The Rise of Henry Morcar by Phyllis Bentley Page B

home. The van drew up at Number 102 Hurst Road, Mrs. Morcar who had gone on ahead opened the door, Harry clambered down and ran in. He stopped, aghast. The room was tiny, with a steep narrow staircase leading directly from the rear. He turned on his mother with an impetuous question, but she was gazing at him with such a look of anguish that he was astonished and alarmed—he had never seen such a naked expression of feeling in her face before—and mumbling instead something about helping to unload, ran out of the house again. As he helped the removal man to let down the back of the van and secure it by chains so that it formed a low platform, there was a tumult of feeling in his heart, which presently settled into the conviction, firm though inarticulate, unclarified, that this was a disaster andhe must bear it like a man. Accordingly he became very cheerful and even facetious in his manner of handling the furniture, carrying chairs light-heartedly on his head and shouting “Whoa!” to the removal man as they struggled together to edge the Morcars’ sideboard through the tiny door. There was a neat little scullery in the rear with which he professed himself enormously satisfied, but it was beyond his powers of deception to show pleasure over the outside lavatory beyond, reached by a descent of five stone steps into the bowels of the earth.
    While they were in the very thick of the removal there came a knock at the front door and Harry found himself ushering in an elderly lady of the Eastgate congregation whom he knew by sight, carrying a parcel about which she seemed to have mysterious business with his mother. The parcel when opened contained, as he saw, a length of crash and a few scraps of brightly coloured material which proved to be intended as patterns. Mrs. Morcar was vexed at being caught in her apron with her sleeves rolled up and repeatedly expressed this vexation by observing that they would be straight tomorrow, but she broke off the work of removal to draw out from a sideboard cupboard a box full of coloured skeins of silk in great variety, and proceeded to match them to the patterns with a good deal of care and animation. Harry hovering in the doorway could not but be interested in this matching process, and approved his mother’s choice amongst the bright twisted skeins, which however was overruled by the visitor. As the latter left she remarked:
    â€œAbout next Wednesday, then?”
    â€œNext Wednesday,” replied Mrs. Morcar firmly.
    â€œI’ll call about the same time?”
    â€œHarry can bring them round if you like,” offered Mrs. Morcar.
    â€œOh, no, I’ll call,” said the visitor hastily, stepping into the street. She looked back over her shoulder and added in the high artificial voice of embarrassed kindness: “And you’ll perhaps think over that other matter and let me have your decision at the same time?”
    â€œYou have my decision now,” said Mrs. Morcar fiercely. “What I do for Eastgate I do for love.”
    â€œWell,” hesitated the other woman. “I honour you for it of course, Mrs. Morcar.” She seemed to wish to urge the matter further but to find it impossible in view of Mrs. Morcar’s stern bearing, and gathering her skirt into her hand went off down the street.
    That very night, though plainly wearied by the removal which in any case was not yet quite complete, Mrs. Morcar cut the crash into lengths for antimacassars, tacked their edges ready forhemstitching, and applied orange-coloured transfers to the ends, pressing the flimsy paper with a hot iron to imprint the pattern on the material.
    Harry pondered. He admitted readily that, in the Yorkshire phrase, he was “slow in the uptake,” but the process when once accomplished was fairly sure. When he woke in the morning he knew that his mother meant to earn money by her talent for sewing and embroidery, that the Eastgate Dorcas meeting had