The Old Wives' Tale

by Arnold Bennett

  Nevertheless Constance was not happy in the hotel. She worried the whole time about her empty house. She anticipated difficulties and even disasters. She wondered again and again whether she could trust the second Maggie in her house alone, whether it would not be better to return home earlier and participate personally in the cleaning. She would have decided to do so had it not been that she hesitated to subject Sophia to the inconvenience of a house upside down. The matter was on her mind, always. Always she was restlessly anticipating the day when they would leave. She had carelessly left her heart behind in St Luke’s Square. She had never stayed in a hotel before, and she did not like it. Sciatica occasionally harassed her. Yet when it came to the point she would not drink the waters. She said she never had drunk them, and seemed to regard that as a reason why she never should. Sophia had achieved a miracle in getting her to Buxton for nearly a month, but the ultimate grand effect lacked brilliance.

  Then came the fatal letter, the desolating letter, which vindicated Constance’s dark apprehensions. Rose Bennion calmly wrote to say that she had decided not to come to St Luke’s Square. She expressed regret for any inconvenience which might possibly be caused; she was polite. But the monstrousness of it! Constance felt that this actually and truly was the deepest depth of her calamities. There she was, far from a dirty home, with no servant and no prospect of a servant! She bore herself bravely, nobly; but she was stricken. She wanted to return to the dirty home at once.

  Sophia felt that the situation created by this letter would demand her highest powers of dealing with situations, and she determined to deal with it adequately. Great measures were needed, for Constance’s health and happiness were at stake, she alone could act. She knew that she could not rely upon Cyril. She still had an immense partiality for Cyril; she thought him the most charming young man she had ever known; she knew him to be industrious and clever; but in his relations with his mother there was a hardness, a touch of callousness. She explained it vaguely by saying that “they did not get on well together”; which was strange, considering Constance’s sweet affectionateness. Still, Constance could be a little trying—at times. Anyhow, it was soon clear to Sophia that the idea of mother and son living together in London was entirely impracticable. No! If Constance was to be saved from herself, there was no one but Sophia to save her.

  After half a morning spent chiefly in listening to Constance’s hopeless comments on the monstrous letter, Sophia said suddenly that she must take the dogs for an airing. Constance did not feel equal to walking out, and she would not drive. She did not want Sophia to “venture,” because the sky threatened. However, Sophia did venture, and she returned a few minutes late for lunch, full of vigour, with two happy dogs. Constance was moodily awaiting her in the dining-room. Constance could not eat. But Sophia ate, and she poured out cheerfulness and energy as from a source inexhaustible. After lunch it began to rain. Constance said she thought she should retire directly to the sitting-room. “I’m coming too,” said Sophia, who was still wearing her hat and coat and carried her gloves in her hand. In the pretentious and banal sitting-room they sat down on either side the fire. Constance put a little shawl round her shoulders, pushed her spectacles into her grey hair, folded her hands, and sighed an enormous sigh: “Oh, dear!” She was the tragic muse, aged, and in black silk.

  “I tell you what I’ve been thinking,” said Sophia folding up her gloves.

  “What?” asked Constance, expecting some wonderful solution to come out of Sophia’s active brain.

  “There’s no earthly reason why you should go back to Bursley. The house won’t run away, and it’s costing nothing but the rent. Why not take things easy for a bit?”

  “And stay here?” said Constance, with an inflection that enlightened Sophia as to the intensity of her dislike of the existence at the Rutland.

  “No, not here,” Sophia answered with quick deprecation. “There are plenty of other places we could go to.”

  “I don’t think I should be easy in my mind,” said Constance. “What with nothing being settled, the house—”

  “What does it matter about the house?”

  “It matters a great deal,” said Constance, seriously, and slightly hurt.

  “I didn’t leave things as if we were going to be away for a long time. It wouldn’t do.”

  “I don’t see that anything could come to any harm, I really don’t!” said Sophia, persuasively. “Dirt can always be cleaned, after all. I think you ought to go about more. It would do you good—all the good in the world. And there is no reason why you shouldn’t go about. You are perfectly free. Why shouldn’t we go abroad together, for instance, you and I? I’m sure you would enjoy it very much.”

  “Abroad?” murmured Constance, aghast, recoiling from the proposition as from a grave danger.

  “Yes,” said Sophia, brightly and eagerly. She was determined to take Constance abroad. “There are lots of places we could go to, and live very comfortably among nice English people.” She thought of the resorts she had visited with Gerald in the sixties. They seemed to her like cities of a dream. They came back to her as a dream recurs.

  “I don’t think going abroad would suit me,” said Constance.

  “But why not? You don’t know. You’ve never tried, my dear.” She smiled encouragingly. But Constance did not smile. Constance was inclined to be grim.

  “I don’t think it would,” said she, obstinately. “I’m one of your stay-at-homes. I’m not like you. We can’t all be alike,” she added, with her “tart” accent.

  Sophia suppressed a feeling of irritation. She knew that she had a stronger individuality than Constance’s.

  “Well, then,” she said, with undiminished persuasiveness, “in England or Scotland. There are several places I should like to visit—Torquay, Tunbridge Wells. I’ve always understood that Tunbridge Wells is a very nice town indeed, with very superior people, and a beautiful climate.”

  “I think I shall have to be getting back to St Luke’s Square,” said Constance, ignoring all that Sophia had said. “There’s so much to be done.”

  Then Sophia looked at Constance with a more serious and resolute air; but still kindly, as though looking thus at Constance for Constance’s own good.

  “You are making a mistake, Constance,” she said, “if you will allow me to say so.”

  “A mistake!” exclaimed Constance, startled.

  “A very great mistake,” Sophia insisted, observing that she was creating an effect.

  “I don’t see how I can be making a mistake,” Constance said, gaining confidence in herself, as she thought the matter over.

  “No,” said Sophia, “I’m sure you don’t see it. But you are. You know, you are just a little apt to let yourself be a slave to that house of yours. Instead of the house existing for you, you exist for the house.”

  “Oh! Sophia!” Constance muttered awkwardly. “What ideas you do have, to be sure!” In her nervousness she rose and picked up some embroidery, adjusting her spectacles and coughing. When she sat down she said: “No one could take things easier than I do as regards house-keeping. I can assure you I let dozens of little matters go, rather than bother myself.”

  “Then why do you bother now?” Sophia posed her.

  “I can’t leave the place like that.” Constance was hurt.

  “There’s one thing I can’t understand,” said Sophia, raising her head and gazing at Constance again, “and that is, why you live in St Luke’s Square at all.”

  “I must live somewhere. And I’m sure it’s very pleasant.”

  “In all that smoke! And with that dirt! And the house is very old.”

  “It’s a great deal better built than a lot of those new houses by the Park,” Constance sharply retorted. In spite of herself she resented any criticism of her house. She even resented the obvious truth that it was old.

  “You’ll never get a servant to stay in that cellar-kitchen, for one thing,” said Sophia, keeping calm.

 
; “Oh! I don’t know about that! I don’t know about that! That Bennion woman didn’t object to it, anyway. It’s all very well for you, Sophia, to talk like that. But I know Bursley perhaps better than you do.” She was tart again. “And I can assure you that my house is looked upon as a very good house indeed.”

  “Oh! I don’t say it isn’t; I don’t say it isn’t. But you would be better away from it. Everyone says that.”

  “Everyone?” Constance looked up, dropping her work. “Who? Who’s been talking about me?”

  “Well,” said Sophia, “the doctor, for instance.”

  “Dr Stirling? I like that! He’s always saying that Bursley is one of the healthiest climates in England. He’s always sticking up for Bursley.”

  “Dr Stirling thinks you ought to go away more—not stay always in that dark house.” If Sophia had sufficiently reflected she would not have used the adjective “dark.” It did not help her cause.

  “Oh, does he!” Constance fairly snorted. “Well, if it’s of any interest to Dr Stirling, I like my dark house.”

  “Hasn’t he ever told you you ought to go away more?” Sophia persisted.

  “He may have mentioned it,” Constance reluctantly admitted.

  “When he was talking to me he did a good deal more than mention it. And I’ve a good mind to tell you what he said.”

  “Do!” said Constance, politely.

  “You don’t realize how serious it is, I’m afraid,” said Sophia. “You can’t see yourself.” She hesitated a moment. Her blood being stirred by Constance’s peculiar inflection of the phrase “my dark house,” her judgement was slightly obscured. She decided to give Constance a fairly full version of the conversation between herself and the doctor.

  “It’s a question of your health,” she finished. “I think it’s my duty to talk to you seriously, and I have done. I hope you’ll take it as it’s meant.”

  “Oh, of course!” Constance hastened to say. And she thought: “It isn’t yet three months that we’ve been together, and she’s trying already to get me under her thumb.”

  A pause ensued. Sophia at length said: “There’s no doubt that both your sciatica and your palpitations are due to nerves. And you let your nerves get into a state because you worry over trifles. A change would do you a tremendous amount of good. It’s just what you need. Really, you must admit, Constance, that the idea of living always in a place like St Luke’s Square, when you are perfectly free to do what you like and go where you like—you must admit it’s rather too much.”

  Constance put her lips together and bent over her embroidery.

  “Now, what do you say?” Sophia gently entreated.

  “There’s some of us like Bursley, black as it is!” said Constance. And Sophia was surprised to detect tears in her sister’s voice.

  “Now, my dear Constance,” she remonstrated.

  “It’s no use!” cried Constance, flinging away her work, and letting her tears flow suddenly. Her face was distorted. She was behaving just like a child. “It’s no use! I’ve got to go back home and look after things. It’s no use. Here we are pitching money about in this place. It’s perfectly sinful. Drives, carriages, extras! A shilling a day extra for each dog. I never heard of such goings-on. And I’d sooner be at home. That’s it. I’d sooner be at home.” This was the first reference that Constance had made for a long time to the question of expense, and incomparably the most violent. It angered Sophia.

  “We will count it that you are here as my guest,” said Sophia, loftily, “if that is how you look at it.”

  “Oh no!” said Constance. “It isn’t the money I grudge. Oh no, we won’t.” And her tears were falling thick.

  “Yes, we will,” said Sophia, coldly. “I’ve only been talking to you for your own good. I—”

  “Well,” Constance interrupted her despairingly, “I wish you wouldn’t try to domineer over me!”

  “Domineer!” exclaimed Sophia, aghast. “Well, Constance, I do think—”

  She got up and went to her bedroom, where the dogs were imprisoned. They escaped to the stairs. She was shaking with emotion. This was what came of trying to help other people! Imagine Constance . . . ! Truly Constance was most unjust, and quite unlike her usual self! And Sophia encouraged in her breast the feeling of injustice suffered. But a voice kept saying to her: “You’ve made a mess of this. You’ve not conquered this time. You’re beaten. And the situation is unworthy of you, of both of you. Two women of fifty quarrelling like this! It’s undignified. You’ve made a mess of things.” And to strangle the voice, she did her best to encourage the feeling of injustice suffered.

  “Domineer!”

  And Constance was absolutely in the wrong. She had not argued at all. She had merely stuck to her idea like a mule! How difficult and painful would be the next meeting with Constance, after this grievous miscarriage!

  As she was reflecting thus the door burst open, and Constance stumbled, as it were blindly, into the bedroom. She was still weeping.

  “Sophia!” she sobbed, supplicatingly, and all her fat body was trembling. “You mustn’t kill me . . . I’m like that—you can’t alter me. I’m like that. I know I’m silly. But it’s no use!” She made a piteous figure.

  Sophia was aware of a lump in her throat.

  “It’s all right, Constance; it’s all right. I quite understand. Don’t bother any more.”

  Constance, catching her breath at intervals, raised her wet, worn face and kissed her.

  Sophia remembered the very words, “You can’t alter her,” which she had used in remonstrating with Cyril. And now she had been guilty of precisely the same unreason as that with which she had reproached Cyril! She was ashamed, both for herself and for Constance. Assuredly it had not been such a scene as women of their age would want to go through often. It was humiliating. She wished that it could have been blotted out as though it had never happened. Neither of them ever forgot it. They had had a lesson. And particularly Sophia had had a lesson. Having learnt, they left the Rutland, amid due ceremonies, and returned to St Luke’s Square.

  CHAPTER IV

  END OF SOPHIA

  I

  The kitchen steps were as steep, dark, and difficult as ever. Up those steps Sophia Scales, nine years older than when she had failed to persuade Constance to leave the Square, was carrying a large basket, weighted with all the heaviness of Fossette. Sophia, despite her age, climbed the steps violently, and burst with equal violence into the parlour, where she deposited the basket on the floor near the empty fireplace. She was triumphant and breathless. She looked at Constance, who had been standing near the door in the attitude of a shocked listener.

  “There!” said Sophia. “Did you hear how she talked?”

  “Yes,” said Constance. “What shall you do?”

  “Well,” said Sophia. “I had a very good mind to order her out of the house at once. But then I thought I would take no notice. Her time will be up in three weeks. It’s best to be indifferent. If once they see they can upset you . . . However, I wasn’t going to leave Fossette down there to her tender mercies a moment longer. She’s simply not looked after her at all.”

  Sophia went on her knees to the basket, and, pulling aside the dog’s hair, round about the head, examined the skin. Fossette was a sick dog and behaved like one. Fossette, too, was nine years older, and her senility was offensive. She was to no sense a pleasant object.

  “See here,” said Sophia.

  Constance also knelt to the basket.

  “And here,” said Sophia. “And here.”

  The dog sighed, the insincere and pity-seeking sigh of a spoilt animal. Fossette foolishly hoped by such appeals to be spared the annoying treatment prescribed for her by the veterinary surgeon.

  While the sisters were coddling her, and protecting her from her own paws, and trying to persuade her that all was for the best, another aged dog wandered vaguely into the room: Spot. Spot had very few teeth, and his legs were stiff. He had only one vice
, jealousy. Fearing that Fossette might be receiving the entire attention of his mistresses, he had come to inquire into the situation. When he found the justification of his gloomiest apprehensions, he nosed obstinately up to Constance, and would not be put off. In vain Constance told him at length that he was interfering with the treatment. In vain Sophia ordered him sharply to go away. He would not listen to reason, being furious with jealousy. He got his foot into the basket.

  “Will you!” exclaimed Sophia angrily, and gave him a clout on his old head. He barked snappishly, and retired to the kitchen again, disillusioned, tired of the world, and nursing his terrific grievance. “I do declare,” said Sophia, “that dog gets worse and worse.”

  Constance said nothing.

  When everything was done that could be done for the aged virgin in the basket, the sisters rose from their knees, stiffly; and they began to whisper to each other about the prospects of obtaining a fresh servant. They also debated whether they could tolerate the criminal eccentricities of the present occupant of the cave for yet another three weeks. Evidently they were in the midst of a crisis. To judge from Constance’s face every imaginable woe had been piled on them by destiny without the slightest regard for their powers of resistance. Her eyes had the permanent look of worry, and there was in them also something of the self-defensive. Sophia had a bellicose air, as though the creature in the cave had squarely challenged her, and she was decided to take up the challenge. Sophia’s tone seemed to imply an accusation of Constance. The general tension was acute.