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Title: The Garotters

Author: William D. Howells

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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.

"In front or behind?

Which do you prefer?

It may be windy in front."

"In front if I may;
then we can talk."

"But excuse me one moment--I can't think what they're doing
with that parcel."

He strode into the booking-office,
and called
with a new voice:

"Hi! hi,
you there! Are you going
to keep me waiting all day?

Parcel
for Wilcox,
Howards End.

Just look sharp!"
Emerging,
he said in quieter tones:

"This station's abominably organised;
if I had my way,
the whole lot of
'em should get the sack.

May I help you in?"
"This is very good of you,"
said Mrs. Munt,
as she settled herself into a luxurious cavern of red leather,
and suffered her person
to be padded
with rugs and shawls.

She was more civil than she had intended,
but really this young man was very kind.

Moreover,
she was a little afraid of him;
his self-possession was extraordinary.

"Very good indeed,"
she repeated,
adding:

"It is just what I should have wished."

"Very good of you
to say so,"
he replied,
with a slight look of surprise,
which,
like most slight looks,
escaped Mrs. Munt's attention.

"I was just tooling my father over
to catch the down train."

"You see,
we heard from Helen this morning."

Young Wilcox was pouring in petrol,
starting his engine,
and performing other actions
with which this story has no concern.

The great car began
to rock,
and the form of Mrs. Munt,
trying
to explain things,
sprang agreeably up and down among the red cushions.

"The mater will be very glad
to see you,"
he mumbled.

"Hi! I say.

Parcel.

Parcel
for Howards End.

Bring it out.

Hi!"
A bearded porter emerged
with the parcel in one hand and an entry book in the other.

With the gathering whir of the motor these ejaculations mingled:

"Sign,
must I?

Why the--should I sign after all this bother?

Not even got a pencil on you?

Remember next time I report you
to the station-master.

My time's of value,
though yours mayn't be.

Here"--here being a tip.

"Extremely sorry,
Mrs. Munt."

"Not at all,
Mr. Wilcox."

"And do you object
to going through the village?

It is rather a longer spin,
but I have one or two commissions."

"I should love going through the village.

Naturally I am very anxious
to talk things over
with you."

As she said this she felt ashamed,
for she was disobeying Margaret's instructions.

Only disobeying them in the letter,
surely.

Margaret had only warned her against discussing the incident
with outsiders.

Surely it was not
"uncivilised or wrong"
to discuss it
with the young man himself,
since chance had thrown them together.

A reticent fellow,
he made no reply.

Mounting by her side,
he put on gloves and spectacles,
and off they drove,
the bearded porter --life is a mysterious business--looking after them
with admiration.

The wind was in their faces down the station road,
blowing the dust into Mrs. Munt's eyes.

But as soon as they turned into the Great North Road she opened fire.

"You can well imagine,"
she said,
"that the news was a great shock
to us."

"What news?"
"Mr. Wilcox,"
she said frankly,
"Margaret has told me everything --everything.

I have seen Helen's letter."

He could not look her in the face,
as his eyes were fixed on his work;
he was travelling as quickly as he dared down the High Street.

But he inclined his head in her direction,
and said:

"I beg your pardon;
I didn't catch."

"About Helen.

Helen,
of course.

Helen is a very exceptional person--I am sure you will let me say this,
feeling towards her as you do--indeed,
all the Schlegels are exceptional.

I come in no spirit of interference,
but it was a great shock."

They drew up opposite a draper's.

Without replying,
he turned round in his seat,
and contemplated the cloud of dust that they had raised in their passage through the village.

It was settling again,
but not all into the road from which he had taken it.

Some of it had percolated through the open windows,
some had whitened the roses and gooseberries of the wayside gardens,
while a certain proportion had entered the lungs of the villagers.

"I wonder when they'll learn wisdom and tar the roads,"
was his comment.

Then a man ran out of the draper's
with a roll of oilcloth,
and off they went again.

"Margaret could not come herself,
on account of poor Tibby,
so I am here
to represent her and
to have a good talk."

"I'm sorry
to be so dense,"
said the young man,
again drawing up outside a shop.

"But I still haven't quite understood."

"Helen,
Mr. Wilcox--my niece and you."

He pushed up his goggles and gazed at her,
absolutely bewildered.

Horror smote her
to the heart,
for even she began
to suspect that they were at cross-purposes,
and that she had commenced her mission by some hideous blunder.

"Miss Schlegel and myself?"
he asked,
compressing his lips.

"I trust there has been no misunderstanding,"
quavered Mrs. Munt.

"Her letter certainly read that way."

"What way?"
"That you and she--"
She paused,
then drooped her eyelids.

"I think I catch your meaning,"
he said stickily.

"What an extraordinary mistake!"
"Then you didn't the least--"
she stammered,
getting blood-red in the face,
and wishing she had never been born.

"Scarcely,
as I am already engaged
to another lady."

There was a moment's silence,
and then he caught his breath and exploded with,
"Oh,
good God! Don't tell me it
's some silliness of Paul's."

"But you are Paul."

"I'm not."

"Then why did you say so at the station?"
"I said nothing of the sort."

"I beg your pardon,
you did."

"I beg your pardon,
I did not.

My name is Charles."

"Younger"
may mean son as opposed
to father,
or second brother as opposed
to first.

There is much
to be said
for either view,
and later on they said it.

But they had other questions before them now.

"Do you mean
to tell me that Paul--"
But she did not like his voice.

He sounded as if he was talking
to a porter,
and,
certain that he had deceived her at the station,
she too grew angry.

"Do you mean
to tell me that Paul and your niece--"
Mrs. Munt--such is human nature--determined that she would champion the lovers.

She was not going
to be bullied by a severe young man.

"Yes,
they care
for one another very much indeed,"
she said.

"I dare say they will tell you about it by-and-by.

We heard this morning."

And Charles clenched his fist and cried,
"The idiot,
the idiot,
the little fool!"
Mrs. Munt tried
to divest herself of her rugs.

"If that is your attitude,
Mr. Wilcox,
I prefer
to walk."

"I beg you will do no such thing.

I take you up this moment
to the house.

Let me tell you the thing's impossible,
and must be stopped."

Mrs. Munt did not often lose her temper,
and when she did it was only
to protect those whom she loved.

On this occasion she blazed out.

"I quite agree,
sir.

The thing is impossible,
and I will come up and stop it.

My niece is a very exceptional person,
and I am not inclined
to sit still while she throws herself away on those who will not appreciate her."

Charles worked his jaws.

"Considering she has only known your brother since Wednesday,
and only met your father and mother at a stray hotel--"
"Could you possibly lower your voice?

The shopman will overhear."

Esprit de classe--if one may coin the phrase--was strong in Mrs. Munt.

She sat quivering while a member of the lower orders deposited a metal funnel,
a saucepan,
and a garden squirt beside the roll of oilcloth.

"Right behind?"
"Yes,
sir."

And the lower orders vanished in a cloud of dust.

"I warn you:

Paul hasn't a penny;
it's useless."

"No need
to warn us,
Mr. Wilcox,
I assure you.

The warning is all the other way.

My niece has been very foolish,
and I shall give her a good scolding and take her back
to London
with me."

"He has
to make his way out in Nigeria.

He couldn't think of marrying
for years,
and when he does it must be a woman who can stand the climate,
and is in other ways-- Why hasn't he told us?

Of course he's ashamed.

He knows he's been a fool.

And so he has --a downright fool."

She grew furious.

"Whereas Miss Schlegel has lost no time in publishing the news."

"If I were a man,
Mr. Wilcox,
for that last remark I'd box your ears.

You're not fit
to clean my niece's boots,
to sit in the same room
with her,
and you dare--you actually dare-- I decline
to argue
with such a person."

"All I know is,
she's spread the thing and he hasn't,
and my father's away and I--"
"And all that I know is--"
"Might I finish my sentence,
please?"
"No."

Charles clenched his teeth and sent the motor swerving all over the lane.

She screamed.

So they played the game of Capping Families,
a round of which is always played when love would unite two members of our race.

But they played it
with unusual vigour,
stating in so many words that Schlegels were better than Wilcoxes,
Wilcoxes better than Schlegels.

They flung decency aside.

The man was young,
the woman deeply stirred;
in both a vein of coarseness was latent.

Their quarrel was no more surprising than are most quarrels--inevitable at the time,
incredible afterwards.

But it was more than usually futile.

A few minutes,
and they were enlightened.

The motor drew up at Howards End,
and Helen,
looking very pale,
ran out
to meet her aunt.

"Aunt Juley,
I have just had a telegram from Margaret;
I--I meant
to stop your coming.

It isn't--it's over."

The climax was too much
for Mrs. Munt.

She burst into tears.

"Aunt Juley dear,
don't.

Don't let them know I've been so silly.

It wasn't anything.

Do bear up
for my sake."

"Paul,"
cried Charles Wilcox,
pulling his gloves off.

"Don't let them know.

They are never
to know."

"Oh,
my darling Helen--"
"Paul! Paul!"
A very young man came out of the house.

"Paul,
is there any truth in this?"
"I didn't--I don't--"
"Yes or no,
man;
plain question,
plain answer.

Did or didn't Miss Schlegel--"
"Charles,
dear,"
said a voice from the garden.

"Charles,
dear Charles,
one doesn't ask plain questions.

There aren't such things."

They were all silent.

It was Mrs. Wilcox.

She approached just as Helen's letter had described her,
trailing noiselessly over the lawn,
and there was actually a wisp of hay in her hands.

She seemed
to belong not
to the young people and their motor,
but
to the house,
and
to the tree that overshadowed it.

One knew that she worshipped the past,
and that the instinctive wisdom the past can alone bestow had descended upon her--that wisdom
to which we give the clumsy name of aristocracy.

High born she might not be.

But assuredly she cared about her ancestors,
and let them help her.

When she saw Charles angry,
Paul frightened,
and Mrs. Munt in tears,
she heard her ancestors say,
"Separate those human beings who will hurt each other most.

The rest can wait."

So she did not ask questions.

Still less did she pretend that nothing had happened,
as a competent society hostess would have done.

She said:

"Miss Schlegel,
would you take your aunt up
to your room or
to my room,
whichever you think best.

Paul,
do find Evie,
and tell her lunch
for six,
but I'm not sure whether we shall all be downstairs
for it."

And when they had obeyed her,
she turned
to her elder son,
who still stood in the throbbing,
stinking car,
and smiled at him
with tenderness,
and without saying a word,
turned away from him towards her flowers.

"Mother,"
he called,
"are you aware that Paul has been playing the fool again?"
"It is all right,
dear.

They have broken off the engagement."

"Engagement--!"
"They do not love any longer,
if you prefer it put that way,"
said Mrs. Wilcox,
stooping down
to smell a rose.

CHAPTER IV Helen and her aunt returned
to Wickham Place in a state of collapse,
and
for a little time Margaret had three invalids on her hands.

Mrs. Munt soon recovered.

She possessed
to a remarkable degree the power of distorting the past,
and before many days were over she had forgotten the part played by her own imprudence in the catastrophe.

Even at the crisis she had cried,
"Thank goodness,
poor Margaret is saved this!"
which during the journey
to London evolved into,
"It had
to be gone through by some one,"
which in its turn ripened into the permanent form of
"The one time I really did help Emily's girls was over the Wilcox business."

But Helen was a more serious patient.

New ideas had burst upon her like a thunderclap,
and by them and by their reverberations she had been stunned.

The truth was that she had fallen in love,
not
with an individual,
but
with a family.

Before Paul arrived she had,
as it were,
been tuned up into his key.

The energy of the Wilcoxes had fascinated her,
had created new images of beauty in her responsive mind.

To be all day
with them in the open air,
to sleep at night under their roof,
had seemed the supreme joy of life,
and had led
to that abandonment of personality that is a possible prelude
to love.

She had liked giving in
to Mr. Wilcox,
or Evie,
or Charles;
she had liked being told that her notions of life were sheltered or academic;
that Equality was nonsense,
Votes
for Women nonsense,
Socialism nonsense,
Art and Literature,
except when conducive
to strengthening the character,
nonsense.

One by one the Schlegel fetiches had been overthrown,
and,
though professing
to defend them,
she had rejoiced.

When Mr. Wilcox said that one sound man of business did more good
to the world than a dozen of your social reformers,
she had swallowed the curious assertion without a gasp,
and had leant back luxuriously among the cushions of his motorcar.

When Charles said,
"Why be so polite
to servants?

they don't understand it,"
she had not given the Schlegel retort of,
"If they don't understand it,
I do."

No;
she had vowed
to be less polite
to servants in the future.

"I am swathed in cant,"
she thought,
"and it is good
for me
to be stripped of it."

And all that she thought or did or breathed was a quiet preparation
for Paul.

Paul was inevitable.

Charles was taken up
with another girl,
Mr. Wilcox was so old,
Evie so young,
Mrs. Wilcox so different.

Round the absent brother she began
to throw the halo of Romance,
to irradiate him
with all the splendour of those happy days,
to feel that in him she should draw nearest
to the robust ideal.

He and she were about the same age,
Evie said.

Most people thought Paul handsomer than his brother.

He was certainly a better shot,
though not so good at golf.

And when Paul appeared,
flushed
with the triumph of getting through an examination,
and ready
to flirt
with any pretty girl,
Helen met him halfway,
or more than halfway,
and turned towards him on the Sunday evening.

He had been talking of his approaching exile in Nigeria,
and he should have continued
to talk of it,
and allowed their guest
to recover.

But the heave of her bosom flattered him.

Passion was possible,
and he became passionate.

Deep down in him something whispered,
"This girl would let you kiss her;
you might not have such a chance again."

That was
"how it happened,"
or,
rather,
how Helen described it
to her sister,
using words even more unsympathetic than my own.

But the poetry of that kiss,
the wonder of it,
the magic that there was in life
for hours after it--who can describe that?

It is so easy
for an Englishman
to sneer at these chance collisions of human beings.

To the insular cynic and the insular moralist they offer an equal opportunity.

It is so easy
to talk of
"passing emotion,"
and
to forget how vivid the emotion was ere it passed.

Our impulse
to sneer,
to forget,
is at root a good one.

We recognise that emotion is not enough,
and that men and women are personalities capable of sustained relations,
not mere opportunities
for an electrical discharge.

Yet we rate the impulse too highly.

We do not admit that by collisions of this trivial sort the doors of heaven may be shaken open.

To Helen,
at all events,
her life was
to bring nothing more intense than the embrace of this boy who played no part in it.

He had drawn her out of the house,
where there was danger of surprise and light;
he had led her by a path he knew,
until they stood under the column of the vast wych-elm.

A man in the darkness,
he had whispered
"I love you"
when she was desiring love.

In time his slender personality faded,
the scene that he had evoked endured.

In all the variable years that followed she never saw the like of it again.

"I understand,"
said Margaret--s"at least,
I understand as much as ever is understood of these things.

Tell me now what happened on the Monday morning."

"It was over at once."

"How,
Helen?"
"I was still happy while I dressed,
but as I came downstairs I got nervous,
and when I went into the dining-room I knew it was no good.

There was Evie--I can't explain--managing the tea-urn,
and Mr. Wilcox reading the Times."

"Was Paul there?"
"Yes;
and Charles was talking
to him about stocks and shares,
and he looked frightened."

By slight indications the sisters could convey much
to each other.

Margaret saw horror latent in the scene,
and Helen's next remark did not surprise her.

"Somehow,
when that kind of man looks frightened it is too awful.

It is all right
for us
to be frightened,
or
for men of another sort--father,
for instance;
but
for men like that! When I saw all the others so placid,
and Paul mad
with terror in case I said the wrong thing,
I felt
for a moment that the whole Wilcox family was a fraud,
just a wall of newspapers and motor-cars and golf-clubs,
and that if it fell I should find nothing behind it but panic and emptiness."

"I don't think that.

The Wilcoxes struck me as being genuine people,
particularly the wife."

"No,
I don't really think that.

But Paul was so broad-shouldered;
all kinds of extraordinary things made it worse,
and I knew that it would never do--never.

I said
to him after breakfast,
when the others were practising strokes,
'We rather lost our heads,'
and he looked better at once,
though frightfully ashamed.

He began a speech about having no money
to marry on,
but it hurt him
to make it,
and I stopped him.

Then he said,
'I must beg your pardon over this,
Miss Schlegel;
I can't think what came over me last night.'

And I said,
'Nor what over me;
never mind.'

And then we parted-- at least,
until I remembered that I had written straight off
to tell you the night before,
and that frightened him again.

I asked him
to send a telegram
for me,
for he knew you would be coming or something;
and he tried
to get hold of the motor,
but Charles and Mr. Wilcox wanted it
to go
to the station;
and Charles offered
to send the telegram
for me,
and then I had
to say that the telegram was of no consequence,
for Paul said Charles might read it,
and though I wrote it out several times,
he always said people would suspect something.

He took it himself at last,
pretending that he must walk down
to get cartridges,
and,
what
with one thing and the other,
it was not handed in at the post-office until too late.

It was the most terrible morning.

Paul disliked me more and more,
and Evie talked cricket averages till I nearly screamed.

I cannot think how I stood her all the other days.

At last Charles and his father started
for the station,
and then came your telegram warning me that Aunt Juley was coming by that train,
and Paul--oh,
rather horrible--said that I had muddled it.

But Mrs. Wilcox knew."

"Knew what?"
"Everything;
though we neither of us told her a word,
and she had known all along,
I think."

"Oh,
she must have overheard you."

"I suppose so,
but it seemed wonderful.

When Charles and Aunt Juley drove up,
calling each other names,
Mrs. Wilcox stepped in from the garden and made everything less terrible.

Ugh! but it has been a disgusting business.

To think that--"
She sighed.

"To think that because you and a young man meet
for a moment,
there must be all these telegrams and anger,"
supplied Margaret.

Helen nodded.

"I've often thought about it,
Helen.

It's one of the most interesting things in the world.

The truth is that there is a great outer life that you and I have never touched--a life in which telegrams and anger count.

Personal relations,
that we think supreme,
are not supreme there.

There love means marriage settlements,
death,
death duties.

So far I'm clear.

But here my difficulty.

This outer life,
though obviously horrid;
often seems the real one--there's grit in it.

It does breed character.

Do personal relations lead
to sloppiness in the end?"
"Oh,
Meg--,
that's what I felt,
only not so clearly,
when the Wilcoxes were so competent,
and seemed
to have their hands on all the ropes."

"Don't you feel it now?"
"I remember Paul at breakfast,"
said Helen quietly.

"I shall never forget him.

He had nothing
to fall back upon.

I know that personal relations are the real life,
for ever and ever."

"Amen!"
So the Wilcox episode fell into the background,
leaving behind it memories of sweetness and horror that mingled,
and the sisters pursued the life that Helen had commended.

They talked
to each other and
to other people,
they filled the tall thin house at Wickham Place
with those whom they liked or could befriend.

They even attended public meetings.

In their own fashion they cared deeply about politics,
though not as politicians would have us care;
they desired that public life should mirror whatever is good in the life within.

Temperance,
tolerance,
and sexual equality were intelligible cries
to them;
whereas they did not follow our Forward Policy in Tibet
with the keen attention that it merits,
and would at times dismiss the whole British Empire
with a puzzled,
if reverent,
sigh.

Not out of them are the shows of history erected:

the world would be a grey,
bloodless place were it composed entirely of Miss Schlegels.

But the world being what it is,
perhaps they shine out in it like stars.

A word on their origin.

They were not
"English
to the back-bone,"
as their aunt had piously asserted.

But,
on the other hand,
they were not
"Germans of the dreadful sort."

Their father had belonged
to a type that was more prominent in Germany fifty years ago than now.

He was not the aggressive German,
so dear
to the English journalist,
nor the domestic German,
so dear
to the English wit.

If one classed him at all it would be as the countryman of Hegel and Kant,
as the idealist,
inclined
to be dreamy,
whose Imperialism was the Imperialism of the air.

Not that his life had been inactive.

He had fought like blazes against Denmark,
Austria,
France.

But he had fought without visualising the results of victory.

A hint of the truth broke on him after Sedan,
when he saw the dyed moustaches of Napoleon going grey;
another when he entered Paris,
and saw the smashed windows of the Tuileries.

Peace came--it was all very immense,
one had turned into an Empire--but he knew that some quality had vanished
for which not all Alsace-Lorraine could compensate him.

Germany a commercial Power,
Germany a naval Power,
Germany
with colonies here and a Forward Policy there,
and legitimate aspirations in the other place,
might appeal
to others,
and be fitly served by them;
for his own part,
he abstained from the fruits of victory,
and naturalised himself in England.

The more earnest members of his family never forgave him,
and knew that his children,
though scarcely English of the dreadful sort,
would never be German
to the back-bone.

He had obtained work in one of our provincial universities,
and there married Poor Emily
(or Die Englanderin,
as the case may be),
and as she had money,
they proceeded
to London,
and came
to know a good many people.

But his gaze was always fixed beyond the sea.

It was his hope that the clouds of materialism obscuring the Fatherland would part in time,
and the mild intellectual light re-emerge.

"Do you imply that we Germans are stupid,
Uncle Ernst?"
exclaimed a haughty and magnificent nephew.

Uncle Ernst replied,
"To my mind.

You use the intellect,
but you no longer care about it.

That I call stupidity."

As the haughty nephew did not follow,
he continued,
"You only care about the things that you can use,
and therefore arrange them in the following order:

Money,
supremely useful;
intellect,
rather useful;
imagination,
of no use at all.

No"--for the other had protested--"your Pan-Germanism is no more imaginative than is our Imperialism over here.

It is the vice of a vulgar mind
to be thrilled by bigness,
to think that a thousand square miles are a thousand times more wonderful than one square mile,
and that a million square miles are almost the same as heaven.

That is not imagination.

No,
it kills it.

When their poets over here try
to celebrate bigness they are dead at once,
and naturally.

Your poets too are dying,
your philosophers,
your musicians,
to whom Europe has listened
for two hundred years.

Gone.

Gone
with the little courts that nurtured them--gone
with Esterhazy and Weimar.

What?

What's that?

Your universities?

Oh yes,
you have learned men,
who collect more facts than do the learned men of England.

They collect facts,
and facts,
and empires of facts.

But which of them will rekindle the light within?"
To all this Margaret listened,
sitting on the haughty nephew's knee.

It was a unique education
for the little girls.

The haughty nephew would be at Wickham Place one day,
bringing
with him an even haughtier wife,
both convinced that Germany was appointed by God
to govern the world.

Aunt Juley would come the next day,
convinced that Great Britain had been appointed
to the same post by the same authority.

Were both these loud-voiced parties right?

On one occasion they had met and Margaret
with clasped hands had implored them
to argue the subject out in her presence.

Whereat they blushed,
and began
to talk about the weather.

"Papa,"
she cried--she was a most offensive child--"why will they not discuss this most clear question?"
Her father,
surveying the parties grimly,
replied that he did not know.

Putting her head on one side,
Margaret then remarked,
"To me one of two things is very clear;
either God does not know his own mind about England and Germany,
or else these do not know the mind of God."

A hateful little girl,
but at thirteen she had grasped a dilemma that most people travel through life without perceiving.

Her brain darted up and down;
it grew pliant and strong.

Her conclusion was,
that any human being lies nearer
to the unseen than any organisation,
and from this she never varied.

Helen advanced along the same lines,
though
with a more irresponsible tread.

In character she resembled her sister,
but she was pretty,
and so apt
to have a more amusing time.

People gathered round her more readily,
especially when they were new acquaintances,
and she did enjoy a little homage very much.

When their father died and they ruled alone at Wickham Place,
she often absorbed the whole of the company,
while Margaret--both were tremendous talkers--fell flat.

Neither sister bothered about this.

Helen never apologised afterwards,
Margaret did not feel the slightest rancour.

But looks have their influence upon character.

The sisters were alike as little girls,
but at the time of the Wilcox episode their methods were beginning
to diverge;
the younger was rather apt
to entice people,
and,
in enticing them,
to be herself enticed;
the elder went straight ahead,
and accepted an occasional failure as part of the game.

Little need be premised about Tibby.

He was now an intelligent man of sixteen,
but dyspeptic and difficile.

CHAPTER V It will be generally admitted that Beethoven's Fifth Symphony is the most sublime noise that has ever penetrated into the ear of man.

All sorts and conditions are satisfied by it.

Whether you are like Mrs. Munt,
and tap surreptitiously when the tunes come-- of course,
not so as
to disturb the others--or like Helen,
who can see heroes and shipwrecks in the music's flood;
or like Margaret,
who can only see the music;
or like Tibby,
who is profoundly versed in counterpoint,
and holds the full score open on his knee;
or like their cousin,
Fraulein Mosebach,
who remembers all the time that Beethoven is echt Deutsch;
or like Fraulein Mosebach's young man,
who can remember nothing but Fraulein Mosebach:

in any case,
the passion of your life becomes more vivid,
and you are bound
to admit that such a noise is cheap at two shillings.

It is cheap,
even if you hear it in the Queen's Hall,
dreariest music-room in London,
though not as dreary as the Free Trade Hall,
Manchester;
and even if you sit on the extreme left of that hall,
so that the brass bumps at you before the rest of the orchestra arrives,
it is still cheap.

"Whom is Margaret talking to?"
said Mrs. Munt,
at the conclusion of the first movement.

She was again in London on a visit
to Wickham Place.

Helen looked down the long line of their party,
and said that she did not know.

"Would it be some young man or other whom she takes an interest in?"
"I expect so,"
Helen replied.

Music enwrapped her,
and she could not enter into the distinction that divides young men whom one takes an interest in from young men whom one knows.

"You girls are so wonderful in always having--Oh dear! one mustn't talk."

For the Andante had begun--very beautiful,
but bearing a family likeness
to all the other beautiful Andantes that Beethoven had written,
and,
to Helen's mind,
rather disconnecting the heroes and shipwrecks of the first movement from the heroes and goblins of the third.

She heard the tune through once,
and then her attention wandered,
and she gazed at the audience,
or the organ,
or the architecture.

Much did she censure the attenuated Cupids who encircle the ceiling of the Queen's Hall,
inclining each
to each
with vapid gesture,
and clad in sallow pantaloons,
on which the October sunlight struck.

"How awful
to marry a man like those Cupids!"
thought Helen.

Here Beethoven started decorating his tune,
so she heard him through once more,
and then she smiled at her Cousin Frieda.

But Frieda,
listening
to Classical Music,
could not respond.

Herr Liesecke,
too,
looked as if wild horses could not make him inattentive;
there were lines across his forehead,
his lips were parted,
his pince-nez at right angles
to his nose,
and he had laid a thick,
white hand on either knee.

And next
to her was Aunt Juley,
so British,
and wanting
to tap.

How interesting that row of people was! What diverse influences had gone
to the making! Here Beethoven,
after humming and hawing
with great sweetness,
said
"Heigho,"
and the Andante came
to an end.

Applause,
and a round of
"wunderschoning"
and pracht volleying from the German contingent.

Margaret started talking
to her new young man;
Helen said
to her aunt:

"Now comes the wonderful movement:

first of all the goblins,
and then a trio of elephants dancing";
and Tibby implored the company generally
to look out
for the transitional passage on the drum.

"On the what,
dear?"
"On the drum,
Aunt Juley."

"No;
look out
for the part where you think you have done
with the goblins and they come back,"
breathed Helen,
as the music started
with a goblin walking quietly over the universe,
from end
to end.

Others followed him.

They were not aggressive creatures;
it was that that made them so terrible
to Helen.

They merely observed in passing that there was no such thing as splendour or heroism in the world.

After the interlude of elephants dancing,
they returned and made the observation
for the second time.

Helen could not contradict them,
for,
once at all events,
she had felt the same,
and had seen the reliable walls of youth collapse.

Panic and emptiness! Panic and emptiness! The goblins were right.

Her brother raised his finger;
it was the transitional passage on the drum.

For,
as if things were going too far,
Beethoven took hold of the goblins and made them do what he wanted.

He appeared in person.

He gave them a little push,
and they began
to walk in a major key instead of in a minor,
and then--he blew
with his mouth and they were scattered! Gusts of splendour,
gods and demigods contending
with vast swords,
colour and fragrance broadcast on the field of battle,
magnificent victory,
magnificent death! Oh,
it all burst before the girl,
and she even stretched out her gloved hands as if it was tangible.

Any fate was titanic;
any contest desirable;
conqueror and conquered would alike be applauded by the angels of the utmost stars.

And the goblins--they had not really been there at all?

They were only the phantoms of cowardice and unbelief?

One healthy human impulse would dispel them?

Men like the Wilcoxes,
or ex-President Roosevelt,
would say yes.

Beethoven knew better.

The goblins really had been there.

They might return--and they did.

It was as if the splendour of life might boil over and waste
to steam and froth.

In its dissolution one heard the terrible,
ominous note,
and a goblin,
with increased malignity,
walked quietly over the universe from end
to end.

Panic and emptiness! Panic and emptiness! Even the flaming ramparts of the world might fall.

Beethoven chose
to make all right in the end.

He built the ramparts up.

He blew
with his mouth
for the second time,
and again the goblins were scattered.

He brought back the gusts of splendour,
the heroism,
the youth,
the magnificence of life and of death,
and,
amid vast roarings of a superhuman joy,
he led his Fifth Symphony
to its conclusion.

But the goblins were there.

They could return.

He had said so bravely,
and that is why one can trust Beethoven when he says other things.

Helen pushed her way out during the applause.

She desired
to be alone.

The music had summed up
to her all that had happened or could happen in her career.

She read it as a tangible statement,
which could never be superseded.

The notes meant this and that
to her,
and they could have no other meaning,
and life could have no other meaning.

She pushed right out of the building and walked slowly down the outside staircase,
breathing the autumnal air,
and then she strolled home.

"Margaret,"
called Mrs. Munt,
"is Helen all right?"
"Oh yes."

"She is always going away in the middle of a programme,"
said Tibby.

"The music has evidently moved her deeply,"
said Fraulein Mosebach.

"Excuse me,"
said Margaret's young man,
who had
for some time been preparing a sentence,
"but that lady has,
quite inadvertently,
taken my umbrella."

"Oh,
good gracious me!--I am so sorry.

Tibby,
run after Helen."

"I shall miss the Four Serious Songs if I do."

"Tibby,
love,
you must go."

"It isn't of any consequence,"
said the young man,
in truth a little uneasy about his umbrella.

"But of course it is.

Tibby! Tibby!"
Tibby rose
to his feet,
and wilfully caught his person on the backs of the chairs.

By the time he had tipped up the seat and had found his hat,
and had deposited his full score in safety,
it was
"too late"
to go after Helen.

The Four Serious Songs had begun,
and one could not move during their performance.

"My sister is so careless,"
whispered Margaret.

"Not at all,"
replied the young man;
but his voice was dead and cold.

"If you would give me your address--"
"Oh,
not at all,
not at all;"
and he wrapped his greatcoat over his knees.

Then the Four Serious Songs rang shallow in Margaret's ears.

Brahms,
for all his grumbling and grizzling,
had never guessed what it felt like
to be suspected of stealing an umbrella.

For this fool of a young man thought that she and Helen and Tibby had been playing the confidence trick on him,
and that if he gave his address they would break into his rooms some midnight or other and steal his walking-stick too.

Most ladies would have laughed,
but Margaret really minded,
for it gave her a glimpse into squalor.

To trust people is a luxury in which only the wealthy can indulge;
the poor cannot afford it.

As soon as Brahms had grunted himself out,
she gave him her card and said,
"That is where we live;
if you preferred,
you could call
for the umbrella after the concert,
but I didn't like
to trouble you when it has all been our fault."

His face brightened a little when he saw that Wickham Place was W.

It was sad
to see him corroded
with suspicion,
and yet not daring
to be impolite,
in case these well-dressed people were honest after all.

She took it as a good sign that he said
to her,
"It's a fine programme this afternoon,
is it not?"
for this was the remark
with which he had originally opened,
before the umbrella intervened.

"The Beethoven's fine,"
said Margaret,
who was not a female of the encouraging type.

"I don't like the Brahms,
though,
nor the Mendelssohn that came first and ugh! I don't like this Elgar that's coming."

"What,
what?"
called Herr Liesecke,
overhearing.

"The
'Pomp and Circumstance'
will not be fine?"
"Oh,
Margaret,
you tiresome girl!"
cried her aunt.

"Here have I been persuading Herr Liesecke
to stop for
'Pomp and Circumstance,'
and you are undoing all my work.

I am so anxious
for him
to hear what WE are doing in music.

Oh,--you musn't run down our English composers,
Margaret."

"For my part,
I have heard the composition at Stettin,"
said Fraulein Mosebach,
"on two occasions.

It is dramatic,
a little."

"Frieda,
you despise English music.

You know you do.

And English art.

And English literature,
except Shakespeare,
and he's a German.

Very well,
Frieda,
you may go."

The lovers laughed and glanced at each other.

Moved by a common impulse,
they rose
to their feet and fled from
"Pomp and Circumstance."

"We have this call
to pay in Finsbury Circus,
it is true,"
said Herr Liesecke,
as he edged past her and reached the gangway just as the music started.

"Margaret--"
loudly whispered by Aunt Juley.

"Margaret,
Margaret! Fraulein Mosebach has left her beautiful little bag behind her on the seat."

Sure enough,
there was Frieda's reticule,
containing her address book,
her pocket dictionary,
her map of London,
and her money.

"Oh,
what a bother--what a family we are! Fr--frieda!"
"Hush!"
said all those who thought the music fine.

"But it's the number they want in Finsbury Circus."

"Might I--couldn't I--"
said the suspicious young man,
and got very red.

"Oh,
I would be so grateful."

He took the bag--money clinking inside it--and slipped up the gangway
with it.

He was just in time
to catch them at the swing-door,
and he received a pretty smile from the German girl and a fine bow from her cavalier.

He returned
to his seat upsides
with the world.

The trust that they had reposed in him was trivial,
but he felt that it cancelled his mistrust
for them,
and that probably he would not be
"had"
over his umbrella.

This young man had been
"had"
in the past badly,
perhaps overwhelmingly--and now most of his energies went in defending himself against the unknown.

But this afternoon--perhaps on account of music--he perceived that one must slack off occasionally or what is the good of being alive?

Wickham Place,
W.,
though a risk,
was as safe as most things,
and he would risk it.

So when the concert was over and Margaret said,
"We live quite near;
I am going there now.

Could you walk round
with me,
and we'll find your umbrella?"
he said,
"Thank you,"
peaceably,
and followed her out of the Queen's Hall.

She wished that he was not so anxious
to hand a lady downstairs,
or
to carry a lady's programme
for her--his class was near enough her own
for its manners
to vex her.

But she found him interesting on the whole-- every one interested the Schlegels on the whole at that time--and while her lips talked culture,
her heart was planning
to invite him
to tea.

"How tired one gets after music!"
she began.

"Do you find the atmosphere of Queen's Hall oppressive?"
"Yes,
horribly."

"But surely the atmosphere of Covent Garden is even more oppressive."

"Do you go there much?"
"When my work permits,
I attend the gallery
for the Royal Opera."

Helen would have exclaimed,
"So do I.

I love the gallery,"
and thus have endeared herself
to the young man.

Helen could do these things.

But Margaret had an almost morbid horror of
"drawing people out,"
of
"making things go."

She had been
to the gallery at Covent Garden,
but she did not
"attend"
it,
preferring the more expensive seats;
still less did she love it.

So she made no reply.

"This year I have been three times--to
'Faust,'
'Tosca,'
and--"
Was it
"Tannhouser"
or
"Tannhoyser"?

Better not risk the word.

Margaret disliked
"Tosca"
and
"Faust."

And so,
for one reason and another,
they walked on in silence,
chaperoned by the voice of Mrs. Munt,
who was getting into difficulties
with her nephew.

"I do in a WAY remember the passage,
Tibby,
but when every instrument is so beautiful,
it is difficult
to pick out one thing rather than another.

I am sure that you and Helen take me
to the very nicest concerts.

Not a dull note from beginning
to end.

I only wish that our German friends had stayed till it finished."

"But surely you haven't forgotten the drum steadily beating on the low C,
Aunt Juley?"
came Tibby's voice.

"No one could.

It's unmistakable."

"A specially loud part?"
hazarded Mrs. Munt.

"Of course I do not go in
for being musical,"
she added,
the shot failing.

"I only care
for music--a very different thing.

But still I will say this
for myself--I do know when I like a thing and when I don't.

Some people are the same about pictures.

They can go into a picture gallery--Miss Conder can--and say straight off what they feel,
all round the wall.

I never could do that.

But music is so different from pictures,
to my mind.

When it comes
to music I am as safe as houses,
and I assure you,
Tibby,
I am by no means pleased by everything.

There was a thing--something about a faun in French--which Helen went into ecstasies over,
but I thought it most tinkling and superficial,
and said so,
and I held
to my opinion too."

"Do you agree?"
asked Margaret.

"Do you think music is so different from pictures?"
"I--I should have thought so,
kind of,"
he said.

"So should I.

Now,
my sister declares they're just the same.

We have great arguments over it.

She says I'm dense;
I say she's sloppy."

Getting under way,
she cried:

"Now,
doesn't it seem absurd
to you?

What is the good of the Arts if they
're interchangeable?

What is the good of the ear if it tells you the same as the eye?

Helen's one aim is
to translate tunes into the language of painting,
and pictures into the language of music.

It's very ingenious,
and she says several pretty things in the process,
but what's gained,
I'd like
to know?

Oh,
it's all rubbish,
radically false.

If Monet's really Debussy,
and Debussy's really Monet,
neither gentleman is worth his salt-- that's my opinion."

Evidently these sisters quarrelled.

"Now,
this very symphony that we've just been having--she won't let it alone.

She labels it
with meanings from start
to finish;
turns it into literature.

I wonder if the day will ever return when music will be treated as music.

Yet I don't know.

There's my brother--behind us.

He treats music as music,
and oh,
my goodness! He makes me angrier than any one,
simply furious.

With him I daren't even argue."

An unhappy family,
if talented.

"But,
of course,
the real villain is Wagner.

He has done more than any man in the nineteenth century towards the muddling of the arts.

I do feel that music is in a very serious state just now,
though extraordinarily interesting.

Every now and then in history there do come these terrible geniuses,
like Wagner,
who stir up all the wells of thought at once.

For a moment it's splendid.

Such a splash as never was.

But afterwards--such a lot of mud;
and the wells--as it were,
they communicate
with each other too easily now,
and not one of them will run quite clear.

That's what Wagner's done."

Her speeches fluttered away from the young man like birds.

If only he could talk like this,
he would have caught the world.

Oh,
to acquire culture! Oh,
to pronounce foreign names correctly! Oh,
to be well informed,
discoursing at ease on every subject that a lady started! But it would take one years.

With an hour at lunch and a few shattered hours in the evening,
how was it possible
to catch up
with leisured women,
who had been reading steadily from childhood?

His brain might be full of names,
he might have even heard of Monet and Debussy;
the trouble was that he could not string them together into a sentence,
he could not make them
"tell,"
he could not quite forget about his stolen umbrella.

Yes,
the umbrella was the real trouble.

Behind Monet and Debussy the umbrella persisted,
with the steady beat of a drum.

"I suppose my umbrella will be all right,"
he was thinking.

"I don't really mind about it.

I will think about music instead.

I suppose my umbrella will be all right."

Earlier in the afternoon he had worried about seats.

Ought he
to have paid as much as two shillings?

Earlier still he had wondered,
"Shall I try
to do without a programme?"
There had always been something
to worry him ever since he could remember,
always something that distracted him in the pursuit of beauty.

For he did pursue beauty,
and,
therefore,
Margaret's speeches did flutter away from him like birds.

Margaret talked ahead,
occasionally saying,
"Don't you think so?

don't you feel the same?"
And once she stopped,
and said,
"Oh,
do interrupt me!"
which terrified him.

She did not attract him,
though she filled him
with awe.

Her figure was meagre,
her face seemed all teeth and eyes,
her references
to her sister and her brother were uncharitable.

For all her cleverness and culture,
she was probably one of those soulless,
atheistical women who have been so shown up by Miss Corelli.

It was surprising
(and alarming)
that she should suddenly say,
"I do hope that you'll come in and have some tea.

We should be so glad.

I have dragged you so far out of your way."

They had arrived at Wickham Place.

The sun had set,
and the backwater,
in deep shadow,
was filling
with a gentle haze.

To the right the fantastic sky-line of the flats towered black against the hues of evening;
to the left the older houses raised a square-cut,
irregular parapet against the grey.

Margaret fumbled
for her latch-key.

Of course she had forgotten it.

So,
grasping her umbrella by its ferrule,
she leant over the area and tapped at the dining-room window.

"Helen! Let us in!"
"All right,"
said a voice.

"You've been taking this gentleman's umbrella."

"Taken a what?"
said Helen,
opening the door.

"Oh,
what's that?

Do come in! How do you do?"
"Helen,
you must not be so ramshackly.

You took this gentleman's umbrella away from Queen's Hall,
and he has had the trouble of coming round
for it."

"Oh,
I am so sorry!"
cried Helen,
all her hair flying.

She had pulled off her hat as soon as she returned,
and had flung herself into the big dining-room chair.

"I do nothing but steal umbrellas.

I am so very sorry! Do come in and choose one.

Is yours a hooky or a nobbly?

Mine's a nobbly--at least,
I THINK it is."

The light was turned on,
and they began
to search the hall,
Helen,
who had abruptly parted
with the Fifth Symphony,
commenting
with shrill little cries.

"Don't you talk,
Meg,! You stole an old gentleman's silk top-hat.

Yes,
she did,
Aunt Juley.

It is a positive fact.

She thought it was a muff.

Oh,
heavens! I've knocked the In-and-Out card down.

Where's Frieda?

Tibby,
why don't you ever-- No,
I can't remember what I was going
to say.

That wasn't it,
but do tell the maids
to hurry tea up.

What about this umbrella?

"
She opened it.

"No,
it's all gone along the seaMs. It's an appalling umbrella.

It must be mine."

But it was not.

He took it from her,
murmured a few words of thanks,
and then fled,
with the lilting step of the clerk.

"But if you will stop--"
cried Margaret.

"Now,
Helen,
how stupid you've been!"
"Whatever have I done?"
"Don't you see that you've frightened him away?

I meant him
to stop
to tea.

You oughtn't
to talk about stealing or holes in an umbrella.

I saw his nice eyes getting so miserable.

No,
it's not a bit of good now."

For Helen had darted out into the street,
shouting,
"Oh,
do stop!"
"I dare say it is all
for the best,"
opined Mrs. Munt.

"We know nothing about the young man,
Margaret,
and your drawing-room is full of very tempting little things."

But Helen cried:

"Aunt Juley,
how can you! You make me more and more ashamed.

I'd rather he had been a thief and taken all the apostle spoons than that I-- Well,
I must shut the front-door,
I suppose.

One more failure
for Helen."

"Yes,
I think the apostle spoons could have gone as rent,"
said Margaret.

Seeing that her aunt did not understand,
she added:

"You remember
'rent'?

It was one of father's words-- Rent
to the ideal,
to his own faith in human nature.

You remember how he would trust strangers,
and if they fooled him he would say,
'It's better
to be fooled than
to be suspicious'--that the confidence trick is the work of man,
but the want-of-confidence trick is the work of the devil."

"I remember something of the sort now,"
said Mrs. Munt,
rather tartly,
for she longed
to add,
"It was lucky that your father married a wife
with money."

But this was unkind,
and she contented herself with,
"Why,
he might have stolen the little Ricketts picture as well."

"Better that he had,"
said Helen stoutly.

"No,
I agree
with Aunt Juley,"
said Margaret.

"I'd rather mistrust people than lose my little Ricketts.

There are limits."

Their brother,
finding the incident commonplace,
had stolen upstairs
to see whether there were scones
for tea.

He warmed the teapot--almost too deftly--rejected the orange pekoe that the parlour-maid had provided,
poured in five spoonfuls of a superior blend,
filled up
with really boiling water,
and now called
to the ladies
to be quick or they would lose the aroma.

"All right,
Auntie Tibby,"
called Heien,
while Margaret,
thoughtful again,
said:

"In a way,
I wish we had a real boy in the house--the kind of boy who cares
for men.

It would make entertaining so much easier."

"So do I,"
said her sister.

"Tibby only cares
for cultured females singing BrahMs. "

And when they joined him she said rather sharply:

"Why didn't you make that young man welcome,
Tibby?

You must do the host a little,
you know.

You ought
to have taken his hat and coaxed him into stopping,
instead of letting him be swamped by screaming women."

Tibby sighed,
and drew a long strand of hair over his forehead.

"Oh,
it's no good looking superior.

I mean what I say."

"Leave Tibby alone!"
said Margaret,
who could not bear her brother
to be scolded.

"Here's the house a regular hen-coop!"
grumbled Helen.

"Oh,
my dear!"
protested Mrs. Munt.

"How can you say such dreadful things! The number of men you get here has always astonished me.

If there is any danger it's the other way round."

"Yes,
but it's the wrong sort of men,
Helen means."

"No,
I don't,"
corrected Helen.

"We get the right sort of man,
but the wrong side of him,
and I say that's Tibby's fault.

There ought
to be a something about the house--an--I don't know what."

"A touch of the W's,
perhaps?"
Helen put out her tongue.

"Who are the W's?"
asked Tibby.

"The W's are things I and Meg and Aunt Juley know about and you don't,
so there!"
"I suppose that ours is a female house,"
said Margaret,
"and one must just accept it.

No,
Aunt Juley,
I don't mean that this house is full of women.

I am trying
to say something much more clever.

I mean that it was irrevocably feminine,
even in father's time.

Now I'm sure you understand! Well,
I'll give you another example.

It'll shock you,
but I don't care.

Suppose Queen Victoria gave a dinner-party,
and that the guests had been Leighton,
Millais,
Swinburne,
Rossetti,
Meredith,
Fitzgerald,
etc.

Do you suppose that the atmosphere of that dinner would have been artistic?

Heavens,
no! The very chairs on which they sat would have seen
to that.

So
with out house--it must be feminine,
and all we can do is
to see that it isn't effeminate.

Just as another house that I can mention,
but won't,
sounded irrevocably masculine,
and all its inmates can do is
to see that it isn't brutal."

"That house being the W's house,
I presume,"
said Tibby.

"You're not going
to be told about the W's,
my child,"
Helen cried,
"so don't you think it.

And on the other hand,
I don't the least mind if you find out,
so don't you think you've done anything clever,
in either case.

Give me a cigarette."

"You do what you can
for the house,"
said Margaret.

"The drawing-room reeks of smoke."

"If you smoked too,
the house might suddenly turn masculine.

Atmosphere is probably a question of touch and go.

Even at Queen Victoria's dinner-party--if something had been just a little Different--perhaps if she'd worn a clinging Liberty tea-gown instead of a magenta satin."

"With an India shawl over her shoulders--"
"Fastened at the bosom
with a Cairngorm-pin."

Bursts of disloyal laughter--you must remember that they are half German--greeted these suggestions,
and Margaret said pensively,
"How inconceivable it would be if the Royal Family cared about Art."

And the conversation drifted away and away,
and Helen's cigarette turned
to a spot in the darkness,
and the great flats opposite were sown
with lighted windows which vanished and were refit again,
and vanished incessantly.

Beyond them the thoroughfare roared gently--a tide that could never be quiet,
while in the east,
invisible behind the smokes of Wapping,
the moon was rising.

"That reminds me,
Margaret.

We might have taken that young man into the dining-room,
at all events.

Only the majolica plate--and that is so firmly set in the wall.

I am really distressed that he had no tea."

For that little incident had impressed the three women more than might be supposed.

It remained as a goblin footfall,
as a hint that all is not
for the best in the best of all possible worlds,
and that beneath these superstructures of wealth and art there wanders an ill-fed boy,
who has recovered his umbrella indeed,
but who has left no address behind him,
and no name.

CHAPTER VI WE are not concerned
with the very poor.

They are unthinkable and only
to be approached by the statistician or the poet.

This story deals
with gentlefolk,
or
with those who are obliged
to pretend that they are gentlefolk.

The boy,
Leonard Bast,
stood at the extreme verge of gentility.

He was not in the abyss,
but he could see it,
and at times people whom he knew had dropped in,
and counted no more.

He knew that he was poor,
and would admit it;
he would have died sooner than confess any inferiority
to the rich.

This may be splendid of him.

But he was inferior
to most rich people,
there is not the least doubt of it.

He was not as courteous as the average rich man,
nor as intelligent,
nor as healthy,
nor as lovable.

His mind and his body had been alike underfed,
because he was poor,
and because he was modern they were always craving better food.

Had he lived some centuries ago,
in the brightly coloured civilisations of the past,
he would have had a definite status,
his rank and his income would have corresponded.

But in his day the angel of Democracy had arisen,
enshadowing the classes
with leathern wings,
and proclaiming,
"All men are equal--all men,
that is
to say,
who possess umbrellas,"
and so he was obliged
to assert gentility,
lest he slip into the abyss where nothing counts,
and the statements of Democracy are inaudible.

As he walked away from Wickham Place,
his first care was
to prove that he was as good as the Miss Schlegels.

Obscurely wounded in his pride,
he tried
to wound them in return.

They were probably not ladies.

Would real ladies have asked him
to tea?

They were certainly ill-natured and cold.

At each step his feeling of superiority increased.

Would a real lady have talked about stealing an umbrella?

Perhaps they were thieves after all,
and if he had gone into the house they would have clapped a chloroformed handkerchief over his face.

He walked on complacently as far as the Houses of Parliament.

There an empty stomach asserted itself,
and told him that he was a fool.

"Evening,
Mr. Bast."

"Evening,
Mr. Dealtry."

"Nice evening."

"Evening."

Mr. Dealtry,
a fellow clerk,
passed on,
and Leonard stood wondering whether he would take the tram as far as a penny would take him,
or whether he would walk.

He decided
to walk--it is no good giving in,
and he had spent money enough at Queen's Hall-- and he walked over Westminster Bridge,
in front of St. Thomas's Hospital,
and through the immense tunnel that passes under the South-Western main line at Vauxhall.

In the tunnel he paused and listened
to the roar of the trains.

A sharp pain darted through his head,
and he was conscious of the exact form of his eye sockets.

He pushed on
for another mile,
and did not slacken speed until he stood at the entrance of a road called Camelia Road which was at present his home.

Here he stopped again,
and glanced suspiciously
to right and left,
like a rabbit that is going
to bolt into its hole.

A block of flats,
constructed
with extreme cheapness,
towered on either hand.

Farther down the road two more blocks were being built,
and beyond these an old house was being demolished
to accommodate another pair.

It was the kind of scene that may be observed all over London,
whatever the locality--bricks and mortar rising and falling
with the restlessness of the water in a fountain as the city receives more and more men upon her soil.

Camelia Road would soon stand out like a fortress,
and command,
for a little,
an extensive view.

Only
for a little.

Plans were out
for the erection of flats in Magnolia Road also.

And again a few years,
and all the flats in either road might be pulled down,
and new buildings,
of a vastness at present unimaginable,
might arise where they had fallen.

"Evening,
Mr. Bast."

"Evening,
Mr. Cunningham."

"Very serious thing this decline of the birth-rate in Manchester."

"I beg your pardon?"
"Very serious thing this decline of the birth-rate in Manchester,"
repeated Mr. Cunningham,
tapping the Sunday paper,
in which the calamity in question had just been announced
to him.

"Ah,
yes,"
said Leonard,
who was not going
to let on that he had not bought a Sunday paper.

"If this kind of thing goes on the population of England will be stationary in 1960."

"You don't say so."

"I call it a very serious thing,
eh?"
"Good-evening,
Mr. Cunningham."

"Good-evening,
Mr. Bast."

Then Leonard entered Block B of the flats,
and turned,
not upstairs,
but down,
into what is known
to house agents as a semi-basement,
and
to other men as a cellar.

He opened the door,
and cried,
"Hullo!"
with the pseudo geniality of the Cockney.

There was no reply.

"Hullo!"
he repeated.

The sitting-room was empty,
though the electric light had been left burning.

A look of relief came over his face,
and he flung himself into the armchair.

The sitting-room contained,
besides the armchair,
two other chairs,
a piano,
a three-legged table,
and a cosy corner.

Of the walls,
one was occupied by the window,
the other by a draped mantelshelf bristling
with Cupids.

Opposite the window was the door,
and beside the door a bookcase,
while over the piano there extended one of the masterpieces of Maud Goodman.

It was an amorous and not unpleasant little hole when the curtains were drawn,
and the lights turned on,
and the gas-stove unlit.

But it struck that shallow makeshift note that is so often heard in the dwelling-place.

It had been too easily gained,
and could be relinquished too easily.

As Leonard was kicking off his boots he jarred the three-legged table,
and a photograph frame,
honourably poised upon it,
slid sideways,
fell off into the fireplace,
and smashed.

He swore in a colourless sort of way,
and picked the photograph up.

It represented a young lady called Jacky,
and had been taken at the time when young ladies called Jacky were often photographed
with their mouths open.

Teeth of dazzling whiteness extended along either of Jacky's jaw's,
and positively weighed her head sideways,
so large were they and so numerous.

Take my word
for it,
that smile was simply stunning,
and it is only you and I who will be fastidious,
and complain that true joy begins in the eyes,
and that the eyes of Jacky did not accord
with her smile,
but were anxious and hungry.

Leonard tried
to pull out the fragments of glass,
and cut his fingers and swore again.

A drop of blood fell on the frame,
another followed,
spilling over on
to the exposed photograph.

He swore more vigorously,
and dashed into the kitchen,
where he bathed his hands.

The kitchen was the same size as the sitting-room;
beyond it was a bedroom.

This completed his home.

He was renting the flat furnished;
of all the objects that encumbered it none were his own except the photograph frame,
the Cupids,
and the books.

"Damn,
damn,
damnation!"
he murmured,
together
with such other words as he had learnt from older men.

Then he raised his hand
to his forehead and said,
"Oh,
damn it all--"which meant something different.

He pulled himself together.

He drank a little tea,
black and silent,
that still survived upon an upper shelf.

He swallowed some dusty crumbs of a cake.

Then he went back
to the sitting-room,
settled himself anew,
and began
to read a volume of Ruskin.

"Seven miles
to the north of Venice--"
How perfectly the famous chapter opens! How supreme its command of admonition and of poetry! The rich man is speaking
to us from his gondola.

"Seven miles
to the north of Venice the banks of sand which nearer the city rise little above low-water mark attain by degrees a higher level,
and knit themselves at last into fields of salt morass,
raised here and there into shapeless mounds,
and intercepted by narrow creeks of sea."

Leonard was trying
to form his style on Ruskin;
he understood him
to be the greatest master of English Prose.

He read forward steadily,
occasionally making a few notes.

"Let us consider a little each of these characters in succession,
and first
(for of the shafts enough has been said already),
what is very peculiar
to this church--its luminousness."

Was there anything
to be learnt from this fine sentence?

Could he adapt it
to the needs of daily life?

Could he introduce it,
with modifications,
when he next wrote a letter
to his brother,
the lay-reader?

For example:

"Let us consider a little each of these characters in succession,
and first
(for of the absence of ventilation enough has been said already),
what is very peculiar
to this flat--its obscurity."

Something told him that the modifications would not do;
and that something,
had he known it,
was the spirit of English Prose.

"My flat is dark as well as stuffy."

Those were the words
for him.

And the voice in the gondola rolled on,
piping melodiously of Effort and Self-Sacrifice,
full of high purpose,
full of beauty,
full even of sympathy and the love of men,
yet somehow eluding all that was actual and insistent in Leonard's life.

For it was the voice of one who had never been dirty or hungry,
and had not guessed successfully what dirt and hunger are.

Leonard listened
to it
with reverence.

He felt that he was being done good to,
and that if he kept on
with Ruskin,
and the Queen's Hall Concerts,
and some pictures by Watts,
he would one day push his head out of the grey waters and see the universe.

He believed in sudden conversion,
a belief which may be right,
but which is peculiarly attractive
to a half-baked mind.

It is the basis of much popular religion;
in the domain of business it dominates the Stock Exchange,
and becomes that
"bit of luck"
by which all successes and failures are explained.

"If only I had a bit of luck,
the whole thing would come straight...

He's got a most magnificent place down at Streatham and a 20 h.p.

Fiat,
but then,
mind you,
he's had luck...

I
'm sorry the wife's so late,
but she never has any luck over catching trains."

Leonard was superior
to these people;
he did believe in effort and in a steady preparation
for the change that he desired.

But of a heritage that may expand gradually,
he had no conception;
he hoped
to come
to Culture suddenly,
much as the Revivalist hopes
to come
to Jesus.

Those Miss Schlegels had come
to it;
they had done the trick;
their hands were upon the ropes,
once and
for all.

And meanwhile,
his flat was dark,
as well as stuffy.

Presently there was a noise on the staircase.

He shut up Margaret's card in the pages of Ruskin,
and opened the door.

A woman entered,
of whom it is simplest
to say that she was not respectable.

Her appearance was awesome.

She seemed all strings and bell-pulls--ribbons,
chains,
bead necklaces that clinked and caught and a boa of azure feathers hung round her neck,
with the ends uneven.

Her throat was bare,
wound
with a double row of pearls,
her arms were bare
to the elbows,
and might again be detected at the shoulder,
through cheap lace.

Her hat,
which was flowery,
resembled those punnets,
covered
with flannel,
which we sowed
with mustard and cress in our childhood,
and which germinated here yes,
and there no.

She wore it on the back of her head.

As
for her hair,
or rather hairs,
they are too complicated
to describe,
but one system went down her back,
lying in a thick pad there,
while another,
created
for a lighter destiny,
rippled around her forehead.

The face--the face does not signify.

It was the face of the photograph,
but older,
and the teeth were not so numerous as the photographer had suggested,
and certainly not so white.

Yes,
Jacky was past her prime,
whatever that prime may have been.

She was descending quicker than most women into the colourless years,
and the look in her eyes confessed it."

"What ho!"
said Leonard,
greeting the apparition
with much spirit,
and helping it off
with its boa.

Jacky,
in husky tones,
replied,
"What ho!"
"Been out?"
he asked.

The question sounds superfluous,
but it cannot have been really,
for the lady answered,
"No,"
adding,
"Oh,
I am so tired."

"You tired?"
"Eh?"
"I'm tired,"
said he,
hanging the boa up.

"Oh,
Len,
I am so tired."

"I've been
to that classical concert I told you about,"
said Leonard.

"What's that?"
"I came back as soon as it was over."

"Any one been round
to our place?"
asked Jacky.

"Not that I've seen.

I met Mr. Cunningham outside,
and we passed a few remarks."

"What,
not Mr. Cunningham?"
"Yes."

"Oh,
you mean Mr. Cunningham."

"Yes.

Mr. Cunningham."

"I've been out
to tea at a lady friend's."

Her secret being at last given--to the world,
and the name of the lady friend being even adumbrated,
Jacky made no further experiments in the difficult and tiring art of conversation.

She never had been a great talker.

Even in her photographic days she had relied upon her smile and her figure
to attract,
and now that she was
"On the shelf,
On the shelf,
Boys,
boys,
I'm on the shelf,"
she was not likely
to find her tongue.

Occasional bursts of song
(of which the above is an example)
still issued from her lips,
but the spoken word was rare.

She sat down on Leonard's knee,
and began
to fondle him.

She was now a massive woman of thirty-three,
and her weight hurt him,
but he could not very well say anything.

Then she said,
"Is that a book you're reading?"
and he said,
"That's a book,"
and drew it from her unreluctant grasp.

Margaret's card fell out of it.

It fell face downwards,
and he murmured,
"Bookmarker."

"Len--"
"What is it?"
he asked,
a little wearily,
for she only had one topic of conversation when she sat upon his knee.

"You do love me?"
"Jacky,
you know that I do.

How can you ask such questions!"
"But you do love me,
Len,
don't you?"
"Of course I do."

A pause.

The other remark was still due.

"Len--"
"Well?

What is it?"
"Len,
you will make it all right?"
"I can't have you ask me that again,"
said the boy,
flaring up into a sudden passion.

"I've promised
to marry you when I'm of age,
and that's enough.

My word's my word.

I've promised
to marry you as soon as ever I'm twenty-one,
and I can't keep on being worried.

I've worries enough.

It isn't likely I'd throw you over,
let alone my word,
when I've spent all this money.

Besides,
I'm an Englishman,
and I never go back on my word.

Jacky,
do be reasonable.

Of course I'll marry you.

Only do stop badgering me."

"When's your birthday,
Len?"
"I've told you again and again,
the eleventh of November next.

Now get off my knee a bit;
some one must get supper,
I suppose."

Jacky went through
to the bedroom,
and began
to see
to her hat.

This meant blowing at it
with short sharp puffs.

Leonard tidied up the sitting-room,
and began
to prepare their evening meal.

He put a penny into the slot of the gas-meter,
and soon the flat was reeking
with metallic fumes.

Somehow he could not recover his temper,
and all the time he was cooking he continued
to complain bitterly.

"It really is too bad when a fellow isn't trusted.

It makes one feel so wild,
when I've pretended
to the people here that you're my wife--all right,
all right,
you SHALL be my wife--and I've bought you the ring
to wear,
and I've taken this flat furnished,
and it's far more than I can afford,
and yet you aren't content,
and I've also not told the truth when I've written home.

He lowered his voice.

"He'd stop it."

In a tone of horror,
that was a little luxurious,
he repeated:

"My brother'd stop it.

I'm going against the whole world,
Jacky.

"That's what I am,
Jacky.

I don't take any heed of what any one says.

I just go straight forward,
I do.

That's always been my way.

I'm not one of your weak knock-kneed chaps.

If a woman's in trouble,
I don't leave her in the lurch.

That's not my street.

No,
thank you.

"I'll tell you another thing too.

I care a good deal about improving myself by means of Literature and Art,
and so getting a wider outlook.

For instance,
when you came in I was reading Ruskin's Stones of Venice.

I don't say this
to boast,
but just
to show you the kind of man I am.

I can tell you,
I enjoyed that classical concert this afternoon."

To all his moods Jacky remained equally indifferent.

When supper was ready--and not before--she emerged from the bedroom,
saying:

"But you do love me,
don't you?"
They began
with a soup square,
which Leonard had just dissolved in some hot water.

It was followed by the tongue--a freckled cylinder of meat,
with a little jelly at the top,
and a great deal of yellow fat at the bottom--ending
with another square dissolved in water
(jelly:

pineapple),
which Leonard had prepared earlier in the day.

Jacky ate contentedly enough,
occasionally looking at her man
with those anxious eyes,
to which nothing else in her appearance corresponded,
and which yet seemed
to mirror her soul.

And Leonard managed
to convince his stomach that it was having a nourishing meal.

After supper they smoked cigarettes and exchanged a few statements.

She observed that her
"likeness"
had been broken.

He found occasion
to remark,
for the second time,
that he had come straight back home after the concert at Queen's Hall.

Presently she sat upon his knee.

The inhabitants of Camelia Road tramped
to and fro outside the window,
just on a level
with their heads,
and the family in the flat on the ground-floor began
to sing,
"Hark,
my soul,
it is the Lord."

"That tune fairly gives me the hump,"
said Leonard.

Jacky followed this,
and said that,
for her part,
she thought it a lovely tune.

"No;
I'll play you something lovely.

Get up,
dear,
for a minute."

He went
to the piano and jingled out a little Grieg.

He played badly and vulgarly,
but the performance was not