Ragged Trousered Philanthropists by Robert Tressell (read novel full TXT) 📖

Mrs Easton was ill - crept about very quietly, and conversed

in hushed tones as they washed up the tea things and swept the floor

and tidied the kitchen.

 

Easton did not return until after midnight, and all through the

intervening hours, Ruth, weak and tired, but unable to sleep, was

lying in bed with the child by her side. Her wide-open eyes appeared

unnaturally large and brilliant, in contrast with the almost

deathlike paleness of her face, and there was a look of fear in them,

as she waited and listened for the sound of Easton’s footsteps.

 

Outside, the silence of the night was disturbed by many unusual

noises: a far-off roar, as of the breaking of waves on a seashore,

arose from the direction of the town, where the last scenes of the

election were being enacted. Every few minutes motor cars rushed past

the house at a furious rate, and the air was full of the sounds of

distant shouts and singing.

 

Ruth listened and started nervously at every passing footstep. Those

who can imagine the kind of expression there would be upon the face of

a hunted thief, who, finding himself encompassed and brought to bay by

his pursuers, looks wildly around in a vain search for some way of

escape, may be able to form some conception of the terror-stricken way

in which she listened to every sound that penetrated into the

stillness of the dimly lighted room. And ever and again, when her

wandering glance reverted to the frail atom of humanity nestling by

her side, her brows contracted and her eyes filled with bitter tears,

as she weakly reached out her trembling hand to adjust its coverings,

faintly murmuring, with quivering lips and a bursting heart, some

words of endearment and pity. And then - alarmed by the footsteps of

some chance passerby, or by the closing of the door of a neighbouring

house, and fearing that it was the sound she had been waiting for and

dreading through all those weary hours, she would turn in terror to

Mary Linden, sitting in the chair at the bedside, sewing by the light

of the shaded lamp, and take hold of her arm as if seeking protection

from some impending danger.

 

It was after twelve o’clock when Easton came home. Ruth recognized

his footsteps before he reached the house, and her heart seemed to

stop beating when she heard the clang of the gate, as it closed after

he had passed through.

 

It had been Mary’s intention to withdraw before he came into the room,

but the sick woman clung to her in such evident fear, and entreated

her so earnestly not to go away, that she remained.

 

It was with a feeling of keen disappointment that Easton noticed how

Ruth shrank away from him, for he had expected and hoped, that after

this, they would be good friends once more; but he tried to think that

it was because she was ill, and when she would not let him touch the

child lest he should awaken it, he agreed without question.

 

The next day, and for the greater part of the time during the next

fortnight, Ruth was in a raging fever. There were intervals when

although weak and exhausted, she was in her right mind, but most of

the time she was quite unconscious of her surroundings and often

delirious. Mrs Owen came every day to help to look after her, because

Mary just then had a lot of needlework to do, and consequently could

only give part of her time to Ruth, who, in her delirium, lived and

told over and over again all the sorrow and suffering of the last few

months. And so the two friends, watching by her bedside, learned her

dreadful secret.

 

Sometimes - in her delirium - she seemed possessed of an intense and

terrible loathing for the poor little creature she had brought into

the world, and was with difficulty prevented from doing it violence.

Once she seized it cruelly and threw it fiercely from her to the foot

of the bed, as if it had been some poisonous or loathsome thing. And

so it often became necessary to take the child away out of the room,

so that she could not see or hear it, but when her senses came back to

her, her first thought was for the child, and there must have been in

her mind some faint recollection of what she had said and done in her

madness, for when she saw that the baby was not in its accustomed

place her distress and alarm were painful to see, as she entreated

them with tears to give it back to her. And then she would kiss and

fondle it with all manner of endearing words, and cry bitterly.

 

Easton did not see or hear most of this; he only knew that she was

very ill; for he went out every day on the almost hopeless quest for

work. Rushton’s had next to nothing to do, and most of the other

shops were in a similar plight. Dauber and Botchit had one or two

jobs going on, and Easton tried several times to get a start for them,

but was always told they were full up. The sweating methods of this

firm continued to form a favourite topic of conversation with the

unemployed workmen, who railed at and cursed them horribly. It had

leaked out that they were paying only sixpence an hour to most of the

skilled workmen in their employment, and even then the conditions

under which they worked were, if possible, worse than those obtaining

at most other firms. The men were treated like so many convicts, and

every job was a hell where driving and bullying reigned supreme, and

obscene curses and blasphemy polluted the air from morning till night.

The resentment of those who were out of work was directed, not only

against the heads of the firm, but also against the miserable,

half-starved drudges in their employment. These poor wretches were

denounced as `scabs’ and `wastrels’ by the unemployed workmen but all

the same, whenever Dauber and Botchit wanted some extra hands they

never had any difficulty in obtaining them, and it often happened that

those who had been loudest and bitterest in their denunciations were

amongst the first to rush off eagerly to apply there for a job

whenever there was a chance of getting one.

 

Frequently the light was seen burning late at night in Rushton’s

office, where Nimrod and his master were figuring out prices and

writing out estimates, cutting down the amounts to the lowest possible

point in the hope of underbidding their rivals. Now and then they

were successful but whether they secured the work or not, Nimrod

always appeared equally miserable. If they got the `job’ it often

showed such a small margin of profit that Rushton used to grumble at

him and suggest mismanagement. If their estimates were too high and

they lost the work, he used to demand of Nimrod why it was possible

for Dauber and Botchit to do work so much more cheaply.

 

As the unemployed workmen stood in groups at the corners or walked

aimlessly about the streets, they often saw Hunter pass by on his

bicycle, looking worried and harassed. He was such a picture of

misery, that it began to be rumoured amongst the men, that he had

never been the same since the time he had that fall off the bike; and

some of them declared, that they wouldn’t mind betting that ole Misery

would finish up by going off his bloody rocker.

 

At intervals - whenever a job came in - Owen, Crass, Slyme, Sawkins

and one or two others, continued to be employed at Rushton’s, but they

seldom managed to make more than two or three days a week, even when

there was anything to do.