Chapter: Evie heard of her father's engagement when she was in for a tennis
tournament, and her play went simply to pot. That she should marry and
leave him had seemed natural enough; that he, left alone, should do the
same was deceitful; and now Charles and Dolly said that it was all her
fault. "But I never dreamt of such a thing," she grumbled. "Dad took
me to call now and then, and made me ask her to Simpson's. Well, I'm
altogether off dad." It was also an insult to their mother's memory;
there they were agreed, and Evie had the idea of returning Mrs. Wilcox's
lace and jewellery "as a protest." Against what it would protest she was
not clear; but being only eighteen, the idea of renunciation appealed
to her, the more as she did not care for jewellery or lace. Dolly then
suggested that she and Uncle Percy should pretend to break off their
engagement, and then perhaps Mr. Wilcox would quarrel with Miss
Schlegel, and break off his; or Paul might be cabled for. But at this
point Charles told them not to talk nonsense. So Evie settled to marry
as soon as possible; it was no good hanging about with these Schlegels
eyeing her. The date of her wedding was consequently put forward from
September to August, and in the intoxication of presents she recovered
much of her good-humour.

Margaret found that she was expected to figure at this function, and to
figure largely; it would be such an opportunity, said Henry, for her
to get to know his set. Sir James Bidder would be there, and all the
Cahills and the Fussells, and his sister-in-law, Mrs. Warrington Wilcox,
had fortunately got back from her tour round the world. Henry she loved,
but his set promised to be another matter. He had not the knack of
surrounding himself with nice people--indeed, for a man of ability and
virtue his choice had been singularly unfortunate; he had no guiding
principle beyond a certain preference for mediocrity; he was content to
settle one of the greatest things in life haphazard, and so, while his
investments went right, his friends generally went wrong. She would be
told, "Oh, So-and-so's a good sort--a thundering good sort," and find,
on meeting him, that he was a brute or a bore. If Henry had shown real
affection, she would have understood, for affection explains everything.
But he seemed without sentiment. The "thundering good sort" might at
any moment become "a fellow for whom I never did have much use, and have
less now," and be shaken off cheerily into oblivion. Margaret had done
the same as a schoolgirl. Now she never forgot any one for whom she had
once cared; she connected, though the connection might be bitter, and
she hoped that some day Henry would do the same.

Evie was not to be married from Ducie Street. She had a fancy for
something rural, and, besides, no one would be in London then, so she
left her boxes for a few weeks at Oniton Grange, and her banns were
duly published in the parish church, and for a couple of days the little
town, dreaming between the ruddy hills, was roused by the clang of our
civilisation, and drew up by the roadside to let the motors pass. Oniton
had been a discovery of Mr. Wilcox's--a discovery of which he was not
altogether proud. It was up towards the Welsh border, and so difficult
of access that he had concluded it must be something special. A ruined
castle stood in the grounds. But having got there, what was one to do?
The shooting was bad, the fishing indifferent, and womenfolk reported
the scenery as nothing much. The place turned out to be in the wrong
part of Shropshire, and though he never ran down his own property to
others, he was only waiting to get it off his hands, and then to let
fly. Evie's marriage was its last appearance in public. As soon as a
tenant was found, it became a house for which he never had had much use,
and had less now, and, like Howards End, faded into Limbo.

But on Margaret Oniton was destined to make a lasting impression. She
regarded it as her future home, and was anxious to start straight with
the clergy, etc., and, if possible, to see something of the local life.
It was a market-town--as tiny a one as England possesses--and had for
ages served that lonely valley, and guarded our marches against the
Celt. In spite of the occasion, in spite of the numbing hilarity that
greeted her as soon as she got into the reserved saloon at Paddington,
her senses were awake and watching, and though Oniton was to prove one
of her innumerable false starts, she never forgot it, or the things that
happened there.

The London party only numbered eight--the Fussells, father and son,
two Anglo-Indian ladies named Mrs. Plynlimmon and Lady Edser, Mrs.
Warrington Wilcox and her daughter, and, lastly, the little girl,
very smart and quiet, who figures at so many weddings, and who kept a
watchful eye on Margaret, the bride-elect. Dolly was absent--a domestic
event detained her at Hilton; Paul had cabled a humorous message;
Charles was to meet them with a trio of motors at Shrewsbury; Helen had
refused her invitation; Tibby had never answered his. The management was
excellent, as was to be expected with anything that Henry undertook; one
was conscious of his sensible and generous brain in the background. They
were his guests as soon as they reached the train; a special label
for their luggage; a courier; a special lunch; they had only to look
pleasant and, where possible, pretty. Margaret thought with dismay
of her own nuptials--presumably under the management of Tibby. "Mr.
Theobald Schlegel and Miss Helen Schlegel request the pleasure of Mrs.
Plynlimmon's company on the occasion of the marriage of their sister
Margaret." The formula was incredible, but it must soon be printed and
sent, and though Wickham Place need not compete with Oniton, it must
feed its guests properly, and provide them with sufficient chairs. Her
wedding would either be ramshackly or bourgeois--she hoped the latter.
Such an affair as the present, staged with a deftness that was almost
beautiful, lay beyond her powers and those of her friends.

The low rich purr of a Great Western express is not the worst background
for conversation, and the journey passed pleasantly enough. Nothing
could have exceeded the kindness of the two men. They raised windows
for some ladies, and lowered them for others, they rang the bell for the
servant, they identified the colleges as the train slipped past Oxford,
they caught books or bag-purses in the act of tumbling on to the floor.
Yet there was nothing finicking about their politeness--it had the
public-school touch, and, though sedulous, was virile. More battles than
Waterloo have been won on our playing-fields, and Margaret bowed to a
charm of which she did not wholly approve, and said nothing when the
Oxford colleges were identified wrongly. "Male and female created He
them"; the journey to Shrewsbury confirmed this questionable statement,
and the long glass saloon, that moved so easily and felt so comfortable,
became a forcing-house for the idea of sex.

At Shrewsbury came fresh air. Margaret was all for sight-seeing, and
while the others were finishing their tea at the Raven, she annexed a
motor and hurried over the astonishing city. Her chauffeur was not
the faithful Crane, but an Italian, who dearly loved making her late.
Charles, watch in hand, though with a level brow, was standing in front
of the hotel when they returned. It was perfectly all right, he
told her; she was by no means the last. And then he dived into the
coffee-room, and she heard him say, "For God's sake, hurry the women up;
we shall never be off," and Albert Fussell reply, "Not I; I've done
my share," and Colonel Fussell opine that the ladies were getting
themselves up to kill. Presently Myra (Mrs. Warrington's daughter)
appeared, and as she was his cousin, Charles blew her up a little; she
had been changing her smart travelling hat for a smart motor hat. Then
Mrs. Warrington herself, leading the quiet child; the two Anglo-Indian
ladies were always last. Maids, courier, heavy luggage, had already
gone on by a branch-line to a station nearer Oniton, but there were five
hat-boxes and four dressing-bags to be packed, and five dust-cloaks
to be put on, and to be put off at the last moment, because Charles
declared them not necessary. The men presided over everything with
unfailing good-humour. By half-past five the party was ready, and went
out of Shrewsbury by the Welsh Bridge.

Shropshire had not the reticence of Hertfordshire. Though robbed of half
its magic by swift movement, it still conveyed the sense of hills. They
were nearing the buttresses that force the Severn eastward and make it
an English stream, and the sun, sinking over the Sentinels of Wales,
was straight in their eyes. Having picked up another guest, they
turned southward, avoiding the greater mountains, but conscious of an
occasional summit, rounded and mild, whose colouring differed in quality
from that of the lower earth, and whose contours altered more slowly.
Quiet mysteries were in progress behind those tossing horizons: the
West, as ever, was retreating with some secret which may not be worth
the discovery, but which no practical man will ever discover.

They spoke of Tariff Reform.

Mrs. Warrington was just back from the Colonies. Like many other critics
of Empire, her mouth had been stopped with food, and she could only
exclaim at the hospitality with which she had been received, and warn
the Mother Country against trifling with young Titans. "They threaten to
cut the painter," she cried, "and where shall we be then? Miss Schlegel,
you'll undertake to keep Henry sound about Tariff Reform? It is our last
hope."

Margaret playfully confessed herself on the other side, and they began
to quote from their respective handbooks while the motor carried them
deep into the hills. Curious these were rather than impressive, for
their outlines lacked beauty, and the pink fields on their summits
suggested the handkerchiefs of a giant spread out to dry. An occasional
outcrop of rock, an occasional wood, an occasional "forest," treeless
and brown, all hinted at wildness to follow, but the main colour was an
agricultural green. The air grew cooler; they had surmounted the last
gradient, and Oniton lay below them with its church, its radiating
houses, its castle, its river-girt peninsula. Close to the castle was
a grey mansion unintellectual but kindly, stretching with its grounds
across the peninsula's neck--the sort of mansion that was built all over
England in the beginning of the last century, while architecture was
still an expression of the national character. That was the Grange,
remarked Albert, over his shoulder, and then he jammed the brake on, and
the motor slowed down and stopped. "I'm sorry," said he, turning round.
"Do you mind getting out--by the door on the right. Steady on."

"What's happened?" asked Mrs. Warrington.

Then the car behind them drew up, and the voice of Charles was heard
saying: "Get the women out at once." There was a concourse of males,
and Margaret and her companions were hustled out and received into the
second car. What had happened? As it started off again, the door of a
cottage opened, and a girl screamed wildly at them.

"What is it?" the ladies cried.

Charles drove them a hundred yards without speaking. Then he said: "It's
all right. Your car just touched a dog."

"But stop!" cried Margaret, horrified.

"It didn't hurt him."

"Didn't really hurt him?" asked Myra.

"No."

"Do PLEASE stop!" said Margaret, leaning forward. She was standing up in
the car, the other occupants holding her knees to steady her. "I want to
go back, please."

Charles took no notice.

"We've left Mr. Fussell behind," said another; "and Angelo, and Crane."

"Yes, but no woman."

"I expect a little of "--Mrs. Warrington scratched her palm--"will be
more to the point than one of us!"

"The insurance company see to that," remarked Charles, "and Albert will
do the talking."

"I want to go back, though, I say!" repeated Margaret, getting angry.

Charles took no notice. The motor, loaded with refugees, continued to
travel very slowly down the hill. "The men are there," chorused the
others. "They will see to it."

"The men CAN'T see to it. Oh, this is ridiculous! Charles, I ask you to
stop."

"Stopping's no good," drawled Charles.

"Isn't it?" said Margaret, and jumped straight out of the car. She fell
on her knees, cut her gloves, shook her hat over her ear. Cries of alarm
followed her. "You've hurt yourself," exclaimed Charles, jumping after
her.

"Of course I've hurt myself!" she retorted.

"May I ask what--"

"There's nothing to ask," said Margaret.

"Your hand's bleeding."

"I know."

"I'm in for a frightful row from the pater."

"You should have thought of that sooner, Charles."

Charles had never been in such a position before. It was a woman in
revolt who was hobbling away from him--and the sight was too strange to
leave any room for anger. He recovered himself when the others caught
them up: their sort he understood. He commanded them to go back.

Albert Fussell was seen walking towards them.

"It's all right!" he called. "It was a cat."

"There!" exclaimed Charles triumphantly. "It's only a rotten cat."

"Got room in your car for a little un? I cut as soon as I saw it wasn't
a dog; the chauffeurs are tackling the girl." But Margaret walked
forward steadily. Why should the chauffeurs tackle the girl? Ladies
sheltering behind men, men sheltering behind servants--the whole
system's wrong, and she must challenge it.

"Miss Schlegel! 'Pon my word, you've hurt your hand."

"I'm just going to see," said Margaret. "Don't you wait, Mr. Fussell."

The second motor came round the corner. "It is all right, madam," said
Crane in his turn. He had taken to calling her madam.

"What's all right? The cat?"

"Yes, madam. The girl will receive compensation for it."

"She was a very ruda girla," said Angelo from the third motor
thoughtfully.

"Wouldn't you have been rude?"

The Italian spread out his hands, implying that he had not thought of
rudeness, but would produce it if it pleased her. The situation became
absurd. The gentlemen were again buzzing round Miss Schlegel with offers
of assistance, and Lady Edser began to bind up her hand. She yielded,
apologising slightly, and was led back to the car, and soon the
landscape resumed its motion, the lonely cottage disappeared, the castle
swelled on its cushion of turf, and they had arrived. No doubt she had
disgraced herself. But she felt their whole journey from London had
been unreal. They had no part with the earth and its emotions. They were
dust, and a stink, and cosmopolitan chatter, and the girl whose cat had
been killed had lived more deeply than they.

"Oh, Henry," she exclaimed, "I have been so naughty," for she had
decided to take up this line. "We ran over a cat. Charles told me not to
jump out, but I would, and look!" She held out her bandaged hand. "Your
poor Meg went such a flop."

Mr. Wilcox looked bewildered. In evening dress, he was standing to
welcome his guests in the hall.

"Thinking it was a dog." added Mrs. Warrington.

"Ah, a dog's a companion!" said Colonel Fussell "A dog'll remember you."

"Have you hurt yourself, Margaret?"

"Not to speak about; and it's my left hand."

"Well, hurry up and change."

She obeyed, as did the others. Mr. Wilcox then turned to his son.

"Now, Charles, what's happened?"

Charles was absolutely honest. He described what he believed to have
happened. Albert had flattened out a cat, and Miss Schlegel had lost her
nerve, as any woman might. She had been got safely into the other car,
but when it was in motion had leapt out again, in spite of all that they
could say. After walking a little on the road, she had calmed down and
had said that she was sorry. His father accepted this explanation, and
neither knew that Margaret had artfully prepared the way for it.
It fitted in too well with their view of feminine nature. In the
smoking-room, after dinner, the Colonel put forward the view that Miss
Schlegel had jumped it out of devilry. Well he remembered as a young
man, in the harbour of Gibraltar once, how a girl--a handsome girl,
too--had jumped overboard for a bet. He could see her now, and all the
lads overboard after her. But Charles and Mr. Wilcox agreed it was much
more probably nerves in Miss Schlegel's case. Charles was depressed.
That woman had a tongue. She would bring worse disgrace on his father
before she had done with them. He strolled out on to the castle mound to
think the matter over. The evening was exquisite. On three sides of him
a little river whispered, full of messages from the West; above his head
the ruins made patterns against the sky. He carefully reviewed their
dealings with this family, until he fitted Helen, and Margaret, and Aunt
Juley into an orderly conspiracy. Paternity had made him suspicious.
He had two children to look after, and more coming, and day by day
they seemed less likely to grow up rich men. "It is all very well,"
he reflected, "the pater's saying that he will be just to all, but one
can't be just indefinitely. Money isn't elastic. What's to happen if
Evie has a family? And, come to that, so may the pater. There'll not be
enough to go round, for there's none coming in, either through Dolly or
Percy. It's damnable!" He looked enviously at the Grange, whose windows
poured light and laughter. First and last, this wedding would cost a
pretty penny. Two ladies were strolling up and down the garden terrace,
and as the syllables "Imperialism" were wafted to his ears, he guessed
that one of them was his aunt. She might have helped him, if she too had
not had a family to provide for. "Every one for himself," he repeated--a
maxim which had cheered him in the past, but which rang grimly enough
among the ruins of Oniton. He lacked his father's ability in business,
and so had an ever higher regard for money; unless he could inherit
plenty, he feared to leave his children poor.

As he sat thinking, one of the ladies left the terrace and walked into
the meadow; he recognised her as Margaret by the white bandage that
gleamed on her arm, and put out his cigar, lest the gleam should betray
him. She climbed up the mound in zigzags, and at times stooped down, as
if she was stroking the turf. It sounds absolutely incredible, but for
a moment Charles thought that she was in love with him, and had come out
to tempt him. Charles believed in temptresses, who are indeed the strong
man's necessary complement, and having no sense of humour, he could not
purge himself of the thought by a smile. Margaret, who was engaged to
his father, and his sister's wedding-guest, kept on her way without
noticing him, and he admitted that he had wronged her on this point. But
what was she doing? Why was she stumbling about amongst the rubble and
catching her dress in brambles and burrs? As she edged round the
keep, she must have got to windward and smelt his cigar-smoke, for she
exclaimed, "Hullo! Who's that?"

Charles made no answer.

"Saxon or Celt?" she continued, laughing in the darkness. "But it
doesn't matter. Whichever you are, you will have to listen to me. I love
this place. I love Shropshire. I hate London. I am glad that this will
be my home. Ah, dear"--she was now moving back towards the house--"what
a comfort to have arrived!"

"That woman means mischief," thought Charles, and compressed his lips.
In a few minutes he followed her indoors, as the ground was getting
damp. Mists were rising from the river, and presently it became
invisible, though it whispered more loudly. There had been a heavy
downpour in the Welsh hills.



Next morning a fine mist covered the peninsula. The weather promised
well, and the outline of the castle mound grew clearer each moment that
Margaret watched it. Presently she saw the keep, and the sun painted
the rubble gold, and charged the white sky with blue. The shadow of the
house gathered itself together, and fell over the garden. A cat looked
up at her window and mewed. Lastly the river appeared, still holding the
mists between its banks and its overhanging alders, and only visible as
far as a hill, which cut off its upper reaches.

Margaret was fascinated by Oniton. She had said that she loved it, but
it was rather its romantic tension that held her. The rounded Druids of
whom she had caught glimpses in her drive, the rivers hurrying down
from them to England, the carelessly modelled masses of the lower hills,
thrilled her with poetry. The house was insignificant, but the prospect
from it would be an eternal joy, and she thought of all the friends she
would have to stop in it, and of the conversion of Henry himself to a
rural life. Society, too, promised favourably. The rector of the parish
had dined with them last night, and she found that he was a friend of
her father's, and so knew what to find in her. She liked him. He would
introduce her to the town. While, on her other side, Sir James Bidder
sat, repeating that she only had to give the word, and he would whip up
the county families for twenty miles round. Whether Sir James, who was
Garden Seeds, had promised what he could perform, she doubted, but so
long as Henry mistook them for the county families when they did call,
she was content.

Charles Wilcox and Albert Fussell now crossed the lawn. They were going
for a morning dip, and a servant followed them with their bathing-suits.
She had meant to take a stroll herself before breakfast, but saw that
the day was still sacred to men, and amused herself by watching their
contretemps. In the first place the key of the bathing-shed could not be
found. Charles stood by the riverside with folded hands, tragical, while
the servant shouted, and was misunderstood by another servant in the
garden. Then came a difficulty about a springboard, and soon three
people were running backwards and forwards over the meadow, with orders
and counter orders and recriminations and apologies. If Margaret wanted
to jump from a motor-car, she jumped; if Tibby thought paddling would
benefit his ankles, he paddled; if a clerk desired adventure, he took
a walk in the dark. But these athletes seemed paralysed. They could not
bathe without their appliances, though the morning sun was calling and
the last mists were rising from the dimpling stream. Had they found
the life of the body after all? Could not the men whom they despised as
milksops beat them, even on their own ground?

She thought of the bathing arrangements as they should be in her day--no
worrying of servants, no appliances, beyond good sense. Her reflections
were disturbed by the quiet child, who had come out to speak to the
cat, but was now watching her watch the men. She called, "Good-morning,
dear," a little sharply. Her voice spread consternation. Charles looked
round, and though completely attired in indigo blue, vanished into the
shed, and was seen no more.

"Miss Wilcox is up--" the child whispered, and then became
unintelligible.

"What is that?" it sounded like, "--cut-yoke--sack-back--"

"I can't hear."

"--On the bed--tissue-paper--"

Gathering that the wedding-dress was on view, and that a visit would
be seemly, she went to Evie's room. All was hilarity here. Evie, in a
petticoat, was dancing with one of the Anglo-Indian ladies, while the
other was adoring yards of white satin. They screamed, they laughed,
they sang, and the dog barked.

Margaret screamed a little too, but without conviction. She could not
feel that a wedding was so funny. Perhaps something was missing in her
equipment.

Evie gasped: "Dolly is a rotter not to be here! Oh, we would rag just
then!" Then Margaret went down to breakfast.

Henry was already installed; he ate slowly and spoke little, and was,
in Margaret's eyes, the only member of their party who dodged emotion
successfully. She could not suppose him indifferent either to the loss
of his daughter or to the presence of his future wife. Yet he dwelt
intact, only issuing orders occasionally--orders that promoted the
comfort of his guests. He inquired after her hand; he set her to pour
out the coffee and Mrs. Warrington to pour out the tea. When Evie came
down there was a moment's awkwardness, and both ladies rose to vacate
their places. "Burton," called Henry, "serve tea and coffee from the
sideboard!" It wasn't genuine tact, but it was tact, of a sort--the
sort that is as useful as the genuine, and saves even more situations at
Board meetings. Henry treated a marriage like a funeral, item by item,
never raising his eyes to the whole, and "Death, where is thy sting?
Love, where is thy victory?" one would exclaim at the close.

After breakfast Margaret claimed a few words with him. It was always
best to approach him formally. She asked for the interview, because he
was going on to shoot grouse to-morrow, and she was returning to Helen
in town.

"Certainly, dear," said he. "Of course, I have the time. What do you
want?"

"Nothing."

"I was afraid something had gone wrong."

"No; I have nothing to say, but you may talk."

Glancing at his watch, he talked of the nasty curve at the lych-gate.
She heard him with interest. Her surface could always respond to his
without contempt, though all her deeper being might be yearning to help
him. She had abandoned any plan of action. Love is the best, and the
more she let herself love him, the more chance was there that he would
set his soul in order. Such a moment as this, when they sat under fair
weather by the walks of their future home, was so sweet to her that
its sweetness would surely pierce to him. Each lift of his eyes, each
parting of the thatched lip from the clean-shaven, must prelude
the tenderness that kills the Monk and the Beast at a single blow.
Disappointed a hundred times, she still hoped. She loved him with too
clear a vision to fear his cloudiness. Whether he droned trivialities,
as to-day, or sprang kisses on her in the twilight, she could pardon
him, she could respond.

"If there is this nasty curve," she suggested, "couldn't we walk to the
church? Not, of course, you and Evie; but the rest of us might very well
go on first, and that would mean fewer carriages."

"One can't have ladies walking through the Market Square. The Fussells
wouldn't like it; they were awfully particular at Charles's wedding.
My--she--our party was anxious to walk, and certainly the church was
just round the corner, and I shouldn't have minded; but the Colonel made
a great point of it."

"You men shouldn't be so chivalrous," said Margaret thoughtfully.

"Why not?"

She knew why not, but said that she did not know. He then announced
that, unless she had anything special to say, he must visit the
wine-cellar, and they went off together in search of Burton. Though
clumsy and a little inconvenient, Oniton was a genuine country-house.
They clattered down flagged passages, looking into room after room,
and scaring unknown maids from the performance of obscure duties. The
wedding-breakfast must be in readiness when they come back from church,
and tea would be served in the garden. The sight of so many agitated
and serious people made Margaret smile, but she reflected that they
were paid to be serious, and enjoyed being agitated. Here were the lower
wheels of the machine that was tossing Evie up into nuptial glory. A
little boy blocked their way with pig-pails. His mind could not grasp
their greatness, and he said: "By your leave; let me pass, please."
Henry asked him where Burton was. But the servants were so new that they
did not know one another's names. In the still-room sat the band, who
had stipulated for champagne as part of their fee, and who were already
drinking beer. Scents of Araby came from the kitchen, mingled with
cries. Margaret knew what had happened there, for it happened at Wickham
Place. One of the wedding dishes had boiled over, and the cook was
throwing cedar-shavings to hide the smell. At last they came upon
the butler. Henry gave him the keys, and handed Margaret down the
cellar-stairs. Two doors were unlocked. She, who kept all her wine at
the bottom of the linen-cupboard, was astonished at the sight. "We shall
never get through it!" she cried, and the two men were suddenly drawn
into brotherhood, and exchanged smiles. She felt as if she had again
jumped out of the car while it was moving.

Certainly Oniton would take some digesting. It would be no small
business to remain herself, and yet to assimilate such an establishment.
She must remain herself, for his sake as well as her own, since a
shadowy wife degrades the husband whom she accompanies; and she must
assimilate for reasons of common honesty, since she had no right to
marry a man and make him uncomfortable. Her only ally was the power of
Home. The loss of Wickham Place had taught her more than its possession.
Howards End had repeated the lesson. She was determined to create new
sanctities among these hills.

After visiting the wine-cellar, she dressed, and then came the wedding,
which seemed a small affair when compared with the preparations for it.
Everything went like one o'clock. Mr. Cahill materialised out of space,
and was waiting for his bride at the church door. No one dropped the
ring or mispronounced the responses, or trod on Evie's train, or cried.
In a few minutes the clergymen performed their duty, the register was
signed, and they were back in their carriages, negotiating the dangerous
curve by the lych-gate. Margaret was convinced that they had not been
married at all, and that the Norman church had been intent all the time
on other business.

There were more documents to sign at the house, and the breakfast to
eat, and then a few more people dropped in for the garden party. There
had been a great many refusals, and after all it was not a very big
affair--not as big as Margaret's would be. She noted the dishes and
the strips of red carpet, that outwardly she might give Henry what was
proper. But inwardly she hoped for something better than this blend of
Sunday church and fox-hunting. If only some one had been upset! But this
wedding had gone off so particularly well--"quite like a durbar" in the
opinion of Lady Edser, and she thoroughly agreed with her.

So the wasted day lumbered forward, the bride and bridegroom drove off,
yelling with laughter, and for the second time the sun retreated towards
the hills of Wales. Henry, who was more tired than he owned, came up to
her in the castle meadow, and, in tones of unusual softness, said that
he was pleased. Everything had gone off so well. She felt that he was
praising her, too, and blushed; certainly she had done all she could
with his intractable friends, and had made a special point of kotowing
to the men. They were breaking camp this evening; only the Warringtons
and quiet child would stay the night, and the others were already moving
towards the house to finish their packing. "I think it did go off
well," she agreed. "Since I had to jump out of the motor, I'm thankful I
lighted on my left hand. I am so very glad about it, Henry dear; I only
hope that the guests at ours may be half as comfortable. You must all
remember that we have no practical person among us, except my aunt, and
she is not used to entertainments on a large scale."

"I know," he said gravely. "Under the circumstances, it would be better
to put everything into the hands of Harrods or Whiteley's, or even to go
to some hotel."

"You desire a hotel?"

"Yes, because--well, I mustn't interfere with you. No doubt you want to
be married from your old home."

"My old home's falling into pieces, Henry. I only want my new. Isn't it
a perfect evening--"

"The Alexandrina isn't bad--"

"The Alexandrina," she echoed, more occupied with the threads of smoke
that were issuing from their chimneys, and ruling the sunlit slopes with
parallels of grey.

"It's off Curzon Street."

"Is it? Let's be married from off Curzon Street."

Then she turned westward, to gaze at the swirling gold. Just where the
river rounded the hill the sun caught it. Fairyland must lie above the
bend, and its precious liquid was pouring towards them past Charles's
bathing-shed. She gazed so long that her eyes were dazzled, and when
they moved back to the house, she could not recognise the faces of
people who were coming out of it. A parlour-maid was preceding them.

"Who are those people?" she asked.

"They're callers!" exclaimed Henry. "It's too late for callers."

"Perhaps they're town people who want to see the wedding presents."

"I'm not at home yet to townees."

"Well, hide among the ruins, and if I can stop them, I will."

He thanked her.

Margaret went forward, smiling socially. She supposed that these were
unpunctual guests, who would have to be content with vicarious civility,
since Evie and Charles were gone, Henry tired, and the others in their
rooms. She assumed the airs of a hostess; not for long. For one of the
group was Helen--Helen in her oldest clothes, and dominated by that
tense, wounding excitement that had made her a terror in their nursery
days.

"What is it?" she called. "Oh, what's wrong? Is Tibby ill?"

Helen spoke to her two companions, who fell back. Then she bore forward
furiously.

"They're starving!" she shouted. "I found them starving!"

"Who? Why have you come?"

"The Basts."

"Oh, Helen!" moaned Margaret. "Whatever have you done now?"

"He has lost his place. He has been turned out of his bank. Yes, he's
done for. We upper classes have ruined him, and I suppose you'll tell
me it's the battle of life. Starving. His wife is ill. Starving. She
fainted in the train."

"Helen, are you mad?"

"Perhaps. Yes. If you like, I'm mad. But I've brought them. I'll stand
injustice no longer. I'll show up the wretchedness that lies under this
luxury, this talk of impersonal forces, this cant about God doing what
we're too slack to do ourselves."

"Have you actually brought two starving people from London to
Shropshire, Helen?"

Helen was checked. She had not thought of this, and her hysteria abated.
"There was a restaurant car on the train," she said.

"Don't be absurd. They aren't starving, and you know it. Now, begin from
the beginning. I won't have such theatrical nonsense. How dare you! Yes,
how dare you!" she repeated, as anger filled her, "bursting in to Evie's
wedding in this heartless way. My goodness! but you've a perverted
notion of philanthropy. Look"--she indicated the house--"servants,
people out of the windows. They think it's some vulgar scandal, and
I must explain, 'Oh no, it's only my sister screaming, and only two
hangers-on of ours, whom she has brought here for no conceivable
reason.'"

"Kindly take back that word 'hangers-on,'" said Helen, ominously calm.

"Very well," conceded Margaret, who for all her wrath was determined to
avoid a real quarrel. "I, too, am sorry about them, but it beats me why
you've brought them here, or why you're here yourself."

"It's our last chance of seeing Mr. Wilcox."

Margaret moved towards the house at this. She was determined not to
worry Henry.

"He's going to Scotland. I know he is. I insist on seeing him."

"Yes, to-morrow."

"I knew it was our last chance."

"How do you do, Mr. Bast?" said Margaret, trying to control her voice.
"This is an odd business. What view do you take of it?"

"There is Mrs. Bast, too," prompted Helen.

Jacky also shook hands. She, like her husband, was shy, and,
furthermore, ill, and furthermore, so bestially stupid that she could
not grasp what was happening. She only knew that the lady had swept down
like a whirlwind last night, had paid the rent, redeemed the furniture,
provided them with a dinner and a breakfast, and ordered them to meet
her at Paddington next morning. Leonard had feebly protested, and when
the morning came, had suggested that they shouldn't go. But she, half
mesmerised, had obeyed. The lady had told them to, and they must, and
their bed-sitting-room had accordingly changed into Paddington, and
Paddington into a railway carriage, that shook, and grew hot, and grew
cold, and vanished entirely, and reappeared amid torrents of expensive
scent. "You have fainted," said the lady in an awe-struck voice.
"Perhaps the air will do you good." And perhaps it had, for here she
was, feeling rather better among a lot of flowers.

"I'm sure I don't want to intrude," began Leonard, in answer to
Margaret's question. "But you have been so kind to me in the past
in warning me about the Porphyrion that I wondered--why, I wondered
whether--"

"Whether we could get him back into the Porphyrion again," supplied
Helen. "Meg, this has been a cheerful business. A bright evening's work
that was on Chelsea Embankment."

Margaret shook her head and returned to Mr. Bast.

"I don't understand. You left the Porphyrion because we suggested it was
a bad concern, didn't you?"

"That's right."

"And went into a bank instead?"

"I told you all that," said Helen; "and they reduced their staff after
he had been in a month, and now he's penniless, and I consider that we
and our informant are directly to blame."

"I hate all this," Leonard muttered.

"I hope you do, Mr. Bast. But it's no good mincing matters. You have
done yourself no good by coming here. If you intend to confront Mr.
Wilcox, and to call him to account for a chance remark, you will make a
very great mistake."

"I brought them. I did it all," cried Helen.

"I can only advise you to go at once. My sister has put you in a false
position, and it is kindest to tell you so. It's too late to get to
town, but you'll find a comfortable hotel in Oniton, where Mrs. Bast can
rest, and I hope you'll be my guests there."

"That isn't what I want, Miss Schlegel," said Leonard. "You're very
kind, and no doubt it's a false position, but you make me miserable. I
seem no good at all."

"It's work he wants," interpreted Helen. "Can't you see?"

Then he said: "Jacky, let's go. We're more bother than we're worth.
We're costing these ladies pounds and pounds already to get work for us,
and they never will. There's nothing we're good enough to do."

"We would like to find you work," said Margaret rather conventionally.
"We want to--I, like my sister. You're only down in your luck. Go to the
hotel, have a good night's rest, and some day you shall pay me back the
bill, if you prefer it."

But Leonard was near the abyss, and at such moments men see clearly.
"You don't know what you're talking about," he said. "I shall never get
work now. If rich people fail at one profession, they can try another.
Not I. I had my groove, and I've got out of it. I could do one
particular branch of insurance in one particular office well enough to
command a salary, but that's all. Poetry's nothing, Miss Schlegel. One's
thoughts about this and that are nothing. Your money, too, is nothing,
if you'll understand me. I mean if a man over twenty once loses his own
particular job, it's all over with him. I have seen it happen to others.
Their friends gave them money for a little, but in the end they fall
over the edge. It's no good. It's the whole world pulling. There always
will be rich and poor."

He ceased. "Won't you have something to eat?" said Margaret. "I don't
know what to do. It isn't my house, and though Mr. Wilcox would have
been glad to see you at any other time--as I say, I don't know what
to do, but I undertake to do what I can for you. Helen, offer them
something. Do try a sandwich, Mrs. Bast."

They moved to a long table behind which a servant was still standing.
Iced cakes, sandwiches innumerable, coffee, claret-cup, champagne,
remained almost intact; their overfed guests could do no more. Leonard
refused. Jacky thought she could manage a little. Margaret left them
whispering together, and had a few more words with Helen.

She said: "Helen, I like Mr. Bast. I agree that he's worth helping. I
agree that we are directly responsible."

"No, indirectly. Via Mr. Wilcox."

"Let me tell you once for all that if you take up that attitude, I'll
do nothing. No doubt you're right logically, and are entitled to say
a great many scathing things about Henry. Only, I won't have it. So
choose."

Helen looked at the sunset.

"If you promise to take them quietly to the George I will speak to Henry
about them--in my own way, mind; there is to be none of this absurd
screaming about justice. I have no use for justice. If it was only a
question of money, we could do it ourselves. But he wants work, and that
we can't give him, but possibly Henry can."

"It's his duty to," grumbled Helen.

"Nor am I concerned with duty. I'm concerned with the characters of
various people whom we know, and how, things being as they are, things
may be made a little better. Mr. Wilcox hates being asked favours; all
business men do. But I am going to ask him, at the risk of a rebuff,
because I want to make things a little better."

"Very well. I promise. You take it very calmly."

"Take them off to the George, then, and I'll try. Poor creatures! but
they look tired." As they parted, she added: "I haven't nearly done with
you, though, Helen. You have been most self-indulgent. I can't get over
it. You have less restraint rather than more as you grow older. Think it
over and alter yourself, or we shan't have happy lives."

She rejoined Henry. Fortunately he had been sitting down: these physical
matters were important. "Was it townees?" he asked, greeting her with a
pleasant smile.

"You'll never believe me," said Margaret, sitting down beside him. "It's
all right now, but it was my sister."

"Helen here?" he cried, preparing to rise. "But she refused the
invitation. I thought hated weddings."

"Don't get up. She has not come to the wedding. I've bundled her off to
the George."

Inherently hospitable, he protested.

"No; she has two of her proteges with her and must keep with them."

"Let 'em all come."

"My dear Henry, did you see them?"

"I did catch sight of a brown bunch of a woman, certainly."

"The brown bunch was Helen, but did you catch sight of a sea-green and
salmon bunch?"

"What! are they out bean-feasting?"

"No; business. They wanted to see me, and later on I want to talk to you
about them."

She was ashamed of her own diplomacy. In dealing with a Wilcox, how
tempting it was to lapse from comradeship, and to give him the kind of
woman that he desired! Henry took the hint at once, and said: "Why later
on? Tell me now. No time like the present."

"Shall I?"

"If it isn't a long story."

"Oh, not five minutes; but there's a sting at the end of it, for I want
you to find the man some work in your office."

"What are his qualifications?"

"I don't know. He's a clerk."

"How old?"

"Twenty-five, perhaps."

"What's his name?"

"Bast," said Margaret, and was about to remind him that they had met
at Wickham Place, but stopped herself. It had not been a successful
meeting.

"Where was he before?"

"Dempster's Bank."

"Why did he leave?" he asked, still remembering nothing.

"They reduced their staff."

"All right; I'll see him."

It was the reward of her tact and devotion through the day. Now she
understood why some women prefer influence to rights. Mrs. Plynlimmon,
when condemning suffragettes, had said: "The woman who can't influence
her husband to vote the way she wants ought to be ashamed of herself."
Margaret had winced, but she was influencing Henry now, and though
pleased at her little victory, she knew that she had won it by the
methods of the harem.

"I should be glad if you took him," she said, "but I don't know whether
he's qualified."

"I'll do what I can. But, Margaret, this mustn't be taken as a
precedent."

"No, of course--of course--"

"I can't fit in your proteges every day. Business would suffer."

"I can promise you he's the last. He--he's rather a special case."

"Proteges always are."

She let it stand at that. He rose with a little extra touch of
complacency, and held out his hand to help her up. How wide the gulf
between Henry as he was and Henry as Helen thought he ought to be! And
she herself--hovering as usual between the two, now accepting men as
they are, now yearning with her sister for Truth. Love and Truth--their
warfare seems eternal perhaps the whole visible world rests on it,
and if they were one, life itself, like the spirits when Prospero was
reconciled to his brother, might vanish into air, into thin air.

"Your protege has made us late," said he. "The Fussells--will just be
starting."

On the whole she sided with men as they are. Henry would save the Basts
as he had saved Howards End, while Helen and her friends were discussing
the ethics of salvation. His was a slap-dash method, but the world has
been built slap-dash, and the beauty of mountain and river and sunset
may be but the varnish with which the unskilled artificer hides his
joins. Oniton, like herself, was imperfect. Its apple-trees were
stunted, its castle ruinous. It, too, had suffered in the border warfare
between the Anglo-Saxon and the Celt, between things as they are and
as they ought to be. Once more the west was retreating, once again the
orderly stars were dotting the eastern sky. There is certainly no rest
for us on the earth. But there is happiness, and as Margaret descended
the mound on her lover's arm, she felt that she was having her share.

To her annoyance, Mrs. Bast was still in the garden; the husband and
Helen had left her there to finish her meal while they went to engage
rooms. Margaret found this woman repellent. She had felt, when shaking
her hand, an overpowering shame. She remembered the motive of her call
at Wickham Place, and smelt again odours from the abyss--odours the more
disturbing because they were involuntary. For there was no malice in
Jacky. There she sat, a piece of cake in one hand, an empty champagne
glass in the other, doing no harm to anybody.

"She's overtired," Margaret whispered.

"She's something else," said Henry. "This won't do. I can't have her in
my garden in this state."

"Is she--" Margaret hesitated to add "drunk." Now that she was going
to marry him, he had grown particular. He discountenanced risque
conversations now.

Henry went up to the woman. She raised her face, which gleamed in the
twilight like a puff-ball.

"Madam, you will be more comfortable at the hotel," he said sharply.

Jacky replied: "If it isn't Hen!"

"Ne crois pas que le mari lui ressemble," apologised Margaret. "Il est
tout a fait different."

"Henry!" she repeated, quite distinctly.

Mr. Wilcox was much annoyed. "I congratulate you on your proteges," he
remarked.

"Hen, don't go. You do love me, dear, don't you?"

"Bless us, what a person!" sighed Margaret, gathering up her skirts.

Jacky pointed with her cake. "You're a nice boy, you are." She yawned.
"There now, I love you."

"Henry, I am awfully sorry."

"And pray why?" he asked, and looked at her so sternly that she feared
he was ill. He seemed more scandalised than the facts demanded.

"To have brought this down on you."

"Pray don't apologise."

The voice continued.

"Why does she call you 'Hen'?" said Margaret innocently. "Has she ever
seen you before?"

"Seen Hen before!" said Jacky. "Who hasn't seen Hen? He's serving you
like me, my boys! You wait--Still we love 'em."

"Are you now satisfied?" Henry asked.

Margaret began to grow frightened. "I don't know what it is all about,"
she said. "Let's come in."

But he thought she was acting. He thought he was trapped. He saw his
whole life crumbling. "Don't you indeed?" he said bitingly. "I do. Allow
me to congratulate you on the success of your plan."

"This is Helen's plan, not mine."

"I now understand your interest in the Basts. Very well thought out.
I am amused at your caution, Margaret. You are quite right--it was
necessary. I am a man, and have lived a man's past. I have the honour to
release you from your engagement."

Still she could not understand. She knew of life's seamy side as a
theory; she could not grasp it as a fact. More words from Jacky were
necessary--words unequivocal, undenied.

"So that--" burst from her, and she went indoors. She stopped herself
from saying more.

"So what?" asked Colonel Fussell, who was getting ready to start in the
hall.

"We were saying--Henry and I were just having the fiercest argument, my
point being--" Seizing his fur coat from a footman, she offered to help
him on. He protested, and there was a playful little scene.

"No, let me do that," said Henry, following.

"Thanks so much! You see--he has forgiven me!"

The Colonel said gallantly: "I don't expect there's much to forgive."

He got into the car. The ladies followed him after an interval.
Maids, courier, and heavier luggage had been sent on earlier by the
branch-line. Still chattering, still thanking their host and patronising
their future hostess, the guests were borne away.

Then Margaret continued: "So that woman has been your mistress?"

"You put it with your usual delicacy," he replied.

"When, please?"

"Why?"

"When, please?"

"Ten years ago."

She left him without a word. For it was not her tragedy; it was Mrs.
Wilcox's.




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.

 Upon hearing of her father's engagement to Margaret, Evie decides to have her wedding as soon as possible. The festivities will take place at Oniton Grange, the Wilcox estate near Wales. As the future Mrs. Wilcox, the wedding is an opportunity for Margaret to socialize with some of Mr. Wilcox's acquaintances. Although she does not think highly of his set, she resolves to make an effort for his sake. Margaret travels to Oniton with the wedding guests who are departing from London. The group does not include Tibby and Helen, although they were invited. Margaret manages to fend for herself in an atmosphere of overdone chivalry. She takes advantage of a resting point in order to tour the local area, and the last leg of the journey is by car. Margaret is unable to restrain herself when one of the vehicles in their party hits a cat. Initially the men of the group, which includes Charles, think that it is a dog. To spare the women an unpleasant scene, they put them into one car, which Charles drives away from the incident. Margaret begs him to stop, but he refuses. She ends up jumping out of the car, injuring her hand and shocking the rest of the guests. The rest of the group assumes that monetary compensation will take care of the accident, but Margaret feels genuine sorrow for the girl whose cat was struck, considering it likely that she is a better person than many of the people in the party. She soon realizes, however, that this is no place for her to be expressing her concerns, and she chalks her actions up to a woman's silliness. This is how she explains the situation to Mr. Wilcox upon her arrival at Oniton, and it is an excuse that is accepted. During the evening's dinner party, Margaret walks around outside. She is delighted by Oniton, although the Wilcoxes do not think much of it, and she assumes that it will be where she and her future husband settle. She is determined to see the good in the place that is her potential home. While walking around outside she approaches Charles. He becomes very suspicious of her and completely mistrusts her intentions. His suspicion continues to the extent where he wonders if she has come to make a romantic advance towards him. The next morning, Margaret looks out over the scenery. She longs to take a walk outdoors, but restrains herself. She has spotted Charles and Albert Fussell, a relative of Dolly's, going for a morning dip. Instead of jumping in casually, their excursion is a surprisingly thorough procedure, which Margaret observes with amusement. By not taking a walk, she is obeying the boundaries of sex. Instead of going outside, she joins the women who are admiring Evie in her wedding dress. Shortly before Evie's ceremony, Margaret asks Mr. Wilcox if they might have a conversation. He is surprised and relieved when she tells him that she does not have anything in particular to discuss; she just wants to talk. As they converse, they walk around the house, and Margaret notices how large and complicated it is. She is astounded by all of the preparation and detail going into the wedding, for every last thing seems to have been thought of. As a result, the ceremony goes off very smoothly in a practical and unemotional way. Following the wedding meal, most of the party has dispersed. Margaret is with Mr. Wilcox when they observe three people approaching. It is assumed that the three people are local villagers, and Mr. Wilcox urges Margaret to receive them in his stead, for the day has exhausted him. She realizes once he goes inside that they are not villages, but are Helen and the Basts. Helen has worked herself into a frenzy. She seems to have lost her wit and goes on about the conditions the Basts are living in. Leonard Bast has been let go from his new job, and she thinks that Mr. Wilcox should provide him with work. She claims that she found the couple starving. Margaret is outraged at her sister's indulgence and decides that they should stay the night in a hotel. She scolds Helen for having brought them all the way to Oniton, no easy feat, for it cannot possibly do any good. Margaret goes in to talk to Mr. Wilcox, and Leonard and Helen leave Jacky to eat the wedding leftovers while they secure hotel rooms. When Margaret returns outside with Mr. Wilcox, Jacky has filled up to the extent of being drunk. She addresses Mr. Wilcox as "Henry," speaking to him as though they have quite an intimate relationship. Margaret is initially confused by this, but the situation soon becomes clear. As it turns out, Jacky was Mr. Wilcox's mistress ten years ago when he was in Cyprus and she was a prostitute. Mr. Wilcox thinks that he has been set up for embarrassment, and is so ashamed that he tells Margaret the engagement must be canceled. However, Margaret feels more for Mrs. Wilcox, to whom he was married when the affair occurred, than for herself. At the hotel, Helen and Leonard have intimate and intense conversation while Jacky is in another room. Leonard speaks about the trials of his life, and Helen explains to him her belief that death is the great leveler of mankind. They also discuss the importance of one being able to "say 'I'". As they talk, they are presented with two notes from Margaret, who wrote to say that Mr. Wilcox can offer Leonard no work. She also informs Helen that the Basts are not good people and that she should come to Oniton Grange to spend the night. Margaret has resolved to forgive Mr. Wilcox despite his trespasses, for she thinks she can make him a better man. She is trying to clean up a messy situation, and the couple resolves to put the issue behind them and to try to refrain from mentioning it. The Oniton adventure ends with Helen and the Basts disappearing from the hotel with no word. Margaret, too, leaves the estate behind forever.

