Books: Howards End

E >> E. M. Forster >> Howards End

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25

Howards End

by E. M. Forster

One may as well begin with Helen's letters to her sister.

"Howards End,
"Tuesday.
"Dearest Meg,

"It isn't going to be what we expected. It is old and little, and
altogether delightful--red brick. We can scarcely pack in as it
is, and the dear knows what will happen when Paul (younger son)
arrives to-morrow. From hall you go right or left into
dining-room or drawing-room. Hall itself is practically a room.
You open another door in it, and there are the stairs going up in
a sort of tunnel to the first-floor. Three bed-rooms in a row
there, and three attics in a row above. That isn't all the house
really, but it's all that one notices--nine windows as you look
up from the front garden.

"Then there's a very big wych-elm--to the left as you look
up--leaning a little over the house, and standing on the boundary
between the garden and meadow. I quite love that tree already.
Also ordinary elms, oaks--no nastier than ordinary oaks--
pear-trees, apple-trees, and a vine. No silver birches, though.
However, I must get on to my host and hostess. I only wanted to
show that it isn't the least what we expected. Why did we settle
that their house would be all gables and wiggles, and their
garden all gamboge-coloured paths? I believe simply because we
associate them with expensive hotels--Mrs. Wilcox trailing in
beautiful dresses down long corridors, Mr. Wilcox bullying
porters, etc. We females are that unjust.

"I shall be back Saturday; will let you know train later. They
are as angry as I am that you did not come too; really Tibby is
too tiresome, he starts a new mortal disease every month. How
could he have got hay fever in London? and even if he could, it
seems hard that you should give up a visit to hear a schoolboy
sneeze. Tell him that Charles Wilcox (the son who is here) has
hay fever too, but he's brave, and gets quite cross when we
inquire after it. Men like the Wilcoxes would do Tibby a power of
good. But you won't agree, and I'd better change the subject.

"This long letter is because I'm writing before breakfast. Oh,
the beautiful vine leaves! The house is covered with a vine. I
looked out earlier, and Mrs. Wilcox was already in the garden.
She evidently loves it. No wonder she sometimes looks tired. She
was watching the large red poppies come out. Then she walked off
the lawn to the meadow, whose corner to the right I can just see.
Trail, trail, went her long dress over the sopping grass, and she
came back with her hands full of the hay that was cut yesterday--
I suppose for rabbits or something, as she kept on smelling it.
The air here is delicious. Later on I heard the noise of croquet
balls, and looked out again, and it was Charles Wilcox
practising; they are keen on all games. Presently he started
sneezing and had to stop. Then I hear more clicketing, and it
is Mr. Wilcox practising, and then, 'a-tissue, a-tissue': he
has to stop too. Then Evie comes out, and does some calisthenic
exercises on a machine that is tacked on to a green-gage-tree--
they put everything to use--and then she says 'a-tissue,' and in
she goes. And finally Mrs. Wilcox reappears, trail, trail, still
smelling hay and looking at the flowers. I inflict all this on
you because once you said that life is sometimes life and
sometimes only a drama, and one must learn to distinguish
tother from which, and up to now I have always put that down as
'Meg's clever nonsense.' But this morning, it really does seem
not life but a play, and it did amuse me enormously to watch the
W's. Now Mrs. Wilcox has come in.

"I am going to wear [omission]. Last night Mrs. Wilcox wore an
[omission], and Evie [omission]. So it isn't exactly a
go-as-you-please place, and if you shut your eyes it still seems
the wiggly hotel that we expected. Not if you open them. The
dog-roses are too sweet. There is a great hedge of them over the
lawn--magnificently tall, so that they fall down in garlands, and
nice and thin at the bottom, so that you can see ducks through it
and a cow. These belong to the farm, which is the only house near
us. There goes the breakfast gong. Much love. Modified love to
Tibby. Love to Aunt Juley; how good of her to come and keep you
company, but what a bore. Burn this. Will write again Thursday.

"HELEN."

Howards End
Friday

"Dearest Meg,

"I am having a glorious time. I like them all. Mrs. Wilcox, if
quieter than in Germany, is sweeter than ever, and I never saw
anything like her steady unselfishness, and the best of it is
that the others do not take advantage of her. They are the very
happiest, jolliest family that you can imagine. I do really feel
that we are making friends. The fun of it is that they think me a
noodle, and say so--at least, Mr. Wilcox does--and when that
happens, and one doesn't mind, it's a pretty sure test, isn't
it? He says the most horrid things about woman's suffrage so
nicely, and when I said I believed in equality he just folded his
arms and gave me such a setting down as I've never had. Meg,
shall we ever learn to talk less? I never felt so ashamed of
myself in my life. I couldn't point to a time when men had been
equal, nor even to a time when the wish to be equal had made them
happier in other ways. I couldn't say a word. I had just picked
up the notion that equality is good from some book--probably from
poetry, or you. Anyhow, it's been knocked into pieces, and, like
all people who are really strong, Mr. Wilcox did it without
hurting me. On the other hand, I laugh at them for catching hay
fever. We live like fighting-cocks, and Charles takes us out
every day in the motor--a tomb with trees in it, a hermit's
house, a wonderful road that was made by the Kings of Mercia--
tennis--a cricket match--bridge and at night we squeeze up in
this lovely house. The whole clan's here now--it's like a rabbit
warren. Evie is a dear. They want me to stop over Sunday--I
suppose it won't matter if I do. Marvellous weather and the views
marvellous--views westward to the high ground. Thank you for your
letter. Burn this.

"Your affectionate
"HELEN."

"Howards End,
"Sunday.

"Dearest, dearest Meg,--I do not know what you will say: Paul and
I are in love--the younger son who only came here Wednesday."

CHAPTER II

Margaret glanced at her sister's note and pushed it over the
breakfast-table to her aunt. There was a moment's hush, and then
the flood-gates opened.

"I can tell you nothing, Aunt Juley. I know no more than you do.
We met--we only met the father and mother abroad last spring. I
know so little that I didn't even know their son's name. It's all
so--" She waved her hand and laughed a little.

"In that case it is far too sudden."

"Who knows, Aunt Juley, who knows?"

"But, Margaret, dear, I mean, we mustn't be unpractical now that
we've come to facts. It is too sudden, surely."

"Who knows!"

"But, Margaret, dear--"

"I'll go for her other letters," said Margaret. "No, I won't,
I'll finish my breakfast. In fact, I haven't them. We met the
Wilcoxes on an awful expedition that we made from Heidelberg to
Speyer. Helen and I had got it into our heads that there was a
grand old cathedral at Speyer--the Archbishop of Speyer was one
of the seven electors--you know--'Speyer, Maintz, and
Koln.' Those three sees once commanded the Rhine Valley and got
it the name of Priest Street."

"I still feel quite uneasy about this business, Margaret."

"The train crossed by a bridge of boats, and at first sight it
looked quite fine. But oh, in five minutes we had seen the whole
thing. The cathedral had been ruined, absolutely ruined, by
restoration; not an inch left of the original structure. We
wasted a whole day, and came across the Wilcoxes as we were
eating our sandwiches in the public gardens. They too, poor
things, had been taken in--they were actually stopping at
Speyer--and they rather liked Helen's insisting that they must
fly with us to Heidelberg. As a matter of fact, they did come on
next day. We all took some drives together. They knew us well
enough to ask Helen to come and see them--at least, I was asked
too, but Tibby's illness prevented me, so last Monday she went
alone. That's all. You know as much as I do now. It's a young man
out of the unknown. She was to have come back Saturday, but put
off till Monday, perhaps on account of--I don't know."

She broke off, and listened to the sounds of a London morning.
Their house was in Wickham Place, and fairly quiet, for a lofty
promontory of buildings separated it from the main thoroughfare.
One had the sense of a backwater, or rather of an estuary, whose
waters flowed in from the invisible sea, and ebbed into a
profound silence while the waves without were still beating.
Though the promontory consisted of flats--expensive, with
cavernous entrance halls, full of concierges and palms--it
fulfilled its purpose, and gained for the older houses opposite a
certain measure of peace.

These, too, would be swept away in time, and another
promontory would arise upon their site, as humanity piled itself
higher and higher on the precious soil of London.

Mrs. Munt had her own method of interpreting her nieces. She
decided that Margaret was a little hysterical, and was trying to
gain time by a torrent of talk. Feeling very diplomatic, she
lamented the fate of Speyer, and declared that never, never
should she be so misguided as to visit it, and added of her own
accord that the principles of restoration were ill understood in
Germany. "The Germans," she said, "are too thorough, and this is
all very well sometimes, but at other times it does not do."

"Exactly," said Margaret; "Germans are too thorough." And her
eyes began to shine.

"Of course I regard you Schlegels as English," said Mrs. Munt
hastily--"English to the backbone."

Margaret leaned forward and stroked her hand.

"And that reminds me--Helen's letter."

"Oh yes, Aunt Juley, I am thinking all right about Helen's
letter. I know--I must go down and see her. I am thinking about
her all right. I am meaning to go down."

"But go with some plan," said Mrs. Munt, admitting into her
kindly voice a note of exasperation. "Margaret, if I may
interfere, don't be taken by surprise. What do you think of the
Wilcoxes? Are they our sort? Are they likely people? Could they
appreciate Helen, who is to my mind a very special sort of
person? Do they care about Literature and Art? That is most
important when you come to think of it. Literature and Art. Most
important. How old would the son be? She says 'younger son.'
Would he be in a position to marry? Is he likely to make Helen
happy? Did you gather--"

"I gathered nothing."

They began to talk at once.

"Then in that case--"

"In that case I can make no plans, don't you see."

"On the contrary--"

"I hate plans. I hate lines of action. Helen isn't a baby."

"Then in that case, my dear, why go down?"

Margaret was silent. If her aunt could not see why she must go
down, she was not going to tell her. She was not going to say, "I
love my dear sister; I must be near her at this crisis of her
life." The affections are more reticent than the passions, and
their expression more subtle. If she herself should ever fall in
love with a man, she, like Helen, would proclaim it from the
housetops, but as she loved only a sister she used the voiceless
language of sympathy.

"I consider you odd girls," continued Mrs. Munt, "and very
wonderful girls, and in many ways far older than your years.
But--you won't be offended? frankly, I feel you are not up to
this business. It requires an older person. Dear, I have nothing
to
call me back to Swanage." She spread out her plump arms. "I am
all at your disposal. Let me go down to this house whose name I
forget instead of you."

"Aunt Juley"--she jumped up and kissed her--"I must, must go
to Howards End myself. You don't exactly understand, though
I can never thank you properly for offering."

"I do understand," retorted Mrs. Munt, with immense confidence.
"I go down in no spirit of interference, but to make inquiries.
Inquiries are necessary. Now, I am going to be rude. You would
say the wrong thing; to a certainty you would. In your anxiety
for Helen's happiness you would offend the whole of these
Wilcoxes by asking one of your impetuous questions--not that one
minds offending them."

"I shall ask no questions. I have it in Helen's writing that she
and a man are in love. There is no question to ask as long as she
keeps to that. All the rest isn't worth a straw. A long
engagement if you like, but inquiries, questions, plans, lines of
action--no, Aunt Juley, no."

Away she hurried, not beautiful, not supremely brilliant, but
filled with something that took the place of both qualities--
something best described as a profound vivacity, a continual and
sincere response to all that she encountered in her path through
life.

"If Helen had written the same to me about a shop assistant or a
penniless clerk--"

"Dear Margaret, do come into the library and shut the door. Your
good maids are dusting the banisters."

"--or if she had wanted to marry the man who calls for Carter
Paterson, I should have said the same." Then, with one of those
turns that convinced her aunt that she was not mad really, and
convinced observers of another type that she was not a barren
theorist, she added: "Though in the case of Carter Paterson I
should want it to be a very long engagement indeed, I must say."

"I should think so," said Mrs. Munt; "and, indeed, I can scarcely
follow you. Now, just imagine if you said anything of that sort
to the Wilcoxes. I understand it, but most good people would
think you mad. Imagine how disconcerting for Helen! What is
wanted is a person who will go slowly, slowly in this business,
and see how things are and where they are likely to lead to."

Margaret was down on this.

"But you implied just now that the engagement must be broken
off."

"I think probably it must; but slowly."

"Can you break an engagement off slowly?" Her eyes lit up.
"What's an engagement made of, do you suppose? I think it's made
of some hard stuff that may snap, but can't break. It is
different
to the other ties of life. They stretch or bend. They admit of
degree. They're different."

"Exactly so. But won't you let me just run down to Howards House,
and save you all the discomfort? I will really not interfere, but
I do so thoroughly understand the kind of thing you Schlegels
want that one quiet look round will be enough for me."

Margaret again thanked her, again kissed her, and then ran
upstairs to see her brother.

He was not so well.

The hay fever had worried him a good deal all night. His head
ached, his eyes were wet, his mucous membrane, he informed her,
in a most unsatisfactory condition. The only thing that made life
worth living was the thought of Walter Savage Landor, from whose
Imaginary Conversations she had promised to read at frequent
intervals during the day.

It was rather difficult. Something must be done about Helen. She
must be assured that it is not a criminal offence to love at
first sight. A telegram to this effect would be cold and cryptic,
a personal visit seemed each moment more impossible. Now the
doctor arrived, and said that Tibby was quite bad. Might it
really be best to accept Aunt Juley's kind offer, and to send her
down to Howards End with a note?

Certainly Margaret was impulsive. She did swing rapidly from one
decision to another. Running downstairs into the library, she
cried: "Yes, I have changed my mind; I do wish that you would
go."

There was a train from King's Cross at eleven. At half-past ten
Tibby, with rare self-effacement, fell asleep, and Margaret was
able to drive her aunt to the station.

"You will remember, Aunt Juley, not to be drawn into discussing
the engagement. Give my letter to Helen, and say whatever you
feel yourself, but do keep clear of the relatives. We have
scarcely got their names straight yet, and, besides, that sort of
thing is so uncivilised and wrong."

"So uncivilised?" queried Mrs. Munt, fearing that she was losing
the point of some brilliant remark.

"Oh, I used an affected word. I only meant would you please talk
the thing over only with Helen."

"Only with Helen."

"Because--" But it was no moment to expound the personal nature
of love. Even Margaret shrank from it, and contented herself with
stroking her good aunt's hand, and with meditating, half sensibly
and half poetically, on the journey that was about to begin from
King's Cross.

Like many others who have lived long in a great capital, she had
strong feelings about the various railway termini. They are our
gates to the glorious and the unknown. Through them we pass out
into adventure and sunshine, to them, alas! we return. In
Paddington all Cornwall is latent and the remoter west; down the
inclines of Liverpool Street lie fenlands and the illimitable
Broads; Scotland is through the pylons of Euston; Wessex behind
the poised chaos of Waterloo. Italians realise this, as is
natural; those of them who are so unfortunate as to serve as
waiters in Berlin call the Anhalt Bahnhof the Stazione d'Italia,
because by it they must return to their homes. And he is a chilly
Londoner who does not endow his stations with some personality,
and extend to them, however shyly, the emotions of fear and love.

To Margaret--I hope that it will not set the reader against her--
the station of King's Cross had always suggested Infinity. Its
very situation--withdrawn a little behind the facile splendours
of St. Pancras--implied a comment on the materialism of life.
Those two great arches, colourless, indifferent, shouldering
between them an unlovely clock, were fit portals for some eternal
adventure, whose issue might be prosperous, but would certainly
not be expressed in the ordinary language of prosperity. If you
think this ridiculous, remember that it is not Margaret who is
telling you about it; and let me hasten to add that they were in
plenty of time for the train; that Mrs. Munt, though she took a
second-class ticket, was put by the guard into a first (only two
"seconds" on the train, one smoking and the other babies--one
cannot be expected to travel with babies); and that Margaret, on
her return to Wickham Place, was confronted with the following
telegram:

"All over. Wish I had never written. Tell no one--, HELEN."

But Aunt Juley was gone--gone irrevocably, and no power on earth
could stop her.

CHAPTER III

Most complacently did Mrs. Munt rehearse her mission. Her nieces
were independent young women, and it was not often that she was
able to help them. Emily's daughters had never been quite like
other girls. They had been left motherless when Tibby was born,
when Helen was five and Margaret herself but thirteen. It was
before the passing of the Deceased Wife's Sister Bill, so Mrs.
Munt could without impropriety offer to go and keep house at
Wickham Place. But her brother-in-law, who was peculiar and a
German, had referred the question to Margaret, who with the
crudity of youth had answered, "No, they could manage much better
alone." Five years later Mr. Schlegel had died too, and Mrs. Munt
had repeated her offer. Margaret, crude no longer, had been
grateful and extremely nice, but the substance of her answer had
been the same. "I must not interfere a third time," thought Mrs.
Munt. However, of course she did. She learnt, to her horror, that
Margaret, now of age, was taking her money out of the old safe
investments and putting it into Foreign Things, which always
smash. Silence would have been criminal. Her own fortune was
invested in Home Rails, and most ardently did she beg her niece
to imitate her. "Then we should be together, dear." Margaret, out
of politeness, invested a few hundreds in the Nottingham and
Derby Railway, and though the Foreign Things did admirably and
the Nottingham and Derby declined with the steady dignity of
which only Home Rails are capable, Mrs. Munt never ceased to
rejoice, and to say, "I did manage that, at all events. When the
smash comes poor Margaret will have a nest-egg to fall back
upon." This year Helen came of age, and exactly the same thing
happened in Helen's case; she also would shift her money out of
Consols, but she, too, almost without being pressed, consecrated
a fraction of it to the Nottingham and Derby Railway. So far so
good, but in social matters their aunt had accomplished nothing.
Sooner or later the girls would enter on the process known as
throwing themselves away, and if they had delayed hitherto, it
was only that they might throw themselves more vehemently in the
future. They saw too many people at Wickham Place--unshaven
musicians, an actress even, German cousins (one knows what
foreigners are), acquaintances picked up at Continental hotels
(one knows what they are too). It was interesting, and down at
Swanage no one appreciated culture more than Mrs. Munt; but it
was dangerous, and disaster was bound to come. How right she was,
and how lucky to be on the spot when the disaster came!

The train sped northward, under innumerable tunnels. It was only
an hour's journey, but Mrs. Munt had to raise and lower the
window again and again. She passed through the South Welwyn
Tunnel, saw light for a moment, and entered the North Welwyn
Tunnel, of tragic fame. She traversed the immense viaduct, whose
arches span untroubled meadows and the dreamy flow of Tewin
Water. She skirted the parks of politicians. At times the Great
North Road accompanied her, more suggestive of infinity than any
railway, awakening, after a nap of a hundred years, to such life
as is conferred by the stench of motor-cars, and to such culture
as is implied by the advertisements of antibilious pills. To
history, to tragedy, to the past, to the future, Mrs. Munt
remained equally indifferent; hers but to concentrate on the end
of her journey, and to rescue poor Helen from this dreadful mess.

The station for Howards End was at Hilton, one of the large
villages that are strung so frequently along the North Road, and
that owe their size to the traffic of coaching and pre-coaching
days. Being near London, it had not shared in the rural decay,
and its long High Street had budded out right and left into
residential estates. For about a mile a series of tiled and
slated houses passed before Mrs. Munt's inattentive eyes, a
series broken at one point by six Danish tumuli that stood
shoulder to shoulder along the highroad, tombs of soldiers.
Beyond these tumuli, habitations thickened, and the train came to
a standstill in a tangle that was almost a town.

The station, like the scenery, like Helen's letters, struck an
indeterminate note. Into which country will it lead, England or
Suburbia? It was new, it had island platforms and a subway, and
the superficial comfort exacted by business men. But it held
hints of local life, personal intercourse, as even Mrs. Munt was
to discover.

"I want a house," she confided to the ticket boy. "Its name is
Howards Lodge. Do you know where it is?"

"Mr. Wilcox!" the boy called.

A young man in front of them turned around.

"She's wanting Howards End."

There was nothing for it but to go forward, though Mrs. Munt was
too much agitated even to stare at the stranger. But remembering
that there were two brothers, she had the sense to say to him,
"Excuse me asking, but are you the younger Mr. Wilcox or the
elder?"

"The younger. Can I do anything for you?"

"Oh, well"--she controlled herself with difficulty. "Really. Are
you? I--" She moved; away from the ticket boy and lowered her
voice. "I am Miss Schlegel's aunt. I ought to introduce myself,
oughtn't I? My name is Mrs. Munt."

She was conscious that he raised his cap and said quite coolly,
"Oh, rather; Miss Schlegel is stopping with us. Did you want to
see her?"

"Possibly."

"I'll call you a cab. No; wait a mo--" He thought. "Our motor's
here. I'll run you up in it."

"That is very kind."

"Not at all, if you'll just wait till they bring out a parcel
from the office. This way."

"My niece is not with you by any chance?"

"No; I came over with my father. He has gone on north in your
train. You'll see Miss Schlegel at lunch. You're coming up to
lunch, I hope?"

"I should like to come UP," said Mrs. Munt, not committing
herself to nourishment until she had studied Helen's lover a
little more. He seemed a gentleman, but had so rattled her round
that her powers of observation were numbed. She glanced at him
stealthily.

To a feminine eye there was nothing amiss in the sharp
depressions at the corners of his mouth, or in the rather
box-like construction of his forehead. He was dark, clean-shaven,
and seemed accustomed to command.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25