Inheritance

by Phyllis Bentley

  “You’re wise,” said Mellor bitterly. “Well, I’ll be saying good day to you.” He took the hand David offered again with a rather sheepish air, then suddenly whisked out a cloth cap and got himself out of the room. Francis followed and accompanied him silently to the mill door.

  When Mellor had gone Francis turned, to find David behind him.

  “Why should I have this money, father?” said the boy distastefully. “Surely Uncle Matthew ought to have it! He looks poor. Why, his boots were cracked right across the top—I saw them.”

  “He wouldn’t accept it,” said Francis. He explained that the money was originally Brigg’s.

  “Aren’t the two families good friends, then?” said David.

  “No,” said Francis.

  “But he looked so poor,” murmured David, distressed.

  “He’s on the dole,” said Francis briefly.

  “Perhaps he thought if he brought the cheque himself you might give him a job,” said David. “Couldn’t you, father?”

  “No, I couldn’t!” cried Francis in a loud harsh tone. “I’m out of a job myself.”

  David’s questions, his sympathy for Matthew, the fact that he stood there with a cheque in his pocket for a thousand pounds and made no attempt to share it with his father, seemed to Francis the last straw; something broke in him, and he gave in.

  “Get me my hat from the office,” he commanded in a muffled tone. “And tell Ackroyd I want him. I’m going to the bank.”

  David, returning promptly with the hat in his hand and Ackroyd following, announced to Francis in a thoughtful tone:

  “Father, I think I shall go to stay with. Uncle Henry for a few days”

  “Oh?” said Francis, putting on his hat at a debonair angle—“May as well die with one’s chin up,” he thought.

  “Yes. He’s rather under the weather since Grandmamma’s death,” explained David. “And,” he added honestly, colouring: “I want to talk to him about something. I think I shall go this afternoon by the one-thirty.”

  “Well,” said Francis, maintaining an appearnace of good humour by a supreme effort: “Do just as you like, David. But I’m afraid you can’t have the car—I need it.”

  “Oh, I’ll take a bus,” said David cheerfully.

  “Have you any money?” enquired Francis.

  “Yes, thanks,” said David.

  Ackroyd, taking his seat at Francis’s side, observed with a smile: “These young folk nowadays know their own minds, don’t they, sir?”

  “They do,” said Francis grimly. “To the bank, Ackroyd.”

  As they drove along Ackroyd murmured: “I heard a rumour in Annotsfield this morning that the Armitages are down, sir, but I contradicted it—I said you’d be sure to know if it was true.”

  “It isn’t true. But in fifteen minutes there’s going to be a rumour that the Oldroyds are down, and that will be true,” said Francis harshly.

  He went into the bank and announced to Everard that he had decided to allow Syke Mill to go into liquidation.

  Chapter IV

  End Or Beginning

  1

  “If you had let me know you were coming, my dear boy,” quavered Henry in his thin old tones: “I could have had a fire made in the drawing-room, and received you properly.”

  “I like being in this room, Uncle Henry,” said David.

  They were sitting together in Henry’s study, having coffee; although the day had been hot, there was a small fire in the grate, for Henry nowadays was always cold; the curtains were drawn against the July dusk, and the firelight flickered agreeably over the books with which the room was lined. The pair sat in the dim light of one shaded lamp, for Henry’s eyes nowadays shrank from light; he could use them but little at any time, and his monocle, though it still hung on his chest on its black ribbon, was but rarely brought into use. He liked to finger it, however, to wave it in his thin old hand to emphasise a point; Uncle Henry without his monocle would have been lost indeed. “He’s nearly ninety,” mused David. “I wonder what I shall be like when I’m ninety?” And at the thought the tide of life rushed strongly through his veins. “I shall do lots of things before I’m ninety,” thought David joyously, stretching his strong young frame. Aloud he said:

  “There were two things I came to ask you about, Uncle Henry. One was about Grandmamma’s money, which you say I’ve got to keep because Grandmamma wished it. The other is this: What shall I do when I’m grown up? What profession shall I adopt, I mean?”

  Henry lifted his venerable head, which was usually sunk on his breast, and stared fixedly at his great-nephew. After a long pause he said in an odd tone:

  “Why do you ask me? Don’t you know yourself what you wish to do?”

  “I’ve never thought about it,” confessed David frankly. “It’s silly of me, no doubt, but I’ve never thought beyond Oxford—Father’s promised I shall go there.”

  There was another long pause, then Henry said abruptly:

  “Don’t you want to go into Syke Mill?”

  There was almost a reproach in his tone, and David replied quickly: “It’s not what I Want, it’s what father wants. I’ve always taken it for granted that I should work at Syke Mill, but he doesn’t want me to go into the cloth trade; he said I shoudn’t go in if he could help it. He said so to Uncle Matthew this morning.”

  “He doesn’t want you to go into Syke Mill?” exclaimed Henry in capitals. “He doesn’t want you—but it’s incredible!”

  “Is it?” said David with interest. “Why?”

  “There have been Oldroyds of Syke Mill for a hundred and nineteen years to my knowledge,” said Henry emphatically. “And they were in the cloth trade generations upon generations before that. And your father doesn’t want you to carry it on! It’s incredible! If he wanted you to carry on the tradition and you didn’t wish to, that I could understand-But this way round—no, no!” He shook his old head, with its fringe of crisp white hair, reproachfully. “You must have misunderstood him.”

  “No, I don’t think so, Uncle Henry,” said David calmly. “But whether I did or not, that isn’t the point, is it? The point is : what shall I decide to do?”

  “If you want to decide for yourself, what’s the use of asking me?” said Henry in a peevish tone.

  “I thought you might lay the pros and cons before me,” said Davidl cheerfully.

  Henry gave a heavy sigh and was silent. “Really I don’t think I cam do that, David,” he said at length. “Your father might justly reproachi me if I said anything to wean you from Syke Mill. You seem to me to have great abilities, which ought not to be wasted. But only you yourself can know in which direction they would be best employed.”

  “Well, that isn’t very helpful,” said David in a disappointed tone.

  “The only help I can give you,” said Henry, “is this.” He roused! himself and sat erect, his old eyes gleamed, his thin voice took on dignity and measure. “I advise you,” he said : “to approach the problem in a scientific and impartial spirit. Don’t rush blindly into a decision, don’t drift into one; learn all you can about the alternatives open to you, place the facts about them before yoursef honestly, without distortion; then make your decision with open eyes. If you desert the manufacture of cloth, desert it because you are convinced that you will best serve humanity and yourself by deserting it.”

  “The fact is,” said David thoughtfully: “I don’t know anything about the cloth trade. It’s an odd thing,” he continued, “and it reflects very little credit on me, I must say, but the fact is, that while I’ve walked up and down the West Riding all these years, and loved the hills and moors and the winds and the steep valleys and the cold rocky streams, and the curlews and the heather, and the funny little country mills and the rows of lights at night in the big town mills, and the way the people talk, and the Yorkshire character, and all that sort of thing—while I’ve simply loved all that, I never felt that it had anything much to do with me. I felt outside it. I’ve always th
ought of myself, you know, as David Brigg Oldroyd of Emsley Hall; I never thought of myself as an Oldroyd of Syke Mill.”

  “That seems to me so strange,” murmured Henry.

  “Yes, I can see it does,” said David. “Well ! I suppose I’d better start in and mug up the cloth trade and the history of Annotsfield. If we’ve been at Syke Mill for nearly a hundred and twenty years, there’ll perhaps be some mention of us in the local history books.”

  “Try them and see,” murmured Henry. He added: “I wrote one myself once.”

  “Oh, Uncle Henry!” said David, ashamed: “And I didn’t know!” There was a long pause.

  “You know, I’m afraid I shall have to go back home to-morrow, Uncle Henry,” said David at length in his clear young tones. “Father—he didn’t say anything when I told him I was coming to see you, but I think he was disappointed. And he’s having a rotten time, you know, with this slump. So’s Uncle Matthew,” he added sadly: “And yet there they were, you know, firing away at each other—a regular slanging match. I heard them. It seemed a pity they can’t put their heads together instead of”—he paused for a phrase, and concluded, laughing; “instead of banging them together.”

  Henry sighed.

  2

  On the following afternoon David, descending from the London express at Annotsfield, carried his suit-case across Station Square, along Cloth Hall Street, and up the steps to the Free Library. A few minutes later he emerged with The History of Annotsfield and the Ire Valley (H. S. BAMFORTH) and Trial of the Murderers of Mr. William Oldroyd of Marthwaite (ANON.), tucked under one arm; he just caught the three-thirty bus to Emsley.

  3

  He found the peace of defeat at Emsley Hall. His stepmother, who had obviously been crying, and whose reddened eyes filled again with tears every few minutes, was nevertheless in an ecstasy of relief; she laughed and chattered with tremendous animation on indifferent topics, returning again and again suddenly to the cry: “Oh, I’m so glad for your father!”

  “We’re ruined, dear,” she explained volubly to the stricken David. “Your father told the bank yesterday; Syke Mill’s going into liquidation. Yes, we’re quite ruined. We shall scarcely have anything left, your father says, and he can’t bear to stay here, so we shall all go and live in the south, your grandmother as well; we’re quite ruined, but oh, I am so glad for your father!”

  David, tumbling his books on to his bed with a sick feeling at his heart, said: “I see.”

  “Of course I don’t think we shall be entirely ruined,” said poor Ella cheerfully, wiping away her streaming tears. “I daresay we may squeeze out a few hundreds a year for us to live on. What a good thing your education’s nearly over, dear! You’ll be able to finish it with your grandmother Mellor’s money, perhaps. Of course, there’s poor Fan coming along—but then it doesn’t matter so much for a girl,” she added comfortably. “Oh, I am so glad for your father! He slept twelve hours last night. It’s the first time for months. He’s been so restless, David, you couldn’t imagine, tossing about and talking in his sleep. Poor Francis! It’s been altogether too much for him, it has indeed. Far better to get out of it all while we still have a little left—that’s what your grandmother says, and I agree. I agree entirely. I shan’t mind being poor at all,” said Ella between violent sobs,“if only it’s happier for your father. He won’t have to go to the bank much more, at any rate,” she concluded viciously. “That’s something.”

  David, though his world was in ruins about him, had also one small point of relief to cling to, for in his previous holidays he had been very unhappy about Francis. He had been shocked and wounded by his father’s irritability, and had noticed with regret and alarm how yellow and haggard Francis looked, how his hair was thinning on the temples and his debonair good looks were almost a thing of the past. Of course, if his father had been suffering so much, thought David, that explained everything. “I wish I were older,” he said regretfully. “Then I could have helped him.”

  “Yes, dear,” agreed Ella. “But of course you aren’t. You must be very nice to him to-night when he comes in, won’t you?”

  David agreed that he would, and his stepmother left him. The boy stood gazing wretchedly out of the window at the smooth green lawns and bright parterres of his home; it would be hard to leave it all. At any rate his own private problem was partially solved; there would be no cloth trade for him, now. And then all of a sudden a delicious notion struck him; his thousand pounds! He could put it into the business, and Syke Mill would be saved; the History of Annotsfield and the Ire Valley might not be wasted, after all. He heard the car corning along the drive, and rushed down stairs to greet his father.

  “Well, David,” said Francis soberly. “You’ve heard the bad news I suppose?”

  “Yes, father,” said David on a cheerful note, his secret singing in his heart.

  Fan now came skipping across the hall towards them, and thanks to Ella’s determination to keep Francis cheerful, David had no further opportunity for private speech with his father all evening. “I’ll tell him when he comes in to say good night,” thought David, and he sat up in bed, reading the History of Annotsfield, with the door open and one ear cocked for the sound of Francis’s footstep on the stair.

  But Francis, who was wrestling with figures downstairs, was a long time coming, and when at last his “Good night, old chap,” sounded at the door, David, deep in his book, jumped like a startled fawn. He remembered his purpose immediately, however, and said urgently:

  “Father! Oh, I say, father!”

  “Well, what is it?” said Francis, in a tired voice, coming into the room and leaning against the bedpost.

  “Father, my thousand pounds,” said David hurriedly, blushing all over and feeling horribly shy. “Grandmamma Mellor’s, you know. Couldn’t I put it into Syke Mill? Wouldn’t it be enough to save it?”

  “My dear lad,” said Francis drearily: “It would be a mere drop in the ocean. I’m very glad it’s safely out of the mill.” Seeing the bitter disappointment on the boy’s face, he added kindly: “But it’s very nice of you to think of it.”

  “I see,” said David. He looked down, and began to fidget with the leaves of the book. After cherishing his idea for six or seven hours, it was very dreadful to have to relinquish it.

  In his silk pyjamas, with his dark hair ruffled and his dark eyelashes resting on his cheek, and his present rather sad and disheartened expression on his face, he had a great look of Carmine, and Francis felt moved to say something loving to him.

  “What’s the book?” he said kindly. “Is it interesting?”

  “It’s thrilling!” cried David, bright again. “It’s a history of the Ire Valley—there’s a lot about us in it.”

  “Is there?” said Francis, amused, thinking that he referred to the Stancliffes.

  “Yes, a whole long chapter,” David told him. “All about the Oldroyds. But what I can’t understand, father, what I simply can not understand, is the position of Syke Mill. They talk about it as if it were between Marthwaite and Irebridge, and on the Ire. Well, it isn’t; it’s in Irebridge and a quarter of a mile at least from the river. And yet it must be on the Ire if this story’s true.”

  “It probably isn’t,” began Francis. Then he had a sudden vague remembrance of the doggerel his grandfather, old Brigg, used to sing, and he went on: “Oh—yes—well! We used to have a mill standing as you say—an old place—in my time it was called Old Mill, but I daresay it was called Syke Mill in the old days.” He described the situation of Old Syke Mill, and added: “But my father sold it.”

  “Sold it!” cried David, aghast. “Oh, father! What a pity! When was it? What date, I mean?”

  “It would be about 1906 or 1907,” said Francis thoughtfully. “Just before I met your mother.”

  “Why, we’d had it nearly a hundred years,” said David. “Must have had. What a pity! What a pity!” His eyes were quite large with the heinousness of the crime, and Francis, gradually recollect
ing what he had not thought about for many years, namely that the price of the Old Mill was his mother’s jointure, said rather bitterly:

  “Well, the purchase money is pretty well all we’ve got left to live on to-day.”

  David gave a deep sigh.

  “Well, good night, and pleasant dreams,” concluded Francis rather hurriedly, and went away.

  David, after a few minutes’ regretful thought, resumed the occupation he had been deep in when his father entered, namely, “twissing” Luddites in the flagged parlour of the Moorcock Inn. He saw the wooden settles, the tobacco smoke, the pewter mugs, the men, in odd old-fashioned clothes, grouped about the fire; he heard the talk of poverty and wrong, of the new frames made by Enoch Smith, of the great hammer “Enoch” which should break them, of the redcoats watching in the valley by the mills. He heard the cropper’s song, with its ringing chorus; he heard them taking the Luddite oath—In the Name of God Almighty, any one that enters into this society, and declares anything, shall be put to death by the first brother. David rolled over in an ecstasy. “They were men then,” he thought. “By God, they were! I should like to have been one of them.”

  He read on. Now he was tramping from Marthwaite down to Syke Mill, in the dead of night, at Will Oldroyd’s side; before him in the darkness rolled the waggons bearing the new frames. The horses,’ hoofs clopped in his ears, the waggons bumped and thundered; what a noise they made! Was that twig snapped by the pressure of a human foot? Would they get the frames safe to the mill? Oh, what an adventure, what a glorious adventure, thought David in a rapture; oh, this man was my ancestor, his blood runs in my veins; I do hope they get the frames safe to Syke Mill! He turned the page and read of their safe arrival, and breathed an ecstatic relief. “I’m glad they pulled it off,” he said aloud. “Damned glad. And I’m proud old William Oldroyd was the first man in the Ire Valley to use frames. A tough lot, the Oldroyds.”

  He read a few pages further, shook his head over old William Oldroyd’s vehemence, and suddenly found himself in the thick of the Ire Valley murder-—the silver spurs, the wood, the pistols, Mr. Oldroyd galloping up Syke Mill Lane, the fatal shots. “Poor old William! Poor fierce honest old chap! But what did the Luddites think they would gain by it?” he murmured. “Poor things! Poor things! It was the Oldroyds’ fault as well,” he mused: “They ought to have explained.” He read of Sir Archibald Stancliffe’s determined pursuit of the murderers—“Just like grandmamma,” thought David with a moue—of their betrayal by Walker—“Ugh!” said David—of their arrest, their removal to York, their execution. Thorpe, Bamforth and Mellor, he read, suffered the penalty of their crime on January 8th, 1813. “Bamforth!” cried David suddenly. “Uncle Henry! Mellor! Yes, and Thorpe too! Why, these men may be ancestors of mine as well!” He laid down the book and thought hard.