Howards End

by E. M. Forster

  “But this is something quite new!” said Mrs. Munt, who collected new ideas as a squirrel collects nuts, and was especially attracted by those that are portable.

  “New for me; sensible people have acknowledged it for years. You and I and the Wilcoxes stand upon money as upon islands. It is so firm beneath our feet that we forget its very existence. It’s only when we see someone near us tottering that we realize all that an independent income means. Last night, when we were talking up here round the fire, I began to think that the very soul of the world is economic, and that the lowest abyss is not the absence of love, but the absence of coin.”

  “I call that rather cynical.”

  “So do I. But Helen and I, we ought to remember, when we are tempted to criticize others, that we are standing on these islands, and that most of the others are down below the surface of the sea. The poor cannot always reach those whom they want to love, and they can hardly ever escape from those whom they love no longer. We rich can. Imagine the tragedy last June if Helen and Paul Wilcox had been poor people and couldn’t invoke railways and motor-cars to part them.”

  “That’s more like Socialism,” said Mrs. Munt suspiciously.

  “Call it what you like. I call it going through life with one’s hand spread open on the table. I’m tired of these rich people who pretend to be poor, and think it shows a nice mind to ignore the piles of money that keep their feet above the waves. I stand each year upon six hundred pounds, and Helen upon the same, and Tibby will stand upon eight, and as fast as our pounds crumble away into the sea they are renewed—from the sea, yes, from the sea. And all our thoughts are the thoughts of six-hundred-pounders, and all our speeches; and because we don’t want to steal umbrellas ourselves, we forget that below the sea people do want to steal them, and do steal them sometimes, and that what’s a joke up here is down there reality—”

  “There they go—there goes Fräulein Mosebach. Really, for a German she does dress charmingly. Oh—!”

  “What is it?”

  “Helen was looking up at the Wilcoxes’ flat.”

  “Why shouldn’t she?”

  “I beg your pardon, I interrupted you. What was it you were saying about reality?”

  “I had worked round to myself, as usual,” answered Margaret in tones that were suddenly preoccupied.

  “Do tell me this, at all events. Are you for the rich or for the poor?”

  “Too difficult. Ask me another. Am I for poverty or for riches? For riches. Hurrah for riches!”

  “For riches!” echoed Mrs. Munt, having, as it were, at last secured her nut.

  “Yes. For riches. Money for ever!”

  “So am I, and so, I am afraid, are most of my acquaintances at Swanage, but I am surprised that you agree with us.”

  “Thank you so much, Aunt Juley. While I have talked theories, you have done the flowers.”

  “Not at all, dear. I wish you would let me help you in more important things.”

  “Well, would you be very kind? Would you come round with me to the registry office? There’s a house-maid who won’t say yes but doesn’t say no.”

  On their way thither they too looked up at the Wilcoxes’ flat. Evie was in the balcony, “staring most rudely,” according to Mrs. Munt. Oh yes, it was a nuisance, there was no doubt of it. Helen was proof against a passing encounter, but—Margaret began to lose confidence. Might it reawake the dying nerve if the family were living close against her eyes? And Frieda Mosebach was stopping with them for another fortnight, and Frieda was sharp, abominably sharp, and quite capable of remarking: “You love one of the young gentlemen opposite, yes?” The remark would be untrue, but of the kind which, if stated often enough, may become true; just as the remark, “England and Germany are bound to fight,” renders war a little more likely each time that it is made, and is therefore made the more readily by the gutter press of either nation. Have the private emotions also their gutter press? Margaret thought so, and feared that good Aunt Juley and Frieda were typical specimens of it. They might, by continual chatter, lead Helen into a repetition of the desires of June. Into a repetition—they could not do more; they could not lead her into lasting love. They were—she saw it clearly—Journalism; her father, with all his defects and wrong-headedness, had been Literature, and had he lived, he would have persuaded his daughter rightly.

  The registry office was holding its morning reception. A string of carriages filled the street. Miss Schlegel waited her turn, and finally had to be content with an insidious “temporary,” being rejected by genuine house-maids on the ground of her numerous stairs. Her failure depressed her, and though she forgot the failure, the depression remained. Oh her way home she again glanced up at the Wilcoxes’ flat, and took the rather matronly step of speaking about the matter to Helen.

  “Helen, you must tell me whether this thing worries you.”

  “If what?” said Helen, who was washing her hands for lunch.

  “The W.’s coming.”

  “No, of course not.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.” Then she admitted that she was a little worried on Mrs. Wilcox’s account; she implied that Mrs. Wilcox might reach backward into deep feelings, and be pained by things that never touched the other members of that clan. “I shan’t mind if Paul points at our house and says: ‘There lives the girl who tried to catch me.’ But she might.”

  “If even that worries you, we could arrange something. There’s no reason we should be near people who displease us or whom we displease, thanks to our money. We might even go away for a little.”

  “Well, I am going away. Frieda’s just asked me to Stettin, and I shan’t be back till after the New Year. Will that do? Or must I fly the country altogether? Really, Meg, what has come over you to make such a fuss?”

  “Oh, I’m getting an old maid, I suppose. I thought I minded nothing, but really I—I should be bored if you fell in love with the same man twice and”—she cleared her throat—“you did go red, you know, when Aunt Juley attacked you this morning. I shouldn’t have referred to it otherwise.”

  But Helen’s laugh rang true, as she raised a soapy hand to heaven and swore that never, nowhere and nohow, would she again fall in love with any of the Wilcox family, down to its remotest collaterals.

  Chapter VIII

  The friendship between Margaret and Mrs. Wilcox, which was to develop so quickly and with such strange results, may perhaps have had its beginnings at Speyer, in the spring. Perhaps the elder lady, as she gazed at the vulgar, ruddy cathedral and listened to the talk of Helen and her husband, may have detected in the other and less charming of the sisters a deeper sympathy, a sounder judgment. She was capable of detecting such things. Perhaps it was she who had desired the Miss Schlegels to be invited to Howards End, and Margaret whose presence she had particularly desired. All this is speculation: Mrs. Wilcox has left few clear indications behind her. It is certain that she came to call at Wickham Place a fortnight later, the very day that Helen was going with her cousin to Stettin.

  “Helen!” cried Fräulein Mosebach in awestruck tones (she was now in her cousin’s confidence)—“his mother has forgiven you!” And then, remembering that in England the new-comer ought not to call before she is called upon, she changed her tone from awe to disapproval, and opined that Mrs. Wilcox was “keine Dame.”

  “Bother the whole family!” snapped Margaret. “Helen, stop giggling and pirouetting, and go and finish your packing. Why can’t the woman leave us alone?”

  “I don’t know what I shall do with Meg,” Helen retorted, collapsing upon the stairs. “She’s got Wilcox and Box upon the brain. Meg, Meg, I don’t love the young gentleman; I don’t love the young gentleman, Meg, Meg. Can a body speak plainer?”

  “Most certainly her love has died,” asserted Fräulein Mosebach.

  “Most certainly it has, Frieda, but that will not prevent me from being bored with the Wilcoxes if I return the call.”

  Then Helen simulated tears, a
nd Fräulein Mosebach, who thought her extremely amusing, did the same. “Oh, boo hoo! boo hoo hoo! Meg’s going to return the call, and I can’t. ‘Cos why? ’Cos I’m going to German-eye.”

  “If you are going to Germany, go and pack; if you aren‘t, go and call on the Wilcoxes instead of me.”

  “But, Meg, Meg, I don’t love the young gentleman; I don’t love the young—O lud, who’s that coming down the stairs? I vow ‘tis my brother. O crimini!”

  A male—even such a male as Tibby—was enough to stop the foolery. The barrier of sex, though decreasing among the civilized, is still high, and higher on the side of women. Helen could tell her sister all, and her cousin much about Paul; she told her brother nothing. It was not prudishness, for she now spoke of “the Wilcox ideal” with laughter, and even with a growing brutality. Nor was it precaution, for Tibby seldom repeated any news that did not concern himself. It was rather the feeling that she betrayed a secret into the camp of men, and that, however trivial it was on this side of the barrier, it would become important on that. So she stopped, or rather began to fool on other subjects, until her long-suffering relatives drove her upstairs. Fräulein Mosebach followed her, but lingered to say heavily over the banisters to Margaret: “It is all right—she does not love the young man—he has not been worthy of her.”

  “Yes, I know; thanks very much.”

  “I thought I did right to tell you.”

  “Ever so many thanks.”

  “What’s that?” asked Tibby. No one told him, and he proceeded into the dining-room, to eat Elvas plums.

  That evening Margaret took decisive action. The house was very quiet, and the fog—we are in November now—pressed against the windows like an excluded ghost. Frieda and Helen and all their luggage had gone. Tibby, who was not feeling well, lay stretched on a sofa by the fire. Margaret sat by him, thinking. Her mind darted from impulse to impulse, and finally marshalled them all in review. The practical person, who knows what he wants at once, and generally knows nothing else, will excuse her of indecision. But this was the way her mind worked. And when she did act, no one could accuse her of indecision then. She hit out as lustily as if she had not considered the matter at all. The letter that she wrote Mrs. Wilcox glowed with the native hue of resolution. The pale cast of thought was with her a breath rather than a tarnish, a breath that leaves the colours all the more vivid when it has been wiped away.

  DEAR MRS. WILCOX,

  I have to write something discourteous. It would be better if we did not meet. Both my sister and my aunt have given displeasure to your family, and, in my sister’s case, the grounds for displeasure might recur. As far as I know, she no longer occupies her thoughts with your son. But it would not be fair, either to her or to you, if they met, and it is therefore right that our acquaintance, which began so pleasantly, should end.

  I fear that you will not agree with this; indeed, I know that you will not, since you have been good enough to call on us. It is only an instinct on my part, and no doubt the instinct is wrong. My sister would, undoubtedly, say that it is wrong. I write without her knowledge, and I hope that you will not associate her with my discourtesy.

  Believe me,

  Yours truly,

  M. J. SCHLEGEL

  Margaret sent this letter round by the post. Next morning she received the following reply by hand:

  DEAR MISS SCHLEGEL,

  You should not have written me such a letter. I called to tell you that Paul has gone abroad.

  RUTH WILCOX

  Margaret’s cheeks burnt. She could not finish her breakfast. She was on fire with shame. Helen had told her that the youth was leaving England, but other things had seemed more important, and she had forgotten. All her absurd anxieties fell to the ground, and in their place arose the certainty that she had been rude to Mrs. Wilcox. Rudeness affected Margaret like a bitter taste in the mouth. It poisoned life. At times it is necessary, but woe to those who employ it without due need. She flung on a hat and shawl, just like a poor woman, and plunged into the fog, which still continued. Her lips were compressed, the letter remained in her hand, and in this state she crossed the street, entered the marble vestibule of the flats, eluded the concierges, and ran up the stairs till she reached the second floor.

  She sent in her name, and to her surprise was shown straight into Mrs. Wilcox’s bedroom.

  “Oh, Mrs. Wilcox, I have made the baddest blunder. I am more, more ashamed and sorry than I can say.”

  Mrs. Wilcox bowed gravely. She was offended, and did not pretend to the contrary. She was sitting up in bed, writing letters on an invalid table that spanned her knees. A breakfast tray was on another table beside her. The light of the fire, the light from the window, and the light of a candle-lamp, which threw a quivering halo round her hands, combined to create a strange atmosphere of dissolution.

  “I knew he was going to India in November, but I forgot.”

  “He sailed on the 17th for Nigeria, in Africa.”

  “I knew—I know. I have been too absurd all through. I am very much ashamed.”

  Mrs. Wilcox did not answer.

  “I am more sorry than I can say, and I hope that you will forgive me.”

  “It doesn’t matter, Miss Schlegel. It is good of you to have come round so promptly.”

  “It does matter,” cried Margaret. “I have been rude to you; and my sister is not even at home, so there was not even that excuse.”

  “Indeed?”

  “She has just gone to Germany.”

  “She gone as well,” murmured the other. “Yes, certainly, it is quite safe—safe, absolutely, now.”

  “You’ve been worrying too!” exclaimed Margaret, getting more and more excited, and taking a chair without invitation. “How perfectly extraordinary! I can see that you have. You felt as I do; Helen mustn’t meet him again.”

  “I did think it best.”

  “Now why?”

  “That’s a most difficult question,” said Mrs. Wilcox, smiling, and a little losing her expression of annoyance. “I think you put it best in your letter—it was an instinct, which may be wrong.”

  “It wasn’t that your son still—”

  “Oh no; he often—my Paul is very young, you see.”

  “Then what was it?”

  She repeated: “An instinct which may be wrong.”

  “In other words, they belong to types that can fall in love, but couldn’t live together. That’s dreadfully probable. I’m afraid that in nine cases out of ten Nature pulls one way and human nature another.”

  “These are indeed ‘other words,’ ” said Mrs. Wilcox. “I had nothing so coherent in my head. I was merely alarmed when I knew that my boy cared for your sister.”

  “Ah, I have always been wanting to ask you. How did you know? Helen was so surprised when our aunt drove up, and you stepped forward and arranged things. Did Paul tell you?”

  “There is nothing to be gained by discussing that,” said Mrs. Wilcox after a moment’s pause.

  “Mrs. Wilcox, were you very angry with us last June? I wrote you a letter and you didn’t answer it.”

  “I was certainly against taking Mrs. Matheson’s flat. I knew it was opposite your house.”

  “But it’s all right now?”

  “I think so.”

  “You only think? You aren’t sure? I do love these little muddles tidied up.”

  “Oh yes, I’m sure,” said Mrs. Wilcox, moving with uneasiness beneath the clothes. “I always sound uncertain over things. It is my way of speaking.”

  “That’s all right, and I’m sure too.”

  Here the maid came in to remove the breakfast tray. They were interrupted, and when they resumed conversation, it was on more normal lines.

  “I must say good-bye now—you will be getting up.”

  “No—please stop a little longer—I am taking a day in bed. Now and then I do.”

  “I thought of you as one of the early risers.”

  “At Howards End—yes;
there is nothing to get up for in London.”

  “Nothing to get up for?” cried the scandalized Margaret. “When there are all the autumn exhibitions, and Ysaye playing in the afternoon! Not to mention people.”

  “The truth is, I am a little tired. First came the wedding, and then Paul went off, and, instead of resting yesterday, I paid a round of calls.”

  “A wedding?”

  “Yes; Charles, my elder son, is married.”

  “Indeed!”

  “We took the flat chiefly on that account, and also that Paul could get his African outfit. The flat belongs to a cousin of my husband‘s, and she most kindly offered it to us. So before the day came we were able to make the acquaintance of Dolly’s people, which we had not yet done.”

  Margaret asked who Dolly’s people were.

  “Fussell. The father is in the Indian army—retired; the brother is in the army. The mother is dead.”

  So perhaps these were the “chinless sunburnt men” whom Helen had espied one afternoon through the window. Margaret felt mildly interested in the fortunes of the Wilcox family. She had acquired the habit on Helen’s account, and it still clung to her. She asked for more information about Miss Dolly Fussell that was, and was given it in even, unemotional tones. Mrs. Wilcox’s voice, though sweet and compelling, had little range of expression. It suggested that pictures, concerts, and people are all of small and equal value. Only once had it quickened—when speaking of Howards End.

  “Charles and Albert Fussell have known one another some time. They belong to the same club, and are both devoted to golf. Dolly plays golf too, though I believe not so well, and they first met in a mixed foursome. We all like her, and are very much pleased. They were married on the 11th, a few days before Paul sailed. Charles was very anxious to have his brother as best man, so he made a great point of having it on the 11th. The Fussells would have preferred it after Christmas, but they were very nice about it. There is Dolly’s photograph—in that double frame.”

  “Are you quite certain that I’m not interrupting, Mrs. Wilcox?”