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

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

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

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

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

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

"So I surmise. Why?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Could I bathe my eyes, Tibby?"

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

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

"Oh, those people!"

Helen seemed silenced.

"Shall I lock the door again?"

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

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

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

He conceded that it was a bad business.

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

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

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

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

She concluded her charge.

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

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

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

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

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

"What is the sum?"

"Five thousand."

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

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

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

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

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

"I? I understand nobody."

"But you'll do it?"

"Apparently."

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

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

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

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



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Certainly not."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Theosophy."

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



She was looking at plans one day in the following spring--they had
finally decided to go down into Sussex and build--when Mrs. Charles
Wilcox was announced.

"Have you heard the news?" Dolly cried, as soon as she entered the room.
"Charles is so ang--I mean he is sure you know about it, or, rather, that
you don't know."

"Why, Dolly!" said Margaret, placidly kissing her. "Here's a surprise!
How are the boys and the baby?"

Boys and the baby were well, and in describing a great row that there
had been at the Hilton Tennis Club, Dolly forgot her news. The wrong
people had tried to get in. The rector, as representing the older
inhabitants, had said--Charles had said--the tax-collector had
said--Charles had regretted not saying--and she closed the description
with, "But lucky you, with four courts of your own at Midhurst."

"It will be very jolly," replied Margaret.

"Are those the plans? Does it matter my seeing them?"

"Of course not."

"Charles has never seen the plans."

"They have only just arrived. Here is the ground floor--no, that's
rather difficult. Try the elevation, We are to have a good many gables
and a picturesque sky-line."

"What makes it smell so funny?" said Dolly, after a moment's inspection.
She was incapable of understanding plans or maps.

"I suppose the paper."

"And WHICH way up is it?"

"Just the ordinary way up. That's the sky-line and the part that smells
strongest is the sky."

"Well, ask me another. Margaret--oh--what was I going to say? How's
Helen?"

"Quite well."

"Is she never coming back to England? Every one thinks it's awfully odd
she doesn't."

"So it is," said Margaret, trying to conceal her vexation. She was
getting rather sore on this point. "Helen is odd, awfully. She has now
been away eight months."

"But hasn't she any address?"

"A poste restante somewhere in Bavaria is her address. Do write her a
line. I will look it up for you."

"No, don't bother. That's eight months she has been away, surely?"

"Exactly. She left just after Evie's wedding. It would be eight months."

"Just when baby was born, then?"

"Just so."

Dolly sighed, and stared enviously round the drawing-room. She was
beginning to lose her brightness and good looks. The Charles's were not
well off, for Mr. Wilcox, having brought up his children with expensive
tastes, believed in letting them shift for themselves. After all, he
had not treated them generously. Yet another baby was expected, she
told Margaret, and they would have to give up the motor. Margaret
sympathised, but in a formal fashion, and Dolly little imagined that the
stepmother was urging Mr. Wilcox to make them a more liberal allowance.
She sighed again, and at last the particular grievance was remembered.
"Oh, yes," she cried, "that is it: Miss Avery has been unpacking your
packing-cases."

"Why has she done that? How unnecessary!"

"Ask another. I suppose you ordered her to."

"I gave no such orders. Perhaps she was airing the things. She did
undertake to light an occasional fire."

"It was far more than an air," said Dolly solemnly. "The floor sounds
covered with books. Charles sent me to know what is to be done, for he
feels certain you don't know."

"Books!" cried Margaret, moved by the holy word. "Dolly, are you
serious? Has she been touching our books?"

"Hasn't she, though! What used to be the hall's full of them. Charles
thought for certain you knew of it."

"I am very much obliged to you, Dolly. What can have come over Miss
Avery? I must go down about it at once. Some of the books are my
brother's, and are quite valuable. She had no right to open any of the
cases."

"I say she's dotty. She was the one that never got married, you know.
Oh, I say, perhaps, she thinks your books are wedding-presents to
herself. Old maids are taken that way sometimes. Miss Avery hates us all
like poison ever since her frightful dust-up with Evie."

"I hadn't heard of that," said Margaret. A visit from Dolly had its
compensations.

"Didn't you know she gave Evie a present last August, and Evie returned
it, and then--oh, goloshes! You never read such a letter as Miss Avery
wrote."

"But it was wrong of Evie to return it. It wasn't like her to do such a
heartless thing."

"But the present was so expensive."

"Why does that make any difference, Dolly?"

"Still, when it costs over five pounds--I didn't see it, but it was
a lovely enamel pendant from a Bond Street shop. You can't very well
accept that kind of thing from a farm woman. Now, can you?"

"You accepted a present from Miss Avery when you were married."

"Oh, mine was old earthenware stuff--not worth a halfpenny. Evie's was
quite different. You'd have to ask any one to the wedding who gave you
a pendant like that. Uncle Percy and Albert and father and Charles all
said it was quite impossible, and when four men agree, what is a girl to
do? Evie didn't want to upset the old thing, so thought a sort of joking
letter best, and returned the pendant straight to the shop to save Miss
Avery trouble."

"But Miss Avery said--"

Dolly's eyes grew round. "It was a perfectly awful letter. Charles said
it was the letter of a madman. In the end she had the pendant back again
from the shop and threw it into the duck-pond."

"Did she give any reasons?"

"We think she meant to be invited to Oniton, and so climb into society."

"She's rather old for that," said Margaret pensively.

"May she not have given the present to Evie in remembrance of her
mother?"

"That's a notion. Give every one their due, eh? Well, I suppose I ought
to be toddling. Come along, Mr. Muff--you want a new coat, but I don't
know who'll give it you, I'm sure;" and addressing her apparel with
mournful humour, Dolly moved from the room.

Margaret followed her to ask whether Henry knew about Miss Avery's
rudeness.

"Oh yes."

"I wonder, then, why he let me ask her to look after the house."

"But she's only a farm woman," said Dolly, and her explanation proved
correct. Henry only censured the lower classes when it suited him. He
bore with Miss Avery as with Crane--because he could get good value out
of them. "I have patience with a man who knows his job," he would say,
really having patience with the job, and not the man. Paradoxical as it
may sound, he had something of the artist about him; he would pass over
an insult to his daughter sooner than lose a good charwoman for his
wife.

Margaret judged it better to settle the little trouble herself. Parties
were evidently ruffled. With Henry's permission, she wrote a pleasant
note to Miss Avery, asking her to leave the cases untouched. Then, at
the first convenient opportunity, she went down herself, intending to
repack her belongings and store them properly in the local warehouse;
the plan had been amateurish and a failure. Tibby promised to accompany
her, but at the last moment begged to be excused. So, for the second
time in her life, she entered the house alone.



The day of her visit was exquisite, and the last of unclouded happiness
that she was to have for many months. Her anxiety about Helen's
extraordinary absence was still dormant, and as for a possible brush
with Miss Avery-that only gave zest to the expedition. She had also
eluded Dolly's invitation to luncheon. Walking straight up from the
station, she crossed the village green and entered the long chestnut
avenue that connects it with the church. The church itself stood in the
village once. But it there attracted so many worshippers that the
devil, in a pet, snatched it from its foundations, and poised it on
an inconvenient knoll, three quarters of a mile away. If this story is
true, the chestnut avenue must have been planted by the angels. No more
tempting approach could be imagined for the lukewarm Christian, and if
he still finds the walk too long, the devil is defeated all the same,
Science having built Holy Trinity, a Chapel of Ease, near the Charles's
and roofed it with tin.

Up the avenue Margaret strolled slowly, stopping to watch the sky that
gleamed through the upper branches of the chestnuts, or to finger the
little horseshoes on the lower branches. Why has not England a great
mythology? our folklore has never advanced beyond daintiness, and the
greater melodies about our country-side have all issued through the
pipes of Greece. Deep and true as the native imagination can be, it
seems to have failed here. It has stopped with the witches and the
fairies. It cannot vivify one fraction of a summer field, or give names
to half a dozen stars. England still waits for the supreme moment of her
literature--for the great poet who shall voice her, or, better still for
the thousand little poets whose voices shall pass into our common talk.

At the church the scenery changed. The chestnut avenue opened into
a road, smooth but narrow, which led into the untouched country. She
followed it for over a mile. Its little hesitations pleased her. Having
no urgent destiny, it strolled downhill or up as it wished, taking
no trouble about the gradients, or about the view, which nevertheless
expanded. The great estates that throttle the south of Hertfordshire
were less obtrusive here, and the appearance of the land was neither
aristocratic nor suburban. To define it was difficult, but Margaret knew
what it was not: it was not snobbish. Though its contours were slight,
there was a touch of freedom in their sweep to which Surrey will never
attain, and the distant brow of the Chilterns towered like a mountain.
"Left to itself," was Margaret's opinion, "this county would vote
Liberal." The comradeship, not passionate, that is our highest gift as
a nation, was promised by it, as by the low brick farm where she called
for the key.

But the inside of the farm was disappointing. A most finished young
person received her. "Yes, Mrs. Wilcox; no, Mrs. Wilcox; oh yes, Mrs.
Wilcox, auntie received your letter quite duly. Auntie has gone up to
your little place at the present moment. Shall I send the servant to
direct you?" Followed by: "Of course, auntie does not generally look
after your place; she only does it to oblige a neighbour as something
exceptional. It gives her something to do. She spends quite a lot of her
time there. My husband says to me sometimes, 'Where's auntie?' I say,
'Need you ask? She's at Howards End.' Yes, Mrs. Wilcox. Mrs. Wilcox,
could I prevail upon you to accept a piece of cake? Not if I cut it for
you?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Have you got the key, auntie?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

To help the poor decaying brain, Margaret said:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Am I?"

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

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

"The nursery," she said.

Margaret turned away without speaking.

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

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

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

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

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

Margaret laughed.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Whom should she have married?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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

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

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

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

"Yes, dear?"

"Can he spare you?"

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

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

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

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

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

"I have Tibby, Aunt Juley."

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

"Helen is odd, very," agreed Margaret.

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

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

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

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

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

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


"DEAREST MEG,

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

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

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

"HELEN."


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

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

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

"About Helen?"

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

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

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

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

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

"Tibby love, what next?"

He replied: "It is extraordinary."

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

"None, unless it's something mental."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"How will you do that?"

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

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

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

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

"Why?"

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

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

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

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

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

"I suppose so."

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

"I deny it's madness."

"You said just now--"

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

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

"Not in that way."

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

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

"Why, Charles?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

Charles made no answer.

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

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

"How?"

"Don't ask me."



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Have I time?"

"Yes, plenty."

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

"Dolly, I'm going without her."

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

"Tell her I thought it best."

"Yes, Mr. Wilcox, I see."

"Say anything you like. All right."

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

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

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

"I was meaning to act for the best."

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

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

"Look! My hands have stopped trembling."

"And have quite forgiven me? Then listen. Her cab should already have
arrived at Howards End. (We're a little late, but no matter.) Our first
move will be to send it down to wait at the farm, as, if possible, one
doesn't want a scene before servants. A certain gentleman"--he pointed
at Crane's back--"won't drive in, but will wait a little short of the
front gate, behind the laurels. Have you still the keys of the house?"

"Yes."

"Well, they aren't wanted. Do you remember how the house stands?"

"Yes."

"If we don't find her in the porch, we can stroll round into the garden.
Our object--"

Here they stopped to pick up the doctor.

"I was just saying to my wife, Mansbridge, that our main object is not
to frighten Miss Schlegel. The house, as you know, is my property, so it
should seem quite natural for us to be there. The trouble is evidently
nervous--wouldn't you say so, Margaret?"

The doctor, a very young man, began to ask questions about Helen. Was
she normal? Was there anything congenital or hereditary? Had anything
occurred that was likely to alienate her from her family?

"Nothing," answered Margaret, wondering what would have happened if she
had added: "Though she did resent my husband's immorality."

"She always was highly strung," pursued Henry, leaning back in the
car as it shot past the church. "A tendency to spiritualism and those
things, though nothing serious. Musical, literary, artistic, but I
should say normal--a very charming girl."

Margaret's anger and terror increased every moment. How dare these
men label her sister! What horrors lay ahead! What impertinences that
shelter under the name of science! The pack was turning on Helen, to
deny her human rights, and it seemed to Margaret that all Schlegels were
threatened with her. "Were they normal?" What a question to ask! And it
is always those who know nothing about human nature, who are bored by
psychology--and shocked by physiology, who ask it. However piteous her
sister's state, she knew that she must be on her side. They would be mad
together if the world chose to consider them so.

It was now five minutes past three. The car slowed down by the farm, in
the yard of which Miss Avery was standing. Henry asked her whether a cab
had gone past. She nodded, and the next moment they caught sight of it,
at the end of the lane. The car ran silently like a beast of prey. So
unsuspicious was Helen that she was sitting in the porch, with her back
to the road. She had come. Only her head and shoulders were visible. She
sat framed in the vine, and one of her hands played with the buds. The
wind ruffled her hair, the sun glorified it; she was as she had always
been.

Margaret was seated next to the door. Before her husband could prevent
her, she slipped out. She ran to the garden gate, which was shut, passed
through it, and deliberately pushed it in his face. The noise alarmed
Helen. Margaret saw her rise with an unfamiliar movement, and, rushing
into the porch, learnt the simple explanation of all their fears--her
sister was with child.

"Is the truant all right?" called Henry.

She had time to whisper: "Oh, my darling--" The keys of the house were
in her hand. She unlocked Howards End and thrust Helen into it. "Yes,
all right," she said, and stood with her back to the door.

 Following Evie's wedding, Helen pays a visit to Tibby, who is finishing up his studies at Oxford. She wants him to inform Margaret that she will be going abroad for some time, and she asks Tibby to assume responsibility for her belongings, such as her books and furniture. She also tells him of Mr. Wilcox's relationship with Jacky and instructs him to give the Basts a large amount of her money. Tibby is shocked at the sum, but Helen is adamant. After this conversation, Tibby speaks with Margaret. He is relieved when she tells him that she is aware of the situation with Mr. Wilcox, and informs him that she will write to Helen. Following out another part of Helen's request, he attempts to give Leonard the money. Even though his finances have worsened considerably, Leonard refuses to accept it. The Schlegels must move out of Wickham Place, and as they have not found a new home, they have no place to put their furniture. Since the tenant of Howards End died while abroad, the lease has been cancelled and Mr. Wilcox allows the Schlegel furniture to be stored there. Mr. Wilcox and Margaret have a small wedding followed by a honeymoon. They start their married life at Ducie Street, since Mr. Wilcox has deemed Oniton Grange unsuitable, leaving Margaret still trapped in the flux of London. Meanwhile, Helen has gone abroad as she told her brother she would. It is unclear exactly where she is, since she has left no residential address. She does have a place to which her mail is directed, but there is something odd about her correspondence. Margaret, however, has another crisis to deal with when Dolly comes to see her. She tells her that Miss Avery has started to unpack the furniture at Howards End. This is strange because Margaret and Mr. Wilcox have no plans to move to Hilton. Rather, they are building a house in Sussex. Margaret expresses her annoyance, and Dolly tells her that Miss Avery has become increasingly bizarre of late. She relates the story of how Evie would not accept her wedding gift of a pendant, thinking that it was too much money for the older woman to spend. Margaret decides to go to Howards End to handle the situation. Upon arriving in Hilton, Margaret finds Madge, Miss Avery's niece. Madge leads Margaret to Howards End, where Miss Avery is. She will not come out until Madge leaves. Once this happens, Margaret is surprised to see what has happened in the house. She finds it looking very much like her own due to the way her belongings were unpacked. Miss Avery maintains that Ruth Wilcox would want the house to be lived in rather than to sit empty, but Margaret firmly explains that there has been a misunderstanding, for she and Mr. Wilcox will not be living there. Miss Avery speaks to Margaret boldly about the Wilcoxes, going so far as to say that Mrs. Wilcox should have married somebody else. Determined not to say anything against the family that she has married into, Margaret finally asks Miss Avery to hand over the keys to Howards End. She is adamant about the fact that the entire situation is a big misunderstanding. Before she can arrange for her belongings to be repacked, she is summoned to Swanage. Aunt Juley has fallen very ill and is expected to die. It has been eight months since Helen went abroad, but the catastrophe brings her back to England. Before she arrives at Swanage, she inquires by post as to Aunt Juley's condition. Miraculously, Aunt Juley's health has taken a sudden turn for the better, and when Helen learns of this, it appears that she will not be seeing her siblings after all, even though she is relatively nearby. Back in London, Margaret and Tibby are unable to locate Helen. By this point Margaret is extremely worried. She decides to discuss the situation with Mr. Wilcox, who in turn brings it up with Charles. They are concerned over her sanity, and decide that the only way to make contact with her is through a trap. Since she has written to Margaret requesting some of her books, Margaret replies that she may find them at Howards End. She tells her when she may pick them up, and unbeknownst to Helen, Margaret and Mr. Wilcox plan on intercepting her there with a doctor. Mr. Wilcox does not want Margaret to accompany him on the rather unpleasant business of intercepting her sister. She is clearly worn out by the situation, and he tells her that she should take some time to freshen up. As she is doing this, he attempts to depart without her. However, his plan is thwarted by an obstacle in the road and Margaret is able to catch him. It is crucial for her that she get to Helen first. Once they arrive at Howards End, Margaret rushes up to Helen, who is waiting outside. As she gets to her sister, she sees that she is pregnant. Margaret immediately unlocks the house and ushers Helen inside before anybody else can get to her.

