intention to stare, for I am a man not entirely unschooled in the social graces, but I found myself entranced as I watched her dark eyes follow the words across the page, her red lips pursed in appreciation.
Perhaps seeing that I regarded nothing but her at the moment, Miriam set her book aside, carefully marking her place with a small strip of cloth. She picked up a newspaper lying about and began leafing through it with an affectedly breezy air. “You have made your uncle very happy by coming here today,” she said, without looking at me. “It was all he could speak of at breakfast.”
“I am astonished,” I said. “Frankly, I suspected he cared for me not at all.”
“Oh, he values family loyalty tremendously, you know. I rather think he has taken a fancy to the idea of reforming you. By that he means, I suppose, having you move to Dukes Place, attend the synagogue with some regularity, and setting you up with responsibilities in his trade.” She was silent for a moment. She turned the page. At last she looked up at me, her face an inscrutably stoic mask. “He told me that you remind him of Aaron.”
I dared show neither contempt nor disagreement to Aaron’s widow. “He told me the same thing.”
“I can see perhaps some family resemblance in the physiognomy, but you strike me as men of different character.”
“I believe I would agree with you.”
There was another pause, one of the many moments of awkward silence that punctuated our conversation. Neither of us knew what to say. At last she had a new topic. “Do you ever attend dances and balls and such?” It was a casual question, or, perhaps, a question aiming to be casual. She spoke slowly and without looking up.
“I am afraid I tend to feel uncomfortable at such gatherings,” I told her.
Her smile suggested that we shared a secret. “Your uncle believes London society is not for refined Jewish ladies.”
I could not understand what she wished to tell me. “My uncle’s opinion may be a very just one,” I said, “but if you do not wish to adhere to it, I do not see what hold he has on you. You are of age and I presume of independent means.”
“But I have chosen to remain under the protection of his household,” she said quietly.
I wished to understand her meaning. For a widow of her standing, accustomed as she was to fine clothes and food and furnishings, to set herself up in her own household would prove an expensive endeavor. I knew not what money Aaron had settled upon Miriam; her fortune had become his at the time of their marriage, and I could not guess how much he might have left to my uncle or gambled away or wasted on a failed business dealing, or lost in any of the other countless ways that men of London see their fortunes shrivel. Perhaps independence was not an option. If that was Miriam’s case, then she merely waited for the right suitor so she might pass out of the hands of her father-in-law and into those of a new husband.
The idea of Miriam’s bind, the suggestion that she felt herself a prisoner in my uncle’s house, made me uneasy. “I am certain my uncle only has your best wishes in his heart,” I attempted. “Did you enjoy the amusements of town with your late husband?”
“His trade with the East made it necessary that he be abroad for long periods of time,” she responded without emotion. “We spent only a few months in mutual company before he embarked for that voyage on which he was lost. But in that time, he showed himself, upon the issue of diversions, to be much of his father’s spirit.”
In my discomfort I found myself digging my thumbnail into my index finger. Miriam had placed me in a difficult position, and I wagered that she was too clever not to know it. I sympathized with her for her confinement, and yet I could hardly disagree with the rules set forth by my uncle.
“I can say from my own experience that London society is not always the most welcoming to members of our race. Can you imagine how you might feel were you to attend a tea garden, strike up a conversation with an amiable young lady, one you might wish for a friend, and then discover that she had nothing but the most contemptuous things to say on the topic of Jews?”
“I should seek out a less illiberal friend,” she said with a dismissive wave of the hand, but I saw by the diminished sprightliness of her eyes that my question had not left her unaffected. “Do you know, Cousin, that I have changed my mind, and desire a glass of that wine.”
“If I pour it for you,” I asked, “would that not be labor, thus breaking the Sabbath law?”
“Do you then think of pouring wine for me as labor?” she inquired.
“Madam, you have convinced me.” I stood and filled a glass, which I handed to her slowly, that I might watch her delicate fingers carefully avoiding all contact with my hand.
“Tell me,” she said after taking a measured sip, “how does it feel to return to your family?”
“Oh,” I said with an evasive laugh, “I do not feel myself to be returning so much as visiting.”
“Your uncle said that you prayed with enthusiasm this morning.”
I thought on how I had seen her watching me through the latticed gate. “Did you find my praying enthusiastic?” I inquired.
Miriam did not understand me or pretended not to. “It should have been very enthusiastic indeed if I could have heard you in the ladies’ gallery.”
“As I was feeling enthusiastic, I saw no reason the synagogue should not benefit from my mood.”
“I find you flippant, Cousin,” she said with amusement rather than annoyance.
“I hope you take it not amiss.”
“May I ask you a question of a rather private nature?” she asked.
“You may ask me what you like,” I told her, “so long as I may do the same.”
My comment was perhaps a bit ungentlemanly, for she paused for a moment and appeared uncertain of how to continue. Finally she offered an expression that was not so much a smile as a thoughtful pressing together of her lips. “I shall call that a fair bargain. Your uncle, as you know, is a very traditional man. He seeks to shelter me from the world. I do not enjoy being cloistered, however, and so I try to learn as best I can.” She was silent for a moment, contemplating either my words or the wine. “I was never told of the reason for your break with your father.”
I had rarely spoken of the details of my rupture with my family to anyone. Part of my desire to speak of it with Miriam had to do with a wish to form a bond of trust with her, but part of it was simply the need to speak about these matters. “My father had hopes that I would follow him into business, become a licensed broker like himself. Unlike my older brother, I was born here in England, which meant that I was a citizen and would be exempt from the alien taxes, and I would be able to own land. It made sense to my father that Jose should return to Amsterdam to manage family affairs there, and I should remain here. But I was not very skillful at doing what was expected of me as a child. I often found myself embroiled in street fights, as often as not with Gentile boys who had tormented us only because they misliked Jews. I cannot say why I was so inclined. Perhaps because I grew up without a mother’s affection. My father hated that I fought, for he feared notice. I always told him that I felt honor-bound to defend our race, but I felt an even greater thrill from striking the other boys.”
I saw that I had Miriam’s full attention, and I basked in her gaze. Even now it is so very difficult for me to express why this woman captivated me instantly. She was beautiful, yes, but so are many women. She had a quick wit, but women of intelligence are not so rare as some unkind authors tell us. I sometimes believe that I thought she and I had so much in common, moving as we did, each in our own way, along the borders of what it meant to be both a Hebrew and a Briton. Perhaps that was why my story had arrested her attention so fully.
“I always somehow felt that it was his fault I had no mother—you know how a child’s thoughts are so nonsensical,” I continued. “She died, as I am certain you know, of a wasting disease when I was still but an infant. From an early age, I sensed that my father made but a scurvy kind of parent, and I found myself almost seeking to incur his displeasure. He was a stern disciplinarian and anything other than perfection made him angry.”
I paused briefly to sip from my glass, flattering myself that Miriam did not see the confusion telling my tale engendered in me.
“One day, when I was fourteen, he had entrusted me to bring payment to a merchant to whom he owed a debt. I was at the age when he was just beginning to teach me the rudiments of the family concerns. He wished to see me a trader upon the Exchange, as he was, but I fear I had little aptitude for mathematics, and I had even less interest in business. Perhaps my father ought to have begun teaching me of these things earlier, but I think he had been hoping I would mature and grow interested of my own will. But I was only interested in running about on the streets making trouble and haunting the gaming houses.”
“Yet he thought you mature enough then,” Miriam observed cautiously.
“So it would seem,” I told her, though I had often wondered if he had only wanted to give me the opportunity
