# Cyril Povey — The Old Wives’ Tale character guide

> Cyril Povey in The Old Wives’ Tale by Arnold Bennett.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** Cyril, Povey

**First appearance:** 0014-iii-cyril

## Snapshot

Constance and Samuel's clever son, raised amid the shop's quiet respectability, whose easy talent and cooler loyalties will test everything his mother sacrificed for him.

## Who they are

Cyril grows up as the only child of the drapery, the heir everyone assumes will inherit the counter and the Square's good opinion. But he is his own person — gifted, self-possessed, and inclined to take his mother's devotion as a given. His choices, small and large, become the measure of how much of Constance's life was spent on a hope she could not control.

## Relationships

### [Mr. Peel-Swynnerton](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_old_wives_tale_se/characters/mr_peel_swynnerton)

_friendship_

Friends and contemporaries, with Cyril as a young artist and Peel-Swynnerton as a supportive acquaintance.

### [Mr. Peel-Swynnerton](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_old_wives_tale_se/characters/mr_peel_swynnerton)

_friendship_

Friends and contemporaries, with Cyril as a young artist and Peel-Swynnerton as a supportive acquaintance.

### [Mr. Peel-Swynnerton](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_old_wives_tale_se/characters/mr_peel_swynnerton)

_friendship_

Friends and contemporaries, with Cyril as a young artist and Peel-Swynnerton as a supportive acquaintance.

## In the story

### [III: Cyril](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_old_wives_tale_se/chapters/iii-cyril)

The five-year-old boy who throws a tantrum over a cake, hits a guest, and later hides in the cellar.

### [Crime](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_old_wives_tale_se/chapters/iv-crime)

Begins school, receives a silver watch, excels in his studies, and asks his mother to stop treating him like a baby.

### [Another Crime](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_old_wives_tale_se/chapters/v-another-crime)

Accompanies his father Samuel to Knype station, acting as an escort under Constance's orders.

### [VI: The Widow](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_old_wives_tale_se/chapters/vi-the-widow)

Constance's son, who returns from school and shows a growing independence. He disobeys his mother by sketching instead of finishing his homework, testing her authority after his father's death.

### [VIII: The Proudest Mother](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_old_wives_tale_se/chapters/viii-the-proudest-mother)

Now a young man of nineteen, fashionable and artistic, he is indifferent to his mother's devotion and treats her with gentle raillery.

### [IV: End of Sophia](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_old_wives_tale_se/chapters/iv-end-of-sophia)

Returns to Bursley to help with funeral arrangements and shows unexpected competence.

### [End of Constance](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_old_wives_tale_se/chapters/v-end-of-constance)

Constance's son, who is away in England during her illness and arrives three days after her funeral.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_old_wives_tale_se/characters/cyril_povey
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_old_wives_tale_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_old_wives_tale_se/characters