The Rise of Henry Morcar Page 23

  This became clearer still when the party attempted to procure some dinner. When they had managed to push along the now crowded train to the dining-car, they found every place taken, though they had purchased tickets for the first service long before. Some ten or a dozen other travellers, mostly Italian, were in the same predicament. Harington expostulated angrily, Morcar mildly, with various waiters, and tipped them; they shrugged and bade the party return later, perhaps about nine. Hungry, tired and a trifle cross, they returned at the hour named, to find the car crammed as before, and the same ten or dozen other travellers still sharing their plight. They leaned against the side of the corridor, gazing wistfully into the car of which they caught glimpses from time to time as the door opened. After a long wait the head waiter suddenly beckoned; all surged forward, to find that only two seats were vacant. Edward and Christina were already seated in these when the shortage was discovered, so Morcar and Jenny returned to their previous waiting-places in hopeful mood.

  The April evening outside was cool, for they were now in Switzerland, but the crowded dining-car had become very warm and the door was wedged open, so the waiting file had the doubtful pleasure of a continual view of the diners within. The prospect of watching others eat disheartened Jenny, and she turned with a sigh to gaze out of the window, but the night was falling and she turned back to the car. Immediately she became very still. Morcar himself was standing in a stiff and tense position.

  A party of minor diplomats, unmistakably British by dress, manner and speech, filled all the seats within their view. The dishevelled napkins, the dirty glasses and plates on the tables before them, showed that they had long since dined; they sat comfortably smoking, drinking, ordering more drinks, with the hungry, queue outside well within their sight. At first Morcar simply could not believe his eyes—or his ears; either eyes or ears must be faulty, he thought, for English people, especially people in responsible positions, did not behave like that.

  “They’re a trifle lit up, Uncle Harry, if you ask me,” murmured Jenny in his ear.

  Morcar felt relieved; yes, they were drunk perhaps and did not see, or did not perceive the significance of, the hungry waiting line. It was bad enough certainly for English Foreign Office staff to be “lit up” in a public dining-car in a strange country, but not as bad as for them to be in their senses and deliberately keep hungry people waiting while they enjoyed an extra drink. If they realised the queue’s plight, doubtless they would move at once. With this in mind Morcar fixed his eyes persistently on a man who faced him, in order to gain his attention. He achieved it, and was rewarded by a lift of the eyebrows and a conscious, exceedingly arrogant and perfectly sober stare.

  Morcar coloured deeply. The incident was trifling, of course, but all the same he felt profoundly ashamed. The two ladies behind him, mother and daughter, the mother aged and resigned, the daughter explosively muttering; the young advocate with the sensitive dreamy face who was next in the line; the fat jolly old man, the thin young man who made tiresome jokes; the young girl with the aunt and the merry little boy with a red white and blue scarf, named Umberto; all these people, and more behind, wanted food and were being kept from it by a handful of selfish arrogant officials who, as all those waiting knew, for the word Inglese was often on their tongues, represented England.

  “They don’t represent me,” thought Morcar angrily. “I’m damned if they represent me.”

  “Uncle Harry,” Jenny was whispering earnestly in his ear: “Don’t let us go in first. Let us go away and come back later, so that we shall be at the end of the line? I should like it better.”

  Morcar, bending to listen to her with his hands in his pockets, nodded gravely and the two moved away down the train. A gleam of hope lighted all the faces they passed, and the queue pushed up very promptly into their vacant places.

  About half-past ten all the waiting passengers at last found seats in the dining-car. Unfortunately some of them, Jenny and Morcar amongst these, were due to descend in Lausanne in ten minutes’ time, so in spite of the tired waiters’ good-natured efforts, their meal proved scanty.

  Morcar was very silent as the party stood on the dark platform while a porter passed their hand-luggage through the window. Jenny shivered a little in the night air; Christina proffered a scarf and urged her to draw her coat-collar closer; Harington asked whether she had made a reasonably good meal, why they had been so belated, and so on. Jenny’s answers were monosyllabic, and Morcar did not come to her aid as usual. He was preoccupied, troubled, deeply uneasy. If those damned officials could behave like that over the small matter of keeping twelve people waiting unnecessarily to suit their own selfish pleasure, could they be trusted to behave properly over the great matters of European politics? A faint whiff of Biblical phraseology floated to him across the years; if they are not faithful in little things, he demanded, ought they to have charge of great things? They don’t represent England, he said to himself angrily. They don’t represent me. They don’t see things as I see them. They don’t intend what I intend. We need to keep an eye on them, and I haven’t troubled to do so.

  It was a small matter; but as Morcar said to himself, a small sound can wake a sleeper, and when he is once wakened, he is awake. Morcar never again felt the carefree irresponsibility, the happy certainty, about British foreign policy which he had hitherto taken for granted as his birthright.

  28. David

  “Mr. David Oldroyd to see you, sir.”

  “The boy who jumped off the train,” thought Morcar, startled. He felt a repulsion to Francis Oldroyd’s son, a reaction against the injustice of that feeling to a lad not responsible for his father’s sins, a liking for the boy’s spirit and a sympathy for him because he had to see a stranger sitting in his father’s place, all at once. Morcar’s private office was very different from what it had been in Francis Oldroyd’s time; he had banished the mahogany and installed very large plate-glass windows, blue and white paint, and furniture of unvarnished oak, chromium and blue leather, in a fine modern design. “It will be painful for him,” thought Morcar, saying aloud: “Show him in.” He bent to finish the signing of some letters which the typist had brought in, and when he looked up David Oldroyd was already in the room.

  It was not a schoolboy, however, who stood before him, but a young man fully grown, tallish, broad at the shoulders, slender at the hips, who carried himself without self-consciousness and smiled at him pleasantly. Dark crisp hair with chestnut glints, blue eyes, strong dark eyebrows and eyelashes, olive complexion, a head broad at the temples narrowing to a determined chin. His suit of dark grey check was quite as handsome as Morcar’s, and he wore (of course, thought Morcar) an old school tie. In spite of this Morcar liked him at once, whoever he was, for he had a look of such lively intelligence, such merry friendliness, such vigorous gusto, that it was really very taking. But who was he? Morcar wondered.

  “I hope this is not an inconvenient time for me to call, Mr. Morcar,” said young Oldroyd, colouring under the older man’s stare: “Perhaps I should have asked for an appointment? I chose Saturday morning because I thought you might be less engaged. But if it’s inconvenient I’ll take myself off immediately. Perhaps you’d let me come another time?”

  He said orf where Yorkshiremen said off and used the broad a and other southern modes of pronunciation, like Christina, and altogether showed he had received what was known, thought Morcar with his customary scepticism on this subject, as a gentleman’s education.

  “Oh, it’s quite convenient this morning,” said Morcar. “I apologise for my surprise, but I was expecting the boy who jumped off the train.”

  “Ah! My romantic past,” said David lightly. “But that’s nearly six years ago now, you know, Mr. Morcar.”

  “I suppose it is,” said Morcar. “You’re ashamed of it now, eh?”

  “No!” exclaimed David, colouring fiercely. “Why should I be ashamed? I’m not in the least.”

  Morcar indicated a chair and pushed forward th
e box of cigarettes.

  “And what can I do for you?” he said.

  “You’ll think I’m a sentimental ass, no doubt,” said David pleasantly. “But I’m collecting and editing family papers in my spare time—that is, when I have any. And I find we have no photographs of Syke Mills. I came to ask your permission to have some taken. I thought I should come at once, before major alterations are made in the premises. I’m too late in some respects already, I see,” he added with an engaging grin, looking at the chromium.

  “Would you like to come round now and pick your sites?” suggested Morcar.

  “That’s very kind of you,” said David.

  Although it was Saturday morning, the mill was, in the Yorkshire parlance, “throng”; each department showed a busy preoccupation which naturally did not diminish as Morcar approached. Every loom was clacking, the spindles hummed; the warehouse was full of bales, which a warehouseman was stencilling in black with the names of far-off cities. It was such second nature to Morcar to look at what was going on, finger the cloths stacked about, step up to the perching window and so on that he found himself doing it now as usual, though he tried to refrain. He spared young Oldroyd as much embarrassment as he could by introducing him immediately they entered a room, so that chance remarks of an awkward kind should not be made, but the Yorkshire nature is downright and several workmen asked him blunt questions as to the difference between the mill now and in his father’s time. Even without these, Morcar could guess that the experience was a trying one for the young man, and that he could hardly command a cheerful smile and tone as they selected sites for his photographs.

  “You’re very busy,” remarked David in a constrained tone as they turned towards the office. “How many looms do you run altogether, Mr. Morcar?”

  “Nigh on two thousand. You’re collecting the family history in your spare time, you said. What do you do with the rest of your time?” asked Morcar kindly, to turn his thoughts.

  “I’m a cloth manufacturer, Mr. Morcar. I’ve rented Old Syke Mill, you know, Old Mill it’s called now—my family had it in the early days. It’s small, of course.”

  “I began with a couple of looms in one room, myself.”

  “My cousins are helping me—the Mellors.”

  “Which Mellors are those?” said Morcar, running various West Riding genealogies over in his mind. He could not track down any manufacturers named Mellor who were related to the Old-royds, and made up his mind to ask his mother—she would know.

  “They’re great Trades Union men,” said David.

  “Oh!” said Morcar, astonished.

  “I’ve been living with them up Booth Bank, you know, for the last six years,” said David easily. “I run Old Mill on a profit-sharing basis.”

  “And what do your Trades Union cousins say to that?” said Morcar sardonically.

  “They say I’m trying to vitiate the principle of collective bargaining and make my workers betray their class,” replied David promptly.

  Morcar looked at him, startled. He met young Oldroyd’s lively eye, and suddenly both men laughed.

  “I have an Old Mill social club—welfare, you know—but I’m told that’s smearing the workmen’s souls with capitalist jam,” went on David with his merry look.

  Morcar again gave a bark of laughter. “Aye, that sounds familiar. I seem to have heard all that before,” he said comfortably. “Why do you go on, then?”

  “I’m entitled to my own views. It’s my idea of a transition stage,” said David. “However, I don’t expect you want to hear all about that.”

  “But do you know anything about cloth?” demanded Morcar, frowning.

  “I took a four year course in textiles at Leeds University, if you think that counts.”

  “Oh, you did.”

  They had by now returned to Morcar’s private office, and on an impulse he picked up a pattern which lay on his desk and tossed it over to David. It was one of his latest Thistledowns, supple in tissue, delicate in its hues; brilliantly successful in the market.

  “That’s the sort of stuff I’m making here,” he said.

  “Yes—I know your Thistledowns, Mr. Morcar,” said David, examining it. “Charming colours—charming. Delightful design. But I think we could beat you on texture.”

  “Eh?” barked Morcar. “What?” He coloured violently; he was astonished and also furiously angry. “I think you’d better make that good, young man—substantiate it,” he said, in a loud angry tone, using one of Harington’s words to lend dignity to his sentence. “Just show me the fabric that can beat my Thistledowns.”

  Young Oldroyd dived into a waistcoat pocket and produced a tiny scrap of material, which Morcar seized on avidly. It was a one-colour fabric suitable for women’s coats; in colour an extraordinarily deep rich blue. Morcar at first thought it a trifle too bright to be tasteful—Christina would never wear it, he felt sure—but then it struck him that the colour would suit young Jenny to perfection. He felt the cloth between his fingers; it was extremely thick and rich, almost velvety, in the handle, yet feathery, supple, light. His expert eye perceived at once all the subtle techniques which had been employed to give the cloth its special merits: the combination of woollen and worsted yarn which kept the weight down; the rich shade to match the rich character of the cloth; the repeated cropping and raising necessary for the velvet pile; the vertical wave design which gave it bloom.

  “Texture is what I’m especially interested in,” said David in an apologetic tone. “You can hardly judge from such a scrap really, Mr. Morcar. Now if you saw the piece—there’s no reason why you should be interested, of course.”

  “None whatever,” said Morcar brutally. There was a pause. The two men eyed each other fiercely, neither allowing their glance to give way. “Damned young whelp,” thought Morcar. “Throwing himself out of a train, running a profit-sharing business—and turning up with the best bit of overcoating for women I’ve seen outside my own mill for years,” he added, his lifelong expertise in textiles compelling him to this honest estimate. He gave a sudden snort of laughter. “I’ll come along with you and look at it now, if you like,” he said. “Though you’re a fool, bear in mind, to show your patterns to a competitor.”

  “I’ll risk it,” cried young Oldroyd, laughing.

  A few minutes later Morcar was driving himself up the Ire Valley in the wake of David’s old and rather rickety but well-engined sports car, which in a young man’s style, thought Morcar forgivingly, was painted white, with scarlet wings. They turned off the main road and bumped down an uneven lane which still had something of the country about it, for there were fields on either side divided from the road by low stone walls. Halfway down David slowed to have a word with a young workman who was walking up. He was bareheaded, and his reddish hair bristled in the March sunshine; short, solidly built, fair-skinned, he listened to David with a reluctant air, resting large hands on the car door, glanced at Morcar rather sourly, but eventually nodded his head. “One of the Mellors, I expect,” thought Morcar. The two cars drove on and stopped in the yard of a small mill standing on the bank of the river. “Good water,” thought Morcar appreciatively, descending. The outside of the mill was in excellent condition; the walls well-pointed, the woodwork freshly white-painted, the windows clean, the door a handsome (and probably political, thought Morcar grimly) scarlet. They were met in the doorway by a young man of a different type; thin, dark-haired, wearing a brown cardigan and brown tie to a brown corduroy suit. He had a well-shaped head like David’s and a lively ardent air; on a closer look he was seen to have features which were a thin edition of those of the young man in the lane, his hair too though dark had reddish gleams, so probably he was another Mellor.

  “This is my cousin, George Bottomley Mellor,” said David. “Mr. Morcar of Thistledown fame.”

  “Corduroy, my God,” thought Morcar, shaking hands.

  “I’ve been boasting to Mr. Morcar about our cloth, GB, and he doesn’t believe me,” explain
ed young Oldroyd.

  “I think you’ll find you’re wrong, Mr. Morcar,” said Mellor, his brown eyes sparkling. “Yes, I think you’ll find you’re wrong there.”

  He spoke in a reasonable persuasive tone, as to a child, and Morcar felt obscurely irritated. “How does he know whether I shall be wrong or not,” he thought, “when he doesn’t know what Oldroyd has been boasting about?” Aloud he grunted non-committally, and said he should be glad to see the piece in question.

  “I was just leaving, David,” went on Mellor. “The buzzer sounded some time ago. Will you lock up? I thought of catching the next bus. Matthew’s gone.”

  He spoke fluently, correctly, in a friendly open tone and with a better accent than Morcar’s. “He’s a nice chap,” thought Morcar: “But young, opinionated and swollen-headed. Dogmatic . Theoretical. A hothead. Not a patch on young Oldroyd. Nice chap, though. But what a pair of children to run a mill!”

  As he thought thus it struck him suddenly that of late all young men had begun to seem very young to him. Last time he had been alone with Christina, he remembered too, she had laid a caressing finger on his temples and told him the touch of grey there suited him. “Good heavens,” thought Morcar: “I’m forty-five. Forty-six next October. I suppose I’m middle-aged.” He shook off the strange and painful thought impatiently.

  “Yes—we met him in the lane. Don’t bother to stay unless you want to help me to show Mr. Morcar round,” David was saying.

  “I won’t deprive you of that pleasure,” said Mellor, smiling.