The Rise of Henry Morcar (16 page)

“Probably need a cup of tea,” he adjured himself.

He sank back on the velvet seat and hummed
Roses are Blooming in Picardy
mournfully.

All of a sudden the sun went in; great black clouds had rolled up over the horizon and blotted it out. The colour of the grass darkened all the way down the range as though one had poured gallons of black into it, thought Morcar, and wondered how much of that old designing stuff he really remembered. “But I can soon mug it up again,” he told himself staunchly. Meanwhile, it had begun to rain—no, to snow. Yes, positively to snow; white flakes were driving thick and fast before a strong cold wind, which rattled the windows, tossed the fleeces of the sheep and howled through the telegraph wires. The scene had changed in a moment from spring to winter, from relaxation to effort, from a smile to a frown.

“Ah, this is more like the West Riding!” cried Morcar aloud, laughing. He sat up, feeling stimulated, and changed his tune to a local song beginning:
I will take thee to yon green garden, Where the pretty flowers blow
.

“Where the pretty, pretty, flow-ers grow,” sang Morcar, pronouncing
pretty
in the Ire Valley fashion. His thoughts turned to his wife, and he smiled with pleasure.

At Annotsfield station his cheerful mood was sustained. There were no taxis to be had, of course, but an old out-porter with a barrow bobbed up and offered to take his kit-bag as far as the Hurst tram.

“How do you know I want the Hurst tram?” queried Morcar, laughing, as they walked along side by side. He put a hand on the barrow and helped to push it, with a delicious sense that he was not in the Army now and could do as he chose.

“You're Captain Morcar, aren't you? I owned you as soon as ever I saw you,” said the old man. “I used to work at your grandfather's twenty years ago. Your picture were in the paper when you won your medal, think on.”

Morcar, pleased by the recognition and enjoying the Yorkshire turn of phrase, tipped him heavily and took his seat in the empty tram. Here he had to wait several minutes till the proper time of departure was reached. At first he felt a feverish impatience, but presently he could not help taking an interest in the conversation, conducted in loud tones and the Yorkshire idiom, between the driver and the conductor, who were sitting together in the body of the tram. The driver, an oldish man, was describing to the conductor, who had been demobilised from the Ripon dispersal camp a few weeks ago, the behaviour of the conductress who had replaced him during the war. His anecdotes were ribald, and usually ended in the comment: “Eh, she were a one!” The conductor, laughing heartily, opined at length that her husband would have a surprise when he got home. At this the driver looked grave.

“Nay,” he said: “There were no harm in her, tha knows.”

The conductor, feeling that he had gone too far, agreed. “No harm—just a bit o' fun, like.”

“That's right. Well,” said the driver, drawing out a large watch from the folds of coat about his waist: “Time to be off. This gentleman's wanting to get home, I daresay.”

“You're right there,” said Morcar.

It seemed an age before the conductor at last jerked the bell-string, the driver applied the power and the tram began its slow grinding progress up Hurst Road. But at last the tram topped the rise, at last he was dragging his kitbag off the steps, at last he was hurrying down Hurstholt Road, the bag banging at his knees as he strode. After all this delay Hurstcote appeared with an effect of suddenness at last. From shyness, or diffidence, or excess of emotion, or a real desire to examine this house, which in his feverish wartime visits he had not really made his own familiar home, Morcar paused at the little green-painted wooden gate.

The sun had come out again and the house—though rather like a birdcage in size and shape, thought Morcar, amused—looked well; he noted with pleasure, for he did not like brick, that it was built of the greyish local millstone grit. Spotless curtains of white casement cloth hung very straight at the windows and a few neat daffodils sparsely filled a diamond-shaped garden bed. Morcar unlatched the gate and swung it open. At an upper window a small face appeared and bobbed up and down; its owner, a little boy in grey, was evidently jumping on the same spot with a
child's enjoyment of rhythmical repetition. The face was fair and friendly; suddenly it beamed with recognition, and vanished.

“It's Harry,” thought Morcar, and his heart turned over.

He went up the garden path and tried the neat green door. It was locked; he rang the bell. Suddenly it was thrown open and Winnie stood there, dressed to go out in her squirrel coat and cap. Clinging shyly to her hand was the child, in a grey cloth coat with a velvet collar, and leggings which to Morcar's delighted amusement seemed to reach from foot to waist.

“Oh, Harry!” cried Winnie. “What a pity you've come today! We haven't a loaf of bread in the house!”

For a moment Morcar was deeply hurt and daunted. Then he rallied staunchly. This was just Winnie's usual perversity; she was really glad to see him though her words sounded otherwise; like the West Riding she was apt to mingle snow-showers with her sun. All the same, he could not quite bring himself to offer an embrace to her till he was sure it was wanted. Instead, he picked up the child and buried his face in young Harry's soft little neck. Harry put an arm round Morcar's shoulders and gave him a kiss, moist and confused but spontaneous and real, in return. Then Morcar felt his heart melt towards his* wife, and he took her in his arms and spoke lovingly to her.

Her response was cool and he soon desisted, instead displaying the presents he had brought. The football was received with ecstasy, and did some immediate damage amongst the drawing-room furniture; the crane was pronounced by Winnie “too old” for a boy only two and a half. The lovely turquoise silk she eyed in silence.

“It's too pale for a blouse,” she said.

“It's meant for underneath, love,” said Morcar, laughing. Winnie coloured and tossed her head.

It seemed that Winnie had been about to pay one of her regular visits to the Sycamores and stay there for tea, and in view of the shortage of bread at Hurstcote this plan was adhered to, Morcar joining her at the Sycamores after a brief visit to his mother.

He found the house greatly changed. Mrs. Shaw had died last autumn—“I
told
you, Harry,” Winnie kept repeating, while her husband mildly countered with the excuse that the letter had gone astray. One of Winnie's sisters had married and gone to live in Bradford, the younger girl had become a nurse during the war and refused to return to home life now, while her two remaining brothers had been demobilised rather earlier than Morcar, one from a regiment of Sappers and the other from the R.F.C. The three male Shaws were therefore all living at the Sycamores
under the care of a working housekeeper with occasional supervision from Winnie, in what appeared to be an uncertain and uncomfortable way. It was clear to Morcar, as they sat at high tea in the dining-room, that Mr. Shaw had put pressure on Winnie to go and live, at the Sycamores, that Winnie had refused, that between Winnie and the housekeeper there was a continual and bitter feud, that judging from the appearance of the table and the quality of the cooking the feud was not altogether unjustified, and that the two younger Shaws, thus suddenly grown from negligible schoolboys into young men, did not particularly enjoy living in the unmitigated company of their father.

“I don't suppose they're any more comfortable together at the mill,” thought Morcar shrewdly: “It's time I was getting back.” He recalled how affectionately Charlie had cared for his young brothers, and resolved to look after them himself with just as great and brotherly an affection.

“Shall I start work on Monday, then, Mr. Shaw?” he said affably. “Or would you like me to come down tomorrow morning?”

There was a pause.

“I don't know that I've much room for you at Prospect, Harry,” said Mr. Shaw.

“Oh, yes, you have, Father,” said Winnie at once, feeding an egg to young Harry from a spoon.

“Nay—I don't want to go where I'm not wanted,” drawled Morcar with an outward calm which covered anger. “I thought I'd helped to build Prospect up a bit, but if it's viewed differently here, I can find myself another job, I don't doubt.”

“Oh, aye—two, I daresay,” said Mr. Shaw ironically. “We all know you, Harry—you're the man that had two jobs in one day, at fifteen years old. But I don't see that there's much room for you at Prospect.”

“If you don't take Harry back, Father,” said Winnie fiercely, “I'll never speak to you again. I mean it.”

“I'm not talking about not taking him back,” said Mr. Shaw irritably. “I simply say there isn't much room for him. He can come, and welcome, if he likes; but it'll have to be at a less salary than he had before and there isn't much prospect of advancement. I've still two sons to provide for, bear in mind.”

“There was room for him when Charlie was here,” threw out Winnie sarcastically.

“Charlie isn't here now,” said Mr. Shaw.

There was a pause.

“We should be glad to have Harry, Father,” muttered the ex-Sapper, Hubert.

“Well, I'll expect you on Monday as usual, Harry,” said Mr. Shaw in a milder tone.

“I'll come tomorrow,” said Morcar shortly.

“You'll do as you want, I expect—you didn't ask me when you left, and you'll do the same about coming back, I suppose. You didn't once come down when you were on leave, I noticed. But come when you like. Only don't blame me if there isn't much to do,” said Mr. Shaw disagreeably.

It was not a very cheering welcome to Annotsfield, reflected Morcar as he walked homewards later, Winnie silent by his side. But the sleeping child in his arms made up for everything. Besides, perhaps Mr. Shaw was right and there was really no place for him in the business. If so, he would leave and find some other post. Now that he was back in the West Riding his textile memories were returning in a flood, and he remembered the fate of many a fine business which had sunk under the weight of too many owners' families. Anything uneconomic of that kind he despised; he did not wish to be associated with any such silly work.

“It was grand the way you stood up for me to your father, Winnie,” he observed soberly: “But it may be he's right and there's no room for me at Prospect.”

“Your place is at Prospect,” said Winnie hardly.

“Well, we shall see,” said Morcar, as he unlatched the Hurstcote gate and stood aside to let her enter. “No business can stand too many households living out of it—it isn't sense.”

“Then let Eric go out,” said Winnie. “He wasn't in it before and he hates working for Father.”

“He's your brother.”

“You're my husband.”

Morcar involuntarily let out a snort of laughter, for her remark, so loving in word, was in tone so snappish as to amount to an angry retort.

“What are you laughing at?” said Winnie, quivering with fury. She inserted her key and opened the front door. “Father has a duty to provide for me too, I suppose?”

“I'll provide for you,” said Morcar, vexed. He spoke rather more irritably than he meant because he did not altogether relish being let into his own house with Winnie's latchkey.

Winnie switched on the light and they found themselves in the tiny hall.

“Besides, we have to think of the boy,” said Winnie. She bent towards little Harry, removed his hat and made to take him from Morcar's arms. “I'll take him straight up to bed.”

“I'll carry him for you.”

“No, give him to me. You ought to think of him, Harry, before you talk of leaving Prospect,” said Winnie in a virtuous reproving tone.

“I am thinking of him!” shouted Morcar, suddenly losing his temper. “Who else do you suppose I'm thinking of?”

“Not of me, certainly,” said Winnie disagreeably.

“I don't want him to have to go through what I went through when I first went to business,” panted Morcar, turning from her and carrying the child upstairs.

“He won't—he'll be in his grandfather's business,” said Winnie angrily, following.

“If there's room for him. But suppose there isn't? Your brothers will marry and have sons too. I don't want my son to be a poor relation. I want Harry to have a business of his own to go into when he grows up, and if I've got to make one for him, I shall have to start soon and build it up. There isn't room to build much at Prospect, and your father's that obstinate—if he's made up his mind not to make me a partner, he never will. You'll have to trust me to decide, love,” said Morcar, regaining his good temper as he looked down at the round flushed cheek, the long fair lashes, the peaceful forehead and fair silky hair of the sleeping child. He turned to his wife as they reached the top of the stairs. “I'll go to Prospect and stay a month or two to look round, but you must trust me to do the best for Harry.”

“Why should I?” screamed Winnie suddenly. “He isn't yours.”

Morcar gaped at her.

“What do you mean, Winnie?” he whispered at length.

“He's not your son!” cried Winnie madly. “He's not your child! Don't you understand? He's not your child!”

For a moment Morcar gazed at his wife in horror. Then thrusting the child into her arms, he rushed from the house.

A FEW hours later Morcar came to himself to find he was standing at the edge of a remote bluff on Marthwaite Moor. A landscape of singular beauty lay before him: a vast amphitheatre where three great slopes interlocked, sweeping majestically down to the streams far out of sight below. Tonight the turbulent masses of rock and heather lay frozen into black and silver beneath a cloudless sky lit by a clear full moon.