________________________________________________
_ The kitchen steps were as steep, dark, and difficult as ever. Up
those steps Sophia Scales, nine years older than when she had
failed to persuade Constance to leave the Square, was carrying a
large basket, weighted with all the heaviness of Fossette. Sophia,
despite her age, climbed the steps violently, and burst with equal
violence into the parlour, where she deposited the basket on the
floor near the empty fireplace. She was triumphant and breathless.
She looked at Constance, who had been standing near the door in
the attitude of a shocked listener.
"There!" said Sophia. "Did you hear how she talked?"
"Yes," said Constance. "What shall you do?"
"Well," said Sophia. "I had a very good mind to order her out of
the house at once. But then I thought I would take no notice. Her
time will be up in three weeks. It's best to be indifferent. If
once they see they can upset you However, I wasn't going to leave
Fossette down there to her tender mercies a moment longer. She's
simply not looked after her at all."
Sophia went on her knees to the basket, and, pulling aside the
dog's hair, round about the head, examined the skin. Fossette was
a sick dog and behaved like one. Fossette, too, was nine years
older, and her senility was offensive. She was to no sense a
pleasant object.
"See here," said Sophia.
Constance also knelt to the basket.
"And here," said Sophia. "And here."
The dog sighed, the insincere and pity-seeking sigh of a spoilt
animal. Fossette foolishly hoped by such appeals to be spared the
annoying treatment prescribed for her by the veterinary surgeon.
While the sisters were coddling her, and protecting her from her
own paws, and trying to persuade her that all was for the best,
another aged dog wandered vaguely into the room: Spot. Spot had
very few teeth, and his legs were stiff. He had only one vice,
jealousy. Fearing that Fossette might be receiving the entire
attention of his mistresses, he had come to inquire into the
situation. When he found the justification of his gloomiest
apprehensions, he nosed obstinately up to Constance, and would not
be put off. In vain Constance told him at length that he was
interfering with the treatment. In vain Sophia ordered him sharply
to go away. He would not listen to reason, being furious with
jealousy. He got his foot into the basket.
"Will you!" exclaimed Sophia angrily, and gave him a clout on his
old head. He barked snappishly, and retired to the kitchen again,
disillusioned, tired of the world, and nursing his terrific
grievance. "I do declare," said Sophia, "that dog gets worse and
worse."
Constance said nothing.
When everything was done that could be done for the aged virgin in
the basket, the sisters rose from their knees, stiffly; and they
began to whisper to each other about the prospects of obtaining a
fresh servant. They also debated whether they could tolerate the
criminal eccentricities of the present occupant of the cave for
yet another three weeks. Evidently they were in the midst of a
crisis. To judge from Constance's face every imaginable woe had
been piled on them by destiny without the slightest regard for
their powers of resistance. Her eyes had the permanent look of
worry, and there was in them also something of the self-defensive.
Sophia had a bellicose air, as though the creature in the cave had
squarely challenged her, and she was decided to take up the
challenge. Sophia's tone seemed to imply an accusation of
Constance. The general tension was acute.
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 to-night. 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 drawingroom. 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 judgment of things.
But that buried question of domicile prevented a complete unity
between, them. And its suble 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
exasperated 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 empty-handed.
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. _
Read next: BOOK IV WHAT LIFE IS: CHAPTER IV END OF SOPHIA: PART II
Read previous: BOOK IV WHAT LIFE IS: CHAPTER III TOWARDS HOTEL LIFE: PART VI
Table of content of Old Wives' Tale
GO TO TOP OF SCREEN
Post your review
Your review will be placed after the table of content of this book
