CHAPTER XXIII

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 any one 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 do only 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 half-way between,” Aunt Juley had hazarded in earlier years. No;

truth, being alive, was not half-way 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

itself 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 a 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 of 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 perch.

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 draught 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 civilisation of luggage

had been here for a month, and then decamped. Dining-room and

drawing-room--right and left--were guessed only by their wallpapers.

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 realised 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 rain run

this way and that where the watershed of the roof divided it.

Now Helen came to her mind, scrutinising 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.