Part 13 (1/2)
”Certainly I remember cases--you see I lived at Howards End long, long before Mr. Wilc.o.x knew it. I was born there.”
The conversation again s.h.i.+fted. At the time it seemed little more than aimless chatter. She was interested when her hostess explained that Howards End was her own property. She was bored when too minute an account was given of the Fussell family, of the anxieties of Charles concerning Naples, of the movements of Mr. Wilc.o.x and Evie, who were motoring in Yorks.h.i.+re. Margaret could not bear being bored. She grew inattentive, played with the photograph frame, dropped it, smashed Dolly's gla.s.s, apologised, was pardoned, cut her finger thereon, was pitied, and finally said she must be going--there was all the housekeeping to do, and she had to interview Tibby's riding-master.
Then the curious note was struck again.
”Good-bye, Miss Schlegel, good-bye. Thank you for coming. You have cheered me up.”
”I'm so glad!”
”I--I wonder whether you ever think about yourself?”
”I think of nothing else,” said Margaret, blus.h.i.+ng, but letting her hand remain in that of the invalid.
”I wonder. I wondered at Heidelberg.”
”I'M sure!”
”I almost think--”
”Yes?” asked Margaret, for there was a long pause--a pause that was somehow akin to the flicker of the fire, the quiver of the reading-lamp upon their hands, the white blur from the window; a pause of s.h.i.+fting and eternal shadows.
”I almost think you forget you're a girl.”
Margaret was startled and a little annoyed. ”I'm twenty-nine,” she remarked. ”That's not so wildly girlish.”
Mrs. Wilc.o.x smiled.
”What makes you say that? Do you mean that I have been gauche and rude?”
A shake of the head. ”I only meant that I am fifty-one, and that to me both of you--Read it all in some book or other; I cannot put things clearly.”
”Oh, I've got it--inexperience. I'm no better than Helen, you mean, and yet I presume to advise her.”
”Yes. You have got it. Inexperience is the word.”
”Inexperience,” repeated Margaret, in serious yet buoyant tones.
”Of course, I have everything to learn--absolutely everything--just as much as Helen. Life's very difficult and full of surprises. At all events, I've got as far as that. To be humble and kind, to go straight ahead, to love people rather than pity them, to remember the submerged--well, one can't do all these things at once, worse luck, because they're so contradictory. It's then that proportion comes in--to live by proportion. Don't BEGIN with proportion. Only prigs do that.
Let proportion come in as a last resource, when the better things have failed, and a deadlock--Gracious me, I've started preaching!”
”Indeed, you put the difficulties of life splendidly,” said Mrs. Wilc.o.x, withdrawing her hand into the deeper shadows. ”It is just what I should have liked to say about them myself.”
CHAPTER IX
Mrs. Wilc.o.x cannot be accused of giving Margaret much information about life. And Margaret, on the other hand, has made a fair show of modesty, and has pretended to an inexperience that she certainly did not feel.
She had kept house for over ten years; she had entertained, almost with distinction; she had brought up a charming sister, and was bringing up a brother. Surely, if experience is attainable, she had attained it. Yet the little luncheon-party that she gave in Mrs. Wilc.o.x's honour was not a success. The new friend did not blend with the ”one or two delightful people” who had been asked to meet her, and the atmosphere was one of polite bewilderment. Her tastes were simple, her knowledge of culture slight, and she was not interested in the New English Art Club, nor in the dividing-line between Journalism and Literature, which was started as a conversational hare. The delightful people darted after it with cries of joy, Margaret leading them, and not till the meal was half over did they realise that the princ.i.p.al guest had taken no part in the chase. There was no common topic. Mrs. Wilc.o.x, whose life had been spent in the service of husband and sons, had little to say to strangers who had never shared it, and whose age was half her own. Clever talk alarmed her, and withered her delicate imaginings; it was the social counterpart of a motor-car, all jerks, and she was a wisp of hay, a flower. Twice she deplored the weather, twice criticised the train service on the Great Northern Railway. They vigorously a.s.sented, and rushed on, and when she inquired whether there was any news of Helen, her hostess was too much occupied in placing Rothenstein to answer. The question was repeated: ”I hope that your sister is safe in Germany by now.” Margaret checked herself and said, ”Yes, thank you; I heard on Tuesday.” But the demon of vociferation was in her, and the next moment she was off again.
”Only on Tuesday, for they live right away at Stettin. Did you ever know any one living at Stettin?”
”Never,” said Mrs. Wilc.o.x gravely, while her neighbour, a young man low down in the Education Office, began to discuss what people who lived at Stettin ought to look like. Was there such a thing as Stettininity?