A Modern Tragedy (44 page)

“Well, you're lucky if you're not wed,” said the other. “I'm living on my childer now, and not fifty yet—I didn't satisfy their Means Test. If I'd known what I know now, I might have got through. I'm telling you for your own good.”

“And what do you know now, then?” said Milner, turning to look at the speaker, who proved to be a small square man, with the mild pale far-looking blue eyes of the visionary. Milner spoke irritably and with some contempt, for
the man's piping voice annoyed him, and he thought himself already perfectly familiar with all unemployment insurance regulations. The man seemed undaunted, however; he put his hand into his breast pocket and withdrew a leaflet, dirty, much folded and worn at the creases, which he proffered to Milner as though it were an object of value.

“Why don't you join, lad?” he said eagerly. “We want a sharp lad like you.”

Milner, peering, deciphered the heading of an unemployed workers' association, and the words:
Thousands of you are walking the streets in despair.
“That's true, anyway,” he said bitterly.

He held the leaflet to the light of the street-lamp and read:

Thousands of you are walking the Streets in despair.

Thousands more of you are queueing up your half-starved bodies in front of the Labour Exchange and Board of Guardians.

THE HOUR HAS COME FOR YOU TO STATE YOUR CASE BEFORE THE BAR OF HUMANITY

This organisation fights cases at Labour Exchanges, Board of Guardians, and Eviction cases
FOR ONE PENNY A WEEK

JOIN THE ABOVE MOVEMENT AT THE ABOVE ADDRESS

Milner's first reaction to this leaflet was that he could improve it if he had a chance, and that the movement certainly did need him. But he said: “It's nowt i' my line. I'm a union man,” and handed the leaflet back.

“It's in everybody's line that's unemployed,” protested the little man eagerly. “We've union men and all sorts.”

“You're impairing the solidarity of the Trades Unions,
that's what you are,” said Milner sternly, quoting one of his leaders.

“Not us!” said the little man. “It's a legitimate movement within Trades Union ranks,” he went on, quoting in his turn. “Come to that, the T.U.C. don't seem able to help us much, do they? If this is all they can do. You ought to join, lad—we need sharp young chaps like you.”

The thought of being needed, after more than two years of feeling unwanted both at work and at home, was balm on Milner's sore heart. He laughed artificially, and made a non-committal reply, for he did not intend to join the movement; nevertheless he unconsciously memorised the address of the local branch.

The Town Clerk of Hudley, who was the returning officer for the election, now came out to a balcony in front of the Town Hall, accompanied by various local officials and the candidates. Instantly a tense hush fell upon the packed crowd, and the thousands of faces turned upwards gleamed white in the moonlight. The Town Clerk announced through a loudspeaker that the voting had resulted in the election of the National Conservative candidate, by a huge majority. So utterly unexpected, so unprecedentedly unusual, was a result of this sort for the industrial town of Hudley, that there was a moment's incredulous pause while the crowd tried to take the news in. Then the result, with the figures of the voting, was flashed on the newspaper's screen, and a tumult of delirious cheering thundered through the air. Milner stood absolutely silent and inert, as if someone had struck him a heavy physical blow; the crowd swayed hither and thither, divided between the desire to go home and the desire to shake its new member by the hand; Milner was carried from side to side of the street and did not know it; his eyes were wide and staring, his mouth hung open, his forehead was contorted in a pitiful questioning frown; he felt as if his stomach had
been removed, and a burning, sickening, hollow sensation placed in his body in its stead. “We can't have
lost,”
he muttered from time to time hoarsely: “We can't have
lost.”
If they had lost, thousands of men and women who usually voted on Milner's side must have turned against it; perhaps Harry?

“Well, I'll be seeing you,” shouted the man with the leaflet, as the crowd dragged them apart.

“Happen you will,” mumbled the dazed Milner. He felt that everything in the world he cared for was lost, and it no longer mattered what he did.

But Walter, cheering wildly, felt happier than he had done for years. Everything was sure to come all right now, he thought; confidence would be restored, trade would improve, Tasker, Haigh and Co. would be able to regularise their accounts, and he would be a happy, carefree man, with nothing to conceal. A sudden vision of the ecstasy of living his present life
in innocency
shone in front of Walter, and made every fibre of his body thrill with bliss and hope; he determined to strive with all his powers to put the Tasker Haigh Company's affairs straight, and be honest ever after. England, he felt, had turned over a new leaf, and he would do the same. “I'll get Arnold Lumb a job,” he decided, as this subject suddenly welled up to the surface of his mind with a vigour which showed how it had been oppressing him: “I'll talk to everyone about him. That would be one thing off my chest, at any rate.” The coincidence that, as the crowd swayed hither and thither, he caught sight of Arnold emerging from the side entrance of the Town Hall (where he had been acting as vote-teller for the sake of the pay) seemed to him a good omen; and he rushed off home joyously.

He found Henry Clay Crosland and Elaine drinking coffee together in the drawing-room, with the wireless turned on and paper and pencils by their sides; Mr. Crosland had come
to Clough End to listen to the broadcast election results, the Clay Hall wireless set being out of order, as it usually was nowadays while Ralph was not at home. It was always a peculiar pleasure to Walter to see Henry Clay Crosland on his hearth, and he greeted him now with real affection; this pleased Elaine. “There's a letter from Ralph, if you'd care to read it,” said Mr. Crosland in his kind quiet tones; Walter took the proffered scrawl eagerly, and Elaine watched with a smile. While Dyson Haigh and Henry Clay Crosland were lifelong Liberals, Walter and Elaine, like most young people of their type and time, were decided though inactive Conservatives. Walter had indeed as a boy accepted his father's politics without much thinking about them, as he accepted Dyson's name; but the example of Elaine and her friends, and something in the mood of the time, had turned him Tory. In this election, however, the three grouped about the charming old hearth of the Clough End drawing-room were all on the same side—though Henry Clay Crosland occasionally pulled a wry face over the sayings of some of his new allies. They were therefore able to exclaim in sympathy over the continued successes for the National party which, in the intervals of dance music and the Gershom Parkington quintet, came over the air throughout the early hours of the morning. Naturally they were pleased by these successes; Walter, strong in his new resolutions, happy in his company, was lively, gay and charming. At about four o'clock in the morning he drove Mr. Crosland home, and returned in a carefree joyous mood, his brown eyes sparkling.

“If Walter were always like this,” thought Elaine, responding with rapture to her husband's eager caresses: “We should be very happy together. But he's not.”

AND INDEED Walter's new-found confidence did not last a day. On the morning following the election, still full of good resolutions, which were confirmed by the further results given in the morning papers, Walter flew off to Bradford to see young Anstey's father, for he, as a member of a large dyeing and finishing combine, might be hoped to have work in his disposal suitable for Arnold Lumb. But Walter received here an immediate check, and discovered at once that to repent of wrongdoing is by no means the same as not to have committed it.

For Mr. Anstey was not favourably disposed towards Walter. This was partly on personal grounds, partly for business reasons. Walter had attracted his unfavourable notice by upsetting young Anstey's marriage with Elaine Crosland. For a time the boy had been quite hipped about it; lately, however, he had contracted an engagement highly suitable in his father's eyes—the girl was rich, “county,” of agreeable disposition, and made him very happy—so that Mr. Anstey was now inclined to forgive Walter on that score. In business, however, he still retained the prejudice against him which had originated in his private grievance. Walter was the combine's competitor, and they did not find his methods of price-cutting agreeable; moreover, Mr. Anstey distrusted Tasker and was sorry to see Mr. Crosland, a relative distant in blood but near in feeling, mixed up with him through Walter's agency, and he had heard rumours of Walter's behaviour to the Lumbs which seemed to him unsatisfactory. The young man looked handsome and open enough this
morning, certainly, and his eagerness to help his former employer seemed creditable; but Mr. Anstey had too many worries of his own in these hard times to have leisure for giving effect to other people's creditable impulses, especially when he wasn't really sure whether they were creditable impulses or clever calculations. For these reasons, therefore, his tone as he replied that Arnold Lumb had already been to see him on his own account, and that he had regretted having nothing to offer him, was cold and unhelpful, and the glance he turned on Walter revealed his distrust. “Why are you so anxious about Arnold Lumb?” it seemed to say. “What business is it of yours whether he has a job? What do you gain by it?”

Beneath this suspicious gaze Walter blushed scarlet, and barely retained presence of mind enough to round off the interview by begging Mr. Anstey at least to keep Arnold in mind.

“Oh, certainly,” replied Mr. Anstey, with even less conviction than before.

Walter, all his good intentions as it were thrown back in his face, left the building in a rage. He was not to be allowed, then, even to do Arnold Lumb a good turn? Everyone was against him? Nobody would help him? Then henceforth he would struggle no more. But it was a shame, a shame, an abominable shame, that he should be so compassed about, so hemmed in, so thwarted, raged Walter; and he sank into one of the orgies of self-pity which had lately become so frequent an indulgence, in which he found excuses for his worst sins by regarding them as performed under compulsion. Now, for example, he gave up all idea of helping Arnold Lumb, for any such attempt, he decided, was useless; everyone was against him….

Mr. Anstey intended to forget the whole matter immediately, but just because of the dissatisfaction in his mind about
Walter's relations with Arnold Lumb, and general business conduct, he remembered it; and from time to time the subject of a job for Arnold cropped up in his conversation. Others in whose company Mr. Anstey recalled it, remembered it and mentioned it in their turn; so that the topic did not cease to be current, and Arnold's abilities did not fall into the oblivion which usually hides those of an unemployed man so rapidly. Moreover, these men into whose conversation Walter had introduced the subject were not the heads of small firms like the Lumbs, but directors of businesses on a large scale. Their remarks carried weight; their connections were extensive, their recommendations valid. And so it came about that at last, at the beginning of the new year, Arnold received a letter from a certain Mr. Adolf Stein, suggesting an interview; he attended at the time and place appointed, and left half an hour later in Mr. Stein's employ.

Mr. Adolf Stein, by birth an Englishman, by race a German Jew, was by profession a cloth merchant, and formed in his person the third generation of a wealthy Bradford family firm. He did business on a large scale, and was weathering the present financial storm with the customary skill and foresight of his race; well known in reputable West Riding circles for strict integrity, remarkable financial acumen and a passionate and benevolent interest in music, he was a just if an exacting master, and kept his employees for long periods. But at first Arnold was not very comfortable in his new employment. After being out of work for six long months, he found himself so wretchedly nervous on his first morning at Stein's that his hands positively shook, he could hardly see the cloth in front of him, and was almost afraid to say a word about it lest his skill had rusted away and he should be wrong. This phase soon passed; but he found that, although his present work as buyer made good use of his skill in judging the finish of cloth, he missed greatly the actual creative
processes of manufacture, and felt as if he were acting as a clerk merely, reporting on other men's work instead of doing some himself. Also, although any haughtiness or arrogance was quite alien to his nature, he found it difficult to be at another man's bidding, not to be able to do as he himself judged best. Then, too, the scraps of foreign languages and foreign customs flying about Stein's office, which a younger and more flexible mind would have enjoyed as a welcome change, upset Arnold and made him feel uneasy and ashamed—they were not West Riding, he felt, they were strange, peculiar, they set him apart from other men filling normal situations. But he was determined to keep his job, determined to make a success of it, determined not to let himself be ruined by Walter; and after a while his feelings of restraint and strangeness died down, and he began in a quiet way to be at ease and happy. He grew to appreciate his employer's decision and skill and to be less astonished at the ways in which he used it; he found his own expert knowledge valued at its worth. He enjoyed the journey to and from Bradford—no doubt he would be tired enough of it presently, but meanwhile the morning journey at that hour, by train, was a novelty; he made the acquaintance of various regular travellers, and had anecdotes to retail about them at night to his parents and their guest and Reetha—especially Reetha, who was slowly becoming the centre of his world. The absence of responsibility, too, the feeling that when he came home at night he needn't think about his work again till morning, was unutterably restful after the terrible strain of the last few years. It was a tight fit for the Lumbs to live on his salary and what their guest paid, but by the exercise of ruthless economy they managed it; and economy was the fashion in the country just then. In a word, the event so long dreaded had happened and was over, and could not happen in the same way again; Arnold had made a good fresh start, saw his way to a frugal
but certain living for his dependants, and was able to feel a decent pride in his refusal to be broken by disaster.