Sophia fled along the passage leading to the shop and took refuge
in the cutting-out room, a room which the astonishing architect
had devised upon what must have been a backyard of one of the
three constituent houses. It was lighted from its roof, and only a
wooden partition, eight feet high, separated it from the passage.
Here Sophia gave rein to her feelings; she laughed and cried
together, weeping generously into her handkerchief and wildly
giggling, in a hysteria which she could not control. The spectacle
of Mr. Povey mourning for a tooth which he thought he had
swallowed, but which in fact lay all the time in her pocket,
seemed to her to be by far the most ridiculous, side-splitting
thing that had ever happened or could happen on earth. It utterly
overcame her. And when she fancied that she had exhausted and
conquered its surpassing ridiculousness, this ridiculousness
seized her again and rolled her anew in depths of mad, trembling
laughter.
Gradually she grew calmer. She heard the parlour door open, and
Constance descend the kitchen steps with a rattling tray of tea-
things. Tea, then, was finished, without her! Constance did not
remain in the kitchen, because the cups and saucers were left for
Maggie to wash up as a fitting coda to Maggie's monthly holiday.
The parlour door closed. And the vision of Mr. Povey in his
antimacassar swept Sophia off into another convulsion of laughter
and tears. Upon this the parlour door opened again, and Sophia
choked herself into silence while Constance hastened along the
passage. In a minute Constance returned with her woolwork, which
she had got from the showroom, and the parlour received her. Not
the least curiosity on the part of Constance as to what had become
of Sophia!
At length Sophia, a faint meditative smile being all that was left
of the storm in her, ascended slowly to the showroom, through the
shop. Nothing there of interest! Thence she wandered towards the
drawing-room, and encountered Mr. Critchlow's tray on the mat. She
picked it up and carried it by way of the showroom and shop down
to the kitchen, where she dreamily munched two pieces of toast
that had cooled to the consistency of leather. She mounted the
stone steps and listened at the door of the parlour. No sound!
This seclusion of Mr. Povey and Constance was really very strange.
She roved right round the house, and descended creepingly by the
twisted house-stairs, and listened intently at the other door of
the parlour. She now detected a faint regular snore. Mr. Povey, a
prey to laudanum and mussels, was sleeping while Constance worked
at her fire-screen! It was now in the highest degree odd, this
seclusion of Mr. Povey and Constance; unlike anything in Sophia's
experience! She wanted to go into the parlour, but she could not
bring herself to do so. She crept away again, forlorn and puzzled,
and next discovered herself in the bedroom which she shared with
Constance at the top of the house; she lay down in the dusk on the
bed and began to read "The Days of Bruce;" but she read only with
her eyes.
Later, she heard movements on the house-stairs, and the familiar
whining creak of the door at the foot thereof. She skipped lightly
to the door of the bedroom.
"Good-night, Mr. Povey. I hope you'll be able to sleep."
Constance's voice!
"It will probably come on again."
Mr. Povey's voice, pessimistic!
Then the shutting of doors. It was almost dark. She went back to
the bed, expecting a visit from Constance. But a clock struck
eight, and all the various phenomena connected with the departure
of Mr. Critchlow occurred one after another. At the same time
Maggie came home from the land of romance. Then long silences!
Constance was now immured with her father, it being her "turn" to
nurse; Maggie was washing up in her cave, and Mr. Povey was lost
to sight in his bedroom. Then Sophia heard her mother's lively,
commanding knock on the King Street door. Dusk had definitely
yielded to black night in the bedroom. Sophia dozed and dreamed.
When she awoke, her ear caught the sound of knocking. She jumped
up, tiptoed to the landing, and looked over the balustrade, whence
she had a view of all the first-floor corridor. The gas had been
lighted; through the round aperture at the top of the porcelain
globe she could see the wavering flame. It was her mother, still
bonneted, who was knocking at the door of Mr. Povey's room.
Constance stood in the doorway of her parents' room. Mrs. Baines
knocked twice with an interval, and then said to Constance, in a
resonant whisper that vibrated up the corridor---
"He seems to be fast asleep. I'd better not disturb him."
"But suppose he wants something in the night?"
"Well, child, I should hear him moving. Sleep's the best thing for
him."
Mrs. Baines left Mr. Povey to the effects of laudanum, and came
along the corridor. She was a stout woman, all black stuff and
gold chain, and her skirt more than filled the width of the
corridor. Sophia watched her habitual heavy mounting gesture as
she climbed the two steps that gave variety to the corridor. At
the gas-jet she paused, and, putting her hand to the tap, gazed up
into the globe.
"Where's Sophia?" she demanded, her eyes fixed on the gas as she
lowered the flame.
"I think she must be in bed, mother," said Constance,
nonchalantly.
The returned mistress was point by point resuming knowledge and
control of that complicated machine--her household.
Then Constance and her mother disappeared into the bedroom, and
the door was shut with a gentle, decisive bang that to the silent
watcher on the floor above seemed to create a special excluding
intimacy round about the figures of Constance and her father and
mother. The watcher wondered, with a little prick of jealousy,
what they would be discussing in the large bedroom, her father's
beard wagging feebly and his long arms on the counterpane,
Constance perched at the foot of the bed, and her mother walking
to and fro, putting her cameo brooch on the dressing-table or
stretching creases out of her gloves. Certainly, in some subtle
way, Constance had a standing with her parents which was more
confidential than Sophia's.
Read next: BOOK I MRS. BAINES#CHAPTER II - THE TOOTH#PART III
Read previous: BOOK I MRS. BAINES#CHAPTER II - THE TOOTH#PART I
Table of content of Old Wives' Tale
GO TO TOP OF SCREEN
Post your reviewYour review will be placed after the table of content of this book
