The Rise of Henry Morcar (8 page)

“He's not got all his strength yet, you see,” explained Booth to the Inspector. “One o' them weights would pull his inside out.”

“Quite right,” agreed the Inspector, unhooking the largest box.

A complicated arrangement of wood and gleaming brass was revealed, nestling in faded velvet. The fascinated Morcar watched this become a wooden tripod secured by links of brass; then the stirrup and beam were placed in position, and the two flat round brass weight-pans allowed to dangle from their thick brass chains. The assistant threw back the lids of other coffers, revealing a smaller beam and a set of spherical brass weights, so gleaming and polished that they seemed made of gold.

“Bring out your weights,” said the Inspector cheerfully, taking a printed record book from his pocket and licking a thumb to turn its long narrow leaves. “Let's see now; what had you last time? Here we are.” He secured the page by an elastic band and laid a well-pointed pencil beside it on the table.

Aided by his assistant, he checked the mill weighing-machine, which proved to be accurate, and then began to test the Shaws' bar weights against the standards, on the official beam. Seeing Morcar's interest in these novel proceedings, all the adults began to explain them to him at once. The Inspector showed him a
blank page of the record book, ruled in columns for all kinds of weigh-machines, weights and measures, with
C
for
correct
and
I for incorrect,
divided by a thin red line.

“What happens if they're incorrect?” asked Harry.

The Inspector turned up one of the weights so that the boy could see in its base a deep oblong hole, at the bottom of which were stamped some hieroglyphics.

“That's an E.R., you see, for the Crown,” he explained: “And that number means Annotsfield. There's 'o5, that's for last year when they were tested, and that letter means the month.”

“But there's no month beginning with G,” objected Morcar.

“They go by the alphabet,” explained the Inspector. “A for January, you know; G for July.”

“Aye, it would be about July last year when they were done,” conceded Booth.

“It'll be H this time, then,” proffered Morcar.

“That's so, my boy. I see you've got your head screwed on the right way,” said the Inspector affably. “If they're incorrect we obliterate the stamp, see? And take them with us to adjust. Unless, of course,” he added gravely: “Some fraud is suspected. Then we seize the weight, and court proceedings would follow. Now then, what about the smaller ones?”

“There's some in t'cupboard, Harry,” said Booth, busy with the bars. “On't top shelf.”

Harry, stooping, dragged out one by one a rather mixed collection, as it seemed to him, of four, two and half-pound weights; they looked so dirty compared with the Inspector's gleaming brass that he felt ashamed of them. As he withdrew his head after one of these forages he found that Mr. Shaw had come into the room and was watching the proceedings benevolently. Morcar was glad to be discovered so obviously making himself useful, and only wished there were more and heavier weights to pull out of the cupboard.

“Is that the lot?” enquired the Inspector at last, pencil poised.

“That's the lot,” said Booth.

“No! There's another here,” cried Harry joyously, diving into the bottom of the cupboard. “A big one.” He drew out with some difficulty a fifty-six-pound weight and displayed it with triumph to the company.

To his surprise his discovery was not well received. Mr. Shaw coloured and barked: “Where's that come from?” while the Inspector opened his eyes and observed on a questioning note: “It wasn't on the list last year.”

“Where's it come from, Booth?” repeated Mr. Shaw angrily.

“Nay, I don't know,” said Booth, scratching his head.

The Inspector turned over the weight and peered into its hole. “Unstamped,” he said.

“Have you seen it before, Booth?” asked Mr. Shaw, his colour deepening.

“I might have—and again I mightn't. I couldn't be sure,” muttered Booth cautiously.

The Inspector, tightening his lips, placed the weight on one of the Crown scale pans; his assistant took the cue and laid a standard weight on the other. The eyes of all were fixed on the anonymous weight, which to Harry's horror slowly rose while the standard descended.

“Light,” said the Inspector drily, making a note in his book—no doubt, thought the dismayed Harry, he was putting it below the red line. “Any more in that cupboard, young man?”

“No,” said Harry, shaking his head emphatically. To be completely convincing he threw back the door. The Inspector crouched and peered in. The expression on Mr. Shaw's face as he watched this was really strange.

“No,” said the Inspector, rising. “No more here. I'd best take this one back with me for adjustment, Mr. Shaw.”

“Aye, do,” said Mr. Shaw affably, turning on his heel and leaving the room.

The mill weights were stamped and the standard weights and beams were repacked rapidly, in silence, and in silence the equipment was carried through the office and down the stairs to the cart. The Inspector, Harry noticed, carried the faulty weight himself; when he had placed it on the cart, he took a label from his pocket and wrote on it
Shaw, Prospect Mills, light
and tied it to the weight's handle. The cart drove off, the Inspector walking at its side, and Booth and Morcar reentered the mill. Just as Harry approached the doorway between the office and the warehouse, Mr. Shaw came up full tilt; he was talking over his shoulder to one of the men, and not seeing Harry cannoned into him violently.

“Sorry!” said Harry cheerfully.

“Get out of my way!” shouted Mr. Shaw, suddenly crimson. “Get out of my way, can't you! Here I take you on to give you a chance, and you do nothing but make a confounded nuisance of yourself all day. Here, Booth! Take him away and find him something to do, can't you? For heaven's sake keep him out of my sight for a while.” He pushed Harry out of the office and banged the door.

Harry, dumbfounded, stood quite still for a moment, then turned to Booth.

“Never mind—don't take on—Mester Shaw's a bit hot-tempered,”
said Booth consolingly. “Ah, there's t'buzzer,” he added with relief, as the shrill wail filled the air. “Are you going home for your dinner?” Harry nodded. “Be off with you then—Mester Shaw'll have forgotten all about it by th' afternoon. Best go out t'other way,” he concluded, jerking his head towards the back premises.

Harry took the hint, and after dejectedly removing the brat, found a side door which led him into the yard. He came out into the street past the red wooden gates, turned into the mill again and had begun lifting out his bicycle when he remembered his cap, which hung in the office. “I could leave it till this afternoon,” he thought. But he did not wish to leave it till the afternoon. Very quietly he approached the office door. To his great joy it stood ajar a few inches. Sliding his hand through the opening with extreme care, he stood on tiptoe, and by extending his arm to its utmost reach managed to finger his cap. But it was too distant; he could not lift it from the peg. After several vain attempts he changed his tactics and gave it a sharp flick upwards; it rose above the peg and fell clear below. With infinite good luck, it seemed to him, he caught it as it fell, and withdrew slowly from the room. The next moment he was safely out of the mill and stooping to adjust his trouser clips by the kerb.

He felt strongly impelled to go home by way of Irebridge and Hurst Bank.

“It's not much further,” he muttered to himself, mounting.

This was not quite true and he had no idea why he wanted to go by Irebridge, but the impulse was too strong to be denied. He turned to the right along the Ire Valley Road. Presently he saw ahead of him the huge stone block of Syke Mills, with its tall clock tower, its five storeys, its soaring circular chimney, its two hundred yards of main road frontage. Syke Mills were the premises of Oldroyds', one of the great long-established textile firms of the West Riding. Morcar drew near to the wide archway which led to the interior yard. The iron gates stood open. His front wheel wobbled; he dismounted and propped his bicycle carefully against the kerb. His heart beat thick and fast. He knew now why he had come this way home; he wanted to get a job in Oldroyds', whose name he remembered particularly from Mr. Shaw's odd story about cutting a strip from their patterns. He would try Oldroyds' on his way home, Armitages' on the way back after dinner. If he couldn't get into either place, he would try something smaller next day. He crossed the line of the archway slowly, made out the letters
William Oldroyd and Sons
in curving script on the brass plate let into the wall, almost obliterated by eighty or ninety years of polishing—then suddenly hung back,
intimidated. Dare he really pass that impressive glossy brown door, climb those fine brass-bound cork-carpeted stairs? What should he say? What did one say when applying for a job, especially for a job which did not exist save in one's own imagination? But on the other hand … He started forward.

“Make up your mind!” shouted a loud sardonic voice almost in his ear.

“Ackroyd!” rebuked another voice severely.

Harry, whirling round, saw that he had been almost run down by a dark-green open motor-car, of which the chauffeur, a young man in olive-green to match the car, was bellowing at him indignantly. Harry sprang to one side, the chauffeur braked with violence; the car stopped a few yards within the archway and the boy found himself face to face with a handsome, dark, sallow man in late middle age who looked rather ill and was frowning sternly. Harry had never been so near one of the new motor-cars before and he was sure the passenger in this one was Mr. William Brigg Oldroyd, the present head of the firm; crimson with confusion, he gaped and fixed his ingenuous grey eyes on the millowner appealingly.

“Do you work for us?” inquired Mr. Oldroyd, stretching out a hand to open the car door.

His accent, his shirt-cuff, his gold cuff-links and the handsome signet ring on his little finger were so superior to anything Harry had known before that his confusion mounted; he struggled unsuccessfully first to open the door then to remove himself from its path, stammering: “No. That is, not yet.” Wringing out the necessary courage to add: “I should like to,” required the greatest effort he had yet made in life.

“Ah,” said Mr. Oldroyd. By this time he had descended from the car and was standing on the threshold of the office building; a man whom Harry at once judged to be the works manager came out with papers in his hand to meet him. “What's your name?”

“Henry Morcar.”

“He'll be Councillor Morcar's son, I daresay,” offered the manager. Harry nodded. “I thought John William Shaw was taking you on for your father's sake—I'm sure I've heard him say so often enough,” concluded the manager, not without a touch of sarcasm at the expense of Mr. Shaw's benevolence.

“I won't go where I'm not wanted!” burst out Morcar suddenly.

“Quite right, my boy,” approved Mr. Oldroyd. “What department would you like to be in, eh? What would you like to be when you grow up?”

“A designer,” blurted Morcar to his own astonishment.

“You'll have to study hard for that. You must attend classes at the Technical College in the evenings. And even then you may not be a designer—designing requires a special talent,” said Mr. Oldroyd.

Morcar drank in the information about the Technical College with rapture. As for talent, somehow he did not worry. He smiled happily.

“Well—have we room for a lad up there?” asked Mr. Oldroyd, turning to the manager.

“I daresay we could find room,” replied the manager accommodatingly.

“When do you want to start, my boy?”

“Two o'clock?” suggested Harry, after a rapid calculation.

Mr. Oldroyd laughed. “Put him on,” he said to the manager, nodding. He began to mount the stairs.

Saying hastily: “Ask for me here at two,” the manager followed him.

The jubilant Morcar pushed his bicycle up Hurst Bank so rapidly that when he reached the Sycamores he was crimson and breathless. He propped the machine against the Shaws' front porch, took off his cap, wiped the sweat from his forehead with a handkerchief which showed marks of the morning's toil, sniffed to reassure himself, and walked into the house. The dining-room door stood open and the room was empty; probably the Shaws were eating their meal in the cellar kitchen, as was their habit on non-ceremonial occasions during the frequent crises when their current maid left them. Morcar listened at the cellar-head; voices floated up from below. He descended cautiously, then threw open the kitchen door. Yes; the whole Shaw family was seated at table, eating one of Mrs. Shaw's admirable raspberry and red-currant pies—Morcar's mouth positively watered to see it.

“I don't want to take advantage of your kindness Mr. Shaw so I've got myself a job at Oldroyds',” he announced breathlessly in a loud shrill tone, then waited for the thunderbolt to fall.

The Shaws' heads all flew round towards him, then flew round towards Mr. Shaw, as if actuated by clockwork. Charlie's face was white, Mrs. Shaw's elongated with horror, Winnie's round and smiling impishly. Morcar turned his eyes, with theirs, towards the head of Prospect Mills. He surprised a strange expression on his late employer's face; a look which he would almost have believed favouring and friendly had not that been quite unbelievable.

“It's very kind of you but I don't want to go where I'm not—needed,” said Morcar.

“Upon my word!” began Mr. Shaw. (“Here it comes,” thought Morcar.)
“Upon my word,” continued Mr. Shaw in a surprisingly mild tone: “You know your own mind very clearly, Harry, for a lad of fifteen.”