"She values the old furniture for sentimental reasons, in fact."
"Exactly. You have quite understood. It is her last hope of being with it."
"I don"t agree there, my dear! Helen will have her share of the goods wherever she goes--possibly more than her share, for you are so fond of her that you"d give her anything of yours that she fancies, wouldn"t you? and I"d raise no objection. I could understand it if it was her old home, because a home, or a house," he changed the word, designedly; he had thought of a telling point--"because a house in which one has once lived becomes in a sort of way sacred, I don"t know why. a.s.sociations and so on. Now Helen has no a.s.sociations with Howards End, though I and Charles and Evie have. I do not see why she wants to stay the night there. She will only catch cold."
"Leave it that you don"t see," cried Margaret. "Call it fancy. But realise that fancy is a scientific fact. Helen is fanciful, and wants to."
Then he surprised her--a rare occurrence. He shot an unexpected bolt.
"If she wants to sleep one night she may want to sleep two. We shall never get her out of the house, perhaps."
"Well?" said Margaret, with the precipice in sight. "And suppose we don"t get her out of the house? Would it matter? She would do no one any harm."
Again the irritated gesture.
"No, Henry," she panted, receding. "I didn"t mean that. We will only trouble Howards End for this one night. I take her to London to-morrow--"
"Do you intend to sleep in a damp house, too?"
"She cannot be left alone."
"That"s quite impossible! Madness. You must be here to meet Charles."
"I have already told you that your message to Charles was unnecessary, and I have no desire to meet him."
"Margaret--my Margaret."
"What has this business to do with Charles? If it concerns me little, it concerns you less, and Charles not at all."
"As the future owner of Howards End," said Mr. Wilc.o.x arching his fingers, "I should say that it did concern Charles."
"In what way? Will Helen"s condition depreciate the property?"
"My dear, you are forgetting yourself."
"I think you yourself recommended plain speaking."
They looked at each other in amazement. The precipice was at their feet now.
"Helen commands my sympathy," said Henry. "As your husband, I shall do all for her that I can, and I have no doubt that she will prove more sinned against than sinning. But I cannot treat her as if nothing has happened. I should be false to my position in society if I did."
She controlled herself for the last time. "No, let us go back to Helen"s request," she said. "It is unreasonable, but the request of an unhappy girl. Tomorrow she will go to Germany, and trouble society no longer.
To-night she asks to sleep in your empty house--a house which you do not care about, and which you have not occupied for over a year. May she?
Will you give my sister leave? Will you forgive her as you hope to be forgiven, and as you have actually been forgiven? Forgive her for one night only. That will be enough."
"As I have actually been forgiven--?"
"Never mind for the moment what I mean by that," said Margaret. "Answer my question."
Perhaps some hint of her meaning did dawn on him. If so, he blotted it out. Straight from his fortress he answered: "I seem rather unaccommodating, but I have some experience of life, and know how one thing leads to another. I am afraid that your sister had better sleep at the hotel. I have my children and the memory of my dear wife to consider. I am sorry, but see that she leaves my house at once."
"You have mentioned Mrs. Wilc.o.x."
"I beg your pardon?"
"A rare occurrence. In reply, may I mention Mrs. Bast?"
"You have not been yourself all day," said Henry, and rose from his seat with face unmoved. Margaret rushed at him and seized both his hands. She was transfigured.
"Not any more of this!" she cried. "You shall see the connection if it kills you, Henry! You have had a mistress--I forgave you. My sister has a lover--you drive her from the house. Do you see the connection?
Stupid, hypocritical, cruel--oh, contemptible!--a man who insults his wife when she"s alive and cants with her memory when she"s dead. A man who ruins a woman for his pleasure, and casts her off to ruin other men.
And gives bad financial advice, and then says he is not responsible.
These men are you. You can"t recognise them, because you cannot connect.
I"ve had enough of your unneeded kindness. I"ve spoilt you long enough.
All your life you have been spoiled. Mrs. Wilc.o.x spoiled you. No one has ever told what you are--muddled, criminally muddled. Men like you use repentance as a blind, so don"t repent. Only say to yourself, "What Helen has done, I"ve done.""
"The two cases are different," Henry stammered. His real retort was not quite ready. His brain was still in a whirl, and he wanted a little longer.
"In what way different? You have betrayed Mrs. Wilc.o.x, Helen only herself. You remain in society, Helen can"t. You have had only pleasure, she may die. You have the insolence to talk to me of differences, Henry?"
Oh, the uselessness of it! Henry"s retort came.
"I perceive you are attempting blackmail. It is scarcely a pretty weapon for a wife to use against her husband. My rule through life has been never to pay the least attention to threats, and I can only repeat what I said before: I do not give you and your sister leave to sleep at Howards End."
Margaret loosed his hands. He went into the house, wiping first one and then the other on his handkerchief. For a little she stood looking at the Six Hills, tombs of warriors, b.r.e.a.s.t.s of the spring. Then she pa.s.sed out into what was now the evening.
CHAPTER x.x.xIX
Charles and Tibby met at Ducie Street, where the latter was staying.
Their interview was short and absurd. They had nothing in common but the English language, and tried by its help to express what neither of them understood. Charles saw in Helen the family foe. He had singled her out as the most dangerous of the Schlegels, and, angry as he was, looked forward to telling his wife how right he had been. His mind was made up at once; the girl must be got out of the way before she disgraced them farther. If occasion offered she might be married to a villain, or, possibly, to a fool. But this was a concession to morality, it formed no part of his main scheme. Honest and hearty was Charles"s dislike, and the past spread itself out very clearly before him; hatred is a skilful compositor. As if they were heads in a note-book, he ran through all the incidents of the Schlegels" campaign: the attempt to compromise his brother, his mother"s legacy, his father"s marriage, the introduction of the furniture, the unpacking of the same. He had not yet heard of the request to sleep at Howards End; that was to be their master-stroke and the opportunity for his. But he already felt that Howards End was the objective, and, though he disliked the house, was determined to defend it.
Tibby, on the other hand, had no opinions. He stood above the conventions: his sister had a right to do what she thought right. It is not difficult to stand above the conventions when we leave no hostages among them; men can always be more unconventional than women, and a bachelor of independent means need encounter no difficulties at all.
Unlike Charles, Tibby had money enough; his ancestors had earned it for him, and if he shocked the people in one set of lodgings he had only to move into another. His was the leisure without sympathy--an att.i.tude as fatal as the strenuous; a little cold culture may be raised on it, but no art. His sisters had seen the family danger, and had never forgotten to discount the gold islets that raised them from the sea. Tibby gave all the praise to himself, and so despised the struggling and the submerged.
Hence the absurdity of the interview; the gulf between them was economic as well as spiritual. But several facts pa.s.sed; Charles pressed for them with an impertinence that the undergraduate could not withstand. On what date had Helen gone abroad? To whom? (Charles was anxious to fasten the scandal on Germany.) Then, changing his tactics, he said roughly: "I suppose you realise that you are your sister"s protector?"
"In what sense?"
"If a man played about with my sister, I"d send a bullet through him, but perhaps you don"t mind."
"I mind very much," protested Tibby.
"Who d"ye suspect, then? Speak out man. One always suspects some one."
"No one. I don"t think so." Involuntarily he blushed. He had remembered the scene in his Oxford rooms.
"You are hiding something," said Charles. As interviews go, he got the best of this one. "When you saw her last, did she mention any one"s name? Yes or no!" he thundered, so that Tibby started.