The Age of Property holds bitter moments even for a
proprietor. When a move is imminent, furniture becomes
ridiculous, and Margaret now lay awake at nights wondering
where, where on earth they and all their belongings would be
deposited in September next. Chairs, tables, pictures,
books, that had rumbled down to them through the
generations, must rumble forward again like a slide of
rubbish to which she longed to give the final push, and send
toppling into the sea. But there were all their father's
books--they never read them, but they were their father's,
and must be kept. There was the marble-topped
chiffonier--their mother had set store by it, they could not
remember why. Round every knob and cushion in the house
sentiment gathered, a sentiment that was at times personal,
but more often a faint piety to the dead, a prolongation of
rites that might have ended at the grave.
It was absurd, if you came to think of it; Helen and
Tibby came to think of it: Margaret was too busy with the
house-agents. The feudal ownership of land did bring
dignity, whereas the modern ownership of movables is
reducing us again to a nomadic horde. We are reverting to
the civilization of luggage, and historians of the future
will note how the middle classes accreted possessions
without taking root in the earth, and may find in this the
secret of their imaginative poverty. The Schlegels were
certainly the poorer for the loss of Wickham Place. It had
helped to balance their lives, and almost to counsel them.
Nor is their ground-landlord spiritually the richer. He has
built flats on its site, his motor-cars grow swifter, his
exposures of Socialism more trenchant. But he has spilt the
precious distillation of the years, and no chemistry of his
can give it back to society again.
Margaret grew depressed; she was anxious to settle on a
house before they left town to pay their annual visit to
Mrs. Munt. She enjoyed this visit, and wanted to have her
mind at ease for it. Swanage, though dull, was stable, and
this year she longed more than usual for its fresh air and
for the magnificent downs that guard it on the north. But
London thwarted her; in its atmosphere she could not
concentrate. London only stimulates, it cannot sustain; and
Margaret, hurrying over its surface for a house without
knowing what sort of a house she wanted, was paying for many
a thrilling sensation in the past. She could not even break
loose from culture, and her time was wasted by concerts
which it would be a sin to miss, and invitations which it
would never do to refuse. At last she grew desperate; she
resolved that she would go nowhere and be at home to no one
until she found a house, and broke the resolution in half an
hour.
Once she had humorously lamented that she had never been
to Simpson's restaurant in the Strand. Now a note arrived
from Miss Wilcox, asking her to lunch there. Mr. Cahill was
coming, and the three would have such a jolly chat, and
perhaps end up at the Hippodrome. Margaret had no strong
regard for Evie, and no desire to meet her fiance, and she
was surprised that Helen, who had been far funnier about
Simpson's, had not been asked instead. But the invitation
touched her by its intimate tone. She must know Evie Wilcox
better than she supposed, and declaring that she "simply
must," she accepted.
But when she saw Evie at the entrance of the restaurant,
staring fiercely at nothing after the fashion of athletic
women, her heart failed her anew. Miss Wilcox had changed
perceptibly since her engagement. Her voice was gruffer,
her manner more downright, and she was inclined to patronize
the more foolish virgin. Margaret was silly enough to be
pained at this. Depressed at her isolation, she saw not
only houses and furniture, but the vessel of life itself
slipping past her, with people like Evie and Mr. Cahill on board.
There are moments when virtue and wisdom fail us, and
one of them came to her at Simpson's in the Strand. As she
trod the staircase, narrow, but carpeted thickly, as she
entered the eating-room, where saddles of mutton were being
trundled up to expectant clergymen, she had a strong, if
erroneous, conviction of her own futility, and wished she
had never come out of her backwater, where nothing happened
except art and literature, and where no one ever got married
or succeeded in remaining engaged. Then came a little
surprise. "Father might be of the party--yes, Father was."
With a smile of pleasure she moved forward to greet him, and
her feeling of loneliness vanished.
"I thought I'd get round if I could," said he. "Evie
told me of her little plan, so I just slipped in and secured
a table. Always secure a table first. Evie, don't pretend
you want to sit by your old father, because you don't. Miss
Schlegel, come in my side, out of pity. My goodness, but
you look tired! Been worrying round after your young clerks?"
"No, after houses," said Margaret, edging past him into
the box. "I'm hungry, not tired; I want to eat heaps."
"That's good. What'll you have?"
"Fish pie," said she, with a glance at the menu.
"Fish pie! Fancy coming for fish pie to Simpson's.
It's not a bit the thing to go for here. "
"Go for something for me, then," said Margaret, pulling
off her gloves. Her spirits were rising, and his reference
to Leonard Bast had warmed her curiously.
"Saddle of mutton," said he after profound reflection:
"and cider to drink. That's the type of thing. I like this
place, for a joke, once in a way. It is so thoroughly Old
English. Don't you agree?"
"Yes," said Margaret, who didn't. The order was given,
the joint rolled up, and the carver, under Mr. Wilcox's
direction, cut the meat where it was succulent, and piled
their plates high. Mr. Cahill insisted on sirloin, but
admitted that he had made a mistake later on. He and Evie
soon fell into a conversation of the "No, I didn't; yes, you
did" type--conversation which, though fascinating to those
who are engaged in it, neither desires nor deserves the
attention of others.
"It's a golden rule to tip the carver. Tip everywhere's
my motto."
"Perhaps it does make life more human."
"Then the fellows know one again. Especially in the
East, if you tip, they remember you from year's end to
year's end.
"Have you been in the East?"
"Oh, Greece and the Levant. I used to go out for sport
and business to Cyprus; some military society of a sort
there. A few piastres, properly distributed, help to keep
one's memory green. But you, of course, think this
shockingly cynical. How's your discussion society getting
on? Any new Utopias lately?"
"No, I'm house-hunting, Mr. Wilcox, as I've already told
you once. Do you know of any houses?"
"Afraid I don't."
"Well, what's the point of being practical if you can't
find two distressed females a house? We merely want a small
house with large rooms, and plenty of them."
"Evie, I like that! Miss Schlegel expects me to turn
house agent for her!"
"What's that, Father?
"I want a new home in September, and someone must find
it. I can't."
"Percy, do you know of anything?"
"I can't say I do," said Mr. Cahill.
"How like you! You're never any good."
"Never any good. Just listen to her! Never any good.
Oh, come!"
"Well, you aren't. Miss Schlegel, is he?"
The torrent of their love, having splashed these drops
at Margaret, swept away on its habitual course. She
sympathized with it now, for a little comfort had restored
her geniality. Speech and silence pleased her equally, and
while Mr. Wilcox made some preliminary inquiries about
cheese, her eyes surveyed the restaurant, and admired its
well-calculated tributes to the solidity of our past.
Though no more Old English than the works of Kipling, it had
selected its reminiscences so adroitly that her criticism
was lulled, and the guests whom it was nourishing for
imperial purposes bore the outer semblance of Parson Adams
or Tom Jones. Scraps of their talk jarred oddly on the
ear. "Right you are! I'll cable out to Uganda this
evening," came from the table behind. "Their Emperor wants
war; well, let him have it," was the opinion of a
clergyman. She smiled at such incongruities. "Next time,"
she said to Mr. Wilcox, "you shall come to lunch with me at
Mr. Eustace Miles's."
"With pleasure."
"No, you'd hate it," she said, pushing her glass towards
him for some more cider. "It's all proteids and
body-buildings, and people come up to you and beg your
pardon, but you have such a beautiful aura."
"A what?"
"Never heard of an aura? Oh, happy, happy man! I scrub
at mine for hours. Nor of an astral plane?"
He had heard of astral planes, and censured them.
"Just so. Luckily it was Helen's aura, not mine, and
she had to chaperone it and do the politenesses. I just sat
with my handkerchief in my mouth till the man went."
"Funny experiences seem to come to you two girls. No
one's ever asked me about my--what d'ye call it? Perhaps
I've not got one."
"You're bound to have one, but it may be such a terrible
colour that no one dares mention it."
"Tell me, though, Miss Schlegel, do you really believe
in the supernatural and all that?"
"Too difficult a question."
"Why's that? Gruyere or Stilton?"
"Gruyere, please."
"Better have Stilton."
"Stilton. Because, though I don't believe in auras, and
think Theosophy's only a halfway-house--"
"--Yet there may be something in it all the same," he
concluded, with a frown.
"Not even that. It may be halfway in the wrong
direction. I can't explain. I don't believe in all these
fads, and yet I don't like saying that I don't believe in them."
He seemed unsatisfied, and said: "So you wouldn't give
me your word that you DON'T hold with astral bodies and all
the rest of it?"
"I could," said Margaret, surprised that the point was
of any importance to him. "Indeed, I will. When I talked
about scrubbing my aura, I was only trying to be funny. But
why do you want this settled?"
"I don't know."
"Now, Mr. Wilcox, you do know."
"Yes, I am," "No, you're not," burst from the lovers
opposite. Margaret was silent for a moment, and then
changed the subject.
"How's your house?"
"Much the same as when you honoured it last week."
"I don't mean Ducie Street. Howards End, of course."
"Why 'of course'?"
"Can't you turn out your tenant and let it to us? We're
nearly demented."
"Let me think. I wish I could help you. But I thought
you wanted to be in town. One bit of advice: fix your
district, then fix your price, and then don't budge. That's
how I got both Ducie Street and Oniton. I said to myself,
'I mean to be exactly here,' and I was, and Oniton's a place
in a thousand."
"But I do budge. Gentlemen seem to mesmerize
houses--cow them with an eye, and up they come, trembling.
Ladies can't. It's the houses that are mesmerizing me.
I've no control over the saucy things. Houses are alive. No?"
"I'm out of my depth," he said, and added: "Didn't you
talk rather like that to your office boy?"
"Did I? --I mean I did, more or less. I talk the same
way to every one--or try to."
"Yes, I know. And how much do you suppose that he
understood of it?"
"That's his lookout. I don't believe in suiting my
conversation to my company. One can doubtless hit upon some
medium of exchange that seems to do well enough, but it's no
more like the real thing than money is like food. There's
no nourishment in it. You pass it to the lower classes, and
they pass it back to you, and this you call 'social
intercourse' or 'mutual endeavour,' when it's mutual
priggishness if it's anything. Our friends at Chelsea don't
see this. They say one ought to be at all costs
intelligible, and sacrifice--"
"Lower classes," interrupted Mr. Wilcox, as it were
thrusting his hand into her speech. "Well, you do admit
that there are rich and poor. That's something."
Margaret could not reply. Was he incredibly stupid, or
did he understand her better than she understood herself?
"You do admit that, if wealth was divided up equally, in
a few years there would be rich and poor again just the
same. The hard-working man would come to the top, the
wastrel sink to the bottom."
"Every one admits that."
"Your Socialists don't."
"My Socialists do. Yours mayn't; but I strongly suspect
yours of being not Socialists, but ninepins, which you have
constructed for your own amusement. I can't imagine any
living creature who would bowl over quite so easily."
He would have resented this had she not been a woman.
But women may say anything--it was one of his holiest
beliefs--and he only retorted, with a gay smile: "I don't
care. You've made two damaging admissions, and I'm heartily
with you in both."
In time they finished lunch, and Margaret, who had
excused herself from the Hippodrome, took her leave. Evie
had scarcely addressed her, and she suspected that the
entertainment had been planned by the father. He and she
were advancing out of their respective families towards a
more intimate acquaintance. It had begun long ago. She had
been his wife's friend, and, as such, he had given her that
silver vinaigrette as a memento. It was pretty of him to
have given that vinaigrette, and he had always preferred her
to Helen--unlike most men. But the advance had been
astonishing lately. They had done more in a week than in
two years, and were really beginning to know each other.
She did not forget his promise to sample Eustace Miles,
and asked him as soon as she could secure Tibby as his
chaperon. He came, and partook of body-building dishes with
humility.
Next morning the Schlegels left for Swanage. They had
not succeeded in finding a new home.
