LONDON LOVERS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 13618, 11 December 1907, Page 11

LONDON LOVERS.

PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT.

BY MARGARET BAILLiE-SAUNDERS, Author of " Saints in Society."

COPYRIGHT. SYNOPSIS. The story opsus in a London theatre. Mr?. Levi l.ucajou, her aon Motdeofti« - mid h*r daughter, Leah, occupy a private box. Opposite alto in a private box arc Hardwintcr» hi* mother* Dowager I#ady Hard-winter, anil his sister, Miss Winifred Waring. The Lucason* are rich, the Hard winters from their dress obviously poor. Mr. Paget, Cheyne, a society goeaip, drops _ into the .Lucason's l>o.t am! relates the gotiip of the evening, including the fact that Lord Hardwinter's good-for-nothing- brother lias a* a lastresort- taken to the stage, and.i« . cast for a minor -Tort in : the 1 play of ;♦*«< evening. lno play is over and Kurinie ' Waring ha» been a failure. Mr*. Lueaion sees in the Ilardwinter* a chance to get herself and "family into society, and lite takes the Dowager Lady Hardwinter by storm. axMil* her in tier weak spot by speaking highly nt the aliilit? of her son Ronnie, and finally Waves with an' offer to pUct- Ronnie in the city office of Mordrcai Ltieason, so that he may learn finance and it(vk'uroking. . CHAPTER IT. The Jewish family went home chattering quite excitedly amongst themselves, the brother and sister sarcastic at one another's expense, the mother beaming self-congra-tulation, and making large promises as to tt fine social future for her discontented daughter. They showed, even then., the odd characteristic of any alien people in that, though they quarrelled amongst themselves, they remained clannish ob a matter of course, and instinctively seemed to grasp the fundamental idea that what was likely to benefit one must necessarily do so for all. „ ... , " I think you're mad, mother, said Lean. "They'll never forgive you." > " Oil, won't- they?" said Mrs. Lucason. "You'll see, my dear, that they'll be very glad to do anything to save that boy of theirs. Well, and quite light of them, too. fc>o thev ought. He's a nice boy." " Don't know what you promised in my name," said the son, sulkily. " I never undertook to adopt an entire family for you, anyhow." No, no. Certainly not, But you can do lot?, you know, mv dear Moid, if you want to. And seo what use it would be to us if you did! Lilla wants to know them, and here's our chance." '• Lilla said beastly things about the girl, said Moid. Lilla threw back her head. " I can't help it if she looks nobody,' she said. "Nobody! Ha! I like that! Who are " There, dears," said Mrs. Lucason, " we're all one family, all kinsfolk. And we're all glad to help the other, eh? There now." brother and sister desisted, after The brother and sister desisted, after that, and the conversation continued) with few breaks, the man joining in very little it is true, but stolidly serene when he did. They noon got home again to their abode where the electric light was turned oil in even the hall for economy's deaf sake, and all was black and gloomy. They lived m a house in Cumberland Terrace, Regent a Park, and had done so ever since their removal from Kilburn, some ten or twelve years ago. Kilburn had been in its day a Mecca to which they had valorously striven from wild regions contiguous to the MileEnd Road, but was now looked buck upon as the shabbiest of milestones on a tar vista of forgotten road, and was never even alluded to by themselves. The house in Cumberland Terrace was not abnormally large, hut was treated as a limitless mansion, with the same class of artistic taste that one expects to see bestowed on a jumble sale. The staircase, just now half-lighted, was rendered abbolutely difficult to ascend by reason of the flamboyance of its decoration. There were an innumerable quantity of largo peacockblue china vases, shaped like monster seafchclls, arranged in indiscriminate confusion up tli'o sides of the lumpy white und gold banisters, which conches were variously filled with maiden-hair fern, and aspidistras, or in some cases dark-green imitation hand palms, of a very flat and dull appearance. There were also uncounted arrays of imitation niggerbovs, dressed in various striped costumes, and" bearing electric lights, lamps, or ferns on small trays or in raised gobCt A semi-Eastern character pervaded the general effect of this jumble, but it was mainly the East of Westbourno Grove or Tottenham Court Raid. By a sudd eft and quite startling variation from rich-coloured Turkish shrines and Russian icons, a shock awaited the observer in the window curtains—there were several fine high windows —which were simply draperies of unmitigated Nottingham lace, tied up with large blue and pink bows. The effect ox these very chocolate-box-like adornments Was painful and startling in the midst of so much barbaric splendour—for it was intended to be barbaric, and perhaps succeeded almost too well in • that direction, in that its imitation copper amJ pewter

reposed side by side with real mosaic and ivories. The taste was a fine conglomeration of that of Mrs. Lueason, who nominally ruled the roost, and Leah, who practically did so. Mrs. Lucasou was the rich widow of a Greek Jew, who had begun life as a working tailor's hand in a sweating den, and who through almost superhuman force of character and emining had gradually worked up into a master sweater, front that on to a large merchant, from that to a financier of some celebrity, and so on through various city dignities and offices to a sort of personAge, recognised in the money world if in no other.

Site had brought up her boy and girl to the best of hex* ideals, or such as she had managed to. retain through the many jerks and switchbacks of her startling career. ,She hud reckoned 1 herself to be, according to the quite naive and* beautiful belief of her nation, specially extolled and • honoured by Providence, by this token of her rise ami her wealth. An Israelite indeed will invariably take the growth of worldly goods, however acquired, in th simple and bland .spirit. .Signalled out before all the world, by a rerttove from' the East End to 11 burn, and eventually to Regent's Park, as a chosen mother in Israel, this lady had set to work with the genial whole-heartedness of which she was mistress to rear her son and daughter in a- manner befitting that vast; honour. It was oddly characteristic of her that she clung to these few traditions when site had long ago gone over to what good Jews call being a " blank page"that is to say, the blank page between the Old Testament- and the New. Mord and Lilla laid never been denied or stinted iu any buyable wish since they could re.member (they could not remember the East Mini). They had always had the best nurses and governesses; they hud been stuffed with fattening foods: they had worn all kinds of hygienic clothing and had fought like a cat and dog over absurdly expensive toys. From earliest babyhood they had learnt that the ultimate aim and joy* in life, was .money. They had imbibed the lesson simply and whole-heartedly. Money, they had been informed, could do everything, was everything. Incidentally they had gathered that behind 'this vast, and all-pervading power . there was another, less important, but still dimly to be reckoned upon, namely, tribal clanship, the chivalry of nice, the consolidated spirit of brotherhood that is invariably born of alien people, and •which constitutes so great a charm in t)iem; the. cosmopolitanism that comes of mutual sutVeji--ing. : . . ,

.Sometimes, too. they- had gathered that there was a Cod. especially when extra good fortune befell the house of Lueason, when the signal favours of the Deity were alluded to by Mrs. Lucasou. with the" sonorous pride wherewith nil old servant would acknowledge the receipt of tea and a shawl from a former employer. But mainly were they occupied by the things of the flesh, and the stage, as a rale, filled with them the place of nuother man's church and intellectual life in one. The son Mordecai had entered his father's business at an early age, having quickly developed a taste for moneymaking on a large scale, as soon, indeed, as the period of rather close exchanges in marbles with other little boys had been succeeded by rather sharp systems of tire lending of small sums at school to other fellows in temporary trouble. When his first bristly moustache began to show, together with certain yearnings after larger worlds to conquer in business wit, his father Levi Lueason had apprenticed him to a stockbroker, arid had disposal of the tailor's business, now an immense; affair* to a friend and .coreligionist. Moses Renhenssohn. retaining a large share in it for himself and his heirs. Later on this business had become a company, of which young Lucason, after his father's death, which occurred shortly after his own majority, became- a director.

As a business man lie was an immediate and ready success, and he had thrown into that part of his life from the very first the absolute sum-total and entirety of his energies—so much so that there -was simply nothing over for society. He was "a round number, with nothing to carry. They hated him in drawing-rooms, to his own entire unconsciousness ; as a matter of fact lie thought they were rather dull. That lie himself was dullanywhere out of the city—had never occurred to him. What had occurred to him, pretty often, was that the rest of the world was singularly deadly—so deadly that he wondered how on earth the idiots in the West End, and the suburbs, and at the plays, and in. society, managed to crawl about without dying' of boredom. Wondrous is that eternal mystery of the individual point of view! He thought he was the sole contented person, arid the rest of mankind weie the foolish, the idiotic, the uncomfortable, and the Wring. In so far as an underground newt living in the nebulous shadows of a, cosy cellar and become opaque for want of sun is happy, this good man was certainly happy: no one need have troubl«d to hate him, for he hated none. Ho regarded his fellow-beings with that wide charity which is born of entire and immovable contempt. And as all degrees of happiness only concern us so far* as they affect our particular capacity, so this level-headed and industrious person had reaehccMiis own entire capacity. In the ancient signs of the "Peg and Wassail" tradition says that men used to quaff of the wassail bowl as far down as a particular peg fixed in the side of the cup and this lumpy young man had so far drunk down to one particular peg and did not ask for more. He was unpoeticully contented, with a contentment born of a sad and solid acquiescence in all things. Since his father's death nine years ago he had lived steadily in his stockbroking business with hardly a thought and hardly an aspiration outside its concerns, save an occasional jaunt of sorts across the Continent, practically with, closed eyes, or, following a blind, semi-animal instinct of pleased sense*, a tolerably constant attendance at plays and good orchestral concerts. That limited his world entirely. He had no beliefs, save a few hackneyed cynicisms, and even these occasionally bored him. Creeds of cynicisms can be a fearful nuisance to those who own them, and can out-rival Athanasiu* in dogmatism.

So then lie was a creature of solid drudgery, solid success, and solid stupidity. At thirty years of ago he presented the not uncommon spectacle of a man who has gained the world's desire, wealth, and paid for it .in all that makes it worth —namely the habit of joy, hope, enthusiasm, hot belief, hot hates and hot friendship*;, and all the swing and dash and romance of things that gives colour to existence ; that capacity which makes some life in a back (street a vast magic adventure, and which splashes into a drab experience all the wind and fire and foam of great sea-fights. Stolidly he went to his city haunts,*and back again to Regent's Park, dreaming of nothing but further triumphs in his money-world, and regarding everything that crossed his absorbed vision from that point of view alone. (To be continued next Saturday.)