More Tales of the West Riding

by Phyllis Bentley

  “He’ll fall, Mother,” observed Ned mildly.

  Lucy sighed. Why was Harry always so naughty? The soiling of the sailor suit, washed and ironed only yesterday, was bad enough, but the ridicule of the boy’s performance in the eyes of all Annotsfield—passers-by were actually laughing—vexed Lucy’s proud spirit. She took a step forward, intending to pursue the naughty but dearly loved boy, remembered that it was not wise for her to run, since she was pregnant with her third child (me), and instead urged her elder son:

  “Stop him, Ned.”

  Ned obediently rushed after his brother.

  Too late, alas. Harry, leaping down yet another pair of steps, miscalculated their depth, tripped and fell. Never slow to express his feelings, he howled. A lady in an elegantly cut walking dress of fine indigo worsted—trust Lucy to perceive its quality—with a handsome cameo brooch and a superlative hat of spiky dark blue satin bows, was moving with dignity down the dentist’s long path. She hastened her step, tucked her silver-cornered purse under one arm and lifted Harry to his feet. Lucy, hastening her steps as much as she dared, cried: “Thank you!” in mingled gratitude and resentment, and found herself face to face with her cousin.

  “Lucy!”

  “Kate!”

  “We have not seen each other for a long time, Lucy.” Kate’s voice was dry, but shook.

  “We live up the valley now, I don’t often come into Annotsfield,” panted Lucy.

  “Why should we not be friends now, Lucy. All that old quarrel is over long ago. It was foolish. No doubt I was to blame. I was young. Let us be friends now, Lucy. You have two fine boys. I too have a son.”

  She looked towards the road. An open landau drawn by a fine chestnut horse and driven by a coachman in dark green livery, with a cockade in his hat, stood at the kerb. In it sat a boy. A year older than Ned, probably; fairish and solid, scowling a little but bright-eyed.

  “The image,” thought Lucy, “of his father, I don’t doubt.”

  At this moment there uncurled itself from beneath the hind wheels of the landau, a dog. A huge, tall, sleek, smooth white Dalmatian, its sinewy body neatly spotted here and there in black. It came slowly towards Kate, stepping delicately, holding its long tapering tail stiffly aloof. Another similar animal followed. These “coach dogs”, as they were then called, were at that time regarded in Annotsfield as the summit token, the very hallmark, of wealth.

  “Let us be friends now, Lucy,” Kate was murmuring.

  But the Dalmatian was the last straw.

  “No!” cried Lucy. “Never! You made me bitterly unhappy in my young time, Kate. I am happy now. Don’t come and spoil it all. I don’t want you now.”

  “True We do not need each other now,” said Kate, very quiet and cold. She smiled, nodded, and moved away towards her carriage.

  In fact, both women lied.

  Lucy was a happy wife, loving and loved. Her sons were healthy. Edward, at her appeal, had given up playing rugby after losing a few teeth in a scrum, and settled down to be a steady married man. Her mother was never ill. Her beloved father had lately been showing some deterioration in heart and chest, but not more than was to be expected in a man of his age; his wife nursed him very precisely, and suitable specialists called in gave only mild and distant warnings. (They were wrong there, as it turned out, for Thomas Hallam died a few years after I was born, living just long enough to let me know him.) But Lucy was not yet worried by this possibility; being strong physically herself, she was not apt to foresee ill-health. No; the only thing that worried her was the state of the textile trade, which at that time was going up and down in prosperity as usual. Or rather, perhaps—to be honest—there were two things that worried her; the state of the textile trade, and Edward’s lack of skill with money.

  Everybody in the West Riding knew that Edward Randal was highly skilled as regards cloth. Oh yes, he knew cloth thoroughly, fleece to worsted. And was honest—almost too honest for his own good. But money bored him. Of a careless, generous disposition, somehow he could not bother with money. As long as old Sykes lived, all was well; Edward found the old man tiresome, finicking, pernickety, fussy, and hated the scoldings he gave his young partner every month. But everything was correct and in order. Edward and Lucy lived in a small but comfortable house in the village up the valley from Annotsfield. The hills, rocky, steep, purple with heather in autumn, towered around them and the young couple walked them eagerly; the rocky beck sparkled at the bottom of the field. They were not rich, but not poor; their income was steady, for old Sykes paid Edward a salary; the children were all one could wish.

  But then old Sykes died. Edward was left to manage the firm. He enjoyed being his own master. But now not only his wife and children, his mother and one still unmarried sister, but old Sykes’ widow and unmarried daughter, depended on his skill.

  Then came the awful incident of the closed drawer. Ned was three months old when it occurred. A man from the village came to the door one afternoon to bring some raspberry canes ordered by Edward. Not having quite enough loose cash to pay him, and Edward being not yet returned from the mill, Lucy skipped blithely across the room to Edward’s desk, where she often saw him inserting and removing papers. She pulled open the relevant drawer. It was full of unpaid bills.

  Lucy, horrified, white and gasping, sank to a chair. Her face was so terrible that Baby Ned, frightened, set up a long loud howl. Lucy with some skill used this outburst as an excuse. Joggling Ned to ensure that his wail continued, she urged the raspberry man to call at the mill for his payment since Baby was in such a trying mood.

  The scene between Lucy and Edward on Edward’s return home was extremely painful. Lucy, daughter of a meticulously honest Hallam, sobbed and demanded to know how Ned’s father could disgrace Ned so. Edward, bitterly ashamed, wept too, but somehow conveyed without uttering it his conviction that he never could manage money. Accounts, he said, were a torture no cloth man could endure. He did not, to be truthful, really understand them.

  “At Cloughs’ I never had anything to do with money,” he lamented.

  From that moment the Randal household never ran up a bill. Lucy never bought anything she could not immediately pay for. She economised, she scraped; she did her own housework, she made her own dresses; she stitched the boys’ sailor suits herself. So far, so good. The household was free of the slightest reproach. But what about the mill? Once, things grew so muddled there that she actually had to turn to her father for help.

  “Ought you help Edward, Tom? Will he ever keep everything straight? Think of ourselves a bit, will you?” objected Hannah as they went to bed that night.

  “I encouraged Edward to marry Lucy, so I must stand by it,” returned Hallam, calm as usual.

  “Well—”

  “Edward is just a bit too soft, that’s all. He’s as honest as the day, but a bit too soft.”

  “I agree. But—”

  “And nobody could be a better husband to our daughter.”

  “Well, that’s true,” yielded Hannah, warming a little.

  “Or a better father to our grandchildren.”

  “Ha!” exclaimed Hannah, rolling over to smother her vexation. “The children are certainly lovely.”

  “Well, then.”

  “Very well, but don’t land us in the poorhouse in our old age.”

  ‘I won’t. Hannah,” began Hallam very quietly: “I intend to Buy that house they live in, Edgecote, and put the deeds in Lucy’s name. Then they’ll always have a roof over their heads.”

  “That’s good, Tom, that’s good. Yes, it’s a good idea, is that. But don’t ever tell Edward or Lucy, or those deeds will be in the bank as security for some overdraft of Edward’s, before you know where you are.”

  “You’re right. Perhaps I’d better put the deeds in your name.”

  “And do you think I could hold out against Lucy if she wanted to use them? Don’t put me in a position to have a family quarrel over a house! If I own the house, Edward and Lucy will
hate me. If I’m poorly off, Edward will slave to see me put right.”

  “You like Edward more than you say.”

  “He’s a good husband to our Lucy. Couldn’t be kinder. That’s what counts with a woman in wedlock, they say.”

  “Ah,” sighed Hallam mildly.

  But now at this moment when Lucy and Kate met, ten years after they married, Edward’s affairs were in rather a muddle again. This time it was not his fault. The United States had slapped on a tariff to protect their own nascent textile industry, and textile imports from England dropped by more than half. The whole of the West Riding was there-fore in trouble. Large firms like Cloughs’ scowled, gritted their teeth, and lowered salaries and dividends to weather the storm. Smaller firms closed weaving sheds, and some firms staggering in difficulties went bankrupt.

  “They say grass will grow in the streets of Bradford,” said Lucy to her father, her voice shaking in spite of her efforts to be calm.

  “It’s a bad time but it will pass. The effects of tariffs never last very long,” said Hallam. “The price inside the tariff wall soon rises to equal the price of the imports.”

  “I don’t understand any of that,” said Lucy impatiently. “Edward is worried to death, father. He can’t eat or sleep. If you saw him!”

  “I’ll have a word with your bank manager,” said Hallam.

  He was doing precisely that at this moment, and Lucy was to call at the Hallam home for a midday meal to hear the result. What with this anguish of suspense, and the oncoming of this third child, unwanted, expensive, and so late, Lucy was in a state of acute nervous tension. The sight of Kate, so handsome and elegant in her expensive dress, with her landau and coachman and above all that odious Dog—it just could not be borne. She had never needed Kate so much. It was too humiliating. It was all Edward’s fault. For Edward’s sake she could not bear it. Accordingly she rejected Kate’s proffered friendship furiously, crying: “No! Never!”

  They parted.

  Kate, as her dress, her carriage and above all her Coach Dog showed, was not harassed by financial troubles. The recession had not affected the great Clough firm uncomfortably as yet, and at Clough Lea money seemed to abound pretty much as usual. Nor was Kate anxious about her offspring’s physique. Her one son, Benjamin Garrett Clough, was in solid, not to say blooming, health. But she had trouble of another kind. Garrett was Ben’s father’s name, and Ben’s son was named after him.

  “I should like Milner for a second name, Ben,” Kate had said the day after the child’s birth, in the tone of a woman accustomed to loving acquiescence from her husband.

  “I don’t love old Josh so much I want to enshrine him in my son’s name,” said Ben unexpectedly. He paused and continued: “He gave me some very peevish looks just before we got engaged, Kate. So did you, by the way.”

  It was Kate’s cue for a loving response, especially as she admitted to herself that she had indeed been slightly peevish on the afternoon of Ben’s proposal. But she was vexed by “my son” from her husband in relation to a joint product, and by his depreciation of her father; besides, she had not forgiven Garrett for his bad behaviour at her wedding reception, when he became so drunk and noisy that he had to be persuaded to leave. Her tone was therefore not quite mild as she said, though she was careful to laugh as she spoke:

  “Better my father’s name than yours.”

  “Who says so?” retorted Ben. “I’m fond of my father. My grandfather spoiled my father by being too strict with him.”

  “Something spoiled him, certainly,” said Kate, still laughing.

  “Now, Kate,” Ben rebuked her, his tone unusually heavy. “We won’t do the same with our Ben. I mean that, Kate.”

  Now at last, just a little too late—it was their first open tiff—it occurred to the surprised Kate that when her husband spoke in that tone it might be best not to thwart him. Accordingly, young Benjamin Garrett was baptised as such and was not strictly disciplined; indeed one might say he was not disciplined at all. Any efforts Kate made in that direction were at once nullified by Ben, for if his son cried demandingly:

  “Need I go to bed now, Father?”

  Ben at once replied: “No!” and added: “Why do you bother him so, Kate? You’re too fond of your own way. Let the child alone.”

  This sort of thing was the source of many small disagreements, which only needed a slightly increased acrimony to become quarrels. The sharper tone was provided presently by the habit Ben developed of coming home late at night, slightly drunk. Far from being softly welcoming on these occasions, for that was not her disposition, Kate was shocked and disgusted, and said so. Ben’s excuse was always that he had been drinking with James, or Fred, or Charlie. These were names new to Kate, for it seemd Ben had given up playing rugby shortly after his marriage—or perhaps the local rugby team had given up Ben, on account of growing obesity and “lack of puff”, as Annotsfield said. Kate, out of pride eager enough to clear him of fault, threw the blame of the glass-too-many on these new companions, and urged Ben to give them up. Ben thereupon snapped:

  “You want me to give up all my friends, do you?”

  “Of course not! I’ve never asked you before—”

  “What about Edward? You choked him off pretty neatly, didn’t you?”

  “No, I did not.”

  “I couldn’t have him for my best man, choose how.”

  “That was Lucy’s fault.”

  “You were jealous of Lucy.”

  “I was not jealous of Lucy.”

  “There’s two opinions about that.”

  “But what could I be jealous of Lucy about?”

  “An interesting question.”

  “Don’t bait me like that, Ben Clough!” cried Kate, crimsoning as she lost her temper.

  “Now we see the Milner temper in full display. Or perhaps your mother’s?”

  “What about your temper, Ben?”

  “What, indeed!” shouted Ben, and uttering some oaths which in those days were regarded as an insult to a woman, he flung out of the room, slamming the door.

  As the years went by and Ben became more used to, and therefore less struck by, Kate’s beauty, his responses to her taunts became coarser and louder, and hers to his became shriller and keener. Mrs Clough, unable to bear their increasing bitterness, retreated to the South Coast, thus removing one check on their battles. Then old Mr Clough died. Garrett Clough, perhaps hoping for reinstatement, returned to Annotsfield for his father’s funeral and showed a disposition to make his home there. Ben, wisely or not, kept his father out of the mill by bringing in a cousin to make up any of his own deficiencies. But Garrett Clough’s presence in the house brought an air of dissipation which Kate could not endure, though Ben seemed almost to welcome his father’s presence, so long as he kept out of the mill.

  “Turn him out of the house or I’ll leave you.”

  “You’ ll leave me! You’ve turned very moral of a sudden,” sneered Ben.

  “And why not? I’m your wife, think on.”

  Ben gave a jeering laugh.

  The cousin made strong representations to Ben, for Garrett too often “dropped in”, and Garrett soon left for London. But about this time it began to be said in Annotsfield that Ben Clough was going the same way as his father. Wine—and unfortunately women, too.

  “Why do you stand it, Kate?” urged Joshua. “Put up a fight, lass. Go to Mrs Clough in the south.”

  “I have a son,” said Kate coldly.

  She had become very quiet and cold of late, and her displays of temper were nowadays rare. Annotsfield grew almost sorry for her. Presently it began to be rumoured that things at Clough Mills were not just as perfect as they had been of old. Ben knew cloth up to a point, of course, though not like his grandfather. But he seemed not to care, and so grew careless. As for the cousin, he was not really a textile man.

  “Well, they’ve a long way to go, have Cloughs, before they’re in the red.”

  “True. Some people hav
e all the luck.”

  If only Edward had not left Clough Mills, reflected Kate, at first not very seriously, but later with increasing anguish and remorse. She had nothing definite against the managing cousin, except that he was tactless and irritated Ben. But if only Edward had been in his place, if only … how different everything would be. Then she began to dream that Edward might return. How it could be effected she could not imagine; but she imagined clearly the results of such a return: Ben happy with his old friend; abandoning his new dissipated acquaintance, giving up drink, staying at home; the two couples, Ben and Kate, Edward and Lucy, sitting peacefully side by side in front of a blazing Clough Lea hearth. Yes, if Edward returned everything might yet be well. Ben would reform, the mill return to its former perfection. If she could only make up the quarrel with Lucy! How? She had no idea. She did not even know where Lucy lived, nowadays. No doubt she could find out from Mr Hallam, through her father. But what a humiliation, to make such an enquiry! No, she could not bring herself to such abasement. She just dreamed, and hoped. Given the blessing of the chance meeting, she tried for a reconciliation. But old sins have long shadows, and proud Lucy refused.

  The Clough-Hallam story continued for quite a long period after this meeting, for life goes on and actions continue to produce results, sometimes even to the third and fourth generations.

  Thomas Hallam, as I said, died a few years after I was born. The property and investments he bequeathed to Lucy, though by Clough standards contemptibly small, were just enough to see the Hallams through the American tariff crises. Old Mrs Hallam, my grandmother, came to live with us. This was not a very comfortable arrangement, as Hannah and Lucy Hallam were both too spirited for their mutual comfort, and my father, Ned and myself, though we loved Grandfather Hallam, had no great fondness for Grandmamma. Fortunately, however, Grandmamma Hallam took a fancy to Harry, that lively spirited, undaunted boy, who teased her and made impertinent jokes to her, and read the newspaper to her and brought her Doncaster butterscotch, in a way she enjoyed.

  (On Ned and myself devolved the more onerous tasks of providing her with library books and on myself the caps I have before referred to; we served her faithfully enough but she found us too meek for her taste.)