Chapter: Mrs. Wilcox cannot be accused of giving Margaret much information about
life. And Margaret, on the other hand, has made a fair show of modesty,
and has pretended to an inexperience that she certainly did not feel.
She had kept house for over ten years; she had entertained, almost with
distinction; she had brought up a charming sister, and was bringing up
a brother. Surely, if experience is attainable, she had attained it. Yet
the little luncheon-party that she gave in Mrs. Wilcox's honour was not
a success. The new friend did not blend with the "one or two delightful
people" who had been asked to meet her, and the atmosphere was one of
polite bewilderment. Her tastes were simple, her knowledge of culture
slight, and she was not interested in the New English Art Club, nor in
the dividing-line between Journalism and Literature, which was started
as a conversational hare. The delightful people darted after it with
cries of joy, Margaret leading them, and not till the meal was half
over did they realise that the principal guest had taken no part in the
chase. There was no common topic. Mrs. Wilcox, whose life had been spent
in the service of husband and sons, had little to say to strangers who
had never shared it, and whose age was half her own. Clever talk alarmed
her, and withered her delicate imaginings; it was the social counterpart
of a motor-car, all jerks, and she was a wisp of hay, a flower. Twice
she deplored the weather, twice criticised the train service on the
Great Northern Railway. They vigorously assented, and rushed on, and
when she inquired whether there was any news of Helen, her hostess was
too much occupied in placing Rothenstein to answer. The question was
repeated: "I hope that your sister is safe in Germany by now." Margaret
checked herself and said, "Yes, thank you; I heard on Tuesday." But the
demon of vociferation was in her, and the next moment she was off again.

"Only on Tuesday, for they live right away at Stettin. Did you ever know
any one living at Stettin?"

"Never," said Mrs. Wilcox gravely, while her neighbour, a young man low
down in the Education Office, began to discuss what people who lived
at Stettin ought to look like. Was there such a thing as Stettininity?
Margaret swept on.

"People at Stettin drop things into boats out of overhanging warehouses.
At least, our cousins do, but aren't particularly rich. The town isn't
interesting, except for a clock that rolls its eyes, and the view of the
Oder, which truly is something special. Oh, Mrs. Wilcox, you would
love the Oder! The river, or rather rivers--there seem to be dozens
of them--are intense blue, and the plain they run through an intensest
green."

"Indeed! That sounds like a most beautiful view, Miss Schlegel."

"So I say, but Helen, who will muddle things, says no, it's like music.
The course of the Oder is to be like music. It's obliged to remind her
of a symphonic poem. The part by the landing-stage is in B minor, if I
remember rightly, but lower down things get extremely mixed. There is a
slodgy theme in several keys at once, meaning mud-banks, and another for
the navigable canal, and the exit into the Baltic is in C sharp major,
pianissimo."

"What do the overhanging warehouses make of that?" asked the man,
laughing.

"They make a great deal of it," replied Margaret, unexpectedly rushing
off on a new track. "I think it's affectation to compare the Oder to
music, and so do you, but the overhanging warehouses of Stettin take
beauty seriously, which we don't, and the average Englishman doesn't,
and despises all who do. Now don't say 'Germans have no taste,' or I
shall scream. They haven't. But--but--such a tremendous but!--they take
poetry seriously. They do take poetry seriously."

"Is anything gained by that?"

"Yes, yes. The German is always on the lookout for beauty. He may miss
it through stupidity, or misinterpret it, but he is always asking
beauty to enter his life, and I believe that in the end it will come. At
Heidelberg I met a fat veterinary surgeon whose voice broke with sobs as
he repeated some mawkish poetry. So easy for me to laugh--I, who never
repeat poetry, good or bad, and cannot remember one fragment of verse
to thrill myself with. My blood boils--well, I 'm half German, so put
it down to patriotism--when I listen to the tasteful contempt of the
average islander for things Teutonic, whether they're Bocklin or my
veterinary surgeon. 'Oh, Bocklin,' they say; 'he strains after beauty,
he peoples Nature with gods too consciously.' Of course Bocklin strains,
because he wants something--beauty and all the other intangible gifts
that are floating about the world. So his landscapes don't come off, and
Leader's do."

"I am not sure that I agree. Do you?" said he, turning to Mrs. Wilcox.

She replied: "I think Miss Schlegel puts everything splendidly;" and a
chill fell on the conversation.

"Oh, Mrs. Wilcox, say something nicer than that. It's such a snub to be
told you put things splendidly."

"I do not mean it as a snub. Your last speech interested me so much.
Generally people do not seem quite to like Germany. I have long wanted
to hear what is said on the other side."

"The other side? Then you do disagree. Oh, good! Give us your side."

"I have no side. But my husband"--her voice softened, the chill
increased--"has very little faith in the Continent, and our children
have all taken after him."

"On what grounds? Do they feel that the Continent is in bad form?"

Mrs. Wilcox had no idea; she paid little attention to grounds. She was
not intellectual, nor even alert, and it was odd that, all the same, she
should give the idea of greatness. Margaret, zigzagging with her friends
over Thought and Art, was conscious of a personality that transcended
their own and dwarfed their activities. There was no bitterness in Mrs.
Wilcox; there was not even criticism; she was lovable, and no ungracious
or uncharitable word had passed her lips. Yet she and daily life were
out of focus; one or the other must show blurred. And at lunch she
seemed more out of focus than usual, and nearer the line that divides
daily life from a life that may be of greater importance.

"You will admit, though, that the Continent--it seems silly to speak of
'the Continent,' but really it is all more like itself than any part of
it is like England. England is unique. Do have another jelly first. I
was going to say that the Continent, for good or for evil, is interested
in ideas. Its Literature and Art have what one might call the kink of
the unseen about them, and this persists even through decadence and
affectation. There is more liberty of action in England, but for liberty
of thought go to bureaucratic Prussia. People will there discuss with
humility vital questions that we here think ourselves too good to touch
with tongs."

"I do not want to go to Prussia," said Mrs. Wilcox "not even to see
that interesting view that you were describing. And for discussing with
humility I am too old. We never discuss anything at Howards End."

"Then you ought to!" said Margaret. "Discussion keeps a house alive. It
cannot stand by bricks and mortar alone."

"It cannot stand without them," said Mrs. Wilcox, unexpectedly catching
on to the thought, and rousing, for the first and last time, a faint
hope in the breasts of the delightful people. "It cannot stand without
them, and I sometimes think--But I cannot expect your generation to
agree, for even my daughter disagrees with me here."

"Never mind us or her. Do say!"

"I sometimes think that it is wiser to leave action and discussion to
men."

There was a little silence.

"One admits that the arguments against the suffrage ARE extraordinarily
strong," said a girl opposite, leaning forward and crumbling her bread.

"Are they? I never follow any arguments. I am only too thankful not to
have a vote myself."

"We didn't mean the vote, though, did we?" supplied Margaret. "Aren't
we differing on something much wider, Mrs. Wilcox? Whether women are to
remain what they have been since the dawn of history; or whether, since
men have moved forward so far, they too may move forward a little now. I
say they may. I would even admit a biological change."

"I don't know, I don't know."

"I must be getting back to my overhanging warehouse," said the man.
"They've turned disgracefully strict."

Mrs. Wilcox also rose.

"Oh, but come upstairs for a little. Miss Quested plays. Do you like
MacDowell? Do you mind his only having two noises? If you must really
go, I'll see you out. Won't you even have coffee?"

They left the dining-room closing the door behind them, and as Mrs.
Wilcox buttoned up her jacket, she said: "What an interesting life you
all lead in London!"

"No, we don't," said Margaret, with a sudden revulsion. "We lead the
lives of gibbering monkeys. Mrs. Wilcox--really--We have something quiet
and stable at the bottom. We really have. All my friends have. Don't
pretend you enjoyed lunch, for you loathed it, but forgive me by coming
again, alone, or by asking me to you."

"I am used to young people," said Mrs. Wilcox, and with each word she
spoke the outlines of known things grew dim. "I hear a great deal of
chatter at home, for we, like you, entertain a great deal. With us it
is more sport and politics, but--I enjoyed my lunch very much, Miss
Schlegel, dear, and am not pretending, and only wish I could have joined
in more. For one thing, I'm not particularly well just to-day. For
another, you younger people move so quickly that it dazes me. Charles
is the same, Dolly the same. But we are all in the same boat, old and
young. I never forget that."

They were silent for a moment. Then, with a newborn emotion, they shook
hands. The conversation ceased suddenly when Margaret re-entered the
dining-room; her friends had been talking over her new friend, and had
dismissed her as uninteresting.

 Margaret, it is revealed, wasn't being entirely honest with her new friend - in fact, she thinks of herself as quite experienced. Even so, she isn't experienced enough to foresee the disaster that arrives when she throws a luncheon party for Mrs. Wilcox. She invites some usual Schlegel guests over; these clever people with their witty, whimsical conversations are too much for Mrs. Wilcox, and she finds herself with nothing to contribute beyond small talk. Margaret and her friends chatter on and on, but Mrs. Wilcox doesn't fit in with them at all. She makes herself rather unpopular with some old-fashioned statements about a woman's proper place, and excuses herself early. All the same, Margaret has the odd feeling that there's something more to her new friend than meets the eye .

