Francis could not help giving a short laugh. It was, of course, all very tragic, and he was very sorry indeed for Janie; but he could not help feeling it was rather comic as well for him to be assailed thus on his own doorstep in front of a chauffeur and a maidservant, especially as he did not feel in the least like either a seducer or a villain. His mother-in-law was still railing at him; she looked half mad. “Come, Mrs. Mellor !” he said soothingly, laying a hand on her arm. “You’ll have to forgive me, you know.” Suddenly his face changed; he had heard a sound from the room within.
“Have you been saying this sort of thing to Carmine?” he cried. Reading the answer in Janie’s face, he pushed her aside and rushed into the drawing-room. His wife was throwing herself about on the settee in a paroxysm of mingled laughter and tears; she tossed her arms up and down, her dark eyes rolled, she drummed her heels on a cushion. “My God !” thought Francis. He rushed out into the hall and shouted at the staring chauffeur to fetch the doctor from Stanney village. As he returned to his wife’s side, Janie, looking frightened, made a movement to enter the room. “No, by God !” Francis told her. “You’ve done enough harm—keep away.” He barred her out with one arm and shut the door in her face. His wife was now screaming wildly as though in pain.
2
Carmine’s child was stillborn, and the doctors pronounced that it would be unwise for her to undergo pregnancy again.
3
“I shall have to be going, I’m afraid,” said Francis, glancing at his watch. He rose from his father’s bedside and stood looking down at him. “Carmine’s people are coming for the evening.” He made a moue and began to stroll about the room with his hands in his pockets, jerking out sentences after uneven pauses. “I don’t mind Carmine’s father so much,” he said. “He’s a pathetic little chap, it seems to me. He’s out of work again, you know; seems as though he can’t keep a job. It’ll be a good thing for him if this Lloyd George insurance business goes through. I don’t know what Carmine does for them when he’s no job; she doesn’t tell me, and I don’t ask her; but I imagine she gives them something regularly. But it’s that fellow Matthew I can’t stand. A red-hot Socialist if ever there was one. Always stirring up unrest and trouble. However, I daresay he won’t come to-night. He’s never eaten a meal in my house yet, and I don’t believe he ever means to. And I can’t say I’m sorry. The younger one,” he added in a thoughtful tone: “David, you know—he isn’t so bad. In fact I’ve sometimes wondered,” he said, looking out of the window and jingling his keys: “whether not to take him into Syke Mill. What do vou say?”
“If you’ll take my advice, my boy,” said Brigg in his thin invalidish tones: “You’ll never have your relations working for you. It always makes trouble. In my young days we had some connections, Thorpes, on my mother’s side—that lad down in the far shed is one of the younger end of them—and one of them was foreman. Well, you wouldn’t believe the difficulty I had in getting rid of him. It took me years. Every time I tried to pension him off he cried, you know, and I hadn’t the heart. Then it was so difficult hauling him over the coals when he did things wrong, and he was always doing things wrong. No, take it from me; relations are no catch in business. The Armitages are going to find that out before long if they’re not careful; there’s too many of them in that firm.”
“There aren’t very many of us, father,” said Francis. “Unluckily.”
Brigg sighed. “I suppose it’s no use—Carmine wouldn’t like to risk it again?” he murmured.
Francis shook his head. “It’s like asking her to commit suicide,” he said. “I shan’t ask her. That’s why I thought about David. Of course I shan’t do anything in a hurry.”
“Well, he has Oldroyd blood in him,” said Brigg rather peevishly. “You must decide for yourself. Syke Mill is your affair now.” He lay back on his pillows and closed his eyes as though he really could not be bothered with all that any more. Francis sighed.
“Father, are you sure you wouldn’t like me to come with you to see that specialist fellow to-morrow?” he pleaded.
“How many more times have I to tell you and your mother that I’m going alone?” said Brigg irritably, opening his eyes. “I’m going alone.”
4
The following afternoon Janie, who was tidying herself upstairs after finishing her housework, was surprised to see the large Oldroyd car coming up the street. Supposing it contained Carmine, and wondering what she had to say that could bring her to-day after seeing her family last night, Janie in alarm—she was always nervous about Carmine nowadays—ran hastily down and opened the front door. She was more astonished still to see Brigg descending from the car. Brigg looked frightfully ill, his sallow face was contracted in an angry frown, and he stooped as he walked. Janie held the door open for him to come in; he brushed past her without a word, sat down in a rocking chair by the fire, and laid his head back. Janie stood looking at him in sorrowful perplexity, waiting for him to speak.
“Would you like a cup of tea, Brigg?” she ventured at length in a timid tone, seeing that he remained silent.
“Yes,” said Brigg without unclosing his eyes.
Janie filled the kettle and set it on the fire, and got out cups and saucers from the cupboard above the sink.
“Listen, Janie,” said Brigg suddenly in the middle of these preparations. “I’ve come to tell you something.” He sat up and gave her a grim smile. “I’m a dying man—cancer.”
“Brigg !” gasped Janie. The strength went out of her knees, she sat down suddenly and wept. Brigg sat and smiled at her sardonically.
“Do the others know?” said Janie presently in a muffled tone.
“Not yet—I thought I should like you to be the first to hear the agreeable news,” said Brigg.
Janie suddenly knelt down before him on the hearthrug, took his hand between hers and drew it to her breast. “Oh, Brigg, Brigg !” she mourned, turning up her tear-streaked face.
“Now, don’t make a scene,” said Brigg crossly. “I can’t stand it.”
Janie sat back on her heels, still holding his hands in hers, and smiled at him mournfully—his tone was so much that of the old imperious Brigg. They looked at each other for a long time like this, then suddenly they were in each other’s arms. They kissed confusedly; Janie’s arm was about Brigg’s shoulders, caressing and encouraging: her wet cheek touched his.
“You know, Janie,” said Brigg at length in a shaking voice: “You ought never to have refused me.”
“I know, I know,” wept Janie. She remembered herself and added’ defiantly: “Charley has been a good husband to me.”
“Oh, I don’t doubt it,” said Brigg sardonically. “I don’t doubt it at all. Why I accepted your refusal I can’t think.”
“No—you were to blame there,” said Janie with spirit.
Brigg laughed and shook his head at her; after a minute Janie laughed too, rather uncertainly. She rose to her feet and made the tea.
“I shan’t tell Charlotte and Francis yet,” announced Brigg firmly, looking quite bright, though his cup shook slightly in his hand. “Time enough for that presently.”
“Brigg,” said Janie sadly: “Do you think Carmine and Francis are very happy together?”
Brigg frowned. “How should I know?” he grumbled. “I don’t understand your Carmine, Janie, and that’s a fact. All I know is,” he went on bitterly: “That she’s made my life seem of no avail. No Oldroyds left after Francis, Janie ! How do you think I like that? It’s partly your fault too.”
“And what about me?” cried Janie passionately. “Do you think it’s a pleasant reflection for me, that my daughter couldn’t confide her trouble to her own mother? It breaks my heart, Brigg, to think that I’ve failed her so.”
“Well, Carmine’s a strange girl,” said Brigg soothingly.
“She’s so sullen and timid and resentful, somehow,” said poor Janie. “I’m sure I don’t know why.”
“She’s not as beautiful as her moth
er,” said Brigg, trying to give the subject a less painful turn.
“Don’t you think so, Brigg?” said Janie reproachfully. “I admire her so much. But as for finding out what she thinks and feels, especially since she lost her baby, it’s impossible.”
“Listen, Janie,” began Brigg, and he hesitatingly told her that he desired greatly to leave her provided for after his death. Yet if he left her money in his will, Charlotte would perhaps be wounded. He therefore begged her to let him give her a substantial sum now.
“Oh ! I couldn’t, Brigg,” said Janie in distress. “I couldn’t, really. Charley would never forgive me—or Matthew either. Oh, no? I couldn’t.”
“Well, it’s very tiresome of you, Janie,” said Brigg irritably. “I shall have to leave it you in a codicil, and Charlotte will be upset—I know she will.”
5
This prediction was fulfilled. Charlotte was decidedly upset to discover, when Brigg died three months later, that he had left a thousand pounds to “my cousin Sophia Jane Mellor.” Brigg had wished Janie to have more than this, but dared not go beyond one thousand lest he give rise to scandal; he inserted the words “my cousin” for the same reason. Charlotte appreciated these nuances, and did not grudge such a comparatively small sum of money, but all the same she was vexed and hurt; and as she could not show this feeling to Janie without exposing the very jealousy she wished to conceal, she expressed it by disliking Carmine more than ever, and by persuading Francis not to employ David in Syke Mill.
“Surely we’ve had enough trouble and disappointment with these Mellors and Bamforths already,” she said, “without wanting to start any more.”
“I can never see how the Bamforths come into it at all,” said Francis, evading those implications of his mother’s speech which related to Carmine.
“The Bamforths,” said Charlotte succinctly, “are descended from an illegitimate son of your great-grandfather’s.”
“Is that the old boy grandfather thought I was like?” said Francis, amused. “Odd how the most respectable families have these skeletons in the cupboard.”
“I wish you wouldn’t be so flippant, Francis,” said his mother, “So soon after your poor father’s death. And I do beg of you not to employ that young Mellor.”
“Very well—I’m not particularlykeen one way or the other,” said Francis.
He thought that there was justification for her view of the Mellors as trouble-bringers, for Carmine, even since their child’s death, had made him very unhappy. Not in large things—Francis sometimes wished she would openly flout his wishes or storm at him; he would have known how to fight her then, none better. But outwardly she was docile; managed his house and dressed and entertained in accordance with his taste, submitted to his caresses, did nothing for which he could find fault with her. But in her many silences and the turn of her few remarks, the sarcastic lift of her dark eyebrows, the contemptuous lowering of her eyes, her slow smiles, her occasional dark passionate frowns, he was made aware of an implacable and unwearying resentment. When he read out some political item from the newspaper and looked at her for comment, she remained determinedly silent, and her silence was heavy with contempt. When he came in, bright and glowing, from a good round of golf on the Emsley links, or from watching some football or cricket match, Carmine raised her head slowly from her book and asked: “Did you enjoy it?” in a tone so subtly scathing that it maddened him. When they were invited out together, or when it was Francis’s duty to be present at some territorial or political function, Carmine always appeared at the hour named, suitably dressed, and went through the social mechanics required of her without any appearance of eccentricity. But she was so joyless, so grudging, that she was like ice on her husband’s lively spirits. She never enjoyed anything in his company, but always seemed to resent and scorn it. She saw him leave the house with proper expressions of regret but barely concealed gladness; when he returned she gave him words of welcome which froze him to the marrow. “If I were a soft fool,” thought Francis to himself sometimes: “This would drive me to drink. But luckily I’m not.” And he squared his shoulders and continued to behave to his wife with friendly consideration. Carmine was some time regaining her strength after her unfortunate confinement; and for some months Francis continued to hope that this icy reserve, this sullen contempt was a mere consequence of weakness, and would vanish with returning vigour. But it did not vanish. Then he thought that his father’s illness and death was perhaps accountable for the depression of her spirts—and indeed Carmine felt that in Brigg she had lost a valuable ally. After Brigg’s death it was arranged that the young couple should move to Emsley Hall, and Charlotte retire to Stanney Royd; Francis was glad enough to leave a place which had such painful memories for his wife, and hoped that in different surroundings her mood would change. But it did not change. Francis himself was deeply attached to Emsley Hall, and called the fine smooth lawns, the large glass-houses, the lofty rooms, the well-tended gardens and admirably appointed stables and garage to Carmine’s attention with much proprietary gusto. Carmine agreed that the lawns were smooth, the rooms lofty and the gardens lovely, but a bitter smile curved down the corners of her lips as she spoke, and from the way she told her husband he was a lucky man, Francis could see she seemed to think there was something wrong in owning all these agreeable things. Heaven knew what was the matter with her ! Only when he made love to her, woke her senses, could Francis seem to gain any friendly response at all—and there he was held up by this business of the doctors. If only they could have had another child, thought Francis angrily—but it would not be right to risk it., At times he made up his mind that he would not be thwarted by an uneducated, no-class chit of a girl like Carmine, and he would use every wile, every charm he knew to win a smile, a friendly look, from her. Sometimes he was successful, and they had a few happy hours together; but always this sombre gloom, this look of unrest and dissatisfaction, hate and scorn, reappeared in her dark eyes. Then Francis gave it up, yes, gave the whole damned thing up; he had made a mess of his life by getting himself entangled with Carmine, and now he was paying for it; well! he would not whine, but he would not bother with her any longer. But she was beautiful and his wife, and Francis hated giving things up, hated owning himself beaten; the morrow would find him attempting to win her by cheerful friendliness again; after all, they had to spend their lives together. Of course there were other women in the world beside his wife; but Francis was not that sort of man—no, really he wasn’t, he told himself, in spite of that unlucky affair with Carmine. So the young Oldroyds went on living together in body, poles apart in spirit; and Francis’s handsome face took on a rather stern expression; it was damned hard on a fellow, he thought, to be bothered all day long with workpeople in the mill, and then come home to the same kind of bottomless worry, the same suspicious resentful glances, the same grudging service, at night.
He was feeling the depression of his situation to the full one spring afternoon as, with a sheet of paper bearing piece numbers in his hand, he helped the works manager he had installed since Brigg’s death to look for a piece which had somehow been left behind when its companions were sent to Bradford the previous week. The mill wore a deathlike stillness, for there was a textile strike on hand; as Francis glanced out of the window he saw a group of men on picketing duty, and he felt the blood rush to his head at this visible sign of the thwarting and hampering which so irked his spirit. The piece was found, and the works manager and Francis staggered with it between them to the new motor lorry. Francis’s own private chauffeur had volunteered to drive it over to Bradford, where it was urgently needed; he now mounted to the driving seat, Francis pushed back the heavy garage gate, and the man drove the lorry into the inner yard.
“You’ll happen have a bit of trouble with those pickets,” observed the manager, looking out through the archway with a gloomy eye. A man was now haranguing the group from the low wall which edged the road, and they all looked alert and animated.
&n
bsp; “Don’t take any notice of them,” said Francis angrily.
“That’s one of their officials come round to keep them up to it,” said the manager, covering the piece with a waterproof sheet. “You’d best explain that this piece was done last week and got left behind by mistake.”
“Very good,” said the chauffeur smartly.
He was a young man, a Territorial and a protégé of Francis, and he was rather looking forward than otherwise to a brush with the pickets. Francis unlocked and swung open the iron gates, and the man drove the lorry through the archway. As soon as he had passed through, Francis busied himself with re-locking the gates, and it was not till he had finished this that he looked up, and saw the lorry standing motionless in the road, with the pickets swarming round. He ran swiftly along the road to the fracas, followed by the manager at a discreet distance, and shouted in a fury:
“What are you doing there? Don’t you touch that lorry!”
“Well, don’t you get in a blackleg, then! Who’s wove that piece?” shouted one of the pickets, and the others—who included, Francis saw, young Thorpe—chimed in their angry agreement.
“Who are you calling a blackleg?” cried the chauffeur, misunderstanding and naturally annoyed. “I’ve nothing to do with you and your Union.”
“You’re a blackleg all the same,” cried a voice from behind, which Francis thought he recognised as Matthew Mellor’s. He looked round quickly, and saw that it was indeed his brother-in-law who stood there, his hair flaming and his eyes ablaze. Matthew now advanced, and said in an official tone: “I’m sorry, Mr. Oldroyd, but I’m afraid I can’t allow this piece to pass out.”
“You can’t allow it? You can’t allow it? Who the hell are you to dictate what I shall do?” shouted Francis. Angry cries from the men informed him that Matthew was a Union official. Francis turned to his chauffeur. “Get down, Ackroyd,” he said coolly. “I’ll drive the damned thing myself.”
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