MORE TALES
OF THE WEST RIDING
by
PHYLLIS BENTLEY
Contents
PART I PAST EVENTS
The Secret (1890)
Cruel as the Grave (1880)
Leila (1900)
Out to Tea (1903)
Water, Water (1910)
“One of Our Heroes” (1848-1974)
PART II PRESENT OCCASIONS
At the Crossing (1971)
On the Station (1971)
In the Queue (1971)
For the Wedding (1971)
Removal (1973)
Mother-in-Law (1974)
A Note on the Author
PART I
PAST EVENTS
The Secret*
1890
Simon and Harry Emmett, cousins, both thought well of themselves. Both, also, having lost their parents in a typhoid outbreak, lived in Marthwaite with an old mutual aunt; both, in the early 1890’s, worked in the pressing-shop at Syke Mill; both took the crowded first tram of the day and swayed in rhythm with its bumpy passage down the West Riding Ire Valley to their place of employment. Both were powerful men with the sinewy arms needed for the heavy job they did together, which in those days consisted of folding many yards of cloth backwards and forwards over sheets of heavy brown cardboard “press papers” by hand, then carrying the massive piles thus composed across to one of the six tall presses, and screwing it down by hand. Both when going to work wore the clogs, the cloth caps, the wool mufflers, then customary for men in their position. Both Harry and Simon were fair in hair and complexion.
But in all other respects they were entirely different, almost opposite, you might say. They even liked themselves for entirely different reasons.
For Harry was tall, robust in frame and good-looking in a rather florid sort of way. His eyes were blue, his cheek fair, his lips moist and red, his hair thick and curly; he was cheerful and laughed a good deal, perhaps rather more than a sensible man should. He drank a bit and would have drunk more but that he wished to maintain his local reputation as a successful wrestler; he was a great one for girls, who adored him. In all these matters Harry took a light-hearted pride, and for all these matters Simon despised him.
For Simon was short and, though muscular and tough, hardly seemed to have enough flesh to cover his bones—“scraggy”, Harry cheerfully called him. His fair hair, though it attempted a mild wave, was thin and always appeared as if plastered to his skull; his eyes were grey and chilly. His head, however, was large and nobly shaped; and he was conscious that its contents were much superior to Harry’s. He enjoyed a drink, but took one rarely; he had not yet seen a girl he fancied and was not going to embark on sex relations till he did. He was honest, conscientious, altogether reliable if not very sunny. His employers approved him, the more serious of his workmates liked him well enough.
One morning on his way to work—it was January, and the Ire Valley was still shrouded in wintry dusk—Simon from his seat in the tram observed Harry, who was standing, strap-holding, in lively talk with a man and a couple of girls who stood around him. Simon knew the man; he was a pleasant good-natured fellow named William Brearley, gamekeeper to one of the groups of manufacturers—the owner of Syke Mill was in another such group—who leased part of the wild moorland above Marthwaite for shooting purposes. Brearley, though only in his twenties like the Emmetts, was already provided with a comfortable cottage up in a fold of the hills, and from the way he held the arm of one of the girls to steady her and coloured pleasantly at Harry’s jokes on the subject, it seemed likely he was contemplating matrimony with her.
Simon gave the girl (Alice Shepherd, he remembered, by name) a shrewd look, and approved. A nice, good, ordinary girl, he decided; brown eyes, brown hair, pointed chin; joking back at Harry staunchly without saying anything beyond modesty; nice enough but not very interesting. He would need more than that for himself. His glance moved away.
Ah! This, it appeared, was Alice’s younger sister, Emily. Very like Alice, too, but all the world away. Those large, dark, loving eyes in the heart-shaped face, that cloud of dark hair beneath her shawl, the lovely rose of her cheek, her delicious, rather pale lips curved in a gentle smile, the air of sweet timidity, of shy refinement. Her shawl slipped from head and shoulders as she looked up; her bosom, he saw, was soft and full.
Something stirred in Simon’s heart. Alice and William were, he gathered, to marry at Easter. Harry Emmett was to be William’s best man. As Harry’s cousin, Simon could surely contrive to be invited to the wedding feast. From then on, he would press steadily to his goal. He was earning well, he could afford to marry.
In the next few months Simon daydreamed often about his Emily. Quite often he saw her in the morning or evening tram, for Alice and Emily were “menders” at Syke Mill; he observed her keenly, and was ever more satisfied. They grew to nodding acquaintance; the bend of her head was shy and graceful. They spoke; the words they exchanged were only those of greeting and farewell, but they were enough to reveal her voice as sweet and low. Simon imagined himself at Alice’s wedding in Marthwaite Baptist chapel, at the party afterwards in the Sunday School. He would sit next to Emily and begin his courtship.
Towards the end of these three months Harry developed a habit of travelling on the upper deck of the tram, always occupied by men only, because there one was allowed to smoke. Thus he came into no contact with the Shepherd girls. It seemed to Simon, too, that Harry’s greetings to Alice and Emily as they left the tram had also become curt or nonexistent. Was it possible, perhaps, that Harry had divined his cousin’s attachment and wished to keep out of the way? Nothing less likely from the careless Harry! Still, it was an agreeable thought.
Then, one morning in early spring, it chanced that the upper deck was full before the cousins reached it and Harry, Simon and the two girls were grouped as on the morning when Simon first noticed Emily. (Simon usually secured a seat for himself, for he was prompt and claimed his rights.) Emily looked up at Harry. Her look was timid, beseeching, not quite venturing to be reproachful, but deeply sad. Harry looked back at her with a friendly, not ill-pleased but teasing smirk. At once Simon knew the whole story.
As the cousins passed through the great mill gates together, Simon grasped Harry’s arm and muttered brutally in his ear:
“You’ve got that girl into trouble.”
“Which girl?” said Harry, laughing.
“Emily Shepherd.”
“Well, where’s the harm?” said Harry cheerfully. “We can be wed. There’s plenty of time yet.”
But in this Harry was wrong, for by eleven o’clock that morning he was dead. As Harry and Simon were carrying a piece of cloth interspersed with press papers to the press, Harry’s foot slipped forward, he fell on his back, his grip was jerked loose, and the whole massive load (more than a hundredweight) came down on his belly. Simon stood transfixed, pale and breathless, clutching the other side of the pile till his muscles gave way and he was obliged to lower it to the ground. The foreman cried in anguish:
“He’s nowt but a bloody mess!”
It was too true.
At the inquest the verdict was, of course, accidental death. The foreman’s repeated bewilderment that a skilled worker like Harry Emmett—a wrestler, nimble on his feet, too—should slip at a job he’d done for upwards of three years was partly assuaged by the discovery of a patch of oil on the sole of Harry’s right clog—he must have stepped into some oil on his way across the mill yard beside the engine room. The coroner made some rather cutting remarks about keeping working premises clean, and Mr Brigg Oldroyd the younger—old Brigg was getting a bit past work now and left most of the management det
ails of Syke Mill to his son—was furious. He paid quite a nice sum in compensation, however, which of course went to Harry’s aunt.
On the night after the funeral, which was well attended, Simon went to the Shepherds’ terrace house. Mr Shepherd, a very strict Baptist, was out at a Chapel function, as Simon happened to know, and most fortunately he had taken his wife with him. It was therefore Alice who opened the door. She gave Simon a hard look.
“I wanted just to have a word with Emily,” said Simon mildly.
“Well, you can’t,” snapped Alice, and made to close the door.
“I’m Harry’s cousin, after all,” said Simon as before.
An angry exclamation exploded from Alice’s lips. “Much good that’ll do us!”
“You might be wrong there,” said Simon. His words were meek but his tone now hard.
Looks of rejection, hope, doubt and perplexity chased each other across Alice’s pleasant face.
“Well, come in then,” she said at last, drawing back the door. “But don’t stay long. She’s upset, like.”
Simon took off his cap and entered. Emily was sitting huddled by the fire, weeping. The eyes she lifted to him were full of grief and despair.
“Harry’s death has been a great blow to you, lass,” said Simon tenderly.
Tears rolled down Emily’s cheeks and she sadly bowed her head.
“Don’t go to upset her now,” commanded Alice.
“You clear out and leave us alone,” said Simon with sudden ferocity.
“Well,” said Alice, taken aback. “I don’t know. Well, I’ll go upstairs for a minute if you like. Do you want to talk to Simon Emmett, Em, eh?”
“I don’t mind,” said Emily, completely listless.
“You’ve only to call if you want me,” said Alice, loth to leave her.
Simon gave her an impatient scowl and she hurried off up the narrow stairs.
“Now, Emily,” said Simon, drawing up a chair and sitting down beside her: “Stop blubbering and listen to what I say. Your Alice and William Brearley are getting wed come Easter. Lets us be wed on t’same day, eh?”
Emily’s eyes opened wide and she stared at him in a kind of horror.
“I can’t, Simon,” she said faintly at length.
“Yes, you can. I know how it was—” He meant to say how it was between you and Harry, but he absolutely could not force out the words, and fell silent. There was a pause. “Child would have his father’s name, choose how,” he said at length, very low.
“Oh, Simon,” murmured Emily, still staring.
“Nobody need ever know. Alice doesn’t know, does she?”
“She knows I fancied Harry.”
“But about the baby?”
“Not for certain,” breathed Emily.
“Well, there you are, then. Your father need never know,” said Simon grimly, pressing his point.
As he had expected, a look of fear crossed Emily’s face—he knew well enough what her pious father would say when he discovered her moral lapse.
“Say yes. Everyone will be pleased.”
“And you, Simon? What about you? Would you be pleased?”
“I’ve always wanted you, Emily”, said Simon.
His absolute sincerity carried conviction.
“You’re a good man, Simon,” said Emily.
“I shall always be good to you, love. You can count on that.”
“And to the child?” panted Emily.
“And to your child. You agree, then?”
There was a pause. Then Emily raised glowing eyes.
“I agree”.
“Give us your hand on it,” said Simon, smiling.
Her warm, pulsating hand quivered in his, which she found cool and sinewy. But it was not only her own reputation, her own future which she thought of as she entrusted herself to Simon; it was the coming child’s. He would be safe and cared-for, no bastard, but the legitimate son of a strong and prosperous father. For herself, she would never love any man now Harry was gone; Simon would be as good a husband as any.
They arranged to be married at Eastertide. The Marthwaite folk, when they heard of the approaching nuptials, imagined they had been mistaken when they thought Emily was sweet on Harry Emmett and Harry on Emily.
“Happen it was a kind of cover, like, for Simon.”
“Aye. Or happen Harry backed out, like, when he saw Simon was serious.”
“Aye, happen. It’s true Harry had a dozen girls, he didn’t need to take Simon’s.”
“You’d think a girl would fancy Harry, though, of the pair.”
“There’s no accounting for women’s fancies.”
“There is not. Still, Simon’s a right decent chap. Steady and that.”
“He is. He’s all right, is Simon.”
Old Mr Shepherd, when he discovered his daughter’s condition, gave. Simon, to whom he naturally attributed it, a furious harangue about his immoral anticipation of wedlock. Simon listened in silence.
“Don’t you care at all for your sin?” thundered Emily’s father.
“I regret the matter with my whole heart and soul,” said Simon emphatically.
Old Shepherd was somewhat mollified.
At any rate, the secret of Harry’s paternity was firmly kept, and Simon and Emily were married at Easter without more than the mild scandal usual in such cases of belated weddings.
They took up their abode with the old aunt. She, however, had been broken in spirit by Harry’s death, for he had always been her favourite, and physical decay, accompanied by the customary lack of control of foot and hand, soon followed mental incoherence. Emily tended her with loving care, but it was not long before Simon was summoned from work by the news that his aunt had had a serious fall. She died two days later. The landlord of the cottage was perfectly willing to rent it to Simon, but though at first Simon seemed to mean to accept this offer, his intention presently wavered. This was after his wife had been delivered of a son, a fair, pretty, delicate child who was baptised as Wilfred.
When Wilfred was a month or two old, Simon asked for an interview with the owner of Syke Mill. He was shown into the presence of Mr Brigg Oldroyd the younger, who turned on him one of those piercing glances which his workmen had learned to dread. His tone, however, was not unkind as he asked Emmett his errand.
“William Brearley, my brother-in-law, tells me your lot are wanting a gamekeeper for your shooting on Marthwaite Moor.”
“That is so.”
“I should like to apply for the job.”
“But why?” said Brigg, surprised. “You know nothing about gamekeeping.”
“Aye, but I do. I’ve been about with William Brearley a lot, and he’s taught me the job.”
“You’ve a good job here. You’re a good worker, and I’ve been expecting to promote you to foreman in a few years.”
“I want to leave.”
“Why?”
“That’s nobody’s business but mine,” muttered Simon.
“That is true,” said Brigg coldly. As he spoke he remembered having heard something, some sort of gossip, about Emmett’s wife. He added in a more sympathetic tone:
“Are your workmates making you uncomfortable?”
“They’d best not try,” said Simon grimly.
There was a pause. Brigg observed that sweat stood on the man’s forehead.
“Well, I can’t promise anything, but I’ve reason to believe you’re an honest man and a conscientious worker, so I’ll recommend you to our shooting syndicate. But I think you’re making a mistake, Emmett, to leave a good job for some foolish notion.”
“I can’t seem to fancy the place since Harry—died,” blurted Simon.
“Ah. I see. I respect your feeling. I’ll recommend you,” said Brigg, nodding dismissal.
Simon obtained the gamekeeper’s post, and he moved with Emily and his cousin’s child to a neat stone cottage in a fold of the moors, built for their gamekeeper by the shooting syndicate. It was a remote spot, th
ough with a handy stream and a glorious view. Simon was happy there. Something in the bleak landscape—the dark rocks, the rough pale grass, the purple heather, the stubborn winds raging over the long slopes—fed his soul, and he enjoyed “keeping down” the vermin. Besides, it was good to be alone, not always on one’s guard. Nobody asked what Emily thought about the move, and Emily offered no comment. She had always been quiet and submissive, and she continued in this dutiful trend. Emmett was a considerate and devoted husband and in good employment, and they lived in modest but dependable comfort. Pity they had no (or, no more) children.
In fact the Emmetts enjoyed a quiet peace for several years, until little Wilfred began to walk and talk and play. It then appeared that unfortunately he was a little—it is difficult to find a word, for the disability was very slight, but he was really a little silly, a little “wanting”. His eyes were very wide and bright, his laugh shrill and loud; he ran about grinning, he asked silly questions and pestered people, and if rebuked burst into violent tears. When he had a bad cold, which was all too often, he kept his mother on the run all day, wanting this and that, calling her to his bedside and clinging frantically to her when she came.
“It’s strange a sharp ’un like Simon Emmett should have such a daft lad,” mused Marthwaite men.
“Well, you never know with children,” replied their wives. “Besides, Emily—she’s not over clever.”
“True. Happen that’s what’s wrong.”
“And she spoils Wilf.”
“She does. But Simon’s a good father. He does his best, choose how.”
But as Wilfred grew into a thin, lanky, febrile boy and his overbright eyes, his high giggle, his long clumsy feet, his sudden frenzies, remained permanent features of his personality, Marthwaite’s respect and sympathy for Simon in his handling of the boy turned to a certain irritation. The truth was, Wilfred’s silliness increased and became tiresome. At times Marthwaite actually expressed its irritation to Simon, who received it in dour silence.
“I’m sorry Wilf’s been a bit trying tonight, William,” said Simon to the Brearleys as they left the Emmett’s cottage one Sunday after an evening of silly, maddening exhibitionism on Wilfred’s part. The boy had upset his teacup, reached across the table to snatch a scone, at his mother’s mild rebuke pulled a face and struck out at her, struggled wildly, wailing, when Simon gently but firmly restrained his hands, and later continually interrupted the grown-ups’ talk round the fire by childish demands for attention.
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