The Rise of Henry Morcar

by Phyllis Bentley

  “I don’t know the ins and outs of the thing, but I don’t think England ought to change her Foreign Secretary to please Germany and Italy,” said Morcar.

  “The negotiation is a business matter which must be put through in a business style,” said Harington. “If Eden is an obstacle to the bargain, he must be dropped.”

  “I wouldn’t do business with firms which never kept their promises to pay,” said Morcar. “Besides, look what a strong bargaining point their presence in Spain gives to the totalitarian powers.”

  In March, Germany seized Austria. Liberals and Jews committed suicide; beatings, tortures, concentration camps began.

  “And we stand by and do nothing!” raged David.

  “What does the young firebrand want us to do?” demanded Harington, when this was reported to him by Jenny.

  “He wants us to tell Hitler to stop, in accordance with our previous guarantee to Austria,” wrote Jenny.

  “What good would that do? Simply involve us in a war not our own,” contended her father.

  “David says it is our war,” reported Jenny. “Our respect for international obligations is involved.”

  “Besides, from the practical point of view I think he’s right,” urged Morcar. “We let the Japs get away with snatching Manchuria, and these totalitarian states have been snatching ever since. If Hitler gets away with the seizure of Austria, he’ll just go on to seize something else. Next it will be Czechoslovakia, then Poland, then the small Balkan nations, then when he’s got them all under his thumb, it will be the turn of France and England.”

  “You’re very well informed nowadays, Harry,” sneered Harington.

  “Aye—I’ve taken to reading a book or two.”

  “Under David’s guidance, I suppose?”

  “Something of that sort,” returned Morcar equably.

  “You’re entitled to your own opinion, Harry, of course,” said the barrister, smiling and looking contemptuously down his nose.

  “Yes, I am,” said Morcar.

  “He wouldn’t be entitled to it in Hitler’s Reich. Uncle Harry would be in a concentration camp in Germany,” commented Jenny in her next week’s letter.

  In April the Anglo-Italian agreement was signed, recognising the Italian conquest of Abyssinia. It was Easter, and the party were together, in a houseboat which Morcar had rented on the Thames. David wore a face of gloom as they listened to Morcar’s portable radio on the upper deck. Everything around them was very English and pleasant; the grass was green, the water silver, the willows’ graceful branches swayed in the gentle breeze, the swans arched their long white necks proudly. But David’s thoughts darkened the landscape.

  “Other nations can now expect nothing but expediency from England,” he said.

  “Don’t be so exaggerated, David,” said Harington.

  “I was only quoting the Manchester Guardian.”

  “Oh, the Guardian! Cut your losses—it’s the only sensible thing to do,” pronounced Harington. “Surely you as a business man appreciate that principle, Harry.”

  “Aye—but these are somebody else’s losses,” objected Morcar.

  “If the recognition of the conquest of Abyssinia saves the peace of Europe, the sacrifice is well worth making.”

  “It is expedient that one man die for the multitude,” said Jenny suddenly.

  “Jenny!” exploded Harington.

  “Why don’t you take out the punt, dear?” said Christina hastily.

  When the two young people had gone upstream Harington turned to Morcar and said:

  “Of course I have no right to object to your other guests, Harry, but I wish very much you would avoid inviting us with that young man again.”

  His tone was smooth but his face a mask of fury. Morcar enquired mildly: “What has the boy done wrong?”

  “I can’t endure these long-haired young Bolsheviks who want to plunge Europe into war for their own silly ideas!” raged Harington. “What does he think will happen to London if England gets into a continental scrap? Damned young fool! I should be greatly obliged, Harry, if you would refrain from introducing young men of that sort into my house in future.”

  “You invited David Oldroyd to your house yourself, I had nothing to do with it,” said Morcar, angry in his turn. “If you don’t wish him to visit you again, tell him so.”

  “What’s the good of that when the harm’s already done?”

  “Harm?”

  “Don’t pretend you haven’t noticed it—don’t pretend you haven’t eyes in your head!” raged Harington. His bald head was flushed, his pale eyes bloodshot. “He wants to marry Jenny, as you very well know. He told Christina so at Christmas.”

  “Well, why shouldn’t he?” said Morcar, to whom Christina had confided David’s intentions.

  “Because he hasn’t a penny and because he’s an uncouth West Riding manufacturer—he’s not a suitable match for my daughter,” barked Harington. “On top of that he has these outrageous views, which he’s imparting to Jenny.”

  “Edward dear, you know that’s not true,” said Christina soothingly. “David was educated at Winchester, he isn’t uncouth, his hair is short, he’s very personable. He has pleasant relatives—there’s Sir Richard Bamforth after all. From what Harry says, his father’s people have been figures in West Riding history for two hundred years.”

  “I don’t want Jenny to go and live in a barbaric hole in the West Riding!” raged Harington.

  “I resent your attitude to Yorkshire,” said Morcar hotly. “But if what you say is true and we need civilising, then that gives all the more scope to Jenny.”

  “And what would the happy pair use for money, as Edwin would say? That boy hasn’t a penny except what he earns—”

  “Neither have I, if it comes to that.”

  “—and his premises are mortgaged to some bank or other. He told me so himself.”

  “The bank are financing him,” explained Morcar.

  “How can he possibly provide for Jenny properly?”

  “Well—he’ll be my partner one of these days,” said Morcar.

  Christina exclaimed; Harington, halted in mid-diatribe, quite gaped at his host; Morcar himself tried to conceal his surprise at his own decision. It had sprung from his lips before he was altogether aware of it, but once uttered he knew he had made it long ago.

  “Of course if you say that,” grumbled Harington unwillingly: “The matter wears a rather different aspect. But there are dozens of young men I would sooner Jenny married than young Oldroyd.”

  “But if they are in love, Edward?” said Christina.

  From his wife this was an argument which Harington could not easily counter, since it was part of his pride to regard his marriage with Christina as an ideally happy love-match. “It’s his confounded politics, my dear,” he grumbled. “These wild ideas—there’s no future in them.”

  “Don’t forbid him the house. Please don’t, Edward,” begged Christina. “It would make Jenny very unhappy. Give her time to decide for herself.”

  Harington snorted angrily but allowed himself to be guided by his wife.

  Morcar thought it well, next time they were alone together in Yorkshire, to give David a mild warning of the opposition he was likely to encounter from Jenny’s father.

  “Oh, that’s just the usual Œdipus-complex stuff,” said David calmly. “He wouldn’t approve of anyone who wanted to marry Jenny, even if he’d chosen the lad himself.”

  “That may be,” said Morcar, wondering who (or what) Œdipus was. “But it’s your political ideas he can’t get over.”

  “I can’t help that,” said David. He paused and added: “I think myself it’s my lack of cash he objects to.”

  “That will remedy itself, I don’t doubt,” said Morcar.

  “To some extent,” agreed David. “But not very far, I fear.”

  “I thought I might remedy it by giving you a small partnership in Syke Mills,” said Morcar, taking the plunge.

&n
bsp; The blood rushed to the young man’s face. “That’s awfully good of you,” he said. “Awfully good!” he repeated on a note of astonishment. “And very tempting. Especially as it would bring me back to Syke Mills. But I’m afraid I mustn’t accept.”

  “Why not?” barked Morcar.

  “I have these peculiar economic ideas, you see,” said David. “You don’t care for them and they’re all I care for.”

  “I thought Jenny was what you cared for?”

  “Jenny and I care for the ideas,” explained David. “We share them. At least,” he added in a murmur, colouring: “It’s no good our marrying, if we don’t.”

  “Well—the offer stands open. I shan’t take an answer now so you needn’t go on talking,” said Morcar, drowning David’s expostulations. “It isn’t all for your sake, so don’t think so. I’m fond of Jenny and want to see her happy. And whatever Œdipus may be, take my advice and let sleeping Œdipuses lie.”

  David laughed. “I’ll try,” he promised dutifully.

  In September, the Sudeten Germans within Czechoslovakia demanded incorporation in Germany.

  “It seems a natural and reasonable demand,” said Harington. “They are German nationals, not Czechoslovakian.”

  “Let the problem be settled in a reasonable way, then,” said Morcar, “by negotiation.”

  “Nonsense!” said David. “Hitler deliberately stirred them up so as to have an excuse to attack Czechoslovakia.”

  Hitler made a speech at Nuremberg. The ranting, raving voice shouted over the radio to the world.

  “Naturally he feels the matter deeply and has to play it up a little for his own people,” said Harington.

  “Damned rude. Asking for trouble,” said Morcar.

  “Deliberately inflammatory and provocative,” said David. “Part of the plan.”

  An ultimatum was presented to Czechoslovakia, to expire at midnight. Chamberlain flew to Godesberg.

  “I must say I don’t like an English Prime Minister going to Hitler,” said Morcar. “Hitler should come here.”

  “He won’t.”

  “Well, if he won’t, that shows how low we’ve fallen.”

  “I’m glad to see you still have some patriotic feeling,” sneered Harington.

  “It’s not a question of patriotism, it’s a question of law and outlaw, of judge and criminal,” said David.

  “I don’t trust Chamberlain with England’s reputation,” said Christina uneasily.

  “I’m afraid he will sell Czechoslovakia,” said Jenny.

  “My dear, if appeasement is to be achieved, sacrifices will have to be made.”

  “Whose sacrifices?”

  “No matter whose.”

  “It is expedient that one man die for the multitude,” commented Jenny as before.

  “Appeasement means you’ll do anything for peace which doesn’t inconvenience yourself,” defined David.

  The conversations between Chamberlain and Hitler were suspended, for Hitler raised his demands and at the same time continued to entrain troops towards the Czechoslovakian frontier.

  “Too much even for Chamberlain,” said David.

  “It seems to me that David was right, and this Sudeten business was simply an excuse to attack Czechoslovakia,” said Morcar.

  Hitler declared his intention of mobilising on the morrow unless the Czechs accepted the Godesberg ultimatum. Chamberlain spoke over the wireless to the British nation. He observed that however much one might sympathise with a small nation confronted by a big powerful neighbour, he could not undertake to involve the whole British Empire in a war simply on that account. If we have to fight, it must be on larger issues than that. …

  “Good God!” exclaimed Morcar, incredulous. “Hasn’t the man ever heard of justice?”

  “Chamberlain argues like the maidservant who excused her illegitimate child on the ground that it was a small one,” said David.

  “I see no analogy,” contended Harington. “We must take a realistic view.”

  “But justice doesn’t depend on the size of what is involved, surely, Edward?” said Christina in a puzzled tone.

  “Allow me to know a little more about law than you do. A thief who steals much receives a longer sentence than one who steals less.”

  “But both are judged guilty against the law, and branded as thieves.”

  “Justice,” said David, “is a principle, not a unit of measurement.”

  “Mr. Chamberlain,” said Jenny, “has no principle, only a policy.”

  “You’d have to look far to find a better Prime Minister for England to-day.”

  “No, I wouldn’t,” said Morcar. “There’s Churchill. He supported Eden in the House.”

  “Churchill as Prime Minister? Never!” exclaimed Harington.

  Two days later the Union Jack, according to the newspapers, hung beside the Swastika.

  “Ugh!” said David.

  “How Chamberlain can stand those brutes slobbering over him I can’t imagine,” said Morcar.

  “I feel profoundly humiliated, profoundly ashamed,” said Jenny.

  “We must face the facts and take a realistic view,” said her father. “Do you want war? Do you want London to experience air-raids?”

  “What’s the use of life if you’re disgraced, enslaved?” said Jenny.

  Hitler invited England, France and Italy to meet him at Munich. Two Czech representatives were also there, but not present at the meeting, remaining merely “at the disposal” of their allies. On the last day of the month Chamberlain surrendered completely to the threat of force, giving Hitler everything he asked for, including partial occupation of Czechoslovakia on the morrow. The day was Friday; as it chanced Morcar and David dined at the Haringtons’ that night.

  “Peace with Dishonour!” exclaimed Jenny as they sat at coffee.

  “We’ve saved our skins by throwing Czechoslovakia to the wolves,” said David bitterly.

  “Aye—I keep thinking of decent little Czech manufacturers having to turn out and leave their mills and everything at a day’s notice or stay under Germany’s rule,” said Morcar.

  “You’ll find they won’t leave,” sneered Harington.

  “By God! If it was me I’d leave,” exclaimed Morcar feelingly.

  “What, leave Syke Mills?” jeered Harington. “Thistledowns and all?”

  “Yes!” said Morcar.

  “I feel so disgraced, so ashamed,” said Jenny. Her lower lip quivered; her whole face was distorted by the effort to control her tears.

  “My dear child, you’re making yourself ridiculous.”

  “You’re making yourself ill, Jenny darling. Do try not to mind so much,” urged Christina.

  “You really must control yourself,” said Harington sternly.

  “Daddy, I can’t. This is the blackest page of English history. Our name will be execrated by every right-thinking nation. We’ve betrayed justice and righteousness and democracy and everything I hold dear.”

  “Really, Jenny! You’re becoming hysterical.”

  “She’s quite right, sir, all the same.”

  “Kindly allow me to know what is best for my own daughter, Oldroyd,” said Harington, handing Christina his cup.

  “I met murder in the rain, It carried an umbrella like Chamberlain,” murmured David.

  “It’s all very well holding these jejeune ideas when you haven’t to put them into operation and watch the results,” said Harington. “Statesmen have to consider consequences; the responsibility for consequences rests on them. The point is simply this: Are we to make these small sacrifices—”

  “But it’s not we who make them. Haven’t you heard the story of Chamberlain and the souvenir, Mr. Harington?” said David. “Chamberlain when asked for his umbrella as a souvenir of Munich, replied: ‘Oh, I can’t give you that; it’s mine.’”

  Morcar laughed, Christina and Jenny exclaimed bitterly, at this. The goaded Harington flushed.

  “If I could be allowed to finish a se
ntence in my own house,” he said savagely, “I should be extremely grateful. The point is simply this: Are these sacrifices to be made, or are we to subject Europe to air bombardment?”

  “Well,” said David: “If we’ve given in to Hitler out of fear, let’s at least be honest and admit it, and not talk guff about Peace in Our Time. I don’t enjoy belonging to a nation of funks, myself.”

  “Leave the house, sir!” shouted Harington.

  David put down his coffee cup with meticulous care and flung out of the room.

  Jenny slowly rose. No longer a girl but a tall young woman with a handsome head, she made a singularly striking figure in her white evening frock, which flowed about her in lines of such classic simplicity that she had quite the air of a statue from a master hand. At the moment her face was almost as white as her frock, and her great grey eyes blazed.

  “Father,” she said—it was the first time Morcar had ever heard her use this appellation—“if David goes, I go too.”

  “Don’t be so ridiculous, Jenny,” said Harington petulantly. “I thought you had more sense than to indulge in these histrionics.”

  “Jenny, dear,” pleaded Christina.

  “I can’t help it, Mother,” said Jenny, her lip quivering, tears springing to her eyes. “I can’t stay here where everything I love is hated and everything I hate loved.”

  “But darling, what do all these political things matter? You love your father. These questions of principle are above your head.”

  “You talk like Chamberlain, Mother,” exclaimed Jenny.

  “Let me remind you that I am your legal guardian until you are of age,” said Harington, white with fury and jealous love.

  Jenny seemed to consider. “Very well,” she said at length. “But as soon as I am twenty-one, I shall marry David.”

  She began to move slowly towards the door, but her youthful dignity broke before she reached it and she ran from the room.

  “Jenny!” called her father fondly. “Jenny, my dear!” After a moment’s hesitation he went out after her, and could be heard pleading: “Now let us be sensible, Jennifer,” as he followed her upstairs.

  Morcar turned to Christina. She sat with head bowed, her face in her hands. Her attitude showed the delicate white neck beneath her dark curls, which it was one of Morcar’s pleasures to caress, but at this moment he dared not touch her. He paced about the room once or twice, but finding her pose of tense grief did not change, said pleadingly: