Inheritance

by Phyllis Bentley

  All of a sudden the train drew up in Annotsfield station; porters appeared, shouting raucously. Startled by this abrupt ending to their solitude, the young pair stood up reluctantly, and Carmine stretched up her arms towards the rack. “I’ll do that,” said Francis on a note of intimacy. He transferred Carmine’s luggage to the platform, and offered her his hand to descend. She was too shy to take it, and jumped down alone; they faced each other beneath the cold light of an arc lamp, and were surprised to find how desolate they felt at the thought of parting. “It’s all over,” mourned Carmine: “I shall never see him again.” Francis did not pause to think, but asked her how she intended to go home. “Oh!” said Carmine, who had perceived Matthew in the distance sitting on a truck and talking eagerly to a porter: “I shall be all right, thank you. My brother …” Francis followed the direction of her eyes, and summed up Matthew pretty accurately. “Good-bye,” he said, his voice heavy with reluctance. Tentatively he put out his hand. Carmine laid hers in it; she had not yet put on her glove, and the touch of her cold frightened little fingers set his blood racing.

  “I should like awfully to show you my new car,” said Francis hurriedly. “Suppose I—outside the station—three o’clock on Saturday?”

  “I might,” whispered Carmine. She dropped his hand as though it had burned her, and walked away quickly in Matthew’s direction. Francis, feeling suddenly cross and bored, found a porter and had his own luggage collected from the first class carriage next door.

  Matthew was so deeply engrossed with the porter that his sister had io walk quite up to him and touch his arm before he noticed her; it was not much of a welcome home, and Carmine felt chilled and repulsed. Matthew did not seem to consider an apology necessary, however; with his blue eyes blazing fanatically he began an excited account of his conversation with the porter about the recent railway strike.

  “But why hasn’t father come to meet me?” interrupted Carmine.

  “He’s on night work at Armitage’s,” said Matthew. “He’s been out of work a few weeks while you’ve been away, and was glad enough to get the job. Oh, we’ve been having a fine time at home, I can tell you, while you’ve been lording it in London.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Carmine, but her voice was mutinous and sullen.

  3

  That Carmine kept her tyrst with Francis was due to just such homely irritations as this of Matthew’s welcome. After the freedom of Henry’s house she found the resumption of the domestic yoke galling. Janie, while pleased with the improvement in her daughter’s looks and air, disapproved of some of her new London clothes, and as usual spoke her mind plainly; Matthew was scornful about his sister’s newly acquired manners, alluding to them as south-country airs and graces; her father displayed a jealous criticism of Henry which Carmine thought petty and ignoble. Only David smiled broadly at her, displaying his fine white teeth, and patted her shoulder affectionately. But this was a silent approval, and Carmine felt a longing for some more vocal admiration. The climax came on Saturday morning over a matter apparently trifling but really fundamental. Charley, whose habit now was to come home shortly after eight o’clock in the morning, have a meal and go at once to sleep, sat talking to Carmine while she washed up his breakfast china, instead of going to bed as Janie expected. Janie was vexed, partly because she knew her husband needed his sleep—his unemployment had tried him sorely, and he looked pathetic and haggard and she was sorry for him—and partly because of her unconscious but profound jealousy of Carmine’s devotion to her father. She flew downstairs from her dusting—looking, with her blue cap and soiled apron and sleeves rolled up above the elbow, very unlike the mother whom Henry and Carmine had pictured together—and attacked her daughter vehemently.

  “It’s very thoughtless and inconsiderate of you to keep your father up like this, Carmine,” she said in a hot angry tone. “And if this is the sort of thing you’ve learned in London you’d better have stayed at home.”

  Carmine pouted sulkily, and looked to her father to defend her, but Charley was too tired to make the effort which resistance to his wife always required; he simply pushed back his chair and went meekly up to bed. After this victory Janie could not leave well alone, but continued to scold her daughter—twenty-four years of doing her duty to a husband whom she did not love had made her shrewish—and Carmine grew more and more sullen. “Very well!” she thought angrily, as her mother finished her tirade and flounced out of the kitchen. “If they don’t like me, I’ll go with someone who does.”

  Accordingly Francis, glancing round impatiently from the wheel of his car, which he had drawn up beside the left-hand lion in front of the station,, and beginning to wonder whether the game was worth the candle, saw Carmine pacing slowly towards him. Immediately he knew she was worth anything; her slow gait, her pale face, like a flower, the inscrutable glance of her dark eyes—they were even more enthralling than he remembered. He drove her out past the Moorcock on to Marthwaite Moor, and raced for a few miles on the lonely road against the biting wind. Carmine found that she loved speed; she curled herself low down into the seat and gazed ahead, her eyes ecstatic, her lips tense. Francis drove down into Lancashire, rounded a reservoir and charged up to the heights again. The view, on this winter’s afternoon, was superb; the sky was red and frosty, the hills black and frowning in the distance, a deep misty blue near at hand. Francis drew to the side of the road and stopped the engine; and they sat gazing across the sombre moors.

  “What are those little black heaps?” demanded Carmine.

  “They’re shooting butts,” said Francis. He added in a murmur, as though not particular whether he was heard or not: “As a matter of fact, they’re my father’s.”

  “Your father’s?” said Carmine, startled by this evidence of wealth.

  “Yes—we have a shooting box up here,” said Francis.

  “Where?” asked Carmine.

  “There,” said Francis, pointing to a dark grey building far away, in a sombre hollow.

  Carmine could not see it, though he pointed and described; she became prettily perverse about the invisibility of the lodge, and he, laughingly determined that see it she should. At last he put an arm about her shoulders, drew her to him and pressed down her head. “There, little silly!” he said, pointing again along the level of her eyes.

  “Oh, now I see!” began Carmine, but her mouth was stopped by a passionate kiss. For a moment she yielded to the rapture of being in his arms, but then she stiffened and pulled herself away. “No, no!” she murmured.

  “Why not?” breathed Francis in her ear, holding her more tightly.

  “No, no!” said Carmine. She drew herself up and tried to unclasp his fingers, which were fastened over her heart. “No!” she said more emphatically, and began to struggle. Francis at once released her. “You shouldn’t have done that,” she reproved him gravely.

  “Why not?” repeated Francis, laughing.

  Carmine thought of saying: “I’m not that kind of girl,” but she refrained because she was not sure that it was true—after all, why had she met him thus secretly? “I don’t even know your name or anything,” she stammered instead.

  “Well, that’s easily remedied,” said Francis, laughing and throwing caution to the winds. “My name’s Francis Brigg Oldroyd, and I live at Emsley Hall.”

  “What!” cried Carmine. “Never!”

  “Don’t you like the name?” said Francis teasingly.

  Carmine stared at him wild-eyed. An Oldroyd! Brigg Oldroyd’s son! The one man whom all the Mellors would unite in hating! A terrible sweet anguish, like some scented poison, ran through her veins; she shuddered, and felt such a physical subjection to Francis as she had never known existed. Did that mean love or hate? She did not know. “No, I don’t like the name,” she stammered with a half sob.

  “Why not?” said Francis curiously.

  Carmine sighed. “You’d better take me back now,” she said in a low unhappy tone.

  “But you’re not angr
y with me?” pleaded Francis, putting his arm about her waist again.

  “I don’t know,” murmured Carmine, her face averted.

  Francis put his lips to the white throat beneath her delicate ear, and rained kisses there. “No, no!” protested Carmine, almost weeping. “Please don’t.”

  “Say you’re not angry with me, then,” murmured Francis, “Say it.”

  “Well—I’m not,” trembled Carmine, yielding.

  He took her in his arms and turned her face to his, and this time she responded to his kisses. Why not, she thought; why shouldn’t she? She loved him. Let her parents and brothers hate him if they would; she didn’t care; they didn’t admire her, they didn’t appreciate her, as Francis did; she loved him. This was an ecstasy; this was what life was for; now she understood why everything before had seemed so dull and futile; she had not known love before, she had not met Francis.

  A passing car roused them from their bliss; Francis, whose face was flushed and triumphant, started the engine again and drove soberly back to town. They parted in Station Square—sedately, for they had a rendezvous for the morrow.

  For the next week or two they met every day. At the end of that time Carmine should have returned to London, but Francis’s probationary period had finished, he was to be taken into partnership and settle down at Emsley Hall; and accordingly Carmine would not return to Henry. Janie was naturally furious; having asked a favour, to throw it in the donor’s face like this! It was outrageous. Carmine, however, took her mother’s anger calmly for once, and Matthew supported her decision.

  “I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve such ungrateful children, I’m sure!” cried Janie in a rage.

  “Well, don’t look at me, Janie,” said Charley, asserting himself for once. “I’m not to blame.”

  “I believe you’re at the bottom of the whole thing,” cried Janie, turning on him.

  “Nay, I’m not,” said Charley.

  “You know perfectly well you’re delighted to have Carmine at home again,” said his wife.

  “Well, why shouldn’t I be?” demanded Charley, his little moustache bristling. “I won’t stand in her light if she wants to go, but if she wants to stay I’m right glad to have her again, and that’s a fact.”

  “Well, you can write to your uncle and explain it to him yourself,” said Janie to Carmine. “I wash my hands of you altogether.”

  She did not, of course, mean this; and when later Carmine expressed her desire to go into an office rather than return to teaching, Janie, though she sighed, agreed that perhaps it might suit Carmine better, and defended her from the attacks of Matthew, who was disappointed by his sister’s preference for a less noble calling.

  Carmine soon found work in Annotsfield, and she met Francis almost every day. Janie was so simple and honourable that it was easy to deceive her; office hours could easily be stretched to include Carmine’s trysts, and if one said one was going to the Free Library, Janie was always delighted. Accordingly Francis and Carmine went to football matches together, to dog shows, even to the Annotsfield Hippodrome. Sometimes their appointments had to be broken, and sometimes they had narrow escapes; once they nearly met David face to face in the crowd as they came away from watching the All Blacks, and once they happened to attend a theatre performance on the night chosen by some of the Stancliffes. “Who was that pretty girl with Francis at the theatre last night?” said Miss Stancliffe to her sister, and Charlotte passed the question on to her son. Francis raised his eyes and looked at his mother squarely. “I wasn’t there,” he said in a cool easy tone. Charlotte knew that he was lying, and that he knew she knew, and did not care; she sighed, but merely said: “Well, don’t make a fool of yourself, my boy,” and dropped the subject without mentioning it to Brigg. In her code young men were young men and must not be kept too tight on the rein, but she guessed Brigg would think otherwise. In other ways Francis’s conduct was so satisfactory that she soon forgot to worry; he was a good son, respectful, affectionate and not over-extravagant considering Brigg’s income, moreover he was really settling down very nicely at the mill now, which pleased his father.

  When Janie’s first irritation at her daughter’s decision, and her regret over Henry’s very sad letter of acceptance, had passed, the Mellors all found themselves very glad to have Carmine at home again. For she was now so kind and obliging; a little dreamy, perhaps, but always loving and good-tempered; she sang about the house in her husky contralto, ran errands, sewed and helped Janie with the best will in the world. It was easy to be good, Carmine found, when one was happy, and she was happy, happier than she had been at Henry’s, joyously, ecstatically happy. To-night she would see Francis … There were moments, usually in the wan hours of the early morning, when Carmine thought she saw, clearly and with terror, that Francis’s intentions towards her were not, as the phrase went, honourable; but she put that aside impatiently—to-night she would see Francis again, and nothing else mattered in the whole world.

  Carmine’s views on the subject of his intentions were, however, much clearer than those of Francis. He never thought about the matter at all, but simply followed the line of least resistance, the line followed by all other fellows who found themselves in the same position. Carmine was not the sort of girl one married, of course. If asked, he would have been decided on that question. But nobody asked him the question, and he certainly never asked it of himself. Neither did he ask himself whether he loved Carmine. All he knew was that if a day passed without his seeing her, that day was unbearably flat and he felt not only bored but irritable. (It was easier to deceive his father about his absences than might have been expected, for Brigg was not very well just now—some digestive trouble which could not be located.) To hold Carmine’s slender waist within his arm, to feel her heart throb beneath his hand, to press his lips to her creamy cheek—these now made the sum of happiness for Francis. At times he felt obscurely but powerfully conscious that things could not go on like this; then he slightly gritted his teeth, laughed, and shook his handsome head; his whole body seemed to say: “I must have her!”

  Late one spring evening, while the heavy clouds flew across the dark sky and a wild wind stormed about Francis’s car as it stood on a high lonely stretch of Marthwaite Moor road, their love was consummated.

  4

  Little red paper-backed books had been given out, and the Annotsfield Co-Operative Women’s Guild were singing Sons of Toil. Carmine held a book at the proper distance from her eyes, and hoped Matthew and her fellow-members would think she was singing, but she was really too harassed to utter a word. She had promised to meet Francis at nine o’clock to-night, and then Matthew had insisted that she should accompany him to this meeting, at which he had been invited to speak. It was impossible to refuse without arousing suspicions at home that she had some more important engagement which she wished to keep, and such suspicion was the last thing Carmine wished. So she had accompanied Matthew with a pretended good grace. Yet it was terribly important that she should see Francis soon; he had been away for Whitsuntide, and they had not met for a week or two. And she was almost certain—“What’s the use of talking like that?” said Carmine to herself angrily: “You know you’re quite certain”—yes, she was quite certain that she was with child. She must see Francis; though what she should say to him when she saw him she had no idea. The thought of appealing to his pity or his chivalry aroused in her a fury of resentment, yet to go on any longer without telling somebody was impossible—she had had difficulty enough already in concealing her condition from Janie. At the thought of Janie, Carmine turned white and trembled; she would rather drown herself than have to face her mother with such a confession. If only this meeting would end quickly, quickly, so that she might see Francis!

  The singing was over now, and Matthew had begun to speak; his hair seemed to flow from his head like flame, his blue eyes blazed fanatically, he stretched out one hand in a bold appealing gesture, words poured from his lips. He was supposed to be ta
lking about the first principles of economics, but whatever Matthew began to speak about, he always slipped into the relations of capital and labour, with special reference to the textile trade, and he was talking about that now. The heavy middle-aged women, with work-roughened hands and bodies shapeless from incessant child-bearing, who sat drowsily listening to him, stirred uneasily at his provocative thunders, the young girls sat erect, bright-eyed—but what was the use of it all, thought Carmine; Francis, who represented the other side of the question, did not even know where the Co-Operative Society’s building stood, and probably, indeed, had never heard of it. It occurred to her, in a dream-like way, that possibly Francis and Matthew were just the same kind of man, only set in different circumstances, while uncle Henry was quite different—but these generalisations were too difficult for her; her own situation was too pressing, too dreadful, to admit of clear thought on any other subject. Why didn’t Matthew stop talking? The hands seemed to fly round the clock, but still he went on pouring forth his impassioned words. Ah, he was a better man than Francis, decided Carmine; you couldn’t imagine Francis giving up an evening to the instruction of middle-aged women. But if Matthew would only stop! At last he sat down, white with his own eloquence, panting. But the meeting, as Carmine well knew, was not over yet; there were minutes and resolutions, all very solemn and lengthy; there were delegates to be chosen for a visit to the Marthwaite Co-Operative Society’s Garden Party; there was a vote of thanks which entirely missed the point of Matthew’s speech, there was another hymn. And now how was she to get rid of Matthew, thought Carmine in alarm; he would expect her to walk home with him, of course; she had forgotten that. Dare she risk the explanation which must follow if she left without him? While she stood hesitating, Matthew came across the room to her and said: