"Yes, in summer especially, the mews is a serious nuisance. The smoking-room, too, is an abominable little den. The house opposite has been taken by operatic people. Ducie Street"s going down, it"s my private opinion."
"How sad! It"s only a few years since they built those pretty houses."
"Shows things are moving. Good for trade."
"I hate this continual flux of London. It is an epitome of us at our worst--eternal formlessness; all the qualities, good, bad, and indifferent, streaming away--streaming, streaming for ever. That"s why I dread it so. I mistrust rivers, even in scenery. Now, the sea--"
"High tide, yes."
"Hoy toid"--from the promenading youths.
"And these are the men to whom we give the vote," observed Mr. Wilc.o.x, omitting to add that they were also the men to whom he gave work as clerks--work that scarcely encouraged them to grow into other men.
"However, they have their own lives and interests. Let"s get on."
He turned as he spoke, and prepared to see her back to The Bays. The business was over. His hotel was in the opposite direction, and if he accompanied her his letters would be late for the post. She implored him not to come, but he was obdurate.
"A nice beginning, if your aunt saw you slip in alone!"
"But I always do go about alone. Considering I"ve walked over the Apennines, it"s common sense. You will make me so angry. I don"t the least take it as a compliment."
He laughed, and lit a cigar. "It isn"t meant as a compliment, my dear. I just won"t have you going about in the dark. Such people about too! It"s dangerous."
"Can"t I look after myself? I do wish--"
"Come along, Margaret; no wheedling."
A younger woman might have resented his masterly ways, but Margaret had too firm a grip of life to make a fuss. She was, in her own way, as masterly. If he was a fortress she was a mountain peak, whom all might tread, but whom the snows made nightly virginal. Disdaining the heroic outfit, excitable in her methods, garrulous, episodical, shrill, she misled her lover much as she had misled her aunt. He mistook her fertility for Weakness. He supposed her "as clever as they make them,"
but no more, not realising that she was penetrating to the depths of his soul, and approving of what she found there.
And if insight were sufficient, if the inner life were the whole of life, their happiness had been a.s.sured.
They walked ahead briskly. The parade and the road after it were well lighted, but it was darker in Aunt Juley"s garden. As they were going up by the side-paths, through some rhododendrons, Mr. Wilc.o.x, who was in front, said "Margaret" rather huskily, turned, dropped his cigar, and took her in his arms.
She was startled, and nearly screamed, but recovered herself at once, and kissed with genuine love the lips that were pressed against her own.
It was their first kiss, and when it was over he saw her safely to the door and rang the bell for her but disappeared into the night before the maid answered it. On looking back, the incident displeased her. It was so isolated. Nothing in their previous conversation had heralded it, and, worse still, no tenderness had ensued. If a man cannot lead up to pa.s.sion he can at all events lead down from it, and she had hoped, after her complaisance, for some interchange of gentle words. But he had hurried away as if ashamed, and for an instant she was reminded of Helen and Paul.
CHAPTER XXI
Charles had just been scolding his Dolly. She deserved the scolding, and had bent before it, but her head, though b.l.o.o.d.y was unsubdued and her began to mingle with his retreating thunder.
"You"ve waked the baby. I knew you would. (Rum-ti-foo, Rackety-tackety-Tompkin!) I"m not responsible for what Uncle Percy does, nor for anybody else or anything, so there!"
"Who asked him while I was away? Who asked my sister down to meet him?
Who sent them out in the motor day after day?"
"Charles, that reminds me of some poem."
"Does it indeed? We shall all be dancing to a very different music presently. Miss Schlegel has fairly got us on toast."
"I could simply scratch that woman"s eyes out, and to say it"s my fault is most unfair."
"It"s your fault, and five months ago you admitted it."
"I didn"t."
"You did."
"Tootle, tootle, playing on the pootle!" exclaimed Dolly, suddenly devoting herself to the child.
"It"s all very well to turn the conversation, but father would never have dreamt of marrying as long as Evie was there to make him comfortable. But you must needs start match-making. Besides, Cahill"s too old."
"Of course, if you"re going to be rude to Uncle Percy."
"Miss Schlegel always meant to get hold of Howards End, and, thanks to you, she"s got it."
"I call the way you twist things round and make them hang together most unfair. You couldn"t have been nastier if you"d caught me flirting.
Could he, diddums?"
"We"re in a bad hole, and must make the best of it. I shall answer the pater"s letter civilly. He"s evidently anxious to do the decent thing.
But I do not intend to forget these Schlegels in a hurry. As long as they"re on their best behaviour--Dolly, are you listening?--we"ll behave, too. But if I find them giving themselves airs or monopolising my father, or at all ill-treating him, or worrying him with their artistic beastliness, I intend to put my foot down, yes, firmly. Taking my mother"s place! Heaven knows what poor old Paul will say when the news reaches him."
The interlude closes. It has taken place in Charles"s garden at Hilton.
He and Dolly are sitting in deckchairs, and their motor is regarding them placidly from its garage across the lawn. A short-frocked edition of Charles also regards them placidly; a perambulator edition is squeaking; a third edition is expected shortly. Nature is turning out Wilc.o.xes in this peaceful abode, so that they may inherit the earth.
CHAPTER XXII
Margaret greeted her lord with peculiar tenderness on the morrow. Mature as he was, she might yet be able to help him to the building of the rainbow bridge that should connect the prose in us with the pa.s.sion.
Without it we are meaningless fragments, half monks, half beasts, unconnected arches that have never joined into a man. With it love is born, and alights on the highest curve, glowing against the grey, sober against the fire. Happy the man who sees from either aspect the glory of these outspread wings. The roads of his soul lie clear, and he and his friends shall find easy-going.
It was hard-going in the roads of Mr. Wilc.o.x"s soul. From boyhood he had neglected them. "I am not a fellow who bothers about my own inside."
Outwardly he was cheerful, reliable, and brave; but within, all had reverted to chaos, ruled, so far as it was ruled at all, by an incomplete asceticism. Whether as boy, husband, or widower, he had always the sneaking belief that bodily pa.s.sion is bad, a belief that is desirable only when held pa.s.sionately. Religion had confirmed him. The words that were read aloud on Sunday to him and to other respectable men were the words that had once kindled the souls of St. Catherine and St.
Francis into a white-hot hatred of the carnal. He could not be as the saints and love the Infinite with a seraphic ardour, but he could be a little ashamed of loving a wife. Amabat, amare timebat. And it was here that Margaret hoped to help him.
It did not seem so difficult. She need trouble him with no gift of her own. She would only point out the salvation that was latent in his own soul, and in the soul of every man. Only connect! That was the whole of her sermon. Only connect the prose and the pa.s.sion, and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its height. Live in fragments no longer. Only connect and the beast and the monk, robbed of the isolation that is life to either, will die.
Nor was the message difficult to give. It need not take the form of a good "talking." By quiet indications the bridge would be built and span their lives with beauty.
But she failed. For there was one quality in Henry for which she was never prepared, however much she reminded herself of it: his obtuseness.
He simply did not notice things, and there was no more to be said. He never noticed that Helen and Frieda were hostile, or that Tibby was not interested in currant plantations; he never noticed the lights and shades that exist in the greyest conversation, the finger-posts, the milestones, the collisions, the illimitable views. Once--on another occasion--she scolded him about it. He was puzzled, but replied with a laugh: "My motto is Concentrate. I"ve no intention of frittering away my strength on that sort of thing." "It isn"t frittering away the strength," she protested. "It"s enlarging the s.p.a.ce in which you may be strong." He answered: "You"re a clever little woman, but my motto"s Concentrate." And this morning he concentrated with a vengeance.
They met in the rhododendrons of yesterday. In the daylight the bushes were inconsiderable and the path was bright in the morning sun. She was with Helen, who had been ominously quiet since the affair was settled.
"Here we all are!" she cried, and took him by one hand, retaining her sister"s in the other.
"Here we are. Good-morning, Helen."