"It gave her quite a turn," said Mr. Wilcox, when retailing the
incident to Dolly at tea-time. "None of you girls have any
nerves, really. Of course, a word from me put it all right, but
silly old Miss Avery--she frightened you, didn't she, Margaret?
There you stood clutching a bunch of weeds. She might have said
something, instead of coming down the stairs with that alarming
bonnet on. I passed her as I came in. Enough to make the car shy.
I believe Miss Avery goes in for being a character; some old
maids do." He lit a cigarette. "It is their last resource. Heaven
knows what she was doing in the place; but that's Bryce's
business, not mine."
"I wasn't as foolish as you suggest," said Margaret "She only
startled me, for the house had been silent so long."
"Did you take her for a spook?" asked Dolly, for whom "spooks"'
and "going to church" summarised the unseen.
"Not exactly."
"She really did frighten you," said Henry, who was far from
discouraging timidity in females. "Poor Margaret! And very
naturally. Uneducated classes are so stupid."
"Is Miss Avery uneducated classes?" Margaret asked, and found
herself looking at the decoration scheme of Dolly's drawing-room.
"She's just one of the crew at the farm. People like that always
assume things. She assumed you'd know who she was. She left all
the Howards End keys in the front lobby, and assumed that you'd
seen them as you came in, that you'd lock up the house when you'd
done, and would bring them on down to her. And there was her
niece hunting for them down at the farm. Lack of education makes
people very casual. Hilton was full of women like Miss Avery
once."
"I shouldn't have disliked it, perhaps."
"Or Miss Avery giving me a wedding present," said Dolly.
Which was illogical but interesting. Through Dolly, Margaret was
destined to learn a good deal.
"But Charles said I must try not to mind, because she had known
his grandmother."
"As usual, you've got the story wrong, my good Dorothea."
"I meant great-grandmother--the one who left Mrs. Wilcox the
house. Weren't both of them and Miss Avery friends when Howards
End, too, was a farm?"
Her father-in-law blew out a shaft of smoke. His attitude to his
dead wife was curious. He would allude to her, and hear her
discussed, but never mentioned her by name. Nor was he interested
in the dim, bucolic past. Dolly was--for the following reason.
"Then hadn't Mrs. Wilcox a brother--or was it an uncle? Anyhow,
he popped the question, and Miss Avery, she said `No.' Just
imagine, if she'd said 'Yes,' she would have been Charles's aunt.
(Oh, I say, that's rather good! 'Charlie's Aunt'! I must chaff
him about that this evening.) And the man went out and was
killed. Yes, I 'm certain I've got it right now. Tom Howard--he
was the last of them."
"I believe so," said Mr. Wilcox negligently.
"I say! Howards End--Howards Ended!" Dolly. "I'm rather on the
spot this evening, eh?"
"I wish you'd ask whether Crane's ended."
"Oh, Mr. Wilcox, how can you?"
"Because, if he has had enough tea, we ought to go--Dolly's a
good little woman," he continued, "but a little of her goes a
long way. I couldn't live near her if you paid me."
Margaret smiled. Though presenting a firm front to outsiders, no
Wilcox could live near, or near the possessions of, any other
Wilcox. They had the colonial spirit, and were always making for
some spot where the white man might carry his burden unobserved.
Of course, Howards End was impossible, so long as the younger
couple were established in Hilton. His objections to the house
were plain as daylight now.
Crane had had enough tea, and was sent to the garage, where their
car had been trickling muddy water over Charles's. The downpour
had surely penetrated the Six Hills by now, bringing news of our
restless civilisation. "Curious mounds," said Henry, "but in with
you now; another time." He had to be up in London by seven--if
possible, by six-thirty. Once more she lost the sense of space;
once more trees, houses, people, animals, hills, merged and
heaved into one dirtiness, and she was at Wickham Place.
Her evening was pleasant. The sense of flux which had haunted her
all the year disappeared for a time. She forgot the luggage and
the motor-cars, and the hurrying men who know so much and connect
so little. She recaptured the sense of space, which is the basis
of all earthly beauty, and, starting from Howards End, she
attempted to realise England. She failed--visions do not come
when we try, though they may come through trying. But an
unexpected love of the island awoke in her, connecting on this
side with the joys of the flesh, on that with the inconceivable.
Helen and her father had known this love, poor Leonard Bast was
groping after it, but it had been hidden from Margaret till this
afternoon. It had certainly come through the house and old Miss
Avery. Through them: the notion of "through" persisted; her mind
trembled towards a conclusion which only the unwise have put into
words. Then, veering back into warmth, it dwelt on ruddy bricks,
flowering plum-trees, and all the tangible joys of spring.
Henry, after allaying her agitation, had taken her over his
property, and had explained to her the use and dimensions of the
various rooms. He had sketched the history of the little estate.
"It is so unlucky," ran the monologue, "that money wasn't put
into it about fifty years ago. Then it had four--five--times the
land--thirty acres at least. One could have made something out of
it then--a small park, or at all events shrubberies, and rebuilt
the house farther away from the road. What's the good of taking
it in hand now? Nothing but the meadow left, and even that was
heavily mortgaged when I first had to do with things--yes, and
the house too. Oh, it was no joke." She saw two women as he
spoke, one old, the other young, watching their inheritance melt
away. She saw them greet him as a deliverer. "Mismanagement did
it--besides, the days for small farms are over. It doesn't pay--
except with intensive cultivation. Small holdings, back to the
land--ah! philanthropic bunkum. Take it as a rule that nothing
pays on a small scale. Most of the land you see (they were
standing at an upper window, the only one which faced west)
belongs to the people at the Park--they made their pile over
copper--good chaps. Avery's Farm, Sishe's--what they call the
Common, where you see that ruined oak--one after the other fell
in, and so did this, as near as is no matter." But Henry had
saved it; without fine feelings or deep insight, but he had saved
it, and she loved him for the deed. "When I had more control I
did what I could--sold off the two and a half animals, and the
mangy pony, and the superannuated tools; pulled down the
outhouses; drained; thinned out I don't know how many
guelder-roses and elder-trees; and inside the house I turned the
old kitchen into a hall, and made a kitchen behind where the
dairy was. Garage and so on came later. But one could still tell
it's been an old farm. And yet it isn't the place that would
fetch one of your artistic crew." No, it wasn't; and if he did
not quite understand it, the artistic crew would still less; it
was English, and the wych-elm that she saw from the window was an
English tree. No report had prepared her for its peculiar glory.
It was neither warrior, nor lover, nor god; in none of these
roles do the English excel. It was a comrade bending over the
house, strength and adventure in its roots, but in its utmost
fingers tenderness, and the girth, that a dozen men could not
have spanned, became in the end evanescent, till pale bud
clusters seemed to float in the air. It was a comrade. House and
tree transcended any similes of sex. Margaret thought of them
now, and was to think of them through many a windy night and
London day, but to compare either to man, to woman, always
dwarfed the vision. Yet they kept within limits of the human.
Their message was not of eternity, but of hope on this side of
the grave. As she stood in the one, gazing at the other, truer
relationship had gleamed.
Another touch, and the account of her day is finished. They
entered the garden for a minute, and to Mr. Wilcox's surprise she
was right. Teeth, pigs' teeth, could be seen in the bark of the
wych-elm tree--just the white tips of them showing. "Extraordinary!"
he cried. "Who told you?"
"I heard of it one winter in London," was her answer, for she,
too, avoided mentioning Mrs. Wilcox by name.
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