Sebastian’s father, Ned Levi, was of that species known as the strictly agnostic Jew. He neither went to Synagogue, nor did he keep the picturesque Jewish holidays. He did not tactlessly allude to himself, in company, as “the Chosen of the Lord.” He did not wear enormous flashing diamonds in his shirt-front, nor yet gesticulate over-violently, nor control, spider-fashion, the entire financial affairs of Great Britain. Likewise he ate ham with relish; and so naturally did bacon and eggs form the staple breakfast dish, that the partaking of them was not in the least degree a daily defiance. He was a little unostentatious man, with light-red hair and moustache grizzling untidily to grey, a quiet taste in clothes, and nothing to stamp him Israelite save a slight lift at the bridge of the nose, a kindly concern for the fortunes of even his most distant cousins, and a keenness of business acumen which had led him from a small grocery shop in the East End, to the massive and celebrated stores in High Holborn.
He had married, when his success was already established, a wife very much his superior in birth; a quiet sensible girl, with poverty-stricken parents,—strictly agnostic Christians. The two had vied generously in their readiness to embrace the other’s faith; and ended by leaving the matter for ever unsettled, and marrying at the registrar’s.
Sebastian was brought up very successfully to no religion at all, and an open mind that accepted with equal tolerance his Christian relations of gentle birth, and his more vivid and less reputable Jewish kindred. He was a good-looking lad,—or would have been, had not his auburn hair and dark eyes given him an aspect curiously flamboyant; and amusing,—or would have been, save for what seemed in him a tendency to show off, but was in reality a lack of confidence, an inability to get both feet planted firmly on the ground.
Also, ineradicable result of mixed caste and class, Sebastian held very few neat safely-rooted opinions of his own, and was liable to be dangerously fascinated by daring ideas; especially by ideas that were rather too far off for his attainment, but which held him by a certain remote splendour. He was all response and no initiative. He never got near enough to an idea to perceive its flaws; he never got right through an idea, and beyond it, and so free of it. He strained upwards, and clung on,—or let go, and thudded to the ground. Sometimes, accidentally, he broke things in his fall; and then he sorrowed over them exceedingly; and sickening of his intellectual scrapes, would steep himself in aught that required no assistance of the brain. It was one of these reactions that sent him spinning into the arms of Letty Johnson.
Letty—well, what was Letty? Letty had soft brown hair, which on Sundays was crowned by a hat of one feather. Thus she knew her Sundays. And thus her mother knew how costerdom was differentiated from the rich good taste of prosperous folk who lived in a nice house with a bedroom more than they needed, down Turnham Green way. One feather, and no more. And a velveteen costume in winter. And thin low-necked blouses, winter and summer. And shoes with big pom-poms. And, perhaps, little gilt side-combs, studded with blue stones, perfectly unobtrusive. Thus the outward and visible Letty,—on Sundays. Week-days hardly mattered.
On the table beside Letty’s bed, might be found the Sir Walter Scott birthday-book, a paper novelette, and “Indian Love-lyrics,” by Laurence Hope. Inside Letty’s head existed a quantity of far-fetched romance, the jumbled remnants of a High School education, and an uncertain sort of liking for the company of one Balaam Atkins, bank-clerk, who came very often to Turnham Green for supper.
Round and about Letty, Mrs. Johnson maintained an atmosphere of careful and deliberate laxity. Often the good lady was heard to declare that if Letty cared to go on the stage, no objections would be raised. Letty’s correspondence was always blandly ignored. Letty might spend whole days on the river at Richmond with a ‘jolly party,’ and if she came home after ten o’clock with all of the party dispersed except her immediate companion,—that was only to be expected of twentieth-century youth, remarked Mrs. Johnson to her husband. Indeed, Letty was given far more latitude than she needed, and walked quite placidly in a small area of liberty, wasteful of the wider spaces thrown open by her twentieth-century parents. Just occasionally, when his wife’s vigilance relaxed, Mr. Johnson would forget how tolerant he was, and break out in a row most refreshingly in the style of old-fashioned paterfamilias. But he was always made to atone afterwards for these aberrations, by taking his daughter to a play emphatically ‘for the adult mind only.’ Such performances bored Letty and bewildered her father; but Mrs. Johnson had given forth the watchword of the household: Be Broad-minded! and hers was the ruling spirit.
Therefore, also, Letty took lessons in fencing. “Though I don’t see what she’s to do with it?” said Mrs. Baker doubtfully to Mrs. Johnson.
Letty owned for live stock, a girl-friend, Violet Baker, who had been engaged to a fellow since two-and-a-half years; a Persian kitten; and a younger brother, Luke; she also occasionally remembered a God, imploringly or in gratitude, when the world went very wrong with her, or else very right.
And Letty was exceedingly pretty.