Tales of the West Riding

by Phyllis Bentley

  * * *

  “A handsome lad. Spirited. Won’t lie. But I can’t even ask him for an opinion,” thought old John Hardaker sadly, folding up his piece glass. “He doesn’t know enough to give one.”

  He remembered sadly, as he had so often remembered before, the fine son he had lost on the Dunkirk beaches. Of course he and Luke had often argued, often disagreed, often quarrelled; very likely he had built Luke up in his memory to an ideal which the reality would have disproved. Luke had certainly married a silly woman; Mildred’s endless chatter was a thorn in his side. Old Hardaker attributed Luke’s very early marriage to a very silly woman to the boy’s lack of a mother, who died in childbirth in 1914. Never should he forget the desolation of returning on sudden compassionate leave to find his wife Elizabeth lying cold and dead and the little black-haired baby howling his head off. His aunts had brought up Luke, but of course they weren’t the same as a mother and he and Luke had always been very close. A thousand incidents rushed through the old man’s mind as he surveyed his grandson. Lucius was a handsome lad without a doubt, tall, black-haired, grey-eyed, held himself well, with an agreeable colour in his cheeks and excellent manners learned at his public school—Luke had been a rougher type; thick black eyebrows and rather stocky; he hadn’t bothered to send him away to school; the boy had come early into the mill and soon knew almost as much about cloth as his father. Knew his own mind too, a good deal better than young Lucius. Followed it doggedly—as obstinate as they make ’em. He was barely seventeen when he made the decision which saved Ramsgill Mills. It was the awful slump year, 1931; old Hardaker, like a great many other West Riding textile men, was facing ruin and wondering every month whether the bank would let him have the money to pay his spinner’s bill. There came a month when it was clear they wouldn’t. Hardaker took a desperate decision; he piled unsold pieces into one of the mill vans and drove it secretly off to London, to an auction room he had heard of. Luke had demanded urgently to go too, and his father was glad enough of his company. A reserve price was put on the pieces, but this was not reached in the sale; the auctioneer glanced at John Hardaker to see whether he should close with a lesser offer. Hardaker, agonisingly perplexed, hesitated.

  “Sell them!” said Luke in his ear.

  “But it’s less than they cost to make.”

  “We need the money,” said Luke grimly.

  Hardaker nodded to the auctioneer, who accepted the bid. The sale was made; the Hardakers came home with a cheque for eight hundred pounds; Ramsgill Mills avoided bankruptcy for one month more; as a result J. L. Hardaker & Sons was eventually saved. Never, never must this situation be allowed to occur again, reserves must be built up; there must be a wide safety margin.

  It was all the more disappointing when Luke and he had had such a frightful row over the boy’s marriage. He himself had been tactless, and Luke unforgiving. Mildred was suitable in birth and upbringing, of course; tall, pretty, fair-haired, nicely dressed; but a silly brainless woman of a kind one rarely saw in the West Riding; why had Luke, so strong and determined, chosen her? Because she was so feminine, old Hardaker supposed. He had shown his view of her too clearly, and Luke had raged, and before they had had time to make up the quarrel, there came the war. Well! After the boy had been killed on the Dunkirk beaches, Hardaker had done rather more than his duty by Luke’s widow. He brought Mildred and her two children to live with him at Ramsgill House, made her the mistress of the household, provided them all with an ample living, sent the children to expensive schools. The results were disappointing. Elizabeth was clever enough, but—a posthumous child born just after Dunkirk—delicate in health and uncomfortably intense; she had missed her degree at Leeds University because of an overwork breakdown. She had always liked the oddest books and plays, of which it was impossible for the rest of the family to make head or tail, but since her Leeds failure, as she insisted on regarding it, she had travelled increasingly out of line; she insisted on working at some hard minor job in the Hudley hospital, joined—for heaven’s sake!—the Labour party, and had recently actually given in her adherence to these anti-nuclear committees, or whatever they were called, wore their badge, and silently chafed (but her grandfather was aware of it) because there was no “walking” or “sitting down” to be found in the neighbourhood for her to take part in. Her mother’s scoldings and exhortations had no effect; though mild and quiet in manner, she had all her father’s obstinacy. Hardaker wouldn’t have minded, really, or rather, he would have put up with it cheerfully, if the girl had looked happy with it all, but she appeared to him perpetually anxious and lonely. No suitors presented themselves for her; very sweet as a child, she had grown up plain, and unlike her mother did not know how to attract a man. He was fond of her, though; she had better stuff in her than Lucius, whose reactions, to all problems including nuclear was to eat drink and be merry while the going was good. But with a name like that, what could one expect? Luke had been good enough for several previous generations of Hardakers; Lucius was Mildred’s idea Lucius knew nothing of cloth, and cared, thought his grandfather bitterly, less.

  Hardaker, thus returned to the present, found himself gazing at his grandson, who was looking at his (extremely expensive) watch. The warehouse clock showed that the hour was approaching five. Almost time for the buzzer.

  “Want to be off, eh?” said old Hardaker sardonically.

  “Yes,” replied Lucius.

  This plain unmodified statement soothed old Hardaker. At least, he thought, the boy doesn’t kowtow, he doesn’t make excuses, he doesn’t lie. We may make something of him yet.

  “Off you go, then,” he said.

  Lucius flew from the warehouse like a bullet from a gun. A moment later his scarlet M.G. bolted from the mill yard.

  “Seems in a hurry, like,” said the warehouse foreman, smiling. “He’s courting, happen. Eh?”

  “Happen,” agreed old Hardaker, dropping into the vernacular. “He’s told me nowt, ony road.”

  “They don’t tell us owd uns anything nowadays,” said the foreman wisely.

  * * *

  The scarlet car stood on the grassy verge of the moorland road.

  “It’s grand up here,” said Carol, holding her face up to the breeze. Her thick dark curls blew backwards. This pleased Lucius; he did not like it when she brushed them down over her forehead.

  “What about it, then, Carol?” said Lucius gruffly, turning to face her. She had a short, sturdy body, not quite tall enough to be handsome, and square-hipped; but she glowed with health and vigour; her breasts were shapely, her lips rich and full.

  “I shan’t marry you, my lad.”

  “Why not?”

  “You’re too soft. You don’t know what you want except that it’s the opposite of what your grandfather wants.”

  “I want you,” said Lucius.

  “Oh, really?” mocked Carol.

  Lucius seized her in his arms and kissed her convincingly.

  “Do you mind?” Carol rebuked him in the slang of the day, withdrawing herself.

  “Don’t say that, Carol.”

  “Why not?” said Carol sharply.

  “I hate you to say it. It’s vulgar.”

  “Why?”

  “Lord, I don’t know. It just is.”

  “You hate the way I do my hair, and the way I talk, and my clothes and my shoes and my mascara and my eye-shadow and everything about me,” said Carol.

  “Not everything,” said Lucius, laughing. He kissed her rather more tenderly than before.

  “Do you mind?” said Carol again to tease him. “Don’t think you’ve got anything on me because of last night,” she added fiercely.

  “Ha!” said Lucius.

  He took her in his arms, and held her so strongly that she could not wriggle free. After a moment she ceased to resist, and lay back against his shoulder. Her brown eyes sparkled, her cheeks glowed.

  “You daft thing!” she said fondly. “Why should I care twopence ha’penny about yo
u?”

  “You do, though.”

  “More fool me.”

  “You’ll marry me, then?”

  “I shall have to, I suppose. Somebody with some sense’ll have to marry you or heaven knows what’ll happen. The whole great firm of J. L. Hardaker and Co. will come crashing down. It’ll fill the whole of the Ramsgill valley from side to side.”

  “Don’t joke about the mill, Carol,” said Lucius soberly.

  “Don’t tell me you really care about it?”

  “What’s it to you if I do?”

  “You don’t know whether you care or not. Except for the money, of course. What would you do if it did crash? You couldn’t earn enough to keep a cat alive, much less yourself.”

  “Don’t be silly, Carol,” said Lucius uneasily.

  “Much less yourself and a wife and a couple of kids.”

  “That’s a different proposition,” said Lucius vigorously. “I bet you I could.”

  “I bet you don’t know as much about textiles as my brother Ed.”

  “I bet I do.”

  “He’s a designer, trained and all that,” said Carol with a certain respect.

  “I know the markets.”

  “Says you,” said Carol cheerfully.

  “Kiss me, Carol,” commanded Lucius.

  She laughed, hesitated, then put her lips softly to his cheek.

  * * *

  A resonant musical chime sounded along the street.

  “It’s the ice-cream man!” cried all the children, and their eyes sparkled.

  “Come along then,” said Carol, rooting in her bag for her purse. “Out! All the lot of you! Auntie Carol will buy you each one ice-lolly. Only one, mind!”

  Shouting, laughing, screaming, jumping, the children poured out and rushed along the street. If any more of the family come along tonight, reflected Carol, they’ll have to sit on the doorstep, for there isn’t an inch of space left in the room. Of course it was just on Whitsuntide and they had all brought the children along in their new clothes to get their Whitsun pennies. But what with the two Oates cousins she’d been brought up with, who had two children apiece, and then three nieces of her mother’s married to miners Pontefract way, with their children, and some connexions, distant in blood but near in friendship, who lived up the road, of their grandfather’s, and even two of her grandmothers’ relations from Sheffield who had turned up unexpectedly, all with children, the place was crammed out; they were a large family nowadays and no mistake; it was grand. (And maybe I’ll be adding one soon, thought Carol, smiling grimly to herself; who knows? That’ll rock them. But I don’t care. Who cares about that sort of thing nowadays?).

  “Give that back to your brother, Maureen,” she said sharply, snatching a lolly from a well-curled little girl’s left hand. “That’s Kenneth’s lolly. You’ve got yours in your other hand. Lick that one.”

  “I want Kenneth’s,” said Maureen.

  “Well, you can’t have it. Don’t be so greedy, you little madam. Run along with you now or you won’t get your penny.”

  “Kenneth can’t have a penny, he hasn’t got any new clothes,” shouted another child.

  “Yes he can. He’s got some new shoes,” cried Kenneth’s sister, on his side at once. “Haven’t you, Kenneth?”

  “Yes,” said Kenneth, who, of a tenderer disposition than his sister, seemed inclined to weep.

  “Shoes don’t count.”

  “Yes, they do. Don’t shoes count, Auntie Carol?”

  “Of course.”

  There it was, though. Some mothers went to work and spent every penny they earned on their children’s clothes; others stayed at home and looked after their children, but spent less on them. Which was best it was difficult to say. “I don’t know how anyone can bear to leave them, though,” thought Carol, as she shooed the mass of curls, hair-ribbons, white frocks, stiff petticoats, jeans, tartan shirts and suedette coats along the street.

  “Where’s grandpa?”

  “He’s gone upstairs, love. He’s busy with his Union work.”

  Carol ran lightly up the stairs. Her grandfather, Sam Oates, large, slow and heavy, with his white hair cut so short as to bristle and his spectacles low on his massive nose, was sitting at an old ramshackle desk he kept in his room, carefully filling in figures on a form. Carol put her arm round his shoulders and kissed his large pink cheek heartily.

  “Now then, Sam,” she said.

  “You seem to be having a good time of it down there, the lot of you, to judge by the noise you’re making,” said Sam, pleasantly grim. He accepted the kiss by slightly moving his cheek against hers.

  “We’re just going to have a cup of tea. Why don’t you come down and have a cuppa, eh?”

  “This has to go off tomorrow. Regulations.”

  “I don’t suppose the Union’ll go smash if it’s an hour or two late.”

  “Rules is rules, my girl.”

  “You seem to have got a lot of stuff there, grandpa,” said Carol, glancing at the bed, which was covered with rows of papers.

  “I shall sort it out presently,” said Sam.

  “Well—I’ll bring you up a cup.”

  “Aye, do.”

  Downstairs, her brother Edward had come in. Edward was always a bit of a mystery to Carol. Their father and mother and a baby brother had been killed in a night of blitz on Sheffield, where their father was a highly skilled steelworker; Edward and she were fortunately on holiday in Hudley with their grandparents, who kept the orphaned children with them. An aunt with two children was widowed by the war about the same time, so of course she too came back to her parents’ home and they were all brought up together, hugger mugger. The grandmother presently died and Aunt Connie continued in command; a thin little wizened woman of demonic energy, with a heart of gold but a rather waspish exterior, against whom Carol was always in open rebellion, while Edward, though quite as determined to go his own way, always managed to “keep in” with her. Edward was the oldest of the children and the cleverest and soon soared out of their reach into the grammar school. Of course she was fond of him, because he was her brother, but he never seemed quite part of the family the way the others did. He didn’t belong to any Union, either, which of course made their grandfather right upset. Still, he was always kind and polite, and a real good hand when it came to figures and forms. He was good with children, too; look at him now, with all the kids leaping about him.

  “Ed, grandpa seems in a bit of a mullock upstairs with his Union papers,” said Carol in his ear. “Go up and give him a hand.”

  Obliging as always, Ed made at once for the stairway. “I’ll go up,” he said, “but I don’t suppose he’ll let me help. He never does.”

  “Anything I can do, grandfather?”

  “No, thanks, Ed.”

  In his large careful handwriting his grandfather now signed the form. He was so slow in writing Samuel Edward Oates that Edward, swift in personal tempo, had to exercise conscious self-control to stand motionless until the process was completed.

  “Shall I post it for you?”

  “Nay, I’d rather take it myself.”

  “I could get you a certificate of posting, you know.”

  His grandfather looked at him over his spectacles.

  “What sort of a thing is that?”

  “It’s a new idea,” began Edward.

  “I’ve been fifty years in Union work without using such a thing, and never had anything wrong, and I don’t need to begin now.”

  “Just as you like, grandfather,” said Edward smoothly. As if I cared what happens to the old fool’s Union work, he thought, raging.

  * * *

  “I’m thinking of getting married, grandfather,” said Lucius.

  “Good. Do I know her?”

  “No. Her grandfather’s tentering foreman at Jarmayn’s and she’s shorthand typist there. Her brother’s a designer over in Annotsfield. Her father, by the way, is a branch secretary for the Union.”

 
A series of sarcastic remarks rose to Mr. Hardaker’s lips. “What is this paragon’s name, then? You’ve looked high, haven’t you? A shotgun wedding, I suppose?” But remembering the lasting grief of his quarrel with his son on a similar subject all those years ago, he made a strong effort and suppressed them.

  “What is her name?” he said at length mildly.

  His utterance was so muffled, so unlike himself, that Lucius looked at him in surprise. He had expected angry opposition.

  “Carol Oates.”

  “I take it she’s not had the upbringing of a lady,” continued Mr. Hardaker on the same mild note.

  “That’s correct,” said Lucius pugnaciously, flushing.

  “And no money.”

  “None.”

  “Why do you want to marry her, Lucius?” He wanted to add: “Wouldn’t a temporary association, a quick bit of fun, have been enough?” But he suppressed this too.

  “Lord, how should I know?” said Lucius impatiently. “I want to, that’s all.”

  “It’s as good a reason as any,” said Mr. Hardaker drily. “You’ll have trouble with your mother, though.”

  “Then mother had better look out for herself.”

  “Oh? Your girl’s got spirit, has she?”

  “All the spirit in the world,” said Lucius.

  Mr. Hardaker felt his old heart warm. Perhaps this might be just the thing for the boy? A tough little fighter? So long as she wasn’t a tough little bitch as well. Lucius was very young for his age, very ingenuous, very vulnerable. He might get badly hurt.

  “Well—if ever you want to get out of it, let me know,” said Mr. Hardaker.

  “Thank you, grandfather,” said Lucius with irony. “I shan’t, though. She’s my choice.”

  Mr. Hardaker could not quite repress a snort at this. “You needn’t worry about money,” he said hastily, to cover this. He proceeded to outline arrangements for increasing Lucius’ salary to a level suitable to a married Hardaker. The arrangements were fairly generous, but not very. He could not quite bring himself to go to the limit of his generosity, to put an extra drain on the Ramsgill reserves, for a Trade Union official’s daughter.