Far different was Leonard's development. The months after
Oniton, whatever minor troubles they might bring him, were
all overshadowed by Remorse. When Helen looked back she
could philosophize, or she could look into the future and
plan for her child. But the father saw nothing beyond his
own sin. Weeks afterwards, in the midst of other
occupations, he would suddenly cry out, "Brute--you brute, I
couldn't have--" and be rent into two people who held
dialogues. Or brown rain would descend, blotting out faces
and the sky. Even Jacky noticed the change in him. Most
terrible were his sufferings when he awoke from sleep.
Sometimes he was happy at first, but grew conscious of a
burden hanging to him and weighing down his thoughts when
they would move. Or little irons scorched his body. Or a
sword stabbed him. He would sit at the edge of his bed,
holding his heart and moaning, "Oh what SHALL I do, whatever
SHALL I do?" Nothing brought ease. He could put distance
between him and the trespass, but it grew in his soul.
Remorse is not among the eternal verities. The Greeks
were right to dethrone her. Her action is too capricious,
as though the Erinyes selected for punishment only certain
men and certain sins. And of all means to regeneration
Remorse is surely the most wasteful. It cuts away healthy
tissues with the poisoned. It is a knife that probes far
deeper than the evil. Leonard was driven straight through
its torments and emerged pure, but enfeebled--a better man,
who would never lose control of himself again, but also a
smaller, who had less to control. Nor did purity mean
peace. The use of the knife can become a habit as hard to
shake off as passion itself, and Leonard continued to start
with a cry out of dreams.
He built up a situation that was far enough from the
truth. It never occurred to him that Helen was to blame.
He forgot the intensity of their talk, the charm that had
been lent him by sincerity, the magic of Oniton under
darkness and of the whispering river. Helen loved the
absolute. Leonard had been ruined absolutely, and had
appeared to her as a man apart, isolated from the world. A
real man, who cared for adventure and beauty, who desired to
live decently and pay his way, who could have travelled more
gloriously through life than the Juggernaut car that was
crushing him. Memories of Evie's wedding had warped her,
the starched servants, the yards of uneaten food, the rustle
of overdressed women, motor-cars oozing grease on the
gravel, rubbish on a pretentious band. She had tasted the
lees of this on her arrival: in the darkness, after failure,
they intoxicated her. She and the victim seemed alone in a
world of unreality, and she loved him absolutely, perhaps
for half an hour.
In the morning she was gone. The note that she left,
tender and hysterical in tone, and intended to be most kind,
hurt her lover terribly. It was as if some work of art had
been broken by him, some picture in the National Gallery
slashed out of its frame. When he recalled her talents and
her social position, he felt that the first passerby had a
right to shoot him down. He was afraid of the waitress and
the porters at the railway-station. He was afraid at first
of his wife, though later he was to regard her with a
strange new tenderness, and to think, "There is nothing to
choose between us, after all."
The expedition to Shropshire crippled the Basts
permanently. Helen in her flight forgot to settle the hotel
bill, and took their return tickets away with her; they had
to pawn Jacky's bangles to get home, and the smash came a
few days afterwards. It is true that Helen offered him five
thousands pounds, but such a sum meant nothing to him. He
could not see that the girl was desperately righting
herself, and trying to save something out of the disaster,
if it was only five thousand pounds. But he had to live
somehow. He turned to his family, and degraded himself to a
professional beggar. There was nothing else for him to do.
"A letter from Leonard," thought Blanche, his sister;
"and after all this time." She hid it, so that her husband
should not see, and when he had gone to his work read it
with some emotion, and sent the prodigal a little money out
of her dress allowance.
"A letter from Leonard!" said the other sister, Laura, a
few days later. She showed it to her husband. He wrote a
cruel insolent reply, but sent more money than Blanche, so
Leonard soon wrote to him again.
And during the winter the system was developed. Leonard
realized that they need never starve, because it would be
too painful for his relatives. Society is based on the
family, and the clever wastrel can exploit this
indefinitely. Without a generous thought on either side,
pounds and pounds passed. The donors disliked Leonard, and
he grew to hate them intensely. When Laura censured his
immoral marriage, he thought bitterly, "She minds that!
What would she say if she knew the truth?" When Blanche's
husband offered him work, he found some pretext for avoiding
it. He had wanted work keenly at Oniton, but too much
anxiety had shattered him; he was joining the unemployable.
When his brother, the lay-reader, did not reply to a letter,
he wrote again, saying that he and Jacky would come down to
his village on foot. He did not intend this as blackmail.
Still, the brother sent a postal order, and it became part
of the system. And so passed his winter and his spring.
In the horror there are two bright spots. He never
confused the past. He remained alive, and blessed are those
who live, if it is only to a sense of sinfulness. The
anodyne of muddledom, by which most men blur and blend their
mistakes, never passed Leonard's lips--
And if I drink oblivion of a day,
So shorten I the stature of my soul.
It is a hard saying, and a hard man wrote it, but it
lies at the foot of all character.
And the other bright spot was his tenderness for Jacky.
He pitied her with nobility now--not the contemptuous pity
of a man who sticks to a woman through thick and thin. He
tried to be less irritable. He wondered what her hungry
eyes desired--nothing that she could express, or that he or
any man could give her. Would she ever receive the justice
that is mercy--the justice for by-products that the world is
too busy to bestow? She was fond of flowers, generous with
money, and not revengeful. If she had borne him a child he
might have cared for her. Unmarried, Leonard would never
have begged; he would have flickered out and died. But the
whole of life is mixed. He had to provide for Jacky, and
went down dirty paths that she might have a few feathers and
dishes of food that suited her.
One day he caught sight of Margaret and her brother. He
was in St. Paul's. He had entered the cathedral partly to
avoid the rain and partly to see a picture that had educated
him in former years. But the light was bad, the picture ill
placed, and Time and Judgment were inside him now. Death
alone still charmed him, with her lap of poppies, on which
all men shall sleep. He took one glance, and turned
aimlessly away towards a chair. Then down the nave he saw
Miss Schlegel and her brother. They stood in the fairway of
passengers, and their faces were extremely grave. He was
perfectly certain that they were in trouble about their sister.
Once outside--and he fled immediately--he wished that he
had spoken to them. What was his life? What were a few
angry words, or even imprisonment? He had done wrong--that
was the true terror. Whatever they might know, he would
tell them everything he knew. He re-entered St. Paul's.
But they had moved in his absence, and had gone to lay their
difficulties before Mr. Wilcox and Charles.
The sight of Margaret turned remorse into new channels.
He desired to confess, and though the desire is proof of a
weakened nature, which is about to lose the essence of human
intercourse, it did not take an ignoble form. He did not
suppose that confession would bring him happiness. It was
rather that he yearned to get clear of the tangle. So does
the suicide yearn. The impulses are akin, and the crime of
suicide lies rather in its disregard for the feelings of
those whom we leave behind. Confession need harm no one--it
can satisfy that test--and though it was un-English, and
ignored by our Anglican cathedral, Leonard had a right to
decide upon it.
Moreover, he trusted Margaret. He wanted her hardness
now. That cold, intellectual nature of hers would be just,
if unkind. He would do whatever she told him, even if he
had to see Helen. That was the supreme punishment she would
exact. And perhaps she would tell him how Helen was. That
was the supreme reward.
He knew nothing about Margaret, not even whether she was
married to Mr. Wilcox, and tracking her out took several
days. That evening he toiled through the wet to Wickham
Place, where the new flats were now appearing. Was he also
the cause of their move? Were they expelled from society on
his account? Thence to a public library, but could find no
satisfactory Schlegel in the directory. On the morrow he
searched again. He hung about outside Mr. Wilcox's office
at lunch time, and, as the clerks came out said: "Excuse me,
sir, but is your boss married?" Most of them stared, some
said, "What's that to you?" but one, who had not yet
acquired reticence, told him what he wished. Leonard could
not learn the private address. That necessitated more
trouble with directories and tubes. Ducie Street was not
discovered till the Monday, the day that Margaret and her
husband went down on their hunting expedition to Howards End.
He called at about four o'clock. The weather had
changed, and the sun shone gaily on the ornamental
steps--black and white marble in triangles. Leonard lowered
his eyes to them after ringing the bell. He felt in curious
health: doors seemed to be opening and shutting inside his
body, and he had been obliged to steep sitting up in bed,
with his back propped against the wall. When the
parlourmaid came he could not see her face; the brown rain
had descended suddenly.
"Does Mrs. Wilcox live here?" he asked.
"She's out," was the answer.
"When will she be back?"
"I'll ask," said the parlourmaid.
Margaret had given instructions that no one who
mentioned her name should ever be rebuffed. Putting the
door on the chain--for Leonard's appearance demanded
this--she went through to the smoking-room, which was
occupied by Tibby. Tibby was asleep. He had had a good
lunch. Charles Wilcox had not yet rung him up for the
distracting interview. He said drowsily: "I don't know.
Hilton. Howards End. Who is it?"
"I'll ask, sir."
"No, don't bother."
"They have taken the car to Howards End," said the
parlourmaid to Leonard.
He thanked her, and asked whereabouts that place was.
"You appear to want to know a good deal," she remarked.
But Margaret had forbidden her to be mysterious. She told
him against her better judgment that Howards End was in
Hertfordshire.
"Is it a village, please?"
"Village! It's Mr. Wilcox's private house--at least,
it's one of them. Mrs. Wilcox keeps her furniture there.
Hilton is the village."
"Yes. And when will they be back?"
"Mr. Schlegel doesn't know. We can't know everything,
can we?" She shut him out, and went to attend to the
telephone, which was ringing furiously.
He loitered away another night of agony. Confession
grew more difficult. As soon as possible he went to bed.
He watched a patch of moonlight cross the floor of their
lodging, and, as sometimes happens when the mind is
overtaxed, he fell asleep for the rest of the room, but kept
awake for the patch of moonlight. Horrible! Then began one
of those disintegrating dialogues. Part of him said: "Why
horrible? It's ordinary light from the room." "But it
moves." "So does the moon." "But it is a clenched fist."
"Why not?" "But it is going to touch me." "Let it." And,
seeming to gather motion, the patch ran up his blanket.
Presently a blue snake appeared; then another, parallel to
it. "Is there life in the moon?" "Of course." "But I
thought it was uninhabited." "Not by Time, Death, Judgment,
and the smaller snakes." "Smaller snakes!" said Leonard
indignantly and aloud. "What a notion!" By a rending
effort of the will he woke the rest of the room up. Jacky,
the bed, their food, their clothes on the chair, gradually
entered his consciousness, and the horror vanished outwards,
like a ring that is spreading through water.
"I say, Jacky, I'm going out for a bit."
She was breathing regularly. The patch of light fell
clear of the striped blanket, and began to cover the shawl
that lay over her feet. Why had he been afraid? He went to
the window, and saw that the moon was descending through a
clear sky. He saw her volcanoes, and the bright expanses
that a gracious error has named seas. They paled, for the
sun, who had lit them up, was coming to light the earth.
Sea of Serenity, Sea of Tranquillity, Ocean of the Lunar
Storms, merged into one lucent drop, itself to slip into the
sempiternal dawn. And he had been afraid of the moon!
He dressed among the contending lights, and went through
his money. It was running low again, but enough for a
return ticket to Hilton. As it clinked Jacky opened her eyes.
"Hullo, Len! What ho, Len!"
"What ho, Jacky! see you again later."
She turned over and slept.
The house was unlocked, their landlord being a salesman
at Convent Garden. Leonard passed out and made his way down
to the station. The train, though it did not start for an
hour, was already drawn up at the end of the platform, and
he lay down in it and slept. With the first jolt he was in
daylight; they had left the gateways of King's Cross, and
were under blue sky. Tunnels followed, and after each the
sky grew bluer, and from the embankment at Finsbury Park he
had his first sight of the sun. It rolled along behind the
eastern smokes--a wheel, whose fellow was the descending
moon--and as yet it seemed the servant of the blue sky, not
its lord. He dozed again. Over Tewin Water it was day. To
the left fell the shadow of the embankment and its arches;
to the right Leonard saw up into the Tewin Woods and towards
the church, with its wild legend of immortality. Six forest
trees--that is a fact--grow out of one of the graves in
Tewin churchyard. The grave's occupant--that is the
legend--is an atheist, who declared that if God existed, six
forest trees would grow out of her grave. These things in
Hertfordshire; and farther afield lay the house of a
hermit--Mrs. Wilcox had known him--who barred himself up,
and wrote prophecies, and gave all he had to the poor.
While, powdered in between, were the villas of business men,
who saw life more steadily, though with the steadiness of
the half-closed eye. Over all the sun was streaming, to all
the birds were singing, to all the primroses were yellow,
and the speedwell blue, and the country, however they
interpreted her, was uttering her cry of "now." She did not
free Leonard yet, and the knife plunged deeper into his
heart as the train drew up at Hilton. But remorse had
become beautiful.
Hilton was asleep, or at the earliest, breakfasting.
Leonard noticed the contrast when he stepped out of it into
the country. Here men had been up since dawn. Their hours
were ruled, not by a London office, but by the movements of
the crops and the sun. That they were men of the finest
type only the sentimentalist can declare. But they kept to
the life of daylight. They are England's hope. Clumsily
they carry forward the torch of the sun, until such time as
the nation sees fit to take it up. Half clodhopper, half
board-school prig, they can still throw back to a nobler
stock, and breed yeomen.
At the chalk pit a motor passed him. In it was another
type, whom Nature favours--the Imperial. Healthy, ever in
motion, it hopes to inherit the earth. It breeds as quickly
as the yeoman, and as soundly; strong is the temptation to
acclaim it as a super-yeoman, who carries his country's
virtue overseas. But the Imperialist is not what he thinks
or seems. He is a destroyer. He prepares the way for
cosmopolitanism, and though his ambitions may be fulfilled,
the earth that he inherits will be grey.
To Leonard, intent on his private sin, there came the
conviction of innate goodness elsewhere. It was not the
optimism which he had been taught at school. Again and
again must the drums tap, and the goblins stalk over the
universe before joy can be purged of the superficial. It
was rather paradoxical, and arose from his sorrow. Death
destroys a man, but the idea of death saves him--that is the
best account of it that has yet been given. Squalor and
tragedy can beckon to all that is great in us, and
strengthen the wings of love. They can beckon; it is not
certain that they will, for they are not love's servants.
But they can beckon, and the knowledge of this incredible
truth comforted him.
As he approached the house all thought stopped.
Contradictory notions stood side by side in his mind. He
was terrified but happy, ashamed, but had done no sin. He
knew the confession: "Mrs. Wilcox, I have done wrong," but
sunrise had robbed its meaning, and he felt rather on a
supreme adventure.
He entered a garden, steadied himself against a
motor-car that he found in it, found a door open and entered
a house. Yes, it would be very easy. From a room to the
left he heard voices, Margaret's amongst them. His own name
was called aloud, and a man whom he had never seen said,
"Oh, is he there? I am not surprised. I now thrash him
within an inch of his life."
"Mrs. Wilcox," said Leonard, "I have done wrong."
The man took him by the collar and cried, "Bring me a
stick." Women were screaming. A stick, very bright,
descended. It hurt him, not where it descended, but in the
heart. Books fell over him in a shower. Nothing had sense.
"Get some water," commanded Charles, who had all through
kept very calm. "He's shamming. Of course I only used the
blade. Here, carry him out into the air."
Thinking that he understood these things, Margaret
obeyed him. They laid Leonard, who was dead, on the gravel;
Helen poured water over him.
"That's enough," said Charles.
"Yes, murder's enough," said Miss Avery, coming out of
the house with the sword.
