As she wandered on, the great school-bell began to ring; involuntarily she quickened her step and joined the chattering children's procession. She could have fancied the last ten years a dream. Were they, indeed, other children, or were they not the same that jostled her when she picked her way through this very slush in her clumsy masculine boots? Surely those little girls in lilac print frocks were her cla.s.smates! It was hard to realise that Time's wheel had been whirling on, fashioning her to a woman; that, while she had been living and learning, and seeing the manners of men and cities, the Ghetto, unaffected by her experiences, had gone on in the same narrow rut. A new generation of children had arisen to suffer and sport in room of the old, and that was all. The thought overwhelmed her, gave her a new and poignant sense of brute, blind forces; she seemed to catch in this familiar scene of childhood the secret of the grey atmosphere of her spirit. It was here she had, all insensibly, absorbed those heavy vapours that formed the background of her being, a permanent sombre canvas behind all the iridescent colours of joyous emotion. _What_ had she in common with all this mean wretchedness?

Why, everything. This it was with which her soul had intangible affinities, not the glory of sun and sea and forest, 'the palms and temples of the South.'

The heavy vibrations of the bell ceased; the street cleared; Esther turned back and walked instinctively homewards to Royal Street. Her soul was full of the sense of the futility of life; yet the sight of the great shabby house could still give her a chill. Outside the door a wizened old woman, with a chronic sniff, had established a stall for wizened old apples; but Esther pa.s.sed her by heedless of her stare, and ascended the two miry steps that led to the mud-carpeted pa.s.sage.

The apple-woman took her for a philanthropist paying a surprise visit to one of the families of the house, and resented her as a spy. She was discussing the meanness of the thing with the pickled-herring dealer next door, while Esther was mounting the dark stairs with the confidence of old habit. She was making automatically for the garret, like a somnambulist, with no definite object, morbidly drawn towards the old home. The unchanging musty smells that clung to the staircase flew to greet her nostrils, and at once a host of sleeping memories started to life, besieging her and pressing upon her on every side.

After a tumultuous intolerable moment, a childish figure seemed to break from the gloom ahead--the figure of a little girl, with a grave face and candid eyes--a dutiful, obedient, shabby little girl so anxious to please her schoolmistress, so full of craving to learn and to be good and to be loved by G.o.d, so audaciously ambitious of becoming a teacher, and so confident of being a good Jewess always.

Satchel in hand, the little girl sped up the stairs swiftly, despite her c.u.mbrous, slatternly boots; and Esther, holding her bag, followed her more slowly, as if she feared to contaminate her by the touch of one so weary-worldly-wise, so full of revolt and despair.

All at once Esther sidled timidly towards the bal.u.s.trade with an instinctive movement, holding her bag out protectingly. The figure vanished, and Esther awoke to the knowledge that 'Bobby' was not at his post. Then with a flash came the recollection of Bobby's mistress--the pale, unfortunate young seamstress she had so unconscionably neglected. She wondered if she were alive or dead. A waft of sickly odours surged from below. Esther felt a deadly faintness coming over her; she had walked far, and nothing had yet pa.s.sed her lips since yesterday's dinner, and at this moment, too, an overwhelming terrifying feeling of loneliness pressed like an icy hand upon her heart. She felt that in another instant she must swoon, there, upon the foul landing. She sank against the door, beating pa.s.sionately at the panels. It was opened from within; she had just strength enough to clutch the door-post so as not to fall. A thin, careworn woman swam uncertainly before her eyes. Esther could not recognise her, but the plain iron bed, almost corresponding in area with that of the room, was as of old; and so was the little round table, with a teapot and a cup and saucer, and half a loaf standing out amid a litter of sewing, as if the owner had been interrupted in the middle of breakfast. Stay! what was that journal resting against the half-loaf as for perusal during the meal? Was it not the _London Journal_? Again she looked, but with more confidence, at the woman's face. A wave of curiosity, of astonishment at the stylishly dressed visitor, pa.s.sed over it, but in the curves of the mouth, in the movement of the eyebrows, Esther renewed indescribably subtle memories.

'Debby!' she cried hysterically. A great flood of joy swamped her soul. She was not alone in the world, after all! Dutch Debby uttered a little startled scream. 'I've come back, Debby, I've come back!' and the next moment the brilliant girl-graduate fell fainting into the seamstress's arms.

CHAPTER XII

A SHEAF OF SEQUELS

Within half an hour Esther was smiling pallidly, and drinking tea out of Debby's own cup, to Debby's unlimited satisfaction. Debby had no spare cup, but she had a spare chair without a back, and Esther was of course seated on the other. Her bonnet and cloak were on the bed.

'And where is Bobby?' inquired the young lady visitor.

Debby's joyous face clouded.

'Bobby is dead,' she said softly; 'he died four years ago come next _Shevuos_.'

'I'm so sorry,' said Esther, pausing in her tea-drinking with a pang of genuine emotion. 'At first I was afraid of him, but that was before I knew him.'

'There never beat a kinder heart on G.o.d's earth,' said Debby emphatically; 'he wouldn't hurt a fly.'

Esther had often seen him snapping at flies, but she could not smile.

'I buried him secretly in the back-yard,' Debby confessed; 'see!

there, where the paving-stone is loose!'

Esther gratified her by looking through the little back window into the sloppy enclosure where washing hung. She noticed a cat sauntering quietly over the spot without any of the satisfaction it might have felt had it known it was walking over the grave of a hereditary enemy.

'So I don't feel as if he was far away,' said Debby. 'I can always look out and picture him squatting above the stone instead of beneath it.'

'But didn't you get another?'

'Oh, how can you talk so heartlessly!'

'Forgive me, dear! of course you couldn't replace him. And haven't you had any other friends?'

'Who would make friends with me, Miss Ansell?' Debby asked quietly.

'I shall "make out friends" with you, Debby, if you call me that,'

said Esther, half laughing, half crying. 'What was it we used to say in school? I forget, but I know we used to wet our little fingers in our mouths and jerk them abruptly towards the other party; that's what I shall have to do with you.'

'Oh, well, Esther, don't be cross! But you do look such a real lady. I always said you would grow up clever, didn't I, though?'

'You did, dear, you did. I can never forgive myself for not having looked you up.'

'Oh, but you had so much to do, I have no doubt!' said Debby magnanimously, though she was not a little curious to hear all Esther's wonderful adventures, and to gather more about the reasons of the girl's mysterious return than had yet been vouchsafed her. All she had dared to ask was about the family in America.

'Still it was wrong of me,' said Esther, in a tone that brooked no protest. 'Suppose you had been in want and I could have helped you?'

'Oh, but you know I never take any help!' said Debby stiffly.

'I didn't know that,' said Esther, touched. 'Have you never taken soup at the kitchen?'

'I wouldn't dream of such a thing. Do you ever remember me going to the Board of Guardians? I wouldn't go there to be bullied, not if I were starving. It's only the cadgers who don't want it who get relief.

But, thank G.o.d, in the worst seasons I have always been able to earn a crust and a cup of tea. You see, I am only a small family,' concluded Debby, with a sad smile, 'and the less one has to do with other people the better.'

Esther started slightly, feeling a strange new kinship with this lonely soul.

'But surely you would have taken help of me?' she said.

Debby shook her head obstinately.

'Well, I'm not so proud,' said Esther, with a tremulous smile, 'for, see, I have come to take help of you!'

Then the tears welled forth, and Debby with an impulsive movement pressed the little sobbing form against her faded bodice, bristling with pin-heads. Esther recovered herself in a moment and drank some more tea.

'Are the same people living here?' she said.

'Not altogether. The Belcovitches have gone up in the world; they live on the first floor now.'

'Not much of a rise that,' said Esther, smiling, for the Belcovitches had always lived on the third floor.

'Oh, they could have gone to a better street altogether,' explained Debby, 'only Mr. Belcovitch didn't like the expense of a van.'

'Then Sugarman the Shadchan must have moved too,' said Esther; 'he used to have the first floor.'

'Yes; he's got the third now. You see, people get tired of living in the same place. Then Ebenezer, who became very famous through writing a book--so he told me--went to live by himself, so they didn't want to be so grand. The back apartment at the top of the house you used to inhabit,' Debby put it as delicately as she could, 'is vacant. The last family had the brokers in.'

'Are the Belcovitches all well? I remember f.a.n.n.y married and went to Manchester before I left here.'

'Oh yes, they are all well!'

'What! even Mrs. Belcovitch?'

'She still takes medicine, but she seems just as strong as ever.'

'Becky married yet?'