Howards End
being only a little larger than Wickham Place, trained her for the
immense establishment that was promised in the spring. They were
frequently away, but at home life ran fairly regularly. In the
morning Henry went to business, and his sandwich--a relic this of some
prehistoric craving--was always cut by her own hand. He did not rely
upon the sandwich for lunch, but liked to have it by him in case he grew
hungry at eleven. When he had gone, there was the house to look after,
and the servants to humanise, and several kettles of Helen’s to keep on
the boil. Her conscience pricked her a little about the Basts; she
was not sorry to have lost sight of them. No doubt Leonard was worth
helping, but being Henry’s wife, she preferred to help some one else. As
for theatres and discussion societies, they attracted her less and
less. She began to “miss” new movements, and to spend her spare time
re-reading or thinking, rather to the concern of her Chelsea friends.
They attributed the change to her marriage, and perhaps some deep
instinct did warn her not to travel further from her husband than
was inevitable. Yet the main cause lay deeper still; she had outgrown
stimulants, and was passing from words to things. It was doubtless a
pity not to keep up with Wedekind or John, but some closing of the gates
is inevitable after thirty, if the mind itself is to become a creative
power.
CHAPTER XXXII
She was looking at plans one day in the following spring--they had
finally decided to go down into Sussex and build--when Mrs. Charles
Wilcox was announced.
“Have you heard the news?” Dolly cried, as soon as she entered the room.
“Charles is so ang--I mean he is sure you know about it, or, rather, that
you don’t know.”
“Why, Dolly!” said Margaret, placidly kissing her. “Here’s a surprise!
How are the boys and the baby?”
Boys and the baby were well, and in describing a great row that there
had been at the Hilton Tennis Club, Dolly forgot her news. The wrong
people had tried to get in. The rector, as representing the older
inhabitants, had said--Charles had said--the tax-collector had
said--Charles had regretted not saying--and she closed the description
with, “But lucky you, with four courts of your own at Midhurst.”
“It will be very jolly,” replied Margaret.
“Are those the plans? Does it matter my seeing them?”
“Of course not.”
“Charles has never seen the plans.”
“They have only just arrived. Here is the ground floor--no, that’s
rather difficult. Try the elevation. We are to have a good many gables
and a picturesque sky-line.”
“What makes it smell so funny?” said Dolly, after a moment’s inspection.
She was incapable of understanding plans or maps.
“I suppose the paper.”
“And WHICH way up is it?”
“Just the ordinary way up. That’s the sky-line and the part that smells
strongest is the sky.”
“Well, ask me another. Margaret--oh--what was I going to say? How’s
Helen?”
“Quite well.”
“Is she never coming back to England? Every one thinks it’s awfully odd
she doesn’t.”
“So it is,” said Margaret, trying to conceal her vexation. She was
getting rather sore on this point. “Helen is odd, awfully. She has now
been away eight months.”
“But hasn’t she any address?”
“A poste restante somewhere in Bavaria is her address. Do write her a
line. I will look it up for you.”
“No, don’t bother. That’s eight months she has been away, surely?”
“Exactly. She left just after Evie’s wedding. It would be eight months.”
“Just when baby was born, then?”
“Just so.”
Dolly sighed, and stared enviously round the drawing-room. She was
beginning to lose her brightness and good looks. The Charles’s were not
well off, for Mr. Wilcox, having brought up his children with expensive
tastes, believed in letting them shift for themselves. After all, he
had not treated them generously. Yet another baby was expected, she
told Margaret, and they would have to give up the motor. Margaret
sympathised, but in a formal fashion, and Dolly little imagined that the
stepmother was urging Mr. Wilcox to make them a more liberal allowance.
She sighed again, and at last the particular grievance was remembered.
“Oh, yes,” she cried, “that is it: Miss Avery has been unpacking your
packing-cases.”
“Why has she done that? How unnecessary!”
“Ask another. I suppose you ordered her to.”
“I gave no such orders. Perhaps she was airing the things. She did
undertake to light an occasional fire.”
“It was far more than an air,” said Dolly solemnly. “The floor sounds
covered with books. Charles sent me to know what is to be done, for he
feels certain you don’t know.”
“Books!” cried Margaret, moved by the holy word. “Dolly, are you
serious? Has she been touching our books?”
“Hasn’t she, though! What used to be the hall’s full of them. Charles
thought for certain you knew of it.”
“I am very much obliged to you, Dolly. What can have come over Miss
Avery? I must go down about it at once. Some of the books are my
brother’s, and are quite valuable. She had no right to open any of the
cases.”
“I say she’s dotty. She was the one that never got married, you know.
Oh, I say, perhaps, she thinks your books are wedding-presents to
herself. Old maids are taken that way sometimes. Miss Avery hates us all
like poison ever since her frightful dust-up with Evie.”
“I hadn’t heard of that,” said Margaret. A visit from Dolly had its
compensations.
“Didn’t you know she gave Evie a present last August, and Evie returned
it, and then--oh, goloshes! You never read such a letter as Miss Avery
wrote.”
“But it was wrong of Evie to return it. It wasn’t like her to do such a
heartless thing.”
“But the present was so expensive.”
“Why does that make any difference, Dolly?”
“Still, when it costs over five pounds--I didn’t see it, but it was
a lovely enamel pendant from a Bond Street shop. You can’t very well
accept that kind of thing from a farm woman. Now, can you?”
“You accepted a present from Miss Avery when you were married.”
“Oh, mine was old earthenware stuff--not worth a halfpenny. Evie’s was
quite different. You’d have to ask any one to the wedding who gave you
a pendant like that. Uncle Percy and Albert and father and Charles all
said it was quite impossible, and when four men agree, what is a girl to
do? Evie didn’t want to upset the old thing, so thought a sort of joking
letter best, and returned the pendant straight to the shop to save Miss
Avery trouble.”
“But Miss Avery said--”
Dolly’s eyes grew round. “It was a perfectly awful letter. Charles said
it was the letter of a madman. In the end she had the pendant back again
from the shop and threw it into the duck-pond.”
“Did she give any reasons?”
“We think she meant to be invited to Oniton, and so climb into society.”
“She’s rather old for that,” said Margaret pensively. “May she not have
given the present to Evie in remembrance of her mother?”
“That’s a notion. Give every one their due, eh? Well, I suppose I ought
to be toddling. Come along, Mr. Muff--you want a new coat, but I don’t
know who’ll give it you, I’m sure;” and addressing her apparel with
mournful humour, Dolly moved from the room.
Margaret followed her to ask whether Henry knew about Miss Avery’s
rudeness.
“Oh yes.”
“I wonder, then, why he let me ask her to look after the house.”
“But she’s only a farm woman,” said Dolly, and her explanation proved
correct. Henry only censured the lower classes when it suited him. He
bore with Miss Avery as with Crane--because he could get good value out
of them. “I have patience with a man who knows his job,” he would say,
really having patience with the job, and not the man. Paradoxical as it
may sound, he had something of the artist about him; he would pass over
an insult to his daughter sooner than lose a good charwoman for his
wife.
Margaret judged it better to settle the little trouble herself. Parties
were evidently ruffled. With Henry’s permission, she wrote a pleasant
note to Miss Avery, asking her to leave the cases untouched. Then, at
the first convenient opportunity, she went down herself, intending to
repack her belongings and store them properly in the local warehouse;
the plan had been amateurish and a failure. Tibby promised to accompany
her, but at the last moment begged to be excused. So, for the second
time in her life, she entered the house alone.
CHAPTER XXXIII
The day of her visit was exquisite, and the last of unclouded happiness
that she was to have for many months. Her anxiety about Helen’s
extraordinary absence was still dormant, and as for a possible brush
with Miss Avery--that only gave zest to the expedition. She had also
eluded Dolly’s invitation to luncheon. Walking straight up from the
station, she crossed the village green and entered the long chestnut
avenue that connects it with the church. The church itself stood in the
village once. But it there attracted so many worshippers that the
devil, in a pet, snatched it from its foundations, and poised it on
an inconvenient knoll, three quarters of a mile away. If this story is
true, the chestnut avenue must have been planted by the angels. No more
tempting approach could be imagined for the lukewarm Christian, and if
he still finds the walk too long, the devil is defeated all the same,
Science having built Holy Trinity, a Chapel of Ease, near the Charles’s
and roofed it with tin.
Up the avenue Margaret strolled slowly, stopping to watch the sky that
gleamed through the upper branches of the chestnuts, or to finger the
little horseshoes on the lower branches. Why has not England a great
mythology? Our folklore has never advanced beyond daintiness, and the
greater melodies about our country-side have all issued through the
pipes of Greece. Deep and true as the native imagination can be, it
seems to have failed here. It has stopped with the witches and the
fairies. It cannot vivify one fraction of a summer field, or give names
to half a dozen stars. England still waits for the supreme moment of her
literature--for the great poet who shall voice her, or, better still for
the thousand little poets whose voices shall pass into our common talk.
At the church the scenery changed. The chestnut avenue opened into
a road, smooth but narrow, which led into the untouched country. She
followed it for over a mile. Its little hesitations pleased her. Having
no urgent destiny, it strolled downhill or up as it wished, taking
no trouble about the gradients, or about the view, which nevertheless
expanded. The great estates that throttle the south of Hertfordshire
were less obtrusive here, and the appearance of the land was neither
aristocratic nor suburban. To define it was difficult, but Margaret knew
what it was not: it was not snobbish. Though its contours were slight,
there was a touch of freedom in their sweep to which Surrey will never
attain, and the distant brow of the Chilterns towered like a mountain.
“Left to itself,” was Margaret’s opinion, “this county would vote
Liberal.” The comradeship, not passionate, that is our highest gift as
a nation, was promised by it, as by the low brick farm where she called
for the key.
But the inside of the farm was disappointing. A most finished young
person received her. “Yes, Mrs. Wilcox; no, Mrs. Wilcox; oh yes, Mrs.
Wilcox, auntie received your letter quite duly. Auntie has gone up to
your little place at the present moment. Shall I send the servant to
direct you?” Followed by: “Of course, auntie does not generally look
after your place; she only does it to oblige a neighbour as something
exceptional. It gives her something to do. She spends quite a lot of her
time there. My husband says to me sometimes, ‘Where’s auntie?’ I say,
‘Need you ask? She’s at Howards End.’ Yes, Mrs. Wilcox. Mrs. Wilcox,