Howards End, E. M. Forster [fox in socks read aloud TXT] 📗

forever? There one goes on day after day, same old game, same up and down to town, until you forget there is any other game. You ought to see once in a way what’s going on outside, if it’s only nothing particular after all.”

“I should just think you ought,” said Helen, sitting on the edge of the table.

The sound of a lady’s voice recalled him from sincerity, and he said: “Curious it should all come about from reading something of Richard Jefferies.”

“Excuse me, Mr. Bast, but you’re wrong there. It didn’t. It came from something far greater.”

But she could not stop him. Borrow was imminent after Jefferies⁠—Borrow, Thoreau, and sorrow. R. L. S. brought up the rear, and the outburst ended in a swamp of books. No disrespect to these great names. The fault is ours, not theirs. They mean us to use them for signposts, and are not to blame if, in our weakness, we mistake the signpost for the destination. And Leonard had reached the destination. He had visited the county of Surrey when darkness covered its amenities, and its cosy villas had re-entered ancient night. Every twelve hours this miracle happens, but he had troubled to go and see for himself. Within his cramped little mind dwelt something that was greater than Jefferies’ books⁠—the spirit that led Jefferies to write them; and his dawn, though revealing nothing but monotones, was part of the eternal sunrise that shows George Borrow Stonehenge.

“Then you don’t think I was foolish?” he asked becoming again the naive and sweet-tempered boy for whom Nature intended him.

“Heavens, no!” replied Margaret.

“Heaven help us if we do!” replied Helen.

“I’m very glad you say that. Now, my wife would never understand⁠—not if I explained for days.”

“No, it wasn’t foolish!” cried Helen, her eyes aflame. “You’ve pushed back the boundaries; I think it splendid of you.”

“You’ve not been content to dream as we have⁠—”

“Though we have walked, too⁠—”

“I must show you a picture upstairs⁠—”

Here the doorbell rang. The hansom had come to take them to their evening party.

“Oh, bother, not to say dash⁠—I had forgotten we were dining out; but do, do, come round again and have a talk.”

“Yes, you must⁠—do,” echoed Margaret.

Leonard, with extreme sentiment, replied: “No, I shall not. It’s better like this.”

“Why better?” asked Margaret.

“No, it is better not to risk a second interview. I shall always look back on this talk with you as one of the finest things in my life. Really. I mean this. We can never repeat. It has done me real good, and there we had better leave it.”

“That’s rather a sad view of life, surely.”

“Things so often get spoiled.”

“I know,” flashed Helen, “but people don’t.”

He could not understand this. He continued in a vein which mingled true imagination and false. What he said wasn’t wrong, but it wasn’t right, and a false note jarred. One little twist, they felt, and the instrument might be in tune. One little strain, and it might be silent forever. He thanked the ladies very much, but he would not call again. There was a moment’s awkwardness, and then Helen said: “Go, then; perhaps you know best; but never forget you’re better than Jefferies.” And he went. Their hansom caught him up at the corner, passed with a waving of hands, and vanished with its accomplished load into the evening.

London was beginning to illuminate herself against the night. Electric lights sizzled and jagged in the main thoroughfares, gas-lamps in the side streets glimmered a canary gold or green. The sky was a crimson battlefield of spring, but London was not afraid. Her smoke mitigated the splendour, and the clouds down Oxford Street were a delicately painted ceiling, which adorned while it did not distract. She had never known the clear-cut armies of the purer air. Leonard hurried through her tinted wonders, very much part of the picture. His was a grey life, and to brighten it he had ruled off a few corners for romance. The Miss Schlegels⁠—or, to speak more accurately, his interview with them⁠—were to fill such a corner, nor was it by any means the first time that he had talked intimately to strangers. The habit was analogous to a debauch, an outlet, though the worst of outlets, for instincts that would not be denied. Terrifying him, it would beat down his suspicions and prudence until he was confiding secrets to people whom he had scarcely seen. It brought him many fears and some pleasant memories. Perhaps the keenest happiness he had ever known was during a railway journey to Cambridge, where a decent-mannered undergraduate had spoken to him. They had got into conversation, and gradually Leonard flung reticence aside, told some of his domestic troubles and hinted at the rest. The undergraduate, supposing they could start a friendship, asked him to “coffee after hall,” which he accepted, but afterwards grew shy, and took care not to stir from the commercial hotel where he lodged. He did not want Romance to collide with the Porphyrion, still less with Jacky, and people with fuller, happier lives are slow to understand this. To the Schlegels, as to the undergraduate, he was an interesting creature, of whom they wanted to see more. But they to him were denizens of Romance, who must keep to the corner he had assigned them, pictures that must not walk out of their frames.

His behaviour over Margaret’s visiting-card had been typical. His had scarcely been a tragic marriage. Where there is no money and no inclination to violence tragedy cannot be generated. He could not leave his wife, and he did not want to hit her. Petulance and squalor were enough. Here “that card” had come in. Leonard, though furtive, was untidy, and left it lying about. Jacky found it, and then began, “What’s that card, eh?” “Yes, don’t you wish you knew what that card was?” “Len, who’s Miss Schlegel?” etc. Months passed, and the card, now as a joke, now as a grievance, was handed about,