Inheritance

by Phyllis Bentley

  “Oh, well, well! We’ll talk about that later,” said Mr. Oldroyd comfortably, not at all alive to the importance of the question.

  “But, father, you promised,” urged Will. “You promised I should wed her as soon as the frames were safely in.”

  “I promised nothing of the kind!” cried Mr. Oldroyd, astonished at this rendering of his procrastinating speech.

  “You did!” said Will hotly.

  “Good God, what are you bothering me about it now for?” demanded Mr. Oldroyd, not without reason. “Six o’clock in the morning, and the frames not in above ten minutes.”

  “Two hours,” objected Will, feeling childish as he did so.

  “What’s all the hurry for?” said his father, beginning to lose his temper. “Have you been up to some tricks with the girl, eh?”

  This was a question to which Will did not want to give an answer, for if he did he felt the whole valley would know it, Mr. Oldroyd’s discretion being liable to gaps. He coloured, and began to lose his temper in his turn. “Listen to me, father,” he said vehemently, the vein down his forehead swelling: “I’m going to marry Mary Bamforth, and I’m going to marry her soon.”

  “And you want me to build you a nice house of your own, I suppose?” cried his father sarcastically. “Where do you suppose I’m going to get the money from? With trade as it is and these frames to pay for—damn them,” he added, apparently suffering a reaction from his enthusiasm about the frames—and indeed the dawn was dreary enough to damp any enthusiasm.

  “I thought we could live with you at Dean Head,” blurted out Will with a kind of scornful honesty very characteristic of his blood and name.

  “Well, by gum!” exclaimed his father forcibly. “If that doesn’t beat all! You damned impertinent young cockerel! Here am I toiling and moiling to bring us up in the world, and you want to marry a penniless weaver’s daughter and plant her on me.”

  “Father!” shouted Will.

  “You can talk to me again about it in six months,” continued Mr. Oldroyd contemptuously: “That is, if you still want to, then.” He turned away towards the mill.

  “Is this how you keep your promises?” demanded Will, following him in a state of baffled fury.

  “Don’t be a fool, Will,” said his father sharply. “You know well enough I didn’t promise what you say. These aren’t the times to wed in.”

  “But——” began Will.

  “Now, that’s enough,” concluded Mr. Oldroyd. “We don’t want to go over the whole thing again.”

  That, however, was what they did more or less constantly all through the day, with tempers exacerbated by the difficulties of installing the frames. For Will to feel at peace with himself it was necessary that he should feel superior to the rest of the world; the more superior he felt, the more superior he was. As long as he felt more just, more honourable, more kind, stronger and more intelligent than those around him, he found it quite easy to be just, honourable, kind and intelligent; but the moment he felt himself less than others, inferior in any way, the ground seemed to tremble and yawn beneath his feet, and he saw moral abysses into which he might easily fall from sheer pride and the necessity to excel in something, if not in virtue then in wickedness, for it was a necessity of his being to excel, to lead, to be in the van. It was therefore simply insufferable for him to feel guilty towards Mary, yet for a month he had been obliged to feel just that. And now his father was proposing that he should continue to have this horrible, degrading sense of inferiority, of something in his life being wrong, for an indefinite period dependent on Mr. Oldroyd’s will. Anger and outraged egoism smouldered in Will all day. “Does he think I’m a fool?” he demanded of himself over and over again. “What sort of a fool does he think I am? Does he think I shall put up with this sort of thing?”—and his anger blazed up into hot words, to which Mr. Oldroyd responded with his customary vehemence. For on his side he felt slightly guilty towards Will, and as the sense of guilt acted on him in pretty much the same way as it did on his son, he exaggerated his grievances against the lad to justify his own anger, because he obscurely felt it needed justification. As the day went on Will’s determination hardened, and when his father bade the men go to their drinking Will decided at once that he should ride off now to Scape Scar and put things straight with Mary, tell her she might speak of it to Joe, and then come back and tell Joe himself.

  He saddled the mare—he had only just unsaddled her after riding up to Enoch’s, and she looked at him in surprise, reproachfully. This somehow was the last straw on the increasing load of Will’s exasperation; and when his father, coming out into the yard as he was mounting, asked in an artificial tone of surprise: “Where are you off to, lad?” Will replied rudely: “You know well enough.” Naturally this brought on another sharp, hot and very public quarrel—indeed its vehemence was accentuated by its publicity, for both the Oldroyds were conscious that they were making public fools of themselves, and this made them angrier than ever. The captain who was on duty at the time looked down his nose and thought what coarse vulgar creatures these Yorkshire manufacturers were; while the few Syke Mill men who had not gone home or to the inn—they were sitting on the ground in the yard, with their legs stretched out and their backs against the wall pierced for the cannon—whispered gleefully to each other that the Oldroyd father and son were as like as two peas and a regular match for each other once they got started. Both the Oldroyds had the sense not to mention Mary’s name or in any other way reveal the subject of their quarrel, but each felt an angry fear lest the other should so reveal it. The interview was ended by Will abruptly striking his spurs into the mare’s flanks. The animal was so little used to this sort of treatment that she started all over the yard, nearly trampling a man or two, and then flew off up Syke Mill Lane at a pace which shook Will’s coat-tails into a very undignified flapping. Mr. Oldroyd, with that sense of drama, that innate dramatic exaggeration, which was one of the characteristics of his family, turned to the captain and observed in a loud solemn tone: “Never have a son, sir.” The captain, rather at a loss—he was young and unmarried—looked down his nose again and said nothing with great stiffness; the men tittered; Mr. Oldroyd thought “Londoner!” with a kind of scornful pity, and began to feel better. “I reckon t’ young mester’s a match for ye,” observed one of the older Syke Mill men slyly; Mr. Oldroyd, not altogether displeased, nodded his head with a great air of paternal grief, and stalked into the mill in a more cheerful frame of mind.

  Presently he was cheered still more by the arrival of a messenger from his friend, the fuller Henry Brigg, asking for the loan of his silver spurs, as he had to ride down to Ire Bridge House that evening to see Mr. Archibald Stancliffe the magistrate, about some damage or other the soldiers had done up at Bin Royd. Mr. Oldroyd, who liked nothing better than to play Providence, felt pleased and flattered by this request; he took the spurs (which were finely engraved) out of their box on his table and had them rubbed up before sending them off with a kindly message. The men began to drift back to their work, it being now after five o’clock; but neither Will nor Joe appeared. Will, thought Mr. Oldroyd with irritation, was of course up at Scape Scar, making love to that confounded girl; if Joe were up there too, it would be too much of a good thing, really it would. Not that he had anything against the Bamforths—Mary was a pretty piece enough—but why couldn’t Will marry Bessy Brigg? A find upstanding girl, and Henry Brigg’s only living child. With trade as it was! What a temper Will had, to be sure! Just like his mother. Mr. Oldroyd sighed and shook his head, not unpleasur-ably.

  4

  Meanwhile Joe and Thorpe had reached the Ire Bridge, and went into the “shop” of Mellor’s stepfather, where George worked. Joe was so much relieved by the prospect of seeing Mellor, and confiding to him all the miseries of that wretched day, that he positively bounded up the stairs, and almost before he reached the top cried out: “The Oldroyds’ frames are in!”

  Mellor, who with another man was cropping b
y the window, without releasing the shears turned his head and said shortly: “We know that without thee.”

  “Oh—tha does?” stammered Joe, surprised. “How?”

  “Thorpe here both saw and heard them in the night,” said Mellor. “But too late to be any use. See—sit down and keep quiet while I finish this.”

  Joe and Thorpe sat down on a bench, and Joe found time to remember that if Mellor’s stepfather had been present his own exclamation about the frames would have been very indiscreet. The man was not there, however, but two or three of his croppers whom Joe knew, all sworn Luddites, were sitting about the room, doing nothing. In a corner Walker was combing out a teasel brush in a very perfunctory manner. An unexpected glow of lurid sunlight suddenly struck into the room and revealed its bare dusty corners, its hand-shears hanging idly on the wall, its empty nellys. The only piece of cloth Joe could see anywhere about was the one on which Mellor was busy, and the scene was such a contrast to the activity at Syke Mill that he exclaimed involuntarily: “You look quiet here.”

  A shout which was almost animal in its fury broke from all the croppers. “Aye! By God we’re quiet!” cried one.

  “We shall be quiet in our graves soon,” brooded Thorpe.

  “Happen tha didn’t know there were frames in Annotsfield,” observed Walker, twisting his red lips sarcastically.

  “I’m sorry, lads,” said Joe. “I didn’t think.”

  “Tha thinks too much,” observed Thorpe in the same dry tone he had used when he hailed Joe in Syke Mill Lane.

  Mellor said nothing, but with compressed lips cut to the end of the board of cloth. He then threw down his shears and turned. Joe was horrified by the change in his appearance; his face was lividly pale, and his eyes seemed to have sunk into his head.

  “Well,” he said in a queer low tone: “So it appears Oldroyds’ frames is in, Joe?”

  “Aye! It’s a bad job,” said Joe miserably. “What shall us do now?”

  “Do now?” said Mellor, his hps trembling with the intensity of his feeling. “Do now? I reckon there’s summat comes before that, Joe. What do you say, lads, eh?”

  “By God there is!” said the man who had spoken before.

  “Aye!” agreed Walker in his thick clipped tones. “There’s summat we want to know afore that.”

  Thorpe muttered: “Happen it’s not what we think. He came willing.”

  “What’s up?” said Joe, puzzled.

  “I’ll tell thee what’s up!” cried Mellor, unable to contain himself longer. “Thou traitor!”

  “What?” cried Joe, starting up.

  “Traitor!” screamed Mellor. “Traitor! Who brought t’soldiers into t’valley? Eh? Tell me that? Two days after tha were twissed in, Joe Bamforth, them soldiers came, and Syke Mill got a cannon.”

  “See here, George Mellor!” cried Joe, seizing his arm.

  Mellor shook him off, and went on wildly: “Last night tha come and tell us frames weren’t to be in till Saturday, and we believed thee, and they’re in to-day. Who told our lads to go home to bed last night and not watch foundry? Thou did!”

  “See here!” cried Joe, trying to turn Mellor towards him so as to make him look into Joe’s eyes: “See here, George! See here!”

  “Tha went down to Marthwaite o’ purpose, Joe Bamforth,” screamed Mellor, striking out at Joe’s detaining arm. “I thought tha were soft when I heard it, but it were us that was soft. Tha told them to get on home, and then tha went and told Will Oldroyd as it were safe for t’frames.” He turned and deliberately spat in Joe’s face. “Traitor!”

  “Thou liar!” cried Joe in a transport of rage, wiping his cheek with his sleeve: “It’s a damned foul false lie, George Mellor, all t’lot on it, and tha knows it. Tha knows it well. How were I to know what Oldroyds was going to do?”

  “Tha’s thick enough wi’ them,” put in Walker disagreeably.

  “It’s a lie!” shouted Joe. “What has tha done for t’Luddites, anyway, Ben Walker? Eh? What has tha done more nor me? I should like to know!”

  “Tha’s non a cropper,” put in one man in a decided tone.

  “That’s just why,” began Joe. He had a dim but definite notion that when a man embraced a cause which was not his own and did not concern him, the cause must be very dear to him or he would not embrace it, but he could not explain this clearly even to himself, much less to others. “That’s just why!” he repeated wildly, pierced to the heart with the shame of it—that he, whose heart was wrung by the croppers’ sufferings, should be accused of treachery, while a hard dirty little liar like Ben Walker was accounted a true man! It was unbearable. “Don’t all on you know me better nor that?” he went on, almost sobbing as he looked round into the faces of these men who had known him all his life and yet could believe him capable of this. A look of wavering on Thorpe’s face encouraged him; he raised one hand in the air and said solemnly: “I swear by God I’ve never spoken of any Luddite secrets to any living soul.”

  “Will tha swear it on the Book?” demanded Thorpe,

  “Aye!” said Joe.

  “Will tha take the long oath?” demanded Mellor.

  “Aye!” said Joe. He added recklessly: “I’ll do owt for t’Luddites, owt tha likes to ask, George Mellor.”

  Mellor’s face cleared. “Does tha mean that?” he asked.

  “By God I mean it!” said Joe emphatically, shivering with excitement.

  “Will tha go with us now against the Oldroyds?” demanded Mellor, fixing him with his sunken eyes.

  “I will,” said Joe.

  “Fetch a Bible and make him swear it,” suggested Walker.

  “There’s no need,” said Thorpe. “I believe him. For that matter, Ben, thou hasn’t sworn the long oath thyself.”

  Walker, colouring, mumbled that he was willing to swear anything.

  “Well, tha’s coming with us now, Walker,” said Mellor, looking at him sharply. “And thou too, Joe. We won’t give Oldroyds time to find out owt this time. Ben, get my coat from t’other room and thine as well.” He took off his apron and threw it down.

  “It’s too hot for a coat,” objected Joe, down whose face sweat was pouring, at the same time as his teeth chattered.

  “Aye! I daresay it is,” said Mellor grimly. “But this lot is too bright for Luddite errands.” He meant his jacket and breeches, which were drab in colour. “Tom and I, Joe and Walker,” he went on as Walker returned carrying the coats, which he seemed to find heavy. “Four on us. That’s enough. Come on.” He shrugged on his dark green coat, and gave a high thin laugh. “We’ll give these mesters summat to think about,” he cried hysterically. “We’ll make them fleyd o’ frames.”

  The four men went downstairs and out of the building. The sun had at length, after being defeated all day, managed within the last quarter of an hour to pierce a small opening in the thick blanket of grey cloud, and was now sending out long low rays which gave a lurid tinge to the whole landscape. As the Luddites turned up the valley this heavy, joyless sunshine dazzled their eyes and overheated their blood.

  “Green and green,” said Mellor with a silly laugh, referring to the similar colour of his coat and Thorpe’s: “Tom and I’ll keep together and go through the fields; you two keep on the road, and we’ll meet to some purpose at the top o’ Syke Mill Lane.” His manner was so wild as to be almost distracted, and Joe felt his heart grow heavier. But he must prove his loyalty, he must press straight on; he struck out manfully up the road, Walker puffing beside him, while the other pair went through a stile into the fields.

  “Don’t go so fast, Joe,” protested Walker crossly when they had gone a mile.

  Joe sighed but perforce slowed his pace. As soon as his body was no longer in full play, his mind became restless. He had time to think, and the more he thought the madder appeared the enterprise on which they were embarked. He thought of the soldiers, he thought of the bayonet which had been jabbed at him in play that morning, he thought of the heavy but strong daylight, he
thought of the cannon commanding the front of the mill. In common with the rest of the Syke Mill men he had made a good deal of fun of that cannon, but now he remembered Mr. Oldroyd’s proud boast that the cannon was kept, loaded day and night, with two soldiers on duty beside it, ready to fire it at any moment. Well! The four of them would all be killed, that was all; for his part he was quite prepared to do that for his fellow Luddites. (His mind here gave a side glance at Mary.) But perhaps it was Mellor’s intention that they should all walk quietly and peaceably into the mill, and then smash up the machines.

  “But there are soldiers beside each one!” he thought in despair.

  In the strength of his feeling he had spoken aloud, and Walker looked at him enquiringly. Joe explained how small their chances of success at Syke Mill were. “In daylight too,” he concluded. “We shan’t smash a single one.”

  Walker laughed. “That isn’t what we’re out to do,” he said. “It’s got beyond smashing frames now.”

  “What does tha mean?” said Joe, rather relieved than otherwise.

  Walker looked at him slyly. “We’re after Mester Oldroyd,” he explained. “Mellor’s got pistols.”

  “What!” cried Joe. He stood still, stunned. “Tha doesn’t mean murder him?” His voice rang with anguish, and Walker looked round apprehensively.