Mrs. Wilcox cannot be accused of giving Margaret much
information about life. And Margaret, on the other hand,
has made a fair show of modesty, and has pretended to an
inexperience that she certainly did not feel. She had kept
house for over ten years; she had entertained, almost with
distinction; she had brought up a charming sister, and was
bringing up a brother. Surely, if experience is attainable,
she had attained it.
Yet the little luncheon-party that she gave in Mrs.
Wilcox's honour was not a success. The new friend did not
blend with the "one or two delightful people" who had been
asked to meet her, and the atmosphere was one of polite
bewilderment. Her tastes were simple, her knowledge of
culture slight, and she was not interested in the New
English Art Club, nor in the dividing-line between
Journalism and Literature, which was started as a
conversational hare. The delightful people darted after it
with cries of joy, Margaret leading them, and not till the
meal was half over did they realize that the principal guest
had taken no part in the chase. There was no common topic.
Mrs. Wilcox, whose life had been spent in the service of
husband and sons, had little to say to strangers who had
never shared it, and whose age was half her own. Clever
talk alarmed her, and withered her delicate imaginings; it
was the social; counterpart of a motorcar, all jerks, and
she was a wisp of hay, a flower. Twice she deplored the
weather, twice criticized the train service on the Great
Northern Railway. They vigorously assented, and rushed on,
and when she inquired whether there was any news of Helen,
her hostess was too much occupied in placing Rothenstein to
answer. The question was repeated: "I hope that your sister
is safe in Germany by now." Margaret checked herself and
said, "Yes, thank you; I heard on Tuesday." But the demon of
vociferation was in her, and the next moment she was off again.
"Only on Tuesday, for they live right away at Stettin.
Did you ever know any one living at Stettin?"
"Never," said Mrs. Wilcox gravely, while her neighbour,
a young man low down in the Education Office, began to
discuss what people who lived at Stettin ought to look
like. Was there such a thing as Stettininity? Margaret
swept on.
"People at Stettin drop things into boats out of
overhanging warehouses. At least, our cousins do, but
aren't particularly rich. The town isn't interesting,
except for a clock that rolls its eyes, and the view of the
Oder, which truly is something special. Oh, Mrs. Wilcox,
you would love the Oder! The river, or rather rivers--there
seem to be dozens of them--are intense blue, and the plain
they run through an intensest green."
"Indeed! That sounds like a most beautiful view, Miss Schlegel."
"So I say, but Helen, who will muddle things, says no,
it's like music. The course of the Oder is to be like
music. It's obliged to remind her of a symphonic poem. The
part by the landing-stage is in B minor, if I remember
rightly, but lower down things get extremely mixed. There
is a slodgy theme in several keys at once, meaning
mud-banks, and another for the navigable canal, and the exit
into the Baltic is in C sharp major, pianissimo."
"What do the overhanging warehouses make of that?" asked
the man, laughing.
"They make a great deal of it," replied Margaret,
unexpectedly rushing off on a new track. "I think it's
affectation to compare the Oder to music, and so do you, but
the overhanging warehouses of Stettin take beauty seriously,
which we don't, and the average Englishman doesn't, and
despises all who do. Now don't say 'Germans have no taste,'
or I shall scream. They haven't. But--but--such a
tremendous but! --they take poetry seriously. They do take
poetry seriously.
"Is anything gained by that?"
"Yes, yes. The German is always on the lookout for
beauty. He may miss it through stupidity, or misinterpret
it, but he is always asking beauty to enter his life, and I
believe that in the end it will come. At Heidelberg I met a
fat veterinary surgeon whose voice broke with sobs as he
repeated some mawkish poetry. So easy for me to laugh--I,
who never repeat poetry, good or bad, and cannot remember
one fragment of verse to thrill myself with. My blood
boils--well, I'm half German, so put it down to
patriotism--when I listen to the tasteful contempt of the
average islander for things Teutonic, whether they're
Bocklin or my veterinary surgeon. 'Oh, Bocklin,' they say;
'he strains after beauty, he peoples Nature with gods too
consciously.' Of course Bocklin strains, because he wants
something--beauty and all the other intangible gifts that
are floating about the world. So his landscapes don't come
off, and Leader's do."
"I am not sure that I agree. Do you?" said he, turning
to Mrs. Wilcox.
She replied: "I think Miss Schlegel puts everything
splendidly"; and a chill fell on the conversation.
"Oh, Mrs. Wilcox, say something nicer than that. It's
such a snub to be told you put things splendidly. "
"I do not mean it as a snub. Your last speech
interested me so much. Generally people do not seem quite
to like Germany. I have long wanted to hear what is said on
the other side."
"The other side? Then you do disagree. Oh, good! Give
us your side."
"I have no side. But my husband"--her voice softened,
the chill increased--"has very little faith in the
Continent, and our children have all taken after him."
"On what grounds? Do they feel that the Continent is in
bad form?"
Mrs. Wilcox had no idea; she paid little attention to
grounds. She was not intellectual, nor even alert, and it
was odd that, all the same, she should give the idea of
greatness. Margaret, zigzagging with her friends over
Thought and Art, was conscious of a personality that
transcended their own and dwarfed their activities. There
was no bitterness in Mrs. Wilcox; there was not even
criticism; she was lovable, and no ungracious or
uncharitable word had passed her lips. Yet she and daily
life were out of focus: one or the other must show blurred.
And at lunch she seemed more out of focus than usual, and
nearer the line that divides life from a life that may be of
greater importance.
"You will admit, though, that the Continent--it seems
silly to speak of 'the Continent,' but really it is all more
like itself than any part of it is like England. England is
unique. Do have another jelly first. I was going to say
that the Continent, for good or for evil, is interested in
ideas. Its Literature and Art have what one might call the
kink of the unseen about them, and this persists even
through decadence and affectation. There is more liberty of
action in England, but for liberty of thought go to
bureaucratic Prussia. People will there discuss with
humility vital questions that we here think ourselves too
good to touch with tongs."
"I do not want to go to Prussian" said Mrs. Wilcox--"not
even to see that interesting view that you were describing.
And for discussing with humility I am too old. We never
discuss anything at Howards End."
"Then you ought to!" said Margaret. "Discussion keeps a
house alive. It cannot stand by bricks and mortar alone."
"It cannot stand without them," said Mrs. Wilcox,
unexpectedly catching on to the thought, and rousing, for
the first and last time, a faint hope in the breasts of the
delightful people. "It cannot stand without them, and I
sometimes think--But I cannot expect your generation to
agree, for even my daughter disagrees with me here."
"Never mind us or her. Do say!"
"I sometimes think that it is wiser to leave action and
discussion to men."
There was a little silence.
"One admits that the arguments against the suffrage are
extraordinarily strong," said a girl opposite, leaning
forward and crumbling her bread.
"Are they? I never follow any arguments. I am only too
thankful not to have a vote myself."
"We didn't mean the vote, though, did we?" supplied
Margaret. "Aren't we differing on something much wider,
Mrs. Wilcox? Whether women are to remain what they have
been since the dawn of history; or whether, since men have
moved forward so far, they too may move forward a little
now. I say they may. I would even admit a biological change."
"I don't know, I don't know."
"I must be getting back to my overhanging warehouse,"
said the man. "They've turned disgracefully strict.
Mrs. Wilcox also rose.
"Oh, but come upstairs for a little. Miss Quested
plays. Do you like MacDowell? Do you mind him only having
two noises? If you must really go, I'll see you out. Won't
you even have coffee?"
They left the dining-room, closing the door behind them,
and as Mrs. Wilcox buttoned up her jacket, she said: "What
an interesting life you all lead in London!"
"No, we don't," said Margaret, with a sudden revulsion.
"We lead the lives of gibbering monkeys. Mrs.
Wilcox--really--We have something quiet and stable at the
bottom. We really have. All my friends have. Don't
pretend you enjoyed lunch, for you loathed it, but forgive
me by coming again, alone, or by asking me to you."
"I am used to young people," said Mrs. Wilcox, and with
each word she spoke the outlines of known things grew dim.
"I hear a great deal of chatter at home, for we, like you,
entertain a great deal. With us it is more sport and
politics, but--I enjoyed my lunch very much, Miss Schlegel,
dear, and am not pretending, and only wish I could have
joined in more. For one thing, I'm not particularly well
just today. For another, you younger people move so quickly
that it dazes me. Charles is the same, Dolly the same. But
we are all in the same boat, old and young. I never forget that."
They were silent for a moment. Then, with a newborn
emotion, they shook hands. The conversation ceased suddenly
when Margaret re-entered the dining-room: her friends had
been talking over her new friend, and had dismissed her as
uninteresting.
