“How much do we still owe for the oilcloth and the furniture?” he asked.
“I don’t know exactly. It was seven pound odd, and we’ve had the things about six months. We paid one pound down and three or four instalments. I’ll get the card if you like.”
“No; never mind. Say we’ve paid one pound twelve; so we still owe about six pound.”
He added this amount to the list.
“I think it’s a great pity we ever had the things at all,” he said, peevishly. “It would have been better to have gone without until we could pay cash for them: but you would have your way, of course. Now we’ll have this bloody debt dragging on us for years, and before the dam stuff is paid for it’ll be worn out.”
The woman did not reply at once. She was bending down over the cradle arranging the coverings which the restless movements of the child had disordered. She was crying silently, unnoticed by her husband.
For months past—in fact ever since the child was born—she had been existing without sufficient food. If Easton was unemployed they had to stint themselves so as to avoid getting further into debt than was absolutely necessary. When he was working they had to go short in order to pay what they owed; but of what there was Easton himself, without knowing it, always had the greater share. If he was at work she would pack into his dinner basket overnight the best there was in the house. When he was out of work she often pretended, as she gave him his meals, that she had had hers while he was out. And all the time the baby was draining her life away and her work was never done.
She felt very weak and weary as she crouched there, crying furtively and trying not to let him see.
At last she said, without looking round:
“You know quite well that you were just as much in favour of getting them as I was. If we hadn’t got the oilcloth there would have been illness in the house because of the way the wind used to come up between the floorboards. Even now of a windy day the oilcloth moves up and down.”