Inheritance

by Phyllis Bentley

  “Everyone knows it,” said Brigg, nevertheless flushing a little, for he was conscious of having played his part in the ruin of the Pioneer, accusing it openly of subversive tendencies and deliberate malice. In spite of himself he asked: “How will your father manage without you?”

  “My father will give up the paper altogether, and devote himself to his school,” drawled Henry. “It will be a tight squeeze, but I think they will just be able to manage, now that there isn’t Janie.”

  Brigg felt as though a freezing poison were being poured into his veins. He could scarcely manage to articulate in a hoarse low whisper: “There isn’t Janie?”

  “She married Charley Mellor yesterday,” said Henry.

  Brigg stared at him. “She married Charley Mellor?” he repeated stupidly. “She can’t—she can’t have done. It’s not true.”

  “It is true,” drawled Henry steadily. “We’ve both lost her. I thought I owed it to you to tell you, and not let you hear of it by chance.”

  “But why did you let her throw herself away like that?” cried Brigg suddenly in a wild angry tone. “You shouldn’t have let her do it.”

  “You know Janie, and you talk of not letting her do things!” said Henry with a sad smile. “Well! It’s done now. Between us we’ve both lost her. I must go now,” he added, glancing at the handsome marble clock which stood in the centre of the mantelpiece. “I’ve not too much time. Do we shake hands before we part?” he concluded, stretching out his own with a quizzical air.

  “No!” exclaimed Brigg violently, stepping back. “We do not!”

  “Just as you like,” drawled Henry coolly. “Good-bye, Cousin Brigg.” He stepped composedly round Brigg and went out, closing the door quietly behind him.

  Brigg sat down at the table and buried his face in his hands.

  Book V

  Misalliance

  Chapter I

  Gentility

  1

  Brigg and Charlotte were married in the early autumn. The elder Brigg, delighted to see his son thus established among the county gentry, took Brigg into partnership, and made arrangements about his income which were of a generosity quite princely. He also bought Emsley Hall—a fine Georgian mansion with a good park, at the top of the Emsley Valley—and gave it to the newly married pair as a wedding present. He very much wanted them to change its name to Syke Hall; but the Stan-cliffes all looked so amused by this suggestion that Brigg angrily urged his father to say no more of it, and the old man, hurt and discomfited, obeyed. He was a little frightened of his son’s temper lately, and ventured once to hint to Brigg that brides expected a good deal of forbearance from their husbands. In return for this piece of advice his son gave him such a dark look that he sighed, and to himself cursed Janie.

  His forebodings were partially justified, for the first few months of the young couple’s married fife proved stormy. Brigg rather often went through moments when he felt that he had made a fatal and irreparable mistake and that his whole life was ruined; he thus became subject to black and bitter moods. Charlotte, who though of an equable disposition was spirited, and had a strong sense of what was due to her both as a person and as Sir John Stancliffe’s daughter, resented these moods passionately; he should not have asked her to marry him if he felt like that; why should she be called on to play second fiddle in any man’s life?—especially as she felt that she was condescending in marrying a mere manufacturer who, though he might be rich, was of no birth at all. Always honest and plain-spoken, she voiced these thoughts; Brigg, furious, roused himself to subdue her, and their tempers clashed. Then when Charlotte first became pregnant she was very restless and unhappy; deprived of the riding she loved, she thought her husband did not appreciate the magnitude of the sacrifice she was making to bear his child; while Brigg, who was forcing himself to show her every proper consideration, was wearied to death by her whimsies, which in the absence of real love in his heart for her, seemed to him merely silly. So there were many mornings when old Brigg was made miserable by the arrival of his son at Syke Mill late and angry, with clenched teeth and frowning brow. But with the birth of the child in the following year, the situation changed. Charlotte, rather to her own surprise, was delighted with her baby, and made a picture of contented motherhood as she suckled him; while Brigg was intensely proud of his little son. He could not after all have made such a fearful mistake, his life could not be altogether ruined, he reflected, if he had produced such a charming thing as this fair fresh youngster who lay gurgling and bubbling on his mother’s knee. So Brigg became more cheerful, and a comfortable friendship established itself between the young father and mother. For the next few years everything went well; trade was brisk, money was plentiful; the child thrived; the stables and the gardens, the cellars and the table of Emsley Hall were all well-stocked; Charlotte was happy teaching little Francis to walk, to love animals, to play games, to ride; she and the boy—both fair, erect, courageous—made a handsome pair about the Emsley lanes, and Brigg was proud of them.

  When Francis was rising six, however, the Oldroyds had a very uncomfortable year. To begin with, Polly was killed in a tram accident. A steam tram, with its engine, suddenly escaped control on the Oldham Road above Syke House, rushed madly down the steep slope, and overturned in the centre of the town. Brigg’s regret at this wretched end for his mother was tempered by irritation—what on earth was she doing in a tram at all, when she had a carriage at her disposal? It was just like Polly to attract publicity to herself at the wrong moment, he felt; and he made his father indignantly refuse the money compensation which the Town Council paid the tram’s victims. The elder Brigg at first seemed little affected by his wife’s death; so cheerful was he, indeed, that his son felt his manner almost indecent; but then suddenly he began to fail, to forget things, to stoop as he walked, to look old and very miserable; he grew careless about his dress, and his son had almost to take him by force to get his hair cut. And upon the old man thus staggering and uncertain there fell the blow of the McKinley duties. It was rumoured early in 1890 that a prohibitive tariff was to be introduced in the United States; directed against various imports, the tariff fell particularly heavily on cloth, with the purpose of protecting the youth of the States’ growing textile industry. Brigg feared the projected duties would have a serious effect upon the West Riding export trade, but as his father did not seem to take much notice of the matter, he kept his fears to himself. In April the Republican leader actually introduced the Bill, and in May it passed the House of Representatives. It was now no longer possible for old Brigg to pretend that the danger did not exist, and he discussed it uneasily with his son; but he was sure, he said, that it would never pass the United States Senate—they would have more sense. Brigg, who thought otherwise, was nevertheless so busy filling the orders which poured in from America in anticipation of the tariff that he did not want to make any additional trouble for himself, and so did not argue his father out of his comfortable views. He afterwards blamed himself very much for this, for one morning in September, when he arrived at Syke Mill, he found the head of the office staff waiting on the doorstep for him with a scared look to say that Mr. Oldroyd was already there, and seemed very much upset about something. Brigg hurried in, and found his father pacing up and down the office with a newspaper in his hand, an expression of fearful worry on his drawn face, and beads of sweat standing on his brow.

  “Why, father!” he said in a kindly, soothing tone: “What’s the matter? What’s brought you here so early, eh?”

  “Look at this, look at this, Brigg!” cried the old man in an anguished whisper, holding out the paper. “It’s passed after all.”

  Brigg took the crumpled Leeds Mercury; having read his own copy before he came out, he knew what he should find there: MCKINLEY TARIFF BILL, he read at the top of a column: The McKinley Tariff Bill has passed the American Senate, and shortly it is certain to receive the President’s signature and become law. Doubtless it will be very mischievous in its operatio
n against this country.… The West Riding must of necessity suffer most seriously.…

  “We shall be ruined!” burst out old Brigg, who was anxiously watching his son’s face. “Grass will grow in the streets of Annotsfield!”

  “No, no,” said Brigg soothingly. He did not really feel the confidence he pretended, however, and doubtless this showed in his face, for old Brigg cried again in a high cracked voice:

  “Grass will grow in the streets of Annotsfield!”

  Suddenly he tottered, put out a hand to save himself and cried in a muffled anguished tone: “Oh, Brigg!” His son caught him just in time and lowered him to a chair; his father now seemed unconscious, though he breathed heavily. Brandy did not revive him, so Brigg sent for the doctor; the old man had had a serious stroke. He could not be allowed to lie ill alone in Syke House, so Brigg took him home to Emsley Hall.

  The old man, though he recovered, was never again fit to live alone, so he remained in his son’s household, and Brigg was glad enough of the excuse for closing and selling Syke House. For the tariff fell upon the West Riding with terrible force, its export trade dropping two million pounds in value during the next year; at Emsley Hall horses and dogs, gardeners and grooms, had to be cut down; Brigg’s health, undermined by his long fretting pursuit of Janie, gave a little under the worry and anxiety, and his temper became rather formidable again. Charlotte, though considerably astonished by the sudden financial stringency—such things did not happen in her experience of Irebridge House—came out well in this crisis; she did no grumbling, carried out the necessary economies faithfully, and in her offhand but sincere manner was very kind to old Brigg. As the years went on he became unfit to go to the mill at all, and spent most of his time in the sitting-room allotted to him, poring over the Annotsfield Recorder; the treat of his day was the visit of young Francis, whom Charlotte sent in faithfully every afternoon. Old Brigg doted on the child; on his red-gold hair and blue eyes, the turn of his thick fair eyebrows and the set of his chin, the old man fancied he saw a likeness to Will, and he was always marvelling about this likeness to Francis himself and to his son and daughter-in-law, forgetting that none of them had ever seen the child’s great-grandfather. He was also fond of asking Francis his name, and when Francis dutifully announced: “Francis Brigg Oldroyd,” repeated to him a piece of doggerel which ran:

  “Young Brigg’s father is old Brigg’s son,

  Young Brigg will be a Brigg when old Brigg’s done,

  And New Syke and Old Syke for ever will run.”

  Francis thought this rhyme rather silly, and was sure he really resembled the Stancliffes and not any remote unknown Oldroyd ancestor, but he received all his grandfather’s maunderings with a shy pleasant smile, for his manners were excellent—his mother saw to that.

  His mother indeed saw to most things concerning Francis—not the big things, of course, like paying tutors and buying ponies and choosing clothes; his father was in complete control of the Emsley Hall household expenditure, and everybody knew it well. When the tariffs were first put on he was quite fiercely economical, but when they were repealed he became very generous; and whichever he did it was right in his son’s eyes, for Francis, like his mother, had perfect confidence in Brigg’s mastery of finance. But in all the smaller things—or what seemed to be the smaller—his mother was supreme. After all his father was out all day, while his mother was there, within reach, at home, ready to talk to him, to ride with him, to play tennis with him, even to bowl to him. Then too his mother was always even-tempered and hearty; she could be very stern about such things as lying or cheating or taking an unfair advantage, but then Francis scorned to do such things, so she was never stern with him; now his father was a moody and dangerous person—sometimes he was kind and interesting and sometimes he was stern and hard; one never knew in advance which it would be. So it was not surprising that Francis was his mother’s boy, and liked the things his mother liked—cloth and the mill were far away in Irebridge, dogs and horses were just round the back of the house, and the Stancliffes were only a mile distant through the fields. He grevv into a lad straight and strong, fair and comely, who was never so happy as when sitting a horse, could handle a gun with credit while yet in his early teens, and excelled in all outdoor games. His Stancliffe cousins went to one of the older and more celebrated south-country public schools, so Francis was sent there too. He found himself very much at home there, his mother’s code of honour being the one generally accepted, though its tenets were perhaps rather more rigidly enforced. He believed in God and the King, the Conservative party—his father had changed his politics over the American tariffs, which though a joy to Charlotte had to be kept from old Brigg—chivalry to women, the weak and the aged, and the right of the gentry to lead England. (The Oldroyds and the Stancliffes were of course gentry.) He also believed in telling the truth, fair play, being a good loser, never giving in, never taking an unfair advantage, never betraying your feelings except to trusted intimates, and never letting anyone down. He rarely read anything except the newspapers, the Strand Magazine, and sometimes that new fellow Kipling; in his eyes Annotsfield and that terrible industrial Ire Valley were spoilings of the country landscape, and mill chimneys a necessity perhaps, but a misfortune. Yes, Francis was his mother’s boy.

  2

  Accordingly, as the train bearing him home for his summer holidays sauntered slowly into Annotsfield station one bright afternoon in the year of the Diamond Jubilee, Francis was disappointed to see his father standing on the platform alone. His mother had not come to meet him, then! That was disappointing in itself; nor did Francis greatly relish the prospect of the long drive home alone with his father. Of course it was not his father’s fault that Francis stood rather in awe of him, reflected Francis generously; ever since that tiresome American tariff business his digestion or something had been bad, and nowadays he could not eat the jolly food which Francis and his mother ate, but had to live on toast and hot water and cabbages and dull things of that kind; so that the angry look on his thin, sallow, handsome face, with the permanent vertical frown in the centre of his forehead, only reflected his internal discomfort. He was handsome, though, reflected Francis judicially as the train drew nearer; very handsome, and clever too—much cleverer than Francis would ever be. People were always asking him to be chairman of things, though of course he would not consent, for to be chairman of local and textile things was not in Charlotte Stancliffe’s husband’s line. Yes, as fathers went, he was very well; but of course mother was a different matter. If his mother had been on the platform Francis would have j umped out of the train long ago, for it was moving only slowly; but she was not there, and he waited for it to stop.

  Just as it did so he saw, sunk on a seat behind his father, wrapped in a shawl in spite of the sunshine, old Brigg. “Well!” thought Francis, amused and touched. “Imagine the poor old boy coming all this way!” And when he had shaken hands with his father he submitted to a confused kiss from his grandfather with a good grace, arranged his shawl, patted his arm and said loudly in his ear: “Very kind of you to come down and meet me, sir.” Old Brigg looked pleased, and doddered out of the station on his grandson’s arm with a proud and happy air. The coachman touched his hat as the three generations of Oldroyds climbed into the open carriage which was waiting; rugs were arranged; they drove off. Francis, who thought that his father looked gloomy beneath his assumed air of welcome, asked with some concern after his mother. Brigg smiled and reassured him; she had remained behind so that there might be room in the carriage for his grandfather, who had shown great eagerness to come. His face then relapsed into its former gloomy lines.

  Suddenly the carriage drew up and did not move on again; the coachman seemed to be having an altercation with somebody in front, and Francis, leaning round the side of the carriage, saw a confused mass of pedestrians grouped across the entrance to the square.

  “What’s the matter, Thomas?” demanded his father impatiently. “Why don’t you driv
e on?”

  “It seems to be a funeral, sir,” replied the coachman, half turning: “They’re all waiting to see it go by.”

  “Go out by the top side of the square and on Cloth Hall Street, then,” commanded Brigg, leaning back and folding his arms.

  The coachman not without difficulty turned his horses and obeyed. At the end of Cloth Hall Street, however, just beyond the decaying disused hall, the crowd was thicker than before; it was obviously impossible to get through it.

  “We shall have to wait, sir,” said the coachman with an apologetic air.

  “Very well,” said Brigg shortly.

  “What is it, Brigg?” demanded Grandfather Oldroyd, bending towards his son curiously.

  “It’s a funeral, father,” replied Brigg in the clear haughty tone which always carried perfectly to his father’s dulling ears.

  “Oh? Whose?” said the old man eagerly.

  “Whose funeral is it, Thomas?” demanded Brigg.

  The man turned a rather flushed and embarrassed face, and said: “I believe it’s Councillor Bamforth’s, sir.”

  To Francis this name meant nothing, but he could see that to his father it meant a very great deal. “But what are all these people waiting for?” he said in a quick angry tone.

  “To see it go by, sir,” replied the coachman. “They say the streets are lined with people, sir, all the way from Eastgate to the new cemetery.”

  “Whose funeral is it, Brigg?” repeated the old man, putting his hand to his ear.