One may as well begin with Helen's letters to her sister.
HOWARDS END,
TUESDAY.
Dearest Meg,
It isn't going to be what we expected. It is old and
little, and altogether delightful--red brick. We can
scarcely pack in as it is, and the dear knows what will
happen when Paul (younger son) arrives tomorrow. From hall
you go right or left into dining-room or drawing-room. Hall
itself is practically a room. You open another door in it,
and there are the stairs going up in a sort of tunnel to the
first-floor. Three bedrooms in a row there, and three
attics in a row above. That isn't all the house really, but
it's all that one notices--nine windows as you look up from
the front garden.
Then there's a very big wych-elm--to the left as you
look up--leaning a little over the house, and standing on
the boundary between the garden and meadow. I quite love
that tree already. Also ordinary elms, oaks--no nastier
than ordinary oaks--pear-trees, apple-trees, and a vine. No
silver birches, though. However, I must get on to my host
and hostess. I only wanted to show that it isn't the least
what we expected. Why did we settle that their house would
be all gables and wiggles, and their garden all
gamboge-coloured paths? I believe simply because we
associate them with expensive hotels--Mrs. Wilcox trailing
in beautiful dresses down long corridors, Mr. Wilcox
bullying porters, etc. We females are that unjust.
I shall be back Saturday; will let you know train
later. They are as angry as I am that you did not come too;
really Tibby is too tiresome, he starts a new mortal disease
every month. How could he have got hay fever in London?
and even if he could, it seems hard that you should give up
a visit to hear a schoolboy sneeze. Tell him that Charles
Wilcox (the son who is here) has hay fever too, but he's
brave, and gets quite cross when we inquire after it. Men
like the Wilcoxes would do Tibby a power of good. But you
won't agree, and I'd better change the subject.
This long letter is because I'm writing before
breakfast. Oh, the beautiful vine leaves! The house is
covered with a vine. I looked out earlier, and Mrs. Wilcox
was already in the garden. She evidently loves it. No
wonder she sometimes looks tired. She was watching the
large red poppies come out. Then she walked off the lawn to
the meadow, whose corner to the right I can just see.
Trail, trail, went her long dress over the sopping grass,
and she came back with her hands full of the hay that was
cut yesterday--I suppose for rabbits or something, as she
kept on smelling it. The air here is delicious. Later on I
heard the noise of croquet balls, and looked out again, and
it was Charles Wilcox practising; they are keen on all
games. Presently he started sneezing and had to stop. Then
I hear more clicketing, and it is Mr. Wilcox practising, and
then, 'a-tissue, a-tissue': he has to stop too. Then Evie
comes out, and does some calisthenic exercises on a machine
that is tacked on to a greengage-tree--they put everything
to use--and then she says 'a-tissue,' and in she goes. And
finally Mrs. Wilcox reappears, trail, trail, still smelling
hay and looking at the flowers. I inflict all this on you
because once you said that life is sometimes life and
sometimes only a drama, and one must learn to distinguish
t'other from which, and up to now I have always put that
down as 'Meg's clever nonsense.' But this morning, it really
does seem not life but a play, and it did amuse me
enormously to watch the W's. Now Mrs. Wilcox has come in.
I am going to wear [omission]. Last night Mrs. Wilcox
wore an [omission], and Evie [omission]. So it isn't
exactly a go-as-you-please place, and if you shut your eyes
it still seems the wiggly hotel that we expected. Not if
you open them. The dog-roses are too sweet. There is a
great hedge of them over the lawn--magnificently tall, so
that they fall down in garlands, and nice and thin at the
bottom, so that you can see ducks through it and a cow.
These belong to the farm, which is the only house near us.
There goes the breakfast gong. Much love. Modified love to
Tibby. Love to Aunt Juley; how good of her to come and keep
you company, but what a bore. Burn this. Will write again
Thursday.
Helen
HOWARDS END,
FRIDAY.
Dearest Meg,
I am having a glorious time. I like them all. Mrs.
Wilcox, if quieter than in Germany, is sweeter than ever,
and I never saw anything like her steady unselfishness, and
the best of it is that the others do not take advantage of
her. They are the very happiest, jolliest family that you
can imagine. I do really feel that we are making friends.
The fun of it is that they think me a noodle, and say so--at
least Mr. Wilcox does--and when that happens, and one
doesn't mind, it's a pretty sure test, isn't it? He says
the most horrid things about women's suffrage so nicely, and
when I said I believed in equality he just folded his arms
and gave me such a setting down as I've never had. Meg,
shall we ever learn to talk less? I never felt so ashamed
of myself in my life. I couldn't point to a time when men
had been equal, nor even to a time when the wish to be equal
had made them happier in other ways. I couldn't say a
word. I had just picked up the notion that equality is good
from some book--probably from poetry, or you. Anyhow, it's
been knocked into pieces, and, like all people who are
really strong, Mr. Wilcox did it without hurting me. On the
other hand, I laugh at them for catching hay fever. We live
like fighting-cocks, and Charles takes us out every day in
the motor--a tomb with trees in it, a hermit's house, a
wonderful road that was made by the Kings of
Mercia--tennis--a cricket match--bridge--and at night we
squeeze up in this lovely house. The whole clan's here
now--it's like a rabbit warren. Evie is a dear. They want
me to stop over Sunday--I suppose it won't matter if I do.
Marvellous weather and the view's marvellous--views westward
to the high ground. Thank you for your letter. Burn this.
Your affectionate
Helen
HOWARDS END,
SUNDAY.
Dearest, dearest Meg,--I do not know what you will say:
Paul and I are in love--the younger son who only came here
Wednesday.
