第 十五 章 · The sisters went out to dinner full of their adventure, and when they

. The sisters went out to dinner full of their adventure, and when they

were both full of the same subject, there were few dinner-parties that

could stand up against them. This particular one, which was all ladies,

had more kick in it than most, but succumbed after a struggle. Helen at

one part of the table, Margaret at the other, would talk of Mr. Bast

and of no one else, and somewhere about the entree their monologues

collided, fell ruining, and became common property. Nor was this all.

The dinner-party was really an informal discussion club; there was a

paper after it, read amid coffee-cups and laughter in the drawing-room,

but dealing more or less thoughtfully with some topic of general

interest. After the paper came a debate, and in this debate Mr. Bast

also figured, appearing now as a bright spot in civilization, now as a

dark spot, according to the temperament of the speaker. The subject of

the paper had been, “How ought I to dispose of my money?” the reader

professing to be a millionaire on the point of death, inclined to

bequeath her fortune for the foundation of local art galleries, but

open to conviction from other sources. The various parts had been

assigned beforehand, and some of the speeches were amusing. The hostess

assumed the ungrateful role of “the millionaire’s eldest son,” and

implored her expiring parent not to dislocate Society by allowing such

vast sums to pass out of the family. Money was the fruit of

self-denial, and the second generation had a right to profit by the

self-denial of the first. What right had “Mr. Bast” to profit? The

National Gallery was good enough for the likes of him. After property

had had its say—a saying that is necessarily ungracious—the various

philanthropists stepped forward. Something must be done for “Mr. Bast”:

his conditions must be improved without impairing his independence; he

must have a free library, or free tennis-courts; his rent must be paid

in such a way that he did not know it was being paid; it must be made

worth his while to join the Territorials; he must be forcibly parted

from his uninspiring wife, the money going to her as compensation; he

must be assigned a Twin Star, some member of the leisured classes who

would watch over him ceaselessly (groans from Helen); he must be given

food but no clothes, clothes but no food, a third-return ticket to

Venice, without either food or clothes when he arrived there. In short,

he might be given anything and everything so long as it was not the

money itself.

And here Margaret interrupted.

“Order, order, Miss Schlegel!” said the reader of the paper. “You are

here, I understand, to advise me in the interests of the Society for

the Preservation of Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty. I

cannot have you speaking out of your role. It makes my poor head go

round, and I think you forget that I am very ill.”

“Your head won’t go round if only you’ll listen to my argument,” said

Margaret. “Why not give him the money itself. You’re supposed to have

about thirty thousand a year.”

“Have I? I thought I had a million.”

“Wasn’t a million your capital? Dear me! we ought to have settled that.

Still, it doesn’t matter. Whatever you’ve got, I order you to give as

many poor men as you can three hundred a year each.”

“But that would be pauperizing them,” said an earnest girl, who liked

the Schlegels, but thought them a little unspiritual at times.

“Not if you gave them so much. A big windfall would not pauperize a

man. It is these little driblets, distributed among too many, that do

the harm. Money’s educational. It’s far more educational than the

things it buys.” There was a protest. “In a sense,” added Margaret, but

the protest continued. “Well, isn’t the most civilized thing going, the

man who has learnt to wear his income properly?”

“Exactly what your Mr. Basts won’t do.”

“Give them a chance. Give them money. Don’t dole them out poetry-books

and railway-tickets like babies. Give them the wherewithal to buy these

things. When your Socialism comes it may be different, and we may think

in terms of commodities instead of cash. Till it comes give people

cash, for it is the warp of civilization, whatever the woof may be. The

imagination ought to play upon money and realize it vividly, for it’s

the—the second most important thing in the world. It is so sluffed over

and hushed up, there is so little clear thinking—oh, political economy,

of course, but so few of us think clearly about our own private

incomes, and admit that independent thoughts are in nine cases out of

ten the result of independent means. Money: give Mr. Bast money, and

don’t bother about his ideals. He’ll pick up those for himself.”

She leant back while the more earnest members of the club began to

misconstrue her. The female mind, though cruelly practical in daily

life, cannot bear to hear ideals belittled in conversation, and Miss

Schlegel was asked however she could say such dreadful things, and what

it would profit Mr. Bast if he gained the whole world and lost his own

soul. She answered, “Nothing, but he would not gain his soul until he

had gained a little of the world.” Then they said, “No they did not

believe it,” and she admitted that an overworked clerk may save his

soul in the superterrestrial sense, where the effort will be taken for

the deed, but she denied that he will ever explore the spiritual

resources of this world, will ever know the rarer joys of the body, or

attain to clear and passionate intercourse with his fellows. Others had

attacked the fabric of Society-Property, Interest, etc.; she only fixed

her eyes on a few human beings, to see how, under present conditions,

they could be made happier. Doing good to humanity was useless: the

many-coloured efforts thereto spreading over the vast area like films

and resulting in an universal grey. To do good to one, or, as in this

case, to a few, was the utmost she dare hope for.

Between the idealists, and the political economists, Margaret had a bad

time. Disagreeing elsewhere, they agreed in disowning her, and in

keeping the administration of the millionaire’s money in their own

hands. The earnest girl brought forward a scheme of “personal

supervision and mutual help,” the effect of which was to alter poor

people until they became exactly like people who were not so poor. The

hostess pertinently remarked that she, as eldest son, might surely rank

among the millionaire’s legatees. Margaret weakly admitted the claim,

and another claim was at once set up by Helen, who declared that she

had been the millionaire’s housemaid for over forty years, overfed and

underpaid; was nothing to be done for her, so corpulent and poor? The

millionaire then read out her last will and testament, in which she

left the whole of her fortune to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Then

she died. The serious parts of the discussion had been of higher merit

than the playful—in a men’s debate is the reverse more general?—but the

meeting broke up hilariously enough, and a dozen happy ladies dispersed

to their homes.

Helen and Margaret walked the earnest girl as far as Battersea Bridge

Station, arguing copiously all the way. When she had gone they were

conscious of an alleviation, and of the great beauty of the evening.

They turned back towards Oakley Street. The lamps and the plane-trees,

following the line of the embankment, struck a note of dignity that is

rare in English cities. The seats, almost deserted, were here and there

occupied by gentlefolk in evening dress, who had strolled out from the

houses behind to enjoy fresh air and the whisper of the rising tide.

There is something continental about Chelsea Embankment. It is an open

space used rightly, a blessing more frequent in Germany than here. As

Margaret and Helen sat down, the city behind them seemed to be a vast

theatre, an opera-house in which some endless trilogy was performing,

and they themselves a pair of satisfied subscribers, who did not mind

losing a little of the second act.

“Cold?”

“No.”

“Tired?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

The earnest girl’s train rumbled away over the bridge.

“I say, Helen—”

“Well?”

“Are we really going to follow up Mr. Bast?”

“I don’t know.”

“I think we won’t.”

“As you like.”

“It’s no good, I think, unless you really mean to know people. The

discussion brought that home to me. We got on well enough with him in a

spirit of excitement, but think of rational intercourse. We mustn’t

play at friendship. No, it’s no good.”

“There’s Mrs. Lanoline, too,” Helen yawned. “So dull.”

“Just so, and possibly worse than dull.”

“I should like to know how he got hold of your card.”

“But he said—something about a concert and an umbrella—”

“Then did the card see the wife—”

“Helen, come to bed.”

“No, just a little longer, it is so beautiful. Tell me; oh yes; did you

say money is the warp of the world?”

“Yes.”

“Then what’s the woof?”

“Very much what one chooses,” said Margaret. “It’s something that isn’t

money—one can’t say more.”

“Walking at night?”

“Probably.”

“For Tibby, Oxford?”

“It seems so.”

“For you?”

“Now that we have to leave Wickham Place, I begin to think it’s that.

For Mrs. Wilcox it was certainly Howards End.”

One’s own name will carry immense distances. Mr. Wilcox, who was

sitting with friends many seats away, heard his, rose to his feet, and

strolled along towards the speakers.

“It is sad to suppose that places may ever be more important than

people,” continued Margaret.

“Why, Meg? They’re so much nicer generally. I’d rather think of that

forester’s house in Pomerania than of the fat Herr Förstmeister who

lived in it.”

“I believe we shall come to care about people less and less, Helen. The

more people one knows the easier it becomes to replace them. It’s one

of the curses of London. I quite expect to end my life caring most for

a place.”

Here Mr. Wilcox reached them. It was several weeks since they had met.

“How do you do?” he cried. “I thought I recognized your voices.

Whatever are you both doing down here?”

His tones were protective. He implied that one ought not to sit out on

Chelsea Embankment without a male escort. Helen resented this, but

Margaret accepted it as part of the good man’s equipment.

“What an age it is since I’ve seen you, Mr. Wilcox. I met Evie in the

Tube, though, lately. I hope you have good news of your son.”

“Paul?” said Mr. Wilcox, extinguishing his cigarette, and sitting down

between them. “Oh, Paul’s all right. We had a line from Madeira. He’ll

be at work again by now.”

“Ugh—” said Helen, shuddering from complex causes.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Isn’t the climate of Nigeria too horrible?”

“Someone’s got to go,” he said simply. “England will never keep her

trade overseas unless she is prepared to make sacrifices. Unless we get

firm in West Africa, Ger—untold complications may follow. Now tell me

all your news.”

“Oh, we’ve had a splendid evening,” cried Helen, who always woke up at

the advent of a visitor. “We belong to a kind of club that reads

papers, Margaret and I—all women, but there is a discussion after. This

evening it was on how one ought to leave one’s money—whether to one’s

family, or to the poor, and if so how—oh, most interesting.”

The man of business smiled. Since his wife’s death he had almost

doubled his income. He was an important figure at last, a reassuring

name on company prospectuses, and life had treated him very well. The

world seemed in his grasp as he listened to the River Thames, which

still flowed inland from the sea. So wonderful to the girls, it held no

mysteries for him. He had helped to shorten its long tidal trough by

taking shares in the lock at Teddington, and if he and other

capitalists thought good, some day it could be shortened again. With a

good dinner inside him and an amiable but academic woman on either

flank, he felt that his hands were on all the ropes of life, and that

what he did not know could not be worth knowing.

“Sounds a most original entertainment!” he exclaimed, and laughed in

his pleasant way. “I wish Evie would go to that sort of thing. But she

hasn’t the time. She’s taken to breed Aberdeen terriers—jolly little

dogs.”

“I expect we’d better be doing the same, really.”

“We pretend we’re improving ourselves, you see,” said Helen a little

sharply, for the Wilcox glamour is not of the kind that returns, and

she had bitter memories of the days when a speech such as he had just

made would have impressed her favourably. “We suppose it is a good

thing to waste an evening once a fortnight over a debate, but, as my

sister says, it may be better to breed dogs.”

“Not at all. I don’t agree with your sister. There’s nothing like a

debate to teach one quickness. I often wish I had gone in for them when

I was a youngster. It would have helped me no end.”

“Quickness—?”

“Yes. Quickness in argument. Time after time I’ve missed scoring a

point because the other man has had the gift of the gab and I haven’t.

Oh, I believe in these discussions.”

The patronizing tone thought Margaret, came well enough from a man who

was old enough to be their father. She had always maintained that Mr.

Wilcox had a charm. In times of sorrow or emotion his inadequacy had

pained her, but it was pleasant to listen to him now, and to watch his

thick brown moustache and high forehead confronting the stars. But

Helen was nettled. The aim of _their_ debates she implied was Truth.

“Oh yes, it doesn’t much matter what subject you take,” said he.

Margaret laughed and said, “But this is going to be far better than the

debate itself.” Helen recovered herself and laughed too. “No, I won’t

go on,” she declared. “I’ll just put our special case to Mr. Wilcox.”

“About Mr. Bast? Yes, do. He’ll be more lenient to a special case.

“But, Mr. Wilcox, do first light another cigarette. It’s this. We’ve

just come across a young fellow, who’s evidently very poor, and who

seems interest—”

“What’s his profession?”

“Clerk.”

“What in?”

“Do you remember, Margaret?”

“Porphyrion Fire Insurance Company.”

“Oh yes; the nice people who gave Aunt Juley a new hearth-rug. He seems

interesting, in some ways very, and one wishes one could help him. He

is married to a wife whom he doesn’t seem to care for much. He likes

books, and what one may roughly call adventure, and if he had a

chance—But he is so poor. He lives a life where all the money is apt to

go on nonsense and clothes. One is so afraid that circumstances will be

too strong for him and that he will sink. Well, he got mixed up in our

debate. He wasn’t the subject of it, but it seemed to bear on his

point. Suppose a millionaire died, and desired to leave money to help

such a man. How should he be helped? Should he be given three hundred

pounds a year direct, which was Margaret’s plan? Most of them thought

this would pauperize him. Should he and those like him be given free

libraries? I said ‘No!’ He doesn’t want more books to read, but to read

books rightly. My suggestion was he should be given something every

year towards a summer holiday, but then there is his wife, and they

said she would have to go too. Nothing seemed quite right! Now what do

you think? Imagine that you were a millionaire, and wanted to help the

poor. What would you do?”

Mr. Wilcox, whose fortune was not so very far below the standard

indicated, laughed exuberantly. “My dear Miss Schlegel, I will not rush

in where your sex has been unable to tread. I will not add another plan

to the numerous excellent ones that have been already suggested. My

only contribution is this: let your young friend clear out of the

Porphyrion Fire Insurance Company with all possible speed.”

“Why?” said Margaret.

He lowered his voice. “This is between friends. It’ll be in the

Receiver’s hands before Christmas. It’ll smash,” he added, thinking

that she had not understood.

“Dear me, Helen, listen to that. And he’ll have to get another place!”

“_Will_ have? Let him leave the ship before it sinks. Let him get one

now.”

“Rather than wait, to make sure?”

“Decidedly.”

“Why’s that?”

Again the Olympian laugh, and the lowered voice. “Naturally the man

who’s in a situation when he applies stands a better chance, is in a

stronger position, than the man who isn’t. It looks as if he’s worth

something. I know by myself—(this is letting you into the State

secrets)—it affects an employer greatly. Human nature, I’m afraid.”

“I hadn’t thought of that,” murmured Margaret, while Helen said, “Our

human nature appears to be the other way round. We employ people

because they’re unemployed. The boot man, for instance.”

“And how does he clean the boots?”

“Not well,” confessed Margaret.

“There you are!”

“Then do you really advise us to tell this youth—”

“I advise nothing,” he interrupted, glancing up and down the

Embankment, in case his indiscretion had been overheard. “I oughtn’t to

have spoken—but I happen to know, being more or less behind the scenes.

The Porphyrion’s a bad, bad concern—Now, don’t say I said so. It’s

outside the Tariff Ring.”

“Certainly I won’t say. In fact, I don’t know what that means.”

“I thought an insurance company never smashed,” was Helen’s

contribution. “Don’t the others always run in and save them?”

“You’re thinking of reinsurance,” said Mr. Wilcox mildly. “It is

exactly there that the Porphyrion is weak. It has tried to undercut,

has been badly hit by a long series of small fires, and it hasn’t been

able to reinsure. I’m afraid that public companies don’t save one

another for love.”

“‘Human nature,’ I suppose,” quoted Helen, and he laughed and agreed

that it was. When Margaret said that she supposed that clerks, like

every one else, found it extremely difficult to get situations in these

days, he replied, “Yes, extremely,” and rose to rejoin his friends. He

knew by his own office—seldom a vacant post, and hundreds of applicants

for it; at present no vacant post.

“And how’s Howards End looking?” said Margaret, wishing to change the

subject before they parted. Mr. Wilcox was a little apt to think one

wanted to get something out of him.

“It’s let.”

“Really. And you wandering homeless in long-haired Chelsea? How strange

are the ways of Fate!”

“No; it’s let unfurnished. We’ve moved.”

“Why, I thought of you both as anchored there for ever. Evie never told

me.”

“I dare say when you met Evie the thing wasn’t settled. We only moved a

week ago. Paul has rather a feeling for the old place, and we held on

for him to have his holiday there; but, really, it is impossibly small.

Endless drawbacks. I forget whether you’ve been up to it?”

“As far as the house, never.”

“Well, Howards End is one of those converted farms. They don’t really

do, spend what you will on them. We messed away with a garage all among

the wych-elm roots, and last year we enclosed a bit of the meadow and

attempted a mockery. Evie got rather keen on Alpine plants. But it

didn’t do—no, it didn’t do. You remember, or your sister will remember,

the farm with those abominable guinea-fowls, and the hedge that the old

woman never would cut properly, so that it all went thin at the bottom.

And, inside the house, the beams—and the staircase through a

door—picturesque enough, but not a place to live in.” He glanced over

the parapet cheerfully. “Full tide. And the position wasn’t right

either. The neighbourhood’s getting suburban. Either be in London or

out of it, I say; so we’ve taken a house in Ducie Street, close to

Sloane Street, and a place right down in Shropshire—Oniton Grange. Ever

heard of Oniton? Do come and see us—right away from everywhere, up

towards Wales.”

“What a change!” said Margaret. But the change was in her own voice,

which had become most sad. “I can’t imagine Howards End or Hilton

without you.”

“Hilton isn’t without us,” he replied. “Charles is there still.”

“Still?” said Margaret, who had not kept up with the Charles’. “But I

thought he was still at Epsom. They were furnishing that Christmas—one

Christmas. How everything alters! I used to admire Mrs. Charles from

our windows very often. Wasn’t it Epsom?”

“Yes, but they moved eighteen months ago. Charles, the good chap”—his

voice dropped—“thought I should be lonely. I didn’t want him to move,

but he would, and took a house at the other end of Hilton, down by the

Six Hills. He had a motor, too. There they all are, a very jolly

party—he and she and the two grandchildren.”

“I manage other people’s affairs so much better than they manage them

themselves,” said Margaret as they shook hands. “When you moved out of

Howards End, I should have moved Mr. Charles Wilcox into it. I should

have kept so remarkable a place in the family.”

“So it is,” he replied. “I haven’t sold it, and don’t mean to.”

“No; but none of you are there.”

“Oh, we’ve got a splendid tenant—Hamar Bryce, an invalid. If Charles

ever wanted it—but he won’t. Dolly is so dependent on modern

conveniences. No, we have all decided against Howards End. We like it

in a way, but now we feel that it is neither one thing nor the other.

One must have one thing or the other.”

“And some people are lucky enough to have both. You’re doing yourself

proud, Mr. Wilcox. My congratulations.”

“And mine,” said Helen.

“Do remind Evie to come and see us—two, Wickham Place. We shan’t be

there very long, either.”

“You, too, on the move?”

“Next September,” Margaret sighed.

“Every one moving! Good-bye.”

The tide had begun to ebb. Margaret leant over the parapet and watched

it sadly. Mr. Wilcox had forgotten his wife, Helen her lover; she

herself was probably forgetting. Every one moving. Is it worth while

attempting the past when there is this continual flux even in the

hearts of men?

Helen roused her by saying: “What a prosperous vulgarian Mr. Wilcox has

grown! I have very little use for him in these days. However, he did

tell us about the Porphyrion. Let us write to Mr. Bast as soon as ever

we get home, and tell him to clear out of it at once.”

“Do; yes, that’s worth doing. Let us.”

“Let’s ask him to tea.”