A Modern Tragedy

by Phyllis Bentley

  “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.

  The effect of this ironic consummation on the Lumbs was the reverse of what might have been expected, for it excited them to such a fury of resentment and revolt that they were quite shaken out of the despairing lethargy which had been numbing their powers, and roused to action. They were living on the last few pounds of Mrs. Lumb’s private savings, and slipping rapidly into the abyss of debt, so terrible to a family of their social status and upbringing; now they began to fight every inch of the way. Mr. Lumb, who had lately—especially since Dyson’s death, of his share in which he was secretly deeply ashamed—shown signs of becoming a permanent and querulous invalid, abruptly brisked up, and became again the solid, hale old man of a few years past. He wrote letters in search of employment for Arnold to all his old friends, and actually sought, and carried out faithfully, work in addressing candidates’ circulars
for the forthcoming general election. (While he was engaged in this he slept better, and his very appetite improved.) Mrs. Lumb declared that the family must either remove at once to a smaller house or take a paying guest—she had said this regularly every day for the past three months, but she now meant that one plan or the other should really be put into effect. There were difficulties in the way of removal; they had no money to remove with and might have difficulty in paying their rent, and all the Lumbs felt they would rather keep the bank (which now owned Beech Lea) waiting for rent than an individual land-lord—so they advertised for a paying guest. They were lucky enough to secure almost at once—on Rosamond’s recommendation, though they did not know this—one of the teachers at the Hudley Technical College; a Harlequin and a very brisk and lively young woman, who cheered them all up wonderfully. Then too Reetha suddenly began to work hard at school, and earned good reports; she no longer sulked when asked to help with household duties, but performed them briskly, if with a grim air of biding her time. As for Arnold, after the one uncontrollable outburst of despairing frenzy with which he received the news that Walter’s company owned Messrs. W. H. Lumb’s business, he gathered himself together firmly, and his solid, steady energy was quite restored. He wasn’t going to let himself be “downed” by Walter Haigh; not he. “If that young swindler thinks he’s going to drive me to drink and the devil,” he often said to himself grimly, “he’s mistaken”—and he scoured the West Riding in search of work, undauntedly. There was no work to be had, for there was not enough to go round; but Arnold preserved a trim and bright appearance—outwardly; his underclothes were patched, his socks very much mended, and he had to wear newspaper soles in his shoes when it rained—made an effort to regain his former erect carriage, and never let himself lose hope that he would win through somehow in the end. It was the second bad blow which life had dealt him, but he intended to stand up to it as he had stood up to the first—he made the resolution and kept it, with all the dogged tenacity of his northern blood. And surely, thought Arnold out of his own fundamental honesty and simplicity, surely there was a justice somewhere in the world which would see Walter brought low and himself avenged. And even if there were no such justice, decided Arnold firmly, he wasn’t going to care; he would rather be himself than Walter Haigh, any day of the week. He began to go to church again, no longer feeling bitter about his inability to pay the rent of a pew. The preparations for the election excited him; a staunch if moderate Conservative, he attributed all the troubles of the last two years to the Labour Government, and felt sure that if only they could be kept out this time, everything would be well with England and with himself. England was not done for, thought Arnold with grim enthusiasm, not done for by a long chalk yet, whatever her critics abroad might think; and Arnold Lumb was not done for either. England was about to make a fresh start, and so, he passionately hoped, was he. England would yet show her enemies the stuff she was made of, thought Arnold proudly, setting his jaw, and so should the Lumbs. England could not expect to return all at once to Victorian prosperity, and Arnold did not expect to return rapidly, if ever, to the palmy days of Valley Mill; but if Walter Haigh thought that the Lumbs were down and out and done for—well! He was wrong.

  But Milner Schofield felt the matter very differently.

  To him the formation of the National government—a combination of some sections of all parties in an attempt to balance the budget—was a hideous betrayal of the people to the banks. He felt that things were going from bad to worse instead of making the progress he so passionately desired; and the passing of the National Economy Act in September came as a culminating disaster. By it he automatically lost his transitional unemployment insurance benefit, for this ceased to exist; and had to make a fresh claim. Milner was not easily intimidated by official forms—he wrote a good hand and had the type of mind which understands the intention behind the question—but it irked him to the soul to know that if his claim satisfied the new Means Test, his weekly payment would in future, though made at the Employment Exchange as before, really come from the Public Assistance Committee. A Poor Law authority! He, Milner Schofield, the cleverest in the family, to be “receiving outdoor assistance”—for that was what it really came to—under the Poor Law! It was unbearable. The money would be definitely less than he had hitherto received, too; he hardly knew how he should have the face to go home and turn the scanty sum over to Jessie. There were so many thousands of similar claims being made all over the country that some delay in dealing with his was inevitable; but at last a day came when Milner found himself standing in the queue to go before the committee administering the test. As he entered the room, the mere sight of the men on the other side of the table infuriated him; portly, well-fed, in good cloth suits (cloth he’d helped to make, thought Milner) and clean linen and sound boots, with wrist watches and silk handkerchiefs and smooth hair—what did they know about living on fifteen and threepence a week? (Less than that, now, Milner reminded himself.) He longed to burst out at them in a fury, wave his arms and shout and see them blench; tell them that in a month, when the election was over, their National government would be out of power, shoved down into the ash-tub where it belonged; and then they’d see! They wouldn’t throw decent hard-working men on the Poor Law then! But he simply couldn’t manage without some sort of benefit meanwhile; he simply couldn’t go home and announce to Harry that he hadn’t satisfied the Means Test, and so must just live on him altogether for a while. So Milner, though he breathed deeply and felt as though he would choke with thwarted rage, controlled his feelings because for economic reasons he dared not utter them, spoke mildly, put his case in a subdued and timid and innocent manner, and altogether behaved as he thought bosses liked working people to behave. His claim was allowed; and in mingled fury and triumph he went home—to find, to his astonishment, Harry sitting in the room, eating his dinner with a beaming face.

  “What’s up?” cried Milner. It was too far for his brother to return from Heights for his midday meal, and for one strange second Milner wondered whether Harry had lost his job, and whether he himself would be glad or sorry if he had. Sorry, of course, he told himself; for how could the children get enough to eat? But nevertheless, it was a shock to him when Harry replied joyously:

  “Our Walter’s tekking over Valley, and I’m to be foreman.”

  “Foreman?” repeated Milner dully. “At Valley?” He collected his wits, and went on in a forced tone: “Well, that’s a bit of good news, anyhow.”

  “Best I’ve heard for long enough,” replied Harry cheerfully with his mouth full.

  He was much too pleased with himself to mean any reference to his brother’s lack of good news, but Milner thought a reference intended; his face darkened, and Harry’s darkened responsively.

  “Is he—tekking anyone on, then?” said Milner in a choked tone, hardly daring to hope that some prospect of employment opened before him.

  “Nay, he’s sending most on ’em at Valley away,” returned Harry with a grave responsible air. “And working it wi’ us from Heights, like.”

  “What’s he want wi’ Valley at all, then?” said Milner in a sneering tone, hating Walter as the source of Harry’s luck.

  The perverse feeling caused by the brothers’ economic relations at once made Harry feel deeply attached to his employer. “Oh, he’s got his head screwed on right way, has Walter,” he said confidently. “He’ll mak ’em both pay, I don’t doubt.”

  That evening Harry took Jessie to the cinema to celebrate his promotion, leaving Mrs. Schofield at home to look after the children. Milner prepared to go out too, and put on his shabby coat—he had long ceased to wear a hat, for economic reasons.

  “Where are you off to, lad?” demanded Mrs. Schofield from the hearth.

  “Speaking for th’election,” replied Milner briefly.

  “Well, think on what tha says,” his mother adjured him. She gave a sardonic cackle, and went on shrewdly: “All thi speechifyin’s done so far, lad, i
s to mak our Harry foreman at Valley ’stead o’ thee.”

  Scene 3. A Nation Disagrees

  IT WAS a crisp October night; the night of the election. The silver moon, just past the full, trailing a scarf of tiny opalescent clouds like shells, rode high in the clear dark sky. England had recently celebrated the centenary of Faraday’s electro-magnetic discoveries by flood-lighting such of her buildings as would bear illumination, and the lamps placed for this purpose about the Hudley Town Hall had not been removed, so that its pinnacles and balustrades were gracefully silhouetted against a soft bluish halo. A considerable crowd of Hudley voters, which increased from moment to moment as the time announced for the declaration of the poll drew near, was gathered in the square below, under the supervision of a squad of police, whose white gloves gleamed in the moonlight. The crowd was excited, but orderly; the windows of the neighbouring buildings—banks and offices—had been boarded up, but they were in no danger, for though a few bold spirits had perched themselves on the broad sills, they were not attempting any demonstrations likely to cause disturbance. The interest of the crowd was at the moment focussed on the premises of the Hudley News, which stood just to the left of the Town Hall, in a separate block; a sheet had been hung over the façade, and the results of elections from different parts of the country, as they came in, were hastily scrawled on slides and thrown on to this improvised screen by a cinematograph lantern.

  In the forefront of the crowd stood Milner Schofield. He was in a state of bitter disillusion and growing despair, for the results displayed were overwhelmingly in favour of the National combination of parties. Through all his troubles of the past two years it had consoled him to feel that he suffered in a righteous cause, a cause that was sure to triumph, to triumph soon; he had spent the last month in eager and incessant toil on behalf of his party, and thundered nightly against the capitalists’ iniquitous attempt (as he saw it) to take the bread out of the people’s mouths. And now things were not going to be better, but worse; all that he believed in, all that he had fought for all his life, seemed to be rolling headlong into the abyss. He couldn’t believe his eyes, he felt he must be in a nightmare, as between stale jokes and staler advertisements, thrown out to allay the crowd’s impatience, result after result appeared on the screen showing the defeat, the débacle, of his party. Ben Turner, Ellen Wilkinson, Ben Tillett, Greenwood, Clynes; they were all out; good God! Henderson himself was thrown. Each of these National successes was received with rousing cheers by the National section of the crowd, which without particularly intending it had gathered on one side of the street, while their opponents held the other. At last there was a Labour success. The elected candidate being a man little known and of minor importance there was silence in the Labour ranks.