A Modern Tragedy

by Phyllis Bentley

  For an hour or two, as Walter went up and down Heights Mill, he continued to feel happy, and as though he were in some way relieved. But presently he began to suffer his usual reaction when released from the spell of Tasker’s company; uneasiness rose in him, he felt thwarted, tricked, and questioned his behaviour towards Tasker gloomily. Why should he feel relieved, in any case? Had he, perhaps, always dreaded that something would happen about Heights, always felt sure that Tasker had some hidden intention with regard to it, and now the reality was not as bad as he had feared? This thought, in a vague and incoherent form, crossed Walter’s mind with increasing pressure; his mood slowly darkened; he began to wonder what exactly he had sold that morning, and what had been its value to the buyer. Was his position sufficiently stable even yet to be confessed openly to his father? Walter felt that it was not; he feared that there was more to come, Tasker had more up his sleeve yet, he hadn’t done with Walter, nor Walter with him; no, not by a long way. Still, Walter hadn’t suffered yet from the association, surely? In any case, nothing could be done about it, he was tied to Tasker now.

  Walter was in this uneasy and uncertain frame of mind when his cashier came down into the dye-house to fetch him, with the announcement that Miss Haigh had called.

  “Oh, confound her!” exploded Walter. Really it was too bad, when he was worried like this, that his family should turn up and harass him with their criticisms. He made his way to the office sulkily, and presented a scowling face to Rosamond, who looked, he thought, pale, tired and plain.

  “It’s not about Father,” she said at once.

  “Oh,” said Walter with a more amiable look; he was somewhat ashamed to be relieved thus of an anxiety he had not felt. “What is it, then?”

  “I came before school to the Cottage to see you,” explained Rosamond quickly, “but you weren’t there. You’d already left with Mr. Tasker. He came to Moorside Place to look for you very early this morning,” she added, seeing her brother’s look of bewilderment.

  “Really!” said Walter surprised. “He didn’t tell me.”

  “I suppose he didn’t think it necessary,” said Rosamond, and she pressed firmly upon herself the barbed and stinging fact that the meeting between herself and Tasker, which had changed her life, was not worth a casual reference to him. She went on steadily: “So I came up again to see you now in my free period. I wanted to see you at the earliest possible moment.”

  “Well, what about?” said Walter testily.

  “Walter,” said Rosamond urgently, fixing her eyes upon her brother’s: “Don’t have anything to do with Mr. Tasker. I’m sure he’s not a man to be trusted.”

  “Oh, really, Rosamond,” said the exasperated Walter: “This is ridiculous.”

  “Why should he come to see you at that preposterous hour?” demanded Rosamond. “What was the business he wanted you to do with him?”

  “My dear child, you wouldn’t understand if I told you,” said Walter condescendingly.

  “Do you understand it yourself?” demanded Rosamond.

  At this home thrust Walter turned scarlet, and his temper flared. “Rosamond, will you please leave me alone?” he cried hotly. “I’m not a child now, and I can manage my own affairs without any assistance from you. When I want your advice I’ll ask for it. Don’t be so confoundedly interfering.”

  “Indeed I don’t wish to interfere with anyone’s affairs,” protested Rosamond, cut to the quick. “It’s only that I distrust that Tasker man to the bottom of my soul.”

  “He’s not a type of man you can expect to understand,” countered Walter loftily. “He’s a business man, not a school teacher nor an amateur theatrical. In his own line he’s exceedingly clever.”

  “I don’t doubt it,” said Rosamond with irony. “And you, Walter? Are you clever in the same line? Able to hold your own with him?”

  Walter gave his sister a look of bitter resentment. “It’s no use your going on at me like that, Rosamond,” he said, after a pause, coldly. “Tasker and I are in business together, and shall continue to be so. I shall be with him,” he enlarged, thinking of the service agreement signed that morning, “for at least three years.”

  Rosamond exclaimed. “You’re committed to him!” she said.

  Her brother nodded.

  “Then I’ll return to school,” said Rosamond with proud decision. She drew on her gloves and raised the collar of her coat. “But I do wish you wouldn’t have anything to do with him, Walter!” she urged afresh, turning back to her brother. “I do wish you wouldn’t. Why need you?”

  Walter sighed in exasperation. “I’ll run you down to Hudley,” he offered, to put an end to the argument. “Wait here—I’ll fetch the car.”

  “The car?” exclaimed Rosamond. “What car?”

  “It belongs to the business,” said Walter carelessly, his cheeks nevertheless burning.

  “And the business is Mr. Tasker’s?” queried Rosamond.

  “Tasker’s, yes,” replied Walter, sardonically amused that he was able to give this answer for the first time on the very day she first asked the question.

  “Then I’ll walk,” said Rosamond with scornful emphasis. “Good-bye, Walter.”

  “Rosamond, you’re behaving like a child!” cried her brother angrily.

  “And what are you behaving like? Pray inform me,” said Rosamond with fierce contempt, her nostrils dilated, her dark eyes flashing. “A friend of the Lumbs, perhaps?”

  Walter exclaimed and turned aside impatiently.

  The brother and sister parted thus, in anger, and Walter’s visits to Moorside Place became rare indeed.

  Scene 3. A Girl of the Period

  THE ECONOMIC depression showed no signs of lifting, indeed it deepened every day; and Walter was now brought more directly into contact with its phenomena. For immediately after the sale of the Heights Mill business Tasker began to press him to secure outside customers, and as Walter was now under his command, he had perforce to attempt this task, and discover how dreary, thankless, and too often unprofitable the business of soliciting orders just then could be. Manufacturers were, they assured him, making only a tenth of their usual output; and when it happened, as it sometimes did, that they asked him whether he represented Heights or Messrs. Lumb, Walter winced to think that the small volume of trade available for Messrs. Lumb was being still further diminished by every order he himself received.

  One wet December evening he was returning from Leeds feeling particularly gloomy, when he saw Mrs. Lewry standing beside the white-belted post which marked the Heights bus stop, shrinking from the bitter wind and pitiless rain. He drew up beside her, took her in, asked her destination and conveyed her along the brow to the Clay Green church schoolroom—he often thus drove his hostess about or did her errands—and listened to her twitterings about the Clay Green Christmas Fair politely, though he was almost overcome by the desire to yawn. When he at length arrived at the little building, which with its pointed roof and tiny belfry had a mimic clerical air, Mrs. Lewry, descending, asked him tentatively if he would care to come in—he was a nice young fellow, she thought, though, of course, not quite a gentleman, and it seemed a pity for him to live such a lonely life. Walter hesitated, then suddenly accepted with alacrity. He had observed Henry Clay Crosland’s blue saloon in front of him, just turning empty away. He bought a ticket at the door, and entered the long room with obscurely pleasurable anticipations.

  He was astonished to find himself amid all the paper festoons, the muslin-draped stalls, the clutter of useless objects, the heat, the children rushing hither and thither, the crowd of drooping buyers and brisk sellers of the average religious bazaar in the provinces; he had often attended such functions in connection with the chapel where Dyson had been Sunday School superintendent, in the past; but since his association with Tasker had somehow forgotten that they existed.

  Mrs. Lewry was at once seized upon by numerous ladies of her former parish; and Walter moved on alone, smiling though a trifle disc
onsolate, superficially bored yet really rather enjoying this return to a scene so familiar in his childhood, and all the time craning his neck and gazing about among the crowd. He bought a buttonhole, invested sixpence in several lotteries, approached a stall arranged for quoits, and found himself standing beside Henry Clay Crosland, who was watching a fair, rather undersized but handsome lad in his early teens trying to ring an attractive prize.

  “This must be Ralph,” thought Walter quickly, and his guess was confirmed by the boy’s prompt appeal to his grandfather for another sixpence. His aim had failed this time, but he was sure it would succeed in another three throws. Mr. Crosland, smiling, produced the coins. Ralph threw the heavy rubber rings, failed, and demanded yet another sixpenny-worth. But this time his grandfather pulled the boy gently back by the shoulders, and with a smile at Walter observed that he thought it was this gentleman’s turn. At this Walter and Ralph each coloured and hastily disclaimed in favour of the other. Walter perforce took his turn, but felt the boy’s anxious tension as he watched him throw, and was careful not to aim near the gaudy penknife which he saw Ralph desired. Henry Clay Crosland’s kindly glance seemed to acknowledge this abstention, and Walter, blushing deeper, felt suddenly in tremendous spirits. As it chanced, his aim was good. He ringed a tiny distant box of sweets, and retired under Ralph’s admiring gaze.

  Just then a perspiring official rang a large bell in Walter’s ear, and announced loudly that the entertainment would now begin. Tickets could be obtained at the large class-room door.

  Walter crossed rapidly to the door indicated, bought tickets for himself and Mrs. Lewry, found her and urged her into the queue which was beginning to form. There they had to wait some time, and it appeared from the comments of those about them that the entertainment was already considerably overdue.

  Presently Henry Clay Crosland and his grandson appeared by their side in the shifting group; the boy had such a pleased air that Walter was moved to ask him whether he had secured the penknife, and for answer Ralph took it from his pocket and displayed its blades. Meanwhile Mr. Crosland was inviting Mrs. Lewry to accept a ticket for the entertainment; she replied that Mr. Haigh had already secured one for her, and turned explanatorily towards Walter, who was examining Ralph’s knife, and held it in his hand. In a moment the two men were made acquainted; and Mr. Crosland’s smile was very kindly.

  Just then the door of the entertainment room was opened, and the little crowd pressed in. A tall dark pretty woman in middle life, who was probably Mrs. Richard Crosland, beckoned her father-in-law imploringly forward; Mrs. Lewry naturally accompanied him, there was a slight confusion of greeting and readjustment, and Walter found himself between Ralph and his grandfather in the front seats. He felt very happy—happier, in fact, than he had felt for many months. It was a pleasure, it did one good, merely to sit beside Henry Clay Crosland, whose every look and word unconsciously gave out integrity; the boy, too, was likeable, serious, rather simple, very fresh and young, with long fair eyelashes and fine grey eyes. Walter, who had perhaps been rather starved of the domestic affections lately, began thoroughly to enjoy himself; he passed the sweets he had won at quoits up the line of the Crosland party, explained the smallness of the box cheerfully, laughed and talked and felt very kindly indeed towards Ralph. He decided, too, that he would run down to Moorside Place on the following night, and tell them all about this small adventure. There was plenty of time for all these thoughts to pass through his mind, as the entertainment for long enough showed no signs of ever taking place; the audience was stamping in derisive impatience when, at last, the cracked little curtain rolled up, and the play began.

  The performance reached only the level then commonly observed on such occasions. The play, a modern “drawingroom” one-act piece of alleged wit but little real merit, had apparently been chosen so that a variety of pretty frocks might be worn. Walter, however, though he recognised that it was different from the sort of piece the Harlequins performed, thought it must be all right since the Croslands’ friends were in it, and smiled at all the jokes even when he didn’t quite understand them. The actors, who belonged to the type which the newspapers in that year united to call “bright young things,” had youth, good looks, charm, but little histrionic ability—but then, most of them made no pretence to it; they giggled at slight stage contretemps (of which there were not a few), spoke sometimes in their natural tones and sometimes with artifice, moved jerkily, fidgeted and looked at the audience when it was not their turn to give utterance, and were not very certain of their lines. Walter surveyed them indulgently; their looks and their accent atoned in his eyes for any slight errors of performance. Then Elaine Clay Crosland made her entrance; she was playing the heroine of the piece, and wore a white evening gown of finished elegance, in which her fair loveliness, enhanced by every modern art, really dazzled the eye. Walter felt the blood slowly rise into his cheeks in a deep hot blush, as he realised abruptly that the reason he had settled at Mrs. Lewry’s, the reason he had come here to-night, was simply Elaine. He had chosen Mrs. Lewry’s house for a lodging, not because of its convenience to Heights Mill, though as it chanced it was suitable enough, but because of the secret hope that his connection with Mrs. Lewry might bring about a meeting between himself and Elaine—as the widow of a Clay Green vicar, Mrs. Lewry would surely sometimes receive courtesy visits from the Crosland family. Thus he had unconsciously calculated; now, when his calculations had come to fruition, Walter realised them and felt both amused and ashamed. His assiduous attentions to Mrs. Lewry, too, of which his giving her a lift to-night was a typical instance—were they not fruit of the same tree? Walter knew that they were; laughing to himself and blushing, he resolved to make sincere for the future what before had been calculation. At this his trouble somewhat subsided—for after all he was not ashamed of the cause of his dissimulation—and he was able to return his attention to the stage. Elaine far surpassed all her colleagues in beauty, manner, finish, everything, and it was with amazement that Walter observed that her small hand trembled as she stretched it out to receive a letter, her lovely pointed little face quivered as she spoke in her soft high tones. “Can she really be nervous?” thought Walter, incredulous—he could not understand how anyone so lovely could doubt her effect. Just then Elaine missed her lines, and looked quickly, frowning, towards the prompter in the wings. A derisive titter broke from the audience in the back benches; Elaine heard it, and a kind of dark anguished hostility seemed to breathe from her brilliant form in reply. Made sensitive by love, Walter perceived that the performance was not having a good reception from the audience in general; he quivered with indignation on Elaine’s behalf, and a warm, protective impulse throbbed in his heart. He longed to take Elaine in his arms, draw that dazzling head down to his shoulder, and tell her over and over again, between gentle kisses of true love, how wonderfully lovely, how incomparably beautiful, she was, and how stupid and despicable any who dared to disapprove of her. He gazed at her with his heart in his eyes, and wished she might see and understand his loving admiration.

  If Elaine Clay Crosland was nervous when appearing in public it was not with the nervousness which numbs the faculties, but with extreme self-consciousness; she was not afraid to-night lest the audience should be disappointed, but lest the occasion should not prove a splendid triumph for herself. Splendid triumphs were necessary to Elaine; she needed a constant succession of them to reassure her against that ridicule which she was convinced everyone secretly felt for her. They were unjust, of course, she felt, so to despise her, and one day she would show them what an admirable person she really was, indeed, she was always showing them, all her actions were meant to show them; at any rate, she led her little social group in beauty and bravado, nobody could deny that; but she must keep it up, keep it up, always be thinking of some frock which would outshine the rest in elegance, some phrase more daring than they dared to say. At times, soothed by the performance of some art wherein she excelled—as, for instance, ridi
ng, for her physical courage was as magnificent as her health—or in rare moments of romping with Ralph, she forgot all her unrest and became a lovely, spirited, ethereal child, all air and fire, soft in her touch on the heart as thistle down, pure as white flame, compassionate, helpful, loving. But to be thus, she had to feel secure—secure that all around admired her as she wished to be admired: for the right qualities and without reservation. With her grandfather and her mother, she was not thus at rest, for she felt guilty of much careless selfishness towards them, and could not at the bottom of her heart believe in their forgiveness; besides, one only felt secure in receiving admiration from people one admired, and how could one admire people so spiritless, so dull, so timid as the pre-war generation always seemed to be? With her friends—but they were her competitors; one could not relax with them. So she had little ease. And yet she was so beautiful, so good, so clever, reflected Elaine angrily; people ought to admire her, they ought and they should. She would show them. She was showing them that night; only that tiresome boy who played the hero of the piece had made her forget her lines, and then the prompter was so slow in prompting. It was not her fault that there had been a noticeable pause, but it was at her the audience had tittered, hateful things. Everyone was against her, everyone! At any rate, nobody should think she cared. Anxious to impress this on her companions at once, before anyone should have a chance to misunderstand (or rather, rightly understand) her feeling, the moment the curtain was down she cried eagerly at large: “Darlings, did you hear me fluff my lines in that scene with Tommy Anstey?” Someone said mildly: “No, I didn’t notice.” Elaine’s heart leaped, but she dared not trust a single opinion, and continued on a note of scorn: “Oh, darling, I was simply awful.” “We were all pretty awful, if you ask me,” said the girl who had spoken before. Shrieks of laughter greeted this, and the troupe adopted the sentence wholesale as a slogan. “We were all pretty awful!” they shouted gleefully, skimming down the little wooden steps from the platform to the floor of the emptying room, like a flock of bright birds.