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Margaret glanced at her sister’s note and pushed it over the breakfast-table to her aunt. There was a moment’s hush, and then the flood-gates opened.
“I can tell you nothing, Aunt Juley. I know no more than you do. We met—we only met the father and mother abroad last spring. I know so little that I didn’t even know their son’s name. It’s all so—” She waved her hand and laughed a little.
“In that case it is far too sudden.”
“Who knows, Aunt Juley, who knows?”
“But, Margaret, dear, I mean, we mustn’t be unpractical now that we’ve come to facts. It is too sudden, surely.”
“Who knows!”
“But, Margaret, dear—”
“I’ll go for her other letters,” said Margaret. “No, I won’t, I’ll finish my breakfast. In fact, I haven’t 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 Speyer—the Archbishop of Speyer was one of the seven electors—you know—‘Speyer, Maintz, and Koln.’ Those three sees once commanded the Rhine Valley and got it the name of Priest Street.”
“I still feel quite uneasy about this business, Margaret.”
“The 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 in—they were actually stopping at Speyer—and they rather liked Helen’s 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 them—at least, I was asked too, but Tibby’s illness prevented me, so last Monday she went alone. That’s all. You know as much as I do now. It’s a young man out of the unknown. She was to have come back Saturday, but put off till Monday, perhaps on account of—I don’t know.”
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 flats—expensive, with cavernous entrance halls, full of concierges and palms—it 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. “The Germans,” she said, “are too thorough, and this is all very well sometimes, but at other times it does not do.”
“Exactly,” said Margaret; “Germans are too thorough.” And her eyes began to shine.
“Of course I regard you Schlegels as English,” said Mrs. Munt hastily—“English to the backbone.”
Margaret leaned forward and stroked her hand.
“And that reminds me—Helen’s letter.”
“Oh yes, Aunt Juley, I am thinking all right about Helen’s letter. I know—I must go down and see her. I am thinking about her all right. I am meaning to go down.”
“But go with some plan,” said Mrs. Munt, admitting into her kindly voice a note of exasperation. “Margaret, if I may interfere, don’t 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 ‘younger son.’ Would he be in a position to marry? Is he likely to make Helen happy? Did you gather—”
“I gathered nothing.”
They began to talk at once.
“Then in that case—”
“In that case I can make no plans, don’t you see.”
“On the contrary—”
“I hate plans. I hate lines of action. Helen isn’t a baby.”
“Then in that case, my dear, why go down?”
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, “I love my dear sister; I must be near her at this crisis of her life.” 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.
“I consider you odd girls,” continued Mrs. Munt, “and very wonderful girls, and in many ways far older than your years. But—you won’t 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.” She spread out her plump arms. “I am all at your disposal. Let me go down to this house whose name I forget instead of you.”
“Aunt Juley”—she jumped up and kissed her—“I must, must go to Howards End myself. You don’t exactly understand, though I can never thank you properly for offering.”
“I do understand,” retorted Mrs. Munt, with immense confidence. “I 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 Helen’s happiness you would offend the whole of these Wilcoxes by asking one of your impetuous questions—not that one minds offending them.”
“I shall ask no questions. I have it in Helen’s 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 isn’t worth a straw. A long engagement if you like, but inquiries, questions, plans, lines of action—no, Aunt Juley, no.”
Away she hurried, not beautiful, not supremely brilliant, but filled with something that took the place of both qualities—something best described as a profound vivacity, a continual and sincere response to all that she encountered in her path through life.
“If Helen had written the same to me about a shop assistant or a penniless clerk—”
“Dear Margaret, do come into the library and shut the door. Your good maids are dusting the banisters.”
“—or if she had wanted to marry the man who calls for Carter Paterson, I should have said the same.” 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: “Though in the case of Carter Paterson I should want it to be a very long engagement indeed, I must say.”
“I should think so,” said Mrs. Munt; “and, 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.”
Margaret was down on this.
“But you implied just now that the engagement must be broken off.”
“I think probably it must; but slowly.”
“Can you break an engagement off slowly?” Her eyes lit up. “What’s an engagement made of, do you suppose? I think it’s made of some hard stuff that may snap, but can’t break. It is different to the other ties of life. They stretch or bend. They admit of degree. They’re different.”
“Exactly so. But won’t you let me just run down to Howards House, and save you all the discomfort? I will really not interfere, but I do so thoroughly understand the kind of thing you Schlegels want that one quiet look round will be enough for me.”
Margaret again thanked her, again kissed her, and then ran upstairs to see her brother.
He was not so well.
The hay fever had worried him a good deal all night. His head ached, his eyes were wet, his mucous membrane, he informed her, in a most unsatisfactory condition. The only thing that made life worth living was the thought of Walter Savage Landor, from whose Imaginary Conversations she had promised to read at frequent intervals during the day.
It was rather difficult. Something must be done about Helen. She must be assured that it is not a criminal offence to love at first sight. A telegram to this effect would be cold and cryptic, a personal visit seemed each moment more impossible. Now the doctor arrived, and said that Tibby was quite bad. Might it really be best to accept Aunt Juley’s kind offer, and to send her down to Howards End with a note?
Certainly Margaret was impulsive. She did swing rapidly from one decision to another. Running downstairs into the library, she cried: “Yes, I have changed my mind; I do wish that you would go.”
There was a train from King’s Cross at eleven. At half-past ten Tibby, with rare self-effacement, fell asleep, and Margaret was able to drive her aunt to the station.
“You will remember, Aunt Juley, not to be drawn into discussing the engagement. Give my letter to Helen, and say whatever you feel yourself, but do keep clear of the relatives. We have scarcely got their names straight yet, and, besides, that sort of thing is so uncivilised and wrong.”
“So uncivilised?” queried Mrs. Munt, fearing that she was losing the point of some brilliant remark.
“Oh, I used an affected word. I only meant would you please talk the thing over only with Helen.”
“Only with Helen.”
“Because—” But it was no moment to expound the personal nature of love. Even Margaret shrank from it, and contented herself with stroking her good aunt’s hand, and with meditating, half sensibly and half poetically, on the journey that was about to begin from King’s Cross.
Like many others who have lived long in a great capital, she had strong feelings about the various railway termini. They are our gates to the glorious and the unknown. Through them we pass out into adventure and sunshine, to them, alas! we return. In Paddington all Cornwall is latent and the remoter west; down the inclines of Liverpool Street lie fenlands and the illimitable Broads; Scotland is through the pylons of Euston; Wessex behind the poised chaos of Waterloo. Italians realise this, as is natural; those of them who are so unfortunate as to serve as waiters in Berlin call the Anhalt Bahnhof the Stazione d’Italia, because by it they must return to their homes. And he is a chilly Londoner who does not endow his stations with some personality, and extend to them, however shyly, the emotions of fear and love.
To Margaret—I hope that it will not set the reader against her—the station of King’s Cross had always suggested Infinity. Its very situation—withdrawn a little behind the facile splendours of St. Pancras—implied a comment on the materialism of life. Those two great arches, colourless, indifferent, shouldering between them an unlovely clock, were fit portals for some eternal adventure, whose issue might be prosperous, but would certainly not be expressed in the ordinary language of prosperity. If you think this ridiculous, remember that it is not Margaret who is telling you about it; and let me hasten to add that they were in plenty of time for the train; that Mrs. Munt, though she took a second-class ticket, was put by the guard into a first (only two “seconds” on the train, one smoking and the other babies—one cannot be expected to travel with babies); and that Margaret, on her return to Wickham Place, was confronted with the following telegram:
“All over. Wish I had never written. Tell no one—, HELEN.”
But Aunt Juley was gone—gone irrevocably, and no power on earth could stop her.