Several days passed.
Was Mrs. Wilcox one of the unsatisfactory people--there are many
of them--who dangle intimacy and then withdraw it? They evoke our
interests and affections, and keep the life of the spirit
dawdling round them. Then they withdraw. When physical passion is
involved, there is a definite name for such behaviour--flirting--
and if carried far enough it is punishable by law. But no law--
not public opinion even--punishes those who coquette with
friendship, though the dull ache that they inflict, the sense of
misdirected effort and exhaustion, may be as intolerable. Was she
one of these?
Margaret feared so at first, for, with a Londoner's impatience,
she wanted everything to be settled up immediately. She
mistrusted the periods of quiet that are essential to true
growth. Desiring to book Mrs. Wilcox as a friend, she pressed on
the ceremony, pencil, as it were, in hand, pressing the more
because the rest of the family were away, and the opportunity
seemed favourable. But the elder woman would not be hurried. She
refused to fit in with the Wickham Place set, or to reopen
discussion of Helen and Paul, whom Margaret would have utilised
as a short-cut. She took her time, or perhaps let time take her,
and when the crisis did come all was ready.
The crisis opened with a message: Would Miss Schlegel come
shopping? Christmas was nearing, and Mrs. Wilcox felt behindhand
with the presents. She had taken some more days in bed, and must
make up for lost time. Margaret accepted, and at eleven o'clock
one cheerless morning they started out in a brougham.
"First of all," began Margaret, "we must make a list and tick off
the people's names. My aunt always does, and this fog may thicken
up any moment. Have you any ideas?"
"I thought we would go to Harrods or the Haymarket Stores," said
Mrs. Wilcox rather hopelessly. "Everything is sure to be there. I
am not a good shopper. The din is so confusing, and your aunt is
quite right--one ought to make a list. Take my notebook, then,
and write your own name at the top of the page.
"Oh, hooray!" said Margaret, writing it. "How very kind of you to
start with me!" But she did not want to receive anything
expensive. Their acquaintance was singular rather than intimate,
and she divined that the Wilcox clan would resent any expenditure
on outsiders; the more compact families do. She did not want to
be thought a second Helen, who would snatch presents since she
could not snatch young men, nor to be exposed like a second Aunt
Juley, to the insults of Charles. A certain austerity of
demeanour was best, and she added: "I don't really want a
Yuletide gift, though. In fact, I'd rather not."
"Why?"
"Because I've odd ideas about Christmas. Because I have all that
money can buy. I want more people, but no more things."
"I should like to give you something worth your acquaintance,
Miss Schlegel, in memory of your kindness to me during my lonely
fortnight. It has so happened that I have been left alone, and
you have stopped me from brooding. I am too apt to brood."
"If that is so," said Margaret, "if I have happened to be of use
to you, which I didn't know, you cannot pay me back with anything
tangible."
"I suppose not, but one would like to. Perhaps I shall think of
something as we go about."
Her name remained at the head of the list, but nothing was
written opposite it. They drove from shop to shop. The air was
white, and when they alighted it tasted like cold pennies. At
times they passed through a clot of grey. Mrs. Wilcox's vitality
was low that morning, and it was Margaret who decided on a horse
for this little girl, a golliwog for that, for the rector's wife
a copper warming-tray. "We always give the servants money." "Yes,
do you, yes, much easier," replied Margaret but felt the
grotesque impact of the unseen upon the seen, and saw issuing
from a forgotten manger at Bethlehem this torrent of coins and
toys. Vulgarity reigned. Public-houses, besides their usual
exhortation against temperance reform, invited men to "Join our
Christmas goose club"--one bottle of gin, etc., or two, according
to subscription. A poster of a woman in tights heralded the
Christmas pantomime, and little red devils, who had come in again
that year, were prevalent upon the Christmas-cards. Margaret was
no morbid idealist. She did not wish this spate of business and
self-advertisement checked. It was only the occasion of it that
struck her with amazement annually. How many of these vacillating
shoppers and tired shop-assistants realised that it was a divine
event that drew them together? She realised it, though standing
outside in the matter. She was not a Christian in the accepted
sense; she did not believe that God had ever worked among us as a
young artisan. These people, or most of them, believed it, and if
pressed, would affirm it in words. But the visible signs of their
belief were Regent Street or Drury Lane, a little mud displaced,
a little money spent, a little food cooked, eaten, and forgotten.
Inadequate. But in public who shall express the unseen
adequately? It is private life that holds out the mirror to
infinity; personal intercourse, and that alone, that ever hints
at a personality beyond our daily vision.
"No, I do like Christmas on the whole," she announced. "In its
clumsy way, it does approach Peace and Goodwill. But oh, it is
clumsier every year."
"Is it? I am only used to country Christmases."
"We are usually in London, and play the game with vigour--carols
at the Abbey, clumsy midday meal, clumsy dinner for the maids,
followed by Christmas-tree and dancing of poor children, with
songs from Helen. The drawing-room does very well for that. We
put the tree in the powder-closet, and draw a curtain when the
candles are lighted, and with the looking-glass behind it looks
quite pretty. I wish we might have a powder-closet in our next
house. Of course, the tree has to be very small, and the presents
don't hang on it. No; the presents reside in a sort of rocky
landscape made of crumpled brown paper."
"You spoke of your 'next house,' Miss Schlegel. Then are you
leaving Wickham Place?"
"Yes, in two or three years, when the lease expires. We must."
"Have you been there long?"
"All our lives."
"You will be very sorry to leave it."
"I suppose so. We scarcely realise it yet. My father--" She broke
off, for they had reached the stationery department of the
Haymarket Stores, and Mrs. Wilcox wanted to order some private
greeting cards.
"If possible, something distinctive," she sighed. At the counter
she found a friend, bent on the same errand, and conversed with
her insipidly, wasting much time. "My husband and our daughter
are motoring." "Bertha, too? Oh, fancy, what a coincidence!"
Margaret, though not practical, could shine in such company as
this. While they talked, she went through a volume of specimen
cards, and submitted one for Mrs. Wilcox's inspection. Mrs.
Wilcox was delighted--so original, words so sweet; she would
order a hundred like that, and could never be sufficiently
grateful. Then, just as the assistant was booking the order, she
said: "Do you know, I'll wait. On second thoughts, I'll wait.
There's plenty of time still, isn't there, and I shall be able to
get Evie's opinion."
They returned to the carriage by devious paths; when they were
in, she said, "But couldn't you get it renewed?"
"I beg your pardon?" asked Margaret.
"The lease, I mean."
"Oh, the lease! Have you been thinking of that all the time? How
very kind of you!"
"Surely something could be done."
"No; values have risen too enormously. They mean to pull down
Wickham Place, and build flats like yours."
"But how horrible!"
"Landlords are horrible."
Then she said vehemently: "It is monstrous, Miss Schlegel; it
isn't right. I had no idea that this was hanging over you. I do
pity you from the bottom of my heart. To be parted from your
house, your father's house--it oughtn't to be allowed. It is
worse than dying. I would rather die than-- Oh, poor girls! Can
what they call civilisation be right, if people mayn't die in the
room where they were born? My dear, I am so sorry."
Margaret did not know what to say. Mrs. Wilcox had been overtired
by the shopping, and was inclined to hysteria.
"Howards End was nearly pulled down once. It would have killed
me."
"I--Howards End must be a very different house to ours. We are
fond of ours, but there is nothing distinctive about it. As you
saw, it is an ordinary London house. We shall easily find
another."
"So you think."
"Again my lack of experience, I suppose!" said Margaret, easing
away from the subject. "I can't say anything when you take up
that line, Mrs. Wilcox. I wish I could see myself as you see me--
foreshortened into a backfisch. Quite the ingenue. Very charming
--wonderfully well read for my age, but incapable--"
Mrs. Wilcox would not be deterred. "Come down with me to Howards
End now," she said, more vehemently than ever. "I want you to see
it. You have never seen it. I want to hear what you say about it,
for you do put things so wonderfully."
Margaret glanced at the pitiless air and then at the tired face
of her companion. "Later on I should love it," she continued,
"but it's hardly the weather for such an expedition, and we ought
to start when we're fresh. Isn't the house shut up, too?"
She received no answer. Mrs. Wilcox appeared to be annoyed.
"Might I come some other day?"
Mrs. Wilcox bent forward and tapped the glass. "Back to Wickham
Place, please!" was her order to the coachman. Margaret had been
snubbed.
"A thousand thanks, Miss Schlegel, for all your help."
"Not at all."
"It is such a comfort to get the presents off my mind--the
Christmas-cards especially. I do admire your choice."
It was her turn to receive no answer. In her turn Margaret became
annoyed.
"My husband and Evie will be back the day after to-morrow. That
is why I dragged you out shopping to-day. I stayed in town
chiefly to shop, but got through nothing, and now he writes that
they must cut their tour short, the weather is so bad, and the
police-traps have been so bad--nearly as bad as in Surrey. Ours
is such a careful chauffeur, and my husband feels it particularly
hard that they should be treated like road-hogs."
"Why?"
"Well, naturally he--he isn't a road-hog."
"He was exceeding the speed-limit, I conclude. He must expect to
suffer with the lower animals."
Mrs. Wilcox was silenced. In growing discomfort they drove
homewards. The city seemed Satanic, the narrower streets
oppressing like the galleries of a mine.
No harm was done by the fog to trade, for it lay high, and the
lighted windows of the shops were thronged with customers. It was
rather a darkening of the spirit which fell back upon itself, to
find a more grievous darkness within. Margaret nearly spoke a
dozen times, but something throttled her. She felt petty and
awkward, and her meditations on Christmas grew more cynical.
Peace? It may bring other gifts, but is there a single Londoner
to whom Christmas is peaceful? The craving for excitement and for
elaboration has ruined that blessing. Goodwill? Had she seen any
example of it in the hordes of purchasers? Or in herself? She had
failed to respond to this invitation merely because it was a
little queer and imaginative--she, whose birthright it was to
nourish imagination! Better to have accepted, to have tired
themselves a little by the journey, than coldly to reply, "Might
I come some other day?" Her cynicism left her. There would be no
other day. This shadowy woman would never ask her again.
They parted at the Mansions. Mrs. Wilcox went in after due
civilities, and Margaret watched the tall, lonely figure sweep up
the hall to the lift. As the glass doors closed on it she had the
sense of an imprisonment The beautiful head disappeared first,
still buried in the muff; the long trailing skirt followed. A
woman of undefinable rarity was going up heavenward, like a
specimen in a bottle. And into what a heaven--a vault as of hell,
sooty black, from which soot descended!
At lunch her brother, seeing her inclined for silence insisted on
talking. Tibby was not ill-natured, but from babyhood something
drove him to do the unwelcome and the unexpected. Now he gave her
a long account of the day-school that he sometimes patronised.
The account was interesting, and she had often pressed him for it
before, but she could not attend now, for her mind was focussed
on the invisible. She discerned that Mrs. Wilcox, though a loving
wife and mother, had only one passion in life--her house--and
that the moment was solemn when she invited a friend to share
this passion with her. To answer "another day" was to answer as a
fool. "Another day" will do for brick and mortar, but not for the
Holy of Holies into which Howards End had been transfigured. Her
own curiosity was slight. She had heard more than enough about it
in the summer. The nine windows, the vine, and the wych-elm had
no pleasant connections for her, and she would have preferred to
spend the afternoon at a concert. But imagination triumphed.
While her brother held forth she determined to go, at whatever
cost, and to compel Mrs. Wilcox to go, too. When lunch was over
she stepped over to the flats.
Mrs. Wilcox had just gone away for the night.
Margaret said that it was of no consequence, hurried downstairs,
and took a hansom to King's Cross. She was convinced that the
escapade was important, though it would have puzzled her to say
why. There was question of imprisonment and escape, and though
she did not know the time of the train, she strained her eyes for
St. Pancras's clock.
Then the clock of King's Cross swung into sight, a second moon in
that infernal sky, and her cab drew up at the station. There was
a train for Hilton in five minutes. She took a ticket, asking in
her agitation for a single. As she did so, a grave and happy
voice saluted her and thanked her.
"I will come if I still may," said Margaret, laughing nervously.
"You are coming to sleep, dear, too. It is in the morning that my
house is most beautiful. You are coming to stop. I cannot show
you my meadow properly except at sunrise. These fogs"--she
pointed at the station roof--"never spread far. I dare say they
are sitting in the sun in Hertfordshire, and you will never
repent joining them."
"I shall never repent joining you."
"It is the same."
They began the walk up the long platform. Far at its end stood
the train, breasting the darkness without. They never reached it.
Before imagination could triumph, there were cries of "Mother!
mother!" and a heavy-browed girl darted out of the cloak-room and
seized Mrs. Wilcox by the arm.
"Evie!" she gasped--"Evie, my pet--"
The girl called, "Father! I say! look who's here."
"Evie, dearest girl, why aren't you in Yorkshire?"
"No--motor smash--changed plans--father's coming."
"Why, Ruth!" cried Mr. Wilcox, joining them. "that in the name of
all that's wonderful are you doing here, Ruth?"
Mrs. Wilcox had recovered herself.
"Oh, Henry dear!--here's a lovely surprise--but let me introduce
--but I think you know Miss Schlegel."
"Oh yes," he replied, not greatly interested. "But how's
yourself, Ruth?"
"Fit as a fiddle," she answered gaily.
"So are we, and so was our car, which ran A1 as far as Ripon, but
there a wretched horse and cart which a fool of a driver--"
"Miss Schlegel, our little outing must be for another day."
"I was saying that this fool of a driver, as the policeman
himself admits."
"Another day, Mrs. Wilcox. Of course."
"--But as we've insured against third party risks, it won't so
much matter--"
"--Cart and car being practically at right angles--"
The voices of the happy family rose high. Margaret was left
alone. No one wanted her. Mrs. Wilcox walked out of King's Cross
between her husband and her daughter, listening to both of them.
Read next: CHAPTER XI
Read previous: CHAPTER IX
Table of content of Howards End
GO TO TOP OF SCREEN
Post your reviewYour review will be placed after the table of content of this book
