“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.”
“Why shouldn’t I come with you, grandfather?” suggested Reetha courageously. “I could just see you in at the door, you know, and then go home.”
Mr. Lumb grumbled and muttered, but could find no valid objection, and the two moved along side by side. Reetha soon began to wish, not that she had gone home and left him, but that her father was with him in her place, for it was evident to her that her grandfather, if not ill, was very unlike his usual self, and in great distress of mind. “Must tell him myself,” he muttered constantly. “Do you hear, Arnold? Must tell him myself—he was with me before you were born.” Reetha wondered greatly whither they were bound, but had no ideas on the subject until at last, after a long slow journey, Mr. Lumb turned on Moorside Place. “He’s going to see the Haighs!” thought Reetha, with a mingling of fear and distaste. She was sure that Mr. Lumb ought not to see the Haighs, that it would upset him, agitate him greatly; but when she ventured a timid remonstrance, her grandfather turned on her so savagely that she shrank. “You’re like your father,” he told her, his old eyes gleaming: “You think I’m too old to do anything for myself. It’s my business still, let me tell you. Mine!”
“Yes, grandfather,” agreed Reetha, frightened.
She was not sure which was the Haighs’ house, and continued to hope that it was not their destination, but watching by the gate while her grandfather rang the bell, she saw Rosamond open the door.
“Mr. Lumb!” exclaimed Rosamond in amazement.
The old man pushed her testily aside and stumbled in. “I’ve come to see your father,” he said in a cross determined tone, sitting down heavily on a chair in the hall. “I’ve something important to tell him.”
“He’ll be delighted to see you,” said Rosamond, nevertheless much perplexed.
Preparing to close the door, she observed the child by the gate, and said kindly, though still further astonished: “Reetha! Won’t you come in, too?”
Between fear for her grandfather, fear of Rosamond as a member of the school staff, and hatred of the Haighs, Reetha felt wretchedly uncertain what she ought to do. The habit of discipline prevailed, however, and she sulkily climbed the steps and entered the house after Mr. Lumb. Rosamond put them both in the drawing-room and went upstairs to her father. Mrs. Haigh was sitting with him, the night-nurse not having yet come on duty. Rosamond began gently to talk to Dyson about Mr. Lumb, to prepare him for the announcement of his old employer’s visit, but before she had got more than a word or two out, a voice behind her said loudly: “I shan’t keep ye long, Dyson”; and turning, she beheld Mr. Lumb himself, who had followed her into the room. He still wore his hat and gloves, and leaned heavily on his stick; his hat was rather too far forward on his head, and with his crooked pince-nez, stout body, and large drooping moustache he looked a figure of fun, if anybody there had had a mind to laugh at him.
“I’ve come to tell ye, Dyson,” he announced in a loud hoarse tone: “that we’ve banked. Aye, we’ve banked. After fifty years. So now you see why it was we couldn’t keep you on any more. I’m sorry,” he went on in a tone of dignified regret: “Aye, I’m right down sorry, Dyson. But there you are. We’ve banked. We haven’t been such good friends lately,” he continued, shouting over the shoulder of Rosamond, who had flown to him at his first words, and was urging him from the room—“on account of that good-for-nothing son of yours, but I felt I ought to come and tell you myself. Arnold takes too much on himself. It’s my business, when all’s said and done.”
“Mr. Lumb,” exclaimed Rosamond in horror, pulling at his arm. “My father isn’t fit to hear all this. You must come away.” She got him out on to the landing, and began to draw him down the stairs.
“I felt I had to come myself, ye see,” explained the old man in a condescending tone.
“Yes, yes,” agreed Rosamond. “Of course you did. It was kind of you.”
Reetha, looking frightened, appeared at the drawing-room door. “I couldn’t keep him down, Miss Haigh,” she apologised, her lower lip trembling.
“Never mind, dear,” said Rosamond soothingly. “You’re going home with him now, aren’t you?”
Before Reetha could reply, Mrs. Haigh’s voice sounded from above in wild summons for her daughter. Rosamond dropped Mr. Lumb’s arm, and flew upstairs. Dyson was staggering about the room in his nightshirt, his pale eyes protruding from his head, an expression of fearful anguish on his emaciated face.
“Give me my clothes,” he cried entreatingly in his high thin tones. “I must have my clothes! Emily, give me my clothes at once. I must go out and find another situation. Don’t interfere, Rosamond!” he said sternly, as his daughter took his arm, and tried to urge him back to bed. “Lumbs have banked, and I must find another place, or we shan’t have anything to live on.”
“Now, father,” said Rosamond soothingly, easily overcoming his feeble strength and half-lifting him into bed with her mother’s help: “You know quite well there’s no need for you to work at all. I work, and Walter works—Walter’s a rich man,” she enlarged, suppressing her pride to reinstate Walter in his father’s eyes, in case Dyson had heard Mr. Lumb’s last words, “and he’ll look after us all.”
“How has he got rich?” demanded Dyson feebly.
“It’s too complicated to explain,” said Rosamond in a firm cheerful tone.
“But Lumbs have banked!” said Dyson in anguish. “Oh God, whatever shall we do!”
Suddenly he began to tremble violently, with such force, indeed, th
at he shook the bed. Rosamond, alarmed, felt his hands; they were icy cold. “Emily, Emily!” moaned the old man, resisting his daughter’s efforts to make him lie back on his pillows. “Emily!”
Mrs. Haigh sat on the bed and flung her arms round him, trying to warm him against her breast. “The doctor, Rosamond!” she whispered, and Rosamond ran from the room and out of the house. She was afraid to leave her parents for long, however, and seeing Reetha and her grandfather at a little distance along the street, called the child loudly to her side. Reetha, distracted between two loyalties, obeyed; and Rosamond hastily commanded her to go into the next house and ask the Haighs’ neighbours to telephone for their doctor. “It’s terribly urgent,” she said: “I’m afraid my father’s dying”—and rushed away at once.
The frightened Reetha carried out her orders exactly; a conscientious and sensible child, she waited until the message had actually been telephoned and the doctor’s assurance that he would come immediately received, and saw a neighbour enter the Haighs’ house, before feeling herself at liberty to turn to her own affairs. By this time Mr. Lumb had long disappeared. At first this troubled Reetha little; with her strong young body and sturdy legs she knew she could catch him up, and ran along the route they had come by, cheerfully. But her grandfather was not to be found; she reached Beech Lea and had not overtaken him. She ran round the house on the grass so as to make no sound, and looked in at the drawing-room window, taking precautions not to be seen; Mr. Lumb was not there, and Reetha thought she read concern for his absence in her grandmother’s expression. Ashamed of having failed in her trust, she rushed off again, retraced her steps to Moorside Place, and still seeing nothing of her grandfather, began to seek him in side turnings. By this time she was in a panic, hot, breathless, almost weeping, and incapable of thinking sensibly; some loiterers from whom she enquired told her that they had seen an old gentleman, such as Reetha described climb into a bus for town, and Reetha, who had come out without money, at once rushed on foot down into Hudley. She saw nothing of her grandfather in the busy streets, and at length returned home, dishevelled and utterly disheartened. It was now growing late for the child to be out alone. Mr. Lumb had returned long before, having taken a steep short cut home, forgetting in his agitation that he and Reetha had not walked to Moorside Place that way, and that she might not be familiar with it. Arnold was now walking anxiously up and down the road looking for his daughter, while Mrs. Lumb wept quietly in the hall. Arnold, who blamed himself for letting the child go on such an errand at all, was so relieved to see her at last that, his nerves being on edge with his business worries, he spoke sharply to her, whereupon Reetha burst into passionate tears. Arnold was at once sorry, drew her to him and tried to comfort her; but Reetha pulled herself away, and walked the hundred yards to the Beech Lea gate alone. She was filled with fierce resentment against life. Why should such horrible things happen to her? In the house across the road a gramophone was playing cheerfully, and at the sound deep sobs rent Reetha’s breast. For they were sure to be dancing and singing and having a jolly time to that gramophone in the house across the road, a lot of boys and girls, all together; while she, Reetha, had nothing but a grandfather who frightened people into dying, and a cross father who had “money troubles,” as granny called them; she had no money, and no car, and no clothes, and no decent school, nothing jolly at all. Nothing jolly, ever. Oh, it was a shame, a shame! She gave a sketchy and inadequate account of events at the Haighs’, received her grandmother’s exclamations coldly, and was going off to bed, tired out and cross, when she remembered her home-lessons, left undone. It was the last straw. Mrs. Lumb offered to write a note in excuse if she did not feel able to work, but Reetha refused—excuse notes made such a fuss—and sat down in a cold fury to Arithmetic and Latin. “When I grow up, I shall marry a rich man,” decided Reetha, ruling margins fiercely. “Yes, I will, I will. I won’t be poor and have money troubles and strikes and stupid mills, and live with people who are cross and old and queer. I shall marry a rich man and live in the South of England. I won’t be poor and worried.” Tears of resentment rolled down her sulky little face; and she set her rather large mouth grimly.
About this time, the Haighs’ doctor was telling Rosamond that her father was dying; Dyson could not, he said, live another hour. The news was at once telephoned to Clough End, but neither Walter nor his wife was there; they had gone off somewhere, said the Clough End maids, dancing, and though they were sought in several probable places, could not be found. Dyson outlived the hour granted him by the doctor, but died in the early morning; Walter, returning home shortly after two o’clock, found the written message awaiting him and drove at once to Moorside Place, but was just too late to see his father alive. Dyson had been unconscious for several hours, however, so his son’s absence from his deathbed was regrettable rather from the ceremonial and sentimental point of view than for any real purpose.
Walter at once took charge of the household, and proved so competent in making the arrangements consequent upon Dyson’s death that he commanded Rosamond’s admiration. She did not, however, admire his manner, which was calm to the point of indifference; he behaved with suitable decorum, and comforted poor Mrs. Haigh, who had collapsed into mute but profound grief, as a son should, but he seemed personally unaffected by his father’s death. “There should have been a time for such a word,” thought Rosamond in anger as they sat over breakfast, of which Walter ate heartily. She remembered with bitterness the days when Walter lived at home, and rushed up to his father’s room the instant he entered the house, in loving anxiety—the days before he met Leonard Tasker and left the Lumbs. The thought of the Lumbs brought another bitterness. Rosamond did not regret her father’s death very greatly, for life had for long been only a burden to him; but she resented passionately the manner of it. What a shame it was, she thought, that a good, decent man, a loving father, a kind husband, a worker of recognised skill and integrity, should have to die in an anguish of economic fear. She did not blame Mr. Lumb for Dyson’s death, for she had realised that the poor old man had been distracted by grief and hardly conscious of what he was doing; she blamed the conditions of the times, felt immensely sorry for Arnold, and could not altogether exonerate her brother from some considerable share in the Lumbs’ failure. It was not possible to keep the immediate cause of Dyson’s death from Walter, and Rosamond did not attempt it; when he heard the story, for the first time since his arrival he turned white and seemed upset. Rosamond at once was sorry for him. She reflected that what was done was done, and it was no use saddling Walter with a lifelong remorse; she decided to turn the talk to the funeral arrangements, and to draw in Elaine’s name, as being most likely to comfort and divert her brother. All this passed through her mind in a mere moment, and without perceptible pause she asked if Walter thought Elaine would take her place as a programme-seller at the Harlequins’ open-air show next Saturday—it would be a relief both to her and to the Harlequins, not to be obliged to secure another substitute at such short notice.
“I’m sure Elaine will do everything in her power to help you,” said Walter without conviction, feeling sure that his wife’s idea of what was in her power would differ from his sister’s. “But,” he added, relieved to find so good an excuse for Elaine: “She can hardly sell programmes, can she, when she isn’t a member?”
“Oh, but she is a member,” replied Rosamond. “Not a very active one, perhaps,” she continued in a light tone, loyally concealing the prompt and scornful refusal of small parts by Elaine which had prevented her active participation in the society’s productions—prevented, also, references in Elaine’s presence by Rosamond to the Harlequins, for she feared they might prove an awkward subject between herself and her brother’s wife. “But certainly a member—she’s been a member for several years. I remember her audition. It was before you went to Heights, I think,” she concluded: “Yes, I’m almost sure. About three years ago.”
“I’ll ask about the programmes,” said
Walter.
His tone was so hoarse, so strained, that Rosamond looked at him in surprise; she was horrified to see his face ghastly, livid, distorted. “He is distressed about father after all,” she thought quickly, and rebuked herself for her ungenerous thoughts of him.
And indeed Walter was distressed for Dyson, but that was only a small part of his wretchedness. His world had fallen about him in ruins; and he was engulfed in a dark flood of bitterness, in which obscure words about selling his birthright for a mess of pottage jostled him hurtfully. It was unnecessary, then, the scheming of the past three years; for if Elaine was a Harlequin, he might have met her honourably, at Rosamond’s side. “But she wouldn’t have looked at me as Rosamond’s brother,” he panted, “I’m sure she wouldn’t.” But there remained the chance that she might have done so; Walter might have met her, loved her, married her, and yet remained an honourable man. The loss of his integrity was perhaps quite unnecessary; he need not have entered Tasker’s service, left the Lumbs, misappropriated his father’s investments, connived at the Heights deception, actively participated in later frauds—he might have met Elaine honourably, at Rosamond’s side. So rang the refrain in his tormented ears; and though he fought it away, telling himself that he could never have married Elaine without the money his straying from honesty had brought, yet he could not rid himself of the obsession. His mind, already wounded in its own warrings, poisoned and festering, offered a fertile soil for the seed, and in a moment it sprang up, grew strong, ramified; and every cranny of Walter’s consciousness was penetrated with the deadly branches of the might-have-been. So deadly were they to his self-respect indeed that his egoism revolted, and sent along the branches a fresh sap of sweet self-pity. Its message was: the whole affair was Tasker’s fault. He had tempted Walter, deceived him, led him step by step into the abyss. Walter would never have done such vile things alone. It was all Tasker’s fault. Yes, it was all Tasker’s fault, thought Walter in a growing passion; no longer need he feel grateful to Tasker for helping him to Elaine; if Tasker had not so wickedly exploited Walter, he might have met Elaine honourably, at Rosamond’s side. It was all Tasker’s fault; without him Walter’s life would have been serene, secure; now he was bound inescapeably to Tasker’s chariot wheels, and whirled on his destructive downward progress, a helpless victim. Yes, a victim. It was all Tasker’s fault.
A Modern Tragedy Page 31
