The clock struck six, and Adeline rose to go. She must be home to have dinner with Mike, she said, and it was a good way from Maida Vale to Fitzjohn’s Avenue. She wanted to take Lottie and her young brother Victor back with her, but her mother was sure Mike would prefer to spend his first evening at home with his wife alone.
Mrs. Friedberg possessed some curious ideas. She knew, and did not pretend to ignore the fact, that her daughter’s marriage with Michael Rosen was a made-up match, and that, had the bridegroom been less wealthy, or the bride less attractive, the marriage would have never taken place; yet she persisted in thinking and saying that the bridal pair were very much in love with each other.
Adeline, like most Jewish girls of the present day, had been taught to place her affections in accordance with her parents’ wishes. The idea of falling in love with anybody had never occurred to her. She was a sensible girl, and knew that even if she so desired—and she did not desire it—she could never marry a poor man, or a Christian, so she had resigned herself to the inevitable, and had accepted Michael Rosen without a protest. Mike was as good as any other rich Jew she had met, and even if he were of the “broomstick” order of men, he was at least, as Di had said, inoffensive.
If only she could break him of that detestable habit of talking “shop” wherever he went! She would have to teach him that there were other subjects of interest to the generality of people as well as his beloved “ferniture.”
CHAPTER II
INTRODUCES A SWEET AND LOVABLE JEWISH GIRL
If you had asked who was the most popular man in Durlston, you would have been told, without a moment’s hesitation, that his name was Herbert Karne. Broad-chested, large-hearted, and liberal-minded, Herbert won the hearts of all with whom he came in contact, by his cheery geniality and his consummate tact. He was a Jew, but he was also an English gentleman, and was treated as such by the members of the social circle in which he moved.
Durlston was an uninteresting little town not many miles from Manchester. There was a very large boot and shoe manufactory at one end of the tiny High Street, and the population of the town was considerably increased by the factory labourers and their families. These were mostly Jews, very poor Jews, who had recently emigrated from Roumania and were glad to get work, even though it were at almost starvation wages. Mendel & Co. secured them directly they arrived in Houndsditch, and packed them off to the Durlston manufactory as occasion required. They were easily satisfied and obsequious, these poor Jews, and seemed to be able to exist on next to nothing.
Herbert Karne lived with his half-sister in a pretty country house—The Towers—just outside the town. He was an artist by profession and a romancist by nature. He took the greatest interest in the little Jewish colony which had sprung up almost beneath his windows, and it was his pleasure to protect the rights of the colonists against the cut-throat practices of their employers. He agitated for shorter hours and better pay, and, for fear of being boycotted, Messrs. Mendel & Co. were obliged to make concessions.
These poor Jews had no spirit of their own; they were utterly downtrodden with the effect of oppression and destitution: so Karne was determined to defend their cause, and he became their firm friend and ally.
Whenever a new batch of Jews arrived in Durlston, he took them in hand at once. He anglicized them, and made them suppress their Jewish idiosyncrasies. With the help of his half-sister Celia, and a few friends, he organized a night school, and taught them to read and write. He managed to enlist the sympathy of the most influential people in the county on their behalf, and got up all sorts of literary and musical entertainments, in order to brighten their empty lives. The educating and uplifting of these poor waifs of humanity was Herbert’s hobby; he entered into it heart and soul.