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

must praise the Porphyrion. “You can tell your friend,” he said, “that he’s quite wrong.”

“Oh, good!”

The young man coloured a little. In his circle to be wrong was fatal. The Miss Schlegels did not mind being wrong. They were genuinely glad that they had been misinformed. To them nothing was fatal but evil.

“Wrong, so to speak,” he added.

“How ‘so to speak’?”

“I mean I wouldn’t say he’s right altogether.”

But this was a blunder. “Then he is right partly,” said the elder woman, quick as lightning.

Leonard replied that everyone was right partly, if it came to that.

“Mr. Bast, I don’t understand business, and I dare say my questions are stupid, but can you tell me what makes a concern ‘right’ or ‘wrong’?”

Leonard sat back with a sigh.

“Our friend, who is also a business man, was so positive. He said before Christmas⁠—”

“And advised you to clear out of it,” concluded Helen. “But I don’t see why he should know better than you do.”

Leonard rubbed his hands. He was tempted to say that he knew nothing about the thing at all. But a commercial training was too strong for him. Nor could he say it was a bad thing, for this would be giving it away; nor yet that it was good, for this would be giving it away equally. He attempted to suggest that it was something between the two, with vast possibilities in either direction, but broke down under the gaze of four sincere eyes. And yet he scarcely distinguished between the two sisters. One was more beautiful and more lively, but “the Miss Schlegels” still remained a composite Indian god, whose waving arms and contradictory speeches were the product of a single mind.

“One can but see,” he remarked, adding, “as Ibsen says, ‘things happen.’ ” He was itching to talk about books and make the most of his romantic hour. Minute after minute slipped away, while the ladies, with imperfect skill, discussed the subject of reinsurance or praised their anonymous friend. Leonard grew annoyed⁠—perhaps rightly. He made vague remarks about not being one of those who minded their affairs being talked over by others, but they did not take the hint. Men might have shown more tact. Women, however tactful elsewhere, are heavy-handed here. They cannot see why we should shroud our incomes and our prospects in a veil. “How much exactly have you, and how much do you expect to have next June?” And these were women with a theory, who held that reticence about money matters is absurd, and that life would be truer if each would state the exact size of the golden island upon which he stands, the exact stretch of warp over which he throws the woof that is not money. How can we do justice to the pattern otherwise?

And the precious minutes slipped away, and Jacky and squalor came nearer. At last he could bear it no longer, and broke in, reciting the names of books feverishly. There was a moment of piercing joy when Margaret said, “So you like Carlyle,” and then the door opened, and “Mr. Wilcox, Miss Wilcox” entered, preceded by two prancing puppies.

“Oh, the dears! Oh, Evie, how too impossibly sweet!” screamed Helen, falling on her hands and knees.

“We brought the little fellows round,” said Mr. Wilcox.

“I bred ’em myself.”

“Oh, really! Mr. Bast, come and play with puppies.”

“I’ve got to be going now,” said Leonard sourly.

“But play with puppies a little first.”

“This is Ahab, that’s Jezebel,” said Evie, who was one of those who name animals after the less successful characters of Old Testament history.

“I’ve got to be going.”

Helen was too much occupied with puppies to notice him.

“Mr. Wilcox, Mr. Ba⁠—Must you be really? Goodbye!”

“Come again,” said Helen from the floor.

Then Leonard’s gorge arose. Why should he come again? What was the good of it? He said roundly: “No, I shan’t; I knew it would be a failure.”

Most people would have let him go. “A little mistake. We tried knowing another class⁠—impossible.”

But the Schlegels had never played with life. They had attempted friendship, and they would take the consequences. Helen retorted, “I call that a very rude remark. What do you want to turn on me like that for?” and suddenly the drawing-room reechoed to a vulgar row.

“You ask me why I turn on you?”

“Yes.”

“What do you want to have me here for?”

“To help you, you silly boy!” cried Helen. “And don’t shout.”

“I don’t want your patronage. I don’t want your tea. I was quite happy. What do you want to unsettle me for?” He turned to Mr. Wilcox. “I put it to this gentleman. I ask you, sir, am I to have my brain picked?”

Mr. Wilcox turned to Margaret with the air of humorous strength that he could so well command. “Are we intruding, Miss Schlegel? Can we be of any use, or shall we go?”

But Margaret ignored him.

“I’m connected with a leading insurance company, sir. I receive what I take to be an invitation from these⁠—ladies” (he drawled the word). “I come, and it’s to have my brain picked. I ask you, is it fair?”

“Highly unfair,” said Mr. Wilcox, drawing a gasp from Evie, who knew that her father was becoming dangerous.

“There, you hear that? Most unfair, the gentleman says. There! Not content with”⁠—pointing at Margaret⁠—“you can’t deny it.” His voice rose; he was falling into the rhythm of a scene with Jacky. “But as soon as I’m useful it’s a very different thing. ‘Oh yes, send for him. Cross-question him. Pick his brains.’ Oh yes. Now, take me on the whole, I’m a quiet fellow: I’m law-abiding, I don’t wish any unpleasantness; but I⁠—I⁠—”

“You,” said Margaret⁠—“you⁠—you⁠—”

Laughter from Evie as at a repartee.

“You are the man who tried to walk by the Pole Star.”

More laughter.

“You saw the sunrise.”

Laughter.

“You tried to get away from the fogs that are stifling us all⁠—away past books and houses to the truth. You were looking for a real home.”

“I fail to see the connection,” said Leonard, hot with stupid anger.

“So do I.” There was a pause. “You were that last Sunday⁠—you are this today.