HOWARDS END
Chapter 1
One may as well begin with Helen's letters to her sister.
Howards End,
Tuesday.
Dearest Meg,
It isn't going to be
what we expected. It is old and little, and altogether delightful--red
brick. We can scarcely pack in as it is, and the dear knows what will
happen when Paul (younger son) arrives tomorrow. From hall you go right
or left into dining-room or drawing-room. Hall itself is practically a
room. You open another door in it, and there are the stairs going up in
a sort of tunnel to the first-floor. Three bedrooms in a row there, and
three attics in a row above. That isn't all the house really, but it's
all that one notices--nine windows as you look up from the front
garden.
Then there's a very big wych-elm--to the
left as you look up--leaning a little over the house, and standing on the
boundary between the garden and meadow. I quite love that tree
already. Also ordinary elms, oaks--no nastier than ordinary
oaks--pear-trees, apple-trees, and a vine. No silver birches,
though. However, I must get on to my host and hostess. I only
wanted to show that it isn't the least what we expected. Why did we
settle that their house would be all gables and wiggles, and their garden all
gamboge-coloured paths? I believe simply because we associate them with
expensive hotels--Mrs. Wilcox trailing in beautiful dresses down long
corridors, Mr. Wilcox bullying porters, etc. We females are that
unjust.
I shall be back Saturday; will let you know
train later. They are as angry as I am that you did not come too; really
Tibby is too tiresome, he starts a new mortal disease every month. How
could he have got hay fever in London? and even if he could, it seems
hard that you should give up a visit to hear a schoolboy sneeze. Tell
him that Charles Wilcox (the son who is here) has hay fever too, but he's
brave, and gets quite cross when we inquire after it. Men like the
Wilcoxes would do Tibby a power of good. But you won't agree, and I'd
better change the subject.
This long letter is
because I'm writing before breakfast. Oh, the beautiful vine
leaves! The house is covered with a vine. I looked out earlier,
and Mrs. Wilcox was already in the garden. She evidently loves it.
No wonder she sometimes looks tired. She was watching the large red
poppies come out. Then she walked off the lawn to the meadow, whose
corner to the right I can just see. Trail, trail, went her long dress
over the sopping grass, and she came back with her hands full of the hay that
was cut yesterday--I suppose for rabbits or something, as she kept on smelling
it. The air here is delicious. Later on I heard the noise of
croquet balls, and looked out again, and it was Charles Wilcox practising;
they are keen on all games. Presently he started sneezing and had to
stop. Then I hear more clicketing, and it is Mr. Wilcox practising, and
then, 'a-tissue, a-tissue': he has to stop too. Then Evie comes out, and
does some calisthenic exercises on a machine that is tacked on to a
greengage-tree--they put everything to use--and then she says 'a-tissue,' and
in she goes. And finally Mrs. Wilcox reappears, trail, trail, still
smelling hay and looking at the flowers. I inflict all this on you
because once you said that life is sometimes life and sometimes only a drama,
and one must learn to distinguish t'other from which, and up to now I have
always put that down as 'Meg's clever nonsense.' But this morning, it really
does seem not life but a play, and it did amuse me enormously to watch the
W's. Now Mrs. Wilcox has come in.
I am going
to wear [omission]. Last night Mrs. Wilcox wore an [omission], and Evie
[omission]. So it isn't exactly a go-as-you-please place, and if you
shut your eyes it still seems the wiggly hotel that we expected. Not if
you open them. The dog-roses are too sweet. There is a great hedge
of them over the lawn--magnificently tall, so that they fall down in garlands,
and nice and thin at the bottom, so that you can see ducks through it and a
cow. These belong to the farm, which is the only house near us.
There goes the breakfast gong. Much love. Modified love to
Tibby. Love to Aunt Juley; how good of her to come and keep you company,
but what a bore. Burn this. Will write again
Thursday.
Helen
Howards End,
Friday.
Dearest Meg,
I am having a glorious
time. I like them all. Mrs. Wilcox, if quieter than in Germany, is
sweeter than ever, and I never saw anything like her steady unselfishness, and
the best of it is that the others do not take advantage of her. They are
the very happiest, jolliest family that you can imagine. I do really
feel that we are making friends. The fun of it is that they think me a
noodle, and say so--at least Mr. Wilcox does--and when that happens, and one
doesn't mind, it's a pretty sure test, isn't it? He says the most horrid
things about women's suffrage so nicely, and when I said I believed in
equality he just folded his arms and gave me such a setting down as I've never
had. Meg, shall we ever learn to talk less? I never felt so
ashamed of myself in my life. I couldn't point to a time when men had
been equal, nor even to a time when the wish to be equal had made them happier
in other ways. I couldn't say a word. I had just picked up the
notion that equality is good from some book--probably from poetry, or
you. Anyhow, it's been knocked into pieces, and, like all people who are
really strong, Mr. Wilcox did it without hurting me. On the other hand,
I laugh at them for catching hay fever. We live like fighting-cocks, and
Charles takes us out every day in the motor--a tomb with trees in it, a
hermit's house, a wonderful road that was made by the Kings of
Mercia--tennis--a cricket match--bridge--and at night we squeeze up in this
lovely house. The whole clan's here now--it's like a rabbit
warren. Evie is a dear. They want me to stop over Sunday--I
suppose it won't matter if I do. Marvellous weather and the view's
marvellous--views westward to the high ground. Thank you for your
letter. Burn this.
Your affectionate
Helen
Howards End,
Sunday.
Dearest, dearest Meg,--I do not know
what you will say: Paul and I are in love--the younger son who only came here
Wednesday.
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