CHAPTER X

Several days passed.

Was Mrs. Wilcox one of the unsatisfactory people--there are many of

them--who dangle intimacy and then withdraw it? They evoke our interests

and affections, and keep the life of the spirit dawdling round them.

Then they withdraw. When physical passion is involved, there is a

definite name for such behaviour--flirting--and if carried far enough

it is punishable by law. But no law--not public opinion even--punishes

those who coquette with friendship, though the dull ache that they

inflict, the sense of misdirected effort and exhaustion, may be as

intolerable. Was she one of these?

Margaret feared so at first, for, with a Londoner’s impatience, she

wanted everything to be settled up immediately. She mistrusted the

periods of quiet that are essential to true growth. Desiring to book

Mrs. Wilcox as a friend, she pressed on the ceremony, pencil, as it

were, in hand, pressing the more because the rest of the family were

away, and the opportunity seemed favourable. But the elder woman would

not be hurried. She refused to fit in with the Wickham Place set, or to

reopen discussion of Helen and Paul, whom Margaret would have utilised

as a short-cut. She took her time, or perhaps let time take her, and

when the crisis did come all was ready.

The crisis opened with a message: Would Miss Schlegel come shopping?

Christmas was nearing, and Mrs. Wilcox felt behindhand with the

presents. She had taken some more days in bed, and must make up for lost

time. Margaret accepted, and at eleven o’clock one cheerless morning

they started out in a brougham.

“First of all,” began Margaret, “we must make a list and tick off the

people’s names. My aunt always does, and this fog may thicken up any

moment. Have you any ideas?”

“I thought we would go to Harrods or the Haymarket Stores,” said Mrs.

Wilcox rather hopelessly. “Everything is sure to be there. I am not a

good shopper. The din is so confusing, and your aunt is quite right--one

ought to make a list. Take my notebook, then, and write your own name at

the top of the page.”

“Oh, hooray!” said Margaret, writing it. “How very kind of you to start

with me!” But she did not want to receive anything expensive. Their

acquaintance was singular rather than intimate, and she divined that the

Wilcox clan would resent any expenditure on outsiders; the more compact

families do. She did not want to be thought a second Helen, who would

snatch presents since she could not snatch young men, nor to be exposed

like a second Aunt Juley, to the insults of Charles. A certain austerity

of demeanour was best, and she added: “I don’t really want a Yuletide

gift, though. In fact, I’d rather not.”

“Why?”

“Because I’ve odd ideas about Christmas. Because I have all that money

can buy. I want more people, but no more things.”

“I should like to give you something worth your acquaintance, Miss

Schlegel, in memory of your kindness to me during my lonely fortnight.

It has so happened that I have been left alone, and you have stopped me

from brooding. I am too apt to brood.”

“If that is so,” said Margaret, “if I have happened to be of use to you,

which I didn’t know, you cannot pay me back with anything tangible.”

“I suppose not, but one would like to. Perhaps I shall think of

something as we go about.”

Her name remained at the head of the list, but nothing was written

opposite it. They drove from shop to shop. The air was white, and when

they alighted it tasted like cold pennies. At times they passed through

a clot of grey. Mrs. Wilcox’s vitality was low that morning, and it was

Margaret who decided on a horse for this little girl, a golliwog for

that, for the rector’s wife a copper warming-tray. “We always give the

servants money.” “Yes, do you, yes, much easier,” replied Margaret but

felt the grotesque impact of the unseen upon the seen, and saw issuing

from a forgotten manger at Bethlehem this torrent of coins and toys.

Vulgarity reigned. Public-houses, besides their usual exhortation

against temperance reform, invited men to “Join our Christmas goose

club”--one bottle of gin, etc., or two, according to subscription. A

poster of a woman in tights heralded the Christmas pantomime, and little

red devils, who had come in again that year, were prevalent upon the

Christmas-cards. Margaret was no morbid idealist. She did not wish

this spate of business and self-advertisement checked. It was only the

occasion of it that struck her with amazement annually. How many of

these vacillating shoppers and tired shop-assistants realised that it

was a divine event that drew them together? She realised it, though

standing outside in the matter. She was not a Christian in the accepted

sense; she did not believe that God had ever worked among us as a young

artisan. These people, or most of them, believed it, and if pressed,

would affirm it in words. But the visible signs of their belief were

Regent Street or Drury Lane, a little mud displaced, a little money

spent, a little food cooked, eaten, and forgotten. Inadequate. But in

public who shall express the unseen adequately? It is private life that

holds out the mirror to infinity; personal intercourse, and that alone,

that ever hints at a personality beyond our daily vision.

“No, I do like Christmas on the whole,” she announced. “In its clumsy

way, it does approach Peace and Goodwill. But oh, it is clumsier every

year.”

“Is it? I am only used to country Christmases.”

“We are usually in London, and play the game with vigour--carols at

the Abbey, clumsy midday meal, clumsy dinner for the maids, followed by

Christmas-tree and dancing of poor children, with songs from Helen.

The drawing-room does very well for that. We put the tree in the

powder-closet, and draw a curtain when the candles are lighted, and with

the looking-glass behind it looks quite pretty. I wish we might have

a powder-closet in our next house. Of course, the tree has to be very

small, and the presents don’t hang on it. No; the presents reside in a

sort of rocky landscape made of crumpled brown paper.”

“You spoke of your ‘next house,’ Miss Schlegel. Then are you leaving

Wickham Place?”

“Yes, in two or three years, when the lease expires. We must.”

“Have you been there long?”

“All our lives.”

“You will be very sorry to leave it.”

“I suppose so. We scarcely realise it yet. My father--” She broke off,

for they had reached the stationery department of the Haymarket Stores,

and Mrs. Wilcox wanted to order some private greeting cards.

“If possible, something distinctive,” she sighed. At the counter

she found a friend, bent on the same errand, and conversed with

her insipidly, wasting much time. “My husband and our daughter are

motoring.” “Bertha, too? Oh, fancy, what a coincidence!”

Margaret, though not practical, could shine in such company as this.

While they talked, she went through a volume of specimen cards,

and submitted one for Mrs. Wilcox’s inspection. Mrs. Wilcox was

delighted--so original, words so sweet; she would order a hundred

like that, and could never be sufficiently grateful. Then, just as the

assistant was booking the order, she said: “Do you know, I’ll wait. On

second thoughts, I’ll wait. There’s plenty of time still, isn’t there,

and I shall be able to get Evie’s opinion.”

They returned to the carriage by devious paths; when they were in, she

said, “But couldn’t you get it renewed?”

“I beg your pardon?” asked Margaret.

“The lease, I mean.”

“Oh, the lease! Have you been thinking of that all the time? How very

kind of you!”

“Surely something could be done.”

“No; values have risen too enormously. They mean to pull down Wickham

Place, and build flats like yours.”

“But how horrible!”

“Landlords are horrible.”

Then she said vehemently: “It is monstrous, Miss Schlegel; it isn’t

right. I had no idea that this was hanging over you. I do pity you from

the bottom of my heart. To be parted from your house, your father’s

house--it oughtn’t to be allowed. It is worse than dying. I would rather

die than--Oh, poor girls! Can what they call civilisation be right, if

people mayn’t die in the room where they were born? My dear, I am so

sorry.”

Margaret did not know what to say. Mrs. Wilcox had been overtired by the

shopping, and was inclined to hysteria.

“Howards End was nearly pulled down once. It would have killed me.”

“I--Howards End must be a very different house to ours. We are fond of

ours, but there is nothing distinctive about it. As you saw, it is an

ordinary London house. We shall easily find another.”

“So you think.”

“Again my lack of experience, I suppose!” said Margaret, easing away

from the subject. “I can’t say anything when you take up that line, Mrs.

Wilcox. I wish I could see myself as you see me--foreshortened into a

backfisch. Quite the ingenue. Very charming--wonderfully well read for

my age, but incapable--”

Mrs. Wilcox would not be deterred. “Come down with me to Howards End

now,” she said, more vehemently than ever. “I want you to see it. You

have never seen it. I want to hear what you say about it, for you do put

things so wonderfully.”

Margaret glanced at the pitiless air and then at the tired face of her

companion. “Later on I should love it,” she continued, “but it’s hardly

the weather for such an expedition, and we ought to start when we’re

fresh. Isn’t the house shut up, too?”

She received no answer. Mrs. Wilcox appeared to be annoyed.

“Might I come some other day?”

Mrs. Wilcox bent forward and tapped the glass. “Back to Wickham Place,

please!” was her order to the coachman. Margaret had been snubbed.

“A thousand thanks, Miss Schlegel, for all your help.”

“Not at all.”

“It is such a comfort to get the presents off my mind--the

Christmas-cards especially. I do admire your choice.”

It was her turn to receive no answer. In her turn Margaret became

annoyed.

“My husband and Evie will be back the day after to-morrow. That is why

I dragged you out shopping to-day. I stayed in town chiefly to shop,

but got through nothing, and now he writes that they must cut their

tour short, the weather is so bad, and the police-traps have been so

bad--nearly as bad as in Surrey. Ours is such a careful chauffeur, and

my husband feels it particularly hard that they should be treated like

road-hogs.”

“Why?”

“Well, naturally he--he isn’t a road-hog.”

“He was exceeding the speed-limit, I conclude. He must expect to suffer

with the lower animals.”

Mrs. Wilcox was silenced. In growing discomfort they drove homewards.

The city seemed Satanic, the narrower streets oppressing like the

galleries of a mine.

No harm was done by the fog to trade, for it lay high, and the lighted

windows of the shops were thronged with customers. It was rather a

darkening of the spirit which fell back upon itself, to find a more

grievous darkness within. Margaret nearly spoke a dozen times, but

something throttled her. She felt petty and awkward, and her meditations

on Christmas grew more cynical. Peace? It may bring other gifts, but is

there a single Londoner to whom Christmas is peaceful? The craving for

excitement and for elaboration has ruined that blessing. Goodwill? Had

she seen any example of it in the hordes of purchasers? Or in herself?

She had failed to respond to this invitation merely because it was a

little queer and imaginative--she, whose birthright it was to nourish

imagination! Better to have accepted, to have tired themselves a little

by the journey, than coldly to reply, “Might I come some other day?” Her

cynicism left her. There would be no other day. This shadowy woman would

never ask her again.

They parted at the Mansions. Mrs. Wilcox went in after due civilities,

and Margaret watched the tall, lonely figure sweep up the hall to

the lift. As the glass doors closed on it she had the sense of an

imprisonment The beautiful head disappeared first, still buried in the

muff; the long trailing skirt followed. A woman of undefinable rarity

was going up heavenward, like a specimen in a bottle. And into what a

heaven--a vault as of hell, sooty black, from which soot descended!

At lunch her brother, seeing her inclined for silence insisted on

talking. Tibby was not ill-natured, but from babyhood something drove

him to do the unwelcome and the unexpected. Now he gave her a long

account of the day-school that he sometimes patronised. The account was

interesting, and she had often pressed him for it before, but she

could not attend now, for her mind was focussed on the invisible. She

discerned that Mrs. Wilcox, though a loving wife and mother, had only

one passion in life--her house--and that the moment was solemn when she

invited a friend to share this passion with her. To answer “another day”

was to answer as a fool. “Another day” will do for brick and mortar, but

not for the Holy of Holies into which Howards End had been transfigured.

Her own curiosity was slight. She had heard more than enough about it in

the summer. The nine windows, the vine, and the wych-elm had no pleasant

connections for her, and she would have preferred to spend the afternoon

at a concert. But imagination triumphed. While her brother held forth

she determined to go, at whatever cost, and to compel Mrs. Wilcox to go,

too. When lunch was over she stepped over to the flats.

Mrs. Wilcox had just gone away for the night.

Margaret said that it was of no consequence, hurried downstairs, and

took a hansom to King’s Cross. She was convinced that the escapade

was important, though it would have puzzled her to say why. There was

question of imprisonment and escape, and though she did not know the

time of the train, she strained her eyes for St. Pancras’s clock.

Then the clock of King’s Cross swung into sight, a second moon in that

infernal sky, and her cab drew up at the station. There was a train for

Hilton in five minutes. She took a ticket, asking in her agitation for

a single. As she did so, a grave and happy voice saluted her and thanked

her.

“I will come if I still may,” said Margaret, laughing nervously.

“You are coming to sleep, dear, too. It is in the morning that my house

is most beautiful. You are coming to stop. I cannot show you my meadow

properly except at sunrise. These fogs”--she pointed at the station

roof--“never spread far. I dare say they are sitting in the sun in

Hertfordshire, and you will never repent joining them.”

“I shall never repent joining you.”

“It is the same.”

They began the walk up the long platform. Far at its end stood the

train, breasting the darkness without. They never reached it. Before

imagination could triumph, there were cries of “Mother! mother!” and a

heavy-browed girl darted out of the cloak-room and seized Mrs. Wilcox by

the arm.

“Evie!” she gasped--“Evie, my pet--”

The girl called, “Father! I say! look who’s here.”

“Evie, dearest girl, why aren’t you in Yorkshire?”

“No--motor smash--changed plans--father’s coming.”

“Why, Ruth!” cried Mr. Wilcox, joining them, “what in the name of all

that’s wonderful are you doing here, Ruth?”

Mrs. Wilcox had recovered herself.

“Oh, Henry dear!--here’s a lovely surprise--but let me introduce--but I

think you know Miss Schlegel.”

“Oh yes,” he replied, not greatly interested. “But how’s yourself,

Ruth?”

“Fit as a fiddle,” she answered gaily.

“So are we, and so was our car, which ran A1 as far as Ripon, but there

a wretched horse and cart which a fool of a driver--”

“Miss Schlegel, our little outing must be for another day.”

“I was saying that this fool of a driver, as the policeman himself

admits.”

“Another day, Mrs. Wilcox. Of course.”

“--But as we’ve insured against third party risks, it won’t so much

matter--”

“--Cart and car being practically at right angles--”

The voices of the happy family rose high. Margaret was left alone.

No one wanted her. Mrs. Wilcox walked out of King’s Cross between her

husband and her daughter, listening to both of them.