A Man of His Time

by Phyllis Bentley

  The chairman cleared his throat.

  ‘As soon as we’ve acquired the necessary property,’ he said firmly.

  ‘This is going to cost Annotsfield a pretty penny, gentlemen !’ exclaimed Morcar.

  ‘Compensation is statutory, and according to fixed scales.’

  ‘But moveables are not compensatable,’ put in the Borough Surveyor hurriedly.

  Morcar gave an exclamation full of bitterness, thinking of all his modern electricity installations, on which he had spent so much, of which he had been so proud. Looms and presses could be moved, but at what a cost.

  ‘Is re-housing statutory?’ he inquired. ‘Have you to find me a new home, eh?’

  There was a pause. The three men looked at each other sadly.

  ‘Re-housing is only statutory for domestic property,’ said the Borough Surveyor at last.

  ‘Of course we shall be as helpful as we can,’ ventured the chairman.

  ‘You’re going to lose my Syke Mills rates, too! I hope you’ll enjoy that - they’re heavy enough!’ cried Morcar with vicious enjoyment.

  ‘We’re going to lose a lot of rates, Mr Morcar,’ said the chairman.

  ‘But future re-development may restore some,’ said the Borough Surveyor.

  ‘It’s all nonsense! Bloody nonsense!’ exclaimed Morcar in agony. In spite of himself, his voice broke.

  ‘I won’t insult you by saying we are as distressed as you are, Mr Morcar,’ said the chairman. ‘But we are deeply distressed by this necessity.’

  ‘You experience empathy, do you?’ inquired Morcar sardonically.

  ‘I don’t know what that means, Mr Morcar.’ said the chairman with dignity. ‘But we are deeply distressed on your behalf.’

  ‘Much obliged, I’m sure.’ said Morcar roughly

  But in his heart he felt more kindly to them and at the same time more despairing. They were men as honest and as determined as himself, he thought; men caught between contemporary pressures, who were genuinely striving for their town’s good; they grieved sincerely for his trouble and had dreaded this interview almost as much as he had himself. Against such men there was no hope; they had after honest anxious thought honestly made up their minds to the honest best of their ability; they were Yorkshiremen as stubborn as he was, they would not budge.

  ‘You’ve got two mills beside Syke, Harry,’ said the member, Smethurst by name, who knew him at the club.

  ‘They work in with Syke.’

  ‘You could retire, Mr Morcar,’ suggested the Borough Surveyor - who was, of course, reflected Morcar after a quick flash of anger, not a West Riding man.

  ‘No, no,’ said the other two hastily.

  ‘If Syke is pulled down it will mean three hundred Ire Valley men out of work.’ said Morcar. ‘Of course three hundred is nothing compared with the millions people talk about nowadays, but the Ire Valley isn’t going to like it.’

  The chairman, holding his head down, was heard to murmur something about fresh premises.

  ‘That’s something I meant to mention to you, Harry,’ exclaimed the third member. ‘If you should think of -building anywhere, or adapting a building - well, of course in any case you would have to get planning permission, so perhaps that would be taken care of - but there are certain areas of Annotsfield which are scheduled for rehabilitation. It would be useless to seek accommodation in such areas, as you can see. Because they too will be pulled down shortly.’

  Morcar groaned.

  ‘And everything outside the town’s in a Green Belt area, I suppose,’ he said.

  ‘Now, Harry, that’s not fair.’

  ‘I don’t feel in a mood to be fair,’ said Morcar.

  ‘We understand that,’ said the chairman quietly.

  ‘Well, I can see there’s nothing more to be said,’ said Morcar. He rose and picked up his hat. ‘Except just one thing. If this is the method taken to increase production and send up export figures, it’s not one I recommend. Goodnight, gentlemen, I suppose I shall hear when the scheme’s approved, from the evening paper. Thank you for receiving me.’

  The chairman stood up and offered his hand, and the other two followed his example. Morcar solemnly shook hands all round, and left.

  ‘This is as bad as 1931,’he thought, plunging down the Town Hall steps.

  33. Premises

  Morcar managed to keep a composed face at the breakfast table next morning, but could not eat. To distract attention from his lack of appetite he found it useful to talk a good deal.

  ‘I don’t know whether I altogether like that new fringe of yours, Susie,’ he said.

  Susie burst into tears and rushed from the room.

  ‘Really, Uncle Harry,’ said Jonathan reproachfully, throwing down his napkin and rising to follow her: ‘I think that was unkind. You know how much Susie cares for your good opinion.’

  ‘I don’t, as a matter of fact,’ said Morcar gruffly.

  ‘Of course you do. Surely she has a right to dress her hair as she wishes.’

  ‘And I have the right to like or dislike it.’ snapped Morcar.

  ‘Well, yes. That’s a rational view,’ said Jonathan, somewhat mollified. ‘But Susie’s rather young to appreciate it.’

  ‘And I’m rather old to like change.’

  Jonathan exclaimed crossly and left the room.

  ‘They’re always pretty gloomy on Friday, Grandfather,’ said Chuff soothingly.

  Morcar reflected. Friday, was it? Yes, he supposed this awful week had reached its last working day. Since Jonathan had begun teaching in Annotsfield and settled for the time being at Stanney Royd, he dined on Friday nights with the Nat Armitages; on these occasions Jennifer sometimes invited other young people to meet her son. (The Sunday excursions to Emsley Hall by Morcar and Susie were slipping into disuse; Morcar walked over sometimes but Susie usually went out with Jonathan on Sundays; Chuff still divided the day between his grandmother and his girl.) On Friday evenings Chuff had a class at the Technical College. On Friday evenings therefore Susie sat alone in Morcar’s den, conscientiously clearing off her weekend’s homework. On Friday evenings Morcar went down to the Annotsfield Club. To go to the Club tonight would be about as uncomfortable for him as being bound to the cylinder of a carding engine, he thought. The proposed demolition of Syke Mills had created a furore throughout Annotsfield, and every man who entered the Club would offer his sympathy to Morcar, either genuinely or with his tongue in his cheek at the misfortune of a competitor - a continual series of sharp painful stabs. On the other hand, nothing in the world would induce Morcar to stay away from the Club that night. He would face it out -with a cheerful face, too - if it killed him. But what should he say if they asked him what his plans were?

  He took a decision which he now perceived had been forming in his mind all night.

  ‘Are you at Syke or Tech this morning, Chuff?’

  ‘Syke.’

  Tell Nathan I’ll be late. Get the car out for me, will you?’

  ‘Where are you going, Grandfather?’ ‘Never mind.’

  Chuff scowled but flung obediently away.

  Jonathan and Susie now returned, smilng, Morcar felt, rather artificially. Susie had parted her fringe to each side, leaving her temples bare; the result, with the strands of short hair protruding, looked rather odd.

  ‘Well, now, Susie,’ said Morcar in his friendliest tone: ‘You misunderstood me, you know.’

  ‘Yes, Grandfather,’ said Susie brightly.

  Oh, lord, they’ve remembered that I’m in trouble and have to be handled like glass, wrapped up in cotton wool, thought Morcar in disgust.

  ‘I only meant that I couldn’t make up my mind about the fringe for a few days - until I got used to it, you know,’ he pleaded.

  ‘Yes, Grandfather,’ said Susie as before, ‘Shall I give you some more coffee?’

  ‘Yes, do, dear,’ said Morcar with a sigh.

  She took his cup, Jonathan the while reseating himself at the table and smiling app
roval. When she bent down beside Morcar to replace the cup, he put up one finger and gently drew the short gleaming strands back across her forehead. Susie smiled at him, and this time, thought Morcar with relief, the smile was genuine.

  When he went out he found that Chuff had not only opened the garage and extracted his car, but driven it down the drive past the awkward turn and placed it in the road, facing down towards Syke Mills.

  ‘I don’t want to go down the valley - turn it round for me, there’s a good lad,’ said Morcar.

  Chuff, who was a good driver, neatly and skilfully did so, but he had to back up the drive quite a distance to obtain the necessary space at the side. Meanwhile Morcar stood by the gate and meditated. Ah, if only old John Hardakei were alive, he thought - for he had made up his mind to go and take a look at Ramsgill - if only we were partners, if that merger had gone through! At least I should have someone on my side to talk to about the Ring Road. I could have built an extension to Ramsgill; it would all have been natural and easy. What a shame for the old man to have been struck down like that! And for what reason? A paltry few hundred pounds that he could have given those lads outright without feeling it! If only they’d told him the mess they were in! There was no confidence between those three. If only people confided in each other! It struck him suddenly that he was making exactly the same mistake himself. Chuff had now turned the car to face up the Ire Valley, and left the driving seat. He looked sour, and scowled.

  ‘Can you keep a secret, Chuff?’ asked Morcar.

  ‘Yes,’ said Chuff, brightening.

  ‘You’ve heard of Ramsgill Mills, I daresay.’

  ‘Where the Hardakers were? Yes - Jonathan told me.’

  ‘Well, I’m going to see it. If we’re to be turned out of Syke Mills we must find other premises.’

  ‘Goodoh!’ exclaimed Chuff. ‘But isn’t Ramsgill occupied?’

  ‘It’s let to a lot of small firms.’

  ‘You’d buy it over their heads?’ said Chuff approvingly.

  ‘Yes!’ said Morcar with emphasis, though he felt a pang of conscience. ‘They’re small; they can find other places easier than I can. They’re not in cloth, they haven’t looms and such. But listen, Chuff. It’s absolutely essential that nobody hears about this yet. Understand me? Not one word to anybody. Except Jonathan, perhaps,’ he added. ‘But warn him to keep it quiet.’

  ‘I understand what you say, and of course I won’t say a word, but I don’t see why.’

  ‘Because I don’t want to look a fool if it doesn’t come off,’ said Morcar sharply. He started the engine. Chuff stood beside the window, glowering. ‘Would you like to come with me?’ said Morcar on impulse.

  ‘Yes!’ exclaimed Chuff, leaping round the car.

  ‘Go and telephone Nathan, then, or he’ll think—’ began Morcar. He left his sentence unfinished; he felt that Nathan (who had wept at the news of the proposed demolition) would think that this disaster had knocked Morcar completely out if Morcar did not turn up on time at Syke Mills; but this was not a thought he wished to express to his grandson.

  While he sat waiting, the Minicar with Jonathan and Susie came down the drive. (The arrangement nowadays was that Jonathan had the car one day, Chuff the next, whoever had it dropped Susie at school on his way to work. On alternate days Chuff drove his motor-bike and Jonathan took the bus.) They waved cheerfully as they drove off down the valley. Chuff came out, smiling, and seated himself beside Morcar.

  ‘You didn’t say a word to Nathan?’

  ‘Not a word. I think he heard in my voice that I was feeling more cheerful, though,’ said Chuff honestly.

  Morcar snorted and drove off.

  Presently he turned across the Ire and turned up the steep lane (now, he noticed, officially signposted Scape Scar Lane) which led up the flank of the Pennine ridge separating the Ire Valley from Ramsgill. Farther east, this broad ridge divided into several slopes with intervening valleys, which made the low-lying route from Annotsfield to Ramsgill considerably longer; here they were at the neck of the system, as it were, and the distance from Stanney Royd to Ramsgill was not great. Morcar explained this carefully to Chuff, who listened with interest.

  ‘This is where the murder took place,’ said Morcar, drawing across the road so that he could look down the steep rocky slope where old John Hardaker’s car had burst into flames.

  ‘Look out!’ cried Chuff suddenly.

  A large lorry had suddenly bounced over the brow of the lane and was rushing straight down upon their car, which was of course standing on the wrong side of the road. Morcar instantly accelerated and swung the wheel, and they found themselves safely on the grass verge, a few inches from the brink and the steep drop, while the driver’s mate on the lorry, and the driver of a following car, shook their fists and shouted imprecations at Morcar.

  ‘That was a silly thing for me to do,’ exclaimed Morcar, as he swung the car back to its proper side of the road. ‘I hadn’t realized how much this road is used nowadays. A few years back it was a mere rough lane.’

  Chuff gazed ahead and said nothing, rather markedly.

  ‘A very fine view of the industrial West Riding.’ said Morcar as they topped the brow and turned into the main road.

  ‘Yes. It’s kind of - complex, all these hills and valleys crisscrossing each other.’

  ‘Nobody has ever been able to find the right word for it,’ said Morcar with satisfaction.

  ‘Where’s Annotsfield from here?’

  ‘Oh, Annotsfield’s out of sight over that way.’ said Morcar, nodding his head in a southerly direction. ‘We’re not in the Annotsfield borough now; we’re in Hudley.’

  It was difficult for him to say this, and he could not keep the pain from his voice. He had nothing against Hudley, of course, but he was an Annotsfield man, and the thought of moving into another borough, of having a Hudley address on his business notepaper, was a deep grief to him. But it was no use being sentimental about the matter; if there were suitable premises for him in Hudley, to Hudley he would have to go. Chuff looked at him sharply, but was mercifully silent.

  They reached Ramsgill Mills and dismounted.

  The paint was shabby. Morcar remembered having urged the lawyers entrusted with the Hardaker affairs to give the building a new coat of paint to increase its purchase value, but they had declined to incur this expense. The excuse they offered was that a purchaser might have his own views on the colour of the paint; but in Morcar’s opinion this was nonsense, for by custom the window-paint of all West Riding textile mills was white. ‘There are doors and railings, Mr Morcar,’ objected the lawyer. Morcar let the matter drop, with the result that the white paint was now dirty and flaking, and the doors wore a dingy green. The’. J. L. Hardaker and Company brass plate was gone from the front door -the screw-holes were still visible - and a sheet of inadequate cardboard instead announced a firm of beauty products. Various other placards and posters about the frontage told of various other activities, none of them, as Morcar knew, textile. Morcar strode under the archway into the yard. The boiler pit had been filled up, the engine-room doors were closed and looked as if they had not been opened since the sale a couple of years ago; the paving of the yard seemed to have disintegrated, it was uneven, full of pot-holes and mud. Rubbish lay about in heaps: cardboard, paper, rags, sacking, shards of pottery, ragged and rusting sheets of iron. Morcar, who remembered this yard clean, spick and span, warm from the boiler fires, humming with the great flywheel of the engine-room and the distant sound of the looms, felt profoundly saddened by its present decay.

  ‘We should have bought it and kept it going,’ he muttered. He crossed the yard. ‘Well, let’s see the loom-shed,’ he said.

  He entered. The once vast space was now cut up by thin wood partitions into half a dozen rooms, each occupied by what was no doubt some useful activity, thought Morcar, trying to be fair. But what a waste to use such an acreage thus! A small spare harassed-looking man in shirt sleeves and waistcoat came ou
t of one of the rooms and looked interrogatively at Morcar.

  ‘Can I help you?’ he said suspiciously.

  ‘Young and Young,’ replied Morcar in a casual tone. ‘Just a matter of some repairs.’

  ‘Oh,’ said the man, nodding in apparent understanding. ‘Well, there’s nothing wrong here.’

  ‘No, it’s not you I’m looking for,’ said Morcar cheerfully, and passed on.

  They crossed the yard back to the beauty product quarters, and made a thorough tour of the whole mill.

  ‘I suppose you didn’t want to give your own name,’ said Chuff as they drove away.

  ‘He wouldn’t have known it. This is Hudley, not Annotsfield, and he wasn’t a textile man. Young and Young are the lawyers in charge. All of them will pay their rent to Young’s.’

  ‘Oh, I see,’ said Chuff, relieved.

  ‘I’ll ring Young’s up in a day or two,’ said Morcar. ‘Meanwhile, I think I’d better go to Scarborough tomorrow. Be sure you fill the car up tonight.’

  ‘Scarborough?’

  ‘Young Mrs Hardaker lives there.’

  ‘You won’t make her an offer for Ramsgill tomorrow, though?’ said Chuff quickly.

  ‘Of course not. There’ll be a lot of bother before I get to that point - valuations and counter-valuations and lawyers and deeds and heaven knows what. But I want to get Carol Hardaker on my side. She has children - a couple of boys and a girl - if she’s any sentiment about keeping Ramsgill for the boys to start up again, I’d better know it now. It’ll cost a lot of money to get Ramsgill in running textile order again - more money than she’s ever likely to have, poor girl. She’d do best to sell it to me. We’ll call at Old Mill on our way back,’ he concluded.

  ‘Jonathan says Old Mill was the first mill the Oldroyds had,’ said Chuff as they turned down the lane off the main Ire Valley road towards the Ire.

  ‘Yes, it was,’ said Morcar shortly. ‘It was called Syke Mill then,’ he added.

  ‘It’s a tumbledown old place.’

  ‘It has water rights, though,’ said Morcar as before.

  Morcar could not but remember how Old Mill had been David Oldroyd’s and Jennifer’s and Jonathan’s, and how it had fallen into his hands. But such griefs must just be forgotten, and Ramsgill’s situation in Hudley must just be forgotten. A man who was a man put these things aside and went on with his work. The thought of the immense amount of work required to rehabilitate Ramsgill should invigorate him. It was not, no, not, he told himself, daunting. Once he got Ramsgill into his hands he would be too busy to indulge in any sentimental sadnesses. Tonight at the club, when asked his plans, he would be able to put on a secretive smile, and reply that he had one or two things in mind. He actually whistled as Old Mill, with the Ire flowing peacefully in the background, came into view.