Miss Jacobson's Journey (26 page)

“I cannot say, but at least he won’t be horrified at the notion as he would have been two months ago.”

“Ach, so? You have changed his mind about us?”

“I believe so, sir, I and Miss Jacobson. He might even support Jewish emancipation when he takes his seat in the House of Lords.”

“I shall offer him a position,” said Nathan decisively. “Ask him to step back in.”

So Isaac went out and sent Felix in. Tactfully he stayed in the outer office, presided over by Mr. Rothschild’s chief clerk. Pacing about the room, he at once began to wonder what had possessed him to propose Felix as a Rothschild employee.

If he accepted Nathan’s offer, would it make him more or less likely to wed Miriam? Isaac was not even sure whether he wanted Felix to wed Miriam, for the sake of her happiness, or to give in to family pressure and cry off, thus giving Isaac some hope of winning her.

With three thousand pounds in the bank, he no longer felt himself utterly ineligible. But nine years ago he had been wealthy and she had rejected him anyway. He suppressed a groan.

Felix came out a few minutes later, his step jaunty, his face jubilant. He shook Isaac’s hand and slapped him on the shoulder.

“I have you to thank for this, old fellow,” he said.

“You have accepted?”

“At double the salary, how could I refuse? You know my family’s situation. Let’s go to the Treasury right away, get the business over and hand in my resignation.”

They walked to Lombard Street and found a hackney to take them to Whitehall. Isaac lent no more than half an ear to his companion’s wry remarks. As the somewhat smelly vehicle carried them down Cheapside and past St. Paul’s, he came to the conclusion that Felix was not talking like a man about to tie the knot with an heiress.

“Are you going to marry Miriam?” he interrupted.

“What? Me? Given half a chance I’d marry her like a shot, but she won’t have me.”

“Won’t have you?” Isaac’s heart gave a cautious hop.

“I asked her in St.-Jean and she turned me down,” said Felix simply. “I told her I’d be waiting if she changed her mind, but I don’t have much hope.”

The world whirled about his head. “Are you sure?”

“Believe me, when the woman you love turns you down you know it.”

“Yes...yes, of course.” The moment had come when he could no longer hide behind a painful memory. He ached to hold Miriam in his arms, to keep her at his side for ever, and to win all, he must risk all. He reached for the hackney’s door handle. “I have to find the matchmaker, but I can’t remember her name.”

Felix grabbed his arm. “Getting out in the middle of Fleet Street won’t help. Deuced if I can see what you want with a matchmaker, but if that’s the way of it, I daresay it can wait till after we have been to Whitehall.”

“Weiss, that’s it! Mrs. Weiss. Somewhere in Whitechapel. My landlady might know how to get in touch.”

“She’s bound to, old fellow. Stands to reason. Landladies know everything,” said Felix soothingly. “And if she doesn’t, you can always just go and throw yourself at Miriam’s feet.”

Isaac laughed. “To be sure. I’d rather do the thing properly, but if it’s impossible, I’ll just go and throw myself at Miriam’s feet.”

 Miriam allowed her parents several hours of unalloyed rejoicing over the return of their long-lost only child. She waited until they met before dinner in the drawing room-- refurbished in the same shades of red--to inform them that she had come to her senses and intended to marry the man they had found for her nine years ago.

“I have come to realize,” she said demurely, “that you knew what was best for me all along, Mama.”

Seated beside her on the crimson-brocaded love seat, her mother patted her hand. “It would have saved a great deal of heartache if you had come to your senses sooner, my dear,” she said. “However, better late than never. Of course, Isaac Cohen is no longer eligible, but your father will find someone equally suitable.”

“Only the best for my dear girl.” Mr. Jacobson, standing by the fireplace with his hands linked behind his back, nodded and beamed. His side-whiskers had greyed during Miriam’s long absence, she noted with a pang, and new lines in his face suggested sadness. She feared she was responsible.

Impulsively she jumped up and ran to embrace him. “Dearest Papa, you need not go to any trouble to find me a husband. Isaac Cohen will suit me very well.”

“Out of the question,” her mother said. “If it was only a matter of his losing his fortune--but he has taken some quite menial employ and abandoned his Talmudic studies. Indeed, I have heard that he is become almost a free thinker! Your Papa wants a man of learning for you, Miriam.”

She turned to face her mother, her arm about her father’s waist. He put his arm around her shoulders and gave her a gentle squeeze. His love comforted her though she felt no need of his support.

“You mean a religious scholar, Mama, but you are not religious, so why should I be? Isaac is no less learned for having abandoned a strict interpretation of the law. I respect and admire his views and I want to marry him.”

“And how do you know so much about Mr. Cohen’s views, miss?”

Miriam smiled. “As yet I have told you little of how I found my way home. For the past two months I have been travelling with Mr. Cohen, and another gentleman. And Hannah, of course,” she added as Mrs. Jacobson’s face froze in an expression of horror.

“Ah, Hannah, bless her. She has been a faithful servant. Nonetheless, you must be married, and quickly. But not to Isaac Cohen.”

“Then I shall run off with the other gentleman who travelled with us.”

“Since you talk of running off, I assume he is equally ineligible.”

“That is a matter of opinion. He is Felix, Viscount Roworth, heir to the Earl of Westwood.”

Her mother gasped, and she felt her father take a sudden breath. “You have been moving in exalted company, my love,” he said.

“He asked me to marry him, Papa.” She looked up at him and he kissed her forehead.

“No!” said Mrs. Jacobson sharply. “Better a poor, non-observant Jew than a wealthy, titled Goy. If you must have Isaac Cohen, then you shall have him. Has he, too, asked for your hand without consulting your father?”

Miriam turned her face to her father’s shoulder. “No.”

“Well, you need not fear he will spurn the match, penniless as he is.”

She swung round and cried out, “Isaac has too much integrity to marry for money!” Then in a low voice she continued, “And I do not know whether he loves me.”

Mr. Jacobson took charge. Hugging his daughter to him, he spoke over her shoulder to his wife: “My dear, you had best send for the matchmaker at once.”

 “But I do so want to marry him!” Miriam gazed apprehensively at the gilt-framed mirror, where dark red ringlets were taking shape under Hannah’s skilful hands. “And soon. After all, I’m seven and twenty--most people would say I am on the shelf. I want children.”

“God willing, I’ll be taking charge of your nursery yet, Miss Miriam.”

“Oh Hannah, do you think he has really forgiven me? I could not bear it if he turned and walked out, or sent the matchmaker to say he has changed his mind.”

“Hold still now, child. How can you think such a thing of Mr. Isaac? You know him better than that. He’s not the sort to cry off after raising expectations.”

“No, of course not. I do love him so.”

“You should be thanking God for the chance to change your mind. There now.” With a last twirl of the hairbrush, Hannah stepped back to admire her handiwork.

“Thank you, Hannah dear.” Miriam stood up and smoothed the skirts of her new morning gown. Of moss-green cambric, it was plainly trimmed with a lighter green ribbon around the high waist, tied in a bow beneath her bosom, and rosettes of the same ribbon around the hem. She knew Isaac did not care about her fortune, but she wanted to avoid any appearance of trying to dazzle him with riches. Her mother had tried to dress her in the finest silks money could buy. Inevitably Miriam won, and now her elegant simplicity gave her confidence.

“And no need to carry a shawl to hide any worn spots,” the abigail observed with satisfaction. “To think we spent nine years scrimping and saving! Just the jade earrings, now, and you’d best be off to show the mistress.”

Miriam had deliberately chosen to wear the same delicately carved jade as on that long-ago day. Not that Isaac would recognize the earrings. She regarded them as a symbol of how much everything had changed, though outwardly the situation seemed so much the same.

As she crossed the hall to her mother’s dressing room, she wondered what would have happened if she had accepted her parents’ choice then. Would the naïve, expectant girl she had been ever have found happiness with the dedicated religious scholar? Had she wasted nine years, or saved herself from a life of regret and discontent? She could never know.

She knocked on her mother’s door and entered. “I am ready, Mama.”

Mrs. Jacobson, seated at her dressing table in a rose silk wrap, turned to inspect her daughter.

“Well enough. At least you have preserved your figure, my dear, and your face is unlined, only you are a trifle pale. You had best pinch your cheeks.”

“No, Mama.”

“Perhaps the tiniest dab of rouge--you are of an age where it may be considered permissible.”

“My complexion is naturally pale, Mama, and Isaac is well aware of it. I will not paint for him.”

“I hope you mean to behave with dignity, Miriam,” said her mother sharply. “Your disgraceful behaviour last time is still talked of. There is no need for anyone to discover that you have been on intimate terms with Mr. Cohen in such improper circumstances.”

Miriam shuddered at the possibility her relatives might suppose that Isaac had been coerced to wed her. “I have no intention of telling anyone, you may be sure.”

“I am relieved to hear it. The rest of the family will arrive shortly. I must dress.”

Miriam went downstairs and wandered into the library. Uncle Amos’s battered box stood in a corner. Suddenly she missed him desperately, overwhelmed with longing for his support. What would Isaac say when they met again? What was she going to say to him, in front of parents, uncles, aunts, and cousins to whom the last such occasion was a never-to-be forgotten family scandal?

She went through into the hatefully red drawing room, crossed to one of the tall windows, and gazed out at the early roses blooming in the garden. If only she could meet Isaac out there, the two of them alone together.

Her father came in. Joining her by the window, he patted her shoulder. “Beautiful as your mother,” he said awkwardly. “Isaac Cohen is a lucky young man.”

“Oh Papa, I hope he thinks so.”

He smiled at her. “Mind you, I don’t say you are not lucky too, my love. I have talked to him this week, and to Rothschild also. Young Cohen is a fine fellow, with a future ahead of him in politics, we hope.”

“I don’t care what he does, Papa, as long as he is happy and he wants me to share his life.”

“You need have no fear of that,” he assured her.

Her nervousness began to abate, but it turned to irritation when, a few minutes after her mother’s arrival, the butler ushered in a dozen relatives. Her unmarried female cousins flocked about her, giggling and offering congratulations just like last time. Only this time they were all considerably younger than Miriam and their glances were not envious but sly. Their sparrowlike twittering almost drowned the butler’s next announcement.

“Mrs. Weiss and Mr. Cohen.”

The matchmaker’s buttercup-yellow pelisse and the fruit bowl of lemons and oranges on her extraordinary bonnet eclipsed the man who entered behind her. As she started to speak, sounding excited but somewhat anxious, Isaac stepped to one side and looked at Miriam.

The uncertainty in his face was more than she could bear. She sped across the red Turkey carpet into his arms. He caught her to him and she flung her arms about his neck, raising her face to him with a little sigh of content. He kissed her with all the love and longing and passion so long pent up.

Her mother, her aunts, and all the cousins, not to mention the matchmaker, exclaimed in scandalized horror. Miriam did not hear a word.

Copyright © 1992 by Carola Dunn

Originally published by
Walker & Company (0802712150)

Electronically published in 2001 by Belgrave House/Regency Reads

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This is a work of fiction. All names in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to any person living or dead is coincidental.