HOWARDS END
Chapter 32
She was looking at plans one day in the following spring--they had finally
decided to go down into Sussex and build--when Mrs. Charles Wilcox was
announced.
"Have you heard the news?" Dolly cried, as
soon as she entered the room. "Charles is so ang--I mean he is sure you
know about it, or rather, that you don't know."
"Why,
Dolly!" said Margaret, placidly kissing her. "Here's a surprise! How
are the boys and the baby?"
Boys and the baby were
well, and in describing a great row that there had been at Hilton Tennis Club,
Dolly forgot her news. The wrong people had tried to get in. The
rector, as representing the older inhabitants, had said--Charles had said--the
tax-collector had said--Charles had regretted not saying--and she closed the
description with, "But lucky you, with four courts of your own at
Midhurst."
"It will be very jolly," replied
Margaret.
"Are those the plans? Does it matter
me seeing them?"
"Of course
not."
"Charles has never seen the
plans."
"They have only just arrived. Here is
the ground floor--no, that's rather difficult. Try the elevation. We
are to have a good many gables and a picturesque
sky-line."
"What makes it smell so funny?" said
Dolly, after a moment's inspection. She was incapable of understanding
plans or maps.
"I suppose the
paper."
"And which way up is
it?"
"Just the ordinary way up. That's the
sky-line, and the part that smells strongest is the
sky."
"Well, ask me another. Margaret--oh--what
was I going to say? How's Helen?"
"Quite
well."
"Is she never coming back to England?
Every one thinks it's awfully odd she doesn't."
"So
it is," said Margaret, trying to conceal her vexation. She was getting
rather sore on this point. "Helen is odd, awfully. She has now been
away eight months.
"But hasn't she any
address?"
"A poste restante somewhere in Bavaria is
her address. Do write her a line. I will look it up for
you."
"No, don't bother. That's eight months
she has been away, surely?"
"Exactly. She left
just after Evie's wedding. It would be eight
months."
"Just when baby was born,
then?"
"Just so."
Dolly
sighed, and stared enviously round the drawing-room. She was beginning to
lose her brightness and good looks. The Charles' were not well off, for
Mr. Wilcox, having brought up his children with expensive tastes, believed in
letting them shift for themselves. After all, he had not treated them
generously. Yet another baby was expected, she told Margaret, and they
would have to give up the motor. Margaret sympathized, but in a formal
fashion, and Dolly little imagined that the step-mother was urging Mr. Wilcox to
make them a more liberal allowance. She sighed again, and at last the
particular grievance was remembered. "Oh yes," she cried, "that is it:
Miss Avery has been unpacking your
packing-cases."
"Why has she done that? How
unnecessary!"
"Ask another. I suppose you
ordered her to."
"I gave no such orders.
Perhaps she was airing the things. She did undertake to light an
occasional fire."
"It was far more than an air," said
Dolly solemnly. "The floor sounds covered with books. Charles sent
me to know what is to be done, for he feels certain you don't
know."
"Books!" cried Margaret, moved by the holy
word. "Dolly, are you serious? Has she been touching our
books?"
"Hasn't she, though! What used to be
the hall's full of them. Charles thought for certain you knew of
it."
"I am very much obliged to you, Dolly.
What can have come over Miss Avery? I must go down about it at once.
Some of the books are my brother's, and are quite valuable. She had no
right to open any of the cases."
"I say she's
dotty. She was the one that never got married, you know. Oh, I say,
perhaps she thinks your books are wedding-presents to herself. Old maids
are taken that way sometimes. Miss Avery hates us all like poison ever
since her frightful dust-up with Evie."
"I hadn't
heard of that," said Margaret. A visit from Dolly had its
compensations.
"Didn't you know she gave Evie a
present last August, and Evie returned it, and then--oh, goloshes! You
never read such a letter as Miss Avery wrote."
"But
it was wrong of Evie to return it. It wasn't like her to do such a
heartless thing."
"But the present was so
expensive."
"Why does that make any difference,
Dolly?"
"Still, when it costs over five pounds--I
didn't see it, but it was a lovely enamel pendant from a Bond Street shop.
You can't very well accept that kind of thing from a farm woman. Now, can
you?"
"You accepted a present from Miss Avery when
you were married.
"Oh, mine was old earthenware
stuff--not worth a halfpenny. Evie's was quite different. You'd have
to ask anyone to the wedding who gave you a pendant like that. Uncle Percy
and Albert and father and Charles all said it was quite impossible, and when
four men agree, what is a girl to do? Evie didn't want to upset the old
thing, so thought a sort of joking letter best, and returned the pendant
straight to the shop to save Miss Avery
trouble."
"But Miss Avery
said--"
Dolly's eyes grew round. "It was a
perfectly awful letter. Charles said it was the letter of a madman.
In the end she had the pendant back again from the shop and threw it into the
duckpond.
"Did she give any
reasons?"
"We think she meant to be invited to
Oniton, and so climb into society."
"She's rather old
for that," said Margaret pensively. "May not she have given the present to
Evie in remembrance of her mother?"
"That's a
notion. Give every one their due, eh? Well, I suppose I ought to be
toddling. Come along, Mr. Muff--you want a new coat, but I don't know
who'll give it you, I'm sure;" and addressing her apparel with mournful humour,
Dolly moved from the room.
Margaret followed her to
ask whether Henry knew about Miss Avery's
rudeness.
"Oh yes."
"I
wonder, then, why he let me ask her to look after the
house."
"But she's only a farm woman," said Dolly,
and her explanation proved correct. Henry only censured the lower classes
when it suited him. He bore with Miss Avery as with Crane--because he
could get good value out of them. "I have patience with a man who knows
his job," he would say, really having patience with the job, and not the
man. Paradoxical as it may sound, he had something of the artist about
him; he would pass over an insult to his daughter sooner than lose a good
charwoman for his wife.
Margaret judged it better to
settle the little trouble herself. Parties were evidently ruffled.
With Henry's permission, she wrote a pleasant note to Miss Avery, asking her to
leave the cases untouched. Then, at the first convenient opportunity, she
went down herself, intending to repack her belongings and store them properly in
the local warehouse: the plan had been amateurish and a failure. Tibby
promised to accompany her, but at the last moment begged to be excused.
So, for the second time in her life, she entered the house alone.