Howards End (37 page)

“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 Charleses 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 sympathized, but in a formal fashion, and Dolly little imagined that the step-mother 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 enameled 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 anyone 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 duckpond.”

“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 not she have given the present to Evie in remembrance of her mother?”

“That's a notion. Give everyone 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 Charleses‘, 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 countryside 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, nor about the view, which nevertheless expanded. The great estates that throt tie 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 acquired 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 transitori ness 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 tranquillizing 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 them 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 filled 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 someone 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.