The Rise of Henry Morcar (33 page)

“There's a good deal in what you say, Mr. Morcar,” said GB judicially: “But you have to remember that industry is what you describe with such horror, already, for your workmen. It's regimented as far as they are concerned. They have no scope for originality, individuality, enterprise, in minding a machine.”

“There's not much fun in it for us!” supplemented Matthew emphatically.

“Then there ought to be; they ought to enjoy output as much as I do.”

“No, they can't,” objected David.

“Nathan does.”

“It's no use pretending that dull jobs aren't dull,” said David.

“Nationalising won't make 'em any brighter.”

“Yes, it will, because the motive for them will be different,” said GB.

“Serving the State,” said Matthew, turning his round blue eyes resentfully on Morcar, “instead of a private employer.”

“Besides, there'll be a chance for the workers to rise to administrative positions. There isn't now.”

“I rose all the way by my own efforts.”

“Not quite all the way,” said GB judicially. “You had a grammar school education and some small capital—or access to it.”

“There are never many jobs at the top, think on. I'm not saying the universe is arranged perfectly,” said Morcar with a good deal of heat. “I'm just saying what I feel. Lively intelligent chaps used to like to go into industry but now they don't, they go into the professions if they can, because they're so hampered in industry with these everlasting regulations.” It occurred to him that even the Mellors were an example of this; the lad with brains, GB, took scholarships and went to Oxford and would go off to teach or be a Trades Union official or something; Matthew was left to go into textiles because he wasn't clever enough for anything else. “It's a bit hard on the textile industry,” said Morcar with feeling, considering the pair on the settle. Fearing he had made his thoughts about them too clear, he went on rapidly: “And now for my second point. I'm sick and tired, and all employers are sick and tired, of always being the villain in the piece. Whatever the employer does nowadays is wrong. If he's a bad employer, well naturally he's blamed, but if he's a good employer, he doesn't get any credit. He's accused of interfering with the workers' private lives, trying to vitiate the principle of collective bargaining, make the workers betray their class, and all that sort of claptrap. The fact is, you Labour chaps don't
want
good employers—you'd rather have bad ones that you can make a song and dance about. Tell us what you want employers to do. Go on, now. Tell me.”

“We don't want any private employers at all. We want industry to belong to the State. We want a classless society,” said Matthew tensely.

“And where do I come in, eh? Men of my kind, I mean? The chaps with the ability and the enterprise?”

“Nowhere!” cried Matthew in a high fierce tone, his upper lip quivering. “Such as you ought to be liquidated.”

“Well, that's candid, anyway,” said Morcar grimly. “Now we know where we are.”

“Come, come!” said GB soothingly. “You will manage a mill, of course, in the newly nationalised industry.”

“Thank you for nothing,” said Morcar angrily. “We're going round in circles in this argument.”

“Yes—because that's the crux of the problem, don't you see,” urged David. “It's the problem of the century. The relation of the individual to the community. How to keep freedom for the individual without hurting the community, and how to serve the community without hurting the individual. In totalitarian states the community exploits the individual. In capitalist states individuals are free to exploit each other. How are we to combine the two objects of industry? How are we to combine freedom and security? These are the real problems of the twentieth century.”

“I wish you joy of solving them,” said Morcar.

“Well, I mean to have a damn good try,” said David. “The textile trades in northern England were the first to be mechanised, the first to start the Industrial Revolution. I should like the wool textile trade to be the first to solve the problem in the new social industrial revolution.”

“You're daft, lad,” said Morcar cheerfully.

“We agree on that, anyway,” said Matthew sourly.

“But it's a nice kind of daftness,” said GB in his pleasant reasonable tone. “He means well.”

“We all mean well,” said Morcar.

“I'm not so sure of that,” growled Matthew.

“It depends whom we mean well
to
” said GB. He avoided looking at Morcar, while Matthew glared at him.

“Oh, to hell with them,” thought Morcar. But he felt uneasy when he saw that David too was avoiding his eyes, gazing down the Ire Valley with a grieved and thoughtful air.

“It's very good of you to help my boy, Morcar.”

“Not at all,” said Morcar stiffly.

He was bored and uncomfortable. He did not like being Colonel Oldroyd's guest for the weekend at the Southstone-on-Sea hotel where he and his wife and daughter now resided. (Nor did Morcar like the hotel much; it was not as luxurious as those to which he was now accustomed.) He had only accepted the invitation with the greatest reluctance, because he felt it was his duty to come. It was true that he had tried to help David—recommending him to merchants, speaking well of his prospects at the bank, commending his products when any chance presented itself, and so on. It was therefore natural and proper, it was only right, admitted Morcar, that the boy's father should want to know what kind of man it was into whose hands, so to speak, his son had fallen. A visit to Francis Oldroyd was proper and must be paid.

But it was a nuisance. Sitting in a deck-chair on the Promenade near a bandstand, listening to light music played by chaps in frogged coats, with Francis Oldroyd at his side, was not Morcar's idea of a pleasant Sunday morning. The scene was pleasant enough, of course; the cliff gardens were thronged with an upper-class holiday crowd in light suits and bright dresses; the sun shone; the grass was exceedingly neat and green, the flowerbeds were colourful; far below, the blue-grey waters of the English Channel were crinkled by a slight breeze; shipping in great variety passed along the horizon and afforded topics for conversation. Still, Morcar was bored. It was a nuisance having to sit here, to walk slowly beside Colonel Oldroyd, whom rheumatism contracted in the trenches in the last war or an old wound or both condemned to a limp and a stick, to behave genteelly, to listen politely to talk in which he was not at all interested, to be urbane with a man he despised and disliked. Above all it was annoying to waste here a day which he might have spent with the Haringtons. He had succeeded in minimizing the visit by not coming down till tea-time on Saturday, and by explaining that it was absolutely essential for him to leave soon after lunch to-day, in order to catch the evening express to Yorkshire and be at Syke Mills first thing on Monday morning. The thought of the evening express comforted him now; only a few more hours, he thought, and steeled himself to these hours as a test of endurance.

The band now played the National Anthem, and all the deck-chair occupants of course rose to their feet. Francis Oldroyd sprang up and stood rigidly to attention with that over-emphasis which former officers of the aristocratic, conservative, gentry type always gave to this action, thought Morcar irritably. The Colonel's quick movement dislodged his stick, which fell to the ground. Morcar found himself obliged, from the merest human decency, to pick it up. It was a handsome dark cane bearing a silver band engraved with its owner's name and address.

“Thanks. David gave me this,” said Francis Oldroyd, smiling.

“There is that in his favour,” admitted Morcar to himself. “He's fond of the boy.”

The two men walked slowly away in the direction of the hotel. Oldroyd was a fine handsome fellow still, admitted Morcar grudgingly. In spite of his limp he carried himself well; his red-fair hair had thinned but he was fresh-complexioned still and had not lost his good slender figure—indeed he appeared to weigh rather less than of old—nor his attraction for women. His clothes were a trifle worn, but of excellent cloth and cut; he wore his hat at a debonair angle. His manners and speech were those of a
gentleman, while Morcar to his fury found his own accent growing more and more north-country with his growing boredom. “Still, he's fond of the boy,” Morcar reminded himself. “Treasures his presents.”

Oldroyd's thoughts had meanwhile taken a different turn, along the lines of a different association, to the cause of his lameness.

“You and I were in the front line together, were we not?” he said. “Just for a short period. I remember when your friend was killed—Corporal Shaw, wasn't he? A very bright keen lad. At Ypres in 1915, wasn't it?”

“Aye. Boesinghe,” replied Morcar shortly.

“He was dead when you brought him in, I remember.”

“I remember you thought so.”

“Why, didn't you think so?” enquired Colonel Oldroyd in astonishment.

Morcar struggled with himself.

“Yes and no,” he brought out at last.

His host looked at him and seemed to consider. “He was certainly dead,” he said at last. His tone was firm but had an undercurrent of understanding and sympathy. “He had gone before he reached the trench. We tried his pulse and all the tests, you know, while you were out rescuing the other fellow.”

“Jessopp.”

“Yes. You had a well-deserved decoration for the double rescue, hadn't you?”

“I can't talk about it,” said Morcar hoarsely.

“Ah, there are my wife and David,” said his host, immediately changing the subject.

“I don't want his damned sympathy and his damned tact,” raged Morcar perversely.

David's stepmother came up talking rapidly in a light smooth voice, as usual. She was a faded but still pretty blonde; a nitwit but probably satisfying, thought Morcar crudely; she thought everything her husband did quite perfect, which was probably soothing to a tired man. Her clothes, very light and summery, were expensive and well-chosen by Annotsfield standards, but lacked the metropolitan elegance of Christina's.

“Are you tired, Francis? Are you tired, Mr. Morcar? We shall be late for lunch if we don't make haste. Fan will be late for lunch if she doesn't make haste. We couldn't get seats—we had to stand all the time. Fan was sure she could get seats round the other side. David thought she couldn't but she was sure she could. She went off by herself. Daughters nowadays are not what they used to be, Mr. Morcar. Of course Fan's a sweet girl,
and
so
devoted to her father. She'll be late for lunch if she doesn't make haste. There's Fan!”

“No, I don't think it is, Ella,” said David soothingly. “I don't think that's her dress. She has a pale green silky dress to-day.”

“No, she hasn't, dear. What are you thinking about, David? She had her primrose chintz frock at breakfast.”

David smiled but made no reply; Mrs. Oldroyd however continued the argument all the way back to the hotel, and during the moments while they had drinks and waited for the arrival of her daughter. These were protracted.

“Have you been in Southstone long, Mrs. Oldroyd?” enquired Morcar, trying to stem the tide of chatter.

“Just two years. Fan found the country so dull, you know. Of course for a pretty girl like Fan, a little country village is rather dull. Her name is Frances really, of course, after her father. Fan is just her short name. But we think it suits her. Oh, here's Fan! Why, David, you were right, dear, she had her green dress! I
am
surprised. I'm sure she had her yellow chintz at breakfast. Didn't you think she had her yellow chintz at breakfast, Francis? Fan, dear, you're very late. Shall we go in now, Francis? I'll lead the way with Mr. Morcar. David would like Fan to live with him, you know, Mr. Morcar, but Fan is so devoted to her father.”

In Morcar's opinion—for he was hungry, and the child, who couldn't be more than seventeen, had made no apology for keeping the party waiting—David's stepsister was a selfish little minx who wanted smacking. But he realised that if he had been a younger man he might have taken a different view, for she was certainly very pretty. Small and extremely fair, with a heart-shaped face, long silky lashes, a brilliant complexion, eyes of turquoise blue and a rosebud mouth which usually wore a mutinous pout, she struck him as spoiled and wilful. She's like a blonde kitten, he thought now, as she took up the luncheon menu and criticised it savagely in a small light voice; the kitten's coat was of a velvet, an altogether delicious, softness, but her claws were sharp and naughty.

“I'm afraid there's nothing suitable for you, Francis,” said Mrs. Oldroyd, scanning the courses. “He's on a diet for his rheumatism, you know, Mr. Morcar.”

“Never mind—I'll just have vegetables,” said her husband.

“Daddy, why don't you
talk
to the management? Why don't you
insist
on having something to eat?” said Fan. “It's absurd, really.”

“Never mind, my dear.”

“Is there any fish for Colonel Oldroyd?”

“I'm sorry, madam; there is none left.”

“Never mind.”

“It's absurd, Daddy, for you to have no lunch,” said Fan, tossing her silken curls.

“It's of no consequence, my dear,” said her father mildly. “Probably better for me. I'll have vegetables.”

“What shall we do this afternoon, Daddy?” enquired Fan.

“Perhaps Mr. Morcar would like to see something of the surrounding country,” suggested her mother.

“I have to catch the three-fifteen to town, unfortunately, Mrs. Oldroyd,” Morcar reminded her.

“Me too,” said David.

“Oh, David!” chorussed all three Oldroyds. They all fell silent at the same moment and regarded him reproachfully.