Inheritance

by Phyllis Bentley

  And then all of a sudden his bad temper dropped away from him like a doffed coat, for Janie came running into the room, whisked into a chair at the end of the table, laid her gloves by her plate, spoke a friendly word to the cat, and turning upon Henry the bluest and most sparkling eyes Brigg had ever seen, began to apologise for her delay in the sweetest and most musical tones he had ever heard. Pretty! Pretty! Pretty, thought Brigg, stealing longer and longer glances in her direction. She was without hat now, and her thick rich red-gold hair was drawn into a nest of plaits round the back of her charming head, revealing a shell-like ear to Brigg’s delighted gaze. Her complexion was of a dazzling purity, her profile delicious—Brigg feasted his eyes on that pretty little straight nose and determined chin. Yes, she was exquisite. She was teasing Henry too, which Brigg enjoyed; her blue eyes sparkling with mockery, her lips parted in a naughty, lovely smile. Brigg felt his heart grow warm, his pulse beat fast; he was extremely glad that he had not gone off in Stancliffe’s trap. Presently he forgot his discretion so far as to laugh at one of Janie’s soft quips, but remembered in time to turn the laugh into a kind of snort. Immediately he was afraid the pretty Janie had heard it, for she stopped talking, and the cheek nearest to Brigg grew faintly rosy. Embarrassed, he lowered his eyes and devoted himself to his plate; gradually he became conscious that, though the pair did not exchange any words on the matter, he was a subject of interest to them. Brigg did not altogether relish this turning of the tables, nevertheless he dawdled over his meal, so as to remain near that beautiful profile, that fine slender hand, that sweet voice, as long as he possibly could.

  When he could delay no longer he left the room regretfully, lingered over paying the maid, and held a lengthy conversation with his groom in front of the inn about the cob. There was a gig owned by the Moorcock people to which the horse might be harnessed, said the groom; it was a ramshackle affair, but would suffice to get them back to Annotsfield. While he listened to all this Brigg had his eyes on the door, but Janie did not appear; at length, with a sigh, he shook himself into practical notions again, and commanded the groom to prepare the gig; they would start for Annotsfield at once. The man went off to the stable; and immediately Janie and Henry came out of the inn. They paused and looked at Brigg, passed on, hesitated in the road, looked back at him, and seemed to be discussing something very earnestly. Brigg was almost sure he heard Janie breathe a “Yes!” Then Henry turned and came straight towards him; his grey eyes were friendly and he smiled as he observed in an easy drawl:

  “We think you must be our cousin.”

  Brigg, dumbfounded, stared at him and said nothing.

  “Or step-cousin, if you prefer it,” added Henry.

  The tone of this second remark was less friendly, and rather suggested that he would withdraw from relationship altogether if Brigg did not make some immediate response, so Brigg said hastily:

  “I’m delighted to hear it.”

  He smiled at Henry, and skilfully managed to include Janie in the smile. She, however, looked rather doubtful, and remained aloof.

  “We thought we heard your friends calling you ‘Brigg’ and ‘Oldroyd,’” explained Henry.

  “William Brigg Oldroyd is my name,” said Brigg with the haughtiness proper to such an important subject.

  “Mine,” said Henry, sounding rather amused: “Is Henry Singleton Bamforth, and this is our mutual cousin, Sophia Jane Smith-Oldroyd.”

  “Oh!” said Brigg enlightened. “I see.”

  “Of course your father and mine have quarrelled for ever and all that sort of thing,” continued Henry in his light easy tone: “But it seems rather absurd to keep up these old family feuds, we think. But perhaps you don’t agree?”

  “I’m delighted to have the opportunity of knowing you,” lied Brigg heartily, offering his hand. He added with perfect sincerity and a sparkle of his black eyes: “And cousin Janie.” He turned towards her with outstretched hand, and Janie, with a rather doubtful and fluttered air, laid hers in it. Brigg’s fingers closed upon her shabby glove with a warm pressure; a pretty cousin!

  In a few minutes they were all walking down the road towards Annotsfield together, Brigg having allowed the others to suppose that to walk home had been his intention, and stepped back to tell the groom of it. Janie was silent, and the conversation was carried on almost entirely by Henry; he told Brigg that they had come up to the Moorcock to see old Martha, who had been so kind to his father in his childhood’s days. Finding Brigg politely noncommittal on this point, he went on to display a great deal of learned lore about the Moorcock building; he knew when it was built, and by whom, and said it was interesting to think that the parlour where they had innocently eaten ham and eggs that afternoon was once the headquarters of the Luddites. Brigg, who had no more idea what a Luddite was than he had about the services of old Martha Ackroyd to the Bamforth family, gave a polite murmur and let the subject pass; if the Annotsfield College had not instructed him about Luddites, it had at least taught him how to move about the world without making a fool of himself, and he did not intend to give any points away to Henry. They came to a rough path which led away across the moor to the right, and Janie paused.

  “Couldn’t we just go along here and see the view?” she murmured pleadingly to Henry.

  “Shall we go and look at the Ire Valley?” suggested Henry, turning to Brigg.

  “By all means,” agreed Brigg. He thought it a mad notion to lengthen the already long walk which lay in front of them by an excursion on a rough moorland path which apparently led nowhere, and he felt no attraction to a view of a valley which he saw every day; but he was content to go anywhere in Janie’s company, and perhaps the groom and horse and dogcart might slip past them while they were off the road, which would conveniently do away with some tiresome explanations.

  Accordingly they followed the white stony path until they reached the point where it fell over the edge of the bluff into Scape Scar. Here they halted. The view was certainly very fine; the Ire Valley lay before them, from the round black hole which showed where the Marthwaite Tunnel pierced the Pennine range, to the outskirts of busy Irebridge. The setting sun had now slipped down out of the clouds and was flooding the western sky with fiery red; against this glowing background the western hills looked black, but down in the valley objects had not yet lost their colour; the trees of Syke Wood were still green and gold, and buildings could be distinguished.

  “That, I suppose,” said Henry, screwing in his monocle and pointing with his stick to a decrepit grey cottage near the tunnel, on the far side of the railway line; “is what remains of Dean Head House, the home of our ancestors.”

  “I don’t think so,” said Brigg hastily. He had no notion whether the ruin were really Dean Head House or not, but he was shocked at such a wretched hovel being connected with his family. “In any case, they’re thinking of putting a reservoir there,” he continued, thinking aloud.

  “Oh, I hope not!” cried Janie earnestly. “Surely Uncle Brigg won’t allow it!”

  Brigg had a pleasurable thrill at hearing his father’s name and his own thus upon her lips, and looked at her delightedly. Beneath her shabby-looking cap of dark fur her bright hair gleamed in the sunset glow. A lovely thing, mused Brigg; all air and fire.

  “Syke Mill,” continued Henry, pointing to the mill chimney, which was beginning to melt into the dusk.

  Brigg frowned.

  “You do still make cloth there, don’t you?” queried Henry, noticing his dark look.

  “We do the dyeing and finishing there because of the water rights,” explained Brigg impatiently. “But the manufacturing is all done down at Irebridge.” He was vexed that they should regard such a comparatively small and old place as the Oldroyds’ main mill. Since the Franco-German war Annotsfield in general and Brigg’s father in particular had turned from woollen cloths to fine worsteds, growing rich on markets formerly commanded by France; and the Oldroyds now owned a fine big place on the main road at Irebidge
, with a magnificent archway entrance, two hundred yards frontage and rows of weaving sheds in the rear. Unfortunately from here it was just out of sight round the corner. Brigg leant forward and shaded his eyes with his hand; no, it was not visible. He was also vexed by Henry’s use of the name Syke Mill. He was not accustomed to hear the Marthwaite dyehouse called Syke Mill; its full title nowadays was Old Syke Mill, and that of the Irebridge place New Syke Mill, and by a natural transition the older building was usually spoken of simply as Old Mill. Only Brigg’s grandfather, Thorpe, the head foreman at New Syke Mill, sometimes caused confusion by making Henry’s mistake; on these occasions Brigg’s father laughed his deep rough laugh and told his father-in-law that he was an old fool and must learn to move with the times.

  “But isn’t that rather inconvenient?” demanded Henry. “To have to send the cloth away to be dyed?”

  “No,” said Brigg shortly.

  “But why didn’t your father add more to Syke Mill if he wanted to expand, rather than go to another site?” persisted Henry. “There are still one or two green patches left on that side of the Ire, I see.”

  “If you knew the rent Sir John Stancliffe wants for that land you’d know why,” replied Brigg grimly. “At the time my father started New Syke Mill it was quite out of his reach. He had to take a small shed and built as he could afford. Besides, he was living in Irebridge then.”

  “Is anybody living at the Old Syke Mill house now?” put in Jane softly.

  “Certainly not,” said Brigg haughtily. “We use it partly as an office and partly as a storehouse.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Janie. She sighed and suddenly shivered a little. At once the two men turned away towards the path.

  “We must walk briskly,” said Henry, solicitude in his tone.

  They turned their backs on the sunset, which was now slowly fading into a chill dusk, and stumbled rapidly along the uneven path towards the road. Or rather, Brigg stumbled; Janie tripped lightly along, graceful and sure-footed, and Henry, though he seemed musing and preoccupied, seemed to avoid the outcropping rocks by instinct, without looking at them.

  “We often come out here to look at our origins,” he murmured in an apologetic tone as he seized Brigg’s arm and steered him past a projecting heather root: “So the path is very familiar to us.”

  “Henry’s writing a history of the Ire Valley,” explained Janie aside to Brigg.

  They struck into the road and walked steadily down towards Annotsfield. The sky dimmed and darkened; a round lemon-coloured moon slid out from behind a cloud and hung poised above the hills, a small star sent forth a shy silvery gleam. Night fell, the moon turned orange, the sky was thick with stars; through the cold, frosty air the lights of Annotsfield sparkled. Henry had now recovered from his preoccupation and was talking a good deal—heaven knew what about, thought Brigg, politely murmuring “Ah!” and “Really!” For the two young men had Janie between them, and Brigg was in a bright ecstasy of love. Ah, she was sweet, sweet! That small straight nose, that delicious snowy little ear, the long red-gold lashes which curved above her cheek; the sweet purl of her voice, like a running stream, her clear soft laugh. She confessed that her hands were cold, which caused Brigg and Henry much concern; teased by their anxious enquiries, with a little laugh she threw out a hand to each young man, to be warmed. Brigg, cuddling the cold little fingers between his strong warm palms, could hardly restrain himself from putting them to his lips. But Janie withdrew her hand quickly. “She ought to have a muff,” thought Brigg, tenderly regarding her short, shabby little jacket. “One of those small round muffs.” At the thought of how much he would like to see her hands in a muff of his buying his mind grew hot and chaotic. What a mercy that dogcart overturned, thought Brigg, laughing to himself at the thought of his father’s face when he should hear of it.

  They approached the outskirts of Annotsfield; the moorland road became a paved and lighted street. Before Brigg’s eyes there floated a vision of the tall iron gates, the curving drive, the laurels, the broad facade and the marble-pillared porch of Syke House, for the last ten years his home. The lower gate opened into the road which they were now following—the other faced towards Irebridge—and no doubt Henry expected to get rid of him there. But Henry would be mistaken, thought Brigg, his handsome young face hardening; he intended to see Janie home, and if possible secure an invitation to call. All of a sudden his cousins bounded forward with cries of pleasure, and seized the arms of a little lame old man with a stick, who came limping out of a side street.

  “Uncle Jonathan!” cried Janie fondly.

  “Did you distribute all the prizes duly and truly, father?” drawled Henry in a teasing tone. “Or have you brought a few away in your waistcoat pocket? By the way,” he added, his eye meeting Brigg’s: “This is Brigg Oldroyd, Janie’s step-cousin. We’ve decided to give up the family feud, it seems out of place in these enlightened times.”

  “If you’re agreeable,” stuttered Brigg, turning scarlet under the keen glance of those fine dark eyes.

  For a moment his uncle surveyed him gravely, then he moved his stick into his left hand, and offered the right thus freed. Brigg took the dried elderly hand in his, and felt touched; it was small and slight, like Janie’s.

  “So you’re Brigg’s boy,” murmured his uncle. “Well! A fine well-grown lad, I see.”

  He suddenly tucked Brigg’s hand beneath his arm, and waved the other two away. “You two can go in front,” he said, pointing ahead with his stick: “Brigg Oldroyd and I will walk together.”

  Henry with a quizzical glance at Brigg, and Janie with a lovely protective look towards her uncle, obeyed; at first they walked slowly, but presently, forgetting themselves in talk, moved on at a brisker pace, and were lost amid the shadows. Brigg was left with his uncle limping slowly along by his side, clutching Brigg’s wrist in a fierce grip. The colour deepened in the young man’s cheeks. Was this really himself, he wondered, strolling down one of Annotsfield’s main thoroughfares with the notorious Radical editor—the man who had gone to law with Sir John Stancliffe about a fish-pond, conducted his own case and won it; the man who gave the Annotsfield School Board more bother than all the rest of its members put together and was equally difficult on the new Technical College commission; the fanatical teetotaller, the leader of the Mechanics’ Institute movement, the Home Ruler, the advocate of universal suffrage—hanging on his arm? The hour was dark and unfashionable, so probably none of his friends would see him, but he earnestly hoped that his father would not chance to emerge from the Syke House gate on his way to the Club, and catch him at it.

  Suddenly his uncle stood still and pointed with his stick in the air. Brigg, startled, followed the direction of his gaze, and saw a lad perched on the back of a large motionless brown horse. The animal was one of those employed as extra power to help the new horse-trams up a particularly steep gradiant on this route; it had evidently completed a journey recently, returned to the foot of the slope, and was now awaiting the arrival of the next tram. It was such an ordinary spectacle on this stretch of the Oldham Road that Brigg looked about to see what else in that line of sight could have attracted his uncle’s attention; but meanwhile the old man was moving on again, dragging the hapless Brigg across the road with him towards the horse. He paused beside its steaming flanks, and looking up at the lad in charge said, in a mild but authoritative tone: