gleam ofidealism that kept her soul alive.
The hours went by, but the streams of motley pedestrians and the babelof vociferous vendors and chattering buyers did not slacken. Femaleswere in the great majority, housewives from far and near foraging forFestival supplies. In vain Flutter-Duck wished them "A Good Sealing."It seemed as if her own Festival would be black and bitter as theFeast of Ab.
But she continued to hold out her bloodless hand. Towards threeo'clock a fine English lady, in a bonnet, passed by, carrying aleather bag.
"Grant me a halfpenny, lady, dear! May you be written down for a goodyear!"
The beautiful lady paused, startled. Then Flutter-Duck's heart gave agreat leap of joy. The impossible had happened at last. Behind theveil shone the face of Rachel--a face of astonishment and horror.
"Rachel!" she shrieked, tottering.
"Mother!" cried Rachel, catching her by the arm. "What are you doinghere? What has happened?"
"Do not touch me, sinful girl!" answered Flutter-Duck, shaking her offwith a tragic passion that gave dignity to the grotesque figure. Nowthat Rachel was there in the flesh, the remembrance of her shamesurged up, drowning everything. "You have disgraced the mother whobore you and the father who gave you life."
The fine English lady--her whole soul full of sudden remorse at thesight of her mother's incredible poverty, shrank before the blazingeyes. The passers-by imagined Rachel had refused the beggar-womanalms.
"What have I done?" she faltered.
"Where is Emanuel?"
"Emanuel!" repeated Rachel, puzzled.
"Emanuel Lefkovitch that you ran away with."
"Mother, are you mad? I have never seen him. I am married."
"Married!" gasped Flutter-Duck ecstatically. Then a new dread rose toher mind. "To a Christian?"
"Me marry a Christian! The idea!"
Flutter-Duck fell a-sobbing on the fine lady's fur jacket. "And younever ran away with Lefkovitch?"
"Me take another woman's leavings? Well, upon my word!"
"Oh," sobbed Flutter-Duck. "Oh, if your father could only have livedto know the truth!"
Rachel's remorse became heartrending. "Is father dead?" she murmuredwith white lips. After awhile she drew her mother out of the babel,and giving her the bag to carry to save appearances, she walked slowlytowards Liverpool Street, and took train with her for her prettylittle cottage near Epping Forest.
Rachel's story was as simple as her mother's. After the showing up ofEmanuel's duplicity, home had no longer the least attraction for her.Her nascent love for the migratory husband changed to a loathing thatembraced the whole Ghetto in which such things were possible. Weary ofFlutter-Duck's follies, indifferent to her father, she had longmeditated joining her West-end girl-friend in the fur establishment inRegent Street, but the blow precipitated matters. She felt she couldnot remain a night more under her mother's roof, and her father'sclumsy comment was but salt on her wound. Her heart was hard againstboth; month after month passed before her passionate, sullen naturewould let her dwell on the thought of their trouble, and even then shefelt that the motive of her flight was so plain that they would feelonly remorse, not anxiety. They knew she could always earn her living,just as she knew they could always earn theirs. Living "in," and goingout but rarely, and then in the fashionable districts, she never metany drift from the Ghetto, and the busy life of the populousestablishment soon effaced the old, which faded to a forgotten dream.One day the chief provincial traveller of the house saw her, fell inlove, married her, and took her about the country for six months. Hewas coming back to her that very evening for the New Year. She hadgone back to the Ghetto that day to buy New Year honey, and, softenedby time and happiness, rather hoped to stumble across her mother inthe market-place, and so save the submission of a call. She neverdreamed of death and poverty. She would not blame herself for herfather's death--he had always been consumptive--but since death wascome at last, it was lucky she could offer her mother a home. Herhusband would be delighted to find a companion for his wife during hiscountry rounds.
"So you see, mother, everything is for the best."
Flutter-Duck listened in a delicious daze.
What! Was everything then to end happily after all? Was she--theshabby old starveling--to be restored to comfort and fine clothes? Herbrain seemed bursting with the thought of so much happiness; as thetrain flew along past green grass and autumn-tinted foliage, shestrove to articulate a prayer of gratitude to Heaven, but she onlymumbled "_Mediani_," and lapsed into silence. And then, suddenlyremembering she had started a prayer and must finish it, she murmuredagain "_Mediani_."
When they came to the grand house with the front garden, and wereadmitted by a surprised maid-servant, infinitely nattier than anyFlutter-Duck had ever ruled over, the poor creature was palsied withexcess of bliss. The fire was blazing merrily in the luxuriousparlour: could this haven of peace and pomp--these arm-chairs, thosevases, that side-board--be really for her? Was she to spend her NewYear's night surrounded by love and luxury, instead of huddling in thecorner of a cold garret?
And as soon as Rachel had got her mother installed in a wonderfuleasy-chair, she hastened with all the eagerness of maternal pride,with all the enthusiasm of remorse, to throw open the folding-doorsthat led to her bedroom, so as to give Flutter-Duck the crowningsurprise--the secret titbit she had reserved for the grand climax.
"There's a fine boy!" she cried.
And as Flutter-Duck caught sight of the little red face peeping outfrom the snowy draperies of the cradle, a rapture too great to bearseemed almost to snap something within her foolish, overwrought brain.
"I have already a grandchild!" she shrieked, with a great sob ofecstasy; and, running to the cradle-side, she fell on her knees, andcovered the little red face with frantic kisses, repeating "Lewislove, Lewis love, Lewis love," till the babe screamed, and Rachel hadto tear the babbling creature away.
* * * * *
You may see her almost any day walking in the Ghetto market-place--ameagre, old figure, with a sharp-featured face and a plaited chignon.She dresses richly in silk, and her golden earrings are set withcoloured stones, and her bonnet is of the latest fashion. She livesnear Epping Forest, and almost always goes home to tea. Sometimes shestands still at the point where the two market streets meet, extendingvacantly a gloved hand, but for the most part she wanders about theby-streets and alleys of Whitechapel with an anxious countenance,peering at every woman she meets, and following every young couple."If I could only find her!" she thinks yearningly.
Nobody knows whom she is looking for, but everybody knows she is only"Flutter-Duck."
The King of Schnorrers: Grotesques and Fantasies Page 16
