The Old Wives' Tale by Arnold Bennett (carter reed txt) 📕

And he had to take a slice. So had Sophia. When she was roused, they both of them had to yield to Constance.

With the dogs, and the splendour of the tea-table under the gas, and the distinction of Sophia and Cyril, and the conversation, which on the whole was gay and free, rising at times to jolly garrulity, the scene in her parlour ought surely to have satisfied Constance utterly. She ought to have been quite happy, as her sciatica had raised the siege for a space. But she was not quite happy. The circumstances of Cyril’s arrival had disturbed her; they had in fact wounded her, though she would scarcely admit the wound. In the morning she had received a brief letter from Cyril to say that he had not been able to come, and vaguely promising, or half-promising, to run down at a later date. That letter had the cardinal defects of all Cyril’s relations with his mother; it was casual, and it was not candid. It gave no hint of the nature of the obstacle which had prevented him from coming. Cyril had always been too secretive. She was gravely depressed by the letter, which she did not show to Sophia, because it impaired her dignity as a mother, and displayed her son in a bad light. Then about eleven o’clock a telegram had come for Sophia.

“That’s all right,” Sophia had said, on reading it. “He’ll be here this evening!” And she had handed over the telegram, which read—

“Very well. Will come same train to-day.”

And Constance learned that when Sophia had rushed out just before tea on the previous evening, it was to telegraph to Cyril.

“What did you say to him?” Constance asked.

“Oh!” said Sophia, with a careless air, “I told him I thought he ought to come. After all, you’re more important than any business, Constance! And I don’t like him behaving like that. I was determined he should come!”

Sophia had tossed her proud head.

Constance had pretended to be pleased and grateful. But the existence of a wound was incontestable. Sophia, then, could do more with Cyril than she could! Sophia had only met him once, and could simply twist him round her little finger. He would never have done so much for his mother. A fine sort of an obstacle it must have been, if a single telegram from Sophia could overcome it …! And Sophia, too, was secretive. She had gone out and had telegraphed, and had not breathed a word until she got the reply, sixteen hours later. She was secretive, and Cyril was secretive. They resembled one another. They had taken to one another. But Sophia was a curious mixture. When Constance had asked her if she should go to the station again to meet Cyril, she had replied scornfully: “No, indeed! I’ve done going to meet Cyril. People who don’t arrive must not expect to be met.”

When Cyril drove up to the door, Sophia had been in attendance. She hurried down the steps. “Don’t say anything about my telegram,” she had rapidly whispered to Cyril; there was no time for further explanation. Constance was at the top of the steps. Constance had not heard the whisper, but she had seen it; and she saw a guilty, puzzled look on Cyril’s face, afterwards an ineffectively concealed conspiratorial look on both their faces. They had ‘something between them,’ from which she, the mother, was shut out! Was it not natural that she should be wounded? She was far too proud to mention the telegrams. And as neither Cyril nor Sophia mentioned them, the circumstances leading to Cyril’s change of plan were not referred to at all, which was very curious. Then Cyril was more sociable than he had ever been; he was different, under his aunt’s gaze. Certainly he treated his mother faultlessly. But Constance said to herself: “It is because she is here that he is so specially nice to me.”

When tea was finished and they were going upstairs to the drawingroom, she asked him, with her eye on the ‘Stag at Eve’ engraving:

“Well, is it a success?”

“What?” His eye followed hers. “Oh, you’ve changed it! What did you do that for, mater?”

“You said it would be better like that,” she reminded him.

“Did I?” He seemed genuinely surprised. “I don’t remember. I believe it is better, though,” he added. “It might be even better still if you turned it the other way up.”

He pulled a face to Sophia, and screwed up his shoulders, as if to indicate: “I’ve done it, this time!”

“How? The other way up?” Constance queried. Then as she comprehended that he was teasing her, she said: “Get away with you!” and pretended to box his ears. “You were fond enough of that picture at one time!” she said ironically.

“Yes, I was, mater,” he submissively agreed. “There’s no getting over that.” And he pressed her cheeks between his hands and kissed her.

In the drawingroom he smoked cigarettes and played the piano— waltzes of his own composition. Constance and Sophia did not entirely comprehend those waltzes. But they agreed that all were wonderful and that one was very pretty indeed. (It soothed Constance that Sophia’s opinion coincided with hers.) He said that that waltz was the worst of the lot. When he had finished with the piano, Constance informed him about Amy. “Oh! She told me,” he said, “when she brought me my water. I didn’t mention it because I thought it would be rather a sore subject.” Beneath the casualness of his tone there lurked a certain curiosity, a willingness to hear details. He heard them.

At five minutes to ten, when Constance had yawned, he threw a bomb among them on the hearthrug.

“Well,” he said, “I’ve got an appointment with Matthew at the Conservative Club at ten o’clock. I must go. Don’t wait up for me.”

Both women protested, Sophia the more vivaciously. It was Sophia now who was wounded.

“It’s business,” he said, defending himself. “He’s going away early tomorrow, and it’s my only chance.” And as Constance did not brighten he went on: “Business has to be attended to. You mustn’t think I’ve got nothing to do but enjoy myself.”

No hint of the nature of the business! He never explained. As to business, Constance knew only that she allowed him three hundred a year, and paid his local tailor. The sum had at first seemed to her enormous, but she had grown accustomed to it.

“I should have preferred you to see Mr. Peel-Swynnerton here,” said Constance. “You could have had a room to yourselves. I do not like you going out at ten o’clock at night to a club.”

“Well, good night, mater,” he said, getting up. “See you tomorrow. I shall take the key out of the door. It’s true my pocket will never be the same again.”

Sophia saw Constance into bed, and provided her with two hot-water bottles against sciatica. They did not talk much.

V

Sophia sat waiting on the sofa in the parlour. It appeared to her that, though little more than a month had elapsed since her arrival in Bursley, she had already acquired a new set of interests and anxieties. Paris and her life there had receded in the strangest way. Sometimes for hours she would absolutely forget Paris. Thoughts of Paris were disconcerting; for either Paris or Bursley must surely be unreal! As she sat waiting on the sofa Paris kept coming into her mind. Certainly it was astonishing that she should be just as preoccupied with her schemes for the welfare of Constance as she had ever been preoccupied with schemes for the improvement of the Pension Frensham. She said to herself: “My life has been so queer—and yet every part of it separately seemed ordinary enough—how will it end?”

Then there were footfalls on the steps outside, and a key was put into the door, which she at once opened.

“Oh!” exclaimed Cyril, startled, and also somewhat out of countenance. “You’re still up! Thanks.” He came in, smoking the end of a cigar. “Fancy having to cart that about!” he murmured, holding up the great old-fashioned key before inserting it in the lock on the inside.

“I stayed up,” said Sophia, “because I wanted to talk to you about your mother, and it’s so difficult to get a chance.”

Cyril smiled, not without self-consciousness, and dropped into his mother’s rocking-chair, which he had twisted round with his feet to face the sofa.

“Yes,” he said. “I was wondering what was the real meaning of your telegram. What was it?” He blew out a lot of smoke and waited for her reply.

“I thought you ought to come down,” said Sophia, cheerfully but firmly. “It was a fearful disappointment to your mother that you didn’t come yesterday. And when she’s expecting a letter from you and it doesn’t come, it makes her ill.”

“Oh, well!” he said. “I’m glad it’s no worse. I thought from your telegram there was something seriously wrong. And then when you told me not to mention it—when I came in …!”

She saw that he failed to realize the situation, and she lifted her head challengingly.

“You neglect your mother, young man,” she said.

“Oh, come now, auntie!” he answered quite gently. “You mustn’t talk like that. I write to her every week. I’ve never missed a week. I come down as often as–-”

“You miss the Sunday sometimes,” Sophia interrupted him.

“Perhaps,” he said doubtfully. “But what–”

“Don’t you understand that she simply lives for your letters? And if one doesn’t come, she’s very upset indeed—can’t eat! And it brings on her sciatica, and I don’t know what!”

He was taken aback by her boldness, her directness.

“But how silly of her! A fellow can’t always–-”

“It may be silly. But there it is. You can’t alter her. And, after all, what would it cost you to be more attentive, even to write to her twice a week? You aren’t going to tell me you’re so busy as all that! I know a great deal more about young men than your mother does.” She smiled like an aunt.

He answered her smile sheepishly.

“If you’ll only put yourself in your mother’s place …!”

“I expect you’re quite right,” he said at length. “And I’m much obliged to you for telling me. How was I to know?” He threw the end of the cigar, with a large sweeping gesture, into the fire.

“Well, anyhow, you know now!” she said curtly; and she thought: “You OUGHT to have known. It was your business to know.” But she was pleased with the way in which he had accepted her criticism, and the gesture with which he threw away the cigar-end struck her as very distinguished.

“That’s all right!” he said dreamily, as if to say: “That’s done with.” And he rose.

Sophia, however, did not stir.

“Your mother’s health is not what it ought to be,” she went on, and gave him a full account of her conversation with the doctor.

“Really!” Cyril murmured, leaning on the mantelpiece with his elbow and looking down at her. “Stirling said that, did he? I should have thought she would have been better where she is, in the Square.”

“Why better in the Square?”

“Oh, I don’t know!”

“Neither do I!”

“She’s always been here.”

“Yes.” said Sophia, “she’s been here a great deal too long.”

“What do YOU suggest?” Cyril asked, with impatience in his voice against this new anxiety that was being thrust upon him.

“Well,” said Sophia, “what should you say to her coming to London and living with you?”

Cyril started back. Sophia could see that he was genuinely shocked. “I don’t think that would do at all,” he said.

“Why?”

“Oh! I