“Walter Haigh,” bellowed Harry.
“Well, what about him?” said Arnold in a contemptuous tone.
“He’s been tekken by the police,” shouted Harry.
“Taken by the police?” said Arnold, bewildered.
“Aye—arrested for deceiving shareholders,” said Harry. Shocked by the dreadfulness of the words, he spoke in a low awestruck tone, and Arnold heard distinctly.
“Good God!” he exclaimed. “What an awful thing!”
“Aye—the lorry driver saw them tek ’im—they say Henry Clay Crosland’s shot himself and Leonard Tasker’s bolted,” continued Harry with lugubrious gusto. “Of course I can’t say how much of it’s true, but they’re all talking about it here. Work’s stopped—we’re all at sixes and sevens. But, Mester Arnold,” he went on, shouting again as he remembered the importance of his errand: “Don’t you think as you ought to go and break the news to old Mrs. Haigh? It’ll kill her if she hears it first from the police, like.”
“It’ll kill her right enough, however she hears it,” said Arnold grimly.
“Somebody ought to go tell her,” pursued Harry in a pleading tone: “So I rang up you.”
“Well—I’ll see,” said Arnold shortly.
He rang off, and stood considering for a moment. Then he left Mr. Stein’s premises with a quick steady step, made his way to the bus station, and less than an hour later was entering the Hudley Girls’ High School. There he asked urgently for Miss Haigh.
He had arrived just at the close of the morning session, and found himself being ushered to a waiting-room through a medley of gym tunics, short hair, rosy cheeks, rulers and brightly coloured exercise books, to the sound of briskly clanging bells. He looked about him with amusement and pleasure as he passed along; this, then, was the mysterious feminine world into which Reetha vanished for so many hours each day. Interior windows revealed class rooms with neat rows of desks and long wall blackboards; good heavens, he had forgotten such things as blackboards existed; he hadn’t seen one for years. Odd to think of Reetha gazing obediently at a blackboard. He gazed curiously at the white distempered walls of the small cool waiting-room into which he had been led, and supposed that the pictures which decorated them were good ones. Odd to think that Reetha knew so much more about them than her father. Arnold’s interests were so concentrated upon Reetha nowadays, and anything revealing her attracted him so much, that he had to make an effort to recall himself to the matter in hand; he did so by asking himself how he would feel if Reetha had become guilty of something disgraceful, as Walter had—the answering pang made him at once very sorry for Mrs. Haigh.
Rosamond now entered the austere little room, and came towards him with some anxiety in her face. Arnold received a shock of surprise as he looked at his former love. It was, after all, nearly four years since he had seen her last, and it was perhaps natural that the details of her appearance should have become blurred in his mind: the deep crisp waves of her hair—which, he noted with amusement, she had partially “grown” as she once threatened—her rich lips, her large and speaking eyes beneath strong dark eyebrows, the clear healthy pallor of her cheek, the broad nobility of her brow. But how could he have forgotten the life, the energy, the zest, which seemed to radiate from her whole person, so that as soon as she came near you everything in life seemed richer, more exciting, more worth while? How, in a word, could he have forgotten Rosamond herself? What a shame, thought Arnold, to have to dim that glowing vigour with his news. On her side, Rosamond felt a movement of sympathy for the man before her, who looked, with his spectacles and his settled figure and his greying hair, so much older than she remembered him; he had been battered by life, she thought—poor Arnold!—but with all his limitations he was undefeated, and she felt for him a respectful, even an admiring, affection.
“Is there bad news for Reetha?” she asked, in the warm contralto Arnold now remembered he knew so well.
“No, I’m afraid it’s for you,” said Arnold in his kindest tone. “It’s about Walter—I’m afraid he’s in financial trouble. I came to you so that you could break the news to Mrs. Haigh.”
“Ah!” gasped Rosamond. It was not, however, a cry of surprise, but a lament for the falling of an expected blow; she knew now that she had always feared this very thing. She listened, pale, with parted lips, while he told her what he knew of Walter’s arrest.
“There are rumours of fraudulent balance sheets,” said Arnold, looking away from her anguished face, which he could not bear to see: “And it’s said that Leonard Tasker’s missing. I’m afraid that’s true. And I’m afraid it’s quite true, too, that Mr. Crosland has shot himself.” He gave a little cough, and added deprecatingly: “It’s on all the posters.”
“The posters!” exclaimed Rosamond.
“Yes—the Bradford evening papers, you know, lunch time edition,” said Arnold mildly. “I rather think they’ve got out a special edition, as a matter of fact, though of course I can’t be sure. Suicide of a Well-Known Spinner, the posters say. I didn’t stop to get a paper,” he lied, not wishing to have to show her brother’s situation to her in print, “but I’m afraid there may be something in about Walter. These newspaper chaps get hold of things so quickly. You ought to go straight to Mrs. Haigh,” he pressed: “To prevent her seeing it and getting a shock.”
“Listen, Arnold,” said Rosamond earnestly, coming close to him: “It was good, it was noble of you, to come. I fear Walter has given you little cause to do anything for him. But, Arnold, I beg of you—we’ve no claim on you at all, very much the reverse, and you’ve done enough in coming to warn me, but still I beg you, simply out of the goodness of your heart, to do one thing more for us, and break the news to mother. I must go, I must go,” she repeated, pressing her hands to her breast and looking wildly about her: “I must go, Arnold!”
“To your brother’s wife? I suppose so,” said Arnold thoughtfully.
Rosamond was about to correct him, but refrained, for she greatly feared that he would object to her real purpose, and by declining to take her place with Mrs. Haigh, delay her seriously in attempting it. She therefore simply continued to look at him beseechingly, in silence, and Arnold felt the fixed gaze of her wide eyes like some dark rich flame, warming, melting, his heart.
“Well, I’ll go,” he said at length. “When people are in trouble, old grievances should be forgotten. I’ll make out the best case I can for Walter with your mother, never fear. Though I’m sadly afraid it’s I who’ve brought him down. But that can’t be helped.”
“You are good, Arnold,” said Rosamond, laying her hand on his sleeve in a spontaneous gesture of gratitude. “I thank you from the bottom of my heart. But we mustn’t delay now.”
“No—I must get to your mother at once,” said Arnold. He took up his hat, and Rosamond led him quickly to the school door. “Good-bye for the present, Rosamond,” he said as he left her: “If there’s anything else I can do for you, let me know.”
“Why can’t I love him?” thought Rosamond as she hurried about her preparations for departure, telling her headmistress her terrible news, and borrowing money for a journey from a colleague. “He’s good, fundamentally good and sound and useful to society, in spite of his limited views; the other isn’t to be compared with him in character. Neither court-paying, nor preaching, nor the seven thunders themselves, can wean a woman when t’would be better for her that she should be weaned—it’s only too true. Part of the price humanity pays for the high differentiation of individuality, I suppose. Oh, Walter, my poor poor Walter! And poor old Mr. Crosland! Poor old man! What trouble they must be in at Clay Hall!”
She did not, however, proceed there, but took a bus to Ashworth, and made her way swiftly to Grey Garth. The house did not show any signs that its master was a fugitive from justice; its windows stood open, its geraniums blazed; from the rear came the sound of splashing water, as though a chauffeur were washing a car. The door was opened to Rosamond by a maid who looked calm and trim
, and admitted blandly that Mrs. Tasker was at home; but when Rosamond gave her name, with the explanatory comment that she was Mr. Walter Haigh’s sister, she thought she saw a quiver of knowledge pass over the girl’s face. Rosamond was kept waiting for a quarter of an hour, and had time to look about her ironically at the elegant furniture (so much in her own taste but stiffly arranged) and the charming cushions (all without a crease) of Leonard Tasker’s sunny and spacious drawing-room. She wondered greatly with what mood on his wife’s part she would need to cope; whether she would be weeping and dishevelled, or defensive and composed. As soon as Marian entered the room Rosamond perceived that there would be no tears from her, and suspected (correctly) that she had spent the minutes while Rosamond waited in changing her dress and tidying her hair. After a formal greeting Rosamond began at once with the opening she had rehearsed.
“We are both in great trouble, Mrs. Tasker,” she said in a warmly sympathetic tone.
Marian seated herself in the middle of a vast settee, gave Rosamond a disapproving look but made no reply.
“Investigations are being made into the finances of the Tasker Haigh Company, I am told,” said Rosamond, “and these investigations will probably reveal irregularities. You probably know that my brother has been arrested, as one of the directors?”
“Really?” said Marian, apparently unmoved.
“And that Mr. Crosland has shot himself?” continued Rosamond.
Marian gave a slight start, but immediately repressed it, and said in a cold tone, as though the matter were no concern of hers: “Indeed?”
“She’s been through this sort of scene before,” thought Rosamond in a flash. “It isn’t the first time her husband’s been accused of financial irregularities.” She hardened her heart, and pressed her questions in a firmer tone. “It’s said in Hudley that Mr. Tasker has disappeared,” she went on: “to avoid arrest, and that he can’t be found. Is that true?”
A gleam of something like triumph flashed in Marian’s eyes, but she said nothing.
“Is it true?” persisted Rosamond.
“You seem to know as much about it as I do, Miss Haigh,” said Marian in an insulting tone.
Rosamond sighed, and controlled her annoyance for Walter’s sake.
“If it is true, Mrs. Tasker,” she said quietly: “I’ve come to beg you to recall your husband.”
“What?” exclaimed Marian, astounded.
“I’ve come to beg you to ask him to return. You know yourself, Mrs. Tasker,” said Rosamond earnestly, “that your husband was the prime mover of the whole affair. If there are irregularities, the responsibility is chiefly his. I’m not trying to minimise my brother’s responsibilty, but Mr. Tasker is the governing director, and he ought to be here to defend the board’s actions. I’m sure you see that.”
“I don’t see anything of the sort,” said Marian contemptuously. “You must be mad! I never heard such nonsense. Whatever Leonard’s done, he’s done it for the best; and if he’s gone away, that’s for the best too.”
“But it’s so unlike him,” mused Rosamond, genuinely perplexed. “It seems so cowardly—I can’t imagine him running away like this and leaving his co-directors in the lurch.”
Marian, who was well aware that she had had to persuade Tasker to go, was stung by this piece of instinctive knowledge on the part of another woman—a woman, too, whose feelings towards her husband she so strongly suspected. Her colour rose. “My husband’s nothing to do with you, Miss Haigh,” she said sharply. “It’s natural that you should want to look after your brother, but you can’t expect me to take the same view. I think first of my husband’s interests and reputation, naturally.”
“But that’s just what I’m saying, Mrs. Tasker,” urged Rosamond. “It will damage his reputation irretrievably—it’s a vile, cowardly thing to do. If the police never catch him, he’ll be a hunted man, a man under a shadow, all his life. But they’re sure to catch him, and then, think what a bad effect his attempt to escape will have on the case! Believe me,” she went on earnestly, “I’m not thinking only of trying to help Walter, Mrs. Tasker; I’m caring about Mr. Tasker, too.”
“Have you the impudence to sit there and tell me you’re in love with my husband?” screamed Marian suddenly, her nerves irritated out of control by the secret exasperations of Rosamond’s presence.
“I didn’t tell you so,” said Rosamond proudly, raising her head: “But I won’t deny it; it’s true.”
“Well, upon my word!” cried Marian in a fury. “Not that it’s news to me; I saw it as plain as a pikestaff, long ago. You’re a brazen hussy, Rosamond Haigh; you young people nowadays don’t know what morals are.”
“Really, Mrs. Tasker,” said Rosamond with a cold smile: “You must forgive me if I say that a high moral indignation doesn’t come very well from you just now. Your husband has perpetrated what seems likely to prove a colossal swindle, and evaded justice, leaving one of his unfortunate colleagues to be arrested and the other to shoot himself, and a great many innocent investors ruined. And you’re conniving at all this. In comparison with that the crime of falling in love with the wrong person seems to me comparatively harmless.”
“Think yourself so clever, don’t you? You teachers and your long words!” sneered Marian.
“Very well, I’ll put it in the vulgar tongue!” cried Rosamond, abruptly losing her temper. “Your husband’s a thief, he’s bolted from the police and left my brother to hold the baby, and you’re his accomplice. Is that clear?”
“You’d better get out of here,” panted Marian, rising. “Get out! Do you hear? Get out!” She pressed her thumb violently on the bell by the hearth.
“Will you send to your husband and ask him to come back, for his own sake as well as for Walter’s?” demanded Rosamond, also rising and confronting her.
“No, I won’t,” said Marian with contempt.
“Will you tell me where he is and let me ask him?” pursued Rosamond.
“That’s very likely, isn’t it?” sneered Marian. “No, I won’t, I’m not such a fool. I didn’t tell the police when they came this morning, and I shan’t tell you.” To the maid, who now appeared with such suspicious promptitude that it seemed likely she had been listening at the door, Marian cried in a high screaming tone: “Show Miss Haigh out of this house, and don’t let her ever come in again!”
The maid, awe-struck, ushered the unwelcome guest quickly to the door, and Rosamond found herself standing in the hot sunshine of the Taskers’ drive, with scarlet cheeks and beating heart, experiencing more personal resentment than she had ever felt in her life before. “That wasn’t what you might call a great success,” she said to herself, panting with anger, but nevertheless retaining her habit of ruthless self-analysis: “In fact I made a complete mess of the whole affair.” Her first impulse was to fly from the hateful place which held Marian, but she repressed it and steeled herself to further effort; for Walter’s sake and for his own, it was essential that Leonard Tasker be found and recalled. She therefore stood her ground, calmed herself and tried to think the thing out in a reasonable way. How would Tasker have gone? By train? The station, then? By car? “Ah!” exclaimed Rosamond. She swung on her heel and, hoping that Marian was not watching from the drawing-room window, strode round the side of the house towards the large garage of new stone. The Taskers’ chauffeur, an independent-looking young man in overalls, had now finished washing down the car and was engaged in polishing; he gave Rosamond a curious glance as she went in; then averted his head and continued to polish, whistling.
“I’m Mr. Walter Haigh’s sister,” explained Rosamond rapidly. “I must see Mr. Tasker with a message about my brother. Where is he?”
The man appeared to consider this, and then remarked, with some insolence in his tone: “Mrs. Tasker could tell you, I daresay.”
“She doesn’t want me to know,” said Rosamond candidly. “I can see that you know. Tell me at once, please. But perhaps you’ve already told the police.”
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br /> “I’ve told them I drove him to Manchester,” said the man with a virtuous air. “And so I did. But I reckon they won’t find him so easily from that,” he added grinning: “And tomorrow they won’t find him at all.”
Rosamond perceived that he was in Tasker’s secrets and on his side. “But it’s for Mr. Tasker’s own good that I want to see him!” she exclaimed commandingly. “Take me to him at once.”
“Well, if you’ll answer for it to Mr. Tasker,” conceded the man reluctantly: “And not let on to the police I knew more than I said, I might.”
He gave her a look as he spoke which brought the blood rushing to Rosamond’s cheek—in a flash she remembered her conversation with Marian, and the maid listening at the door. “He thinks I’m one of Tasker’s bits!” thought Rosamond in a fury. But the insult mattered little besides the necessity of securing Tasker’s return. Without correcting the man’s misapprehension, therefore, she threw open the door of the car with a commanding air, climbed in and seated herself, and ordered the man to take her to Tasker immediately.
There were a few moments of agonising suspense, and dread of Marian’s sudden appearance, while the man filled up the car with oil and petrol and backed out of the garage; then they were out of the Grey Garth garden, out of Ash-worth by side streets, and rushing away to the west, towards Liverpool. The powerful car flew over the roads with a speed and sureness Rosamond had never before experienced; every five miles or so the chauffeur muttered gloomily that he was afraid they’d never make it—the ship would have sailed before they reached the dock—and pressed his foot more strongly on the accelerator. At last they approached the port, entered the long downward-sloping suburbs, and were caught up in the teeming traffic of the great city. Rosamond was by this time living in the chauffeur’s brain; although she had never driven a car, and was previously ignorant of its mechanism, she now knew every movement he made, and why; every delaying difficulty of the road, and what could be done to avoid it. The street now took a steeper slope, and suddenly there appeared between the buildings in front of them coloured funnels, masts, a distant crane—the familiar sky-line of the Mersey. Rosamond started in her seat, the chauffeur exclaimed briefly, and their eyes met in triumph and congratulation. “Twenty minutes to spare,” announced the man with pride. They descended rapidly; the funnels grew in size; a strip of tossing grey appeared and widened, the cranes and cantilevers retreated to the farther shore; seagulls came into focus, swerving and dipping against a high clear sky, and the air blew strongly in the travellers’ faces. The chauffeur drew up in the shadow of a huge building, beside a brilliant bed of flowers; straight ahead was a short busy little quay, where lively ferry boats constantly arrived and departed in a fuss, churning up the muddy waters. Rosamond was out of the car and on the quay in a moment; the chauffeur had already told her that all he knew of Tasker’s journey was its destination, and she demanded from the first quay sailor she saw:
A Modern Tragedy Page 37
