Chương Chương 19 · If one wanted to show a foreigner England, perhaps the wisest course

. If one wanted to show a foreigner England, perhaps the wisest course

would be to take him to the final section of the Purbeck Hills, and

stand him on their summit, a few miles to the east of Corfe. Then

system after system of our island would roll together under his feet.

Beneath him is the valley of the Frome, and all the wild lands that

come tossing down from Dorchester, black and gold, to mirror their

gorse in the expanses of Poole. The valley of the Stour is beyond,

unaccountable stream, dirty at Blandford, pure at Wimborne—the Stour,

sliding out of fat fields, to marry the Avon beneath the tower of

Christchurch. The valley of the Avon—invisible, but far to the north

the trained eye may see Clearbury Ring that guards it, and the

imagination may leap beyond that on to Salisbury Plain itself, and

beyond the Plain to all the glorious downs of Central England. Nor is

Suburbia absent. Bournemouth’s ignoble coast cowers to the right,

heralding the pine-trees that mean, for all their beauty, red houses,

and the Stock Exchange, and extend to the gates of London itself. So

tremendous is the City’s trail! But the cliffs of Freshwater it shall

never touch, and the island will guard the Island’s purity till the end

of time. Seen from the west, the Wight is beautiful beyond all laws of

beauty. It is as if a fragment of England floated forward to greet the

foreigner—chalk of our chalk, turf of our turf, epitome of what will

follow. And behind the fragment lies Southampton, hostess to the

nations, and Portsmouth, a latent fire, and all around it, with double

and treble collision of tides, swirls the sea. How many villages appear

in this view! How many castles! How many churches, vanished or

triumphant! How many ships, railways, and roads! What incredible

variety of men working beneath that lucent sky to what final end! The

reason fails, like a wave on the Swanage beach; the imagination swells,

spreads, and deepens, until it becomes geographic and encircles

England.

So Frieda Mosebach, now Frau Architect Liesecke, and mother to her

husband’s baby, was brought up to these heights to be impressed, and,

after a prolonged gaze, she said that the hills were more swelling here

than in Pomerania, which was true, but did not seem to Mrs. Munt

apposite. Poole Harbour was dry, which led her to praise the absence of

muddy foreshore at Friedrich Wilhelms Bad, Rügen, where beech-trees

hang over the tideless Baltic, and cows may contemplate the brine.

Rather unhealthy Mrs. Munt thought this would be, water being safer

when it moved about.

“And your English lakes—Vindermere, Grasmere—are they, then,

unhealthy?”

“No, Frau Liesecke; but that is because they are fresh water, and

different. Salt water ought to have tides, and go up and down a great

deal, or else it smells. Look, for instance, at an aquarium.”

“An aquarium! Oh, _Meesis_ Munt, you mean to tell me that fresh

aquariums stink less than salt? Why, when Victor, my brother-in-law,

collected many tadpoles—”

“You are not to say ‘stink,’” interrupted Helen; “at least, you may say

it, but you must pretend you are being funny while you say it.”

“Then ‘smell.’ And the mud of your Pool down there—does it not smell,

or may I say ‘stink, ha, ha’?”

“There always has been mud in Poole Harbour,” said Mrs. Munt, with a

slight frown. “The rivers bring it down, and a most valuable

oyster-fishery depends upon it.”

“Yes, that is so,” conceded Frieda; and another international incident

was closed.

“‘Bournemouth is,’” resumed their hostess, quoting a local rhyme to

which she was much attached—” ‘Bournemouth is, Poole was, and Swanage

is to be the most important town of all and biggest of the three.’ Now,

Frau Liesecke, I have shown you Bournemouth, and I have shown you

Poole, so let us walk backward a little, and look down again at

Swanage.”

“Aunt Juley, wouldn’t that be Meg’s train?”

A tiny puff of smoke had been circling the harbour, and now was bearing

southwards towards them over the black and the gold.

“Oh, dearest Margaret, I do hope she won’t be overtired.”

“Oh, I do wonder—I do wonder whether she’s taken the house.”

“I hope she hasn’t been hasty.”

“So do I—oh, so do I.”

“Will it be as beautiful as Wickham Place?” Frieda asked.

“I should think it would. Trust Mr. Wilcox for doing himself proud. All

those Ducie Street houses are beautiful in their modern way, and I

can’t think why he doesn’t keep on with it. But it’s really for Evie

that he went there, and now that Evie’s going to be married—”

“Ah!”

“You’ve never seen Miss Wilcox, Frieda. How absurdly matrimonial you

are!”

“But sister to that Paul?”

“Yes.”

“And to that Charles,” said Mrs. Munt with feeling. “Oh, Helen, Helen,

what a time that was!”

Helen laughed. “Meg and I haven’t got such tender hearts. If there’s a

chance of a cheap house, we go for it.”

“Now look, Frau Liesecke, at my niece’s train. You see, it is coming

towards us—coming, coming; and, when it gets to Corfe, it will actually

go _through_ the downs, on which we are standing, so that, if we walk

over, as I suggested, and look down on Swanage, we shall see it coming

on the other side. Shall we?”

Frieda assented, and in a few minutes they had crossed the ridge and

exchanged the greater view for the lesser. Rather a dull valley lay

below, backed by the slope of the coastward downs. They were looking

across the Isle of Purbeck and on to Swanage, soon to be the most

important town of all, and ugliest of the three. Margaret’s train

reappeared as promised, and was greeted with approval by her aunt. It

came to a standstill in the middle distance, and there it had been

planned that Tibby should meet her, and drive her, and a tea-basket, up

to join them.

“You see,” continued Helen to her cousin, “the Wilcoxes collect houses

as your Victor collects tadpoles. They have, one, Ducie Street; two,

Howards End, where my great rumpus was; three, a country seat in

Shropshire; four, Charles has a house in Hilton; and five, another near

Epsom; and six, Evie will have a house when she marries, and probably a

pied-à-terre in the country—which makes seven. Oh yes, and Paul a hut

in Africa makes eight. I wish we could get Howards End. That was

something like a dear little house! Didn’t you think so, Aunt Juley?”

“ I had too much to do, dear, to look at it,” said Mrs. Munt, with a

gracious dignity. “I had everything to settle and explain, and Charles

Wilcox to keep in his place besides. It isn’t likely I should remember

much. I just remember having lunch in your bedroom.”

“Yes so do I. But, oh dear, dear, how dead it all seems! And in the

autumn there began this anti-Pauline movement—you, and Frieda, and Meg,

and Mrs. Wilcox, all obsessed with the idea that I might yet marry

Paul.”

“You yet may,” said Frieda despondently.

Helen shook her head. “The Great Wilcox Peril will never return. If I’m

certain of anything it’s of that.”

“One is certain of nothing but the truth of one’s own emotions.”

The remark fell damply on the conversation. But Helen slipped her arm

round her cousin, somehow liking her the better for making it. It was

not an original remark, nor had Frieda appropriated it passionately,

for she had a patriotic rather than a philosophic mind. Yet it betrayed

that interest in the universal which the average Teuton possesses and

the average Englishman does not. It was, however illogically, the good,

the beautiful, the true, as opposed to the respectable, the pretty, the

adequate. It was a landscape of Böcklin’s beside a landscape of

Leader’s, strident and ill-considered, but quivering into supernatural

life. It sharpened idealism, stirred the soul. It may have been a bad

preparation for what followed.

“Look!” cried Aunt Juley, hurrying away from generalities over the

narrow summit of the down. “Stand where I stand, and you will see the

pony-cart coming. I see the pony-cart coming.”

They stood and saw the pony-cart coming. Margaret and Tibby were

presently seen coming in it. Leaving the outskirts of Swanage, it drove

for a little through the budding lanes, and then began the ascent.

“Have you got the house?” they shouted, long before she could possibly

hear.

Helen ran down to meet her. The highroad passed over a saddle, and a

track went thence at right angles along the ridge of the down.

“Have you got the house?”

Margaret shook her head.

“Oh, what a nuisance! So we’re as we were?”

“Not exactly.”

She got out, looking tired.

“Some mystery,” said Tibby. “We are to be enlightened presently.”

Margaret came close up to her and whispered that she had had a proposal

of marriage from Mr. Wilcox.

Helen was amused. She opened the gate on to the downs so that her

brother might lead the pony through. “It’s just like a widower,” she

remarked. “They’ve cheek enough for anything, and invariably select one

of their first wife’s friends.”

Margaret’s face flashed despair.

“That type—” She broke off with a cry. “Meg, not anything wrong with

you?”

“Wait one minute,” said Margaret, whispering always.

“But you’ve never conceivably—you’ve never—” She pulled herself

together. “Tibby, hurry up through; I can’t hold this gate

indefinitely. Aunt Juley! I say, Aunt Juley, make the tea, will you,

and Frieda; we’ve got to talk houses, and I’ll come on afterwards.” And

then, turning her face to her sister’s, she burst into tears.

Margaret was stupefied. She heard herself saying, “Oh, really—” She

felt herself touched with a hand that trembled.

“Don’t,” sobbed Helen, “don’t, don’t, Meg, don’t!” She seemed incapable

of saying any other word. Margaret, trembling herself, led her forward

up the road, till they strayed through another gate on to the down.

“Don’t, don’t do such a thing! I tell you not to—don’t! I know—don’t!”

“What do you know?”

“Panic and emptiness,” sobbed Helen. “Don’t!”

Then Margaret thought, “Helen is a little selfish. I have never behaved

like this when there has seemed a chance of her marrying.” She said:

“But we would still see each other very often, and—”

“It’s not a thing like that,” sobbed Helen. And she broke right away

and wandered distractedly upwards, stretching her hands towards the

view and crying.

“What’s happened to you?” called Margaret, following through the wind

that gathers at sundown on the northern slopes of hills. “But it’s

stupid!” And suddenly stupidity seized her, and the immense landscape

was blurred. But Helen turned back.

“Meg—”

“I don’t know what’s happened to either of us,” said Margaret, wiping

her eyes. “We must both have gone mad.” Then Helen wiped hers, and they

even laughed a little.

“Look here, sit down.”

“All right; I’ll sit down if you’ll sit down.”

“There. (One kiss.) Now, whatever, whatever is the matter?”

“I do mean what I said. Don’t; it wouldn’t do.”

“Oh, Helen, stop saying ‘don’t’! It’s ignorant. It’s as if your head

wasn’t out of the slime. ‘Don’t’ is probably what Mrs. Bast says all

the day to Mr. Bast.”

Helen was silent.

“Well?”

“Tell me about it first, and meanwhile perhaps I’ll have got my head

out of the slime.”

“That’s better. Well, where shall I begin? When I arrived at

Waterloo—no, I’ll go back before that, because I’m anxious you should

know everything from the first. The ‘first’ was about ten days ago. It

was the day Mr. Bast came to tea and lost his temper. I was defending

him, and Mr. Wilcox became jealous about me, however slightly. I

thought it was the involuntary thing, which men can’t help any more

than we can. You know—at least, I know in my own case—when a man has

said to me, ‘So-and-so’s a pretty girl,’ I am seized with a momentary

sourness against So-and-so, and long to tweak her ear. It’s a tiresome

feeling, but not an important one, and one easily manages it. But it

wasn’t only this in Mr. Wilcox’s case, I gather now.”

“Then you love him?”

Margaret considered. “It is wonderful knowing that a real man cares for

you,” she said. “The mere fact of that grows more tremendous. Remember,

I’ve known and liked him steadily for nearly three years.

“But loved him?”

Margaret peered into her past. It is pleasant to analyze feelings while

they are still only feelings, and unembodied in the social fabric. With

her arm round Helen, and her eyes shifting over the view, as if this

county or that could reveal the secret of her own heart, she meditated

honestly, and said, “No.”

“But you will?”

“Yes,” said Margaret, “of that I’m pretty sure. Indeed, I began the

moment he spoke to me.”

“And have settled to marry him?”

“I had, but am wanting a long talk about it now. What is it against

him, Helen? You must try and say.”

Helen, in her turn, looked outwards. “It is ever since Paul,” she said

finally.

“But what has Mr. Wilcox to do with Paul?”

“But he was there, they were all there that morning when I came down to

breakfast, and saw that Paul was frightened—the man who loved me

frightened and all his paraphernalia fallen, so that I knew it was

impossible, because personal relations are the important thing for ever

and ever, and not this outer life of telegrams and anger.”

She poured the sentence forth in one breath, but her sister understood

it, because it touched on thoughts that were familiar between them.

“That’s foolish. In the first place, I disagree about the outer life.

Well, we’ve often argued that. The real point is that there is the

widest gulf between my love-making and yours. Yours—was romance; mine

will be prose. I’m not running it down—a very good kind of prose, but

well considered, well thought out. For instance, I know all Mr.

Wilcox’s faults. He’s afraid of emotion. He cares too much about

success, too little about the past. His sympathy lacks poetry, and so

isn’t sympathy really. I’d even say”—she looked at the shining

lagoons—“that, spiritually, he’s not as honest as I am. Doesn’t that

satisfy you?”

“No, it doesn’t,” said Helen. “It makes me feel worse and worse. You

must be mad.”

Margaret made a movement of irritation.

“I don’t intend him, or any man or any woman, to be all my life—good

heavens, no! There are heaps of things in me that he doesn’t, and shall

never, understand.”

Thus she spoke before the wedding ceremony and the physical union,

before the astonishing glass shade had fallen that interposes between

married couples and the world. She was to keep her independence more

than do most women as yet. Marriage was to alter her fortunes rather

than her character, and she was not far wrong in boasting that she

understood her future husband. Yet he did alter her character—a little.

There was an unforeseen surprise, a cessation of the winds and odours

of life, a social pressure that would have her think conjugally.

“So with him,” she continued. “There are heaps of things in him—more

especially things that he does—that will always be hidden from me. He

has all those public qualities which you so despise and enable all

this—” She waved her hand at the landscape, which confirmed anything.

“If Wilcoxes hadn’t worked and died in England for thousands of years,

you and I couldn’t sit here without having our throats cut. There would

be no trains, no ships to carry us literary people about in, no fields

even. Just savagery. No—perhaps not even that. Without their spirit

life might never have moved out of protoplasm. More and more do I

refuse to draw my income and sneer at those who guarantee it. There are

times when it seems to me—”

“And to me, and to all women. So one kissed Paul.”

“That’s brutal,” said Margaret. “Mine is an absolutely different case.

I’ve thought things out.”

“It makes no difference thinking things out. They come to the same.”

“Rubbish!”

There was a long silence, during which the tide returned into Poole

Harbour. “One would lose something,” murmured Helen, apparently to

herself. The water crept over the mud-flats towards the gorse and the

blackened heather. Branksea Island lost its immense foreshores, and

became a sombre episode of trees. Frome was forced inward towards

Dorchester, Stour against Wimborne, Avon towards Salisbury, and over

the immense displacement the sun presided, leading it to triumph ere he

sank to rest. England was alive, throbbing through all her estuaries,

crying for joy through the mouths of all her gulls, and the north wind,

with contrary motion, blew stronger against her rising seas. What did

it mean? For what end are her fair complexities, her changes of soil,

her sinuous coast? Does she belong to those who have moulded her and

made her feared by other lands, or to those who have added nothing to

her power, but have somehow seen her, seen the whole island at once,

lying as a jewel in a silver sea, sailing as a ship of souls, with all

the brave world’s fleet accompanying her towards eternity?