The Old Wives' Tale

by Arnold Bennett

  Of course at the corner of the street he had to go. “Till next time!” he murmured. And fire came out of his eyes and lighted in Sophia’s lovely head those lamps which Mrs Baines was mercifully spared from seeing. And he had shaken hands and raised his hat. Imagine a god raising his hat! And he went off on two legs, precisely like a dashing little commercial traveller.

  And, escorted by the equivocal Angel of Eclipses, she had turned into King Street, and arranged her face, and courageously met her mother. Her mother had not at first perceived the unusual; for mothers, despite their reputation to the contrary, really are the blindest creatures. Sophia, the naïve ninny, had actually supposed that her walking along a hundred yards of pavement with a god by her side was not going to excite remark! What a delusion! It is true, certainly, that no one saw the god by direct vision. But Sophia’s cheeks, Sophia’s eyes, the curve of Sophia’s neck as her soul yearned towards the soul of the god—these phenomena were immeasurably more notable than Sophia guessed. An account of them, in a modified form to respect Mrs Baines’s notorious dignity, had healed the mother of her blindness and led to that characteristic protest from her, “I shall be glad if you will not walk about the streets with young men,” etc.

  When the period came for the reappearance of Mr Scales, Mrs Baines outlined a plan, and when the circular announcing the exact time of his arrival was dropped into the letter-box, she formulated the plan in detail. In the first place, she was determined to be indisposed and invisible herself, so that Mr Scales might be foiled in any possible design to renew social relations in the parlour. In the second place, she flattered Constance with a single hint—oh, the vaguest and briefest!—and Constance understood that she was not to quit the shop on the appointed morning. In the third place, she invented a way of explaining to Mr Povey that the approaching advent of Gerald Scales must not be mentioned. And in the fourth place, she deliberately made appointments for Sophia with two millinery customers in the showroom, so that Sophia might be imprisoned in the showroom.

  Having thus left nothing to chance, she told herself that she was a foolish woman full of nonsense. But this did not prevent her from putting her lips together firmly and resolving that Mr Scales should have no finger in the pie of her family. She had acquired information concerning Mr Scales, at second hand, from Lawyer Pratt. More than this, she posed the question in a broader form—why should a young girl be permitted any interest in any young man whatsoever? The everlasting purpose had made use of Mrs Baines and cast her off, and, like most persons in a similar situation, she was, unconsciously and quite honestly, at odds with the everlasting purpose.

  II

  On the day of Mr Scales’s visit to the shop to obtain orders and money on behalf of Birkinshaws, a singular success seemed to attend the machinations of Mrs Baines. With Mr Scales punctuality was not an inveterate habit, and he had rarely been known, in the past, to fulfil exactly the prophecy of the letter of advice concerning his arrival. But that morning his promptitude was unexampled. He entered the shop, and by chance Mr Povey was arranging unshrinkable flannels in the doorway. The two youngish little men talked amiably about flannels, dogs, and quarter-day (which was just past), and then Mr Povey led Mr Scales to his desk in the dark corner behind the high pile of twills, and paid the quarterly bill, in notes and gold—as always; and then Mr Scales offered for the august inspection of Mr Povey all that Manchester had recently invented for the temptation of drapers, and Mr Povey gave him an order which, if not reckless, was nearer “handsome” than “good.” During the process Mr Scales had to go out of the shop twice or three times in order to bring in from his barrow at the kerbstone certain small black boxes edged with brass. On none of these excursions did Mr Scales glance wantonly about him in satisfaction of the lust of the eye. Even if he had permitted himself this freedom he would have seen nothing more interesting than three young lady assistants seated round the stove and sewing with pricked fingers from which the chilblains were at last deciding to depart. When Mr Scales had finished writing down the details of the order with his ivory-handled stylo, and repacked his boxes, he drew the interview to a conclusion after the manner of a capable commercial traveller; that is to say, he implanted in Mr Povey his opinion that Mr Povey was a wise, a shrewd, and an upright man, and that the world would be all the better for a few more like him. He inquired for Mrs Baines, and was deeply pained to hear of her indisposition while finding consolation in the assurance that the Misses Baines were well. Mr Povey was on the point of accompanying the pattern of commercial travellers to the door, when two customers simultaneously came in—ladies. One made straight for Mr Povey, whereupon Mr Scales parted from him at once, it being a universal maxim in shops that even the most distinguished commercial shall not hinder the business of even the least distinguished customer. The other customer had the effect of causing Constance to pop up from her cloistral corner. Constance had been there all the time, but of course, though she heard the remembered voice, her maidenliness had not permitted that she should show herself to Mr Scales.

  Now, as he was leaving, Mr Scales saw her, with her agreeable snub nose and her kind, simple eyes. She was requesting the second customer to mount to the showroom, where was Miss Sophia. Mr Scales hesitated a moment, and in that moment Constance, catching his eye, smiled upon him, and nodded. What else could she do? Vaguely aware though she was that her mother was not “set up” with Mr Scales, and even feared the possible influence of the young man on Sophia, she could not exclude him from her general benevolence towards the universe. Moreover, she liked him; she liked him very much and thought him a very fine specimen of a man.

  He left the door and went across to her. They shook hands and opened a conversation instantly; for Constance, while retaining all her modesty, had lost all her shyness in the shop, and could chatter with anybody. She sidled towards her corner, precisely as Sophia had done on another occasion, and Mr Scales put his chin over the screening boxes, and eagerly prosecuted the conversation.

  There was absolutely nothing in the fact of the interview itself to cause alarm to a mother, nothing to render futile the precautions of Mrs Baines on behalf of the flower of Sophia’s innocence. And yet it held danger for Mrs Baines, all unconscious in her parlour. Mrs Baines could rely utterly on Constance not to be led away by the dandiacal charms of Mr Scales (she knew in what quarter sat the wind for Constance); in her plan she had forgotten nothing, except Mr Povey; and it must be said that she could not possibly have foreseen the effect on the situation of Mr Povey’s character.

  Mr Povey, attending to his customer, had noticed the bright smile of Constance on the traveller, and his heart did not like it. And when he saw the lively gestures of a Mr Scales in apparently intimate talk with a Constance hidden behind boxes, his uneasiness grew into fury. He was a man capable of black and terrible furies. Outwardly insignificant, possessing a mind as little as his body, easily abashed, he was none the less a,very susceptible young man, soon offended, proud, vain, and obscurely passionate. You might offend Mr Povey without guessing it, and only discover your sin when Mr Povey had done something too decisive as a result of it.

  The reason of his fury was jealousy. Mr Povey had made great advances since the death of John Baines. He had consolidated his position, and he was in every way a personage of the first importance. His misfortune was that he could never translate his importance, or his sense of his importance, into terms of outward demeanour. Most people, had they been told that Mr Povey was seriously aspiring to enter the Baines family, would have laughed. But they would have been wrong. To laugh at Mr Povey was invariably wrong. Only Constance knew what inroads he had effected upon her.

  The customer went, but Mr Scales did not go. Mr Povey, free to reconnoitre, did so. From the shadow of the till he could catch glimpses of Constance’s blushing, vivacious face. She was obviously absorbed in Mr Scales. She and he had a tremendous air of intimacy. And the murmur of their chatter continued. Their chatter was nothing, and about nothing,
but Mr Povey imagined that they were exchanging eternal vows. He endured Mr Scales’s odious freedom until it became insufferable, until it deprived him of all his self-control; and then he retired into his cutting-out room. He meditated there in a condition of insanity for perhaps a minute, and excogitated a device. Dashing back into the shop, he spoke up, half across the shop, in a loud, curt tone:

  “Miss Baines, your mother wants you at once.”

  He was launched on the phrase before he noticed that during his absence, Sophia had descended from the showroom and joined her sister and Mr Scales. The danger and scandal were now less, he perceived, but he was glad he had summoned Constance away, and he was in a state to despise consequences.

  The three chatterers, startled, looked at Mr Povey, who left the shop abruptly. Constance could do nothing but obey the call.

  She met him at the door of the cutting-room in the passage leading to the parlour.

  “Where is mother? In the parlour?” Constance inquired innocently.

  There was a dark flush on Mr Povey’s face. “If you wish to know,” said he in a hard voice, “she hasn’t asked for you and she doesn’t want you.”

  He turned his back on her, and retreated into his lair.

  “Then what—?” she began, puzzled.

  He fronted her. “Haven’t you been gabbling long enough with that jackanapes?” he spit at her. There were tears in his eyes.

  Constance, though without experience in these matters, comprehended. She comprehended perfectly and immediately. She ought to have put Mr Povey into his place. She ought to have protested with firm, dignified finality against such a ridiculous and monstrous outrage as that which Mr Povey had committed. Mr Povey ought to have been ruined for ever in her esteem and in her heart. But she hesitated.

  “And only last Sunday—afternoon,” Mr Povey blubbered.

  (Not that anything overt had occurred, or been articulately said, between them last Sunday afternoon. But they had been alone together, and had each witnessed strange and disturbing matters in the eyes of the other.)

  Tears now fell suddenly from Constance’s eyes. “You ought to be ashamed—” she stammered.

  Still, the tears were in her eyes, and in his too. What he or she merely said, therefore, was of secondary importance.

  Mrs Baines, coming from the kitchen, and hearing Constance’s voice, burst upon the scene, which silenced her. Parents are sometimes silenced. She found Sophia and Mr Scales in the shop.

  III

  That afternoon Sophia, too busy with her own affairs to notice anything abnormal in the relations between her mother and Constance, and quite ignorant that there had been an unsuccessful plot against her, went forth to call upon Miss Chetwynd, with whom she had remained very friendly: she considered that she and Miss Chetwynd formed an aristocracy of intellect, and the family indeed tacitly admitted this. She practised no secrecy in her departure from the shop; she merely dressed, in her second-best hoop, and went, having been ready at any moment to tell her mother, if her mother caught her and inquired, that she was going to see Miss Chetwynd. And she did go to see Miss Chetwynd, arriving at the house-school, which lay amid trees on the road to Turnhill, just beyond the turnpike, at precisely a quarter-past four. As Miss Chetwynd’s pupils left at four o’clock, and as Miss Chetwynd invariably took a walk immediately afterwards, Sophia was able to contain her surprise upon being informed that Miss Chetwynd was not in. She had not intended that Miss Chetwynd should be in.

  She turned off to the right, up the side road which, starting from the turnpike, led in the direction of Moorthorne and Red Cow, two mining villages. Her heart beat with fear as she began to follow that road, for she was upon a terrific adventure. What most frightened her, perhaps, was her own astounding audacity. She was alarmed by something within herself which seemed to be no part of herself and which produced in her curious, disconcerting, fleeting impressions of unreality.

  In the morning she had heard the voice of Mr Scales from the showroom—that voice whose even distant murmur caused creepings of the skin in her back. And she had actually stood on the counter in front of the window in order to see down perpendicularly into the Square; by so doing she had had a glimpse of the top of his luggage on a barrow, and of the crown of his hat occasionally when he went outside to tempt Mr Povey. She might have gone down into the shop—there was no slightest reason why she should not; three months had elapsed since the name of Mr Scales had been mentioned, and her mother had evidently forgotten the trifling incident of New Year’s Day—but she was incapable of descending the stairs! She went to the head of the stairs and peeped through the balustrade—and she could not get farther. For nearly a hundred days those extraordinary lamps had been brightly burning in her head; and now the light-giver had come again, and her feet would not move to the meeting; now the moment had arrived for which alone she had lived, and she could not seize it as it passed! “Why don’t I go downstairs?” she asked herself. “Am I afraid to meet him?”

  The customer sent up by Constance had occupied the surface of her life for ten minutes, trying on hats; and during this time she was praying wildly that Mr Scales might not go, and asserting that it was impossible he should go without at least asking for her. Had she not counted the days to this day? When the customer left, Sophia followed her downstairs, and saw Mr Scales chatting with Constance. All her self-possession instantly returned to her, and she joined them with a rather mocking smile. After Mr Povey’s strange summons had withdrawn Constance from the corner, Mr Scales’s tone had changed; it had thrilled her. “You are you,” it had said, “there is you—and there is the rest of the universe!” Then he had not forgotten; she had lived in his heart; she had not for three months been the victim of her own fancies! . . . She saw him put a piece of folded white paper on the top edge of the screening box and flick it down to her. She blushed scarlet, staring at it as it lay on the counter. He said nothing, and she could not speak . . . He had prepared that paper, then, beforehand, on the chance of being able to give it to her! This thought was exquisite but full of terror. “I must really go,” he had said, lamely, with emotion in his voice, and he had gone—like that! And she put the piece of paper into the pocket of her apron, and hastened away. She had not even seen, as she turned up the stairs, her mother standing by the till—that spot which was the conning-tower of the whole shop. She ran, ran, breathless to the bedroom . . .

  “I am a wicked girl!” she said quite frankly, on the road to the rendezvous. “It is a dream that I am going to meet him. It cannot be true. There is time to go back. If I go back I am safe. I have simply called at Miss Chetwynd’s and she wasn’t in, and no one can say a word. But if I go on—if I’m seen! What a fool I am to go on!”

  And she went on, impelled by, amongst other things, an immense, naïve curiosity, and the vanity which the bare fact of his note had excited. The Loop railway was being constructed at that period, and hundreds of navvies were at work on it between Bursley and Turnhill. When she came to the new bridge over the cutting, he was there, as he had written that he would be.

  They were very nervous, they greeted each other stiffly and as though they had met then for the first time that day. Nothing was said about his note, nor about her response to it. Her presence was treated by both of them as a basic fact of the situation which it would be well not to disturb by comment. Sophia could not hide her shame, but her shame only aggravated the stinging charm of her beauty. She was wearing a hard Amazonian hat, with a lifted veil, the final word of fashion that spring in the Five Towns; her face, beaten by the fresh breeze, shone rosily; her eyes glittered under the dark hat, and the violent colours of her Victorian frock—green and crimson—could not spoil those cheeks. If she looked earthwards, frowning, she was the more adorable so. He had come down the clayey incline from the unfinished red bridge to welcome her, and when the salutations were over they stood still, he gazing apparently at the horizon and she at the yellow marl round the edges of his boots. The encounter was
as far away from Sophia’s ideal conception as Manchester from Venice.

  “So this is the new railway!” said she.

  “Yes,” said he. “This is your new railway. You can see it better from the bridge.”

  “But it’s very sludgy up there,” she objected with a pout.

  “Further on it’s quite dry,” he reassured her.

  From the bridge they had a sudden view of a raw gash in the earth; and hundreds of men were crawling about in it, busy with minute operations, like flies in a great wound. There was a continuous rattle of picks, resembling a muffled shower of hail, and in the distance a tiny locomotive was leading a procession of tiny waggons.

  “And those are the navvies!” she murmured.

  The unspeakable doings of the navvies in the Five Towns had reached even her: how they drank and swore all day on Sundays, how their huts and houses were dens of the most appalling infamy, how they were the curse of a God-fearing and respectable district! She and Gerald Scales glanced down at these dangerous beasts of prey in their yellow corduroys and their open shirts revealing hairy chests. No doubt they both thought how inconvenient it was that railways could not be brought into existence without the aid of such revolting and swinish animals. They glanced down from the height of their nice decorum and felt the powerful attraction of similar superior manners. The manners of the navvies were such that Sophia could not even regard them, nor Gerald Scales permit her to regard them, without blushing.

  In a united blush they turned away, up the gradual slope. Sophia knew no longer what she was doing. For some minutes she was as helpless as though she had been in a balloon with him.

  “I got my work done early,” he said; and added complacently, “As a matter of fact I’ve had a pretty good day.”