The Old Wives Tale | Page 6

and Sophia were the daughters of this credit to human nature.
He had no other children.
II
They pressed their noses against the window of the show-room, and
gazed down into the Square as perpendicularly as the projecting front
of the shop would allow. The show-room was over the millinery and
silken half of the shop. Over the woollen and shirting half were the
drawing-room and the chief bedroom. When in quest of articles of
coquetry, you mounted from the shop by a curving stair, and your head
gradually rose level with a large apartment having a mahogany counter
in front of the window and along one side, yellow linoleum on the floor,
many cardboard boxes, a magnificent hinged cheval glass, and two
chairs. The window-sill being lower than the counter, there was a gulf
between the panes and the back of the counter, into which important
articles such as scissors, pencils, chalk, and artificial flowers were
continually disappearing: another proof of the architect's incompetence.
The girls could only press their noses against the window by kneeling
on the counter, and this they were doing. Constance's nose was snub,
but agreeably so. Sophia had a fine Roman nose; she was a beautiful
creature, beautiful and handsome at the same time. They were both of

them rather like racehorses, quivering with delicate, sensitive, and
luxuriant life; exquisite, enchanting proof of the circulation of the
blood; innocent, artful, roguish, prim, gushing, ignorant, and
miraculously wise. Their ages were sixteen and fifteen; it is an epoch
when, if one is frank, one must admit that one has nothing to learn: one
has learnt simply everything in the previous six months.
"There she goes!" exclaimed Sophia.
Up the Square, from the corner of King Street, passed a woman in a
new bonnet with pink strings, and a new blue dress that sloped at the
shoulders and grew to a vast circumference at the hem. Through the
silent sunlit solitude of the Square (for it was Thursday afternoon, and
all the shops shut except the confectioner's and one chemist's) this
bonnet and this dress floated northwards in search of romance, under
the relentless eyes of Constance and Sophia. Within them, somewhere,
was the soul of Maggie, domestic servant at Baines's. Maggie had been
at the shop since before the creation of Constance and Sophia. She
lived seventeen hours of each day in an underground kitchen and larder,
and the other seven in an attic, never going out except to chapel on
Sunday evenings, and once a month on Thursday afternoons.
"Followers" were most strictly forbidden to her; but on rare occasions
an aunt from Longshaw was permitted as a tremendous favour to see
her in the subterranean den. Everybody, including herself, considered
that she had a good "place," and was well treated. It was undeniable,
for instance, that she was allowed to fall in love exactly as she chose,
provided she did not "carry on" in the kitchen or the yard. And as a fact,
Maggie had fallen in love. In seventeen years she had been engaged
eleven times. No one could conceive how that ugly and powerful
organism could softly languish to the undoing of even a butty-collier,
nor why, having caught a man in her sweet toils, she could ever be
imbecile enough to set him free. There are, however, mysteries in the
souls of Maggies. The drudge had probably been affianced oftener than
any woman in Bursley. Her employers were so accustomed to an
interesting announcement that for years they had taken to saying naught
in reply but 'Really, Maggie!' Engagements and tragic partings were
Maggie's pastime. Fixed otherwise, she might have studied the piano

instead.
"No gloves, of course!" Sophia criticized.
"Well, you can't expect her to have gloves," said Constance.
Then a pause, as the bonnet and dress neared the top of the Square.
"Supposing she turns round and sees us?" Constance suggested.
"I don't care if she does," said Sophia, with a haughtiness almost
impassioned; and her head trembled slightly.
There were, as usual, several loafers at the top of the Square, in the
corner between the bank and the "Marquis of Granby." And one of
these loafers stepped forward and shook hands with an obviously
willing Maggie. Clearly it was a rendezvous, open, unashamed. The
twelfth victim had been selected by the virgin of forty, whose kiss
would not have melted lard! The couple disappeared together down
Oldcastle Street.
"WELL!" cried Constance. "Did you ever see such a thing?"
While Sophia, short of adequate words, flushed and bit her lip.
With the profound, instinctive cruelty of youth, Constance and Sophia
had assembled in their favourite haunt, the show-room, expressly to
deride Maggie in her new clothes. They obscurely thought that a
woman so ugly and soiled as Maggie was had