CHAPTER IX

Mrs. Wilcox cannot be accused of giving Margaret much information about

life. And Margaret, on the other hand, has made a fair show of modesty,

and has pretended to an inexperience that she certainly did not feel.

She had kept house for over ten years; she had entertained, almost with

distinction; she had brought up a charming sister, and was bringing up

a brother. Surely, if experience is attainable, she had attained it. Yet

the little luncheon-party that she gave in Mrs. Wilcox’s honour was not

a success. The new friend did not blend with the “one or two delightful

people” who had been asked to meet her, and the atmosphere was one of

polite bewilderment. Her tastes were simple, her knowledge of culture

slight, and she was not interested in the New English Art Club, nor in

the dividing-line between Journalism and Literature, which was started

as a conversational hare. The delightful people darted after it with

cries of joy, Margaret leading them, and not till the meal was half

over did they realise that the principal guest had taken no part in the

chase. There was no common topic. Mrs. Wilcox, whose life had been spent

in the service of husband and sons, had little to say to strangers who

had never shared it, and whose age was half her own. Clever talk alarmed

her, and withered her delicate imaginings; it was the social counterpart

of a motor-car, all jerks, and she was a wisp of hay, a flower. Twice

she deplored the weather, twice criticised the train service on the

Great Northern Railway. They vigorously assented, and rushed on, and

when she inquired whether there was any news of Helen, her hostess was

too much occupied in placing Rothenstein to answer. The question was

repeated: “I hope that your sister is safe in Germany by now.” Margaret

checked herself and said, “Yes, thank you; I heard on Tuesday.” But the

demon of vociferation was in her, and the next moment she was off again.

“Only on Tuesday, for they live right away at Stettin. Did you ever know

any one living at Stettin?”

“Never,” said Mrs. Wilcox gravely, while her neighbour, a young man low

down in the Education Office, began to discuss what people who lived

at Stettin ought to look like. Was there such a thing as Stettininity?

Margaret swept on.

“People at Stettin drop things into boats out of overhanging warehouses.

At least, our cousins do, but aren’t particularly rich. The town isn’t

interesting, except for a clock that rolls its eyes, and the view of the

Oder, which truly is something special. Oh, Mrs. Wilcox, you would

love the Oder! The river, or rather rivers--there seem to be dozens

of them--are intense blue, and the plain they run through an intensest

green.”

“Indeed! That sounds like a most beautiful view, Miss Schlegel.”

“So I say, but Helen, who will muddle things, says no, it’s like music.

The course of the Oder is to be like music. It’s obliged to remind her

of a symphonic poem. The part by the landing-stage is in B minor, if I

remember rightly, but lower down things get extremely mixed. There is a

slodgy theme in several keys at once, meaning mud-banks, and another for

the navigable canal, and the exit into the Baltic is in C sharp major,

pianissimo.”

“What do the overhanging warehouses make of that?” asked the man,

laughing.

“They make a great deal of it,” replied Margaret, unexpectedly rushing

off on a new track. “I think it’s affectation to compare the Oder to

music, and so do you, but the overhanging warehouses of Stettin take

beauty seriously, which we don’t, and the average Englishman doesn’t,

and despises all who do. Now don’t say ‘Germans have no taste,’ or I

shall scream. They haven’t. But--but--such a tremendous but!--they take

poetry seriously. They do take poetry seriously.”

“Is anything gained by that?”

“Yes, yes. The German is always on the lookout for beauty. He may miss

it through stupidity, or misinterpret it, but he is always asking

beauty to enter his life, and I believe that in the end it will come. At

Heidelberg I met a fat veterinary surgeon whose voice broke with sobs as

he repeated some mawkish poetry. So easy for me to laugh--I, who never

repeat poetry, good or bad, and cannot remember one fragment of verse

to thrill myself with. My blood boils--well, I’m half German, so put

it down to patriotism--when I listen to the tasteful contempt of the

average islander for things Teutonic, whether they’re Bocklin or my

veterinary surgeon. ‘Oh, Bocklin,’ they say; ‘he strains after beauty,

he peoples Nature with gods too consciously.’ Of course Bocklin strains,

because he wants something--beauty and all the other intangible gifts

that are floating about the world. So his landscapes don’t come off, and

Leader’s do.”

“I am not sure that I agree. Do you?” said he, turning to Mrs. Wilcox.

She replied: “I think Miss Schlegel puts everything splendidly;” and a

chill fell on the conversation.

“Oh, Mrs. Wilcox, say something nicer than that. It’s such a snub to be

told you put things splendidly.”

“I do not mean it as a snub. Your last speech interested me so much.

Generally people do not seem quite to like Germany. I have long wanted

to hear what is said on the other side.”

“The other side? Then you do disagree. Oh, good! Give us your side.”

“I have no side. But my husband”--her voice softened, the chill

increased--“has very little faith in the Continent, and our children

have all taken after him.”

“On what grounds? Do they feel that the Continent is in bad form?”

Mrs. Wilcox had no idea; she paid little attention to grounds. She was

not intellectual, nor even alert, and it was odd that, all the same, she

should give the idea of greatness. Margaret, zigzagging with her friends

over Thought and Art, was conscious of a personality that transcended

their own and dwarfed their activities. There was no bitterness in Mrs.

Wilcox; there was not even criticism; she was lovable, and no ungracious

or uncharitable word had passed her lips. Yet she and daily life were

out of focus; one or the other must show blurred. And at lunch she

seemed more out of focus than usual, and nearer the line that divides

daily life from a life that may be of greater importance.

“You will admit, though, that the Continent--it seems silly to speak of

‘the Continent,’ but really it is all more like itself than any part of

it is like England. England is unique. Do have another jelly first. I

was going to say that the Continent, for good or for evil, is interested

in ideas. Its Literature and Art have what one might call the kink of

the unseen about them, and this persists even through decadence and

affectation. There is more liberty of action in England, but for liberty

of thought go to bureaucratic Prussia. People will there discuss with

humility vital questions that we here think ourselves too good to touch

with tongs.”

“I do not want to go to Prussia,” said Mrs. Wilcox “not even to see

that interesting view that you were describing. And for discussing with

humility I am too old. We never discuss anything at Howards End.”

“Then you ought to!” said Margaret. “Discussion keeps a house alive. It

cannot stand by bricks and mortar alone.”

“It cannot stand without them,” said Mrs. Wilcox, unexpectedly catching

on to the thought, and rousing, for the first and last time, a faint

hope in the breasts of the delightful people. “It cannot stand without

them, and I sometimes think--But I cannot expect your generation to

agree, for even my daughter disagrees with me here.”

“Never mind us or her. Do say!”

“I sometimes think that it is wiser to leave action and discussion to

men.”

There was a little silence.

“One admits that the arguments against the suffrage ARE extraordinarily

strong,” said a girl opposite, leaning forward and crumbling her bread.

“Are they? I never follow any arguments. I am only too thankful not to

have a vote myself.”

“We didn’t mean the vote, though, did we?” supplied Margaret. “Aren’t

we differing on something much wider, Mrs. Wilcox? Whether women are to

remain what they have been since the dawn of history; or whether, since

men have moved forward so far, they too may move forward a little now. I

say they may. I would even admit a biological change.”

“I don’t know, I don’t know.”

“I must be getting back to my overhanging warehouse,” said the man.

“They’ve turned disgracefully strict.”

Mrs. Wilcox also rose.

“Oh, but come upstairs for a little. Miss Quested plays. Do you like

MacDowell? Do you mind his only having two noises? If you must really

go, I’ll see you out. Won’t you even have coffee?”

They left the dining-room closing the door behind them, and as Mrs.

Wilcox buttoned up her jacket, she said: “What an interesting life you

all lead in London!”

“No, we don’t,” said Margaret, with a sudden revulsion. “We lead the

lives of gibbering monkeys. Mrs. Wilcox--really--We have something quiet

and stable at the bottom. We really have. All my friends have. Don’t

pretend you enjoyed lunch, for you loathed it, but forgive me by coming

again, alone, or by asking me to you.”

“I am used to young people,” said Mrs. Wilcox, and with each word she

spoke the outlines of known things grew dim. “I hear a great deal of

chatter at home, for we, like you, entertain a great deal. With us it

is more sport and politics, but--I enjoyed my lunch very much, Miss

Schlegel, dear, and am not pretending, and only wish I could have joined

in more. For one thing, I’m not particularly well just to-day. For

another, you younger people move so quickly that it dazes me. Charles

is the same, Dolly the same. But we are all in the same boat, old and

young. I never forget that.”

They were silent for a moment. Then, with a newborn emotion, they shook

hands. The conversation ceased suddenly when Margaret re-entered the

dining-room; her friends had been talking over her new friend, and had

dismissed her as uninteresting.