老妇人的故事 英文版The Old Wives' Tale
阿诺德.本涅特 Arnold Bennett
I
The day sanctioned by custom in the Five Towns for the making ofpastry is Saturday. But Mrs. Baines made her pastry on Friday,because Saturday afternoon was, of course, a busy time in theshop. It is true that Mrs. Baines made her pastry in the morning,and that Saturday morning in the shop was scarcely different fromany other morning. Nevertheless, Mrs. Baines made her pastry onFriday morning instead of Saturday morning because Saturdayafternoon was a busy time in the shop. She was thus free to do hermarketing without breath-taking flurry on Saturday morning.
On the morning after Sophia's first essay in dentistry, therefore,Mrs. Baines was making her pastry in the underground kitchen. Thiskitchen, Maggie's cavern-home, had the mystery of a church, and ondark days it had the mystery of a crypt. The stone steps leadingdown to it from the level of earth were quite unlighted. You feltfor them with the feet of faith, and when you arrived in thekitchen, the kitchen, by contrast, seemed luminous and gay; thearchitect may have considered and intended this effect of thestaircase. The kitchen saw day through a wide, shallow windowwhose top touched the ceiling and whose bottom had been out of thegirls' reach until long after they had begun to go to school. Itspanes were small, and about half of them were of the "knot" kind,through which no object could be distinguished; the other halfwere of a later date, and stood for the march of civilization. Theview from the window consisted of the vast plate-glass windows ofthe newly built Sun vaults, and of passing legs and skirts. Astrong wire grating prevented any excess of illumination, and alsoprotected the glass from the caprices of wayfarers in King Street.Boys had a habit of stopping to kick with their full strength atthe grating.
Forget-me-nots on a brown field ornamented the walls of thekitchen. Its ceiling was irregular and grimy, and a beam ranacross it; in this beam were two hooks; from these hooks had oncedepended the ropes of a swing, much used by Constance and Sophiain the old days before they were grown up. A large range stood outfrom the wall between the stairs and the window. The rest of thefurniture comprised a table--against the wall opposite the range--a cupboard, and two Windsor chairs. Opposite the foot of the stepswas a doorway, without a door, leading to two larders, dimmer eventhan the kitchen, vague retreats made visible by whitewash, wherebowls of milk, dishes of cold bones, and remainders of fruit-pies,reposed on stillages; in the corner nearest the kitchen was agreat steen in which the bread was kept. Another doorway on theother side of the kitchen led to the first coal-cellar, where wasalso the slopstone and tap, and thence a tunnel took you to thesecond coal-cellar, where coke and ashes were stored; the tunnelproceeded to a distant, infinitesimal yard, and from the yard, byways behind Mr. Critchlow's shop, you could finally emerge,astonished, upon Brougham Street. The sense of the vast-obscure ofthose regions which began at the top of the kitchen steps andended in black corners of larders or abruptly in the commondailiness of Brougham Street, a sense which Constance and Sophiahad acquired in infancy, remained with them almost unimpaired asthey grew old.
Mrs. Baines wore black alpaca, shielded by a white apron whosestring drew attention to the amplitude of her waist. Her sleeveswere turned up, and her hands, as far as the knuckles, coveredwith damp flour. Her ageless smooth paste-board occupied a cornerof the table, and near it were her paste-roller, butter, some pie-dishes, shredded apples, sugar, and other things. Those rosy handswere at work among a sticky substance in a large white bowl.
"Mother, are you there?" she heard a voice from above.
"Yes, my chuck."
Footsteps apparently reluctant and hesitating clinked on thestairs, and Sophia entered the kitchen.
"Put this curl straight," said Mrs. Baines, lowering her headslightly and holding up her floured hands, which might not touchanything but flour. "Thank you. It bothered me. And now stand outof my light. I'm in a hurry. I must get into the shop so that Ican send Mr. Povey off to the dentist's. What is Constance doing?"
"Helping Maggie to make Mr. Povey's bed."
"Oh!"
Though fat, Mrs. Baines was a comely woman, with fine brown hair,and confidently calm eyes that indicated her belief in her owncapacity to accomplish whatever she could be called on toaccomplish. She looked neither more nor less than her age, whichwas forty-five. She was not a native of the district, having beenculled by her husband from the moorland town of Axe, twelve milesoff. Like nearly all women who settle in a strange land uponmarriage, at the bottom of her heart she had considered herselfjust a trifle superior to the strange land and its ways. Thisfeeling, confirmed by long experience, had never left her. It wasthis feeling which induced her to continue making her own pastry--with two thoroughly trained "great girls" in the house! Constancecould make good pastry, but it was not her mother's pastry. Inpastry-making everything can be taught except the "hand," lightand firm, which wields the roller. One is born with this hand, orwithout it. And if one is born without it, the highest flights ofpastry are impossible. Constance was born without it. There weredays when Sophia seemed to possess it; but there were other dayswhen Sophia's pastry was uneatable by any one except Maggie. ThusMrs. Baines, though intensely proud and fond of her daughters, hadjustifiably preserved a certain condescension towards them. Shehonestly doubted whether either of them would develop into theequal of their mother.
"Now you little vixen!" she exclaimed. Sophia was stealing andeating slices of half-cooked apple. "This comes of having nobreakfast! And why didn't you come down to supper last night?"
"I don't know. I forgot."
Mrs. Baines scrutinized the child's eyes, which met hers with asort of diffident boldness. She knew everything that a mother canknow of a daughter, and she was sure that Sophia had no cause tobe indisposed. Therefore she scrutinized those eyes with a faintapprehension.
"If you can't find anything better to do," said she, "butter methe inside of this dish. Are your hands clean? No, better nottouch it."
Mrs. Baines was now at the stage of depositing little pats ofbutter in rows on a large plain of paste. The best fresh butter!Cooking butter, to say naught of lard, was unknown in that kitchenon Friday mornings. She doubled the expanse of paste on itself androlled the butter in--supreme operation!
"Constance has told you--about leaving school?" said Mrs. Baines,in the vein of small-talk, as she trimmed the paste to the shapeof a pie-dish.
"Yes," Sophia replied shortly. Then she moved away from the tableto the range. There was a toasting-fork on the rack, and she beganto play with it.
intensely imploring sympathy.thecircumstances. In those ?
"Well, are you glad? Your aunt Harriet thinks you are quite oldenough to leave. And as we'd decided in any case that Constancewas to leave, it's really much simpler that you should both leavetogether."
"Mother," said Sophia, rattling the toasting-fork, "what am Igoing to do after I've left school?"
"I hope," Mrs. Baines answered with that sententiousness whicheven the cleverest of parents are not always clever enough to denythemselves, "I hope that both of you will do what you can to helpyour mother--and father," she added.
"Yes," said Sophia, irritated. "But what am I going to DO?"
don't think your father would like that," Mrs.
"That must be considered. As Constance is to learn the millinery,I've been thinking that you might begin to make yourself useful inthe underwear, gloves, silks, and so on. Then between you, youwould one day be able to manage quite nicely all that side of theshop, and I should be--"
"I don't want to go into the shop, mother."
This interruption was made in a voice apparently cold andinimical. But Sophia trembled with nervous excitement as sheuttered the words. Mrs. Baines gave a brief glance at her,unobserved by the child, whose face was towards the fire. Shedeemed herself a finished expert in the reading of Sophia's moods;nevertheless, as she looked at that straight back and proud head,she had no suspicion that the whole essence and being of Sophiawas silently but intensely imploring sympathy.
"I wish you would be quiet with that fork," said Mrs. Baines, withthe curious, grim politeness which often characterized herrelations with her daughters.
like to be a teacher. That's what Iwant.
The toasting-fork fell on the brick floor, after having reboundedfrom the ash-tin. Sophia hurriedly replaced it on the rack.
"Then what SHALL you do?" Mrs. Baines proceeded, conquering theannoyance caused by the toasting-fork. "I think it's me thatshould ask you instead of you asking me. What shall you do? Yourfather and I were both hoping you would take kindly to the shopand try to repay us for all the--"
Mrs. Baines was unfortunate in her phrasing that morning. Shehappened to be, in truth, rather an exceptional parent, but thatmorning she seemed unable to avoid the absurd pretensions whichparents of those days assumed quite sincerely and which every goodchild with meekness accepted.
Sophia was not a good child, and she obstinately denied in herheart the cardinal principle of family life, namely, that theparent has conferred on the offspring a supreme favour by bringingit into the world. She interrupted her mother again, rudely.
"I don't want to leave school at all," she said passionately.
"But you will have to leave school sooner or later," argued Mrs.Baines, with an air of quiet reasoning, of putting herself on alevel with Sophia. "You can't stay at school for ever, my pet, canyou? Out of my way!"
alpaca, shielded by a white apron whosestring?
She hurried across the kitchen with a pie, which she whipped intothe oven, shutting the iron door with a careful gesture.
"Yes," said Sophia. "I should like to be a teacher. That's what Iwant to be."
The tap in the coal-cellar, out of repair, could be hearddistinctly and systematically dropping water into a jar on theslopstone.
"A school-teacher?" inquired Mrs. Baines.
"Of course. What other kind is there?" said Sophia, sharply. "WithMiss Chetwynd."
"I don't think your father would like that," Mrs. Baines replied."I'm sure he wouldn't like it."
"Why not?"
"Why not, mother?" the girl demanded with a sort of ferocity. Shehad now quitted the range. A man's feet twinkled past the window.
Mrs. Baines was startled and surprised. Sophia's attitude wasreally very trying; her manners deserved correction. But it wasnot these phenomena which seriously affected Mrs. Baines; she wasused to them and had come to regard them as somehow the inevitableaccompaniment of Sophia's beauty, as the penalty of thatsurpassing charm which occasionally emanated from the girl like aradiance. What startled and surprised Mrs. Baines was the perfectand unthinkable madness of Sophia's infantile scheme. It was arevelation to Mrs. Baines. Why in the name of heaven had the girltaken such a notion into her head? Orphans, widows, and spinstersof a certain age suddenly thrown on the world--these were thewomen who, naturally, became teachers, because they had to becomesomething. But that the daughter of comfortable parents,surrounded by love and the pleasures of an excellent home, shouldwish to teach in a school was beyond the horizons of Mrs. Baines'scommon sense. Comfortable parents of to-day who have a difficultyin sympathizing with Mrs. Baines, should picture what theirfeelings would be if their Sophias showed a rude desire to adoptthe vocation of chauffeur.
best fresh butter!Cooking butter, to say naught of .
"It would take you too much away from home," said Mrs. Baines,achieving a second pie.
She spoke softly. The experience of being Sophia's mother fornearly sixteen years had not been lost on Mrs. Baines, and thoughshe was now discovering undreamt-of dangers in Sophia's erratictemperament, she kept her presence of mind sufficiently well tobehave with diplomatic smoothness. It was undoubtedly humiliatingto a mother to be forced to use diplomacy in dealing with a girlin short sleeves. In HER day mothers had been autocrats. ButSophia was Sophia.
"What if it did?" Sophia curtly demanded.
"And there's no opening in Bursley," said Mrs. Baines.
"Miss Chetwynd would have me, and then after a time I could go toher sister."
"Her sister? What sister?"
"Her sister that has a big school in London somewhere."
Mrs. Baines covered her unprecedented emotions by gazing into theoven at the first pie. The pie was doing well, under all thecircumstances. In those few seconds she reflected rapidly anddecided that to a desperate disease a desperate remedy must beapplied.
t want to go into the shop, mother."'s what.
London! She herself had never been further than Manchester.London, 'after a time'! No, diplomacy would be misplaced in thiscrisis of Sophia's development!
"Sophia," she said, in a changed and solemn voice, fronting herdaughter, and holding away from her apron those floured, ringedhands, "I don't know what has come over you. Truly I don't! Yourfather and I are prepared to put up with a certain amount, but theline must be drawn. The fact is, we've spoilt you, and instead ofgetting better as you grow up, you're getting worse. Now let mehear no more of this, please. I wish you would imitate your sistera little more. Of course if you won't do your share in the shop,no one can make you. If you choose to be an idler about the house,we shall have to endure it. We can only advise you for your owngood. But as for this ..." She stopped, and let silence speak,and then finished: "Let me hear no more of it."
It was a powerful and impressive speech, enunciated clearly insuch a tone as Mrs. Baines had not employed since dismissing ayoung lady assistant five years ago for light conduct.
that you might begin to make yourself useful inthe underwear.
"But, mother--"
A commotion of pails resounded at the top of the stone steps. Itwas Maggie in descent from the bedrooms. Now, the Baines familypassed its life in doing its best to keep its affairs to itself,the assumption being that Maggie and all the shop-staff (Mr. Poveypossibly excepted) were obsessed by a ravening appetite for thatwhich did not concern them. Therefore the voices of the Bainesesalways died away, or fell to a hushed, mysterious whisper,whenever the foot of the eavesdropper was heard.
Mrs. Baines put a floured finger to her double chin. "That willdo," said she, with finality.
Maggie appeared, and Sophia, with a brusque precipitation ofherself, vanished upstairs.