The King of Schnorrers: Grotesques and Fantasies

CHAPTER IV

POOR FLUTTER-DUCK

"Her cap blew off, her gown blew up,

And a whirlwind cleared the larder."

– Tennyson:

The Goose

.

It was New Year's Eve.

In the Ghetto, where "the evening and the morning are one day," New Year's Eve is at its height at noon. The muddy market-places roar, and the joyous medley of squeezing humanity moves slowly through the crush of mongers, pickpockets, and beggars. It is one of those festival occasions on which even those who have migrated from the Ghetto gravitate back to purchase those dainties whereof the heathen have not the secret, and to look again upon the old familiar scene. There is a stir of goodwill and gaiety, a reconciliation of old feuds in view of the solemn season of repentance, and a washing-down of enmities in rum.

At the point where the two main market-streets met, a grey-haired elderly woman stood and begged.

Poor Flutter-Duck!

Her husband dead, after a protracted illness that frittered away his savings; her daughter lost; her home a mattress in the corner of a strange family's garret; her faded prettiness turned to ugliness: her figure thin and wasted; her yellow-wrinkled face framed in a frowsy shawl; her clothes tattered and flimsy; Flutter-Duck stood and

schnorred

.

But Flutter-Duck did not do well. Her feather-head was not equal to the demands of her profession. She had selected what was ostensibly the coign of most vantage, forgetting that though everybody in the market must pass her station, they would already have been mulcted in the one street or the other.

But she held out her hand pertinaciously, appealing to every passer-by of importance, and throwing audible curses after those that ignored her. The cold of the bleak autumn day and the apathy of the public chilled her to the bone; the tears came into her eyes as she thought of all her misery and of the happy time – only a couple of years ago – when New Year meant new dresses. Only a grey fringe – the last vanity of pauperdom – remained of all her fashionableness. No more the plaited chignon, the silk gown, the triple necklace, – the dazzling exterior that made her too proud to speak to admiring neighbours, – only hunger and cold and mockery and loneliness. No plumes could she borrow, now that she really needed them to cover her nakedness. She who had reigned over a work-room, who had owned a husband and a marriageable daughter, who had commanded a maid-servant, who had driven in shilling cabs!

Oh, if she could only find her daughter – that lost creature by whose wedding-canopy she should have stood, radiant, the envy of Montague Street! But this was not a thought of to-day. It was at the bottom of all her thoughts always, ever since that fatal night. During the first year she was always on the lookout, peering into every woman's face, running after every young couple that looked like Emanuel and Rachel. But repeated disappointment dulled her. She had no energy for anything except begging. Yet the hope of finding Rachel was the gleam of idealism that kept her soul alive.

The hours went by, but the streams of motley pedestrians and the babel of vociferous vendors and chattering buyers did not slacken. Females were in the great majority, housewives from far and near foraging for Festival supplies. In vain Flutter-Duck wished them "A Good Sealing." It seemed as if her own Festival would be black and bitter as the Feast of Ab.

But she continued to hold out her bloodless hand. Towards three o'clock a fine English lady, in a bonnet, passed by, carrying a leather bag.

"Grant me a halfpenny, lady, dear! May you be written down for a good year!"

The beautiful lady paused, startled. Then Flutter-Duck's heart gave a great leap of joy. The impossible had happened at last. Behind the veil shone the face of Rachel – a face of astonishment and horror.

"Rachel!" she shrieked, tottering.

"Mother!" cried Rachel, catching her by the arm. "What are you doing here? What has happened?"

"Do not touch me, sinful girl!" answered Flutter-Duck, shaking her off with a tragic passion that gave dignity to the grotesque figure. Now that Rachel was there in the flesh, the remembrance of her shame surged up, drowning everything. "You have disgraced the mother who bore you and the father who gave you life."

The fine English lady – her whole soul full of sudden remorse at the sight of her mother's incredible poverty, shrank before the blazing eyes. The passers-by imagined Rachel had refused the beggar-woman alms.

"What have I done?" she faltered.

"Where is Emanuel?"

"Emanuel!" repeated Rachel, puzzled.

"Emanuel Lefkovitch that you ran away with."

"Mother, are you mad? I have never seen him. I am married."

"Married!" gasped Flutter-Duck ecstatically. Then a new dread rose to her mind. "To a Christian?"

"Me marry a Christian! The idea!"

Flutter-Duck fell a-sobbing on the fine lady's fur jacket. "And you never ran away with Lefkovitch?"

"Me take another woman's leavings? Well, upon my word!"

"Oh," sobbed Flutter-Duck. "Oh, if your father could only have lived to know the truth!"

Rachel's remorse became heartrending. "Is father dead?" she murmured with white lips. After awhile she drew her mother out of the babel, and giving her the bag to carry to save appearances, she walked slowly towards Liverpool Street, and took train with her for her pretty little cottage near Epping Forest.

Rachel's story was as simple as her mother's. After the showing up of Emanuel's duplicity, home had no longer the least attraction for her. Her nascent love for the migratory husband changed to a loathing that embraced the whole Ghetto in which such things were possible. Weary of Flutter-Duck's follies, indifferent to her father, she had long meditated joining her West-end girl-friend in the fur establishment in Regent Street, but the blow precipitated matters. She felt she could not remain a night more under her mother's roof, and her father's clumsy comment was but salt on her wound. Her heart was hard against both; month after month passed before her passionate, sullen nature would let her dwell on the thought of their trouble, and even then she felt that the motive of her flight was so plain that they would feel only remorse, not anxiety. They knew she could always earn her living, just as she knew they could always earn theirs. Living "in," and going out but rarely, and then in the fashionable districts, she never met any drift from the Ghetto, and the busy life of the populous establishment soon effaced the old, which faded to a forgotten dream. One day the chief provincial traveller of the house saw her, fell in love, married her, and took her about the country for six months. He was coming back to her that very evening for the New Year. She had gone back to the Ghetto that day to buy New Year honey, and, softened by time and happiness, rather hoped to stumble across her mother in the market-place, and so save the submission of a call. She never dreamed of death and poverty. She would not blame herself for her father's death – he had always been consumptive – but since death was come at last, it was lucky she could offer her mother a home. Her husband would be delighted to find a companion for his wife during his country rounds.

"So you see, mother, everything is for the best."

Flutter-Duck listened in a delicious daze.

What! Was everything then to en