The Old Wives' Tale

by Arnold Bennett

  “I should have known you anywhere,” said Sophia, with apparently careless tranquillity, as she stooped to kiss Constance, raising her veil.

  Constance saw that this marvellous tranquillity must be imitated, and she imitated it very well. It was a “Baines” tranquillity. But she noticed a twitching of her sister’s lips. The twitching comforted Constance, proving to her that she was not alone in foolishness. There was also something queer about the permanent lines of Sophia’s mouth. That must be due to the “attack” about which Sophia had written.

  “Did Cyril meet you?” asked Constance. It was all that she could think of to say.

  “Oh yes!” said Sophia, eagerly. “And I went to his studio, and he saw me off at Euston. He is a very nice boy. I love him.”

  She said “I love him” with the intonation of Sophia aged fifteen. Her tone and imperious gestures sent Constance flying back to the ’sixties. “She hasn’t altered one bit,” Constance thought with joy. “Nothing could change Sophia.” And at the back of that notion was a more general notion: “Nothing could change a Baines.” It was true that Constance’s Sophia had not changed. Powerful individualities remain undisfigured by no matter what vicissitudes. After this revelation of the original Sophia, arising as it did out of praise of Cyril, Constance felt easier, felt reassured.

  “This is Fossette,” said Sophia, pulling at the chain.

  Constance knew not what to reply. Surely Sophia could not be aware what she did in bringing such a dog to a place where people were so particular as they are in the Five Towns.

  “Fossette!” She repeated the name in an endearing accent, half stooping towards the dog. After all, it was not the dog’s fault. Sophia had certainly mentioned a dog in her letters, but she had not prepared Constance for the spectacle of Fossette.

  All that happened in a moment. A porter appeared with two trunks belonging to Sophia. Constance observed that they were superlatively “good” trunks; also that Sophia’s clothes, though “on the showy side,” were superlatively “good.” The getting of Sophia’s ticket to Bursley occupied them next, and soon the first shock of meeting had worn off.

  In a second-class compartment of the Loop Line train, with Sophia and Fossette opposite to her, Constance had leisure to “take in” Sophia. She came to the conclusion that, despite her slenderness and straightness and the general effect of the long oval of her face under the hat, Sophia looked her age. She saw that Sophia must have been through a great deal; her experiences were damagingly printed in the details of feature. Seen at a distance, she might have passed for a woman of thirty, even for a girl, but seen across a narrow railway carriage she was a woman whom suffering had aged. Yet obviously her spirit was unbroken. Hear her tell a doubtful porter that of course she should take Fossette with her into the carriage! See her shut the carriage door with the expressed intention of keeping other people out! She was accustomed to command. At the same time her face had an almost set smile, as though she had said to herself: “I will die smiling.” Constance felt sorry for her. While recognizing in Sophia a superior in charm, in experience, in knowledge of the world and in force of personality, she yet with a kind of undisturbed, fundamental superiority felt sorry for Sophia.

  “What do you think?” said Sophia, absently fingering Fossette. “A man came up to me at Euston, while Cyril was getting my ticket, and said, ‘Eh, Miss Baines, I haven’t seen ye for over thirty years, but I know you’re Miss Baines, or were—and you’re looking bonny.’ Then he went off. I think it must have been Holl, the grocer.”

  “Had he got a long white beard?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then it was Mr Holl. He’s been Mayor twice. He’s an alderman, you know.”

  “Really!” said Sophia. “But wasn’t it queer?”

  “Eh! Bless us!” exclaimed Constance. “Don’t talk about queer! It’s terrible how time flies.”

  The conversation stopped, and it refused to start again. Two women who are full of affectionate curiosity about each other, and who have not seen each other for thirty years, and who are anxious to confide in each other, ought to discover no difficulty in talking; but somehow these two could not talk. Constance perceived that Sophia was impeded by the same awkwardness as herself.

  “Well I never!” cried Sophia, suddenly. She had glanced out of the window and had seen two camels and an elephant in a field close to the line, amid manufactories and warehouses and advertisements of soap.

  “Oh!” said Constance. “That’s Barnum’s, you know. They have what they called a central depôt here, because it’s the middle of England.” Constance spoke proudly. (After all, there can be only one middle.) It was on her tongue to say, in her “tart” manner, that Fossette ought to be with the camels, but she refrained. Sophia hit on the excellent idea of noting all the buildings that were new to her and all the landmarks that she remembered. It was surprising how little the district had altered.

  “Same smoke!” said Sophia.

  “Same smoke!” Constance agreed.

  “It’s even worse,” said Sophia.

  “Do you think so?” Constance was slightly piqued. “But they’re doing something now for smoke abatement.”

  “I must have forgotten how dirty it was!” said Sophia. “I suppose that’s it. I’d no idea . . . !”

  “Really!” said Constance. Then, in candid admission, “The fact is, it is dirty. You can’t imagine what work it makes, especially with window-curtains.”

  As the train puffed under Trafalgar Road, Constance pointed to a new station that was being built there, to be called “Trafalgar Road” station.

  “Won’t it be strange?” said she, accustomed to the eternal sequence of Loop Line stations—Turnhill, Bursley, Bleakridge, Hanbridge, Cauldon, Knype, Trent Vale, and Longshaw. A “Trafalgar Road” inserting itself between Bleakridge and Hanbridge seemed to her exclusively curious.

  “Yes, I suppose it will,” Sophia agreed.

  “But of course it’s not the same to you,” said Constance, dashed. She indicated the glories of Bursley Park, as the train slackened for Bursley, with modesty. Sophia gazed, and vaguely recognized the slopes where she had taken her first walk with Gerald Scales.

  Nobody accosted them at Bursley Station, and they drove to the Square in a cab. Amy was at the window; she held up Spot, who was in a plenary state of cleanliness, rivalling the purity of Amy’s apron.

  “Good afternoon, m’m,” said Amy, officiously, to Sophia, as Sophia came up the steps.

  “Good afternoon, Amy,” Sophia replied. She flattered Amy in thus showing that she was acquainted with her name; but if ever a servant was put into her place by mere tone, Amy was put into her place on that occasion. Constance trembled at Sophia’s frigid and arrogant politeness. Certainly Sophia was not used to being addressed first by servants. But Amy was not quite the ordinary servant. She was much older than the ordinary servant, and she had acquired a partial moral dominion over Constance, though Constance would have warmly denied it. Hence Constance’s apprehension. However, nothing happened. Amy apparently did not feel the snub.

  “Take Spot and put him in Mr Cyril’s bedroom,” Constance murmured to her, as if implying: “Have I not already told you to do that?” The fact was, she was afraid for Spot’s life.

  “Now, Fossette!” She welcomed the incoming poodle kindly; the poodle began at once to sniff.

  The fat, red cabman was handling the trunks on the pavement, and Amy was upstairs. For a moment the sisters were alone together in the parlour.

  “So here I am!” exclaimed the tall, majestic woman of fifty. And her lips twitched again as she looked round the room—so small to her.

  “Yes, here you are!” Constance agreed. She bit her lip, and, as a measure of prudence to avoid breaking down, she bustled out to the cabman. A passing instant of emotion, like a fleck of foam on a wide and calm sea!

  The cabman blundered up and downstairs with trunks, and saluted Sophia’s haughty generosity, and then there was qui
etness. Amy was already brewing the tea in the cave. The prepared tea-table in front of the fire made a glittering array.

  “Now, what about Fossette?” Constance voiced anxieties that had been growing on her.

  “Fossette will be quite all right with me,” said Sophia, firmly.

  They ascended to the guest’s room, which drew Sophia’s admiration for its prettiness. She hurried to the window and looked out into the Square.

  “Would you like a fire?” Constance asked, in a rather perfunctory manner. For a bedroom fire, in seasons of normal health, was still regarded as absurd in the Square.

  “Oh, no!” said Sophia; but with a slight failure to rebut the suggestion as utterly ridiculous.

  “Sure?” Constance questioned.

  “Quite, thank you,” said Sophia.

  “Well, I’ll leave you. I expect Amy will have tea ready directly.” She went down into the kitchen. “Amy,” she said, “as soon as we’ve finished tea, light a fire in Mrs Scales’s bedroom.”

  “In the top bedroom, m’m?”

  “Yes.”

  Constance climbed again to her own bedroom, and shut the door. She needed a moment to herself, in the midst of this terrific affair. She sighed with relief as she removed her mantle. She thought: “At any rate we’ve met, and I’ve got her here. She’s very nice. No, she isn’t a bit altered.” She hesitated to admit that to her Sophia was the least in the world formidable. And so she said once more: “She’s very nice. She isn’t a bit altered.” And then: “Fancy her being here! She really is here.” With her perfect simplicity it did not occur to Constance to speculate as to what Sophia thought of her.

  Sophia was downstairs first, and Constance found her looking at the blank wall beyond the door leading to the kitchen steps.

  “So this is where you had it bricked up?” said Sophia.

  “Yes,” said Constance. “That’s the place.”

  “It makes me feel like people feel when they have tickling in a limb that’s been cut off!” said Sophia.

  “Oh, Sophia!”

  The tea received a great deal of praise from Sophia, but neither of them ate much. Constance found that Sophia was like herself: she had to be particular about her food. She tasted dainties for the sake of tasting, but it was a bird’s pecking. Not the twelfth part of the tea was consumed. They dared not indulge caprices. Only their eyes could feed.

  After tea they went up to the drawing-room, and in the corridor had the startling pleasure of seeing two dogs who scurried about after each other in amity. Spot had found Fossette, with the aid of Amy’s incurable carelessness, and had at once examined her with great particularity. She seemed to be of an amiable disposition, and not averse from the lighter distractions. For a long time the sisters sat chatting together in the lit drawing-room to the agreeable sound of happy dogs playing in the dark corridor. Those dogs saved the situation, because they needed constant attention. When the dogs dozed, the sisters began to look through the photograph albums, of which Constance had several, bound in plush or morocco. Nothing will sharpen the memory, evoke the past, raise the dead, rejuvenate the ageing, and cause both sighs and smiles, like a collection of photographs gathered together during long years of life. Constance had an astonishing menagerie of unknown cousins and their connexions, and of townspeople; she had Cyril at all ages; she had weird daguerreotypes of her parents and their parents. The strangest of all was a portrait of Samuel Povey as an infant in arms. Sophia checked an impulse to laugh at it. But when Constance said: “Isn’t it funny?” she did allow herself to laugh. A photograph of Samuel in the year before his death was really imposing. Sophia stared at it impressed. It was the portrait of an honest man.

  “How long have you been a widow?” Constance asked in a low voice, glancing at upright Sophia over her spectacles, a leaf of the album raised against her finger.

  Sophia unmistakably flushed. “I don’t know that I am a widow,” said she, with an air. “My husband left me in 1870, and I’ve never seen nor heard of him since.”

  “Oh, my dear!” cried Constance, alarmed and deafened as by a clap of awful thunder. “I thought ye were a widow. Mr Peel-Swynnerton said he was told positively ye were a widow. That’s why I never . . .” She stopped. Her face was troubled.

  “Of course I always passed for a widow, over there,” said Sophia.

  “Of course,” said Constance quickly. “I see . . .”

  “And I may be a widow,” said Sophia.

  Constance made no remark. This was a blow. Bursley was such a particular place. Doubtless, Gerald Scales had behaved like a Scoundrel. That was sure!

  When, immediately afterwards, Amy opened the drawing-room door (having first knocked—the practice of encouraging a servant to plunge without warning of any kind into a drawing-room had never been favoured in that house) she saw the sisters sitting rather near to each other at the walnut oval table, Mrs Scales very upright, and staring into the fire, and Mrs Povey “bunched up” and staring at the photograph album; but seeming to Amy aged and apprehensive; Mrs Povey’s hair was quite grey, though Mrs Scales’s hair was nearly as black as Amy’s own. Mrs Scales started at the sound of the knock, and turned her head.

  “Here’s Mr and Mrs Critchlow, m’m,” announced Amy.

  The sisters glanced at one another, with lifted foreheads. Then Mrs Povey spoke to Amy as though visits at half-past eight at night were a customary phenomenon of the household. Nevertheless, she trembled to think what outrageous thing Mr Critchlow might say to Sophia after thirty years’ absence. The occasion was great, and it might also be terrible.

  “Ask them to come up,” she said calmly.

  But Amy had the best of that encounter. “I have done,” she replied, and instantly produced them out of the darkness of the corridor. It was providential: the sisters had made no remark that the Critchlows might not hear.

  Then Maria Critchlow, simpering, had to greet Sophia. Mrs Critchlow was very agitated, from sheer nervousness. She curvetted; she almost pranced; and she made noises with her mouth as though she saw someone eating a sour apple. She wanted to show Sophia how greatly she had changed from the young, timid apprentice. Certainly since her marriage she had changed. As manager of other people’s business she had not felt the necessity of being effusive to customers, but as proprietress, anxiety to succeed had dragged her out of her capable and mechanical indifference. It was a pity. Her consistent dullness had had a sort of dignity; but genial, she was merely ridiculous. Animation cruelly displayed her appalling commonness and physical shabbiness. Sophia’s demeanour was not chilly; but it indicated that Sophia had no wish to be eyed over as a freak of nature.

  Mr Critchlow advanced very slowly into the room. “Ye still carry your head on a stiff neck,” said he, deliberately examining Sophia. Then with great care he put out his long thin arm and took her hand. “Well, I’m rare and glad to see ye!”

  Everyone was thunderstruck at this expression of joy. Mr Critchlow had never been known to be glad to see anybody.

  “Yes,” twittered Maria, “Mr Critchlow would come in tonight. Nothing would do but he must come in tonight.”

  “You didn’t tell me this afternoon,” said Constance, “that you were going to give us the pleasure of your company like this.”

  He looked momentarily at Constance. “No,” he grated, “I don’t know as I did.”

  His gaze flattered Sophia. Evidently he treated this experienced and sad woman of fifty as a young girl. And in presence of his extreme age she felt like a young girl, remembering the while how as a young girl she had hated him. Repulsing the assistance of his wife, he arranged an armchair in front of the fire and meticulously put himself into it. Assuredly he was much older in a drawing-room than behind the counter of his shop. Constance had noticed that in the afternoon. A live coal fell out of the fire. He bent forward, wet his fingers, picked up the coal and threw it back into the fire.

  “Well,” said Sophia, “I wouldn’t have done that.”

 
; “I never saw Mr Critchlow’s equal for picking up hot cinders,” Maria giggled.

  Mr Critchlow deigned no remark. “When did ye leave this Paris?” he demanded of Sophia, leaning back, and putting his hands on the arms of the chair.

  “Yesterday morning,” said Sophia.

  “And what’n ye been doing with yeself since yesterday morning?”

  “I spent last night in London,” Sophia replied.

  “Oh, in London, did ye?”

  “Yes. Cyril and I had an evening together.”

  “Eh? Cyril! What’s yer opinion o’ Cyril, Sophia?”

  “I’m very proud to have Cyril for a nephew,” said Sophia.

  “Oh! Are ye?” The old man was obviously ironic.

  “Yes I am,” Sophia insisted sharply. “I’m not going to hear a word said against Cyril.”

  She proceeded to an enthusiastic laudation of Cyril which rather overwhelmed his mother. Constance was pleased; she was delighted. And yet somewhere in her mind was an uncomfortable feeling that Cyril, having taken a fancy to his brilliant aunt, had tried to charm her as he seldom or never tried to charm his mother. Cyril and Sophia had dazzled and conquered each other; they were of the same type; whereas she, Constance, being but a plain person, could not glitter.

  She rang the bell and gave instructions to Amy about food—fruit cakes, coffee and hot milk, on a tray; and Sophia also spoke to Amy, murmuring a request as to Fossette.

  “Yes, Mrs Scales,” said Amy, with eager deference.

  Mrs Critchlow smiled vaguely from a low chair near the curtained window. Then Constance lit another burner of the chandelier. In doing so, she gave a little sigh; it was a sigh of relief. Mr Critchlow had behaved himself. Now that he and Sophia had met, the worst was over. Had Constance known beforehand that he would pay a call, she would have been agonized by apprehensions, but now that he had actually come she was glad he had come.