“Did Elliot ask you to breakfast with me?”
“No,” said Tilliard mildly.
“Well, you’d better come, and bring every one you know.”
So Tilliard came, bearing himself a little formally, for he was not very intimate with his neighbour. Out of the window they called to Widdrington. But he laid his hand on his stomach, thus indicating it was too late.
“Who’s to pay for it?” repeated Ansell, as a man appeared from the Buttery carrying coffee on a bright tin tray.
“College coffee! How nice!” remarked Tilliard, who was cutting the pie. “But before term ends you must come and try my new machine. My sister gave it me. There is a bulb at the top, and as the water boils— “
“He might have counter-ordered the lemon-sole. That’s Rickie all over. Violently economical, and then loses his head, and all the things go bad.”
“Give them to the bedder while they’re hot.” This was done. She accepted them dispassionately, with the air of one who lives without nourishment. Tilliard continued to describe his sister’s coffee machine.
“What’s that?” They could hear panting and rustling on the stairs.
“It sounds like a lady,” said Tilliard fearfully. He slipped the piece of pie back. It fell into position like a brick.
“Is it here? Am I right? Is it here?” The door opened and in came Mrs. Lewin. “Oh horrors! I’ve made a mistake.”
“That’s all right,” said Ansell awkwardly.
“I wanted Mr. Elliot. Where are they?”
“We expect Mr. Elliot every-moment,” said Tilliard.
“Don’t tell me I’m right,” cried Mrs. Lewin, “and that you’re the terrifying Mr. Ansell.” And, with obvious relief, she wrung Tilliard warmly by the hand.
“I’m Ansell,” said Ansell, looking very uncouth and grim.
“How stupid of me not to know it,” she gasped, and would have gone on to I know not what, but the door opened again. It was Rickie.
“Here’s Miss Pembroke,” he said. “I am going to marry her.”
There was a profound silence.
“We oughtn’t to have done things like this,” said Agnes, turning to Mrs. Lewin. “We have no right to take Mr. Ansell by surprise. It is Rickie’s fault. He was that obstinate. He would bring us. He ought to be horsewhipped.”
“He ought, indeed,” said Tilliard pleasantly, and bolted. Not till he gained his room did he realize that he had been less apt than usual. As for Ansell, the first thing he said was, “Why didn’t you counter-order the lemon-sole?”
In such a situation Mrs. Lewin was of priceless value. She led the way to the table, observing, “I quite agree with Miss Pembroke. I loathe surprises. Never shall I forget my horror when the knife-boy painted the dove’s cage with the dove inside. He did it as a surprise. Poor Parsival nearly died. His feathers were bright green!”
“Well, give me the lemon-soles,” said Rickie. “I like them.”
“The bedder’s got them.”
“Well, there you are! What’s there to be annoyed about?”
“And while the cage was drying we put him among the bantams. They had been the greatest allies. But I suppose they took him for a parrot or a hawk, or something that bantams hate for while his cage was drying they picked out his feathers, and PICKED and PICKED out his feathers, till he was perfectly bald. ‘Hugo, look,’ said I. ‘This is the end of Parsival. Let me have no more surprises.’ He burst into tears.”
Thus did Mrs. Lewin create an atmosphere. At first it seemed unreal, but gradually they got used to it, and breathed scarcely anything else throughout the meal. In such an atmosphere everything seemed of small and equal value, and the engagement of Rickie and Agnes like the feathers of Parsival, fluttered lightly to the ground. Ansell was generally silent. He was no match for these two quite clever women. Only once was there a hitch.
They had been talking gaily enough about the betrothal when Ansell suddenly interrupted with, “When is the marriage?”
“Mr. Ansell,” said Agnes, blushing, “I wish you hadn’t asked that. That part’s dreadful. Not for years, as far as we can see.”
But Rickie had not seen as far. He had not talked to her of this at all. Last night they had spoken only of love. He exclaimed, “Oh, Agnes-don’t!” Mrs. Lewin laughed roguishly.
“Why this delay?” asked Ansell.
Agnes looked at Rickie, who replied, “I must get money, worse luck.”
“I thought you’d got money.”
He hesitated, and then said, “I must get my foot on the ladder, then.”
Ansell began with, “On which ladder?” but Mrs. Lewin, using the privilege of her sex, exclaimed, “Not another word. If there’s a thing I abominate, it is plans. My head goes whirling at once.” What she really abominated was questions, and she saw that Ansell was turning serious. To appease him, she put on her clever manner and asked him about Germany. How had it impressed him? Were we so totally unfitted to repel invasion? Was not German scholarship overestimated? He replied discourteously, but he did reply; and if she could have stopped him thinking, her triumph would have been complete.
When they rose to go, Agnes held Ansell’s hand for a moment in her own.
“Good-bye,” she said. “It was very unconventional of us to come as we did, but I don’t think any of us are conventional people.”
He only replied, “Good-bye.” The ladies started off. Rickie lingered behind to whisper, “I would have it so. I would have you begin square together. I can’t talk yet — I’ve loved her for years — can’t think what she’s done it for. I’m going to write short stories. I shall start this afternoon. She declares there may be something in me.”
As soon as he had left, Tilliard burst in, white with agitation, and crying, “Did you see my awful faux pas — about the horsewhip? What shall I do? I must call on Elliot. Or had I better write?”
“Miss Pembroke will not mind,” said Ansell gravely. “She is unconventional.” He knelt in an arm-chair and hid his face in the back.
“It was like a bomb,” said Tilliard.
“It was meant to be.”
“I do feel a fool. What must she think?”
“Never mind, Tilliard. You’ve not been as big a fool as myself. At all events, you told her he must be horsewhipped.”
Tilliard hummed a little tune. He hated anything nasty, and there was nastiness in Ansell. “What did you tell her?” he asked.
“Nothing.”
“What do you think of it?”
“I think: Damn those women.”
“Ah, yes. One hates one’s friends to get engaged. It makes one feel so old: I think that is one of the reasons. The brother just above me has lately married, and my sister was quite sick about it, though the thing was suitable in every way.”
“Damn THESE women, then,” said Ansell, bouncing round in the chair. “Damn these particular women.”
“They looked and spoke like ladies.”
“Exactly. Their diplomacy was ladylike. Their lies were ladylike. They’ve caught Elliot in a most ladylike way. I saw it all during the one moment we were natural. Generally we were clattering after the married one, whom — like a fool — I took for a fool. But for one moment we were natural, and during that moment Miss Pembroke told a lie, and made Rickie believe it was the truth.”
“What did she say?”
“She said `we see’ instead of ‘I see.’”
Tilliard burst into laughter. This jaundiced young philosopher, with his kinky view of life, was too much for him.
“She said ‘we see,’” repeated Ansell, “instead of ‘I see,’ and she made him believe that it was the truth. She caught him and makes him believe that he caught her. She came to see me and makes him think that it is his idea. That is what I mean when I say that she is a lady.”
“You are too subtle for me. My dull eyes could only see two happy people.”
“I never said they weren’t happy.”
“Then, my dear A
nsell, why are you so cut up? It’s beastly when a friend marries, — and I grant he’s rather young, — but I should say it’s the best thing for him. A decent woman — and you have proved not one thing against her — a decent woman will keep him up to the mark and stop him getting slack. She’ll make him responsible and manly, for much as I like Rickie, I always find him a little effeminate. And, really,” — his voice grew sharper, for he was irritated by Ansell’s conceit, “and, really, you talk as if you were mixed up in the affair. They pay a civil visit to your rooms, and you see nothing but dark plots and challenges to war.”
“War!” cried Ansell, crashing his fists together. “It’s war, then!”
“Oh, what a lot of tommy-rot,” said Tilliard. “Can’t a man and woman get engaged? My dear boy — excuse me talking like this — what on earth is it to do with us?”
“We’re his friends, and I hope we always shall be, but we shan’t keep his friendship by fighting. We’re bound to fall into the background. Wife first, friends some way after. You may resent the order, but it is ordained by nature.”
“The point is, not what’s ordained by nature or any other fool, but what’s right.”
“You are hopelessly unpractical,” said Tilliard, turning away. “And let me remind you that you’ve already given away your case by acknowledging that they’re happy.”
“She is happy because she has conquered; he is happy because he has at last hung all the world’s beauty on to a single peg. He was always trying to do it. He used to call the peg humanity. Will either of these happinesses last? His can’t. Hers only for a time. I fight this woman not only because she fights me, but because I foresee the most appalling catastrophe. She wants Rickie, partly to replace another man whom she lost two years ago, partly to make something out of him. He is to write. In time she will get sick of this. He won’t get famous. She will only see how thin he is and how lame. She will long for a jollier husband, and I don’t blame her. And, having made him thoroughly miserable and degraded, she will bolt — if she can do it like a lady.”
Such were the opinions of Stewart Ansell.
IX
Seven letters written in June: —
Cambridge
Dear Rickie,
I would rather write, and you can guess what kind of letter this is when I say it is a fair copy: I have been making rough drafts all the morning. When I talk I get angry, and also at times try to be clever — two reasons why I fail to get attention paid to me. This is a letter of the prudent sort. If it makes you break off the engagement, its work is done. You are not a person who ought to marry at all. You are unfitted in body: that we once discussed. You are also unfitted in soul: you want and you need to like many people, and a man of that sort ought not to marry. “You never were attached to that great sect” who can like one person only, and if you try to enter it you will find destruction. I have read in books and I cannot afford to despise books, they are all that I have to go by — that men and women desire different things. Man wants to love mankind; woman wants to love one man. When she has him her work is over. She is the emissary of Nature, and Nature’s bidding has been fulfilled. But man does not care a damn for Nature — or at least only a very little damn. He cares for a hundred things besides, and the more civilized he is the more he will care for these other hundred things, and demand not only — a wife and children, but also friends, and work, and spiritual freedom.
I believe you to be extraordinarily civilized. — Yours ever,
S.A.
Shelthorpe, 9 Sawston Park Road, Sawston
Dear Ansell,
But I’m in love — a detail you’ve forgotten. I can’t listen to English Essays. The wretched Agnes may be an “emissary of Nature,” but I only grinned when I read it. I may be extraordinarily civilized, but I don’t feel so; I’m in love, and I’ve found a woman to love me, and I mean to have the hundred other things as well. She wants me to have them — friends and work, and spiritual freedom, and everything. You and your books miss this, because your books are too sedate. Read poetry — not only Shelley. Understand Beatrice, and Clara Middleton, and Brunhilde in the first scene of Gotterdammerung. Understand Goethe when he says “the eternal feminine leads us on,” and don’t write another English Essay. — Yours ever affectionately,
R.E.
Cambridge
Dear Rickie:
What am I to say? “Understand Xanthippe, and Mrs. Bennet, and Elsa in the question scene of Lohengrin”? “Understand Euripides when he says the eternal feminine leads us a pretty dance”? I shall say nothing of the sort. The allusions in this English Essay shall not be literary. My personal objections to Miss Pembroke are as follows: — (1) She is not serious. (2) She is not truthful.
Shelthorpe, 9 Sawston Park Road Sawston
My Dear Stewart,
You couldn’t know. I didn’t know for a moment. But this letter of yours is the most wonderful thing that has ever happened to me yet — more wonderful (I don’t exaggerate) than the moment when Agnes promised to marry me. I always knew you liked me, but I never knew how much until this letter. Up to now I think we have been too much like the strong heroes in books who feel so much and say so little, and feel all the more for saying so little. Now that’s over and we shall never be that kind of an ass again. We’ve hit — by accident — upon something permanent. You’ve written to me, “I hate the woman who will be your wife,” and I write back, “Hate her. Can’t I love you both?” She will never come between us, Stewart (She wouldn’t wish to, but that’s by the way), because our friendship has now passed beyond intervention. No third person could break it. We couldn’t ourselves, I fancy. We may quarrel and argue till one of us dies, but the thing is registered. I only wish, dear man, you could be happier. For me, it’s as if a light was suddenly held behind the world.
R.E.
Shelthorpe, 9 Sawston Park Road, Sawston
Dear Mrs. Lewin, —
The time goes flying, but I am getting to learn my wonderful boy. We speak a great deal about his work. He has just finished a curious thing called “Nemi” — about a Roman ship that is actually sunk in some lake. I cannot think how he describes the things, when he has never seen them. If, as I hope, he goes to Italy next year, he should turn out something really good. Meanwhile we are hunting for a publisher. Herbert believes that a collection of short stories is hard to get published. It is, after all, better to write one long one.
But you must not think we only talk books. What we say on other topics cannot so easily be repeated! Oh, Mrs Lewin, he is a dear, and dearer than ever now that we have him at Sawston. Herbert, in a quiet way, has been making inquiries about those Cambridge friends of his. Nothing against them, but they seem to be terribly eccentric. None of them are good at games, and they spend all their spare time thinking and discussing. They discuss what one knows and what one never will know and what one had much better not know. Herbert says it is because they have not got enough to do. — Ever your grateful and affectionate friend,
Agnes Pembroke
Shelthorpe, 9 Sawston Park Road Sawston
Dear Mr. Silt, —
Thank you for the congratulations, which I have handed over to the delighted Rickie.
(The congratulations were really addressed to Agnes — a social blunder which Mr. Pembroke deftly corrects.)
I am sorry that the rumor reached you that I was not pleased. Anything pleases me that promises my sister’s happiness, and I have known your cousin nearly as long as you have. It will be a very long engagement, for he must make his way first. The dear boy is not nearly as wealthy as he supposed; having no tastes, and hardly any expenses, he used to talk as if he were a millionaire. He must at least double his income before he can dream of more intimate ties. This has been a bitter pill, but I am glad to say that they have accepted it bravely.
Hoping that you and Mrs. Silt will profit by your week at Margate.-I remain, yours very sincerely,
Herbert Pembroke
Cadover, Wil
ts.
Dear Miss Pembroke, — Agnes —
I hear that you are going to marry my nephew. I have no idea what he is like, and wonder whether you would bring him that I may find out. Isn’t September rather a nice month? You might have to go to Stone Henge, but with that exception would be left unmolested. I do hope you will manage the visit. We met once at Mrs. Lewin’s, and I have a very clear recollection of you. — Believe me, yours sincerely,
Emily Failing
X
The rain tilted a little from the south-west. For the most part it fell from a grey cloud silently, but now and then the tilt increased, and a kind of sigh passed over the country as the drops lashed the walls, trees, shepherds, and other motionless objects that stood in their slanting career. At times the cloud would descend and visibly embrace the earth, to which it had only sent messages; and the earth itself would bring forth clouds — clouds of a whiter breed — which formed in shallow valleys and followed the courses of the streams. It seemed the beginning of life. Again God said, “Shall we divide the waters from the land or not? Was not the firmament labour and glory sufficient?” At all events it was the beginning of life pastoral, behind which imagination cannot travel.
Yet complicated people were getting wet — not only the shepherds. For instance, the piano-tuner was sopping. So was the vicar’s wife. So were the lieutenant and the peevish damsels in his Battleston car. Gallantry, charity, and art pursued their various missions, perspiring and muddy, while out on the slopes beyond them stood the eternal man and the eternal dog, guarding eternal sheep until the world is vegetarian.
Inside an arbour — which faced east, and thus avoided the bad weather — there sat a complicated person who was dry. She looked at the drenched world with a pleased expression, and would smile when a cloud would lay down on the village, or when the rain sighed louder than usual against her solid shelter. Ink, paperclips, and foolscap paper were on the table before her, and she could also reach an umbrella, a waterproof, a walking-stick, and an electric bell. Her age was between elderly and old, and her forehead was wrinkled with an expression of slight but perpetual pain. But the lines round her mouth indicated that she had laughed a great deal during her life, just as the clean tight skin round her eyes perhaps indicated that she had not often cried. She was dressed in brown silk. A brown silk shawl lay most becomingly over her beautiful hair.
Works of E M Forster Page 24
