The Rise of Henry Morcar

by Phyllis Bentley

  At last he reached Prospect Mills. Half the red door stood open. Morcar picked up his bicycle and carried it in, up the four stone steps, depositing it in the dark back passage where his machine and Charlie’s had so often leaned before; he took the brat out of the bicycle pouch, snatched off his cap and gave a clumsy pat to his thick fair thatch, then pushed open the office door and entered industrial life.

  An elderly man with greying hair, thinnish, wearing crooked pince-nez and a morose expression, sat on a high stool at the sloping desk which ran down the centre of the room. Morcar did not remember to have seen him there before. He looked up at the boy sideways over his glasses and said: “Yes?”

  Blushing and twisting his cap in his hands, Harry gave his name. “I’ve come to work,” he explained.

  “Oh yes, I remember now—Mr. Shaw told me,” said the cashier in an unexpectedly kind voice. “Well—Mr. Shaw isn’t here yet; he’s coming back from Bridlington this morning. Well now, let me see. I don’t just know what Mr. Shaw means to put you at.” Harry gazed at him anxiously, and he responded to the appeal. “You can help next door till he comes.” Relieved, Harry hung up his cap on a hook by the door and began to unroll the brat.

  “That’s a fine apron you’ve got there,” said the cashier, amused.

  “It was father’s,” muttered Harry, looking down.

  The cashier stood up and turning him round in a rough but friendly manner tied the tapes for him, then pushed him through the inner door of the office into a long light room which was apparently the Shaws’ warehouse and place of despatch. Various piles of finished pieces stood about on low wooden platforms and shelves; they were not very numerous—“but of course they’d send everything out they could before Wakes,” reflected Harry quickly. A knot of men stood gossiping at the far end of the room; at the cashier’s shout they broke up and in a leisurely way resumed their avocations. One was measuring cloth on the long wooden table, golden with use; another was packing; a third seemed to be in charge, and came towards them enquiringly. The cashier explained Morcar.

  “Can you write and figure and such?”

  Harry said he could, and accordingly he was put to help a dark short solid man, addressed as Booth by the rest, at the weighing machine. They lifted a piece on to the platform of the scales; the man adjusted the weights and called the result to Harry, who wrote it neatly on the ticket attached to the piece, while Booth entered it in a book; then they lifted the piece off the scales to a table, where Booth stitched its number and some particulars into the end of the fabric in an odd-looking sewing-machine. Harry was happy to find his first textile task so well within his capacity and Booth approved his clear figures and careful accuracy, so they got on together well enough. At first Harry could not understand a word his companion said, his speech was so broadly Yorkshire, but after a time his ear adjusted itself, and he began the long slow process of learning his trade. He was allowed to lift the huge iron weights, to feel the cloth, to discuss its design, texture and destination; presently he was allowed to try the sewing-machine. His first attempt with this was not very successful and he was standing with his hands behind his back watching his companion manipulate the machine slowly so that he might see where he had erred when a distant bustle arose which grew louder and nearer, and presently Mr. Shaw rushed in. The effect was that of a whirlwind; the men’s slow sure actions were galvanised to a feverish tempo; tickets fluttered in the air, pieces of brown paper fell to the ground, tempers rose; two of the men were sent off on errands and left with hurried steps; Mr. Shaw seemed to examine every piece in the place and be dissatisfied with its appearance or its progress. Eventually his tour of the room brought him back to Morcar.

  “You’ll have to do more than stand about with your hands behind your back if you’re to stay at Prospect, Morcar,” he cried hastily. “We’ve no room for do-nothings. We’ve no Councillors here.”

  The men all looked round with interest, and one sniggered slightly. Harry’s face burned.

  “I were just learning him the sewing, Mester Shaw,” said Booth in a vexed defensive tone.

  “Work, honest work!” exclaimed Mr. Shaw, vanishing into the office.

  As he had not set Harry any other task, the boy remained with Booth, in whose goodwill he found no diminution. But Morcar now felt guilty and unhappy. To be called a do-nothing! And what had Mr. Shaw meant about no Councillors? He had just reached the point of asking himself whether Mr. Shaw could possibly have meant something insulting about his father when his employer stuck his head into the room and called to Booth that the Inspector was at the door, he’d best go help him.

  “And you, Morcar,” he added on a savage note, frowning: “Make yourself useful—if you can.”

  Booth accordingly crossed the office and clattered down the steps, Morcar at his heels. At the door stood a flat horse-drawn cart, from which two men were throwing back a waterproof cover, revealing a couple of heavy wooden boxes and some fifty-six-pound iron bar weights of the kind Morcar had seen for the first time that morning.

  “Give us a hand with this lot,” invited one of the men.

  Booth and Morcar took a box between them and staggered up the stairs. Morcar would have descended to help with the iron weights, but was prevented by his companion.

  “He’s not got all his strength yet, you see,” explained Booth to the Inspector. “One o’ them weights would pull his inside out.”

  “Quite right,” agreed the Inspector, unhooking the largest box.

  A complicated arrangement of wood and gleaming brass was revealed, nestling in faded velvet. The fascinated Morcar watched this become a wooden tripod secured by links of brass; then the stirrup and beam were placed in position, and the two flat round brass weight-pans allowed to dangle from their thick brass chains. The assistant threw back the lids of other coffers, revealing a smaller beam and a set of spherical brass weights, so gleaming and polished that they seemed made of gold.

  “Bring out your weights,” said the Inspector cheerfully, taking a printed record book from his pocket and licking a thumb to turn its long narrow leaves. “Let’s see now; what had you last time? Here we are.” He secured the page by an elastic band and laid a well-pointed pencil beside it on the table.

  Aided by his assistant, he checked the mill weighing-machine, which proved to be accurate, and then began to test the Shaws’ bar weights against the standards, on the official beam. Seeing Morcar’s interest in these novel proceedings, all the adults began to explain them to him at once. The Inspector showed him a blank page of the record book, ruled in columns for all kinds of weigh-machines, weights and measures, with C for correct and I for incorrect, divided by a thin red line.

  “What happens if they’re incorrect?” asked Harry.

  The Inspector turned up one of the weights so that the boy could see in its base a deep oblong hole, at the bottom of which were stamped some hieroglyphics.

  “That’s an E.R., you see, for the Crown,” he explained: “And that number means Annotsfield. There’s ’o5, that’s for last year when they were tested, and that letter means the month.”

  “But there’s no month beginning with G,” objected Morcar.

  “They go by the alphabet,” explained the Inspector. “A for January, you know; G for July.”

  “Aye, it would be about July last year when they were done,” conceded Booth.

  “It’ll be H this time, then,” proffered Morcar.

  “That’s so, my boy. I see you’ve got your head screwed on the right way,” said the Inspector affably. “If they’re incorrect we obliterate the stamp, see? And take them with us to adjust. Unless, of course,” he added gravely: “Some fraud is suspected. Then we seize the weight, and court proceedings would follow. Now then, what about the smaller ones?”

  “There’s some in t’cupboard, Harry,” said Booth, busy with the bars. “On’t top shelf.”

  Harry, stooping, dragged out one by one a rather mixed collection, as it seemed to him, of fo
ur, two and half-pound weights; they looked so dirty compared with the Inspector’s gleaming brass that he felt ashamed of them. As he withdrew his head after one of these forages he found that Mr. Shaw had come into the room and was watching the proceedings benevolently. Morcar was glad to be discovered so obviously making himself useful, and only wished there were more and heavier weights to pull out of the cupboard.

  “Is that the lot?” enquired the Inspector at last, pencil poised.

  “That’s the lot,” said Booth.

  “No! There’s another here,” cried Harry joyously, diving into the bottom of the cupboard. “A big one.” He drew out with some difficulty a fifty-six-pound weight and displayed it with triumph to the company.

  To his surprise his discovery was not well received. Mr. Shaw coloured and barked: “Where’s that come from?” while the Inspector opened his eyes and observed on a questioning note: “It wasn’t on the list last year.”

  “Where’s it come from, Booth?” repeated Mr. Shaw angrily.

  “Nay, I don’t know,” said Booth, scratching his head.

  The Inspector turned over the weight and peered into its hole. “Unstamped,” he said.

  “Have you seen it before, Booth?” asked Mr. Shaw, his colour deepening.

  “I might have—and again I mightn’t. I couldn’t be sure,” muttered Booth cautiously.

  The Inspector, tightening his lips, placed the weight on one of the Crown scale pans; his assistant took the cue and laid a standard weight on the other. The eyes of all were fixed on the anonymous weight, which to Harry’s horror slowly rose while the standard descended.

  “Light,” said the Inspector drily, making a note in his book—no doubt, thought the dismayed Harry, he was putting it below the red line. “Any more in that cupboard, young man?”

  “No,” said Harry, shaking his head emphatically. To be completely convincing he threw back the door. The Inspector crouched and peered in. The expression on Mr. Shaw’s face as he watched this was really strange.

  “No,” said the Inspector, rising. “No more here. I’d best take this one back with me for adjustment, Mr. Shaw.”

  “Aye, do,” said Mr. Shaw affably, turning on his heel and leaving the room.

  The mill weights were stamped and the standard weights and beams were repacked rapidly, in silence, and in silence the equipment was carried through the office and down the stairs to the cart. The Inspector, Harry noticed, carried the faulty weight himself; when he had placed it on the cart, he took a label from his pocket and wrote on it Shaw, Prospect Mills, light and tied it to the weight’s handle. The cart drove off, the Inspector walking at its side, and Booth and Morcar reentered the mill. Just as Harry approached the doorway between the office and the warehouse, Mr. Shaw came up full tilt; he was talking over his shoulder to one of the men, and not seeing Harry cannoned into him violently.

  “Sorry!” said Harry cheerfully.

  “Get out of my way!” shouted Mr. Shaw, suddenly crimson. “Get out of my way, can’t you! Here I take you on to give you a chance, and you do nothing but make a confounded nuisance of yourself all day. Here, Booth! Take him away and find him something to do, can’t you? For heaven’s sake keep him out of my sight for a while.” He pushed Harry out of the office and banged the door.

  Harry, dumbfounded, stood quite still for a moment, then turned to Booth.

  “Never mind—don’t take on—Mester Shaw’s a bit hot-tempered,” said Booth consolingly. “Ah, there’s t’buzzer,” he added with relief, as the shrill wail filled the air. “Are you going home for your dinner?” Harry nodded. “Be off with you then—Mester Shaw’ll have forgotten all about it by th’ afternoon. Best go out t’other way,” he concluded, jerking his head towards the back premises.

  Harry took the hint, and after dejectedly removing the brat, found a side door which led him into the yard. He came out into the street past the red wooden gates, turned into the mill again and had begun lifting out his bicycle when he remembered his cap, which hung in the office. “I could leave it till this afternoon,” he thought. But he did not wish to leave it till the afternoon. Very quietly he approached the office door. To his great joy it stood ajar a few inches. Sliding his hand through the opening with extreme care, he stood on tiptoe, and by extending his arm to its utmost reach managed to finger his cap. But it was too distant; he could not lift it from the peg. After several vain attempts he changed his tactics and gave it a sharp flick upwards; it rose above the peg and fell clear below. With infinite good luck, it seemed to him, he caught it as it fell, and withdrew slowly from the room. The next moment he was safely out of the mill and stooping to adjust his trouser clips by the kerb.

  He felt strongly impelled to go home by way of Irebridge and Hurst Bank.

  “It’s not much further,” he muttered to himself, mounting.

  This was not quite true and he had no idea why he wanted to go by Irebridge, but the impulse was too strong to be denied. He turned to the right along the Ire Valley Road. Presently he saw ahead of him the huge stone block of Syke Mills, with its tall clock tower, its five storeys, its soaring circular chimney, its two hundred yards of main road frontage. Syke Mills were the premises of Oldroyds’, one of the great long-established textile firms of the West Riding. Morcar drew near to the wide archway which led to the interior yard. The iron gates stood open. His front wheel wobbled; he dismounted and propped his bicycle carefully against the kerb. His heart beat thick and fast. He knew now why he had come this way home; he wanted to get a job in Oldroyds’, whose name he remembered particularly from Mr. Shaw’s odd story about cutting a strip from their patterns. He would try Oldroyds’ on his way home, Armitages’ on the way back after dinner. If he couldn’t get into either place, he would try something smaller next day. He crossed the line of the archway slowly, made out the letters William Oldroyd and Sons in curving script on the brass plate let into the wall, almost obliterated by eighty or ninety years of polishing—then suddenly hung back, intimidated. Dare he really pass that impressive glossy brown door, climb those fine brass-bound cork-carpeted stairs? What should he say? What did one say when applying for a job, especially for a job which did not exist save in one’s own imagination? But on the other hand … He started forward.

  “Make up your mind!” shouted a loud sardonic voice almost in his ear.

  “Ackroyd!” rebuked another voice severely.

  Harry, whirling round, saw that he had been almost run down by a dark-green open motor-car, of which the chauffeur, a young man in olive-green to match the car, was bellowing at him indignantly. Harry sprang to one side, the chauffeur braked with violence; the car stopped a few yards within the archway and the boy found himself face to face with a handsome, dark, sallow man in late middle age who looked rather ill and was frowning sternly. Harry had never been so near one of the new motor-cars before and he was sure the passenger in this one was Mr. William Brigg Oldroyd, the present head of the firm; crimson with confusion, he gaped and fixed his ingenuous grey eyes on the millowner appealingly.

  “Do you work for us?” inquired Mr. Oldroyd, stretching out a hand to open the car door.

  His accent, his shirt-cuff, his gold cuff-links and the handsome signet ring on his little finger were so superior to anything Harry had known before that his confusion mounted; he struggled unsuccessfully first to open the door then to remove himself from its path, stammering: “No. That is, not yet.” Wringing out the necessary courage to add: “I should like to,” required the greatest effort he had yet made in life.

  “Ah,” said Mr. Oldroyd. By this time he had descended from the car and was standing on the threshold of the office building; a man whom Harry at once judged to be the works manager came out with papers in his hand to meet him. “What’s your name?”

  “Henry Morcar.”

  “He’ll be Councillor Morcar’s son, I daresay,” offered the manager. Harry nodded. “I thought John William Shaw was taking you on for your father’s sake—I’m sure I’
ve heard him say so often enough,” concluded the manager, not without a touch of sarcasm at the expense of Mr. Shaw’s benevolence.

  “I won’t go where I’m not wanted!” burst out Morcar suddenly.

  “Quite right, my boy,” approved Mr. Oldroyd. “What department would you like to be in, eh? What would you like to be when you grow up?”

  “A designer,” blurted Morcar to his own astonishment.

  “You’ll have to study hard for that. You must attend classes at the Technical College in the evenings. And even then you may not be a designer—designing requires a special talent,” said Mr. Oldroyd.

  Morcar drank in the information about the Technical College with rapture. As for talent, somehow he did not worry. He smiled happily.

  “Well—have we room for a lad up there?” asked Mr. Oldroyd, turning to the manager.

  “I daresay we could find room,” replied the manager accommodatingly.

  “When do you want to start, my boy?”

  “Two o’clock?” suggested Harry, after a rapid calculation.

  Mr. Oldroyd laughed. “Put him on,” he said to the manager, nodding. He began to mount the stairs.

  Saying hastily: “Ask for me here at two,” the manager followed him.

  The jubilant Morcar pushed his bicycle up Hurst Bank so rapidly that when he reached the Sycamores he was crimson and breathless. He propped the machine against the Shaws’ front porch, took off his cap, wiped the sweat from his forehead with a handkerchief which showed marks of the morning’s toil, sniffed to reassure himself, and walked into the house. The dining-room door stood open and the room was empty; probably the Shaws were eating their meal in the cellar kitchen, as was their habit on non-ceremonial occasions during the frequent crises when their current maid left them. Morcar listened at the cellar-head; voices floated up from below. He descended cautiously, then threw open the kitchen door. Yes; the whole Shaw family was seated at table, eating one of Mrs. Shaw’s admirable raspberry and red-currant pies—Morcar’s mouth positively watered to see it.