Crescendo Read Free Page A

firm his father served collapsed. Ernest was pleased, though for the Armleys it was, of course, a disaster. There were simply no jobs going in the textile trade; the old man got work for a few weeks as a night-watchman on some road repairs, but then the rheumatism which his hours of driving in the rain had started years ago descended on him and crippled him, and Ernest was left as the main financial stay of the family. (His sisters were by now both married, but their husbands were out of work like everybody else and on the dole, and they had children to keep.) An excruciating reorganisation took place in Ernest’s firm; for a couple of years nobody ever knew from one week to the next whether they would have a wage-packet to take home or not. Ernest lay awake at night sweating with fear lest he should lose his job. He felt as if he were being buffeted incessantly by stormy seas which threatened to drown him, without being able to do anything to help himself—he had no confidence at all, of course, that
they
would manage to extricate the textile industry from its troubles. However, somehow he kept his job, and somehow—small thanks to
them
, Ernest felt sure—the waves gradually calmed, though just before they really settled, his father, worn out by it all, developed rheumatic fever and painfully died.Ernest felt angry about this; it was a shame his father could not see his son’s later prosperity.
    However, there it was. His mother and Ernest were left alone together. His mother began to tease him about getting married.
    â€œAnd what would you do if I got wed?” enquired Ernest.
    â€œGo to our Amy’s,” replied his mother promptly.
    Amy was the younger of Ernest’s sisters; her husband had turned into an invalid and Amy had to go out to work, so that a grandmother to look after the children would be of real assistance. Ernest pondered. He was now twenty-six, but had never yet seen a girl he had a fancy for. He looked around seriously to see if he could find one. Almost at once his eye fell on Millie. (Or perhaps after all he had noticed her before? He was never quite sure about this, though he often gave serious thought to the matter.) Millie was a mender at Holmelea Mills outside Ashworth where Ernest still worked after all these years; in a large light room opening off his own department she sat before a window, dealing with knots and broken ends in the cloths. Mending was highly skilled work so that menders’ wages were relatively good; it was also a craft which mothers often taught their daughters. There were several of Millie’s relatives, of different generations, beside herself in the mending-room; in fact, it was quite a family party; they were all large, plump, jolly women, with abundant brownish hair and sparkling grey-blue eyes, much given to laughter. Indeed their favourite beginning to an anecdote—and they told many—was: “It was that laughable …”
    The gas stove on which the men’s lunches and cups of tea were heated stood in the mending-room, and the menders were not averse to “giving an eye” to the food and drink of such of the men as were friendly with them. Ernest never ventured to ask this favour, but listened with interest, even smiling a little, to the repartee freely exchanged around him as he stood by the stove. When he began seriously to consider marriage somehow his thoughts flew at once to Millie, though he had hardly exchangeda word with her in his life. One day when after the customary joking about men, women and their relationships which brightened the lunch hour the others had trooped out, Ernest lingered a little and said on an impulse, leaning his tall lean form against the door:
    â€œYou’d never marry a chap like me, Millie, I don’t suppose.”
    â€œWhy not?” snapped back Millie, quick as a flash. “Why do you suppose so, Ernest Armley? You cheeky thing!”
    â€œWell—it seems