Margaret had no intention of letting things slide, and the
evening before she left Swanage she gave her sister a
thorough scolding. She censured her, not for disapproving
of the engagement, but for throwing over her disapproval a
veil of mystery. Helen was equally frank. "Yes," she said,
with the air of one looking inwards, "there is a mystery. I
can't help it. It's not my fault. It's the way life has
been made." Helen in those days was over-interested in the
subconscious self. She exaggerated the Punch and Judy
aspect of life, and spoke of mankind as puppets, whom an
invisible showman twitches into love and war. Margaret
pointed out that if she dwelt on this she, too, would
eliminate the personal. Helen was silent for a minute, and
then burst into a queer speech, which cleared the air. "Go
on and marry him. I think you're splendid; and if anyone
can pull it off, you will." Margaret denied that there was
anything to "pull off," but she continued: "Yes, there is,
and I wasn't up to it with Paul. I can only do what's
easy. I can only entice and be enticed. I can't, and won't
attempt difficult relations. If I marry, it will either be
a man who's strong enough to boss me or whom I'm strong
enough to boss. So I shan't ever marry, for there aren't
such men. And Heaven help any one whom I do marry, for I
shall certainly run away from him before you can say 'Jack
Robinson.' There! Because I'm uneducated. But you, you're
different; you're a heroine."
"Oh, Helen! Am I? Will it be as dreadful for poor
Henry as all that?"
"You mean to keep proportion, and that's heroic, it's
Greek, and I don't see why it shouldn't succeed with you.
Go on and fight with him and help him. Don't ask ME for
help, or even for sympathy. Henceforward I'm going my own
way. I mean to be thorough, because thoroughness is easy.
I mean to dislike your husband, and to tell him so. I mean
to make no concessions to Tibby. If Tibby wants to live
with me, he must lump me. I mean to love YOU more than
ever. Yes, I do. You and I have built up something real,
because it is purely spiritual. There's no veil of mystery
over us. Unreality and mystery begin as soon as one touches
the body. The popular view is, as usual, exactly the wrong
one. Our bothers are over tangible things--money, husbands,
house-hunting. But Heaven will work of itself."
Margaret was grateful for this expression of affection,
and answered, "Perhaps." All vistas close in the unseen--no
one doubts it--but Helen closed them rather too quickly for
her taste. At every turn of speech one was confronted with
reality and the absolute. Perhaps Margaret grew too old for
metaphysics, perhaps Henry was weaning her from them, but
she felt that there was something a little unbalanced in the
mind that so readily shreds the visible. The business man
who assumes that this life is everything, and the mystic who
asserts that it is nothing, fail, on this side and on that,
to hit the truth. "Yes, I see, dear; it's about halfway
between," Aunt Juley had hazarded in earlier years. No;
truth, being alive, was not halfway between anything. It
was only to be found by continuous excursions into either
realm, and though proportion is the final secret, to espouse
it at the outset is to insure sterility.
Helen, agreeing here, disagreeing there, would have
talked till midnight, but Margaret, with her packing to do,
focussed the conversation on Henry. She might abuse Henry
behind his back, but please would she always, be civil to
him in company? "I definitely dislike him, but I'll do what
I can," promised Helen. "Do what you can with my friends in
return."
This conversation made Margaret easier. Their inner
life was so safe that they could bargain over externals in a
way that would have been incredible to Aunt Juley, and
impossible for Tibby or Charles. There are moments when the
inner life actually "pays," when years of self-scrutiny,
conducted for no ulterior motive, are suddenly of practical
use. Such moments are still rare in the West; that they
come at all promises a fairer future. Margaret, though
unable to understand her sister, was assured against
estrangement, and returned to London with a more peaceful mind.
The following morning, at eleven o'clock, she presented
herself at the offices of the Imperial and West African
Rubber Company. She was glad to go there, for Henry had
implied his business rather than described it, and the
formlessness and vagueness that one associates with Africa
had hitherto brooded over the main sources of his wealth.
Not that a visit to the office cleared things up. There was
just the ordinary surface scum of ledgers and polished
counters and brass bars that began and stopped for no
possible reason, of electric-light globes blossoming in
triplets, of little rabbit hutches faced with glass or wire,
of little rabbits. And even when she penetrated to the
inner depths, she found only the ordinary table and Turkey
carpet, and though the map over the fireplace did depict a
helping of West Africa, it was a very ordinary map. Another
map hung opposite, on which the whole continent appeared,
looking like a whale marked out for blubber, and by its side
was a door, shut, but Henry's voice came through it,
dictating a "strong" letter. She might have been at the
Porphyrion, or Dempster's Bank, or her own wine-merchant's.
Everything seems just alike in these days. But perhaps she
was seeing the Imperial side of the company rather than its
West African, and Imperialism always had been one of her
difficulties.
"One minute!" called Mr. Wilcox on receiving her name.
He touched a bell, the effect of which was to produce Charles.
Charles had written his father an adequate letter--more
adequate than Evie's, through which a girlish indignation
throbbed. And he greeted his future stepmother with propriety.
"I hope that my wife--how do you do? --will give you a
decent lunch," was his opening. "I left instructions, but
we live in a rough-and-ready way. She expects you back to
tea, too, after you have had a look at Howards End. I
wonder what you'll think of the place. I wouldn't touch it
with tongs myself. Do sit down! It's a measly little place."
"I shall enjoy seeing it," said Margaret, feeling, for
the first time, shy.
"You'll see it at its worst, for Bryce decamped abroad
last Monday without even arranging for a charwoman to clear
up after him. I never saw such a disgraceful mess. It's
unbelievable. He wasn't in the house a month."
"I've more than a little bone to pick with Bryce,"
called Henry from the inner chamber.
"Why did he go so suddenly?"
"Invalid type; couldn't sleep."
"Poor fellow!"
"Poor fiddlesticks!" said Mr. Wilcox, joining them. "He
had the impudence to put up notice-boards without as much as
saying with your leave or by your leave. Charles flung them
down."
"Yes, I flung them down," said Charles modestly.
"I've sent a telegram after him, and a pretty sharp one,
too. He, and he in person is responsible for the upkeep of
that house for the next three years."
"The keys are at the farm; we wouldn't have the keys."
"Quite right."
"Dolly would have taken them, but I was in, fortunately."
"What's Mr. Bryce like?" asked Margaret.
But nobody cared. Mr. Bryce was the tenant, who had no
right to sublet; to have defined him further was a waste of
time. On his misdeeds they descanted profusely, until the
girl who had been typing the strong letter came out with
it. Mr. Wilcox added his signature. "Now we'll be off,"
said he.
A motor-drive, a form of felicity detested by Margaret,
awaited her. Charles saw them in, civil to the last, and in
a moment the offices of the Imperial and West African Rubber
Company faded away. But it was not an impressive drive.
Perhaps the weather was to blame, being grey and banked high
with weary clouds. Perhaps Hertfordshire is scarcely
intended for motorists. Did not a gentleman once motor so
quickly through Westmoreland that he missed it? and if
Westmoreland can be missed, it will fare ill with a county
whose delicate structure particularly needs the attentive
eye. Hertfordshire is England at its quietest, with little
emphasis of river and hill; it is England meditative. If
Drayton were with us again to write a new edition of his
incomparable poem, he would sing the nymphs of Hertfordshire
as indeterminate of feature, with hair obfuscated by the
London smoke. Their eyes would be sad, and averted from
their fate towards the Northern flats, their leader not Isis
or Sabrina, but the slowly flowing Lea. No glory of raiment
would be theirs, no urgency of dance; but they would be real
nymphs.
The chauffeur could not travel as quickly as he had
hoped, for the Great North Road was full of Easter traffic.
But he went quite quick enough for Margaret, a poor-spirited
creature, who had chickens and children on the brain.
"They're all right," said Mr. Wilcox. "They'll
learn--like the swallows and the telegraph-wires."
"Yes, but, while they're learning--"
"The motor's come to stay," he answered. "One must get
about. There's a pretty church--oh, you aren't sharp
enough. Well, look out, if the road worries you--right
outward at the scenery. "
She looked at the scenery. It heaved and merged like
porridge. Presently it congealed. They had arrived.
Charles's house on the left; on the right the swelling
forms of the Six Hills. Their appearance in such a
neighbourhood surprised her. They interrupted the stream of
residences that was thickening up towards Hilton. Beyond
them she saw meadows and a wood, and beneath them she
settled that soldiers of the best kind lay buried. She
hated war and liked soldiers--it was one of her amiable
inconsistencies.
But here was Dolly, dressed up to the nines, standing at
the door to greet them, and here were the first drops of the
rain. They ran in gaily, and after a long wait in the
drawing-room sat down to the rough-and-ready lunch, every
dish in which concealed or exuded cream. Mr. Bryce was the
chief topic of conversation. Dolly described his visit with
the key, while her father-in-law gave satisfaction by
chaffing her and contradicting all she said. It was
evidently the custom to laugh at Dolly. He chaffed
Margaret, too, and Margaret, roused from a grave meditation,
was pleased, and chaffed him back. Dolly seemed surprised,
and eyed her curiously. After lunch the two children came
down. Margaret disliked babies, but hit it off better with
the two-year-old, and sent Dolly into fits of laughter by
talking sense to him. "Kiss them now, and come away," said
Mr. Wilcox. She came, but refused to kiss them: it was such
hard luck on the little things, she said, and though Dolly
proffered Chorly-worly and Porgly-woggles in turn, she was obdurate.
By this time it was raining steadily. The car came
round with the hood up, and again she lost all sense of
space. In a few minutes they stopped, and Crane opened the
door of the car.
"What's happened?" asked Margaret.
"What do you suppose?" said Henry.
A little porch was close up against her face.
"Are we there already?"
"We are."
"Well, I never! In years ago it seemed so far away."
Smiling, but somehow disillusioned, she jumped out, and
her impetus carried her to the front-door. She was about to
open it, when Henry said: "That's no good; it's locked.
Who's got the key?"
As he had himself forgotten to call for the key at the
farm, no one replied. He also wanted to know who had left
the front gate open, since a cow had strayed in from the
road, and was spoiling the croquet lawn. Then he said
rather crossly: "Margaret, you wait in the dry. I'll go
down for the key. It isn't a hundred yards.
"Mayn't I come too?"
"No; I shall be back before I'm gone."
Then the car turned away, and it was as if a curtain had
risen. For the second time that day she saw the appearance
of the earth.
There were the greengage-trees that Helen had once
described, there the tennis lawn, there the hedge that would
be glorious with dog-roses in June, but the vision now was
of black and palest green. Down by the dell-hole more vivid
colours were awakening, and Lent Lilies stood sentinel on
its margin, or advanced in battalions over the grass.
Tulips were a tray of jewels. She could not see the
wych-elm tree, but a branch of the celebrated vine, studded
with velvet knobs, had covered the porch. She was struck by
the fertility of the soil; she had seldom been in a garden
where the flowers looked so well, and even the weeds she was
idly plucking out of the porch were intensely green. Why
had poor Mr. Bryce fled from all this beauty? For she had
already decided that the place was beautiful.
"Naughty cow! Go away!" cried Margaret to the cow, but
without indignation.
Harder came the rain, pouring out of a windless sky, and
spattering up from the notice-boards of the house-agents,
which lay in a row on the lawn where Charles had hurled
them. She must have interviewed Charles in another
world--where one did have interviews. How Helen would revel
in such a notion! Charles dead, all people dead, nothing
alive but houses and gardens. The obvious dead, the
intangible alive, and--no connection at all between them!
Margaret smiled. Would that her own fancies were as
clear-cut! Would that she could deal as high-handedly with
the world! Smiling and sighing, she laid her hand upon the
door. It opened. The house was not locked up at all.
She hesitated. Ought she to wait for Henry? He felt
strongly about property, and might prefer to show her over
himself. On the other hand, he had told her to keep in the
dry, and the porch was beginning to drip. So she went in,
and the drought from inside slammed the door behind.
Desolation greeted her. Dirty finger-prints were on the
hall-windows, flue and rubbish on its unwashed boards. The
civilization of luggage had been here for a month, and then
decamped. Dining-room and drawing room--right and
left--were guessed only by their wall-papers. They were
just rooms where one could shelter from the rain. Across
the ceiling of each ran a great beam. The dining-room and
hall revealed theirs openly, but the drawing-room's was
match-boarded--because the facts of life must be concealed
from ladies? Drawing-room, dining-room, and hall--how petty
the names sounded! Here were simply three rooms where
children could play and friends shelter from the rain. Yes,
and they were beautiful.
Then she opened one of the doors opposite--there were
two--and exchanged wall-papers for whitewash. It was the
servants' part, though she scarcely realized that: just
rooms again, where friends might shelter. The garden at the
back was full of flowering cherries and plums. Farther on
were hints of the meadow and a black cliff of pines. Yes,
the meadow was beautiful.
Penned in by the desolate weather, she recaptured the
sense of space which the motor had tried to rob from her.
She remembered again that ten square miles are not ten times
as wonderful as one square mile, that a thousand square
miles are not practically the same as heaven. The phantom
of bigness, which London encourages, was laid for ever when
she paced from the hall at Howards End to its kitchen and
heard the rains run this way and that where the watershed of
the roof divided them.
Now Helen came to her mind, scrutinizing half Wessex
from the ridge of the Purbeck Downs, and saying: "You will
have to lose something." She was not so sure. For instance,
she would double her kingdom by opening the door that
concealed the stairs.
Now she thought of the map of Africa; of empires; of her
father; of the two supreme nations, streams of whose life
warmed her blood, but, mingling, had cooled her brain. She
paced back into the hall, and as she did so the house reverberated.
"Is that you, Henry?" she called.
There was no answer, but the house reverberated again.
"Henry, have you got in?"
But it was the heart of the house beating, faintly at
first, then loudly, martially. It dominated the rain.
It is the starved imagination, not the well-nourished,
that is afraid. Margaret flung open the door to the
stairs. A noise as of drums seemed to deafen her. A woman,
an old woman, was descending, with figure erect, with face
impassive, with lips that parted and said dryly:
"Oh! Well, I took you for Ruth Wilcox."
Margaret stammered: "I--Mrs. Wilcox--I?"
"In fancy, of course--in fancy. You had her way of
walking. Good-day." And the old woman passed out into the
rain.
