A Man of His Time Read online

  A MAN OF HIS TIME

  PHYLLIS BENTLEY

  CONTENTS

  I: JONATHAN

  1 The Beginning of Change

  2 Son of a Hero

  3 Black and White

  4 Gap

  5 Young Ambition

  6 Merger

  7 Achievement

  8 Loss

  9 Old Mill

  10 Admission

  11 Jonathan’s Mother

  II: CHUFF AND SUSIE

  12 Winnie is Still Winnie

  13 Grandchildren

  14 Susie and Jonathan

  15 A Mill Changes Hands

  16 Textile

  17 Jessopp and the Past

  18 Susie

  19 Chuff

  20 Night Off

  21 Chuff and Ruth

  22 Christmas

  III: THREE TOGETHER

  23 Susie and Jonathan

  24 Wedding

  25 Summer

  26 Jonathan’s Future

  27 First Day

  28 Chuff and Jonathan

  29 Jonathan and Susie

  IV: TEXTILE

  30 Ring Road

  31 Jonathan at School

  32 Highways Committee

  33 Premises

  34 Available

  35 Alternative

  V: END OF AN ERA

  36 The Last of Winnie

  37 Election

  38 Chuff and Marriage

  39 Loss of a Great Man

  40 Decisions Needed

  41 End of an Era

  I Jonathan

  I. The Beginning of Change

  It was in 1958, thought Morcar, looking back at it ruefully, that for him things had begun to change.

  Morcar had often, when reading history (for he was quite a reader nowadays, Christina had taught him that) wondered how it felt when a period ended, a period began; did people then living recognize the change at the moment of its occurrence? He rather thought not. Looking back at it now, he saw of course that 1958 had been the beginning of the space age; but it had seemed fairly calm at the time. The Bank Rate had come down nicely, and Syke Mills had had an excellent year. There seemed to be only one untoward happening, one thing surprising, one thing a trifle disconcerting, but surely he could have made nowt of that, he reproached himself roughly: boys must be boys, he liked the lad’s spirit, Jennifer being a woman had made too much of it, and so on. And yet, after that year nothing had seemed the same.

  Up till then he had been pretty well satisfied with his life, at least for its recent years.

  True, his optimism at the end of Hitler’s war had been excessive; the post-war Labour Government had made a mistake, he thought, in not rallying all the forces of the nation to the creation of a new world; instead of that they had remained just a Party; they had talked of vermin and we are the masters now and jobs for the boys, and in general had made half the country feel that they were not to be allowed to participate. Still, the Welfare State had been founded; and if it were not perfect, injustices had been greatly lessened and distribution of wealth improved; nothing was perfect; humanity had set itself tasks beyond its present capacity to fulfil, so what did people expect? It was an improvement on the old mode, anyhow, thought Morcar; gladly - no, not gladly, but rationally accepting the necessity - paying out the thumping taxes and continually increasing wages which the new way of life required. Mistakes had been made by successive governments; but then mistakes were always made by governments; except for the frightful blunder of Suez, he was not too dissatisfied. The slow diminishment of Great Britain’s position as a premier world power, though he sorrowed for it, he expected and accepted; we had had our turn, we had sacrificed our power and wealth in a good cause - they’ll be hard put to find a better candidate for the job, thought Morcar.

  In his private life, too, the years since the war had not been too unhappy.

  True, he was divorced from his wife Winnie, had been so, by mutual consent you might say - though too late to do him any good, he thought with a pang - for nigh on fifteen years. True, the only woman he’d ever loved, Christina, had been killed in a London air raid with her husband. True, his only son, whom he barely knew in any case, his child by Winnie, was married to an Oldroyd and out in South Africa growing oranges or tobacco or something instead of in Yorkshire making good West Riding cloth. But over the years Morcar had come to terms with these disasters. Winnie his wife he’d put out of his life except for alimony which he made continually more generous with his growing prosperity - heaven knew what she did with all that money; she’d no more taste than a fly, but no matter. Towards his son Cecil he would not allow himself even to feel disappointment, but merely a mild friendly interest in Cecil and his wife Fan - a shrewd little person though you wouldn’t think it to look at her, a pretty kittenish blonde. He had bought Cecil his farm and made him a yearly allowance, wrote him a stiff letter occasionally, gave his children handsome presents, and that was pretty well all. Morcar never forgot his beautiful Christina, of course; her photograph, sad and lovely, stood alone on a handsome stand in his bedroom, and in the morning and evening, as the poet said, with a deep loving pang he remembered her. But he had made a family for himself out of the ruins of his earlier life: Christina’s daughter Jennifer, widowed of her husband David Oldroyd by the war, lived in his house with her young son. Morcar’s mother, too, though bedridden now except for an hour or two each day, was kept comfortable by his care, and her great age was a source of pride to her.

  Then too Morcar was one of the largest textile manufacturers in the West Riding, probably one of the most prosperous, certainly one of the best designers. Everybody knew that. What was more to the point, he told himself with a sardonic grin, he knew it himself. Building up overseas exports after the war had proved a congenial and successful task. He managed his own huge Syke Mills and little Daisy Mill for himself, and David Oldroyd’s small neat Old Mill by the Ire for Jennifer and her son, with perfect efficiency, and kept an eye as well on the financial affairs of Mrs Oldroyd senior - a silly fluttery woman, and very inconvenient living away down on the south coast, but she’d truly loved her husband and her stepson David and still loved her daughter Fan who was Cecil Morcar’s wife out in South Africa, and Morcar respected her for that. Lucky for her that he was at hand to husband her small resources. Yes, he was pretty good both in his family life and his business, he thought.

  Or rather, he had thought. The West Riding had been his and he had freely roved up and down in it, perfectly at home and at ease and sure that whatever he did was right and proper and generally estimable. And now he felt uncertain and ill at ease, and even found himself hesitating about a design. Was that blue pick there really the charmer he had thought? Did it clinch the design? Or was it perhaps a trifle corny, to borrow Jonathan’s word, a trifle over-emphatic? He found himself asking the newest, youngest lad in the designing room for his opinion, and actually hanging on his answer. Of course the lad was embarrassed, but whether because he was being asked to pronounce on a design by the great Harry Morcar, or because he thought the design frightfully out of date but didn’t like to say so, was beyond Morcar to discover. And all this, Morcar now perceived, together with much else of a similar nature, had begun in 1958.

  In 1958 De Gaulle had risen. Verwoerd had become Prime Minister, Algeria and Cyprus seethed, a monkey was fired into space, scientists protested against nuclear bomb tests. All these things, as could now be seen, foreshadowed troubles to come. Oh, and there was Kruschev too; not that he was a nuisance, Morcar indeed rather liked him. But the real trouble for Morcar was that for the first time, laugh it off how he would, a rift sprang between himself and Jennifer’s boy, a lad he had always thought of fondly as his grandson.

&
nbsp; Jonathan - it was an effort on Morcar’s part to call the boy Jonathan; he always thought of him as David, his young friend David Oldroyd’s son, and indeed sometimes, he knew, he still called him David without meaning to do so. He had been quite disconcerted to find that the child’s name was Jonathan. In the tragedy of those war times which now seemed so far away - David Oldroyd shot after parachuting to the aid of the resistance movement in Jugoslavia; Jennifer’s father and mother Christina killed in a V. One raid; David’s father perished in a south coast air raid, Jennifer herself near her time, being hurried out of dangerous London to Yorkshire and the arms of old Mrs Morcar; all the arrangements caused by these disasters falling on Morcar’s shoulders - he had been away from home when the child was born and christened. To himself he called the child Baby David for several months, and was greatly taken aback when Jennifer told him the child had been baptized as Jonathan.

  ‘But why?’ exclaimed Morcar, astonished.

  ‘David wished it,’ said Jennifer.

  There was no more to be said. Morcar, who knew West Riding textile history, and particularly the history of David Oldroyd’s family, pretty fully, understood well enough why David had wanted his son, if he had one, called after one of his Luddite ancestors - well, a collateral ancestor, David was descended from the Luddite Jonathan Bamforth’s sister. The said Jonathan Bamforth was certainly a noble type, reflected Morcar, but after all he had been hanged; Morcar hoped this was not a bad omen for young Jonathan Old royd. But for the first fourteen years of young Jonathan’s life, this was merely a joke.

  For young Jonathan was really a very nice boy. Rather serious, rather tall and thin, with an oval face, a high brow, a clear sallow cheek, a decided nose, and large dark brown eyes to match his dark wavy hair; he had an air of distinction, of nobility, about him from his earliest days, or at any rate Morcar liked to think so. In the years just after the war, when Morcar’s heart still bled from his loss of Christina, his best consolation was to stroll round the gardens of Stanney Royd, the home where he had hoped to see Christina as his wife, with the child’s hand in his - Jonathan was Christina’s grandchild, after all. Jonathan listened seriously to all Morcar said, and occasionally came out with some rather remarkably appropriate comment. Jonathan was a clever boy; Jennifer taught him herself at first (she had an Oxford degree, after all, and took a lot of trouble to learn the proper methods): then he did well at his preparatory school, then he began to do very well indeed at his public school. He was thoroughly kind to everyone he met, very pleasant with old Mrs Morcar, whom Jennifer taught him to visit regularly, and apparently genuinely attached to Morcar, whom he called Uncle Harry, as did his mother; also he listened attentively to Nathan, Morcar’s works manager - though Nathan, Morcar noticed, seemed a little timid with him and Jonathan made few comments. Jonathan rode well, and was friendly though calm with dogs; walked a great deal and swam better than most; handled a boat well, was interested in cricket and football but not too passionately; did not talk a great deal but occasionally came out with something neat and witty. In a word, he was a boy after Morcar’s own heart, and Morcar loved him - quietly but dearly.

  And then one December afternoon in 1958 Jennifer rang Morcar at the mill. It was unusual for Jennifer to ring him at the mill; she had too much sense to worry him with minor domestic details there.

  ‘Uncle Harry?’

  ‘Jenny! Is there something wrong?’ he said at once.

  ‘Yes, I’m afraid there may be. The Annotsfield police have telephoned me and asked me to call immediately at the central station.’

  ‘Have you been in trouble with your car, then?’ said Morcar with a sigh - this was a usual problem for all too many, but he had thought Jennifer a careful driver.

  ‘No. They asked me,’ said Jennifer - her voice shook a little but she quickly controlled it to her usual cool courteous utterance - ‘they asked me if I was the surviving parent of Jonathan Brigg Oldroyd.’

  ‘Jonathan! Good heavens!’ exclaimed Morcar.

  Jonathan had not yet come from school for Christmas. He had gone to stay for a few days with a reputable schoolfellow, but was expected to return tomorrow to spend the rest of the holidays at Annotsfield.

  ‘I thought,’ resumed Jennifer.

  ‘Yes, of course. I’ll meet you there in ten minutes,’ said Morcar at once. ‘Did they say - anything more definite? Who was it? Anyone we know?’

  ‘It was the Chief Constable. He said it was not an accident and there was no need to be unduly alarmed.’

  ‘Well - let’s get there and hear what’s up.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So you see, Mrs Oldroyd,’ said the Chief Constable in a kind tone: ‘All you have to do is to complete and sign this bail form, and your son will be released forthwith.’

  ‘They won’t keep him in a cell?’

  ‘No, no. Anyone under the age of seventeen has to be bailed forthwith,’ said the Chief Constable soothingly.

  ‘Shall I sign it instead of my niece?’ suggested Morcar, who was disturbed by Jennifer’s pallor.

  ‘It must be the parents who stand as surety.’

  ‘I don’t quite understand how you come into this,’ said Morcar aggressively, for he felt a great need to express vexation.

  ‘The police at Norwich communicated with us and asked us to get the bail form signed, so that the boy could be released.’

  ‘Norwich! What has Norwich got to do with it, for heaven’s sake?’

  It is the nearest Divisional Police Office to Swaffham.’

  “Swaffham! This gets worse and worse.’ growled Morcar.

  ‘Swaffham is a rocket base.’

  ‘But what has the boy done!’ exclaimed Morcar angrily. ‘What has all this to do with Jonathan?’

  ‘He is accused of being on special property without authorization, and of conduct calculated to cause a breach of the peace.’

  ‘Oh, nonsense.’

  ‘I’m sorry you should take that line, Mr Morcar,’ said the Chief Constable in a harder tone. ‘The police do not make unsubstantiated charges.’

  ‘I’m not taking any line,’ said Morcar, clamping down his temper. ‘But Jonathan’s a good boy, you know. I can’t see him doing any of these things. He can’t have thought it up for himself, any road; somebody must have set him off.’

  ‘He was accompanied by a schoolfellow, I understand,’ said the Chief Constable. ‘But in any case, it’s said there were a hundred or so on this CND protest. Not all of them were arrested, however.’

  ‘Oh, it was a march like that Aldermaston affair?’ said Morcar, enlightened.

  ‘The same idea, but carrying it a bit further. Civil disobedience this time.’

  ‘I see,’ said Morcar, glum.

  ‘What will happen to Jonathan?’ said Jennifer.

  ‘They’ll probably hold a special court in Norwich and clear all the accused off quickly, together,’ said the Chief Constable. ‘A juvenile must be brought before a court within seventy-two hours, in any case. Still, as he was arrested acting with adults, he may be tried with the rest. We could ask the Norwich police to put him on a train for Annotsfield, but it seems rather foolish to bring him all the way up to Yorkshire and then take him straight back again.’

  ‘We’ll drive down there at once,’ said Morcar.

  ‘That would seem best. Mrs Oldroyd will have to be present at the court. Where will the boy go meanwhile?’

  ‘Can’t he wait at the police station for us?’

  ‘No. He must be released at once, on bail. He’s under seventeen.’

  Jennifer gave the address of the friend, Ralph Feather-stone, with whom Jonathan was, or was supposed to be, staying.

  It’s not too far away.’

  ‘The Featherstones may not want to take him after this to-do,’ said Morcar gloomily.

  ‘We can be there in a few hours.’

  ‘We’d best wire him some money, choose how.’

  ‘Yes, I think that would be advisable, si
r. Not too much, perhaps.’

  Morcar took out his notecase and threw down a five-pound note. There was a sour taste in his mouth and he could not make himself behave agreeably. His Victorian upbringing made any conflict with the police a horror to his respectable soul, and the thought that a boy in his care, David Oldroyd’s son, had actually committed an offence, been charged by the police, would have to appear before a magistrate, gave him awful feelings of guilt, shame, and perplexity. Jonathan! That quiet, agreeable boy! What would his father have thought!

  ‘What do you make of all this, Jenny?’ he said gruffly as they drove south through the wintry dark.

  Jennifer did not turn her handsome face to him, but looked ahead. ‘He must believe it a good cause,’ she said.

  ‘Has he said so to you?’

  ‘He hasn’t spoken of it to me at all,’ said Jennifer.

  Her voice, though calm and self-contained as usual, held grief, and Morcar understood it. Her son had not confided in her.

  ‘A breach of the peace! The young idiot!’ he snorted.

  They had a disagreeable interview with Mr Featherstone, who was much put out by his son’s escapade, for which he clearly regarded Jonathan as chiefly responsible. This view seemed probably correct to Morcar; Jonathan had been arrested and Ralph had not, and Ralph now looked red-eyed and repentant, while Jonathan was clearly still full of spirit. He entirely agreed with Mr Featherstone’s view of the lads’ behaviour, but could not bear to say so; he left it to Jennifer to express regrets for any inconvenience Jonathan might have caused, thanks for the Featherstone hospitality, and so on. His manner indeed was so gruff that Ralph looked ready to cry again.

  ‘You mustn’t be vexed with Ralph or the CND on my account, Uncle Harry,’ said Jonathan as they drove away towards a Norwich hotel. He spoke amicably and leaned forward with his arms folded on the back of Morcar’s driving seat. ‘Mr Featherstone is right, really. Joining the demonstration was entirely my idea. I’ve always wanted to join them since I read about Aldermaston.’

  ‘What was your conduct calculated to cause a breach of the peace?’ demanded Morcar, grim.