霍华德庄园 英文版 Howards End
爱德华.摩根.福斯特 Edward Morgan Forster
Chapter 5 Page 2
The light was turned on, and they began to search thehall, Helen, who had abruptly parted with the FifthSymphony, commenting with shrill little cries.
"Don't you talk, Meg! You stole an old gentleman's silktop-hat. Yes, she did, Aunt Juley. It is a positive fact.She thought it was a muff. Oh, heavens! I've knocked theIn and Out card down. Where's Frieda? Tibby, why don't youever--No, I can't remember what I was going to say. Thatwasn't it, but do tell the maids to hurry tea up. Whatabout this umbrella?" She opened it. "No, it's all gonealong the seams. It's an appalling umbrella. It must be mine."
But it was not.
He took it from her, murmured a few words of thanks, andthen fled, with the lilting step of the clerk.
"But if you will stop--" cried Margaret. "Now, Helen,how stupid you've been!"
Thatwasn't it, but do tell.
"Whatever have I done?"
"Don't you see that you've frightened him away? I meanthim to stop to tea. You oughtn't to talk about stealing orholes in an umbrella. I saw his nice eyes getting somiserable. No, it's not a bit of good now." For Helen haddarted out into the street, shouting, "Oh, do stop!"
"I dare say it is all for the best," opined Mrs. Munt."We know nothing about the young man, Margaret, and yourdrawing-room is full of very tempting little things."
But Helen cried: "Aunt Juley, how can you! You make memore and more ashamed. I'd rather he HAD been a thief andtaken all the apostle spoons than that I--Well, I must shutthe front-door, I suppose. One more failure for Helen."
"Yes, I think the apostle spoons could have gone asrent," said Margaret. Seeing that her aunt did notunderstand, she added: "You remember 'rent.' It was one offather's words--Rent to the ideal, to his own faith in humannature. You remember how he would trust strangers, and ifthey fooled him he would say, 'It's better to be fooled thanto be suspicious'--that the confidence trick is the work ofman, but the want-of-confidence-trick is the work of the devil."
her, murmured a few words of thanks, andthen?
"I remember something of the sort now," said Mrs. Munt,rather tartly, for she longed to add, "It was lucky thatyour father married a wife with money." But this was unkind,and she contented herself with, "Why, he might have stolenthe little Ricketts picture as well."
"Better that he had," said Helen stoutly.
"No, I agree with Aunt Juley," said Margaret. "I'drather mistrust people than lose my little Ricketts. Thereare limits."
Their brother, finding the incident commonplace, hadstolen upstairs to see whether there were scones for tea.He warmed the teapot--almost too deftly--rejected the OrangePekoe that the parlour-maid had provided, poured in fivespoonfuls of a superior blend, filled up with really boilingwater, and now called to the ladies to be quick or theywould lose the aroma.
"All right, Auntie Tibby," called Helen, while Margaret,thoughtful again, said: "In a way, I wish we had a real boyin the house--the kind of boy who cares for men. It wouldmake entertaining so much easier."
"So do I," said her sister. "Tibby only cares forcultured females singing Brahms." And when they joined himshe said rather sharply: "Why didn't you make that young manwelcome, Tibby? You must do the host a little, you know.You ought to have taken his hat and coaxed him intostopping, instead of letting him be swamped by screaming women."
Tibby sighed, and drew a long strand of hair over his forehead.
"Oh, it's no good looking superior. I mean what I say."
"Leave Tibby alone!" said Margaret, who could not bearher brother to be scolded.
"Here's the house a regular hen-coop!" grumbled Helen.
"Oh, my dear!" protested Mrs. Munt. "How can you saysuch dreadful things! The number of men you get here hasalways astonished me. If there is any danger it's the otherway round."
"Yes, but it's the wrong sort of men, Helen means."
"No, I don't," corrected Helen. "We get the right sortof man, but the wrong side of him, and I say that's Tibby'sfault. There ought to be a something about the house--an--Idon't know what."
"A touch of the W.'s, perhaps?"
Helen put out her tongue.
had abruptly parted with the FifthSymphony?
"Who are the W.'s?" asked Tibby.
"The W.'s are things I and Meg and Aunt Juley know aboutand you don't, so there!"
been!" and now called to .
"I suppose that ours is a female house," said Margaret,"and one must just accept it. No, Aunt Juley, I don't meanthat this house is full of women. I am trying to saysomething much more clever. I mean that it was irrevocablyfeminine, even in father's time. Now I'm sure youunderstand! Well, I'll give you another example. It'llshock you, but I don't care. Suppose Queen Victoria gave adinner-party, and that the guests had been Leighton,Millais, Swinburne, Rossetti, Meredith, Fitzgerald, etc. Doyou suppose that the atmosphere of that dinner would havebeen artistic? Heavens no! The very chairs on which theysat would have seen to that. So with our house--it must befeminine, and all we can do is to see that it isn'teffeminate. Just as another house that I can mention, but Iwon't, sounded irrevocably masculine, and all its inmatescan do is to see that it isn't brutal."
"That house being the W.'s house, I presume," said Tibby.
"You're not going to be told about the W.'s, my child,"Helen cried, "so don't you think it. And on the other hand,I don't the least mind if you find out, so don't you thinkyou've done anything clever, in either case. Give me a cigarette."
"You do what you can for the house," said Margaret."The drawing-room reeks of smoke."
"If you smoked too, the house might suddenly turnmasculine. Atmosphere is probably a question of touch andgo. Even at Queen Victoria's dinner-party--if something hadbeen just a little different--perhaps if she'd worn aclinging Liberty tea-gown instead of a magenta satin--"
"With an Indian shawl over her shoulders--"
"Fastened at the bosom with a Cairngorm-pin--"
Bursts of disloyal laughter--you must remember that theyare half German--greeted these suggestions, and Margaretsaid pensively, "How inconceivable it would be if the RoyalFamily cared about Art." And the conversation drifted awayand away, and Helen's cigarette turned to a spot in thedarkness, and the great flats opposite were sown withlighted windows, which vanished and were relit again, andvanished incessantly. Beyond them the thoroughfare roaredgently--a tide that could never be quiet, while in the east,invisible behind the smokes of Wapping, the moon was rising.
"That reminds me, Margaret. We might have taken thatyoung man into the dining-room, at all events. Only themajolica plate--and that is so firmly set in the wall. I amreally distressed that he had no tea."
For that little incident had impressed the three womenmore than might be supposed. It remained as a goblinfootball, as a hint that all is not for the best in the bestof all possible worlds, and that beneath thesesuperstructures of wealth and art there wanders an ill-fedboy, who has recovered his umbrella indeed, but who has leftno address behind him, and no name.