prompt:
Chapter: 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.

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,
could I prevail upon you to accept a piece of cake? Not if I cut it for
you?"

Margaret refused the cake, but unfortunately this gave her gentility in
the eyes of Miss Avery's niece.

"I cannot let you go on alone. Now don't. You really mustn't. I
will direct you myself if it comes to that. I must get my hat.
Now"--roguishly--"Mrs. Wilcox, don't you move while I'm gone."

Stunned, Margaret did not move from the best parlour, over which the
touch of art nouveau had fallen. But the other rooms looked in keeping,
though they conveyed the peculiar sadness of a rural interior. Here had
lived an elder race, to which we look back with disquietude. The country
which we visit at week-ends was really a home to it, and the graver
sides of life, the deaths, the partings, the yearnings for love,
have their deepest expression in the heart of the fields. All was not
sadness. The sun was shining without. The thrush sang his two syllables
on the budding guelder-rose. Some children were playing uproariously
in heaps of golden straw. It was the presence of sadness at all that
surprised Margaret, and ended by giving her a feeling of completeness.
In these English farms, if anywhere, one might see life steadily and see
it whole, group in one vision its transitoriness and its eternal youth,
connect--connect without bitterness until all men are brothers. But her
thoughts were interrupted by the return of Miss Avery's niece, and were
so tranquillising that she suffered the interruption gladly.

It was quicker to go out by the back door, and, after due explanations,
they went out by it. The niece was now mortified by innumerable
chickens, who rushed up to her feet for food, and by a shameless and
maternal sow. She did not know what animals were coming to. But her
gentility withered at the touch of the sweet air. The wind was rising,
scattering the straw and ruffling the tails of the ducks as they floated
in families over Evie's pendant. One of those delicious gales of spring,
in which leaves still in bud seem to rustle, swept over the land and
then fell silent. "Georgie," sang the thrush. "Cuckoo," came furtively
from the cliff of pine-trees. "Georgie, pretty Georgie," and the other
birds joined in with nonsense. The hedge was a half-painted picture
which would be finished in a few days. Celandines grew on its banks,
lords and ladies and primroses in the defended hollows; the wild
rose-bushes, still bearing their withered hips, showed also the promise
of blossom. Spring had come, clad in no classical garb, yet fairer
than all springs; fairer even than she who walks through the myrtles of
Tuscany with the graces before her and the zephyr behind.

The two women walked up the lane full of outward civility. But Margaret
was thinking how difficult it was to be earnest about furniture on such
a day, and the niece was thinking about hats. Thus engaged, they reached
Howards End. Petulant cries of "Auntie!" severed the air. There was no
reply, and the front door was locked.

"Are you sure that Miss Avery is up here?" asked Margaret.

"Oh, yes, Mrs. Wilcox, quite sure. She is here daily."

Margaret tried to look in through the dining-room window, but the
curtain inside was drawn tightly. So with the drawing-room and the hall.
The appearance of these curtains was familiar, yet she did not remember
their being there on her other visit; her impression was that Mr. Bryce
had taken everything away. They tried the back. Here again they received
no answer, and could see nothing; the kitchen-window was fitted with
a blind, while the pantry and scullery had pieces of wood propped up
against them, which looked ominously like the lids of packing-cases.
Margaret thought of her books, and she lifted up her voice also. At the
first cry she succeeded.

"Well, well!" replied some one inside the house. "If it isn't Mrs.
Wilcox come at last!"

"Have you got the key, auntie?"

"Madge, go away," said Miss Avery, still invisible.

"Auntie, it's Mrs. Wilcox--"

Margaret supported her. "Your niece and I have come together."

"Madge, go away. This is no moment for your hat."

The poor woman went red. "Auntie gets more eccentric lately," she said
nervously.

"Miss Avery!" called Margaret. "I have come about the furniture. Could
you kindly let me in?"

"Yes, Mrs. Wilcox," said the voice, "of course." But after that came
silence. They called again without response. They walked round the house
disconsolately.

"I hope Miss Avery is not ill," hazarded Margaret.

"Well, if you'll excuse me," said Madge, "perhaps I ought to be leaving
you now. The servants need seeing to at the farm. Auntie is so odd at
times." Gathering up her elegancies, she retired defeated, and, as if
her departure had loosed a spring, the front door opened at once.

Miss Avery said, "Well, come right in, Mrs. Wilcox!" quite pleasantly
and calmly.

"Thank you so much," began Margaret, but broke off at the sight of an
umbrella-stand. It was her own.

"Come right into the hall first," said Miss Avery. She drew the curtain,
and Margaret uttered a cry of despair. For an appalling thing had
happened. The hall was fitted up with the contents of the library from
Wickham Place. The carpet had been laid, the big work-table drawn up
near the window; the bookcases filled the wall opposite the fireplace,
and her father's sword--this is what bewildered her particularly--had
been drawn from its scabbard and hung naked amongst the sober volumes.
Miss Avery must have worked for days.

"I'm afraid this isn't what we meant," she began. "Mr. Wilcox and I
never intended the cases to be touched. For instance, these books are my
brother's. We are storing them for him and for my sister, who is abroad.
When you kindly undertook to look after things, we never expected you to
do so much."

"The house has been empty long enough," said the old woman.

Margaret refused to argue. "I dare say we didn't explain," she said
civilly. "It has been a mistake, and very likely our mistake."

"Mrs. Wilcox, it has been mistake upon mistake for fifty years. The
house is Mrs. Wilcox's, and she would not desire it to stand empty any
longer."

To help the poor decaying brain, Margaret said:

"Yes, Mrs. Wilcox's house, the mother of Mr. Charles."

"Mistake upon mistake," said Miss Avery. "Mistake upon mistake."

"Well, I don't know," said Margaret, sitting down in one of her own
chairs. "I really don't know what's to be done." She could not help
laughing.

The other said: "Yes, it should be a merry house enough."

"I don't know--I dare say. Well, thank you very much, Miss Avery. Yes,
that's all right. Delightful."

"There is still the parlour." She went through the door opposite and
drew a curtain. Light flooded the drawing-room furniture from Wickham
Place. "And the dining-room." More curtains were drawn, more windows
were flung open to the spring. "Then through here--" Miss Avery
continued passing and reprising through the hall. Her voice was lost,
but Margaret heard her pulling up the kitchen blind. "I've not finished
here yet," she announced, returning. "There's still a deal to do. The
farm lads will carry your great wardrobes upstairs, for there is no need
to go into expense at Hilton."

"It is all a mistake," repeated Margaret, feeling that she must put her
foot down. "A misunderstanding. Mr. Wilcox and I are not going to live
at Howards End."

"Oh, indeed! On account of his hay fever?"

"We have settled to build a new home for ourselves in Sussex, and part
of this furniture--my part--will go down there presently." She looked at
Miss Avery intently, trying to understand the kink in her brain.

Here was no maundering old woman. Her wrinkles were shrewd and humorous.
She looked capable of scathing wit and also of high but unostentatious
nobility. "You think that you won't come back to live here, Mrs. Wilcox,
but you will."

"That remains to be seen," said Margaret, smiling. "We have no intention
of doing so for the present. We happen to need a much larger house.
Circumstances oblige us to give big parties. Of course, some day--one
never knows, does one?"

Miss Avery retorted: "Some day! Tcha! tcha! Don't talk about some day.
You are living here now."

"Am I?"

"You are living here, and have been for the last ten minutes, if you ask
me."

It was a senseless remark, but with a queer feeling of disloyalty
Margaret rose from her chair. She felt that Henry had been obscurely
censured. They went into the dining-room, where the sunlight poured in
upon her mother's chiffonier, and upstairs, where many an old god peeped
from a new niche. The furniture fitted extraordinarily well. In the
central room--over the hall, the room that Helen had slept in four years
ago--Miss Avery had placed Tibby's old bassinette.

"The nursery," she said.

Margaret turned away without speaking.

At last everything was seen. The kitchen and lobby were still stacked
with furniture and straw, but, as far as she could make out, nothing
had been broken or scratched. A pathetic display of ingenuity! Then they
took a friendly stroll in the garden. It had gone wild since her last
visit. The gravel sweep was weedy, and grass had sprung up at the very
jaws of the garage. And Evie's rockery was only bumps. Perhaps Evie was
responsible for Miss Avery's oddness. But Margaret suspected that the
cause lay deeper, and that the girl's silly letter had but loosed the
irritation of years.

"It's a beautiful meadow," she remarked. It was one of those open-air
drawing-rooms that have been formed, hundreds of years ago, out of the
smaller fields. So the boundary hedge zigzagged down the hill at right
angles, and at the bottom there was a little green annex--a sort of
powder-closet for the cows.

"Yes, the maidy's well enough," said Miss Avery, "for those, that is,
who don't suffer from sneezing." And she cackled maliciously. "I've
seen Charlie Wilcox go out to my lads in hay time--oh, they ought to do
this--they mustn't do that--he'd learn them to be lads. And just then
the tickling took him. He has it from his father, with other things.
There's not one Wilcox that can stand up against a field in June--I
laughed fit to burst while he was courting Ruth."

"My brother gets hay fever too," said Margaret.

"This house lies too much on the land for them. Naturally, they were
glad enough to slip in at first. But Wilcoxes are better than nothing,
as I see you've found."

Margaret laughed.

"They keep a place going, don't they? Yes, it is just that."

"They keep England going, it is my opinion."

But Miss Avery upset her by replying: "Ay, they breed like rabbits.
Well, well, it's a funny world. But He who made it knows what He wants
in it, I suppose. If Mrs. Charlie is expecting her fourth, it isn't for
us to repine."

"They breed and they also work," said Margaret, conscious of some
invitation to disloyalty, which was echoed by the very breeze and by the
songs of the birds. "It certainly is a funny world, but so long as men
like my husband and his sons govern it, I think it'll never be a bad
one--never really bad."

"No, better'n nothing," said Miss Avery, and turned to the wych-elm.

On their way back to the farm she spoke of her old friend much more
clearly than before. In the house Margaret had wondered whether she
quite distinguished the first wife from the second. Now she said: "I
never saw much of Ruth after her grandmother died, but we stayed civil.
It was a very civil family. Old Mrs. Howard never spoke against
anybody, nor let any one be turned away without food. Then it was never
'Trespassers will be prosecuted' in their land, but would people please
not come in? Mrs. Howard was never created to run a farm."

"Had they no men to help them?" Margaret asked.

Miss Avery replied: "Things went on until there were no men."

"Until Mr. Wilcox came along," corrected Margaret, anxious that her
husband should receive his dues.

"I suppose so; but Ruth should have married a--no disrespect to you to
say this, for I take it you were intended to get Wilcox any way, whether
she got him first or no."

"Whom should she have married?"

"A soldier!" exclaimed the old woman. "Some real soldier."

Margaret was silent. It was a criticism of Henry's character far more
trenchant than any of her own. She felt dissatisfied.

"But that's all over," she went on. "A better time is coming now, though
you've kept me long enough waiting. In a couple of weeks I'll see your
light shining through the hedge of an evening. Have you ordered in
coals?"

"We are not coming," said Margaret firmly. She respected Miss Avery too
much to humour her. "No. Not coming. Never coming. It has all been a
mistake. The furniture must be repacked at once, and I am very sorry,
but I am making other arrangements, and must ask you to give me the
keys."

"Certainly, Mrs. Wilcox," said Miss Avery, and resigned her duties with
a smile.

Relieved at this conclusion, and having sent her compliments to Madge,
Margaret walked back to the station. She had intended to go to the
furniture warehouse and give directions for removal, but the muddle had
turned out more extensive than she expected, so she decided to consult
Henry. It was as well that she did this. He was strongly against
employing the local man whom he had previously recommended, and advised
her to store in London after all.

But before this could be done an unexpected trouble fell upon her.

It was not unexpected entirely. Aunt Juley's health had been bad all
winter. She had had a long series of colds and coughs, and had been too
busy to get rid of them. She had scarcely promised her niece "to really
take my tiresome chest in hand," when she caught a chill and developed
acute pneumonia. Margaret and Tibby went down to Swanage. Helen was
telegraphed for, and that spring party that after all gathered in that
hospitable house had all the pathos of fair memories. On a perfect day,
when the sky seemed blue porcelain, and the waves of the discreet little
bay beat gentlest of tattoos upon the sand, Margaret hurried up through
the rhododendrons, confronted again by the senselessness of Death.
One death may explain itself, but it throws no light upon another; the
groping inquiry must begin anew. Preachers or scientists may generalise,
but we know that no generality is possible about those whom we love; not
one heaven awaits them, not even one oblivion. Aunt Juley, incapable of
tragedy, slipped out of life with odd little laughs and apologies for
having stopped in it so long. She was very weak; she could not rise to
the occasion, or realise the great mystery which all agree must await
her; it only seemed to her that she was quite done up--more done up
than ever before; that she saw and heard and felt less every moment; and
that, unless something changed, she would soon feel nothing. Her spare
strength she devoted to plans: could not Margaret take some steamer
expeditions? were mackerel cooked as Tibby liked them? She worried
herself about Helen's absence, and also that she should be the cause of
Helen's return. The nurses seemed to think such interests quite natural,
and perhaps hers was an average approach to the Great Gate. But Margaret
saw Death stripped of any false romance; whatever the idea of Death may
contain, the process can be trivial and hideous.

"Important--Margaret dear, take the Lulworth when Helen comes."

"Helen won't be able to stop, Aunt Juley. She has telegraphed that she
can only get away just to see you. She must go back to Germany as soon
as you are well."

"How very odd of Helen! Mr. Wilcox--"

"Yes, dear?"

"Can he spare you?"

Henry wished her to come, and had been very kind. Yet again Margaret
said so.

Mrs. Munt did not die. Quite outside her will, a more dignified power
took hold of her and checked her on the downward slope. She returned,
without emotion, as fidgety as ever. On the fourth day she was out of
danger.

"Margaret--important," it went on: "I should like you to have some
companion to take walks with. Do try Miss Conder."

"I have been for a little walk with Miss Conder."

"But she is not really interesting. If only you had Helen."

"I have Tibby, Aunt Juley."

"No, but he has to do his Chinese. Some real companion is what you need.
Really, Helen is odd."

"Helen is odd, very," agreed Margaret.

"Not content with going abroad, why does she want to go back there at
once?"

"No doubt she will change her mind when she sees us. She has not the
least balance."

That was the stock criticism about Helen, but Margaret's voice trembled
as she made it. By now she was deeply pained at her sister's behaviour.
It may be unbalanced to fly out of England, but to stay away eight
months argues that the heart is awry as well as the head. A sick-bed
could recall Helen, but she was deaf to more human calls; after a
glimpse at her aunt, she would retire into her nebulous life behind some
poste restante. She scarcely existed; her letters had become dull and
infrequent; she had no wants and no curiosity. And it was all put down
to poor Henry's account! Henry, long pardoned by his wife, was still too
infamous to be greeted by his sister-in-law. It was morbid, and, to her
alarm, Margaret fancied that she could trace the growth of morbidity
back in Helen's life for nearly four years. The flight from Oniton;
the unbalanced patronage of the Basts; the explosion of grief up on
the Downs--all connected with Paul, an insignificant boy whose lips had
kissed hers for a fraction of time. Margaret and Mrs. Wilcox had feared
that they might kiss again. Foolishly--the real danger was reaction.
Reaction against the Wilcoxes had eaten into her life until she was
scarcely sane. At twenty-five she had an idee fixe. What hope was there
for her as an old woman?

The more Margaret thought about it the more alarmed she became. For many
months she had put the subject away, but it was too big to be slighted
now. There was almost a taint of madness. Were all Helen's actions to be
governed by a tiny mishap, such as may happen to any young man or
woman? Can human nature be constructed on lines so insignificant? The
blundering little encounter at Howards End was vital. It propagated
itself where graver intercourse lay barren; it was stronger than
sisterly intimacy, stronger than reason or books. In one of her moods
Helen had confessed that she still "enjoyed" it in a certain sense.
Paul had faded, but the magic of his caress endured. And where there is
enjoyment of the past there may also be reaction--propagation at both
ends.

Well, it is odd and sad that our minds should be such seed-beds, and
we without power to choose the seed. But man is an odd, sad creature as
yet, intent on pilfering the earth, and heedless of the growths within
himself. He cannot be bored about psychology. He leaves it to the
specialist, which is as if he should leave his dinner to be eaten by a
steam-engine. He cannot be bothered to digest his own soul. Margaret
and Helen have been more patient, and it is suggested that Margaret
has succeeded--so far as success is yet possible. She does understand
herself, she has some rudimentary control over her own growth. Whether
Helen has succeeded one cannot say.

The day that Mrs. Munt rallied Helen's letter arrived. She had posted
it at Munich, and would be in London herself on the morrow. It was a
disquieting letter, though the opening was affectionate and sane.

"DEAREST MEG,

"Give Helen's love to Aunt Juley. Tell her that I love, and have loved
her ever since I can remember. I shall be in London Thursday.

"My address will be care of the bankers. I have not yet settled on a
hotel, so write or wire to me there and give me detailed news. If Aunt
Juley is much better, or if, for a terrible reason, it would be no good
my coming down to Swanage, you must not think it odd if I do not come.
I have all sorts of plans in my head. I am living abroad at present, and
want to get back as quickly as possible. Will you please tell me where
our furniture is? I should like to take out one or two books; the rest
are for you.

"Forgive me, dearest Meg. This must read like rather a tiresome letter,
but all letters are from your loving

"HELEN."

It was a tiresome letter, for it tempted Margaret to tell a lie. If
she wrote that Aunt Juley was still in danger her sister would come.
Unhealthiness is contagious. We cannot be in contact with those who are
in a morbid state without ourselves deteriorating. To "act for the best"
might do Helen good, but would do herself harm, and, at the risk of
disaster, she kept her colours flying a little longer. She replied that
their aunt was much better, and awaited developments.

Tibby approved of her reply. Mellowing rapidly, he was a pleasanter
companion than before. Oxford had done much for him. He had lost his
peevishness, and could hide his indifference to people and his interest
in food. But he had not grown more human. The years between eighteen and
twenty-two, so magical for most, were leading him gently from boyhood to
middle age. He had never known young-manliness, that quality which warms
the heart till death, and gives Mr. Wilcox an imperishable charm. He
was frigid, through no fault of his own, and without cruelty. He thought
Helen wrong and Margaret right, but the family trouble was for him what
a scene behind footlights is for most people. He had only one suggestion
to make, and that was characteristic.

"Why don't you tell Mr. Wilcox?"

"About Helen?"

"Perhaps he has come across that sort of thing."

"He would do all he could, but--"

"Oh, you know best. But he is practical."

It was the student's belief in experts. Margaret demurred for one or two
reasons. Presently Helen's answer came. She sent a telegram requesting
the address of the furniture, as she would now return at once. Margaret
replied, "Certainly not; meet me at the bankers' at four." She and Tibby
went up to London. Helen was not at the bankers', and they were refused
her address. Helen had passed into chaos.

Margaret put her arm round her brother. He was all that she had left,
and never had he seemed more unsubstantial.

"Tibby love, what next?"

He replied: "It is extraordinary."

"Dear, your judgment's often clearer than mine. Have you any notion
what's at the back?"

"None, unless it's something mental."

"Oh--that!" said Margaret. "Quite impossible." But the suggestion had
been uttered, and in a few minutes she took it up herself. Nothing else
explained. And London agreed with Tibby. The mask fell off the city, and
she saw it for what it really is--a caricature of infinity. The familiar
barriers, the streets along which she moved, the houses between which
she had made her little journeys for so many years, became negligible
suddenly. Helen seemed one with grimy trees and the traffic and the
slowly-flowing slabs of mud. She had accomplished a hideous act of
renunciation and returned to the One. Margaret's own faith held firm.
She knew the human soul will be merged, if it be merged at all, with the
stars and the sea. Yet she felt that her sister had been going amiss for
many years. It was symbolic the catastrophe should come now, on a London
afternoon, while rain fell slowly.

Henry was the only hope. Henry was definite. He might know of some paths
in the chaos that were hidden from them, and she determined to take
Tibby's advice and lay the whole matter in his hands. They must call at
his office. He could not well make it worse. She went for a few moments
into St. Paul's, whose dome stands out of the welter so bravely, as
if preaching the gospel of form. But within, St. Paul's is as its
surroundings--echoes and whispers, inaudible songs, invisible mosaics,
wet footmarks, crossing and recrossing the floor. Si monumentum
requiris, circumspice; it points us back to London. There was no hope of
Helen here.

Henry was unsatisfactory at first. That she had expected. He was
overjoyed to see her back from Swanage, and slow to admit the growth of
a new trouble. When they told him of their search, he only chaffed Tibby
and the Schlegels generally, and declared that it was "just like Helen"
to lead her relatives a dance.

"That is what we all say," replied Margaret. "But why should it be
just like Helen? Why should she be allowed to be so queer, and to grow
queerer?"

"Don't ask me. I'm a plain man of business. I live and let live. My
advice to you both is, don't worry. Margaret, you've got black marks
again under your eyes. You know that's strictly forbidden. First
your aunt--then your sister. No, we aren't going to have it. Are we,
Theobald?" He rang the bell. "I'll give you some tea, and then you go
straight to Ducie Street. I can't have my girl looking as old as her
husband."

"All the same, you have not quite seen our point," said Tibby.

Mr. Wilcox, who was in good spirits, retorted, "I don't suppose I ever
shall." He leant back, laughing at the gifted but ridiculous family,
while the fire flickered over the map of Africa. Margaret motioned to
her brother to go on. Rather diffident, he obeyed her.

"Margaret's point is this," he said. "Our sister may be mad."

Charles, who was working in the inner room, looked round.

"Come in, Charles," said Margaret kindly. "Could you help us at all? We
are again in trouble."

"I'm afraid I cannot. What are the facts? We are all mad more or less,
you know, in these days."

"The facts are as follows," replied Tibby, who had at times a pedantic
lucidity. "The facts are that she has been in England for three days and
will not see us. She has forbidden the bankers to give us her address.
She refuses to answer questions. Margaret finds her letters colourless.
There are other facts, but these are the most striking."

"She has never behaved like this before, then?" asked Henry.

"Of course not!" said his wife, with a frown.

"Well, my dear, how am I to know?"

A senseless spasm of annoyance came over her. "You know quite well that
Helen never sins against affection," she said. "You must have noticed
that much in her, surely."

"Oh yes; she and I have always hit it off together."

"No, Henry--can't you see?--I don't mean that."

She recovered herself, but not before Charles had observed her. Stupid
and attentive, he was watching the scene.

"I was meaning that when she was eccentric in the past, one could trace
it back to the heart in the long-run. She behaved oddly because she
cared for some one, or wanted to help them. There's no possible excuse
for her now. She is grieving us deeply, and that is why I am sure that
she is not well. 'Mad' is too terrible a word, but she is not well.
I shall never believe it. I shouldn't discuss my sister with you if I
thought she was well--trouble you about her, I mean."

Henry began to grow serious. Ill-health was to him something perfectly
definite. Generally well himself, he could not realise that we sink to
it by slow gradations. The sick had no rights; they were outside the
pale; one could lie to them remorselessly. When his first wife was
seized, he had promised to take her down into Hertfordshire, but
meanwhile arranged with a nursing-home instead. Helen, too, was ill. And
the plan that he sketched out for her capture, clever and well-meaning
as it was, drew its ethics from the wolf-pack.

"You want to get hold of her?" he said. "That's the problem, isn't it?
She has got to see a doctor."

"For all I know she has seen one already."

"Yes, yes; don't interrupt." He rose to his feet and thought intently.
The genial, tentative host disappeared, and they saw instead the man who
had carved money out of Greece and Africa, and bought forests from the
natives for a few bottles of gin. "I've got it," he said at last. "It's
perfectly easy. Leave it to me. We'll send her down to Howards End."

"How will you do that?"

"After her books. Tell her that she must unpack them herself. Then you
can meet her there."

"But, Henry, that's just what she won't let me do. It's part of
her--whatever it is--never to see me."

"Of course you won't tell her you're going. When she is there, looking
at the cases, you'll just stroll in. If nothing is wrong with her, so
much the better. But there'll be the motor round the corner, and we can
run her to a specialist in no time."

Margaret shook her head. "It's quite impossible."

"Why?"

"It doesn't seem impossible to me," said Tibby; "it is surely a very
tippy plan."

"It is impossible, because--" She looked at her husband sadly. "It's not
the particular language that Helen and I talk, if you see my meaning. It
would do splendidly for other people, whom I don't blame."

"But Helen doesn't talk," said Tibby. "That's our whole difficulty. She
won't talk your particular language, and on that account you think she's
ill."

"No, Henry; it's sweet of you, but I couldn't."

"I see," he said; "you have scruples."

"I suppose so."

"And sooner than go against them you would have your sister suffer. You
could have got her down to Swanage by a word, but you had scruples. And
scruples are all very well. I am as scrupulous as any man alive, I hope;
but when it is a case like this, when there is a question of madness--"

"I deny it's madness."

"You said just now--"

"It's madness when I say it, but not when you say it."

Henry shrugged his shoulders. "Margaret! Margaret!" he groaned. "No
education can teach a woman logic. Now, my dear, my time is valuable. Do
you want me to help you or not?"

"Not in that way."

"Answer my question. Plain question, plain answer. Do--"

Charles surprised them by interrupting. "Pater, we may as well keep
Howards End out of it," he said.

"Why, Charles?"

Charles could give no reason; but Margaret felt as if, over tremendous
distance, a salutation had passed between them.

"The whole house is at sixes and sevens," he said crossly. "We don't
want any more mess."

"Who's 'we'?" asked his father. "My boy, pray who's 'we'?"

"I am sure I beg your pardon," said Charles. "I appear always to be
intruding."

By now Margaret wished she had never mentioned her trouble to her
husband. Retreat was impossible. He was determined to push the matter
to a satisfactory conclusion, and Helen faded as he talked. Her fair,
flying hair and eager eyes counted for nothing, for she was ill, without
rights, and any of her friends might hunt her. Sick at heart, Margaret
joined in the chase. She wrote her sister a lying letter, at her
husband's dictation; she said the furniture was all at Howards End, but
could be seen on Monday next at 3 P.M., when a charwoman would be in
attendance. It was a cold letter, and the more plausible for that. Helen
would think she was offended. And on Monday next she and Henry were to
lunch with Dolly, and then ambush themselves in the garden.

After they had gone, Mr. Wilcox said to his son: "I can't have this sort
of behaviour, my boy. Margaret's too sweet-natured to mind, but I mind
for her."

Charles made no answer.

"Is anything wrong with you, Charles, this afternoon?"

"No, pater; but you may be taking on a bigger business than you reckon."

"How?"

"Don't ask me."

One speaks of the moods of spring, but the days that are her true
children have only one mood; they are all full of the rising and
dropping of winds, and the whistling of birds. New flowers may come out,
the green embroidery of the hedges increase, but the same heaven broods
overhead, soft, thick, and blue, the same figures, seen and unseen, are
wandering by coppice and meadow. The morning that Margaret had spent
with Miss Avery, and the afternoon she set out to entrap Helen, were the
scales of a single balance. Time might never have moved, rain never
have fallen, and man alone, with his schemes and ailments, was troubling
Nature until he saw her through a veil of tears.

She protested no more. Whether Henry was right or wrong, he was most
kind, and she knew of no other standard by which to judge him. She
must trust him absolutely. As soon as he had taken up a business, his
obtuseness vanished. He profited by the slightest indications, and the
capture of Helen promised to be staged as deftly as the marriage of
Evie.

They went down in the morning as arranged, and he discovered that their
victim was actually in Hilton. On his arrival he called at all
the livery-stables in the village, and had a few minutes' serious
conversation with the proprietors. What he said, Margaret did not
know--perhaps not the truth; but news arrived after lunch that a lady
had come by the London train, and had taken a fly to Howards End.

"She was bound to drive," said Henry. "There will be her books."

"I cannot make it out," said Margaret for the hundredth time.

"Finish your coffee, dear. We must be off."

"Yes, Margaret, you know you must take plenty," said Dolly.

Margaret tried, but suddenly lifted her hand to her eyes. Dolly stole
glances at her father-in-law which he did not answer. In the silence the
motor came round to the door.

"You're not fit for it," he said anxiously. "Let me go alone. I know
exactly what to do."

"Oh yes, I am fit," said Margaret, uncovering her face. "Only most
frightfully worried. I cannot feel that Helen is really alive. Her
letters and telegrams seem to have come from some one else. Her voice
isn't in them. I don't believe your driver really saw her at the
station. I wish I'd never mentioned it. I know that Charles is vexed.
Yes, he is--" She seized Dolly's hand and kissed it. "There, Dolly will
forgive me. There. Now we'll be off."

Henry had been looking at her closely. He did not like this breakdown.

"Don't you want to tidy yourself?" he asked.

"Have I time?"

"Yes, plenty."

She went to the lavatory by the front door, and as soon as the bolt
slipped, Mr. Wilcox said quietly:

"Dolly, I'm going without her."

Dolly's eyes lit up with vulgar excitement. She followed him on tiptoe
out to the car.

"Tell her I thought it best."

"Yes, Mr. Wilcox, I see."

"Say anything you like. All right."

The car started well, and with ordinary luck would have got away. But
Porgly-woggles, who was playing in the garden, chose this moment to sit
down in the middle of the path. Crane, in trying to pass him, ran one
wheel over a bed of wallflowers. Dolly screamed. Margaret, hearing the
noise, rushed out hatless, and was in time to jump on the footboard.
She said not a single word; he was only treating her as she had treated
Helen, and her rage at his dishonesty only helped to indicate what Helen
would feel against them. She thought, "I deserve it; I am punished for
lowering my colours." And she accepted his apologies with a calmness
that astonished him.

"I still consider you are not fit for it," he kept saying.

"Perhaps I was not at lunch. But the whole thing is spread clearly
before me now."

"I was meaning to act for the best."

"Just lend me your scarf, will you. This wind takes one's hair so."

"Certainly, dear girl. Are you all right now?"

"Look! My hands have stopped trembling."

"And have quite forgiven me? Then listen. Her cab should already have
arrived at Howards End. (We're a little late, but no matter.) Our first
move will be to send it down to wait at the farm, as, if possible, one
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.

"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.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: Margaret and Henry decide to build a new home  in Sussex. One day, as Margaret looks over the  plans, Dolly appears with a strange bit of news:   Miss Avery has begun unpacking all of the  Schlegels' luggage, and arranging their furniture and  possessions at Howards End. Charles, Dolly  inadvertently lets slip, suspects Margaret of  ordering her to do so as part of a covert plan to  take over Howards End. Margaret insists that she has  done no such thing, and travels to Howards End to set  Miss Avery straight. Here, the peculiar old woman  insists prophetically that Margaret will soon be  living at Howards End; she says that the house has  been empty long enough, and that Mrs. Wilcox  would like to see the Schlegels' furniture there. Aunt Juley becomes ill with pneumonia, and  Margaret and Tibby rush down to Swanage to be with  her on what seems to be her deathbed. Helen, to  Margaret's chagrin, has been lived abroad for many  months, and her correspondence seems troublingly  distant. She returns to England only reluctantly,  and when Aunt Juley recovers, she declines to leave London. She only sends a note asking Margaret where her books  are, saying that she intends to return to Bavaria at once  and would like to bring a few of her things with her. On  Tibby's advice, Margaret consults Henry about Helen's  strange behavior; his practical mind can only suggest that  she is exhibiting signs of mental illness, and he  orchestrates a scheme to surprise her with a doctor  at Howards End. On his orders, Margaret writes Helen  a letter telling her when she can retrieve her books  from Howards End; then she and Henry prepare to  surprise her there. At Hilton, Henry attempts to leave Margaret at  Charles' house and go to Howards End alone, but  Margaret leaps into the car just as he drives off. They stop to pick up a doctor, Margaret feeling  increasingly reluctant about the entire plan. At  Howards End, they find Helen on the porch. Margaret  sees immediately what has prompted Helen's strange  behavior: She is pregnant. She hurries Helen into  the house, and with difficulty persuades Henry and  the doctor to leave so that she can talk to Helen  alone. Feeling as though she is fighting for women  against men, Margaret ushers them away, then goes  into the house to talk to her sister.


prompt:
Chapter: 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
like this. I warn you I won't. Helen, why should you be so miserably
unkind to me, simply because you hate Henry?"

"I don't hate him now," said Helen. "I have stopped being a schoolgirl,
and, Meg, once again, I'm not being unkind. But as for fitting in with
your English life--no, put it out of your head at once. Imagine a visit
from me at Ducie Street! It's unthinkable."

Margaret could not contradict her. It was appalling to see her quietly
moving forward with her plans, not bitter or excitable, neither
asserting innocence nor confessing guilt, merely desiring freedom and
the company of those who would not blame her. She had been through--how
much? Margaret did not know. But it was enough to part her from old
habits as well as old friends.

"Tell me about yourself," said Helen, who had chosen her books, and was
lingering over the furniture.

"There's nothing to tell."

"But your marriage has been happy, Meg?"

"Yes, but I don't feel inclined to talk."

"You feel as I do."

"Not that, but I can't."

"No more can I. It is a nuisance, but no good trying."

Something had come between them. Perhaps it was Society, which
henceforward would exclude Helen. Perhaps it was a third life, already
potent as a spirit. They could find no meeting-place. Both suffered
acutely, and were not comforted by the knowledge that affection
survived.

"Look here, Meg, is the coast clear?"

"You mean that you want to go away from me?"

"I suppose so--dear old lady! it isn't any use. I knew we should have
nothing to say. Give my love to Aunt Juley and Tibby, and take more
yourself than I can say. Promise to come and see me in Munich later."

"Certainly, dearest."

"For that is all we can do."

It seemed so. Most ghastly of all was Helen's common sense; Monica had
been extraordinarily good for her.

"I am glad to have seen you and the things." She looked at the bookcase
lovingly, as if she was saying farewell to the past.

Margaret unbolted the door. She remarked: "The car has gone, and here's
your cab."

She led the way to it, glancing at the leaves and the sky. The spring
had never seemed more beautiful. The driver, who was leaning on the
gate, called out, "Please, lady, a message," and handed her Henry's
visiting-card through the bars.

"How did this come?" she asked.

Crane had returned with it almost at once.

She read the card with annoyance. It was covered with instructions in
domestic French. When she and her sister had talked she was to come back
for the night to Dolly's. "Il faut dormir sur ce sujet." while Helen
was to be found une comfortable chambre a l'hotel. The final sentence
displeased her greatly until she remembered that the Charles's had only
one spare room, and so could not invite a third guest.

"Henry would have done what he could," she interpreted.

Helen had not followed her into the garden. The door once open, she lost
her inclination to fly. She remained in the hall, going from bookcase to
table. She grew more like the old Helen, irresponsible and charming.

"This IS Mr. Wilcox's house?" she inquired.

"Surely you remember Howards End?"

"Remember? I who remember everything! But it looks to be ours now."

"Miss Avery was extraordinary," said Margaret, her own spirits
lightening a little. Again she was invaded by a slight feeling of
disloyalty. But it brought her relief, and she yielded to it. "She loved
Mrs. Wilcox, and would rather furnish her home with our things than
think of it empty. In consequence here are all the library books."

"Not all the books. She hasn't unpacked the Art books, in which she may
show her sense. And we never used to have the sword here."

"The sword looks well, though."

"Magnificent."

"Yes, doesn't it?"

"Where's the piano, Meg?"

"I warehoused that in London. Why?"

"Nothing."

"Curious, too, that the carpet fits."

"The carpet's a mistake," announced Helen. "I know that we had it in
London, but this floor ought to be bare. It is far too beautiful."

"You still have a mania for under-furnishing. Would you care to come
into the dining-room before you start? There's no carpet there. They
went in, and each minute their talk became more natural.

"Oh, WHAT a place for mother's chiffonier!" cried Helen.

"Look at the chairs, though."

"Oh, look at them! Wickham Place faced north, didn't it?"

"North-west."

"Anyhow, it is thirty years since any of those chairs have felt the sun.
Feel. Their dear little backs are quite warm."

"But why has Miss Avery made them set to partners? I shall just--"

"Over here, Meg. Put it so that any one sitting will see the lawn."

Margaret moved a chair. Helen sat down in it.

"Ye--es. The window's too high."

"Try a drawing-room chair."

"No, I don't like the drawing-room so much. The beam has been
match-boarded. It would have been so beautiful otherwise."

"Helen, what a memory you have for some things! You're perfectly right.
It's a room that men have spoilt through trying to make it nice for
women. Men don't know what we want--"

"And never will."

"I don't agree. In two thousand years they'll know. Look where Tibby
spilt the soup."

"Coffee. It was coffee surely."

Helen shook her head. "Impossible. Tibby was far too young to be given
coffee at that time."

"Was father alive?"

"Yes."

"Then you're right and it must have been soup. I thinking of much
later--that unsuccessful visit of Aunt Juley's, when she didn't realise
that Tibby had grown up. It was coffee then, for he threw it down on
purpose. There was some rhyme, 'Tea, coffee--coffee tea,' that she said
to him every morning at breakfast. Wait a minute--how did it go?"

"I know--no, I don't. What a detestable boy Tibby was!"

"But the rhyme was simply awful. No decent person could put up with it."

"Ah, that greengage-tree," cried Helen, as if the garden was also part
of their childhood. "Why do I connect it with dumb-bells? And there come
the chickens. The grass wants cutting. I love yellow-hammers."

Margaret interrupted her. "I have got it," she announced.

       "'Tea, tea, coffee, tea,
         Or chocolaritee.'

"That every morning for three weeks. No wonder Tibby was wild."

"Tibby is moderately a dear now," said Helen.

"There! I knew you'd say that in the end. Of course he's a dear."

A bell rang.

"Listen! what's that?"

Helen said, "Perhaps the Wilcoxes are beginning the siege."

"What nonsense--listen!"

And the triviality faded from their faces, though it left something
behind--the knowledge that they never could be parted because their love
was rooted in common things. Explanations and appeals had failed; they
had tried for a common meeting-ground, and had only made each other
unhappy. And all the time their salvation was lying round them--the past
sanctifying the present; the present, with wild heart-throb, declaring
that there would after all be a future with laughter and the voices of
children. Helen, still smiling, came up to her sister. She said, "It
is always Meg." They looked into each other's eyes. The inner life had
paid.

Solemnly the clapper tolled. No one was in the front. Margaret went to
the kitchen, and struggled between packing-cases to the window. Their
visitor was only a little boy with a tin can. And triviality returned.

"Little boy, what do you want?"

"Please, I am the milk."

"Did Miss Avery send you?" said Margaret, rather sharply.

"Yes, please."

"Then take it back and say we require no milk." While she called to
Helen, "No, it's not the siege, but possibly an attempt to provision us
against one."

"But I like milk," cried Helen. "Why send it away?"

"Do you? Oh, very well. But we've nothing to put it in, and he wants the
can."

"Please, I'm to call in the morning for the can," said the boy.

"The house will be locked up then."

"In the morning would I bring eggs too?"

"Are you the boy whom I saw playing in the stacks last week?"

The child hung his head.

"Well, run away and do it again."

"Nice little boy," whispered Helen. "I say, what's your name? Mine's
Helen."

"Tom."

That was Helen all over. The Wilcoxes, too, would ask a child its name,
but they never told their names in return.

"Tom, this one here is Margaret. And at home we've another called Tibby."

"Mine are lop-eareds," replied Tom, supposing Tibby to be a rabbit.

"You're a very good and rather a clever little boy. Mind you come
again.--Isn't he charming?"

"Undoubtedly," said Margaret. "He is probably the son of Madge, and
Madge is dreadful. But this place has wonderful powers."

"What do you mean?"

"I don't know."

"Because I probably agree with you."

"It kills what is dreadful and makes what is beautiful live."

"I do agree," said Helen, as she sipped the milk. "But you said that the
house was dead not half an hour ago."

"Meaning that I was dead. I felt it."

"Yes, the house has a surer life than we, even if it was empty, and, as
it is, I can't get over that for thirty years the sun has never shone
full on our furniture. After all, Wickham Place was a grave. Meg, I've a
startling idea."

"What is it?"

"Drink some milk to steady you."

Margaret obeyed.

"No, I won't tell you yet," said Helen, "because you may laugh or be
angry. Let's go upstairs first and give the rooms an airing."

They opened window after window, till the inside, too, was rustling
to the spring. Curtains blew, picture frames tapped cheerfully. Helen
uttered cries of excitement as she found this bed obviously in its right
place, that in its wrong one. She was angry with Miss Avery for not
having moved the wardrobes up. "Then one would see really." She admired
the view. She was the Helen who had written the memorable letters four
years ago. As they leant out, looking westward, she said: "About my
idea. Couldn't you and I camp out in this house for the night?"

"I don't think we could well do that," said Margaret.

"Here are beds, tables, towels--"

"I know; but the house isn't supposed to be slept in, and Henry's
suggestion was--"

"I require no suggestions. I shall not alter anything in my plans. But
it would give me so much pleasure to have one night here with you. It
will be something to look back on. Oh, Meg lovey, do let's!"

"But, Helen, my pet," said Margaret, "we can't without getting Henry's
leave. Of course, he would give it, but you said yourself that you
couldn't visit at Ducie Street now, and this is equally intimate."

"Ducie Street is his house. This is ours. Our furniture, our sort of
people coming to the door. Do let us camp out, just one night, and Tom
shall feed us on eggs and milk. Why not? It's a moon."

Margaret hesitated. "I feel Charles wouldn't like it," she said at last.
"Even our furniture annoyed him, and I was going to clear it out when
Aunt Juley's illness prevented me. I sympathise with Charles. He feels
it's his mother's house. He loves it in rather an untaking way. Henry I
could answer for--not Charles."

"I know he won't like it," said Helen. "But I am going to pass out of
their lives. What difference will it make in the long run if they say,
'And she even spent the night at Howards End'?"

"How do you know you'll pass out of their lives? We have thought that
twice before."

"Because my plans--"

"--which you change in a moment."

"Then because my life is great and theirs are little," said Helen,
taking fire. "I know of things they can't know of, and so do you. We
know that there's poetry. We know that there's death. They can only take
them on hearsay. We know this is our house, because it feels ours. Oh,
they may take the title-deeds and the door-keys, but for this one night
we are at home."

"It would be lovely to have you once more alone," said Margaret. "It may
be a chance in a thousand."

"Yes, and we could talk." She dropped her voice. "It won't be a
very glorious story. But under that wych-elm--honestly, I see little
happiness ahead. Cannot I have this one night with you?"

"I needn't say how much it would mean to me."

"Then let us."

"It is no good hesitating. Shall I drive down to Hilton now and get
leave?"

"Oh, we don't want leave."

But Margaret was a loyal wife. In spite of imagination and
poetry--perhaps on account of them--she could sympathise with the
technical attitude that Henry would adopt. If possible, she would be
technical, too. A night's lodging--and they demanded no more--need not
involve the discussion of general principles.

"Charles may say no," grumbled Helen.

"We shan't consult him."

"Go if you like; I should have stopped without leave."

It was the touch of selfishness, which was not enough to mar Helen's
character, and even added to its beauty. She would have stopped without
leave and escaped to Germany the next morning. Margaret kissed her.

"Expect me back before dark. I am looking forward to it so much. It is
like you to have thought of such a beautiful thing."

"Not a thing, only an ending," said Helen rather sadly; and the sense of
tragedy closed in on Margaret again as soon as she left the house.

She was afraid of Miss Avery. It is disquieting to fulfil a prophecy,
however superficially. She was glad to see no watching figure as she
drove past the farm, but only little Tom, turning somersaults in the
straw.

The tragedy began quietly enough, and, like many another talk, by the
man's deft assertion of his superiority. Henry heard her arguing with
the driver, stepped out and settled the fellow, who was inclined to be
rude, and then led the way to some chairs on the lawn. Dolly, who
had not been "told," ran out with offers of tea. He refused them, and
ordered them to wheel baby's perambulator away, as they desired to be
alone.

"But the diddums can't listen; he isn't nine months old," she pleaded.

"That's not what I was saying," retorted her father-in-law.

Baby was wheeled out of earshot, and did not hear about the crisis till
later years. It was now the turn of Margaret.

"Is it what we feared?" he asked.

"It is."

"Dear girl," he began, "there is a troublesome business ahead of us,
and nothing but the most absolute honesty and plain speech will see
us through." Margaret bent her head. "I am obliged to question you on
subjects we'd both prefer to leave untouched. As you know, I am not one
of your Bernard Shaws who consider nothing sacred. To speak as I must
will pain me, but there are occasions--We are husband and wife, not
children. I am a man of the world, and you are a most exceptional
woman."

All Margaret's senses forsook her. She blushed, and looked past him at
the Six Hills, covered with spring herbage. Noting her colour, he grew
still more kind.

"I see that you feel as I felt when--My poor little wife! Oh, be brave!
Just one or two questions, and I have done with you. Was your sister
wearing a wedding-ring?"

Margaret stammered a "No."

There was an appalling silence.

"Henry, I really came to ask a favour about Howards End."

"One point at a time. I am now obliged to ask for the name of her
seducer."

She rose to her feet and held the chair between them. Her colour had
ebbed, and she was grey. It did not displease him that she should
receive his question thus.

"Take your time," he counselled her. "Remember that this is far worse
for me than for you."

She swayed; he feared she was going to faint. Then speech came, and she
said slowly: "Seducer? No; I do not know her seducer's name."

"Would she not tell you?"

"I never even asked her who seduced her," said Margaret, dwelling on the
hateful word thoughtfully.

"That is singular." Then he changed his mind. "Natural perhaps, dear
girl, that you shouldn't ask. But until his name is known, nothing can
be done. Sit down. How terrible it is to see you so upset! I knew you
weren't fit for it. I wish I hadn't taken you."

Margaret answered, "I like to stand, if you don't mind, for it gives me
a pleasant view of the Six Hills."

"As you like."

"Have you anything else to ask me, Henry?"

"Next you must tell me whether you have gathered anything. I have often
noticed your insight, dear. I only wish my own was as good. You may have
guessed something, even though your sister said nothing. The slightest
hint would help us."

"Who is 'we'?"

"I thought it best to ring up Charles."

"That was unnecessary," said Margaret, growing warmer. "This news will
give Charles disproportionate pain."

"He has at once gone to call on your brother."

"That too was unnecessary."

"Let me explain, dear, how the matter stands. You don't think that I and
my son are other than gentlemen? It is in Helen's interests that we are
acting. It is still not too late to save her name."

Then Margaret hit out for the first time. "Are we to make her seducer
marry her?" she asked.

"If possible, yes."

"But, Henry, suppose he turned out to be married already? One has heard
of such cases."

"In that case he must pay heavily for his misconduct, and be thrashed
within an inch of his life."

So her first blow missed. She was thankful of it. What had tempted her
to imperil both of their lives. Henry's obtuseness had saved her as well
as himself. Exhausted with anger, she sat down again, blinking at him as
he told her as much as he thought fit. At last she said: "May I ask you
my question now?"

"Certainly, my dear."

"To-morrow Helen goes to Munich--"

"Well, possibly she is right."

"Henry, let a lady finish. To-morrow she goes; to-night, with your
permission, she would like to sleep at Howards End."

It was the crisis of his life. Again she would have recalled the words
as soon as they were uttered. She had not led up to them with sufficient
care. She longed to warn him that they were far more important than
he supposed. She saw him weighing them, as if they were a business
proposition.

"Why Howards End?" he said at last. "Would she not be more comfortable,
as I suggested, at the hotel?"

Margaret hastened to give him reasons. "It is an odd request, but you
know what Helen is and what women in her state are." He frowned, and
moved irritably. "She has the idea that one night in your house would
give her pleasure and do her good. I think she's right. Being one of
those imaginative girls, the presence of all our books and furniture
soothes her. This is a fact. It is the end of her girlhood. Her last
words to me were, 'A beautiful ending.'"

"She values the old furniture for sentimental reasons, in fact."

"Exactly. You have quite understood. It is her last hope of being with
it."

"I don't agree there, my dear! Helen will have her share of the goods
wherever she goes--possibly more than her share, for you are so fond
of her that you'd give her anything of yours that she fancies, wouldn't
you? and I'd raise no objection. I could understand it if it was her old
home, because a home, or a house," he changed the word, designedly; he
had thought of a telling point--"because a house in which one has once
lived becomes in a sort of way sacred, I don't know why. Associations
and so on. Now Helen has no associations with Howards End, though I
and Charles and Evie have. I do not see why she wants to stay the night
there. She will only catch cold."

"Leave it that you don't see," cried Margaret. "Call it fancy. But
realise that fancy is a scientific fact. Helen is fanciful, and wants
to."

Then he surprised her--a rare occurrence. He shot an unexpected bolt.
"If she wants to sleep one night she may want to sleep two. We shall
never get her out of the house, perhaps."

"Well?" said Margaret, with the precipice in sight. "And suppose we
don't get her out of the house? Would it matter? She would do no one any
harm."

Again the irritated gesture.

"No, Henry," she panted, receding. "I didn't mean that. We will
only trouble Howards End for this one night. I take her to London
to-morrow--"

"Do you intend to sleep in a damp house, too?"

"She cannot be left alone."

"That's quite impossible! Madness. You must be here to meet Charles."

"I have already told you that your message to Charles was unnecessary,
and I have no desire to meet him."

"Margaret--my Margaret."

"What has this business to do with Charles? If it concerns me little, it
concerns you less, and Charles not at all."

"As the future owner of Howards End," said Mr. Wilcox arching his
fingers, "I should say that it did concern Charles."

"In what way? Will Helen's condition depreciate the property?"

"My dear, you are forgetting yourself."

"I think you yourself recommended plain speaking."

They looked at each other in amazement. The precipice was at their feet
now.

"Helen commands my sympathy," said Henry. "As your husband, I shall do
all for her that I can, and I have no doubt that she will prove more
sinned against than sinning. But I cannot treat her as if nothing has
happened. I should be false to my position in society if I did."

She controlled herself for the last time. "No, let us go back to Helen's
request," she said. "It is unreasonable, but the request of an unhappy
girl. Tomorrow she will go to Germany, and trouble society no longer.
To-night she asks to sleep in your empty house--a house which you do not
care about, and which you have not occupied for over a year. May she?
Will you give my sister leave? Will you forgive her as you hope to be
forgiven, and as you have actually been forgiven? Forgive her for one
night only. That will be enough."

"As I have actually been forgiven--?"

"Never mind for the moment what I mean by that," said Margaret. "Answer
my question."

Perhaps some hint of her meaning did dawn on him. If so, he blotted
it out. Straight from his fortress he answered: "I seem rather
unaccommodating, but I have some experience of life, and know how one
thing leads to another. I am afraid that your sister had better sleep
at the hotel. I have my children and the memory of my dear wife to
consider. I am sorry, but see that she leaves my house at once."

"You have mentioned Mrs. Wilcox."

"I beg your pardon?"

"A rare occurrence. In reply, may I mention Mrs. Bast?"

"You have not been yourself all day," said Henry, and rose from his seat
with face unmoved. Margaret rushed at him and seized both his hands. She
was transfigured.

"Not any more of this!" she cried. "You shall see the connection if it
kills you, Henry! You have had a mistress--I forgave you. My sister
has a lover--you drive her from the house. Do you see the connection?
Stupid, hypocritical, cruel--oh, contemptible!--a man who insults his
wife when she's alive and cants with her memory when she's dead. A man
who ruins a woman for his pleasure, and casts her off to ruin other men.
And gives bad financial advice, and then says he is not responsible.
These men are you. You can't recognise them, because you cannot connect.
I've had enough of your unneeded kindness. I've spoilt you long enough.
All your life you have been spoiled. Mrs. Wilcox spoiled you. No one has
ever told what you are--muddled, criminally muddled. Men like you use
repentance as a blind, so don't repent. Only say to yourself, 'What
Helen has done, I've done.'"

"The two cases are different," Henry stammered. His real retort was
not quite ready. His brain was still in a whirl, and he wanted a little
longer.

"In what way different? You have betrayed Mrs. Wilcox, Helen only
herself. You remain in society, Helen can't. You have had only pleasure,
she may die. You have the insolence to talk to me of differences,
Henry?"

Oh, the uselessness of it! Henry's retort came.

"I perceive you are attempting blackmail. It is scarcely a pretty weapon
for a wife to use against her husband. My rule through life has been
never to pay the least attention to threats, and I can only repeat
what I said before: I do not give you and your sister leave to sleep at
Howards End."

Margaret loosed his hands. He went into the house, wiping first one and
then the other on his handkerchief. For a little she stood looking at
the Six Hills, tombs of warriors, breasts of the spring. Then she passed
out into what was now the evening.

Charles and Tibby met at Ducie Street, where the latter was staying.
Their interview was short and absurd. They had nothing in common but the
English language, and tried by its help to express what neither of them
understood. Charles saw in Helen the family foe. He had singled her out
as the most dangerous of the Schlegels, and, angry as he was, looked
forward to telling his wife how right he had been. His mind was made up
at once; the girl must be got out of the way before she disgraced them
farther. If occasion offered she might be married to a villain, or,
possibly, to a fool. But this was a concession to morality, it formed
no part of his main scheme. Honest and hearty was Charles's dislike, and
the past spread itself out very clearly before him; hatred is a skilful
compositor. As if they were heads in a note-book, he ran through all
the incidents of the Schlegels' campaign: the attempt to compromise his
brother, his mother's legacy, his father's marriage, the introduction
of the furniture, the unpacking of the same. He had not yet heard of the
request to sleep at Howards End; that was to be their master-stroke and
the opportunity for his. But he already felt that Howards End was the
objective, and, though he disliked the house, was determined to defend
it.

Tibby, on the other hand, had no opinions. He stood above the
conventions: his sister had a right to do what she thought right. It is
not difficult to stand above the conventions when we leave no hostages
among them; men can always be more unconventional than women, and a
bachelor of independent means need encounter no difficulties at all.
Unlike Charles, Tibby had money enough; his ancestors had earned it for
him, and if he shocked the people in one set of lodgings he had only to
move into another. His was the leisure without sympathy--an attitude as
fatal as the strenuous; a little cold culture may be raised on it, but
no art. His sisters had seen the family danger, and had never forgotten
to discount the gold islets that raised them from the sea. Tibby gave
all the praise to himself, and so despised the struggling and the
submerged.

Hence the absurdity of the interview; the gulf between them was economic
as well as spiritual. But several facts passed; Charles pressed for them
with an impertinence that the undergraduate could not withstand. On what
date had Helen gone abroad? To whom? (Charles was anxious to fasten the
scandal on Germany.) Then, changing his tactics, he said roughly: "I
suppose you realise that you are your sister's protector?"

"In what sense?"

"If a man played about with my sister, I'd send a bullet through him,
but perhaps you don't mind."

"I mind very much," protested Tibby.

"Who d'ye suspect, then? Speak out man. One always suspects some one."

"No one. I don't think so." Involuntarily he blushed. He had remembered
the scene in his Oxford rooms.

"You are hiding something," said Charles. As interviews go, he got the
best of this one. "When you saw her last, did she mention any one's
name? Yes or no!" he thundered, so that Tibby started.

"In my rooms she mentioned some friends, called the Basts."

"Who are the Basts?"

"People--friends of hers at Evie's wedding."

"I don't remember. But, by great Scott, I do! My aunt told me about some
rag-tag. Was she full of them when you saw her? Is there a man? Did she
speak of the man? Or--look here--have you had any dealings with him?"

Tibby was silent. Without intending it, he had betrayed his sister's
confidence; he was not enough interested in human life to see where
things will lead to. He had a strong regard for honesty, and his word,
once given, had always been kept up to now. He was deeply vexed, not
only for the harm he had done Helen, but for the flaw he had discovered
in his own equipment.

"I see--you are in his confidence. They met at your rooms. Oh, what a
family, what a family! God help the poor pater--s."

And Tibby found himself alone.

Leonard--he would figure at length in a newspaper report, but that
evening he did not count for much. The foot of the tree was in shadow,
since the moon was still hidden behind the house. But above, to right,
to left, down the long meadow the moonlight was streaming. Leonard
seemed not a man, but a cause.

Perhaps it was Helen's way of falling in love--a curious way to
Margaret, whose agony and whose contempt of Henry were yet imprinted
with his image. Helen forgot people. They were husks that had enclosed
her emotion. She could pity, or sacrifice herself, or have instincts,
but had she ever loved in the noblest way, where man and woman, having
lost themselves in sex, desire to lose sex itself in comradeship?

Margaret wondered, but said no word of blame. This was Helen's evening.
Troubles enough lay ahead of her--the loss of friends and of social
advantages, the agony, the supreme agony, of motherhood, which is not
even yet a matter of common knowledge. For the present let the moon
shine brightly and the breezes of the spring blow gently, dying away
from the gale of the day, and let the earth, that brings increase, bring
peace. Not even to herself dare she blame Helen.

She could not assess her trespass by any moral code; it was everything
or nothing. Morality can tell us that murder is worse than stealing, and
group most sins in an order all must approve, but it cannot group Helen.
The surer its pronouncements on this point, the surer may we be that
morality is not speaking. Christ was evasive when they questioned Him.
It is those that cannot connect who hasten to cast the first stone.

This was Helen's evening--won at what cost, and not to be marred by the
sorrows of others. Of her own tragedy Margaret never uttered a word.

"One isolates," said Helen slowly. "I isolated Mr. Wilcox from the other
forces that were pulling Leonard downhill. Consequently, I was full of
pity, and almost of revenge. For weeks I had blamed Mr. Wilcox only, and
so, when your letters came--"

"I need never have written them," sighed Margaret. "They never shielded
Henry. How hopeless it is to tidy away the past, even for others!"

"I did not know that it was your own idea to dismiss the Basts."

"Looking back, that was wrong of me."

"Looking back, darling, I know that it was right. It is right to save
the man whom one loves. I am less enthusiastic about justice now. But we
both thought you wrote at his dictation. It seemed the last touch of his
callousness. Being very much wrought up by this time--and Mrs. Bast
was upstairs. I had not seen her, and had talked for a long time to
Leonard--I had snubbed him for no reason, and that should have warned me
I was in danger. So when the notes came I wanted us to go to you for an
explanation. He said that he guessed the explanation--he knew of it, and
you mustn't know. I pressed him to tell me. He said no one must know; it
was something to do with his wife. Right up to the end we were Mr. Bast
and Miss Schlegel. I was going to tell him that he must be frank with me
when I saw his eyes, and guessed that Mr. Wilcox had ruined him in two
ways, not one. I drew him to me. I made him tell me. I felt very lonely
myself. He is not to blame. He would have gone on worshipping me. I want
never to see him again, though it sounds appalling. I wanted to give him
money and feel finished. Oh, Meg, the little that is known about these
things!"

She laid her face against the tree.

"The little, too, that is known about growth! Both times it was
loneliness, and the night, and panic afterwards. Did Leonard grow out of
Paul?"

Margaret did not speak for a moment. So tired was she that her attention
had actually wandered to the teeth--the teeth that had been thrust into
the tree's bark to medicate it. From where she sat she could see them
gleam. She had been trying to count them. "Leonard is a better growth
than madness," she said. "I was afraid that you would react against Paul
until you went over the verge."

"I did react until I found poor Leonard. I am steady now. I shan't ever
like your Henry, dearest Meg, or even speak kindly about him, but all
that blinding hate is over. I shall never rave against Wilcoxes any
more. I understand how you married him, and you will now be very happy."

Margaret did not reply.

"Yes," repeated Helen, her voice growing more tender, "I do at last
understand."

"Except Mrs. Wilcox, dearest, no one understands our little movements."

"Because in death--I agree."

"Not quite. I feel that you and I and Henry are only fragments of that
woman's mind. She knows everything. She is everything. She is the house,
and the tree that leans over it. People have their own deaths as well
as their own lives, and even if there is nothing beyond death, we shall
differ in our nothingness. I cannot believe that knowledge such as hers
will perish with knowledge such as mine. She knew about realities. She
knew when people were in love, though she was not in the room. I don't
doubt that she knew when Henry deceived her."

"Good-night, Mrs. Wilcox," called a voice.

"Oh, good-night, Miss Avery."

"Why should Miss Avery work for us?" Helen murmured.

"Why, indeed?"

Miss Avery crossed the lawn and merged into the hedge that divided
it from the farm. An old gap, which Mr. Wilcox had filled up, had
reappeared, and her track through the dew followed the path that he had
turfed over, when he improved the garden and made it possible for games.

"This is not quite our house yet," said Helen. "When Miss Avery called,
I felt we are only a couple of tourists."

"We shall be that everywhere, and for ever."

"But affectionate tourists."

"But tourists who pretend each hotel is their home."

"I can't pretend very long," said Helen. "Sitting under this tree one
forgets, but I know that to-morrow I shall see the moon rise out of
Germany. Not all your goodness can alter the facts of the case. Unless
you will come with me."

Margaret thought for a moment. In the past year she had grown so fond
of England that to leave it was a real grief. Yet what detained her? No
doubt Henry would pardon her outburst, and go on blustering and muddling
into a ripe old age. But what was the good? She had just as soon vanish
from his mind.

"Are you serious in asking me, Helen? Should I get on with your Monica?"

"You would not, but I am serious in asking you."

"Still, no more plans now. And no more reminiscences."

They were silent for a little. It was Helen's evening.

The present flowed by them like a stream. The tree rustled. It had made
music before they were born, and would continue after their deaths,
but its song was of the moment. The moment had passed. The tree rustled
again. Their senses were sharpened, and they seemed to apprehend life.
Life passed. The tree rustled again.

"Sleep now," said Margaret.

The peace of the country was entering into her. It has no commerce with
memory, and little with hope. Least of all is it concerned with the
hopes of the next five minutes. It is the peace of the present, which
passes understanding. Its murmur came "now," and "now" once more as they
trod the gravel, and "now," as the moonlight fell upon their father's
sword. They passed upstairs, kissed, and amidst the endless iterations
fell asleep. The house had enshadowed the tree at first, but as the moon
rose higher the two disentangled, and were clear fur a few moments
at midnight. Margaret awoke and looked into the garden. How
incomprehensible that Leonard Bast should have won her this night of
peace! Was he also part of Mrs. Wilcox's mind?

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: Inside Howards End, Margaret does not ask  Helen to explain her pregnancy; nor does she ask  who the father is. She merely asks about Helen's  situation--she is living in Munich with a journalist  named Monica--and why Helen did not tell her what had  happened. At first, they seem far apart from one  another, and their conversation is awkward; but as  they look at all the old furniture from Wickham Place  arranged in Howards End, they realize how much they  love one another, and agree to spend the night  together in the house. Margaret goes back to  Charles' house to ask Henry's permission. Shockingly, he denies it: He expresses his desire to  thrash Helen's "seducer" "within an inch of his  life," but despite his own extramarital affair, he  refuses to let a fallen woman such as Helen  spend a night in his house. Margaret furiously tries  to show him his own hypocrisy, but he merely stalks  away. Margaret returns to Helen at Howards End. After Henry learned of Helen's condition, he called  Charles to solicit his help; Charles immediately goes  to see Tibby, whom he bullies into telling him  the name of Leonard. Drawing the false  conclusion that Tibby condoned an affair between  Helen and Leonard, and offered his rooms as a place  for them to conduct the affair, Charles leaves Tibby  in disgust. Outside, under the great wych-elm at Howards End,  Helen tells Margaret the story of the night she slept  with Leonard--the night of Evie's wedding,  when she and Leonard talked in the hotel after  Jacky had gone to sleep and the same night Margaret  learned of Henry's affair with Jacky. Helen asks  Margaret to come to Germany with her, and Margaret,  though she loves England deeply, considers the idea. Suddenly imagining that she, Helen, Henry, and the  placid countryside around are all part of the dead  Mrs. Wilcox's mind, she wonders whether  Leonard is part of that mind as well.