Tales of the West Riding (17 page)

“Why will he do it?” grumbled Edward to his brother-in-law.

“Well—he sees what's going on in the mill, I suppose,” said Lucius mildly.

Edward had not thought of this, and coloured at his own naïveté. Mr. Hardaker could use the intercomm sharply enough when he wanted, however; he often barked at Edward down the phone so loudly that the department Edward happened to be visiting could hear his sardonic tones, and of course sniggered at his discomfiture.

For in spite of the tact and civility which he scrupulously practised, the workmen at Ramsgill did not like Edward. The older men and women grumbled that he thought he knew everything, he fancied himself, he was all out for himself, old Hardaker ought to have more sense, young Lucius had better look out or he would grab the whole place, and so on. This was all the more surprising to Edward because they did not appear to like Lucius much either, they said he knew nothing about cloth, did no work, spent twice what he was worth and was always after the women. They knew exactly why Lucius married Carol and took bets on the birth-date of their first child; but while some seemed on the whole to like Lucius rather better for his marriage—he stood by her, well they aren't the first, she's a spanking piece, and so on, were their comments—the older end were disgusted. Putting her brother in here, too, they said, over us as has been here for years; it isn't decent. When Edward introduced some improvements in internal transport, so that they no longer had to sling the heavy pieces over their shoulders, but wheeled them about and slid them down wooden gullies, they gave him credit but did not change their view of Edward.

“You've got to hand it to him about them slides—they're clever.”

“Oh, aye, they're clever—he's clever all right, is our Edward.”

“Clever as a load of monkeys.”

“He didn't put them slides in to please us, though.”

“Why should he?”

“You've got a point there.”

“I'll say this for Edward—he doesn't mind us being comfortable so long as it makes him rich.”

They laughed, satisfied with the phrase.

The younger workmen at first tended to like Edward, regarding him as one of themselves, on their side, “with it” and against the older generation and the Hardakers, but he was so strict about
his new regulations being kept, and so biting in speech when they broke them, that soon they simply detested him. They particularly resented his habit of turning up before and after the lunch hour, and just before the evening buzzer sounded. Of course this was to prevent their taking too long a time off in the middle of the day, and getting their coats on ten minutes before closing time so that they could rush off the minute the machinery slowed. From old Hardaker they would accept such supervision—it was his mill and you had to expect such things from the bosses; it was part of the class struggle—but from Edward they found it intolerable. Snooping, that's what it is; can't call your soul your own; who does he think he is; if this goes on I shall ask for my cards. Young and old enjoyed particularly an incident when Edward gave a stinging rebuke to a man he met in the mill gateway, returning to work in the afternoon some fifteen minutes late. It turned out that the man's mother had had an accident in the lunch hour and been taken off to the hospital; furious at the rebuke the man went to Mr. Hardaker and complained, and Mr. Hardaker sent for Edward.

“I'm exceedingly sorry,” said Edward, feeling murderous but contriving a look of sincere regret. “I spoke too hastily.”

“Well—he apologised,” was the mill comment, on a note of doubt.

“Aye—if he meant it,” was the cool reply.

“Always hear the other side, Edward,” said Mr. Hardaker. “Close the door!” he bellowed as the young man left the office. Mr. Hardaker—whether from old-fashioned ideas of manners or from an angry fear of being overheard Edward could not determine—could not bear doors to be left open.

With the office staff on the other hand Edward was on the whole popular. The girls liked him immensely. He was polite, knew their names and place in the hierarchy and without ever overstepping in any way what was correct, somehow made them feel that he regarded them as female human beings. His instructions, given in his light agreeable tones, were always clear and easy to follow. They enjoyed the dictaphones and adding machines, approved emphatically of the new bright paint; the general trend towards automation introduced by Edward satisfied their dislike of physical work and desire to be in the mode.

Unfortunately this was not the case with the square paunchy greying Mr. Whitehead, the head cashier. A tried and trusted employee to Mr. Hardaker, a pernickety but lovable institution to Lucius, to Edward he was a pompous illiterate ass. He liked to use long words, sometimes inaccurately; he pursed his lips and opened his eyes very wide, he paused for effect and was capable at times of unexpected sly digs, very wounding to his juniors. He seemed to enjoy showing Mr. Hardaker the bills for all the items of expenditure incurred in Edward's new schemes, hoping probably for an adverse comment on their after all not very alarming total.

“All right, all right,” said Mr. Hardaker one day, getting tired of this. “I knew what they would cost before I agreed to the purchase, Whitehead.”

“It's not your wish that I should bring the accounts to your notice before I make out the cheques, then? The estimates are sometimes exceeded.”

“Well—if the estimates have been exceeded, yes.”

“Thank you, Mr. Hardaker,” said the cashier.

As he moved away in his solemn gait he met Edward in the doorway. All three men knew at once that all three men knew that the subject of his discussion with Mr. Hardaker was something which concerned Edward. Edward coloured, Whitehead pursed his lips and gave him a solemn look; Mr. Hardaker meaning to be kindly said:

“What is it this time, Edward? Something else to frighten Whitehead, eh?”

“I hope not, sir,” said Edward smoothly, hating them both. “But he's rather easily frightened.”

Whitehead, hurt, hastened his ponderous step and brushed by the young man.

So it happened that a few days later, when Edward asked him for a clarification of some minor point in Messrs. Hardaker's relations with their bank, the cashier, looking at him over his half-spectacles, replied in a formal tone:

“I should have to take Mr. Hardaker's instructions before familiarising you with our financial policy, Mr. Oates.”

“Oh, good heavens, don't bother, then,” snapped Edward.

“Oh, it's no bother, Mr. Oates,” said the cashier, and he rose
and walked straight in to Mr. Hardaker and enquired in a loud tone: “Am I to acquaint Mr. Oates with all the financial side of the firm's business, Mr. Hardaker?”

Hardaker, glancing in astonishment at the two men's faces—the older crimson, the younger white, with rage—remarked drily: “I don't think that will be necessary, Mr. Whitehead.”

“You don't want to let old Whitehead get you down, Edward,” said Lucius in a kindly tone that afternoon. “He's a silly old goat, you know, but a good cashier. Could you say a friendly word to him, do you think? I'll soften him up for you beforehand, if you like.”

“It's nice of you, Lucius, but it wouldn't do any good.”

“Just as you like. He's just as bad with me, you know. The job I had to get my expenses to London out of him last week, you wouldn't believe. Still, it's a good trait in a cashier.”

The only good thing about Whitehead would be his departure from Ramsgill, thought Edward viciously. And one of these days I'll get him out. Trust me.

The only department in Ramsgill which whole-heartedly liked Edward was, oddly enough as he thought, the one where he had expected trouble. On his first morning at the mill when he walked into the designing department, extending his hand to the chief designer he blurted after a smooth greeting:

“I expect we shall quarrel like mad, but after all we're both artists, so perhaps—”

He could not think what he had meant to say, could not finish his sentence—something about looking at things in the same way, perhaps? He cursed his own inadequacy. But in fact, for he was genuinely in love with design, this was the only absolutely sincere remark he ever uttered in Ramsgill, and his sincerity carried conviction. Besides, booking artistic quarrels in advance as it were, somehow diminished their venom; it was as if they had agreed that the rows they had were artists' rows which nobody outside the department could understand. The rows came only dimly to Mr. Hardaker's ears, as a kind of amusing debate thev were having up there; the designs which resulted were excellent.

“These are good, Edward,” said Mr. Hardaker, fingering the patterns with approval. “Your designs are good. For the rest, you'll learn.”

Why did he have to spoil it all like that? Edward demanded fiercely. Why did he hire me to come and improve the Ramsgill organisation if he didn't want me to change it? Really, old Hardaker was enough to provoke a saint. Edward, as he told himself with a grin, was no saint.

* * *

“Pity she couldn't have waited a day longer, seeing it was the last of the month,” remarked old Hardaker sardonically when the first child of Lucius and Carol was born.

“I don't know what you mean, Mr. Hardaker,” protested Mildred, flushing angrily.

“Oh, yes, you do. Another month on from the wedding day would have sounded better.”

“I don't believe it for a moment!” cried Mildred. “The baby's premature.”

“Well, it's of no consequence now,” conceded old Hardaker. “They married in time, and he seems a fine healthy boy.”

“He's a beautiful boy. Whatever her faults, Carol is a good wife to Lucius,” said Mildred, sewing hard.

“Let's hope that whatever his faults, Lucius will be a good husband.”

The marriage of Lucius and Carol was in fact exceedingly happy. Their handsome modern bungalow on the brow of the hill was always spotlessly clean, and Lucius was extremely well fed. Indeed he ate so many “cooked meals” that he began to put on a little weight: he noticed this but could not be bothered to worry about it. Carol soon picked up a few terms of middle-class speech and taste, which she practised with scornful openness; she was always a favourite with Lucius' male friends, and by her warm-hearted sincerity gradually won over their wives.

But although the marriage was a happy one and Lucius and Carol loved each other truly, warmly and permanently, as a husband and wife should, this did not preclude them from having spanking rows. During these rows Carol sobbed loudly and shouted. Lucius, at first overwhelmed, horrified by these unfamiliar tactics, suddenly found himself shouting loudly too. After these rows they would suddenly rush together and hold each other tightly with all their might and kiss with passion. As
they grew more experienced in married life they tried never to let a quarrel continue through the night, or if this was impossible, never to let a quarrel continue after Lucius had left for the mill. For if this happened, they were both in an agony to make it up as soon as they had parted, and this was exceedingly inconvenient; Lucius telephoning home, or Carol sobbing on the 'phone to Ramsgill Mills, was sure to be interrupted by Whitehead's prim nose or Mr. Hardaker's sardonic eye.

They quarrelled, as married couples do, chiefly about their families.

Lucius simply could not keep up with the far-spreading ramifications of Carol's family, in all of whose affairs Carol took a keen unfailing interest; he often annoyed her by confusing her aunt Connie, that tartar who had brought her up, with her cousin Connie, rather delicate and gentle, who was married to a miner in South Yorkshire. He did not understand how “the Sheffield people” fitted into the Oates family tree; he did not understand how he astonished Carol's relatives by offering them sherry and whisky and soda. The older Oates members were shocked by the bottles Lucius revealed when he opened the sideboard door, and thought him inclined overmuch to drink. (This was not really one of Lucius' faults, and the suspicion annoyed Carol greatly.)

Then, Lucius respected old Sam but could find nothing to say to him; the simplest remark seemed to set the old man off in a rage about some grievance against the bosses which had occurred at the turn of the century. Aunt Connie he frankly detested. Her small wiry body, her frizzed and scanty hair, her knuckly hands, her malign giggle and aggressive tone, were anathema to him.

“Why do you keep inviting the old harridan?” he said crossly. “You don't like her any more than I do.”

“She's my aunt and she brought me up,” said Carol, to whom the argument of kinship was final. She could not understand why Lucius was so cool towards his own great-aunts, who, still living though retired to the balmier air of Eastbourne, occasionally visited Ramsgill.

With the numerous Oates children, however, Lucius was a success. He was pleasant and kind and good-humoured, gave them sweets, and after the swing had been put up in the Hill Royd garden, was always ready to give a child or two a turn on it.

On her side Carol raged, of course, against Mrs. Hardaker; Lucius equally of course stood up for his mother, though he often privately agreed with Carol's criticisms. Under the pretence of tactful help Mrs. Hardaker contrived to be very wounding in the early days of the marriage. She was given to remarking coldly that Carol's latest frock was “very nice and
bright
”; she went into a near convulsion over Carol's plastic flowers and was apt to reset the dinner table or tea-tray while Carol was out of the room. Carol resented these indications privately, but after all the mother-in-law was a familiar joke, it was Mrs. Hardaker's acknowledged privilege to be tiresome and Lucius did right to stand up for his mother; if it would please Lucius, Carol was not averse to fiddling with a few forks, though she thought all these class tricks were, in the Yorkshire phrase, silly work.