Howards End Chapter I
One may as well begin with Helenâs letters to her sister.
âHOWARDS END,
âTuesday.
âDEAREST MEG,
âIt isnât going to be what we expected. It is old and little, and altogether delightfulâred brick. We can scarcely pack in as it is, and the dear knows what will happen when Paul (younger son) arrives to-morrow. From hall you go right or left into dining-room or drawing-room. Hall itself is practically a room. You open another door in it, and there are the stairs going up in a sort of tunnel to the first-floor. Three bed-rooms in a row there, and three attics in a row above. That isnât all the house really, but itâs all that one noticesânine windows as you look up from the front garden.
âThen thereâs a very big wych-elmâto the left as you look upâleaning a little over the house, and standing on the boundary between the garden and meadow. I quite love that tree already. Also ordinary elms, oaksâno nastier than ordinary oaksâpear-trees, apple-trees, and a vine. No silver birches, though. However, I must get on to my host and hostess. I only wanted to show that it isnât the least what we expected. Why did we settle that their house would be all gables and wiggles, and their garden all gamboge-coloured paths? I believe simply because we associate them with expensive hotelsâMrs. Wilcox trailing in beautiful dresses down long corridors, Mr. Wilcox bullying porters, etc. We females are that unjust.
âI shall be back Saturday; will let you know train later. They are as angry as I am that you did not come too; really Tibby is too tiresome, he starts a new mortal disease every month. How could he have got hay fever in London? and even if he could, it seems hard that you should give up a visit to hear a schoolboy sneeze. Tell him that Charles Wilcox (the son who is here) has hay fever too, but heâs brave, and gets quite cross when we inquire after it. Men like the Wilcoxes would do Tibby a power of good. But you wonât agree, and Iâd better change the subject.
âThis long letter is because Iâm writing before breakfast. Oh, the beautiful vine leaves! The house is covered with a vine. I looked out earlier, and Mrs. Wilcox was already in the garden. She evidently loves it. No wonder she sometimes looks tired. She was watching the large red poppies come out. Then she walked off the lawn to the meadow, whose corner to the right I can just see. Trail, trail, went her long dress over the sopping grass, and she came back with her hands full of the hay that was cut yesterdayâI suppose for rabbits or something, as she kept on smelling it. The air here is delicious. Later on I heard the noise of croquet balls, and looked out again, and it was Charles Wilcox practising; they are keen on all games. Presently he started sneezing and had to stop. Then I hear more clicketing, and it is Mr. Wilcox practising, and then, âa-tissue, a-tissueâ: he has to stop too. Then Evie comes out, and does some calisthenic exercises on a machine that is tacked on to a green-gage-treeâthey put everything to useâand then she says âa-tissue,â and in she goes. And finally Mrs. Wilcox reappears, trail, trail, still smelling hay and looking at the flowers. I inflict all this on you because once you said that life is sometimes life and sometimes only a drama, and one must learn to distinguish tother from which, and up to now I have always put that down as âMegâs clever nonsense.â But this morning, it really does seem not life but a play, and it did amuse me enormously to watch the Wâs. Now Mrs. Wilcox has come in.
âI am going to wear [omission]. Last night Mrs. Wilcox wore an [omission], and Evie [omission]. So it isnât exactly a go-as-you-please place, and if you shut your eyes it still seems the wiggly hotel that we expected. Not if you open them. The dog-roses are too sweet. There is a great hedge of them over the lawnâmagnificently tall, so that they fall down in garlands, and nice and thin at the bottom, so that you can see ducks through it and a cow. These belong to the farm, which is the only house near us. There goes the breakfast gong. Much love. Modified love to Tibby. Love to Aunt Juley; how good of her to come and keep you company, but what a bore. Burn this. Will write again Thursday.
âHELEN.â
âHOWARDS END
âFriday
âDEAREST MEG,
âI am having a glorious time. I like them all. Mrs. Wilcox, if quieter than in Germany, is sweeter than ever, and I never saw anything like her steady unselfishness, and the best of it is that the others do not take advantage of her. They are the very happiest, jolliest family that you can imagine. I do really feel that we are making friends. The fun of it is that they think me a noodle, and say soâat least, Mr. Wilcox doesâand when that happens, and one doesnât mind, itâs a pretty sure test, isnât it? He says the most horrid things about womanâs suffrage so nicely, and when I said I believed in equality he just folded his arms and gave me such a setting down as Iâve never had. Meg, shall we ever learn to talk less? I never felt so ashamed of myself in my life. I couldnât point to a time when men had been equal, nor even to a time when the wish to be equal had made them happier in other ways. I couldnât say a word. I had just picked up the notion that equality is good from some bookâprobably from poetry, or you. Anyhow, itâs been knocked into pieces, and, like all people who are really strong, Mr. Wilcox did it without hurting me. On the other hand, I laugh at them for catching hay fever. We live like fighting-cocks, and Charles takes us out every day in the motorâa tomb with trees in it, a hermitâs house, a wonderful road that was made by the Kings of Merciaâtennisâa cricket matchâbridge and at night we squeeze up in this lovely house. The whole clanâs here nowâitâs like a rabbit warren. Evie is a dear. They want me to stop over SundayâI suppose it wonât matter if I do. Marvellous weather and the views marvellousâviews westward to the high ground. Thank you for your letter. Burn this.
âYour affectionate
âHELEN.â
âHOWARDS END,
âSunday.
âDearest, dearest Meg,âI do not know what you will say: Paul and I are in loveâthe younger son who only came here Wednesday.â
Chapter II
Margaret glanced at her sisterâs note and pushed it over the breakfast-table to her aunt. There was a momentâs hush, and then the flood-gates opened.
âI can tell you nothing, Aunt Juley. I know no more than you do. We metâwe only met the father and mother abroad last spring. I know so little that I didnât even know their sonâs name. Itâs all soââ She waved her hand and laughed a little.
âIn that case it is far too sudden.â
âWho knows, Aunt Juley, who knows?â
âBut, Margaret, dear, I mean, we mustnât be unpractical now that weâve come to facts. It is too sudden, surely.â
âWho knows!â
âBut, Margaret, dearââ
âIâll go for her other letters,â said Margaret. âNo, I wonât, Iâll finish my breakfast. In fact, I havenât them. We met the Wilcoxes on an awful expedition that we made from Heidelberg to Speyer. Helen and I had got it into our heads that there was a grand old cathedral at Speyerâthe Archbishop of Speyer was one of the seven electorsâyou knowââSpeyer, Maintz, and Koln.â Those three sees once commanded the Rhine Valley and got it the name of Priest Street.â
âI still feel quite uneasy about this business, Margaret.â
âThe train crossed by a bridge of boats, and at first sight it looked quite fine. But oh, in five minutes we had seen the whole thing. The cathedral had been ruined, absolutely ruined, by restoration; not an inch left of the original structure. We wasted a whole day, and came across the Wilcoxes as we were eating our sandwiches in the public gardens. They too, poor things, had been taken inâthey were actually stopping at Speyerâand they rather liked Helenâs insisting that they must fly with us to Heidelberg. As a matter of fact, they did come on next day. We all took some drives together. They knew us well enough to ask Helen to come and see themâat least, I was asked too, but Tibbyâs illness prevented me, so last Monday she went alone. Thatâs all. You know as much as I do now. Itâs a young man out of the unknown. She was to have come back Saturday, but put off till Monday, perhaps on account ofâI donât know.â
She broke off, and listened to the sounds of a London morning. Their house was in Wickham Place, and fairly quiet, for a lofty promontory of buildings separated it from the main thoroughfare. One had the sense of a backwater, or rather of an estuary, whose waters flowed in from the invisible sea, and ebbed into a profound silence while the waves without were still beating. Though the promontory consisted of flatsâexpensive, with cavernous entrance halls, full of concierges and palmsâit fulfilled its purpose, and gained for the older houses opposite a certain measure of peace.
These, too, would be swept away in time, and another promontory would arise upon their site, as humanity piled itself higher and higher on the precious soil of London.
Mrs. Munt had her own method of interpreting her nieces. She decided that Margaret was a little hysterical, and was trying to gain time by a torrent of talk. Feeling very diplomatic, she lamented the fate of Speyer, and declared that never, never should she be so misguided as to visit it, and added of her own accord that the principles of restoration were ill understood in Germany. âThe Germans,â she said, âare too thorough, and this is all very well sometimes, but at other times it does not do.â
âExactly,â said Margaret; âGermans are too thorough.â And her eyes began to shine.
âOf course I regard you Schlegels as English,â said Mrs. Munt hastilyââEnglish to the backbone.â
Margaret leaned forward and stroked her hand.
âAnd that reminds meâHelenâs letter.â
âOh yes, Aunt Juley, I am thinking all right about Helenâs letter. I knowâI must go down and see her. I am thinking about her all right. I am meaning to go down.â
âBut go with some plan,â said Mrs. Munt, admitting into her kindly voice a note of exasperation. âMargaret, if I may interfere, donât be taken by surprise. What do you think of the Wilcoxes? Are they our sort? Are they likely people? Could they appreciate Helen, who is to my mind a very special sort of person? Do they care about Literature and Art? That is most important when you come to think of it. Literature and Art. Most important. How old would the son be? She says âyounger son.â Would he be in a position to marry? Is he likely to make Helen happy? Did you gatherââ
âI gathered nothing.â
They began to talk at once.
âThen in that caseââ
âIn that case I can make no plans, donât you see.â
âOn the contraryââ
âI hate plans. I hate lines of action. Helen isnât a baby.â
âThen in that case, my dear, why go down?â
Margaret was silent. If her aunt could not see why she must go down, she was not going to tell her. She was not going to say, âI love my dear sister; I must be near her at this crisis of her life.â The affections are more reticent than the passions, and their expression more subtle. If she herself should ever fall in love with a man, she, like Helen, would proclaim it from the housetops, but as she loved only a sister she used the voiceless language of sympathy.
âI consider you odd girls,â continued Mrs. Munt, âand very wonderful girls, and in many ways far older than your years. Butâyou wonât be offended? frankly, I feel you are not up to this business. It requires an older person. Dear, I have nothing to call me back to Swanage.â She spread out her plump arms. âI am all at your disposal. Let me go down to this house whose name I forget instead of you.â
âAunt Juleyââshe jumped up and kissed herââI must, must go to Howards End myself. You donât exactly understand, though I can never thank you properly for offering.â
âI do understand,â retorted Mrs. Munt, with immense confidence. âI go down in no spirit of interference, but to make inquiries. Inquiries are necessary. Now, I am going to be rude. You would say the wrong thing; to a certainty you would. In your anxiety for Helenâs happiness you would offend the whole of these Wilcoxes by asking one of your impetuous questionsânot that one minds offending them.â
âI shall ask no questions. I have it in Helenâs writing that she and a man are in love. There is no question to ask as long as she keeps to that. All the rest isnât worth a straw. A long engagement if you like, but inquiries, questions, plans, lines of actionâno, Aunt Juley, no.â
Away she hurried, not beautiful, not supremely brilliant, but filled with something that took the place of both qualitiesâsomething best described as a profound vivacity, a continual and sincere response to all that she encountered in her path through life.
âIf Helen had written the same to me about a shop assistant or a penniless clerkââ
âDear Margaret, do come into the library and shut the door. Your good maids are dusting the banisters.â
ââor if she had wanted to marry the man who calls for Carter Paterson, I should have said the same.â Then, with one of those turns that convinced her aunt that she was not mad really, and convinced observers of another type that she was not a barren theorist, she added: âThough in the case of Carter Paterson I should want it to be a very long engagement indeed, I must say.â
âI should think so,â said Mrs. Munt; âand, indeed, I can scarcely follow you. Now, just imagine if you said anything of that sort to the Wilcoxes. I understand it, but most good people would think you mad. Imagine how disconcerting for Helen! What is wanted is a person who will go slowly, slowly in this business, and see how things are and where they are likely to lead to.â
Margaret was down on this.
âBut you implied just now that the engagement must be broken off.â
âI think probably it must; but slowly.â
âCan you break an engagement off slowly?â Her eyes lit up. âWhatâs an engagement made of, do you suppose? I think itâs made of some hard stuff that may snap, but canât break. It is different to the other ties of life. They stretch or bend. They admit of degree. Theyâre different.â
âExactly so. But wonât you let me just run down to Howards House, and ...