Howards End - E. M. Forster (world of reading .txt) 📗

She would only point out the salvation that was latent in his own soul, and in the soul of every man. Only connect! That was the whole of her sermon. Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its height. Live in fragments no longer. Only connect and the beast and the monk, robbed of the isolation that is life to either, will die.

Nor was the message difficult to give. It need not take the form of a good “talking.” By quiet indications the bridge would be built and span their lives with beauty.

But she failed. For there was one quality in Henry for which she was never prepared, however much she reminded herself of it: his obtuseness. He simply did not notice things, and there was no more to be said. He never noticed that Helen and Frieda were hostile, or that Tibby was not interested in currant plantations; he never noticed the lights and shades that exist in the greyest conversation, the finger-posts, the milestones, the collisions, the illimitable views. Once⁠—on another occasion⁠—she scolded him about it. He was puzzled, but replied with a laugh: “My motto is ‘Concentrate.’ I’ve no intention of frittering away my strength on that sort of thing.” “It isn’t frittering away the strength,” she protested. “It’s enlarging the space in which you may be strong.” He answered: “You’re a clever little woman, but my motto’s ‘Concentrate.’ ” And this morning he concentrated with a vengeance.

They met in the rhododendrons of yesterday. In the daylight the bushes were inconsiderable and the path was bright in the morning sun. She was with Helen, who had been ominously quiet since the affair was settled. “Here we all are!” she cried, and took him by one hand, retaining her sister’s in the other.

“Here we are. Good morning, Helen.”

Helen replied, “Good morning, Mr. Wilcox.”

“Henry, she has had such a nice letter from the queer, cross boy. Do you remember him? He had a sad moustache, but the back of his head was young.”

“I have had a letter too. Not a nice one⁠—I want to talk it over with you”; for Leonard Bast was nothing to him now that she had given him her word; the triangle of sex was broken forever.

“Thanks to your hint, he’s clearing out of the Porphyrion.”

“Not a bad business that Porphyrion,” he said absently, as he took his own letter out of his pocket.

“Not a bad⁠—” she exclaimed, dropping his hand. “Surely, on Chelsea Embankment⁠—”

“Here’s our hostess. Good morning, Mrs. Munt. Fine rhododendrons. Good morning, Frau Liesecke; we manage to grow flowers in England, don’t we?”

“Not a bad business?”

“No. My letter’s about Howards End. Bryce has been ordered abroad, and wants to sublet it⁠—I am far from sure that I shall give him permission. There was no clause in the agreement. In my opinion, subletting is a mistake. If he can find me another tenant, whom I consider suitable, I may cancel the agreement. Morning, Schlegel. Don’t you think that’s better than subletting?”

Helen had dropped her hand now, and he had steered her past the whole party to the seaward side of the house. Beneath them was the bourgeois little bay, which must have yearned all through the centuries for just such a watering-place as Swanage to be built on its margin.

The waves were colourless, and the Bournemouth steamer gave a further touch of insipidity, drawn up against the pier and hooting wildly for excursionists.

“When there is a sublet I find that damage⁠—”

“Do excuse me, but about the Porphyrion. I don’t feel easy⁠—might I just bother you, Henry?”

Her manner was so serious that he stopped, and asked her a little sharply what she wanted.

“You said on Chelsea Embankment, surely, that it was a bad concern, so we advised this clerk to clear out. He writes this morning that he’s taken our advice, and now you say it’s not a bad concern.”

“A clerk who clears out of any concern, good or bad, without securing a berth somewhere else first, is a fool, and I’ve no pity for him.”

“He has not done that. He’s going into a bank in Camden Town, he says. The salary’s much lower, but he hopes to manage⁠—a branch of Dempster’s Bank. Is that all right?”

“Dempster! Why goodness me, yes.”

“More right than the Porphyrion?”

“Yes, yes, yes; safe as houses⁠—safer.”

“Very many thanks. I’m sorry⁠—if you sublet⁠—?”

“If he sublets, I shan’t have the same control. In theory there should be no more damage done at Howards End; in practice there will be. Things may be done for which no money can compensate. For instance, I shouldn’t want that fine wych-elm spoilt. It hangs⁠—Margaret, we must go and see the old place some time. It’s pretty in its way. We’ll motor down and have lunch with Charles.”

“I should enjoy that,” said Margaret bravely.

“What about next Wednesday?”

“Wednesday? No, I couldn’t well do that. Aunt Juley expects us to stop here another week at least.”

“But you can give that up now.”

“Er⁠—no,” said Margaret, after a moment’s thought.

“Oh, that’ll be all right. I’ll speak to her.”

“This visit is a high solemnity. My aunt counts on it year after year. She turns the house upside down for us; she invites our special friends⁠—she scarcely knows Frieda, and we can’t leave her on her hands. I missed one day, and she would be so hurt if I didn’t stay the full ten.”

“But I’ll say a word to her. Don’t you bother.”

“Henry, I won’t go. Don’t bully me.”

“You want to see the house, though?”

“Very much⁠—I’ve heard so much about it, one way or the other. Aren’t there pigs’ teeth in the wych-elm?”

“Pigs’ teeth?”

“And you chew the bark for toothache.”

“What a rum notion! Of course not!”

“Perhaps I have confused it with some other tree. There are still a great number of sacred trees in England, it seems.”

But he left her to intercept Mrs. Munt, whose voice could be heard in the distance; to be intercepted himself by Helen.

“Oh. Mr. Wilcox, about the Porphyrion⁠—” she began and