A Modern Tragedy

by Phyllis Bentley

  “Why, it’s empty!” he exclaimed, gazing in surprise at the blank façade.

  Tasker glanced at him in a surprise apparently equal to his own. “Of course it is—they failed and shut down three months ago,” he threw out gruffly, naming a firm of dyers and finishers vaguely known to Walter. As this information did not remove the young man’s astonishment but rather increased it, his face remained blank and gaping; and Tasker continued with some impatience: “Oh, you’re thinking of that damaged piece I mentioned.” He waved that peremptorily away with one hand. “We’ll see it later,” he said.

  Taking out a large bunch of keys, he unlocked the door of the empty mill, and admitted himself and the young man. A dank, heavy air arose to meet them, and a melancholy interior of dust and gloom was revealed. Walter hung back in distaste, but Tasker was already several yards in advance, talking eagerly. Walter perforce followed.

  The next half hour was a curious one for the young man. The sullen sky without grew steadily darker, and the interior of the mill more gloomy. The silence within the building, where noise had been used to vibrate in every corner, was unnatural and therefore horrible, like the silence of death; the small cracks and jerks which startled their ears occasionally, as wood continued the process of accommodating itself to the pressure of time, only intensified the atmosphere of decay. Stale airs wandered round corners and chilled their spines. The rows of machines, standing still and cold, had a pathetic air of weakness and desertion; the wheels and belts and pulleys looked ramshackle, forlorn, contorted, so that it seemed impossible to imagine that they had ever functioned usefully. Wherever there was iron, there was the red stain of rust; doors, wheels, rollers, plates were all vivid with it, and rough to the touch. The whitewash on the shed walls had peeled off in patches, revealing dingy pink brick beneath. The great sheets of brownish cardboard known as press-papers lay on the table sodden, and flecked with spots of mildew; the surface of a tankful of soap, which had been left to stand, was slimy, viscous, thickly mottled with dirt. Here and there an empty mug, a match-box—once, even, an old cloth cap—showed that life had gone briskly enough in this place once; in the mending room, an old kettle shared a window sill with a straggling withered plant.

  Walter began to feel as if he were prying into somebody’s grave—“Pompeii must look like this,” he thought. In the scouring room, the sour smell of scoured cloth still hung about the place, to recall that it had once hummed with use and life; but the wood of the scouring machines had a blanched, dead appearance, and the stone flags of the floor looked strangely dry and clean and pale. When Walter drew nearer, he saw that the light patches on the floor were due to a fine white mould, which was thickest in the cracks of the flags, but spread over a considerable area. This sickened him, and he shuddered slightly. But Tasker explained it at once, and by so doing reduced it to a mere natural phenomenon; it was a growth from the soda ash used in scouring, he said. For this was Walter’s other reaction, which combated the dismal effect of all this decay: his admiration for Tasker’s knowledge and shrewdness. Tasker knew everything, noticed everything, explained everything, was enthusiastic about everything; he counted the presses and the scouring machines, estimated rapidly the amount of work they could turn out in a week, pointed out to Walter the suction pipes which drew the flocks away from the cropping machines in the basement, the fine high windows in the top storey which made it an ideal perching room; commented favourably on the system of slides and rollers which enabled cloth to be drawn up to the top, or dropped to the basement, without the use of human labour to transport it; nodded his head in sober pleasure at the satisfactory position of the garage, and expatiated to Walter on the advantages of having the dyeing and finishing plants both under the same roof.

  Walter, fired to emulation, began to notice things too; he summoned to his aid all the textile knowledge he had acquired, either by experience, or by tuition from his father and Arnold Lumb and the Hudley Technical College; something within him told him that this was a crisis, an emergency, and he rose to it without knowing what or why it was. He suggested some small improvements, and discussed the methods which would be necessary to put the place again in working order. Tasker gave these a favourable hearing, glancing at Walter consideringly from time to time from beneath his heavy eyebrows.

  “It’s a neat little place,” said Tasker at last, jingling the money in his pocket, as they stood again in the scouring room, which was now shrouded in the darkness of the approaching storm: “How should you like to run it, eh? As your own business, I mean.”

  The blood rushed to Walter’s head. He gasped, and stared at the manufacturer in almost fearful expectancy.

  “I might help you to get a start,” continued Tasker gruffly, fixing Walter with his choleric blue eyes. “I want a place where I can get my work done as I like it.”

  In the pause before Walter could find words for a reply a peal of thunder suddenly broke over their heads, and rolled and rattled about the empty building in a tumultuous crescendo. The crash seemed to crystallise all the thoughts whirling about Walter’s brain, the products of the happenings of the past twenty-four hours. He suddenly saw the empty mill about him full, busy, humming; himself at its head, ordering everything, and doing it all tremendously well. Tasker was offering him, it seemed to Walter, an unrivalled chance for achieving wealth and power; for taking a splendid revenge upon the forces which seemed to oppress him; he was opening the road to success, to the realization of ambition. Walter panted quickly: “You know I should like it, Mr. Tasker.”

  “Well—could you find a thousand pounds?” demanded Tasker promptly in a friendly tone.

  “No,” replied Walter with decision.

  “You couldn’t, eh?” said Tasker thoughtfully.

  He appeared disappointed, looked away from Walter, and sniffed consideringly. A thousand pounds, reflected Walter painfully, was a mere trifle to Tasker, no doubt, though as far beyond his own reach as the moon. Suddenly Tasker sat down on the edge of a whizzer, drew out a paper, and began to jot down figures. He remained thus, crouched and intent, for a long time, while above their heads the storm raged fiercely, in a terrific series of ghastly flashes and reverberating peals. Walter dared not interrupt him by speaking, and began to pace up and down the shed with feverish gait. Presently rain began to stream down upon the earth in hissing torrents; and soon the whole mill echoed with the sound; water gurgled along every pipe and troughing, and dripped heavily through breaks in the scouring room’s slatted roof. Of this tumult of the elements Tasker took apparently not the slightest notice, and Walter was in a state of such acute suspence and longing that all his other faculties were inoperative, and he felt it only as an excitation to his mood.

  At length Tasker looked up. “Could you raise five hundred?” he demanded.

  Walter was about to say “No!” as decisively as before, when he remembered his father’s few cherished War Loan holdings. Surely Dyson would lend them to him for this splendid opportunity! Flushing, he shouted something of this to Tasker amid the thunder’s roar.

  “You mean you can find security for five hundred?” said Tasker with an air of relief. “Well, I daresay we can manage with that.” He stood up briskly. “We shall have to tackle that roof right away,” he went on, cocking a displeased eye upwards. “It’ll be damned expensive, too. Well, we’ll get over now, and arrange the whole business with the bank.”

  His words and his tone made the two men already partners, and it was with difficulty that Walter forced himself to murmur that there must be some delay, as he must secure his father’s consent to the loan of the certificates.

  Tasker’s brow clouded. “Oh, but that’s a damned nuisance, Haigh,” he said with an air of contemptuous annoyance. “I wanted to get the whole thing fixed up to-day. I can’t go on any longer like this; if you won’t take it up, I must find somebody else for the job.” After a pause for Walter to digest this unwelcome suggestion, he added: “Why must you bother the old man? He’s ill,
isn’t he?”

  “Yes,” mumbled Walter.

  As a matter of fact Dyson’s consent was not legally necessary, for Walter held his father’s power of attorney. On Dyson’s recovery after his first attack of illness, which had rendered him incapable of responsible action for several days, the old man had invested his son with this, so that if further attacks should occur, Walter could deal with the family affairs. With this document in his hands (and it now reposed in his breast pocket) Walter had only to present himself at his father’s bank, and the War Loan Certificates would be brought up from Dyson’s safe deposit, and handed to him on his bare signature. It was, of course, morally impossible, the young man felt, that he should do any such thing; but equally impossible for him to let slip the chance of a lifetime, to see his dreams fade away.

  Tasker was now striding rapidly towards the mill door. It seemed obvious from the look of disgust and irritation on his face that he considered he had wasted his morning; and Walter, hurrying at his side, felt guilty of a gross lack of consideration, of having enticed Tasker to show him the mill under false pretences. He cleared his throat: “I suppose it would be perfectly safe?” he asked, revolving wild schemes for rushing to Moorside Place, persuading Dyson, and returning in half an hour with the certificates.

  “Of course I can’t guarantee its safety,” said Tasker in an offended tone. “Nothing’s a safe investment nowadays. To make something you have to risk something; that’s only fair. But humanly speaking, it’s safe. From the first day you’re running, you’ll have all the Victory Mills cloth to do, besides anything else you can pick up. I thought you had more stuff in you, the way you stood up to me yesterday, and would be ready to back yourself to the tune of a few hundred pounds. But, however, don’t bother any more about it. I’ll get somebody else.”

  “I don’t see why I shouldn’t make all the arrangements to-day, and deposit the certificates later,” objected Walter with some spirit, stimulated by the flattering reference to his independent conduct the day before.

  “Well, we shall have to try that way, I suppose,” yielded Tasker at once, rather to Walter’s surprise, “since you’re so determined. But what the bank will say, of course, I don’t know. Obstinate as a mule, aren’t you?” he said, with a sudden caressing smile, which warmed the young man’s heart, and made him blush pleasurably. “Well, it’s a good fault.”

  They were now standing on the threshold of the main entrance, faced by the flowing rain. Tasker gave a commanding shout, and his chauffeur drove out the car from the shed where he had taken shelter.

  “Who does this mill belong to now, then?” enquired Walter as Tasker banged and locked the door.

  “Well, it’s a long story,” replied Tasker comfortably. “In a sense, it’s mine, and I have a lien on the machinery. But the banks are mixed up in it too. See,” he went on quickly, detaching one key from the bunch in his hand, “this is a duplicate of the front door key; you’d better take it.”

  Walter put the key in his pocket, and felt on top of the world. “Heights Mill,” he thought happily to himself, as he climbed into Tasker’s car. “The key of Heights Mill.”

  “Leeds,” Tasker commanded the chauffeur briefly.

  “Leeds?” repeated Walter, mildly interrogative. He did not wish to be guilty of the impertinence of questioning Tasker about so personal a matter as his bank account, but it seemed odd to him to bank in Leeds when one lived in Ashworth, thirty miles away. Tasker good-humouredly explained that he kept several banking accounts.

  “It’s useful sometimes,” he said. “And this man in Leeds will be the best one for our purpose, I think.”

  Walter nodded with an understanding air as they drove off through the splashing rain. He could not at the moment imagine any circumstances in which several banking accounts would be useful, but he felt that he was learning every minute. By this time the force of the storm had decreased sufficiently to permit those who had urgent business in the streets to proceed about it, and accordingly several bedraggled men and women were to be seen struggling beneath streaming umbrellas along the Leeds road. Walter was sorry for them; but he could not help feeling glad that he himself was snugly under cover in Tasker’s car, smoking Tasker’s expensive cigarettes, and that all this was justifiable, because they were bound on urgent business affairs. That their affairs were urgent seemed definitely the case, for Tasker telephoned from a wayside call box to the bank manager he had mentioned, making an immediate appointment; and they drove there at once.

  Rather to Walter’s disappointment and surprise, Tasker entered the manager’s sanctum first, alone, while Walter waited apart in a little ante-room. The gloomy though spotless correctness of this place depressed him. He began to feel that Heights Mill was something he had dreamed about, and wondered guiltily what he was doing with the key. When he was at length summoned to join Tasker, he entered the austerely rich apartment in a state of nervous flurry, holding his hat awkwardly against his body, and very conscious of his feet.

  The manager shook hands with him cordially, however, and waved him to a seat beside his table, while Tasker, whose quality of restless impatience Walter was beginning to know, plunged at once into the business which had brought them there. The arrangements seemed to Walter to be perfectly clear.

  It appeared that Tasker was to be his landlord; the rent of the mill (to Walter an alarming sum) was casually mentioned as already arranged. The bank was to advance so much on Walter’s War Loan holdings; this, with other sums advanced by Tasker—these were not specified in Walter’s hearing, but presumably the bank manager knew all about them—was to serve to put the place in running order, and keep it going till it began to show a return.

  Walter, who suspected himself of youth and inexperience, and therefore was not altogether a fool, examined the proposition as closely as he was able, but saw no flaw in it; for as soon as Heights Mill was ready to work, it had all Tasker’s large volume of trade to work on. His father’s investments would remain perfectly safe, paying their dividends to him as usual, while the Heights Mill business paid the interest on the loan to the bank, and with any luck gradually cleared it off. The bank’s good faith was, of course, unquestionable; as for Tasker’s, as far as Walter could see Tasker had everything to gain by the success of the Heights Mill scheme, and surely would not have proposed it otherwise. He therefore signed his name beside Tasker’s to a document or two in happy excitement, and promised to deposit the certificates within three days.

  “And now for some lunch,” said Tasker in satisfied tones, as they passed under the bank’s marble portico to the waiting car.

  He ordered the man to drive to a large and luxurious hotel where, he said, he always lunched when he was in Leeds. “You can get a lot of business by eating your meals in the right places,” he told Walter, leading the way through the huge revolving doors, which were respectfully put in motion by a page for the purpose, within.

  The hotel lounge, large, elaborately decorated in green and gold, brilliantly lighted, full of important-looking business men (some of them known by sight to Walter) talking and drinking coffee and liqueurs and smoking cigars, excited the young man; he felt that he was at last Seeing Life, as life was understood at the cinema; he had never been in such an impressive hostelry before.

  He followed Tasker in a confused but joyous embarrassment, very conscious that he himself did not look as the frequenters of this hotel should.

  The first person they saw as they entered the dining-room was Henry Clay Crosland, sitting alone at a window table just across the room, and looking out with a rather melancholy expression at the diminishing but still heavy rain. Tasker stepped back out of the room at once.

  “Look here, Haigh,” he said urgently, “I want to have a word with Crosland. Business. Do you mind waiting for me in the lounge? And coming back in, say, half an hour?”

  “Of course, Mr. Tasker,” agreed Walter deferentially.

  Tasker gave him his rare caressing smile, and went i
n alone.

  Walter occupied the interval by having his hair cut in the establishment attached to the hotel, feeling immensely adventurous and able for having had this idea, and carried it out so neatly. His improved appearance, as visible in the numerous mirrors which lined the hotel walls, pleased him a good deal, and he entered the dining-room smiling and bright-eyed.

  Tasker, who was still sitting at Mr. Crosland’s table, talking earnestly, saw him at once, smiled in reply, and rose and crossed the room to him, greeting a good many acquaintances as he came. Soon they were enjoying, amid sparkling glass and spotless napery, the kind of meal Walter had often seen at the cinema, but never hitherto eaten. He managed to steer his way pretty well amid the various difficulties of the unfamiliar service, being too excited by the animated scene about him to notice much what he was doing, and in this he was helped by the attitude of Tasker, who seemed in very good spirits; his gruff tones were confidential, his manner friendly.

  “Look here, Haigh,” he said, leaning across the table to the young man: “We’ve got to get this Heights Mill business going as soon as ever we can. We must put our backs into it.”

  Walter fervidly agreed.

  “Now I’ll meet you at Heights to-morrow morning,” went on Tasker, and proceeded to outline a complete and brilliantly effective scheme for the rapid reconditioning of the entire mill.

  “I suppose I shall have to give notice,” began Walter, his thoughts straying for a moment in the direction of Arnold Lumb.

  But Tasker rapidly recalled them.

  “Oh, no,” he said. “Offer to repay a week’s salary in lieu. We’ve simply got to start this thing right away. There’ll be men to get, too. But I’ll see about that myself.” He plunged into a description of methods of boiling rusty machine parts in oil, but interrupted himself to look at his watch, exclaiming then abruptly: “I must be off! I’ve a man to see in An-notsfield, and then there’s a meeting of the Manufacturers’ Association; and I must have a look in at my own place some time. I’ll drop you in Hudley.”