A Modern Tragedy (16 page)

“I'd rather have money,” said Walter.

Tasker laughed. “I daresay you would,” he said. “But surely a man who's lived all his life in the West Riding, like you, doesn't need to be told that even the richest people in the trade, the most old-established, Henry Clay Crosland himself if you like, don't carry large sums like that in their banks to pay things with? It's all tied up in machinery, yarn, goodness knows what. Of course I might sell some of my shares in the open market and turn the money over to you, but it would have a bad effect on the firm's credit, you know that well enough; and besides, I don't choose that any Tom, Dick or Harry should hold my shares. They've always been all in my own family before, and you ought to count yourself lucky to hold some. I shall pay in ten thousand one-pound shares in Leonard Tasker 1925 Ltd. The last dividend was fifteen per cent, so I don't see you've any cause to grumble.”

“I must have five hundred pounds in money,” said Walter.

“You can't,” said Tasker briefly.

“What about my five hundred War Loan, then?” demanded Walter, sick at heart. “I suppose that's part of Heights Mill, and goes to you.”

“Of course. I allowed for that in the purchase price,” said Tasker firmly. “Don't be silly, Walter. My 1925 shares are a far better investment than War Loan.”

“I suppose I could sell five hundred of them and get some War Loan for father,” mused Walter.

“Haven't I told you not to do anything of the sort?” said Tasker savagely. “I won't have my shares sold in the open market. I'll tell you what I'll do, though, as you're so damned anxious about your bit of War Loan: I'll give you an extra two hundred Tasker '25 shares for Heights. Though God knows it isn't worth it,” he added in disgust, “and I can't give you those extra ones straight away; I shall have to turn them over later. Now, come on!” he exclaimed in fierce impatience, shaking Walter's hand from his arm and entering the car. “We've got to go to Manchester and back—if you think your place can run itself this morning without you, mine can't.”

“It's not my place any longer, seemingly,” said Walter, nevertheless following him into the car—there seemed nothing else to be done.

“Oh, don't nag so about it, Walter!” urged Tasker, suddenly good-humoured again, reaching across Walter to bang the door behind him. “You're the manager of one of the finest little dyeing and finishing plants in the West Riding, with several thousand pounds well invested elsewhere; isn't that enough for you? You don't know how to do big business, Walter. You can't see the wood for the trees. You're always bothering about some trifling detail or other which isn't of the slightest importance. Yes, Manchester,” he shouted in reply to the chauffeur, who had turned an interrogative look through the glass division upon him, “and don't dawdle! I'm going to sleep,” he concluded abruptly, switching out the light as the car purred rapidly away, “and I advise you to do the same.”

He composed himself in his corner and spoke no more, but whether he was really asleep or not Walter could not determine. For his part, Walter remained awake for some
time, revolving the situation in terrible perplexity. He did not want to part with his share of Heights, and he disliked this night call, this rush to a place where West Riding affairs were not well known, to complete a legal transaction. Moreover, he could not fathom Tasker's motive for wanting the Heights business, and this obscurity worried him—a confused suspicion rose in his mind that it was for this night's work, and nothing else, that Tasker had started him at Heights in the first place; yet he could see neither rhyme nor reason in such a proceeding. On the face of it, Walter seemed to be doing well out of the transaction; preposterously well, indeed; even Dyson, he thought, could hardly grumble at losing the end of his War Loan investments when Walter had multiplied them so considerably. At any rate, Walter reflected consolingly, there was nothing dishonest in this sale. He was harming nobody, doing nothing wrong; even Rosamond could find nothing in it with which to reproach him. He sighed with relief, and exhausted by a long day's work and the fierce argument with Tasker, fell asleep.

Meanwhile the car traversed Hudley, wound along the intersecting valleys westwards, and began to rise into the central spurs of the Pennine Chain. And as it reached the last town on the Yorkshire side of the hills, suddenly the darkness was all a-clatter with footsteps; buzzers blared out their strange peremptory note; the smell of smoke, for it was pouring out unseen in the dark from the mouths of the chimneys a hundred and thirty feet above, weighted the air; occasionally in the light of a street-lamp groups of men and women could be seen, tramping steadily along—the older women wore heavy shawls and clogs, the younger had shabby hats and coats and shoes, waved hair held in position with many slides, mended silk stockings and battered attaché cases; the men were uniformly drab, with faded blue overalls beneath their jackets. Here, as at this hour in Ashworth, in
Hudley, at Heights, all over the West Riding, the workers were going to the mills.

Walter awoke as the car was passing through the suburbs of Manchester. He felt sulky, irritable, dirty, and disheartened to the point of cowardice. Tasker, however, spoke to him at once in his friendliest tone, and proposed breakfast at the Midland Hotel. Over the admirable meal ordered by his companion, Walter felt his spirit again slowly raise its head; he gave appreciative glances about him, and all of a sudden began to enjoy his situation enormously. What an adventure it was, after all, to be dragged from one's bed at dead of night, and rushed across two counties to sell a business! How different from the dull, if blameless, days before he met Tasker, days divided between the unimportant routine of Messrs. Lumb and the dreary retirement of Moorside Place! The Romance of Commerce! Walter had always doubted its existence before; but this was surely the real thing. Exciting martial tunes rang in his head; he felt ready for anything; and suddenly became very talkative and confidential to Tasker, telling him all sorts of private matters—feelings, humiliations, small successes—which he had never revealed to anyone before. Tasker listened with serious interest, and told him in return that he had lots of ability and courage—Tasker had seen that, he said, the moment Walter entered his office at Victory Mills—and was just the sort of fellow to pull off some really big things; this Heights affair was only a beginning. In the middle of this and similar flatteries, which Walter drank in eagerly, Tasker suddenly jumped up, and said it was time for them to be off.

They drove to the office of a solicitor who was obviously expecting them at this early hour, for papers were already prepared for their signatures, and clerks were in attendance—this made Walter somewhat uneasy; he cast a critical eye
on the terms of the agreement, and objected that Tasker seemed to be both buying and selling.

“Well, so I am, in a way,” replied Tasker, with an air of candour. “I'm selling as a private person, your partner, and buying as the representative of the Leonard Tasker 1925 Company, Limited.”

“It seems rather peculiar,” hesitated Walter.

Tasker laughed; and there seemed something so spontaneous and uncalculated in the sound that Walter was convinced of his own ignorance, and blushed for it.

“You'll get used to these things soon,” said Tasker comfortingly, as Walter inscribed his rather large and childish signature in the places indicated.

The transaction was soon completed, and they sped homeward through the bright frosty morning air. Walter was in good spirits. A great deal of work awaited him at Heights Mill, of a kind with which he was now well able to cope, and he had that delicious feeling of having a place in the world, and being a person who counts, which is so conducive to happiness. He babbled cheerfully about everything they passed on the road, unconsciously showing off all the time and imagining he was making a good impression. Tasker's replies grew shorter and shorter, and Walter, looking towards him once for some appreciation of a piece of knowledge he had just displayed, surprised a look of harassment and weariness on the older man's face. He gaped a little, and coloured, disconcerted; Tasker's brow immediately cleared, and he made a neat and subtly flattering reply. Indeed, Walter made such strides, as he thought, towards intimacy with his former partner and present employer that when the car drew up at the end of Heights Lane he said warmly: “Won't you come in and have a look round, then?” (though he usually dreaded Tasker's presence at Heights), and was quite disappointed when Tasker replied in his gruff tones: “Sorry I've no time this morning, Walter.”

For an hour or two, as Walter went up and down Heights Mill, he continued to feel happy, and as though he were in some way relieved. But presently he began to suffer his usual reaction when released from the spell of Tasker's company; uneasiness rose in him, he felt thwarted, tricked, and questioned his behaviour towards Tasker gloomily. Why should he feel relieved, in any case? Had he, perhaps, always dreaded that something would happen about Heights, always felt sure that Tasker had some hidden intention with regard to it, and now the reality was not as bad as he had feared? This thought, in a vague and incoherent form, crossed Walter's mind with increasing pressure; his mood slowly darkened; he began to wonder what exactly he had sold that morning, and what had been its value to the buyer. Was his position sufficiently stable even yet to be confessed openly to his father? Walter felt that it was not; he feared that there was more to come, Tasker had more up his sleeve yet, he hadn't done with Walter, nor Walter with him; no, not by a long way. Still, Walter hadn't suffered yet from the association, surely? In any case, nothing could be done about it, he was tied to Tasker now.

Walter was in this uneasy and uncertain frame of mind when his cashier came down into the dye-house to fetch him, with the announcement that Miss Haigh had called.

“Oh, confound her!” exploded Walter. Really it was too bad, when he was worried like this, that his family should turn up and harass him with their criticisms. He made his way to the office sulkily, and presented a scowling face to Rosamond, who looked, he thought, pale, tired and plain.

“It's not about Father,” she said at once.

“Oh,” said Walter with a more amiable look; he was somewhat ashamed to be relieved thus of an anxiety he had not felt. “What is it, then?”

“I came before school to the Cottage to see you,” explained Rosamond quickly, “but you weren't there. You'd already
left with Mr. Tasker. He came to Moorside Place to look for you very early this morning,” she added, seeing her brother's look of bewilderment.

“Really!” said Walter surprised. “He didn't tell me.”

“I suppose he didn't think it necessary,” said Rosamond, and she pressed firmly upon herself the barbed and stinging fact that the meeting between herself and Tasker, which had changed her life, was not worth a casual reference to him. She went on steadily: “So I came up again to see you now in my free period. I wanted to see you at the earliest possible moment.”

“Well, what about?” said Walter testily.

“Walter,” said Rosamond urgently, fixing her eyes upon her brother's: “Don't have anything to do with Mr. Tasker. I'm sure he's not a man to be trusted.”

“Oh, really, Rosamond,” said the exasperated Walter: “This is ridiculous.”

“Why should he come to see you at that preposterous hour?” demanded Rosamond. “What was the business he wanted you to do with him?”

“My dear child, you wouldn't understand if I told you,” said Walter condescendingly.

“Do you understand it yourself?” demanded Rosamond.

At this home thrust Walter turned scarlet, and his temper flared. “Rosamond, will you please leave me alone?” he cried hotly. “I'm not a child now, and I can manage my own affairs without any assistance from you. When I want your advice I'll ask for it. Don't be so confoundedly interfering.”

“Indeed I don't wish to interfere with anyone's affairs,” protested Rosamond, cut to the quick. “It's only that I distrust that Tasker man to the bottom of my soul.”

“He's not a type of man you can expect to understand,” countered Walter loftily. “He's a business man, not a school
teacher nor an amateur theatrical. In his own line he's exceedingly clever.”

“I don't doubt it,” said Rosamond with irony. “And you, Walter? Are you clever in the same line? Able to hold your own with him?”

Walter gave his sister a look of bitter resentment. “It's no use your going on at me like that, Rosamond,” he said, after a pause, coldly. “Tasker and I are in business together, and shall continue to be so. I shall be with him,” he enlarged, thinking of the service agreement signed that morning, “for at least three years.”

Rosamond exclaimed. “You're committed to him!” she said.

Her brother nodded.

“Then I'll return to school,” said Rosamond with proud decision. She drew on her gloves and raised the collar of her coat. “But I do wish you wouldn't have anything to do with him, Walter!” she urged afresh, turning back to her brother. “I do wish you wouldn't. Why need you?”

Walter sighed in exasperation. “I'll run you down to Hudley,” he offered, to put an end to the argument. “Wait here—I'll fetch the car.”

“The car?” exclaimed Rosamond. “What car?”

“It belongs to the business,” said Walter carelessly, his cheeks nevertheless burning.

“And the business is Mr. Tasker's?” queried Rosamond.

“Tasker's, yes,” replied Walter, sardonically amused that he was able to give this answer for the first time on the very day she first asked the question.

“Then I'll walk,” said Rosamond with scornful emphasis. “Good-bye, Walter.”

“Rosamond, you're behaving like a child!” cried her brother angrily.