HOWARDS END
Chapter 40
Leonard--he would figure at length in a newspaper report, but that evening he
did not count for much. The foot of the tree was in shadow, since the moon
was still hidden behind the house. But above, to right, to left, down the
long meadow the moonlight was streaming. Leonard seemed not a man, but a
cause.
Perhaps it was Helen's way of falling in
love--a curious way to Margaret, whose agony and whose contempt of Henry were
yet imprinted with his image. Helen forgot people. They were husks
that had enclosed her emotion. She could pity, or sacrifice herself, or
have instincts, but had she ever loved in the noblest way, where man and woman,
having lost themselves in sex, desire to lose sex itself in
comradeship?
Margaret wondered, but said no
word of blame. This was Helen's evening. Troubles enough lay ahead
of her--the loss of friends and of social advantages, the agony, the supreme
agony, of motherhood, which is even yet not a matter of common knowledge.
For the present let the moon shine brightly and the breezes of the spring blow
gently, dying away from the gale of the day, and let the earth, who brings
increase, bring peace. Not even to herself dare she blame Helen. She
could not assess her trespass by any moral code; it was everything or
nothing. Morality can tell us that murder is worse than stealing, and
group most sins in an order all must approve, but it cannot group Helen.
The surer its pronouncements on this point, the surer may we be that morality is
not speaking. Christ was evasive when they questioned Him. It is
those that cannot connect who hasten to cast the first
stone.
This was Helen's evening--won at what cost,
and not to be marred by the sorrows of others. Of her own tragedy Margaret
never uttered a word.
"One isolates," said Helen
slowly. "I isolated Mr. Wilcox from the other forces that were pulling
Leonard downhill. Consequently, I was full of pity, and almost of
revenge. For weeks I had blamed Mr. Wilcox only, and so, when your letters
came--"
"I need never have written them," sighed
Margaret. "They never shielded Henry. How hopeless it is to tidy
away the past, even for others!"
"I did not know that
it was your own idea to dismiss the Basts."
"Looking
back, that was wrong of me."
"Looking back, darling,
I know that it was right. It is right to save the man whom one
loves. I am less enthusiastic about justice now. But we both thought
you wrote at his dictation. It seemed the last touch of his
callousness. Being very much wrought up by this time--and Mrs. Bast was
upstairs. I had not seen her, and had talked for a long time to Leonard--I
had snubbed him for no reason, and that should have warned me I was in
danger. So when the notes came I wanted us to go to you for an
explanation. He said that he guessed the explanation--he knew of it, and
you mustn't know. I pressed him to tell me. He said no one must
know; it was something to do with his wife. Right up to the end we were
Mr. Bast and Miss Schlegel. I was going to tell him that he must be frank
with me when I saw his eyes, and guessed that Mr. Wilcox had ruined him in two
ways, not one. I drew him to me. I made him tell me. I felt
very lonely myself. He is not to blame. He would have gone on
worshipping me. I want never to see him again, though it sounds
appalling. I wanted to give him money and feel finished. Oh, Meg,
the little that is known about these things!"
She
laid her face against the tree.
"The little, too,
that is known about growth! Both times it was loneliness, and the night,
and panic afterwards. Did Leonard grow out of
Paul?"
Margaret did not speak for a moment. So
tired was she that her attention had actually wandered to the teeth--the teeth
that had been thrust into the tree's bark to medicate it. From where she
sat she could see them gleam. She had been trying to count them.
"Leonard is a better growth than madness," she said. "I was afraid that
you would react against Paul until you went over the
verge."
"I did react until I found poor
Leonard. I am steady now. I shan't ever like your Henry, dearest
Meg, or even speak kindly about him, but all that blinding hate is over. I
shall never rave against Wilcoxes any more. I understand how you married
him, and you will now be very happy."
Margaret did
not reply.
"Yes," repeated Helen, her voice growing
more tender, "I do at last understand."
"Except Mrs.
Wilcox, dearest, no one understands our little
movements."
"Because in death--I
agree."
"Not quite. I feel that you and I and
Henry are only fragments of that woman's mind. She knows everything.
She is everything. She is the house, and the tree that leans over
it. People have their own deaths as well as their own lives, and even if
there is nothing beyond death, we shall differ in our nothingness. I
cannot believe that knowledge such as hers will perish with knowledge such as
mine. She knew about realities. She knew when people were in love,
though she was not in the room. I don't doubt that she knew when Henry
deceived her."
"Good-night, Mrs. Wilcox," called a
voice.
"Oh, good-night, Miss
Avery."
"Why should Miss Avery work for us?" Helen
murmured.
"Why,
indeed?"
Miss Avery crossed the lawn and merged into
the hedge that divided it from the farm. An old gap, which Mr. Wilcox had
filled up, had reappeared, and her track through the dew followed the path that
he had turfed over, when he improved the garden and made it possible for
games.
"This is not quite our house yet," said
Helen. "When Miss Avery called, I felt we are only a couple of
tourists."
"We shall be that everywhere, and for
ever."
"But affectionate
tourists--"
"But tourists who pretend each hotel is
their home."
"I can't pretend very long," said
Helen. "Sitting under this tree one forgets, but I know that tomorrow I
shall see the moon rise out of Germany. Not all your goodness can alter
the facts of the case. Unless you will come with
me."
Margaret thought for a moment. In the past
year she had grown so fond of England that to leave it was a real grief.
Yet what detained her? No doubt Henry would pardon her outburst, and go on
blustering and muddling into a ripe old age. But what was the good?
She had just as soon vanish from his mind.
"Are you
serious in asking me, Helen? Should I get on with your
Monica?"
"You would not, but I am serious in asking
you."
"Still, no more plans now. And no more
reminiscences."
They were silent for a little.
It was Helen's evening.
The present flowed by them
like a stream. The tree rustled. It had made music before they were
born, and would continue after their deaths, but its song was of the
moment. The moment had passed. The tree rustled again. Their
senses were sharpened, and they seemed to apprehend life. Life
passed. The tree nestled again.
"Sleep now,"
said Margaret.
The peace of the country was entering
into her. It has no commerce with memory, and little with hope.
Least of all is it concerned with the hopes of the next five minutes. It
is the peace of the present, which passes understanding. Its murmur came
"now," and "now" once more as they trod the gravel, and "now," as the moonlight
fell upon their father's sword. They passed upstairs, kissed, and amidst
the endless iterations fell asleep. The house had enshadowed the tree at
first, but as the moon rose higher the two disentangled, and were clear for a
few moments at midnight. Margaret awoke and looked into the garden.
How incomprehensible that Leonard Bast should have won her this night of
peace! Was he also part of Mrs. Wilcox's mind?