A Man of His Time

by Phyllis Bentley

  ‘He doesn’t know,’ said Grimshaw scornfully.

  ‘At the beginning of the period we’re talking about,’ began Jonathan. (‘Who’s talking?’ inquired Grimshaw.) ‘Furs came chiefly from the East—’

  ‘Everything seems to come from the East.’

  ‘But when towards the end of the century America was discovered by Columbus, after that furs—’

  ‘Do kittens have fur?’ broke in a rather plump boy named Smith.

  ‘Of course they do,’ said Grimshaw scornfully.

  ‘Certainly,’ said Jonathan. ‘Now—’

  ‘Do all animals have fur, sir?’

  ‘Either fur or hair,’ replied Jonathan, considering. ‘Fur-bearing animals—’

  ‘Which have which?’

  ‘Cows have fur,’ declared Grimshaw.

  ‘No, they don’t. Horses and cows and dogs have hair,’ said Smith.

  ‘Kittens have fur.’

  ‘Fur-bearing animals have fur, and hairy animals have hair,’ pronounced Grimshaw. ‘So now you know.’

  ‘Let us get back to our subject, boys,’ said Jonathan in an artificially mild tone. (‘What on earth am I talking about America for?’ he thought amid the whirl. ‘That’s the next but one lesson in the course, not this one.’)

  ‘Kittens. That’s what we were talking about, Mr Oldroyd.’

  ‘Could you make a fur coat from kitten’s fur?’

  ‘If you had enough, you could, but they’re very small,’ said Shackleton, peace-making.

  ‘Enough! There are too many kittens, always. You have to drown some.’

  ‘No, you don’t! That’s cruel!’ cried the class.

  ‘Yes, you do. My auntie’s cat had two lots of kittens last year.’

  ‘She couldn’t have had.’

  ‘Yes, she could. She did.’

  ‘My grandma’s cat had seventy kittens in eight years,’ shrilled Grimshaw.

  A roar of laughter greeted this contribution.

  ‘It’s true! My grandma told me,’ cried Grimshaw.

  Jonathan lost his temper.

  ‘Be quiet!’ he shouted, crimsoning.

  Instantly silence fell. Jonathan tried hastily to find his way back to his prepared script for the lesson. He could not remember a word of it. Something must be said, however. He pointed to the Hudson Bay area on the map, controlled his voice and said quietly: ‘All over this vast forested region with its great mountains and rivers, trappers were at work.’

  ‘What sort of animals did they trap, sir?’ inquired Shackleton, who, as usual, really wanted to know.

  ‘Fur-bearing animals,’ said Grimshaw sotto voce.

  ‘Beaver,’ said Jonathan, hastily racking his brains, from which the name of every Canadian animal seemed to have fled. ‘Fox. Squirrel. Skunk.’

  ‘Ugh! Skunk!’ said Grimshaw, wrinkling his nose.

  At this all the class wrinkled their noses.

  ‘Bob cat perhaps,’ said Jonathan hurriedly.

  ‘Are bob cats like our cats?’

  ‘Larger, and with yellow fur,’ said someone at the back.

  ‘I think some have spots. I’ve seen them on the telly.’

  ‘Yes, so have I.’

  ‘My grandma’s cat has four white boots,’ said Grimshaw.

  ‘Oh, Grimmy’s grandma’s cat!’ cried several voices in joyous derision.

  ‘Leave my grandma alone!’ shouted Grimshaw.

  At this moment the bell rang and the lesson terminated.

  Flushed, astounded, defeated, and altogether wretched -how on earth had he been decoyed from history to zoology, and two centuries forward in time? - Jonathan hastily threw his papers together. ‘My pictures of Venice, please!’ he cried repeatedly. At first he was not heard above the din, then at last Shackleton made a dash and rescued the pictures - creased and dirty - from the floor, and placed them in his hand. Thankfully Jonathan turned to leave the room.

  In the doorway he met a long lean grey-haired master of commanding appearance who gave him a kindly smile. It was so obvious that this man had heard the uproar coming from Jonathan’s attempt at teaching that the young man felt obliged in mere honesty to make a reference to his lack of success.

  ‘I’m afraid I didn’t do that very well,’ he said, forcing a rueful grin.

  ‘Never mind. You’ll learn,’ said the elderly master. ‘Let me give you a tip - beware the side-tracking question. Never answer it.’

  ‘Yes, indeed,’ agreed Jonathan fervently, seeing in a flash his errors in this respect. ‘I’ve learned that already, I think.’

  ‘Where are you going now?’

  ‘Ia English. I’m to help out with English here and there.’

  ‘Give them a bit of dictation to keep them quiet, and then let them read.’

  ‘But what?’ said Jonathan, flustered, and thinking regretfully of the lesson he had earnestly prepared.

  ‘The Wind in the Willows is the thing. There’ll be copies in the form cupboard. Dictate a piece with no dialogue,’ said his mentor, disappearing into Jonathan’s form room, which instantly fell still.

  Jonathan thankfully accepted this advice, and things went fairly well until some of the forty-strong class began to repeat under their breath what he had said. At first Jonathan could not see the point of this, but he was already sufficiently alerted to judging the mood of the class to recognize that its intention was hostile. Genuinely perplexed, he looked inquiringly into the faces of those thus repeating, not always accurately, what he had dictated; they giggled and turned aside. It came to him (slowly) that their speech had a curious twang, not wholly native. Suddenly he remembered Grimshaw’s ‘latah, latah,’ and it struck him with the force of a blow that these eleven-plussers were deriding, by imitating, his accent.

  It had never occurred to Jonathan to listen to his own speech. He had taken for granted, without a single conscious thought, that he and his mother and Susie spoke the ordinary English of educated persons, and that Morcar had a hearty Yorkshire inflexion which Jonathan enjoyed. (To his affectionate amusement, Chuff’s slight South African twang had recently shown signs of developing a Yorkshire note.) But that his own speech might be considered -obviously was being so considered by these children - ‘south-country’ and ‘la-di-da’ was a personal reflection which made all his hackles rise.

  ‘Are you trying to imitate the way I speak?’ he said to the next child who attempted it.

  Naturally there was no audible response to this, but from their looks he perceived that the whole class was guilty.

  Jonathan laughed. (Perhaps, he reflected afterwards in the free period which mercifully followed, there had been just a trace of bitterness in this laugh.)

  ‘Well, try arder,’ he said.

  The class was silent for the remainder of the dictation, but they looked glum and suspicious; they imagined, Jonathan saw too late, that he was deriding their own accents.

  Their reading was atrocious.

  The six lessons and one free period of the day were over at last. In the afternoon Jonathan had two consecutive periods with a section of the sixth form. With these twelve lads, only a few years younger than Jonathan, and interested in him, because his Oxford career was exactly what they wished for themselves, as well as in his subject, he had unqualified success; the time sped by, the response was all that he had hoped. He left them with confidence restored, feeling happy. Unfortunately, for the last period of the day he had to cope with the thirteen-year-olds of Form III. The result was chaos.

  Jonathan came home to Stanney Royd feeling that the dearest ambition of his heart - to realize which, he felt, he had fought Morcar tooth and nail for years - was totally out of his reach; he was totally unsuited for, incapable of, teaching.

  28. Chuff and Jonathan

  ‘Well, how did it go today, Jonathan?’ inquired Morcar comfortably, as they all sat at coffee in the den that evening.

  ‘Not too well, I’m afraid,’ said Jonathan, putting on a cheerful air.

&n
bsp; ‘I wouldn’t do teaching for the world - standing up in front of a lot of little boys and messing about with chalk on a board,’ said Chuff.

  ‘Well, nobody is asking you to teach,’ said Jonathan with some asperity.

  ‘I don’t think it’s your line at all, Jonathan,’ continued Chuff.

  ‘How would you like it if I said I didn’t think textiles were your line,’ cried Jonathan angrily, his temper, frayed by the events of the day, suddenly giving way.

  ‘Are you saying that? Eh?’ said Chuff, turning crimson.

  ‘Nowadays managerial competence is the essential, not family inheritance,’ snapped Jonathan. ‘I don’t think you’re particularly well qualified to take over Syke Mills.’

  ‘Ah, hell, man, you’re jealous,’ said Chuff contemptuously.

  Jonathan laughed, and Morcar said: ‘Now come, Chuff. You know perfectly well that Jonathan declined to enter textiles.’

  ‘More fool he,’ said Chuff.

  ‘I’d better go, or we shall quarrel,’ said Jonathan, rising. Susie at once rose too.

  ‘We have quarrelled,’ said Chuff.

  ‘Now that’s enough. Stop it at once, you two,’ said Morcar sternly. ‘Each of you owes the other an apology.’

  After a pause Jonathan said in a stifled tone: ‘I agree. I apologize.’

  ‘Oh, so do I,’ said Chuff, offhand.

  Jonathan went out into the garden by the window, and Susie followed.

  ‘All the same, I don’t think teaching’s Jonathan’s line at all,’ persisted Chuff.

  ‘Just because it’s not your line, doesn’t mean it isn’t a fine career,’ Morcar reproved him. ‘It’s what Jonathan wants to do and I respect him for it, and you have no right to interfere.’

  ‘I still don’t think it’s Jonathan’s line.’

  ‘But you know nothing about it,’ said Morcar crossly.

  ‘He cares too much about everything. He’s not tough enough.’

  ‘I disagree. He goes in for these marches and has brushes with the police.’

  ‘He just sits down, and they carry him off. Oh, it takes courage, I expect,’ said Chuff, ‘but it’s rather, rather—’

  ‘Passive?’

  ‘Yes. He’s not aggressive. He doesn’t stand up enough for himself. He’s not tough.’

  ‘And you are tough, I suppose.’

  ‘Toughish,’ said Chuff with a grin.

  He rose, but remained where he was, standing and gazing at his grandfather. Morcar looked at him inquiringly.

  ‘I get a bit tired of it, you know, Grandfather,’ said Chuff at length.

  ‘Tired of what?’

  ‘Everybody liking Jonathan so much better than they like me. You do, and Aunt Jennifer of course, and Mrs Jessopp.

  And even Susie. And Mrs Mellor, and G.B.’

  ‘What about Ruth?’ blurted Morcar, alarmed.

  Chuff smiled. ‘Oh, Ruth’s all right,’ he said. He paused. ‘The trouble is,’ he added with a rather nervous grin: ‘I agree with them.’

  ‘Chuff, you’re all right,’ said Morcar. He felt guilty; he had never given a thought to the boy’s possible jealousy of his cousin.

  ‘Ha!’ said Chuff. ‘Not to worry, Grandfather. As Jonathan would say,’ he added sardonically.

  He laughed, and bounced out of the room.

  29. Jonathan and Susie

  Meanwhile susie and Jonathan paced round the garden.

  ‘Just once more,’ said Jonathan. ‘Then I must get to work on tomorrow’s lessons.’ He sighed. ‘I’m sorry I was rude to Chuff, Susie. I wasn’t really accusing Chuff. It was just the principle of the thing. I’m really very fond of Chuff, but he annoyed me.’

  ‘He’s fond of you. But he feels you’re sort of superior.’

  ‘He dances better than I do - everything physical he does better than I do,’ expostulated Jonathan. ‘It was just that—’

  ‘You’re disappointed with school,’ said Susie softly.

  ‘With myself. It’s not easy to take when one’s efforts have always succeeded before.’

  ‘I suppose teaching’s as difficult to learn as anything else.’

  Jonathan laughed rather harshly.

  ‘I mean, if you wanted to be good at playing in an orchestra, you wouldn’t expect to be at Hallé standard on your first day,’ said Susie.

  ‘You’re right,’ exclaimed Jonathan. He reflected, then said: ‘Teaching is more than just exposition, Susie.’

  ‘What is it, then?’

  ‘I don’t know - yet. Pussy, I ought to have gone to that Training College.’

  ‘You can go next year,’ said Susie, comforting.

  IV Textile

  30. Ring Road

  All of a sudden Morcar felt deadly tired.

  His Scandinavian agent was an excellent agent and an honest and agreeable man, but they had been together for five days and had nothing more to say to each other. They had talked of the rose and lemon, of worsted plans for next spring, of the rose and lemon, of the sales of the rose and lemon, of the iniquities of competitors, of the changing market, of the rose and lemon, of what was to replace the rose and lemon next year. Morcar felt sick and tired of the rose and lemon, and at the same time uncomfortably conscious that he had nothing else as good to replace it. Some inspiration would probably come in a few months, but it could not be forced. Inspirations did not bubble up in his mind nowadays as often as they used to do twenty or thirty years ago. The head of his designing department, though admirable in development, had not a very original mind -or if he had, he’d forgotten how to use it in his long years of service under a man who always provided the necessary originality himself. Morcar did not wish his Scandinavian agent to know that he had no brilliant idea in mind for next season. The agent naturally wished to probe into Morcar’s plans. There was therefore a friendly tussle, a conflict of aim, between them. Morcar was well able to keep his end up in a tussle of this kind; in a genial, forthright manner, without one definite word, he conveyed the impression that he had a first-class design on the point of emerging from his sleeve, but preferred not to particularize it just yet. The agent - a shrewd man, or he would not be Morcar’s agent -was not quite convinced and not quite unconvinced, but found Morcar too good and reliable a provider to annoy. They therefore tussled amicably. But now, all of a sudden, as they were on their way into lunch at the Palace Hotel in Copenhagen where Morcar was staying (his agent had come to meet him there) he suddenly felt that he simply could not bear any more of it. He was tired out. He had booked a seat on a plane leaving for Manchester the following afternoon, but the thought of spending another afternoon, evening, and morning in his agent’s company was suddenly intolerable. But what hope was there of avoiding it without hurting the man’s feelings?

  As they passed the receptionist’s desk the clerk gestured to him. He approached and took the proffered letter from the man’s hand. Almost he stuffed it into his pocket without opening it, for from the stamp and the typescript of the address he knew it would be Chuff’s daily screed. He had commanded from Chuff a daily account of what was going on at Syke, Daisy, and Old Mills. He knew that this was a chore Chuff loathed, he knew that the information thus too frequently collected had a bulk out of proportion to its value. He knew also that mainly it was Nathan who supplied it and mostly it was Ruth who put it into shape. But after what had happened during his South African absence he was not taking any chances, and if Chuff could be taught in this way to dictate a decent business letter, the experiment was well worth while.

  He opened the envelope. The letter, beautifully laid out - of course by Ruth - spread into two pages. (This, again, thought Morcar with a chuckle, was a device of Ruth’s to make Chuff look important.) It contained nothing needing urgent attention. As he turned to the second sheet, however, Morcar perceived in a flash how he could use it to free himself - or at least, to make the attempt.

  ‘Ha!’ he exclaimed, turning back with a serious look to the front page.

&nb
sp; ‘Bad news?’ queried the agent.

  ‘No. Good news,’ said Morcar, smiling. He folded up the letter and tucked it away in his pocket, with a great air of satisfaction. ‘In fact, the possibility of very good news. But it would be wise for me to be in Annotsfield tomorrow morning.’ He paused and frowned, as if considering.

  ‘There is an afternoon plane. Let us try for a booking,’ said the agent, naturally wishing to appear efficient and helpful.

  ‘Yes, I should be grateful. Do your best,’ said Morcar.

  The agent approached the head porter, and after a good deal of telephoning and possibly a little bribery - though the Danes were not much given to that kind of thing, reflected Morcar virtuously - Morcar had a seat on this afternoon’s plane.

  ‘Sorry to cut short my stay. But I think we’d pretty well finished, hadn’t we?’

  ‘I think yes,’ said the agent. He ran rapidly and accurately over what they had agreed, Morcar nodding at appropriate moments. ‘I regret we miss our free time together, but for a big deal—’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Morcar. ‘Pleasure to deal with a man who understands.’

  The result of all this was that they parted on excellent terms, and that about midnight Morcar found himself driving his car, which he had left at the Ringway airport, over the Pennines.

  His satisfaction was immense. Merely to be in England, in a country where what he said was always understood, was a great relief, but there was more to it than that. He had a deep feeling for his native Riding, and to be thus coming home to it gave him a sense of comfort, of content, almost as great, he thought, as if he were sinking into the arms of a woman he loved. The September night was clear and pleasant; there was a moon almost at full and quite a spangling of stars in and out of slender clouds which drifted slowly before a quiet breeze; the hills were alternately black and silver; the air was fresh. The feeling of fatigue, impatience, and frowstiness which had suddenly afflicted him in Copenhagen and increased in the plane, dropped away; he felt vigorous and happy. When he passed the county border into Yorkshire he felt so exhilarated that he actually burst into song. Pausing a moment to discover what he was singing, he was rather disconcerted to find that he had given voice to a tune which Jonathan often whistled lately about the house. It was a fine tune, and Morcar had once asked the lad its name. Jonathan had replied that it was a song much sung by Negroes and their supporters in protest marches in the southern states of the USA. (At this Chuff had looked extremely sulky.)