Read Online Crescendo by Phyllis Bentley - Free Book Online Page A

says, in Yorkshire we pride ourselves overmuch on speaking our mind. Did you point out the mill to your friend as you passed, Jerry?”
    Jerry frowned a little and said shortly: “Yes.”
    â€œIt wasn’t as large as you had expected, perhaps?” said Arnold mildly, turning to Chillie.
    He saw at once, by a disagreeable flash in the man’s eyes, that he had hit the mark. Jerry’s calm assumption that the world was the oyster of any Barraclough of Holmelea had deceived Chillie into crediting the Barracloughs with a higher status than they now possessed. Chillie had let his disillusion show a trifle at the sight of the mill, and Jerry had seen it and been a trifle vexed. Arnold was pleased. The battle was joined. It was the greatest battle of his life, more important even than that earlier battle he had fought to save the Barraclough honour, and he meant to win. The great thing was to keep Jerry’s affection and trust, so that when the revelationabout Chillie was finally made to him by his father, he would believe it.
    â€œI’m afraid I know absolutely nothing about dark satanic mills, textile or otherwise,” said Chillie crossly.
    â€œWell, we can soon cure that. If you wish, of course. Bring your friend down to the mill any time you like, Jerry. But only if it wouldn’t bore him. Each man to his trade, you know.”
    â€œMy father knows a great deal about cloth,” offered Jerry.
    â€œIndeed?” said Chillie with an air of ineffable boredom.
    â€œAs much as you know about pictures, I dare say,” said Arnold cheerfully. “Or is it books?”
    Chillie coloured and seemed a little uncomfortable. Suddenly he took a corner of his loose jacket between his fingers and offered it to Arnold.
    â€œIs this good cloth, Mr. Barraclough?”
    He meant to provoke Jerry’s father into a jeering “Yorkshire” answer which would shame Jerry. Arnold, who of course had perceived the poor quality of the stuff the moment he entered the room, bent forward and felt the jacket with a serious air.
    â€œI’m afraid not,” he said pleasantly. “We could fit you up with something better than that at Holmelea, if you cared for it. You must come down some morning and we’ll see what we can find.”
    â€œBut wouldn’t that be damaged cloth, Arnold?” said Meg. “Sent back to you by the manufacturers?”
    â€œA damaged piece isn’t damaged in every yard,” explained Arnold. “We could find a suit length of good stuff, I’m sure.”
    â€œIs trade unionism strong in your mill, Mr. Barraclough?” demanded Chillie abruptly.
    â€œOf course,” said Arnold impatiently. “I don’t employ any non-union labour. Who does, these days?”
    The battle continued through the weekend. Chillie had a melodious voice, a fluent ease of speech, an admirable diction, and he gave these weapons the fullest possible play. His aimthroughout was to make Arnold appear a mercenary, vulgar, greedy, bourgeois capitalist, an exploiter of his employees, a reactionary, a cumberer of the earth, a stupid ignoramus on all artistic matters; altogether unworthy, therefore, of his son’s love.
    Arnold did not find these insinuations quite as difficult to counter as Chillie had evidently expected. He was not especially enamoured of the capitalist system, merely preferring it to any of the alternatives which had yet been suggested, and he was quite ready to discuss these alternatives in an unheated style. In matters of art he yielded gracefully to Chillie’s superior knowledge, contriving however to put a few questions of a probing kind which revealed to Arnold and Meg, if not perhaps as yet to Jerry, that Chillie had never done a hand’s turn of real work in any art whatever, in his life. To the anxious enquiries by Meg, in the privacy of their bedroom, as to what Arnold thought of Chillie, Arnold replied briefly that he