When Linden was gone downstairs again, Philpot, having finished what remained of the beer and hidden the bottle up the chimney, resumed the work of stopping up the holes and cracks in the ceiling and walls. He must make a bit of a show tonight or there would be a hell of a row when Misery came in the morning.
Owen worked on in a disheartened, sullen way. He felt like a beaten dog.
He was more indignant on poor old Linden’s account than on his own, and was oppressed by a sense of impotence and shameful degradation.
All his life it had been the same: incessant work under similar more or less humiliating conditions, and with no more result than being just able to avoid starvation.
And the future, as far as he could see, was as hopeless as the past; darker, for there would surely come a time, if he lived long enough, when he would be unable to work any more.
He thought of his child. Was he to be a slave and a drudge all his life also?
It would be better for the boy to die now.
As Owen thought of his child’s future there sprung up within him a feeling of hatred and fury against the majority of his fellow workmen.
They were the enemy. Those who not only quietly submitted like so many cattle to the existing state of things, but defended it, and opposed and ridiculed any suggestion to alter it.
They were the real oppressors – the men who spoke of themselves as ‘The likes of us,’ who, having lived in poverty and degradation all their lives considered that what had been good enough for them was good enough for the children they had been the cause of bringing into existence.
He hated and despised them because they calmly saw their children condemned to hard labour and poverty for life, and deliberately refused to make any effort to secure for them better conditions than those they had themselves.
It was because they were indifferent to the fate of their children that he would be unable to secure a natural and human life for his. It was their apathy or active opposition that made it impossible to establish a better system of society under which those who did their fair share of the world’s work would be honoured and rewarded. Instead of helping to do this, they abased themselves, and grovelled before their oppressors, and compelled and taught their children to do the same. They were the people who were really responsible for the continuance of the present system.
Owen laughed bitterly to himself. What a very comical system it was.
Those who worked were looked upon with contempt, and subjected to every possible indignity. Nearly everything they produced was taken away from them and enjoyed by the people who did nothing. And then the workers bowed down and grovelled before those who had robbed them of the fruits of their labour and were childishly grateful to them for leaving anything at all.
No wonder the rich despised them and looked upon them as dirt. They were despicable. They were dirt. They admitted it and gloried in it.
While these thoughts were seething in Owen’s mind, his fellow workmen were still patiently toiling on downstairs. Most of them had by this time dismissed Hunter from their thoughts. They did not take things so seriously as Owen. They flattered themselves that they had more sense than that. It could not be altered. Grin and bear it. After all, it was only for life! Make the best of things, and get your own back whenever you get a chance.
Presently Harlow began to sing. He had a good voice and it was a good song, but his mates just then did not appreciate either one or the other. His singing was the signal for an outburst of exclamations and catcalls.
‘Shut it, for Christ’s sake!’
‘That’s enough of that bloody row!’
And so on. Harlow stopped.
‘How’s the enemy?’ asked Easton presently, addressing no one in particular.
‘Don’t know,’ replied Bundy. ‘It must be about half past four. Ask Slyme; he’s got a watch.’
It was a quarter past four.
‘It gets dark very early now,’ said Easton.
‘Yes,’ replied Bundy. ‘It’s been very dull all day. I think it’s goin’ to rain. Listen to the wind.’
‘I ’ope not,’ replied Easton. ‘That means a wet shirt goin’ ’ome.’
He called out to old Jack Linden, who was still working at the front doors:
‘Is it raining, Jack?’
Old Jack, his pipe still in his mouth, turned to look at the weather. It was raining, but Linden did not see the large drops which splashed heavily upon the ground. He saw only Hunter, who was standing at the gate, watching him. For a few seconds the two men looked at each other in silence. Linden was paralysed with fear. Recovering himself, he hastily removed his pipe, but it was too late.
Misery strode up.
‘I don’t pay you for smoking,’ he said, loudly. ‘Make out your time sheet, take it to the office and get your money. I’ve had enough of you!’
Jack made no attempt to defend himself: he knew it was of no use. He silently put aside the things he had been using, went into the room where he had left his tool-bag and coat, removed his apron and white jacket, folded them up and put them into his tool-bag along with the tools he had been using – a chisel-knife and a shavehook – put on his coat, and, with the tool-bag slung over his shoulder, went away from the house.
Without speaking to anyone else, Hunter then hastily walked over the place, noting what progress had been made by each man during his absence. He then rode away, as he wanted to get to the office in time to give Linden his money.
It was now very cold and dark within the house, and as the gas was not yet laid on, Crass distributed a number of candles to the men, who worked silently, each occupied with his own gloomy thoughts. Who would be the next?
Outside, sombre masses of lead-coloured clouds gathered ominously in the tempestuous sky. The gale roared loudly round the old-fashioned house and the windows rattled discordantly. Rain fell in torrents.
They said it meant getting wet through going home, but all the same, Thank God it was nearly five o’clock!
3
The Financiers
That night as Easton walked home through the rain he felt very depressed. It had been a very bad summer for most people and he had not fared better than the rest. A few weeks with one firm, a few days with another, then out of a job, then on again for a month perhaps, and so on.
William Easton was a man of medium height, about twenty-three years old, with fair hair and moustache and blue eyes. He wore a stand-up collar with a coloured tie and his clothes, though shabby, were clean and neat.
He was married: his wife was a young woman whose acquaintance he had made when he happened to be employed with others painting the outside of the house where she was a general servant. They had ‘walked out’ for about fifteen months. Easton had been in no hurry to marry, for he knew that, taking good times with bad, his wages did not average a pound a week. At the end of that time, however, he found that he could not honourably delay longer, so they were married.
That was twelve months ago.
As a single man he had never troubled much if he happened to be out of work; he always had enough to live on and pocket money besides, but now that he was married it was different; the fear of being ‘out’ haunted him all the time.
He had started for Rushton & Co. on the previous Monday after having been idle for three weeks, and as the house where he was working had to be done right through he had congratulated himself on having secured a job that would last till Christmas; but he now began to fear that what had befallen Jack Linden might also happen to himself at any time. He would have to be very careful not to offend Crass in any way. He was afraid the latter did not like him very much as it was. Easton knew that Crass could get him the sack at any time and would not scruple to do so if he wanted to make room for some crony of his own. Crass was the ‘coddy’ or foreman of the job. Considered as a workman he had no very unusual abilities; he was if anything inferior to the majority of his fellow workmen. But although he had but little real ability he pretended
to know everything, and the vague references he was in the habit of making to ‘tones’, and ‘shades’, and ‘harmony’, had so impressed Hunter that the latter had a high opinion of him as a workman. It was by pushing himself forward in this way and by judicious toadying to Hunter that Crass managed to get himself put in charge of work.
Although Crass did as little work as possible himself he took care that the others worked hard. Any man who failed to satisfy him in this respect he reported to Hunter as being ‘no good’, or ‘too slow for a funeral’. The result was that this man was dispensed with at the end of the week. The men knew this, and most of them feared the wily Crass accordingly, though there were a few whose known abilities placed them to a certain extent above the reach of his malice. Frank Owen was one of these.
There were others who by the judicious administration of pipefuls of tobacco and pints of beer, managed to keep in Crass’s good graces and often retained their employment when better workmen were ‘stood off’.
As he walked home through the rain thinking of these things, Easton realized that it was not possible to foresee what a day or even an hour might bring forth.
By this time he had arrived at his home; it was a small house, one of a long row of similar ones, and it contained altogether four rooms.
The front door opened into a passage about two feet six inches wide and ten feet in length, covered with oilcloth. At the end of the passage was a flight of stairs leading to the upper part of the house. The first door on the left led into the front sitting-room, an apartment about nine feet square, with a bay window. This room was very rarely used and was always very tidy and clean. The mantelpiece was of wood painted black and ornamented with jagged streaks of red and yellow, which were supposed to give it the appearance of marble. On the walls was a paper with a pale terra-cotta ground and a pattern consisting of large white roses with chocolate coloured leaves and stalks.
There was a small iron fender with fire-irons to match, and on the mantelshelf stood a clock in a polished wood case, a pair of blue glass vases, and some photographs in frames. The floor was covered with oilcloth of a tile pattern in yellow and red. On the walls were two or three framed coloured prints such as are presented with Christmas numbers of illustrated papers. There was also a photograph of a group of Sunday School girls with their teachers with the church for the background. In the centre of the room was a round deal table about three feet six inches across, with the legs stained red to look like mahogany. Against one wall was an old couch covered with faded cretonne, four chairs to match standing backs to wall in different parts of the room. The table was covered with a red cloth with a yellow crewel work design in the centre and in each of the four corners, the edges being overcast in the same material. On the table were a lamp and a number of brightly bound books.
Some of these things, as the couch and the chairs, Easton had bought second-hand and had done up himself. The table, oilcloth, fender, hearthrug, etc., had been obtained on the hire system and were not yet paid for. The windows were draped with white lace curtains and in the bay was a small bamboo table on which reposed a large Holy Bible, cheaply but showily bound.
If anyone had ever opened this book they would have found that its pages were as clean as the other things in the room, and on the flyleaf might have been read the following inscription: ‘To dear Ruth, from her loving friend Mrs Starvem with the prayer that God’s word may be her guide and that Jesus may be her very own Saviour. Oct. 12. 19 –’
Mrs Starvem was Ruth’s former mistress, and this had been her parting gift when Ruth left to get married. It was supposed to be a keepsake, but as Ruth never opened the book and never willingly allowed her thoughts to dwell upon the scenes of which it reminded her, she had forgotten the existence of Mrs Starvem almost as completely as that well-to-do and pious lady had forgotten hers.
For Ruth, the memory of the time she spent in the house of ‘her loving friend’ was the reverse of pleasant. It comprised a series of recollections of petty tyrannies, insults and indignities. Six years of cruelly excessive work, beginning every morning two or three hours before the rest of the household were awake and ceasing only when she went exhausted to bed, late at night.
She had been what is called a ‘slavey’ but if she had been really a slave her owner would have had some regard for her health and welfare: her ‘loving friend’ had had none. Mrs Starvem’s only thought had been to get out of Ruth the greatest possible amount of labour and to give her as little as possible in return.
When Ruth looked back upon that dreadful time she saw it, as one might say, surrounded by a halo of religion. She never passed by a chapel or heard the name of God, or the singing of a hymn, without thinking of her former mistress. To have looked into this Bible would have reminded her of Mrs Starvem; that was one of the reasons why the book reposed, unopened and unread, a mere ornament on the table in the bay window.
The second door in the passage near the foot of the stairs led into the kitchen or living-room: from here another door led into the scullery. Upstairs were two bedrooms.
As Easton entered the house, his wife met him in the passage and asked him not to make a noise as the child had just gone to sleep. They kissed each other and she helped him to remove his wet overcoat. Then they both went softly into the kitchen.
This room was about the same size as the sitting-room. At one end was a small range with an oven and a boiler, [and] a high mantelpiece painted black. On the mantelshelf was a small round alarm clock and some brightly polished tin canisters. At the other end of the room, facing the fireplace, was a small dresser on the shelves of which were neatly arranged a number of plates and dishes. The walls were papered with oak paper. On one wall, between two coloured almanacks, hung a tin lamp with a reflector behind the light. In the middle of the room was an oblong deal table with a white tablecloth upon which the tea things were set ready. There were four kitchen chairs, two of which were placed close to the table. Overhead, across the room, about eighteen inches down from the ceiling, were stretched several cords upon which were drying a number of linen or calico undergarments, a coloured shirt, and Easton’s white apron and jacket. On the back of a chair at one side of the fire more clothes were drying. At the other side on the floor was a wicker cradle in which a baby was sleeping. Nearby stood a chair with a towel hung on the back, arranged so as to shade the infant’s face from the light of the lamp. An air of homely comfort pervaded the room; the atmosphere was warm, and the fire blazed cheerfully over the whitened hearth.
They walked softly over and stood by the cradle side looking at the child; as they looked the baby kept moving uneasily in its sleep. Its face was very flushed and its eyes were moving under the half-closed lids. Every now and again its lips were drawn back slightly, showing part of the gums; presently it began to whimper, drawing up its knees as if in pain.
‘He seems to have something wrong with him,’ said Easton.
‘I think it’s his teeth,’ replied the mother. ‘He’s been very restless all day and he was awake nearly all last night.’
‘P’r’aps he’s hungry.’
‘No, it can’t be that. He had the best part of an egg this morning and I’ve nursed him several times today. And then at dinner-time he had a whole saucer full of fried potatoes with little bits of bacon in it.’
Again the infant whimpered and twisted in its sleep, its lips drawn back showing the gums: its knees pressed closely to its body, the little fists clenched, and face flushed. Then after a few seconds it became placid: the mouth resumed its usual shape; the limbs relaxed and the child slumbered peacefully.
‘Don’t you think he’s getting thin?’ asked Easton. ‘It may be fancy, but he don’t seem to me to be as big now as he was three months ago.’
‘No, he’s not quite so fat,’ admitted Ruth. ‘It’s his teeth what’s wearing him out; he don’t hardly get no rest at all with them.’
They continued looking at him a little longer. Ruth thought he was a very beau
tiful child: he would be eight months old on Sunday. They were sorry they could do nothing to ease his pain, but consoled themselves with the reflection that he would be all right once those teeth were through.
‘Well, let’s have some tea,’ said Easton at last.
Whilst he removed his wet boots and socks and placed them in front of the fire to dry and put on dry socks and a pair of slippers in their stead, Ruth half filled a tin basin with hot water from the boiler and gave it to him, and he then went into the scullery, added some cold water and began to wash the paint off his hands. This done he returned to the kitchen and sat down at the table.
‘I couldn’t think what to give you to eat tonight,’ said Ruth as she poured out the tea. ‘I hadn’t got no money left and there wasn’t nothing in the house except bread and butter and that piece of cheese, so I cut some bread and butter and put some thin slices of cheese on it and toasted it on a plate in front of the fire. I hope you’ll like it: it was the best I could do.’
‘That’s all right: it smells very nice anyway, and I’m very hungry.’
As they were taking their tea Easton told his wife about Linden’s affair and his apprehensions as to what might befall himself. They were both very indignant, and sorry for poor old Linden, but their sympathy for him was soon almost forgotten in their fears for their own immediate future.
They remained at the table in silence for some time: then,
‘How much rent do we owe now?’ asked Easton.
‘Four weeks, and I promised the collector the last time he called that we’d pay two weeks next Monday. He was quite nasty about it.’
‘Well, I suppose you’ll have to pay it, that’s all,’ said Easton.
‘How much money will you have tomorrow?’ asked Ruth.
He began to reckon up his time: he started on Monday and today was Friday; five days, from seven to five, less half an hour for breakfast and an hour for dinner, eight and a half hours a day – forty-two hours and a half. At sevenpence an hour that came to one pound four and ninepence halfpenny.
The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists Page 8