บทที่ บทที่ 9 · Mrs. Wilcox cannot be accused of giving Margaret much information about

. 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 Böcklin or my

veterinary surgeon. ‘Oh, Böcklin,’ they say; ‘he strains after beauty,

he peoples Nature with gods too consciously.’ Of course Böcklin

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 Prussia” 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.