Howards End
maxim which had cheered him in the past, but which rang grimly enough
among the ruins of Oniton. He lacked his father’s ability in business,
and so had an ever higher regard for money; unless he could inherit
plenty, he feared to leave his children poor.
As he sat thinking, one of the ladies left the terrace and walked into
the meadow; he recognised her as Margaret by the white bandage that
gleamed on her arm, and put out his cigar, lest the gleam should betray
him. She climbed up the mound in zigzags, and at times stooped down, as
if she was stroking the turf. It sounds absolutely incredible, but for
a moment Charles thought that she was in love with him, and had come out
to tempt him. Charles believed in temptresses, who are indeed the strong
man’s necessary complement, and having no sense of humour, he could not
purge himself of the thought by a smile. Margaret, who was engaged to
his father, and his sister’s wedding-guest, kept on her way without
noticing him, and he admitted that he had wronged her on this point. But
what was she doing? Why was she stumbling about amongst the rubble and
catching her dress in brambles and burrs? As she edged round the
keep, she must have got to windward and smelt his cigar-smoke, for she
exclaimed, “Hullo! Who’s that?”
Charles made no answer.
“Saxon or Celt?” she continued, laughing in the darkness. “But it
doesn’t matter. Whichever you are, you will have to listen to me. I love
this place. I love Shropshire. I hate London. I am glad that this will
be my home. Ah, dear”--she was now moving back towards the house--“what
a comfort to have arrived!”
“That woman means mischief,” thought Charles, and compressed his lips.
In a few minutes he followed her indoors, as the ground was getting
damp. Mists were rising from the river, and presently it became
invisible, though it whispered more loudly. There had been a heavy
downpour in the Welsh hills.
CHAPTER XXVI
Next morning a fine mist covered the peninsula. The weather promised
well, and the outline of the castle mound grew clearer each moment that
Margaret watched it. Presently she saw the keep, and the sun painted
the rubble gold, and charged the white sky with blue. The shadow of the
house gathered itself together, and fell over the garden. A cat looked
up at her window and mewed. Lastly the river appeared, still holding the
mists between its banks and its overhanging alders, and only visible as
far as a hill, which cut off its upper reaches.
Margaret was fascinated by Oniton. She had said that she loved it, but
it was rather its romantic tension that held her. The rounded Druids of
whom she had caught glimpses in her drive, the rivers hurrying down
from them to England, the carelessly modelled masses of the lower hills,
thrilled her with poetry. The house was insignificant, but the prospect
from it would be an eternal joy, and she thought of all the friends she
would have to stop in it, and of the conversion of Henry himself to a
rural life. Society, too, promised favourably. The rector of the parish
had dined with them last night, and she found that he was a friend of
her father’s, and so knew what to find in her. She liked him. He would
introduce her to the town. While, on her other side, Sir James Bidder
sat, repeating that she only had to give the word, and he would whip up
the county families for twenty miles round. Whether Sir James, who was
Garden Seeds, had promised what he could perform, she doubted, but so
long as Henry mistook them for the county families when they did call,
she was content.
Charles Wilcox and Albert Fussell now crossed the lawn. They were going
for a morning dip, and a servant followed them with their bathing-suits.
She had meant to take a stroll herself before breakfast, but saw that
the day was still sacred to men, and amused herself by watching their
contretemps. In the first place the key of the bathing-shed could not be
found. Charles stood by the riverside with folded hands, tragical, while
the servant shouted, and was misunderstood by another servant in the
garden. Then came a difficulty about a springboard, and soon three
people were running backwards and forwards over the meadow, with orders
and counter orders and recriminations and apologies. If Margaret wanted
to jump from a motor-car, she jumped; if Tibby thought paddling would
benefit his ankles, he paddled; if a clerk desired adventure, he took
a walk in the dark. But these athletes seemed paralysed. They could not
bathe without their appliances, though the morning sun was calling and
the last mists were rising from the dimpling stream. Had they found
the life of the body after all? Could not the men whom they despised as
milksops beat them, even on their own ground?
She thought of the bathing arrangements as they should be in her day--no
worrying of servants, no appliances, beyond good sense. Her reflections
were disturbed by the quiet child, who had come out to speak to the
cat, but was now watching her watch the men. She called, “Good-morning,
dear,” a little sharply. Her voice spread consternation. Charles looked
round, and though completely attired in indigo blue, vanished into the
shed, and was seen no more.
“Miss Wilcox is up--” the child whispered, and then became
unintelligible.
“What is that?” it sounded like, “--cut-yoke--sack-back--”
“I can’t hear.”
“--On the bed--tissue-paper--”
Gathering that the wedding-dress was on view, and that a visit would
be seemly, she went to Evie’s room. All was hilarity here. Evie, in a
petticoat, was dancing with one of the Anglo-Indian ladies, while the
other was adoring yards of white satin. They screamed, they laughed,
they sang, and the dog barked.
Margaret screamed a little too, but without conviction. She could not
feel that a wedding was so funny. Perhaps something was missing in her
equipment.
Evie gasped: “Dolly is a rotter not to be here! Oh, we would rag just
then!” Then Margaret went down to breakfast.
Henry was already installed; he ate slowly and spoke little, and was,
in Margaret’s eyes, the only member of their party who dodged emotion
successfully. She could not suppose him indifferent either to the loss
of his daughter or to the presence of his future wife. Yet he dwelt
intact, only issuing orders occasionally--orders that promoted the
comfort of his guests. He inquired after her hand; he set her to pour
out the coffee and Mrs. Warrington to pour out the tea. When Evie came
down there was a moment’s awkwardness, and both ladies rose to vacate
their places. “Burton,” called Henry, “serve tea and coffee from the
sideboard!” It wasn’t genuine tact, but it was tact, of a sort--the
sort that is as useful as the genuine, and saves even more situations at
Board meetings. Henry treated a marriage like a funeral, item by item,
never raising his eyes to the whole, and “Death, where is thy sting?
Love, where is thy victory?” one would exclaim at the close.
After breakfast Margaret claimed a few words with him. It was always
best to approach him formally. She asked for the interview, because he
was going on to shoot grouse to-morrow, and she was returning to Helen
in town.
“Certainly, dear,” said he. “Of course, I have the time. What do you
want?”
“Nothing.”
“I was afraid something had gone wrong.”
“No; I have nothing to say, but you may talk.”
Glancing at his watch, he talked of the nasty curve at the lych-gate.
She heard him with interest. Her surface could always respond to his
without contempt, though all her deeper being might be yearning to help
him. She had abandoned any plan of action. Love is the best, and the
more she let herself love him, the more chance was there that he would
set his soul in order. Such a moment as this, when they sat under fair
weather by the walks of their future home, was so sweet to her that
its sweetness would surely pierce to him. Each lift of his eyes, each
parting of the thatched lip from the clean-shaven, must prelude
the tenderness that kills the Monk and the Beast at a single blow.
Disappointed a hundred times, she still hoped. She loved him with too
clear a vision to fear his cloudiness. Whether he droned trivialities,
as to-day, or sprang kisses on her in the twilight, she could pardon
him, she could respond.
“If there is this nasty curve,” she suggested, “couldn’t we walk to the
church? Not, of course, you and Evie; but the rest of us might very well
go on first, and that would mean fewer carriages.”
“One can’t have ladies walking through the Market Square. The Fussells
wouldn’t like it; they were awfully particular at Charles’s wedding.
My--she--our party was anxious to walk, and certainly the church was
just round the corner, and I shouldn’t have minded; but the Colonel made
a great point of it.”
“You men shouldn’t be so chivalrous,” said Margaret thoughtfully.
“Why not?”
She knew why not, but said that she did not know. He then announced
that, unless she had anything special to say, he must visit the
wine-cellar, and they went off together in search of Burton. Though
clumsy and a little inconvenient, Oniton was a genuine country-house.
They clattered down flagged passages, looking into room after room,
and scaring unknown maids from the performance of obscure duties. The
wedding-breakfast must be in readiness when they come back from church,
and tea would be served in the garden. The sight of so many agitated
and serious people made Margaret smile, but she reflected that they
were paid to be serious, and enjoyed being agitated. Here were the lower
wheels of the machine that was tossing Evie up into nuptial glory. A
little boy blocked their way with pig-pails. His mind could not grasp
their greatness, and he said: “By your leave; let me pass, please.”
Henry asked him where Burton was. But the servants were so new that they
did not know one another’s names. In the still-room sat the band, who
had stipulated for champagne as part of their fee, and who were already
drinking beer. Scents of Araby came from the kitchen, mingled with
cries. Margaret knew what had happened there, for it happened at Wickham
Place. One of the wedding dishes had boiled over, and the cook was
throwing cedar-shavings to hide the smell. At last they came upon
the butler. Henry gave him the keys, and handed Margaret down the
cellar-stairs. Two doors were unlocked. She, who kept all her wine at
the bottom of the linen-cupboard, was astonished at the sight. “We shall
never get through it!” she cried, and the two men were suddenly drawn
into brotherhood, and exchanged smiles. She felt as if she had again
jumped out of the car while it was moving.
Certainly Oniton would take some digesting. It would be no small
business to remain herself, and yet to assimilate such an establishment.
She must remain herself, for his sake as well as her own, since a
shadowy wife degrades the husband whom she accompanies; and she must
assimilate for reasons of common honesty, since she had no right to
marry a man and make him uncomfortable. Her only ally was the power of
Home. The loss of Wickham Place had taught her more than its possession.
Howards End had repeated the lesson. She was determined to create new
sanctities among these hills.
After visiting the wine-cellar, she dressed, and then came the wedding,
which seemed a small affair when compared with the preparations for it.
Everything went like one o’clock. Mr. Cahill materialised out of space,
and was waiting for his bride at the church door. No one dropped the
ring or mispronounced the responses, or trod on Evie’s train, or cried.
In a few minutes the clergymen performed their duty, the register was
signed, and they were back in their carriages, negotiating the dangerous
curve by the lych-gate. Margaret was convinced that they had not been