Inheritance

by Phyllis Bentley

  “This is Janie, father,” said Brigg eagerly.

  His father turned, and found himself looking into the beautiful Janie’s brilliant eyes. Her lovely lips parted in a smile; what exquisite teeth! His face took on an air of surprised delight which did not displease Janie; he patted her charming hand affectionately. “You’re like your mother,” he told her. “But much handsomer. Yes, much handsomer,” he repeated, meaning really much better taught, much better bred. Yes! Anyone could see Janie was a lady; she would do Brigg credit, she would do any man’s table credit—and beautiful! No wonder the young dog’s in love with her, thought Brigg’s father, chuckling. He turned to Helena: “She does you credit, Helena,” he said warmly: “She does that.”

  This was an auspicious beginning, for he could not have said anything better calculated to please each of his guests. On his side Jonathan now perceived, not without remorse, that in one particular he had done his brother an injustice, for the woman he had imagined to be a maidservant, instructed to show him to his mother’s death chamber, was in reality Brigg’s wife. He therefore listened with a kindlier ear to his brother’s account of the development of Syke Mill; and he was genuinely interested to learn how Sophia’s affairs had finally been liquidated. Henry, with his customary fine tact, at the dinner table threw himself into an earnest conversation with Polly about the topography of Marthwaite, in which Janie joined; Brigg, relieved as to his mother, was deferential about the weather to Helena with a good grace. Wine was served, because in spite of his son’s protests the elder Brigg could not believe that all the Bamforths would be such muffs as to refuse it, but Polly, though seemingly amused by her son’s distress on this point, had nevertheless concocted with her own hands some innocuous fruit cup for which she was justly famed, so this little difficulty was for the moment smoothed over.

  It cropped up again at the close of the meal, however, when the men were left alone; the elder Brigg did not like his fine wines to be refused, and could hardly refrain from commenting on his guests’ oddity; nor was he pleased at being deprived of his excuse for lingering in the dining-room, for to him polite conversation with ladies was tedious work. Brigg, seeing a cloud threaten the brightness of the evening, hastily asked Janie to sing, and for a while his love’s sweet voice held them all enthralled. But even here, though not in Janie’s singing itself, there were discordant notes; for the elder Brigg requested her to sing some of the popular sentimental ballads of the day, which Janie scorned; she told him frankly that she had not these songs and did not sing them; whereupon the elder Brigg, who had no notion of her motives, gave her, in a kindly condescending tone, a list of pretty songs which it would be nice for her to have, and promised to send his son out to buy them for her first thing in the morning. Henry saw that Janie flushed a little at this, and her mouth tightened, for she was a spirited young person, and the speech was offensive to her in several ways. He therefore plunged at once to the rescue, as he thought, by asking Mr. Oldroyd (whom he was careful not to address as “Uncle”) what he thought of the new Annotsfield Power-Loom Weavers’ Union which had recently been formed.

  “There have been unions of a kind among the workmen since the second decade of the century, I understand,” he said. “Were they remnants of Luddism, do you think? And is this something new, or is it the same thing on a larger scale?”

  “It’ll ruin the trade, ruin it!” shouted his uncle, to whom, as to all manufacturers just then, the Union was a very sore point indeed. “They want to force all sorts of restrictions on the trade; they want to force us into agreeing by declining to work if we don’t. And they call England a free country! Not that it will ever gain ground,” he added contemptuously. “We shall see to that. We’re starting an employers’ association, and then we shall see.”

  Henry, who, accustomed to academic discussions on points which did not affect people’s bread and butter, was rather startled at the vehemence he had brought upon himself, observed musingly, thinking the matter out as he spoke: “No doubt there are matters which need to be settled by the industry at large rather than separately by individual firms. One sees that. But I should have thought a trade council, composed of representatives of both masters and men, would have been more efficacious than two divided bodies. Something after the fashion of the mediaeval guilds, you know.” He looked pleasantly at his uncle as he concluded this speech, expecting some interesting reply; but the elder Brigg was staring at him as though he had taken leave of his senses. Indeed, Brigg thought he had. Guilds! Mediaeval! Employers and men in the same association! What a muff the fellow was, to be sure! You could tell he was Joth’s son, the minute he opened his mouth! But no doubt men who ran newspapers were like that, thought Brigg contemptuously; they couldn’t help it, poor things! So he said in a kindly tone:

  “I reckon you don’t know much about mills, Henry, lad. But you can take it from me, the Weavers’ Union is done from the start.”

  “Why?” said Henry, who was genuinely interested.

  “Because we shall put a stop to it,” replied his uncle in a cross argumentative tone.

  “How?” said Henry.

  “Because we shan’t employ any men who are in it, that’s how,” explained the older Brigg. “We shall all agree together, you see.”

  Henry laughed. “It seems to me there’s not much to choose between the Employers’ Association and the Weavers’ Union,” he said in a light teasing tone: “The pot and the kettle—that’s how it looks to me.”

  “The weavers began their Union first, Henry,” put in young Brigg from the piano. As a matter of fact young Brigg was rather enthusiastic about the Annotsfield Manufacturers’ and Spinners’ Association; he saw in it a means of doing away with all sorts of silly old customs prevailing in cloth manufacture which, though no doubt salutary in the far-off times when weavers worked in their own cottages, were useless, tiresome and in restraint of trade to-day. The new fast looms were making everything different; in his opinion the woollen and worsted trade wanted organizing, and the association was the body to do it. He had his own ambitions with regard to the association, too; in that useful and honourable life he had planned for himself with Janie at his side, he saw himself its Chairman, regulating and encouraging one of the finest manufactures in England with an able hand.

  “Pot and kettle we may be,” his father was crying furiously: “But no member of that Union shall ever work in my mill, Henry Bamforth, and so I tell you.”

  Henry flushed, and Janie, who was bending over her music, looking for another song, turned scarlet. For they both knew—it was, indeed, the source of Henry’s interest in the matter—that Charley Mellor had had quite a lot to do with the founding of the Weavers’ Union, and was, indeed, a member of its executive committee. Janie did not wait to see how Henry would soothe his uncle, but hastily seized a song and began to play and sing. Brigg at her side hung over her, adoring; but it was now no longer a pleasure to her to see his hand steal forward to turn her pages; the depression she had been struggling against all evening fell upon her in a chilly darkness, like a fog.

  For to Janie the elaborate food and service, the plate, the china, the glass, the rich carpets and curtains and furniture, the prancing bronzes, the gilded chandeliers of Syke House seemed a mere tasteless profusion; she greatly feared the Brigg Oldroyds had never heard of Ruskin, for they certainly had no idea of the first principles of taste. There was not a book in the house, and her uncle wanted her to sing The Bells of Aber-dovey! She felt something, too, in the union of Brigg’s father and mother which repelled her chaste spirit, and she thought Brigg’s manner to his mother odious. In fact the whole atmosphere of the place seemed to her horrible. If Brigg were the sort of person to whom one could say all that without offence; if he were a man with whom, laying one’s hand in his, one could laughingly run out of the house and look at it from outside, not jeering at the house, no, but not admiring it either, just having compassion on it together—ah, if Brigg were like that, then Janie need not
have felt this dreadful weight upon her spirits. But, alas, thought Janie, straining through a trill, Brigg was not like that. Not at all. And his home was horrid, and Janie was miserable. She gave up singing because she could hear she was doing it badly, and became so very solicitous about Helena not staying too late and overtiring herself that Helena, who was not unwilling, found herself obliged to leave. In their leave-taking Janie avoided Brigg, keeping up a rattle of spirits which quite delighted his father but prevented him from any speech of love. Brigg’s eyes were reproachful, but Janie would not meet them; and all the way home in the cab which Henry had extravagantly commanded for the excursion—in order, as he said to Helena, to do Janie proud with her future relations; to Janie he said it was on Helena’s account—all the way home in the cab Janie’s soft quips flowed, so that the Bamforths were quite deceived, and thought her betrothal to Brigg a certainty.

  “My little Janie,” said Henry to her fondly as she followed Helena up the stairs of Eastgate House: “I hope you will be very happy, I think you will.” He made this little speech because he did not want any shadow of a thought of his own disappointment to dim the brightness of her joy in Brigg; but he was surprised at its effect, for Janie turned upon him like a fury.

  “Why do you all assume I wish to marry Brigg Oldroyd?” she cried with flashing eyes, positively stamping her foot at him with rage. “How can you think of me so, Henry? It’s insulting of you, it’s vulgar!”

  She fled to her room in a storm of sobs, and when next day Brigg arrived, flowers in his arms, a happy smile on his lips, and a look in his eyes as of an accepted lover, he met with but a cold reception.

  “It’s no use, Brigg,” Janie told him emphatically when he renewed his proposal of marriage: “There is too much difference between us. Our ways of looking at life are poles apart.”

  “We needn’t differ because our fathers do,” objected Brigg, hurt that she had so soon forgotten his action about Mellor, and much too proud to remind her of it.

  “Uncle Jonathan isn’t my father,” said Janie crossly.

  “Well, you know what I mean,” said Brigg.

  “Oh, Brigg!” sighed Janie, looking at him. He was so rich, so glossy, such a magnificent animal, and in her opinion so utterly blind to the things of the spirit. She shook her head. “It’s no use, Brigg,” she said.

  “I shall not accept your refusal,” said Brigg doggedly, the Oldroyd vein in his forehead slightly pulsing.

  And accordingly he continued to court her with a stubborn, steady passion, which could not but command her respect and admiration; and Janie continued to be tossed between love and hate. There were times when she loved Brigg passionately, yearned for him body and soul; but these times were usually when Brigg was not there; as soon as he was present he jarred upon her in some way and turned her love to anger and contempt. Sometimes the steadiness of his love melted her; once she almost brought herself to accept him, and actually asked him to show her round the Oldroyd mills. Brigg, intensely pleased, drove her joyously out to Old Syke Mill in his dogcart, and enjoyed the spectacle of his bright Janie stepping delicately among the pools of dye, pointing her little hand at the presses, and asking intelligent questions of the men—who looked very large and rough beside her and bent their ears respectfully to the level of her charming mouth. They all obviously regarded her as Brigg’s future wife, and Janie, looking with a kind of pleased sadness at the dirty box-filJed windows of New House as they passed by, began to think that perhaps the men were right. All this was so delightfully historical, belonged so to Brigg’s ancestors, who were also hers; there would be something eminently fit and proper in their marriage—and after all she loved him. They drove off down to New Syke Mill, spanking along the busy Marthwaite Road with a fine disregard for the rest of the traffic. Janie did not like New Syke Mill so well; she was a little tired of trying to understand the incomprehensible machines which Brigg explained so enthusiastically, and this mill was not at all historical, not at all connected with the childhood of Janie’s mother; it was just a large prosperous new mill where the Oldroyd money was made. And then, walking down one of the weaving sheds, they met Charley Mellor. Brigg, who thought this encounter lucky, spoke to Charley very pleasantly, and indulged in a serious chat about weft for a minute, just to show off agreeably before Janie how accustomed he was to the clatter of the looms. But something cold and painful had closed about Janie’s heart. She remembered the Weavers’ Union and the Employers’ Association, and Henry calling them pot and kettle, and her Uncle Brigg’s red face as he said imbecilities—for of course lots of his men were in the Union, Charley said so—and that horrible evening at Syke House, and oh! a great many other things. Then the contrast between Brigg’s new coat and elegant tie and spotless linen and correct English on the one hand and Charley’s shabby shiny ill-fitting suit, lack of collar, sweat-darkened hair and rough Yorkshire phrases on the other, struck her painfully. It was quite natural, of course, thought Janie, who understood that Brigg had made himself particularly smart to be her escort, but it made her terribly sorry for Charley all the same, so sorry that it hurt. She thought he seemed nervous and uneasy, too; he blushed and glanced at her wistfully when he thought she wasn’t looking, and he spoke worse than she had ever heard him speak before. Yes, Janie was in quite an agony for Brigg to end the interview because she was so sorry for Charley, Charley who had shown in so many, many sad little ways his humble adoration for her; she was so sorry that her sorrow gave her real physical pain about the heart, and she was cold and moody to Brigg as he drove her home.

  This alternation of warmth and chill on Janie’s part, of happiness and despair on Brigg’s, lasted not for a week or a month, but for two years. It was a treatment calculated to exasperate any man of spirit, and it maddened Brigg almost out of his control. He slept badly, ate little, and grew haggard and easily provoked.

  Chapter III

  Strife

  1

  Brigg tried to keep his fever within bounds by work. His father had been put on the committee of the masters’ association—an honour about which he was in two minds. He thought it right, and indeed necessary, that such an important firm as the Oldroyds of Syke Mill should have a member on any body claiming to represent the Annotsfield textile trade, but he had an old feeling that committees were “stuff,” fit only for Jonathan and his like, which he could not easily shed, and he did not express himself in public easily or well. Young Brigg, however, had no such difficulties; he was enthusiastic about the committee, insisted on his father attending it regularly, and primed him with facts and figures to bring forward there. One of the first matters to be dealt with was one about which Brigg was particularly eager—the regulation of weavers’ rates of pay. Brigg had always been more interested in manufacturing than in any of the other textile processes; for his father had the dyeing and finishing so much under his eye that there was little for him to do there. He had therefore had opportunities of forming the opinion that the present rates paid to weavers were in a perfect muddle; every master in the trade had a different basis of payment as regarded picks and strings, the difference between men’s and women’s rates varied in every district, and the extra for shuttles, beams, fancies, healds and so on, complicated in themselves, varied also in a highly complex manner. The result was a confusion and uncertainty of price in the woven cloth which in Brigg’s opinion operated against the success of the West Riding in foreign markets, and the coming of the new fast looms would make it worse. When, therefore, his father reported that weavers’ rates of pay were being considered in committee, young Brigg went into the whole matter with considerable vigour and determination. He worked out quite a number of calculations, and finally drew up a scheme for payment on a percentage basis. It was a very comprehensive scheme, and arranged for everything; the difference between men’s rates and women’s rates was stabilised, white cloths, solid coloured cloths, and fancies were separately classified, and a uniform rate of pay per string per so many picks to t
he inch established. Brigg was really very proud of the scheme, wrote it out very neatly and gave it to his father for presentation to the Committee. His father, of course—Brigg had expected it—made a mess of the job; and Brigg was invited to attend a meeting to explain his idea himself. He did so; the older members picked holes in his figures, disputed his estimates and re-arranged his classifications; but in the end they adopted a scheme so like Brigg’s that he was justified in feeling that he had had a good share in it. Every master who was a member of the association then posted in his works a notice that one month from that date the new scheme would be put into effect, and Brigg felt proud. He heard one or two rumours that the Weavers’ Union did not approve of the proposed scale, but Janie was being rather kind to him just then, and he did not take much notice of them.