The Old Wives' Tale by Arnold Bennett

First published: 1908

Type of work: Novel

Type of plot: Naturalism

Time of plot: Nineteenth century

Locale: England and Paris

Principal characters

• Constance Baines Povey and Sophia Baines Scales, sisters
• John Baines, their father
• Mrs. Baines, their mother
• Samuel Povey, Constance’s husband
• Gerald Scales, Sophia’s husband
• Cyril Povey, the son of Constance and Samuel

The Story:

Sixteen-year-old Constance Baines is a plump, pleasant girl with a snub nose. Sophia Baines, fifteen years old, is a handsome girl with imagination and daring. The first symptoms of her rebelliousness and strong individuality come when she announces her desire to be a teacher in 1864. Mr. and Mrs. Baines own a draper’s shop, and their income is adequate. They are most respectable and are therefore horrified at their daughter’s unconventional plan, for it had been taken for granted that she as well as Constance would assist in the shop.

When Sophia was four years old, John Baines, her father, had suffered a stroke of paralysis that left him disabled and his faculties greatly impaired. Prodded by his capable wife, he joins in forbidding Sophia to think of teaching, but his opposition only strengthens Sophia’s resolve.

When Sophia is left alone to care for her father one day, she sees a handsome young man, a representative of a wholesale firm, enter the store. She invents an errand to take her into the shop. She learns that his name is Gerald Scales. When Sophia returns to her father’s room, she finds that he had slipped off the bed and, unable to move himself, died of asphyxia. Mr. Baines’s old friend, Mr. Critchlow, is called immediately; having seen Sophia in the shop with Gerald, he instantly accuses her of killing her father. Presumably as a gesture of repentance but actually because she hopes for an opportunity to see Gerald again, Sophia offers to give up her plans to teach.

Sophia was working in millinery when Constance assisted Samuel Povey, the clerk, a small quiet man without dignity and without imagination. He and Constance gradually fall in love.

After two years, Gerald Scales returns. By artful contriving, Sophia manages to meet him alone and to initiate a correspondence. Mrs. Baines recognizes Sophia’s infatuation and sends her off to visit her aunt Harriet. Several weeks later, Sophia runs off with Gerald. She writes her mother that they were married and planning to live abroad. A short time later, Constance and Samuel Povey are married. Mrs. Baines turns over the house and shop to them and goes to live with her sister.

The married life of Constance holds few surprises, and the couple soon settles into a routine tradesman’s existence. Nothing further is heard of Sophia except for an occasional Christmas card giving no address. After six years of marriage, the couple has a son, Cyril. Constance centers her life on the baby, more so since her own mother had died shortly after his birth. Povey also devotes much attention to his son, but he makes his wife miserable by his insistence on discipline. When, after twenty years of marriage, Povey catches pneumonia, dies, and leaves Constance a widow, she devotes herself entirely to Cyril. He is a charming, intelligent boy, but he seems indifferent to his mother’s efforts to please him. When he is eighteen years old, he wins a scholarship in art and is sent to London. His mother is left alone.

Life has not dealt so quietly with Sophia. In a London hotel room, after her elopement, she suffers her first disillusionment when Gerald begins to make excuses for delaying their marriage; but after Sophia refuses to go to Paris with him except as his wife, he reluctantly agrees to the ceremony. Gerald has inherited twelve thousand pounds. He and Sophia live lavishly in Paris. Gerald’s weakness, his irresponsibility, and lack of any morals or common sense soon become apparent. Realizing that Gerald has little regard for her welfare, Sophia takes two hundred pounds in bank notes from his pocket and hides them in case of an emergency. As Gerald loses more money at gambling, they live in shabbier hotels, wear mended clothes, and eat sparingly. Their funds nearly exhausted, Gerald suggests that Sophia should write to her family for help. When Sophia refuses, Gerald abandons her.

The next day, she wakes up ill and is visited by Gerald’s friend, Chirac, who has come to collect money Gerald had borrowed from him. Chirac had risked his own reputation by taking money from the cash box of the newspaper where he is employed. Sophia unhesitatingly uses some of the notes she had taken from Gerald to repay Chirac. When she again becomes ill, Chirac leaves her in the care of a middle-aged courtesan, Madam Faucault, who treats Sophia kindly during her long illness.

Madame Faucault is deeply in debt. Sophia rents Madame Faucault’s flat and takes roomers and boarders. At that time, France is at war with Germany, and the siege of Paris soon begins. Food is scarce. Only by hard work and the most careful management is Sophia able to feed her boarders. She grows hard and businesslike. When the siege is lifted and Paris returns to normal, Sophia buys a pension, named Frensham, at her own price. This pension is well-known for its excellence and respectability, and under Sophia’s management, it prospers. She does not hear from her husband again. By the exhibition year, she has built up a modest fortune from the two hundred pounds she had taken from Gerald.

One day, Cyril Povey’s young English friend stays at the pension Frensham. Sophia’s beauty and dignity intrigue him, and he learns enough about her to recognize her as his friend’s aunt. On his return to England, he hastily informs both Cyril and Constance of Sophia’s situation. Constance immediately writes Sophia a warm, affectionate letter begging her to come to England for a visit. Meanwhile, in Paris, Sophia has suffered a slight stroke; when she is offered a large sum for the pension, she reluctantly lets it go. Soon afterward, she visits England.

Although Sophia had intended to make only a short visit, the sisters end up living together for nine years. On the surface, they seem to get along well together, but Sophia has never forgiven her sister for her refusal to move from the ugly, inconvenient old house. Constance, on her part, silently resents Sophia’s domineering ways.

Their tranquil existence is interrupted by a telegram to Sophia, informing her that Gerald Scales is very ill in a neighboring town. She goes to him at once, but on her arrival, she learns that he is already dead. He died shabby, thin, and old. Sophia is greatly shocked when she sees Gerald; she is shocked, in part, by her lack of feeling for the man who had both made and ruined her life. She suffers another stroke while driving home and lives only a few hours. Cyril is left all of Sophia’s money. He continues to live in London on an allowance, completely absorbed in his art, still secretive and indifferent to his mother. When Constance dies several years later, he is abroad and does not return in time for the funeral. When the servants leave for Constance’s burial, only Sophia’s old poodle is left in the house. She waddles into the kitchen to see if any food has been left in her dish.

Bibliography

Fromm, Gloria G. “Remythologizing Arnold Bennett.” Novel: A Forum on Fiction 16, no. 1 (Fall, 1982): 19-34. Discusses Virginia Woolf’s criticism, which had a devastating effect on Bennett’s reputation. Argues that Woolf missed Bennett’s assertion that there is no escaping expression of the self, no matter how skillful a writer may be.

Lucas, John. Arnold Bennett: A Study of His Fiction. New York: Methuen, 1974. Lucas argues that Guy de Maupassant’s cynicism influenced Bennett’s portrayal of Constance. Bennett considered The Old Wives’ Tale an important demonstration of his seriousness as a writer.

Meckier, Jerome. “Distortion Versus Revaluation: Three Twentieth-Century Responses to Victorian Fiction.” Victorian Newsletter 73 (Spring, 1988): 3-8. Suggests that The Old Wives’ Tale is a criticism of the cynicism found in William Makepeace Thackeray’s Vanity Fair (1847-1848, serial; 1848, book). Bennett drew more joy than Thackeray did from the secular world.

Roby, Kinley E. A Writer at War: Arnold Bennett, 1914-1918. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1972. Roby maintains that The Old Wives’ Tale, which shows no meaning in the lives of its characters, anticipates a major theme of twentieth century British and American literature.

Squillace, Robert. Modernism, Modernity, and Arnold Bennett. Lewisburg, Pa.: Bucknell University Press, 1997. Squillace argues that Bennett saw more clearly than his contemporaries the emergence of the modern era, which transformed a male-dominated society to one open to all people regardless of class or gender. The detailed notes and a bibliography acknowledge the work of some of the best scholars.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. “Self-Isolation and Self-Advertisement in The Old Wives’ Tale.” In Seeing Double: Revisioning Edwardian and Modernist Literature, edited by Carol M. Kaplan and Anne B. Simpson. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996. Squillace maintains that in The Old Wives’ Tale, Bennett achieved “an analysis of secrecy and exposure, of the secret self that obsessed Edwardian novelists, as remarkable as that found in any work by [Joseph] Conrad or [Henry] James and strikingly different in form.”