CHAPTER XXIV
“It gave her quite a turn,” said Mr. Wilcox, when retailing the incident to Dolly at tea-time. “None of you girls have any nerves, really. Of course, a word from me put it all right, but silly old Miss Avery—she frightened you, didn’t she, Margaret? There you stood clutching a bunch of weeds. She might have said something, instead of coming down the stairs with that alarming bonnet on. I passed her as I came in. Enough to make the car shy. I believe Miss Avery goes in for being a character; some old maids do.” He lit a cigarette. “It is their last resource. Heaven knows what she was doing in the place; but that’s Bryce’s business, not mine.”
“I wasn’t as foolish as you suggest,” said Margaret “She only startled me, for the house had been silent so long.”
“Did you take her for a spook?” asked Dolly, for whom “spooks”’ and “going to church” summarised the unseen.
“Not exactly.”
“She really did frighten you,” said Henry, who was far from discouraging timidity in females. “Poor Margaret! And very naturally. Uneducated classes are so stupid.”
“Is Miss Avery uneducated classes?” Margaret asked, and found herself looking at the decoration scheme of Dolly’s drawing-room.
“She’s just one of the crew at the farm. People like that always assume things. She assumed you’d know who she was. She left all the Howards End keys in the front lobby, and assumed that you’d seen them as you came in, that you’d lock up the house when you’d done, and would bring them on down to her. And there was her niece hunting for them down at the farm. Lack of education makes people very casual. Hilton was full of women like Miss Avery once.”
“I shouldn’t have disliked it, perhaps.”
“Or Miss Avery giving me a wedding present,” said Dolly.
Which was illogical but interesting. Through Dolly, Margaret was destined to learn a good deal.
“But Charles said I must try not to mind, because she had known his grandmother.”
“As usual, you’ve got the story wrong, my good Dorothea.”
“I meant great-grandmother—the one who left Mrs. Wilcox the house. Weren’t both of them and Miss Avery friends when Howards End, too, was a farm?”
Her father-in-law blew out a shaft of smoke. His attitude to his dead wife was curious. He would allude to her, and hear her discussed, but never mentioned her by name. Nor was he interested in the dim, bucolic past. Dolly was—for the following reason.
“Then hadn’t Mrs. Wilcox a brother—or was it an uncle? Anyhow, he popped the question, and Miss Avery, she said ‘No.’ Just imagine, if she’d said ‘Yes,’ she would have been Charles’s aunt. (Oh, I say, that’s rather good! ‘Charlie’s Aunt’! I must chaff him about that this evening.) And the man went out and was killed. Yes, I’m certain I’ve got it right now. Tom Howard—he was the last of them.”
“I believe so,” said Mr. Wilcox negligently.
“I say! Howards End—Howards Ended!” cried Dolly. “I’m rather on the spot this evening, eh?”
“I wish you’d ask whether Crane’s ended.”
“Oh, Mr. Wilcox, how can you?”
“Because, if he has had enough tea, we ought to go—Dolly’s a good little woman,” he continued, “but a little of her goes a long way. I couldn’t live near her if you paid me.”
Margaret smiled. Though presenting a firm front to outsiders, no Wilcox could live near, or near the possessions of, any other Wilcox. They had the colonial spirit, and were always making for some spot where the white man might carry his burden unobserved. Of course, Howards End was impossible, so long as the younger couple were established in Hilton. His objections to the house were plain as daylight now.
Crane had had enough tea, and was sent to the garage, where their car had been trickling muddy water over Charles’s. The downpour had surely penetrated the Six Hills by now, bringing news of our restless civilisation. “Curious mounds,” said Henry, “but in with you now; another time.” He had to be up in London by seven—if possible, by six-thirty. Once more she lost the sense of space; once more trees, houses, people, animals, hills, merged and heaved into one dirtiness, and she was at Wickham Place.
Her evening was pleasant. The sense of flux which had haunted her all the year disappeared for a time. She forgot the luggage and the motor-cars, and the hurrying men who know so much and connect so little. She recaptured the sense of space, which is the basis of all earthly beauty, and, starting from Howards End, she attempted to realise England. She failed—visions do not come when we try, though they may come through trying. But an unexpected love of the island awoke in her, connecting on this side with the joys of the flesh, on that with the inconceivable. Helen and her father had known this love, poor Leonard Bast was groping after it, but it had been hidden from Margaret till this afternoon. It had certainly come through the house and old Miss Avery. Through them: the notion of “through” persisted; her mind trembled towards a conclusion which only the unwise have put into words. Then, veering back into warmth, it dwelt on ruddy bricks, flowering plum-trees, and all the tangible joys of spring.
Henry, after allaying her agitation, had taken her over his property, and had explained to her the use and dimensions of the various rooms. He had sketched the history of the little estate. “It is so unlucky,” ran the monologue, “that money wasn’t put into it about fifty years ago. Then it had four—five—times the land—thirty acres at least. One could have made something out of it then—a small park, or at all events shrubberies, and rebuilt the house farther away from the road. What’s the good of taking it in hand now? Nothing but the meadow left, and even that was heavily mortgaged when I first had to do with things—yes, and the house too. Oh, it was no joke.” She saw two women as he spoke, one old, the other young, watching their inheritance melt away. She saw them greet him as a deliverer. “Mismanagement did it—besides, the days for small farms are over. It doesn’t pay—except with intensive cultivation. Small holdings, back to the land—ah! philanthropic bunkum. Take it as a rule that nothing pays on a small scale. Most of the land you see (they were standing at an upper window, the only one which faced west) belongs to the people at the Park—they made their pile over copper—good chaps. Avery’s Farm, Sishe’s—what they call the Common, where you see that ruined oak—one after the other fell in, and so did this, as near as is no matter.” But Henry had saved it as near as is no matter, without fine feelings or deep insight, but he had saved it, and she loved him for the deed. “When I had more control I did what I could—sold off the two and a half animals, and the mangy pony, and the superannuated tools; pulled down the outhouses; drained; thinned out I don’t know how many guelder-roses and elder-trees; and inside the house I turned the old kitchen into a hall, and made a kitchen behind where the dairy was. Garage and so on came later. But one could still tell it’s been an old farm. And yet it isn’t the place that would fetch one of your artistic crew.” No, it wasn’t; and if he did not quite understand it, the artistic crew would still less; it was English, and the wych-elm that she saw from the window was an English tree. No report had prepared her for its peculiar glory. It was neither warrior, nor lover, nor god; in none of these roles do the English excel. It was a comrade bending over the house, strength and adventure in its roots, but in its utmost fingers tenderness, and the girth, that a dozen men could not have spanned, became in the end evanescent, till pale bud clusters seemed to float in the air. It was a comrade. House and tree transcended any similes of sex. Margaret thought of them now, and was to think of them through many a windy night and London day, but to compare either to man, to woman, always dwarfed the vision. Yet they kept within limits of the human. Their message was not of eternity, but of hope on this side of the grave. As she stood in the one, gazing at the other, truer relationship had gleamed.
Another touch, and the account of her day is finished. They entered the garden for a minute, and to Mr. Wilcox’s surprise she was right. Teeth, pigs’ teeth, could be seen in the bark of the wych-elm tree—just the white tips of them showing. “Extraordinary!” he cried. “Who told you?”
“I heard of it one winter in London,” was her answer, for she, too, avoided mentioning Mrs. Wilcox by name.
CHAPTER XXV
Evie heard of her father’s engagement when she was in for a tennis tournament, and her play went simply to pot. That she should marry and leave him had seemed natural enough; that he, left alone, should do the same was deceitful; and now Charles and Dolly said that it was all her fault. “But I never dreamt of such a thing,” she grumbled. “Dad took me to call now and then, and made me ask her to Simpson’s. Well, I’m altogether off dad.” It was also an insult to their mother’s memory; there they were agreed, and Evie had the idea of returning Mrs. Wilcox’s lace and jewellery “as a protest.” Against what it would protest she was not clear; but being only eighteen, the idea of renunciation appealed to her, the more as she did not care for jewellery or lace. Dolly then suggested that she and Uncle Percy should pretend to break off their engagement, and then perhaps Mr. Wilcox would quarrel with Miss Schlegel, and break off his; or Paul might be cabled for. But at this point Charles told them not to talk nonsense. So Evie settled to marry as soon as possible; it was no good hanging about with these Schlegels eyeing her. The date of her wedding was consequently put forward from September to August, and in the intoxication of presents she recovered much of her good-humour.
Margaret found that she was expected to figure at this function, and to figure largely; it would be such an opportunity, said Henry, for her to get to know his set. Sir James Bidder would be there, and all the Cahills and the Fussells, and his sister-in-law, Mrs. Warrington Wilcox, had fortunately got back from her tour round the world. Henry she loved, but his set promised to be another matter. He had not the knack of surrounding himself with nice people—indeed, for a man of ability and virtue his choice had been singularly unfortunate; he had no guiding principle beyond a certain preference for mediocrity; he was content to settle one of the greatest things in life haphazard, and so, while his investments went right, his friends generally went wrong. She would be told, “Oh, So-and-so’s a good sort—a thundering good sort,” and find, on meeting him, that he was a brute or a bore. If Henry had shown real affection, she would have understood, for affection explains everything. But he seemed without sentiment. The “thundering good sort” might at any moment become “a fellow for whom I never did have much use, and have less now,” and be shaken off cheerily into oblivion. Margaret had done the same as a schoolgirl. Now she never forgot any one for whom she had once cared; she connected, though the connection might be bitter, and she hoped that some day Henry would do the same.
Evie was not to be married from Ducie Street. She had a fancy for something rural, and, besides, no one would be in London then, so she left her boxes for a few weeks at Oniton Grange, and her banns were duly published in the parish church, and for a couple of days the little town, dreaming between the ruddy hills, was roused by the clang of our civilisation, and drew up by the roadside to let the motors pass. Oniton had been a discovery of Mr. Wilcox’s—a discovery of which he was not altogether proud. It was up towards the Welsh border, and so difficult of access that he had concluded it must be something special. A ruined castle stood in the grounds. But having got there, what was one to do? The shooting was bad, the fishing indifferent, and womenfolk reported the scenery as nothing much. The place turned out to be in the wrong part of Shropshire, and though he never ran down his own property to others, he was only waiting to get it off his hands, and then to let fly. Evie’s marriage was its last appearance in public. As soon as a tenant was found, it became a house for which he never had had much use, and had less now, and, like Howards End, faded into Limbo.
But on Margaret Oniton was destined to make a lasting impression. She regarded it as her future home, and was anxious to start straight with the clergy, etc., and, if possible, to see something of the local life. It was a market-town—as tiny a one as England possesses—and had for ages served that lonely valley, and guarded our marches against the Celt. In spite of the occasion, in spite of the numbing hilarity that greeted her as soon as she got into the reserved saloon at Paddington, her senses were awake and watching, and though Oniton was to prove one of her innumerable false starts, she never forgot it, or the things that happened there.
The London party only numbered eight—the Fussells, father and son, two Anglo-Indian ladies named Mrs. Plynlimmon and Lady Edser, Mrs. Warrington Wilcox and her daughter, and, lastly, the little girl, very smart and quiet, who figures at so many weddings, and who kept a watchful eye on Margaret, the bride-elect. Dolly was absent—a domestic event detained her at Hilton; Paul had cabled a humorous message; Charles was to meet them with a trio of motors at Shrewsbury; Helen had refused her invitation; Tibby had never answered his. The management was excellent, as was to be expected with anything that Henry undertook; one was conscious of his sensible and generous brain in the background. They were his guests as soon as they reached the train; a special label for their luggage; a courier; a special lunch; they had only to look pleasant and, where possible, pretty. Margaret thought with dismay of her own nuptials—presumably under the management of Tibby. “Mr. Theobald Schlegel and Miss Helen Schlegel request the pleasure of Mrs. Plynlimmon’s company on the occasion of the marriage of their sister Margaret.” The formula was incredible, but it must soon be printed and sent, and though Wickham Place need not compete with Oniton, it must feed its guests properly, and provide them with sufficient chairs. Her wedding would either be ramshackly or bourgeois—she hoped the latter. Such an affair as the present, staged with a deftness that was almost beautiful, lay beyond her powers and those of her friends.
The low rich purr of a Great Western express is not the worst background for conversation, and the journey passed pleasantly enough. Nothing could have exceeded the kindness of the two men. They raised windows for some ladies, and lowered them for others, they rang the bell for the servant, they identified the colleges as the train slipped past Oxford, they caught books or bag-purses in the act of tumbling on to the floor. Yet there was nothing finicking about their politeness—it had the public-school touch, and, though sedulous, was virile. More battles than Waterloo have been won on our playing-fields, and Margaret bowed to a charm of which she did not wholly approve, and said nothing when the Oxford colleges were identified wrongly. “Male and female created He them”; the journey to Shrewsbury confirmed this questionable statement, and the long glass saloon, that moved so easily and felt so comfortable, became a forcing-house for the idea of sex.
At Shrewsbury came fresh air. Margaret was all for sight-seeing, and while the others were finishing their tea at the Raven, she annexed a motor and hurried over the astonishing city. Her chauffeur was not the faithful Crane, but an Italian, who dearly loved making her late. Charles, watch in hand, though with a level brow, was standing in front of the hotel when they returned. It was perfectly all right, he told her; she was by no means the last. And then he dived into the coffee-room, and she heard him say, “For God’s sake, hurry the women up; we shall never be off,” and Albert Fussell reply, “Not I; I’ve done my share,” and Colonel Fussell opine that the ladies were getting themselves up to kill. Presently Myra (Mrs. Warrington’s daughter) appeared, and as she was his cousin, Charles blew her up a little; she had been changing her smart travelling hat for a smart motor hat. Then Mrs. Warrington herself, leading the quiet child; the two Anglo-Indian ladies were always last. Maids, courier, heavy luggage, had already gone on by a branch-line to a station nearer Oniton, but there were five hat-boxes and four dressing-bags to be packed, and five dust-cloaks to be put on, and to be put off at the last moment, because Charles declared them not necessary. The men presided over everything with unfailing good-humour. By half-past five the party was ready, and went out of Shrewsbury by the Welsh Bridge.
Shropshire had not the reticence of Hertfordshire. Though robbed of half its magic by swift movement, it still conveyed the sense of hills. They were nearing the buttresses that force the Severn eastward and make it an English stream, and the sun, sinking over the Sentinels of Wales, was straight in their eyes. Having picked up another guest, they turned southward, avoiding the greater mountains, but conscious of an occasional summit, rounded and mild, whose colouring differed in quality from that of the lower earth, and whose contours altered more slowly. Quiet mysteries were in progress behind those tossing horizons: the West, as ever, was retreating with some secret which may not be worth the discovery, but which no practical man will ever discover.
They spoke of Tariff Reform.
Mrs. Warrington was just back from the Colonies. Like many other critics of Empire, her mouth had been stopped with food, and she could only exclaim at the hospitality with which she had been received, and warn the Mother Country against trifling with young Titans. “They threaten to cut the painter,” she cried, “and where shall we be then? Miss Schlegel, you’ll undertake to keep Henry sound about Tariff Reform? It is our last hope.”
Margaret playfully confessed herself on the other side, and they began to quote from their respective handbooks while the motor carried them deep into the hills. Curious these were rather than impressive, for their outlines lacked beauty, and the pink fields on their summits suggested the handkerchiefs of a giant spread out to dry. An occasional outcrop of rock, an occasional wood, an occasional “forest,” treeless and brown, all hinted at wildness to follow, but the main colour was an agricultural green. The air grew cooler; they had surmounted the last gradient, and Oniton lay below them with its church, its radiating houses, its castle, its river-girt peninsula. Close to the castle was a grey mansion unintellectual but kindly, stretching with its grounds across the peninsula’s neck—the sort of mansion that was built all over England in the beginning of the last century, while architecture was still an expression of the national character. That was the Grange, remarked Albert, over his shoulder, and then he jammed the brake on, and the motor slowed down and stopped. “I’m sorry,” said he, turning round. “Do you mind getting out—by the door on the right. Steady on.”
“What’s happened?” asked Mrs. Warrington.
Then the car behind them drew up, and the voice of Charles was heard saying: “Get the women out at once.” There was a concourse of males, and Margaret and her companions were hustled out and received into the second car. What had happened? As it started off again, the door of a cottage opened, and a girl screamed wildly at them.
“What is it?” the ladies cried.
Charles drove them a hundred yards without speaking. Then he said: “It’s all right. Your car just touched a dog.”
“But stop!” cried Margaret, horrified.
“It didn’t hurt him.”
“Didn’t really hurt him?” asked Myra.
“No.”
“Do PLEASE stop!” said Margaret, leaning forward. She was standing up in the car, the other occupants holding her knees to steady her. “I want to go back, please.”
Charles took no notice.
“We’ve left Mr. Fussell behind,” said another; “and Angelo, and Crane.”
“Yes, but no woman.”
“I expect a little of”—Mrs. Warrington scratched her palm—“will be more to the point than one of us!”
“The insurance company see to that,” remarked Charles, “and Albert will do the talking.”
“I want to go back, though, I say!” repeated Margaret, getting angry.
Charles took no notice. The motor, loaded with refugees, continued to travel very slowly down the hill. “The men are there,” chorused the others. “They will see to it.”
“The men CAN’T see to it. Oh, this is ridiculous! Charles, I ask you to stop.”
“Stopping’s no good,” drawled Charles.
“Isn’t it?” said Margaret, and jumped straight out of the car. She fell on her knees, cut her gloves, shook her hat over her ear. Cries of alarm followed her. “You’ve hurt yourself,” exclaimed Charles, jumping after her.
“Of course I’ve hurt myself!” she retorted.
“May I ask what—”
“There’s nothing to ask,” said Margaret.
“Your hand’s bleeding.”
“I know.”
“I’m in for a frightful row from the pater.”
“You should have thought of that sooner, Charles.”
Charles had never been in such a position before. It was a woman in revolt who was hobbling away from him—and the sight was too strange to leave any room for anger. He recovered himself when the others caught them up: their sort he understood. He commanded them to go back.
Albert Fussell was seen walking towards them.
“It’s all right!” he called. “It was a cat.”
“There!” exclaimed Charles triumphantly. “It’s only a rotten cat.”
“Got room in your car for a little un? I cut as soon as I saw it wasn’t a dog; the chauffeurs are tackling the girl.” But Margaret walked forward steadily. Why should the chauffeurs tackle the girl? Ladies sheltering behind men, men sheltering behind servants—the whole system’s wrong, and she must challenge it.
“Miss Schlegel! ’Pon my word, you’ve hurt your hand.”
“I’m just going to see,” said Margaret. “Don’t you wait, Mr. Fussell.”
The second motor came round the corner. “It is all right, madam,” said Crane in his turn. He had taken to calling her madam.
“What’s all right? The cat?”
“Yes, madam. The girl will receive compensation for it.”
“She was a very ruda girla,” said Angelo from the third motor thoughtfully.
“Wouldn’t you have been rude?”
The Italian spread out his hands, implying that he had not thought of rudeness, but would produce it if it pleased her. The situation became absurd. The gentlemen were again buzzing round Miss Schlegel with offers of assistance, and Lady Edser began to bind up her hand. She yielded, apologising slightly, and was led back to the car, and soon the landscape resumed its motion, the lonely cottage disappeared, the castle swelled on its cushion of turf, and they had arrived. No doubt she had disgraced herself. But she felt their whole journey from London had been unreal. They had no part with the earth and its emotions. They were dust, and a stink, and cosmopolitan chatter, and the girl whose cat had been killed had lived more deeply than they.
“Oh, Henry,” she exclaimed, “I have been so naughty,” for she had decided to take up this line. “We ran over a cat. Charles told me not to jump out, but I would, and look!” She held out her bandaged hand. “Your poor Meg went such a flop.”
Mr. Wilcox looked bewildered. In evening dress, he was standing to welcome his guests in the hall.
“Thinking it was a dog,” added Mrs. Warrington.
“Ah, a dog’s a companion!” said Colonel Fussell. “ A dog’ll remember you.”
“Have you hurt yourself, Margaret?”
“Not to speak about; and it’s my left hand.”
“Well, hurry up and change.”
She obeyed, as did the others. Mr. Wilcox then turned to his son.
“Now, Charles, what’s happened?”
Charles was absolutely honest. He described what he believed to have happened. Albert had flattened out a cat, and Miss Schlegel had lost her nerve, as any woman might. She had been got safely into the other car, but when it was in motion had leapt out again, in spite of all that they could say. After walking a little on the road, she had calmed down and had said that she was sorry. His father accepted this explanation, and neither knew that Margaret had artfully prepared the way for it. It fitted in too well with their view of feminine nature. In the smoking-room, after dinner, the Colonel put forward the view that Miss Schlegel had jumped it out of devilry. Well he remembered as a young man, in the harbour of Gibraltar once, how a girl—a handsome girl, too—had jumped overboard for a bet. He could see her now, and all the lads overboard after her. But Charles and Mr. Wilcox agreed it was much more probably nerves in Miss Schlegel’s case. Charles was depressed. That woman had a tongue. She would bring worse disgrace on his father before she had done with them. He strolled out on to the castle mound to think the matter over. The evening was exquisite. On three sides of him a little river whispered, full of messages from the West; above his head the ruins made patterns against the sky. He carefully reviewed their dealings with this family, until he fitted Helen, and Margaret, and Aunt Juley into an orderly conspiracy. Paternity had made him suspicious. He had two children to look after, and more coming, and day by day they seemed less likely to grow up rich men. “It is all very well,” he reflected, “the pater’s saying that he will be just to all, but one can’t be just indefinitely. Money isn’t elastic. What’s to happen if Evie has a family? And, come to that, so may the pater. There’ll not be enough to go round, for there’s none coming in, either through Dolly or Percy. It’s damnable!” He looked enviously at the Grange, whose windows poured light and laughter. First and last, this wedding would cost a pretty penny. Two ladies were strolling up and down the garden terrace, and as the syllables “Imperialism” were wafted to his ears, he guessed that one of them was his aunt. She might have helped him, if she too had not had a family to provide for. “Every one for himself,” he repeated—a maxim which had cheered him in the past, but which rang grimly enough among the ruins of Oniton. He lacked his father’s ability in business, and so had an ever higher regard for money; unless he could inherit plenty, he feared to leave his children poor.
As he sat thinking, one of the ladies left the terrace and walked into the meadow; he recognised her as Margaret by the white bandage that gleamed on her arm, and put out his cigar, lest the gleam should betray him. She climbed up the mound in zigzags, and at times stooped down, as if she was stroking the turf. It sounds absolutely incredible, but for a moment Charles thought that she was in love with him, and had come out to tempt him. Charles believed in temptresses, who are indeed the strong man’s necessary complement, and having no sense of humour, he could not purge himself of the thought by a smile. Margaret, who was engaged to his father, and his sister’s wedding-guest, kept on her way without noticing him, and he admitted that he had wronged her on this point. But what was she doing? Why was she stumbling about amongst the rubble and catching her dress in brambles and burrs? As she edged round the keep, she must have got to windward and smelt his cigar-smoke, for she exclaimed, “Hullo! Who’s that?”
Charles made no answer.
“Saxon or Celt?” she continued, laughing in the darkness. “But it doesn’t matter. Whichever you are, you will have to listen to me. I love this place. I love Shropshire. I hate London. I am glad that this will be my home. Ah, dear”—she was now moving back towards the house—“what a comfort to have arrived!”
“That woman means mischief,” thought Charles, and compressed his lips. In a few minutes he followed her indoors, as the ground was getting damp. Mists were rising from the river, and presently it became invisible, though it whispered more loudly. There had been a heavy downpour in the Welsh hills.
CHAPTER XXVI
Next morning a fine mist covered the peninsula. The weather promised well, and the outline of the castle mound grew clearer each moment that Margaret watched it. Presently she saw the keep, and the sun painted the rubble gold, and charged the white sky with blue. The shadow of the house gathered itself together, and fell over the garden. A cat looked up at her window and mewed. Lastly the river appeared, still holding the mists between its banks and its overhanging alders, and only visible as far as a hill, which cut off its upper reaches.
Margaret was fascinated by Oniton. She had said that she loved it, but it was rather its romantic tension that held her. The rounded Druids of whom she had caught glimpses in her drive, the rivers hurrying down from them to England, the carelessly modelled masses of the lower hills, thrilled her with poetry. The house was insignificant, but the prospect from it would be an eternal joy, and she thought of all the friends she would have to stop in it, and of the conversion of Henry himself to a rural life. Society, too, promised favourably. The rector of the parish had dined with them last night, and she found that he was a friend of her father’s, and so knew what to find in her. She liked him. He would introduce her to the town. While, on her other side, Sir James Bidder sat, repeating that she only had to give the word, and he would whip up the county families for twenty miles round. Whether Sir James, who was Garden Seeds, had promised what he could perform, she doubted, but so long as Henry mistook them for the county families when they did call, she was content.
Charles Wilcox and Albert Fussell now crossed the lawn. They were going for a morning dip, and a servant followed them with their bathing-suits. She had meant to take a stroll herself before breakfast, but saw that the day was still sacred to men, and amused herself by watching their contretemps. In the first place the key of the bathing-shed could not be found. Charles stood by the riverside with folded hands, tragical, while the servant shouted, and was misunderstood by another servant in the garden. Then came a difficulty about a springboard, and soon three people were running backwards and forwards over the meadow, with orders and counter orders and recriminations and apologies. If Margaret wanted to jump from a motor-car, she jumped; if Tibby thought paddling would benefit his ankles, he paddled; if a clerk desired adventure, he took a walk in the dark. But these athletes seemed paralysed. They could not bathe without their appliances, though the morning sun was calling and the last mists were rising from the dimpling stream. Had they found the life of the body after all? Could not the men whom they despised as milksops beat them, even on their own ground?
She thought of the bathing arrangements as they should be in her day—no worrying of servants, no appliances, beyond good sense. Her reflections were disturbed by the quiet child, who had come out to speak to the cat, but was now watching her watch the men. She called, “Good-morning, dear,” a little sharply. Her voice spread consternation. Charles looked round, and though completely attired in indigo blue, vanished into the shed, and was seen no more.
“Miss Wilcox is up—” the child whispered, and then became unintelligible.
“What is that?” it sounded like, “—cut-yoke—sack-back—”
“I can’t hear.”
“—On the bed—tissue-paper—”
Gathering that the wedding-dress was on view, and that a visit would be seemly, she went to Evie’s room. All was hilarity here. Evie, in a petticoat, was dancing with one of the Anglo-Indian ladies, while the other was adoring yards of white satin. They screamed, they laughed, they sang, and the dog barked.
Margaret screamed a little too, but without conviction. She could not feel that a wedding was so funny. Perhaps something was missing in her equipment.
Evie gasped: “Dolly is a rotter not to be here! Oh, we would rag just then!” Then Margaret went down to breakfast.
Henry was already installed; he ate slowly and spoke little, and was, in Margaret’s eyes, the only member of their party who dodged emotion successfully. She could not suppose him indifferent either to the loss of his daughter or to the presence of his future wife. Yet he dwelt intact, only issuing orders occasionally—orders that promoted the comfort of his guests. He inquired after her hand; he set her to pour out the coffee and Mrs. Warrington to pour out the tea. When Evie came down there was a moment’s awkwardness, and both ladies rose to vacate their places. “Burton,” called Henry, “serve tea and coffee from the sideboard!” It wasn’t genuine tact, but it was tact, of a sort—the sort that is as useful as the genuine, and saves even more situations at Board meetings. Henry treated a marriage like a funeral, item by item, never raising his eyes to the whole, and “Death, where is thy sting? Love, where is thy victory?” one would exclaim at the close.
After breakfast Margaret claimed a few words with him. It was always best to approach him formally. She asked for the interview, because he was going on to shoot grouse to-morrow, and she was returning to Helen in town.
“Certainly, dear,” said he. “Of course, I have the time. What do you want?”
“Nothing.”
“I was afraid something had gone wrong.”
“No; I have nothing to say, but you may talk.”
Glancing at his watch, he talked of the nasty curve at the lych-gate. She heard him with interest. Her surface could always respond to his without contempt, though all her deeper being might be yearning to help him. She had abandoned any plan of action. Love is the best, and the more she let herself love him, the more chance was there that he would set his soul in order. Such a moment as this, when they sat under fair weather by the walks of their future home, was so sweet to her that its sweetness would surely pierce to him. Each lift of his eyes, each parting of the thatched lip from the clean-shaven, must prelude the tenderness that kills the Monk and the Beast at a single blow. Disappointed a hundred times, she still hoped. She loved him with too clear a vision to fear his cloudiness. Whether he droned trivialities, as to-day, or sprang kisses on her in the twilight, she could pardon him, she could respond.
“If there is this nasty curve,” she suggested, “couldn’t we walk to the church? Not, of course, you and Evie; but the rest of us might very well go on first, and that would mean fewer carriages.”
“One can’t have ladies walking through the Market Square. The Fussells wouldn’t like it; they were awfully particular at Charles’s wedding. My—she—our party was anxious to walk, and certainly the church was just round the corner, and I shouldn’t have minded; but the Colonel made a great point of it.”
“You men shouldn’t be so chivalrous,” said Margaret thoughtfully.
“Why not?”
She knew why not, but said that she did not know. He then announced that, unless she had anything special to say, he must visit the wine-cellar, and they went off together in search of Burton. Though clumsy and a little inconvenient, Oniton was a genuine country-house. They clattered down flagged passages, looking into room after room, and scaring unknown maids from the performance of obscure duties. The wedding-breakfast must be in readiness when they come back from church, and tea would be served in the garden. The sight of so many agitated and serious people made Margaret smile, but she reflected that they were paid to be serious, and enjoyed being agitated. Here were the lower wheels of the machine that was tossing Evie up into nuptial glory. A little boy blocked their way with pig-pails. His mind could not grasp their greatness, and he said: “By your leave; let me pass, please.” Henry asked him where Burton was. But the servants were so new that they did not know one another’s names. In the still-room sat the band, who had stipulated for champagne as part of their fee, and who were already drinking beer. Scents of Araby came from the kitchen, mingled with cries. Margaret knew what had happened there, for it happened at Wickham Place. One of the wedding dishes had boiled over, and the cook was throwing cedar-shavings to hide the smell. At last they came upon the butler. Henry gave him the keys, and handed Margaret down the cellar-stairs. Two doors were unlocked. She, who kept all her wine at the bottom of the linen-cupboard, was astonished at the sight. “We shall never get through it!” she cried, and the two men were suddenly drawn into brotherhood, and exchanged smiles. She felt as if she had again jumped out of the car while it was moving.
Certainly Oniton would take some digesting. It would be no small business to remain herself, and yet to assimilate such an establishment. She must remain herself, for his sake as well as her own, since a shadowy wife degrades the husband whom she accompanies; and she must assimilate for reasons of common honesty, since she had no right to marry a man and make him uncomfortable. Her only ally was the power of Home. The loss of Wickham Place had taught her more than its possession. Howards End had repeated the lesson. She was determined to create new sanctities among these hills.
After visiting the wine-cellar, she dressed, and then came the wedding, which seemed a small affair when compared with the preparations for it. Everything went like one o’clock. Mr. Cahill materialised out of space, and was waiting for his bride at the church door. No one dropped the ring or mispronounced the responses, or trod on Evie’s train, or cried. In a few minutes the clergymen performed their duty, the register was signed, and they were back in their carriages, negotiating the dangerous curve by the lych-gate. Margaret was convinced that they had not been married at all, and that the Norman church had been intent all the time on other business.
There were more documents to sign at the house, and the breakfast to eat, and then a few more people dropped in for the garden party. There had been a great many refusals, and after all it was not a very big affair—not as big as Margaret’s would be. She noted the dishes and the strips of red carpet, that outwardly she might give Henry what was proper. But inwardly she hoped for something better than this blend of Sunday church and fox-hunting. If only some one had been upset! But this wedding had gone off so particularly well—“quite like a durbar” in the opinion of Lady Edser, and she thoroughly agreed with her.
So the wasted day lumbered forward, the bride and bridegroom drove off, yelling with laughter, and for the second time the sun retreated towards the hills of Wales. Henry, who was more tired than he owned, came up to her in the castle meadow, and, in tones of unusual softness, said that he was pleased. Everything had gone off so well. She felt that he was praising her, too, and blushed; certainly she had done all she could with his intractable friends, and had made a special point of kotowing to the men. They were breaking camp this evening; only the Warringtons and quiet child would stay the night, and the others were already moving towards the house to finish their packing. “I think it did go off well,” she agreed. “Since I had to jump out of the motor, I’m thankful I lighted on my left hand. I am so very glad about it, Henry dear; I only hope that the guests at ours may be half as comfortable. You must all remember that we have no practical person among us, except my aunt, and she is not used to entertainments on a large scale.”
“I know,” he said gravely. “Under the circumstances, it would be better to put everything into the hands of Harrods or Whiteley’s, or even to go to some hotel.”
“You desire a hotel?”
“Yes, because—well, I mustn’t interfere with you. No doubt you want to be married from your old home.”
“My old home’s falling into pieces, Henry. I only want my new. Isn’t it a perfect evening—”
“The Alexandrina isn’t bad—”
“The Alexandrina,” she echoed, more occupied with the threads of smoke that were issuing from their chimneys, and ruling the sunlit slopes with parallels of grey.
“It’s off Curzon Street.”
“Is it? Let’s be married from off Curzon Street.”
Then she turned westward, to gaze at the swirling gold. Just where the river rounded the hill the sun caught it. Fairyland must lie above the bend, and its precious liquid was pouring towards them past Charles’s bathing-shed. She gazed so long that her eyes were dazzled, and when they moved back to the house, she could not recognise the faces of people who were coming out of it. A parlour-maid was preceding them.
“Who are those people?” she asked.
“They’re callers!” exclaimed Henry. “It’s too late for callers.”
“Perhaps they’re town people who want to see the wedding presents.”
“I’m not at home yet to townees.”
“Well, hide among the ruins, and if I can stop them, I will.”
He thanked her.
Margaret went forward, smiling socially. She supposed that these were unpunctual guests, who would have to be content with vicarious civility, since Evie and Charles were gone, Henry tired, and the others in their rooms. She assumed the airs of a hostess; not for long. For one of the group was Helen—Helen in her oldest clothes, and dominated by that tense, wounding excitement that had made her a terror in their nursery days.
“What is it?” she called. “Oh, what’s wrong? Is Tibby ill?”
Helen spoke to her two companions, who fell back. Then she bore forward furiously.
“They’re starving!” she shouted. “I found them starving!”
“Who? Why have you come?”
“The Basts.”
“Oh, Helen!” moaned Margaret. “Whatever have you done now?”
“He has lost his place. He has been turned out of his bank. Yes, he’s done for. We upper classes have ruined him, and I suppose you’ll tell me it’s the battle of life. Starving. His wife is ill. Starving. She fainted in the train.”
“Helen, are you mad?”
“Perhaps. Yes. If you like, I’m mad. But I’ve brought them. I’ll stand injustice no longer. I’ll show up the wretchedness that lies under this luxury, this talk of impersonal forces, this cant about God doing what we’re too slack to do ourselves.”
“Have you actually brought two starving people from London to Shropshire, Helen?”
Helen was checked. She had not thought of this, and her hysteria abated. “There was a restaurant car on the train,” she said.
“Don’t be absurd. They aren’t starving, and you know it. Now, begin from the beginning. I won’t have such theatrical nonsense. How dare you! Yes, how dare you!” she repeated, as anger filled her, “bursting in to Evie’s wedding in this heartless way. My goodness! but you’ve a perverted notion of philanthropy. Look”—she indicated the house—“servants, people out of the windows. They think it’s some vulgar scandal, and I must explain, ‘Oh no, it’s only my sister screaming, and only two hangers-on of ours, whom she has brought here for no conceivable reason.’”
“Kindly take back that word ‘hangers-on,’” said Helen, ominously calm.
“Very well,” conceded Margaret, who for all her wrath was determined to avoid a real quarrel. “I, too, am sorry about them, but it beats me why you’ve brought them here, or why you’re here yourself.”
“It’s our last chance of seeing Mr. Wilcox.”
Margaret moved towards the house at this. She was determined not to worry Henry.
“He’s going to Scotland. I know he is. I insist on seeing him.”
“Yes, to-morrow.”
“I knew it was our last chance.”
“How do you do, Mr. Bast?” said Margaret, trying to control her voice. “This is an odd business. What view do you take of it?”
“There is Mrs. Bast, too,” prompted Helen.
Jacky also shook hands. She, like her husband, was shy, and, furthermore, ill, and furthermore, so bestially stupid that she could not grasp what was happening. She only knew that the lady had swept down like a whirlwind last night, had paid the rent, redeemed the furniture, provided them with a dinner and a breakfast, and ordered them to meet her at Paddington next morning. Leonard had feebly protested, and when the morning came, had suggested that they shouldn’t go. But she, half mesmerised, had obeyed. The lady had told them to, and they must, and their bed-sitting-room had accordingly changed into Paddington, and Paddington into a railway carriage, that shook, and grew hot, and grew cold, and vanished entirely, and reappeared amid torrents of expensive scent. “You have fainted,” said the lady in an awe-struck voice. “Perhaps the air will do you good.” And perhaps it had, for here she was, feeling rather better among a lot of flowers.
“I’m sure I don’t want to intrude,” began Leonard, in answer to Margaret’s question. “But you have been so kind to me in the past in warning me about the Porphyrion that I wondered—why, I wondered whether—”
“Whether we could get him back into the Porphyrion again,” supplied Helen. “Meg, this has been a cheerful business. A bright evening’s work that was on Chelsea Embankment.”
Margaret shook her head and returned to Mr. Bast.
“I don’t understand. You left the Porphyrion because we suggested it was a bad concern, didn’t you?”
“That’s right.”
“And went into a bank instead?”
“I told you all that,” said Helen; “and they reduced their staff after he had been in a month, and now he’s penniless, and I consider that we and our informant are directly to blame.”
“I hate all this,” Leonard muttered.
“I hope you do, Mr. Bast. But it’s no good mincing matters. You have done yourself no good by coming here. If you intend to confront Mr. Wilcox, and to call him to account for a chance remark, you will make a very great mistake.”
“I brought them. I did it all,” cried Helen.
“I can only advise you to go at once. My sister has put you in a false position, and it is kindest to tell you so. It’s too late to get to town, but you’ll find a comfortable hotel in Oniton, where Mrs. Bast can rest, and I hope you’ll be my guests there.”
“That isn’t what I want, Miss Schlegel,” said Leonard. “You’re very kind, and no doubt it’s a false position, but you make me miserable. I seem no good at all.”
“It’s work he wants,” interpreted Helen. “Can’t you see?”
Then he said: “Jacky, let’s go. We’re more bother than we’re worth. We’re costing these ladies pounds and pounds already to get work for us, and they never will. There’s nothing we’re good enough to do.”
“We would like to find you work,” said Margaret rather conventionally. “We want to—I, like my sister. You’re only down in your luck. Go to the hotel, have a good night’s rest, and some day you shall pay me back the bill, if you prefer it.”
But Leonard was near the abyss, and at such moments men see clearly. “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said. “I shall never get work now. If rich people fail at one profession, they can try another. Not I. I had my groove, and I’ve got out of it. I could do one particular branch of insurance in one particular office well enough to command a salary, but that’s all. Poetry’s nothing, Miss Schlegel. One’s thoughts about this and that are nothing. Your money, too, is nothing, if you’ll understand me. I mean if a man over twenty once loses his own particular job, it’s all over with him. I have seen it happen to others. Their friends gave them money for a little, but in the end they fall over the edge. It’s no good. It’s the whole world pulling. There always will be rich and poor.”
He ceased. “Won’t you have something to eat?” said Margaret. “I don’t know what to do. It isn’t my house, and though Mr. Wilcox would have been glad to see you at any other time—as I say, I don’t know what to do, but I undertake to do what I can for you. Helen, offer them something. Do try a sandwich, Mrs. Bast.”
They moved to a long table behind which a servant was still standing. Iced cakes, sandwiches innumerable, coffee, claret-cup, champagne, remained almost intact; their overfed guests could do no more. Leonard refused. Jacky thought she could manage a little. Margaret left them whispering together, and had a few more words with Helen.
She said: “Helen, I like Mr. Bast. I agree that he’s worth helping. I agree that we are directly responsible.”
“No, indirectly. Via Mr. Wilcox.”
“Let me tell you once for all that if you take up that attitude, I’ll do nothing. No doubt you’re right logically, and are entitled to say a great many scathing things about Henry. Only, I won’t have it. So choose.”
Helen looked at the sunset.
“If you promise to take them quietly to the George I will speak to Henry about them—in my own way, mind; there is to be none of this absurd screaming about justice. I have no use for justice. If it was only a question of money, we could do it ourselves. But he wants work, and that we can’t give him, but possibly Henry can.”
“It’s his duty to,” grumbled Helen.
“Nor am I concerned with duty. I’m concerned with the characters of various people whom we know, and how, things being as they are, things may be made a little better. Mr. Wilcox hates being asked favours; all business men do. But I am going to ask him, at the risk of a rebuff, because I want to make things a little better.”
“Very well. I promise. You take it very calmly.”
“Take them off to the George, then, and I’ll try. Poor creatures! but they look tired.” As they parted, she added: “I haven’t nearly done with you, though, Helen. You have been most self-indulgent. I can’t get over it. You have less restraint rather than more as you grow older. Think it over and alter yourself, or we shan’t have happy lives.”
She rejoined Henry. Fortunately he had been sitting down: these physical matters were important. “Was it townees?” he asked, greeting her with a pleasant smile.
“You’ll never believe me,” said Margaret, sitting down beside him. “It’s all right now, but it was my sister.”
“Helen here?” he cried, preparing to rise. “But she refused the invitation. I thought hated weddings.”
“Don’t get up. She has not come to the wedding. I’ve bundled her off to the George.”
Inherently hospitable, he protested.
“No; she has two of her proteges with her and must keep with them.”
“Let ’em all come.”
“My dear Henry, did you see them?”
“I did catch sight of a brown bunch of a woman, certainly.”
“The brown bunch was Helen, but did you catch sight of a sea-green and salmon bunch?”
“What! are they out bean-feasting?”
“No; business. They wanted to see me, and later on I want to talk to you about them.”
She was ashamed of her own diplomacy. In dealing with a Wilcox, how tempting it was to lapse from comradeship, and to give him the kind of woman that he desired! Henry took the hint at once, and said: “Why later on? Tell me now. No time like the present.”
“Shall I?”
“If it isn’t a long story.”
“Oh, not five minutes; but there’s a sting at the end of it, for I want you to find the man some work in your office.”
“What are his qualifications?”
“I don’t know. He’s a clerk.”
“How old?”
“Twenty-five, perhaps.”
“What’s his name?”
“Bast,” said Margaret, and was about to remind him that they had met at Wickham Place, but stopped herself. It had not been a successful meeting.
“Where was he before?”
“Dempster’s Bank.”
“Why did he leave?” he asked, still remembering nothing.
“They reduced their staff.”
“All right; I’ll see him.”
It was the reward of her tact and devotion through the day. Now she understood why some women prefer influence to rights. Mrs. Plynlimmon, when condemning suffragettes, had said: “The woman who can’t influence her husband to vote the way she wants ought to be ashamed of herself.” Margaret had winced, but she was influencing Henry now, and though pleased at her little victory, she knew that she had won it by the methods of the harem.
“I should be glad if you took him,” she said, “but I don’t know whether he’s qualified.”
“I’ll do what I can. But, Margaret, this mustn’t be taken as a precedent.”
“No, of course—of course—”
“I can’t fit in your proteges every day. Business would suffer.”
“I can promise you he’s the last. He—he’s rather a special case.”
“Proteges always are.”
She let it stand at that. He rose with a little extra touch of complacency, and held out his hand to help her up. How wide the gulf between Henry as he was and Henry as Helen thought he ought to be! And she herself—hovering as usual between the two, now accepting men as they are, now yearning with her sister for Truth. Love and Truth—their warfare seems eternal. Perhaps the whole visible world rests on it, and if they were one, life itself, like the spirits when Prospero was reconciled to his brother, might vanish into air, into thin air.
“Your protege has made us late,” said he. “The Fussells—will just be starting.”
On the whole she sided with men as they are. Henry would save the Basts as he had saved Howards End, while Helen and her friends were discussing the ethics of salvation. His was a slap-dash method, but the world has been built slap-dash, and the beauty of mountain and river and sunset may be but the varnish with which the unskilled artificer hides his joins. Oniton, like herself, was imperfect. Its apple-trees were stunted, its castle ruinous. It, too, had suffered in the border warfare between the Anglo-Saxon and the Celt, between things as they are and as they ought to be. Once more the west was retreating, once again the orderly stars were dotting the eastern sky. There is certainly no rest for us on the earth. But there is happiness, and as Margaret descended the mound on her lover’s arm, she felt that she was having her share.
To her annoyance, Mrs. Bast was still in the garden; the husband and Helen had left her there to finish her meal while they went to engage rooms. Margaret found this woman repellent. She had felt, when shaking her hand, an overpowering shame. She remembered the motive of her call at Wickham Place, and smelt again odours from the abyss—odours the more disturbing because they were involuntary. For there was no malice in Jacky. There she sat, a piece of cake in one hand, an empty champagne glass in the other, doing no harm to anybody.
“She’s overtired,” Margaret whispered.
“She’s something else,” said Henry. “This won’t do. I can’t have her in my garden in this state.”
“Is she—” Margaret hesitated to add “drunk.” Now that she was going to marry him, he had grown particular. He discountenanced risque conversations now.
Henry went up to the woman. She raised her face, which gleamed in the twilight like a puff-ball.
“Madam, you will be more comfortable at the hotel,” he said sharply.
Jacky replied: “If it isn’t Hen!”
“Ne crois pas que le mari lui ressemble,” apologised Margaret. “Il est tout à fait différent.”
“Henry!” she repeated, quite distinctly.
Mr. Wilcox was much annoyed. “I congratulate you on your proteges,” he remarked.
“Hen, don’t go. You do love me, dear, don’t you?”
“Bless us, what a person!” sighed Margaret, gathering up her skirts.
Jacky pointed with her cake. “You’re a nice boy, you are.” She yawned. “There now, I love you.”
“Henry, I am awfully sorry.”
“And pray why?” he asked, and looked at her so sternly that she feared he was ill. He seemed more scandalised than the facts demanded.
“To have brought this down on you.”
“Pray don’t apologise.”
The voice continued.
“Why does she call you ‘Hen’?” said Margaret innocently. “Has she ever seen you before?”
“Seen Hen before!” said Jacky. “Who hasn’t seen Hen? He’s serving you like me, my boys! You wait—Still we love ’em.”
“Are you now satisfied?” Henry asked.
Margaret began to grow frightened. “I don’t know what it is all about,” she said. “Let’s come in.”
But he thought she was acting. He thought he was trapped. He saw his whole life crumbling. “Don’t you indeed?” he said bitingly. “I do. Allow me to congratulate you on the success of your plan.”
“This is Helen’s plan, not mine.”
“I now understand your interest in the Basts. Very well thought out. I am amused at your caution, Margaret. You are quite right—it was necessary. I am a man, and have lived a man’s past. I have the honour to release you from your engagement.”
Still she could not understand. She knew of life’s seamy side as a theory; she could not grasp it as a fact. More words from Jacky were necessary—words unequivocal, undenied.
“So that—” burst from her, and she went indoors. She stopped herself from saying more.
“So what?” asked Colonel Fussell, who was getting ready to start in the hall.
“We were saying—Henry and I were just having the fiercest argument, my point being—” Seizing his fur coat from a footman, she offered to help him on. He protested, and there was a playful little scene.
“No, let me do that,” said Henry, following.
“Thanks so much! You see—he has forgiven me!”
The Colonel said gallantly: “I don’t expect there’s much to forgive.”
He got into the car. The ladies followed him after an interval. Maids, courier, and heavier luggage had been sent on earlier by the branch-line. Still chattering, still thanking their host and patronising their future hostess, the guests were borne away.
Then Margaret continued: “So that woman has been your mistress?”
“You put it with your usual delicacy,” he replied.
“When, please?”
“Why?”
“When, please?”
“Ten years ago.”
She left him without a word. For it was not her tragedy; it was Mrs. Wilcox’s.