The Old Wives' Tale. Bennett Arnold

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СКАЧАТЬ on the morrow was as well as if he had never seen a staircase. This episode was town property and had sunk deep into all hearts.

      “I don’t want any, mother,” said Sophia, in dejection. “I’m quite well.”

      “You simply ate nothing all day yesterday,” said Mrs. Baines. And she added, “Come!” As if to say, “There’s always this silly fuss with castor-oil. Don’t keep me waiting.”

      “I don’t WANT any,” said Sophia, irritated and captious.

      The two girls lay side by side, on their backs. They seemed very thin and fragile in comparison with the solidity of their mother. Constance wisely held her peace.

      Mrs. Baines put her lips together, meaning: “This is becoming tedious. I shall have to be angry in another moment!”

      “Come!” said she again.

      The girls could hear her foot tapping on the floor.

      “I really don’t want it, mamma,” Sophia fought. “I suppose I ought to know whether I need it or not!” This was insolence.

      “Sophia, will you take this medicine, or won’t you?”

      In conflicts with her children, the mother’s ultimatum always took the formula in which this phrase was cast. The girls knew, when things had arrived at the pitch of ‘or won’t you’ spoken in Mrs. Baines’s firmest tone, that the end was upon them. Never had the ultimatum failed.

      There was a silence.

      “And I’ll thank you to mind your manners,” Mrs. Baines added.

      “I won’t take it,” said Sophia, sullenly and flatly; and she hid her face in the pillow.

      It was a historic moment in the family life. Mrs. Baines thought the last day had come. But still she held herself in dignity while the apocalypse roared in her ears.

      “OF COURSE I CAN’T FORCE YOU TO TAKE IT,” she said with superb evenness, masking anger by compassionate grief. “You’re a big girl and a naughty girl. And if you will be ill you must.”

      Upon this immense admission, Mrs. Baines departed.

      Constance trembled.

      Nor was that all. In the middle of the morning, when Mrs. Baines was pricing new potatoes at a stall at the top end of the Square, and Constance choosing threepennyworth of flowers at the same stall, whom should they both see, walking all alone across the empty corner by the Bank, but Sophia Baines! The Square was busy and populous, and Sophia was only visible behind a foreground of restless, chattering figures. But she was unmistakably seen. She had been beyond the Square and was returning. Constance could scarcely believe her eyes. Mrs. Baines’s heart jumped. For let it be said that the girls never under any circumstances went forth without permission, and scarcely ever alone. That Sophia should be at large in the town, without leave, without notice, exactly as if she were her own mistress, was a proposition which a day earlier had been inconceivable. Yet there she was, and moving with a leisureliness that must be described as effrontery!

      Red with apprehension, Constance wondered what would happen. Mrs. Baines said nought of her feelings, did not even indicate that she had seen the scandalous, the breath-taking sight. And they descended the Square laden with the lighter portions of what they had bought during an hour of buying. They went into the house by the King Street door; and the first thing they heard was the sound of the piano upstairs. Nothing happened. Mr. Povey had his dinner alone; then the table was laid for them, and the bell rung, and Sophia came insolently downstairs to join her mother and sister. And nothing happened. The dinner was silently eaten, and Constance having rendered thanks to God, Sophia rose abruptly to go.

      “Sophia!”

      “Yes, mother.”

      “Constance, stay where you are,” said Mrs. Baines suddenly to Constance, who had meant to flee. Constance was therefore destined to be present at the happening, doubtless in order to emphasize its importance and seriousness.

      “Sophia,” Mrs. Baines resumed to her younger daughter in an ominous voice. “No, please shut the door. There is no reason why everybody in the house should hear. Come right into the room—right in! That’s it. Now, what were you doing out in the town this morning?”

      Sophia was fidgeting nervously with the edge of her little black apron, and worrying a seam of the carpet with her toes. She bent her head towards her left shoulder, at first smiling vaguely. She said nothing, but every limb, every glance, every curve, was speaking. Mrs. Baines sat firmly in her own rocking-chair, full of the sensation that she had Sophia, as it were, writhing on the end of a skewer. Constance was braced into a moveless anguish.

      “I will have an answer,” pursued Mrs. Baines. “What were you doing out in the town this morning?”

      “I just went out,” answered Sophia at length, still with eyes downcast, and in a rather simpering tone.

      “Why did you go out? You said nothing to me about going out. I heard Constance ask you if you were coming with us to the market, and you said, very rudely, that you weren’t.”

      “I didn’t say it rudely,” Sophia objected.

      “Yes you did. And I’ll thank you not to answer back.”

      “I didn’t mean to say it rudely, did I, Constance?” Sophia’s head turned sharply to her sister. Constance knew not where to look.

      “Don’t answer back,” Mrs. Baines repeated sternly. “And don’t try to drag Constance into this, for I won’t have it.”

      “Oh, of course Constance is always right!” observed Sophia, with an irony whose unparalleled impudence shook Mrs. Baines to her massive foundations.

      “Do you want me to have to smack you, child?”

      Her temper flashed out and you could see ringlets vibrating under the provocation of Sophia’s sauciness. Then Sophia’s lower lip began to fall and to bulge outwards, and all the muscles of her face seemed to slacken.

      “You are a very naughty girl,” said Mrs. Baines, with restraint. (“I’ve got her,” said Mrs. Baines to herself. “I may just as well keep my temper.”)

      And a sob broke out of Sophia. She was behaving like a little child. She bore no trace of the young maiden sedately crossing the Square without leave and without an escort.

      (“I knew she was going to cry,” said Mrs. Baines, breathing relief.)

      “I’m waiting,” said Mrs. Baines aloud.

      A second sob. Mrs. Baines manufactured patience to meet the demand.

      “You tell me not to answer back, and then you say you’re waiting,” Sophia blubbered thickly.

      “What’s that you say? How can I tell what you say if you talk like that?” (But Mrs. Baines failed to hear out of discretion, which is better than valour.)

      “It’s of no consequence,” Sophia blurted forth in a sob. She was weeping now, and tears were ricocheting off her lovely crimson cheeks СКАЧАТЬ