The Old Wives' Tale

by Arnold Bennett

  Then suddenly their whispers expired, and the door opened and the servant came in to lay the supper. Her nose was high, her gaze cruel, radiant, and conquering. She was a pretty and an impudent girl of about twenty-three. She knew she was torturing her old and infirm mistresses. She did not care. She did it purposely. Her motto was: War on employers, get all you can out of them, for they will get all they can out of you. On principle—the sole principle she possessed—she would not stay in a place more than six months. She liked change. And employers did not like change. She was shameless with men. She ignored all orders as to what she was to eat and what she was not to eat. She lived up to the full resources of her employers. She could be to the last degree slatternly. Or she could be as neat as a pin, with an apron that symbolized purity and propriety, as tonight. She could be idle during a whole day, accumulating dirty dishes from morn till eve. On the other hand she could, when she chose, work with astonishing celerity and even thoroughness. In short, she was born to infuriate a mistress like Sophia and to wear out a mistress like Constance. Her strongest advantage in the struggle was that she enjoyed altercation; she revelled in a brawl; she found peace tedious. She was perfectly calculated to convince the sisters that times had worsened, and that the world would never again be the beautiful, agreeable place it once had been.

  Her gestures as she laid the table were very graceful, in the pert style. She dropped forks into their appointed positions with disdain; she made slightly too much noise; when she turned she manoeuvred her swelling hips as though for the benefit of a soldier in a handsome uniform.

  Nothing but the servant had been changed in that house. The harmonium on which Mr Povey used occasionally to play was still behind the door; and on the harmonium was the tea-caddy of which Mrs Baines used to carry the key on her bunch. In the corner to the right of the fireplace still hung the cupboard where Mrs Baines stored her pharmacopoeia. The rest of the furniture was arranged as it had been arranged when the death of Mrs Baines endowed Mr and Mrs Povey with all the treasures of the house at Axe. And it was as good as ever; better than ever. Dr Stirling often expressed the desire for a corner cupboard like Mrs Baines’s corner cupboard. One item had been added: the “Peel” compote which Matthew Peel-Swynnerton had noticed in the dining-room of the Pension Frensham. This majestic piece, which had been reserved by Sophia in the sale of the pension, stood alone on a canterbury in the drawing-room. She had stored it, with a few other trifles, in Paris, and when she sent for it and the packing-case arrived, both she and Constance became aware that they were united for the rest of their lives. Of worldly goods, except money, securities, and clothes, that compote was practically all that Sophia owned. Happily it was a first-class item, doing no shame to the antique magnificence of the drawing-room.

  In yielding to Constance’s terrible inertia, Sophia had meant nevertheless to work her own will on the interior of the house. She had meant to bully Constance into modernizing the dwelling. She did bully Constance, but the house defied her. Nothing could be done to that house. If only it had had a hall or lobby a complete transformation would have been possible. But there was no access to the upper floor except through the parlour. The parlour could not therefore be turned into a kitchen and the basement suppressed, and the ladies of the house could not live entirely on the upper floor. The disposition of the rooms had to remain exactly as it had always been. There was the same draught under the door, the same darkness on the kitchen stairs, the same difficulties with tradesmen in the distant backyard, the same twist in the bedroom stairs, the same eternal ascending and descending of pails. An efficient cooking-stove, instead of the large and capacious range, alone represented the twentieth century in the fixtures of the house.

  Buried at the root of the relations between the sisters was Sophia’s grudge against Constance for refusing to leave the Square. Sophia was loyal. She would not consciously give with one hand while taking away with the other, and in accepting Constance’s decision she honestly meant to close her eyes to its stupidity. But she could not entirely succeed. She could not avoid thinking that the angelic Constance had been strangely and monstrously selfish in refusing to quit the Square. She marvelled that a woman of Constance’s sweet and calm disposition should be capable of so vast and ruthless an egotism. Constance must have known that Sophia would not leave her, and that the habitation of the Square was a continual irk to Sophia. Constance had never been able to advance a single argument for remaining in the Square. And yet she would not budge. It was so inconsistent with the rest of Constance’s behaviour. See Sophia sitting primly there by the table, a woman approaching sixty, with immense experience written on the fine hardness of her worn and distinguished face! Though her hair is not yet all grey, nor her figure bowed, you would imagine that she would in her passage through the world, have learnt better than to expect a character to be consistent. But no! She was ever disappointed and hurt by Constance’s inconsistency! And see Constance, stout and bowed, looking more than her age, with hair nearly white and slightly trembling hands! See that face whose mark is meekness and the spirit of conciliation, the desire for peace—you would not think that that placid soul could, while submitting to it, inly rage against the imposed weight of Sophia’s individuality. “Because I wouldn’t turn out of my house to please her,” Constance would say to herself, “she fancies she is entitled to do just as she likes.” Not often did she secretly rebel thus, but it occurred sometimes. They never quarrelled. They would have regarded separation as a disaster. Considering the difference of their lives, they agreed marvellously in their judgement of things. But that buried question of domicile prevented a complete unity between them. And its subtle effect was to influence both of them to make the worst, instead of the best, of the trifling mishaps that disturbed their tranquillity. When annoyed, Sophia would meditate upon the mere fact that they lived in the Square for no reason whatever, until it grew incredibly shocking to her. After all it was scarcely conceivable that they should be living in the very middle of a dirty, ugly, industrial town simply because Constance mulishly declined to move. Another thing that curiously exasperasted both of them upon occasion was that, owing to a recurrence of her old complaint of dizziness after meals, Sophia had been strictly forbidden to drink tea, which she loved. Sophia chafed under the deprivation, and Constance’s pleasure was impaired because she had to drink it alone.

  While the brazen and pretty servant, mysteriously smiling to herself, dropped food and utensils on to the table, Constance and Sophia attempted to converse with negligent ease upon indifferent topics, as though nothing had occurred that day to mar the beauty of ideal relations between employers and employed. The pretence was ludicrous. The young wench saw through it instantly, and her mysterious smile developed almost into a laugh.

  “Please shut the door after you, Maud,” said Sophia as the girl picked up her empty tray.

  “Yes, ma’am,” replied Maud, politely.

  She went out and left the door open.

  It was a defiance, offered from sheer, youthful, wanton mischief.

  The sisters looked at each other, their faces gravely troubled, aghast, as though they had glimpsed the end of civilized society, as though they felt that they had lived too long into an age of decadence and open shame. Constance’s face showed despair—she might have been about to be pitched into the gutter without a friend and without a shilling—but Sophia’s had the reckless courage that disaster breeds.

  Sophia jumped up, and stepped to the door. “Maud,” she called out.

  No answer.

  “Maud, do you hear me?”

  The suspense was fearful.

  Still no answer.

  Sophia glanced at Constance. “Either she shuts this door, or she leaves this house at once, even if I have to fetch a policeman!”

  And Sophia disappeared down the kitchen steps. Constance trembled with painful excitement. The horror of existence closed in upon her. She could imagine nothing more appalling than the pass to which they
had been brought by the modern change in the lower classes.

  In the kitchen, Sophia, conscious that the moment held the future of at least the next three weeks, collected her forces.

  “Maud,” she said, “did you not hear me call you?”

  Maud looked up from a book—doubtless a wicked book.

  “No, ma’am.”

  “You liar!” thought Sophia. And she said: “I asked you to shut the parlour door, and I shall be obliged if you will do so.”

  Now Maud would have given a week’s wages for the moral force to disobey Sophia. There was nothing to compel her to obey. She could have trampled on the fragile and weak Sophia. But something in Sophia’s gaze compelled her to obey. She flounced; she bridled; she mumbled; she unnecessarily disturbed the venerable Spot; but she obeyed. Sophia had risked all, and she had won something.

  “And you should light the gas in the kitchen,” said Sophia magnificently, as Maud followed her up the steps. “Your young eyes may be very good now, but you are not going the way to preserve them. My sister and I have often told you that we do not grudge you gas.”

  With stateliness she rejoined Constance, and sat down to the cold supper. And as Maud clicked the door to, the sisters breathed relief. They envisaged new tribulations, but for a brief instant there was surcease.

  Yet they could not eat. Neither of them, when it came to the point, could swallow. The day had been too exciting, too distressing. They were at the end of their resources. And they did not hide from each other that they were at the end of their resources. The illness of Fossette, without anything else, had been more than enough to ruin their tranquillity. But the illness of Fossette was as nothing to the ingenious naughtiness of the servant. Maud had a sense of temporary defeat, and was planning fresh operations; but really it was Maud who had conquered. Poor old things, they were in such a “state” that they could not eat!

  “I’m not going to let her think she can spoil my appetite!” said Sophia, dauntless. Truly that woman’s spirit was unquenchable.

  She cut a couple of slices off the cold fowl; she cut a tomato into slices; she disturbed the butter; she crumbled bread on the cloth, and rubbed bits of fowl over the plates, and dirtied knives and forks. Then she put the slices of fowl and bread and tomato into a piece of tissue paper, and silently went upstairs with the parcel and came down again a moment afterwards emptyhanded.

  After an interval she rang the bell, and lighted the gas.

  “We’ve finished, Maud. You can clear away.”

  Constance thirsted for a cup of tea. She felt that a cup of tea was the one thing that would certainly keep her alive. She longed for it passionately. But she would not demand it from Maud. Nor would she mention it to Sophia, lest Sophia, flushed by the victory of the door, should incur new risks. She simply did without. On empty stomachs they tried pathetically to help each other in games of Patience. And when the blithe Maud passed through the parlour on the way to bed, she saw two dignified and apparently calm ladies, apparently absorbed in a delightful game of cards, apparently without a worry in the world. They said “Good night, Maud,” cheerfully, politely, and coldly. It was a heroic scene. Immediately afterwards Sophia carried Fossette up to her own bedroom.

  II

  The next afternoon the sisters, in the drawing-room, saw Dr Stirling’s motor-car speeding down the Square. The doctor’s partner, young Harrop, had died a few years before at the age of over seventy, and the practice was much larger than it had ever been, even in the time of old Harrop. Instead of two or three horses, Stirling kept a car, which was a constant spectacle in the streets of the district.

  “I do hope he’ll call in,” said Mrs Povey, and sighed.

  Sophia smiled to herself with a little scorn. She knew that Constance’s desire for Dr Stirling was due simply to the need which she felt of telling someone about the great calamity that had happened to them that morning. Constance was utterly absorbed by it, in the most provincial way. Sophia had said to herself at the beginning of her sojourn in Bursley, and long afterwards, that she should never get accustomed to the exasperating provinciality of the town, exemplified by the childish preoccupation of the inhabitants with their own two-penny affairs. No characteristic of life in Bursley annoyed her more than this. None had oftener caused her to yearn in a brief madness for the desert-like freedom of great cities. But she had got accustomed to it. Indeed, she had almost ceased to notice it. Only occasionally, when her nerves were more upset than usual, did it strike her.

  She went into Constance’s bedroom to see whether the doctor’s car halted in King Street. It did.

  “He’s here,” she called out to Constance.

  “I wish you’d go down, Sophia,” said Constance. “I can’t trust that minx—”

  So Sophia went downstairs to superintend the opening of the door by the minx.

  The doctor was radiant, according to custom.

  “I thought I’d just see how that dizziness was going on,” said he as he came up the steps.

  “I’m glad you’ve come,” said Sophia, confidentially. Since the first days of their acquaintance they had always been confidential. “You’ll do my sister good today.”

  Just as Maud was closing the door a telegraph-boy arrived, with a telegram addressed to Mrs Scales. Sophia read it and then crumpled it in her hand.

  “What’s wrong with Mrs Povey today?” the doctor asked, when the servant had withdrawn.

  “She only wants a bit of your society,” said Sophia. “Will you go up? You know the way to the drawing-room. I’ll follow.”

  As soon as he had gone she sat down on the sofa, staring out of the window. Then with a grunt: “Well, that’s no use, anyway!” she went upstairs after the doctor. Already Constance had begun upon her recital.

  “Yes,” Constance was saying. “And when I went down this morning to keep an eye on the breakfast, I thought Spot was very quiet—” She paused. “He was dead in the drawer. She pretended she didn’t know, but I’m sure she did. Nothing will convince me that she didn’t poison that dog with the mice-poison we had last year. She was vexed because Sophia took her up sharply about Fossette last night, and she revenged herself on the other dog. It would just be like her. Don’t tell me! I know. I should have packed her off at once, but Sophia thought better not. We couldn’t prove anything, as Sophia says. Now, what do you think of it, doctor?”

  Constance’s eyes suddenly filled with tears.

  “Ye’d had Spot a long time, hadn’t ye?” he said sympathetically.

  She nodded. “When I was married,” said she, “the first thing my husband did was to buy a fox-terrier, and ever since we’ve always had a fox-terrier in the house.” This was not true, but Constance was firmly convinced of its truth.

  “It’s very trying,” said the doctor. “I know when my Airedale died, I said to my wife I’d never have another dog—unless she could find me one that would live for ever. Ye remember my Airedale?”

  “Oh, quite well!”

  “Well, my wife said I should be bound to have another one sooner or later, and the sooner the better. She went straight off to Oldcastle and bought me a spaniel pup, and there was such a to-do training it that we hadn’t too much time to think about Piper.”

  Constance regarded this procedure as somewhat callous, and she said so, tartly. Then she recommenced the tale of Spot’s death from the beginning, and took it as far as his burial, that afternoon, by Mr Critchlow’s manager, in the yard. It had been necessary to remove and replace paving-stones.

  “Of course,” said Dr Stirling, “ten years is a long time. He was an old dog. Well, you’ve still got the celebrated Fossette.” He turned to Sophia.

  “Oh yes,” said Constance, perfunctorily. “Fossette’s ill. The fact is that if Fossette hadn’t been ill, Spot would probably have been alive and well now.”

  Her tone exhibited a grievance. She could not forget that Sophia had harshly dismissed Spot to the kitchen, thus practically sending him to his death. It
seemed very hard to her that Fossette, whose life had once been despaired of, should continue to exist, while Spot, always healthy and unspoilt, should die untended, and by treachery. For the rest, she had never liked Fossette. On Spot’s behalf she had always been jealous of Fossette.

  “Probably alive and well now!” she repeated, with a peculiar accent.

  Observing that Sophia maintained a strange silence, Dr Stirling suspected a slight tension in the relations of the sisters, and he changed the subject. One of his great qualities was that he refrained from changing a subject introduced by a patient unless there was a professional reason for changing it.

  “I’ve just met Richard Povey in the town,” said he. “He told me to tell ye that he’ll be round in about an hour or so to take you for a spin. He was in a new car, which he did his best to sell to me, but he didn’t succeed.”

  “It’s very kind of Dick,” said Constance. “But this afternoon really we’re not—”

  “I’ll thank ye to take it as a prescription, then,” replied the doctor. “I told Dick I’d see that ye went. Splendid June weather. No dust after all that rain. It’ll do ye all the good in the world. I must exercise my authority. The truth is, I’ve gradually been losing all control over ye. Ye do just as ye like.”

  “Oh, doctor, how you do run on!” murmured Constance, not quite well pleased today by his tone.

  After the scene between Sophia and herself at Buxton, Constance had always, to a certain extent, in the doctor’s own phrase, “got her knife into him.” Sophia had, then, in a manner betrayed him. Constance and the doctor discussed that matter with frankness, the doctor humorously accusing her of being “hard” on him. Nevertheless the little cloud between them was real, and the result was often a faint captiousness on Constance’s part in judging the doctor’s behaviour.