A Vindication Of Miss Everlee

Chapter 10

"You do go out with your cousin an awful lot, Miss Everlee," said Mistress Walden as Midge neared the door. If only she knew how much! Mistress Walden was always out during Friday evening and so at least was unaware of that.

"Only outside of my duties with Daniel, I promise, Mistress Walden," she responded.

"I know that. I actually managed to have a conversation with him yesterday. It was quite pleasant to know my son isn't so shy and inarticulate anymore!" she said. Midge just nodded; it was not her place to point out that he was shy only because of his parents' lack of attention. As she stood there, Mistress Walden waves her hand along and said, "You may go,"

It was not Shabbat. Instead, the situation which called for her to be thrust with Esther once more was Shavuot. The synagogue, despite being run down and chipped, looked rather becoming with its decorations of greenery, especially where the morning sheen brushed over the fluttering leaves. Midge lifted up her hand and pressed it against them for a moment.

Esther had ladened her hair with flowers. They sat in her braids and framed her face so that she mirrored the decorative synagogue, a picture of her usual devotion. She kept on adjusting them and ensuring the green stems laid against her head in just so right direction so the green shade highlighted the deep ruddiness of her hair. "Do stop fussing about with them," Midge said, "People will think you vain,"

"I don't want to look silly!"

"Then you should have checked your appearance before we came to synagogue," she pointed out. However, Esther stayed in discomfort over the uncertainty of how she looked and her fingers kept on twitching as though trying to control them from reaching her hair. Therefore, Midge sighed, "You look lovely." And she did.

Afterwards, Mrs Milevetz invited them round her home for a meal. "It's important we all keep our strength up today. It will be tiring staying up all night studying the Torah!" she said. Midge just nodded, having no intention to do such a thing when she had to get up early in the morning to look after Daniel. Even if she didn't, she doubted she could be persuaded to take on such a tedious endeavour.

The meal, on the other hand, was a part of Shavuot Midge had no trouble in observing. As usual, the table was filled with dairy- all the blintzes, milks, kugels and quiches one could want- and the merriment commenced.

Amongst the discussion, Midge looked about the Milevetz home. It was small, with the downstairs consisting of a kitchen with a table and a door at the end. Behind this door was a bedroom. The upstairs seemed not to belong to the little house, for it was misshapen and appeared to have been assembled on the ground and fixed on top. It was another bedroom.

It did not seem fitting that two people, so young, fresh and well turned out, should live in such a place. It did not match them. By the looks of it, they must be very poor indeed! Midge looked over the clean but old crockery, the splintered wooden walls and the lopsided drawers which held their worn possessions and tried to think over whether she had ever been in such a place before.

No, indeed. She had walked along the streets where they must dwell, made acquaintances and bought from their stores. How could one avoid it when the Jewish areas were so poor? However, her acquaintanceships had always been so protected with the merchant class that shielded themselves from how the majority of their people lived by building modest houses and falling into academics and sanctimoniousness.

"What is your profession, Reb Milevetz?" Midge asked, though she really meant, "What earns you such a place of habitation?"

"Similar to yours," he said, pleased that she was showing an interest in him. "I teach, though the manner in which I do does not offer a fine home and a place in society, I'm afraid,"