His voice grew more and more uneasy as they drew nearer, till at last it was thick with anguish, for he saw all the familiar apparatus of rescue preceding them along the streets. They hurried, panting; their feet felt leaden, as in a nightmare, they seemed to walk for hours and find themselves still in the same dreary place.
“Some people say we get so many bombs in this district because Montgomery has his headquarters somewhere near,” panted Jenny. “But I don’t know if it’s true.”
“I don’t think they can be steered much,” said Morcar. “These doodle-bugs, I mean.”
“No. I expect not.”
“We’re nearly there now, love,” said Morcar soothingly. “And then we shall see.”
They turned into the Square. Pushing past Civil Defence men, heavy rescue men, ambulance, police, they at last turned the corner whence they could see the Haringtons’ house.
But there was no house there.
Morcar gave Jenny into the care of neighbours, and flinging off his coat, went to work with the rescue men who were lifting beams and dragging away stones. He worked with frantic haste and energy; sweat poured down his face, he tore his hands and strained his muscles; he used his strength to its full force, as he had never really used it before.
Darkness fell; powerful arc lights were fixed in the street. A crane was brought and rigged, and at last came into action. The men worked on and Morcar worked with them.
In the early hours of the morning they drew the crushed bodies of Edward and Christina Harington from the ruins.
Never on earth again
Shall I before her stand
Touch lip or hand.
Never on earth again …
EPILOGUE
To Work
IT WAS touching, thought Morcar, to see how the shops in Annotsfield had all contrived with the limited means at their command to make some display of red white and blue. Those which owned flags of course hung them out proudly, but bunting and paper were in short supply in the England of 1945, and all of these commodities on view were relics of a more abundant age. But the dress shops had dresses of red white blue, hat shops had raked out the oddest looking old millinery of the right colours to show their delight in the nation’s victory; shoe shops sported red bedroom slippers, old white ballroom sandals, blue wooden shoes of wartime manufacture; even fishmongers had secured flowers of the proper shades and arranged them on their marble slabs. All had left their blinds undrawn so that their rejoicing might be visible. In the streets, the girls wore red white and blue snoods round their hair, the children were dazzling in bows and coloured handkerchiefs; even the men, though rather shamefaced about it in the British fashion, sported neat rosettes in their buttonholes. The radiators of cars and buses were decked with ribbons and small flags.
Morcar made his way to the Annotsfield Town Hall, for it had been stated in the Annotsfield Recorder that two hours after the official announcement of victory the Mayor would conduct a brief expression of the general thanksgiving there. A roaring happy crowd was waiting for the Mayor to appear on the balcony, and listening to the bells of the churches, which were ringing in changes and peals. Just as he arrived a squad of cheerful-looking soldiers, even the sergeant mildly beaming, marched up and arranged themselves in a square in front of the Town Hall, which was festooned with flags and fairy lights. The soldiers began to play military marches; the drummer in his leopard-skin banging away with great gusto. Policemen, smiling all over their faces, wrestled amicably with the crowd and answered innumerable questions. Babies crowed and wept, the shrill voices of children made an incessant treble vibration, everyone laughed and chattered at the top of their voice. “Let the little ’uns through!” cried a woman in the front row suddenly, turning. On a common impulse the crowd obeyed her; a narrow lane was made down which the children were pushed, and soon a deep fringe of small boys and girls, laughing, tossing their heads, restlessly jumping and pointing in joyous excitement, was formed in front, where the view of the proceedings would be uninterrupted. Press photographers climbed the buttresses of the Town Hall and snapped the scene from various angles.
The mace-bearer came out on the balcony; the Mayor in robes and chain, the Town Clerk in wig and gown, the Mayor’s chaplain in his best black, followed him. The crowd fell silent and gazed up intently. In a Yorkshire voice uneven with emotion the Mayor read out a simple speech, to which the crowd—though many of them could not hear, for the loud-speakers crackled—listened respectfully. The Mayor called for three cheers, and a shy ragged sound began which presently became rolling and deep-throated. The chaplain now stepped forward and conducted a brief service. The people sang the doxology (which they did not know very well, observed Morcar; he himself had to fish it out of his boyhood’s memories) and repeated the Lord’s Prayer in a mumble. Then a couple of soldiers wearing white bandoliers raised trumpets to their lips.
The strange high notes of the Cease Fire, so melancholy even in triumph, rang out over the crowd, who were suddenly very silent. Their faces, very still and sober, revealed that their thoughts were with those whom they had lost during the war. Morcar thought of Christina. He missed her bitterly, painfully, continually. He was achingly lonely without her. He thought now of her beauty, her lovely compassion, her gentleness, her eager wish to make everyone happy.
Always as then she was,
Loveliest, brightest, best,
Blessing and blest.
Always as then she was …
“If I caused you suffering by my selfish passion, my darling,” thought Morcar: “I beg your forgiveness. You were the true and only joy of my life.”
He thought of David. One of those men who make friendship between nations possible. For love against hate, for the good in man against the evil.
The sound of the trumpets died on the air. The band struck up God Save the King, and the crowd, stirred to cheerfulness again, sang it heartily.
The ceremony was over; the Mayor withdrew, the soldiers marched off, the crowd began to disperse.
It had all been very simple and provincial, thought Morcar, walking towards the car park; the Mayor’s speech had not been particularly eloquent, the trumpeters’ tone had not been particularly silvery, the decorations were just what were left from former years—indeed it seemed to him that he had seen those fairy lights at intervals since his early childhood. But it was all real, thought Morcar; honest, genuine, and truly of England, that is to say sober, kindly, spontaneous, democratic; performed decently and in order.
Morcar found his car and began to drive slowly, with the deliberate patience taught by the endurances and frustrations of the war, through the crowded streets out of the town up the Ire Valley.
He foresaw that the period before him would be the busiest of his life—nay, that it would make all other busy periods of his life look like a holiday. It was Morcar’s duty, as one who had survived and suffered comparatively little in the war, to do well by his county and his country. He knew it and accepted it all gladly: To see that Cecil (and those like him) who came home had a good home and a good job to come to; to ensure that the abilities of Jenny (and those like her) were not frustrated, wasted; to harness the restless energy of Fan (and those like her) so that it would be used for the common good and not tear her to pieces; to care for the future of David’s child. The Haringtons’ affairs lay chiefly in Morcar’s hands, for Jenny had begged him to help her with them and young Edwin was still in the Far East and heaven knew when he would be back again. The Oldroyds’ affairs lay chiefly in Morcar’s hands, for he was David’s executor and in that capacity Francis Oldroyd’s widow was also apt to take her troubles to him. Baby David lay now in his pram (Mrs. Morcar’s gift) on the terrace at Stanney Royd—Morcar’s heart warmed now as he thought of that sunny and endearing infant, so like Jenny, so like David.
But there was something else that formed part of Morcar’s duties. “Look after everything for me,” David had said, and Morcar had replied: “I will, lad.” I reckon he m
eant the wool textile trade as well as his own affairs, thought Morcar soberly. It wouldn’t be like him to think only of himself. I won’t think only of myself either; I’ve learned my lesson. For Morcar, the death of Harington symbolised the death of what was evil in the old England. Much that was lovely had perished with the old England, even as Christina perished with Harington. But the birth of the little David symbolised the survival of what was good. Morcar felt it was his part to help the growth of the good England. His grandfather and his father had served the community after their fashion, and he must do the same in his.
He remembered the day when he had argued with David and the Mellors at Scape Scar about the future of industry. Our problem is threefold, he thought. To make good and charming cloth so that people may feel happy and comfortable when they wear it. To earn food, to earn life and hope, for Britain by exporting our product. To make the industry provide a good life for those engaged in it. “Not easy to combine those three!” thought Morcar. How was it to be done? How to plan intelligently for the industry as a whole, and yet keep the sting, the fun, of individual independence and achievement? How to combine freedom with security, for all who worked in it? And make a good product spring from both? How to provide good houses, good education, good wages, good hopes of advancement, for all workers in the industry, without raising the price of the product beyond what other workers could afford to pay? How to reunite the whole industry so that it pursued a single aim, instead of consisting of opposing parties following separate purposes? He remembered how David had wanted the wool textile trade to be amongst the first to solve the problem in the new industrial revolution, the revolution which was to be social as well as industrial.
“Well,” said Morcar thoughtfully: “I promise you, lad, we’ll have a damn good try, choose how.”
The conditions, national and international, were about as difficult for an experiment as could be imagined. The stern (though necessary and justifiable) wartime taxation had greatly depleted his own financial reserves. All personal ambition was gone from him; he had no desire to take as reward for his services more than those services were worth to the community as a whole. But he did not want private industry to die from inanition until something stronger had grown in its place; he conceived it to be his duty to keep Syke Mills running until, and indeed after, a gradual transformation had been accomplished. It would be a difficult task. The trade’s machinery needed renewal, its export markets had been cut to less than half, its labour was still absent, would be absent till world peace was secured. And what of that peace? Would the nations’ friendship, moulded by the pressure of war, would their idealism, still survive? Well, at any rate we can see that our own holds out, thought Morcar soberly. “If necessary, alone—that’s what we said during the war. We’ll keep to it in peace as well.”
The day was a national holiday, and Morcar had intended to spend what was left of it quietly at Stanney Royd. But on an impulse he swung his car through the Syke Mills archway—the iron gates had long since gone for salvage—and drew up in the yard. He dismounted, unlocked the mill door with his private keys and made his way into his office. To work, thought Morcar. He sat down at his desk and drew from a drawer his own especial ledger, in which he estimated the production, labour and costs figures of Syke Mills. After scanning it for a few minutes and making some mental calculations he laid it aside, and drew from another drawer a strip of blue designing-paper and a cloth-covered board on which were arranged some tiny skeins of coloured yarns. Morcar sharpened his pencil, hunched his shoulders, smiled and set to work. To work! To work! To work for the good of all.… It was an ideal to which he was proud to have risen. To work for the good of all.
This electronic edition published in 2011 by Bloomsbury Reader
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Copyright ¤ 1946 by Phyllis Bentley
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The Rise of Henry Morcar Page 41