Inheritance

by Phyllis Bentley

  The only things, indeed, which marred his convalescence were Will’s visits, which took place fairly frequently. On these occasions Jonathan experienced to the full the feeling of uncertainty and discomfort which is always present when two halves of a life, hitherto separate and very different, meet. The Singletons were much too delicate and scrupulous ever to hint to Jonathan their opinion of his father, but as it coincided with his own he knew it well enough, and was always on tenterhooks lest Will should say something too barbaric to be tolerated. He experienced relief the moment Will left the room, and promptly forgot New House until his father’s burly figure appeared again. One afternoon Will said to him hesitatingly:

  “Your mother can’t come to see you, Joth, because your grandfather isn’t so well, and she’s busy with him.”

  Will had been much perplexed as to what to say to Joth on this subject, knowing his love for his mother and his fondness for old Brigg. Old Mr. Brigg was, in fact, dying, but Will was afraid of giving Joth a shock by saying so; on the other hand he did not want the lad to feel neglected by his mother. He therefore watched Joth’s face with some anxiety as he made this explanation. Jonathan, recalled with a start to New House affairs, thought in a gasping rush of his mother and old Brigg and the dead Bessy and how different they all were to the Singletons, and murmured vaguely, too oppressed to be articulate: “Oh, I see.”

  “Confound the lad!” thought Will indignantly. “There’s his mother breaking her heart for him, and he’s forgotten all about her.” He was provoked by the look of eager happiness he usually found on Joth’s face when he visited the house in Eastgate, though at the same time rather wistfully glad that the boy had at last found something which satisfied him.

  One day Will brought Sophia to see her brother. Sophia, who was an astute young person, very perceptive of social differences, at once understood the Singleton atmosphere, and behaved with great correctness and refinement, so that Jonathan was proud of her. Dr. Singleton was much taken with Sophia’s beautiful curly hair and brilliant blue eyes; Helena, however, who would have forgiven the little girl everything if she had thrown her arms round her brother’s neck and hugged him heartily, suspected that Sophia loved nobody but herself, and took a dislike to her.

  At last Jonathan was pronounced completely recovered, and fit to return home. Looking rather weak and haggard, and very much wrapped up in a new coat which Will had bought him for the journey, he sat in the minister’s study bidding all the pleasant Singleton life farewell. Will, who had paid the doctor’s bill, tipped the old serving maid heavily, and put fifty pounds at Dr. Singleton’s disposal for his charities, was feeling on top of the Singletons for once, and was in a lively humour at the thought of Mary’s joy on her son’s return. Jonathan felt the increased vigour of his father’s personality like a physical pressure; this was what it was like at New House, he reflected miserably; already the Singleton atmosphere was fading. His young face white and wretched, he began a formal sentence of thanks to Dr. Singleton, but broke down in the middle and stammered like a child. Dr. Singleton smiled at him with genuine affection, pressed his hand and reminded him of his promise to come and hear him preach, then went out with Will into the hall, having heard the wheels of the carriage engaged to convey the Oldroyds home. Jonathan was left with Helena.

  “Oh, Miss Singleton,” he stammered. “I must go—I must go home—and I—I—I am intensely grateful to you for all your kindness—I shall never forget it—never! I don’t want to go,” he ended desperately. “Oh, I don’t want to go.”

  “I am very glad you have found your stay here agreeable,” said Helena, troubled by his vehemence.

  “Agreeable!” exclaimed Jonathan. “Agreeable! Oh, Miss Singleton! I shall never be able to make you understand now much your companionship has meant to me,” he declaimed passionately, looking at her with ardour in his fine dark eyes. “You don’t know—you don’t know! To be parted from you is like being expelled from heaven.”

  “We shall look for you on the first Sunday you feel fit for the journey,” said Helena, in a trembling tone, uncertain whether his ardour included her brother or was meant for herself alone, and by no means sure which alternative she preferred.

  “Now, Joth!” called Will from the hall.

  “Good-bye,” said Jonathan in a low tone of anguish. “Good-bye.”

  She offered him her hand; he took it in both of his, bent over it as though she were a princess, and, daring but respectful, pressed his warm young lips gently to her wrist. Helena exclaimed a little and made as though to withdraw her hand, but somehow left it in his; his head was bent before her, and for her life she could not resist placing her free hand caressingly on the dark wavy locks. He trembled beneath her touch; on her part the living warmth of his hair induced in her an emotion she had never felt before, a kind of thrill, almost an ecstasy. Their moment was broken—what more likely? thought Jonathan bitterly; it was just what he might have expected—by Will, who came stamping heartily down the passage and urged Jonathan not to keep the horses waiting.

  New House seemed very dark and countrified after Eastgate, and Mary’s caresses did not seem to mean as much to Jonathan as they had done before his illness, though he responded to them with grave propriety. At supper he rather forgot himself, and began to talk on the questions of the day brilliantly and well, as he always did in Eastgate. Will was pleased to see the lad so lively, and was not disposed to check him on his first evening at home even though what he was saying was all, in Will’s opinion, quite nonsensical; little Sophia, however, presently observed in her clear tones:

  “What a lot Joth’s talking!”

  Jonathan, blushing, looked round and saw the same opinion reflected, though with differing reactions, on the faces of the other three; he felt snubbed and foolish, subsided into silence, and after a while asked his father in quite a different tone who had been doing his accounts while he was away. Will groaned at this and said it was high time Jonathan came back; he meant this to be complimentary, but Jonathan only received the impression of stacks of muddled papers waiting to be tackled, with the probability of hopelessly confused explanations from Brigg and Will, and his heart sank.

  After supper he suddenly remembered that he had not yet had a word with the old man he called grandfather. Ashamed of his forgetfulness, he went upstairs, knocked, and entered old Mr. Brigg’s room. It was empty; the bed and old Brigg’s rocking chair were covered with dust sheets, the tables and drawers stood bare. Jonathan, horrified and perplexed, stood gazing at it in the golden evening light, and simply did not know what to make of it. Just then Brigg passed by.

  “Brigg,” stammered Jonathan: “Where—where is your grandfather?”

  “He’s dead and buried,” said Brigg savagely, and walked on without looking at his brother.

  4

  At first Jonathan attributed this roughness to Brigg’s very natural grief for his grandfather, and he too grieved for old Mr. Brigg sincerely. But as time went on Jonathan began to perceive that there was something else the matter with Brigg. Jonathan himself was very happy just now; a new service of coaches had been started between Manchester and York, running up and down the Ire Valley, so that the journey to Annotsfield from Marthwaite was not really too difficult; moreover, Will sometimes now took him to Annotsfield market on Tuesday to book orders, while Jonathan always spent Sunday, and sometimes Saturday night as well, at Eastgate, so that in one way or another he saw a good deal of the Singletons. He taught in the Young Men’s Improvement Classes, was secretary to the local Temperance Committee, and helped Dr. Singleton very considerably with the writing and editing of The Factory Child’s Friend; altogether he was finding his place in the world, and was no longer lonely. But this sullenness and alienation on the part of Brigg distressed him deeply, and once he had begun to notice it, a thousand little things seemed to add their weight of corroboration. Jonathan recollected that Brigg had not once come to see him while he had been ill. But old Mr. Brigg had not bee
n dead then, he had not died till Jonathan was almost better—besides, to be quite frank, Brigg was not so enormously devoted to his grandfather as all that. There must be something else, some other cause of irritation against his brother, as well. Jonathan racked his brains to discover what it could be, but found nothing. He hated, however, to be on bad terms with anyone, much less with dear stupid Brigg; and after some thought he decided, by way of reparation for his unknown crime, to offer Brigg the highest honour in his power, namely a Sunday at the Singletons’. He asked permission to bring his stepbrother to call, was promptly told to bring him to Sunday dinner, and communicated the message to Brigg with suitable solemnity. Brigg, rather flattered in spite of himself by such an invitation from Joth’s stuck-up friends, accepted with some of his old cordiality.

  Accordingly one Sunday morning the two brothers set off with Will’s approval. They were a little later than Jonathan could have wished, Brigg being inclined to lie in bed and romp with Sophia on a Sunday morning, and taking an exorbitant time, in Jonathan’s opinion, over the toilet of his glossy hair and whiskers. When they reached the Eastgate chapel, accordingly, it was quite full, and they were shown into a little room at the back of the gallery, with a mere peep-hole into the chapel proper. This room, too, was filled before the service began, and Jonathan was proud that Brigg should see this testimony to the popularity of Dr. Singleton’s polemical sermons. Brigg seemed suitably impressed, behaved with great meekness and decorum at the dinner table, and played the part of Jonathan’s younger brother to admiration. On the way home, however, he was silent, merely whistling thoughtfully to himself from time to time, while Jonathan was longing to hear him express admiration for all that he had seen and heard. At last Jonathan could bear it no longer, and he began to ask Brigg eager questions. Didn’t he think Eastgate Chapel a fine, large place, very superior to Marthwaite Church? It was fine and large, certainly, admitted Brigg. And very full? Very full, agreed Brigg. And the sermon excellent? Oh, tip-top, murmured Brigg vaguely. What did Brigg think of Dr. Singleton? Oh—well—Brigg opined that Dr. Singleton could talk the hind leg off a donkey.

  “What,” began Jonathan—he blushed and paused, but unable to overcome his own eagerness went on, trying to adopt an indifferent tone: “What did you think of Miss Singleton, Brigg?”

  “A bit long in the tooth, isn’t she?” suggested Brigg.

  “Brigg!” cried Jonathan passionately, halting in the middle of the road: “Of course if you mean to insult me!”

  “Oh! I don’t, Joth,” said Brigg, startled. “I don’t really.” He added with sudden irony: “No more than you meant to insult father by going to that York meeting.”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” panted Jonathan, still quivering with indignation and thinking entirely of Helena.

  His brother gave him a shrewd and pitying glance. “Oh, well,” he said at length good-humouredly: “I’ve nothing against Miss Singleton, I’m sure.”

  “Miss Singleton,” cried Jonathan fervently, “is a being as far above either you or me, Brigg, as the stars.”

  “I daresay,” said Brigg.

  As soon as the brothers reached home Brigg went about looking for his father, and found him at the edge of the boiler pit, his thumbs in his waistcoat pockets, watching the firer-up stoke in readiness for the morrow.

  “Well? Had a good day?” said Will casually.

  Brigg nodded, then remarked in a joyous whisper: “I say, father—Joth’s got a girl.”

  “Never!” exclaimed Will in grim glee. He lowered his voice to a conspiratorial tone, and demanded: “Who is she, eh?”

  “That Miss Singleton,” whispered Brigg in reply.

  “What!” cried Will in loud contempt. “Her? Why, she’s old enough to be his mother.”

  “Nay, father,” demurred Brigg. “It’s not quite as bad as that. Be fair.” They laughed together, and Brigg went on to relate the many little details of word and look by which Jonathan and Helena had betrayed themselves to his experienced eye, concluding with the tale of Joth’s anger on the way home.

  “Well,” said Will at length contemptuously: “Let him marry her, then, if she’s to his taste. I’ve no objection. Let him set up house for himself—we should have some comfort in New House then.”

  Brigg nodded his head in emphatic agreement.

  Next day Will bade Jonathan add himself and Brigg to the Syke Mill wages bill. “You’re grown men now,” he said, “both on you. If you’ve no sense now you never will have.” This disagreeable speech was meant to cover the fact that the sums proposed were generous, and Jonathan, seeing now a dim possibility that his dream might one day be realised, rejoiced.

  5

  In the year of Queen Victoria’s accession Jonathan and Helena Singleton were married.

  Helena hesitated a long time before accepting her young lover. She did not hesitate for the reason that in marrying a mere cashier in a country factory she appeared to be taking a social step downwards (her father being an Anglican clergyman from whom she and her brother had broken free); nor did she hesitate because he was lame, or because she did not love him. She had always loved him since she bathed his tortured feet, after the York meeting, and he had pressed his fever-stricken lips to her hand. Nor was she in any doubt of being able to respect Jonathan as in her opinion a woman ought to be able to respect her husband. There was something so fiercely noble in Jonathan’s every action, look and word that it was impossible not to respect his character. As for his intellectual attainments, they were at present by her standards small, but they increased every day and were infinitely promising. No! She hesitated only from the purest, highest motive, namely that she feared it was wrong to deprive Jonathan of a romantic young love. He deserved, she felt—felt the more passionately because she loved him—all that was best and loveliest in life, and Helena was ten years his elder. But how could she explain this to an ardent young man who told her that to be her husband was his highest earthly hope? That he would work for her and wait for her, that he would study to fit himself for her hand, that to be with her was his greatest, purest joy? That till he had known her his life had been dark and wretched, that she had risen upon him like a day-star? Jonathan’s deep, beautiful voice, pouring these sentiments into her ear with an ardent, noble sincerity, Jonathan’s magnificent dark eyes, beaming love into her own—they were irresistible. She decided to dare all, to overlook his disagreeable relations, to risk the unspoken reproaches he might feel later. Will increased his son’s salary; they took a small house in one of the new terraces in Irebridge, as the thriving district by the three-arched bridge was beginning to be called, and were married.

  In the years that followed Will and Brigg were privately rather tickled by the size of Jonathan’s family; they made ribald jokes to each other about it, and could hardly keep their faces straight when Jonathan haughtily announced, as he regularly did, the birth of yet another child. It was a wonder, said Brigg rudely, that Jonathan found the time really, considering all the speechifying and lecturing and writing he did, on top of his Syke Mill work. Will for his part professed to have quite lost count of his grandchildren; they were all boys—which made his heart ache, rather, their name not being Oldroyd—but they were rather odd-looking children, fairish, with bumpy foreheads, very well mannered and what Will called “old-fashioned” in their speech; he could make nothing of them. (Also, he was always uncomfortably uncertain how to pronounce “Helena,” getting confused with the aspirate in a distressing manner.) Mary too could make little of her grandchildren, and though Helena came to see her with dutiful regularity, and was indeed a model daughter-in-law, the two women were in no sense near to each other, for Helena could never forget that Mary had allowed herself to be seduced, and Mary never remembered it. But Mary was content with things as they were; her boy had had his chance and made the most of it, he had married above him, and now associated with all kinds of learned and genteel people, and had not grown hard with it but was as good as gold. His nam
e was always in the papers—oh, how passionately Mary wished she could read! To be able to read what Jonathan had written, all beautifully printed, with remarks by the editor at the bottom; what bliss! She prevailed on the impatient Sophia so far as to learn from her the letters of the alphabet, and could distinguish Jonathan’s name when it was pointed out to her; she was quite content to sit with a newspaper in her lap, her finger on his name, and dream about it, and plan wondrously genteel futures for his children.

  Chapter III

  Riot

  1

  Sophia at sixteen was a fiery, wilful, restless creature, imperious, handsome, and much fretted by the cramping narrowness of her life, which gave these qualities so little scope.