“What’s the matter?” mumbled Walter anxiously. “Is the mill on fire?”
“I’m sorry to knock you up like this, but it can’t be helped. We’ve got to go to Manchester on business,” said Tasker.
“To Manchester? On business?” repeated Walter stupidly. “What for?”
“Now see here, Walter,” said Tasker in his kindest tone: “I’ve done pretty well by you, haven’t I? You only had five hundred pounds in the world—” (at this Walter winced) “—and a rotten little job in a small firm, and I’ve made you head of Heights Mill, with a good screw and your own car and everything, haven’t I?”
“Yes,” agreed Walter unhappily, wondering what all this was leading up to.
“You agree I haven’t done badly by you?” insisted Tasker.
“Of course I do,” said Walter in a peevish tone.
“Well, I want you to do something for me, now,” said Tasker with grave dignity. “Will you?”
“Of course, if I can,” said Walter, feeling wretchedly uncomfortable. He instinctively suspected a trap, and his heart began to beat unpleasantly fast. “What is it you want me to do?” he asked sulkily.
“I want you,” said Tasker in a level tone, “to sell me Heights Mill as a going concern.”
“Sell you Heights Mill!” cried Walter, suddenly wide awake, and very much upset: “Oh, but I can’t do that!”
“Why not?” said Tasker. “It’s only part yours, anyway.”
“Oh, no,” said Walter in a tone of anguish: “Oh, no! I couldn’t part with the Heights Mill business; I couldn’t really—with my share of it, I mean.” He thought of the Heights Mill note-paper, which bore his name, of the lorry—“Oh, no,” he repeated. “No. I couldn’t do that, Tasker. I couldn’t, indeed.”
“Why couldn’t you?” demanded Tasker again, his blue eyes flashing.
“I like having it,” mumbled Walter. “And then there’s the money—oh, no, I can’t sell out.”
“But, my dear fellow,” said Tasker, obviously subduing his impatience with an effort, and speaking as if to a child: “Do you suppose I’m proposing to chuck you out of Heights Mill? Of course you’ll remain there to manage it. I’ll give you a service agreement. For several years. And I shall give you a good price for the business. I’ll give ten thousand for it as a going concern—and, of course, you’ll have your share in proportion. If that isn’t a good return for your five hundred, I don’t know what is. You’ll be quit of your commitments to the bank, of course. It’s a good price for the business, too, in these hard times—ask anybody in the West Riding, I don’t care who it is, and they’ll tell you the same. Don’t you consider it a fair price? Come now, be fair! Don’t you?”
“Yes,” agreed Walter with reluctance. “Of course it is. It’s a fair price all right. In fact, it’s a very good one. But I don’t want to sell.”
Tasker looked at him hardly, and there was a pause.
“This is my reward for picking you up almost out of the gutter, and putting you at the head of a splendid little business,” said Tasker presently, with bitterness.
At this accusation of ingratitude, of “using” somebody else for his own advantage, Walter turned scarlet with mortification. “I’m sure I’ve worked hard to get Heights going,” he defended himself anxiously.
“You have,” agreed Tasker, changing at once to a hearty tone. “You’ve worked splendidly. That’s why I’m offering you such a good price. A lot of fellows would just give you your five hundred back, with a bit on top, and think you’d got your share. But you’ve worked well, and I want you to go on managing Heights, and I don’t want you to feel aggrieved or badly treated. So I’m offering you more than Heights is really worth to me.”
“What do you want it for?” demanded Walter, genuinely puzzled. “If you’re satisfied with the way I manage it, I don’t see …”
“Well, that’s not your business, is it?” said Tasker loftily.
“No, of course not,” agreed Walter, blushing again. “But it does seem odd. And honestly I don’t want to sell. I like having Heights Mill,” he repeated pathetically.
“I shall go on running it under your name, at any rate for a time,” said Tasker, watching him.
But at this, which showed so clearly Tasker’s future ownership, Walter cried out, stung: “I won’t sell!”
“Very well, my dear fellow!” exclaimed Tasker, apparently at the end of his patience. “You’ll do as you like, of course—I can’t force you to sell to me if you don’t want to.” He picked up his hat, and swung away towards the door. “You mustn’t blame me if I take my trade away from Heights, that’s all.”
“What—what?” cried Walter, horrified. He pursued the manufacturer in consternation. “What’s that you say? You don’t mean you won’t send cloth to Heights to finish any more?”
Tasker turned to face him, and in his sardonic countenance, his grim smile, Walter read his answer.
“But we’ve done no other work but yours!” cried Walter. “You’ve always discouraged me from looking for other orders—said I had enough to do with yours. If you don’t send us work, Heights may as well close down.”
Tasker continued to smile at him hardly.
“Look here,” said Walter, panting: “Let’s get this clear. You want me to sell Heights to you as a going concern, and if I don’t, you mean to ruin me by withholding your work. You’ll say the finish doesn’t satisfy you, perhaps? Is that it?”
“I think you’d better sell out to me, Haigh,” said Tasker smoothly.
“Damn it! I’ll sell,” exploded Walter in a fury of disappointment. “I’ve got to sell; you know I have—you’ve got me in a band. But if you think I like you for it, I don’t! I shall hate you for it all the days of my life.”
“I don’t see what you’ve got to grumble at, Walter,” said Tasker consolingly: “I don’t indeed. Ten thousand pounds and a service agreement for three years, for the same amount you’re drawing now—why, you’re on velvet.”
As Walter showed no signs of being mollified Tasker went on impatiently: “Well—go and get dressed, anyway. We’ve got to go to Manchester, and be back in Leeds before ten o’clock.”
“Why should we go to Manchester?” demanded Walter in a stubborn tone.
“My solicitor’s there,” said Tasker easily. “We’ve got to get the deed drawn up.”
“It seems funny to me to have to go to Manchester to sell a property in Hudley to a man from Ashworth,” objected Walter in a disagreeable tone, wishing he had a solicitor of his own whom he could urge upon his partner. “And why such a hurry?”
“Very knowing all of a sudden, aren’t you?” sneered Tasker. “Go on—get dressed. I must be back in Leeds by ten.”
“Why?” said Walter.
“By God, Haigh!” shouted Tasker in a terrible burst of rage: “If you nag at me any more about my private affairs I’ll neither give you the chance of selling, nor send you my work; do you hear? Go on and get dressed. Don’t stand gaping there like a fool!”
Walter glared at him, panting; he knew he should be obliged to go, but hated to give in, to be obliged to obey Tasker’s behests; pride kept him rooted. There was a pause in which hatred pulsed between the two men.
“I don’t know what we’re quarrelling about, I’m sure,” said Tasker suddenly, very amicably. “Come along, Walter; do this for me. You shan’t suffer for it, I promise you.” He gave the young man his caressing smile.
Intensely relieved to be able to yield to persuasion, not to force, Walter forced a smile to his own quivering lips, muttered: “All right,” and left the room.
Tasker drew out his silk handkerchief and roughly mopped his forehead, which was thick with sweat. That was a near thing, he thought, smiling grimly to himself as he recalled the scene and his own success; who would have thought young Haigh had so much spunk in him? He laughed, and mused in genuine admiration of Walter; he thought better of the lad for standing up for himself like that, by God he did. And Ta
sker congratulated himself that Walter had moved from Moorside Place. “If I had had that virago of a sister to tackle at the same time,” he reflected, “God knows what might have happened! She might have turned the scale. I’ll bet Walter thinks she’s an angel; believes every word she says. It was a near thing, anyhow. And it’s going to be a near thing for time,” he exclaimed aloud, jumping up, and looking at his watch.
He went out into the hall, and gazed anxiously up the stairs, but on hearing a movement above, withdrew, quickly and silently, like a huge cat; it would not do to let Walter guess the extent of his anxiety.
Presently Walter came downstairs, ready to depart.
Tasker was struck by the change in his appearance. Perhaps it was because he was now shaved and neatly dressed that he seemed to have grown from a sulky child to a composed man, in half an hour; at any rate, he looked years older than when he had first entered the room that night, and the manufacturer thought with pleasure of the day when Walter would really be of use to him, when he could confide in him all his plans. He dare not risk it yet, however.
The two men went out to the car.
“Look here, Tasker,” began Walter with decision, holding him back by the arm from entering: “When are you going to pay me for Heights?”
“As soon as the sale agreement is signed,” replied Tasker cheerfully. “In about two hours, I should think, or perhaps three.”
“In money?”
“No—in shares from my Ashworth business,” said Tasker coolly. “It’s a limited company, you know.”
“I’d rather have money,” said Walter.
Tasker laughed. “I daresay you would,” he said. “But surely a man who’s lived all his life in the West Riding, like you, doesn’t need to be told that even the richest people in the trade, the most old-established, Henry Clay Crosland himself if you like, don’t carry large sums like that in their banks to pay things with? It’s all tied up in machinery, yarn, goodness knows what. Of course I might sell some of my shares in the open market and turn the money over to you, but it would have a bad effect on the firm’s credit, you know that well enough; and besides, I don’t choose that any Tom, Dick or Harry should hold my shares. They’ve always been all in my own family before, and you ought to count yourself lucky to hold some. I shall pay in ten thousand one-pound shares in Leonard Tasker 1925 Ltd. The last dividend was fifteen per cent, so I don’t see you’ve any cause to grumble.”
“I must have five hundred pounds in money,” said Walter.
“You can’t,” said Tasker briefly.
“What about my five hundred War Loan, then?” demanded Walter, sick at heart. “I suppose that’s part of Heights Mill, and goes to you.”
“Of course. I allowed for that in the purchase price,” said Tasker firmly. “Don’t be silly, Walter. My 1925 shares are a far better investment than War Loan.”
“I suppose I could sell five hundred of them and get some War Loan for father,” mused Walter.
“Haven’t I told you not to do anything of the sort?” said Tasker savagely. “I won’t have my shares sold in the open market. I’ll tell you what I’ll do, though, as you’re so damned anxious about your bit of War Loan: I’ll give you an extra two hundred Tasker ’25 shares for Heights. Though God knows it isn’t worth it,” he added in disgust, “and I can’t give you those extra ones straight away; I shall have to turn them over later. Now, come on!” he exclaimed in fierce impatience, shaking Walter’s hand from his arm and entering the car. “We’ve got to go to Manchester and back—if you think your place can run itself this morning without you, mine can’t.”
“It’s not my place any longer, seemingly,” said Walter, nevertheless following him into the car—there seemed nothing else to be done.
“Oh, don’t nag so about it, Walter!” urged Tasker, suddenly good-humoured again, reaching across Walter to bang the door behind him. “You’re the manager of one of the finest little dyeing and finishing plants in the West Riding, with several thousand pounds well invested elsewhere; isn’t that enough for you? You don’t know how to do big business, Walter. You can’t see the wood for the trees. You’re always bothering about some trifling detail or other which isn’t of the slightest importance. Yes, Manchester,” he shouted in reply to the chauffeur, who had turned an interrogative look through the glass division upon him, “and don’t dawdle! I’m going to sleep,” he concluded abruptly, switching out the light as the car purred rapidly away, “and I advise you to do the same.”
He composed himself in his corner and spoke no more, but whether he was really asleep or not Walter could not determine. For his part, Walter remained awake for some time, revolving the situation in terrible perplexity. He did not want to part with his share of Heights, and he disliked this night call, this rush to a place where West Riding affairs were not well known, to complete a legal transaction. Moreover, he could not fathom Tasker’s motive for wanting the Heights business, and this obscurity worried him—a confused suspicion rose in his mind that it was for this night’s work, and nothing else, that Tasker had started him at Heights in the first place; yet he could see neither rhyme nor reason in such a proceeding. On the face of it, Walter seemed to be doing well out of the transaction; preposterously well, indeed; even Dyson, he thought, could hardly grumble at losing the end of his War Loan investments when Walter had multiplied them so considerably. At any rate, Walter reflected consolingly, there was nothing dishonest in this sale. He was harming nobody, doing nothing wrong; even Rosamond could find nothing in it with which to reproach him. He sighed with relief, and exhausted by a long day’s work and the fierce argument with Tasker, fell asleep.
Meanwhile the car traversed Hudley, wound along the intersecting valleys westwards, and began to rise into the central spurs of the Pennine Chain. And as it reached the last town on the Yorkshire side of the hills, suddenly the darkness was all a-clatter with footsteps; buzzers blared out their strange peremptory note; the smell of smoke, for it was pouring out unseen in the dark from the mouths of the chimneys a hundred and thirty feet above, weighted the air; occasionally in the light of a street-lamp groups of men and women could be seen, tramping steadily along—the older women wore heavy shawls and clogs, the younger had shabby hats and coats and shoes, waved hair held in position with many slides, mended silk stockings and battered attaché cases; the men were uniformly drab, with faded blue overalls beneath their jackets. Here, as at this hour in Ashworth, in Hudley, at Heights, all over the West Riding, the workers were going to the mills.
Walter awoke as the car was passing through the suburbs of Manchester. He felt sulky, irritable, dirty, and disheartened to the point of cowardice. Tasker, however, spoke to him at once in his friendliest tone, and proposed breakfast at the Midland Hotel. Over the admirable meal ordered by his companion, Walter felt his spirit again slowly raise its head; he gave appreciative glances about him, and all of a sudden began to enjoy his situation enormously. What an adventure it was, after all, to be dragged from one’s bed at dead of night, and rushed across two counties to sell a business! How different from the dull, if blameless, days before he met Tasker, days divided between the unimportant routine of Messrs. Lumb and the dreary retirement of Moorside Place! The Romance of Commerce! Walter had always doubted its existence before; but this was surely the real thing. Exciting martial tunes rang in his head; he felt ready for anything; and suddenly became very talkative and confidential to Tasker, telling him all sorts of private matters—feelings, humiliations, small successes—which he had never revealed to anyone before. Tasker listened with serious interest, and told him in return that he had lots of ability and courage—Tasker had seen that, he said, the moment Walter entered his office at Victory Mills—and was just the sort of fellow to pull off some really big things; this Heights affair was only a beginning. In the middle of this and similar flatteries, which Walter drank in eagerly, Tasker suddenly jumped up, and said it was time for them to be off.
They drove to the office of
a solicitor who was obviously expecting them at this early hour, for papers were already prepared for their signatures, and clerks were in attendance—this made Walter somewhat uneasy; he cast a critical eye on the terms of the agreement, and objected that Tasker seemed to be both buying and selling.
“Well, so I am, in a way,” replied Tasker, with an air of candour. “I’m selling as a private person, your partner, and buying as the representative of the Leonard Tasker 1925 Company, Limited.”
“It seems rather peculiar,” hesitated Walter.
Tasker laughed; and there seemed something so spontaneous and uncalculated in the sound that Walter was convinced of his own ignorance, and blushed for it.
“You’ll get used to these things soon,” said Tasker comfortingly, as Walter inscribed his rather large and childish signature in the places indicated.
The transaction was soon completed, and they sped homeward through the bright frosty morning air. Walter was in good spirits. A great deal of work awaited him at Heights Mill, of a kind with which he was now well able to cope, and he had that delicious feeling of having a place in the world, and being a person who counts, which is so conducive to happiness. He babbled cheerfully about everything they passed on the road, unconsciously showing off all the time and imagining he was making a good impression. Tasker’s replies grew shorter and shorter, and Walter, looking towards him once for some appreciation of a piece of knowledge he had just displayed, surprised a look of harassment and weariness on the older man’s face. He gaped a little, and coloured, disconcerted; Tasker’s brow immediately cleared, and he made a neat and subtly flattering reply. Indeed, Walter made such strides, as he thought, towards intimacy with his former partner and present employer that when the car drew up at the end of Heights Lane he said warmly: “Won’t you come in and have a look round, then?” (though he usually dreaded Tasker’s presence at Heights), and was quite disappointed when Tasker replied in his gruff tones: “Sorry I’ve no time this morning, Walter.”
A Modern Tragedy Page 12