“Thou art well aware, Belasez, my child, that these idolaters practise the Black Art, and are versed in spells which they can cast over all unfortunate persons who are so luckless as to come within their influence.”
There had been a time when Belasez believed this, and many more charges brought against the Christians, just as they in their turn believed similar calumnies against the Jews. But the months spent at Bury Castle, unconsciously to herself till it was done, had shaken and uprooted many prejudices, leaving her with the simple conviction that Jews and Christians were all fallible human beings, very much of the same stamp, some better than others, but good and bad to be found in both camps. Licorice, however, was by no means the person to whom she chose to impart such impressions. There had never been any confidence or communion of spirit between them. In fact, they were cast in such different moulds that it was hardly possible there should be any. Licorice was a sweeping and cooking machine, whose intellect was wholly uncultivated, and whose imagination all ran into cunning and deceit. Belasez was an article of much finer quality, both mentally and morally. The only person in her own family with whom she could exchange thought or feeling was Abraham; and he was not her equal, though he came the nearest to it.
It had often distressed Belasez that her mother and she seemed to have so little in common. Many times she had tried hard to scold herself into more love for Licorice, and had found the process a sheer impossibility. She had now given it up with a sorrowful recognition that it was not to be done, but a firm conviction that it was her own fault, and that she ought to be very penitent for such hardness of heart.
“It seems to me,” continued Licorice, “that this bad young man, whose name was De Malpas, must have cast a spell on our poor, unhappy Anegay. For how else could a daughter of Israel come to love so vile an insect as one of the accursed Goyim?
“For she did love him, Belasez; and a bitter grief and disgrace it was to all her friends. Of course I need not say that the idea of a marriage between them was an odious impossibility. The only resource was to take Anegay away from Lincoln, where she would learn to forget all about the creeping creatures, and return to her duty as a servant of the Living and Eternal One. It was at that time that I and thy father were wedded; and we then came to live in Norwich, bringing Anegay with us.”
Licorice paused, as if her tale were finished. It sounded specious: but how much of it was true? “And did she forget him, Mother?”
“Of course she did, Belasez. It was her duty.” Belasez privately thought that people did not always do their duty, and that such a duty as this would be extremely hard to do.
“Was she ever married, Mother, if you please?”
“She married a young Jew, my dear, named Aaron the son of Leo, and died soon after the birth of her first child,” said Licorice, glibly. “And was she really happy, Mother?”
“Happy! Of course she was. She had no business to be any thing else.”