A Modern Tragedy (28 page)

“I think you're absolutely right, Rosamond,” he said in a tone of warm approval. “I'll see to it at once. It may be a few weeks before I can get the necessary formalities through,” he enlarged carelessly, thrilling with the sense of power, of “managing” his sister: “But you can rely on me to see to it at once.”

Rosamond felt relieved, though a little doubtful. She did not like the words:
you can rely on me
. They seemed to her to protest altogether too much, and came twanging from his lips altogether too glibly. But she perceived that in the past few months her brother had, indeed, become a man; that he now had both manners and ability—his greeting to her friend had been very different from his former shy blunderings, and his manner of tackling the bills and forms which required attention was altogether admirable—and she felt a little shy of him. She had loved the old Walter better, she thought; but it would be wrong, ungenerous, to wish
him back again in dependence on her. Moreover, she was excited by the sound of Tasker's name, which seemed to link her to him, though at so great a distance; in spite of herself day-dreams instantly rushed into her mind of herself exerting an influence for good on the man who was to be her brother's co-director. She shook her head scoffingly over these day-dreams, put them down as the result of too much spring sunshine and too little male society, and dismissed them with a smile; but they warmed her manner to her brother, whose long absences she really greatly resented on behalf of her parents.

The moment Walter had finished the business matters in which Rosamond had requested his aid, he looked at his watch, repeated that he must go, and took a prompt departure. He felt he simply could not endure the stale atmosphere of his home a minute longer; it was altogether too stifling.

As Rosamond and her mother stood on the doorstep, watching him turn his car, Mrs. Haigh murmured in her daughter's ear: “He says he's in love with that Miss Clay Crosland.”

“Oh! That explains everything!” exclaimed Rosamond warmly. “She's
very
beautiful.” A loving sympathy for her brother flooded her heart. She threw up her head and smiled at him joyously, waved her hand, and cried: “Good-bye, Walter!” in quite her old fond sisterly tone.

Pleased by these tokens of affection, Walter drove away in the comfortable mood of one who has done a delayed duty nobly, and thus removed its weight from his conscience.

The moment he turned out of Moorside Place he forgot it, and began to think of Elaine. But he could not see her till the morrow. How was he to get through the intervening hours, wondered Walter in a frenzy; he felt an overpowering
restlessness, a longing for life and action; to return to Heights Cottage and sit alone would be simply intolerable; if he could not have Elaine, he must have lights, bustle, an animated scene to fill his mind.

On an impulse he drew up at a kiosk, telephoned Grey Garth, and suggested to Tasker that they might meet somewhere for supper to celebrate the happy issue of the day.

Tasker seemed pleased, though a little surprised at the suggestion, and agreed heartily; they met in Bradford, and spent what remained of the day recalling their dangers and their triumphs, congratulating each other as old friends should.

Walter was in wild spirits; he drank rather more than usual, and laughed and talked with a liveliness which astonished Tasker, who had expected he might have a little remorse to cope with on the part of his young friend. Seeing that it was not so, and that the moment was propitious, Tasker became confidential. He put into Walter's mind the notion that the Heights turnover must be increased at all costs, so as to make a good impression on the new shareholders.

“The advantage of a big concern like ours,” he said, “is that overheads are so reduced that we can afford to cut prices, bring the cloth within reach of the consumer. That's what all this talk about rationalization really means, you know.”

“Of course,” said Walter impatiently.

“You have to deceive people a bit for their own good, sometimes,” said Tasker later with a kindly air. “They're too cowardly to take the risk, if they know it's there; so you have to keep it from them, and take it yourself.”

Walter, who understood that this was a reference to the Heights valuation, and its effect on the prospective shareholders of Messrs. Tasker, Haigh and Company, agreed cheerfully.
He felt bold, able, very protective towards all the Croslands, and master of his fate and Elaine's.

Indefatigable as always, Tasker had already been at work drafting the prospectus of the new company. The proper formalities were rapidly pushed through, and in a few weeks Walter had the exciting pleasure of holding in his hand the thick glossy folio leaflet, which announced on its front page the issue at par of so many thousand ordinary and preference shares in Messrs. Tasker, Haigh and Co., so many of which had been applied for and allotted to the board. Under the heading
DIRECTORS
appeared the names of
Leonard Tasker of Victory Mills, Ashworth, Yorks. (Managing Director of Messrs. Leonard Tasker
1925
Ltd.), Henry Clay Crosland of Clay Hall, Yorks. (Chairman of Directors, The Crosland Spinning Co. Ltd.)
, and
Walter Haigh of Heights, Hudley, Yorks. (Dyer and Finisher)
. Within the folder was the usual statement of the company's assets and profits, with signed valuations—the Heights one, Walter noted, bore the signature of a valuer named (perhaps significantly) Dollam; and coloured sheets were attached containing pictures and descriptions of the new company's properties, and application forms for shares.

The general public, lacking Dyson's experience and noting Mr. Crosland's name, did not agree with Dyson's estimate of the enterprise, and the subscription list had to be closed, full, a few hours after it was opened.

In addition to the dividends he might hope for from the new company, Walter now drew a very considerable salary—pushed through by Tasker rather against Mr. Crosland's will, who considered many items in the new concern's expenses quite unnecessarily large, but was always skilfully circumvented by Tasker, who knew how to yield small points in such a way that he gained the large ones—as manager of Heights Mill.

At Heights Walter worked with passionate intensity, not requiring Tasker's repeated reminders to be conscious of the importance of showing a good balance sheet. Trade was still terribly bad, for the price of wool went swooping down beyond the limits hitherto thought possible; but Heights, being in the public eye just then in connection with the new flotation, did pretty well—even the men who distrusted Tasker's financial arrangements admitted that in textiles he was as clever as a bagful of monkeys; and he and that young Haigh, they said, were as thick as thieves. Young Haigh was old Dyson's son, too, and had been trained under the Lumbs. Besides, one could get a slight concession in price at Heights—competitors might call it under-cutting, and point angrily at the Heights non-union labour, but in these hard times, men said, it wasn't human nature not to take advantage of it if one had the chance.

Walter bought a better car, joined several clubs, learned to ride, and pursued with delight his successful courtship of Elaine.

THE HUDLEY branch of the textile union to which the Lumbs' men chiefly belonged held its meetings in a side street not far from the centre of the town, in the upper room of a substantial old building of blackened stone, which was used similarly by several other working-class organizations. Downstairs there was a club room where one could obtain beer, billiards and dominoes; beneath the roof a sect of one of the latest pseudo-scientific religions met to perform exercises and sing hymns. On the floor between came the longish room which was the headquarters of the Union.

As Messrs. Lumb was only a small firm, those of their employees concerned in the piece-rate question could be accommodated in this room with a little crowding, and accordingly the meeting to consider Arnold Lumb's latest proposal was being held there on this bright evening of late spring. The room contained two long solid tables covered with American cloth; the shorter stood at right-angles to the longer, and both were surrounded by a good supply of chairs. Near the windows, the lower halves of which were coloured red, stood the roll-top desk, typewriter and metal files which were the working apparatus of the branch secretary.

The room was also the headquarters of various “lodges” of Oddfellows and similar organisations; the large chests containing their regalia stood in the corners, and their charters hung on the walls. Interspersed with these were rows of hooks for coats, an advertisement of the
Daily Herald
, and a collection of cards on loops of string, printed with the
names of the organisations using the room, to be hung on the door-knob outside as a warning to passers-by when they were in session. On one of these some cheerful soul had added pencil marks, so that the word “Union” became “Onion.” This irritated Milner Schofield whenever he saw it, but Harry always felt inclined to snigger—it had remained thus for years.

Milner was sitting now beside the president and secretary of the local branch of the union, at the top table; his round black eyes were bright, his expression eager; in these surroundings, and about to conduct a fight against the employers he detested, he was in his element.

Harry sat at a little distance from his brother, about the middle of the long table; somebody had carelessly left a “Vacant Book” on the table, and Harry, his chair tilted back against the cupboard behind him (which announced itself in old-fashioned coloured lettering to be the
Hudley Power Loom Tuners' Society Technical Library)
, was idly turning its leaves and noting the constant recurrence of a certain signature, every working day, every week, since the book was started—“Been out of work a long time, that chap,” thought Harry sympathetically, throwing the book down.

The meeting now began.

“I reckon we all know what we're here for,” said the president of the branch. “I'll ask the secretary to give an account of the negotiation so far.”

The local secretary, a mild-mannered man rather over middle age, short and sturdy, with greying hair and moustache, rose and began an account of the many and complicated steps—the six or seven meetings, the pile of correspondence—comprising the negotiations between Messrs. Lumb and their employees since the beginning of the current year. He spoke in homely fashion, without emphasis, and in an impartial tone.

Milner listened with passionate attention to every word; he knew the progress of the negotiations better than the secretary, corrected him once or twice on details, and fidgeted restlessly when some point was missed.

The president, observing these symptoms, stopped the secretary when he had described the history of the affair as far as the men's last reply to Arnold, and announced that before asking him to read the latest offer from Messrs. Lumb, he would call upon their shop-steward, Milner Schofield, to comment upon the negotiation so far.

Milner sprang to his feet with alacrity, his eyes gleaming. He loved public speaking, for when he spoke to an audience the ordinary, every-day Milner Schofield, so hedged about, so impotent, seemed to be transcended; he seemed to rise into a freer air, where he had room to breathe and move at his ease, where he no longer felt inferior, thwarted. And all his people, all the class he was working for, seemed to rise with him, to be freer because he felt free. He knew, too, that he spoke well, sometimes even with eloquence; and as he rose now, he made up his mind at once to give an account of the whole negotiation again, laying the stress where he thought it should be laid, namely, on the unreasonableness of Arnold's demands. He objected to wage-cuts on principle; and, further emboldened by the 1929 general election of a few weeks ago, which had resulted in a triumph for his party, he did not mean the Valley Mill wage-cuts to be accepted if he could help it—he saw vistas of power opening before himself and his class; there was no longer need to give way to the Arnolds of the world; down with them!

Looking about him with the eager, burning gaze which always fixed attention, he began his narrative. It was a keen pleasure to him to describe the visits of the local president and delegates to “Valley Mill, the discussions held as prescribed in his presence; for Milner loved union conventions,
union formalities, union constitutional checks and forms of procedure; they fed his longing for order, his sense of affairs.
We
can do things handsomely too, he felt these formalities said to the employers: we are not impotent and defenceless; we are organised, we have power! His exposition was so dramatic that although the men had heard the story already they followed him at first with close attention, but after a time they grew tired of the back-and-forth-ing of letters packed with dates and figures, and the details of proposed compromises which had long since been superseded in the five months since the negotiations began. They knew in advance that the meeting had been called to consider a fresh letter from Arnold Lumb, and the president had spoken of it too, so they began to urge Milner to cut out the old stuff, and read it at once, jeering in friendly fashion at his long-windedness.

“Too fond o' hearing hissen talk, is yon Schofield lad,” murmured one of the older men.

“Oh, let him be! Let him finish in his own way!” urged Harry Schofield good-humouredly.

“I would if he showed any sign o' finishing,” replied the other man reasonably. “But he doesn't shape at all.”

Milner, who was always sensitive to a meeting's pulse though he could not always persuade himself to obey his own intuitions and cut his speeches short, now flashed his brilliant glance round the room to gather all eyes to himself; and cried in a slightly louder tone than he had hitherto used: “I will now read the latest letter received from Messrs. W. H. Lumb & Co.”