Read Online The Rise of Henry Morcar by Phyllis Bentley - Free Book Online Page A

shared with another tenant—who must be a wool-comber, decided Harry, judging from two or three huge taut sacks tumbled nonchalantly against each other in the far corner. Even in August the yard looked dank and muddy, and the squat brick chimney seemed to exude dirt. The double-leaf door to the office, also pinkish and peeling, was closed to-day, revealing to the full its need of a new coat of paint. But Harry, cycling slowly past, or glancing at the mill sideways from the shelter of a cross street—he would not for the world, of course, have been discovered openly viewing it—found it in the highest degree romantic. It was the centre of his hopes and dreams. That faded door was his entrance to the great world, the world where he would work for his own living, the world where he would be a man. He longed for next Monday with almost unbearable intensity. The days seemed years, and as if in corroboration his very face in the glass looked older by the end of the week.
    About Wednesday an idea struck him. The antimacassars were already finished and called for, so he felt at liberty to ask hismother to do some sewing for him. He took his school cap down from its peg and offered it to her. “Can you unpick the badge?” he demanded gruffly. For answer his mother covered her face with her hands and sat thus, motionless. Morcar wriggled irritably; all this emotion! Mrs. Morcar suddenly took down her hands, unpicked the crest and pressed the cap with a hot iron from within, so that the marks of the stitches became invisible.
    At last it was Saturday, and the people of Annotsfield began to return to their homes to resume their labour. In the evening Hurst Road was full of workers in bright clothes carrying bags and baskets and paper parcels, streaming homeward from the station. Morcar slept wretchedly, tossing from side to side in a feverish though vague ambition. Sunday came. Chapel in the morning passed the time on well, and there were some good fighting hymns which Morcar sang with gusto. The afternoon was terrible. He went down to the Sycamores to see if by some happy chance the Shaws’ plans had been changed and they had returned earlier—a picture postcard from Charlie had announced their coming on Monday morning. But the house was empty. Harry went round to the back; he would like to have watered the garden with a hosepipe, but dared not because it was Sunday. He tried the door of the Den, but it was locked. The father of the family who now lived next door, in the Morcars’ old house, was in the garden as he returned and spoke to him kindly; Harry coloured and hurried away. Then there was tea, then there was Chapel, rather sad and sentimental so that his mother quietly wept; and then at last as they walked homeward Harry saw thin feathers of smoke beginning to rise from the mill chimneys. The men were re-lighting the boiler fires ready for work on the morrow. Then there was supper; then there was a slight ceremony in laying ready the brat, setting his alarm clock and discussing with his mother what time he would be home for dinner. Harry wished to stay at the mill all day without a break, but his mother was firm for his return at midday—on his bicycle, she said, the distance between Prospect Mills and Hurst Road was small. Mr. Shaw, she said, was sure to expect it. She was equally certain that Mr. Shaw would not require Harry to go to Prospect before breakfast tomorrow morning. Harry, who had envisaged himself climbing the steps on the stroke of six, was keenly disappointed and argued the matter stoutly.
    â€œBut Mr. Shaw won’t be there himself, child, and he’ll be vexed if somebody puts you on to work that he doesn’t intend.”
    Harry yielded on both points only as far as the first day was concerned. “I shall see what Mr. Shaw wants,” he repeatedseveral times in an earnest important tone. “I must do what he wants, Mother.”
    His mother sighed at last,