The Age of Property holds bitter moments even for a proprietor.
When a move is imminent, furniture becomes ridiculous, and
Margaret now lay awake at nights wondering where, where on earth
they and all their belongings would be deposited in September
next. Chairs, tables, pictures, books, that had rumbled down to
them through the generations, must rumble forward again like a
slide of rubbish to which she longed to give the final push, and
send toppling into the sea. But there were all their father's
books--they never read them, but they were their father's, and
must be kept. There was the marble-topped chiffonier--their
mother had set store by it, they could not remember why. Round
every knob and cushion in the house gathered a sentiment that was
at times personal, but more often a faint piety to the dead, a
prolongation of rites that might have ended at the grave.
It was absurd, if you came to think of it; Helen and Tibby came
to think of it; Margaret was too busy with the house-agents. The
feudal ownership of land did bring dignity, whereas the modern
ownership of movables is reducing us again to a nomadic horde.
We are reverting to the civilisation of luggage, and historians
of the future will note how the middle classes accreted
possessions without taking root in the earth, and may find in this
the secret of their imaginative poverty. The Schlegels were
certainly the poorer for the loss of Wickham Place. It had helped
to balance their lives, and almost to counsel them. Nor is their
ground-landlord spiritually the richer. He has built flats on its
site, his motor-cars grow swifter, his exposures of Socialism
more trenchant. But he has spilt the precious distillation of the
years, and no chemistry of his can give it back to society again.
Margaret grew depressed; she was anxious to settle on a house
before they left town to pay their annual visit to Mrs. Munt. She
enjoyed this visit, and wanted to have her mind at ease for it.
Swanage, though dull, was stable, and this year she longed more
than usual for its fresh air and for the magnificent downs that
guard it on the north. But London thwarted her; in its atmosphere
she could not concentrate. London only stimulates, it cannot
sustain; and Margaret, hurrying over its surface for a house
without knowing what sort of a house she wanted, was paying for
many a thrilling sensation in the past. She could not even break
loose from culture, and her time was wasted by concerts which it
would be a sin to miss, and invitations which it would never do
to refuse. At last she grew desperate; she resolved that she
would go nowhere and be at home to no one until she found a
house, and broke the resolution in half an hour.
Once she had humorously lamented that she had never been to
Simpson's restaurant in the Strand. Now a note arrived from Miss
Wilcox, asking her to lunch there. Mr Cahill was coming
and the three would have such a jolly chat, and perhaps end up at
the Hippodrome. Margaret had no strong regard for Evie, and no
desire to meet her fiance, and she was surprised that Helen, who
had been far funnier about Simpson's, had not been asked instead.
But the invitation touched her by its intimate tone. She must
know Evie Wilcox better than she supposed, and declaring that she
"simply must," she accepted.
But when she saw Evie at the entrance of the restaurant, staring
fiercely at nothing after the fashion of athletic women, her
heart failed her anew. Miss Wilcox had changed perceptibly since
her engagement. Her voice was gruffer, her manner more downright,
and she was inclined to patronise the more foolish virgin.
Margaret was silly enough to be pained at this. Depressed at her
isolation, she saw not only houses and furniture, but the vessel
of life itself slipping past her, with people like Evie and Mr.
Cahill on board.
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, coviction 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.
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