Howards End Part 58

"This IS Mr. Wilc.o.x's house?" she inquired.

"Surely you remember Howards End?"

"Remember? I who remember everything! But it looks to be ours now."

"Miss Avery was extraordinary," said Margaret, her own spirits lightening a little. Again she was invaded by a slight feeling of disloyalty. But it brought her relief, and she yielded to it. "She loved Mrs. Wilc.o.x, and would rather furnish her home with our things than think of it empty. In consequence here are all the library books."

"Not all the books. She hasn't unpacked the Art books, in which she may show her sense. And we never used to have the sword here."

"The sword looks well, though."

"Magnificent."

"Yes, doesn't it?"

"Where's the piano, Meg?"

"I warehoused that in London. Why?"

"Nothing."

"Curious, too, that the carpet fits."

"The carpet's a mistake," announced Helen. "I know that we had it in London, but this floor ought to be bare. It is far too beautiful."

"You still have a mania for under-furnis.h.i.+ng. Would you care to come into the dining-room before you start? There's no carpet there. They went in, and each minute their talk became more natural.

"Oh, WHAT a place for mother's chiffonier!" cried Helen.

"Look at the chairs, though."

"Oh, look at them! Wickham Place faced north, didn't it?"

"North-west."

"Anyhow, it is thirty years since any of those chairs have felt the sun.

Feel. Their dear little backs are quite warm."

"But why has Miss Avery made them set to partners? I shall just--"

"Over here, Meg. Put it so that any one sitting will see the lawn."

Margaret moved a chair. Helen sat down in it.

"Ye--es. The window's too high."

"Try a drawing-room chair."

"No, I don't like the drawing-room so much. The beam has been match-boarded. It would have been so beautiful otherwise."

"Helen, what a memory you have for some things! You're perfectly right.

It's a room that men have spoilt through trying to make it nice for women. Men don't know what we want--"

"And never will."

"I don't agree. In two thousand years they'll know. Look where Tibby spilt the soup."

"Coffee. It was coffee surely."

Helen shook her head. "Impossible. Tibby was far too young to be given coffee at that time."

"Was father alive?"

"Yes."

"Then you're right and it must have been soup. I thinking of much later--that unsuccessful visit of Aunt Juley's, when she didn't realise that Tibby had grown up. It was coffee then, for he threw it down on purpose. There was some rhyme, 'Tea, coffee--coffee tea,' that she said to him every morning at breakfast. Wait a minute--how did it go?"

"I know--no, I don't. What a detestable boy Tibby was!"

"But the rhyme was simply awful. No decent person could put up with it."

"Ah, that greengage-tree," cried Helen, as if the garden was also part of their childhood. "Why do I connect it with dumb-bells? And there come the chickens. The gra.s.s wants cutting. I love yellow-hammers."

Margaret interrupted her. "I have got it," she announced.

"'Tea, tea, coffee, tea, Or chocolaritee.'

"That every morning for three weeks. No wonder Tibby was wild."

"Tibby is moderately a dear now," said Helen.

"There! I knew you'd say that in the end. Of course he's a dear."

A bell rang.

"Listen! what's that?"

Helen said, "Perhaps the Wilc.o.xes are beginning the siege."

"What nonsense--listen!"

And the triviality faded from their faces, though it left something behind--the knowledge that they never could be parted because their love was rooted in common things. Explanations and appeals had failed; they had tried for a common meeting-ground, and had only made each other unhappy. And all the time their salvation was lying round them--the past sanctifying the present; the present, with wild heart-throb, declaring that there would after all be a future with laughter and the voices of children. Helen, still smiling, came up to her sister. She said, "It is always Meg." They looked into each other's eyes. The inner life had paid.

Solemnly the clapper tolled. No one was in the front. Margaret went to the kitchen, and struggled between packing-cases to the window. Their visitor was only a little boy with a tin can. And triviality returned.

"Little boy, what do you want?"

"Please, I am the milk."