Chapter: Margaret had often wondered at the disturbance that takes place in the
world's waters, when Love, who seems so tiny a pebble, slips in. Whom
does Love concern beyond the beloved and the lover? Yet his impact
deluges a hundred shores. No doubt the disturbance is really the spirit
of the generations, welcoming the new generation, and chafing against
the ultimate Fate, who holds all the seas in the palm of her hand. But
Love cannot understand this. He cannot comprehend another's infinity; he
is conscious only of his own--flying sunbeam, falling rose, pebble that
asks for one quiet plunge below the fretting interplay of space and
time. He knows that he will survive at the end of things, and be
gathered by Fate as a jewel from the slime, and be handed with
admiration round the assembly of the gods. "Men did produce this"
they will say, and, saying, they will give men immortality. But
meanwhile--what agitations meanwhile! The foundations of Property and
Propriety are laid bare, twin rocks; Family Pride flounders to the
surface, puffing and blowing and refusing to be comforted; Theology,
vaguely ascetic, gets up a nasty ground swell. Then the lawyers are
aroused--cold brood--and creep out of their holes. They do what they
can; they tidy up Property and Propriety, reassure Theology and Family
Pride. Half-guineas are poured on the troubled waters, the lawyers creep
back, and, if all has gone well, Love joins one man and woman together
in Matrimony.

Margaret had expected the disturbance, and was not irritated by it.
For a sensitive woman she had steady nerves, and could bear with the
incongruous and the grotesque; and, besides, there was nothing excessive
about her love-affair. Good-humour was the dominant note of her
relations with Mr. Wilcox, or, as I must now call him, Henry. Henry
did not encourage romance, and she was no girl to fidget for it. An
acquaintance had become a lover, might become a husband, but would
retain all that she had noted in the acquaintance; and love must confirm
an old relation rather than reveal a new one.

In this spirit she promised to marry him.

He was in Swanage on the morrow bearing the engagement ring.

They greeted one another with a hearty cordiality that impressed
Aunt Juley. Henry dined at The Bays, but had engaged a bedroom in the
principal hotel; he was one of those men who know the principal hotel by
instinct. After dinner he asked Margaret if she wouldn't care for a turn
on the Parade. She accepted, and could not repress a little tremor; it
would be her first real love scene. But as she put on her hat she burst
out laughing. Love was so unlike the article served up in books; the
joy, though genuine was different; the mystery an unexpected mystery.
For one thing, Mr. Wilcox still seemed a stranger.

For a time they talked about the ring; then she said: "Do you remember
the Embankment at Chelsea? It can't be ten days ago."

"Yes," he said, laughing. "And you and your sister were head and ears
deep in some Quixotic scheme. Ah well!"

"I little thought then, certainly. Did you?"

"I don't know about that; I shouldn't like to say."

"Why, was it earlier?" she cried. "Did you think of me this way earlier!
How extraordinarily interesting, Henry! Tell me."

But Henry had no intention of telling. Perhaps he could not have told,
for his mental states became obscure as soon as he had passed through
them. He misliked the very word "interesting," connoting it with wasted
energy and even with morbidity. Hard facts were enough for him.

"I didn't think of it," she pursued. "No; when you spoke to me in the
drawing-room, that was practically the first. It was all so different
from what it's supposed to be. On the stage, or in books, a proposal
is--how shall I put it?--a full-blown affair, a hind of bouquet;
it loses its literal meaning. But in life a proposal really is a
proposal--"

"By the way--"

"Oh, very well."

"I am so glad," she answered, a little surprised. "What did you talk
about? Me, presumably."

"About Greece too."

"Greece was a very good card, Henry. Tibby's only a boy still, and one
has to pick and choose subjects a little. Well done."

"I was telling him I have shares in a currant-farm near Calamata."

"What a delightful thing to have shares in! Can't we go there for our
honeymoon?"

"What to do?"

"To eat the currants. And isn't there marvellous scenery?"

"Moderately, but it's not the kind of place one could possibly go to
with a lady."

"Why not?"

"No hotels."

"Some ladies do without hotels. Are you aware that Helen and I have
walked alone over the Apennines, with our luggage on our backs?"

"I wasn't aware, and, if I can manage it, you will never do such a thing
again."

She said more gravely: "You haven't found time for a talk with Helen
yet, I suppose?"

"No."

"Do, before you go. I am so anxious you two should be friends."

"Your sister and I have always hit it off," he said negligently. "But
we're drifting away from our business. Let me begin at the beginning.
You know that Evie is going to marry Percy Cahill."

"Dolly's uncle."

"Exactly. The girl's madly in love with him. A very good sort of fellow,
but he demands--and rightly--a suitable provision with her. And in the
second place you will naturally understand, there is Charles. Before
leaving town, I wrote Charles a very careful letter. You see, he has
an increasing family and increasing expenses, and the I. and W. A. is
nothing particular just now, though capable of development."

"Poor fellow!" murmured Margaret, looking out to sea, and not
understanding.

"Charles being the elder son, some day Charles will have Howards End;
but I am anxious, in my own happiness, not to be unjust to others."

"Of course not," she began, and then gave a little cry. "you mean money.
How stupid I am! Of course not!"

Oddly enough, he winced a little at the word. "Yes, Money, since you put
it so frankly. I am determined to be just to all--just to you, just to
them. I am determined that my children shall have me."

"Be generous to them," she said sharply. "Bother justice!"

"I am determined--and have already written to Charles to that effect--"

"But how much have you got?"

"What?"

"How much have you a year? I've six hundred."

"My income?"

"Yes. We must begin with how much you have, before we can settle how
much you can give Charles. Justice, and even generosity, depend on
that."

"I must say you're a downright young woman," he observed, patting her
arm and laughing a little. "What a question to spring on a fellow!"

"Don't you know your income? Or don't you want to tell it me?"

"I--"

"That's all right"--now she patted him--"don't tell me. I don't want to
know. I can do the sum just as well by proportion. Divide your income
into ten parts. How many parts would you give to Evie, how many to
Charles, how many to Paul?"

"The fact is, my dear, I hadn't any intention of bothering you with
details. I only wanted to let you know that--well, that something must
be done for the others, and you've understood me perfectly, so let's
pass on to the next point."

"Yes, we've settled that," said Margaret, undisturbed by his strategic
blunderings. "Go ahead; give away all you can, bearing in mind that I've
a clear six hundred. What a mercy it is to have all this money about
one."

"We've none too much, I assure you; you're marrying a poor man."

"Helen wouldn't agree with me here," she continued. "Helen daren't slang
the rich, being rich herself, but she would like to. There's an odd
notion, that I haven't yet got hold of, running about at the back of her
brain, that poverty is somehow 'real.' She dislikes all organisation,
and probably confuses wealth with the technique of wealth. Sovereigns in
a stocking wouldn't bother her; cheques do. Helen is too relentless. One
can't deal in her high-handed manner with the world."

"There's this other point, and then I must go back to my hotel and write
some letters. What's to be done now about the house in Ducie Street?"

"Keep it on--at least, it depends. When do you want to marry me?"

She raised her voice, as too often, and some youths, who were also
taking the evening air, overheard her. "Getting a bit hot, eh?" said
one. Mr. Wilcox turned on them, and said sharply, "I say!" There was
silence. "Take care I don't report you to the police." They moved away
quietly enough, but were only biding their time, and the rest of the
conversation was punctuated by peals of ungovernable laughter.

Lowering his voice and infusing a hint of reproof into it, he said:
"Evie will probably be married in September. We could scarcely think of
anything before then."

"The earlier the nicer, Henry. Females are not supposed to say such
things, but the earlier the nicer."

"How about September for us too?" he asked, rather dryly.

"Right. Shall we go into Ducie Street ourselves in September? Or shall
we try to bounce Helen and Tibby into it? That's rather an idea. They
are so unbusinesslike, we could make them do anything by judicious
management. Look here--yes. We'll do that. And we ourselves could live
at Howards End or Shropshire."

He blew out his cheeks. "Heavens! how you women do fly round! My head's
in a whirl. Point by point, Margaret. Howards End's impossible. I let
it to Hamar Bryce on a three years' agreement last March. Don't you
remember? Oniton. Well, that is much, much too far away to rely on
entirely. You will be able to be down there entertaining a certain
amount, but we must have a house within easy reach of Town. Only Ducie
Street has huge drawbacks. There's a mews behind."

Margaret could not help laughing. It was the first she had heard of
the mews behind Ducie Street. When she was a possible tenant it had
suppressed itself, not consciously, but automatically. The breezy
Wilcox manner, though genuine, lacked the clearness of vision that is
imperative for truth. When Henry lived in Ducie Street he remembered
the mews; when he tried to let he forgot it; and if any one had remarked
that the mews must be either there or not, he would have felt annoyed,
and afterwards have found some opportunity of stigmatising the speaker
as academic. So does my grocer stigmatise me when I complain of the
quality of his sultanas, and he answers in one breath that they are the
best sultanas, and how can I expect the best sultanas at that price? It
is a flaw inherent in the business mind, and Margaret may do well to
be tender to it, considering all that the business mind has done for
England.

"Yes, in summer especially, the mews is a serious nuisance. The
smoking-room, too, is an abominable little den. The house opposite
has been taken by operatic people. Ducie Street's going down, it's my
private opinion."

"How sad! It's only a few years since they built those pretty houses."

"Shows things are moving. Good for trade."

"I hate this continual flux of London. It is an epitome of us at
our worst--eternal formlessness; all the qualities, good, bad, and
indifferent, streaming away--streaming, streaming for ever. That's why I
dread it so. I mistrust rivers, even in scenery. Now, the sea--"

"High tide, yes."

"Hoy toid"--from the promenading youths.

"And these are the men to whom we give the vote," observed Mr. Wilcox,
omitting to add that they were also the men to whom he gave work as
clerks--work that scarcely encouraged them to grow into other men.
"However, they have their own lives and interests. Let's get on."

He turned as he spoke, and prepared to see her back to The Bays. The
business was over. His hotel was in the opposite direction, and if he
accompanied her his letters would be late for the post. She implored him
not to come, but he was obdurate.

"A nice beginning, if your aunt saw you slip in alone!"

"But I always do go about alone. Considering I've walked over the
Apennines, it's common sense. You will make me so angry. I don't the
least take it as a compliment."

He laughed, and lit a cigar. "It isn't meant as a compliment, my dear. I
just won't have you going about in the dark. Such people about too! It's
dangerous."

"Can't I look after myself? I do wish--"

"Come along, Margaret; no wheedling."

A younger woman might have resented his masterly ways, but Margaret
had too firm a grip of life to make a fuss. She was, in her own way, as
masterly. If he was a fortress she was a mountain peak, whom all might
tread, but whom the snows made nightly virginal. Disdaining the heroic
outfit, excitable in her methods, garrulous, episodical, shrill,
she misled her lover much as she had misled her aunt. He mistook her
fertility for Weakness. He supposed her "as clever as they make them,"
but no more, not realising that she was penetrating to the depths of his
soul, and approving of what she found there.

And if insight were sufficient, if the inner life were the whole of
life, their happiness had been assured.

They walked ahead briskly. The parade and the road after it were well
lighted, but it was darker in Aunt Juley's garden. As they were going
up by the side-paths, through some rhododendrons, Mr. Wilcox, who was
in front, said "Margaret" rather huskily, turned, dropped his cigar, and
took her in his arms.

She was startled, and nearly screamed, but recovered herself at once,
and kissed with genuine love the lips that were pressed against her own.
It was their first kiss, and when it was over he saw her safely to the
door and rang the bell for her but disappeared into the night before the
maid answered it. On looking back, the incident displeased her. It was
so isolated. Nothing in their previous conversation had heralded it,
and, worse still, no tenderness had ensued. If a man cannot lead up to
passion he can at all events lead down from it, and she had hoped,
after her complaisance, for some interchange of gentle words. But he had
hurried away as if ashamed, and for an instant she was reminded of Helen
and Paul.



Charles had just been scolding his Dolly. She deserved the scolding, and
had bent before it, but her head, though bloody was unsubdued and her
began to mingle with his retreating thunder.

"You've waked the baby. I knew you would. (Rum-ti-foo,
Rackety-tackety-Tompkin!) I'm not responsible for what Uncle Percy does,
nor for anybody else or anything, so there!"

"Who asked him while I was away? Who asked my sister down to meet him?
Who sent them out in the motor day after day?"

"Charles, that reminds me of some poem."

"Does it indeed? We shall all be dancing to a very different music
presently. Miss Schlegel has fairly got us on toast."

"I could simply scratch that woman's eyes out, and to say it's my fault
is most unfair."

"It's your fault, and five months ago you admitted it."

"I didn't."

"You did."

"Tootle, tootle, playing on the pootle!" exclaimed Dolly, suddenly
devoting herself to the child.

"It's all very well to turn the conversation, but father would
never have dreamt of marrying as long as Evie was there to make him
comfortable. But you must needs start match-making. Besides, Cahill's
too old."

"Of course, if you're going to be rude to Uncle Percy."

"Miss Schlegel always meant to get hold of Howards End, and, thanks to
you, she's got it."

"I call the way you twist things round and make them hang together most
unfair. You couldn't have been nastier if you'd caught me flirting.
Could he, diddums?"

"We're in a bad hole, and must make the best of it. I shall answer the
pater's letter civilly. He's evidently anxious to do the decent thing.
But I do not intend to forget these Schlegels in a hurry. As long
as they're on their best behaviour--Dolly, are you listening?--we'll
behave, too. But if I find them giving themselves airs or monopolising
my father, or at all ill-treating him, or worrying him with their
artistic beastliness, I intend to put my foot down, yes, firmly. Taking
my mother's place! Heaven knows what poor old Paul will say when the
news reaches him."

The interlude closes. It has taken place in Charles's garden at Hilton.
He and Dolly are sitting in deckchairs, and their motor is regarding
them placidly from its garage across the lawn. A short-frocked edition
of Charles also regards them placidly; a perambulator edition is
squeaking; a third edition is expected shortly. Nature is turning out
Wilcoxes in this peaceful abode, so that they may inherit the earth.



Margaret greeted her lord with peculiar tenderness on the morrow. Mature
as he was, she might yet be able to help him to the building of the
rainbow bridge that should connect the prose in us with the passion.
Without it we are meaningless fragments, half monks, half beasts,
unconnected arches that have never joined into a man. With it love is
born, and alights on the highest curve, glowing against the grey, sober
against the fire. Happy the man who sees from either aspect the glory of
these outspread wings. The roads of his soul lie clear, and he and his
friends shall find easy-going.

It was hard-going in the roads of Mr. Wilcox's soul. From boyhood he
had neglected them. "I am not a fellow who bothers about my own inside."
Outwardly he was cheerful, reliable, and brave; but within, all
had reverted to chaos, ruled, so far as it was ruled at all, by an
incomplete asceticism. Whether as boy, husband, or widower, he had
always the sneaking belief that bodily passion is bad, a belief that is
desirable only when held passionately. Religion had confirmed him. The
words that were read aloud on Sunday to him and to other respectable men
were the words that had once kindled the souls of St. Catherine and St.
Francis into a white-hot hatred of the carnal. He could not be as the
saints and love the Infinite with a seraphic ardour, but he could be a
little ashamed of loving a wife. Amabat, amare timebat. And it was here
that Margaret hoped to help him.

It did not seem so difficult. She need trouble him with no gift of her
own. She would only point out the salvation that was latent in his own
soul, and in the soul of every man. Only connect! That was the whole
of her sermon. Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be
exalted, and human love will be seen at its height. Live in fragments no
longer. Only connect and the beast and the monk, robbed of the isolation
that is life to either, will die.

Nor was the message difficult to give. It need not take the form of a
good "talking." By quiet indications the bridge would be built and span
their lives with beauty.

But she failed. For there was one quality in Henry for which she was
never prepared, however much she reminded herself of it: his obtuseness.
He simply did not notice things, and there was no more to be said. He
never noticed that Helen and Frieda were hostile, or that Tibby was
not interested in currant plantations; he never noticed the lights and
shades that exist in the greyest conversation, the finger-posts, the
milestones, the collisions, the illimitable views. Once--on another
occasion--she scolded him about it. He was puzzled, but replied with a
laugh: "My motto is Concentrate. I've no intention of frittering away
my strength on that sort of thing." "It isn't frittering away the
strength," she protested. "It's enlarging the space in which you may
be strong." He answered: "You're a clever little woman, but my motto's
Concentrate." And this morning he concentrated with a vengeance.

They met in the rhododendrons of yesterday. In the daylight the bushes
were inconsiderable and the path was bright in the morning sun. She was
with Helen, who had been ominously quiet since the affair was settled.
"Here we all are!" she cried, and took him by one hand, retaining her
sister's in the other.

"Here we are. Good-morning, Helen."

Helen replied, "Good-morning, Mr. Wilcox."

"Henry, she has had such a nice letter from the queer, cross boy. Do
you remember him? He had a sad moustache, but the back of his head was
young."

"I have had a letter too. Not a nice one--I want to talk it over with
you"; for Leonard Bast was nothing to him now that she had given him her
word; the triangle of sex was broken for ever.

"Thanks to your hint, he's clearing out of the Porphyrion."

"Not a bad business that Porphyrion," he said absently, as he took his
own letter out of his pocket.

"Not a BAD--" she exclaimed, dropping his hand. "Surely, on Chelsea
Embankment--"

"Here's our hostess. Good-morning, Mrs. Munt. Fine rhododendrons.
Good-morning, Frau Liesecke; we manage to grow flowers in England, don't
we?"

"Not a BAD business?"

"No. My letter's about Howards End. Bryce has been ordered abroad, and
wants to sublet it--I am far from sure that I shall give him permission.
There was no clause in the agreement. In my opinion, subletting is a
mistake. If he can find me another tenant, whom I consider suitable,
I may cancel the agreement. Morning, Schlegel. Don't you think that's
better than subletting?"

Helen had dropped her hand now, and he had steered her past the whole
party to the seaward side of the house. Beneath them was the bourgeois
little bay, which must have yearned all through the centuries for just
such a watering-place as Swanage to be built on its margin.

The waves were colourless, and the Bournemouth steamer gave a further
touch of insipidity, drawn up against the pier and hooting wildly for
excursionists.

"When there is a sublet I find that damage--"

"Do excuse me, but about the Porphyrion. I don't feel easy--might I just
bother you, Henry?"

Her manner was so serious that he stopped, and asked her a little
sharply what she wanted.

"You said on Chelsea Embankment, surely, that it was a bad concern, so
we advised this clerk to clear out. He writes this morning that he's
taken our advice, and now you say it's not a bad concern."

"A clerk who clears out of any concern, good or bad, without securing a
berth somewhere else first, is a fool, and I've no pity for him."

"He has not done that. He's going into a bank in Camden Town, he says.
The salary's much lower, but he hopes to manage--a branch of Dempster's
Bank. Is that all right?"

"Dempster! Why goodness me, yes."

"More right than the Porphyrion?"

"Yes, yes, yes; safe as houses--safer."

"Very many thanks. I'm sorry--if you sublet--?"

"If he sublets, I shan't have the same control. In theory there should
be no more damage done at Howards End; in practice there will be. Things
may be done for which no money can compensate. For instance, I shouldn't
want that fine wych-elm spoilt. It hangs--Margaret, we must go and see
the old place some time. It's pretty in its way. We'll motor down and
have lunch with Charles."

"I should enjoy that," said Margaret bravely.

"What about next Wednesday?"

"Wednesday? No, I couldn't well do that. Aunt Juley expects us to stop
here another week at least."

"But you can give that up now."

"Er--no," said Margaret, after a moment's thought.

"Oh, that'll be all right. I'll speak to her."

"This visit is a high solemnity. My aunt counts on it year after
year. She turns the house upside down for us; she invites our special
friends--she scarcely knows Frieda, and we can't leave her on her hands.
I missed one day, and she would be so hurt if I didn't stay the full
ten."

"But I'll say a word to her. Don't you bother."

"Henry, I won't go. Don't bully me."

"You want to see the house, though?"

"Very much--I've heard so much about it, one way or the other. Aren't
there pigs' teeth in the wych-elm?"

"PIGS TEETH?"

"And you chew the bark for toothache."

"What a rum notion! Of course not!"

"Perhaps I have confused it with some other tree. There are still a
great number of sacred trees in England, it seems."

But he left her to intercept Mrs. Munt, whose voice could be heard in
the distance; to be intercepted himself by Helen.

"Oh. Mr. Wilcox, about the Porphyrion--" she began and went scarlet all
over her face.

"It's all right," called Margaret, catching them up. "Dempster's Bank's
better."

"But I think you told us the Porphyrion was bad, and would smash before
Christmas."

"Did I? It was still outside the Tariff Ring, and had to take rotten
policies. Lately it came in--safe as houses now."

"In other words, Mr. Bast need never have left it."

"No, the fellow needn't."

"--and needn't have started life elsewhere at a greatly reduced salary."

"He only says 'reduced,'" corrected Margaret, seeing trouble ahead.

"With a man so poor, every reduction must be great. I consider it a
deplorable misfortune."

Mr. Wilcox, intent on his business with Mrs. Munt, was going steadily
on, but the last remark made him say: "What? What's that? Do you mean
that I'm responsible?"

"You're ridiculous, Helen."

"You seem to think--" He looked at his watch. "Let me explain the point
to you. It is like this. You seem to assume, when a business concern is
conducting a delicate negotiation, it ought to keep the public informed
stage by stage. The Porphyrion, according to you, was bound to say, 'I
am trying all I can to get into the Tariff Ring. I am not sure that
I shall succeed, but it is the only thing that will save me from
insolvency, and I am trying.' My dear Helen--"

"Is that your point? A man who had little money has less--that's mine."

"I am grieved for your clerk. But it is all in the days work. It's part
of the battle of life."

"A man who had little money--" she repeated, "has less, owing to
us. Under these circumstances I consider 'the battle of life' a happy
expression.

"Oh come, come!" he protested pleasantly, "you're not to blame. No one's
to blame."

"Is no one to blame for anything?"

"I wouldn't say that, but you're taking it far too seriously. Who is
this fellow?"

"We have told you about the fellow twice already," said Helen. "You
have even met the fellow. He is very poor and his wife is an
extravagant imbecile. He is capable of better things. We--we, the upper
classes--thought we would help him from the height of our superior
knowledge--and here's the result!"

He raised his finger. "Now, a word of advice."

"I require no more advice."

"A word of advice. Don't take up that sentimental attitude over the
poor. See that she doesn't, Margaret. The poor are poor, and one's sorry
for them, but there it is. As civilisation moves forward, the shoe is
bound to pinch in places, and it's absurd to pretend that any one is
responsible personally. Neither you, nor I, nor my informant, nor the
man who informed him, nor the directors of the Porphyrion, are to blame
for this clerk's loss of salary. It's just the shoe pinching--no one can
help it; and it might easily have been worse."

Helen quivered with indignation.

"By all means subscribe to charities--subscribe to them largely--but
don't get carried away by absurd schemes of Social Reform. I see a good
deal behind the scenes, and you can take it from me that there is no
Social Question--except for a few journalists who try to get a living
out of the phrase. There are just rich and poor, as there always have
been and always will be. Point me out a time when men have been equal--"

"I didn't say--"

"Point me out a time when desire for equality has made them happier. No,
no. You can't. There always have been rich and poor. I'm no fatalist.
Heaven forbid! But our civilisation is moulded by great impersonal
forces" (his voice grew complacent; it always did when he eliminated the
personal), "and there always will be rich and poor. You can't deny it"
(and now it was a respectful voice)--"and you can't deny that, in spite
of all, the tendency of civilisation has on the whole been upward."

"Owing to God, I suppose," flashed Helen.

He stared at her.

"You grab the dollars. God does the rest."

It was no good instructing the girl if she was going to talk about God
in that neurotic modern way. Fraternal to the last, he left her for
the quieter company of Mrs. Munt. He thought, "She rather reminds me of
Dolly."

Helen looked out at the sea.

"Don't ever discuss political economy with Henry," advised her sister.
"It'll only end in a cry."

"But he must be one of those men who have reconciled science with
religion," said Helen slowly. "I don't like those men. They are
scientific themselves, and talk of the survival of the fittest, and cut
down the salaries of their clerks, and stunt the independence of all who
may menace their comfort, but yet they believe that somehow good--it
is always that sloppy 'somehow' will be the outcome, and that in some
mystical way the Mr. Basts of the future will benefit because the Mr.
Brits of today are in pain."

"He is such a man in theory. But oh, Helen, in theory!"

"But oh, Meg, what a theory!"

"Why should you put things so bitterly, dearie?"

"Because I'm an old maid," said Helen, biting her lip. "I can't think
why I go on like this myself." She shook off her sister's hand and went
into the house. Margaret, distressed at the day's beginning, followed
the Bournemouth steamer with her eyes. She saw that Helen's nerves
were exasperated by the unlucky Bast business beyond the bounds of
politeness. There might at any minute be a real explosion, which even
Henry would notice. Henry must be removed.

"Margaret!" her aunt called. "Magsy! It isn't true, surely, what Mr.
Wilcox says, that you want to go away early next week?"

"Not 'want,'" was Margaret's prompt reply; "but there is so much to be
settled, and I do want to see the Charles's."

"But going away without taking the Weymouth trip, or even the Lulworth?"
said Mrs. Munt, coming nearer. "Without going once more up Nine Barrows
Down?"

"I'm afraid so."

Mr. Wilcox rejoined her with, "Good! I did the breaking of the ice."

A wave of tenderness came over her. She put a hand on either shoulder,
and looked deeply into the black, bright eyes. What was behind their
competent stare? She knew, but was not disquieted.



Margaret had no intention of letting things slide, and the evening
before she left Swanage she gave her sister a thorough scolding. She
censured her, not for disapproving of the engagement, but for throwing
over her disapproval a veil of mystery. Helen was equally frank. "Yes,"
she said, with the air of one looking inwards, "there is a mystery.
I can't help it. It's not my fault. It's the way life has been made."
Helen in those days was over-interested in the subconscious self. She
exaggerated the Punch and Judy aspect of life, and spoke of mankind as
puppets, whom an invisible showman twitches into love and war. Margaret
pointed out that if she dwelt on this she, too, would eliminate the
personal. Helen was silent for a minute, and then burst into a queer
speech, which cleared the air. "Go on and marry him. I think you're
splendid; and if any one can pull it off, you will." Margaret denied
that there was anything to "pull off," but she continued: "Yes, there
is, and I wasn't up to it with Paul. I can do only what's easy. I
can only entice and be enticed. I can't, and won't, attempt difficult
relations. If I marry, it will either be a man who's strong enough to
boss me or whom I'm strong enough to boss. So I shan't ever marry, for
there aren't such men. And Heaven help any one whom I do marry, for I
shall certainly run away from him before you can say 'Jack Robinson.'
There! Because I'm uneducated. But you, you're different; you're a
heroine."

"Oh, Helen! Am I? Will it be as dreadful for poor Henry as all that?"

"You mean to keep proportion, and that's heroic, it's Greek, and I don't
see why it shouldn't succeed with you. Go on and fight with him and help
him. Don't ask me for help, or even for sympathy. Henceforward I'm going
my own way. I mean to be thorough, because thoroughness is easy. I
mean to dislike your husband, and to tell him so. I mean to make no
concessions to Tibby. If Tibby wants to live with me, he must lump me.
I mean to love you more than ever. Yes, I do. You and I have built
up something real, because it is purely spiritual. There's no veil of
mystery over us. Unreality and mystery begin as soon as one touches the
body. The popular view is, as usual, exactly the wrong one. Our bothers
are over tangible things--money, husbands, house-hunting. But Heaven
will work of itself."

Margaret was grateful for this expression of affection, and answered,
"Perhaps." All vistas close in the unseen--no one doubts it--but Helen
closed them rather too quickly for her taste. At every turn of speech
one was confronted with reality and the absolute. Perhaps Margaret grew
too old for metaphysics, perhaps Henry was weaning her from them, but
she felt that there was something a little unbalanced in the mind that
so readily shreds the visible. The business man who assumes that this
life is everything, and the mystic who asserts that it is nothing, fail,
on this side and on that, to hit the truth. "Yes, I see, dear; it's
about half-way between," Aunt Juley had hazarded in earlier years. No;
truth, being alive, was not half-way between anything. It was only to be
found by continuous excursions into either realm, and though proportion
is the final secret, to espouse it at the outset is to insure sterility.

Helen, agreeing here, disagreeing there, would have talked till
midnight, but Margaret, with her packing to do, focussed the
conversation on Henry. She might abuse Henry behind his back, but please
would she always be civil to him in company? "I definitely dislike
him, but I'll do what I can," promised Helen. "Do what you can with my
friends in return."

This conversation made Margaret easier. Their inner life was so safe
that they could bargain over externals in a way that would have been
incredible to Aunt Juley, and impossible for Tibby or Charles. There
are moments when the inner life actually "pays," when years of
self-scrutiny, conducted for no ulterior motive, are suddenly of
practical use. Such moments are still rare in the West; that they come
at all promises a fairer future. Margaret, though unable to understand
her sister, was assured against estrangement, and returned to London
with a more peaceful mind.

The following morning, at eleven o'clock, she presented herself at the
offices of the Imperial and West African Rubber Company. She was glad to
go there, for Henry had implied his business rather than described
it, and the formlessness and vagueness that one associates with Africa
itself had hitherto brooded over the main sources of his wealth.
Not that a visit to the office cleared things up. There was just the
ordinary surface scum of ledgers and polished counters and brass bars
that began and stopped for no possible reason, of electric-light globes
blossoming in triplets, of little rabbit-hutches faced with glass or
wire, of little rabbits. And even when she penetrated to the inner
depths, she found only the ordinary table and Turkey carpet, and though
the map over the fireplace did depict a helping of West Africa, it was
a very ordinary map. Another map hung opposite, on which the whole
continent appeared, looking like a whale marked out for a blubber,
and by its side was a door, shut, but Henry's voice came through it,
dictating a "strong" letter. She might have been at the Porphyrion, or
Dempster's Bank, or her own wine-merchant's. Everything seems just
alike in these days. But perhaps she was seeing the Imperial side of the
company rather than its West African, and Imperialism always had been
one of her difficulties.

"One minute!" called Mr. Wilcox on receiving her name. He touched a
bell, the effect of which was to produce Charles.

Charles had written his father an adequate letter--more adequate than
Evie's, through which a girlish indignation throbbed. And he greeted his
future stepmother with propriety.

"I hope that my wife--how do you do?--will give you a decent lunch," was
his opening. "I left instructions, but we live in a rough-and-ready way.
She expects you back to tea, too, after you have had a look at Howards
End. I wonder what you'll think of the place. I wouldn't touch it with
tongs myself. Do sit down! It's a measly little place."

"I shall enjoy seeing it," said Margaret, feeling, for the first time,
shy.

"You'll see it at its worst, for Bryce decamped abroad last Monday
without even arranging for a charwoman to clear up after him. I never
saw such a disgraceful mess. It's unbelievable. He wasn't in the house a
month."

"I've more than a little bone to pick with Bryce," called Henry from the
inner chamber.

"Why did he go so suddenly?"

"Invalid type; couldn't sleep."

"Poor fellow!"

"Poor fiddlesticks!" said Mr. Wilcox, joining them. "He had the
impudence to put up notice-boards without as much as saying with your
leave or by your leave. Charles flung them down."

"Yes, I flung them down," said Charles modestly.

"I've sent a telegram after him, and a pretty sharp one, too. He, and
he in person, is responsible for the upkeep of that house for the next
three years."

"The keys are at the farm; we wouldn't have the keys."

"Quite right."

"Dolly would have taken them, but I was in, fortunately."

"What's Mr. Bryce like?" asked Margaret.

But nobody cared. Mr. Bryce was the tenant, who had no right to sublet;
to have defined him further was a waste of time. On his misdeeds they
descanted profusely, until the girl who had been typing the strong
letter game out with it. Mr. Wilcox added his signature. "Now we'll be
off," said he.

A motor-drive, a form of felicity detested by Margaret, awaited her.
Charles saw them in, civil to the last, and in a moment the offices of
the Imperial and West African Rubber Company faded away. But it was not
an impressive drive. Perhaps the weather was to blame, being grey
and banked high with weary clouds. Perhaps Hertfordshire is scarcely
intended for motorists. Did not a gentleman once motor so quickly
through Westmoreland that he missed it? and if Westmoreland can
be missed, it will fare ill with a county whose delicate structure
particularly needs the attentive eye. Hertfordshire is England at
its quietest, with little emphasis of river and hill; it is England
meditative. If Drayton were with us again to write a new edition of
his incomparable poem, he would sing the nymphs of Hertfordshire as
indeterminate of feature, with hair obfuscated by the London smoke.
Their eyes would be sad, and averted from their fate towards the
Northern flats, their leader not Isis or Sabrina, but the slowly flowing
Lea. No glory of raiment would be theirs, no urgency of dance; but they
would be real nymphs.

The chauffeur could not travel as quickly as he had hoped, for the Great
North Road was full of Easter traffic. But he went quite quick enough
for Margaret, a poor-spirited creature, who had chickens and children on
the brain.

"They're all right," said Mr. Wilcox. "They'll learn--like the swallows
and the telegraph-wires."

"Yes, but, while they're learning--"

"The motor's come to stay," he answered. "One must get about. There's a
pretty church--oh, you aren't sharp enough. Well, look out, if the road
worries you--right outward at the scenery."

She looked at the scenery. It heaved and merged like porridge. Presently
it congealed. They had arrived.

Charles's house on the left; on the right the swelling forms of the
Six Hills. Their appearance in such a neighbourhood surprised her. They
interrupted the stream of residences that was thickening up towards
Hilton. Beyond them she saw meadows and a wood, and beneath them she
settled that soldiers of the best kind lay buried. She hated war and
liked soldiers--it was one of her amiable inconsistencies.

But here was Dolly, dressed up to the nines, standing at the door to
greet them, and here were the first drops of the rain. They ran in
gaily, and after a long wait in the drawing-room, sat down to the
rough-and-ready lunch, every dish of which concealed or exuded cream.
Mr. Bryce was the chief topic of conversation. Dolly described his visit
with the key, while her father-in-law gave satisfaction by chaffing her
and contradicting all she said. It was evidently the custom to laugh
at Dolly. He chaffed Margaret too, and Margaret roused from a grave
meditation was pleased and chaffed him back. Dolly seemed surprised and
eyed her curiously. After lunch the two children came down. Margaret
disliked babies, but hit it off better with the two-year-old, and sent
Dolly into fits of laughter by talking sense to him. "Kiss them now, and
come away," said Mr. Wilcox. She came, but refused to kiss them; it
was such hard luck on the little things, she said, and though Dolly
proffered Chorly-worly and Porgly-woggles in turn, she was obdurate.

By this time it was raining steadily. The car came round with the
hood up, and again she lost all sense of space. In a few minutes they
stopped, and Crane opened the door of the car.

"What's happened?" asked Margaret.

"What do you suppose?" said Henry.

A little porch was close up against her face.

"Are we there already?"

"We are."

"Well, I never! In years ago it seemed so far away."

Smiling, but somehow disillusioned, she jumped out, and her impetus
carried her to the front-door. She was about to open it, when Henry
said: "That's no good; it's locked. Who's got the key?"

As he had himself forgotten to call for the key at the farm, no one
replied. He also wanted to know who had left the front gate open, since
a cow had strayed in from the road, and was spoiling the croquet lawn.
Then he said rather crossly: "Margaret, you wait in the dry. I'll go
down for the key. It isn't a hundred yards."

"Mayn't I come too?"

"No; I shall be back before I'm gone."

Then the car turned away, and it was as if a curtain had risen. For the
second time that day she saw the appearance of the earth.

There were the greengage-trees that Helen had once described, there the
tennis lawn, there the hedge that would be glorious with dog-roses in
June, but the vision now was of black and palest green. Down by the
dell-hole more vivid colours were awakening, and Lent lilies stood
sentinel on its margin, or advanced in battalions over the grass. Tulips
were a tray of jewels. She could not see the wych-elm tree, but a branch
of the celebrated vine, studded with velvet knobs had covered the perch.
She was struck by the fertility of the soil; she had seldom been in a
garden where the flowers looked so well, and even the weeds she was idly
plucking out of the porch were intensely green. Why had poor Mr. Bryce
fled from all this beauty? For she had already decided that the place
was beautiful.

"Naughty cow! Go away!" cried Margaret to the cow, but without
indignation.

Harder came the rain, pouring out of a windless sky, and spattering up
from the notice-boards of the house-agents, which lay in a row on the
lawn where Charles had hurled them. She must have interviewed Charles in
another world--where one did have interviews. How Helen would revel in
such a notion! Charles dead, all people dead, nothing alive but houses
and gardens. The obvious dead, the intangible alive, and no connection
at all between them! Margaret smiled. Would that her own fancies were
as clear-cut! Would that she could deal as high-handedly with the world!
Smiling and sighing, she laid her hand upon the door. It opened. The
house was not locked up at all.

She hesitated. Ought she to wait for Henry? He felt strongly about
property, and might prefer to show her over himself. On the other hand,
he had told her to keep in the dry, and the porch was beginning to drip.
So she went in, and the draught from inside slammed the door behind.

Desolation greeted her. Dirty finger-prints were on the hall-windows,
flue and rubbish on its unwashed boards. The civilisation of luggage
had been here for a month, and then decamped. Dining-room and
drawing-room--right and left--were guessed only by their wallpapers.
They were just rooms where one could shelter from the rain. Across the
ceiling of each ran a great beam. The dining-room and hall revealed
theirs openly, but the drawing-room's was match-boarded--because the
facts of life must be concealed from ladies? Drawing-room, dining-room,
and hall--how petty the names sounded! Here were simply three rooms
where children could play and friends shelter from the rain. Yes, and
they were beautiful.

Then she opened one of the doors opposite--there were two--and exchanged
wall-papers for whitewash. It was the servants' part, though she
scarcely realised that: just rooms again, where friends might shelter.
The garden at the back was full of flowering cherries and plums. Farther
on were hints of the meadow and a black cliff of pines. Yes, the meadow
was beautiful.

Penned in by the desolate weather, she recaptured the sense of space
which the motor had tried to rob from her. She remembered again that ten
square miles are not ten times as wonderful as one square mile, that
a thousand square miles are not practically the same as heaven. The
phantom of bigness, which London encourages, was laid for ever when she
paced from the hall at Howards End to its kitchen and heard the rain run
this way and that where the watershed of the roof divided it.

Now Helen came to her mind, scrutinising half Wessex from the ridge of
the Purbeck Downs, and saying: "You will have to lose something." She
was not so sure. For instance she would double her kingdom by opening
the door that concealed the stairs.

Now she thought of the map of Africa; of empires; of her father; of
the two supreme nations, streams of whose life warmed her blood, but,
mingling, had cooled her brain. She paced back into the hall, and as she
did so the house reverberated.

"Is that you, Henry?" she called.

There was no answer, but the house reverberated again.

"Henry, have you got in?"

But it was the heart of the house beating, faintly at first, then
loudly, martially. It dominated the rain.

It is the starved imagination, not the well-nourished, that is afraid.
Margaret flung open the door to the stairs. A noise as of drums seemed
to deafen her. A woman, an old woman, was descending, with figure erect,
with face impassive, with lips that parted and said dryly:

"Oh! Well, I took you for Ruth Wilcox."

Margaret stammered: "I--Mrs. Wilcox--I?"

"In fancy, of course--in fancy. You had her way of walking. Good-day."
And the old woman passed out into the rain.



"It gave her quite a turn," said Mr. Wilcox, when retailing the incident
to Dolly at tea-time. "None of you girls have any nerves, really. Of
course, a word from me put it all right, but silly old Miss Avery--she
frightened you, didn't she, Margaret? There you stood clutching a bunch
of weeds. She might have said something, instead of coming down the
stairs with that alarming bonnet on. I passed her as I came in. Enough
to make the car shy. I believe Miss Avery goes in for being a character;
some old maids do." He lit a cigarette. "It is their last resource.
Heaven knows what she was doing in the place; but that's Bryce's
business, not mine."

"I wasn't as foolish as you suggest," said Margaret "She only startled
me, for the house had been silent so long."

"Did you take her for a spook?" asked Dolly, for whom "spooks"' and
"going to church" summarised the unseen.

"Not exactly."

"She really did frighten you," said Henry, who was far from discouraging
timidity in females. "Poor Margaret! And very naturally. Uneducated
classes are so stupid."

"Is Miss Avery uneducated classes?" Margaret asked, and found herself
looking at the decoration scheme of Dolly's drawing-room.

"She's just one of the crew at the farm. People like that always assume
things. She assumed you'd know who she was. She left all the Howards End
keys in the front lobby, and assumed that you'd seen them as you came
in, that you'd lock up the house when you'd done, and would bring them
on down to her. And there was her niece hunting for them down at the
farm. Lack of education makes people very casual. Hilton was full of
women like Miss Avery once."

"I shouldn't have disliked it, perhaps."

"Or Miss Avery giving me a wedding present," said Dolly.

Which was illogical but interesting. Through Dolly, Margaret was
destined to learn a good deal.

"But Charles said I must try not to mind, because she had known his
grandmother."

"As usual, you've got the story wrong, my good Dorothea."

"I meant great-grandmother--the one who left Mrs. Wilcox the house.
Weren't both of them and Miss Avery friends when Howards End, too, was a
farm?"

Her father-in-law blew out a shaft of smoke. His attitude to his dead
wife was curious. He would allude to her, and hear her discussed, but
never mentioned her by name. Nor was he interested in the dim, bucolic
past. Dolly was--for the following reason.

"Then hadn't Mrs. Wilcox a brother--or was it an uncle? Anyhow, he
popped the question, and Miss Avery, she said `No.' Just imagine, if
she'd said 'Yes,' she would have been Charles's aunt. (Oh, I say,
that's rather good! 'Charlie's Aunt'! I must chaff him about that this
evening.) And the man went out and was killed. Yes, I 'm certain I've
got it right now. Tom Howard--he was the last of them."

"I believe so," said Mr. Wilcox negligently.

"I say! Howards End--Howards Ended!" Dolly. "I'm rather on the spot this
evening, eh?"

"I wish you'd ask whether Crane's ended."

"Oh, Mr. Wilcox, how can you?"

"Because, if he has had enough tea, we ought to go--Dolly's a good
little woman," he continued, "but a little of her goes a long way. I
couldn't live near her if you paid me."

Margaret smiled. Though presenting a firm front to outsiders, no Wilcox
could live near, or near the possessions of, any other Wilcox. They
had the colonial spirit, and were always making for some spot where the
white man might carry his burden unobserved. Of course, Howards End was
impossible, so long as the younger couple were established in Hilton.
His objections to the house were plain as daylight now.

Crane had had enough tea, and was sent to the garage, where their car
had been trickling muddy water over Charles's. The downpour had
surely penetrated the Six Hills by now, bringing news of our restless
civilisation. "Curious mounds," said Henry, "but in with you now;
another time." He had to be up in London by seven--if possible, by
six-thirty. Once more she lost the sense of space; once more trees,
houses, people, animals, hills, merged and heaved into one dirtiness,
and she was at Wickham Place.

Her evening was pleasant. The sense of flux which had haunted her
all the year disappeared for a time. She forgot the luggage and the
motor-cars, and the hurrying men who know so much and connect so little.
She recaptured the sense of space, which is the basis of all earthly
beauty, and, starting from Howards End, she attempted to realise
England. She failed--visions do not come when we try, though they may
come through trying. But an unexpected love of the island awoke in her,
connecting on this side with the joys of the flesh, on that with the
inconceivable. Helen and her father had known this love, poor Leonard
Bast was groping after it, but it had been hidden from Margaret till
this afternoon. It had certainly come through the house and old Miss
Avery. Through them: the notion of "through" persisted; her mind
trembled towards a conclusion which only the unwise have put into words.
Then, veering back into warmth, it dwelt on ruddy bricks, flowering
plum-trees, and all the tangible joys of spring.

Henry, after allaying her agitation, had taken her over his property,
and had explained to her the use and dimensions of the various rooms. He
had sketched the history of the little estate. "It is so unlucky," ran
the monologue, "that money wasn't put into it about fifty years ago.
Then it had four--five--times the land--thirty acres at least. One
could have made something out of it then--a small park, or at all events
shrubberies, and rebuilt the house farther away from the road. What's
the good of taking it in hand now? Nothing but the meadow left, and even
that was heavily mortgaged when I first had to do with things--yes, and
the house too. Oh, it was no joke." She saw two women as he spoke, one
old, the other young, watching their inheritance melt away. She saw them
greet him as a deliverer. "Mismanagement did it--besides, the days for
small farms are over. It doesn't pay--except with intensive cultivation.
Small holdings, back to the land--ah! philanthropic bunkum. Take it as a
rule that nothing pays on a small scale. Most of the land you see (they
were standing at an upper window, the only one which faced west) belongs
to the people at the Park--they made their pile over copper--good chaps.
Avery's Farm, Sishe's--what they call the Common, where you see that
ruined oak--one after the other fell in, and so did this, as near as
is no matter." But Henry had saved it; without fine feelings or deep
insight, but he had saved it, and she loved him for the deed. "When
I had more control I did what I could--sold off the two and a half
animals, and the mangy pony, and the superannuated tools; pulled down
the outhouses; drained; thinned out I don't know how many guelder-roses
and elder-trees; and inside the house I turned the old kitchen into a
hall, and made a kitchen behind where the dairy was. Garage and so on
came later. But one could still tell it's been an old farm. And yet
it isn't the place that would fetch one of your artistic crew." No, it
wasn't; and if he did not quite understand it, the artistic crew would
still less; it was English, and the wych-elm that she saw from the
window was an English tree. No report had prepared her for its peculiar
glory. It was neither warrior, nor lover, nor god; in none of these
roles do the English excel. It was a comrade bending over the house,
strength and adventure in its roots, but in its utmost fingers
tenderness, and the girth, that a dozen men could not have spanned,
became in the end evanescent, till pale bud clusters seemed to float
in the air. It was a comrade. House and tree transcended any similes of
sex. Margaret thought of them now, and was to think of them through many
a windy night and London day, but to compare either to man, to woman,
always dwarfed the vision. Yet they kept within limits of the human.
Their message was not of eternity, but of hope on this side of the
grave. As she stood in the one, gazing at the other, truer relationship
had gleamed.

Another touch, and the account of her day is finished. They entered the
garden for a minute, and to Mr. Wilcox's surprise she was right. Teeth,
pigs' teeth, could be seen in the bark of the wych-elm tree--just the
white tips of them showing. "Extraordinary!" he cried. "Who told you?"

"I heard of it one winter in London," was her answer, for she, too,
avoided mentioning Mrs. Wilcox by name.

 With Helen having made her peace with Margaret's potential engagement as much possible, Margaret accepts Mr. Wilcox's proposal. Mr. Wilcox arrives at Swanage to give Margaret an engagement ring. In the evening, the couple decided to take a walk together. Margaret is interested in discussing how their feelings for each other evolved, but Mr. Wilcox prefers to talk business. He informs Margaret that almost all of his earthly possessions must end up in the hands of his children, and she wholeheartedly supports this choice. Once again, Margaret proves quite frank in discussing finances, and discloses her income without hesitation. Throughout the walk, a group of boys mocks the couple, and Mr. Wilcox expresses his annoyance that such disrespectful people are given the right to vote. The conversation leads to the issue of where they should live once married. Mr. Wilcox has numerous properties, and thinks of residences in terms of business and logic. Thus, the matter of where to live is an issue of practicality for him, whereas for Margaret it would ideally be about the best emotional fit. Still, she is determined to be as agreeable and open as possible. At the end of their discussion, Mr. Wilcox insists on walking her home. She is used to taking care of herself, and therefore initially objects, but realizes she cannot decline his offer. As he leaves her at the door, he very suddenly rushes in and kisses her before leaving. Margaret is taken aback by his hurriedness, and recalls Helen's description of the aftermath of her kiss with Paul Wilcox. Meanwhile, the Wilcox children are proving to be very judgmental about the union. Charles is especially suspicious of the Schlegels. He blames Dolly for having made it possible for his sister to become attracted to Percy Cahill. He insists that if that had not happened, Evie would have continued to be a companion for Mr. Wilcox and his engagement to Margaret would never have happened. Charles resolves to keep a close eye on the Schlegels so that they cannot jeopardize his future. He assumes that Margaret has spent her life trying to get Howards End for herself and that this is just another attempt. The day after their kiss, Mr. Wilcox and Margaret again spend time together. Margaret has told herself that she must try to help him connect his prose with his passion, for she thinks it will make all the difference for him. His stubbornness guarantees that such a feat will prove challenging, for he is more interested in concentrating on the present than in examining the big picture of life. While Margaret recognizes Mr. Wilcox's faults, it is her goal to try to get him to meet her somewhere in the middle. It comes up in conversation that Helen has heard from Leonard Bast. He took Mr. Wilcox's advice, delivered through the Schlegel sisters, and accepted a position at another company, although his new job pays him considerably less. Now, however, Mr. Wilcox claims that Porphyrion is not such a bad company after all, for they managed to scrape by and avoid bankruptcy. Ironically, there was no reason for Leonard to clear out. The Schlegels, namely Helen, are horrified that Leonard left his job and suffered a salary cut for no reason and feel incredibly guilty. Helen is furious at Mr. Wilcox, yet he maintains that it is useless to dwell on the poor. Helen is horrified by his outlook. Margaret cuts short her visit at Swanage, for Mr. Wilcox has decided to take her to Howards End. The tenant has gone abroad, and he is eager to show her the house and see Charles and his family. Margaret is initially hesitant about going, as her time at Swanage is an annual tradition. Before departing, she has an honest discussion with Helen, as it is important to her that they part on good terms. Margaret accepts her sister's dislike of her intended, but asks that she be nice to him. Helen agrees and tells her sister not to worry. They will always love each other despite their different life choices. Margaret goes to meet Mr. Wilcox and Charles at the office so that they can go up to Hilton. Mr. Wilcox takes Margaret to Howards End. He realizes once they arrive at the house that he has forgotten the key. He leaves Margaret alone on the property while he goes to retrieve it. Margaret soon finds that the house is actually open, and she ventures inside. She finds it enchanting despite its somewhat rough condition, and envisions people and life in the rooms and surrounding environment. Margaret thinks to herself that bigger does not mean better, especially when it comes to a house. As Margaret is looking around, Miss Avery, a caretaker of the house, appears. She is on her way out, and tells Margaret that she almost mistook her for Mrs. Wilcox. The encounter startles Margaret, both because she did not know that anybody else was in the house and because of the comparison drawn between her and Mrs. Wilcox. While discussing the encounter later, Dolly rambles on incessantly about the history of Mrs. Wilcox's side of the family. Margaret learns that in their childhoods, Miss Avery and Mrs. Wilcox were friends. The entire experience of being at Howards End is comforting to Margaret, even though Mr. Wilcox constantly complains about the difficulty of maintaining it. When he and Margaret are looking at the wych-elm Mrs. Wilcox had said contained pigs' teeth, they find that they are actually there, even though Mr. Wilcox had earlier dismissed the notion as legend.

