A Man of His Time

by Phyllis Bentley

  ‘There’s life in the old dog yet,’ thought Morcar, and he felt happy.

  Shortly after the wedding, the first set of Chuff’s Technical College examinations approached and the lad was plunged into deep gloom. He was actually to be seen about the house with books under his arm, looking worried, and he even at times employed Susie to ask him questions on chapters he had memorized. Indeed he was so unlike the normal self-satisfied Chuff that Morcar decided to interview the head of the textile department of the College and ask his advice.

  He was amazed when he dismounted at the College to see how greatly it had changed since his young days: three times the size, as plain as a mill, no scrolls or pillars, enough plate-glass to furnish a pair of multiple stores. He was directed to the basement (admirably lighted by fluorescent bars) and found the man he sought in a long hall amid several types of looms. It was morning and they were hushed and unattended.

  ‘He’s not an academic type, Mr Morcar. He doesn’t learn easily from books. And he doesn’t express himself in examination style, if you follow me.’

  Morcar groaned.

  ‘But he’s not too bad at his textiles. He’ll get through those all right. It’s a great help to him being so much with you.’

  ‘Really?’ said Morcar, surprised.

  ‘Yes, indeed, Mr Morcar. But he must finish the course, he must take all three years, he must go through to the end.’

  ‘Well, of course.’

  ‘He’s talking about giving it up. But you must keep him at it, Mr Morcar. You must indeed.’

  ‘Trust me,’ said Morcar grimly.

  ‘Why not take him through every department of Syke Mills, Mr Morcar, and put him a set of questions on each? As you walk along, you know. If he was weak on any point, you could explain it on the spot. He learns best that way. And after all, nobody is better qualified than yourself.’

  So low had Morcar’s spirits been in the last year or two, through his conflicts with youth, that he felt actually surprised and pleased by this tribute. He did not quite know what to reply, so gave a non-committal murmur. Turning away, he found himself face to face with the Principal of the Technical College, a large firm solid man with a wide smile which Morcar perceived covered an iron will.

  ‘I heard you were here, Mr Morcar,’ said he.

  Morcar gave another suitable murmur.

  ‘It occurred to me to wonder whether you would care to distribute our certificates this year,’ said the Principal, as they paced away together. ‘And give us a short address.’

  ‘A prize-giving?’ said Morcar, alarmed.

  ‘No, no. We have no prizes. Just awards and certificates. And a short address.’

  ‘Well,’ began Morcar doubtfully.

  ‘As a former student, you know. I’ve been looking you up in our records. It would encourage our students. I can give you the date now,’ said the Principal firmly. ‘Just a short address is all that’s needed.’

  Before they reached the entrance hall Morcar found he had promised to do what the Principal asked. He felt in fact agreeably flattered; he had never been asked to do anything of this kind before and rather looked forward to it.

  A day or two before Chuff’s examinations began, Morcar took him on the proposed interrogatory tour of Syke Mills. Chuff, who started the tour jauntily enough, not knowing what was in store for him, soon wilted; he sweated with anguish, and gasped hoarsely from time to time that he hadn’t learned anything about that particular item yet. At the end he gazed imploringly at his grandfather.

  ‘Well, you’re not too bad,’ conceded Morcar. ‘I should think you’ll just scrape through.’

  Chuff, who was well aware that textiles were his best subject, groaned.

  However he managed, as Morcar had predicted, to scrape through, and would be among the students to receive a certificate from Morcar’s hand.

  A week before the prize-giving, as Morcar continued to call it, he suddenly discovered that he had not the slightest idea what to say in his address or how to say it. Inquiring among his business associates, he gained little help; most of them, accustomed only to after-dinner speeches, told him to be funny; the more experienced, town councillors and the like, wagged their heads solemnly and said that prize-givings were always difficult because there were present two age-groups, students and their parents; besides, something ethical and at the same time practical was expected. Morcar blenched. He sat at his desk in his den one or two evenings, trying to put a few words together, with little success. On a day when the affair was looming close, he gave a despairing sigh, and Susie, who according to custom was doing her homework as usual at a table on the other side of the room, rose and came over to him.

  ‘Why don’t you ask Jonathan what to say, Grandfather?’ she suggested.

  Morcar winced. This was only an infatuated child’s idea, of course, but all the same he felt bitterly ashamed and cast down. Was he so old, so out of touch, so useless, that he must consult a young man nearly fifty years his junior? He brooded on the matter all night without coming to a decision, but next morning as he drove himself down to Syke Mills - he had not yet replaced Jessopp - he suddenly drew up, with a squeal of brakes, in front of the Irebridge Post Office, and going in wrote and dispatched a telegram to Jonathan: Grateful your hints prize-giving speech Annotsfield Technical College Friday Morcar. He came out chuckling, pleased with himself for facing the facts of modern life; the pain and soreness beneath remained, however.

  Next evening when he returned to Stanney Royd an envelope addressed in Jonathan’s neat firm hand awaited him. Dear Uncle Harry, wrote Jonathan, a few suggestions herewith. On a separate sheet Morcar read the following notes:

  1. I am pleased to be here because I was a student in this College from (give dates). Of course the College has changed a good deal since those days. (If anything amusing about old buildings, tell it.) Compliments about its fine modern buildings. In those three (or five) years I took the following courses. (Give their names.) I was lucky enough to win a medal in the (title of whatever it was). Nobody was prouder than I when I received that medal, which I still value; and therefore it gives me particular pleasure - and I mean real pleasure - to hand over medals and awards and certificates to the students of today.

  2. It wasn’t all easy, of course. (Anecdote here of something you did wrong in those days.) But life of course is never easy. (Anecdote here of something Nathan grumbled about lately, or trouble with a customer.)

  3. The only way to achieve anything in life is to devote yourself to it. After family life, your trade or profession should come next in your interest. Total committal. Always be ready to learn something about your work. (Anecdotes here about how you are always looking at colours, shapes, etc, and about the invention of one or two of your best designs in this way. Very rarely off duty.)

  4. To add something fine to the life of the community is surely the ambition of all. A fine craftsman or woman constantly enriches life in this way. Examples: cloth, machines, housewifery, etc.

  ‘Why, that’s easy,’ said Morcar, delighted. ‘I can do that standing on my head. There’s that bother I had when I was in South Africa, about the wrong thread of yarn getting woven in. And there’s my rose and lemon.’ He did not even have to remind himself about his City and Guilds medal; that youthful achievement was too greatly prized ever to be forgotten. ‘Why couldn’t I have thought of that myself?’ he grumbled, and felt a pang. ‘He’s a clever boy, is Jonathan.’ He sighed to think how good it would have been to have Jonathan at his side in Syke Mills instead of Chuff. ‘I mustn’t be unfair to Chuff, though,’ he told himself staunchly. ‘It’s not his fault. Let’s see. An anecdote of something I did wrong at the Tech as a lad.’ He cast his mind back, back over the years to the days when he was twenty, a fresh-faced, eager, ingenuous, trusting lad, the only son of a widow in poor circumstances, fond of cricket, walking to work and back every day because tram-fares were quite out of the question, and regarding a sixpenny bottle of ginger-pop a
s a great treat.

  ‘Lord, what a simpleton I was!’ thought Morcar. ‘And what have I got out of life through these fifty years of struggle?’

  Money? Oh, yes, lashings of money. A couple of tragedies - Charlie, Winnie - and a lot of unhappiness; a brief poignant ecstasy with Christina; friendship with David, affection for Jennifer, and now these children, Jonathan, Chuff, Susie, who all turned out different from what he had hoped. The best thing in his life was his cloth; some of the finest cloths in the West Riding, after all, he reminded himself, feeling cheered.

  Please forgive these brief notes, but time presses this term, concluded Jonathan.

  ‘Working his head off, as usual,’ snorted Morcar.

  The Technical College speech was a great success; indeed Morcar was most agreeably surprised by the applause it received. He enjoyed handing out awards and certificates, and grinned pleasurably when Chuff, crimson with embarrassment, took the small scroll from him with a moist hand.

  ‘I expect I looked much the same at that age,’ thought Morcar kindly. ‘His complexion’s fairer, more gingery, than mine ever was, though. That’s the Oldroyd streak in him, I expect.’

  The Principal’s thanks struck Morcar as surprisingly warm.

  ‘We don’t often hear such ideas voiced nowadays,’ he said.

  ‘They’re not out of date, for all that,’ said Morcar sharply.

  ‘I was certainly not implying anything of the kind,’ returned the Principal.

  ‘Well, then, what about some more English courses for my Pakistanis?’ said Morcar.

  ‘We’re doing our best, Mr Morcar.’

  ‘Well, you’ve got to do better, then.’

  ‘And where do I get the money?’

  ‘Shall I give you some?’ said Morcar.

  ‘No, no. That would rend the whole educational system from top to toe,’ said the Principal, sighing. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’

  Now that this affair was over, Morcar realized that he had been worrying over it; he relaxed. A very happy custom had grown up between himself and Susie, that on Sunday afternoons they should drive over to Nat Armitage’s house for tea, to see Jennifer. Chuff of course was out for the day; he went faithfully every Sunday to his grandmother’s for a midday dinner, and then escaped joyously to the Mellors’ for the evening. (‘I hate going to Grandma’s,’ he confided to Jonathan, ‘but I can’t help feeling sorry for the old bag. She doted on my father. That was what was wrong with him really, you know. He never got free till too late. I expect that’s why he went to South Africa - to get free, I mean.’ ‘Perhaps it was so,’ agreed Jonathan gravely.) Morcar respected his grandson’s faithfulness in this matter, and asked him no questions about his Sundays. Morcar and Susie therefore lunched alone together on Mrs Jessopp’s choicest delicacies; Morcar then fell asleep over the Sunday newspapers while Susie, he guessed, wrote to Jonathan; then they set out together to drive slowly over the hill by a very stony unpaved lane, open to every wind that blew, to Emsley Hall, the huge square mansion under the brow, built in mid-Victorian days when large families were the fashion, where Nat Armitage obstinately still chose to live because it was near the Armitage mills.

  Jennifer’s marriage was obviously a success. Nat glowed with happiness; Jennifer at first wore the bemused, subdued, timorously delighted air of a young girl on the morning after her first night of marriage, thought Morcar, but after a while seemed to recover herself and settle into contentment. She improved the appearance of the house and wandering hillside garden no end, gave up some of her committees, and at Nat’s wish entertained a good deal. Her manner, to everyone but especially to Susie, was much softer than of old; she planned treats for the child, took her to social occasions and to shops, and saw that she was plentifully provided with everything a teenager required. Accordingly the relationship between the two seemed easier, and this gave Morcar pleasure. It appeared to him that while Nat and Jennifer could not really wish to have their Sunday afternoons intruded upon, yet the goodness of their hearts was such that they took pleasure in performing what they regarded as an affectionate duty, and thus gave Morcar and Susie a sincere welcome, feeling set free to enjoy themselves in their own way when this duty had been performed. Grandfather and grand-daughter always left the Hall before six o’clock, for either guests would drop in -though it was a severe climb rather than a drop - for drinks in the next hour or Nat and Jennifer would be due for them elsewhere themselves.

  When they drove away down the long slightly moss-grown drive Susie always bore with her the letter Jennifer had written earlier that afternoon to Jonathan, which she now handed to Susie with a smile, to be posted at the Annotsfield General Post Office, when it would travel to Oxford more speedily than if deposited in the single Emsley pillar-box. An agreeable fiction was maintained that Morcar was obliged to drive down to Annotsfield to post his own Sunday-written letters; Morcar, who never wrote a letter in his own hand nowadays if he could avoid it, usually brought a bill or two and their appropriate cheques home from the mill, to sustain this useful myth. Drawing up at the GPO, he took these from his pocket and handed them to Susie, who inserted Jennifer’s letter and her own into the pile and put them together through the appropriate slot. There was no reason why the fact of Susie’s correspondence with Jonathan should be concealed except that Susie evidently wished it so; when she returned to the car her cheek was always very faintly flushed and she wore a secret smile; Morcar would not for anything in the world have roughly brushed this delicate bloom of youth.

  The death of old Mr Shaw in early June did not bring any real grief to Morcar; he had always detested the old rascal, and felt glad on Winnie’s account that she should be free from the care of him. Moreover, he was pleased with the way Chuff handled the affair. Chuff suddenly appeared before him in the mill one morning and said that his grandmother had telephoned him to say that her old father had just died, and would Chuff go at once and attend to the funeral arrangements.

  ‘Surely one of her own brothers will look after that,’ said Morcar.

  ‘There aren’t any left here,’ said Chuff.

  ‘There were four. Two were killed in the 1914 war,’ said Morcar - Charlie’s death came up before him at once; again he dragged Charlie up the side of that slimy shell-hole; Charlie, Charlie! ‘One went to South Africa.’

  ‘Two,’ corrected Chuff.

  ‘Oh, well, if two went out there, then of course there aren’t any left here,’ said Morcar gruffly. ‘But I’ll attend to the matter.’

  ‘No - I’ll do it if you’ll tell me what’s to be done,’ said Chuff.

  Morcar informed him, and Chuff carried out his instructions faithfully and well. The undertaker, the conduct and place of the service and interment, the notices to the press, flowers from Chuff and Susie with a card suitably inscribed, the printing and dispatch of thank-you notices, the wearing of a black tie, and so on - all the conventions were well and punctually upheld. Chuff insisted that Susie should accompany him to the funeral.

  ‘How do you feel about that, Susie?’ inquired Morcar.

  ‘She’ll be quite all right,’ said Chuff roughly.

  ‘I’m asking Susie.’

  Susie gave Chuff a cold look, and said: ‘I intend to go, of course,’ in a tone of careful indifference, as if her brother had not spoken.

  ‘There is more in that young woman than meets the eye,’ said Morcar afterwards to Chuff.

  ‘Well, she’s Mother’s daughter, she’s got some Oldroyd in her,’ said Chuff.

  In the event Susie behaved, her brother reported, admirably at the funeral, supporting her grandmother when it was neeeded, but holding her off, as it were, by the perfection of her manners and the coolness of her demeanour.

  ‘I think Grandma was rather afraid of her,’ said Chuff, laughing.

  Morcar instructed his solicitors to write an official letter of condolence to Winnie on his behalf, and to inquire whether the change in her circumstances required any alteration in her alimony.
They received from her in reply one of her customary ill-written notes, on cheap lined paper, saying: If Harry Morcar wants to lower my allowance, he can. At this Morcar naturally fumed and instructed his solicitors to tell Winnie that he had not, and never had had, any intention of decreasing her alimony. Winnie did not bother to reply. She moved, however, into a smaller house, telling Chuff that the housework of Hurst-cote was too much for her nowadays. She found a small Victorian house on the main Annotsfield to Hudley road, not far indeed from the address to which Morcar and his mother had moved during his father’s last illness. Although he had not thought of the house in Hurst Road for years, Morcar was vexed by this nearness; he did not want Winnie to be anywhere near anything which had ever belonged to him. At Chuff’s request Morcar’s solicitors conducted the purchase and sale for Winnie; she made them such a scene about paying their fees for the transactions that the junior partner was quite shaken, and in the event Morcar paid the fees.

  ‘You’d better tell your grandmother that one of these days she’ll come to the end of my patience and I shall put my foot down,’ he told Chuff grimly, and after the following Sunday inquired: ‘Did you tell your grandmother what I said?’

  ‘Yes. I told her.’

  ‘Did she seem to take it in? What did she say?’

  ‘She just grinned,’ said Chuff, grinning himself.

  ‘Aye! She would!’ said Morcar.

  ‘It’s a nice little house, Number 23.’ said Chuff consolingly.

  Being now free of evening classes for a month or two, he spent a good deal of time in the evening at this house, helping his grandmother by hanging pictures, putting up shelves, moving furniture and so on. Morcar was pleased by this ready and good-humoured acceptance of a tiresome responsibility. It was not in Morcar’s nature - or indeed, as he reflected, in the Yorkshire nature at all - to express his approbation directly, but he conveyed it, he thought, in his tone.