neglect to wear a hangar, however, even though most men consider a fashionable sword to be a sign of gentility. Indeed, it was not many generations ago when the laws of the Kingdom would have forbidden a man such as myself from wearing a weapon, but despite the harsh looks my hangar at times brought me, I never thought to leave it behind. Its protection proved far too valuable, and no stranger ever dared to express his disapproval with words uttered above a whisper.
It was nearly nine o’clock, the time I was engaged to meet with Sir Owen at his club, and after my adventures the previous night, I could feel the dull torpor of exhaustion in the core of my muscles. I considered Sir Owen’s invitation a fine opportunity, and I certainly had no wish to insult him by not acknowledging it as such, but as I approached his club, located in a beautiful white town house of Queen Anne’s time, I wondered why precisely he had invited me to join him there. I could not but think that in a club to which Sir Owen belonged I might expect to find no shortage of men to raise their eyebrows at a Jew guest. Did Sir Owen want to do me a good turn, or did he have another motive? I wondered perhaps if he might have enemies within his club, people whom he hoped to intimidate by flaunting his connection with me. Was it possible that he thought there would be some sort of prestige in showing he had a man of my stripe in his orbit? Or was it no more than that an exuberant gentleman like Sir Owen felt that I had done him a good turn and wanted to do me one as well—even if such a good turn were in bad taste? Based on what I knew of him, this explanation was hardly unlikely, so I chose to believe in his goodwill, and I knocked heartily upon the door.
After but a moment I was greeted by a very young footman—perhaps no more than sixteen—who had already learned to affect the snobbish manner of his employers. He peered at me, no doubt noting my darkish skin tone and natural hair, and screwed up his face into a foppish disgust. “Can it be that you have some sort of business here?”
“It can,” I said with a tight sneer. Five years earlier, perhaps, I would have been considering whether or not to provide the spark with a painful lesson in manners, but age had tempered my passions. “My name is Weaver,” I told him wearily. “I am a guest of Sir Owen Nettleton.”
“Oh, yes,” he droned, his face not yet ready to abandon its conviction of superiority. “Sir Owen’s
The “we” I thought an adventurous touch on his part. I was sure if I mentioned it to Sir Owen the boy would have received a good beating for presuming to number himself with his betters, but reporting the spark’s insolence was a task I would leave for another man. Instead I followed this servant into an exquisite hall paneled with a dark wood the likes of which I had never seen before. On the floor was a rug of Indian origin, and no inexpensive one I guessed from the intricacy of the work. Not knowing much of the arts, I could not offer an opinion of the paintings on the wall, but they were pastoral scenes of fine workmanship—Italian, I guessed, based on the costumes of the figures. It was clear that Sir Owen kept sophisticated company.
I followed the boy through an equally exquisite drawing room, where three men sat drinking wine. Their close conversation broke as I passed, for they took the opportunity to stare hard at me. I smiled and offered them brief bows as I moved to the main room. This was a large area with perhaps four or five tables, several sofas, and countless chairs. Here a good twenty or so men were engaged in a variety of activities—playing card games, conversing gregariously, and reading the papers aloud. One man stood in the corner, making water into a china pot. The furniture was all of the highest quality, and the wood-paneled walls were decorated with the same style of Italian paintings as I had seen outside. Toward one wall stood an enormous fireplace, but only a small fire burned within.
Sir Owen spotted us before we saw him. The baronet had been sitting at one of the card tables, his face invisible as he contemplated a hand. As he saw us he made some brief apologies to the men with whom he had been playing and stood to greet me.
“Weaver, so good of you to show.” Sir Owen’s affable face was bright with portly good cheer. “So very good. A glass of port for Mr. Weaver,” Sir Owen shouted at a liveried servant across the room. The footman who had led me in had already melted away.
I felt the hum of conversation die down to a quiet whisper; all eyes were upon me, but Sir Owen either did not note the suspicion with which I was regarded or he did not care. Instead he clapped his arm about my shoulder and led me over to a group of men seated in a few chairs arranged to face one another. “Look here,” Sir Owen nearly bellowed at these men, “I want you to meet Benjamin Weaver, the Lion of Judah. He’s helped me out of a tight spot, you know.”
The three men rose. “I should think,” one of them said dryly, “you refer to just this moment, for Mr. Weaver’s arrival saved you from your ill luck at play.”
“Quite so, quite so,” Sir Owen agreed jovially. “Weaver, these men are Lord Thornbridge, Sir Robert Leicester, and Mr. Charles Home.” All three men greeted me with rigid politeness as Sir Owen continued to talk. “Weaver here is as brave and stout a man as you’re likely to meet. Here’s a fellow who’s a credit to his people, helping folks rather than tricking them with stock and annuities.”
Sir Owen’s was a sentiment I had certainly heard before. Men who did not know that I was the son of a stock-jobber frequently felt free to compliment me for having nothing to do with finance or Jewish customs, which were often imagined to be one and the same. I wondered if Lord Thornbridge knew of my family connections, for he took what I believed an ironic amusement at Sir Owen’s raillery. He was of about five-and-twenty years, I guessed—a striking-looking man, astonishingly handsome and ugly simultaneously. He had strong cheekbones, a manly chin, and striking blue eyes, but his teeth were rotted black within his mouth, and he had a distracting red and bulbous growth upon his nose.
“Do you feel yourself to be a credit to your people?” asked Lord Thornbridge, as he sat down. The rest of us followed suit.
“I think, my lord,” I said, choosing my words with the utmost care, “that any man of a foreign nation must serve as an ambassador among his hosts.”
“Bravo,” he said, with a slight laugh that appeared to me as much out of boredom as appreciation. Then he turned to his friend. “I should like if your brother Scots felt thus, Home.”
Home smiled with pleasure at the opportunity of contributing. He was approximately Lord Thornbridge’s age, and I sensed the two were companions, if not friends. He was more fashionably dressed than the nobleman, and his handsome appearance was unmitigated by any defect whatsoever. The confidence that Thornbridge derived from his nobility, Home derived from his appearance. Both, I quickly surmised, derived confidence from money. “I think you do not understand the Scots, my lord,” Home droned. “Mr. Weaver perhaps feels that his fellow-Jews must be careful not to disoblige their hosts, for they know their hosts may all too readily feel disobliged. We Scots, however, feel a more fraternal obligation to teach the English in the areas of philosophy, religion, medicine, and manners in general.”
Lord Thornbridge affected amusement at Home’s repartee. “Just as we English teach the Scots how to —”
Home cut him off. “How to learn from French dancing masters, my lord? Really, you must know that any culture England boasts of comes from the north or from across the Channel.”
Lips pursed petulantly, Lord Thornbridge muttered something about Scottish barbarians and rebels, but it was clear who was the wittier man. Thornbridge opened his mouth to begin speaking again, no doubt with the intent of recovering some of his honor, but he was cut off by Sir Robert, a much older man of fifty or more who sat with the stony superiority of someone who had never been in want of anything. “What think you then, Weaver, of the Shylocks of your race?”
“I say, Bobby,” Sir Owen cut in, “let us not roast our friend upon the fire. He is my guest, after all.” His tone bespoke more amusement than censure, and I could not think his words were calculated to have any effect upon his friends.
“I see it not as roasting,” Sir Robert replied. He turned to me. “Surely you must acknowledge that many of your people are schemers who seek to trick Christians of their property.”
“And their daughters?” I asked. I hoped to defuse this topic with a bit of humor.
“Well,” Lord Thornbridge chimed in, “it is no secret that the circumcised among us have a voracious appetite.” He laughed heartily.
Certainly I felt uncomfortable, but I had long understood what such men thought of my race. “I cannot speak for all Jews, as none of you could speak for all Christians. But we have the honest and dishonest among us as you do.”
