Howards End
doesn’t want a scene before servants. A certain gentleman”--he pointed
at Crane’s back--“won’t drive in, but will wait a little short of the
front gate, behind the laurels. Have you still the keys of the house?”
“Yes.”
“Well, they aren’t wanted. Do you remember how the house stands?”
“Yes.”
“If we don’t find her in the porch, we can stroll round into the garden.
Our object--”
Here they stopped to pick up the doctor.
“I was just saying to my wife, Mansbridge, that our main object is not
to frighten Miss Schlegel. The house, as you know, is my property, so it
should seem quite natural for us to be there. The trouble is evidently
nervous--wouldn’t you say so, Margaret?”
The doctor, a very young man, began to ask questions about Helen. Was
she normal? Was there anything congenital or hereditary? Had anything
occurred that was likely to alienate her from her family?
“Nothing,” answered Margaret, wondering what would have happened if she
had added: “Though she did resent my husband’s immorality.”
“She always was highly strung,” pursued Henry, leaning back in the
car as it shot past the church. “A tendency to spiritualism and those
things, though nothing serious. Musical, literary, artistic, but I
should say normal--a very charming girl.”
Margaret’s anger and terror increased every moment. How dare these
men label her sister! What horrors lay ahead! What impertinences that
shelter under the name of science! The pack was turning on Helen, to
deny her human rights, and it seemed to Margaret that all Schlegels were
threatened with her. “Were they normal?” What a question to ask! And it
is always those who know nothing about human nature, who are bored by
psychology--and shocked by physiology, who ask it. However piteous her
sister’s state, she knew that she must be on her side. They would be mad
together if the world chose to consider them so.
It was now five minutes past three. The car slowed down by the farm, in
the yard of which Miss Avery was standing. Henry asked her whether a cab
had gone past. She nodded, and the next moment they caught sight of it,
at the end of the lane. The car ran silently like a beast of prey. So
unsuspicious was Helen that she was sitting in the porch, with her back
to the road. She had come. Only her head and shoulders were visible. She
sat framed in the vine, and one of her hands played with the buds. The
wind ruffled her hair, the sun glorified it; she was as she had always
been.
Margaret was seated next to the door. Before her husband could prevent
her, she slipped out. She ran to the garden gate, which was shut, passed
through it, and deliberately pushed it in his face. The noise alarmed
Helen. Margaret saw her rise with an unfamiliar movement, and, rushing
into the porch, learnt the simple explanation of all their fears--her
sister was with child.
“Is the truant all right?” called Henry.
She had time to whisper: “Oh, my darling--” The keys of the house were
in her hand. She unlocked Howards End and thrust Helen into it. “Yes,
all right,” she said, and stood with her back to the door.
CHAPTER XXXVI
“Margaret, you look upset!” said Henry.
Mansbridge had followed. Crane was at the gate, and the flyman had stood
up on the box. Margaret shook her head at them; she could not speak any
more. She remained clutching the keys, as if all their future depended
on them. Henry was asking more questions. She shook her head again. His
words had no sense. She heard him wonder why she had let Helen in. “You
might have given me a knock with the gate,” was another of his remarks.
Presently she heard herself speaking. She, or someone for her, said, “Go
away.” Henry came nearer. He repeated, “Margaret, you look upset again.
My dear, give me the keys. What are you doing with Helen?”
“Oh, dearest, do go away, and I will manage it all.”
“Manage what?”
He stretched out his hand for the keys. She might have obeyed if it had
not been for the doctor.
“Stop that at least,” she said piteously; the doctor had turned back,
and was questioning the driver of Helen’s cab. A new feeling came over
her; she was fighting for women against men. She did not care about
rights, but if men came into Howards End, it should be over her body.
“Come, this is an odd beginning,” said her husband.
The doctor came forward now, and whispered two words to Mr. Wilcox--the
scandal was out. Sincerely horrified, Henry stood gazing at the earth.
“I cannot help it,” said Margaret. “Do wait. It’s not my fault. Please
all four of you go away now.”
Now the flyman was whispering to Crane.
“We are relying on you to help us, Mrs. Wilcox,” said the young doctor.
“Could you go in and persuade your sister to come out?”
“On what grounds?” said Margaret, suddenly looking him straight in the
eyes.
Thinking it professional to prevaricate, he murmured something about a
nervous breakdown.
“I beg your pardon, but it is nothing of the sort. You are not qualified
to attend my sister, Mr. Mansbridge. If we require your services, we
will let you know.”
“I can diagnose the case more bluntly if you wish,” he retorted.
“You could, but you have not. You are, therefore, not qualified to
attend my sister.”
“Come, come, Margaret!” said Henry, never raising his eyes. “This is a
terrible business, an appalling business. It’s doctor’s orders. Open the
door.”
“Forgive me, but I will not.”
“I don’t agree.”
Margaret was silent.
“This business is as broad as it’s long,” contributed the doctor. “We
had better all work together. You need us, Mrs. Wilcox, and we need
you.”
“Quite so,” said Henry.
“I do not need you in the least,” said Margaret.
The two men looked at each other anxiously.
“No more does my sister, who is still many weeks from her confinement.”
“Margaret, Margaret!”
“Well, Henry, send your doctor away. What possible use is he now?”
Mr. Wilcox ran his eye over the house. He had a vague feeling that he
must stand firm and support the doctor. He himself might need support,
for there was trouble ahead.
“It all turns on affection now,” said Margaret. “Affection. Don’t you
see?” Resuming her usual methods, she wrote the word on the house with
her finger. “Surely you see. I like Helen very much, you not so much.
Mr. Mansbridge doesn’t know her. That’s all. And affection, when
reciprocated, gives rights. Put that down in your note-book, Mr.
Mansbridge. It’s a useful formula.”
Henry told her to be calm.
“You don’t know what you want yourselves,” said Margaret, folding her
arms. “For one sensible remark I will let you in. But you cannot make
it. You would trouble my sister for no reason. I will not permit it.
I’ll stand here all the day sooner.”
“Mansbridge,” said Henry in a low voice, “perhaps not now.”
The pack was breaking up. At a sign from his master, Crane also went
back into the car.
“Now, Henry, you,” she said gently. None of her bitterness had been
directed at him. “Go away now, dear. I shall want your advice later, no
doubt. Forgive me if I have been cross. But, seriously, you must go.”
He was too stupid to leave her. Now it was Mr. Mansbridge who called in
a low voice to him.
“I shall soon find you down at Dolly’s,” she called, as the gate at last
clanged between them. The fly moved out of the way, the motor backed,
turned a little, backed again, and turned in the narrow road. A string
of farm carts came up in the middle; but she waited through all, for
there was no hurry. When all was over and the car had started, she
opened the door. “Oh, my darling!” she said. “My darling, forgive me.”
Helen was standing in the hall.
CHAPTER XXXVII
Margaret bolted the door on the inside. Then she would have kissed her
sister, but Helen, in a dignified voice, that came strangely from her,
said:
“Convenient! You did not tell me that the books were unpacked. I have
found nearly everything that I want.”
“I told you nothing that was true.”
“It has been a great surprise, certainly. Has Aunt Juley been ill?”
“Helen, you wouldn’t think I’d invent that?”
“I suppose not,” said Helen, turning away, and crying a very little.
“But one loses faith in everything after this.”
“We thought it was illness, but even then--I haven’t behaved worthily.”
Helen selected another book.
“I ought not to have consulted any one. What would our father have
thought of me?”
She did not think of questioning her sister, or of rebuking her. Both
might be necessary in the future, but she had first to purge a greater
crime than any that Helen could have committed--that want of confidence
that is the work of the devil.
“Yes, I am annoyed,” replied Helen. “My wishes should have been
respected. I would have gone through this meeting if it was necessary,
but after Aunt Juley recovered, it was not necessary. Planning my life,
as I now have to do.”
“Come away from those books,” called Margaret. “Helen, do talk to me.”
“I was just saying that I have stopped living haphazard. One can’t go
through a great deal of --”--she left out the noun--“without planning one’s
actions in advance. I am going to have a child in June, and in the first
place conversations, discussions, excitement, are not good for me. I
will go through them if necessary, but only then. In the second place I
have no right to trouble people. I cannot fit in with England as I know
it. I have done something that the English never pardon. It would not be
right for them to pardon it. So I must live where I am not known.”
“But why didn’t you tell me, dearest?”
“Yes,” replied Helen judicially. “I might have, but decided to wait.”
“I believe you would never have told me.”
“Oh yes, I should. We have taken a flat in Munich.”
Margaret glanced out of the window.
“By ‘we’ I mean myself and Monica. But for her, I am and have been and
always wish to be alone.”
“I have not heard of Monica.”
“You wouldn’t have. She’s an Italian--by birth at least. She makes her
living by journalism. I met her originally on Garda. Monica is much the
best person to see me through.”
“You are very fond of her, then.”
“She has been extraordinarily sensible with me.”
Margaret guessed at Monica’s type--“Italiano Inglesiato” they had named
it--the crude feminist of the South, whom one respects but avoids. And
Helen had turned to it in her need!
“You must not think that we shall never meet,” said Helen, with a
measured kindness. “I shall always have a room for you when you can be
spared, and the longer you can be with me the better. But you haven’t
understood yet, Meg, and of course it is very difficult for you. This is
a shock to you. It isn’t to me, who have been thinking over our futures
for many months, and they won’t be changed by a slight contretemps, such
as this. I cannot live in England.”
“Helen, you’ve not forgiven me for my treachery. You COULDN’T talk like
this to me if you had.”
“Oh, Meg dear, why do we talk at all?” She dropped a book and sighed
wearily. Then, recovering herself, she said: “Tell me, how is it that
all the books are down here?”
“Series of mistakes.”
“And a great deal of furniture has been unpacked.”
“All.”
“Who lives here, then?”
“No one.”
“I suppose you are letting it, though.”
“The house is dead,” said Margaret, with a frown. “Why worry on about
it?”
“But I am interested. You talk as if I had lost all my interest in life.
I am still Helen, I hope. Now this hasn’t the feel of a dead house.
The hall seems more alive even than in the old days, when it held the
Wilcoxes’ own things.”
“Interested, are you? Very well, I must tell you, I suppose. My husband
lent it on condition we--but by a mistake all our things were unpacked,
and Miss Avery, instead of--” She stopped. “Look here, I can’t go on