The Rise of Henry Morcar

by Phyllis Bentley

  When the lesson was over the children marched back into the big room and sang There’s a Home for Little Children Above the Bright Blue Sky. They were rather tired by now and sang in a sentimental yearning tone. Harry was not particularly anxious to seek a home above the bright blue sky, for he was perfectly satisfied with his home in Annotsfield, but it was nice to know such a home was there; it gave one a safe, well-provided-for sensation which was very cosy. One came out into the bright windy afternoon with a comfortable feeling that one had done one’s duty and that provided one continued to do it all would be well, probably in this world, certainly in the next.

  Looking back on it now, the world of his childhood seemed to Morcar completely safe; a strong smooth firm fabric without a single rent in it, a world without a crack, without the tiniest fissure.

  3. McKinley

  There had been a slight crack once, it seemed, but it was now smoothed over, a damage in the fabric which had been mended. This damage, the child Harry knew, had something to do with his birthday.

  “You were born on a black day for the textile trade, love,” his grandfather sometimes said in a solemn monitory voice, shaking his head. “Aye, you were that!”

  Harry’s self-esteem was vexed by this attack on a matter so closely connected with him as his birthday, and one day he riposted sharply: “Well, it wasn’t my fault!” At this his grandfather laughed heartily, his father said: “The child’s right there!” and his mother, exclaiming: “For shame, Fred!” drew him to her knee and smoothed his hair. Finding his sally so well received, Harry thought the moment opportune for further enquiry. “Why was it a black day, Grandpa?” he demanded. By this time the two elder Morcars were again discussing the business affairs which his grandfather’s apostrophe had interrupted, and made no reply. “Why was it? Why was it a black day, Grandpa?” repeated the child. He put his hand on his grandfather’s knee and shook it vigorously. “Why was it a black day?” he shouted.

  “Hush, love, don’t worry your grandfather. It was because of the McKinley tariff,” explained his father hastily, seeing the question framing again on Harry’s firm wide mouth.

  “What’s a McKinley tariff?” demanded Harry, staring.

  His mother pulled him away: “It’s something the Americans did which made the trade in cloth much less.”

  “You may well say that, Clara,” interjected his grandfather, unable to keep out of a discussion on a matter which upset him so much. “Export trade dropped from sixty-three to nineteen million running yards in four years, that’s how much less the McKinley tariff made it. What’s nineteen from sixty-three, Harry?”

  “Forty-four,” said Harry promptly. “What’s a running yard?”

  “A yard in length,” explained his father.

  Harry pondered.

  “He’s sharp for his age,” said his father proudly.

  “He’ll need to be,” said his grandfather, grimly jocular.

  “He will if that tariff gets reaffirmed,” said his father in a sober tone.

  “Nay—we’ve done with that, I reckon,” said Alderman Morcar.

  Harry’s father seemed less certain, shaking his head doubtfully.

  4. Jubilee

  Victoria, great and glorious, firm and free. Ever victorious may she be. In white letters on a red ground. With a portrait of the Queen above, flanked by Union Jacks.

  The waggon, which had been held up by the crowd in the square long enough for Harry to read this patriotic inscription where it hung over the façade of the railway station, suddenly jolted forward. The packed children were thrown against each other, the well-brushed curls, the starched drill suits and muslin dresses tossed like flowers in a breeze, screams of delighted laughter filled the air. The fifteen thousand Annotsfield Sunday School scholars were on their way in procession to celebrate the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee in the new park. (“Why Diamond?” wondered Harry, but not with sufficient interest to put the question into words.) On his breast a Jubilee badge, a round tin medallion bearing the Queen’s picture, hung from a bow of red white and blue ribbon. Church bells were ringing, older children on foot around the waggons were singing. Now they were lined up on grass in front of a platform decked with flags; the Mayor, in a cocked hat and red robes and a big gold chain, was making a speech; at the back in the middle of the row sat Grandpa, resplendent in his best silk hat. The Mayor was delighted, he said, that in Annotsfield on this wonderful day the sun was shining upon them, and he hoped it would be the same for the great celebrations now being held in London. This was the first time it had occurred to Harry that weather might be different in English places at the same time; he was awestruck by the thought and missed much of the Mayor’s speech, rejoining it at the peroration. “May the sun continue to shine upon Her Majesty, and Her throne continue to set an example to the world, for many years to come. God Save the Queen!” The band played; then everyone cried Hip Hip Hooray.

  Now the crowd of children was breaking up and dispersing; his mother came towards him looking very pretty; the white hat perched on her piled-up light brown hair was trimmed with red white and blue ribbons and she wore three flowers of the same colours pinned in the bosom of her best heliotrope dress.

  “Come over here, Harry; don’t you want to go in for the races?” cried his father.

  “He’s too young, Fred,” pleaded his mother, as Harry hung back.

  She took his hand and led him to the side of the roped-off space where Sunday School officials were marshalling the seven-year-olds for sports and games. Harry gazed, fascinated; they were tying couples of boys together with handkerchiefs round a leg of each. One heat of the three-legged race was run; some children tumbled on the grass, the antics of others as they strove to synchronise the movements of their arms and legs made the watching grown-ups laugh and clap. Suddenly Harry snatched his hand from his mother’s and ran across the grass.

  “That’s right, Harry,” said his father, pleased.

  He knelt and tied Harry firmly to another boy. Harry looked up from the knots and found it was Charlie Shaw from the house next to his grandfather’s. Charlie was thin and taller than Harry; he had wavy dark hair, an oval face broad at the temples, sparkling hazel eyes and a clear delicate skin which coloured easily. The two boys exchanged a look and felt friendly. Harry had no idea how to run a three-legged race but intended to do it as well as the other competitors and possibly rather better.

  “I think this is the way,” said Charlie in a light quick tone, passing his arm round Harry’s waist.

  Harry gripped him in the same way, firmly. Charlie’s thin body was quivering with joyous anticipation. The starter fired the pistol.

  “Come on!” cried Charlie eagerly.

  The boys ran expertly down the course, Charlie setting a quick pace. There was a moment when Charlie stumbled and almost fell, but Harry’s grip held him upright. They reached the end of the course almost before the rest had started. They won the heat and presently the whole race, and sat on the grass together, surrounded by their delighted families, triumphantly drinking ginger-beer from a brown stone bottle. In the distance some older children performed drill with long white wands.

  Now it was twilight and Harry stood in front of the Town Hall, which was festooned with coloured fairy lights spelling: God Save Our Queen: 1837–1897. He was footsore, for Charlie had scorned the slow delays of the children’s waggon, but completely happy— or rather, he would be completely happy as soon as the monster bonfire was lighted. A councillor whom his father identified as the chairman of the gas committee came out with a long rod lighted at one end and handed it to his wife, who helped by her husband timidly inserted it into the mass of logs and twigs and thus ignited the fire. At first the results were disappointing, only occasional gleams of fire within being seen; then suddenly a red tongue leaped up, the crowd cheered; soon the bonfire was a blazing mass throwing out sparks and smoke and long red flames, so hot that the crowd to leeward had to run from it. In its flickering light the banner
s on the warehouses at the other side of the square were clearly visible: Long Live Our Noble Queen, read Morcar: Victoria, the Greatest Queen on Earth.

  5. Tariff

  It was not long after this, on a very hot summer’s day, when Harry, coming to the mill one afternoon with a message from home for his father, found his grandfather alone in the office, looking very glum. His fresh face was strangely sunk, his round blue eyes perplexed and disconcerted. He gazed at Harry in silence for a moment and then sighed and shook his head.

  “What’s the matter, Grandpa?” asked Harry practically. Without understanding why, he often felt a need to moderate his grandfather’s reactions to life. They seemed to him altogether excessive and exaggerated—like a too highly inflated balloon they urged him to apply a pin.

  Before the Alderman could reply, the foreman came in and said: “They’re ready now.” John Henry Morcar rose stiffly, and taking Harry’s hand in his, led him silently through the door towards the mill.

  Harry hung back. “I’ve got my white suit on, Grandpa,” he said.

  “Never mind,” said his grandfather in a loud hoarse tone.

  He led Harry across the first weaving shed. The door to the next shed stood open, wedged with a block of wood, and Harry felt a shock of surprise as he saw the looms within stood still and sheeted. His grandfather paused in the doorway and looked around, then stepped back, kicked away the wedge, closed the door and gave a signal to a couple of men in aprons, strangers to the mill, standing by. These joiners lifted slats of wood into position across the door and hammered them fast.

  Harry’s heart quailed. To nail up looms and abandon them like that was like leaving people to starve and die alone. To watch this murder, in his white suit too, gave him an extraordinary feeling of guilt and shame.

  “This is the Americans’ doing, this is,” said Alderman Morcar in the same strange loud tone. “You’ll never forget this day’s work, Harry; you’ll remember the Dingley tariff as long as you live. Won’t you, eh? Won’t you?”

  He bent down so that the child’s face was on a level with his burning red-rimmed eyes.

  “I thought it was the McKinley tariff, Grandpa,” said Harry stoutly.

  “They took that off and now they’ve put it on again,” wailed Alderman Morcar. “Grass will grow in the streets of Annotsfield, love, you mark my words.”

  Harry felt sure that this was nonsense. Nevertheless the thought of the dead cold looms lay heavy on his mind, he never forgot them all his life.

  6. Shaw Family Album

  The next scene in Morcar’s mind was his grandfather’s deathbed, which was irretrievably comic and tragic, so that he always laughed when he thought of it and then shook his head at his own heartlessness. Alderman Morcar in a very clean white linen nightshirt, his white beard beautifully brushed, lay propped up on pillows embroidered with his monogram, a peevish expression on his harassed but still fresh-looking face. His son and grandson had been summoned by his housekeeper suddenly in the middle of the night to take their last farewell; they had hurried into their clothes and run down Hurstholt Road and panted up the stairs, and now it seemed they were not welcome. When they entered the room old John Henry Morcar lay with his eyes closed, his face pale and very thin, his respiration heavy; he appeared on the point of death. His son went to him and took his hand, and Harry followed trailing after. Unluckily he left the bedroom door open. A draught blew in and ruffled the pillow-frills, and his grandfather opened his eyes and snapped out irritably: “How many times have I to tell you to shut the door, Harry?” He raised himself on one elbow to watch his grandson cross the room, and urged: “Don’t bang it now,” as the boy struggled with the large black slippery knob. When the door was safely shut he lay back on his pillows and sighed. “If you two hadn’t come I should have gone by now,” he exclaimed in a tone of unalloyed vexation. In spite of the solemnity of the moment Harry could not keep back a slight snort of laughter at this, for to be eager to die seemed to his young mind really ludicrous. His grandfather turned his head and stared at him sourly. Suddenly a strange look crossed the Alderman’s face; his eyes widened; he whispered; “But it doesn’t matter,” and let his head fall back upon the pillow. His breath fluttered and he was gone.

  Next, Harry stood in Annotsfield cemetery in a storm of rain. A man in decent black whom he guessed to be the undertaker murmured: “Let it go,” and four labourers, panting a little, for old Mr. Morcar was a heavy man, lowered the coffin jerkily into the grave. One of the four, a young man with big clay-smeared boots, stood beside the minister at the graveside, and at the words ashes to ashes, dust to dust threw in, rhythmically, seriously, but with an inescapeable effect of brutality, two handfuls of earth, which fell with damp plops on the coffin lid.

  Then there was the cemetery in sunshine, and a huge grey marble slab like the head of a bed, on which was engraved below the name of John Henry Morcar, the proud words Alderman of this Borough. The stone also contained references to the Alderman’s long dead wife, and to an infant perished ten years ago named Clara. Who was she, wondered Harry.

  It was about this time that Morcar saw a picture which later recurred too often: his mother in a long white cooking apron with her sleeves rolled up, removing china from a vast cupboard. It was her back that he saw: the high-piled light brown hair, the sloping shoulders crossed by the broad linen strings of the apron, the smooth white elbows, the neat tape bow at her firm waist. He had no idea of the meaning of her actions, but something in her attitude alarmed him, he felt disaster in the air. He went up to her for reassurance. Clara Morcar smiled at him, straightened his flat bow, exclaimed at the state of his eton collar, and receiving an affirmative reply to her question whether he was hungry, suggested he should visit the kitchen, where she had been baking currant buns. Harry went off and came back munching but not entirely cured of his disquiet. A large wicker skep from the mill stood by the cupboard and Mrs. Morcar was carefully packing into one corner a pile of red and gold dessert plates, hand-painted, which were the family’s pride.

  “Why are you packing the plates, Mother?” enquired Harry.

  Mrs. Morcar smiled. “Never mind, love,” she said.

  She looked at the clock and made to untie her apron and gave no further explanation, for an invincible reserve was interposed between her and the rest of creation. Why? At this moment Harry suddenly found in his mind the knowledge that the infant Clara mentioned on the gravestone was his own younger sister, and that his mother was still sad because she had lost her. He put his arms round her waist and tentatively inclined his head towards her breast. Mrs. Morcar, smiling maternally, somewhat perfunctorily patted his head and Harry was confirmed in his belief that she did not much care for caresses. “Silly boy,” she said. Her tone was kind and not meant to wound, but Morcar changed his embrace into a playful attempt to untie her apron strings, and their relationship was settled. Henceforward, though their affection was staunch and loyal it was practical and calm, neither outwardly demonstrative nor deeply passionate.

  Did this scene take place in Hurstfield, or in the smaller house the Fred Morcars then lived in, of which Harry retained little recollection? Probably in Hurstfield, because Harry soon knew that they were not to live there, and that this disappointed long-cherished expectations. No explanations were made, but it seemed they were to move to one of the semi-detached Sycamore houses, next to the Shaws.

  From that time Harry’s recollections were clearer, for the Shaws were for years the main thread and still the deciding factor in his life.

  The Shaws were a large and bustling family; Mr. and Mrs. Shaw had four children already and more seemed to be continually arriving. “Let ’em all come!” cried Mr. Shaw, cheerfully dandling the latest infant on his knee: “There’s nothing so lovely as a baby.” “Isn’t she beautiful?” he would cry, gazing admiringly at his offspring, who, from the violent shaking he had administered, was wont to give him a somewhat sour look in return and show a tendency to vomit. When this oc
curred John William Shaw called loudly for his wife and his eldest daughter. “Annie! Winnie!” he shouted disgustedly. “Come here and take this child! Come and take this child, can’t you?”

  Mrs. Shaw, a large fair comely perplexed-looking woman, arrived on the instant of these summons, panting, but Winnie deferred her arrival to suit herself. If Mrs. Shaw was out of hearing at the kitchen range this cool delay of his daughter left Mr. Shaw uncomfortably landed; his cries grew louder and his irritable distress mounted to a pitch when he was apt to dump the baby into the arms of anyone who stood handy—his eldest son Charlie, for instance, or even Charlie’s school-friend Morcar. But Harry did not like Mr. Shaw well enough to submit to such an imposition. Mr. Shaw’s exiguous body, usually quivering with some vehement vexation, his scrubby dark pointed beard and thin dark hair, his bright irascible brown eyes and sallow complexion, made a disagreeable impression on Harry, he did not at first know why.

  Luckily Charlie, though his slight stature and dark hair were his father’s, had inherited much of his mother’s disposition as well as her fresh skin and clear colour. He was a lively restless boy, full of invention, an admirable mimic, always crying: “Come on!” and leading the way at the double to some new and usually risky activity. But he was also warm-hearted, generous and loyal, and fully cognisant of the value of Morcar’s staunch solid qualities. The boys were friends; at the height of their many swift quarrels it never occurred to them to break the partnership of Shaw and Morcar.