A Modern Tragedy (34 page)

Miss Elaine Clay Crosland of Clay Hall, whose engagement is
announced to Mr. Walter Haigh of Heights near Hudley.

Harry felt interested: Walter Haigh, old Dyson's son; fancy! A paragraph among the personal news gave Walter's history:
Director of Messrs. Tasker, Haigh and Company
, read Harry,
in charge of that firm's dyeing and finishing plant at Heights Mill.

“By gow!” cried Harry joyfully. He put on his cap and rushed from the room.

He had not wasted money on a public conveyance for weeks, but somehow he felt that this occasion was worth risking a copper for; he hurried into town, took a penny bus-fare, walked the rest of the hill, and soon found himself turning down the lane to Heights.

“He'll be in a good humour, too, just being tokened,” thought Harry, almost running in his eagerness to try his luck.

At Heights the office clerk was sharp with him, but he said
firmly that he had come from Valley Mill. Rather perplexed, the clerk said he might wait, but added that Mr. Haigh was very busy down in the mill, and that unless it was urgent he wouldn't call him up for Harry alone.

“It isn't urgent,” admitted Harry, fearful of the effect a summons of the kind might have on Walter's temper. Though he was a kindly lad, reflected Harry, as far as he remembered him. Fancy him head of a big place like this! While Harry and Milner hung about, unemployed. It wasn't a fair do; Milner was likely right enough about the class war, after all. Harry stood by the door, cap in hand, and gradually cooled and grew disheartened, waiting.

Half an hour later Walter came in with a quick step, a frown on his forehead and a paper in his hand. He fired off a question, and at once there was a bustle in the place: the day book was consulted, the house-telephone used. His question at last answered, Walter was about to hurry on, when the head clerk nodded his head in the direction of Harry, and Walter turned to him. Neither he nor Harry knew each other at first, so changed (though in different ways) were they both, but after a minute, recognition was mutual.

“Why, it's Harry Schofield!” said Walter. He sounded agreeably surprised, and Harry took heart.

“I thought you might have a bit o' something for me, Mester Walter,” he began nervously, twisting his cloth cap about in his hands. “We've had a bit of a do, like, down at Valley, as I daresay you've heard tell, and I'm wanting a job.”

Walter gave him an odd look, and stood silent, considering. He did not need a tenterer now, but he could possibly find Harry a place in the packing room, and work him in at his own job later. And the whim came over him to do so, to take Harry on. Walter's whole position now—director of Tasker's, engaged to Elaine, manager of Heights—was, he reflected
cynically, in point of fact due to the Schofield brothers. If they had not allowed piece 28641—how its number sprang up in his memory as soon as he thought of the incident—to become damaged, Walter would never have met Tasker, never seen Elaine. Of course the damage was an accident; it might have happened to anybody, it was not in any sense a result of the Schofields' volition, indeed it was hardly even their fault; still, there were the facts. And Walter felt that Harry Schofield was his “luck,” his mascot, as it were. How odd it was, thought Walter, that Harry should turn up like this, just when Walter had reached his highest point so far, gained his dearest wish, become formally betrothed! He accepted the omen; he must acknowledge the luck Harry had brought, or the fates might turn against him. He'd find room for him somewhere; a decent, reliable chap like Harry was never amiss. Besides, Walter was used to indulging his whims now, and liked doing so; it made him feel powerful, gave him room to breathe.

With all these motives seething in his mind, he said suddenly, with a reckless air: “Well, I daresay I can put you in.”

Harry involuntarily made a strange sound in his throat.

“You know what we pay, I expect,” went on Walter carelessly, naming a wage below the union rate. “We aren't a union shop here. If you like to come for that, you can.”

There was a pause. Harry stood turning his cloth cap slowly about in his hands.

“I don't reckon I can do that, Mester, Walter,” he said at length, his forehead damp with sweat. “I'm a union man, you know.”

“Well, take it or leave it,” said Walter impatiently. “I don't care which. Make up your mind, that's all.”

There was a long pause.

“I'll tek it,” gasped Harry.

“Right! Well, start to-morrow at the usual time,” said
Walter. He hurried on into the inner office, throwing over his shoulder instructions as to what work the new man was to be set to do.

Harry rushed out of the mill, along the lane, down the long hill and up through Hudley to Thwaite Street, burst into his home and cried out, panting: “Jessie! Jessie!”

“Whatever is it, love?” cried his wife in alarm, running out of the scullery to meet him.

“Get out my overalls, lass,” shouted Harry proudly: “I've got a job.”

“Oh, Harry!” cried Jessie, tears of joy coming into her eyes. “Tha never has!”

“Eh, but I have!” cried Harry triumphantly. “I'm starting in t'morning.”

Jessie threw her arms about his neck and kissed him. Harry clasped her closely to him, entangling his hands in the straps of her rubber apron across her back; they both laughed at his clumsiness, and suddenly were sobbing on each other's shoulders. The estrangement of the last few weeks was not so much forgotten as erased from their minds as they gulped and kissed.

“Aye, you may well teem,” said Mrs. Schofield, regarding them with satisfaction over her shoulder while she filled the kettle and set it on the fire, to make the cup of tea which she felt the emotion of the occasion demanded. “It were about time one on you got a job, it were that.”

This recalled Milner to Harry's mind, and at once he felt uneasy. His arms slackened about Jessie's waist, and he said thoughtfully: “I reckon our Milner won't be so pleased.”

“Why not?” asked Jessie, but not as though she greatly cared to know.

“It isn't a union job,” said Harry, rather shamefaced.

“It doesn't matter,” said Jessie consolingly.

But Mrs. Schofield, who like the prophet of old never prophesied comfortable things when asked to do so, said at once: “Eh, but that's awkward, lad. It never pays to get across wi' thy union, tha knows.”

“Well, I can't help it,” said Harry defiantly. “It's not a union shop. It's at Heights wi' young Walter Haigh—you know, mother, Dyson's son. He's got a nice place there. They look busy, too.”

“Dyson Haigh! Eh, I remember the day he were wed,” said Mrs. Schofield in a sentimental tone. She embarked on a series of involved anecdotes about Dyson Haigh and her husband, who had each worked for Messrs. Lumb for such a length of years. Her eyes sparkled as she thus recalled the past, she laughed at the remembrance of Isaiah's and Dyson's mutual repartees, and her annoyance about the nonunion character of Harry's new work died away. The fact that it was a job under Dyson Haigh's son made it respectable in her eyes.

Milner, returning drearily to the sombre household he had left, was astonished to find everyone in high spirits. He had already met Dorothy in the street, eating a substantial “piece” of bread and treacle; Jessie was singing softly to herself in the scullery; Harry sat dandling Hal on his knee; Mrs. Schofield was actually just putting down a plate of scraps for Nance. Milner could hardly believe his eyes when he saw the last occurrence; he stared about him in amaze—and his eyes lighted upon Harry's blue overalls, hung over the brass rod below the mantelpiece to air. At once he guessed Harry's good news. A dark and bitter flood of envy seemed to rise in his throat. He choked it down and said hoarsely:

“You've got a job, I reckon?”

Harry turned a flushed and happy face to him—the child, erect on his father's lap, was making joyous onslaughts on his hair.

“Aye—at Heights wi' young Walter Haigh. Mind, lovey! You may as well know first as last, Milner,” went on Harry in a dry tone, trying to unclasp the tight little fists, but only provoking a delicious scuffle, “It's not a union job.”

The blood rushed to Milner's face.

“Aren't you ashamed?” he panted in a fury. “Don't you know every time a man takes non-union rates he pushes all t'workers in t'world back a step? I never thought a brother of mine would have acted so. I never thought,” said Milner with frightful bitterness, “that a Schofield would have turned scab.”

“Well, by gow!” shouted Harry, springing to his feet, all the bitterness of the last few months suddenly rushing to his lips. “I like that from you, Milner Schofield! I like that, I do, when it were all your fault I were out of a job to start wi'. We should be working at Lumb's to-day if it wasn't for your pig-headed way o' going on. You're too fond o' t' sound of your own voice, that's what's the matter wi' you. Your head's so swollen you can't see straight. You're that proud there's no living wi' you.”

“If you feel that way,” panted Milner, very pale, “I'd better clear out.”

“Don't talk like a fool, Milner Schofield,” said his mother at this, from the hearth. (Jessie, at the scullery door, gazed at the scene wide-eyed, but knew intuitively that Harry would be furious if she interfered.) “Where would you go?”

“I don't care where I go,” panted Milner, “but I won't stay here.”

“Nay, Milner,” protested Harry, who, now that he had expressed his bitterness and it was past, remembered only his affection for his brother: “I didn't mean owt o' that sort, lad. This is your home, same as it's mine.”

Milner turned and began to take down his coats and caps from the back of the door.

“Don't act so daft, Milner,” said Mrs. Schofield in a commanding tone. “Hang up them coats and have some sense. Tha'll stay here wi' thy mother. I lived here afore either Harry or thee were born, and it's for me to say who's to live here and who isn't. Now both on you sit down, and give up shouting—you're making t'babby cry.”

Indeed Hal, alarmed by the loud voices and his father's angry face, was weeping bitterly. Mrs. Schofield snatched him from her son, and saying: “There, there! Did it father shout then?” marched across the room joggling the child soothingly, then unexpectedly dumped him in Milner's arms. “Mak thysen useful, lad,” she said with a hearty cackle. Milner stood completely taken aback, clasping the child and his coats confusedly together, and mechanically patting Hal's back. Mrs. Schofield took his coats from him and hung them on his hook, then pushed him into a chair. Milner's eyes sought Harry's in bewilderment.

“My mother's right,” said Harry shortly. “It's her home and thine, long afore it's my childer's.”

The crisis was over, and family feeling had triumphed. But Harry was in reality vexed by his mother's assumption of ownership, and though he intended Milner to stay, his tone was not cordial.

Milner felt the rift between them, which had opened when Harry ceased to picket, now suddenly become a gulf so wide that his brother was hardly within hailing distance. Harry was not a trade-unionist any longer; and Harry was employed. Milner sat there, the child's soft cheek against his own, and felt lonely, set apart, despised and rejected of men.

Next day Harry began his new work.

On the Thursday of that week Walter, as usual, went to Bradford, making the round of his clients, and trying to secure new ones.

A manufacturer in one of the outlying districts, who had
hitherto remained obdurate to his weekly pleadings—he was a customer of Lumb's for a certain amount of pieces—remarked to him casually: “I hear they're having a bit of trouble with their men, at Lumb's?”

“Yes, so I hear. It was before the holidays, I think,” said Walter pleasantly. He was tired of this piece of gossip, which had gone the rounds all summer, for he still disliked to talk of Arnold Lumb; but he always made himself agreeable to prospective customers.

“Is it settled now, then?” enquired the manufacturer.

“Settled? Oh, no,” said Walter, making conversation. “The men have left—I've got one or two myself.”

The moment the words had passed his lips he could have bitten his tongue out for saying them. Their implication—that Arnold had lost his experienced workmen, who had turned out good work for his customers for years, and that Walter had thought those experienced workmen sufficiently important to secure them to work for him—was about the most damaging thing to Messrs. Lumb's trade which he could very well have uttered. And it would go all over the West Riding—such gossip always did. He crimsoned, and said hastily: “Only one or two.”

The manufacturer looked at him curiously. He had understood the implications of Walter's remark well enough, and he thought that Walter's later confusion, his attempt to minimise the effect of what he had said, arose from a decent desire to play the game, and not hurt his former employer by unfair means—everyone knew that Walter was honest old Dyson Haigh's son, and as he was engaged to Henry Clay Crosland's grand-daughter now, he must be a very decent and able young fellow.

For that very reason the manufacturer discounted the attempt to minimise, and thought the original remark had probably held more truth. At any rate, there was no harm
in trying. Good work was good work, and sentiment mustn't be allowed to interfere with it; and Lumb's work had gone off badly just before Wakes; indeed, that was the cause of his original remark to Walter. He had attributed the deterioration to the natural disorganisation of the summer months, with the Wakes and one thing and another, and the work had been improving again lately, he thought. But if Lumb's had lost all their best men to Heights, he might have to send his cloth there instead of to Valley Mill.