Howards End
There are moments when virtue and wisdom fail us, and one of them came
to her at Simpson’s in the Strand. As she trod the staircase, narrow,
but carpeted thickly, as she entered the eating-room, where saddles of
mutton were being trundled up to expectant clergymen, she had a strong,
if erroneous, conviction of her own futility, and wished she had never
come out of her backwater, where nothing happened except art and
literature, and where no one ever got married or succeeded in
remaining engaged. Then came a little surprise. “Father might be of the
party--yes, father was.” With a smile of pleasure she moved forward to
greet him, and her feeling of loneliness vanished.
“I thought I’d get round if I could,” said he. “Evie told me of her
little plan, so I just slipped in and secured a table. Always secure
a table first. Evie, don’t pretend you want to sit by your old father,
because you don’t. Miss Schlegel, come in my side, out of pity. My
goodness, but you look tired! Been worrying round after your young
clerks?”
“No, after houses,” said Margaret, edging past him into the box. “I’m
hungry, not tired; I want to eat heaps.”
“That’s good. What’ll you have?”
“Fish pie,” said she, with a glance at the menu.
“Fish pie! Fancy coming for fish pie to Simpson’s. It’s not a bit the
thing to go for here.”
“Go for something for me, then,” said Margaret, pulling off her gloves.
Her spirits were rising, and his reference to Leonard Bast had warmed
her curiously.
“Saddle of mutton,” said he after profound reflection; “and cider to
drink. That’s the type of thing. I like this place, for a joke, once in
a way. It is so thoroughly Old English. Don’t you agree?”
“Yes,” said Margaret, who didn’t. The order was given, the joint rolled
up, and the carver, under Mr. Wilcox’s direction, cut the meat where
it was succulent, and piled their plates high. Mr. Cahill insisted on
sirloin, but admitted that he had made a mistake later on. He and
Evie soon fell into a conversation of the “No, I didn’t; yes, you did”
type--conversation which, though fascinating to those who are engaged in
it, neither desires nor deserves the attention of others.
“It’s a golden rule to tip the carver. Tip everywhere’s my motto.”
“Perhaps it does make life more human.”
“Then the fellows know one again. Especially in the East, if you tip,
they remember you from year’s end to year’s end.”
“Have you been in the East?”
“Oh, Greece and the Levant. I used to go out for sport and business to
Cyprus; some military society of a sort there. A few piastres, properly
distributed, help to keep one’s memory green. But you, of course, think
this shockingly cynical. How’s your discussion society getting on? Any
new Utopias lately?”
“No, I’m house-hunting, Mr. Wilcox, as I’ve already told you once. Do
you know of any houses?”
“Afraid I don’t.”
“Well, what’s the point of being practical if you can’t find two
distressed females a house? We merely want a small house with large
rooms, and plenty of them.”
“Evie, I like that! Miss Schlegel expects me to turn house-agent for
her!”
“What’s that, father?”
“I want a new home in September, and some one must find it. I can’t.”
“Percy, do you know of anything?”
“I can’t say I do,” said Mr. Cahill.
“How like you! You’re never any good.”
“Never any good. Just listen to her! Never any good. Oh, come!”
“Well, you aren’t. Miss Schlegel, is he?”
The torrent of their love, having splashed these drops at Margaret,
swept away on its habitual course. She sympathised with it now, for a
little comfort had restored her geniality. Speech and silence pleased
her equally, and while Mr. Wilcox made some preliminary inquiries about
cheese, her eyes surveyed the restaurant, and aired its well-calculated
tributes to the solidity of our past. Though no more Old English than
the works of Kipling, it had selected its reminiscences so adroitly
that her criticism was lulled, and the guests whom it was nourishing for
imperial purposes bore the outer semblance of Parson Adams or Tom Jones.
Scraps of their talk jarred oddly on the ear. “Right you are! I’ll cable
out to Uganda this evening,” came from the table behind. “Their Emperor
wants war; well, let him have it,” was the opinion of a clergyman. She
smiled at such incongruities. “Next time,” she said to Mr. Wilcox, “you
shall come to lunch with me at Mr. Eustace Miles’s.”
“With pleasure.”
“No, you’d hate it,” she said, pushing her glass towards him for some
more cider. “It’s all proteids and body buildings, and people come up to
you and beg your pardon, but you have such a beautiful aura.”
“A what?”
“Never heard of an aura? Oh, happy, happy man! I scrub at mine for
hours. Nor of an astral plane?”
He had heard of astral planes, and censured them.
“Just so. Luckily it was Helen’s aura, not mine, and she had to
chaperone it and do the politenesses. I just sat with my handkerchief in
my mouth till the man went.”
“Funny experiences seem to come to you two girls. No one’s ever asked me
about my--what d’ye call it? Perhaps I’ve not got one.”
“You’re bound to have one, but it may be such a terrible colour that no
one dares mention it.”
“Tell me, though, Miss Schlegel, do you really believe in the
supernatural and all that?”
“Too difficult a question.”
“Why’s that? Gruyere or Stilton?”
“Gruyere, please.”
“Better have Stilton.
“Stilton. Because, though I don’t believe in auras, and think
Theosophy’s only a halfway-house--”
“--Yet there may be something in it all the same,” he concluded, with a
frown.
“Not even that. It may be halfway in the wrong direction. I can’t
explain. I don’t believe in all these fads, and yet I don’t like saying
that I don’t believe in them.”
He seemed unsatisfied, and said: “So you wouldn’t give me your word that
you DON’T hold with astral bodies and all the rest of it?”
“I could,” said Margaret, surprised that the point was of any importance
to him. “Indeed, I will. When I talked about scrubbing my aura, I was
only trying to be funny. But why do you want this settled?”
“I don’t know.”
“Now, Mr. Wilcox, you do know.”
“Yes, I am,” “No, you’re not,” burst from the lovers opposite. Margaret
was silent for a moment, and then changed the subject.
“How’s your house?”
“Much the same as when you honoured it last week.”
“I don’t mean Ducie Street. Howards End, of course.”
“Why ‘of course’?”
“Can’t you turn out your tenant and let it to us? We’re nearly demented.”
“Let me think. I wish I could help you. But I thought you wanted to be
in town. One bit of advice: fix your district, then fix your price, and
then don’t budge. That’s how I got both Ducie Street and Oniton. I said
to myself, ‘I mean to be exactly here,’ and I was, and Oniton’s a place
in a thousand.”
“But I do budge. Gentlemen seem to mesmerise houses--cow them with an
eye, and up they come, trembling. Ladies can’t. It’s the houses that are
mesmerising me. I’ve no control over the saucy things. Houses are alive.
No?”
“I’m out of my depth,” he said, and added: “Didn’t you talk rather like
that to your office boy?”
“Did I?--I mean I did, more or less. I talk the same way to every
one--or try to.”
“Yes, I know. And how much of it do you suppose he understood?”
“That’s his lookout. I don’t believe in suiting my conversation to my
company. One can doubtless hit upon some medium of exchange that seems
to do well enough, but it’s no more like the real thing than money
is like food. There’s no nourishment in it. You pass it to the lower
classes, and they pass it back to you, and this you call ‘social
intercourse’ or ‘mutual endeavour,’ when it’s mutual priggishness if
it’s anything. Our friends at Chelsea don’t see this. They say one ought
to be at all costs intelligible, and sacrifice--”
“Lower classes,” interrupted Mr. Wilcox, as it were thrusting his hand
into her speech. “Well, you do admit that there are rich and poor.
That’s something.”
Margaret could not reply. Was he incredibly stupid, or did he understand
her better than she understood herself?
“You do admit that, if wealth was divided up equally, in a few years
there would be rich and poor again just the same. The hard-working man
would come to the top, the wastrel sink to the bottom.”
“Every one admits that.”
“Your Socialists don’t.”
“My Socialists do. Yours mayn’t; but I strongly suspect yours of being
not Socialists, but ninepins, which you have constructed for your own
amusement. I can’t imagine any living creature who would bowl over quite
so easily.”
He would have resented this had she not been a woman. But women may say
anything--it was one of his holiest beliefs--and he only retorted, with
a gay smile: “I don’t care. You’ve made two damaging admissions, and I’m
heartily with you in both.”
In time they finished lunch, and Margaret, who had excused herself from
the Hippodrome, took her leave. Evie had scarcely addressed her, and she
suspected that the entertainment had been planned by the father. He
and she were advancing out of their respective families towards a more
intimate acquaintance. It had begun long ago. She had been his wife’s
friend and, as such, he had given her that silver vinaigrette as a
memento. It was pretty of him to have given that vinaigrette, and he had
always preferred her to Helen--unlike most men. But the advance had been
astonishing lately. They had done more in a week than in two years, and
were really beginning to know each other.
She did not forget his promise to sample Eustace Miles, and asked him as
soon as she could secure Tibby as his chaperon. He came, and partook of
body-building dishes with humility.
Next morning the Schlegels left for Swanage. They had not succeeded in
finding a new home.
CHAPTER XVIII
As they were seated at Aunt Juley’s breakfast-table at The Bays,
parrying her excessive hospitality and enjoying the view of the bay, a
letter came for Margaret and threw her into perturbation. It was from
Mr. Wilcox. It announced an “important change” in his plans. Owing to
Evie’s marriage, he had decided to give up his house in Ducie Street,
and was willing to let it on a yearly tenancy. It was a businesslike
letter, and stated frankly what he would do for them and what he would
not do. Also the rent. If they approved, Margaret was to come up AT
ONCE--the words were underlined, as is necessary when dealing with
women--and to go over the house with him. If they disapproved, a wire
would oblige, as he should put it into the hands of an agent.
The letter perturbed, because she was not sure what it meant. If he
liked her, if he had manoeuvred to get her to Simpson’s, might this be a
manoeuvre to get her to London, and result in an offer of marriage?
She put it to herself as indelicately as possible, in the hope that her
brain would cry, “Rubbish, you’re a self-conscious fool!” But her brain
only tingled a little and was silent, and for a time she sat gazing at
the mincing waves, and wondering whether the news would seem strange to
the others.
As soon as she began speaking, the sound of her own voice reassured her.
There could be nothing in it. The replies also were typical, and in the
burr of conversation her fears vanished.
“You needn’t go though--” began her hostess.
“I needn’t, but hadn’t I better? It’s really getting rather serious. We
let chance after chance slip, and the end of it is we shall be bundled
out bag and baggage into the street. We don’t know what we WANT, that’s
the mischief with us--”
“No, we have no real ties,” said Helen, helping herself to toast.
“Shan’t I go up to town to-day, take the house if it’s the least
possible, and then come down by the afternoon train to-morrow, and start