A Man of His Time

by Phyllis Bentley

  ‘He wouldn’t want me to think of that. He would wish me to lead my own life.’

  ‘That’s true,’ said Jonathan, for the first time feeling some real remorse towards Morcar.

  ‘But I don’t believe I can bring myself to do it,’ said Jennifer with a sigh.

  Jonathan found himself struggling not to feel an immense but he judged ignoble relief. Such Freudian jealousies, he had thought, belonged surely only to an older generation unaware of them.

  II Chuff And Susie

  12. Winnie is Still Winnie

  Morcar had bought some new machinery for dealing with cloth woven from man-made yarns. He hated man-made yarns as much as he loved wool, but he saw that the future might largely lie with them, so he conceived it his duty to participate in their promotion. In spite of his prejudices he became interested in their promise, and was standing in the shed across the yard looking at the machines one morning when Ruth Mellor, looking rather pale, approached him.

  ‘There’s a cable for you, Mr Morcar,’ she said.

  Morcar held out a hand for it.

  ‘I left it in the office.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘It’s from South Africa.’

  ‘Cecil,’ thought Morcar. ‘Wanting money again, I expect.’

  Half exasperated, half pleased that his son should turn to him and he should have the power to help him, he strode across the yard, with Ruth Mellor keeping up pretty well at his side. When they reached the office she ran ahead, snatched up the cable from where it lay on his desk, and handed it to him, folded.

  ‘I’m afraid it’s bad news, Mr Morcar,’ she said, and withdrew.

  Morcar unfolded the slip of paper and read:

  DEEP REGRET INFORM YOU CECIL FAN KILLED BANTU RIOT MORCAR AND I EXECUTORS CHILDREN SAILING ENGLAND END MONTH HUBERT SHAW.

  Morcar sat down abruptly. Cecil dead! The good, kind, slow Cecil, his son whom he had never really known. His thoughts flew back to that day, so long ago now, it must be over forty years, when he, a young soldier returning from the First World War, held his baby son proudly in his arms and loved him. The very pattern of the woollen shawl in which Cecil was wrapped, the feel of the infant’s slight warm weight against his body, came back to him. He grieved.

  And Fan! That bright, undaunted little pussy. A pity. He must telegraph her mother. Ah! Cecil’s mother! Winnie! It will break her heart. I shall have a bad time there.

  He pressed the bell, and Miss Mellor came in, with a steaming cup of coffee in her hand. No wonder she had looked pale. Tactful of her to get him back to his office so that he was not in the public eye when he received the news.

  ‘Miss Mellor,’ he said, his voice hoarse but in control. ‘Take this telegram.’ He dictated a longish message to be sent to Mrs Oldroyd senior, embodying the news of Fan’s death. ‘And telephone my wife, Mrs Winifred Morcar’ - he gave the address in Hurstholt Road and the telephone number - ‘and say I’m coming over to see her at once. It’s very urgent. She must wait in for me. I’ll compose obituary notices when I get back. Tell Jessopp to bring the car round.’

  ‘Yes, Mr Morcar. Have a cup of coffee before you go.’

  ‘All right, Ruth. Get Jessopp. Phone my wife quickly. Don’t mention the news.’

  As he drank the hot liquid - which was certainly steadying - he read the cable several times again. There was a kind of mean scantiness about it which was just what he would have expected from a Shaw. As he re-read, he became eventually aware of a rather odd construction in its phrasing. Why say Morcar and I, and not the more natural you and I ? Oh, of course, thought Morcar sardonically; he’s sent the same cable to Winnie - there’s a cheaper rate for the same wording to two addresses, I daresay. Well, I shan’t have to break the news to her, then, he thought, relieved. Children sailing end month. That’s quick. They won’t inherit much. And anything they inherit Hubert Shaw will grab if he can. Morcar drew the telephone towards him, rang up his solicitor and instructed him to employ the most reputable lawyer in Jo’burg to act for Morcar in the matter of Cecil’s estate. Ruth Mellor came in to say that Jessopp and the car were waiting.

  He was halfway to Hurstholt Road before he remembered that it was tactless of him to take Jessopp where Winnie could see him, but it was too late to do anything about that now. He wondered whether to tell Jessopp to put him down at the end of the road, but refrained, partly because Winnie would instantly detect the deception and partly because his native obstinacy would not allow him to attempt any concealment from her. As they drew up he noticed that the small flower-bed, which he remembered bright with red geraniums, was now planted with dreary bushes bearing speckled leaves, and that the curtains were all drawn at the windows. Though he was relieved to find his guess thus confirmed that his ex-wife already knew of her son’s death, this outdated sign of mourning struck Morcar as the height of vulgarity, and he strode up the short asphalt path in a fury. The front door opened before he reached it, and Winnie stood there waiting for him.

  As always, the sickness he had felt in anticipation of seeing her was doubled by her actual appearance. Now extremely thin and somewhat stooped, her hair frizzed to a kind of burned saffron, her once pert little features reduced to a predatory sallow sharpness, clad in an ill-fitting dress of shrill green with a great many strings of beads of varied colours round her withered neck, she resembled a witch in a television fairy tale; the sight of the wedding ring on her wrinkled hand, and the thought that he had once experienced copulation with her person, brought his nausea almost up into his mouth. Then he saw her red tear-filled eyes, pity rushed back and he regained his control.

  ‘This is very bad news for both of us. I see you know it, Winnie.’

  ‘Hubert cabled. I haven’t had time to change into my black,’ said Winnie, leading the way into the small front room.

  ‘Never mind,’ said Morcar, wincing at this stale vulgarity, and at the awful bad taste - the clashing colours, the cheap materials, the hideous shapes - of the furnishings of the room, some objects of which had a horrible cheap would-be ‘with-it’ smartness, and some he recognized as having formed part of their original ingenuous household nearly fifty years ago. What does she do with her alimony? wondered Morcar, furious; at the same time reflecting gratefully how much he owed to Christina, who had educated his taste, and to Jennifer, who managed his household so gracefully and well. In spite of himself his voice roughened.

  ‘I’ve had my solicitor cable out to a good lawyer in Johannesburg, to look after Cecil’s affairs,’ he said.

  ‘Hubert will look after them,’ said Winnie sharply. ‘Sit down, Harry. Do you know anything about - how it happened?’

  ‘No. Only what you do,’ said Morcar, who had observed a copy of the cable he had received from Hubert, lying on the table.

  ‘Poor Cecil. My poor boy, he was always so good to me,’ said Winnie.

  She wept. Morcar sat silent, respectful to her grief, waiting gravely till she should feel able to speak again. At length she dried her eyes, and without looking at him said in that peculiar tone which Morcar had learned to recognize as marking the onset of some chicanery:

  ‘The children are sailing for England at the end of the month, I see.’

  ‘Yes. Hubert will notify us of the ship they’re sailing on, I suppose, or if not’ - if he’s too mean to spare the shillings for the cable, thought Morcar - ‘I’ll get my Jo’burg man to do so. I’ll meet them in London.’ He forced his generosity, his sense of duty, to its utmost limit, and managed to utter: ‘Would you like to go with me?’

  ‘No, I think I’ll wait for them here,’ said Winnie. Morcar repressed a sigh of relief. ‘I shall be busy, getting their rooms ready, and that.’

  ‘Their rooms ready? What are you talking about, Winnie? Chuff and Susie will come to Stanney Royd, of course.’

  ‘My grandchildren will come to me!’ shrilled Winnie, her small eyes suddenly blazing.

  ‘Now listen to me, Winnie,’ said Morcar in a burst of rage. ‘You
took my son, you took Cecil, from me. You’re not going to take my grandson. He’s coming to me. You made a mess of Cecil, you’re not going to spoil Chuff’s chances.’

  ‘I did not make a mess of Cecil!’ shouted Winnie. ‘He’s a good boy.’

  ‘You brought him up to be a dunderhead, an innocent, a dullard who can’t write a decent letter or stand up for himself.’

  ‘He’s your son as well as mine.’

  ‘It’s a pity you didn’t say that in the first place.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘Oh yes, you do. When I came back from the war you told me Cecil wasn’t my child. That’s the cruellest thing a woman can do to a man.’

  ‘Oh no, it isn’t. It might have been true,’ said Winnie with malice.

  ‘I don’t think adultery would have been as bad,’ said Morcar bitterly. ‘As it was, by a lie you deprived me of my own son’s love all my life.’

  ‘No, I didn’t. He always doted on you.’

  ‘But why on earth should he?’ said Morcar, disgusted, remembering nevertheless that Fan had said the same.

  ‘How should I know? He was obstinate, like you, that’s all. Pig-headed. Oh, Cecil! My poor Cecil! What have they done to him? He was always such a good boy.’

  ‘Winnie, I know how you loved Cecil, and I respect your grief,’ said Morcar gravely. ‘But Chuff and Susie are coming to me.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘By God, Winnie!’ shouted Morcar. ‘If you take Chuff from me, I warn you I’ll cut your alimony to what was legally assigned to you.’

  ‘If you do, I’ll take you to court.’

  ‘That’ll cost you plenty.’

  ‘But you wouldn’t do that to me.’

  ‘Oh, yes, I would. Now I’m warning you.’

  ‘You wouldn’t do that when I’ve Father to keep.’

  ‘I thought he was dead long ago,’ said Morcar roughly.

  ‘He’s lying in bed upstairs this minute. You’d best see him, he’ll expect to see you.’

  Morcar had not the slightest desire to see Mr Shaw, whom he had always detested, but he felt he could not refuse, and followed Winnie up the steep narrow stairs reluctantly.

  Mr Shaw, the arch-twister, lay, a crumpled mass of wrinkles, grey hair, tangled grey beard, and repulsive purple and orange striped pyjamas, beneath a stained crimson quilt. Morcar, used to seeing his mother in the clean bed-linen and pastel shades of silk and lace which Jennifer provided, was shocked.

  ‘He’s nearly ninety-two,’ said Winnie proudly, smoothing the coverlet.

  ‘Well, Mr Shaw,’ said Morcar, forcing himself to offer his hand.

  ‘Well, Harry.’

  ‘Winnie and I have been talking about Chuff, Cecil’s son.’

  ‘I heard what you were saying,’ said Mr Shaw, his beady black eyes sparkling with malice.

  ‘Well, I hope you’re on my side, and mean to let your great-grandson have all the advantages I can give him.’

  ‘You’ve got the money, Harry,’ said Mr Shaw with an air of virtue in defeat, ‘so I expect we shall have to do what you say.’

  Winnie burst into tears. For the first time, Morcar felt sorry for her.

  ‘I’ll just have little Susie, then,’ she sobbed.

  ‘No, you won’t. I’m not going to separate brother and sister.’

  ‘You are cruel, Harry. Cruel. Am I never to see my own grandchildren, then?’

  ‘Of course you are,’ said Morcar irritably. ‘They can come and see you every week. Every Sunday, say. And go on holidays with you. But they’ll live with me.’

  Winnie turned and led the way downstairs. Morcar perforce followed. Mr Shaw’s thin voice, demanding his morning cup of tea, pursued them.

  ‘You’re blackmailing me, Harry,’ said Winnie, turning on him at the foot of the staircase.

  ‘I know I am.’ (It’s the only way to deal with the Shaw family, he said to himself.) ‘I don’t care. I mean to have my grandchildren in my charge.’

  ‘I’d best put the kettle on,’ murmured Winnie.

  She went into the tiny kitchen. Morcar followed and stood in the doorway, one hand on the wall.

  ‘You’ve ruined my whole life, you know, Harry,’ said Winnie, turning to him. “You’ve ruined mine.’

  ‘I don’t think so. You wouldn’t have gone so far up, so fast, with a wife and child hanging round your neck.’

  The awful sordidness of this wrangle beside a gas cooker while his son lay dead, his wife holding a spent match while the kettle began to sizzle, struck Morcar of a sudden as unbearable.

  ‘There are more things in life than money, Winnie,’ he said.

  ‘It’s easy for you to say that when you’ve got plenty.’

  ‘I’ve had no wife, no child, no home, all my life,’ said Morcar, the words tumbling out fast: ‘You took all that from me. And for what? A silly mistaken obsession about your brother’s death—’

  ‘You left Charlie out to die.’

  ‘No, I did not!’ shouted Morcar. ‘Listen to me, Winnie; for once in your life, listen to me. Charlie and I and Jessopp and two other chaps were out on patrol. We came under machine-gun fire. Charlie got a bullet in his head and Jessopp got one in his jaw.’

  ‘Why didn’t you get a bullet?’

  ‘God knows. It was just one of those things. I carried Charlie back to our trenches, and then I went back to help Jessopp.’

  ‘And got a medal for it.’

  ‘Charlie was dead the moment the bullet struck him.’

  ‘Who says so? If you’d stayed to look after him—’

  ‘Captain Francis Oldroyd. I may say that when I met Colonel Oldroyd some twenty-five years later, he said that Charlie was dead when he reached the trench.’

  ‘He said that because you asked him.’

  ‘No! He said it to me at once. I’ve told you all this twice before, Winnie. This is the third time. I shan’t tell it you again, and I expect you to believe me.’

  There was a pause.

  ‘It was the medal I couldn’t stand, Harry. I couldn’t stand you getting a medal while Charlie was dead.’

  ‘Winnie, Charlie was my best friend; I’ve never had another.’

  ‘It’s all very well, Harry, but there’s that Jessopp sitting out there in a fine thick uniform in your fine handsome car, while Charlie’s dead. And Cecil’s dead,’ she broke out, wailing. ‘Was he happy in South Africa, Harry? I couldn’t tell from his letters. And you never thought to come and tell me about him, after you’d been to see him.’

  Morcar coloured, ashamed.

  ‘Yes. I think he was happy. He and Fan - it was still good between them, and he had two fine children.’

  ‘Of course I know you always hate to see me.’ Morcar was silent. *But you might have come and told me when you got back from South Africa. You might have done more for him, Harry.’

  ‘I bought him his farm and he had an allowance every year.’

  ‘They were always short of money, though.’

  ‘I didn’t know that till recently,’ thought Morcar, but he did not speak the words. Winnie gave him a sharp glance.

  ‘And what will your grand Oldroyds think of all this, then? Two more kiddies to inherit your wealth.’

  ‘They’ll welcome them, of course.’

  ‘Are you sure of that, eh?’

  ‘Quite. They’re not your kind of people at all,’ said Morcar, unable to refrain from the insult.

  ‘I’m glad of that,’ flared Winnie.

  ‘So am I,’ said Morcar brutally.

  ‘Is that Jennifer your child by Christina, then?’

  ‘Don’t be silly, Winnie. No.’

  ‘Everybody in Annotsfield thinks so, you know.’

  ‘They can think what they like. It isn’t true. Jennifer was in her teens when I first met her mother,’ said Morcar, hating himself for stooping to an explanation.

  ‘I reckon you wish she was your child, though.’

  ‘Yes, I do.
’

  At this moment the kettle began to whistle its head off.

  ‘I must go up to Father,’ said Winnie, turning to the cooker.

  ‘I’ll go. I’ll keep in touch with you about the children, Winnie, notify you of the date of their arrival and so on.’

  ‘All right. Harry!’

  ‘What now?’

  ‘Don’t be too hard on Hubert. You’ve got plenty and he hasn’t, you know.’

  ‘It’s not in me to let myself be cheated, Winnie.’

  ‘We’ve all noticed that,’ sneered Winnie.

  With an exclamation of fury Morcar flung himself from the house. Winnie, in spite of the kettle’s shrill message, followed him, and stood at the front door to watch him go.

  She wore a strange smile. Morcar, throwing himself back against the car cushions, sweating and exhausted, suddenly found himself wondering whether all this sound and fury had not been a pre-arranged scene, planned by Winnie with her father to force upon him the entire care of their grandchildren. He was to think it a victory for him while she knew it was a victory for her. Winnie was capable of such a scheme. Yes, he inclined to think this was the truth. Yet, he could not but remember her real love for Cecil. Well, he would never know. Let her think what she liked. He would have the children.

  When he reached Syke Mills he found Jonathan in the office. The young man rose as he entered and greeted him gravely.

  ‘We’ve heard the news, Uncle Harry. Miss Mellor telephoned. I’m deeply sorry. I just came down to see - I don’t suppose there’s anything I can do?’

  ‘No, thanks, Jonathan. I appreciate your sympathy,’ said Morcar, seating himself at his desk.

  ‘Is there anything more known about how it happened?’

  ‘Not yet. A Bantu riot, the cable says.’

  ‘A terrible end.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. It would be quick, anyway,’ said Morcar wearily.

  ‘Yes, but the fear! But what can they expect, out there?’

  ‘Cecil wasn’t a baaskap man in the slightest degree. He was very mild and kind and unprejudiced.’