Artists -- Fiction; English fiction -- 20th century; Jews -- England -- London -- Fiction; Man-woman relationships -- Fiction
Leah already had the address of some lodgings recommended to her by a
neighbour. She engaged them, and on a fine July day went down to
Margate by the express with her children, Golda, and Issy.
The lodgings were let by a handsome, florid woman with masses of
bleached golden hair, a ruddled complexion, fat hands covered with
cheap rings, plump wrists rattling with bracelets, and a full bosom on
which brooches gleamed. Leah thought her a very fine woman, and was so
fascinated by her that she stayed indoors day after day, helping with
the housework and gossiping, so that she never once saw the sea,
except from the train as she was leaving. Mrs. Finch was a lady, by
birth, but she had been unfortunate. She had an uncle in the Army and
a cousin in the War Office, and she had lived in London, in the best
part of the town, where, in her best days, she had had her flat. Also
she had travelled and had been to Paris and Vienna. But she had been
unfortunate in her friends. Leah commiserated her, and, open-mouthed,
gulped down all her tales of the gentlemen she had known, while Golda,
eager for more information of the glittering world which had swallowed
up her Mendel, listened too, fascinated and shuddering. And Leah, to
show that she also was a person of some consequence, began to talk of
her wonderful brother. She told of the motor-car which had come and
whirled him away, of his visit to the millionaire's house, of the fine
friends he was making, of the men and women he knew whose names were
in the papers.
"Every day," she said, "he is out to tea, and every evening he is out
at theatres and music-halls and parties and flats and hotels, and his
friends are so rich that they pour money into his pockets. He just
makes a few lines on a piece of paper and they give him twenty pounds,
or he makes up some paint to look like a face or a pineapple and his
pockets are full of money."
"Yes," said Golda uneasily. "He will be very rich."
"Then next time you come to Margate," said Mrs. Finch, "it will be the
Cliftonville, and you'll despise my poor lodgings."
"Oh no," cried Leah, "for it is like staying with a friend."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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