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

it very easy to get another job,’ he

remarked, referring to Linden. `Even in the summer nobody will be

inclined to take him on. He’s too old.’

 

`It’s a dreadful prospect for the two children,’ answered his wife.

 

`Yes,’ replied Owen bitterly. `It’s the children who will suffer

most. As for Linden and his wife, although of course one can’t help

feeling sorry for them, at the same time there’s no getting away from

the fact that they deserve to suffer. All their lives they’ve been

working like brutes and living in poverty. Although they have done

more than their fair share of the work, they have never enjoyed

anything like a fair share of the things they have helped to produce.

And yet, all their lives they have supported and defended the system

that robbed them, and have resisted and ridiculed every proposal to

alter it. It’s wrong to feel sorry for such people; they deserve to

suffer.’

 

After tea, as he watched his wife clearing away the tea things and

rearranging the drying clothing by the fire, Owen for the first time

noticed that she looked unusually ill.

 

`You don’t look well tonight, Nora,’ he said, crossing over to her and

putting his arm around her.

 

`I don’t feel well,’ she replied, resting her head wearily against his

shoulder. `I’ve been very bad all day and I had to lie down nearly

all the afternoon. I don’t know how I should have managed to get the

tea ready if it had not been for Frankie.’

 

`I set the table for you, didn’t I, Mum?’ said Frankie with pride;

`and tidied up the room as well.’

 

`Yes, darling, you helped me a lot,’ she answered, and Frankie went

over to her and kissed her hand.

 

`Well, you’d better go to bed at once,’ said Owen. `I can put Frankie

to bed presently and do whatever else is necessary.’

 

`But there are so many things to attend to. I want to see that your

clothes are properly dry and to put something ready for you to take in

the morning before you go out, and then there’s your breakfast to pack

up -‘

 

`I can manage all that.’

 

`I didn’t want to give way to it like this,’ the woman said, `because

I know you must be tired out yourself, but I really do feel quite done

up now.’

 

`Oh, I’m all right,’ replied Owen, who was really so fatigued that he

was scarcely able to stand. `I’ll go and draw the blinds down and

light the other lamp; so say good night to Frankie and come at once.’

 

`I won’t say good night properly, now, Mum,’ remarked the boy,

`because Dad can carry me into your room before he puts me into bed.’

 

A little later, as Owen was undressing Frankie, the latter remarked as

he looked affectionately at the kitten, which was sitting on the

hearthrug watching the child’s every movement under the impression

that it was part of some game:

 

`What name do you think we ought to call it, Dad?’

 

`You may give him any name you like,’ replied Owen, absently.

 

`I know a dog that lives down the road,’ said the boy, `his name is

Major. How would that do? Or we might call him Sergeant.’

 

The kitten, observing that he was the subject of their conversation,

purred loudly and winked as if to intimate that he did not care what

rank was conferred upon him so long as the commisariat department was

properly attended to.

 

`I don’t know, though,’ continued Frankie, thoughtfully. `They’re all

right names for dogs, but I think they’re too big for a kitten, don’t

you, Dad?’

 

`Yes, p’raps they are,’ said Owen.

 

`Most cats are called Tom or Kitty, but I don’t want a COMMON name for

him.’

 

`Well, can’t you call him after someone you know?’

 

`I know; I’ll call him after a little girl that comes to our school; a

fine name, Maud! That’ll be a good one, won’t it Dad?’

 

`Yes,’ said Owen.

 

`I say, Dad,’ said Frankie, suddenly realizing the awful fact that he

was being put to bed. `You’re forgetting all about my story, and you

promised that you’d have a game of trains with me tonight.’

 

`I hadn’t forgotten, but I was hoping that you had, because I’m very

tired and it’s very late, long past your usual bedtime, you know. You

can take the kitten to bed with you tonight and I’ll tell you two

stories tomorrow, because it’s Saturday.’

 

`All right, then,’ said the boy, contentedly; `and I’ll get the

railway station built and I’ll have the lines chalked on the floor,

and the signals put up before you come home, so that there’ll be no

time wasted. And I’ll put one chair at one end of the room and

another chair at the other end, and tie some string across for

telegraph wires. That’ll be a very good idea, won’t it, Dad?’ and

Owen agreed.

 

`But of course I’ll come to meet you just the same as other Saturdays,

because I’m going to buy a ha’porth of milk for the kitten out of my

penny.’

 

After the child was in bed, Owen sat alone by the table in the

draughty sitting-room, thinking. Although there was a bright fire,

the room was very cold, being so close to the roof. The wind roared

loudly round the gables, shaking the house in a way that threatened

every moment to hurl it to the ground. The lamp on the table had a

green glass reservoir which was half full of oil. Owen watched this

with unconscious fascination. Every time a gust of wind struck the

house the oil in the lamp was agitated and rippled against the glass

like the waves of a miniature sea. Staring abstractedly at the lamp,

he thought of the future.

 

A few years ago the future had seemed a region of wonderful and

mysterious possibilities of good, but tonight the thought brought no

such illusions, for he knew that the story of the future was to be

much the same as the story of the past.

 

The story of the past would continue to repeat itself for a few years

longer. He would continue to work and they would all three continue

to do without most of the necessaries of life. When there was no work

they would starve.

 

For himself he did not care much because he knew that at the best - or

worst - it would only be a very few years. Even if he were to have

proper food and clothing and be able to take reasonable care of

himself, he could not live much longer; but when that time came, what

was to become of THEM?

 

There would be some hope for the boy if he were more robust and if his

character were less gentle and more selfish. Under the present system

it was impossible for anyone to succeed in life without injuring other

people and treating them and making use of them as one would not like

to be treated and made use of oneself.

 

In order to succeed in the world it was necessary to be brutal,

selfish and unfeeling: to push others aside and to take advantage of

their misfortunes: to undersell and crush out one’s competitors by

fair means or foul: to consider one’s own interests first in every

case, absolutely regardless of the wellbeing of others.

 

That was the ideal character. Owen knew that Frankie’s character did

not come up to this lofty ideal. Then there was Nora, how would she

fare?

 

Owen stood up and began walking about the room, oppressed with a kind

of terror. Presently he returned to the fire and began rearranging

the clothes that were drying. He found that the boots, having been

placed too near the fire, had dried too quickly and consequently the

sole of one of them had begun to split away from the upper: he

remedied this as well as he was able and then turned the wetter parts

of the clothing to the fire. Whilst doing this he noticed the

newspaper, which he had forgotten, in the coat pocket. He drew it out

with an exclamation of pleasure. Here was something to distract his

thoughts: if not instructive or comforting, it would at any rate be

interesting and even amusing to read the reports of the

self-satisfied, futile talk of the profound statesmen who with comical

gravity presided over the working of the Great System which their

combined wisdom pronounced to be the best that could possibly be

devised. But tonight Owen was not to read of those things, for as

soon as he opened the paper his attention was riveted by the staring

headline of one of the principal columns:

 

TERRIBLE DOMESTIC TRAGEDY

Wife And Two Children Killed

Suicide of the Murderer

 

It was one of the ordinary poverty crimes. The man had been without

employment for many weeks and they had been living by pawning or

selling their furniture and other possessions. But even this resource

must have failed at last, and when one day the neighbours noticed that

the blinds remained down and that there was a strange silence about

the house, no one coming out or going in, suspicions that something

was wrong were quickly aroused. When the police entered the house,

they found, in one of the upper rooms, the dead bodies of the woman

and the two children, with their throats severed, laid out side by

side upon the bed, which was saturated with their blood.

 

There was no bedstead and no furniture in the room except the straw

mattress and the ragged clothes and blankets which formed the bed upon

the floor.

 

The man’s body was found in the kitchen, lying with outstretched arms

face downwards on the floor, surrounded by the blood that had poured

from the wound in his throat which had evidently been inflicted by the

razor that was grasped in his right hand.

 

No particle of food was found in the house, and on a nail in the wall

in the kitchen was hung a piece of blood-smeared paper on which was

written in pencil:

 

`This is not my crime, but society’s.’

 

The report went on to explain that the deed must have been perpetrated

during a fit of temporary insanity brought on by the sufferings the

man had endured.

 

`Insanity!’ muttered Owen, as he read this glib theory. `Insanity!

It seems to me that he would have been insane if he had NOT killed

them.’

 

Surely it was wiser and better and kinder to send them all to sleep,

than to let them continue to suffer.

 

At the same time he thought it very strange that the man should have

chosen to do it that way, when there were so many other cleaner,

easier and more painless ways of accomplishing the same object. He

wondered why it was that most of these killings were done in more or

less the same crude, cruel messy way. No; HE would set about it in a

different fashion. He would get some charcoal, then he would paste

strips of paper over the joinings of the door and windows of the room

and close the register of the grate. Then he would kindle the

charcoal on a tray or something in the middle of the room, and then

they would all three just lie down together and sleep; and that would

be the end of everything. There would be no pain, no blood, and no

mess.

 

Or one could take poison. Of course, there was a certain amount of

difficulty in procuring it,