Inheritance

by Phyllis Bentley

  It spent the next few months camping up and down Yorkshire, guarding railways and bridges, and reaching a professional standard of fitness for active service. Into this work Francis threw himself with all the ardour he possessed; he longed with passionate intensity for the day to come when he should be allowed to fight for England. Through the ghastly days of the retreat from Mons, through the bitterness of those autumn weeks when every morning the little flags on the war-maps had to be moved back and back, nearer and nearer to Paris, Francis felt that his heart, like England’s heart, was breaking. Oh! Why couldn’t they go out to France, why couldn’t they be allowed to do their share? The men were splendid fellows, in splendid fettle; they only asked to be put down in front of the enemy, and the War Office should see what account they would give of themselves. Francis, thinking thus, thereupon went out and worked harder than ever, for the harder he worked the sooner they would get to France—they must all pull together and put every ounce they possessed into the job; it was for England. Your King and Country Need You, said the posters, and Francis did not understand how any man could read one and pass the recruiting office by.

  Occasionally, in the intervals of soldiering, Francis wondered what was going on at Syke Mill; he had left the middle-aged works manager, Walker, in charge, with instructions to encourage all the men to enlist if they would, and to obey any orders the Government might issue with the most literal strictness. Francis expected that Syke Mill would be ruined, and squared his shoulders to meet it; he supposed everything would be ruined, and it was the duty of the gentry to set an example to the rest of the country, to show how simply and quietly one could accept ruin when one’s country’s salvation demanded it. When a recruiting campaign was begun in Annotsfield, Francis went to Syke Mill and addressed the assembled men. Heaven knew that he had no eloquence, but he could and did put the situation as he saw it clearly and earnestly, and several of the younger men who remained joined up. (Young Thorpe and many others had already done so.) Francis was surprised to see how many men and women there were yet in his own employment, and how busy the mill seemed to be; he found a moment to ask Walker about this, and learned from him that the Government had just discovered that worsted cloth was as good or better wear for soldiers than the woollen the British Army had hitherto worn, and consequently they were simply pulled out of the place, as he expressed it, with Government contracts for khaki; the West Riding was busier than it had been since the American tariffs were put on. But surely Mr. Oldroyd had understood that from his letters? Francis said sternly that he had had no time to bother with them; he was on active service. Walker accepted this with a respectful nod, and, addressing Francis now as Captain Oldroyd, said he would send shorter reports in future.

  A few weeks later the desire of Francis’s heart was realised; the battalion was ordered out to France. Francis, at home on a brief leave, at Walker’s request went down to Syke Mill and harangued the men. He noticed that there were now comparatively few young faces among them, and was glad; he told them that their friends and companions were going very shortly to the front, and that it was the duty of those who stayed at home to strain every nerve to provide the fighting forces with equipment. The men, who were working seven days a week, agreed enthusiastically and gave Captain Oldroyd a rousing cheer. At midnight Francis went down and said the same things to the night shift, with the same result. They must all pull together, he said; England was in danger, and in the face of her need all personal differences must be forgotten. Cloth was not perhaps quite as necessary to the winning of the war as munitions, but it was necessary, and he relied upon them, in his absence, to see that Syke Mill did its bit in the home front. He then drove home, and found Charlotte waiting up for him. He had already had his will re-drawn, and set his affairs as far as possible in order; he now observed thoughtfully:

  “I think I ought to go and see Carmine, mother.”

  “Why?” demanded Charlotte hardly, flushing.

  Francis did not seem disposed to answer this. What he really felt was that Carmine was his wife, and had borne his child, the casualty lists were heavy and he might never return to England, and he should not like to die at enmity with the only woman he had ever loved. Moreover, an echo of his own words hung about him; he felt they ought all to pull together; he should not like to die at enmity with anyone in England. Not that he intended to die, no fear; but still it was no use blinking things and those casualty lists told their tale.

  Charlotte was furious that he should even think of wasting a day of his precious leave on “that woman,” as she called his wife; but knowing the native obstinacy of his character, she said nothing to oppose him and hoped he would have forgotten about Carmine by the morrow. Before she was up, however, he came to her bedside and said he was catching an early train to London.

  “To see her?” demanded Charlotte. She noticed that her son was wearing his best uniform, and this detail seemed to her particularly hard to bear.

  “Yes,” said Francis. He fidgeted a little under her reproachful look, and added: “I shall be back to-night.”

  About three o’clock that afternoon, therefore, Francis drove up to Henry Bamforth’s house in a taxi and dismounted. He rang the bell, asked for Mrs. Oldroyd, and was shown to an empty room on the ground floor. He did not like asking for his wife in another man’s house, and when the maid requested his name and he had to give it, he liked the business still less. What should he do if Carmine refused to see him? Go away with his tail between his legs? Send up a pathetic message begging for a last farewell because he was going to France? He could not imagine himself doing either. If Carmine declined to see him he supposed he had better ask for Henry—he must explain to somebody in her interest those financial arrangements which would operate in his absence, which were his excuse for coming here. The maid now returned, and asking him to follow her, led him upstairs to the drawing-room. “She means to see me, then,” thought Francis, and was conscious of excitement.

  Carmine was standing in the middle of the room with her hands clasped in front of her. Francis gave her a keen look, and was astonished. Three years ago her beauty had been that of a sulky little girl, now it was that of a gracious woman. She looked taller; her dark hair, parted in the centre and drawn into a coil on the nape of her neck, framed her pale face with a dignity quite queenly; she was dressed in an odd but distinguished style in thin black draperies, out of which her shapely throat rose white and gleaming; her eyes were starry. Francis said: “Well, Carmine!” in a tone he tried to make casual. After a moment’s hesitation she offered him her hand; Francis, taking it, remembered how her hands used to be cold, shrinking little things, and marvelled to find that the one he held was quiet and warm.

  “I’ve been thinking about you so much lately,” murmured Carmine. “I wondered if you had gone—out.”

  “Did you?” mumbled Francis.

  They sat down.

  “Yes, I’ve thought about you a great deal,” went on Carmine with a kind of regal simplicity.

  “Have you?” said Francis rather wistfully.

  “I hoped you’d come to see me before you went,” continued his wife. “I should have been sorry—if you hadn’t.”

  “Well, that cheers me up a good deal,” admitted Francis, on a brighter note. “I wasn’t sure whether you would see me, you know.”

  Carmine gave him such a sombre glance of reproach from her dark eyes that Francis suddenly felt his pulse begin to throb.

  “I came to tell you,” he began; and went on to outline the arrangements he had made for her financial comfort during his absence. Carmine listened gravely, with lowered eyes, but spoke no word. “So I think it will be all right,” he concluded cheerfully: “Unless of course Syke Mill goes smash.”

  Carmine stirred. “How go things at the mill?” she asked.

  “Oh, they’re working day and night, week in week out, on khaki,” said Francis proudly. “The men are splendid.”

  Carmine raised her eyes and looked f
ull at him; it was a strange deep look; Francis did not know what it meant, but he felt moved and shaken.

  “How is your uncle?” he blurted, to cover his confusion.

  Carmine sighed. “He’s very much broken” she said sadly. “This is a dreadful time for him. He seems to see all his beliefs and ideals falling into the abyss. He’s retired from all his posts—he can’t take a view of the War which is generally acceptable. He thinks war is wrong, you know. So does my brother,” she added softly.

  “Matthew?” frowned Francis.

  Carmine nodded. “But David is in France,” she said. “He’s been there a fortnight—he enlisted.”

  “And you, Carmine?” demanded Francis. “What do you think?”

  “I don’t know what I think,” said Carmine in her soft husky tones, speaking very quickly. “I don’t know what I think. I hate war and strife. But I can’t help admiring these who go out to fight for England. I think,” she added softly, “we should all rise up together, for England.”

  “That’s just what I think,” said Francis in a sober tone. “Carmine, I don’t know I’m sure why we didn’t make a go of it together, before. It seems now as though it would be easy enough.” He looked at her hopefully, but she, thinking he expected some expression of contrition from her, which she was not prepared to give, was silent, with averted head. Francis sighed.

  There was a pause. Then Carmine said: “How is your mother?”

  “Very well,” said Francis shortly. He thought: “There’s another man, perhaps—she’s beautiful enough. Well, she may be a widow soon.” Aloud he said, as the clock struck an hour: “I must go.” He rose.

  “Go!” cried Carmine on a note of anguish, springing to her feet. “So soon! Oh, no!”

  “I’ve told you about the money, which was what I came for,” said Francis.

  “I thought you came to see me,” murmured Carmine.

  “I came to say good-bye to you before I go to France,” said Francis.

  “When do you go?” breathed Carmine.

  “At the end of the week—I’m not supposed to say which day, or from where,” Francis told her.

  “Then you needn’t leave me just yet. I must have your battalion address, and you must have some tea and see Uncle Henry,” panted Carmine. “You can’t go suddenly, like this.”

  “Yes, I can,” said Francis stubbornly. But his voice shook as he added: “Am I to have a kiss—or not?”

  Carmine moved across the room and stood close to him; her eyes were lowered, so that her long dark lashes swept her cheek. “Don’t go, Francis,” she murmured, laying her hand on the stars on his sleeve.

  “Don’t go?” repeated Francis, excited by her touch, but not yet certain of her meaning. “Why not?”

  “Because I want you to stay,” breathed Carmine. She suddenly raised her eyes, which were full of tears, and gave her husband such a beautiful starry look of love that Francis cried ardently:

  “Carmine!”

  He took her in his arms, and their lips met in a passionate kiss.

  “Don’t go, don’t go!” wept Carmine softly, her arms clasping his neck.

  “No, no!” said Francis in a low tender tone. “I won’t go, Carmine. I’ll stay with you till to-morrow.”

  2

  “We must tell Uncle Henry,” said Carmine presently, and taking Francis’s hand she led him downstairs to her uncle’s study. The old man was sitting in the dark, looking sadly at a dying fire. Carmine, reproaching him tenderly for not having rung for the maid, turned on a lamp, mended the fire, and rang for tea.

  “This is Francis, Uncle Henry,” she said. Then as he showed no sign of recognition she added gently: “My husband.”

  “I know, I know,” said Henry pettishly. “I know quite well who he is, Carmine. He’s Brigg’s son. A very personable young man.”

  “He’s staying with us till to-morrow—he goes to France in a few days,” said Carmine.

  Henry lifted one thin hand as though in protest, then let it sink again in a gesture of hopeless resignation.

  Chapter II

  Post-War

  1

  Colonel Francis Oldroyd, D.S.O., returning from the war with a stiff arm, a deep-seated irritability and a feeling of utter emptiness and exhaustion, knew exactly what he wanted to do with the rest of his life. He wanted to go home and stay there; he wanted to marry and settle down; he was already looking about for a kind quiet woman, not too young, who would be a good mother to his motherless little boy.

  For the doctors had proved to be correct in their warnings, and Carmine, who gave herself gladly and joyously to her husband in token of their reconciliation for England’s sake, had died in childbirth in the following summer at Henry’s house. There was time to tell her that her child lived, and was a son, before she died; but whether she understood this or not was doubtful—her dark eyes, swimming beneath half-closed lids, quivered a little, and that was all. The nurse feared she was not in a state to understand anything, but Janie maintained vehemently that of course she understood, else why should her face look so happy in death? At this the nurse sniffed a little, but out of kindness was silent, for poor Janie was indeed at this moment a tragic figure. She had lost a son in the war, and now her daughter; her husband too lay ill, with a neglected cold, at home, and as he had not come to his dying daughter’s side, his illness might be supposed to be serious. Henry and the nurse both urged this view of Charley’s illness upon Janie, but she seemed unable to accept it, and wrote a positively scolding letter to her husband, urging him at least to come to London to see his daughter buried. The result of this was a telegram from Matthew commanding Janie’s instant return; on hearing of his beloved Carmine’s death Charley simply gave in, and though Janie flew to his side and did her utmost to rally him, he died five days later of pneumonia.

  So it was in Henry’s neat handwriting that Francis learned that he was the father of a son, and that Carmine was lost to him. The child, reported Henry, was healthy and strong, and had been christened David Brigg Oldroyd, in accordance with Carmine’s often expressed wish to commemorate thus the name of her brother, who, as Francis knew, had been killed in one of the battles of the Marne. Henry described also Charley’s death, and explained that, as Matthew was now married and had a home of his own, Janie was no longer needed in Annotsfield, and he hoped to persuade her to make Camden Town her home. The little David could then remain there under her care. Delicately Henry hinted that David would be better in London than in Yorkshire—so much nearer, too, for Francis when on leave. Luckily Francis and his men were behind the line, resting, when this letter came, so Francis was able to walk out alone for a little while, and get over the first stunning blow. He thought, slowly and heavily, about Carmine and their life together; he saw Carmine frightened and excited, looking up at him from the railway line, Carmine sweet and yielding, in his arms; Carmine sulky, Carmine in flaming anger, Carmine in her last gracious surrender, Carmine weeping her farewell on his shoulder in the early morning light. Yes, he had loved her, however things had gone wrong between them; he had loved her, and now she was gone. The thought of her dying in agony, as it seemed she had, shook him to the core. It hurt him particularly to reflect that while Carmine, who, last time he had seen her, was so warm and full of life, was now dead, Henry, who had then seemed a thin bloodless ageing creature, now sounded vigorous and well. His letter was the letter of a man full of power and wisdom, tender, kind, admirable in its delicate sympathy. Francis read it again. “He wants to keep the child with him,” he thought; and his attention was directed to his son. He imagined a little morsel of humanity, a part of Carmine, sensitive and shrinking as she. “I’d as soon old Mr. Bamforth had him as anybody,” mused Francis. And this view was confirmed by a letter from Charlotte, which, though it was full of decorous expressions and sorrow for Carmine, and of genuine eagerness about little David, was somehow all in the wrong key. “Mother seems to think I didn’t know Carmine’s faults,” thought Francis irritab
ly. “I knew them well enough, but loved her all the same.”

  By one of life’s ironies he got leave a few weeks after Carmine’s death, and on arriving in England went straight to Henry. To his astonishment he found the old man looking twenty years younger than on his last visit; Janie, too, though her hair was greying, appeared handsome and lively in her widow’s weeds. Francis felt vexed with them, and relapsed into the brooding, sombre mood which had been his since the reception of Henry’s letter. His son was asleep when he arrived, and he had been in the house an hour or two before Janie suddenly ran out of the room, and ran into it again with a bundle in a blanket, which she placed in her son-in-law’s arms. At once Francis felt a tide of hope and life surge through his veins. The little dark head of his son, so soft and warm, the tiny fingers and little round arms, the delicious toes which Janie displayed to him so proudly, the fragrant breath—why! it was impossible to think of wishing for a bullet when a baby like this existed. Francis understood now why Henry and Janie looked so bright and young. Before he returned to France he altered his will suitably in the infant’s favour, and appointed Charlotte and Henry his joint guardians. Charlotte objected to this arrangement, but gave in when Francis threatened to substitute Janie’s name for her own. To Charlotte’s angry disappointment, too, Francis returned to London a day before it was necessary, in order to spend the time with his child—the textile industry was now under Government control, so he did not feel that duty required him to stay near Syke Mill. On this visit Janie drew him mysteriously to one side and consulted him as to the propriety of her continuing to live in Henry’s establishment. “Do you think it’s quite correct?” she whispered, her eyes very wide and earnest. Francis, suppressing a smile as he thought of Henry’s age, assured her that in his opinion it was. It occurred to him, however, that as Janie was now a widow, they could marry if they wished; and he said so. “I shall not do that,” said Janie, tossing her head. They parted on the best of terms, Janie saying fondly to him: “You’ll write regularly, won’t you, Francis?” Francis promised that he would. Henry, shaking his hand very kindly and earnestly, urged him to look upon the house as his home. Francis promised to do that too.