Now in the house the Pravyks fear.
NELLIE OLIVER : We must find us some sailcloth. I will say this, used would be as good as new. Thinner but cheap. Get us some, dearest, and we shall be made.
MASTER OLIVER : I have that merchant. He's coming to discuss cloth at factory prices. Dear, there's a chance! We could manage to turn a profit if we can land this. Dearest, is that all right?
NELLIE OLIVER : Yes, dear.
MASTER OLIVER : That's my dearest. Thank you, my dear, for your advice.
Can you see the princess hide her desire to hiss and spit behind her sickly saccharine smile? Was it just advice? Or would she rather her husband recognised her superior sense in this delicate financial matter? Let him interview his merchant for a sliver of a small saving, he'll not secure the lower than factory price or the piles of barely used bright red or glowing white canvas the pauper children sewing with neat little stitches of glowing white threads held in neat little hands his wife imagines.
NELLIE OLIVER : Of course, dear, of course,
for his mistake will come clear in time. She will be ready for that.
There's still the laundry to be done by the children too old or too rough for school, new inmates to process, stripped beds to be made, the dead shifted to the mortuary, doctors' aides to call. In the city, grocers bag up, butchers chop meat cuts, bread is baked, milk bottled, carts loaded, horses harnessed, bit chomped, receipts written. Oh, the pain of bills to pay and still more open mouths to feed, the paupers milling in the exercise yards like so many useless fallen leaves on a still pond, proud of their poverty, indecent, lazy, immoral, careless, wearisome, and they have the nerve to be indignant and disagreeable if anyone should mention their reliance on the charity of others: shelter, clothing, bedding, breakfast, luncheon, dinner, water, schooling, employment, exercise.
NELLIE OLIVER : We should by more raw stuffs
MASTER OLIVER : More raw stuffs.
NELLIE OLIVER : so the inmates can make
MASTER OLIVER : the inmates need to work harder in these straitened times.
NELLIE OLIVER : everything themselves.
MASTER OLIVER : Do you know of Eric Cobham? He's the cloth merchant
NELLIE OLIVER : He's the one married to Lieutenant Lindsey
MASTER OLIVER : who's coming to sell us all the
NELLIE OLIVER : that would rather stay out at sea with her sailors.
MASTER OLIVER : red, white and checked cloth we will need.
NELLIE OLIVER : At such a very good price?
MASTER OLIVER : Our man will be desperate to sell anything
NELLIE OLIVER : A very very good price
MASTER OLIVER : or he's in danger of losing, my dearest.
NELLIE OLIVER : or we'll not be able to afford anything we –
MASTER OLIVER : He's rather unfortunate when you come to think of it
NELLIE OLIVER : So we give everything away
MASTER OLIVER : having so few customers
NELLIE OLIVER : for ungrateful paupers who have no word of thanks for us nor care for our sacrifice.
MASTER OLIVER : that he will come deal with us.
NELLIE OLIVER : And look at how we're treated by the thoughtless world and his wife
MASTER OLIVER : There's no money in helping a charity
NELLIE OLIVER : like they're better than we two are!
MASTER OLIVER : so he knows he'll lose everything he's got.
NELLIE OLIVER : It's all too much to bare.
MASTER OLIVER : And if he doesn't know, then he soon will.
NELLIE OLIVER : He'll understand.
MASTER OLIVER : It's not as if we don't want to pay well
NELLIE OLIVER : We're not given enough money to run the workhouse right.
MASTER OLIVER : Oh, we're martyrs to poverty.