Crescendo (6 page)

The next item on his programme was to marry Meg, and this proved not as easy as could have been desired, for Dr. Avery disliked the idea heartily. Not only was the doctor deeply devoted to his daughter and not at all eager to part from her, but he regarded Arnold as a callous, dissipated, spoiled young playboy, thoroughly unreliable and not fit to be trusted with any woman's happiness. Accordingly he used Arnold's deplorable financial situation as a lever to keep the pair apart. Gradually, however, Meg's calm, quiet certainty wore him down, and as Arnold's new steadiness confirmed itself the doctor began to like him better, though never regarding him as the ideal husband for his beloved daughter. But at last Arnold and Meg married.

It was not so much a question of mere happiness with them as of being whole together where they were incomplete, lacking each other, before. Then there was Meg's miscarriage. But she recovered well and bore Arnold a son, Gervase Amos Janna, a delightful healthy fair-haired boy. Then there was the war—but Arnold survived it. Then there was the peace and the Welfare State—but Arnold survived those too. Mrs. Barraclough and Dr. Avery presently died off, after being carefully and affectionately tended throughout by Meg. So here was Arnold Amos Janna Barraclough in the summer of 1957, arriving at his solid, reputable, well-equipped mill, without a debt in the world, perfectly happy in his marriage, and except for the inevitable chances and changes of this mortal life, one would think no longer seriously vulnerable at all.

“Here we are,” said Arnold to the guest beside him.

But on the contrary, reflected Arnold grimly, twisting the wheel to take the Jaguar neatly into the mill yard, A. A. J. Barraclough is very vulnerable indeed. He is vulnerable through his affections. He is vulnerable through the third
passenger in the car, the handsome lad in the back seat, Jerry, otherwise Gervase Amos Janna Barraclough, his seventeen-year-old son.

It had been a mistake, perhaps, to call him Gervase. Perhaps it was a calm defiance of public opinion, to call the boy after his unfortunate grandfather? Or perhaps a desire to retrieve, to justify, to ennoble the name? It was Meg's doing; Arnold had been away in the Army when the boy was born. Meg was always quiet and reserved, not given (perhaps not able) to express her feelings much in words, and she had not expatiated on her reasons for naming the boy so, to her husband. But Arnold relied always on the essential Tightness of Meg's feelings; he had relied on them on the day of his father's funeral and every day afterwards, and had never found cause to think his trust mistaken. Besides, the boy knew nothing of his grandfather; it was absurd, it was mere superstition, to imagine that the mere giving of a name could influence a character or a destiny. All the same, Arnold rather wished that his son was not called Gervase.

As a child Jerry—for this was the suitable, less high-flown, modern version of his name—had been everything a man could wish for a son: fair and healthy and merry, with plenty of friends always about him; equable in disposition, he betrayed none of the more disagreeable faults one had to watch for in little boys, for he was neither a bully nor a coward, did not cheat or lie, showed no excessive greed, could win without jubilation and lose without resentment. That the boy had never displayed any special brilliance in lessons did not worry Arnold. His own performances at school had been mediocre; of course he hadn't tried very hard, but he knew quite well that he couldn't have done much better if he
had
tried. Meg on the other hand had tried quite hard, but had not been brilliant either. They were ordinary people, with no special claims to intelligence but shrewd enough to hold their own; all they asked of their son was similar common sense and
decent behaviour. Arnold therefore made no grumble when Jerry's end of term reports, whether at the little private day school, or the “prep” and public school whose bills Arnold winced at but paid manfully, showed only a moderate level of attainment. He was a little surprised perhaps that Jerry seemed rather worse at mathematics and science than at literature and history, but there was not enough difference in the marks Jerry gained in any of these subjects to excite comment. The boy was not good at football, and this was indeed something of a disappointment to Arnold, who had been a scrum half of some fierceness in his day; but on the other hand Jerry wielded a graceful bat and played very successfully for his school at a surprisingly early age. At seventeen he was a quiet, gentlemanly lad, with a pleasant young face, fair smooth hair and serious grey eyes; he was devoted to his mother (which was very proper), took Holmelea and his position therein for granted (knowing nothing of his father's struggles and his grandfather's defeat), showed a little carelessness about money but nothing to speak of, and altogether was a highly satisfactory and much beloved son. Arnold did not know him very well nowadays, of course; Jerry had been away at school so much these last years, and in any case had a rather reserved disposition, like his mother, so that it was rather difficult to tell what he was thinking. But he was clearly a thoroughly good lad, whom Arnold looked forward to introducing with pride into Holmelea Mills when he left school.

And then suddenly everything changed. It changed in the Easter holidays of this year, after Jerry had been away to stay with a friend in London. The boy's reserve seemed to have grown upon him unduly; he appeared positively morose, strolled about by himself with his head bent, kicking stones, for hours on end, spent days alone out on the moors, and so contrived engagements and excuses that, as Arnold realised when it was too late, he never once set foot in the mill. Even so, Arnold had not attached much importance to all this. Lads
had their private disappointments and worries, just as men had, one should not intrude, one should let them live their own lives. Jerry's moodiness would pass.

But it had not passed, and presently its cause had been made clear. On the last day of Jerry's Easter holidays, the day before he was to return to school for his last term, Meg rushed out of the house to meet her husband the moment the car reached the top of the Hall drive at the end of the afternoon, and drew him through the open French windows into a small room known as the library—not that anyone ever read in it. Her eyes were wide with distress.

“What's wrong, love?” said Arnold, kissing her.

“Arnold, I'm afraid this is going to be a great disappointment to you,” said Meg, her hands against his breast. “It's Jerry. He asked me to tell you. He says he doesn't want to go into the mill.”

It was certainly a blow. For a moment Arnold's long hard struggle seemed a useless waste of time. His world seemed to crumble beneath his feet. Yes, for a moment he certainly felt daunted. He sat down heavily. Meg sat down beside him and took his hand.

“But why didn't Jerry tell me himself?” said Arnold at length, perplexed.

“I think he's a little afraid of you, darling,” said Meg.

“Afraid of
me?”
exclaimed Arnold, astounded. “What on earth for? Has he been getting himself into a scrape of some kind?”

“No. He's just a little afraid of you. You can be rather fierce at times, you know, darling,” said Meg with a smile.

“Can I?” wondered Arnold.

He considered himself for a moment. Possibly his long years of struggle had in fact made him a trifle tough. But that his son, Meg's son, should be so afraid of him as not to venture to tell him his ambitions, wounded him deeply. It was so unnecessary too. He voiced his views.

“He'd no need to worry,” he said, a trifle drily. “God knows I don't want to force anybody into textiles if they don't want to go. I've had too much trouble in them myself. I didn't particularly want to go into them as a lad, so I could hardly blame Jerry for feeling the same. Besides, it may be better for the boy not to have all his eggs in one basket. He can earn an income outside Holmelea, and still draw the interest from his Holmelea shares.”

“Holmelea shares?” said Meg, wondering.

“After I'm dead, I mean,” said Arnold irritably.

“You're so good, Arnold,” said Meg.

As always during the last twenty-six years, Arnold felt soothed, strengthened, supported, by Meg's love.

“Well, what does Jerry want to do, then?” he said in a cheerful, sensible tone. “Some profession? Medicine, like your father?”

He gave a mental grimace as he contemplated the further long years of fee-paying which in that case lay ahead, but did not blench.

“No. Oh, no,” said Meg.

“Law, then?”

Like most business men, Arnold detested the legal profession as an establishment devised on purpose to prevent business men from doing sensible things, but he admitted that one had to employ lawyers in order to keep out of trouble from silly regulations, and lawyers always seemed to flourish.

“No.” Meg hesitated. “It seems to be something to do with literature and the arts,” she said at length.

“Literature and the arts!” exclaimed Arnold in capital letters. “But has Jerry shown any talent for that sort of thing?”

Meg said nothing.

“But, Meg, he hasn't. You know he hasn't,” said Arnold, now really troubled. “I mean to say—look at his reports! That fellow what's-his-name, that play-writer, you know, was at school with me and you could see at once that he was out of
the ordinary. Always at the top in English, and writing poems for the school magazine, and so on. A perfect fool in everything else, of course. Jerry hasn't done anything of that kind! Or has he?” he added, suddenly remembering how little he really knew about his son.

Meg shook her head. Slowly and reluctantly, with head averted, she brought out that there was some young man whom Jerry had met in London while staying with his school friend there, who was engaged in doing everything that Jerry wanted to do, and Jerry wanted to go off to London with him and do it too.

“But good lord!” exclaimed Arnold, aghast. “
What
is it he wants to do?”

“I don't know,” said Meg.

She turned towards her husband, and Arnold saw that tears stood in her eyes and her lips were trembling. Arnold had seen tears in his wife's eyes on only one occasion before in their life, namely when they lost their first hope of a child some twenty years ago. (One of the good things about his wife, Arnold had often reflected, was that she was not given to frequent tears—unlike his mother.) He was thus very much upset to see Meg's tears now, and put his arm round her protectively. His wife buried her face in his shoulder and quietly, without any fuss, in her own reserved and undemanding manner, wept as though her heart would break.

“Jerry says he feels at ease with this man Chillie—Chillie's the only person in the world he feels at ease with. Why doesn't he feel at ease with us any more, Arnold? We all love each other.”

“Parents and children,” said Arnold gruffly. “When the children grow up they have to leave the nest, you know. Jerry'll come round to us again when he gets a bit older.”

“It's hard, Arnold,” said Meg.

“Yes, it's hard,” agreed Arnold.

He felt sore all over. But the boy had a right to choose his
own career. Men should do the work they wanted and marry the girls they wanted and pay the necessary prices for their choice, in Arnold's opinion.

“Don't worry, Meg. We'll sort it out somehow. It's a disappointment, but it's not the end of the world. I'll talk to Jerry,” he said staunchly. “If he really wants that kind of career, he'll have to go to a university. I'm ready to start the boy off properly in any profession he chooses.”

Meg gave him one of those looks of trust and love on which his whole life had been founded, and he felt that this difficulty too he could conquer for her sake, as he had conquered all the rest.

The interview with his son, however, which he undertook that same evening, did not go off quite as well as he had hoped. Jerry stated with something like horror in his tone that he did not wish to go to a university.

“Very well, don't,” said Arnold. “But what
do
you want, Jerry? I only want to help you do what you want, you know.”

Jerry, frowning and hanging his head, muttered that he wanted to go to London and live with Chillie.

“But what does this Charlie
do?”
persisted Arnold.

At this Jerry threw up his head and announced sharply, his fair face flushed:

“It's not Charlie. His name is John. Chillie is a nickname.”

“Oh,” said Arnold. His tone was dry; with his practical, realistic view of life he tended to dislike nicknames, and why a man should abandon a decent solid name like John for a sloppy address like Chillie passed his comprehension. However, it was clear that Jerry thought Chillie extremely
chic.
Arnold experienced a pang of tenderness for his son's youth.

“What does—he—do for a living?” pursued Arnold, not quite able all the same to utter the appellation.

“He writes and paints. He has a small private income, of course,” muttered Jerry, hanging his head again.

It was at this moment that Arnold began to wish his son was not called Gervase. The boy's reserve, which Arnold had hitherto regarded as an inheritance from Meg, the mistrust of himself which he had been ready to regard as his own fault, now struck him as the kind of weak inability to face up to life he had known in his own father, which had contributed so greatly to the Holmelea misfortunes. Jerry's obvious predilection for an unearned private income also struck him unpleasantly as resembling the conduct of the elder Gervase, who had maintained the standards of Barraclough gentility far longer than honesty dictated.

“Well, Jerry, I'm afraid I can't provide you with a private, that is an unearned, income,” he said gravely. “You'll have to work for your living.”

“Oh, of course. I thought perhaps just for a year or two—until I found my feet—it wouldn't cost as much as going to Oxford,” said Jerry.