The Old Wives' Tale

by Arnold Bennett

  Early in the morning Constance rose up from her own bed. It was five o’clock, and there had been daylight for two hours already. She moved noiselessly and peeped over the foot of the bed at the sofa. Lily was quietly asleep there, breathing with the softness of a child. Lily would have deemed that she was a very mature woman, who had seen life and much of it. Yet to Constance her face and attitude had the exquisite quality of a child’s. She was not precisely a pretty girl, but her features, the candid expression of her disposition, produced an impression that was akin to that of beauty. Her abandonment was complete. She had gone through the night unscathed, and was now renewing herself in calm, oblivious sleep. Her ingenuous girlishness was apparent then. It seemed as if all her wise and sweet behaviour of the evening could have been nothing but so many imitative gestures. It seemed impossible that a being so young and fresh could have really experienced the mood of which her gestures had been the expression. Her strong virginal simplicity made Constance vaguely sad for her.

  Creeping out of the room, Constance climbed to the second floor in her dressing-grown, and entered the other chamber. She was obliged to look again upon Sophia’s body. Incredible swiftness of calamity! Who could have foreseen it? Constance was less desolated than numbed. She was as yet only touching the fringe of her bereavement. She had not begun to think of herself. She was drenched, as she gazed at Sophia’s body, not by pity for herself, but by compassion for the immense disaster of her sister’s life. She perceived fully now for the first time the greatness of that disaster. Sophia’s charm and Sophia’s beauty—what profit had they been to their owner? She saw pictures of Sophia’s career, distorted and grotesque images formed in her untravelled mind from Sophia’s own rare and compressed recitals. What a career! A brief passion, and then nearly thirty years in a boarding-house! And Sophia had never had a child; had never known either the joy or the pain of maternity. She had never even had a true home till, in all her sterile splendour, she came to Bursley. And she had ended—thus! This was the piteous, ignominious end of Sophia’s wondrous gifts of body and soul. Hers had not been a life at all. And the reason? It is strange how fate persists in justifying the harsh generalizations of Puritan morals, of the morals in which Constance had been brought up by her stern parents! Sophia had sinned. It was therefore inevitable that she should suffer. An adventure such as she had in wicked and capricious pride undertaken with Gerald Scales, could not conclude otherwise than it had concluded. It could have brought nothing but evil. There was no getting away from these verities, thought Constance. And she was to be excused for thinking that all modern progress and cleverness was as naught, and that the world would be forced to return upon its steps and start again in the path which it had left.

  Up to within a few days of her death people had been wont to remark that Mrs Scales looked as young as ever, and that she was as bright and as energetic as ever. And truly, regarding Sophia from a little distance—that handsome oval, that erect carriage of a slim body, that challenging eye!—no one would have said that she was in her sixtieth year. But look at her now, with her twisted face, her sightless orbs, her worn skin—she did not seem sixty, but seventy! She was like something used, exhausted, and thrown aside! Yes, Constance’s heart melted in an anguished pity for that stormy creature. And mingled with the pity was a stern recognition of the handiwork of divine justice. To Constance’s lips came the same phrase as had come to the lips of Samuel Povey on a different occasion: God is not mocked! The ideas of her parents and her grandparents had survived intact in Constance. It is true that Constance’s father would have shuddered in Heaven could he have seen Constance solitarily playing cards of a night. But in spite of cards, and of a son who never went to chapel, Constance, under the various influences of destiny, had remained essentially what her father had been. Not in her was the force of evolution manifest. There are thousands such.

  Lily, awake, and reclothed with that unreal mien of a grown and comprehending woman, stepped quietly into the room, searching for the poor old thing, Constance. The layer-out had come.

  By the first post was delivered a letter addressed to Sophia by Mr Till Boldero. From its contents the death of Gerald Scales was clear. There seemed then to be nothing else for Constance to do. What had to be done was done for her. And stronger wills than hers put her to bed. Cyril was telegraphed for. Mr Critchlow called, Mrs Critchlow following—a fussy infliction, but useful in certain matters. Mr Critchlow was not allowed to see Constance. She could hear his high grating voice in the corridor. She had to lie calm, and the sudden tranquillity seemed strange after the feverish violence of the night. Only twenty-four hours since, and she had been worrying about the death of a dog! With a body crying for sleep, she dozed off, thoughts of the mystery of life merging into the incoherence of dreams.

  The news was abroad in the Square before nine o’clock. There were persons who had witnessed the arrival of the motor-car, and the transfer of Sophia to the house. Untruthful rumours had spread as to the manner of Gerald Scales’s death. Some said that he had dramatically committed suicide. But the town, though titillated, was not moved as it would have been moved by a similar event twenty years, or even ten years earlier. Times had changed in Bursley. Bursley was more sophisticated than in the old days.

  Constance was afraid lest Cyril, despite the seriousness of the occasion, might exhibit his customary tardiness in coming. She had long since learnt not to rely upon him. But he came the same evening. His behaviour was in every way perfect. He showed quiet but genuine grief for the death of his aunt, and he was a model of consideration for his mother. Further, he at once assumed charge of all the arrangements, in regard both to Sophia and to her husband. Constance was surprised at the ease which he displayed in the conduct of practical affairs, and the assurance with which he gave orders. She had never seen him direct anything before. He said, indeed, that he had never directed anything before, but that there appeared to him to be no difficulties. Whereas Constance had figured a tiresome series of varied complications. As to the burial of Sophia, Cyril was vigorously in favour of an absolutely private funeral; that is to say, a funeral at which none but himself should be present. He seemed to have a passionate objection to any sort of parade. Constance agreed with him. But she said that it would be impossible not to invite Mr Critchlow, Sophia’s trustee, and that if Mr Critchlow were invited certain others must be invited. Cyril asked: “Why impossible?” Constance said: “Because it would be impossible. Because Mr Critchlow would be hurt.” Cyril asked: “what does it matter if he is hurt?” and suggested that Mr Critchlow would get over his damage. Constance grew more serious. The discussion threatened to be warm. Suddenly Cyril yielded. “All right, Mrs Plover, all right! It shall be exactly as you choose,” he said, in a gentle, humouring tone. He had not called her “Mrs Plover” for years. She thought the hour badly chosen for verbal pleasantry, but he was so kind that she made no complaint. Thus there were six people at Sophia’s funeral, including Mr Critchlow. No refreshments were offered. The mourners separated at the church. When both funerals were accomplished Cyril sat down and played the harmonium softly, and said that it had kept well in tune. He was extraordinarily soothing.

  He had now reached the age of thirty-three. His habits were as industrious as ever, his preoccupation with his art as keen. But he had achieved no fame, no success. He earned nothing, living in comfort on an allowance from his mother. He seldom spoke of his plans and never of his hopes. He had in fact settled down into a dilettante, having learnt gently to scorn the triumphs which he lacked the force to win. He imagined that industry and a regular existence were sufficient justification in themselves for any man’s life. Constance had dropped the habit of expecting him to astound the world. He was rather grave and precise in manner, courteous and tepid, with a touch of condescension towards his environment; as though he were continually permitting the perspicacious to discern that he had nothing to learn—if the truth were known! His humour had assumed a modified form. He often
smiled to himself. He was unexceptionable.

  On the day after Sophia’s funeral he set to work to design a simple stone for his aunt’s tomb. He said he could not tolerate the ordinary gravestone, which always looked, to him, as if the wind might blow it over, thus negativing the idea of solidity. His mother did not in the least understand him. She thought the lettering of his tombstone affected and finicking. But she let it pass without comment, being secretly very flattered that he should have deigned to design a stone at all.

  Sophia had left all her money to Cyril, and had made him the sole executor of her will. This arrangement had been agreed with Constance. The sisters thought it was the best plan. Cyril ignored Mr Critchlow entirely, and went to a young lawyer at Hanbridge, a friend of his and of Matthew Peel-Swynnerton’s. Mr Critchlow, aged and unaccustomed to interference, had to render accounts of his trusteeship to this young man, and was incensed. The estate was proved at over thirty-five thousand pounds. In the main, Sophia had been careful, and had even been parsimonious. She had often told Constance that they ought to spend money much more freely, and she had had a few brief fits of extravagance. But the habit of stern thrift, begun in 1870 and practised without any intermission till she came to England in 1897, had been too strong for her theories. The squandering of money pained her. And she could not, in her age, devise expensive tastes.

  Cyril showed no emotion whatever on learning himself the inheritor of thirty-five thousand pounds. He did not seem to care. He spoke of the sum as a millionaire might have spoken of it. In justice to him it is to be said that he cared nothing for wealth, except in so far as wealth could gratify his eye and ear trained to artistic voluptuousness. But for his mother’s sake, and for the sake of Bursley, he might have affected a little satisfaction. His mother was somewhat hurt. His behaviour caused her to revert in meditation again and again to the futility of Sophia’s career, and the waste of her attributes. She had grown old and hard in joyless years in order to amass this money which Cyril would spend coldly and ungratefully, never thinking of the immense effort and endless sacrifice which had gone to its collection. He would spend it as carelessly as though he had picked it up in the street. As the days went by and Constance realized her own grief, she also realized more and more the completeness of the tragedy of Sophia’s life. Headstrong Sophia had deceived her mother, and for the deception had paid with thirty years of melancholy and the entire frustration of her proper destiny.

  After haunting Bursley for a fortnight in elegant black, Cyril said, without any warning, one night: “I must go the day after tomorrow, mater.” And he told her of a journey to Hungary which he had long since definitely planned with Matthew Peel-Swynnerton, and which could not be postponed, as it comprised “business.” He had hitherto breathed no word of this. He was as secretive as ever. As to her holiday, he suggested that she should arrange to go away with the Holls and Dick Povey. He approved of Lily Holl and of Dick Povey. Of Dick Povey he said: “He’s one of the most remarkable chaps in the Five Towns.” And he had the air of having made Dick’s reputation. Constance, knowing there was no appeal, accepted the sentence of loneliness. Her health was singularly good.

  When he was gone she said to herself: “Scarcely a fortnight and Sophia was here at this table!” She would remember every now and then, with a faint shock, that poor, proud, masterful Sophia was dead.

  CHAPTER V

  END OF CONSTANCE

  I

  When, on a June afternoon about twelve months later, Lily Holl walked into Mrs Povey’s drawing-room overlooking the Square, she found a calm, somewhat optimistic old lady—older than her years, which were little more than sixty—whose chief enemies were sciatica and rheumatism. The sciatica was a dear enemy of long standing, always affectionately referred to by the forgiving Constance as “my sciatica”; the rheumatism was a newcomer, unprivileged, spoken of by its victim apprehensively and yet disdainfully as “this rheumatism.” Constance was now very stout. She sat in a low easy-chair between the oval table and the window, arrayed in black silk. As the girl Lily came in, Constance lifted her head with a bland smile, and Lily kissed her, contentedly. Lily knew that she was a welcome visitor. These two had become as intimate as the difference between their ages would permit; of the two, Constance was the more frank. Lily as well as Constance was in mourning. A few months previously her aged grandfather, “Holl, the grocer,” had died. The second of his two sons, Lily’s father, had then left the business established by the brothers at Hanbridge in order to manage, for a time, the parent business in St Luke’s Square. Alderman Holl’s death had delayed Lily’s marriage. Lily took tea with Constance, or at any rate paid a call, four or five times a week. She listened to Constance.

  Everybody considered that Constance had “come splendidly through” the dreadful affair of Sophia’s death. Indeed, it was observed that she was more philosophic, more cheerful, more sweet, than she had been for many years. The truth was that, though her bereavement had been the cause of a most genuine and durable sorrow, it had been a relief to her. When Constance was over fifty, the energetic and masterful Sophia had burst in upon her lethargic tranquillity and very seriously disturbed the flow of old habits. Certainly Constance had fought Sophia on the main point, and won; but on a hundred minor points she had either lost or had not fought. Sophia had been “too much” for Constance, and it had been only by a wearying expenditure of nervous force that Constance had succeeded in holding a small part of her own against the unconscious domination of Sophia. The death of Mrs Scales had put an end to all strain, and Constance had been once again mistress in Constance’s house. Constance would never have admitted these facts, even to herself, and no one would ever have dared to suggest them to her. For with all her temperamental mildness she had her formidable side.

  She was slipping a photograph into a plush-covered photograph album.

  “More photographs?” Lily questioned. She had almost exactly the same benignant smile that Constance had. She seemed to be the personification of gentleness—one of those feather-beds that some capricious men occasionally have the luck to marry. She was capable, with a touch of honest, simple stupidity. All her character was displayed in the tone in which she said: “More photographs?” It showed an eager, responsive sympathy with Constance’s cult for photographs, also a slight personal fondness for photographs, also a dim perception that a cult for photographs might be carried to the ridiculous, and a kind desire to hide all trace of this perception. The voice was thin, and matched the pale complexion of her delicate face.

  Constance’s eyes had a quizzical gleam behind her spectacles as she silently held up the photograph for Lily’s inspection.

  Lily, sitting down, lowered the corners of her soft lips when she beheld the photograph, and nodded her head several times, scarce perceptibly.

  “Her ladyship has just given it to me,” whispered Constance.

  “Indeed!” said Lily, with an extraordinary accent.

  Her ladyship” was the last and best of Constance’s servants, a really excellent creature of thirty, who had known misfortune, and who must assuredly have been sent to Constance by the old watchful Providence. They “got on together” nearly perfectly. Her name was Mary. After ten years of turmoil, Constance in the matter of servants was now at rest.

  “Yes,” said Constance. “She’s named it to me several times—about having her photograph taken, and last week I let her go. I told you, didn’t I? I always consider her in every way, all her little fancies and everything. And the copies came today. I wouldn’t hurt her feelings for anything. You may be sure she’ll take a look into the album next time she cleans the room.”

  Constance and Lily exchanged a glance agreeing that Constance had affably stretched a point in deciding to put the photograph of a servant between the same covers with photographs of her family and friends. It was doubtful whether such a thing had ever been done before.

  One photograph usually leads to another, and one photograph album to another pho
tograph album.

  “Pass me that album on the second shelf of the Canterbury, my dear,” said Constance.

  Lily rose vivaciously, as though to see the album on the second shelf of the Canterbury had been the ambition of her life.

  They sat side by side at the table, Lily turning over the pages. Constance, for all her vast bulk, continually made little nervous movements. Occasionally she would sniff and occasionally a mysterious noise would occur in her chest; she always pretended that this noise was a cough, and would support the pretence by emitting a real cough immediately after it.

  “Why!” exclaimed Lily. “Have I seen that before?”

  “I don’t know, my dear,” said Constance, “Have you?”

  It was a photograph of Sophia taken a few years previously by “a very nice gentleman,” whose acquaintance the sisters had made during a holiday at Harrogate. It portrayed Sophia on a knoll, fronting the weather.

  “It’s Mrs Scales to the life—I can see that,” said Lily.

  “Yes,” said Constance. “Whenever there was a wind she always stood like that, and took long deep breaths of it.”

  This recollection of one of Sophia’s habits recalled the whole woman to Constance’s memory, and drew a picture of her character for the girl who had scarcely known her.

  “It’s not like ordinary photographs. There’s something special about it,” said Lily, enthusiastically. “I don’t think I ever saw a photograph like that.”

  “I’ve got another copy of it in my bedroom,” said Constance. “I’ll give you this one.”

  “Oh, Mrs Povey! I couldn’t think—”

  “Yes, yes!” said Constance, removing the photograph from the page.

  “Oh, thank you!” said Lily.

  “And that reminds me,” said Constance, getting up with great difficulty from her chair.