Chapter: Several days passed.

Was Mrs. Wilcox one of the unsatisfactory people--there are many of
them--who dangle intimacy and then withdraw it? They evoke our interests
and affections, and keep the life of the spirit dawdling round them.
Then they withdraw. When physical passion is involved, there is a
definite name for such behaviour--flirting--and if carried far enough
it is punishable by law. But no law--not public opinion even--punishes
those who coquette with friendship, though the dull ache that they
inflict, the sense of misdirected effort and exhaustion, may be as
intolerable. Was she one of these?

Margaret feared so at first, for, with a Londoner's impatience, she
wanted everything to be settled up immediately. She mistrusted the
periods of quiet that are essential to true growth. Desiring to book
Mrs. Wilcox as a friend, she pressed on the ceremony, pencil, as it
were, in hand, pressing the more because the rest of the family were
away, and the opportunity seemed favourable. But the elder woman would
not be hurried. She refused to fit in with the Wickham Place set, or to
reopen discussion of Helen and Paul, whom Margaret would have utilised
as a short-cut. She took her time, or perhaps let time take her, and
when the crisis did come all was ready.

The crisis opened with a message: Would Miss Schlegel come shopping?
Christmas was nearing, and Mrs. Wilcox felt behindhand with the
presents. She had taken some more days in bed, and must make up for lost
time. Margaret accepted, and at eleven o'clock one cheerless morning
they started out in a brougham.

"First of all," began Margaret, "we must make a list and tick off the
people's names. My aunt always does, and this fog may thicken up any
moment. Have you any ideas?"

"I thought we would go to Harrods or the Haymarket Stores," said Mrs.
Wilcox rather hopelessly. "Everything is sure to be there. I am not a
good shopper. The din is so confusing, and your aunt is quite right--one
ought to make a list. Take my notebook, then, and write your own name at
the top of the page.

"Oh, hooray!" said Margaret, writing it. "How very kind of you to start
with me!" But she did not want to receive anything expensive. Their
acquaintance was singular rather than intimate, and she divined that the
Wilcox clan would resent any expenditure on outsiders; the more compact
families do. She did not want to be thought a second Helen, who would
snatch presents since she could not snatch young men, nor to be exposed
like a second Aunt Juley, to the insults of Charles. A certain austerity
of demeanour was best, and she added: "I don't really want a Yuletide
gift, though. In fact, I'd rather not."

"Why?"

"Because I've odd ideas about Christmas. Because I have all that money
can buy. I want more people, but no more things."

"I should like to give you something worth your acquaintance, Miss
Schlegel, in memory of your kindness to me during my lonely fortnight.
It has so happened that I have been left alone, and you have stopped me
from brooding. I am too apt to brood."

"If that is so," said Margaret, "if I have happened to be of use to you,
which I didn't know, you cannot pay me back with anything tangible."

"I suppose not, but one would like to. Perhaps I shall think of
something as we go about."

Her name remained at the head of the list, but nothing was written
opposite it. They drove from shop to shop. The air was white, and when
they alighted it tasted like cold pennies. At times they passed through
a clot of grey. Mrs. Wilcox's vitality was low that morning, and it was
Margaret who decided on a horse for this little girl, a golliwog for
that, for the rector's wife a copper warming-tray. "We always give the
servants money." "Yes, do you, yes, much easier," replied Margaret but
felt the grotesque impact of the unseen upon the seen, and saw issuing
from a forgotten manger at Bethlehem this torrent of coins and toys.
Vulgarity reigned. Public-houses, besides their usual exhortation
against temperance reform, invited men to "Join our Christmas goose
club"--one bottle of gin, etc., or two, according to subscription. A
poster of a woman in tights heralded the Christmas pantomime, and little
red devils, who had come in again that year, were prevalent upon the
Christmas-cards. Margaret was no morbid idealist. She did not wish
this spate of business and self-advertisement checked. It was only the
occasion of it that struck her with amazement annually. How many of
these vacillating shoppers and tired shop-assistants realised that it
was a divine event that drew them together? She realised it, though
standing outside in the matter. She was not a Christian in the accepted
sense; she did not believe that God had ever worked among us as a young
artisan. These people, or most of them, believed it, and if pressed,
would affirm it in words. But the visible signs of their belief were
Regent Street or Drury Lane, a little mud displaced, a little money
spent, a little food cooked, eaten, and forgotten. Inadequate. But in
public who shall express the unseen adequately? It is private life that
holds out the mirror to infinity; personal intercourse, and that alone,
that ever hints at a personality beyond our daily vision.

"No, I do like Christmas on the whole," she announced. "In its clumsy
way, it does approach Peace and Goodwill. But oh, it is clumsier every
year."

"Is it? I am only used to country Christmases."

"We are usually in London, and play the game with vigour--carols at
the Abbey, clumsy midday meal, clumsy dinner for the maids, followed by
Christmas-tree and dancing of poor children, with songs from Helen.
The drawing-room does very well for that. We put the tree in the
powder-closet, and draw a curtain when the candles are lighted, and with
the looking-glass behind it looks quite pretty. I wish we might have
a powder-closet in our next house. Of course, the tree has to be very
small, and the presents don't hang on it. No; the presents reside in a
sort of rocky landscape made of crumpled brown paper."

"You spoke of your 'next house,' Miss Schlegel. Then are you leaving
Wickham Place?"

"Yes, in two or three years, when the lease expires. We must."

"Have you been there long?"

"All our lives."

"You will be very sorry to leave it."

"I suppose so. We scarcely realise it yet. My father--" She broke off,
for they had reached the stationery department of the Haymarket Stores,
and Mrs. Wilcox wanted to order some private greeting cards.

"If possible, something distinctive," she sighed. At the counter
she found a friend, bent on the same errand, and conversed with
her insipidly, wasting much time. "My husband and our daughter are
motoring." "Bertha, too? Oh, fancy, what a coincidence!"

Margaret, though not practical, could shine in such company as this.
While they talked, she went through a volume of specimen cards,
and submitted one for Mrs. Wilcox's inspection. Mrs. Wilcox was
delighted--so original, words so sweet; she would order a hundred
like that, and could never be sufficiently grateful. Then, just as the
assistant was booking the order, she said: "Do you know, I'll wait. On
second thoughts, I'll wait. There's plenty of time still, isn't there,
and I shall be able to get Evie's opinion."

They returned to the carriage by devious paths; when they were in, she
said, "But couldn't you get it renewed?"

"I beg your pardon?" asked Margaret.

"The lease, I mean."

"Oh, the lease! Have you been thinking of that all the time? How very
kind of you!"

"Surely something could be done."

"No; values have risen too enormously. They mean to pull down Wickham
Place, and build flats like yours."

"But how horrible!"

"Landlords are horrible."

Then she said vehemently: "It is monstrous, Miss Schlegel; it isn't
right. I had no idea that this was hanging over you. I do pity you from
the bottom of my heart. To be parted from your house, your father's
house--it oughtn't to be allowed. It is worse than dying. I would rather
die than--Oh, poor girls! Can what they call civilisation be right, if
people mayn't die in the room where they were born? My dear, I am so
sorry."

Margaret did not know what to say. Mrs. Wilcox had been overtired by the
shopping, and was inclined to hysteria.

"Howards End was nearly pulled down once. It would have killed me."

"I--Howards End must be a very different house to ours. We are fond of
ours, but there is nothing distinctive about it. As you saw, it is an
ordinary London house. We shall easily find another."

"So you think."

"Again my lack of experience, I suppose!" said Margaret, easing away
from the subject. "I can't say anything when you take up that line, Mrs.
Wilcox. I wish I could see myself as you see me--foreshortened into a
backfisch. Quite the ingenue. Very charming--wonderfully well read for
my age, but incapable--"

Mrs. Wilcox would not be deterred. "Come down with me to Howards End
now," she said, more vehemently than ever. "I want you to see it. You
have never seen it. I want to hear what you say about it, for you do put
things so wonderfully."

Margaret glanced at the pitiless air and then at the tired face of her
companion. "Later on I should love it," she continued, "but it's hardly
the weather for such an expedition, and we ought to start when we're
fresh. Isn't the house shut up, too?"

She received no answer. Mrs. Wilcox appeared to be annoyed.

"Might I come some other day?"

Mrs. Wilcox bent forward and tapped the glass. "Back to Wickham Place,
please!" was her order to the coachman. Margaret had been snubbed.

"A thousand thanks, Miss Schlegel, for all your help."

"Not at all."

"It is such a comfort to get the presents off my mind--the
Christmas-cards especially. I do admire your choice."

It was her turn to receive no answer. In her turn Margaret became
annoyed.

"My husband and Evie will be back the day after to-morrow. That is why
I dragged you out shopping to-day. I stayed in town chiefly to shop,
but got through nothing, and now he writes that they must cut their
tour short, the weather is so bad, and the police-traps have been so
bad--nearly as bad as in Surrey. Ours is such a careful chauffeur, and
my husband feels it particularly hard that they should be treated like
road-hogs."

"Why?"

"Well, naturally he--he isn't a road-hog."

"He was exceeding the speed-limit, I conclude. He must expect to suffer
with the lower animals."

Mrs. Wilcox was silenced. In growing discomfort they drove homewards.
The city seemed Satanic, the narrower streets oppressing like the
galleries of a mine.

No harm was done by the fog to trade, for it lay high, and the lighted
windows of the shops were thronged with customers. It was rather a
darkening of the spirit which fell back upon itself, to find a more
grievous darkness within. Margaret nearly spoke a dozen times, but
something throttled her. She felt petty and awkward, and her meditations
on Christmas grew more cynical. Peace? It may bring other gifts, but is
there a single Londoner to whom Christmas is peaceful? The craving for
excitement and for elaboration has ruined that blessing. Goodwill? Had
she seen any example of it in the hordes of purchasers? Or in herself?
She had failed to respond to this invitation merely because it was a
little queer and imaginative--she, whose birthright it was to nourish
imagination! Better to have accepted, to have tired themselves a little
by the journey, than coldly to reply, "Might I come some other day?" Her
cynicism left her. There would be no other day. This shadowy woman would
never ask her again.

They parted at the Mansions. Mrs. Wilcox went in after due civilities,
and Margaret watched the tall, lonely figure sweep up the hall to
the lift. As the glass doors closed on it she had the sense of an
imprisonment The beautiful head disappeared first, still buried in the
muff; the long trailing skirt followed. A woman of undefinable rarity
was going up heavenward, like a specimen in a bottle. And into what a
heaven--a vault as of hell, sooty black, from which soot descended!

At lunch her brother, seeing her inclined for silence insisted on
talking. Tibby was not ill-natured, but from babyhood something drove
him to do the unwelcome and the unexpected. Now he gave her a long
account of the day-school that he sometimes patronised. The account was
interesting, and she had often pressed him for it before, but she
could not attend now, for her mind was focussed on the invisible. She
discerned that Mrs. Wilcox, though a loving wife and mother, had only
one passion in life--her house--and that the moment was solemn when she
invited a friend to share this passion with her. To answer "another day"
was to answer as a fool. "Another day" will do for brick and mortar, but
not for the Holy of Holies into which Howards End had been transfigured.
Her own curiosity was slight. She had heard more than enough about it in
the summer. The nine windows, the vine, and the wych-elm had no pleasant
connections for her, and she would have preferred to spend the afternoon
at a concert. But imagination triumphed. While her brother held forth
she determined to go, at whatever cost, and to compel Mrs. Wilcox to go,
too. When lunch was over she stepped over to the flats.

Mrs. Wilcox had just gone away for the night.

Margaret said that it was of no consequence, hurried downstairs, and
took a hansom to King's Cross. She was convinced that the escapade
was important, though it would have puzzled her to say why. There was
question of imprisonment and escape, and though she did not know the
time of the train, she strained her eyes for St. Pancras's clock.

Then the clock of King's Cross swung into sight, a second moon in that
infernal sky, and her cab drew up at the station. There was a train for
Hilton in five minutes. She took a ticket, asking in her agitation for
a single. As she did so, a grave and happy voice saluted her and thanked
her.

"I will come if I still may," said Margaret, laughing nervously.

"You are coming to sleep, dear, too. It is in the morning that my house
is most beautiful. You are coming to stop. I cannot show you my meadow
properly except at sunrise. These fogs"--she pointed at the station
roof--"never spread far. I dare say they are sitting in the sun in
Hertfordshire, and you will never repent joining them."

"I shall never repent joining you."

"It is the same."

They began the walk up the long platform. Far at its end stood the
train, breasting the darkness without. They never reached it. Before
imagination could triumph, there were cries of "Mother! mother!" and a
heavy-browed girl darted out of the cloak-room and seized Mrs. Wilcox by
the arm.

"Evie!" she gasped--"Evie, my pet--"

The girl called, "Father! I say! look who's here."

"Evie, dearest girl, why aren't you in Yorkshire?"

"No--motor smash--changed plans--father's coming."

"Why, Ruth!" cried Mr. Wilcox, joining them, "what in the name of all
that's wonderful are you doing here, Ruth?"

Mrs. Wilcox had recovered herself.

"Oh, Henry dear!--here's a lovely surprise--but let me introduce--but I
think you know Miss Schlegel."

"Oh yes," he replied, not greatly interested. "But how's yourself,
Ruth?"

"Fit as a fiddle," she answered gaily.

"So are we, and so was our car, which ran A1 as far as Ripon, but there
a wretched horse and cart which a fool of a driver--"

"Miss Schlegel, our little outing must be for another day."

"I was saying that this fool of a driver, as the policeman himself
admits."

"Another day, Mrs. Wilcox. Of course."

"--But as we've insured against third party risks, it won't so much
matter--"

"--Cart and car being practically at right angles--"

The voices of the happy family rose high. Margaret was left alone.
No one wanted her. Mrs. Wilcox walked out of King's Cross between her
husband and her daughter, listening to both of them.

 After several days, Margaret worries that she and Mrs. Wilcox will never become close friends. Then, just as Margaret is despairing, Mrs. Wilcox asks her to go Christmas shopping. The two of them drive around all day, looking for Christmas presents. Margaret describes a typical Schlegel family Christmas, and mentions in passing that they'll be moving soon. Apparently, the Schlegels will be forced to move out of Wickham Place in a few years, when their lease is up, despite the fact that they've lived there their whole lives. Mrs. Wilcox chats with an acquaintance as Margaret efficiently helps her pick out some new Christmas cards. As they return to their carriage, Mrs. Wilcox brings up the house again - she's clearly troubled by the fact that the Schlegels are going to be turned out. It emerges that the Wickham Place house is going to be demolished to make room for new flats; if Howards End were ever pulled down, Mrs. Wilcox would freak out. She gets carried away and asks Margaret to come to Howards End with her right then. Margaret makes an excuse, and they return to Wickham Place - clearly, no was not the right answer. The atmosphere is decidedly awkward. Mrs. Wilcox attempts to make small talk, but now Margaret feels upset, too. They drive home in uncomfortable silence. Back at Wickham Place, Margaret feels awful. How come she didn't say yes when Mrs. Wilcox asked her to come to Howards End? Tibby, contrarily, sees that his sister is feeling quiet, so he feels like talking all of a sudden. He jabbers on and on, while Margaret agonizes about her missed opportunity to see the famous Howards End. As soon as lunch is over, she goes across the street, but finds that Mrs. Wilcox has left for the night. She goes to the train station to see if she can find Mrs. Wilcox - as she's buying a ticket to Hilton to find Howards End, the two friends find each other, and it's decided that they'll go spend the night at the house. As they're about to leave, though, they run into two unexpected arrivals - Evie and Mr. Wilcox are back early from their driving trip in Yorkshire, due to a car crash. The trip to Howards End is postponed.

