Chapter: Helen began to wonder why she had spent a matter of eight pounds in
making some people ill and others angry. Now that the wave of excitement
was ebbing, and had left her, Mr. Bast, and Mrs. Bast stranded for the
night in a Shropshire hotel, she asked herself what forces had made the
wave flow. At all events, no harm was done. Margaret would play the game
properly now, and though Helen disapproved of her sister's methods, she
knew that the Basts would benefit by them in the long-run.

"Mr. Wilcox is so illogical," she explained to Leonard, who had put his
wife to bed, and was sitting with her in the empty coffee-room. "If we
told him it was his duty to take you on, he might refuse to do it. The
fact is, he isn't properly educated. I don't want to set you against
him, but you'll find him a trial."

"I can never thank you sufficiently, Miss Schlegel," was all that
Leonard felt equal to.

"I believe in personal responsibility. Don't you? And in personal
everything. I hate--I suppose I oughtn't to say that--but the Wilcoxes
are on the wrong tack surely. Or perhaps it isn't their fault. Perhaps
the little thing that says 'I' is missing out of the middle of their
heads, and then it's a waste of time to blame them. There's a nightmare
of a theory that says a special race is being born which will rule the
rest of us in the future just because it lacks the little thing that
says 'I.' Had you heard that?"

"I get no time for reading."

"Had you thought it, then? That there are two kinds of people--our kind,
who live straight from the middle of their heads, and the other kind
who can't, because their heads have no middle? They can't say 'I.' They
AREN'T in fact, and so they're supermen. Pierpont Morgan has never said
'I' in his life."

Leonard roused himself. If his benefactress wanted intellectual
conversation, she must have it. She was more important than his ruined
past. "I never got on to Nietzsche," he said. "But I always understood
that those supermen were rather what you may call egoists."

"Oh no, that's wrong," replied Helen. "No superman ever said 'I want,'
because 'I want' must lead to the question, 'Who am I?' and so to Pity
and to Justice. He only says 'want.' 'Want Europe,' if he's Napoleon;
'want wives,' if he's Bluebeard; 'want Botticelli,' if he's Pierpont
Morgan. Never the 'I'; and if you could pierce through the superman,
you'd find panic and emptiness in the middle."

Leonard was silent for a moment. Then he said: "May I take it, Miss
Schlegel, that you and I are both the sort that say 'I'?"

"Of course."

"And your sister, too?"

"Of course," repeated Helen, a little sharply. She was annoyed with
Margaret, but did not want her discussed. "All presentable people say
'I.'"

"But Mr. Wilcox--he is not perhaps--"

"I don't know that it's any good discussing Mr. Wilcox either."

"Quite so, quite so," he agreed. Helen asked herself why she had snubbed
him. Once or twice during the day she had encouraged him to criticise,
and then had pulled him up short. Was she afraid of him presuming? If
so, it was disgusting of her.

But he was thinking the snub quite natural. Everything she did was
natural, and incapable of causing offence. While the Miss Schlegels
were together he had felt them scarcely human--a sort of admonitory
whirligig. But a Miss Schlegel alone was different. She was in Helen's
case unmarried, in Margaret's about to be married, in neither case an
echo of her sister. A light had fallen at last into this rich upper
world, and he saw that it was full of men and women, some of whom were
more friendly to him than others. Helen had become "his" Miss Schlegel,
who scolded him and corresponded with him, and had swept down yesterday
with grateful vehemence. Margaret, though not unkind, was severe and
remote. He would not presume to help her, for instance. He had never
liked her, and began to think that his original impression was true,
and that her sister did not like her either. Helen was certainly lonely.
She, who gave away so much, was receiving too little. Leonard was
pleased to think that he could spare her vexation by holding his tongue
and concealing what he knew about Mr. Wilcox. Jacky had announced her
discovery when he fetched her from the lawn. After the first shock, he
did not mind for himself. By now he had no illusions about his wife, and
this was only one new stain on the face of a love that had never been
pure. To keep perfection perfect, that should be his ideal, if the
future gave him time to have ideals. Helen, and Margaret for Helen's
sake, must not know.

Helen disconcerted him by turning the conversation to his wife. "Mrs.
Bast--does she ever say 'I'?" she asked, half mischievously, and then,
"Is she very tired?"

"It's better she stops in her room," said Leonard.

"Shall I sit up with her?"

"No, thank you; she does not need company."

"Mr. Bast, what kind of woman is your wife?"

Leonard blushed up to his eyes.

"You ought to know my ways by now. Does that question offend you?"

"No, oh no, Miss Schlegel, no."

"Because I love honesty. Don't pretend your marriage has been a happy
one. You and she can have nothing in common."

He did not deny it, but said shyly: "I suppose that's pretty obvious;
but Jacky never meant to do anybody any harm. When things went wrong,
or I heard things, I used to think it was her fault, but, looking back,
it's more mine. I needn't have married her, but as I have I must stick
to her and keep her."

"How long have you been married?"

"Nearly three years."

"What did your people say?"

"They will not have anything to do with us. They had a sort of family
council when they heard I was married, and cut us off altogether."

Helen began to pace up and down the room. "My good boy, what a mess!"
she said gently. "Who are your people?"

He could answer this. His parents, who were dead, had been in trade; his
sisters had married commercial travellers; his brother was a lay-reader.

"And your grandparents?"

Leonard told her a secret that he had held shameful up to now. "They
were just nothing at all," he said "agricultural labourers and that
sort."

"So! From which part?"

"Lincolnshire mostly, but my mother's father--he, oddly enough, came
from these parts round here."

"From this very Shropshire. Yes, that is odd. My mother's people were
Lancashire. But why do your brother and your sisters object to Mrs.
Bast?"

"Oh, I don't know."

"Excuse me, you do know. I am not a baby. I can bear anything you tell
me, and the more you tell the more I shall be able to help. Have they
heard anything against her?"

He was silent.

"I think I have guessed now," said Helen very gravely.

"I don't think so, Miss Schlegel; I hope not."

"We must be honest, even over these things. I have guessed. I am
frightfully, dreadfully sorry, but it does not make the least difference
to me. I shall feel just the same to both of you. I blame, not your wife
for these things, but men."

Leonard left it at that--so long as she did not guess the man. She stood
at the window and slowly pulled up the blinds. The hotel looked over a
dark square. The mists had begun. When she turned back to him her eyes
were shining. "Don't you worry," he pleaded. "I can't bear that. We
shall be all right if I get work. If I could only get work--something
regular to do. Then it wouldn't be so bad again. I don't trouble after
books as I used. I can imagine that with regular work we should settle
down again. It stops one thinking."

"Settle down to what?"

"Oh, just settle down."

"And that's to be life!" said Helen, with a catch in her throat. "How
can you, with all the beautiful things to see and do--with music--with
walking at night--"

"Walking is well enough when a man's in work," he answered. "Oh, I did
talk a lot of nonsense once, but there's nothing like a bailiff in the
house to drive it out of you. When I saw him fingering my Ruskins and
Stevensons, I seemed to see life straight and real, and it isn't a
pretty sight. My books are back again, thanks to you, but they'll never
be the same to me again, and I shan't ever again think night in the
woods is wonderful."

"Why not?" asked Helen, throwing up the window. "Because I see one must
have money."

"Well, you're wrong."

"I wish I was wrong, but--the clergyman--he has money of his own, or
else he's paid; the poet or the musician--just the same; the tramp--he's
no different. The tramp goes to the workhouse in the end, and is paid
for with other people's money. Miss Schlegel the real thing's money, and
all the rest is a dream."

"You're still wrong. You've forgotten Death."

Leonard could not understand.

"If we lived forever, what you say would be true. But we have to die,
we have to leave life presently. Injustice and greed would be the real
thing if we lived for ever. As it is, we must hold to other things,
because Death is coming. I love Death--not morbidly, but because He
explains. He shows me the emptiness of Money. Death and Money are the
eternal foes. Not Death and Life. Never mind what lies behind Death, Mr.
Bast, but be sure that the poet and the musician and the tramp will be
happier in it than the man who has never learnt to say, 'I am I.'"

"I wonder."

"We are all in a mist--I know, but I can help you this far--men like
the Wilcoxes are deeper in the mist than any. Sane, sound Englishmen!
building up empires, levelling all the world into what they call common
sense. But mention Death to them and they're offended, because Death's
really Imperial, and He cries out against them for ever."

"I am as afraid of Death as any one."

"But not of the idea of Death."

"But what is the difference?"

"Infinite difference," said Helen, more gravely than before.

Leonard looked at her wondering, and had the sense of great things
sweeping out of the shrouded night. But he could not receive them,
because his heart was still full of little things. As the lost umbrella
had spoilt the concert at Queen's Hall, so the lost situation was
obscuring the diviner harmonies now. Death, Life, and Materialism were
fine words, but would Mr. Wilcox take him on as a clerk? Talk as one
would, Mr. Wilcox was king of this world, the superman, with his own
morality, whose head remained in the clouds.

"I must be stupid," he said apologetically.

While to Helen the paradox became clearer and clearer. "Death destroys a
man: the idea of Death saves him." Behind the coffins and the skeletons
that stay the vulgar mind lies something so immense that all that
is great in us responds to it. Men of the world may recoil from the
charnel-house that they will one day enter, but Love knows better. Death
is his foe, but his peer, and in their age-long struggle the thews of
Love have been strengthened, and his vision cleared, until there is no
one who can stand against him.

"So never give in," continued the girl, and restated again and again the
vague yet convincing plea that the Invisible lodges against the Visible.
Her excitement grew as she tried to cut the rope that fastened Leonard
to the earth. Woven of bitter experience, it resisted her. Presently
the waitress entered and gave her a letter from Margaret. Another note,
addressed to Leonard, was inside. They read them, listening to the
murmurings of the river.



For many hours Margaret did nothing; then she controlled herself, and
wrote some letters. She was too bruised to speak to Henry; she could
pity him, and even determine to marry him, but as yet all lay too deep
in her heart for speech. On the surface the sense of his degradation was
too strong. She could not command voice or look, and the gentle words
that she forced out through her pen seemed to proceed from some other
person.

"My dearest boy," she began, "this is not to part us. It is everything
or nothing, and I mean it to be nothing. It happened long before we ever
met, and even if it had happened since, I should be writing the same, I
hope. I do understand."

But she crossed out "I do understand"; it struck a false note. Henry
could not bear to be understood. She also crossed out, "It is everything
or nothing." Henry would resent so strong a grasp of the situation. She
must not comment; comment is unfeminine.

"I think that'll about do," she thought.

Then the sense of his degradation choked her. Was he worth all this
bother? To have yielded to a woman of that sort was everything, yes,
it was, and she could not be his wife. She tried to translate his
temptation into her own language, and her brain reeled. Men must be
different even to want to yield to such a temptation. Her belief in
comradeship was stifled, and she saw life as from that glass saloon on
the Great Western which sheltered male and female alike from the fresh
air. Are the sexes really races, each with its own code of morality, and
their mutual love a mere device of Nature to keep things going? Strip
human intercourse of the proprieties, and is it reduced to this? Her
judgment told her no. She knew that out of Nature's device we have built
a magic that will win us immortality. Far more mysterious than the call
of sex to sex is the tenderness that we throw into that call; far wider
is the gulf between us and the farmyard than between the farmyard and
the garbage that nourishes it. We are evolving, in ways that Science
cannot measure, to ends that Theology dares not contemplate. "Men
did produce one jewel," the gods will say, and, saying, will give us
immortality. Margaret knew all this, but for the moment she could not
feel it, and transformed the marriage of Evie and Mr. Cahill into a
carnival of fools, and her own marriage--too miserable to think of that,
she tore up the letter, and then wrote another:


"DEAR MR. BAST,

"I have spoken to Mr. Wilcox about you, as I promised, and am sorry to
say that he has no vacancy for you.

"Yours truly,

"M. J. SCHLEGEL."


She enclosed this in a note to Helen, over which she took less trouble
than she might have done; but her head was aching, and she could not
stop to pick her words:


"DEAR HELEN,

"Give him this. The Basts are no good. Henry found the woman drunk on
the lawn. I am having a room got ready for you here, and will you please
come round at once on getting this? The Basts are not at all the type we
should trouble about. I may go round to them myself in the morning, and
do anything that is fair.

"M."


In writing this, Margaret felt that she was being practical. Something
might be arranged for the Basts later on, but they must be silenced
for the moment. She hoped to avoid a conversation between the woman
and Helen. She rang the bell for a servant, but no one answered it;
Mr. Wilcox and the Warringtons were gone to bed, and the kitchen was
abandoned to Saturnalia. Consequently she went over to the George
herself. She did not enter the hotel, for discussion would have been
perilous, and, saying that the letter was important, she gave it to the
waitress. As she recrossed the square she saw Helen and Mr. Bast looking
out of the window of the coffee-room, and feared she was already too
late. Her task was not yet over; she ought to tell Henry what she had
done.

This came easily, for she saw him in the hall. The night wind had been
rattling the pictures against the wall, and the noise had disturbed him.

"Who's there?" he called, quite the householder.

Margaret walked in and past him.

"I have asked Helen to sleep," she said. "She is best here; so don't
lock the front-door."

"I thought some one had got in," said Henry.

"At the same time I told the man that we could do nothing for him. I
don't know about later, but now the Basts must clearly go."

"Did you say that your sister is sleeping here, after all?"

"Probably."

"Is she to be shown up to your room?"

"I have naturally nothing to say to her; I am going to bed. Will you
tell the servants about Helen? Could some one go to carry her bag?"

He tapped a little gong, which had been bought to summon the servants.

"You must make more noise than that if you want them to hear."

Henry opened a door, and down the corridor came shouts of laughter. "Far
too much screaming there," he said, and strode towards it. Margaret went
upstairs, uncertain whether to be glad that they had met, or sorry. They
had behaved as if nothing had happened, and her deepest instincts told
her that this was wrong. For his own sake, some explanation was due.

And yet--what could an explanation tell her? A date, a place, a few
details, which she could imagine all too clearly. Now that the first
shock was over, she saw that there was every reason to premise a Mrs.
Bast. Henry's inner life had long laid open to her--his intellectual
confusion, his obtuseness to personal influence, his strong but furtive
passions. Should she refuse him because his outer life corresponded?
Perhaps. Perhaps, if the dishonour had been done to her, but it was done
long before her day. She struggled against the feeling. She told herself
that Mrs. Wilcox's wrong was her own. But she was not a barren theorist.
As she undressed, her anger, her regard for the dead, her desire for a
scene, all grew weak. Henry must have it as he liked, for she loved him,
and some day she would use her love to make him a better man.

Pity was at the bottom of her actions all through this crisis. Pity, if
one may generalise, is at the bottom of woman. When men like us, it is
for our better qualities, and however tender their liking, we dare not
be unworthy of it, or they will quietly let us go. But unworthiness
stimulates woman. It brings out her deeper nature, for good or for evil.

Here was the core of the question. Henry must be forgiven, and made
better by love; nothing else mattered. Mrs. Wilcox, that unquiet yet
kindly ghost, must be left to her own wrong. To her everything was in
proportion now, and she, too, would pity the man who was blundering
up and down their lives. Had Mrs. Wilcox known of his trespass? An
interesting question, but Margaret fell asleep, tethered by affection,
and lulled by the murmurs of the river that descended all the night from
Wales. She felt herself at one with her future home, colouring it and
coloured by it, and awoke to see, for the second time, Oniton Castle
conquering the morning mists.



"Henry dear--" was her greeting.

He had finished his breakfast, and was beginning the Times. His
sister-in-law was packing. Margaret knelt by him and took the paper from
him, feeling that it was unusually heavy and thick. Then, putting her
face where it had been, she looked up in his eyes.

"Henry dear, look at me. No, I won't have you shirking. Look at me.
There. That's all."

"You're referring to last evening," he said huskily. "I have released
you from your engagement. I could find excuses, but I won't. No, I
won't. A thousand times no. I'm a bad lot, and must be left at that."

Expelled from his old fortress, Mr. Wilcox was building a new one.
He could no longer appear respectable to her, so he defended himself
instead in a lurid past. It was not true repentance.

"Leave it where you will, boy. It's not going to trouble us; I know what
I'm talking about, and it will make no difference."

"No difference?" he inquired. "No difference, when you find that I am
not the fellow you thought?" He was annoyed with Miss Schlegel here. He
would have preferred her to be prostrated by the blow, or even to
rage. Against the tide of his sin flowed the feeling that she was not
altogether womanly. Her eyes gazed too straight; they had read books
that are suitable for men only. And though he had dreaded a scene, and
though she had determined against one, there was a scene, all the same.
It was somehow imperative.

"I am unworthy of you," he began. "Had I been worthy, I should not have
released you from your engagement. I know what I am talking about. I
can't bear to talk of such things. We had better leave it."

She kissed his hand. He jerked it from her, and, rising to his feet,
went on: "You, with your sheltered life, and refined pursuits, and
friends, and books, you and your sister, and women like you--I say, how
can you guess the temptations that lie round a man?"

"It is difficult for us," said Margaret; "but if we are worth marrying,
we do guess."

"Cut off from decent society and family ties, what do you suppose
happens to thousands of young fellows overseas? Isolated. No one near. I
know by bitter experience, and yet you say it makes 'no difference.'"

"Not to me."

He laughed bitterly. Margaret went to the sideboard and helped herself
to one of the breakfast dishes. Being the last down, she turned out the
spirit-lamp that kept them warm. She was tender, but grave. She knew
that Henry was not so much confessing his soul as pointing out the gulf
between the male soul and the female, and she did not desire to hear him
on this point.

"Did Helen come?" she asked.

He shook his head.

"But that won't do at all, at all! We don't want her gossiping with Mrs.
Bast."

"Good God! no!" he exclaimed, suddenly natural. Then he caught himself
up. "Let them gossip, my game's up, though I thank you for your
unselfishness--little as my thanks are worth."

"Didn't she send me a message or anything?"

"I heard of none."

"Would you ring the bell, please?"

"What to do?"

"Why, to inquire."

He swaggered up to it tragically, and sounded a peal. Margaret poured
herself out some coffee. The butler came, and said that Miss Schlegel
had slept at the George, so far as he had heard. Should he go round to
the George?

"I'll go, thank you," said Margaret, and dismissed him.

"It is no good," said Henry. "Those things leak out; you cannot stop a
story once it has started. I have known cases of other men--I despised
them once, I thought that I'm different, I shall never be tempted. Oh,
Margaret--" He came and sat down near her, improvising emotion. She
could not bear to listen to him. "We fellows all come to grief once in
our time. Will you believe that? There are moments when the strongest
man--'Let him who standeth, take heed lest he fall.' That's true,
isn't it? If you knew all, you would excuse me. I was far from good
influences--far even from England. I was very, very lonely, and longed
for a woman's voice. That's enough. I have told you too much already for
you to forgive me now."

"Yes, that's enough, dear."

"I have"--he lowered his voice--"I have been through hell."

Gravely she considered this claim. Had he? Had he suffered tortures of
remorse, or had it been, "There! that's over. Now for respectable life
again"? The latter, if she read him rightly. A man who has been through
hell does not boast of his virility. He is humble and hides it, if,
indeed, it still exists. Only in legend does the sinner come forth
penitent, but terrible, to conquer pure woman by his resistless power.
Henry was anxious to be terrible, but had not got it in him. He was a
good average Englishman, who had slipped. The really culpable point--his
faithlessness to Mrs. Wilcox--never seemed to strike him. She longed to
mention Mrs. Wilcox.

And bit by bit the story was told her. It was a very simple story. Ten
years ago was the time, a garrison town in Cyprus the place. Now and
then he asked her whether she could possibly forgive him, and she
answered, "I have already forgiven you, Henry." She chose her words
carefully, and so saved him from panic. She played the girl, until he
could rebuild his fortress and hide his soul from the world. When the
butler came to clear away, Henry was in a very different mood--asked
the fellow what he was in such a hurry for, complained of the noise last
night in the servants' hall. Margaret looked intently at the butler. He,
as a handsome young man, was faintly attractive to her as a woman--an
attraction so faint as scarcely to be perceptible, yet the skies would
have fallen if she had mentioned it to Henry.

On her return from the George the building operations were complete, and
the old Henry fronted her, competent, cynical, and kind. He had made a
clean breast, had been forgiven, and the great thing now was to forget
his failure, and to send it the way of other unsuccessful investments.
Jacky rejoined Howards End and Dude Street, and the vermilion motor-car,
and the Argentine Hard Dollars, and all the things and people for whom
he had never had much use and had less now. Their memory hampered him.
He could scarcely attend to Margaret, who brought back disquieting news
from the George. Helen and her clients had gone.

"Well, let them go--the man and his wife, I mean, for the more we see of
your sister the better."

"But they have gone separately--Helen very early, the Basts just before
I arrived. They have left no message. They have answered neither of my
notes. I don't like to think what it all means."

"What did you say in the notes?"

"I told you last night."

"Oh--ah--yes! Dear, would you like one turn in the garden?"

Margaret took his arm. The beautiful weather soothed her. But the wheels
of Evie's wedding were still at work, tossing the guests outwards as
deftly as they had drawn them in, and she could not be with him long. It
had been arranged that they should motor to Shrewsbury, whence he would
go north, and she back to London with the Warringtons. For a fraction of
time she was happy. Then her brain recommenced.

"I am afraid there has been gossiping of some kind at the George. Helen
would not have left unless she had heard something. I mismanaged that.
It is wretched. I ought to have parted her from that woman at once."

"Margaret!" he exclaimed, loosing her arm impressively.

"Yes--yes, Henry?"

"I am far from a saint--in fact, the reverse--but you have taken me, for
better or worse. Bygones must be bygones. You have promised to forgive
me. Margaret, a promise is a promise. Never mention that woman again."

"Except for some practical reason--never."

"Practical! You practical!"

"Yes, I'm practical," she murmured, stooping over the mowing-machine and
playing with the grass which trickled through her fingers like sand.

He had silenced her, but her fears made him uneasy. Not for the first
time, he was threatened with blackmail. He was rich and supposed to be
moral; the Basts knew that he was not, and might find it profitable to
hint as much.

"At all events, you mustn't worry," he said. "This is a man's business."
He thought intently. "On no account mention it to anybody."

Margaret flushed at advice so elementary, but he was really paving the
way for a lie. If necessary he would deny that he had ever known Mrs.
Bast, and prosecute her for libel. Perhaps he never had known her. Here
was Margaret, who behaved as if he had not. There the house. Round them
were half a dozen gardeners, clearing up after his daughter's wedding.
All was so solid and spruce, that the past flew up out of sight like a
spring-blind, leaving only the last five minutes unrolled.

Glancing at these, he saw that the car would be round during the
next five, and plunged into action. Gongs were tapped, orders issued,
Margaret was sent to dress, and the housemaid to sweep up the long
trickle of grass that she had left across the hall. As is Man to the
Universe, so was the mind of Mr. Wilcox to the minds of some men--a
concentrated light upon a tiny spot, a little Ten Minutes moving
self-contained through its appointed years. No Pagan he, who lives for
the Now, and may be wiser than all philosophers. He lived for the five
minutes that have past, and the five to come; he had the business mind.

How did he stand now, as his motor slipped out of Oniton and breasted
the great round hills? Margaret had heard a certain rumour, but was all
right. She had forgiven him, God bless her, and he felt the manlier for
it. Charles and Evie had not heard it, and never must hear. No more must
Paul. Over his children he felt great tenderness, which he did not try
to track to a cause; Mrs. Wilcox was too far back in his life. He did
not connect her with the sudden aching love that he felt for Evie. Poor
little Evie! he trusted that Cahill would make her a decent husband.

And Margaret? How did she stand?

She had several minor worries. Clearly her sister had heard something.
She dreaded meeting her in town. And she was anxious about Leonard, for
whom they certainly were responsible. Nor ought Mrs. Bast to starve. But
the main situation had not altered. She still loved Henry. His actions,
not his disposition, had disappointed her, and she could bear that. And
she loved her future home. Standing up in the car, just where she had
leapt from it two days before, she gazed back with deep emotion upon
Oniton. Besides the Grange and the Castle keep, she could now pick out
the church and the black-and-white gables of the George. There was the
bridge, and the river nibbling its green peninsula. She could even
see the bathing-shed, but while she was looking for Charles's new
spring-board, the forehead of the hill rose and hid the whole scene.

She never saw it again. Day and night the river flows down into England,
day after day the sun retreats into the Welsh mountains, and the tower
chimes, See the Conquering Hero. But the Wilcoxes have no part in the
place, nor in any place. It is not their names that recur in the parish
register. It is not their ghosts that sigh among the alders at evening.
They have swept into the valley and swept out of it, leaving a little
dust and a little money behind.



Tibby was now approaching his last year at Oxford. He had moved out of
college, and was contemplating the Universe, or such portions of it as
concerned him, from his comfortable lodgings in Long Wall. He was not
concerned with much. When a young man is untroubled by passions and
sincerely indifferent to public opinion his outlook is necessarily
limited. Tibby wished neither to strengthen the position of the rich nor
to improve that of the poor, and so was well content to watch the elms
nodding behind the mildly embattled parapets of Magdalen. There are
worse lives. Though selfish, he was never cruel; though affected
in manner, he never posed. Like Margaret, he disdained the heroic
equipment, and it was only after many visits that men discovered
Schlegel to possess a character and a brain. He had done well in Mods,
much to the surprise of those who attended lectures and took proper
exercise, and was now glancing disdainfully at Chinese in case he
should some day consent to qualify as a Student Interpreter. To him thus
employed Helen entered. A telegram had preceded her.

He noticed, in a distant way, that his sister had altered.

As a rule he found her too pronounced, and had never come across this
look of appeal, pathetic yet dignified--the look of a sailor who has
lost everything at sea.

"I have come from Oniton," she began. "There has been a great deal of
trouble there."

"Who's for lunch?" said Tibby, picking up the claret, which was warming
in the hearth. Helen sat down submissively at the table. "Why such an
early start?" he asked.

"Sunrise or something--when I could get away."

"So I surmise. Why?"

"I don't know what's to be done, Tibby. I am very much upset at a piece
of news that concerns Meg, and do not want to face her, and I am not
going back to Wickham Place. I stopped here to tell you this."

The landlady came in with the cutlets. Tibby put a marker in the leaves
of his Chinese Grammar and helped them. Oxford--the Oxford of the
vacation--dreamed and rustled outside, and indoors the little fire was
coated with grey where the sunshine touched it. Helen continued her odd
story.

"Give Meg my love and say that I want to be alone. I mean to go to
Munich or else Bonn."

"Such a message is easily given," said her brother.

"As regards Wickham Place and my share of the furniture, you and she are
to do exactly as you like. My own feeling is that everything may just as
well be sold. What does one want with dusty economic books, which have
made the world no better, or with mother's hideous chiffoniers? I have
also another commission for you. I want you to deliver a letter." She
got up. "I haven't written it yet. Why shouldn't I post it, though?" She
sat down again. "My head is rather wretched. I hope that none of your
friends are likely to come in."

Tibby locked the door. His friends often found it in this condition.
Then he asked whether anything had gone wrong at Evie's wedding.

"Not there," said Helen, and burst into tears.

He had known her hysterical--it was one of her aspects with which he had
no concern--and yet these tears touched him as something unusual. They
were nearer the things that did concern him, such as music. He laid down
his knife and looked at her curiously. Then, as she continued to sob, he
went on with his lunch.

The time came for the second course, and she was still crying. Apple
Charlotte was to follow, which spoils by waiting. "Do you mind Mrs.
Martlett coming in?" he asked, "or shall I take it from her at the
door?"

"Could I bathe my eyes, Tibby?"

He took her to his bedroom, and introduced the pudding in her absence.
Having helped himself, he put it down to warm in the hearth. His hand
stretched towards the Grammar, and soon he was turning over the pages,
raising his eyebrows scornfully, perhaps at human nature, perhaps at
Chinese. To him thus employed Helen returned. She had pulled herself
together, but the grave appeal had not vanished from her eyes.

"Now for the explanation," she said. "Why didn't I begin with it? I
have found out something about Mr. Wilcox. He has behaved very wrongly
indeed, and ruined two people's lives. It all came on me very suddenly
last night; I am very much upset, and I do not know what to do. Mrs.
Bast--"

"Oh, those people!"

Helen seemed silenced.

"Shall I lock the door again?"

"No thanks, Tibbikins. You're being very good to me. I want to tell you
the story before I go abroad, you must do exactly what you like--treat
it as part of the furniture. Meg cannot have heard it yet, I think. But
I cannot face her and tell her that the man she is going to marry has
misconducted himself. I don't even know whether she ought to be told.
Knowing as she does that I dislike him, she will suspect me, and think
that I want to ruin her match. I simply don't know what to make of such
a thing. I trust your judgment. What would you do?"

"I gather he has had a mistress," said Tibby.

Helen flushed with shame and anger. "And ruined two people's lives. And
goes about saying that personal actions count for nothing, and there
always will be rich and poor. He met her when he was trying to get rich
out in Cyprus--I don't wish to make him worse than he is, and no doubt
she was ready enough to meet him. But there it is. They met. He goes his
way and she goes hers. What do you suppose is the end of such women?"

He conceded that it was a bad business.

"They end in two ways: Either they sink till the lunatic asylums and the
workhouses are full of them, and cause Mr. Wilcox to write letters to
the papers complaining of our national degeneracy, or else they entrap a
boy into marriage before it is too late. She--I can't blame her."

"But this isn't all," she continued after a long pause, during which the
landlady served them with coffee. "I come now to the business that took
us to Oniton. We went all three. Acting on Mr. Wilcox's advice, the man
throws up a secure situation and takes an insecure one, from which he is
dismissed. There are certain excuses, but in the main Mr. Wilcox is to
blame, as Meg herself admitted. It is only common justice that he should
employ the man himself. But he meets the woman, and, like the cur that
he is, he refuses, and tries to get rid of them. He makes Meg write.
Two notes came from her late that evening--one for me, one for Leonard,
dismissing him with barely a reason. I couldn't understand. Then it
comes out that Mrs. Bast had spoken to Mr. Wilcox on the lawn while we
left her to get rooms, and was still speaking about him when Leonard
came back to her. This Leonard knew all along. He thought it natural he
should be ruined twice. Natural! Could you have contained yourself?"

"It is certainly a very bad business," said Tibby.

His reply seemed to calm his sister. "I was afraid that I saw it out of
proportion. But you are right outside it, and you must know. In a day or
two--or perhaps a week--take whatever steps you think fit. I leave it in
your hands."

She concluded her charge.

"The facts as they touch Meg are all before you," she added; and Tibby
sighed and felt it rather hard that, because of his open mind, he should
be empanelled to serve as a juror. He had never been interested in human
beings, for which one must blame him, but he had had rather too much of
them at Wickham Place. Just as some people cease to attend when books
are mentioned, so Tibby's attention wandered when "personal relations"
came under discussion. Ought Margaret to know what Helen knew the Basts
to know? Similar questions had vexed him from infancy, and at Oxford he
had learned to say that the importance of human beings has been vastly
overrated by specialists. The epigram, with its faint whiff of the
eighties, meant nothing. But he might have let it off now if his sister
had not been ceaselessly beautiful.

"You see, Helen--have a cigarette--I don't see what I'm to do."

"Then there's nothing to be done. I dare say you are right. Let them
marry. There remains the question of compensation."

"Do you want me to adjudicate that too? Had you not better consult an
expert?"

"This part is in confidence," said Helen. "It has nothing to do with
Meg, and do not mention it to her. The compensation--I do not see who is
to pay it if I don't, and I have already decided on the minimum sum.
As soon as possible I am placing it to your account, and when I am in
Germany you will pay it over for me. I shall never forget your kindness,
Tibbikins, if you do this."

"What is the sum?"

"Five thousand."

"Good God alive!" said Tibby, and went crimson.

"Now, what is the good of driblets? To go through life having done one
thing--to have raised one person from the abyss; not these puny gifts of
shillings and blankets--making the grey more grey. No doubt people will
think me extraordinary."

"I don't care an iota what people think!" cried he, heated to unusual
manliness of diction. "But it's half what you have."

"Not nearly half." She spread out her hands over her soiled skirt. "I
have far too much, and we settled at Chelsea last spring that three
hundred a year is necessary to set a man on his feet. What I give will
bring in a hundred and fifty between two. It isn't enough." He could not
recover. He was not angry or even shocked, and he saw that Helen would
still have plenty to live on. But it amazed him to think what haycocks
people can make of their lives. His delicate intonations would not work,
and he could only blurt out that the five thousand pounds would mean a
great deal of bother for him personally.

"I didn't expect you to understand me."

"I? I understand nobody."

"But you'll do it?"

"Apparently."

"I leave you two commissions, then. The first concerns Mr. Wilcox, and
you are to use your discretion. The second concerns the money, and is
to be mentioned to no one, and carried out literally. You will send a
hundred pounds on account to-morrow."

He walked with her to the station, passing through those streets whose
serried beauty never bewildered him and never fatigued. The lovely
creature raised domes and spires into the cloudless blue, and only
the ganglion of vulgarity round Carfax showed how evanescent was the
phantom, how faint its claim to represent England. Helen, rehearsing her
commission, noticed nothing; the Basts were in her brain, and she retold
the crisis in a meditative way, which might have made other men curious.
She was seeing whether it would hold. He asked her once why she had
taken the Basts right into the heart of Evie's wedding. She stopped like
a frightened animal and said, "Does that seem to you so odd?" Her eyes,
the hand laid on the mouth, quite haunted him, until they were absorbed
into the figure of St. Mary the Virgin, before whom he paused for a
moment on the walk home.

It is convenient to follow him in the discharge of his duties. Margaret
summoned him the next day. She was terrified at Helen's flight, and he
had to say that she had called in at Oxford. Then she said: "Did she
seem worried at any rumour about Henry?" He answered, "Yes." "I knew it
was that!" she exclaimed. "I'll write to her." Tibby was relieved.

He then sent the cheque to the address that Helen gave him, and stated
that he was instructed to forward later on five thousand pounds. An
answer came back very civil and quiet in tone--such an answer as Tibby
himself would have given. The cheque was returned, the legacy refused,
the writer being in no need of money. Tibby forwarded this to Helen,
adding in the fulness of his heart that Leonard Bast seemed somewhat a
monumental person after all. Helen's reply was frantic. He was to
take no notice. He was to go down at once and say that she commanded
acceptance. He went. A scurf of books and china ornaments awaited him.
The Basts had just been evicted for not paying their rent, and had
wandered no one knew whither. Helen had begun bungling with her money by
this time, and had even sold out her shares in the Nottingham and Derby
Railway. For some weeks she did nothing. Then she reinvested, and, owing
to the good advice of her stockbrokers, became rather richer than she
had been before.



Houses have their own ways of dying, falling as variously as the
generations of men, some with a tragic roar, some quietly, but to an
after-life in the city of ghosts, while from others--and thus was the
death of Wickham Place--the spirit slips before the body perishes. It
had decayed in the spring, disintegrating the girls more than they knew,
and causing either to accost unfamiliar regions. By September it was a
corpse, void of emotion, and scarcely hallowed by the memories of thirty
years of happiness. Through its round-topped doorway passed furniture,
and pictures, and books, until the last room was gutted and the last van
had rumbled away. It stood for a week or two longer, open-eyed, as if
astonished at its own emptiness. Then it fell. Navvies came, and spilt
it back into the grey. With their muscles and their beery good temper,
they were not the worst of undertakers for a house which had always been
human, and had not mistaken culture for an end.

The furniture, with a few exceptions, went down into Hertfordshire, Mr.
Wilcox having most kindly offered Howards End as a warehouse. Mr. Bryce
had died abroad--an unsatisfactory affair--and as there seemed little
guarantee that the rent would be paid regularly, he cancelled the
agreement, and resumed possession himself. Until he relet the house, the
Schlegels were welcome to stack their furniture in the garage and lower
rooms. Margaret demurred, but Tibby accepted the offer gladly; it saved
him from coming to any decision about the future. The plate and the
more valuable pictures found a safer home in London, but the bulk of the
things went country-ways, and were entrusted to the guardianship of Miss
Avery.

Shortly before the move, our hero and heroine were married. They
have weathered the storm, and may reasonably expect peace. To have no
illusions and yet to love--what stronger surety can a woman find? She
had seen her husband's past as well as his heart. She knew her own heart
with a thoroughness that commonplace people believe impossible. The
heart of Mrs. Wilcox was alone hidden, and perhaps it is superstitious
to speculate on the feelings of the dead. They were warned
quietly--really quietly, for as the day approached she refused to go
through another Oniton. Her brother gave her away, her aunt, who was
out of health, presided over a few colourless refreshments. The Wilcoxes
were represented by Charles, who witnessed the marriage settlement, and
by Mr. Cahill. Paul did send a cablegram. In a few minutes, and without
the aid of music, the clergyman made them man and wife, and soon the
glass shade had fallen that cuts off married couples from the world.
She, a monogamist, regretted the cessation of some of life's innocent
odours; he, whose instincts were polygamous, felt morally braced by the
change and less liable to the temptations that had assailed him in the
past.

They spent their honeymoon near Innsbruck. Henry knew of a reliable
hotel there, and Margaret hoped for a meeting with her sister. In this
she was disappointed. As they came south, Helen retreated over the
Brenner, and wrote an unsatisfactory post-card from the shores of the
Lake of Garda, saying that her plans were uncertain and had better be
ignored. Evidently she disliked meeting Henry. Two months are surely
enough to accustom an outsider to a situation which a wife has accepted
in two days, and Margaret had again to regret her sister's lack of
self-control. In a long letter she pointed out the need of charity in
sexual matters; so little is known about them; it is hard enough for
those who are personally touched to judge; then how futile must be the
verdict of Society. "I don't say there is no standard, for that would
destroy morality; only that there can be no standard until our impulses
are classified and better understood." Helen thanked her for her kind
letter--rather a curious reply. She moved south again, and spoke of
wintering in Naples.

Mr. Wilcox was not sorry that the meeting failed. Helen left him time to
grow skin over his wound. There were still moments when it pained him.
Had he only known that Margaret was awaiting him--Margaret, so lively
and intelligent, and yet so submissive--he would have kept himself
worthier of her. Incapable of grouping the past, he confused the episode
of Jacky with another episode that had taken place in the days of his
bachelorhood. The two made one crop of wild oats, for which he was
heartily sorry, and he could not see that those oats are of a darker
stock which are rooted in another's dishonour. Unchastity and infidelity
were as confused to him as to the Middle Ages, his only moral teacher.
Ruth (poor old Ruth!) did not enter into his calculations at all, for
poor old Ruth had never found him out.

His affection for his present wife grew steadily. Her cleverness gave
him no trouble, and, indeed, he liked to see her reading poetry or
something about social questions; it distinguished her from the wives
of other men. He had only to call, and she clapped the book up and was
ready to do what he wished. Then they would argue so jollily, and once
or twice she had him in quite a tight corner, but as soon as he grew
really serious, she gave in. Man is for war, woman for the recreation
of the warrior, but he does not dislike it if she makes a show of fight.
She cannot win in a real battle, having no muscles, only nerves.
Nerves make her jump out of a moving motor-car, or refuse to be
married fashionably. The warrior may well allow her to triumph on such
occasions; they move not the imperishable plinth of things that touch
his peace.

Margaret had a bad attack of these nerves during the honeymoon. He told
her--casually, as was his habit--that Oniton Grange was let. She showed
her annoyance, and asked rather crossly why she had not been consulted.

"I didn't want to bother you," he replied. "Besides, I have only heard
for certain this morning."

"Where are we to live?" said Margaret, trying to laugh. "I loved the
place extraordinarily. Don't you believe in having a permanent home,
Henry?"

He assured her that she misunderstood him. It is home life that
distinguishes us from the foreigner. But he did not believe in a damp
home.

"This is news. I never heard till this minute that Oniton was damp."

"My dear girl!"--he flung out his hand--"have you eyes? have you a skin?
How could it be anything but damp in such a situation? In the first
place, the Grange is on clay, and built where the castle moat must have
been; then there's that detestable little river, steaming all night like
a kettle. Feel the cellar walls; look up under the eaves. Ask Sir James
or any one. Those Shropshire valleys are notorious. The only possible
place for a house in Shropshire is on a hill; but, for my part, I think
the country is too far from London, and the scenery nothing special."

Margaret could not resist saying, "Why did you go there, then?"

"I--because--" He drew his head back and grew rather angry. "Why have
we come to the Tyrol, if it comes to that? One might go on asking such
questions indefinitely."

One might; but he was only gaining time for a plausible answer. Out it
came, and he believed it as soon as it was spoken.

"The truth is, I took Oniton on account of Evie. Don't let this go any
further."

"Certainly not."

"I shouldn't like her to know that she nearly let me in for a very bad
bargain. No sooner did I sign the agreement than she got engaged. Poor
little girl! She was so keen on it all, and wouldn't even wait to
make proper inquiries about the shooting. Afraid it would get snapped
up--just like all of your sex. Well, no harm's done. She has had her
country wedding, and I've got rid of my goose to some fellows who are
starting a preparatory school."

"Where shall we live, then, Henry? I should enjoy living somewhere."

"I have not yet decided. What about Norfolk?"

Margaret was silent. Marriage had not saved her from the sense of
flux. London was but a foretaste of this nomadic civilisation which is
altering human nature so profoundly, and throws upon personal
relations a stress greater than they have ever borne before. Under
cosmopolitanism, if it comes, we shall receive no help from the earth.
Trees and meadows and mountains will only be a spectacle, and the
binding force that they once exercised on character must be entrusted to
Love alone. May Love be equal to the task!

"It is now what?" continued Henry. "Nearly October. Let us camp for the
winter at Ducie Street, and look out for something in the spring."

"If possible, something permanent. I can't be as young as I was, for
these alterations don't suit me."

"But, my dear, which would you rather have--alterations or rheumatism?"

"I see your point," said Margaret, getting up. "If Oniton is really
damp, it is impossible, and must be inhabited by little boys. Only, in
the spring, let us look before we leap. I will take warning by Evie,
and not hurry you. Remember that you have a free hand this time.
These endless moves must be bad for the furniture, and are certainly
expensive."

"What a practical little woman it is! What's it been reading?
Theo--theo--how much?"

"Theosophy."

So Ducie Street was her first fate--a pleasant enough fate. The house,
being only a little larger than Wickham Place, trained her for the
immense establishment that was promised in the spring. They were
frequently away, but at home life ran fairly regularly. In the
morning Henry went to business, and his sandwich--a relic this of some
prehistoric craving--was always cut by her own hand. He did not rely
upon the sandwich for lunch, but liked to have it by him in case he grew
hungry at eleven. When he had gone, there was the house to look after,
and the servants to humanise, and several kettles of Helen's to keep on
the boil. Her conscience pricked her a little about the Basts; she
was not sorry to have lost sight of them. No doubt Leonard was worth
helping, but being Henry's wife, she preferred to help some one else. As
for theatres and discussion societies, they attracted her less and
less. She began to "miss" new movements, and to spend her spare time
re-reading or thinking, rather to the concern of her Chelsea friends.
They attributed the change to her marriage, and perhaps some deep
instinct did warn her not to travel further from her husband than
was inevitable. Yet the main cause lay deeper still; she had outgrown
stimulants, and was passing from words to things. It was doubtless a
pity not to keep up with Wedekind or John, but some closing of the gates
is inevitable after thirty, if the mind itself is to become a creative
power.

 Helen and Leonard discuss Henry at  their hotel, while Jacky sleeps in another room. Helen regales him with theories about the concept of "I": A certain kind of person, she says, is missing  the "I" from the middle of their brains. She says that Mr. Wilcox  is such a person, perhaps the world will fall to such  people, and so on. Leonard complains that life is  all about money, and she argues that it is not, for  the idea of death forces people to arrive at an idea  of real meaning. At last, two notes arrive from  Margaret, one for each of them. At Oniton, Margaret contemplates how to react to the  news of Henry's decade-old affair. She considers  leaving him, but is motivated by love and pity to try  to help him become a better man. She visits him in  the morning. He tells her of his encounter with  Jacky in Cyprus, where the affair occurred,  and Margaret says that she has forgiven him. She is  surprised, however, to learn that both Helen and the  Basts have left the hotel--she is worried that she  may have blundered, for she sent Helen a very  critical note about Leonard, and Leonard a terse note  saying that Henry did not have work for him. Far from Oniton, Tibby is in his apartment at  Oxford, where he is nearing his last year. Helen bursts in, crying and telling him all about  Margaret, Henry, and the Basts. Tibby is  detached but tolerant, and agrees to carry out  certain instructions. Helen herself cannot bear to  face Margaret, and so is taking a long trip to  Germany. She asks Tibby to give the Basts  5,000 pounds of her money, a substantial portion  of her fortune. However, Leonard refuses the  check, and by the time Helen can write to Tibby to  urge him to try again, the Basts have been evicted  from their apartment and have disappeared. Helen  reinvests her money, and becomes even richer than she  was before. As the lease at Wickham Place nears expiration, the  house falls into a kind of desolation; the furniture  is all sent to Howards End, which Henry has  generously offered as storage space. Henry and  Margaret are married, and go to live for a time at  the Wilcoxes' house in London, with the intention of  finding a bigger house soon. Time passes, and Henry  becomes happier and happier with his choice of  Margaret as a wife. She is clever, but also  submissive, and seems to understand her place as a  woman. Margaret, who understands every sacrifice she  makes for Henry, continues to be motivated partially  by pity for him; but she also begins to be less  interested in discussing societies, debate, and  theater, preferring instead to reread books and think  on her own. Now that she has passed 30, she is  passing "from words to things," a moment in her life  when "some closing of the gates is inevitable...if  the mind itself is to become a creative power."

