A Modern Tragedy (37 page)

“Everybody's collecting at the front door,” he said eagerly. “Mrs. Haigh's there. She sent me to tell you. Have you any
confetti?” He opened his hand and showed a long cardboard tube, containing enough of the coloured circles to carpet the whole of Clay Hall. At Rosamond's negative he appeared shocked. “Oh, but you must have some,” he urged, and offered to pour it into her hand. Rosamond perforce accepted a fistful with a smile.

“This is Elaine's brother, Mrs. Tasker,” she said to Marian: “Ralph.”

“Will you have some confetti, Mrs. Tasker?” said Ralph at once seriously, proffering the tube.

Rosamond, remembering that the Taskers were childless, was touched to observe how Marian's face at once softened to a smile. The older woman entered eagerly into conversation with Ralph, calling him by his first name, asking him, as they strolled across the lawn towards the Hall front door, all kinds of questions about his life at school, which Rosamond could see caused Ralph acute embarrassment. The boy was just of an age when he had begun to take social manners seriously, however, and was proud of knowing the right thing to do; he answered all Marian's questions politely, if with some stumbling and hesitation, and for the first time that afternoon Tasker's wife appeared pleased.

They joined the crowd collected on the broad shallow steps, and Ralph politely excused himself and left them, to assist in tying at the back of the waiting car the traditional shoe. Rosamond too was just about to leave Mrs. Tasker and go in search of her brother, when the chatter about them swelled into a roar, and Walter and Elaine appeared in the hall within. There was the usual tumultuous assault upon bride and bridegroom, the usual showers of confetti, the usual lively expressions of good wishes and good will. Rosamond managed to push her way through the crowd, seize Walter and hug him heartily; he turned to her and gave her a brotherly kiss in exchange—the look of triumph on his face
was unmistakeable; he's got what he wanted, thought Rosamond, and tried to feel glad for his sake. Elaine, looking dazzingly fair in a neat travelling dress and coat of her favourite dove-like grey, at length emerged from the throng of her friends and reached the Crosland car—Walter's own new car, in which they were to tour in the Highlands, awaited them a mile down the road. Walter climbed in after her; Mrs. Haigh, assisted to the step by Ralph, gave her son a last convulsive embrace through the window; Mrs. Crosland, gently weeping, cried out inaudible messages of love; Henry Clay Crosland shut the car door with his own hand, said quickly: “God bless you both,” and stood back with his hands to his sides in an attitude of acceptance and resignation; and the married couple drove away to their new life together.

Contrary to Rosamond's prognostications and Elaine's fears, the honeymoon of Walter and Elaine was brilliantly happy, and they looked back on it all their lives gratefully. As if destiny were determined to favour Walter, the price of yarn had risen slightly but steadily throughout that spring up to his wedding-day, and Tasker, Haigh and Co. had paid an agreeable dividend in May (though Walter, busy with wedding preparations, had not gone very deeply into the question of how it had been earned, that was the auditor's business); so that he felt sure the slump was over, and his future on every count about to be golden, and this gave him confidence, which was half the battle with Elaine. Then, his love for her was true and deep; he was well content to take her for better or worse, and would have been happy in an earthquake with her at his side; and sincerity of that kind shows itself in a thousand ways and carries its own conviction, even to a doubter such as Elaine. But above all it was such a triumph for Walter, over so many material obstacles, to hold Elaine in his arms, that he could not avoid a triumphant, victorious, all-conquering air, and indeed did not try to; his agreeable
face sparkled with happiness, he whistled while he dressed and hummed with content when driving; he was so pleased with his own achievement that he didn't care in the least what waiters or hotel-proprietors or guests or garage-men thought of him, and consequently dealt with them all in just the off-hand, pleasant, careless manner which Elaine considered correct. That she should have the power to confer such happiness was a rapture to Elaine; it convinced her of her real desirability—for Walter, she now felt, was a person whose good opinion was worth having. Everybody they met liked him; his good looks, his kindness and his charm were undeniable, and his rise from that deplorably mediocre household in Moorside Place showed his ability; while now that Walter was her husband, Elaine could no longer feel that he was a mere unimportant boy, for he had the terrible power of conferring or withholding ecstasy. So, if he loved her so much, surely she was intensely lovable. Then too Elaine for the first time in her life was now completely at ease, contented, satisfied; for she had found her art, her true mode of expression; she was doing what she was best fitted for; she had discovered that she had a genius for love. External circumstances favoured the pair; the weather was good, their route admirably planned; Walter drove well, and they had no breakdowns. They returned to their charming house delighted with marriage and with each other.

Clough End was a seventeenth-century house lying on the brow midway between Clay Green and Heights, whose situation at the top of a deep wooded cleft gave it its name. It had lately suffered diminution from its original state and become two cottages, but both of these chanced to be empty when Walter and Elaine were seeking a house, and Mrs. Crosland suddenly saw what a charming place—so near to Clay Hall, too!—could be made of it, and urged Walter to its purchase. He bought it (with the aid of a Building Society) cheap, but
the numerous alterations necessary, with the suitable “period” furnishings, ran up a sizable bill, and Walter was glad to reflect that his May dividend would be followed presently by a November one. But Clough End was a really delightful home; the thick grey walls in their mantle of ivy, the pointed gables, the arched porchway and mullioned windows, the beautiful unimpeded view of non-industrial West Riding hills—“not a mill chimney in sight,” as Elaine said proudly—from the rear, the small but sheltered and pretty garden, the gracious taste of Elaine and her mother, and the handsome wedding presents of the Croslands' friends, combined to make it a highly agreeable resting-place for body and mind. All the young couple's friends found it so, and it was rare that two or three cars did not stand in the little paved courtyard to the side, or at the white-painted front door. The price of yarn was plunging sharply down again, and all Walter's customers seemed to be diminishing their output, so that Heights was by no means as busy as it had been before, but Walter, shaking cocktails for his guests or switching on the gramophone in the sunny Clough End garden, swam in a dream of young love, dazed with rapture; he had not seen Tasker since his wedding, and hardly noticed the outside world at all.

BUT ONE day in September the Heights lorry brought in such an astonishingly small load from Ashworth that even Walter was startled. He thought there must be some mistake, and rang up Victory Mills in a flurry.

“Oh, you're alive, are you?” said Tasker in a tone of surprise. Walter, taken aback, gave a deprecating laugh, and said that he supposed he was. “It's so long since we've heard anything of you—of either of you,” continued Tasker grimly, “that I'd begun to wonder.”

Walter coloured in embarrassment at the implications of this last sentence, and stammered out the purpose for which he had rung up.

“Oh, you've noticed it?” said Tasker in the same sardonic tone as before. “Well, it was about time you did. I must have a talk with you, Walter,” he went on more seriously. “Soon. November isn't so far off, you know.”

“November?” said Walter faintly.

“Yes. You may remember, if you haven't forgotten it honeymooning,” said Tasker, reverting to his sarcastic note, “that we've a half-yearly dividend to pay then. When can I see you privately? To-night? And where?”

There was so much significance in the last query that Walter hurriedly said: “At Clough End, of course. Dine with us, won't you? Elaine,” he went on at once without knowing why—“Elaine I believe will be over at Clay Hall. I'm not
sure but I believe so. But that won't prevent us from having a quiet chat, will it.”

“I daresay not,” said Tasker as before.

Walter, colouring again, strove to maintain his casual friendly tone as he told Tasker the hour at which they dined.

“I'll be there,” said Tasker grimly, and rang off.

It was clear to Walter that Tasker was offended because he and his wife had not yet been invited to Clough End, and indeed when Walter considered the course of events which had landed him there as Elaine's husband, he could not but feel that Tasker had a right to accuse him of gross ingratitude, indeed he marvelled himself at the shortness of his own memory for the events of the past two years. He felt wretchedly uncomfortable about it all morning, left the mill early at lunch time, drove much faster than usual to Clough End, rushed through the house into the garden, where Elaine was cutting chrysanthemums, and had hardly kissed his wife before he blurted:

“Elaine—have you returned Mrs. Tasker's wedding call?”

“No, I haven't,” replied Elaine rather crossly, feeling ruffled by his sudden indifference to her person—his greeting was usually much more lover-like.

“Oh, Elaine!” said Walter reproachfully. “You ought to have done it before now. Why, it must be three months since. Really you ought, you know.”

“My dear child,” said Elaine, still further ruffled: “There are still heaps of people whose calls I haven't returned. I can't get round three hundred people all in a moment.”

“You ought to have gone to the Taskers among the first,” contended Walter.

“Why?” said Elaine coolly. “They're not particularly our friends, are they? They're certainly not mine.”

“Tasker has done a great deal for me,” said Walter, walking
up and down in a turmoil of feeling and looking wretched. “I shouldn't be here now, married to you, if it were not for Tasker.”

Elaine did not like this; indeed it fretted the very foundations of her feeling for Walter. She thought Tasker sinister and his wife impossible; but as she had not the slightest intention of being drawn into an intimacy with them, this did not trouble her. What caused her real uneasiness was the suggestion that Walter's rise from Moorside Place to Clough End was not due to his own efforts. She could admire Walter as a self-made man, love him for having made himself for her; but if he were merely the product of somebody else's manufacture, there remained only his intrinsic qualities to admire and love, and plenty of other young men in Elaine's circle had the same qualities as Walter, and had them in a higher state of polish.

“Please call on Mrs. Tasker soon, Elaine,” urged Walter, stopping in front of her. “To please me, do.”

“Oh, very well,” said Elaine in an airy tone, rather pleased by Walter's male insistence, but angered by its object. “But I can't go this afternoon, because I've got some people coming for tennis, and I can't go to-morrow, because——” She embarked on an account of a long string of engagements, mostly real, but partially invented, which would prevent her going to Ashworth for another ten days at least. She watched Walter intently as she spoke, her brilliant eyes searching his face; unconsciously she hoped that he would put his foot down, assert his personality, become again the confident dominating young man whom she loved—she did not like him in this anxious, fearful mood. But Walter merely sighed and said nothing, and continued to wear a harassed air. He was discovering, as he listened to Elaine's soft unconcerned little voice, gazed at her smooth delicious cheek, her clear eyes, that he hated the thought of Elaine coming into contact
with the Taskers at all. That, he now found, was the reason for his quick lie to Tasker on the telephone about Elaine's probable absence at Clay Hall that night. In the last few happy months he had forgotten the ambiguous foundations of his fortunes; prompted by Tasker he was now recalling them, and he found the reminder highly disagreeable. Elaine and Clough End—his wife and his home—were sacred to him, and he felt an odious incongruity, almost a sacrilege, in the juxtaposition of the best in his life with what he now remembered to be the worst. He was therefore secretly glad that Elaine should be kept remote from the Taskers yet a little while longer, and wished she could always be so, yet was troubled by the ingratitude of her unfriendliness, and what Tasker must think of it, and felt himself under an obligation to correct it. He detested the thought of Tasker coming to Clough End more every minute, but was obliged to implement his invitation; and in this serious trouble forgot any concern for Elaine's surface sensibilities, and blurted crossly:

“I've asked Tasker to dinner to-night.”

“Really, Walter!” exclaimed Elaine, colouring. “I think you might have consulted me first. We have a telephone.”

Walter, who had lately learned from her with some pains the aristocratic notion that one should always be ready to welcome guests, and that any other attitude was to be regarded as plebeian, was taken aback. “I thought it would be all right,” he said timidly.

“You know we'd promised to go to Clay Hall,” said Elaine, greatly vexed and therefore exaggerating this engagement, which was in reality a promise to call for a few minutes only.

“Yes—I thought you might go without me?” suggested Walter, accepting this with great relief as a way out of his dilemma.

“Really, Walter!” said Elaine again, enraged. “I don't intend to forget my manners just because you have none.”

Walter winced and looked chidden.

“Of course if you've invited Mr. Tasker, I shall be here to receive him,” went on Elaine with her loftiest air. “And Mrs. Tasker? Is she coming too?”