Chapter: Over two years passed, and the Schlegel household continued to lead its
life of cultured, but not ignoble, ease, still swimming gracefully on
the grey tides of London. Concerts and plays swept past them, money had
been spent and renewed, reputations won and lost, and the city herself,
emblematic of their lives, rose and fell in a continual flux, while her
shallows washed more widely against the hills of Surrey and over the
fields of Hertfordshire. This famous building had arisen, that was
doomed. To-day Whitehall had been transformed; it would be the turn
of Regent Street to-morrow. And month by month the roads smelt more
strongly of petrol, and were more difficult to cross, and human beings
heard each other speak with greater difficulty, breathed less of the
air, and saw less of the sky. Nature withdrew; the leaves were falling
by midsummer; the sun shone through dirt with an admired obscurity.

To speak against London is no longer fashionable. The Earth as an
artistic cult has had its day, and the literature of the near future
will probably ignore the country and seek inspiration from the town. One
can understand the reaction. Of Pan and the elemental forces, the public
has heard a 'little too much--they seem Victorian, while London is
Georgian--and those who care for the earth with sincerity may wait long
ere the pendulum swings back to her again. Certainly London fascinates.
One visualises it as a tract of quivering grey, intelligent without
purpose, and excitable without love; as a spirit that has altered before
it can be chronicled; as a heart that certainly beats, but with no
pulsation of humanity. It lies beyond everything; Nature, with all
her cruelty, comes nearer to us than do these crowds of men. A friend
explains himself; the earth is explicable--from her we came, and we must
return to her. But who can explain Westminster Bridge Road or Liverpool
Street in the morning--the city inhaling--or the same thoroughfares
in the evening--the city exhaling her exhausted air? We reach in
desperation beyond the fog, beyond the very stars, the voids of the
universe are ransacked to justify the monster, and stamped with a human
face. London is religion's opportunity--not the decorous religion of
theologians, but anthropomorphic, crude. Yes, the continuous flow
would be tolerable if a man of our own sort--not any one pompous or
tearful--were caring for us up in the sky.

The Londoner seldom understands his city until it sweeps him, too, away
from his moorings, and Margaret's eyes were not opened until the lease
of Wickham Place expired. She had always known that it must expire, but
the knowledge only became vivid about nine months before the event.
Then the house was suddenly ringed with pathos. It had seen so much
happiness. Why had it to be swept away? In the streets of the city
she noted for the first time the architecture of hurry and heard the
language of hurry on the mouths of its inhabitants--clipped words,
formless sentences, potted expressions of approval or disgust. Month by
month things were stepping livelier, but to what goal? The population
still rose, but what was the quality of the men born? The particular
millionaire who owned the freehold of Wickham Place, and desired to
erect Babylonian flats upon it--what right had he to stir so large a
portion of the quivering jelly? He was not a fool--she had heard him
expose Socialism--but true insight began just where his intelligence
ended, and one gathered that this was the case with most millionaires.
What right had such men--But Margaret checked herself. That way lies
madness. Thank goodness, she, too, had some money, and could purchase a
new home.

Tibby, now in his second year at Oxford, was down for the Easter
vacation, and Margaret took the opportunity of having a serious talk
with him. Did he at all know where he wanted to live? Tibby didn't
know that he did know. Did he at all know what he wanted to do? He was
equally uncertain, but when pressed remarked that he should prefer to
be quite free of any profession. Margaret was not shocked, but went on
sewing for a few minutes before she replied:

"I was thinking of Mr. Vyse. He never strikes me as particularly happy.

"Ye--es." said Tibby, and then held his mouth open in a curious quiver,
as if he, too, had thought of Mr. Vyse, had seen round, through, over,
and beyond Mr. Vyse, had weighed Mr. Vyse, grouped him, and finally
dismissed him as having no possible bearing on the Subject under
discussion. That bleat of Tibby's infuriated Helen. But Helen was now
down in the dining room preparing a speech about political economy. At
times her voice could be heard declaiming through the floor.

"But Mr. Vyse is rather a wretched, weedy man, don't you think? Then
there's Guy. That was a pitiful business. Besides"--shifting to the
general--"every one is the better for some regular work."

Groans.

"I shall stick to it," she continued, smiling. "I am not saying it
to educate you; it is what I really think. I believe that in the last
century men have developed the desire for work, and they must not starve
it. It's a new desire. It goes with a great deal that's bad, but in
itself it's good, and I hope that for women, too, 'not to work' will
soon become as shocking as 'not to be married' was a hundred years ago."

"I have no experience of this profound desire to which you allude,"
enunciated Tibby.

"Then we'll leave the subject till you do. I'm not going to rattle you
round. Take your time. Only do think over the lives of the men you like
most, and see how they've arranged them."

"I like Guy and Mr. Vyse most," said Tibby faintly, and leant so far
back in his chair that he extended in a horizontal line from knees to
throat.

"And don't think I'm not serious because I don't use the traditional
arguments--making money, a sphere awaiting you, and so on--all of which
are, for various reasons, cant." She sewed on. "I'm only your sister.
I haven't any authority over you, and I don't want to have any. Just
to put before you what I think the Truth. You see"--she shook off the
pince-nez to which she had recently taken--"in a few years we shall be
the same age practically, and I shall want you to help me. Men are so
much nicer than women."

"Labouring under such a delusion, why do you not marry?"

"I sometimes jolly well think I would if I got the chance."

"Has nobody arst you?"

"Only ninnies."

"Do people ask Helen?"

"Plentifully."

"Tell me about them."

"No."

"Tell me about your ninnies, then."

"They were men who had nothing better to do," said his sister, feeling
that she was entitled to score this point. "So take warning; you must
work, or else you must pretend to work, which is what I do. Work, work,
work if you'd save your soul and your body. It is honestly a necessity,
dear boy. Look at the Wilcoxes, look at Mr. Pembroke. With all their
defects of temper and understanding, such men give me more pleasure than
many who are better equipped, and I think it is because they have worked
regularly and honestly."

"Spare me the Wilcoxes," he moaned.

"I shall not. They are the right sort."

"Oh, goodness me, Meg--!" he protested, suddenly sitting up, alert and
angry. Tibby, for all his defects, had a genuine personality.

"Well, they're as near the right sort as you can imagine."

"No, no--oh, no!"

"I was thinking of the younger son, whom I once classed as a ninny,
but who came back so ill from Nigeria. He's gone out there again, Evie
Wilcox tells me--out to his duty."

"Duty" always elicited a groan.

"He doesn't want the money, it is work he wants, though it is beastly
work--dull country, dishonest natives, an eternal fidget over fresh
water and food... A nation that can produce men of that sort may well be
proud. No wonder England has become an Empire.

"EMPIRE!"

"I can't bother over results," said Margaret, a little sadly. "They are
too difficult for me. I can only look at the men. An Empire bores me,
so far, but I can appreciate the heroism that builds it up. London
bores me, but what thousands of splendid people are labouring to make
London--"

"What it is," he sneered.

"What it is, worse luck. I want activity without civilisation. How
paradoxical! Yet I expect that is what we shall find in heaven."

"And I," said Tibby, "want civilisation without activity, which, I
expect, is what we shall find in the other place."

"You needn't go as far as the other place, Tibbikins, if you want that.
You can find it at Oxford."

"Stupid--"

"If I'm stupid, get me back to the house-hunting. I'll even live in
Oxford if you like--North Oxford. I'll live anywhere except Bournemouth,
Torquay, and Cheltenham. Oh yes, or Ilfracombe and Swanage and Tunbridge
Wells and Surbiton and Bedford. There on no account."

"London, then."

"I agree, but Helen rather wants to get away from London. However,
there's no reason we shouldn't have a house in the country and also a
flat in town, provided we all stick together and contribute. Though of
course--Oh, how one does maunder on and to think, to think of the people
who are really poor. How do they live? Not to move about the world would
kill me."

As she spoke, the door was flung open, and Helen burst in in a state of
extreme excitement.

"Oh, my dears, what do you think? You'll never guess. A woman's been
here asking me for her husband. Her WHAT?" (Helen was fond of supplying
her own surprise.) "Yes, for her husband, and it really is so."

"Not anything to do with Bracknell?" cried Margaret, who had lately
taken on an unemployed of that name to clean the knives and boots.

"I offered Bracknell, and he was rejected. So was Tibby. (Cheer up,
Tibby!) It's no one we know. I said, 'Hunt, my good woman; have a good
look round, hunt under the tables, poke up the chimney, shake out the
antimacassars. Husband? husband?' Oh, and she so magnificently dressed
and tinkling like a chandelier."

"Now, Helen, what did really happen?"

"What I say. I was, as it were, orating my speech. Annie opens the door
like a fool, and shows a female straight in on me, with my mouth open.
Then we began--very civilly. 'I want my husband, what I have reason to
believe is here.' No--how unjust one is. She said 'whom,' not 'what.'
She got it perfectly. So I said, 'Name, please?' and she said, 'Lan,
Miss,' and there we were.

"Lan?"

"Lan or Len. We were not nice about our vowels. Lanoline."

"But what an extraordinary--"

"I said, 'My good Mrs. Lanoline, we have some grave misunderstanding
here. Beautiful as I am, my modesty is even more remarkable than my
beauty, and never, never has Mr. Lanoline rested his eyes on mine.'"

"I hope you were pleased," said Tibby.

"Of course," Helen squeaked. "A perfectly delightful experience.
Oh, Mrs. Lanoline's a dear--she asked for a husband as if he were
an umbrella. She mislaid him Saturday afternoon--and for a long time
suffered no inconvenience. But all night, and all this morning her
apprehensions grew. Breakfast didn't seem the same--no, no more did
lunch, and so she strolled up to 2 Wickham Place as being the most
likely place for the missing article."

"But how on earth--"

"Don't begin how on earthing. 'I know what I know,' she kept repeating,
not uncivilly, but with extreme gloom. In vain I asked her what she did
know. Some knew what others knew, and others didn't, and then others
again had better be careful. Oh dear, she was incompetent! She had
a face like a silkworm, and the dining-room reeks of orris-root. We
chatted pleasantly a little about husbands, and I wondered where hers
was too, and advised her to go to the police. She thanked me. We agreed
that Mr. Lanoline's a notty, notty man, and hasn't no business to go
on the lardy-da. But I think she suspected me up to the last. Bags I
writing to Aunt Juley about this. Now, Meg, remember--bags I."

"Bag it by all means," murmured Margaret, putting down her work. "I'm
not sure that this is so funny, Helen. It means some horrible volcano
smoking somewhere, doesn't it?"

"I don't think so--she doesn't really mind. The admirable creature isn't
capable of tragedy."

"Her husband may be, though," said Margaret, moving to the window.

"Oh no, not likely. No one capable of tragedy could have married Mrs.
Lanoline."

"Was she pretty?"

"Her figure may have been good once."

The flats, their only outlook, hung like an ornate curtain between
Margaret and the welter of London. Her thoughts turned sadly
to house-hunting. Wickham Place had been so safe. She feared,
fantastically, that her own little flock might be moving into turmoil
and squalor, into nearer contact with such episodes as these.

"Tibby and I have again been wondering where we'll live next September,"
she said at last.

"Tibby had better first wonder what he'll do," retorted Helen; and that
topic was resumed, but with acrimony. Then tea came, and after tea Helen
went on preparing her speech, and Margaret prepared one, too, for they
were going out to a discussion society on the morrow. But her thoughts
were poisoned. Mrs. Lanoline had risen out of the abyss, like a faint
smell, a goblin football, telling of a life where love and hatred had
both decayed.

 Two years pass. The Schlegels go about their business as usual, in the midst of a changing cityscape - London is getting bigger and badder. The narrator goes off on a little diatribe about the development of the city; he's distraught by the changes wrought by modern times. Margaret is also distraught - the lease on Wickham Place is finally up, which means they have to find a new house. Tibby is visiting from Oxford, and Margaret takes the opportunity to ask him his opinion, both about the house situation and about his future. He has no answers to either question. It turns out that Tibby doesn't want to do anything at all in life, even though Margaret holds up two examples of their acquaintances who don't have professions, and don't seem happy. Tibby complains, but Margaret presses on, saying that all men should work. Margaret likes men in general much better than women, and Tibby distracts her by asking why she doesn't just get married. Margaret says that her proposals all came from "ninnies" - men who didn't have anything else to do . She emphasizes the importance of work to Tibby, and brings up the example of the Wilcoxes, who she claims are "the right sort." Margaret has more traditional views than her brother or sister, and thinks that the Wilcox urge to earn money and do one's duty is a good thing. Neither Tibby nor Margaret care much for what London has become, but she admires the activity that goes into it. They abandon the futile subject of Tibby's career, and go back to house hunting. It's clear that they should stay in London, but Helen and Margaret thought that they might get a house in the country and keep a flat in the city. Helen busts into the room in a tizzy. Apparently, there's been some excitement downstairs - a woman came by seeking her husband. The siblings wonder if it's Bracknell, a newly employed servant, but it seems that it's not. Who could it be? Helen can't believe how hilarious this is. She calls the mystery woman "Mrs. Lanoline" . Nobody knows why she thought her husband was at Wickham Place, but she insists that she has her reasons. Helen advised Mrs. Lanoline to go to the police, and she leaves - but Helen's sure that she suspected the Schlegels all along of...something. To Helen this is all a joke to write to Aunt Juley about, but Margaret is worried that it might be something more serious. Margaret worries about leaving Wickham Place. What will await them out in the city? The whole episode leaves a bad taste in her mouth.

