老妇人的故事 英文版The Old Wives' Tale
阿诺德.本涅特 Arnold Bennett
II
They pressed their noses against the window of the show-room, andgazed down into the Square as perpendicularly as the projectingfront of the shop would allow. The show-room was over themillinery and silken half of the shop. Over the woollen andshirting half were the drawing-room and the chief bedroom. When inquest of articles of coquetry, you mounted from the shop by acurving stair, and your head gradually rose level with a largeapartment having a mahogany counter in front of the window andalong one side, yellow linoleum on the floor, many cardboardboxes, a magnificent hinged cheval glass, and two chairs. Thewindow-sill being lower than the counter, there was a gulf betweenthe panes and the back of the counter, into which importantarticles such as scissors, pencils, chalk, and artificial flowerswere continually disappearing: another proof of the architect'sincompetence.
The girls could only press their noses against the window bykneeling on the counter, and this they were doing. Constance'snose was snub, but agreeably so. Sophia had a fine Roman nose; shewas a beautiful creature, beautiful and handsome at the same time.They were both of them rather like racehorses, quivering withdelicate, sensitive, and luxuriant life; exquisite, enchantingproof of the circulation of the blood; innocent, artful, roguish,prim, gushing, ignorant, and miraculously wise. Their ages weresixteen and fifteen; it is an epoch when, if one is frank, onemust admit that one has nothing to learn: one has learnt simplyeverything in the previous six months.
"There she goes!" exclaimed Sophia.
thatpunishment would instantly fall on this daring, impious child. Butshe, who never felt.
Up the Square, from the corner of King Street, passed a woman in anew bonnet with pink strings, and a new blue dress that sloped atthe shoulders and grew to a vast circumference at the hem. Throughthe silent sunlit solitude of the Square (for it was Thursdayafternoon, and all the shops shut except the confectioner's andone chemist's) this bonnet and this dress floated northwards insearch of romance, under the relentless eyes of Constance andSophia. Within them, somewhere, was the soul of Maggie, domesticservant at Baines's. Maggie had been at the shop since before thecreation of Constance and Sophia. She lived seventeen hours ofeach day in an underground kitchen and larder, and the other sevenin an attic, never going out except to chapel on Sunday evenings,and once a month on Thursday afternoons. "Followers" were moststrictly forbidden to her; but on rare occasions an aunt fromLongshaw was permitted as a tremendous favour to see her in thesubterranean den. Everybody, including herself, considered thatshe had a good "place," and was well treated. It was undeniable,for instance, that she was allowed to fall in love exactly as shechose, provided she did not "carry on" in the kitchen or the yard.And as a fact, Maggie had fallen in love. In seventeen years shehad been engaged eleven times. No one could conceive how that uglyand powerful organism could softly languish to the undoing of evena butty-collier, nor why, having caught a man in her sweet toils,she could ever be imbecile enough to set him free. There are,however, mysteries in the souls of Maggies. The drudge hadprobably been affianced oftener than any woman in Bursley. Heremployers were so accustomed to an interesting announcement thatfor years they had taken to saying naught in reply but 'Really,Maggie!' Engagements and tragic partings were Maggie's pastime.Fixed otherwise, she might have studied the piano instead.
"No gloves, of course!" Sophia criticized.
"Well, you can't expect her to have gloves," said Constance.
Then a pause, as the bonnet and dress neared the top of theSquare.
"Supposing she turns round and sees us?" Constance suggested.
"I don't care if she does," said Sophia, with a haughtiness almostimpassioned; and her head trembled slightly.
There were, as usual, several loafers at the top of the Square, inthe corner between the bank and the "Marquis of Granby." And oneof these loafers stepped forward and shook hands with an obviouslywilling Maggie. Clearly it was a rendezvous, open, unashamed. Thetwelfth victim had been selected by the virgin of forty, whosekiss would not have melted lard! The couple disappeared togetherdown Oldcastle Street.
"WELL!" cried Constance. "Did you ever see such a thing?"
While Sophia, short of adequate words, flushed and bit her lip.
With the profound, instinctive cruelty of youth, Constance andSophia had assembled in their favourite haunt, the show-room,expressly to deride Maggie in her new clothes. They obscurelythought that a woman so ugly and soiled as Maggie was had no rightto possess new clothes. Even her desire to take the air of aThursday afternoon seemed to them unnatural and somewhatreprehensible. Why should she want to stir out of her kitchen? Asfor her tender yearnings, they positively grudged these to Maggie.That Maggie should give rein to chaste passion was more thangrotesque; it was offensive and wicked. But let it not for aninstant be doubted that they were nice, kind-hearted, well-behaved, and delightful girls! Because they were. They were notangels.
"It's too ridiculous!" said Sophia, severely. She had youth,beauty, and rank in her favour. And to her it really wasridiculous.
"Poor old Maggie!" Constance murmured. Constance was foolishlygood-natured, a perfect manufactory of excuses for other people;and her benevolence was eternally rising up and overpowering herreason.
"What time did mother say she should be back?" Sophia asked.
"Not until supper."
"Oh! Hallelujah!" Sophia burst out, clasping her hands in joy. Andthey both slid down from the counter just as if they had beenlittle boys, and not, as their mother called them, "great girls."
"Let's go and play the Osborne quadrilles," Sophia suggested (theOsborne quadrilles being a series of dances arranged to beperformed on drawing-room pianos by four jewelled hands).
"I couldn't think of it," said Constance, with a precociousgesture of seriousness. In that gesture, and in her tone, wassomething which conveyed to Sophia: "Sophia, how can you be soutterly blind to the gravity of our fleeting existence as to askme to go and strum the piano with you?" Yet a moment before shehad been a little boy.
"Why not?" Sophia demanded.
"I shall never have another chance like to-day for getting on withthis," said Constance, picking up a bag from the counter.
She sat down and took from the bag a piece of loosely wovencanvas, on which she was embroidering a bunch of roses in colouredwools. The canvas had once been stretched on a frame, but now, asthe delicate labour of the petals and leaves was done, and nothingremained to do but the monotonous background, Constance wascontent to pin the stuff to her knee. With the long needle andseveral skeins of mustard-tinted wool, she bent over the canvasand resumed the filling-in of the tiny squares. The whole designwas in squares--the gradations of red and greens, the curves ofthe smallest buds--all was contrived in squares, with a resultthat mimicked a fragment of uncompromising Axminster carpet.Still, the fine texture of the wool, the regular and rapid graceof those fingers moving incessantly at back and front of thecanvas, the gentle sound of the wool as it passed through theholes, and the intent, youthful earnestness of that lowered gaze,excused and invested with charm an activity which, on artisticgrounds, could not possibly be justified. The canvas was destinedto adorn a gilt firescreen in the drawing-room, and also to form abirthday gift to Mrs. Baines from her elder daughter. But whetherthe enterprise was as secret from Mrs. Baines as Constance hoped,none save Mrs Baines knew.
"Con," murmured Sophia, "you're too sickening sometimes."
"Well," said Constance, blandly, "it's no use pretending that thishasn't got to be finished before we go back to school, because ithas." Sophia wandered about, a prey ripe for the Evil One. "Oh,"she exclaimed joyously--even ecstatically--looking behind thecheval glass, "here's mother's new skirt! Miss Dunn's been puttingthe gimp on it! Oh, mother, what a proud thing you will be!"Constance heard swishings behind the glass. "What are you doing,Sophia?"
"Nothing."
"You surely aren't putting that skirt on?"
"Why not?"
"You'll catch it finely, I can tell you!"
Without further defence, Sophia sprang out from behind the immenseglass. She had already shed a notable part of her own costume, andthe flush of mischief was in her face. She ran across to the otherside of the room and examined carefully a large coloured printthat was affixed to the wall.
ineffectually to fleefrom his tooth as a murderer tries to flee from his conscience.
This print represented fifteen sisters, all of the same height andslimness of figure, all of the same age--about twenty-five or so,and all with exactly the same haughty and bored beauty. That theywere in truth sisters was clear from the facial resemblancebetween them; their demeanour indicated that they were princesses,offspring of some impossibly prolific king and queen. Those handshad never toiled, nor had those features ever relaxed from thesmile of courts. The princesses moved in a landscape of marblesteps and verandahs, with a bandstand and strange trees in thedistance. One was in a riding-habit, another in evening attire,another dressed for tea, another for the theatre; another seemedto be ready to go to bed. One held a little girl by the hand; itcould not have been her own little girl, for these princesses werefar beyond human passions. Where had she obtained the little girl?Why was one sister going to the theatre, another to tea, anotherto the stable, and another to bed? Why was one in a heavy mantle,and another sheltering from the sun's rays under a parasol? Thepicture was drenched in mystery, and the strangest thing about itwas that all these highnesses were apparently content with themost ridiculous and out-moded fashions. Absurd hats, with veilsflying behind; absurd bonnets, fitting close to the head, andspotted; absurd coiffures that nearly lay on the nape; absurd,clumsy sleeves; absurd waists, almost above the elbow's level;absurd scolloped jackets! And the skirts! What a sight were thoseskirts! They were nothing but vast decorated pyramids; on thesummit of each was stuck the upper half of a princess. It wasastounding that princesses should consent to be so preposterousand so uncomfortable. But Sophia perceived nothing uncanny in thepicture, which bore the legend: "Newest summer fashions fromParis. Gratis supplement to Myra's Journal." Sophia had neverimagined anything more stylish, lovely, and dashing than theraiment of the fifteen princesses.
For Constance and Sophia had the disadvantage of living in themiddle ages. The crinoline had not quite reached its fullcircumference, and the dress-improver had not even been thoughtof. In all the Five Towns there was not a public bath, nor a freelibrary, nor a municipal park, nor a telephone, nor yet a board-school. People had not understood the vital necessity of goingaway to the seaside every year. Bishop Colenso had just staggeredChristianity by his shameless notions on the Pentateuch. HalfLancashire was starving on account of the American war. Garrotingwas the chief amusement of the homicidal classes. Incredible as itmay appear, there was nothing but a horse-tram running betweenBursley and Hanbridge--and that only twice an hour; and betweenthe other towns no stage of any kind! One went to Longshaw as onenow goes to Pekin. It was an era so dark and backward that onemight wonder how people could sleep in their beds at night forthinking about their sad state.
Happily the inhabitants of the Five Towns in that era werepassably pleased with themselves, and they never even suspectedthat they were not quite modern and quite awake. They thought thatthe intellectual, the industrial, and the social movements hadgone about as far as these movements could go, and they wereamazed at their own progress. Instead of being humble and ashamed,they actually showed pride in their pitiful achievements. Theyought to have looked forward meekly to the prodigious feats ofposterity; but, having too little faith and too much conceit, theywere content to look behind and make comparisons with the past.They did not foresee the miraculous generation which is us. Apoor, blind, complacent people! The ludicrous horse-car wastypical of them. The driver rang a huge bell, five minutes beforestarting, that could he heard from the Wesleyan Chapel to the CockYard, and then after deliberations and hesitations the vehiclerolled off on its rails into unknown dangers while passengersshouted good-bye. At Bleakridge it had to stop for the turnpike,and it was assisted up the mountains of Leveson Place andSutherland Street (towards Hanbridge) by a third horse, on whoseback was perched a tiny, whip-cracking boy; that boy lived like ashuttle on the road between Leveson Place and Sutherland Street,and even in wet weather he was the envy of all other boys. Afterhalf an hour's perilous transit the car drew up solemnly in anarrow street by the Signal office in Hanbridge, and the ruddydriver, having revolved many times the polished iron handle of hissole brake, turned his attention to his passengers in calmtriumph, dismissing them with a sort of unsung doxology.
And this was regarded as the last word of traction! A whip-cracking boy on a tip horse! Oh, blind, blind! You could notforesee the hundred and twenty electric cars that now rush madlybumping and thundering at twenty miles an hour through all themain streets of the district!
So that naturally Sophia, infected with the pride of her period,had no misgivings whatever concerning the final elegance of theprincesses. She studied them as the fifteen apostles of the neplus ultra; then, having taken some flowers and plumes out of abox, amid warnings from Constance, she retreated behind the glass,and presently emerged as a great lady in the style of theprincesses. Her mother's tremendous new gown ballooned about herin all its fantastic richness and expensiveness. And with the gownshe had put on her mother's importance--that mien of assuredauthority, of capacity tested in many a crisis, whichcharacterized Mrs. Baines, and which Mrs. Baines seemed to impartto her dresses even before she had regularly worn them. For it wasa fact that Mrs. Baines's empty garments inspired respect, asthough some essence had escaped from her and remained in them.
"Sophia!"
Constance stayed her needle, and, without lifting her head, gazed,with eyes raised from the wool-work, motionless at the posturingfigure of her sister. It was sacrilege that she was witnessing, aprodigious irreverence. She was conscious of an expectation thatpunishment would instantly fall on this daring, impious child. Butshe, who never felt these mad, amazing impulses, couldnevertheless only smile fearfully.
"Sophia!" she breathed, with an intensity of alarm that mergedinto condoning admiration. "Whatever will you do next?"
Sophia's lovely flushed face crowned the extraordinary structurelike a blossom, scarcely controlling its laughter. She was as tallas her mother, and as imperious, as crested, and proud; and inspite of the pigtail, the girlish semi-circular comb, and theloose foal-like limbs, she could support as well as her mother themajesty of the gimp-embroidered dress. Her eyes sparkled with allthe challenges of the untried virgin as she minced about theshowroom. Abounding life inspired her movements. The confident andfierce joy of youth shone on her brow. "What thing on earth equalsme?" she seemed to demand with enchanting and yet ruthlessarrogance. She was the daughter of a respected, bedridden draperin an insignificant town, lost in the central labyrinth ofEngland, if you like; yet what manner of man, confronted with her,would or could have denied her naive claim to dominion? She stood,in her mother's hoops, for the desire of the world. And in theinnocence of her soul she knew it! The heart of a young girlmysteriously speaks and tells her of her power long ere she canuse her power. If she can find nothing else to subdue, you maycatch her in the early years subduing a gate-post or drawinghomage from an empty chair. Sophia's experimental victim wasConstance, with suspended needle and soft glance that shot outfrom the lowered face.
Then Sophia fell, in stepping backwards; the pyramid wasoverbalanced; great distended rings of silk trembled and swayedgigantically on the floor, and Sophia's small feet lay like thefeet of a doll on the rim of the largest circle, which curved andarched above them like a cavern's mouth. The abrupt transition ofher features from assured pride to ludicrous astonishment andalarm was comical enough to have sent into wild uncharitablelaughter any creature less humane than Constance. But Constancesprang to her, a single embodied instinct of benevolence, with hersnub nose, and tried to raise her.
"Oh, Sophia!" she cried compassionately--that voice seemed not toknow the tones of reproof--"I do hope you've not messed it,because mother would be so--"
The words were interrupted by the sound of groans beyond the doorleading to the bedrooms. The groans, indicating direst physicaltorment, grew louder. The two girls stared, wonder-struck andafraid, at the door, Sophia with her dark head raised, andConstance with her arms round Sophia's waist. The door opened,letting in a much-magnified sound of groans, and there entered ayoungish, undersized man, who was frantically clutching his headin his hands and contorting all the muscles of his face. Onperceiving the sculptural group of two prone, interlocked girls,one enveloped in a crinoline, and the other with a wool-work bunchof flowers pinned to her knee, he jumped back, ceased groaning,arranged his face, and seriously tried to pretend that it was nothe who had been vocal in anguish, that, indeed, he was justpassing as a casual, ordinary wayfarer through the showroom to theshop below. He blushed darkly; and the girls also blushed.
"Oh, I beg pardon, I'm sure!" said this youngish man suddenly; andwith a swift turn he disappeared whence he had come.
sprang out from behind the immenseglass.
He was Mr. Povey, a person universally esteemed, both within andwithout the shop, the surrogate of bedridden Mr. Baines, theunfailing comfort and stand-by of Mrs. Baines, the fount andradiating centre of order and discipline in the shop; a quiet,diffident, secretive, tedious, and obstinate youngish man,absolutely faithful, absolutely efficient in his sphere; withoutbrilliance, without distinction; perhaps rather little-minded,certainly narrow-minded; but what a force in the shop! The shopwas inconceivable without Mr. Povey. He was under twenty and notout of his apprenticeship when Mr. Baines had been struck down,and he had at once proved his worth. Of the assistants, he aloneslept in the house. His bedroom was next to that of his employer;there was a door between the two chambers, and the two steps leddown from the larger to the less.
The girls regained their feet, Sophia with Constance's help. Itwas not easy to right a capsized crinoline. They both began tolaugh nervously, with a trace of hysteria.
"I thought he'd gone to the dentist's," whispered Constance.
Mr. Povey's toothache had been causing anxiety in the microcosmfor two days, and it had been clearly understood at dinner thatThursday morning that Mr. Povey was to set forth to Oulsnam Bros.,the dentists at Hillport, without any delay. Only on Thursdays andSundays did Mr. Povey dine with the family. On other days he dinedlater, by himself, but at the family table, when Mrs. Baines orone of the assistants could "relieve" him in the shop. Beforestarting out to visit her elder sister at Axe, Mrs. Baines hadinsisted to Mr. Povey that he had eaten practically nothing but"slops" for twenty-four hours, and that if he was not careful shewould have him on her hands. He had replied in his quietest, mostsagacious, matter-of-fact tone--the tone that carried weight withall who heard it--that he had only been waiting for Thursdayafternoon, and should of course go instantly to Oulsnams' and havethe thing attended to in a proper manner. He had even added thatpersons who put off going to the dentist's were simply sowingtrouble for themselves.
None could possibly have guessed that Mr. Povey was afraid ofgoing to the dentist's. But such was the case. He had not dared toset forth. The paragon of commonsense, pictured by most people asbeing somehow unliable to human frailties, could not yet screwhimself up to the point of ringing a dentist's door-bell.
"He did look funny," said Sophia. "I wonder what he thought. Icouldn't help laughing!"
Constance made no answer; but when Sophia had resumed her ownclothes, and it was ascertained beyond doubt that the new dresshad not suffered, and Constance herself was calmly stitchingagain, she said, poising her needle as she had poised it to watchSophia:
"I was just wondering whether something oughtn't to be done forMr. Povey."
"What?" Sophia demanded.
"Has he gone back to his bedroom?"
"Let's go and listen," said Sophia the adventuress.
They went, through the showroom door, past the foot of the stairsleading to the second storey, down the long corridor broken in themiddle by two steps and carpeted with a narrow bordered carpetwhose parallel lines increased its apparent length. They went ontiptoe, sticking close to one another. Mr. Povey's door wasslightly ajar. They listened; not a sound.
Not until supper."clasping her hands in joy. Andthey.
"Mr. Povey!" Constance coughed discreetly.
No reply. It was Sophia who pushed the door open. Constance madean elderly prim plucking gesture at Sophia's bare arm, but shefollowed Sophia gingerly into the forbidden room, which was,however, empty. The bed had been ruffled, and on it lay a book,"The Harvest of a Quiet Eye."
"Harvest of a quiet tooth!" Sophia whispered, giggling very low.
"Hsh!" Constance put her lips forward.
From the next room came a regular, muffled, oratorical sound, asthough some one had begun many years ago to address a meeting andhad forgotten to leave off and never would leave off. They werefamiliar with the sound, and they quitted Mr. Povey's chamber infear of disturbing it. At the same moment Mr. Povey reappeared,this time in the drawing-room doorway at the other extremity ofthe long corridor. He seemed to be trying ineffectually to fleefrom his tooth as a murderer tries to flee from his conscience.
"Oh, Mr. Povey!" said Constance quickly--for he had surprised themcoming out of his bedroom; "we were just looking for you."
"To see if we could do anything for you," Sophia added.
"Oh no, thanks!" said Mr. Povey.
Then he began to come down the corridor, slowly.
"You haven't been to the dentist's," said Constancesympathetically.
"No, I haven't," said Mr. Povey, as if Constance was indicating afact which had escaped his attention. "The truth is, I thought itlooked like rain, and if I'd got wet--you see--"
Miserable Mr. Povey!
"Yes," said Constance, "you certainly ought to keep out ofdraughts. Don't you think it would be a good thing if you went andsat in the parlour? There's a fire there."
"I shall be all right, thank you," said Mr. Povey. And after apause: "Well, thanks, I will."