Inheritance

by Phyllis Bentley

  After a slight hestiation Enoch Smith followed Brigg into the cottage. As they were standing together by the bedside of Frederick—who, bandaged and livid, was on the point of death—the old ironfounder remarked in a low tone:

  “I reckon Joth came by the express—the tidings about the accident would come to him this morning in the ordinary way of news, I suppose, for the Pioneer. I noticed you didn’t take means to let him know.”

  “If he puts Sophia’s death in that vile rag of his I’ll never forgive him!” exclaimed Brigg, who felt guilty about having sent no word to Joth and was glad to pretend himself justified by the new grievance.

  Enoch Smith shrugged his shoulders.

  “I reckon you’ll find you’ve got plenty to do in tidying up the Smith-Oldroyd affairs, without starting to quarrel again with Joth,” he said. “And you needn’t come to me about them, my boy. You took Frederick into your family, you know; he’s got your name, not mine. I mean what I say, so just think on.”

  5

  The bodies of Sophia and Frederick, with that of their elder child, were brought home and laid in Annotsfield Parish Church yard—Joth attending the funeral, as the wedding, of the pair, in unwelcome silence—but in spite of Brigg’s costly and determined search, the little Sophia Jane could not be found. Mary, after the fashion of old people, who seize upon what seems a minor detail in a great catastrophe and lavish all their grief on that, mourned the infant’s loss so constantly and distressfully that at last Brigg, who had been looking very worn and troubled since his sister’s death, could stand it no longer.

  “Now, mother!” he burst out, one afternoon when he had taken Mary into Annotsfield to see the stone which had just been erected on the grave: “Give up, do! It’s a good thing Sophia’s children aren’t alive, in my opinion.”

  “Brigg!” exclaimed Mary, horrified.

  “Because there wouldn’t be a penny left for them to live on,” continued Brigg in an angry tone, giving her his arm down the church path. “You’ll have to know some time, so it may as well be now. Sophia’s spent every penny of her inheritance, and as for Frederick’s, I simply can’t find any trace of it at all. Even his mother’s jointure, that he was trustee for, seems to have gone. And they’re up to the eyes in debt—thousands and thousands. I can’t make out how they’ve spent all that in these few years, I really can’t. They must have taken money out and thrown it in the gutter. Horses and racing, perhaps. And the bills! They don’t seem to have paid for anything. God knows how I shall square it all up! I’m sure I don’t.”

  “But you’ll pay everything, Brigg?” quavered Mary, clutching his arm with her frail thin hands. “You won’t let your sister’s name be dishonoured?”

  “Am I likely to?” demanded Brigg irritably, very red in the face. “It’s father’s name, after all.… That’s what Enoch Smith said to me: Frederick’s got your name, he said, not mine. He doesn’t care whether Frederick’s estate is bankrupt or not; he’s going to find Mrs. Smith’s jointure, so there won’t be a scandal; but he won’t do another penny.”

  “He’s a hard man,” wept Mary, climbing painfully into the hired carriage.

  “Hard as his own iron,” said Brigg feelingly. “That’s why he’s got on. I’m going to be like that in future. I was soft over Sophia, soft! And Joth, too. How I used to admire him when I was a lad! Well, between them they’ve pretty near ruined Syke Mill; I’ve had a bit of a picnic with my family, I have that.”

  “I don’t see what Joth’s got to do with it,” Mary plucked up courage to say.

  “Don’t you? If he’d taken his share properly Sophia could only have thrown a third of Syke Mill away,” explained Brigg grimly. “Now she’s thrown half, and left a pretty lot of debts beside. I reckon I shall have to take another mortgage out to pay them.”

  “But Treding House—and all that lovely furniture, Brigg,” protested Mary. “That ought to fetch something, surely.”

  “I tell you it isn’t paid for!” cried the exasperated Brigg. “Nothing’s paid for. It seems they rented the house—the rent’s in arrears—and beyond their wedding presents I don’t think there’s one thing their own. Of course I shall see how things turn out, and luckily trade’s good,” he added in an attempt at consolation, as Mary wept bitterly: “But I reckon I’m in a pretty mess, with one thing and another.”

  “If your father could see this!” mourned Mary.

  Brigg shook his head gravely. “Father spoiled Sophia,” he said. “There’s no denying that. Wanting her children to be Oldroyds, too. And all for nothing, as it seems. Well! We shall have to do the best we can, that’s all.” His tone was now respectful and resigned, and Mary was somewhat comforted.

  Brigg’s determination to pay the Smith-Oldroyds’ debts in full was naturally much talked of in the Ire Valley and Annotsfield, and became widely known. Accordingly one evening a few weeks later when he returned to New House after a harassing day in Annotsfield, Mary met him in a great flutter.

  “Joth’s been to see me!” she cried as soon as she saw him.

  “Oh, indeed?” said Brigg. “And did you ask him into the house?”

  “Yes, I did, Brigg,” said Mary with some dignity. “Did you want me to talk to my son in the mill yard?”

  “No, of course not,” grumbled Brigg, ashamed. “Well? What’s Joth got to say to you, eh?”

  “He says he honours you about Sophia’s debts,” began Mary.

  “I can do without his honour, thank you,” said Brigg, colouring fiercely.

  “He says he’d help you with them if he could,” went on Mary. “And oh, Brigg!” she went on in a rush: “What do you think?”

  “Help me?” shouted Brigg. “Joth help me! He’d best not try.”

  “No, he said he was afraid he couldn’t be of much assistance with money,” quoted Mary. “But oh, Brigg! What do you think? He has little Jane!”

  “Who?” said Brigg, bewildered.

  “Sophia Jane! Sophia’s little girl! They have her at home in Annotsfield,” cried Mary, her face, so much ravaged by grief of late, now beaming. “Sophia left her in Helena’s charge when she went to Chester. As she couldn’t walk, you see. Joth didn’t know you were looking for her.”

  “Well!” said Brigg in a tone which was by no means all pleasure.

  “And Joth says,” explained Mary rapidly: “That he’ll keep her and bring her up; one more mouth among so many, he says, won’t make much difference, and it’ll be so much off your shoulders.”

  Brigg received this in silence, and did not speak for some time. He was remembering the occasion when Sophia had spoken to him of the education of her children—how lovely her auburn head had looked against snowy pillows and blue quilted wrap; how different from that battered wreck above the soiled white fur; alas, Sophia! When he spoke at length it was in a quiet, resigned tone. “Well, it’s what Sophia would have wished, I believe,” he said.

  “Joth said, too,” continued Mary timidly: “That he was always ready to take me as well, if you wished.”

  “Nay, mother!” cried Brigg, sitting up, quite roused. “You’ve been with me in prosperity, you aren’t going to desert me now, are you?”

  “No, Brigg,” faltered Mary. “Not unless you think it would be best.”

  “Don’t be so fond, mother,” said Brigg contemptuously. “Best, indeed! Why, how many children is it Joth has to keep? Seven?”

  “Five, lovey,” corrected Mary.

  “Five, then,” said Brigg. “And with Sophia Jane, six. Out of the Annotsfield Pioneer and a few pupils that can’t afford to go to better schools. Syke Mill can do better than that for you yet, mother, especially if trade keeps good. I’ve made up my mind what to do,” he went on in a decided tone: “I shall have to mortgage the rest of the land, to begin with, and then I shall let off part of Syke Mill, and New House with it. I shall let the carding and slubbing and spinning go.”

  “Oh, Brigg, why?” murmured Mary faintly, feeling the solid earth shake beneath h
er feet at such a threat of dismemberment to Syke Mill.

  “Well, something has to go,” said Brigg: “And I’m not much interested in that part—it was always father who managed that. Besides, there’s a lot of new carding machinery coming in, expensive to buy and expensive to run; I can’t afford to buy it and no one in that trade can afford to be without it. So I shall let carding and spinning go, and just stick to manufacturing and dyeing and finishing. And we’ll take a small cottage in Irebridge, and live on as near nothing as we can manage for a few years, till I can pull round again and redeem those damned mortgages. I shall get married, and you and she can manage together without a maid.”

  “But, Brigg, lovey,” faltered Mary timidly: “If we’re to be so poor, is it the right time to be getting wed?”

  “Well, no,” said Brigg, colouring a little. “It isn’t. But you see the lass is in a bit of trouble, like, and I don’t like to leave her to go through with it by herself. These things always happen at the wrong time. But you needn’t worry, mother,” he added cheerfully: “She won’t bother you. She’s very young. It’s Thorpe’s youngest, Polly,” he explained, rather sheepish before Mary’s startled gaze; “She’s really very young.”

  6

  All these plans were carried out. A large part of Syke Mill was let, and New House with it. Brigg married, and the Oldroyds moved into a workman’s cottage in one of the new rows in Irebridge.

  Mary simply could not get over the disaster to Syke Mill. And to leave New House, too, of which Will had always been so proud! She mourned and muttered so much about what Will would have thought if he could see it that Brigg’s patience—not very long nowadays—quite wore out, and he told her sharply to hold her tongue.

  “Father would have done exactly the same as I’m doing,” he said. “We’ve had a disaster, just as much as though it were fire or flood, and we’ve got to lick a lean thible till we get right again. I shall have Syke Mill back one of these days, never you fear. You’ve got a roof and a warm fire and something to eat; I don’t see what you’ve got to worry your head about.”

  Certainly the new Mrs. Oldroyd was not one of Mary’s worries. She was a very pretty girl, exquisitely fair and small and neat, like a doll, and with a bloom of youth upon her which made Mary never tired of gazing at the rather hectic colour in her cheeks, her long fair eyelashes and her smooth pale hair. She never attempted to usurp or resent Mary’s gentle authority; and though rather lazy about the house was an excellent cook, producing dishes which delighted Brigg, and baking superb bread, golden as her own hair. In manner she was nervous and shy; she said little—though that little, spoken in a piping tone, like a little bird, and with a very broad accent, was sometimes seasoned with an unexpected dry wit, like her father’s—and seemed to regard Brigg with a rather fearful adoration. Mary suspected that she found him very different as a husband from what he had been to her as a lover—for indeed Brigg was different, he had been growing more and more different from his old self every day since Sophia’s death, and the change had been especially marked since the signing of the second mortgage.

  This had been taken up by Enoch Smith.

  “Listen to me, Brigg Oldroyd,” said the old ironfounder, as the two men left the Annotsfield attorney’s rooms together after signing the necessary documents: “It was your grandfather who gave me my first start—the rest of the Ire Valley were all afraid to stand out against those damned Luddites, poor fools. Men were men in those days, I can tell you. I can remember your father, too, when he was many a year younger nor you—and a lot better-looking,” he added maliciously.

  “I don’t doubt it,” said Brigg simply, thinking how the old man was beginning to wander lately.

  “I think you’re a fool to bother with Frederick’s debts,” continued old Enoch, pausing on the threshold, and striking his stick against the doorstep to emphasise his words. “But that’s your affair, not mine. Your grandfather bought my first frame from me, and I shall never foreclose on Syke Mill. But,” he added warningly, shaking his stick in Brigg’s face: “Look sharp and get them mortgages paid off while I’m alive. My sons won’t have such long memories.”

  “You needn’t worry,” said Brigg grimly. He put on his hat, which he had held in his hand out of compliment to the other’s age, and strode off, his heart full. No! Enoch Smith need not worry about the mortgages, for to pay off the mortgages and reclaim Syke Mill was the only thing in life Brigg cared about. There was no Joth to care for, there was no Sophia. He was fond of Mary, of course, but more by the ties of old habit than present sympathy. His wife was a pretty enough piece, and amusing, but Brigg had had other women he liked quite as well. If her child came to anything, that might be different, but Brigg could not as yet work up any great interest in that nuisance of a child. But to get Syke Mill back! Syke Mill, which to Brigg was like the life-blood of his father I To make the name of Oldroyd powerful again! To show the West Riding what the Oldroyds were made of! That was worth working for. No! Enoch Smith need not worry about his mortgages; Brigg was going to be as hard, as single-minded, as ruthlessly determined as he.

  Book IV

  Loss

  Chapter I

  Convergence

  1

  It was cold on the moor. Frost hung in the still autumn air; the blue sky was very clear and pale, except towards the west, where the afternoon sun, netted in a few pearly clouds, threw out sharp golden gleams. In this light every blade of coarse grass in the rough tussocks by the roadside, every crack of the dark peat, every variation of colour in the slopes of heather beyond, stood out clear and hard, with a kind of exciting brilliance. The horses’ hoofs rang out fast and furious on the moorland road, and young Brigg Oldroyd felt intensely and joyously exhilarated. He was racing his dogcart against Frank Stancliffe’s, and at the moment led by a good two yards. A proud smile curved his lips beneath his fine black moustache; a tall young man walking with a trim-looking girl had drawn to the side of the road to watch the race, and Brigg fancied the girl glanced at him admiringly. He had a moment’s intense vision of himself and the dogcart and the groom, all glossy, polished and handsome; he threw up his head and laughed joyously. There was a jar, a splintering crash; the cob’s hoofs seemed to beat the road without advancing; the animal fell, the dogcart tilted, and Brigg flew through the air. He realised that he had unconsciously jerked the reins and Stancliffe’s wheel had locked his, thought that his father would have something to say about the damaged dogcart, hoped the cob would not be hurt and wondered whether the girl was laughing at him, cried: “Confound it!” and found himself in the peaty ditch at the far side of the road, unhurt. He scrambled up, very muddy as to knees and hands, and half laughing, half in a rage, ran round Stancliffe’s kicking horse to his own. His groom, rather bruised about one eye, was already coaxing the animal to rise; after a few minutes’ violent action on the part of all four young men—Stancliffe was driving young Albert Smith—the vehicles were disentangled and the horses restored to their feet. Brigg ran his hand over his trembling cob’s knees. “They’re all right,” he remarked with relief.

  “I’m afraid your wheel’s gone, Brigg,” said Stancliffe, surveying the debris of spokes ruefully. “I’m confoundedly sorry, upon my word I am.”

  “It was my own fault,” said Brigg rather shortly. “I jerked his head.” Out of the tail of his eye he observed the girl and the tall young man, who had now drawn level and were passing by. Confound them! The fellow was surveying him through a monocle, and wore a supercilious smile which was quite intolerable; the girl was prettier even than he had thought, and she was laughing at him. Brigg surveyed his muddy hands with disgust.

  “Isn’t there an inn here somewhere?” he remarked.

  “Yes, sir, the Moorcock,” replied the groom. “It’s only two or three hundred yards over the next rise, sir.”

  “They give you very good beer at the Moorcock,” said young Stancliffe. “The fellow’s a tenant of my father’s.”

  “I could
do with a glass of beer,” said Albert Smith.

  “I could do with several,” said Brigg grimly.

  “Does flying over the road make you thirsty, Brigg?” cried Smith, laughing.

  “You try it and see,” said Brigg.

  His tone was not very good-humoured, and as he was a fellow who made his moods respected, that part of the subject was dropped. The cob was unharnessed from the damaged dogcart and led slowly along by the groom; the three friends drove to the inn in Stancliffe’s vehicle, alighted, and went into the stuffy little parlour to have a drink. Over this they discussed what they should do in view of the accident. Stancliffe proposed they should all squash into his trap again and leave the groom to tackle the other, but Brigg did not at all fancy the notion of leaving his dogcart out on Marthwaite Moor on a Saturday night, and said so; let the others go on, and he would see the broken trap housed in the inn stable. The other two young men were reluctant to leave him, but as they were due at their respective family tables shortly, and would be missed, they felt obliged to go, envying, as they did so, Brigg’s comparative freedom—his father would certainly be at the Liberal Club all evening and his mother was accustomed to receive the vagaries of her men-folk with respectful submission. The undamaged dogcart therefore drove off amid cheerful farewells and promises to meet later; Brigg with the aid of the groom and the innkeeper got the remains of his own trap housed, then feeling unconscionably hungry after his exercise in the sharp moorland air, decided to fall in with the innkeeper’s hints and have something to eat. He gave his order, removed the traces of his mishap from his person as well as he could, and entered the stuffy little parlour with his usual carelessly haughty air.

  During his struggle with the dogcart a cloth had been laid on the narrow table, and several persons who had walked or driven out to the Moorcock for a Saturday afternoon’s excursion were seated there, enjoying a hot meal. Among them was the young man with the monocle who had witnessed the dogcart upset; there was an empty place beside him, no doubt for the trim-looking girl. Brigg sat down on the other side of the table and waited impatiently, feeling decidedly cross, for he was stiff after his fall and very conscious of the mud on his collar, and his reflections were not agreeable. The dogcart smash was a nuisance. His father, who was generous with money but liked it to be spent sensibly—in which young Brigg entirely agreed with him—would have a good deal to say, he felt sure, about racing dogcarts for a wager on Marthwaite Moor on a Saturday afternoon. Fortunately the other racer was young Stancliffe; his father, who was a shocking snob, reflected Brigg dispassionately, was always pleased to hear of his being with Stancliffe. They had been young school friends at Annotsfield College, and had resumed their friendship on Stancliffe’s return from his public school. Brigg’s thoughts, drifting about against a background of hunger, included the decision to send his son to a public school if ever he had one, and the regret that this tale of the dogcart could be so told as to make him ridiculous in Charlotte Stancliffe’s lovely eyes. Should he go out to Irebridge House this evening to correct the impression? Perhaps. Brigg, his eyes haughtily lowered, his fine black eyelashes sweeping his cheek, now listened perforce, after the manner of persons who are alone in public places, to a conversation between the monocled young man and the innkeeper, who had come in with some food for his other guests. Not that he of the monocle was very young, decided Brigg, stealing a glance at him; he was quite well on in the thirties, and not at all good-looking—he had a long intelligent face, broad at the temples and narrow at the chin, crisp thinnish gingery hair, with a little old-fashioned curly whisker, and drooping eye-lids; he wore the offensive eyeglass dangling on a black ribbon, and had a lightish suit of very poor cloth. He was speaking in the kind of slow quiet tone Brigg particularly detested; what a cissy the fellow was to be sure, thought Brigg, with his drawl and his preposterous monocle and his supercilious air. Suddenly he looked up, and his eyes met Brigg’s lovely black ones; they were fine grey eyes, very bright, and twinkled at Brigg agreeably. Brigg, confused, withdrew his glance and looked haughtily down his nose. He could not, however, withdraw his ears, and through their reluctant agency he learned that Master Henry and Miss Janie had come to see the innkeeper’s old mother, who was eighty-two and bedridden; they had come because Master Henry’s father could not walk so far nowadays, a fact which the innkeeper seemed to learn with respectful regret. Brigg was almost distracted with irritation at being obliged to listen to this rigmarole about people to whose identity he had no clue; several times he was on the point of asking the innkeeper to go and attend to his meal, but mere good manners restrained him. A sandy cat, too, provoked him by prowling round his legs; Brigg did not care to be made a fool of by a cat, and fidgeted his feet impatiently. At last a maid brought in hot dishes and set them down before Henry and Brigg; with a sigh of relief Brigg fell to. Henry, however, was obliged to wait for Janie; at first he did this patiently, but after a while he became rather restive, went out of the room and called her name up the stairs—all of which Brigg, comfortably eating, observed with a malicious glee.