Inheritance

by Phyllis Bentley

  Life at New House was now very comfortable. The resentment between Will and Bessy was cured by little Brigg, and they settled down into a humdrum married life, which, though it touched no heights, never sank into depths of unhappiness or recrimination. Will was still highly provoked at times by Bessy’s incurable habit of unseemly laughter, and Bessy sometimes complained loudly that his temper was such as no decent woman should be asked to live with; but Will was so much out and about, buying wool, interviewing merchants and looking at new machinery, besides superintending Syke Mill, which often ran from five in the morning till eight or nine at night, always six and sometimes seven days in the week, that the husband and wife had little time together in which to quarrel. Bessy still loved her husband more than he did her; but there was enough affection on Will’s side for Bessy to be able to laugh heartily when Will teased her, as he sometimes did, by saying that he had married her in order to get his father’s silver spurs back from Henry Brigg, all other methods having failed. Old Henry Brigg also liked this joke, and never failed to quaver out a tinkle of senile laughter when Will made it. “Aye,” he always remarked, chuckling: “It were th’ only way to get our Bessy wed.”

  “Nay, father!” objected Bessy on these occasions, slapping his wrinkled old hands playfully: “Mind what you say. Will might believe you.”

  On these prosaic but cheerful lines did life at New House proceed.

  3

  Meanwhile the hills and the moors about the Ire Valley, the jolly Ire itself, the stones of Syke Mill, the tall new chimney, the huge boiler with its winking fiery eye, the flagged floors, the dyehouse where stood coloured pools, the pans, the looms, the presses and the frames, were all weaving themselves into the fabric of little Brigg’s mind like a pattern into a piece of cloth. The figure of his father occurred in every strip of the pattern, and dominated them all, for Brigg adored his father. The child was fond of his mother, too, of course; she washed him and dressed him and tied up his sturdy knees when they were damaged (which was often); she was Mother; Brigg was by nature affectionate and he loved her heartily, especially when she appeared in the mill yard calling for him, and he ran up and had some delicious morsel of scone or pastry hot from the oven popped into his eager young mouth. But the secret devotion of Brigg’s heart was given to his father, his father who was supreme lord of Syke Mill and New House—for did not Brigg’s mother and his funny old grandfather, as well as all the men in the mill, so acknowledge him?—his father to whom everybody always went for orders and advice, his father who was always right; who rode a fine mare; who had a watch and silver spurs; who knew everything there was to know about the making of cloth—the making of cloth was in Brigg’s eyes of course the most important thing in the world. His father’s bright hair and blue eyes, his bushy russet eyebrows and white skin, were marvellous to the dark Brigg; Will’s slightly thickening but still young and powerful body seemed perfect to his son—so tall, so strong he was, he could swing Brigg about in the air with one hand, as Brigg knew to his joy when Will was in a playful mood. Brigg loved his father to be in a playful mood, and often tried to tease him into one, skipping about him and making jokes. Sometimes he succeeded, and sometimes he failed, with disastrous consequences, but though Brigg stood in awe of his father’s temper he was not really afraid of it. Like his mother he rather admired it, regarding it with a pleased smile as a natural phenomenon, alarming, but handsome and on the whole not dangerous, something like lightning. His father looked fine when he was in a temper. In fact his father always looked fine to Brigg; his father was the finest, handsomest, cleverest man in all the Ire Valley, and Brigg adored him.

  Chapter II

  Meeting And Parting

  1

  One afternoon Will was standing in the boiler pit vehemently reproving his firer-up; the head of steam that day wouldn’t run one carder, he said with Oldroyd exaggeration, much less the whole mill. The man retorted by blaming the quality of the last few loads of Emsley coal and the boiler draught, and they were having a royal set-to when young Brigg came running in zig-zag fashion across the inner mill yard, calling “Father! Father! Father!” in a kind of tune.

  “If the draught’s wrong, you should have told me about it long ago,” shouted Will.

  “Mester Oldroyd! Mester Oldroyd! Mester Oldroyd! ” chanted Brigg as before.

  “Go away, Brigg; I can’t hear myself speak,” cried Will crossly.

  Brigg, however, came as near to the edge of the pit as he dared, and obliged Will to give him a father’s attention by standing with his toes over the very brink.

  “Get away from the edge,” commanded Will. “You’ll fall over.”

  “Come down t’steps, lovey,” urged the firer, affection in his tone.

  “He’s all right where he is,” said Will hastily. “Be off with you, Brigg. I’m busy.”

  “There’s a woman to see you, father,” announced Brigg, leaning over at a perilous angle.

  “What sort of a woman?” demanded Will, reluctantly abandoning his row with the firer in order to save Brigg’s neck, and moving towards the steps.

  “A poor woman,” said Brigg with decision. “She asked for Mester Oldroyd. She’s standing by the door in the inner yard.”

  “Well, see you keep that pressure up,” said Will in menacing farewell to the firer, ascending.

  “If I do, you’ll be at me about t’coal I use,” grumbled the man.

  “Very like,” agreed Will. “There’s reason in all things.”

  Feeling pleased with himself for being master in his own mill and not allowing the firer—a young, powerful and difficult man, his slubbing overlooker’s son—to get the better of him, he strolled across the yard and under the archway with his hands in his pockets and came to the little inner square which had once been the whole of Syke Mill Yard. The woman who was standing there looked, as Brigg had said, definitely “poor,” and Will sized her up as probably wanting a place for a child in the mill. He rapidly ran over his machines in his mind, and decided that he didn’t need another piecener.

  “Well, my lass,” he said in a comfortable condescending tone: “And what do you want?”

  The woman turned, and Will found himself face to face with Mary Bamforth.

  The blood rushed to his head, throbbed in his ears: he stood and gaped, at her. She was very little changed; the pure curves of her cheek and brow were rather worn and dragged, her figure was heavier and her shoulders bent, but her dark eyes and sweet mouth were just the same; she was definitely the same Mary that he had loved all those years ago; and when she spoke her voice had still something of the same deep delight for him.

  “I’ve come,” she began timidly, “to ask …”

  “Mary!” said Will in a heavy incredulous tone. “Mary!”

  “Aye, it’s me,” said Mary in a flutter. She hesitated a moment, and then went on: “I’ve come to ask for a place for t’little lad i’ Syke Mill. I thought happen you’d give him one for old times’ sake. He works by the Ire Bridge now, and it’s such a long way for him to walk when they’re throng in t’mill, what wi’ starting at five and not finishing till seven or eight, he hardly gets any sleep at all unless he lies there. This would be three miles nearer for him, and Mester Wood says he’ll let him off to come.”

  “Aye … well …” said Will, quite stupefied by the flood of recollections which poured over him as each soft sentence dropped timidly from her lips.

  “I don’t know why Wood took to slubbing,” he said mechanically. “He’d have done better to stick to cloth-dressing, I think. I’m not just wanting a child,” he went on, “but I’ll put him in somewhere. He can start on Monday. What’s your husband’s name?” he concluded roughly.

  Mary stared at him. “I’m non married,” she said at last in a tone of perplexity.

  “Then whose is the lad?” demanded Will, fiercely jealous. A husband he felt he could tolerate, it was in the ordinary way of life that Mary should marry for a home, but that she should ha
ve given herself for love to any other man than himself was unbearable.

  Mary’s dark eyes opened still wider. There was a pause. “He’s thine, Will,” she said at last faintly.

  “What?” shouted Will. “Mine? Mine?”

  Mary, frightened, nodded.

  Will was struck speechless. To think that all those years, when Bessy’s sickly children were dying on him, he had a son, a son, a boy alive and well, a son of Mary’s. “But why didn’t you tell me?” he gasped at last. “By God, Mary, you ought to have told me.”

  “Nay, Will,” protested Mary. “I thought tha knew.”

  “Knew?” cried Will. “Of course I didn’t know. Do you suppose I should have left you and the lad without money and you to have to send the lad to the mill, if I’d known? You should have known me better, lass.”

  Mary looked away and coloured; and after a while Will coloured too. He felt her silent reproach; you left me once, she seemed to say.

  “I should have wed you if I’d known,” he muttered.

  Mary remained silent.

  This awkward pause was broken by Brigg, who came dashing up and began to run in circles round the pair, chanting: “Mester Oldroyd, Mester Oldroyd, Mester Oldroyd.”

  “I reckon this is thy lad, Will,” said Mary softly. “I’ve seen him once or twice on t’moor.”

  “Aye, he’s mine,” replied Will gruffly, not feeling particularly proud of Brigg at the moment. “Here, lad! Come here,” he said, seizing Brigg by the hand. “This is Brigg,” he said to Mary.

  “What’s her name?” demanded Brigg, jumping up and down on his father’s arm, and looking at Mary with all his bright brown eyes.

  “Mrs. Bamforth,” replied Will, stumbling a little.

  “Mrs. Bamforth, Mrs. Bamforth, Mrs. Bamforth!” sang Brigg loudly. Suddenly leaving go of Will’s arm, he flung himself upon Mary and buried his face in her skirts. Mary, with a smile, bent over him and stroked his hair; the child stretched out his arms and clasped her tightly. It came over Will that he had seen Mary in just such an attitude before, he had seen her stooping thus lovingly over a child. It was in the old Scape Scar days; it was that morning he had first had her; he had given a sixpence to murderer Mellor’s son, and Mary had thus caressed him. Alas, alas! A great deal of water had flowed under the Ire Bridge since then.

  “Well, where is your lad, Mary?” he demanded roughly, taking a step away, He felt that if he did not move on, do something to break the tension, in another minute that important and flourishing manufacturer, Mr. William Oldroyd, would be snivelling like a baby in his own mill yard.

  “He’s in the lane,” said Mary, following. “Mind, lovey,” she gently urged Brigg, who was impending her movements by clinging to her skirts.

  “I shan’t let you go,” said Brigg, laughing heartily.

  “You’re a bad lad,” joked Mary, lifting him and swinging him in her arms.

  “Let’s see, how old will he be? He can come into the mill,” mused Will aloud as they went towards the lane, “and he can learn his letters and what-not in between, with Brigg.”

  “Oh, he can read,” said Mary with some pride. “He’s a great scholar, like our Joe. He takes after Joe in a many ways. He’s a great reader. He teaches the other children that works in the mill to read too, in their drinking time.”

  “Humph!” said Will, not altogether approving of this. “And where have you been all these years, Mary?”

  Mary looked at him in surprise. “’The cottage was sold up to pay for our Joe’s lawyer,” she told him in a doubtful tone, as if unable to believe that he really did not know. “We live at t’Moorcock Inn. Martha Ackroyd took me in. She brought me back wi’ her from York. Her kindness when t’lad were born I shall never forget.”

  “Who’s Martha Ackroyd?” demanded Will irritably.

  “She’s publican’s daughter at t’Moorcock,” explained Mary. She added softly: “Don’t you remember her at trial? She had a fondness for poor Joe.”

  “Oh, her! Aye, I remember her,” said Will roughly. “She told a lot of lies about meeting Joe in Scape Scar Lane.”

  “She were only trying to save him,” protested Mary. She added, “She talks a lot about him to the little lad.”

  “What’s the boy’s name?” demanded Will.

  “Jonathan,” said Mary. “After our Joe.”

  “You might have called him after me, Mary,” Will reproached her.

  Mary gave an uncomfortable murmur. “That’s him,” she said, pointing to a thin, poorly clad child who was leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, and maintaining a haughty indifference to the antics of Brigg, who had gone on in front and was skipping round him.

  “Why, he’s got dark hair!” cried Will, bitterly disappointed.

  “Aye,” said Mary. She added with a touch of spirit: “He’s an Oldroyd all t’same.”

  Will gave a sniff at this, and called the boy. As he moved forward a pang went through Will’s heart, for he limped slightly, his left leg being rather out of straight. He came up reluctantly, but unafraid, and Will could not resist putting his hand on the child’s shoulder. “So you want to come here to work, do you?” he said.

  “No,” replied the child shortly. In a kind of fearful ecstasy Will heard in his pure young voice the thrilling note of Mary’s. “It’s mother who wants me to come,” continued Jonathan, fje darted an angry glance at her. “I don’t want to come at all,” he concluded with decision.

  Will had never felt so snubbed in his life, the more so as on the child’s angry face he marked the throbbing frontal vein which told of Oldroyd blood in him. Jonathan’s fine dark eyes and tumbled hair, his pale face, arched nostrils and richly curving mouth were all at that moment fixed in an expression of intense scorn; Will felt that the child was engaged in despising Will Oldroyd with all his heart and soul. “What a haughty piece!” he thought, dismayed; and something wept within him.

  “You can read, I hear,” he said, gathering his wits.

  The child’s angry face slightly softened. “Yes,” he said.

  Will was surprised by this un-Yorkshire affirmative, and indeed by the child’s crisp utterance altogether. He spoke better than Brigg. Where had he picked it up? Heaven knew! And his reading? Some kindly cleric, perhaps. “I’ve never seen you at Marthwaite Church,” he said, turning to Mary.

  “We attend Scape Scar Chapel,” said Jonathan quickly, before Mary could speak.

  “It were the minister there taught him to read,” added Mary.

  “I see. Well, you can start work on Monday,” said Will, looking at the child. He spoke drily to conceal the tumult of his feelings, and was not surprised to see Jonathan’s expression harden. He turned to Mary. “You’d best go over to the house and have a bit before you start back for the Moorcock,” he said.

  “Mother!” exploded Jonathan.

  “Nay, I’ll non do that,” said Mary hastily.

  Will sighed. “Where’s Brigg?” he said, looking about him. “Jonathan, run on and see what the child’s doing.” When both boys were out of earshot, he went on : “I can see you have trouble with that lad, Mary.”

  “What, Jonathan?” said Mary in surprise. “Oh, no! He’s the best lad that ever lived, is Jonathan. He gets up water for me and peat from the moor. He never tells a lie or does owt that’s wrong. He won’t touch a drop of ale, like some of the mill children do. He reads out of the Bible to me beautiful.”

  “Ha!” snorted Will, exasperated by this priggery.

  “Don’t say owt against our Jonathan!” cried Mary with a sudden fire that turned to tears. “I’m that proud on him. Everyone thinks he’s uncommon clever.”

  “I daresay he is,” said Will dourly. “Don’t fret, lass—I’ll see him right. But you should have told me before!” he exclaimed, his anger and regret breaking out again. “You should have told me! Twelve years! You should have told me!”

  “I thought tha knew,” repeated Mary, weeping.

  “You were always
soft, Mary,” said Will: “Both you and Joe.”

  “Well, the lad’s non soft!” cried Mary with spirit.

  “I reckon he isn’t,” agreed Will soberly.

  As if in proof of this Jonathan now returned and solemnly handed over a captured Brigg. To capture Brigg was no small feat, as Will well knew, and he was amused by the younger child’s surprised air; but the haughty reserve, the smouldering fire, the noble scornfulness displayed in his elder son’s every action much distressed him.

  “He’s a handful,” he muttered to himself as Mary and her boy went away up the lane. “Proud as they make them—Mary’s let him get on top of her. He needs a man to look after him. Aye, I reckon he’s missed his father,” he concluded bitterly.

  The overlooker of the weaving shed, coming up with a request that Mr. Oldroyd would look at a loom which had been misbehaving itself, was met with such a vacant stare that he fell a-stammering and then silent.

  Seeing the man’s surprise Will made an effort, gathered his wandering wits and with a sharp irritated sigh went off and looked at the loom; but it was a weariness to him, everything was a weariness to him, he felt sick at heart, the light had gone out of everything. Mary to have borne his child; and him not know! The person most concerned is always the last to hear gossip, he remembered angrily. Mary to have thought, for twelve years, that Will Oldroyd was the kind of man to get a woman into trouble and then leave her! And that boy! A groan escaped from Will’s lips as he thought of him. What a strange child! And how was it that his leg was crooked? And on what terms did Mary live at the Moorcock? Good God, there were dozens of questions Will wanted to ask, dozens of things he wanted to say; and he had let Mary go off like that, after a few minutes’ talk in the yard, amid men passing by, more as though she were a casual beggar than the mother of his eldest son. What would she think of him? What was she thinking of him now, as she trailed up those long miles to the Moorcock? His heart ached for her wrongs and her sorrows. He had been so utterly astonished by Mary’s revelation that he hardly took in the meaning of what she said; now he felt that he had been a dull fool, a hard wretch to her; he wanted to run after her and take her in his arms and pour all his regret, all his love into her ears. It was no use trying to attend to business any more; he astonished his men by abruptly bidding them stop work and go home. The children, delighted at this early release, ran off across the yard shouting. And Jonathan was one with those ragged brutish little wretches, mused Will; it was unbearable. He saw the last of them off the premises, locked the mill door and crossed. the yard to his home with a sigh of relief. But there was no peace for him in New House, for Bessy was there at the supper table, lively, laughing, pregnant as usual. She stood up and welcomed him with a hearty kiss, expecting one in return, but Will abruptly turned aside his head; he felt a deep disgust with both himself and her. Why had he married her, good heavens! He looked back at the act with amazement, he could not understand how he had ever thought he wanted to perform it. Why had he deserted Mary? Why, in heaven’s name, had he considered himself obliged to leave his love because her brother had had a hand in murdering Mr. Oldroyd? Mr. Oldroyd had been dead a long time now, and the bitterness of it had gone from Will’s heart; indeed he hadn’t thought of his father for years.