The Old Wives' Tale

by Arnold Bennett

  “Who is that?” asked Peel-Swynnerton, without reflecting that it was now he who was making advances to the fellow whose napkin covered all his shirt-front.

  “That’s the missis, that is,” said Mr Mardon, in a lower and semi-confidential voice.

  “Oh! Mrs Frensham?”

  “Yes. But her real name is Scales,” said Mr Mardon, proudly.

  “Widow, I suppose?”

  “Yes.”

  “And she runs the whole show?”

  “She runs the entire contraption,” said Mr Mardon, solemnly; “and don’t you make any mistake!” He was getting familiar.

  Peel-Swynnerton beat him off once more, glancing with careful, uninterested nonchalance at the gas-burners which exploded one after another with a little plop under the application of the maid’s taper. The white table gleamed more whitely than ever under the flaring gas. People at the end of the room away from the window instinctively smiled, as though the sun had begun to shine. The aspect of the dinner was changed, ameliorated; and with the reiterated statement that the evenings were drawing in though it was only July, conversation became almost general. In two minutes Mr Mardon was genially talking across the whole length of the table. The meal finished in a state that resembled conviviality.

  Matthew Peel-Swynnerton might not go out into the crepuscular delights of Paris. Unless he remained within the shelter of the Pension, he could not hope to complete successfully his reconversion from folly to wisdom. So he bravely passed through the small rose-embroidered door into a small glass-covered courtyard, furnished with palms, wicker armchairs, and two small tables; and he lighted a pipe and pulled out of his pocket a copy of The Referee. That retreat was called the Lounge; it was the only part of the Pension where smoking was not either a positive crime or a transgression against good form. He felt lonely. He said to himself grimly in one breath that pleasure was all rot, and in the next he sullenly demanded of the universe how it was that pleasure could not go on for ever, and why he was not Mr Barney Barnato. Two old men entered the retreat and burnt cigarettes with many precautions. Then Mr Lewis Mardon appeared and sat down boldly next to Matthew, like a privileged friend. After all, Mr Mardon was better than nobody whatever, and Matthew decided to suffer him, especially as he began without preliminary skirmishing to talk about life in Paris. An irresistible subject! Mr Mardon said in a worldly tone that the existence of a bachelor in Paris might easily be made agreeable. But that, of course, for himself—well, he preferred, as a general rule, the Pension Frensham sort of thing; and it was excellent for his business. Still he could not . . . he knew . . . He compared the advantages of what he called “knocking about” in Paris, with the equivalent in London. His information about London was out of date, and Peel-Swynnerton was able to set him right on important details. But his information about Paris was infinitely precious and interesting to the younger man, who saw that he had hitherto lived under strange misconceptions.

  “Have a whisky?” asked Mr Mardon, suddenly. “Very good here!” he added.

  “Thanks!” drawled Peel-Swynnerton.

  The temptation to listen to Mr Mardon as long as Mr Mardon would talk was not to be overcome. And presently, when the old men had departed, they were frankly telling each other stories in the dimness of the retreat. Then, when the supply of stories came to an end, Mr Mardon smacked his lips over the last drop of whisky and ejaculated: “Yes!” as if giving a general confirmation to all that had been said.

  “Do have one with me,” said Matthew, politely. It was the least he could do.

  The second supply of whiskies was brought into the Lounge by Mr Mardon’s Marie. He smiled on her familiarly, and remarked that he supposed she would soon be going to bed after a hard day’s work. She gave a moue and a flounce in reply, and swished out.

  “Carries herself well, doesn’t she?” observed Mr Mardon, as though Marie had been an exhibit at an agricultural show. “Ten years ago she was very fresh and pretty, but of course it takes it out of ’em, a place like this!”

  “But still,” said Peel-Swynnerton, “they must like it or they wouldn’t stay—that is, unless things are very different here from what they are in England.”

  The conversation seemed to have stimulated him to examine the woman question in all its bearings, with philosophic curiosity.

  “Oh! They like it,” Mr Mardon assured him, as one who knew. “Besides, Mrs Scales treats ’em very well. I know that. She’s told me. She’s very particular”—he looked around to see if walls had ears—“and, by Jove, you’ve got to be; but she treats ’em well. You’d scarcely believe the wages they get, and pickings. Now at the Hotel Moscow—know the Hotel Moscow?”

  Happily Peel-Swynnerton did. He had been advised to avoid it because it catered exclusively for English visitors, but in the Pension Frensham he had accepted something even more exclusively British than the Hotel Moscow. Mr Mardon was quite relieved at his affirmative.

  “The Hotel Moscow is a limited company now,” said he; “English.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. I floated it. It was my idea. A great success! That’s how I know all about the Hotel Moscow.” He looked at the walls again. “I wanted to do the same here,” he murmured, and Peel-Swynnerton had to show that he appreciated this confidence. “But she never would agree. I’ve tried her all ways. No go! It’s a thousand pities.”

  “Paying thing, eh?”

  “This place? I should say it was! And I ought to be able to judge, I reckon. Mrs Scales is one of the shrewdest women you’d meet in a day’s march. She’s made a lot of money here, a lot of money. And there’s no reason why a place like this shouldn’t be five times as big as it is. Ten times. The scope’s unlimited, my dear sir. All that’s wanted is capital. Naturally she has capital of her own, and she could get more. But then, as she says, she doesn’t want the place any bigger. She says it’s now just as big as she can handle. That isn’t so. She’s a woman who could handle anything—a born manager—but even if it was so, all she would have to do would be to retire—only leave us the place and the name. It’s the name that counts. And she’s made the name of Frensham worth something, I can tell you!”

  “Did she get the place from her husband?” asked Peel-Swynnerton. Her own name of Scales intrigued him.

  Mr Mardon shook his head. “Bought it on her own, after the husband’s time, for a song—a song! I know, because I knew the original Frenshams.”

  “You must have been in Paris a long time,” said Peel-Swynnerton.

  Mr Mardon could never resist an opportunity to talk about himself. His was a wonderful history. And Peel-Swynnerton, while scorning the man for his fatuity, was impressed. And when that was finished—

  “Yes!” said Mr Mardon after a pause, reaffirming everything in general by a single monosyllable.

  Shortly afterwards he rose, saying that his habits were regular.

  “Good night,” he said with a mechanical smile.

  “G-good night,” said Peel-Swynnerton, trying to force the tone of fellowship and not succeeding. Their intimacy which had sprung up like a mushroom, suddenly fell into dust. Peel-Swynnerton’s unspoken comment to Mr Mardon’s back was: “Ass!” Still, the sum of Peel-Swynnerton’s knowledge had indubitably been increased during the evening. And the hour was yet early. Half past ten! The Folies-Marigny, with its beautiful architecture and its crowds of white toilettes, and its frothing of champagne and of beer, and its musicians in tight red coats, was just beginning to be alive—and at a distance of scarcely a stone’s-throw! Peel-Swynnerton pictured the terraced, glittering hall, which had been the prime origin of his exceeding foolishness. And he pictured all the other resorts, great and small, garlanded with white lanterns, in the Champs Elysées; and the sombre aisles of the Champs Elysées where mysterious pale figures walked troublingly under the shade of trees, while snatches of wild song or absurd brassy music floated up from the resorts and restaurants. He wanted to go out and spend those fifty francs that remained in h
is pocket. After all, why not telegraph to England for more money? “Oh, damn it!” he said savagely, and stretched his arms and got up. The Lounge was very small, gloomy and dreary.

  One brilliant incandescent light burned in the hall, crudely illuminating the wicker fauteuils, a corded trunk with a blue-and-red label on it, a Fitzroy barometer, a map of Paris, a coloured poster of the Compagnie Transatlantique, and the mahogany retreat of the hall-portress. In that retreat was not only the hall-portress—an aged woman with a white cap above her wrinkled pink face—but the mistress of the establishment. They were murmuring together softly; they seemed to be well disposed to one another. The portress was respectful, but the mistress was respectful also. The hall, with its one light tranquilly burning, was bathed in an honest calm, the calm of a day’s work accomplished, of gradual relaxation from tension, of growing expectation of repose. In its simplicity it affected Peel-Swynnerton as a medicine tonic for nerves might have affected him. In that hall, though exterior nocturnal life was but just stirring into activity, it seemed that the middle of the night had come, and that these two women alone watched in a mansion full of sleepers. And all the recitals which Peel-Swynnerton and Mr Mardon had exchanged sank to the level of pitiably foolish gossip. Peel-Swynnerton felt that his duty to the house was to retire to bed. He felt, too, that he could not leave the house without saying that he was going out, and that he lacked the courage deliberately to tell these two women he was going out—at that time of night! He dropped into one of the chairs and made a second attempt to peruse The Referee. Useless! Either his mind was outside in the Champs Elysées, or his gaze would wander surreptitiously to the figure of Mrs Scales. He could not well distinguish her face because it was in the shadow of the mahogany.

  Then the portress came forth from her box, and, slightly bent, sped actively across the hall, smiling pleasantly at the guest as she passed him, and disappeared up the stairs. The mistress was alone in the retreat. Peel-Swynnerton jumped up brusquely, dropping the paper with a rustle, and approached her.

  “Excuse me,” he said deferentially. “Have any letters come for me tonight?”

  He knew that the arrival of letters for him was impossible, since nobody knew his address.

  “What name?” The question was coldly polite, and the questioner looked him full in the face. Undoubtedly she was a handsome woman. Her hair was greying at the temples, and the skin was withered and crossed with lines. But she was handsome. She was one of those women of whom to their last on earth the stranger will say: “When she was young she must have been worth looking at!”—with a little transient regret that beautiful young women cannot remain for ever young. Her voice was firm and even, sweet in tone, and yet morally harsh from incessant traffic with all varieties of human nature. Her eyes were the impartial eyes of one who is always judging. And evidently she was a proud, even a haughty creature, with her careful, controlled politeness. Evidently she considered herself superior to no matter what guest. Her eyes announced that she had lived and learnt, that she knew more about life than anyone whom she was likely to meet, and that having pre-eminently succeeded in life, she had tremendous confidence in herself. The proof of her success was the unique Frensham’s. A consciousness of the uniqueness of Frensham’s was also in those eyes. Theoretically Matthew Peel-Swynnerton’s mental attitude towards lodging-house keepers was condescending, but here it was not condescending. It had the real respectfulness of a man who for the moment at any rate is impressed beyond his calculations. His glance fell as he said—

  “Peel-Swynnerton.” Then he looked up again.

  He said the words awkwardly, and rather fearfully, as if aware that he was playing with fire. If this Mrs Scales was the long-vanished aunt of his friend, Cyril Povey, she must know those two names, locally so famous. Did she start? Did she show a sign of being perturbed? At first he thought he detected a symptom of emotion, but in an instant he was sure that he had detected nothing of the sort, and that it was silly to suppose that he was treading on the edge of a romance. Then she turned towards the letter-rack at her side, and he saw her face in profile. It bore a sudden and astonishing likeness to the profile of Cyril Povey; a resemblance unmistakable and finally decisive. The nose and the curve of the upper lip were absolutely Cyril’s. Matthew Peel-Swynnerton felt very queer. He felt like a criminal in peril of being caught in the act, and he could not understand why he should feel so. The landlady looked in the “P” pigeon-hole, and in the “S” pigeon-hole.

  “No,” she said quietly, “I see nothing for you.”

  Taken with a swift rash audacity, he said: “Have you had anyone named Povey here recently?”

  “Povey?”

  “Yes. Cyril Povey, of Bursley—in the Five Towns.”

  He was very impressionable, very sensitive, was Matthew Peel-Swynnerton. His voice trembled as he spoke. But hers also trembled in reply.

  “Not that I remember! No! Were you expecting him to be here?”

  “Well, it wasn’t at all sure,” he muttered. “Thank you. Good night.”

  “Good night,” she said, apparently with the simple perfunctoriness of the landlady who says good night to dozens of strangers every evening.

  He hurried away upstairs, and met the portress coming down. “Well, well!” he thought. “Of all the queer things—!” And he kept nodding his head. At last he had encountered something really strange in the spectacle of existence. It had fallen to him to discover the legendary woman who had fled from Bursley before he was born, and of whom nobody knew anything. What news for Cyril! What a staggering episode! He had scarcely any sleep that night. He wondered whether he would be able to meet Mrs Scales without self-consciousness on the morrow. However, he was spared the curious ordeal of meeting her. She did not appear at all on the following day; nor did he see her before he left. He could not find a pretext for asking why she was invisible.

  II

  The hansom of Matthew Peel-Swynnerton drew up in front of No. 26, Victoria Grove, Chelsea; his kit-bag was on the roof of the cab. The cabman had a red flower in his buttonhole. Matthew leaped out of the vehicle, holding his straw hat on his head with one hand. On reaching the pavement he checked himself suddenly and became carelessly calm. Another straw-hatted and grey-clad figure was standing at the side-gate of No. 26 in the act of lighting a cigarette.

  “Hello, Matt!” exclaimed the second figure, languidly, and in a veiled voice due to the fact that he was still holding the match to the cigarette and puffing. “What’s the meaning of all this fluster? You’re just the man I want to see.”

  He threw away the match with a wave of the arm, and took Matthew’s hand for a moment, blowing a double shaft of smoke through his nose.

  “I want to see you, too,” said Matthew. “And I’ve only got a minute. I’m on my way to Euston. I must catch the twelve-five.”

  He looked at his friend, and could positively see no feature of it that was not a feature of Mrs Scales’s face. Also, the elderly woman held her body in exactly the same way as the young man. It was entirely disconcerting.

  “Have a cigarette,” answered Cyril Povey, imperturbably. He was two years younger than Matthew, from whom he had acquired most of his vast and intricate knowledge of life and art, with certain leading notions of deportment; whose pupil indeed he was in all the things that matter to young men. But he had already surpassed his professor. He could pretend to be old much more successfully than Matthew could.

  The cabman approvingly watched the ignition of the second cigarette, and then the cabman pulled out a cigar, and showed his large, white teeth, as he bit the end off it The appearance and manner of his fare, the quality of the kit-bag, and the opening gestures of the interview between the two young dukes, had put the cabman in an optimistic mood. He had no apprehensions of miserly and ungentlemanly conduct by his fare upon the arrival at Euston. He knew the language of the tilt of a straw hat. And it was a magnificent day in London. The group of the two elegances dominated by the perfection of the c
abman made a striking tableau of triumphant masculinity, content with itself, and needing nothing.

  Matthew lightly took Cyril’s arm and drew him farther down the street, past the gate leading to the studio (hidden behind a house) which Cyril rented.

  “Look here, my boy,” he began, “I’ve found your aunt.”

  “Well, that’s very nice of you,” said Cyril, solemnly. “That’s a friendly act. May I ask what aunt?”

  “Mrs Scales,” said Matthew. “You know—”

  “Not the—” Cyril’s face changed.

  “Yes, precisely!” said Matthew, feeling that he was not being cheated of the legitimate joy caused by making a sensation. Assuredly he had made a sensation in Victoria Grove.

  When he had related the whole story, Cyril said: “Then she doesn’t know you know?”

  “I don’t think so. No, I’m sure she doesn’t. She may guess.”

  “But how can you be certain you haven’t made a mistake? It may be that—”

  “Look here, my boy,” Matthew interrupted him. “I’ve not made any mistake.”

  “But you’ve no proof.”

  “Proof be damned!” said Matthew, nettled. “I tell you it’s her!”

  “Oh! All right! All right! What puzzles me most is what the devil you were doing in a place like that. According to your description of it, it must be a—”

  “I went there because I was broke,” said Matthew.

  “Razzle?”

  Matthew nodded.

  “Pretty stiff, that!” commented Cyril, when Matthew had narrated the prologue to Frensham’s.

  “Well, she absolutely swore she never took less than two hundred francs. And she looked it, too! And she was worth it! I had the time of my life with that woman. I can tell you one thing—no more English for me! They simply aren’t in it.”