A Modern Tragedy (39 page)

“Yes,” said Walter gloomily. He stood with his hands in his pockets and his back to the fire, while Elaine took a sandwich from the tray the maid had brought, and strolled about the room, nibbling delicately, and subconsciously enjoying the display of her young beauty to her husband.

“Was it very worrying, Walter?” she asked, putting a caress into her utterance of his name.

“Yes,” repeated Walter as before.

“You should never worry about money, Walter,” said his wife in a tone of playful reproach: “I have enough to keep us in a barn, and that's all we need.”

Walter, who thought differently of Elaine's needs, and was only too painfully conscious that if Tasker, Haigh & Co. crashed, the fortunes of the Croslands would crash also—the integrity of his grandfather-in-law, and Tasker's huge commitments, would see to that—winced and said crossly, out of his pain:

“You know nothing about it.”

“Well, tell me then,” urged Elaine, standing in front of him and looking up into his face, her brilliant eyes sparkling a delicious invitation.

But for poor Walter this was almost worse; to be invited to tell Henry Clay Crosland's grand-daughter of the increasing fraud in which her husband was involving him was a torment beyond his endurance.

“Oh, don't let us talk about it,” he said in a weary fretful tone, stepping aside. “Are you ready to go up? I'm frightfully tired.”

Elaine felt rebuffed, humiliated. Her too-sensitive mechanism of defence moved her to strike back at once; she sat down perversely on the edge of the stool where Tasker's papers had lain, and with her intuition for finding the weak joint in any armour, she remarked:

“You're afraid of Mr. Tasker, Walter.”

“I am
not!
” exclaimed Walter hotly. He could not help adding gloomily: “I hate the fellow, that's all.”

“You hate him!” exclaimed Elaine. All the irritations of the day seemed suddenly to beat wild wings in her brain, and her lovely little face quivered with chagrin. “Upon my word, Walter!” she cried disdainfully, “you change your loves and hates very often. You must be a very fickle person. At lunch-time to-day you were threatening me with all sorts of awful penalties because I haven't been to call on Mr. Tasker's horrible wife, you said he was our benefactor and we ought to be grateful to him, you expect me to do all sorts of unreasonable things to please him, you break an engagement with me to talk to him—and then you say you hate him. It's so inconsistent, Walter, it's so illogical. Why should we have to entertain him here, if you hate him?”

Walter, for whom the exaggerations and distortions of this speech were so many darts skilfully planted in the sore fibres of his quivering nerves, reflected that he might easily reply: “Because he's my business partner, and I have to keep 'in' with him.” But he was quite incapable of uttering even so tempered a version of the sordid and brutal truth to his
wife; he might be engaged in dishonest conspiracy, he told himself, but he had not sunk to the level of trying to drag her in too, of trying to secure her help with Tasker. He therefore made no reply, but simply stared in front of him with a stupid inattentive air, and Elaine cried angrily, her grey eyes glittering:

“I do despise people who don't know their own minds!”

It was the first time since their marriage that she had thus made Walter the object of one of her wounding implications; he started, stung unbearably, and exclaimed:

“Do you mean you despise me?”

Elaine slightly shrugged her shoulders. “If the cap fits,” she said.

They quarrelled fiercely, and slept unreconciled.

The quarrel was over, and they were lovers again, long before the end of the week; but the incident had made a rift within the lute of their accord. And it was a rift which steadily widened, because the elements which combined to widen it—the divided mind and forced reserve which sprang from Walter's insecurity, Elaine's need for a reassurance in which she could have faith—were constantly present. Tasker's method of surmounting the present financial difficulties of Messrs. Tasker Haigh was one which involved himself and Walter in endless shifts, evasions, dangerous diplomatic interviews, and careerings about the county to different banks; but stated in a sentence, it consisted of using the money the public had subscribed, to pay the dividends and such of the firm's running expenses as its receipts did not meet. The November dividend was thus paid, and the affair passed without question, while Walter went about his business in the day with a blithe and cheerful look to create confidence, and at night tossed sleepless at Elaine's side in an agony of fear. The winter was a fearful one for industry; the price of yarn sank to unheard-of depths; the volume of work, at
Victory Mills and Heights, dropped and dropped. None of Walter's customers left him; indeed he even gained new ones, who were attracted, not so much by the sound quality of his work, though that was widely recognised, as by the cut prices he accepted. But the output of every customer he had was reduced and again reduced. Walter discharged nearly half his men—keeping Harry Schofield, however, for Harry was his mascot—and ran Heights only three days a week. Meanwhile Walter continued to draw the salary prescribed by his service agreement, and to live the life of a rich man. He and Elaine rushed hither and thither in their cars, danced in Harrogate, did theatres in Leeds, entertained and accepted hospitality all over the West Riding. Few were the evenings which they spent alone in their own home. Indeed Walter could no longer bear to sit quietly by his own fireside, or to sit quietly in the country, or to sit quietly anywhere; he was obliged to have constant and violent distraction for his mind. For the moment such distractions ceased and left him time to think, the financial situation of Messrs. Tasker Haigh recurred with dreadful force to him, and he drew out pencil and paper, became absorbed in figures, tried to compel them to his will. But they would not be compelled; he could not make them yield the dividends which Tasker had so confidently promised and the investors were (though perhaps less confidently) awaiting. Then Walter's face grew harassed and his eyes afraid, and Elaine, watching him, felt distrust, irritation, anger, contempt, flowing in her heart. Elaine and Walter continued to love each other, but they had little satisfaction in their love. Increasingly hard and adroit at the mill and in society, Walter was increasingly ill at ease at home; the pressure of his present circumstances created both states of mind and each exacerbated the other. Elaine, vexed into scorn by his uneasiness, constantly made
him suffer, despised him the more for suffering, and made him suffer the more again.

And so it came about, as a result of Tasker's visit to Clough End, that Elaine announced abruptly that she did not wish yet to have a child.

Previously she had expressed no such reluctance, and Walter felt a shock of horrified surprise, a relic as he supposed (and as Elaine took pains to inform him) of his plebeian upbringing, at her announcement and the manner of it; but he yielded, and presently did not regret the decision. The quiet domestic joys were not for him—not, at any rate, until he could once more look honest men in the face and feel himself their equal.

In February and March business seemed a little brisker, and Tasker said they would be fools to throw in their hand now, when the slump was surely going to break, and trade take an upward turn. Accordingly, by expedients similar to those of the previous autumn, they paid the May dividend out of the public's capital, and falsified the stock at Victory Mills to arrange the balance sheet to their satisfaction. Naturally neither Henry Clay Crosland, whose deafness and look of age had increased noticeably of late, nor the company's auditor, knew anything of this; Tasker “pulled wool over their eyes,” as he gleefully called it, with complete success. The fraud was not discovered, and the second annual meeting of Messrs. Tasker, Haigh and Co. passed off without a hitch.

The following month brought the first anniversary of the young Haighs' wedding. It found them still at Clough End (which was as yet by no means paid for); childless, leading a restless, pleasure-seeking life; outwardly happy, still in love, but mutually wounded and wounding by the psychological consequences of the falsity of Walter's position.

FATHER,” said Arnold Lumb in a hoarse strained tone: “It's no good. We shall have to give up. We can't go on any longer.”

It was a cool summer evening in 1931. The Lumbs had finished their high tea, and sat about the empty dining-room hearth, with the exception of Reetha, who was doing her home-lessons in the kitchen. Arnold was pretending to smoke a pipe, Mrs. Lumb knitting; Mr. Lumb (who had not entered Valley Mill since the posting of the notice to the men two years ago) was reading the
Hudley News.
There was silence for a few moments after Arnold had spoken. Mrs. Lumb had been warned beforehand by her son of this announcement; when it came she merely gave an abrupt movement in her chair, then continued to knit, looking from beneath lowered lids at her husband. Mr. Lumb seemed not to have heard; he continued to read, the outstretched paper concealing his face. Arnold nerved himself to further speech.

“Trade's been so terribly bad,” he began. “Nobody's making a quarter of the cloth they used to do. Then we've such serious competition to face in prices.” He went on in a slow, heavy tone, outlining the causes which had effected the Lumbs' ruin, quoting figures, making it clear that bankruptcy was inevitable. “I'm sorry, father,” he concluded sadly. “I've done my best, but it seems I can't manage it.”

Mr. Lumb, still keeping his face covered, mumbled: “It's not your fault. I don't blame you for it, Arnold.”

“Thank you, father,” said Arnold. “I don't think myself
it's my fault—but of course you never know,” he went on dejectedly. “At any rate,” he concluded: “I've arranged it with the bank this morning.”

“You shouldn't have done that without consulting me!” exclaimed Mr. Lumb. He lowered the newspaper, revealing a ravaged face, and repeated sharply: “You shouldn't have done that without me. Do you hear what I say, Arnold? You shouldn't have done that without me.”

“I'm sorry, father,” said Arnold mildly. “Of course we shall need your signature to all the papers, later.”

Mr. Lumb snorted, then raised the newspaper to his eyes again. He turned over the leaves from time to time, and read with seeming intentness. At last he came to the end of the paper, folded it up with care, replaced his glasses in their shabby case, rose and staggered from the room. His face was so distorted and wild as he did so that Arnold and Mrs. Lumb exchanged glances of alarm, and when presently there came the slurring sound which meant that he was taking down his coat from the row of hooks in the hall, Mrs. Lumb rose and went heavily out to him. In silence she helped him on with his summer coat, brushed his collar, handed him his bowler hat and his fine mahogany stick, then enquired mildly:

“Where are you going, William?”

“Never mind,” said the old man with an angry look. “I'm going out, that's all.”

“When will you be back, love?” demanded Mrs. Lumb in a calm soothing tone.

“Expect me when you see me,” replied her husband.

“Shall I come with you, father?” suggested Arnold, who was watching from the dining-room door.

“No!” exclaimed Mr. Lumb fiercely, striking his stick on the tiles of the porch. “I can go for a walk by myself, I suppose, even if I'm not fit to interview bank managers.”

Arnold, seeing that his father was really hurt by his own approach to the bank without consulting him, did not quite know what to say to this, so he remained in the background, hesitating, while his father moved heavily off down the asphalt slope.

“Don't be late, love,” called Mrs. Lumb cheerfully after him from the front door. The moment the gate had swung to behind him she turned to Arnold with tears in her eyes. “We can't let him go out alone like that, Arnold!” she exclaimed. “He may do himself an injury.”

“I'll follow him,” said Arnold quickly, reaching for his hat.

“No, no!” objected Mrs. Lumb wringing her hands. “He'll see you and be angry. What shall we do, Arnold? Oh,” she cried in relief, “we'll send Reetha. Reetha!” she called, limping along the hall. “Reetha, love! Come here quickly.”

Reetha,. who was always glad to be interrupted in her homework, appeared at the kitchen door with an expectant face, and asked: “What is it, granny?” eagerly.

“Follow your grandfather and see where he goes, love,” explained Mrs. Lumb, bustling the child into her school coat and doing up the buttons with trembling fingers. “He isn't so well to-night. If you see him doing anything—funny—go up to him and make him come home. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” said Reetha, nodding. Proud of being entrusted with such a responsible task she ran down the garden path gaily.

Reaching the gate and looking to left and right she saw to her surprise that her grandfather had turned up the hill instead of down towards Hudley; he had not gone very far, and as he was walking slowly and heavily, with frequent pauses when he leaned on his stick, she had difficulty in keeping sufficiently far behind him to be unnoticed. Indeed once
or twice she was almost sure that he had seen her, and that she was right was soon proved, for on turning the next corner of the road after him she almost fell into his arms—he had been lying in wait for her.

“If I didn't think so!” he exclaimed on a note of sarcastic joviality. “If I didn't think so! And what are you following me about for, missy, I should like to know?”

“Granny thought you weren't very well,” replied Reetha.

“I'm as fit as a fiddle,” snapped Mr. Lumb crossly. “You go home now, and tell your granny I'm going to see an old friend. Do you hear? An old friend.”