Howards End
“I took the Underground to Wimbledon. As I came out of the office I said
to myself, ‘I must have a walk once in a way. If I don’t take this walk
now, I shall never take it.’ I had a bit of dinner at Wimbledon, and
then--”
“But not good country there, is it?”
“It was gas-lamps for hours. Still, I had all the night, and being out
was the great thing. I did get into woods, too, presently.”
“Yes, go on,” said Helen.
“You’ve no idea how difficult uneven ground is when it’s dark.”
“Did you actually go off the roads?”
“Oh yes. I always meant to go off the roads, but the worst of it is that
it’s more difficult to find one’s way.”
“Mr. Bast, you’re a born adventurer,” laughed Margaret. “No professional
athlete would have attempted what you’ve done. It’s a wonder your walk
didn’t end in a broken neck. Whatever did your wife say?”
“Professional athletes never move without lanterns and compasses,” said
Helen. “Besides, they can’t walk. It tires them. Go on.”
“I felt like R. L. S. You probably remember how in Virginibus.”
“Yes, but the wood. This ‘ere wood. How did you get out of it?”
“I managed one wood, and found a road the other side which went a good
bit uphill. I rather fancy it was those North Downs, for the road went
off into grass, and I got into another wood. That was awful, with gorse
bushes. I did wish I’d never come, but suddenly it got light--just while
I seemed going under one tree. Then I found a road down to a station,
and took the first train I could back to London.”
“But was the dawn wonderful?” asked Helen.
With unforgettable sincerity he replied, “No.” The word flew again like
a pebble from the sling. Down toppled all that had seemed ignoble or
literary in his talk, down toppled tiresome R. L. S. and the “love of
the earth” and his silk top-hat. In the presence of these women Leonard
had arrived, and he spoke with a flow, an exultation, that he had seldom
known.
“The dawn was only grey, it was nothing to mention.”
“Just a grey evening turned upside down. I know.”
“--and I was too tired to lift up my head to look at it, and so cold
too. I’m glad I did it, and yet at the time it bored me more than I can
say. And besides--you can believe me or not as you choose--I was very
hungry. That dinner at Wimbledon--I meant it to last me all night
like other dinners. I never thought that walking would make such a
difference. Why, when you’re walking you want, as it were, a breakfast
and luncheon and tea during the night as well, and I’d nothing but a
packet of Woodbines. Lord, I did feel bad! Looking back, it wasn’t what
you may call enjoyment. It was more a case of sticking to it. I did
stick. I--I was determined. Oh, hang it all! what’s the good--I mean,
the good of living in a room for ever? There one goes on day after day,
same old game, same up and down to town, until you forget there is any
other game. You ought to see once in a way what’s going on outside, if
it’s only nothing particular after all.”
“I should just think you ought,” said Helen, sitting on the edge of the
table.
The sound of a lady’s voice recalled him from sincerity, and he said:
“Curious it should all come about from reading something of Richard
Jefferies.”
“Excuse me, Mr. Bast, but you’re wrong there. It didn’t. It came from
something far greater.”
But she could not stop him. Borrow was imminent after Jefferies--Borrow,
Thoreau, and sorrow. R. L. S. brought up the rear, and the outburst
ended in a swamp of books. No disrespect to these great names. The fault
is ours, not theirs. They mean us to use them for sign-posts, and are not
to blame if, in our weakness, we mistake the sign-post for the destination.
And Leonard had reached the destination. He had visited the county of
Surrey when darkness covered its amenities, and its cosy villas had
re-entered ancient night. Every twelve hours this miracle happens, but he
had troubled to go and see for himself. Within his cramped little mind
dwelt something that was greater than Jefferies’ books--the spirit that led
Jefferies to write them; and his dawn, though revealing nothing but
monotones, was part of the eternal sunrise that shows George Borrow
Stonehenge.
“Then you don’t think I was foolish?” he asked becoming again the naive
and sweet-tempered boy for whom Nature intended him.
“Heavens, no!” replied Margaret.
“Heaven help us if we do!” replied Helen.
“I’m very glad you say that. Now, my wife would never understand--not if
I explained for days.”
“No, it wasn’t foolish!” cried Helen, her eyes aflame. “You’ve pushed
back the boundaries; I think it splendid of you.”
“You’ve not been content to dream as we have--”
“Though we have walked, too--”
“I must show you a picture upstairs--”
Here the door-bell rang. The hansom had come to take them to their
evening party.
“Oh, bother, not to say dash--I had forgotten we were dining out; but
do, do, come round again and have a talk.” “Yes, you must--do,” echoed
Margaret.
Leonard, with extreme sentiment, replied: “No, I shall not. It’s better
like this.”
“Why better?” asked Margaret.
“No, it is better not to risk a second interview. I shall always look
back on this talk with you as one of the finest things in my life.
Really. I mean this. We can never repeat. It has done me real good, and
there we had better leave it.”
“That’s rather a sad view of life, surely.”
“Things so often get spoiled.”
“I know,” flashed Helen, “but people don’t.”
He could not understand this. He continued in a vein which mingled true
imagination and false. What he said wasn’t wrong, but it wasn’t right,
and a false note jarred. One little twist, they felt, and the instrument
might be in tune. One little strain, and it might be silent for ever. He
thanked the ladies very much, but he would not call again. There was a
moment’s awkwardness, and then Helen said: “Go, then; perhaps you know
best; but never forget you’re better than Jefferies.” And he went. Their
hansom caught him up at the corner, passed with a waving of hands, and
vanished with its accomplished load into the evening.
London was beginning to illuminate herself against the night. Electric
lights sizzled and jagged in the main thoroughfares, gas-lamps in the
side streets glimmered a canary gold or green. The sky was a crimson
battlefield of spring, but London was not afraid. Her smoke mitigated
the splendour, and the clouds down Oxford Street were a delicately
painted ceiling, which adorned while it did not distract. She had never
known the clear-cut armies of the purer air. Leonard hurried through her
tinted wonders, very much part of the picture. His was a grey life,
and to brighten it he had ruled off a few corners for romance. The Miss
Schlegels--or, to speak more accurately, his interview with them--were
to fill such a corner, nor was it by any means the first time that
he had talked intimately to strangers. The habit was analogous to a
debauch, an outlet, though the worst of outlets, for instincts that
would not be denied. Terrifying him, it would beat down his suspicions
and prudence until he was confiding secrets to people whom he had
scarcely seen. It brought him many fears and some pleasant memories.
Perhaps the keenest happiness he had ever known was during a railway
journey to Cambridge, where a decent-mannered undergraduate had spoken
to him. They had got into conversation, and gradually Leonard flung
reticence aside, told some of his domestic troubles and hinted at the
rest. The undergraduate, supposing they could start a friendship, asked
him to “coffee after hall,” which he accepted, but afterwards grew shy,
and took care not to stir from the commercial hotel where he lodged.
He did not want Romance to collide with the Porphyrion, still less with
Jacky, and people with fuller, happier lives are slow to understand
this. To the Schlegels, as to the undergraduate, he was an interesting
creature, of whom they wanted to see more. But they to him were denizens
of Romance, who must keep to the corner he had assigned them, pictures
that must not walk out of their frames.
His behaviour over Margaret’s visiting-card had been typical. His
had scarcely been a tragic marriage. Where there is no money and no
inclination to violence tragedy cannot be generated. He could not leave
his wife, and he did not want to hit her. Petulance and squalor were
enough. Here “that card” had come in. Leonard, though furtive, was
untidy, and left it lying about. Jacky found it, and then began, “What’s
that card, eh?” “Yes, don’t you wish you knew what that card was?” “Len,
who’s Miss Schlegel?” etc. Months passed, and the card, now as a joke,
now as a grievance, was handed about, getting dirtier and dirtier. It
followed them when they moved from Camelia Road to Tulse Hill. It was
submitted to third parties. A few inches of pasteboard, it became the
battlefield on which the souls of Leonard and his wife contended. Why
did he not say, “A lady took my umbrella, another gave me this that I
might call for my umbrella”? Because Jacky would have disbelieved him?
Partly, but chiefly because he was sentimental. No affection gathered
round the card, but it symbolised the life of culture, that Jacky should
never spoil. At night he would say to himself, “Well, at all events, she
doesn’t know about that card. Yah! done her there!”
Poor Jacky! she was not a bad sort, and had a great deal to bear.
She drew her own conclusion--she was only capable of drawing one
conclusion--and in the fulness of time she acted upon it. All the Friday
Leonard had refused to speak to her, and had spent the evening observing
the stars. On the Saturday he went up, as usual, to town, but he came
not back Saturday night, nor Sunday morning, nor Sunday afternoon. The
inconvenience grew intolerable, and though she was now of a retiring
habit, and shy of women, she went up to Wickham Place. Leonard returned
in her absence. The card, the fatal card, was gone from the pages of
Ruskin, and he guessed what had happened.
“Well?” he had exclaimed, greeting her with peals of laughter. “I know
where you’ve been, but you don’t know where I’ve been.”
Jacky sighed, said, “Len, I do think you might explain,” and resumed
domesticity.
Explanations were difficult at this stage, and Leonard was too silly--or
it is tempting to write, too sound a chap to attempt them. His reticence
was not entirely the shoddy article that a business life promotes, the
reticence that pretends that nothing is something, and hides behind
the Daily Telegraph. The adventurer, also, is reticent, and it is an
adventure for a clerk to walk for a few hours in darkness. You may laugh
at him, you who have slept nights out on the veldt, with your rifle
beside you and all the atmosphere of adventure pat. And you also may
laugh who think adventures silly. But do not be surprised if Leonard is
shy whenever he meets you, and if the Schlegels rather than Jacky hear
about the dawn.
That the Schlegels had not thought him foolish became a permanent
joy. He was at his best when he thought of them. It buoyed him as he
journeyed home beneath fading heavens. Somehow the barriers of wealth
had fallen, and there had been--he could not phrase it--a general
assertion of the wonder of the world. “My conviction,” says the mystic,
“gains infinitely the moment another soul will believe in it,” and they
had agreed that there was something beyond life’s daily grey. He took
off his top-hat and smoothed it thoughtfully. He had hitherto supposed
the unknown to be books, literature, clever conversation, culture. One
raised oneself by study, and got upsides with the world. But in that
quick interchange a new light dawned. Was that “something” walking in
the dark among the suburban hills?