“I say, Jacky, I’m going out for a bit.”
She was breathing regularly. The patch of light fell clear of the striped blanket, and began to cover the shawl that lay over her feet. Why had he been afraid? He went to the window, and saw that the moon was descending through a clear sky. He saw her volcanoes, and the bright expanses that a gracious error has named seas. They paled, for the sun, who had lit them up, was coming to light the earth. Sea of Serenity, Sea of Tranquillity, Ocean of the Lunar Storms, merged into one lucent drop, itself to slip into the sempiternal dawn. And he had been afraid of the moon!
He dressed among the contending lights, and went through his money. It was running low again, but enough for a return ticket to Hilton. As it clinked, Jacky opened her eyes.
“Hullo, Len! What ho, Len!”
“What ho, Jacky! See you again later.”
She turned over and slept.
The house was unlocked, their landlord being a salesman at Covent Garden. Leonard passed out and made his way down to the station. The train, though it did not start for an hour, was already drawn up at the end of the platform, and he lay down in it and slept. With the first jolt he was in daylight; they had left the gateways of King’s Cross, and were under blue sky. Tunnels followed, and after each the sky grew bluer, and from the embankment at Finsbury Park he had his first sight of the sun. It rolled along behind the eastern smokes—a wheel, whose fellow was the descending moon—and as yet it seemed the servant of the blue sky, not its lord. He dozed again. Over Tewin Water it was day. To the left fell the shadow of the embankment and its arches; to the right Leonard saw up into the Tewin Woods and towards the church, with its wild legend of immortality. Six forest trees—that is a fact—grow out of one of the graves in Tewin churchyard. The grave’s occupant—that is the legend—is an atheist, who declared that if God existed, six forest trees would grow out of her grave. These things in Hertfordshire; and farther afield lay the house of a hermit—Mrs. Wilcox had known him—who barred himself up, and wrote prophecies, and gave all he had to the poor. While, powdered in between, were the villas of business men, who saw life more steadily, though with the steadiness of the half-closed eye. Over all the sun was streaming, to all the birds were singing, to all the primroses were yellow, and the speedwell blue, and the country, however they interpreted her, was uttering her cry of “now.” She did not free Leonard yet, and the knife plunged deeper into his heart as the train drew up at Hilton. But remorse had become beautiful.
Hilton was asleep, or at the earliest, breakfasting. Leonard noticed the contrast when he stepped out of it into the country. Here men had been up since dawn. Their hours were ruled, not by a London office, but by the movements of the crops and the sun. That they were men of the finest type only the sentimentalist can declare. But they kept to the life of daylight. They are England’s hope. Clumsily they carry forward the torch of the sun, until such time as the nation sees fit to take it up. Half clodhopper, half board-school prig, they can still throw back to a nobler stock, and breed yeomen.
At the chalk pit a motor passed him. In it was another type whom Nature favours—the Imperial. Healthy, ever in motion, it hopes to inherit the earth. It breeds as quickly as the yeoman, and as soundly; strong is the temptation to acclaim it as a super-yeoman, who carries his country’s virtue overseas. But the Imperialist is not what he thinks or seems. He is a destroyer. He prepares the way for cosmopolitanism, and though his ambitions may be fulfilled, the earth that he inherits will be grey.
To Leonard, intent on his private sin, there came the conviction of innate goodness elsewhere. It was not the optimism which he had been taught at school. Again and again must the drums tap, and the goblins stalk over the universe before joy can be purged of the superficial. It was rather paradoxical, and arose from his sorrow. Death destroys a man, but the idea of death saves him—that is the best account of it that has yet been given. Squalor and tragedy can beckon to all that is great in us; and strengthen the wings of love. They can beckon; it is not certain that they will, for they are not love’s servants. But they can beckon, and the knowledge of this incredible truth comforted him.
As he approached the house, all thought stopped. Contradictory notions stood side by side in his mind. He was terrified but happy, ashamed but had done no sin. He knew the confession: “Mrs. Wilcox, I have done wrong,” but sunrise had robbed its meaning, and he felt rather on a supreme adventure.
He entered a garden, steadied himself against a motor-car that he found in it, found a door open and entered a house. Yes, it would be very easy. From a room to the left he heard voices, Margaret’s amongst them. His own name was called aloud, and a man whom he had never seen said: “Oh, is he there? I am not surprised. I now thrash him within an inch of his life.”
“Mrs. Wilcox,” said Leonard. “I have done wrong.”
The man took him by the collar and cried: “Bring me a stick.” Women were screaming. A stick, very bright, descended. It hurt him, not where it descended, but in the heart. Books fell over him in a shower. Nothing had sense.
“Get some water,” commanded Charles, who had all through kept very calm. “He’s shamming. Of course I only used the blade. Here, carry him out into the air.”
Thinking that he understood these things, Margaret obeyed him. They laid Leonard, who was dead, on the gravel; Helen poured water over him.
“That’s enough,” said Charles.
“Yes, murder’s enough,” said Miss Avery, coming out of the house with the sword.
Chapter XLII
When Charles left Ducie Street he had caught the first train home, but had no inkling of the newest development until late at night. Then his father, who had dined alone, sent for him, and in very grave tones inquired for Margaret.
“I don’t know where she is, Pater,” said Charles. “Dolly kept back dinner nearly an hour for her.”
“Tell me when she comes in.”
Another hour passed. The servants went to bed, and Charles visited with his father again, to receive further instructions. Mrs. Wilcox had still not returned.
“I’ll sit up for her as late as you like, but she can hardly be coming. Isn’t she stopping with her sister at the hotel?”
“Perhaps,” said Mr. Wilcox thoughtfully—“perhaps.”
“Can I do anything for you, sir?”
“Not tonight, my boy.”
Mr. Wilcox liked being called sir. He raised his eyes and gave his son more open a look of tenderness than he usually ventured. He saw Charles as little boy and strong man in one. Though his wife had proved unstable, his children were left to him.
After midnight he tapped on Charles’s door. “I can’t sleep,” he said. “I had better have a talk with you and get it over. ”
He complained of the heat. Charles took him out into the garden, and they paced up and down in their dressing-gowns. Charles became very quiet as the story unrolled; he had known all along that Margaret was as bad as her sister.
“She will feel differently in the morning,” said Mr. Wilcox, who had of course said nothing about Mrs. Bast. “But I cannot let this kind of thing continue without comment. I am morally certain that she is with her sister at Howards End. The house is mine—and, Charles, it will be yours—and when I say that no one is to live there, I mean that no one is to live there. I won’t have it.” He looked angrily at the moon. “To my mind, this question is connected with something far greater, the rights of property itself.”
“Undoubtedly,” said Charles.
Mr. Wilcox linked his arm in his son‘s, but somehow liked him less as he told him more. “I don’t want you to conclude that my wife and I had anything of the nature of a quarrel. She was only overwrought, as who would not be? I shall do what I can for Helen, but on the understanding that they clear out of the house at once. Do you see? That is a sine qua non.”
“Then at eight tomorrow I may go up in the car?”
“Eight or earlier. Say that you are acting as my representative
, and, of course, use no violence, Charles.”
On the morrow, as Charles returned, leaving Leonard dead upon the gravel, it did not seem to him that he had used violence. Death was due to heart disease. His stepmother herself had said so, and even Miss Avery had acknowledged that he only used the flat of the sword. On his way through the village he informed the police, who thanked him and said there must be an inquest. He found his father in the garden shading his eyes from the sun.
“It has been pretty horrible,” said Charles gravely. “They were there, and they had the man up there with them too.”
“What—what man?”
“I told you last night. His name was Bast.”
“My God, is it possible?” said Mr. Wilcox. “In your mother’s house? Charles, in your mother’s house!”
“I know, Pater. That was what I felt. As a matter of fact, there is no need to trouble about the man. He was in the last stages of heart disease, and just before I could show him what I thought of him he went off. The police are seeing about it at this moment.”
Mr. Wilcox listened attentively.
“I got up there—oh, it couldn’t have been more than half past seven. The Avery woman was lighting a fire for them. They were still upstairs. I waited in the drawing-room. We were all moderately civil and collected, though I had my suspicions. I gave them your message, and Mrs. Wilcox said: ‘Oh yes, I see; yes,’ in that way of hers.”
“Nothing else?”
“I promised to tell you, ‘with her love,’ that she was going to Germany with her sister this evening. That was all we had time for.”
Mr. Wilcox seemed relieved.
“Because by then I suppose the man got tired of hiding, for suddenly Mrs. Wilcox screamed out his name. I recognized it, and I went for him in the hall. Was I right, Pater? I thought things were going a little too far.”
“Right, my dear boy? I don’t know. But you would have been no son of mine if you hadn’t. Then did he just—just—crumple up as you said?” He shrunk from the simple word.
“He caught hold of the bookcase, which came down over him. So I merely put the sword down and carried him into the garden. We all thought he was shamming. However, he’s dead right enough. Awful business!”
“Sword?” cried his father, with anxiety in his voice. “What sword? Whose sword?”
“A sword of theirs.”
“What were you doing with it?”
“Well, didn’t you see, Pater, I had to snatch up the first thing handy. I hadn’t a riding-whip or stick. I caught him once or twice over the shoulders with the flat of their old German sword.”
“Then what?”
“He pulled over the bookcase, as I said, and fell,” said Charles, with a sigh. It was no fun doing errands for his father, who was never quite satisfied.
“But the real cause was heart disease? Of that you’re sure?”
“That or a fit. However, we shall hear more than enough at the inquest on such unsavoury topics.”
They went into breakfast. Charles had a racking headache, consequent on motoring before food. He was also anxious about the future, reflecting that the police must detain Helen and Margaret for the inquest and ferret the whole thing out. He saw himself obliged to leave Hilton. One could not afford to live near the scene of a scandal—it was not fair on one’s wife. His comfort was that the pater’s eyes were opened at last. There would be a horrible smash-up, and probably a separation from Margaret; then they would all start again, more as they had been in his mother’s time.
“I think I’ll go round to the police-station,” said his father when breakfast was over.
“What for?” cried Dolly, who had still not been “told.”
“Very well, sir. Which car will you have?”
“I think I’ll walk.”
“It’s a good half-mile,” said Charles, stepping into the garden. “The sun’s very hot for April. Shan’t I take you up, and then, perhaps, a little spin round by Tewin?”
“You go on as if I didn’t know my own mind,” said Mr. Wilcox fretfully. Charles hardened his mouth. “You young fellows’ one idea is to get into a motor. I tell you, I want to walk: I’m very fond of walking.”
“Oh, all right; I’m about the house if you want me for anything. I thought of not going up to the office today, if that is your wish.”
“It is, indeed, my boy,” said Mr. Wilcox, and laid a hand on his sleeve.
Charles did not like it; he was uneasy about his father, who did not seem himself this morning. There was a petulant touch about him—more like a woman. Could it be that he was growing old? The Wilcoxes were not lacking in affection; they had it royally, but they did not know how to use it. It was the talent in the napkin, and, for a warm-hearted man, Charles had conveyed very little joy. As he watched his father shuffling up the road, he had a vague regret—a wish that something had been different somewhere—a wish (though he did not express it thus) that he had been taught to say “I” in his youth. He meant to make up for Margaret’s defection, but knew that his father had been very happy with her until yesterday. How had she done it? By some dishonest trick, no doubt—but how?
Mr. Wilcox reappeared at eleven, looking very tired. There was to be an inquest on Leonard’s body tomorrow, and the police required his son to attend.
“I expected that,” said Charles. “I shall naturally be the most important witness there.”
Chapter XLIII
Out of the turmoil and horror that had begun with Aunt Juley’s illness and was not even to end with Leonard’s death, it seemed impossible to Margaret that healthy life should re-emerge. Events succeeded in a logical, yet senseless, train. People lost their humanity, and took values as arbitrary as those in a pack of playing-cards. It was natural that Henry should do this and cause Helen to do that, and then think her wrong for doing it; natural that she herself should think him wrong; natural that Leonard should want to know how Helen was, and come, and Charles be angry with him for coming—natural, but unreal. In this jangle of causes and effects, what had become of their true selves? Here Leonard lay dead in the garden, from natural causes; yet life was a deep, deep river, death a blue sky, life was a house, death a wisp of hay, a flower, a tower, life and death were anything and everything, except this ordered insanity, where the king takes the queen, and the ace the king. Ah, no; there was beauty and adventure behind, such as the man at her feet had yearned for; there was hope this side of the grave; there were truer relationships beyond the limits that fetter us now. As a prisoner looks up and sees stars beckoning, so she, from the turmoil and horror of those days, caught glimpses of the diviner wheels.
And Helen, dumb with fright, but trying to keep calm for the child’s sake, and Miss Avery, calm, but murmuring tenderly: “No one ever told the lad he’ll have a child”—they also reminded her that horror is not the end. To what ultimate harmony we tend she did not know, but there seemed great chance that a child would be born into the world, to take the great chances of beauty and adventure that the world offers. She moved through the sunlit garden, gathering narcissi, crimson-eyed and white. There was nothing else to be done; the time for telegrams and anger was over, and it seemed wisest that the hands of Leonard should be folded on his breast and be filled with flowers. Here was the father; leave it at that. Let Squalor be turned into Tragedy, whose eyes are the stars, and whose hands hold the sunset and the dawn.
And even the influx of officials, even the return of the doctor, vulgar and acute, could not shake her belief in the eternity of beauty. Science explained people, but could not understand them. After long centuries among the bones and muscles it might be advancing to knowledge of the nerves, but this would never give understanding. One could open the heart to Mr. Mansbridge and his sort without discovering its secrets to them, for they wanted everything down in black and white, and black and white was exactly what they were left with.
They questioned her closely about Charles. She never suspected why. Death had come, and the doctor
agreed that it was due to heart disease. They asked to see her father’s sword. She explained that Charles’s anger was natural, but mistaken. Miserable questions about Leonard followed, all of which she answered unfalteringly. Then back to Charles again. “No doubt Mr. Wilcox may have induced death,” she said; “but if it wasn’t one thing, it would have been another, as you yourselves know.” At last they thanked her, and took the sword and the body down to Hilton. She began to pick up the books from the floor.
Helen had gone to the farm. It was the best place for her, since she had to wait for the inquest. Though, as if things were not hard enough, Madge and her husband had raised trouble; they did not see why they should receive the offscourings of Howards End. And, of course, they were right. The whole world was going to be right, and amply avenge any brave talk against the conventions. “Nothing matters,” the Schlegels had said in the past, “except one’s self-respect and that of one’s friends.” When the time came, other things mattered terribly. However, Madge had yielded, and Helen was assured of peace for one day and night, and tomorrow she would return to Germany.
As for herself, she determined to go too. No message came from Henry; perhaps he expected her to apologize. Now that she had time to think over her own tragedy, she was unrepentant. She neither forgave him for his behaviour nor wished to forgive him. Her speech to him seemed perfect. She would not have altered a word. It had to be uttered once in a life, to adjust the lopsidedness of the world. It was spoken not only to her husband, but to thousands of men like him—a protest against the inner darkness in high places that comes with a commercial age. Though he would build up his life without hers, she could not apologize. He had refused to connect, on the clearest issue that can be laid before a man, and their love must take the consequences.
Howards End Page 34
