老妇人的故事 英文版The Old Wives' Tale
阿诺德.本涅特 Arnold Bennett
IV
"You've been out, Sophia?" said Mrs. Baines in the parlour,questioningly. Sophia had taken off her hat and mantle hurriedlyin the cutting-out room, for she was in danger of being late fortea; but her hair and face showed traces of the March breeze. Mrs.Baines, whose stoutness seemed to increase, sat in the rocking-chair with a number of The Sunday at Home in her hand. Tea wasset.
"Yes, mother. I called to see Miss Chetwynd."
"I wish you'd tell me when you are going out."
"I looked all over for you before I started."
"No, you didn't, for I haven't stirred from this room since fouro'clock. ... You should not say things like that," Mrs. Bainesadded in a gentler tone.
Mrs. Baines had suffered much that day. She knew that she was inan irritable, nervous state, and therefore she said to herself, inher quality of wise woman, "I must watch myself. I mustn't letmyself go." And she thought how reasonable she was. She did notguess that all her gestures betrayed her; nor did it occur to herthat few things are more galling than the spectacle of a person,actuated by lofty motives, obviously trying to be kind and patientunder what he considers to be extreme provocation.
Maggie blundered up the kitchen stairs with the teapot and hottoast; and so Sophia had an excuse for silence. Sophia too hadsuffered much, suffered excruciatingly; she carried at that momenta whole tragedy in her young soul, unaccustomed to such burdens.Her attitude towards her mother was half fearful and half defiant;it might be summed up in the phrase which she had repeated againand again under her breath on the way home, "Well, mother can'tkill me!"
Mrs. Baines put down the blue-covered magazine and twisted herrocking-chair towards the table.
"You can pour out the tea," said Mrs. Baines.
"Where's Constance?"
"She's not very well. She's lying down."
"Anything the matter with her?"
"No."
This was inaccurate. Nearly everything was the matter withConstance, who had never been less Constance than during thatafternoon. But Mrs. Baines had no intention of discussingConstance's love-affairs with Sophia. The less said to Sophiaabout love, the better! Sophia was excitable enough already!
They sat opposite to each other, on either side of the fire--themonumental matron whose black bodice heavily overhung the table,whose large rounded face was creased and wrinkled by what seemedcountless years of joy and disillusion; and the young, slim girl,so fresh, so virginal, so ignorant, with all the pathos of anunsuspecting victim about to be sacrificed to the minotaur ofTime! They both ate hot toast, with careless haste, in silence,preoccupied, worried, and outwardly nonchalant.
"And what has Miss Chetwynd got to say?" Mrs. Baines inquired.
"She wasn't in."
Here was a blow for Mrs. Baines, whose suspicions about Sophia,driven off by her certainties regarding Constance, suddenly sprangforward in her mind, and prowled to and fro like a band of tigers.
You can pour out.
Still, Mrs. Baines was determined to be calm and careful. "Oh!What time did you call?"
"I don't know. About half-past four." Sophia finished her teaquickly, and rose. "Shall I tell Mr. Povey he can come?"
(Mr. Povey had his tea after the ladies of the house.)
"Yes, if you will stay in the shop till I come. Light me the gasbefore you go."
Sophia took a wax taper from a vase on the mantelpiece, stuck itin the fire and lit the gas, which exploded in its crystalcloister with a mild report.
"What's all that clay on your boots, child?" asked Mrs. Baines.
"Clay?" repeated Sophia, staring foolishly at her boots.
"Yes," said Mrs. Baines. "It looks like marl. Where on earth haveyou been?"
She interrogated her daughter with an upward gaze, frigid andunconsciously hostile, through her gold-rimmed glasses.
"I must have picked it up on the roads," said Sophia, and hastenedto the door.
"Sophia!"
been out, Sophia?
"Shut the door."
Sophia unwillingly shut the door which she had half opened.
"Come here."
Sophia obeyed, with falling lip.
"You are deceiving me, Sophia," said Mrs. Baines, with fiercesolemnity. "Where have you been this afternoon?"
Sophia's foot was restless on the carpet behind the table. "Ihaven't been anywhere," she murmured glumly.
"Have you seen young Scales?"
"Yes," said Sophia with grimness, glancing audaciously for aninstant at her mother. ("She can't kill me: She can't kill me,"her heart muttered. And she had youth and beauty in her favour,while her mother was only a fat middle-aged woman. "She can't killme," said her heart, with the trembling, cruel insolence of themirror-flattered child.)
"How came you to meet him?"
No answer.
"Sophia, you heard what I said!"
Still no answer. Sophia looked down at the table. ("She can't killme.")
"If you are going to be sullen, I shall have to suppose theworst," said Mrs. Baines.
Sophia kept her silence.
"Of course," Mrs. Baines resumed, "if you choose to be wicked,neither your mother nor any one else can stop you. There arecertain things I CAN do, and these I SHALL do ... Let me warn youthat young Scales is a thoroughly bad lot. I know all about him.He has been living a wild life abroad, and if it hadn't been thathis uncle is a partner in Birkinshaws, they would never have takenhim on again." A pause. "I hope that one day you will be a happywife, but you are much too young yet to be meeting young men, andnothing would ever induce me to let you have anything to do withthis Scales. I won't have it. In future you are not to go outalone. You understand me?"
Sophia kept silence.
"I hope you will be in a better frame of mind to-morrow. I canonly hope so. But if you aren't, I shall take very severemeasures. You think you can defy me. But you never were moremistaken in your life. I don't want to see any more of you now. Goand tell Mr. Povey; and call Maggie for the fresh tea. You make mealmost glad that your father died even as he did. He has, at anyrate, been spared this."
Those words 'died even as he did' achieved the intimidation ofSophia. They seemed to indicate that Mrs. Baines, though she hadmagnanimously never mentioned the subject to Sophia, knew exactlyhow the old man had died. Sophia escaped from the room in fear,cowed. Nevertheless, her thought was, "She hasn't killed me. Imade up my mind I wouldn't talk, and I didn't."
In the evening, as she sat in the shop primly and sternly sewingat hats--while her mother wept in secret on the first floor, andConstance remained hidden on the second--Sophia lived over againthe scene at the old shaft; but she lived it differently,admitting that she had been wrong, guessing by instinct that shehad shown a foolish mistrust of love. As she sat in the shop, sheadopted just the right attitude and said just the right things.Instead of being a silly baby she was an accomplished and dazzlingwoman, then. When customers came in, and the young lady assistantsunobtrusively turned higher the central gas, according to theregime of the shop, it was really extraordinary that they couldnot read in the heart of the beautiful Miss Baines the words whichblazed there; "YOU'RE THE FINEST GIRL I EVER MET," and "I SHALLWRITE TO YOU." The young lady assistants had their notions as toboth Constance and Sophia, but the truth, at least as regardedSophia, was beyond the flight of their imaginations. When eighto'clock struck and she gave the formal order for dust-sheets, theshop being empty, they never supposed that she was dreaming aboutposts and plotting how to get hold of the morning's letters beforeMr. Povey.