Of course, mused David, that’s the only kind of immortality I believe in. I believe that your actions live after you till this globe is dissolved; they pass inevitably down as an inheritance from one generation to another. Every act you perform affects your own character, and every character affects that of someone else. Every act of every character in the Oldroyd story is still affecting the Ire Valley to-day: we labour under their baseness and are raised by their nobility. Joe couldn’t have seen how being the sort of fellow he was, and dying with his friends instead of deserting them, could be of any use, but he did it; and look what an influence it has had! Look how it worked on Martha Ackroyd and so moulded Joth! And through Joth, hund reds of people, including Henry and Janie, and my own poor lovely mother, and me. Anti-social actions are the same, of course; they live on too. Yes, decided David; decency and integrity, courage and compassion, are always well worth while; they are not lost, but pass on down the generations; we are indeed the heirs of all the ages.
While he was musing thus the afternoon wore on; and now thin plumes of smoke began to rise from the mill chimneys down in the Ire Valley—the men were stoking up the boiler fires in readiness for the morrow. The smoke mingled with that from the house chimneys, and rose up to a height just above David’s eye-level, veiling the blue sky, and then seemed to vanish, as though cut off by a knife.
“There won’t be any smoke in either of the Syke Mill chimneys,” said David bitterly, descending from the wall. “Oh, damn! I don’t want the Oldroyd textile story to stop; I want it to go on.”
8
Next morning the Oldroyds stood on the Annotsfield platform waiting for the London train. None of them except Fan, who was a light-hearted and luxurious young person, had had much sleep the night before; Ella, who was worn out with household labours, looked ghastly beneath her fashionable cosmetics; Francis had the air of a man making a supreme effort without the strength needful for it, his face was drawn and his eyelids twitched. Charlotte had gone on ahead some weeks ago, and had received the furniture despatched by Ella and arranged it in their new home.
David felt as though somebody were twisting his heart with red-hot pincers. Not only was the Oldroyd ruin there to sear him, but England as a whole was in trouble too; the newspaper placards on the bookstall behind him. all read: GOLD STANDARD SUSPENDED, and it seemed as though the bottom had fallen out of the whole world. The business men, the porters, the very school-children, who thronged the platform, had a perplexed and wretched look; an atmosphere of gloom and disaster filled the station, filled Annotsfield, filled England, tilled the world. David hoped Francis would not see the placards, but unluckily Ella’s brother, who, looking ill and harassed himself, had come to see them off, drew his attention to the news; Francis exclaimed, and his face took on a positively hunted air. This is ghastly, thought David; let’s get it over quickly, for heaven’s sake. The train at last came in; and the Oldroyds, relieved, flew into the first-class carriage which Francis had caused to be reserved for them. David did not approve of travelling first-class in their present circumstances, but on reflection lie thought he understood the desire to disappear from the scene handsomely and in good order. The train started, negotiated the viaduct, ran through Irebridge and began the ascent towards Marthwaite. Francis had drawn Fan to him, and was sitting with the child’s fair curly head on his shoulder and his arm round her waist; she snuggled up to his side, and Francis, who had been staring fixedly ahead, smiled down at her protectively. Ella, also smiling, bent forward and pulled down Fan’s skirt, which was revealing her charming knees. “They’re feeling better—they’ll be all right when they get out of Yorkshire—they have each other,” thought David, and he was glad for their sake.
The train thudded slowly up the incline. They were now opposite Old Syke Mill.
“I believe I feel this worse than father,” said David, biting his hp. T he train thudded inexorably on.
“We shall be out of the West Riding in a minute,” thought David.
“The West Riding’s only a small bit of the world,” he tried to soothe himself.
“But it’s my bit,” he answered himself, “And all the bits are important—if one is distressed they’re all inevitably affected. Odd how Gilbert’s ‘up goes the price of shoddy’ used to be considered a joke; it’s a hard reality to-day. All the bits are important, and the West Riding is my bit, the bit I know the best.”
And a picture of the West Riding rose before him—its sombre mass of hills and locking valleys, its wild moors, its cold dark streams, its lonely cottages, its busy lighted towns; the machinery in the mills whirring, the looms clattering, the long chimneys smoking, lorries rushing up and down the hills with loads of cloth. He saw the manufacturers, men like Ella’s brother, harassed, distressed, fighting against a ruin which stepped nearer every day; he saw also the longer queues of shabby wretched men outside the employment exchanges, he saw very vividly his Uncle Matthew’s boots. By blood David belonged to both those groups. “I can’t run away in the middle of the fight and leave them to it,” he thought suddenly. “I can’t” He cast a calculating glance at his suit case, which was on the rack above Ella’s head. “But what would be the use of my staying?” he argued. “(Of course there’s that money of grandmamma’s.) But staying would be no use at all. It would be most unpractical. I’m only a boy. I should have to continue my education. I don’t see that I could be of the slightest use.”
“But if everyone said that, nothing would be done.”
On an impulse, David suddenly stood up, and politely murmuring “Excuse me,” to his stepmother, took down his case from above her head. But when he had done this he felt confused and embarrassed, and pretended he only meant to look at the lock. In truth he did not know what he meant.
The train passed through Marthwaite station.
David could now see the poky little corner of Marthwaite churchyard where lay the bones of former Oldroyds. He stooped and craned his neck, and through the other window of the carriage just caught a glimpse of the towering wireless masts, with the tiny little hump of the Scape Scar cottages below. And the thought of Joe and his refusal to avoid death rose hot and strong within him; Joe didn’t know his action would be any good, but it was some good; it seemed unpractical but it had really influenced hundreds of people; it seemed wasted but in reality it still lived. Annotsfield and the Ire Valley are what they are to-day, because of what Joe Bamforth and Will Oldroyd did in 1812. Yes, thought David suddenly, and of course the future is the heir of the present, as the present is of the past; Annotsfield and the Ire Valley will be what they are a hundred years hence, because of what David Brigg Oldroyd does to-day.
The train whistled, preparing to run into the tunnel and out of Yorkshire.
David suddenly opened the door and threw out his suit case.
“David!” cried his father, horrified. “What are you doing? Shut that door!”
David, standing sideways on the train step, cried quickly and confusedly:
“I can’t leave the Ire Valley, father—I’m so sorry for the people, I don’t see that I can help it—I can’t break off in the middle of the fight; I must go on.”
He jumped from the train, fell, rolled over, and picked himself up, bruised but laughing heartily. The train had already passed; David could see his father’s white and horrified face at a distant window. He waved to Francis reassuringly, picked up his case, made his way across the metals and climbed the boundary wall. It seemed to him a good omen that he should find himself in the grass-grown lane a few yards below Dean Head House.
David strode up the lane, whistling cheerfully; he reached the road and set his face resolutely towards Marthwaite.
THE END
Certain real incidents, persons and places of Yorkshire history put me in the mind to write this book, but as I have modified some details for the sake of unity, the whole must be regarded as fiction and not as fact, as what happened in my imaginary valley of the Ire, and not in the real West
Riding valleys of Calder or Colne. I hope, however, that my fiction is symbolic and my valley typical.
PHYLLIS BENTLEY.
Halifax,
December 1930–December 1931
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Inheritance Page 59
