Philip had heard that the poor
helped one another, but woman after woman complained to him that she could
not get anyone in to clean up and see to the children's dinner without
paying for the service, and she could not afford to pay. By listening to
the women as they talked and by chance remarks from which he could deduce
much that was left unsaid, Philip learned how little there was in common
between the poor and the classes above them. They did not envy their
betters, for the life was too different, and they had an ideal of ease
which made the existence of the middle-classes seem formal and stiff;
moreover, they had a certain contempt for them because they were soft and
did not work with their hands. The proud merely wished to be left alone,
but the majority looked upon the well-to-do as people to be exploited;
they knew what to say in order to get such advantages as the charitable
put at their disposal, and they accepted benefits as a right which came to
them from the folly of their superiors and their own astuteness. They bore
the curate with contemptuous indifference, but the district visitor
excited their bitter hatred. She came in and opened your windows without
so much as a by your leave or with your leave, `and me with my bronchitis,
enough to give me my death of cold;' she poked her nose into corners, and
if she didn't say the place was dirty you saw what she thought right
enough, `an' it's all very well for them as 'as servants, but I'd like to
see what she'd make of 'er room if she 'ad four children, and 'ad to do
the cookin', and mend their clothes, and wash them.
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