Chapter: 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's a beautiful day in Hilton, and the narrator ominously tells us that it's the last happy day Margaret will have for a while. She walks through the village, and as she does, the narrator muses about England and Englishness , wondering why England doesn't have a national mythology. Margaret gets to the Avery farm, where she stops to pick up the keys to Howards End. She's met by Miss Avery's young niece, who seems to hold her in great respect. Since Miss Avery is at Howards End , the young lady insists on walking Margaret to the house. Miss Avery is indeed at Howards End, and she's locked herself in. She sends her embarrassed niece, Madge, away, but lets Margaret into the house. Miss Avery politely and sanely invites Margaret in, and she's alarmed to see that all of the furnishings of the house are her own. Miss Avery has even hung up the Schlegels' father's sword, which seems like rather an odd choice. Margaret tries to explain that the cases were meant to stay packed up, and that they're not moving into the house. Miss Avery simply states that the house has been empty for too long, and Margaret does her best to reason with the stubborn old lady. There's some confusion about the "Mrs. Wilcoxes" that Miss Avery keeps referring to - is she referring to Ruth or Margaret? One thing is clear: she thinks that the house belongs to Mrs. Wilcox, whichever one. Miss Avery walks Margaret through the house, which is almost completely furnished with the Schlegel belongings. Margaret protests that she and Mr. Wilcox aren't going to live at Howards End, but Miss Avery is not to be dissuaded - she says ominously that Margaret doesn't think she'll ever live at Howards End, but she will. She oddly states that Margaret has been living there for the last ten minutes. Seriously weird. Miss Avery mocks the Wilcoxes for their hay fever - they're unfit to live in the country. She admits that Wilcoxes are better than nothing, but she clearly has real disdain for them. For Ruth Wilcox and her family, the Howards, however, Miss Avery has great affection and respect. She thinks that Ruth shouldn't ever have married Henry; instead, she says, her old friend should have married "a real soldier," a statement that obliquely criticizes Mr. Wilcox. Margaret tells Miss Avery once more that they're not moving in to Howards End, then makes her excuses and goes back to London, where Mr. Wilcox has some suggestions about what to do with the furniture. Before she can sort it all out, though, she has an unfortunate surprise.

