A Man of His Time

by Phyllis Bentley

  Jonathan, who had never seen Mrs Morcar senior, or even a photograph of her, in his life, but had always in his heart blamed Morcar for their divorce and reproached him for it, did not know what to say.

  ‘I hate her! She’s horrid!’

  ‘Susie!’ said Jonathan, staggered.

  ‘Chuff thinks so too. I know he does. But he doesn’t mind as much as I do. We had dinner there for the first time today. Afterwards I was supposed to go to the bathroom, and I ran away.’

  ‘You shouldn’t have done that, Susie.’

  ‘Yes, I should. She isn’t like Daddy.’

  ‘What was your father like?’ said Jonathan, trying to introduce a note of reason into the conversation.

  ‘He was rather like Grandfather, really,’ admitted Susie, calming as Jonathan had hoped she would. ‘Only kinder and slower. He’s dead,’ she broke out again, wailing. ‘I shall never see him any more.’

  ‘Yes, that’s true. You must try not to look back any more. You must try to like living with us. We all love you, Susie,’ said Jonathan. ‘Your grandfather loves you very much indeed.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I do know,’ replied Jonathan emphatically - he felt a particular need to be generous towards Morcar because he feared he had always been unjust to him about the divorce. Susie’s feeling about her grandmother was in his opinion the best justification of Morcar’s attitude to his wife that could be presented. ‘Your brother of course loves you. And my mother loves you.’ It occurred to him that it was a good thing his mother had decided not to marry Nat Armitage, as she would be needed to look after Susie, but this was only a fleeting thought and he did not put the two halves of it together. ‘And I love you.’

  ‘Do von, Jonathan?’

  ‘Yes, very much,’ said Jonathan with complete sincerity.

  ‘I daresay I can bear it living here, if you do,’ murmured Susie.

  Her slight body relaxed in his arms. They remained in this position for some long minutes. Then Jonathan thought he heard a distant rattle of china.

  ‘I suppose we’d better go and have some tea,’ he said reluctantly.

  ‘I suppose so,’ agreed Susie.

  Her tone, though sad, was normal, and Jonathan felt with relief that the crisis of her trauma was probably over. They untwined themselves and rose; Jonathan put back Susie’s hair from her face and lent her his handkerchief; they dragged themselves back to the house and entered the drawing room through the open French windows.

  Morcar, Nat Armitage, Jennifer, and Chuff were all sitting there around a tea trolley. They all appeared miserable, indeed the whole group looked as if they had just ceased from tears.

  ‘Would you like to wash, Susie dear?’ said Jennifer in a choked tone.

  Susie sighed, but obediently left the room. There was a pause.

  ‘It seems that Susie,’ began Jonathan with an effort.

  ‘We all heard it, Jonathan,’ said Jennifer, looking aside.

  ‘Chuff, this is Jonathan Oldroyd, your mother’s nephew. Jonathan, my grandson Chuff,’ said Morcar gruffly.

  The two young men forced a grin and cordially disliked each other.

  15. A Mill Changes Hands

  ‘You see now why I can’t, Nat,’ said Jennifer when presently, tea over, they stood together at the gate. ‘The child is all in pieces. The doctor says she mustn’t go to school for at least six months.’

  ‘And you will teach her at home, I suppose.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Yes, I thought that would be the way of it. When it was Jonathan who kept you from me I accepted it, he’s your son, though I don’t see why he couldn’t come and live with us.’

  ‘He wouldn’t, Nat.’

  ‘But now it’s different.’

  ‘I can’t leave Susie in this condition. Who would Uncle Harry get to live here and look after her?’

  ‘I know you owe a lot to Mr Morcar, but I don’t see why you should sacrifice your life to his convenience.’

  ‘It’s the child’s life, Nat.’

  ‘What about my life, then? I haven’t had much, one way and the other, with the war, and Bee dying so soon. Look, Jenny,’ he went on, putting his hand on hers as it lay on the top bar of the gate, ‘all these reasons you give me are just external ones, they’re not from your heart. You never say you don’t like the idea of me as a husband, you don’t want to marry me.’

  Jennifer tried to look at him objectively. He was tallish, darkish, lean-faced, with a firm chin, a flat stomach, a slight limp from the war, and strong, if square, hands. His eyes were brown and kind, and held some warmth which she felt she had long yearned for. The dark grey hairline suit he had donned to make his formal approach to her that afternoon was impeccable, as was only natural for the head of a textile firm even longer established than the Oldroyds’ and of a family of more genteel origins. She turned her head away.

  ‘I believe you do want to marry me,’ he persisted. Jennifer said nothing. ‘I’m not asking you to forget David.’

  ‘You are, you are!’

  ‘No, I’m not. I’m not going to forget Bee, and I’m not asking you to forget David. But I don’t see why we should go on being lonely and miserable all our lives. Jenny! Marry me.’

  ‘I can’t leave the child, Nat,’ said Jennifer.

  ‘On that principle no generation is ever happy. We sacrifice ourselves for our children, they sacrifice themselves for their children, and so on and so on. Unto the fifty-third and fifty-fourth generation,’ he concluded smiling.

  ‘That’s how life is.’

  ‘Well, it’s nonsense.’

  ‘No woman would agree with you.’

  ‘Jenny,’ said Nat Armitage very soberly, ‘I shall ask you again at Christmas. That will give this Susie—’

  ‘She’s David’s niece.’

  ‘—time to settle down. If you turn me down then, I shall go off and marry some little twit with a lot of bosom and birds’ nest hair.’

  ‘Nat, Nat!’ said Jennifer, smiling.

  ‘I shall. You had better take me seriously, Jen, I warn you.’

  He got into his car, closed the door with that absence of bang which indicates an expensive model, gave her a last decidedly menacing look, and drove off.

  Jennifer smiled sadly as she returned up the drive to the house. Morcar was sitting with the telephone to his ear, listening with an air of disgust to a shrill voice uttering angry words which occasionally became audible.

  ‘Can’t think how … but why … no manners … return at once.’

  Jonathan, now washed and dressed, stood by the empty hearth, looking very like his father, and Chuff was sitting hunched up in an armchair looking sulky; both wore the embarrassed air of unwilling hearers, uncertain whether manners required them to go or stay.

  ‘Where’s Susie?’ asked Jennifer in a low tone.

  ‘She’s upstairs on her bed, asleep,’ said Chuff.

  ‘Good.’

  ‘The child is mentally disturbed, Winnie,’ said Morcar into the phone. ‘No, I shall not send her back. Yes, Jonathan found her in Iredale Road. She was taking a bus along the valley. Chuff will come to see you alone next Sunday, as we arranged.’ Here Chuff gave a kind of groan. ‘No, alone. Because I say so, Winnie. No, he can’t come now.’ Chuff looked relieved. ‘Possibly, when she’s recovered, but I can’t promise. I’m afraid you’ll have to, Winnie.’

  He put down the receiver with some emphasis. They’re willing enough for me to give the orders when it gets them out of trouble, he thought with resentment. His glance caught Jennifer’s, and he saw trouble in her eyes. At once he took alarm. Something more about poor little Susie, he thought. Jennifer looked away. Yes! There was some fresh trouble.

  ‘I’d like a word with you, Jennifer,’ he said.

  The two lads fled gladly into the garden.

  ‘Is there something - worse - about Susie?’ asked Morcar.

  ‘No. Why?’ said Jennifer, surprised.

  �
�You wouldn’t hide anything from me, Jenny?’

  ‘Susie will recover steadily now she’s broken the barrier, I’m sure.’

  ‘Then what’s the trouble?’

  Jennifer hesitated. ‘It’s only Nat Armitage asking me again to marry him,’ she said in a would-be careless tone.

  She felt at once that this lightness towards a man’s serious love was vulgar; and coloured, abashed.

  Morcar was stunned. He saw his whole home life, so graciously and smoothly managed, so stable, collapsing round his feet. At once he reproached himself for this selfish thought, and bent his mind on Jennifer. He recalled her father, the brilliant barrister whom he had loathed, her beautiful mother who had been his mistress, their death in an air-raid, Jennifer’s marriage to David, her widowhood, her son, her time at Stanney Royd, her good works, her kindness to old Mrs Morcar.

  ‘She’s not had much of a life,’ he thought. Aloud he said, in as kind a tone as he could manage: ‘And you’re thinking of accepting, are you?’

  ‘I don’t know, Uncle Harry,’ said Jennifer. Her uncertainty made her irritable. ‘He has asked me once or twice before, but I felt I could not leave Jonathan. Now Jonathan doesn’t need me any more.’ She looked away, fighting tears.

  Ah, there’s the rub; Jonathan doesn’t need me any more, thought Morcar.

  ‘And it’s right that he should not,’ said Jennifer. After a moment she went on: ‘But there’s you - and now Susie.’

  ‘Don’t worry about me,’ said Morcar instantly. ‘You have been as dear to me as a daughter all these years, Jennifer; I shall miss you when you go but I shall rejoice in my daughter’s happiness.’

  ‘You wouldn’t think it wrong then if I—’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I don’t know how I shall decide. I don’t know! Nat said he would ask for his answer at Christmas.’

  ‘Well, that gives us time to look around,’ said Morcar cheerfully.

  ‘You seem to take it for granted that I shall accept. I haven’t made up my mind yet by any means.’

  ‘I think you have, Jenny,’ said Morcar quietly.

  ‘I don’t know. What will you do about Susie? You can’t let her go to - her grandmother. Not after today.’

  ‘No. I shall think of something,’ said Morcar.

  Jennifer rose and stood for a moment, uncertain. Then she crossed the room in the graceful, gliding gait which she had inherited from her mother, and stooping over Morcar, put a hand on his shoulder in affectionate caress.

  She withdrew, and Morcar was left to assimilate this new disaster.

  After a few moments he gave a long sigh and shook his head. The pain was beginning to diminish.

  It was just at this moment that another extremely uncomfortable thought struck him. Through his own generous act, Jennifer owned the fabric of Old Mill and the shares of Messrs Oldroyd and Mellor Ltd. She was in fact in a position to do what she liked with that firm. Living as an adopted niece, widowed, under Morcar’s care, she had left her business affairs entirely to him. He did not for a moment doubt her integrity or her goodwill, but remarried - possibly even with children by her second husband - she fell inevitably into an entirely different situation. Morcar felt as if Nat Armitage already held Old Mill in his hand.

  Morcar loved Old Mill; partly because it had been David’s, partly because it had been the original Oldroyd building, dating back to 1810 or so, partly because it had a textile speciality which he enjoyed. It made woollen cloths of incomparable softness, using for this purpose old-fashioned wooden fulling-stocks. Morcar felt towards these soft tissues as another man might have felt towards a kitten. To form a merger, and have Old Mill managed by some bright young man under his guidance, was one thing; to have Old Mill removed from his direct control, to have his empire diminished, was another.

  He made up his mind, and went upstairs at once in search of Jennifer. She was just emerging from Susie’s room.

  ‘I checked to make sure. She’s fast asleep,’ said Jennifer, closing the door quietly behind her.

  ‘Good. Jennifer, do you remember suggesting that I should buy your Old Mill property and shares?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Jennifer.

  ‘Do you still want to sell?’

  ‘Yes, yes!’ said Jennifer eagerly.

  ‘Very well. I’ll buy.’

  ‘Oh, I’m so glad, Uncle Harry, I’m so glad!’ cried Jennifer.

  Her face was bright. Morcar looked at her with pity and love. He perceived that she was glad not only because this sale freed Jonathan from textiles, but because it freed her to marry Nat Armitage without hurting Morcar. She did not know this yet, perhaps, but it was so, had probably been so in her unconscious mind from the first.

  ‘Well, well,’ thought Morcar sardonically, as he sat in his den considering how to provide the money for the purchase with the least possible inconvenience to his other affairs: ‘This has been a delightful Sunday, I must say. A real day of rest.’

  16. Textile

  ‘ I don’t want to hurry you, Chuff, and if you feel you’d like a few months’ holiday before you settle down I agree it’s your due,’ said Morcar. They were sitting together in the den next morning. ‘But in this country courses and terms and so on start mostly in September, and I’m off next week for a month in Scandinavia, so if you could make up your mind soon it would be helpful. Now, what Do you want to do? do you want to go back to school?’

  ‘School?’ yelped Chuff in horror. ‘No! I’m nearly eighteen.’

  ‘If you want to go to university you’ll have to work up for exams.’

  ‘I don’t want to go to university,’ mumbled Chuff.

  ‘Jonathan is at Oxford,’ said Morcar, determined not to make the mistake he had made with Jonathan.

  ‘I’m not Jonathan. Universities aren’t in my line.’

  ‘Have you any idea what your line is, then? Farming here would be very different from in South Africa, ‘I’m afraid.’

  There was a pause.

  ‘I don’t want to hurry you,’ repeated Morcar. He was in fact throbbing with impatience, for he had a great deal to arrange before he could leave for his regular ‘designing’ trip to Copenhagen and points north, but after his mistakes with Jonathan he meant to be as calm, impartial, and helpful as he possibly could.

  There was another pause, but Morcar, eyeing Chuff, thought he saw signs that the boy was struggling to utter.

  ‘Come along. Let’s have it,’ he said encouragingly.

  Chuff coloured, looked aside and twisted his fingers.

  ‘Father used to talk about cloth,’ he muttered.

  It was a lightning stroke under which Morcar reeled. I ought to be thankful, he thought, I ought to be delighted; but the contrast between the agreeable, highly intelligent, sophisticated, and pleasing Jonathan he had hoped for, and this lout of a grandson he had received, was almost more than he could bear. Still! On second thoughts perhaps he was delighted. Yes, perhaps he was. At any rate, make the best of what you can get. I’m not going to pressure him into it, though.

  ‘If you’re going in for textiles,’ he said in a loud rough bullying tone, ‘you’ll have to take a three-year course at Leeds University.’

  ‘I don’t want to go to any University. I’ll go to Annotsfield Technical College.’

  ‘How do you know about Annotsfield Technical College?’ inquired Morcar, astonished.

  ‘I read about it in the newspaper advertisements.’

  ‘You haven’t wasted much time.’

  ‘Why should I?’ said Chuff. He gave a sudden grin, and for the first time Morcar felt his heart warm to the boy.

  ‘If you and I are going to work together, Chuff,’ he began - and paused, for he had already expressed the thought which filled his mind - ‘we must take each other as we are,’ he concluded lamely.

  ‘Yes, of course,’ agreed Chuff, not understanding but beginning to look very cheerful. ‘Is it a business trip to Scandinavia, Grandfather?’

  ‘Yes
.’

  ‘Can I go with you?’

  ‘Not this time, Chuff. You don’t know enough about cloth to learn anything from it.’ Chuff looked disappointed, and to soothe this feeling Morcar explained: ‘Norway, Sweden, Denmark - they’re some of my biggest markets. I go over twice a year, and see my agents there, and we design my next season’s ranges together, as it were. Men’s suitings, chiefly. Checks, all-overs, stripes, you know. Well, you don’t know. Of course for Scandinavia they have to be quiet, sober, not too much contrast. Then I come back, and we weave section ranges on the pattern looms and send them over, and then we have to send over lengths as well, so that they can make suits out of them to see how they look -it costs the earth. But nowadays it’s not enough to make good cloth, you have to sell it as well. Then twice a year I make a selling trip. But August-September, that’s a time for design.’

  Start me on textiles and I go on for ever, he thought, and stopped abruptly.

  ‘And do you go to other countries as well?’ asked Chuff.

  ‘Oh yes. Germany, Austria. Not France much. Canada. USA. Some firms go to Greece and Iran and even Hong Kong. I have agents there, but I don’t go myself. I ought to, I know, but one man can’t do everything.’

  ‘It must be very interesting, seeing all those countries,’ said Chuff wistfully.

  ‘You don’t see much of ‘em. You just sit in an office and work. Very hard work,’ said Morcar grimly.

  ‘But who do you sell to exactly? Merchants?’ queried Chuff, shyly producing what to him was obviously a technical term.

  ‘No, no. Merchants don’t count for much nowadays - not more than ten per cent, I should say. No; it’s the big manufacturers of ready-made clothing, both in this country and overseas, who are my main customers today.’

  At this point Jonathan in the garden, carrying books and papers as usual, passed by the open windows.

  ‘Jonathan!’ called Morcar in a commanding tone.

  Jonathan returned.

  ‘If I give you two lads a small car between you, can you share it without quarrelling?’

  ‘Sure!’ cried Chuff eagerly.

  ‘Yes, certainly,’ said Jonathan coolly after a pause.