The Rise of Henry Morcar Page 21
“What did he do it for?” enquired Morcar.
“He didn’t like the idea of the Oldroyds’ leaving the West Riding, after all these years, you know.”
“He has a sort of fancy for staying in the textile trade.”
“More fool he!”
“Young fathead.”
“How do you know he did it for that reason?” asked Morcar.
“I was in the next compartment. I saw him jump out—he threw out his suitcase first, and that attracted my attention, you see, and I put my head out of the window and heard the whole thing. His father got a shock, I can tell you.”
“He might well,” said Morcar. His tone was constrained. He was seeing what he had not seen for years: two boys driving iron hoops down a steep moorland path to the narrow old stone bridge at Marthwaite over the waters of the Ire. He saw the white sand of the path, the outcropping black rock, the heather purple in the summer, the bracken just beginning to be fringed with russet. The boys were Charlie and himself, a quarter of a century ago. This boy now, Brigg Oldroyd’s grandson, jumping out of a train at Marthwaite——
“Young fathead!”
“Still, you can’t help liking his spirit, you know.”
“What good did he think it would do, poor kid?”
“Don’t drink that,” said Morcar suddenly, handing his glass to his neighbour. “I’ve a call to make.”
He left the room; when he returned a few minutes later after telephoning his bank manager at his private address, he was so clearly in the best of spirits that the group perceived it instantly.
“What have you been up to, Harry?”
“Never you mind,” said Morcar.
“He’s been buying a mill,” suggested someone sardonically.
“You’ve hit it, lad!” said Morcar, slapping him on the shoulder. “Come on—drinks all round on me, to celebrate.”
“You don’t really mean it?” said his neighbour, awestruck.
“I do. I’ve bought Syke Mills,” said Morcar.
“Harry! Nay! You must be daft! Buy a mill now? We’re all trying to sell ours. I need a double whisky after that. Really you’re absolutely daft, Harry—I mean it.”
“Nay—I can see a way to make it pay,” said Morcar. He turned aside to speak to the waiter, mumbling: “Somebody has to keep things going.”
26. Old Man in Handcart
It was on April 4th, 1933—Morcar always remembered the date—when he shook out the pages of the Manchester Guardian at his breakfast-table with a pleasant sense that at last he had leisure enough to read it through and not merely glance at the headlines after digesting the textile and cricket news.
He had just concluded a really quite terrific bout of work. Moving from Booth Bank and Daisy into Syke Mills was a sufficiently arduous and complex task, but keeping his manufacture going meanwhile and finding the finance for both operations at once was a protracted juggling operation demanding incessant attention, skill and nerve—one second’s lapse and the whole lot would fall to the ground, as Morcar often told himself. He had laughed and continued to juggle successfully, but the process—which involved very long hours of brain work, very many interviews, innumerable vital decisions, endless rushing hither and thither—had aged him. He was no longer a promising young fellow with a future, but a man in the prime of life with great responsibilities, to whom many people looked for their daily bread. He had ceased to be surprised by his own wealth and took as a commonplace the luxuries and the service which it bought. His powerful body had slightly thickened, his fair hair had darkened; his tone had become commanding, and young Edwin Harington’s naval cadet friends from Dartmouth called him “sir.” He laughed as he thought of this now, shaking out the pages of the newspaper; it was all worth while, he thought, for he was now safely, firmly and prosperously established at Syke Mills.
One of the minor pages was headed by a photograph. Morcar glanced at it, felt incredulous, looked at it more attentively, exclaimed. The picture showed a mild respectable old man, thin, bald, bearded, with a long narrow face, a Jew possibly by his appearance, seated in a handcart, which two young men in some sort of uniform were pushing along a broad and busy street. They had evidently halted to allow the photographer to take the picture, and turned laughing, triumphant faces to the camera. Other young men, passers-by, stood around, also laughing. The appearance of the old man, however, belied any suggestion of practical joking; in an uncomfortable posture, his legs stretched out straight and stiff before him, he clutched the sides of the cart in a frenzied grip, the extreme of fear distorting his poor old face. A violent and painful pang of pity stabbed through Morcar’s heart. He coloured with anger, and at the same moment on another level of his mind it occurred to him that it was a long time since he had seen his mother.
“But what are they about?” he muttered, dashing down the paper. “What on earth are the police doing not to stop it?” He picked up the paper again and found that the young men were Berlin Nazis and their victim a German Jew. “Upon my soul!” said Morcar.
He became guiltily conscious that he was not well informed as to what was going on in Germany; he knew vaguely that Adolf Hitler had become Chancellor a month or two ago, and that his opponents were supposed to have burned down the Reichstag, though the evidence was so flimsy that for his part Morcar did not believe it for a moment. But he was not fully aware, he now realised, of the implications of Hitler’s rule; he had not seen the Haringtons, on whom he relied for his interpretation of world events, since Christmas.
The picture of the old man in the handcart weighed on him all day. He spoke of it at lunch to other men. Many had seen it; some shook their heads over it angrily, some asked him impatiently what he expected from a maniac like Hitler, some opined that it was time somebody tidied up Germany anyway and if Hitler could do it, good luck to him. Most concluded by observing:
“There’s nothing you can do about it anyway, Harry, so come and have a drink.”
Morcar agreed, but all the same that evening he drove up to Hurst Road to see his mother.
When she opened the door of Number 102 to him she started back and gazed at him incredulously, her eyes bright and her cheek pale. The word “Harry” formed itself on her lips but she did not utter it. Then suddenly drawing him in she embraced him in a fierce and prolonged grip, pressing her lips deeply into his cheek. Morcar perceived with shame that it was a very long time indeed since he had been to see his mother—when indeed had he visited her? Not last Christmas; perhaps not even the Christmas before. She had grown much older, smaller and frailer; there was grey in her light brown hair, which was now thin and very severely arranged, and her once bright complexion had faded. She still sat erect, however, as he saw when he led her to a chair; her dress, a black knitted suit with a touch of white at the neck, was fresh and tasteful, with even a touch of coquetry in a black velvet ribbon tied round her throat. Her shoes were well polished, the house was spotless, the kitchen range gleaming; a meal set out on the table had all the proper accompaniments of napery and silver. Morcar, observing his mother’s workworn hands as they lay folded in her lap, admired her spirit. “There’s no need for her hands to be workworn,” he thought irritably: “I send her plenty of money——” but aloud, driven by an irresistible impulse which the unprotected persecuted old man in the picture that morning had put in motion, he said:
“I’m thinking of buying a house, Mother, and I want you to come and live with me.”
Mrs. Morcar clasped her hands more tightly together, and said:
“I don’t see why I should.”
Her tone represented so exactly his own obstinate feeling that he would never go where he was not wanted that Morcar laughed.
“We’re an independent family, Mother, the Morcars,” he said. “But I want you to come, all the same.”
“And how long have you been planning this, Harry?” said Mrs. Morcar sternly.
“Since nine o’clock this morning,” said Morcar with truth.
“I couldn’t keep house for you, Harry, in the way you’re used to now,” she said presently.
This confession from one who had so greatly prided herself on her housewifery in days of old struck Morcar as infinitely pathetic.
“No, no—you wouldn’t need to—a housekeeper would do all the work,” he said hastily, deciding at once that he would employ the Jessopps.
There was another pause.
“I daresay I should enjoy it,” said Mrs. Morcar at last in a voice which shook.
“I’m sure you would, Mother,” agreed Morcar cordially, planning at once all kinds of treats and comforts for her.
“I should be glad to have no housework to do. I should have more time for my needlework, you know,” said Mrs. Morcar, visibly declining to allege any other reason for wishing to live with her son.
Her glance travelled to a heap of material on the table which she had evidently thrown down on hearing Morcar’s knock. His glance followed hers, and Morcar saw a cushion cover, agreeably embroidered in rose and blue. He made a long arm and picked it up, remembering with a rush that the talent on which his fortune was founded was derived from his mother. He examined the embroidery; the stitches, he thought, were not quite as perfect as of old, but the design and colouring were charming. He said so, and added:
“Perhaps you could do some of these for my new house.”
“I couldn’t undertake to provide them all, Harry,” said Mrs. Morcar with dignity. “That would be beyond my present strength.”
“You shan’t do anything you don’t want to do, Mother,” said Morcar cheerfully. “I can’t promise you’ll see much of me,” he added, thinking it kindest to make this clear from the outset: “But you’ll see a good deal more of me than you do now.”
Mrs. Morcar bowed her head in acknowledgment; Morcar knew that she was too proud, her nature too rooted in reserve, to make an open reply.
The house he eventually bought was Stanney Royd, an attractive seventeenth-century residence of a kind frequent on the hills round Annotsfield; strongly built in good local stone now blackened by the centuries, with a couple of gables, many mullioned windows, a fine porch with a rose window, outbuildings which previous owners had converted into garages, a stone terrace, stone balls over the gateposts, a pretty garden with a small stream and an old sundial. Neither too large nor too small as Morcar thought, Stanney Royd stood beneath the brow of a hill overlooking one of the many valleys whose streams joined the Ire just west of Annotsfield; it was not far over the brow to Syke Mills, or along the valley to the town—not far, that is, as Morcar’s cars rated distance. He liked his house immensely and had many photographs taken of it to show the Haringtons, whose help he wished to enlist in its furnishing. Edward and Christina found the pictures charming and highly approved his choice, and they both found it natural that Christina, who had such discriminating taste and knowledge in these matters, should help him to find period furniture.
Accordingly Morcar and Christina attended many sales together and corresponded considerably on the business; the Haringtons rejoiced with Morcar when a suitable piece was found, and gave shelter in their house to all kinds of small articles which Christina bought as Morcar’s agent, or which were bought from small obscure shops which did not want the trouble of despatching parcels of awkward shape to the north. To Morcar this was a time of much happiness; he loved to feel that the furniture of his home was being chosen by Christina, and he rejoiced in the greatly increased opportunities the business gave him of enjoying her society alone without any query from her husband. He assumed that it was a time of happiness for Christina too. But one day, on returning from a sale, having paid the taxi while Christina entered the house and followed her into the drawing-room with their purchase beneath his arm, he found Christina standing by the hearth with her arms stretched on the mantelshelf and her head bowed, a pose he knew betokened grief with her. The cheerful words of pleasure in their day’s success died on his lips; he put down the oak cupboard and went to her quickly, saying:
“What’s wrong, love?”
“Nothing!” said Christina, turning to him at once with a smile. Her blue eyes, however, were full of tears, her rich lips quivered.
“Don’t lie to me, Chrissie,” said Morcar in a loving tone. He put his arm round her waist, drew aside her curly dark hair and kissed her ear. “What’s wrong?” She was silent. “Tell me, love,” he said, coaxing her with caresses.
“Your house,” began Christina suddenly in a breathless tone, fixing her eyes on his in anxious question: “Why are you buying it now? Who will live there? Is it for Winnie?”
“Winnie!”
“Edward thinks it is—he thinks you intend a reconciliation with your wife.”
“Nonsense!” cried Morcar furiously. “I never heard such nonsense in my life! Don’t call Winnie my wife—why on earth should you think I intend to make it up with Winnie?” Christina’s body trembled within his arm, and he was ashamed of his vehemence. “I’m getting as bad as Edward, shouting at you like this,” he said apologetically, dropping his voice to a more reasonable level: “But you grieved me so. How could you think I meant to be reconciled with Winnie? How could you think so, Christina?”
Christina hesitated and looked away. “We haven’t seen very much of you these last two years, Harry,” she said.
“But, love, I’ve been so busy—I told you; I’ve been moving into Syke Mills.”
“I know. But——”
“Why, surely, Chrissie,” cried Morcar, suddenly struck by an astounding thought: “Surely you haven’t thought I was growing less fond of you?”
Christina turned to him and buried her face in his shoulder.
“You have thought so! Good God!” exclaimed Morcar. “How could you, Christina?” He pulled off her hat, took her face between his hands and kissed her passionately, murmuring all the endearments of vehement love. “I shall never love anyone but you, I shall never love anyone as I love you,” he said. “Christina! Don’t you believe me?”
“Yes—yes,” murmured Christina. “Yes, Harry, I do, of course I do. It’s just that sometimes there is such a long time when I don’t see you, and I never know when you will come again—if ever, as the children say. Sometimes I get bouts of not liking to leave the telephone in case you call. I don’t go out all day—I sit and wait and listen.” She broke into tears, and sobbed: “It’s terrible to wait like that, Harry, it’s terrible!”
Morcar, kissing her tear-stained cheek, was horrified, appalled, by this glimpse of the abyss of torment into which he had plunged her. “I’ve made you wretched, Christina,” he said soberly. “It would have been better for you if you’d never met me.”
“No, no!” cried Christina. She clenched her hand and beat against his shoulder frantically. “Don’t say that, Harry! Don’t say that!”
“Perhaps we ought to part,” said Morcar, more and more disturbed by these evidences of her distress. “But we shan’t,” he added strongly. “I shall never give you up, Chrissie, never. I couldn’t bear it.”
“No—neither could I,” breathed Christina. “I should die if you left me, Harry. Oh dear,” she added, giving a strange smile and pressing her hair from her forehead in a habitual gesture of trouble: “That’s not the right thing to say to you at all. I made up my mind never to say that kind of thing to you, Harry.”
“And what other silly things have you made up in your silly little mind?” said Morcar in his fondest tone.
“To ask for nothing—then perhaps it won’t all seem so wrong,” murmured Christina.
Morcar exclaimed. To ask for nothing, to give everything—she was too generous to add the latter phrase, but it was implicit in the former. He felt a deep shame. Just then, however, Harington came up the stairs. The lovers drew apart; Christina sank to the settee and took a cigarette; Morcar examined their purchas
e—an oaken corner cupboard, black with age—attentively. The necessity for this furtive behaviour, this lying concealment, had never seemed so hateful and so degrading to him as it was in that instant.
Harington came in, peevish about some adventure on the Underground. He had recently taken silk and became more and more pompous and snobbish with each successful stage of his advancing career. He bent down and kissed his wife’s cheek. Anyone with a single thought to spare from himself would have observed Christina’s distress, thought Morcar angrily, but the barrister had no such thought, which was after all a mercy in the circumstances. Christina resuming her usual social grace mentioned that she was tired, that they had had no tea and needed drinks, that a friend had rung up on some photographic matter and asked Harington to ring him up before dinner. Harington showed a disinclination to leave the hearth, whereupon to draw his attention from his wife Morcar asked him in a doubtful tone whether he considered the cupboard genuine seventeenth-century. Harington, on whose recommendation they had attended the sale, defended the purchase strongly, remembered an illustration in a book in his study of a similar cupboard and went downstairs to seek it. The moment he was out of earshot Morcar began:
“Christina, this can’t go on. We must arrange an address where you can receive private letters from me. You must agree.”
“No. I should have to destroy each one before I brought it home, and I might forget. I’m so careless nowadays.”
It was true; her carelessness, her preoccupation grew on her; Morcar thought with horror that he now saw the reason, in the emotional disturbance and distress she had revealed. He paced up and down the room, bitterly angry with himself, his thoughts turbulent, confused. But there was no time to arrange them, to think of soothing phrases—there was never any time for anything but physical love, thought Morcar with a flash of insight, in illicit relationships. He halted in front of her.
“Christina, will you leave Harington and come to me?”
“You’ve been a long time saying that, Harry,” said Christina softly, looking away from him into the fire.