“I’m afraid he won’t find 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—”