The Old Wives' Tale

by Arnold Bennett

  “How old was she?”

  Matthew reflected judicially. “I should say she was thirty.” The gaze of admiration and envy was upon him. He had the legitimate joy of making a second sensation. “I’ll let you know more about that when I come back,” he added. “I can open your eyes, my child.”

  Cyril smiled sheepishly. “Why can’t you stay now?” he asked. “I’m going to take the cast of that Verrall girl’s arm this afternoon, and I know I can’t do it alone. And Robson’s no good. You’re just the man I want.”

  “Can’t!” said Matthew.

  “Well, come into the studio a minute, anyhow.”

  “Haven’t time; I shall miss my train.”

  “I don’t care if you miss forty trains. You must come in. You’ve got to see that fountain,” Cyril insisted crossly.

  Matthew yielded. When they emerged into the street again, after six minutes of Cyril’s savage interest in his own work, Matthew remembered Mrs Scales.

  “Of course you’ll write to your mother?” he said.

  “Yes,” said Cyril, “I’ll write; but if you happen to see her, you might tell her.”

  “I will,” said Matthew. “Shall you go over to Paris?”

  “What! To see Auntie?” He smiled. “I don’t know. Depends. If the mater will fork out all my exes . . . it’s an idea,” he said lightly, and then without any change of tone, “Naturally, if you’re going to idle about here all morning you aren’t likely to catch the twelve-five.”

  Matthew got into the cab, while the driver, the stump of a cigar between his exposed teeth, leaned forward and lifted the reins away from the tilted straw hat.

  “By-the-by, lend me some silver,” Matthew demanded. “It’s a good thing I’ve got my return ticket. I’ve run it as fine as ever I did in my life.”

  Cyril produced eight shillings in silver. Secure in the possession of these riches, Matthew called to the driver—

  “Euston—like hell!”

  “Yes, sir,” said the driver calmly.

  “Not coming my way, I suppose?” Matthew shouted as an afterthought, just when the cab began to move.

  “No. Barber’s,” Cyril shouted in answer, and waved his hand.

  The horse rattled into Fulham Road.

  III

  Three days later Matthew Peel-Swynnerton was walking along Bursley Market Place when, just opposite the Town Hall, he met a short, fat, middle-aged lady dressed in black, with a black embroidered mantle, and a small bonnet tied with black ribbon and ornamented with jet fruit and crape leaves. As she stepped slowly and carefully forward she had the dignified, important look of a provincial woman who has always been accustomed to deference in her native town, and whose income is ample enough to extort obsequiousness from the vulgar of all ranks. But immediately she caught sight of Matthew her face changed. She became simple and naïve. She blushed slightly, smiling with a timid pleasure. For her, Matthew belonged to a superior race. He bore the almost sacred name of Peel. His family had been distinguished in the district for generations. “Peel!” You could without impropriety utter it in the same breath with “Wedgwood.” And “Swynnerton” stood not much lower. Neither her self-respect, which was great, nor her common sense, which far exceeded the average, could enable her to extend as far as the Peels the theory that one man is as good as another. The Peels never shopped in St Luke’s Square. Even in its golden days the Square could not have expected such a condescension. The Peels shopped in London or in Stafford; at a pinch, in Old-castle. That was the distinction for the ageing stout lady in black. Why, she had not in six years recovered from her surprise that her son and Matthew Peel-Swynnerton treated each other rudely as equals! She and Matthew did not often meet, but they liked each other. Her involuntary meekness flattered him. And his rather elaborate homage flattered her. He admired her fundamental goodness, and her occasional raps at Cyril seemed to put him into ecstasies of joy.

  “Well, Mrs Povey,” he greeted her, standing over her with his hat raised. (It was a fashion he had picked up in Paris.) “Here I am, you see.”

  “You’re quite a stranger, Mr Matthew. I needn’t ask you how you are. Have you been seeing anything of my boy lately?”

  “Not since Wednesday,” said Matthew. “Of course he’s written to you?”

  “There’s no ‘of course’ about it,” she laughed faintly. “I had a short letter from him on Wednesday morning. He said you were in Paris.”

  “But since that—hasn’t he written?”

  “If I hear from him on Sunday I shall be lucky, bless ye!” said Constance, grimly. “It’s not letter-writing that will kill Cyril.”

  “But do you mean to say he hasn’t—” Matthew stopped.

  “Whatever’s amiss?” asked Constance.

  Matthew was at a loss to know what to do or say. “Oh, nothing.”

  “Now, Mr Matthew, do please—”Constance’s tone had suddenly quite changed. It had become firm, commanding, and gravely suspicious. The conversation had ceased to be small-talk for her.

  Matthew saw how nervous and how fragile she was. He had never noticed before that she was so sensitive to trifles, though it was notorious that nobody could safely discuss Cyril with her in terms of chaff. He was really astounded at that youth’s carelessness, shameful carelessness. That Cyril’s attitude to his mother was marked by a certain benevolent negligence—this Matthew knew; but not to have written to her with the important news concerning Mrs Scales was utterly inexcusable, and Matthew determined that he would tell Cyril so. He felt very sorry for Mrs Povey. She seemed pathetic to him, standing there in ignorance of a tremendous fact which she ought to have been aware of. He was very content that he had said nothing about Mrs Scales to anybody except his own mother, who had prudently enjoined silence upon him, saying that his one duty, having told Cyril, was to keep his mouth shut until the Poveys talked. Had it not been for his mother’s advice he would assuredly have spread the amazing tale, and Mrs Povey might have first heard of it from a stranger’s gossip, which would have been too cruel upon her.

  “Oh!” Matthew tried to smile gaily, archly. “You’re bound to hear from Cyril to-morrow.”

  He wanted to persuade her that he was concealing merely some delightful surprise from her. But he did not succeed. With all his experience of the world and of women, he was not clever enough to deceive that simple woman.

  “I’m waiting, Mr Matthew,” she said, in a tone that flattened the smile out of Matthew’s sympathetic face. She was ruthless. The fact was, she had in an instant convinced herself that Cyril had met some girl and was engaged to be married. She could think of nothing else. “What has Cyril been doing?” she added, after a pause.

  “It’s nothing to do with Cyril,” said he.

  “Then what is it?”

  “It was about—Mrs Scales,” he murmured, nearly trembling. As she offered no response, merely looking around her in a peculiar fashion, he said: “Shall we walk along a bit?” And he turned in the direction in which she had been going. She obeyed the suggestion.

  “What did ye say?” she asked. The name of Scales for a moment had no significance for her. But when she comprehended it she was afraid, and so she said vacantly, as though wishing to postpone a shock: “What did ye say?”

  “I said it was about Mrs Scales. You know I m-met her in Paris.” And he was saying to himself: “I ought not to be telling this poor old thing here in the street. But what can I do?”

  “Nay, nay!” she muttered.

  She stopped and looked at him with a worried expression. Then he observed that the hand that carried her reticule was making strange purposeless curves in the air, and her rosy face went the colour of cream, as though it had been painted with one stroke of an unseen brush. Matthew was very much put about.

  “Hadn’t you better—” he began.

  “Eh,” she said; “I must sit me—” Her bag dropped.

  He supported her to the door of Allman’s shop, the ironmonger’s. Unfortunately, there were
two steps up into the shop, and she could not climb them. She collapsed like a sack of flour on the first step. Young Edward Allman ran to the door. He was wearing a black apron and fidgeting with it in his excitement.

  “Don’t lift her up—don’t try to lift her up, Mr Peel-Swynnerton!” he cried, as Matthew instinctively began to do the wrong thing.

  Matthew stopped, looking a fool and feeling one, and he and young Allman contemplated each other helpless for a second across the body of Constance Povey. A part of the Market Place now perceived that the unusual was occurring. It was Mr Shawcross, the chemist next door to Allman’s, who dealt adequately with the situation. He had seen all, while selling a Kodak to a young lady, and he ran out with salts. Constance recovered very rapidly. She had not quite swooned. She gave a long sigh, and whispered weakly that she was all right. The three men helped her into the lofty dark shop, which smelt of nails and of stove-polish, and she was balanced on a rickety chair.

  “My word!” exclaimed young Allman, in his loud voice, when she could smile and the pink was returning reluctantly to her cheeks. “You mustn’t frighten us like that, Mrs Povey!”

  Matthew said nothing. He had at last created a genuine sensation. Once again he felt like a criminal, and could not understand why.

  Constance announced that she would walk slowly home, down the Cock-yard and along Wedgwood Street But when, glancing round in her returned strength, she saw the hedge of faces at the doorway, she agreed with Mr Shawcross that she would do better to have a cab. Young Allman went to the door and whistled to the unique cab that stands for ever at the grand entrance to the Town Hall.

  “Mr Matthew will come with me,” said Constance.

  “Certainly, with pleasure,” said Matthew.

  And she passed through the little crowd of gapers on Mr Shawcross’s arm.

  “Just take care of yourself, missis,” said Mr Shawcross to her, through the window of the cab, “It’s fainting weather, and we’re none of us any younger, seemingly.”

  She nodded.

  “I’m awfully sorry I upset you, Mrs Povey,” said Matthew, when the cab moved.

  She shook her head, refusing his apology as unnecessary. Tears filled her eyes. In less than a minute the cab had stopped in front of Constance’s light-grained door. She demanded her reticule from Matthew, who had carried it since it fell. She would pay the cabman. Never before had Matthew permitted a woman to pay for a cab in which he had ridden; but there was no arguing with Constance. Constance was dangerous.

  Amy Bates, still inhabiting the cave, had seen the cab-wheels through the grating of her window and had panted up the kitchen stairs to open the door ere Constance had climbed the steps. Amy, decidedly over forty, was a woman of authority. She wanted to know what was the matter, and Constance had to tell her that she had “felt unwell.” Amy took the hat and mantle and departed to prepare a cup of tea. When they were alone Constance said to Matthew:

  “Now, Mr Matthew, will you please tell me?”

  “It’s only this,” he began.

  And as he told it, in quite a few words, it indeed had the air of being “only that.” And yet his voice shook, in sympathy with the ageing woman’s controlled but visible emotion. It seemed to him that gladness should have filled the absurd little parlour, but the spirit that presided had no name; it was certainly not joy. He himself felt very sad, desolated. He would have given much money to have been spared the experience. He knew simply that in the memory of the stout, comical, nice woman in the rocking-chair he had stirred old, old things, wakened slumbers that might have been eternal. He did not know that he was sitting on the very spot where the sofa had been on which Samuel Povey lay when a beautiful and shameless young creature of fifteen extracted his tooth. He did not know that Constance was sitting in the very chair in which the memorable Mrs Baines had sat in vain conflict with that same unconquerable girl. He did not know ten thousand matters that were rushing violently about in the vast heart of Constance.

  She cross-questioned him in detail. But she did not put the questions which he in his innocence expected; such as, if her sister looked old, if her hair was grey, if she was stout or thin. And until Amy, mystified and resentful, had served the tea, on a little silver tray, she remained comparatively calm. It was in the middle of a gulp of tea that she broke down, and Matthew had to take the cup from her.

  “I can’t thank you, Mr Matthew,” she wept. “I couldn’t thank you enough.”

  “But I’ve done nothing,” he protested.

  She shook her head. “I never hoped for this. Never hoped for it!” she went on. “It makes me so happy—in a way . . . You mustn’t take any notice of me. I’m silly. You must kindly write down that address for me. And I must write to Cyril at once. And I must see Mr Critchlow.”

  “It’s really very funny that Cyril hasn’t written to you,” said Matthew.

  “Cyril has not been a good son,” she said with sudden, solemn coldness. “To think that he should have kept that . . . !” She wept again.

  At length Matthew saw the possibility of leaving. He felt her warm, soft, crinkled hand round his fingers.

  “You’ve behaved very nicely over this,” she said. “And very cleverly. In every thing—both over there and here. Nobody could have shown a nicer feeling than you’ve shown. It’s a great comfort to me that my son has got you for a friend.”

  When he thought of his escapades, and of all the knowledge, unutterable in Bursley, fantastically impossible in Bursley, which he had imparted to her son, he marvelled that the maternal instinct should be so deceived. Still, he felt that her praise of him was deserved.

  Outside, he gave vent to a “Phew” of relief. He smiled, in his worldliest manner. But the smile was a sham. A pretence to himself! A childish attempt to disguise from himself how profoundly he had been moved by a natural scene!

  IV

  On the night when Matthew Peel-Swynnerton spoke to Mrs Scales, Matthew was not the only person in the Pension Frensham who failed to sleep. When the old portress came downstairs from her errand, she observed that her mistress was leaving the mahogany retreat.

  “She is sleeping tranquilly, the poor one!” said the portress, discharging her commission, which had been to learn the latest news of the mistress’s indisposed dog, Fossette. In saying this her ancient, vibrant voice was rich with sympathy for the suffering animal. And she smiled. She was rather like a figure out of an almshouse, with her pink, apparently brittle skin, her tight black dress, and frilled white cap. She stooped habitually, and always walked quickly, with her head a few inches in advance of her feet. Her grey hair was scanty. She was old; nobody perhaps knew exactly how old. Sophia had taken her with the Pension, over a quarter of a century before, because she was old and could not easily have found another place. Although the clientèle was almost exclusively English, she spoke only French, explaining herself to Britons by means of benevolent smiles.

  “I think I shall go to bed, Jacqueline,” said the mistress, in reply.

  A strange reply, thought Jacqueline. The unalterable custom of Jacqueline was to retire at midnight and to rise at five-thirty. Her mistress also usually retired about midnight, and during the final hour mistress and portress saw a good deal of each other. And considering that Jacqueline had just been sent up into the mistress’s own bedroom to glance at Fossette, and that the bulletin was satisfactory, and that madame and Jacqueline had several customary daily matters to discuss, it seemed odd that madame should thus be going instantly to bed. However, Jacqueline said nothing but:

  “Very well, madame. And the number 32?”

  “Arrange yourself as you can,” said the mistress, curtly.

  “It is well, madame. Good evening, madame, and a good night.”

  Jacqueline, alone in the hall, re-entered her box and set upon one of those endless, mysterious tasks which occupied her when she was not rushing to and fro or whistling up the tubes.

  Sophia, scarcely troubling even to glance into Fossette’
s round basket, undressed, put out the light, and got into bed. She felt extremely and inexplicably gloomy. She did not wish to reflect; she strongly wished not to reflect; but her mind insisted on reflection—a monotonous, futile, and distressing reflection. Povey! Povey! Could this be Constance’s Povey, the unique Samuel Povey? That is to say, not he, but his son, Constance’s son. Had Constance a grown-up son? Constance must be over fifty now, perhaps a grandmother! Had she really married Samuel Povey? Possibly she was dead. Certainly her mother must be dead, and Aunt Harriet and Mr Critchlow. If alive, her mother must be at least eighty years of age.

  The cumulative effect of merely remaining inactive when one ought to be active, was terrible. Undoubtedly she should have communicated with her family. It was silly not to have done so. After all, even if she had, as a child, stolen a trifle of money from her wealthy aunt, what would that have mattered? She had been proud. She was criminally proud. That was her vice. She admitted it frankly. But she could not alter her pride. Everybody had some weak spot. Her reputation for sagacity, for common sense, was, she knew, enormous; she always felt, when people were talking to her, that they regarded her as a very unusually wise woman. And yet she had been guilty of the capital folly of cutting herself off from her family. She was ageing, and she was alone in the world. She was enriching herself; she had the most perfectly managed and the most respectable Pension in the world (she sincerely believed), and she was alone in the world. Acquaintances she had—French people who never offered nor accepted hospitality other than tea or wine, and one or two members of the English commercial colony—but her one friend was Fossette, aged three years! She was the most solitary person on earth. She had heard no word of Gerald, no word of anybody. Nobody whatever could truly be interested in her fate. This was what she had achieved after a quarter of a century of ceaseless labour and anxiety, during which she had not once been away from the Rue Lord Byron for more than thirty hours at a stretch. It was appalling—the passage of years; and the passage of years would grow more appalling. Ten years hence, where would she be? She pictured herself dying. Horrible!