A Modern Tragedy (42 page)

“Aye—it's a right pity,” agreed Harry without conviction. “But it's a good thing I left when I did.”

The Schofield family went to bed that night happier than they had been for a long time.

The following morning, Walter was summoned from the Heights scouring-room with a message that Mr. Tasker wanted to speak to him urgently on the telephone. “I spend my whole life telephoning to Tasker,” thought Walter in a fury, as he hurried along to the office. “I'm sick of being at his beck and call.” He snatched up the receiver and said savagely:

“If it's those indigos you're wanting, Leonard, you can't have them. They're not done, and they won't be before Wakes. So now you know.”

“It isn't the indigos,” said Tasker in a tone of mild amusement. “You can throw them in Heights beck, for all I care. Listen—did you see in the papers that Lumbs are down at last?”

“Yes—I knew a week ago,” said Walter sourly, wincing.

“You knew and you didn't tell me?” said Tasker in surprise. “That wasn't very clever of you, Walter.”

To cover his shrinking distaste for the subject Walter interrupted in a hard tone: “I'm surprised they've lasted so long.”

“They wouldn't have done if they'd had any sense,” said Tasker in a tone of genuine regret, as of an artist who sees the work of another marred by some avoidable flaw. “Arnold Lumb ought to have gone into liquidation last year, or even the year before, when he had something left, and could have bought back his business from the bank. Now the Lumbs have put in every penny they've got, and lost it all—they've nothing to start with again. But I say, Walter—who's their landlord?”

Walter said shortly that he did now know.

“Well, do you know whether they own the building themselves, or not?” said Tasker.

“No,” said Walter.

“Well, is their machinery screwed down? Attached to the building, I mean?” continued Tasker.

“How should I know?” snapped Walter.

“Your father would have known,” said Tasker in a tone of reproach.

“That's not much help now, is it?” said Walter from the bitterness of his heart.

“You're in a very bad temper this morning, Walter,” said Tasker teasingly. “What's wrong?”

“Nothing. Oh, Leonard!” exclaimed Walter suddenly. “I believe I could find out for you about the Valley Mill machinery, if it's important. Why do you want to know?”

“Oh, I won't keep you away from your pet indigos now,” said Tasker in a tone of affectionate mockery. “Meet me for lunch and I'll tell you.” He named a time and place for Walter to meet him in Leeds, and rang off.

Walter at once went in search of Harry Schofield, who was now on his proper work at a tentering machine, with a boy in attendance. He had some difficulty in making Harry understand what he wanted to know, and his own ignorance of why the information was wanted increased, though it failed to make him sympathetic to, Harry's perplexity. “It's a simple question,” thought Walter irritably. “Why doesn't he just answer it?” Aloud he said to Harry: “Your father would have known.”

“Aye—well—he would,” said Harry, and looked abashed. After prolonged thought he suddenly brightened. “I remember my father saying that when old Mr. Lumb bought the place,” he began, and narrated a complicated anecdote, full of names and dates and reasons for remembering it and lengthy side-issues—during the recital of which Walter positively scowled with impatience—from which at last emerged the indisputable fact that the machinery of Valley Mill was not attached to its fabric. Walter was pleased at having secured definite information, though uncertain whether Tasker wished for this answer or its reverse. He took the trouble to ascertain that the Heights machinery, unlike that of Valley Mill, was secured to the building, and felt more curious than ever as to Tasker's motive for the enquiry.

When, therefore, they met at lunch and Walter communicated Harry's information, he watched Tasker with some interest to see how he received it. There was no doubting Tasker's reaction; his hard face, which had become slightly worn during the incessant schemings and many narrow escapes of the past year, brightened at once, and his blue eyes positively sparkled with naughty glee.

“Good!” he said.

“Why did you want to know?” demanded Walter.

“Lumbs' bank are sure to have a first debenture on the business, you see,” explained Tasker: “against their over
draft. So they'll get the whole lot. But if the machinery had been screwed down, the landlord would have first claim on that, for the amount of rent owing, and that would have made it awkward.”

“Made what awkward? Valley Mill belongs to the Lumbs, anyhow,” said Walter. “So their foreman's son says.”

“Oh, does it? Better and better,” said Tasker.

“Why? But what an odd idea, that the landlord should have a lien on the machinery like that,” mused Walter.

“Oh, it's some lawyers' nonsense or other,” said Tasker contemptuously. “I don't know how they make it out, I'm sure. But it is so, I happen to know.”

“You know because that's how you got hold of Heights,” sneered Walter, for the whole thing had become plain to him in a sudden flash. “You were the Heights landlord, or Dollam made out you were, and that's how you got hold of the machinery. Wasn't it?” He spoke in a tone of scornful challenge, looking Tasker angrily in the face.

“Well, if I did, it was a good thing for you, wasn't it?” retorted Tasker. “Don't be so damned disagreeable, Walter—I don't like the way you're talking to-day, at all. If you want to quarrel with me, say so; I don't give a damn what you do, one way or the other. Make up your mind, that's all—and then go off and tell dear old Henry Clay about the company's finances, and see what he says to you.”

Walter, white to the lips and seething with hate, came to heel and observed smoothly that the idea of quarrelling had never entered his head—he was still upset about the loss of his father, he hinted.

“Well, let's get down to business now,” said Tasker, dismissing Walter's private sentiments in a tone of disgust. “I think we'll buy up Lumbs' business cheap from the bank as a going concern,” he said, and having made this astonishing announcement began to eat heartily.

“But what on earth for?” demanded the horrified Walter. “We don't want another dyeing and finishing plant, surely? It takes me all my time to find enough work for Heights.”

“We don't want a competitor to start Valley Mill again, you know,” said Tasker.

“Who's likely to do, in the present state of trade?” objected Walter. “Besides, if Arnold Lumb can't keep it solvent, nobody else can.” (He felt quite a warm glow of virtue after this tribute to Arnold.)

“I don't agree with you there, Walter,” said Tasker in the serious tone he kept for matters about which he really cared. “Arnold Lumb's a good man at his job, but he's no head for finance. I bet I could get him out of his difficulties even now, if I tried my hand at it.”

“Then why don't you?” suggested Walter ironically.

“Don't be a fool, Walter,” urged Tasker. “It's such a waste of time. I don't know what Lumb will do, I'm sure—there's no job going for him in the West Riding that I can see. If trade was better, I'd be glad to keep him on to manage Valley, but as things are now, you'll have to run both places—you've plenty of time.”

“Me?” exclaimed Walter in horror. “Oh no!” His whole body seemed to freeze and twist, as though someone had poured cold poison into his veins. His teeth were on edge. “You can't be serious, Leonard,” he said weakly. “The Valley Mill business isn't any earthly use to us that I can see.”

Tasker leaned across the table and fixed his blue eyes piercingly on Walter's. “It might come in useful for our next balance sheet,” he said in a low firm tone.

“You mean, work the Heights trick again? As you did at the creditors' meeting? Put it down as more than it's worth?” gasped Walter.

“You're improving, Walter,” said Tasker with a sardonic
smile. “You can see something when it's put in front of your nose, nowadays. I've let Lumbs' bank know already I'm interested in the business,” he went on briskly, beginning to eat again, “and told them I shall probably make them an offer for it presently. Now about making the payment—we shall have to do at least part of it in ready money. And we shall have to camouflage the price somehow.”

He went on, sketching in his customary succinct and able manner the scheme by which Messrs. Tasker, Haigh and Co.'s next May's balance sheet was to be made to appear solvent and attractive. Walter perforce listened, sick at heart. The scene was so odiously familiar; it seemed to him that he had spent the greater part of the last three years thus combining lunch and conspiracy. The very taste of the food, good yet slightly gritty, was the same as it always was, as it always had been, when Tasker was outlining some nefarious financial scheme. Walter felt that he would like never to see a waiter, a menu, the dining-room of a large provincial hotel, with its expanse of white tablecloths, its discreet lace curtains, its staring patterned carpet and prim palms, again. And suddenly this feeling surged up and overwhelmed him; a homesick feeling, a longing for the days when he had never entered the dining-rooms of large hotels and did not know what they were like, the days when he was a simple gawky well-meaning lad, with an expression of innocent candour on his bright young face, a badly tailored suit, and hair cut rather too long. “Oh, God!” thought Walter with bitter yearning: “If only I could go back to the day when I first came in here with Tasker!” Pictures rose in rapid succession before his mind; idyllic pictures, of himself living happily at Moorside Place with his father and mother and Rosamond, his only care, whether the evening would be fine for tennis. He almost groaned aloud, but choked it down—for what was the use? He was in the mire up to the neck now, and
could not draw back; his only hope was to go on, and go on under the leadership of Tasker. Tasker was the only man who could get them out of their present mess, he knew—“damn him!” thought Walter. Ah, if he had never met Tasker! If Tasker had never cozened, deceived, exploited him! How sweet life might have been! But Tasker
had
cozened him,
had
exploited him, and here he was, bound to Tasker's chariot wheels, an innocent and helpless victim, obliged to acquiesce in schemes he knew to be wrong. It was not his fault, thought Walter, if Tasker made an offer for the Lumbs' business to the bank, thus extinguishing their last hope of securing it cheaply themselves, their last hope of inducing the bank to accept much less than the sum owed them, and allow them to continue work. It was not
his
fault;
he
didn't wish to engage in such schemes; left to himself, thought Walter, he would have treated the Lumbs with the utmost loyalty and kindness; left to himself, his business conduct would have shown a shining, an altogether exceptional, integrity. But he had not been left to himself, and he was quite helpless, hopelessly in Tasker's power; he was obliged to accept, and carry out, Tasker's instructions. With a sour smile, and the superior resigned air of one consenting against his will to a piece of folly he does not approve, Walter listened to Tasker's ideas for the future of Valley Mill.

“If trade doesn't improve after next May, we can gradually close the Valley place down,” said Tasker. “But I think it will improve by then. Things can't go on much longer as they are; there's going to be a political smash-up soon, in my opinion, and then trade may be better. Not that politicians are much good, whichever side they're on; they're a poor lot nowadays, and don't know the first thing about business. Still, if we get a change, they'll cut this dole business down, and that'll be something. They might do some safeguarding, too,” he added thoughtfully, “and I hope to
God they go off gold.” Reverting to the topic of Valley Mill, he went on to say that he thought the Lumbs' business would be in their hands in the course of two or three months. “Bankruptcies are always a long job,” he concluded: “But I don't think theirs will be as long as some. Their affairs will be fairly straightforward, I imagine.”

Tasker's judgment in this, as in most trade matters, was accurate. The liquidation of the Lumb's affairs proceeded steadily, and with a minimum of fuss, for the Lumbs had conducted their business with complete integrity, and had nothing unexpected to reveal. Moreover, men were so busy with the financial crisis of the whole country which took place that summer, the formation of the provisional National government, and the passing of the Economy Act, that the bankruptcy of one firm more or less seemed neither here nor there, and indeed only to be expected. If England herself found difficulty in balancing receipts and expenditure, and was forced off the Gold Standard, lesser units, with smaller resources, could hardly be blamed if they too were unable to pay twenty shillings in the pound. The times were awful; old-established firms crashed every day; while everyone was grumbling that the banks would lend thousands to clever rascals, but looked askance on honest men with small firms. Accordingly Arnold had few recriminations to face from his creditors, while a decent regret, a respectful sympathy, was felt for his firm, as for the many others who could not meet their liabilities owing to the slump, throughout the West Riding. One or two men, old customers, whose resources were larger than his own, even offered to lend Arnold a few thousand pounds with which to make a composition with the bank and start work again; but the bank required more than he could raise. While he was trying to bring down the bank's demands on the one hand, and raise the required sum on the other, Tasker stepped in with a better offer, Arnold
could not improve on it, and the Lumbs' business became the property of Messrs. Tasker, Haigh and Company.