"My world threatens to be a lonely one, Mr Marston," said he in a feeble voice. "You see a heartbroken man. Forgive the bitterness with which I have spoken. Mariamne, I fear, is dying; and what is wealth now to me? I have left her in Poland among my people. She seemed to feel some slight enjoyment in wandering from place to place; but her last letter tells me that she is wearied of travelling, and has made up her mind to live and die where she may be surrounded by her unhappy nation. I remain here only to wind up my affairs, and in a week I quit England—and for ever."
But a new object caught my glance. Mordecai—who, while he was thus speaking in paroxysms of alternate indignation and sorrow, had never for a moment ceased to turn over his books and boxes—had accidentally shaken a pile of tin cases from its pinnacle, and the whole rolled down at my feet. On one of them I saw, with no very strong surprise, the words—"Mortgage—Mortimer Castle." The eyes of both glanced in the same direction.
"There," said the Israelite, "you have your paternal acres in your hand—your Plantagenet forests, and your Tudor castle, all in a cubic foot. On the chair where you are now sitting, your lordly brother sat yesterday, gathering up his skirts from the touch of every thing round him, and evidently suffering all the torture of a man of fashion, forced to smile on the holder of his last mortgage. He is ruined—not worth a sixpence; Melton and Newmarket have settled that question for him. But do you recognise that hand?" He drew a letter from his portfolio. I knew the writing: it was from my mother—on whom, now old and feeble, this accomplished roué had been urging the sale of her jointure. Helpless and alone, she had consented to this fatal measure; and my noble brother's visit to the Israelite had been for the purpose of inducing him to make the purchase.
I started up in indignation; declared that the result must reduce my unfortunate parent to beggary; and demanded by what means I could possibly prevent what was "neither more nor less than an act of plunder."
"I see no means," said Mordecai coolly, "except your making the purchase yourself, and thus securing the jointure to her ladyship. It is only ten thousand pounds."
"I make the purchase! I have not the tenth part of the money upon earth. I ask you, what is to be done?"
"Your brother has here the power of selling—and will sell, if the starvation of fifty mothers stood in his way. Newmarket suffers no qualms of that kind; and, when his matters there are settled, his coachmaker's bill for landaulets and britchskas will make him a pedestrian for the rest of his life. But I have refused the purchase; and it was chiefly on this subject that I was induced to invite you to my 'dungeon,' as you not unjustly term it."
The picture of a mother, of whom I had always thought with the tenderness of a child, cast out in her old age to poverty, with the added bitterness of being thus cast out by her reliance on the honour of a cruel and treacherous son, rose before my eyes with such pain, that I absolutely lost all power of speech, and could only look the distress which I felt. Mordecai gazed on me with an enquiring countenance.
"You love this mother, Mr Marston. You are a good son. We Israelites, with all our faults, respect the feelings which 'honour the father and the mother.' It is a holy love, and well earned by the cares and sorrows of parentage." He paused, and covered his forehead with his gigantic hands. I could hear him murmur the name of his daughter. The striking of a neighbouring church clock startled him from his reverie.
Suddenly again bustling among his papers, he said—"Within this half hour, your brother is to call again for my definitive answer. Now, listen to me. The jointure shall be purchased." I bit my lip; but he did not leave me long in suspense—"And you shall be the purchaser." He wrote a cheque for the amount, and placed it in my hand.