บทที่ บทที่ 23 · Margaret had no intention of letting things slide, and the evening

. 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.