CHAPTER XXIV

“It gave her quite a turn,” said Mr. Wilcox, when retailing the incident

to Dolly at tea-time. “None of you girls have any nerves, really. Of

course, a word from me put it all right, but silly old Miss Avery--she

frightened you, didn’t she, Margaret? There you stood clutching a bunch

of weeds. She might have said something, instead of coming down the

stairs with that alarming bonnet on. I passed her as I came in. Enough

to make the car shy. I believe Miss Avery goes in for being a character;

some old maids do.” He lit a cigarette. “It is their last resource.

Heaven knows what she was doing in the place; but that’s Bryce’s

business, not mine.”

“I wasn’t as foolish as you suggest,” said Margaret “She only startled

me, for the house had been silent so long.”

“Did you take her for a spook?” asked Dolly, for whom “spooks”’ and

“going to church” summarised the unseen.

“Not exactly.”

“She really did frighten you,” said Henry, who was far from discouraging

timidity in females. “Poor Margaret! And very naturally. Uneducated

classes are so stupid.”

“Is Miss Avery uneducated classes?” Margaret asked, and found herself

looking at the decoration scheme of Dolly’s drawing-room.

“She’s just one of the crew at the farm. People like that always assume

things. She assumed you’d know who she was. She left all the Howards End

keys in the front lobby, and assumed that you’d seen them as you came

in, that you’d lock up the house when you’d done, and would bring them

on down to her. And there was her niece hunting for them down at the

farm. Lack of education makes people very casual. Hilton was full of

women like Miss Avery once.”

“I shouldn’t have disliked it, perhaps.”

“Or Miss Avery giving me a wedding present,” said Dolly.

Which was illogical but interesting. Through Dolly, Margaret was

destined to learn a good deal.

“But Charles said I must try not to mind, because she had known his

grandmother.”

“As usual, you’ve got the story wrong, my good Dorothea.”

“I meant great-grandmother--the one who left Mrs. Wilcox the house.

Weren’t both of them and Miss Avery friends when Howards End, too, was a

farm?”

Her father-in-law blew out a shaft of smoke. His attitude to his dead

wife was curious. He would allude to her, and hear her discussed, but

never mentioned her by name. Nor was he interested in the dim, bucolic

past. Dolly was--for the following reason.

“Then hadn’t Mrs. Wilcox a brother--or was it an uncle? Anyhow, he

popped the question, and Miss Avery, she said ‘No.’ Just imagine, if

she’d said ‘Yes,’ she would have been Charles’s aunt. (Oh, I say,

that’s rather good! ‘Charlie’s Aunt’! I must chaff him about that this

evening.) And the man went out and was killed. Yes, I’m certain I’ve

got it right now. Tom Howard--he was the last of them.”

“I believe so,” said Mr. Wilcox negligently.

“I say! Howards End--Howards Ended!” cried Dolly. “I’m rather on the

spot this evening, eh?”

“I wish you’d ask whether Crane’s ended.”

“Oh, Mr. Wilcox, how can you?”

“Because, if he has had enough tea, we ought to go--Dolly’s a good

little woman,” he continued, “but a little of her goes a long way. I

couldn’t live near her if you paid me.”

Margaret smiled. Though presenting a firm front to outsiders, no Wilcox

could live near, or near the possessions of, any other Wilcox. They

had the colonial spirit, and were always making for some spot where the

white man might carry his burden unobserved. Of course, Howards End was

impossible, so long as the younger couple were established in Hilton.

His objections to the house were plain as daylight now.

Crane had had enough tea, and was sent to the garage, where their car

had been trickling muddy water over Charles’s. The downpour had

surely penetrated the Six Hills by now, bringing news of our restless

civilisation. “Curious mounds,” said Henry, “but in with you now;

another time.” He had to be up in London by seven--if possible, by

six-thirty. Once more she lost the sense of space; once more trees,

houses, people, animals, hills, merged and heaved into one dirtiness,

and she was at Wickham Place.

Her evening was pleasant. The sense of flux which had haunted her

all the year disappeared for a time. She forgot the luggage and the

motor-cars, and the hurrying men who know so much and connect so little.

She recaptured the sense of space, which is the basis of all earthly

beauty, and, starting from Howards End, she attempted to realise

England. She failed--visions do not come when we try, though they may

come through trying. But an unexpected love of the island awoke in her,

connecting on this side with the joys of the flesh, on that with the

inconceivable. Helen and her father had known this love, poor Leonard

Bast was groping after it, but it had been hidden from Margaret till

this afternoon. It had certainly come through the house and old Miss

Avery. Through them: the notion of “through” persisted; her mind

trembled towards a conclusion which only the unwise have put into words.

Then, veering back into warmth, it dwelt on ruddy bricks, flowering

plum-trees, and all the tangible joys of spring.

Henry, after allaying her agitation, had taken her over his property,

and had explained to her the use and dimensions of the various rooms. He

had sketched the history of the little estate. “It is so unlucky,” ran

the monologue, “that money wasn’t put into it about fifty years ago.

Then it had four--five--times the land--thirty acres at least. One

could have made something out of it then--a small park, or at all events

shrubberies, and rebuilt the house farther away from the road. What’s

the good of taking it in hand now? Nothing but the meadow left, and even

that was heavily mortgaged when I first had to do with things--yes, and

the house too. Oh, it was no joke.” She saw two women as he spoke, one

old, the other young, watching their inheritance melt away. She saw them

greet him as a deliverer. “Mismanagement did it--besides, the days for

small farms are over. It doesn’t pay--except with intensive cultivation.

Small holdings, back to the land--ah! philanthropic bunkum. Take it as a

rule that nothing pays on a small scale. Most of the land you see (they

were standing at an upper window, the only one which faced west) belongs

to the people at the Park--they made their pile over copper--good chaps.

Avery’s Farm, Sishe’s--what they call the Common, where you see that

ruined oak--one after the other fell in, and so did this, as near as

is no matter.” But Henry had saved it as near as is no matter without fine feelings or deep insight, but he had saved it, and she loved him for the deed. “When I had more control I did what I could--sold off the two and a half

animals, and the mangy pony, and the superannuated tools; pulled down

the outhouses; drained; thinned out I don’t know how many guelder-roses

and elder-trees; and inside the house I turned the old kitchen into a

hall, and made a kitchen behind where the dairy was. Garage and so on

came later. But one could still tell it’s been an old farm. And yet

it isn’t the place that would fetch one of your artistic crew.” No, it

wasn’t; and if he did not quite understand it, the artistic crew would

still less; it was English, and the wych-elm that she saw from the

window was an English tree. No report had prepared her for its peculiar

glory. It was neither warrior, nor lover, nor god; in none of these

roles do the English excel. It was a comrade bending over the house,

strength and adventure in its roots, but in its utmost fingers

tenderness, and the girth, that a dozen men could not have spanned,

became in the end evanescent, till pale bud clusters seemed to float

in the air. It was a comrade. House and tree transcended any similes of

sex. Margaret thought of them now, and was to think of them through many

a windy night and London day, but to compare either to man, to woman,

always dwarfed the vision. Yet they kept within limits of the human.

Their message was not of eternity, but of hope on this side of the

grave. As she stood in the one, gazing at the other, truer relationship

had gleamed.

Another touch, and the account of her day is finished. They entered the

garden for a minute, and to Mr. Wilcox’s surprise she was right. Teeth,

pigs’ teeth, could be seen in the bark of the wych-elm tree--just the

white tips of them showing. “Extraordinary!” he cried. “Who told you?”

“I heard of it one winter in London,” was her answer, for she, too,

avoided mentioning Mrs. Wilcox by name.