Part 9

"Dearie, you must have guessed! You've always known that he did business in hides and tallow and tar, between Hamburg and Hull."

"I remember Hull when I was a kid, and the warehouse, and Old Mendel, who used to bring me peppermint-rock when he came to see my grandmother. He managed the business for her, didn't he, until my Uncle Ben took it over? But--my grandfather a Russian Jew! Let's bless our stars he wasn't a German! Where were you married to my father?"

"In a Maltese Synagogue. We lived at Malta until your father brought us to England, to establish a business-branch at Southampton. And we had hardly been settled there a year--you were only three when John died.... Pneumonia--this climate never really suited him! And I went home to mother with you and Maury, a baby of six months old. There was no bother about money. You know your father left us comfortably off!"

John cleared his throat and nodded. The bitterness of the last pill Fate had administered puckered his palate yet. Between the Jew of Palestine and the Jew of Russia, he had been wrought all Jewish. Not a single globule of British blood mingled with the Oriental tide that galloped through his veins. He asked, not wanting to know

## particularly:

"Did my father's people drop you, after he died, or was it you who decided to drop them?"

His mother returned with a sprightlier air--she was now sitting on the bedside.

"Oh!--well!--it was like this. While John was alive, his father, old Mr. Hazaël, sent me kind messages very often in his letters,--always written to John in Hebrew, by Amos the eldest son. For John came third in the family. Amos and Isaac had been years married and had heaps of children before John met with me. And after John died and we went to live at Hull, the letters kept on coming. It was my father's head-clerk who always translated them--Old Mendel was a learned man!--and wrote back the answers I dictated. Then my father died--poor father!--he never could forgive me for being only a daughter!--and Cousin Ben took the business over--and mother and I, with you and Maury--came here to London to live. Do you think I did wrong in dropping the correspondence? You know how your father's fortune was settled on you two children, with a life-interest for me; we need not go into that! There was nothing more to come to us--under any circumstances! And I wanted my two boys to be brought up as English gentlemen, and I don't think I've done quite so badly--do you?"

Her tone was almost pleading. John reached out a lengthy arm and hugged his mother warmly:

"Not by half, Old Thing! On the contrary. You thought it would be best for me and Maury to be British, and you rubbed it into us that we were, from the time we began to talk.... I remember at Loamborough, a Fifth Form fellow said to me over some rotten boggle of mine at Sunday Ques: 'With that bally big nose of yours, Hazel major, you ought to know all about the Children of Israel--' And, by George! I welted the beggar until he apologised. Later on, when I knew more about the Pater, I told myself that the English strain came from the mother's side. Now you've exploded that idea; I don't know that I mind much! ... Lots of people we're friendly with are as much Hebrews as ourselves,--and taking us in the lump, I call us a loyal lot!" He dug his long chin into the bedclothes covering the big knees he hugged; and went on speaking: "And Jewish blood is strong red stuff to have in one's veins, mind you! Great lawyers, great financiers, great actors, singers, painters, writers--people who are things and do things!--people who count--how many of them have got it!--in bulk or else diluted. And some of the prettiest women--and girls--"

"You're thinking of Beryl!"

"Well, I was thinking of Beryl...--Lee Levyson may belong to a Yorkshire family. He says so, and I've no wish to contradict him. And Dannahill blows a frightful lot about his good old English ancestors. But all the same--" He broke off to smile at his mother, who,--not as a rule demonstrative towards her elder son,--was stroking his big wrist, and half-absently trying to span it with the inadequate measure of her thumb and middle-finger; and ended: "You can take it from me that there ain't a single member of the Firm who oughtn't--if the truth were worth telling--to have a capital 'J' on his disc."

"His disc?"

"Well, I was speaking metaphorically. I mean the round tin identification-tag that's sewn inside of Tommy's khaki jacket, and worn on a chain soldered round his wrist when he's going to the Front. Mine'll be 'Private J.B. Hazel, No. 000, X Platoon, F. Company, 4th Battalion, 448th City of London (Fenchurch Street) Royal Fusiliers.'"

"Do they put all that?"

"I rather think so, with letters for your religious denomination. Con. for Congregationalist, Wes. for Wesleyan, Meth. for Methodist, Bap. for Baptist, P.B. for Plymouth Brethren, C.S. for Christian Scientist, Mug. for Muggletonian, C.E., Church of England, R.C., Roman Catholic; J. for Jew, and _Nil_ if you aren't of any religion. And I'd put down '_Nil_' for mine!"

"What made you do that? Why not Church of England?"

"But I'm not Church of anything, any more than you and Maurice or the Lee-Levysons--or anybody!--belonging to the set of people we visit and meet and dine.... Nice, pleasant, sociable heathens--that's what we are, every one of us! We have plum-pudding at Christmas; and salt-fish with egg-and-oyster sauce on Good Fridays; and we drop in at Westminster Abbey to hear the Carols; and at Westminster Cathedral or Farm Street for the Passion Music;--or the Greek Church near the Russian Embassy, because the singing is worth hearing,--and other people go! And we scrum into St. Paul's for a Public Thanksgiving--or a Day of Humiliation, or a big Funeral or any other kind of Function.... And St. George's Hanover Square for Society weddings,--or the Brompton Oratory.... But religion.... Have any of us got it? ... 'You can search me!' as the American fellow says in the revue.... Still, if you'd like me to alter the letters on my disc I don't mind doing it. Only--instead of '_Nil_' there'll be a big 'J' for Jew!"

She waxed shrill, driven beyond herself, used words long forgotten:

"But you're not one. You've never even set foot inside a Synagogue. We don't observe the Shabbos--I mean the Sunday!--we eat _triphah_ meat like Gentiles. We're _Meshumad_--apostates, don't you understand? Orthodox Jews wouldn't even speak to us!--aren't we well enough as we are?"

"Would my grandfathers have thought so? Or my father?" ...

She caught her breath and clutched at her bosom, the deep, slow voice was so unlike the younger John's. Unobservant of the consternation in her face, he went on speaking, gradually recovering the manner and tone most usual with him:

"Alive, they'd have disowned us. Not being alive--what we observe or don't observe, can't affect them! The notion of a dead man stretching out a hand from the grave, and grabbing hold of his son by the scruff to drive the unlucky beggar on in the ancient ruts of his own prehistoric prejudices is exploded. For the dead are DEAD. There's no getting over that! And to let their thoughts, feelings, desires, convictions, influence us in Anything is to my mind, sheer sentimental piffle." John blew himself out importantly and waved away the subject, but came back, having something more to say: "I'm an ambitious chap in my way.... I'd like to make enough money on the Stock Exchange to buy the freehold of Covent Garden; and turn the Market,--the Arcades,--the shops and the Opera House into a Pleasure City,--run on American lines. But I've no ambition to live after I'm dead,--that I know of! ... If I get wiped out at the Front it won't make any difference to me whether they stick a cross over me--or a shield with some Hebrew letters painted on a white deal board.... Beryl can get married the day after if she wants to! ... _I_ shan't ever know she's being kissed by another man. Nor shall I be one jot worse or better off because of the Good or Bad marks set against me. It matters how you live your life, because Morality is necessary--to preserve Health and maintain Decency, and so uphold the Law. But when one dies one's done with!--and the wisest rule of existence is, to live as long as possible, and enjoy things while one can! To succeed, to become famous, that's the only immortality--and to leave a son to carry on your name is a way of cheating Death!" He ended this confession of his creed by saying rather wistfully: "I meant to ask you.... Do you--do you think there's any chance of Beryl's marrying me before I go?"

"To the Front! ... Why shouldn't there be? Why not ask her?" ...

"Thanks awfully for the tip. I will!"

He was cheered by her absolute belief that he could not but prevail. For if she had forgotten her faith, and turned her back upon her people; she was a mother and a loving one. There was motherhood in her face and in her voice as she asked John:

"Haven't you even told Beryl--what you--where you're going, dear?"

"No! so if she's got a white feather keeping up her sleeve for me, she'll be disappointed, that's all! My hat!--listen to that clock striking! Do you understand it's gone two! You won't have any beauty-sleep,--and I've got to be at Regimental Headquarters at ten sharp to-morrow, to get my kit with the rest of the Fourth Battalion, and weigh in at Eaton Square at 11.30 to break the great news and show myself to the girl."

But when Mrs. Hazel had finally departed, John got out of bed, switched on a light and searched on the shelf that contained his private library, for a fat one-volume Encyclopædia that had been a School Prize. After some delving in this mine of knowledge, he emerged the wiser by the information appended:

"JEWS, an Asiatic race (Semitic), descended from the Hebrew Patriarch Abraham. Original stock migrated 2,000 B.C. from Ur in Chaldea, an important centre of civilisation, to the land of Canaan (Phœnicia) and from thence in time of scarcity to the rich pasture-lands of Egypt; from whence tradition has it that their leader and lawgiver, Moses, was divinely inspired to lead them, by way of the Red Sea Gulf and the Sinaitic Wilderness. Through his teachings they renounced polytheism and adopted a monotheistic form of worship. Language, Hebrew, a variant of the Canaanitish branch of the Semitic Group, approximating closely to Phœnician or Moabite."

The richer by this gem, John put back the book, switched off the light and got back into bed.

Sleep delayed in coming. As he stared wide-eyed into the darkness, fragmentary recollections of that long-dead father formed fresh pictures in his brain. He saw a room, with a table laid for dinner with white napery and glittering silver, the high child's chair by which he stood, a chubby boy in petticoats, waiting for strong, gentle arms to lift him to the seat. While the owner of the arms, a tall man, dark and grave, washed his hands at a shining metal laver hanging on the dining-room wall beside the door. The tall man wore his hat during this ceremony, and the towel he used was long and narrow, and had embroidered ends....

A similar laver had hung on the wall in his grandmother's private sitting-room, John remembered; carefully dusted, but never used by anybody as far as he had known. And over the laver had hung a plaque of metal, embossed with Hebrew characters: such a _mezusah_ as one saw affixed to doorposts in the City: thickening as one got nearer to Houndsditch: becoming dense in the neighbourhood of Whitechapel Road and the Commercial Road, E....

He was destined to enjoy no beauty-sleep that night.

For this materialistic, hard-headed, commonplace young City insurance-broker was loyal of nature, capable of warm attachments; faithful in friendship and honourable; according to his somewhat narrow Code. And the country in which he had been reared, the home in which Life had unfolded for his infant consciousness, the associations amongst which he had developed from a gawky boy into a tall young man, were English: and he had not known previously how much that meant to him.

England was John Hazel's England, the City of London his by choice and adoption; the Tom Tiddler's Ground where he, a citizen and a patriot, had meant to pick up as much of the good stuff Money as he possibly could get. He loved Great Britain, her history, traditions, rulers and institutions with a love blind, instinctive, and deeply rooted, that embraced her Colonies and the Dominions Beyond the Seas. He had never lumbered up on his huge feet to do honour to the National Anthem; or cheered the King and Queen and the Prince of Wales, and other notabilities passing in procession to the Guildhall or elsewhere,--or listened to a patriotic speech at a City dinner,--or a West End public charity-function, without a big lump rising in his throat.

And since the blizzard of War had burst upon this, his mother-country, and the new, strange, dreadful life had replaced the pleasant, easy-going old one, his love for England had become a rage. The tramp of martial boots going through the darkened streets; the heavy roll of guns, ammunition and baggage-lorries; the columns of bronzed faces under khaki cap-peaks, streaming under arches of railway stations; the dreadful news bruited by the newspapers, shouted in the streets, clubbing you when you opened your Latest Edition;--the mourning weeds on the backs of strangers and friends; the darkness of streets and restaurants and public places; the thickly-curtained windows of one's own home and one's neighbours' houses; the Spy Scare--and the hovering, haunting menace of Invasion by Aircraft--increased his patriotic fever day by day. Great tears had splashed upon the dirty drab paper he had signed when he enlisted. And they were the tears of an Asiatic;--a Semite whose ancestors had come out of Ur in Chaldea--and whose native language was a variant of the Canaanitish thingumbob. Perhaps no genuine Englishman would have shed them. And yet, some pathetic

## parting-scenes at Railway Stations had removed John's previous

impression that hefty, hardy, masculine Britons are never known to cry.

One is sorrowful to remember that beyond the narrow range of this young man's prejudices, and the stultifying influences of his environment, extended boundless vistas of which a more liberal and comprehensive range of reading;--fuel for the engines of the winged chariot of Thought and Imagination--might have made John Hazel free....

But he lay prone, dull and unimaginative; staring over the bedclothes at the pale watery gleam of the dressing-mirror opposite, while out of the mighty Past--reverberating and flashing to this hour with the thunders and lightnings of Sinai,--Patriarchs, Law-giver, Judges, Prophets and Sages, Poets, Kings, Statesmen, Patriots, Preachers, Warriors, Artificers and Craftsmen of vanished Israel and living Judæa--dominated by One Figure, unspeakably more benign and glorious--looked down in solemn pitying wonder on the young City insurance-broker, who was depressed by the sudden discovery, that not only on the father's side but on the mother's,--he had been born a Jew.

"Never mind, Old J.B.H.!" he told himself encouragingly. "Even if your ancestors did come out of Egypt with Moses, you're a pup of the Big Bull Bitch. And I'll tell you what, my boy! Good old England may count herself thundering lucky, if she gets a few hundred thousand others of the same breed to fight for her in this War!"

II

Panoplied for battle, in shoddy--misnamed khaki--of a deadly stale-mustard hue, bound with braid of whitey-yellow, garnished with the customary brass badges, buttons and buckles, and completed with the brown leather belt, bayonet-sling and bandolier; Private John Hazel--with a wire stiffener in the crown of his cap, and his pampered flesh wincing from the contact of the single Army rasper supplied him (for which, in the first flush of patriotism he had discarded his customary underwear)--presented himself before Beryl, his betrothed.

"Oh, come now, Bur'l!" expostulated Muriel, Beryl's younger sister, compassionate of John's immense discomfiture, as Beryl subsided on the Rossmore couch in tears; and her unlucky lover, standing huge and awkward in the middle of the Wilton carpet, opposing his own full-length reflection in a wall-mirror, realised that the collar of his tunic was strangling, that his hands were bigger than he could have believed them; and that the boots supplied by a grateful country would have comfortably fitted a Brontosaur.

"Tell him," moaned Beryl, "to leave me to my misery!"

"She never used to mind poor Beechy in kharks," the chagrined lover somewhat heatedly protested, on being banished from the drawing-room.

"Beauchamp was so handsome," said Beryl's sister Muriel, with her dancing dark eyes suddenly softening in tears, "and then you know,--he was an Officer of Regular Cavalry--and you're only a Common Tommy. Of course at the bottom of her heart Bur'l loves and respects you--but that's what's the matter, John, old thing! Wangle a Commission as soon as you can manage it"--the term "wangle" was coming into use just then--"do something Frightfully Distinguished--and she'll be as right as rain with you, really she will!"

"Think so? ..." said John, with obviously artificial lightness. "Well, say good-bye to her for me for now, will you! And--my crowd were guarding the line of the South Western until a day or so back--and if I'd screwed myself up to the point of joining up before,--I might have wangled a D.C.M. by dropping on a German in the act of laying a time-fuse bomb in a tunnel. Now they've sent 'em out to Malta to train, and yours truly and a band of other Brave Hearts--late washouts!--are being sent after 'em! So by-by, little girlie--for I've got to buy a Cardigan jacket and a few other things I want. You might tell me Beryl's full Christian name--it's got to go down in my Will, naturally!--and be entered for reference with the Nearest of Kin, at the War Office--so that they can let the old thing know if I get wiped out!"

John felt in a baggy front-pocket for a pigskin note-book, a parting gift from Maurice, and produced it, with a gold-mounted fountain-pen. Muriel dimpled again roguishly, and said with her bright eyes daringly challenging his own:

"We've only one first name apiece--but they're not 'Beryl' and 'Muriel'; nor are they particularly Christian, that I'm aware...." Then the consciousness of their recent loss, and her new black lisse, displaying a generous amount of slender black silk-stockinged leg, failed to subdue her girlish sense of humour. She clapped her hands and broke into a fit of laughter while John stared at her uncomprehendingly, the fountain-pen suspended over the memorandum-book. "Oh, don't goggle at me like that!" cried the girl. "You're too killing for anything! And so is your mother, and so is Maury--and so are Dad and Mater, and nearly every one in our set. And yet I'm Miriam--and Beryl is Rebekah--and poor darling Beauchamp was Benjamin--though they aren't going to have it on his memorial card, or stone! Do we really forget we're Jews--or do we all pretend until it's second nature? And why do we pretend--unless we're ashamed!--and why on earth should we be ashamed, that's what I want to know?"

Thus Muriel, confessedly Miriam; and John had found no better answer than:

"Why you or any of us should be ashamed I'm hanged if I know myself! But if ever I find out I'll write and tell you."

"Don't forget!" said Muriel-Miriam. "I'm coming to the door to see you off. Good-bye for now, J. old Bean! Put one for Bur'l here;--" the tip of a pretty, well-manicured finger indicated a particularly peachy place on Muriel-Miriam's right cheek,--"and another of the same on this side, for me. Ta-ta! I'll send you lots of cigs, when I know where you're training--and parcels no end when you get out to the Front! And tell me you'll go in for a Commission, and get a V.C. or something,--just to brisk old Bur'l up!"

"Oh! Tell her," said John with somewhat forced and clumsy humour, masking the slowly-kindling resentment in his heart, "that I mean to finish up my service in this War a private in the ranks--where I began it. And that when I--if I come back, she'll hear me singing: 'They've All Got a Sam Browne But Me,'--long before I come in sight."

"I shall listen for you!" said Muriel-Miriam, bursting with laughter, "but you don't think I'm going to give that message, I hope!"

She did not pass it on; but her younger sister Ida, a sharp child aged thirteen, who happened to be lingering in the neighbourhood of the umbrella-stand, communicated to Beryl her lover's parting message; to which,--or to the superior attractions of a certain Captain Hawtin-Billson (back from the Front with a shattered left arm and a Mention in Despatches) may be attributed Beryl's subsequent breakage of the engagement between herself and John Hazel, and the return of his ruby and diamond ring....

During the strenuous period of training that followed on John Hazel's joining up, his large reserve-fund of conceit was lowered by the merciless chaff of the ranks, and the vigorous language of his platoon-Sergeant, whose little red-veined eyes, glaring into his own, reflected in their muddiness his puny insignificance.

He learned to put on his puttees properly, clean his accoutrements, make his bed and condense his pack to regulation limits, under the instruction of one Lance Corporal Harris,--an ex-Boy Scout of appalling efficiency--as well as to gulp down his morning mug of tea, in defiance of the probability of the fluid containing in solution an ounce of Epsom salts. And by the time the Fourth Battalion of the Fenchurch Street Fusiliers quitted their training-quarters at Malta, replaced there by a Fifth Battalion created in the interval--and were transferred to the fighting-line in Flanders; he had acquired the soldier's much-prized gift of summoning sleep at will. Also, he had learned to dispense with sleep, were the sacrifice required.... After months of bitter fighting at the Front he had learned to go unshaven, unwashed, and with unchanged linen,--endure the plagues of vermin in a crowded, unventilated dugout--share a fag with a man who had none; smoke the Army gasper in lieu of anything better,--and consume biscuit and bully mingled with dirt, and washed down with burnt-bread coffee; or Pimmington's Perfect Soup Substitute, boiled in a rusty jam-tin over a Tommy's Cooker,--with a gastronomic rapture that a dinner at the Carlton, the Ritz or the Savoy had previously failed to evoke.

Also, John Hazel had learned to hold the Battalion in limitless esteem; to regard the Regiment he had once despised as a mob of clerks, shop-boys and warehousemen--as the pick and pride of the Territorial Forces, and to graft on the slang of the modern Londoner, the polyglottic argot of the War.

Finally, and subsequently to Beryl's defection, he had reconstituted his standard of the Ideal in Woman, after what fashion and under what circumstances may now be set forth.

III