The Old Wives' Tale

Constance is the older of the two Baines sisters by a year. In outward appearance, she isn’t portrayed as quite as striking in beauty as her sister, Sophia, but is pleasant and agreeable to everyone. Calm and levelheaded, Constance wants to abide by the rules and do her duty to her family. As a result, she follows in her parents’ footsteps and keeps the family business going, never complaining about parental expectations and never expressing any contrary desire to that plan. One of her dominant traits throughout the book is her good-naturedness and her empathy toward others: “[S]he wanted to help everybody, to show in some way how much she sympathized with and loved everybody” (79). This good-naturedness, while a positive quality, sometimes borders on naivete, and in relationships in which discipline and firm boundaries are necessary—such as with her son, Cyril—this feature of Constance’s temperament proves a liability.

She marries Samuel Povey, a longtime employee of the Baines family business, and together they take over managing the draper’s shop when Constance’s mother retires. They have one child together, Cyril, who’s bright and gifted but troublingly self-centered. Samuel passes away while Cyril is still a teenager, leaving the final responsibilities of raising him in Constance’s hands.