霍华德庄园 英文版 Howards End
爱德华.摩根.福斯特 Edward Morgan Forster
Chapter 18
As they were seated at Aunt Juley's breakfast-table at TheBays, parrying her excessive hospitality and enjoying theview of the bay, a letter came for Margaret and threw herinto perturbation. It was from Mr. Wilcox. It announced an"important change" in his plans. Owing to Evie's marriage,he had decided to give up his house in Ducie Street, and waswilling to let it on a yearly tenancy. It was abusinesslike letter, and stated frankly what he would do forthem and what he would not do. Also the rent. If theyapproved, Margaret was to come up AT ONCE--the words wereunderlined, as is necessary when dealing with women--and togo over the house with him. If they disapproved, a wirewould oblige, as he should put it into the hands of an agent.
The letter perturbed, because she was not sure what itmeant. If he liked her, if he had manoeuvred to get her toSimpson's, might this be a manoeuvre to get her to London,and result in an offer of marriage? She put it to herselfas indelicately as possible, in the hope that her brainwould cry, "Rubbish, you're a self-conscious fool!" But herbrain only tingled a little and was silent, and for a timeshe sat gazing at the mincing waves, and wondering whetherthe news would seem strange to the others.
As soon as she began speaking, the sound of her ownvoice reassured her. There could be nothing in it. Thereplies also were typical, and in the buff of conversationher fears vanished.
"You needn't go though--" began her hostess.
"I needn't, but hadn't I better? It's really gettingrather serious. We let chance after chance slip, and theend of it is we shall be bundled out bag and baggage intothe street. We don't know what we WANT, that's the mischiefwith us--"
"No, we have no real ties," said Helen, helping herselfto toast.
"Shan't I go up to town today, take the house if it'sthe least possible, and then come down by the afternoontrain tomorrow, and start enjoying myself. I shall be nofun to myself or to others until this business is off my mind."
"But you won't do anything rash, Margaret?"
"There's nothing rash to do."
"Who ARE the Wilcoxes?" said Tibby, a question thatsounds silly, but was really extremely subtle, as his auntfound to her cost when she tried to answer it. "I don'tMANAGE the Wilcoxes; I don't see where they come IN."
"No more do I," agreed Helen. "It's funny that we justdon't lose sight of them. Out of all our hotelacquaintances, Mr. Wilcox is the only one who has stuck. Itis now over three years, and we have drifted away from farmore interesting people in that time.
"Interesting people don't get one houses."
"Meg, if you start in your honest-English vein, I shallthrow the treacle at you."
"It's a better vein than the cosmopolitan," saidMargaret, getting up. "Now, children, which is it to be?You know the Ducie Street house. Shall I say yes or shall Isay no? Tibby love--which? I'm specially anxious to pinyou both."
"It all depends what meaning you attach to the word 'possi--'"
"It depends on nothing of the sort. Say 'yes.'"
"Say 'no.'"
Then Margaret spoke rather seriously. "I think," shesaid, "that our race is degenerating. We cannot settle eventhis little thing; what will it be like when we have tosettle a big one?"
"It will be as easy as eating," returned Helen.
"I was thinking of Father. How could he settle to leaveGermany as he did, when he had fought for it as a young man,and all his feelings and friends were Prussian? How couldhe break loose with Patriotism and begin aiming at somethingelse? It would have killed me. When he was nearly forty hecould change countries and ideals--and we, at our age, can'tchange houses. It's humiliating."
"Your father may have been able to change countries,"said Mrs. Munt with asperity, "and that may or may not be agood thing. But he could change houses no better than youcan, in fact, much worse. Never shall I forget what poorEmily suffered in the move from Manchester."
"I knew it," cried Helen. "I told you so. It is thelittle things one bungles at. The big, real ones arenothing when they come."
"Bungle, my dear! You are too little to recollect--infact, you weren't there. But the furniture was actually inthe vans and on the move before the lease for Wickham Placewas signed, and Emily took train with baby--who was Margaretthen--and the smaller luggage for London, without so much asknowing where her new home would be. Getting away from thathouse may be hard, but it is nothing to the misery that weall went through getting you into it."
Helen, with her mouth full, cried: "And that's the manwho beat the Austrians, and the Danes, and the French, andwho beat the Germans that were inside himself. And we'relike him."
"Speak for yourself," said Tibby. "Remember that I amcosmopolitan, please."
"Helen may be right."
"Of course she's right," said Helen.
Helen might be right, but she did not go up to London.Margaret did that. An interrupted holiday is the worst ofthe minor worries, and one may be pardoned for feelingmorbid when a business letter snatches one away from the seaand friends. She could not believe that her father had everfelt the same. Her eyes had been troubling her lately, sothat she could not read in the train, and it bored her tolook at the landscape, which she had seen but yesterday. AtSouthampton she "waved" to Frieda: Frieda was on her waydown to join them at Swanage, and Mrs. Munt had calculatedthat their trains would cross. But Frieda was looking theother way, and Margaret travelled on to town feelingsolitary and old-maidish. How like an old maid to fancythat Mr. Wilcox was courting her! She had once visited aspinster--poor, silly, and unattractive--whose mania it wasthat every man who approached her fell in love. HowMargaret's heart had bled for the deluded thing! How shehad lectured, reasoned, and in despair acquiesced! "I mayhave been deceived by the curate, my dear, but the youngfellow who brings the midday post really is fond of me, andhas, as a matter fact--" It had always seemed to her themost hideous corner of old age, yet she might be driven intoit herself by the mere pressure of virginity.
Mr. Wilcox met her at Waterloo himself. She feltcertain that he was not the same as usual; for one thing, hetook offence at everything she said.
"This is awfully kind of you," she began, "but I'mafraid it's not going to do. The house has not been builtthat suits the Schlegel family."
"What! Have you come up determined not to deal?"
"Not exactly."
"Not exactly? In that case let's be starting."
She lingered to admire the motor, which was new and afairer creature than the vermilion giant that had borne AuntJuley to her doom three years before.
"Presumably it's very beautiful," she said. "How do youlike it, Crane?"
relike him."pretences?
"Come, let's be starting," repeated her host. "How onearth did you know that my chauffeur was called Crane?"
"Why, I know Crane: I've been for a drive with Evieonce. I know that you've got a parlourmaid called Milton.I know all sorts of things."
"Evie!" he echoed in injured tones. "You won't seeher. She's gone out with Cahill. It's no fun, I can tellyou, being left so much alone. I've got my work allday--indeed, a great deal too much of it--but when I comehome in the evening, I tell you, I can't stand the house."
Margaret travelled on to town feelingsolitary?
"In my absurd way, I'm lonely too," Margaret replied."It's heart-breaking to leave one's old home. I scarcelyremember anything before Wickham Place, and Helen and Tibbywere born there. Helen says--"
"You, too, feel lonely?"
"Horribly. Hullo, Parliament's back!"
Mr. Wilcox glanced at Parliament contemptuously. Themore important ropes of life lay elsewhere. "Yes, they aretalking again." said he. "But you were going to say--"
"Only some rubbish about furniture. Helen says it aloneendures while men and houses perish, and that in the end theworld will be a desert of chairs and sofas--just imagineit! --rolling through infinity with no one to sit upon them."
"Your sister always likes her little joke.
"She says 'Yes,' my brother says 'No,' to Ducie Street.It's no fun helping us, Mr. Wilcox, I assure you."
"You are not as unpractical as you pretend. I shallnever believe it."
Margaret laughed. But she was--quite as unpractical.She could not concentrate on details. Parliament, theThames, the irresponsive chauffeur, would flash into thefield of house-hunting, and all demand some comment orresponse. It is impossible to see modern life steadily andsee it whole, and she had chosen to see it whole. Mr.Wilcox saw steadily. He never bothered over the mysteriousor the private. The Thames might run inland from the sea,the chauffeur might conceal all passion and philosophybeneath his unhealthy skin. They knew their own business,and he knew his.
Yet she liked being with him. He was not a rebuke, buta stimulus, and banished morbidity. Some twenty years hersenior, he preserved a gift that she supposed herself tohave already lost--not youth's creative power, but itsself-confidence and optimism. He was so sure that it was avery pleasant world. His complexion was robust, his hairhad receded but not thinned, the thick moustache and theeyes that Helen had compared to brandy-balls had anagreeable menace in them, whether they were turned towardsthe slums or towards the stars. Some day--in themillennium--there may be no need for his type. At present,homage is due to it from those who think themselvessuperior, and who possibly are."
"At all events you responded to my telegram promptly,"he remarked.
"Oh, even I know a good thing when I see it."
"I'm glad you don't despise the goods of this world."
"Heavens, no! Only idiots and prigs do that."
"I am glad, very glad," he repeated, suddenly softeningand turning to her, as if the remark had pleased him."There is so much cant talked in would-be intellectualcircles. I am glad you don't share it. Self-denial is allvery well as a means of strengthening the character. But Ican't stand those people who run down comforts. They haveusually some axe to grind. Can you?"
"Comforts are of two kinds," said Margaret, who waskeeping herself in hand--"those we can share with others,like fire, weather, or music; and those we can't--food, forinstance. It depends."
"I mean reasonable comforts, of course. I shouldn'tlike to think that you--" He bent nearer; the sentence diedunfinished. Margaret's head turned very stupid, and theinside of it seemed to revolve like the beacon in alighthouse. He did not kiss her, for the hour was half-pasttwelve, and the car was passing by the stables of BuckinghamPalace. But the atmosphere was so charged with emotion thatpeople only seemed to exist on her account, and she wassurprised that Crane did not realize this, and turn round.Idiot though she might be, surely Mr. Wilcox was more--howshould one put it? --more psychological than usual. Alwaysa good judge of character for business purposes, he seemedthis afternoon to enlarge his field, and to note qualitiesoutside neatness, obedience, and decision.
"I want to go over the whole house," she announced whenthey arrived. "As soon as I get back to Swanage, which willbe tomorrow afternoon, I'll talk it over once more withHelen and Tibby, and wire you 'yes' or 'no.'"
"Right. The dining-room." And they began their survey.
The dining-room was big, but over-furnished. Chelseawould have moaned aloud. Mr. Wilcox had eschewed thosedecorative schemes that wince, and relent, and refrain, andachieve beauty by sacrificing comfort and pluck. After somuch self-colour and self-denial, Margaret viewed withrelief the sumptuous dado, the frieze, the gildedwall-paper, amid whose foliage parrots sang. It would neverdo with her own furniture, but those heavy chairs, thatimmense side-board loaded with presentation plate, stood upagainst its pressure like men. The room suggested men, andMargaret, keen to derive the modern capitalist from thewarriors and hunters of the past, saw it as an ancientguest-hall, where the lord sat at meat among his thanes.Even the Bible--the Dutch Bible that Charles had broughtback from the Boer War--fell into position. Such a roomadmitted loot.
"Now the entrance-hall."
The entrance-hall was paved.
"Here we fellows smoke."
We fellows smoked in chairs of maroon leather. It wasas if a motor-car had spawned. "Oh, jolly!" said Margaret,sinking into one of them.
"You do like it?" he said, fixing his eyes on herupturned face, and surely betraying an almost intimatenote. "It's all rubbish not making oneself comfortable.Isn't it?"
"Ye-es. Semi-rubbish. Are those Cruikshanks?"
"Gillrays. Shall we go on upstairs?"
says 'No,' to Ducie Street.
"Does all this furniture come from Howards End?"
"The Howards End furniture has all gone to Oniton."
"Does--However, I'm concerned with the house, not thefurniture. How big is this smoking-room?"
"Thirty by fifteen. No, wait a minute. Fifteen and a half?."
"Ah, well. Mr. Wilcox, aren't you ever amused at thesolemnity with which we middle classes approach the subjectof houses?"
They proceeded to the drawing-room. Chelsea managedbetter here. It was sallow and ineffective. One couldvisualize the ladies withdrawing to it, while their lordsdiscussed life's realities below, to the accompaniment ofcigars. Had Mrs. Wilcox's drawing-room looked thus atHowards End? Just as this thought entered Margaret's brain,Mr. Wilcox did ask her to be his wife, and the knowledgethat she had been right so overcame her that she nearly fainted.
But the proposal was not to rank among the world's greatlove scenes.
"Miss Schlegel"--his voice was firm--"I have had you upon false pretences. I want to speak about a much moreserious matter than a house."
Margaret almost answered: "I know--"
"Could you be induced to share my--is it probable--"
"Oh, Mr. Wilcox!" she interrupted, holding the piano andaverting her eyes. "I see, I see. I will write to youafterwards if I may."
He began to stammer. "Miss Schlegel--Margaret--youdon't understand."
"Oh yes! Indeed, yes!" said Margaret.
"I am asking you to be my wife."
So deep already was her sympathy, that when he said, "Iam asking you to be my wife," she made herself give a littlestart. She must show surprise if he expected it. Animmense joy came over her. It was indescribable. It hadnothing to do with humanity, and most resembled theall-pervading happiness of fine weather. Fine weather isdue to the sun, but Margaret could think of no centralradiance here. She stood in his drawing-room happy, andlonging to give happiness. On leaving him she realized thatthe central radiance had been love.
"You aren't offended, Miss Schlegel?"
"How could I be offended?"
There was a moment's pause. He was anxious to get ridof her, and she knew it. She had too much intuition to lookat him as he struggled for possessions that money cannotbuy. He desired comradeship and affection, but he fearedthem, and she, who had taught herself only to desire, andcould have clothed the struggle with beauty, held back, andhesitated with him.
Miss Schlegel?"much moreserious matter than a house.
"Good-bye," she continued. "You will have a letter fromme--I am going back to Swanage tomorrow.
"Thank you."
"Good-bye, and it's you I thank."
"I may order the motor round, mayn't I?"
"That would be most kind."
"I wish I had written instead. Ought I to have written?"
-colour and self-denial, Margaret?
"Not at all."
"There's just one question--"
She shook her head. He looked a little bewildered, andthey parted.
They parted without shaking hands: she had kept theinterview, for his sake, in tints of the quietest grey. Yetshe thrilled with happiness ere she reached her own house.Others had loved her in the past, if one may apply to theirbrief desires so grave a word, but those others had been"ninnies"--young men who had nothing to do, old men whocould find nobody better. And she had often "loved," too,but only so far as the facts of sex demanded: mere yearningsfor the masculine, to be dismissed for what they were worth,with a smile. Never before had her personality beentouched. She was not young or very rich, and it amazed herthat a man of any standing should take her seriously. Asshe sat trying to do accounts in her empty house, amidstbeautiful pictures and noble books, waves of emotion broke,as if a tide of passion was flowing through the night air.She shook her head, tried to concentrate her attention, andfailed. In vain did she repeat: "But I've been through thissort of thing before." She had never been through it; thebig machinery, as opposed to the little, had been set inmotion, and the idea that Mr. Wilcox loved, obsessed herbefore she came to love him in return.
She would come to no decision yet. "Oh, sir, this is sosudden"--that prudish phrase exactly expressed her when hertime came. Premonitions are not preparation. She mustexamine more closely her own nature and his; she must talkit over judicially with Helen. It had been a strangelove-scene--the central radiance unacknowledged from firstto last. She, in his place, would have said "Ich liebedich," but perhaps it was not his habit to open the heart.He might have done it if she had pressed him--as a matter ofduty, perhaps; England expects every man to open his heartonce; but the effort would have jarred him, and never, ifshe could avoid it, should he lose those defences that hehad chosen to raise against the world. He must never bebothered with emotional talk, or with a display ofsympathy. He was an elderly man now, and it would be futileand impudent to correct him.
Mrs. Wilcox strayed in and out, ever a welcome ghost;surveying the scene, thought Margaret, without one hint ofbitterness.