The Rise of Henry Morcar Page 31

  Without waiting to switch off the wireless Morcar snatched his hat, sprinted to his garage and drove as fast as he could through the blackout down to Stanney. But of course by the time he reached the Police Station there was a long queue of middle-aged men like himself, waiting to join the Local Defence Volunteers to guard England against invasion.

  40. From Dunkirk

  It was a glorious June morning; the sun poured down strongly, a steady golden blaze. Morcar felt tired. He had been up all night consulting with the military authorities about the organisation of the Annotsfield and District L.D.V., of which it seemed he was to be partly in charge, and now he had to walk over the brow from Stanney Royd to Syke Mills. He had sent his car and chauffeur to the station overnight to help with the men from Dunkirk, and it had not yet returned.

  The Germans had swept through Holland and Belgium, rushed into France, cut the French and British armies in two, driven the northern armies back on the Channel ports. With a thousand little boats—“If only I had a boat!” wished Morcar—the British people were getting out their men. The boys were pouring back from France, pouring north into safe centres to be assembled and sorted into units. The West Riding, a little-bombed area hitherto, was crammed with these returning soldiers; it was said that there were already twelve thousand in Annotsfield alone. They were met at the station by all kinds of cars; lorries fitted with benches, ambulances, buses, private vehicles, tradesmen’s vans. They were taken first to a de-lousing station, poor lads; then they were sent off, the less tired by foot, the exhausted by car, to depots, hospitals, billets. There were some of these walking along the Ire Valley Road towards Morcar now; a group on this side, a solitary lad on the opposite pavement. Their khaki was stained and filthy; they carried unco-ordinated scraps of equipment; one was in his shirt, none had caps, only one carried a gun. They looked worn, dirty, tired, unshaven, but they did not—thank God, thought Morcar—look defeated. Suddenly a shout rose behind him; he turned; one of the group had recognised the weary lad across the road and with a shout and an outstretched hand ran to him. The boy stood still and looked stupid; he swayed with fatigue, he was too tired to hold up his head. Then the hand of the other fell on his arm, he looked up, gave a hoarse cry, and suddenly they were in each other’s arms, they kissed each other.

  “Brothers. Parted on the Dunkirk beaches, I expect,” thought Morcar. He blinked his eyes and walked on rather faster. “I mustn’t be late at the mill or they’ll get worried,” he thought, instinctively preserving the social fabric of habit. The sun blazed, the sky was brilliant azure, the trees, bright fresh green, stood as still as though cut out of cardboard. “Thank God there’s no wind,” thought Morcar, seeing a picture of Channel waves. He met another group of rather older men, with filthy sweating faces.

  “Got a fag, mate?” asked one hoarsely.

  He gave them all the cigarettes he had about him, and could not forbear asking: “How are things going over there?” though he knew it was a silly question.

  The man addressed, a corporal, grimaced and remarked in a low tone, turning aside from the others:

  “I give France a fortnight.”

  And then it will be our turn, thought Morcar, reading this in the corporal’s eyes.

  “Jerry’ll soon knock all these down,” said another man, looking around him at the undamaged buildings.

  The thought of Christina in London during an invasion with only Harington to protect her stabbed Morcar again, as it did so often nowadays; he turned into a small post-office and sent the Haringtons a wire, saying: Expecting you today please come at once dont delay any longer. But he had no hope that Christina would come, nor could he even wish that she would. Harington’s government job obliged him to remain in London and Christina had refused to leave him. Morcar admired her courage and loved her the more for it; he wanted her beside him, out of danger, but could not really wish her in this hour to do less than her duty to England.

  “I can’t guarantee when this will arrive, sir,” the elderly newsagent-postmaster was saying. “In the circumstances …”

  “I know. Well, do your best,” said Morcar hastily. He was glad that they had avoided mentioning the war, but as he went out of the little shop could not help saying over his shoulder: “No wind today.”

  “No wind,” agreed the postmaster with deep feeling, nodding.

  Morcar was hot and tired by the time he turned in under the Syke Mills archway, but he set his hat at a jaunty angle, put on a calm and benign expression and greeted his office staff cheerfully.

  “There’s a gentleman to see you, sir,” said his secretary. “He wouldn’t give his name.”

  Morcar frowned slightly out of habit, at this announcement, then reflected that the caller was probably an L.D.V. man and took off the frown again. He gave the girl a few rapid instructions about papers and appointments, then passed into his private office.

  A small old man, grey-haired, weazened, shabby, smoking a pipe, stood waiting, looking out of the window. At the sound of Morcar’s entrance he turned. It was Mr. Shaw.

  Morcar felt such a violent nausea at the sight of Winnie’s father standing on Syke Mills premises that for a moment he could hardly prevent himself from retching.

  “What do you want?” he demanded hoarsely.

  Mr. Shaw took his pipe out of his mouth.

  “Your lad’s in France,” he said.

  Morcar was silent, stupefied by the many violent and contradictory emotions which seized him.

  “Winnie wanted me to come and tell you.”

  “Aye. Thank you,” said Morcar.

  The moment was broken by his chauffeur, who came in hurriedly, apologising. A trainful of Dunkirk soldiers had arrived just as he was leaving to come to Stanney Royd that morning, and he had thought Mr. Morcar would wish him to stay and help till the convoy was dealt with.

  “Quite right,” said Morcar. With an effort he detached his eyes from his father-in-law’s, and addressed the chauffeur. “Drive Mr. Shaw down to Prospect Mills,” he ordered.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Thank you—I’ll be grateful,” mumbled Mr. Shaw. “And come back here quickly for further orders,” concluded Morcar.

  “Good-day to you, Harry,” said Mr. Shaw, going out.

  Morcar forced a mechanical smile and a mumble.

  When he was alone he stood for a long time without changing his position. My lad, he thought. So Winnie has never told her father. The boy is Mr. Shaw’s grandson, choose how—it looked as though the old chap were fond of him. C. H. Morcar. He’s Charlie’s nephew. He’s just an English soldier, like those I met in the street just now. Morcar tried to imagine the scene on the Dunkirk beaches—sand, waves, groups of men, ships off the shore, aircraft continually swooping, the noise of bombing and guns. There were no pictures of it yet in the newspapers. Too terrible, he supposed. In the hour of England’s trial, all personal grievances should be laid aside. Laying aside his personal grievance, here was Winnie, Charlie’s sister, his wife after all, in the deepest trouble. She was the boy’s mother, and the boy was in France. Take what he, Morcar, would feel if David were in France—but thank God he wasn’t as far as Morcar knew, he was engaged in a training course preparatory to a commission—take what he would feel if David were in France and multiply it by ten or so, nay perhaps by a hundred for a mother and son, and you would have what Winnie was feeling. If Christina were in France now. … A pang stabbed Morcar’s heart. Poor Winnie! She had asked her father to tell him. “Aye,” thought Morcar grimly: “She turns to me when she’s in trouble.” In the hour of England’s trial it was proper that all English people should behave in a way worthy of their country. All personal grievances should be laid aside.

  Morcar came to himself to find his chauffeur staring at him.

  “They’ve rung up from the station—they want me again to help with the billeting, sir,” he said with an effect of repeating an unheard statement.

  “All right—drive me up to Hurstholt Roa
d first and then be off with you,” said Morcar, taking his decision.

  A few minutes later he pushed back the wooden gate of Hurst-cote, walked up the asphalt path and rang the bell. He was not at all sure, after all, that he had done right to come; at sight of the name on the gate, the diamond-shaped bed full of scarlet geraniums, the white casement curtains hanging in strictly vertical folds, his feelings were so terrible that he doubted his capacity to carry through an interview with Winnie with any decency. The door opened: a small middle-aged woman, sallow, thin about throat and arms, with crimped light-brown hair, wearing an ugly bright green frock and a cretonne apron, stood before him. For a moment he did not recognise her; then he saw her reddened eyelids, her cheek mottled by weeping.

  “Well, Winnie,” he said.

  “Harry!” exclaimed his wife. “You’ve come, then.” There was a pause; they gazed at each other. “Well, come in,” said Winnie at last, stepping back to allow him to pass into the house.

  Morcar smiled mournfully as he went in; her tone was characteristically acid, and in spite of his considerable fortune, Syke Mills, Stanney Royd, his fine car and all the appurtenances of his wealth, he felt for a moment humbled and schoolboyish before her superior sophistication, as in days of old. He struggled to assert himself, at first unsuccessfully; then he thought of Christina and at once Winnie and her surroundings fell into proper perspective. The furniture in the little front room was crowded and tasteless, the air was stuffy, Winnie herself, poor girl, was far from sophisticated in her appearance—she was not dowdy, but worse: smart in a naïve provincial manner. Her attempts at fashion, far from being intimidating, were pathetic.

  They faced each other across a cheap light oak table with an imitation tapestry strip on which stood a bowl scantily filled with one bunch of bought pink sweet peas.

  “Well, Winnie,” began Morcar gravely: “Your father told me—your boy’s in France.”

  Winnie nodded. Her chin quivered, and Morcar saw that she could not manage to speak.

  “I’m sorry, love,” said Morcar kindly.

  Winnie said nothing; her fingers played a slow idle tattoo on the table; with head bent she watched them intently.

  “If there’s anything I can do,” hesitated Morcar. “But I’m afraid there isn’t much, and that’s the truth.”

  Suddenly a strange sound, between cry and groan, broke from Winnie’s lips; her shoulders heaved convulsively, she buried her face in her hands and burst into wild screaming sobs.

  “Nay—nay!” urged Morcar, alarmed. He moved round the table towards her, patted her shoulder, put his arm about her waist. The hard unyielding corset, the knot of tie-laces, he felt beneath his hand made her seem all the more pathetically naïve. “I do feel for you about your boy, Winnie love,” he said. “I do indeed.”

  “My boy?” screamed Winnie. She turned to him, clutched his arm, beat her clenched fist against his shoulder. Her hazel eyes blazed, her sallow cheek flushed; she looked like the Winnie he had married twenty-four years ago. “My boy!” she repeated scornfully. “He was your boy too, Harry! Yours!”

  “You told me he wasn’t, you know,” Morcar reminded her.

  “You fool! Of course he was yours. How could you ever think he was not yours? He’s the living image of you—always has been.”

  “Now come, Winnie,” said Morcar in a calm equable tone: “Don’t let us have a scene. You told me the boy was not mine and you’ve never said anything else all these years.”

  “You never gave me a chance. I kept hoping you’d come back and I could explain. When you had that row with Father over your Thistledowns I made sure you’d come and see him,” said Winnie with a laugh full of malice. “I urged him on about those pieces—I made sure that would stir you up. And then when you asked me to divorce you—I refused because I made sure you’d come and see me and I could explain.”

  “Now look, Winnie,” said Morcar, beginning to be disturbed—Winnie’s mode of making the announcement of her son’s parentage was so totally unlike the conventional style, so characteristic of her perverse and wilful spirit, that it alarmed him. It was so like Winnie to scold where another woman would have shed imploring repentant tears, that for the first time the possibility that she might be telling the truth shot through his mind. “Now look, Winnie. Since we are here together, with England in such trouble and the boy in France, let’s have the truth out, once and for all. I won’t hold it against you. Who is the boy’s father? Who was your lover, eh?”

  “You were his father, you fool! I never had a lover,” raged Winnie, striking at him with her fist.

  “Tell me the truth.”

  “I am telling the truth. As I hope for his safety,” screamed Winnie, “I swear it.”

  “Good God!”

  “He was yours, Harry.”

  “But why on earth did you say he wasn’t?”

  “I hated you for coming back alive, an officer with a medal,” shouted Winnie, her eyes gleaming viciously, “while Charlie was dead and cold. You left him to die!”

  “I did not!” shouted Morcar.

  “Yes, you did. You went off rescuing Jessopp and winning a medal, instead of looking after Charlie.”

  “Charlie was dead when I got him back to the trench.”

  “Who says so?” cried Winnie with derision.

  “Colonel Francis Oldroyd, D.S.O.,” replied Morcar with profound satisfaction. “We had it all out together a few years ago.”

  Winnie slowly dissolved before his eyes from a half-mad virago to a shaking weeping woman. “Oh,” she wailed. “Oh, Harry! Oh!” She staggered against the table and her head sank on her breast.

  “You’d better sit down,” said Morcar, who felt hardly able to stand himself. He guided Winnie to a chair. She slipped from his arm and sank down awkwardly; her head lay sideways, her face went white, her eyes closed. Morcar drew out his travelling flask, unscrewed the top, poured out a strong dose and held it to her lips. “You’d better drink this brandy,” he said.

  Winnie sipped the brandy, sighed, lay still. Morcar stood gazing down at her. He could not yet sort out his emotions, but at the moment he was most conscious of an understanding for Winnie’s hatred of himself. It was exactly the same kind of illogical, unreasoning resentment about Charlie’s death which he had felt for years against Francis Oldroyd. After a moment Winnie seemed to revive; she sat up and put one hand to her head. Morcar sat down on a chair nearby and bent towards her.

  “But listen, Winnie,” he urged. “If you hated me for Charlie’s death—I understand that, yes, I understand it. But if you hated me, why did you marry me?”

  “I always loved you, Harry,” said Winnie mournfully, looking at him from liquid eyes. “You won’t believe it, I expect, but it’s true. That’s partly why I hated you, you know—it was so maddening; I went on loving you for years, ever since I was a schoolgirl, and you never looked at me as a woman at all. You never loved me, Harry.”

  Morcar tried to utter a lie, but it stuck in his throat.

  “I was very very fond of you, Winnie,” he said at last gravely.

  “Yes, I know,” said Winnie. “That’s what I mean. Poor Harry! You never loved me. Poor Harry! I don’t regret it though—I have Cecil.”

  “Cecil?”

  “Your son, Harry. Don’t you even remember his name? You were in France when he was christened, of course. Cecil Henry Morcar, I called him. I wanted him to have your name, of course, and the initials—C. H.—they’re the beginning of Charlie, you see. I called him Cecil after we parted—you see it annoyed Father if I called him Harry. Father was very angry with you at the time. Of course he thought we’d quarrelled and you’d deserted me. But I didn’t care. I had Cecil, all to myself. That’s Cecil, there.”

  She pointed. Morcar looked across at a window table, and saw the photograph of a fair, ingenuous, weak-looking youth with a dreamy face. Morcar could not yet look on the boy without repulsion. Cecil! What a name!

  “Yes, I have Cecil,”
repeated Winnie fondly. Then her face changed terribly and she cried: “No, no! I haven’t got Cecil! He’s in France!”

  Morcar exclaimed and sat back in his chair. Her flippant disregard of his own feelings, although her quick intelligence made her perfectly aware of them, angered him. She had laid his life in ruins by a perverse, frivolous and monstrous lie, and now when he had built it up, laid it in ruins again without appearing to notice that she did so.

  “You’ve done me a very great wrong, Winnie,” he said sternly.

  “I did you a wrong when I married you, Harry, but not when I made you leave me. You do better without us Shaws—we’re not your sort.”

  There was too much truth in this for Morcar easily to contest it. But the boy! Morcar felt a deep repulsion from the notion of any son of his who had Winnie for a mother; he did not want to see him or know anything of him. But the thought of his son being brought up by the Shaws was none the less unbearable.

  “I can’t understand you, Winnie,” he said. “I really can’t. Here you’ve brought the boy up in a mean poor way, when he might have had every advantage that money can buy.”

  “You wouldn’t have made all that money if you’d stayed with us. Besides, we haven’t been poor. You’ve been generous, Harry—you were always generous,” said Winnie, lightly jeering as of old.

  “But didn’t you ever feel you wanted him to have more? To go to a University, to travel, to see a bit of life?”

  “I kept thinking you and I would come together again and I could explain everything. And you see we have,” said Winnie brightly.

  Morcar exclaimed with anger and pain.

  “It’s too late for us to come together now, Winnie,” he said harshly. “You should have come and told me this years ago.”

  “Would you have believed if I had?” asked Winnie pertly.

  “I don’t know. I don’t know why I should believe you now,” said Morcar.

  “But you do,” said Winnie. Her tone made this a statement and not a question, and Morcar resented the way she carried off her outrageous story.