Inheritance

by Phyllis Bentley

  INHERITANCE

  by

  PHYLLIS BENTLEY

  CONTENTS

  Book One—Machines and Men

  Chapter I. The Oldroyds

  II. Machines and Men

  III. Crime

  IV. Discovery

  V. Trial

  Book Two—The Three Children

  I. Prosperity

  II. Meeting and Parting

  III. Reparation

  IV. The Three Children

  Book Three—Divergence

  I. Divergence

  II. Journey

  III. Riot

  IV. Quarrel

  V. Disaster

  Book Four—Loss

  I. Convergence

  II. Courtship

  III. Strife

  IV. Loss

  Book Five—Misalliance

  I. Gentility

  II. Discontent

  III. Misalliance

  IV. Climax

  Book Six—End or Beginning

  I. Reconciliation

  II. Post-War

  III. Defeat

  IV. End or Beginning

  Book I

  Machines And Men

  Chapter I

  The Oldroyds

  1

  He meant to see Mary that morning, reflected Will Oldroyd as his father rode away up the frozen lane with a last shouted instruction, and he was not going to be put off by any nonsense about frames. Not that he meant to neglect the frames, of course, not likely! But he would see to them in his own time and in his own way; he knew his own mind and intended to follow it. The Oldroyds, he mused, leading his chestnut mare cheerfully down the slippery lane in the opposite direction from that his father had desired him to take, had always been determined, wilful men; no doubt that was why they had risen up so steadily in the world, each generation advancing upon the last. His great-grandfather had dressed other weavers’ cloth with his own hands, his grandfather had put cloth out to weave and dressed it with the help of apprentices in the house by the strongly-flowing Ire, his father had first increased both the weaving and the dressing business, so that the house had to be enlarged and the cobbled yard rang with the hoofs of the pack-horses, and now he had built the big mill further down the valley to house these fine new cropping-frames, run by water-power, which Will was supposed to be seeing Enoch Smith about this morning. Oh! the consequence of the Oldroyds was increasing, without a doubt; they were always going up; in this present year of 1812 they were among the most considerable manufacturers in the Ire Valley, and Will should take good care they went up still further in his time. Now the Bamforths had not gone up in the we: Id, they had stayed just where they were, had remained weavers all through the centuries—until they reached Mary’s brother, young Joe, and he was only an overlooker in the Oldroyds’ new mill. Why hadn’t they moved up, Will wondered? It wasn’t that they didn’t do good work. Old Joe Bamforth had been a fine weaver; Will’s father had been really sorry when he died; he had shaken his lion’s head and bit his lip; there was no weaver, as he often said, to beat old Joe Bamforth, in the whole of the Ire Valley. Mr. Oldroyd had given young Joe another shilling a week to help him and Mary out after their father’s death, for he was fond of Joe. For that matter everyone was fond of Joe, kindly, gentle fellow that he was; handsome, too, in a way, with his thin musing face and dreamy brown eyes and the dark hair curling about his high brow; always a kind word on his lips or else a tuneful whistle; never known to hurt man, woman, or child; good at accounts and a marvel at patterns—but a bit too soft, as Mr. Oldroyd usually concluded grimly, to get on in this hard world. Mr. Oldroyd himself, that great tall, vigorous, gusty man, with his bright blue eyes and his mane of ruddy hair, was not at all soft; but then none of the Oldroyds were soft—“I’m just like him,” thought Will; “I’m not soft either.” His agreeable young face hardened, and the vein down the centre of his forehead pulsed; he loved Mary Bamforth and he meant to have his own way about her; let his father hint never so broadly about the moneyed charms of Bessy Brigg, Will meant to marry whom he chose.

  The mare stumbled. “Oh, curse it!” grumbled Will, jerking at the bridle. “God knows what I’m coming all this way for; four miles if it’s an inch, uphill and down dale all the way, a road like a nutmeg grater where it isn’t ice, and all for a weaver’s daughter. I reckon I’m a fool for my pains.”

  But he laughed, for he did not really feel the irritation he pretended. He had by now descended to the level of the stream, crossed the wooden footbridge, and was mounting the other side of the valley. The narrow lane was certainly very difficult; round stones were scattered loosely over its surface, and this morning they were all white with rime, and very slippery. The rough grass by the lane’s rim, too, was thickly white, and here and there across the track sheets of ice lay gleaming. But it was a glorious morning, just at the very edge where winter turns to spring; the sun was not very high, and the Oldroyds’ side of the valley lay in deep shadow, but as Will mounted up towards Scape Scar he came out into the clear February sunshine. The lane wound in long curves up the steep slope, so that Will was first looking up the valley towards Dean Head House, his home, and then down towards the village of Marth-waite (where the new mill was, and Enoch Smith, whom he was supposed to be on his way now to see) and, further down in the misty distance, the three proud arches of the Ire Bridge, and the town of Annotsfield. He shaded his eyes and from force of habit tried to pick out the spire of Annotsfield parish church and the circle of the Cloth Hall, whither his father had gone to the weekly market, but this morning he could not find them; there was some mist moving in the hollows, though it was clear up here. Down towards Marthwaite and Annotsfield the slopes, where the sun had reached them and melted the morning rime, were green, with a few black patches of leafless trees, the remains of the great forest which once covered all the lower slopes of the dale; but up towards Dean Head the green was dotted with brown bracken, which gradually swallowed up all the green, and then shaded slowly into the dark rough uneven surface which meant moor. Will and mare came to the last steep twist of the lane; the mare’s head sawed up and down, her hoofs clattered; with a last stumbling rush she reached the top, and stood, blowing.

  The air was colder here, and winter not in such full retreat. Before their eyes rolled a vast expanse of moor, swelling and sinking in sombre majesty to the edge of the horizon; its dark mass was flecked with snow, and the road which ran along these Pennine heights from Annotsfield in Yorkshire to Oldham in Lancashire was like a ribbon of sugar, so white was it with rime. A stream wound out of the moorland and dropped over the brow just by the mare’s fore hoofs; it seemed to move slowly and uncertainly between its banks of dark peaty soil, as though it was but just released from the icy grip of winter. Above Will’s head the sky arched itself high and clear, shading up from delicate pink by the hills to strong blue in the zenith; but towards the west a thick white cloud curled over one of the sombre peaks like a breaking wave, and seemed to throw up clouds of rosy spray.

  “They’ll be having fog in Lancashire,” thought Will, observing it.

  And he was filled with contempt for all people who lived in Lancashire or down on any kind of plain, for all who were having fog on this bright day which hinted spring, for all who were not on top of a Yorkshire moor twelve hundred feet above sea level at nine o’clock on a February morning, for all who were not young and strong and in love and drinking the clear air like wine; for all who had not keen eyes and crisp hair and handsome persons and hot blood; for all who did not know their mind or were afraid to follow it; for everyone, in fact, who was not Will Oldroyd. The mare pawed the ground with an impatient foot, and the thinning ice crackled; a few sheep who were cropping on the moor near by skipped over the frozen tussocks i
n a panic of tossing wool at the spiky sound. Will laughed, and arching his thick russet eyebrows quizzically at the mare, said: “Cold, lass?” The mare stamped again, and tossed her head. “Well, come along then,” said her master.

  He swung himself into the saddle and rode round the brow of the hill to Scape Scar.

  The cottage he was making for was one of a pair standing together in the shelter of the scar, looking down the valley towards the Ire Bridge. The long row of windows on the upper floor showed that they had been built in times past for weavers to ply looms in, but neither of them housed weavers now, mused Will; for Joe was overlooker for the Oldroyds, and his neighbour, George Mellor, Will seemed to remember, worked in his stepfather’s raising and cropping shop down by the Ire Bridge—the Oldroyds had sometimes sent cloth there to be finished when they were pressed for time, but of course they would not need to do that any more when their new cropping-frames got to work. At the remembrance of these frames Will smiled to himself with grim pleasure; he dugnt to be talking to Enoch Smith about them this very instant; his father would have something to say if he knew he was gallivanting off after Mary Bamforth instead. He laughed aloud joyously at the thought of his father’s fury, for Mary’s name had quickened his pulse and flushed his cheek, heightened his reckless mood. The Bamforth’s door was shut, but, as Will approached, the iron latch of the other cottage rose, the door swung back and a child of six or so appeared on the threshold.

  “Here!” called Will, dismounting. “God knows whether it’s a boy or a girl,” he said to himself: “There’s no telling from its clothes—but it will serve.” He looked at the pale child, whose mouth stood open and whose nose ran, distastefully, decided that it was probably male, and instructed it to walk his mare up and down while he was within, on the promise of a penny. The child took the bridle timidly, and moved off with backward looks. Will mounted the two worn steps and rapped at the Bamforths’ door, but there was no reply; he felt his ardour chill beneath the child’s pale stare, and rapped again irritably. The door opened, and Mary stood before him with a rough shawl about her head, her dark eyes wide with surprise and her soft breast fluttering in confusion. At once his blood was hot again; he stepped in, and pressed the door back out of her yielding fingers till the latch clicked. For a moment they stood there together in silence.

  “Mester Will!” breathed Mary then, looking down.

  In her voice there was surprise, alarm, question, but through them all acceptance. Her voice indeed seemed formed to express acceptance; it was a soft yet full contralto, with something so exquisitely loving and maternal in its low tones that it plucked Will’s heart-strings, made him throb with ecstasy, almost brought tears to his eyes. She was less tall than Will, and he looked down on the long dark eyelashes curling upward from her rose-petal cheek, the lovely pencillings of her dark eyebrows, her rich lips, the rounded curves of chin and brow framed by her shawl. It was a gentle face, soft and loving as her voice. Her shawl slipped back, she clasped at it vaguely and it slipped still further; the throat and bosom thus revealed seemed made of cream. She had not yet dressed her hair that morning, and it lay about her head in a soft dark cloud.

  “You used to call me Will when we were children together,” said he at length. His voice was not quite at his command, for indeed his pulses hammered.

  Mary raised her dark eyes to his in an unfathomable look, and stepped away. “We aren’t childer now,” she murmured. She seemed to hesitate, then went on in her soft low tones: “I were swilling at back, that I didn’t hear.”

  She moved again and there was a clatter; Will looked down and saw she was wearing clumsy pattens, and understood her to be explaining her delay in coming to his knock.

  “Joe’s not in, then?” he said in a brisker tone.

  “Joe? Oh no, Mester Will,” said Mary in slow surprise. “He’s off to the mill long afore the sun gets up, is Joe. It takes him a good hour to get down from Scape Scar to Syke Mill, that he sets off early.”

  Her use of “that” when she meant “so” set every nerve in Will’s body quivering; he felt it provoked him to the point of wanting to seize and hurt her, yet at the same time knew that he must go on talking, because he wanted to make her say it again.

  “Aren’t you going to ask me to sit down, Mary?” he said, pretending to reproach her.

  Mary blushed. “Sit you down, Mester Will,” she said.

  Will threw his hat on the table, sat down in a spindle-backed chair by the hearth and looked about him—not because the low beamed ceiling, the flagged floor, the wide hearth, the round table with its couple of dirty mugs and plates, the high-backed oak settle, the pot of musk in the mullioned windows, or the ginger cat couched beside it, were any of them new to him, but for something to do. He knew the inside of the Bamforths’ cottage well enough; he had been there many and many a time—often lately, as a young man, on made errands for the sight of Mary; often as a lad, on messages to old Bamforth from his father; most often of all, perhaps, as a boy, when he had been put into the care of Joe (then one of Mr. Oldroyd’s apprentices and Will’s well-beloved friend) on a day when work was slack, for a long outing on the moors, and they had called in at Scape Scar on their way home for a bite of oatcake and a drop of home-brewed ale. Many a time before she died old Mrs. Bamforth had brushed the peaty mud off Will and mended a rent in his jacket so that his mother (who was his father’s cousin and hot-tempered as he) should not box his ears for him when he got home. Ah well! Both his mother and old Mrs. Bamforth were dead now, so long ago that the pain of their loss was over; but he should not easily forget Mrs. Bamforth’s kindnesses. What days he and Joe had had, too, on the moor; chasing each other in games of Will’s commanding all morning, the dry black stems of the heather crackling beneath their feet, the purple bloom rustling about their knees: lying on their backs in the sun in the afternoon, miles from Marthwaite, miles from anywhere, listening to the queer high squeak and leathern wing-beat of the black and white lapwings somersaulting endlessly in mid-air, while the moorland wind sang in the boys’ ears and touched their cheeks in a rough but kindly caress. Oatcake and ale had tasted good after a day like that! There was some oatcake hanging on the creel above the fire to dry now; Will stretched up and broke off a piece, and began to munch it.

  “You see I’m making free with your havercake, Mary,” said he.

  “You’re welcome,” she replied simply.

  Something in her tone made him colour; here he was accepting her hospitality, yet on what sort of errand had he come? He jerked out last week’s news-sheet from the skirts of his riding coat and threw it on the table. “I’ve brought this for Joe,” he said. “I know he likes to read what’s going on.”

  Mary picked up the paper and gazed at it admiringly. “Aye, Joe’ll be fain o’ this,” she said.

  “Can you read, Mary?” asked Will.

  Her rich lips parted in a loving smile; she turned her eyes, bright with amusement at her own stupidity, full upon him. “Not so well,” she said. She laid down the paper again and remained standing there, one red rough hand resting on the table, the other hanging by her side. “Nay, I haven’t a headpiece like our Joe,” she murmured.

  Will moved restlessly in his chair. He had lain awake for Mary all the night, and now her low vibrant voice thrilled his whole being to a painful ecstasy he felt positively sick with tenderness and desire. He must go; but he could not, would not go until he had kissed that pure soft cheek, those perfect lips. He got up. “Well, I must go, Mary,” he said hoarsely. He meant to continue: “Tell Joe I came,” but was struck silent by the hopeless falsity of his pretended errand. He would be at the mill, with Joe, and could deliver his message and his paper himself, within an hour. “It’s you I came to see, Mary,” he blurted out, and felt his heart begin to race. He laid a hand on her arm, and found it warm and round beneath her shawl. “Mary!” he whispered. “Mary!”

  She strained away from him, drooping her head so as not to meet his eyes. “Leave me b
e,” she murmured. “Oh, Mester Will!”

  Her soft yielding voice spurred his senses to the point of torture, and suddenly he forgot everything but the feel of her young flesh beneath his hand, and his own desire; beating down her faint struggles, he seized her in his arms, bent back her head, and kissed her throat, her lips, her cheek, the hollow between her breasts, hungrily, masterfully, fiercely. She turned up to him frightened but adoring eyes which seemed to say to him: “Do with me as you will”; and he could not resist their invitation. Her pattens clattered on the flags as he dragged her to the settle; he felt the ginger cat’s claws in his arm and took no heed. Then for a time there was nothing in the world but Mary.

  Presently the sun, striking through the Scape Scar windows in its daily course, beamed uncomfortably into Will’s eyes; he jerked his head, frowning, and began to come to himself. Mary sighed, and stirred softly against his breast. “This is a pretty matter to happen on one’s way to a frame-maker’s,” mused Will grimly. He thought of his father’s face when he should hear of it, and could not forbear a smile. Aloud he said, his tone affectionate but inexorable: “I must go, Mary,” and put her gently from him.

  At once she rose, moved heavily across the room, lifted the sneck and drew the door open; then stood beside it, mute, with drooping head. Will was rather disconcerted by this prompt obedience. “You’re very glad for me to go,” he grumbled unjustly, rising and picking up his hat.

  “I won’t keep thee,” murmured Mary, and drew a heavy sobbing breath.

  Not her sob, but her tone of gentle, loving acquiescence in anything he might choose to do, smote upon Will’s conscience. “Nay, lass!” he said soothingly. “Don’t fret now.” He put his arm about her waist, and would have kissed her but that the pale child, forlornly leading the mare up and down all this while, now saw the open door and came towards them gladly.

  “Can I have my penny, please, Mester?” he cried.