第97章

The day of her visit was exquisite,and the last of unclouded happiness that she was to have for many months.Her anxiety about Helen's extraordinary absence was still dormant,and as for a possible brush with Miss Avery--that only gave zest to the expedition.She had also eluded Dolly's invitation to luncheon.Walking straight up from the station,she crossed the village green and entered the long chestnut avenue that connects it with the church.The church itself stood in the village once.But it there attracted so many worshippers that the devil,in a pet,snatched it from its foundations,and poised it on an inconvenient knoll,three-quarters of a mile away.If this story is true,the chestnut avenue must have been planted by the angels.No more tempting approach could be imagined for the luke-warm Christian,and if he still finds the walk too long,the devil is defeated all the same,Science having built Holy Trinity,a Chapel of Ease,near the Charles',and roofed it with tin.

Up the avenue Margaret strolled slowly,stopping to watch the sky that gleamed through the upper branches of the chestnuts,or to finger the little horseshoes on the lower branches.Why has not England a great mythology?Our folklore has never advanced beyond daintiness,and the greater melodies about our country-side have all issued through the pipes of Greece.Deep and true as the native imagination can be,it seems to have failed here.It has stopped with the witches and the fairies.It cannot vivify one fraction of a summer field,or give names to half a dozen stars.England still waits for the supreme moment of her literature--for the great poet who shall voice her,or,better still,for the thousand little poets whose voices shall pass into our common talk.

At the church the scenery changed.The chestnut avenue opened into a road,smooth but narrow,which led into the untouched country.She followed it for over a mile.Its little hesitations pleased her.Having no urgent destiny,it strolled downhill or up as it wished,taking no trouble about the gradients,nor about the view,which nevertheless expanded.The great estates that throttle the south of Hertfordshire were less obtrusive here,and the appearance of the land was neither aristocratic nor suburban.To define it was difficult,but Margaret knew what it was not:it was not snobbish.

Though its contours were slight,there was a touch of freedom in their sweep to which Surrey will never attain,and the distant brow of the Chilterns towered like a mountain."Left to itself,"was Margaret's opinion,"this county would vote Liberal."The comradeship,not passionate,that is our highest gift as a nation,was promised by it,as by the low brick farm where she called for the key.

But the inside of the farm was disappointing.

A most finished young person received her."Yes,Mrs.Wilcox;no,Mrs.Wilcox;oh yes,Mrs.Wilcox,auntie received your letter quite duly.

Auntie has gone up to your little place at the present moment.Shall I send the servant to direct you?"Followed by:"Of course,auntie does not generally look after your place;she only does it to oblige a neighbour as something exceptional.It gives her something to do.

She spends quite a lot of her time there.My husband says to me sometimes,'Where's auntie?'I say,'Need you ask?She's at Howards End.'Yes,Mrs.Wilcox.Mrs.Wilcox,could I prevail upon you to accept a piece of cake?Not if I cut it for you?"Margaret refused the cake,but unfortunately this acquired her gentility in the eyes of Miss Avery's niece.

"I cannot let you go on alone.Now don't.

You really mustn't.I will direct you myself if it comes to that.

I must get my hat.Now"--roguishly--"Mrs.Wilcox,don't you move while I'm gone."Stunned,Margaret did not move from the best parlour,over which the touch of art nouveau had fallen.But the other rooms looked in keeping,though they conveyed the peculiar sadness of a rural interior.Here had lived an elder race,to which we look back with disquietude.The country which we visit at week-ends was really a home to it,and the graver sides of life,the deaths,the partings,the yearnings for love,have their deepest expression in the heart of the fields.

All was not sadness.The sun was shining without.The thrush sang his two syllables on the budding guelder-rose.Some children were playing uproariously in heaps of golden straw.It was the presence of sadness at all that surprised Margaret,and ended by giving her a feeling of completeness.In these English farms,if anywhere,one might see life steadily and see it whole,group in one vision its transitoriness and its eternal youth,connect--connect without bitterness until all men are brothers.But her thoughts were interrupted by the return of Miss Avery's niece,and were so tranquillizing that she suffered the interruption gladly.

It was quicker to go out by the back door,and,after due explanations,they went out by it.The niece was now mortified by unnumerable chickens,who rushed up to her feet for food,and by a shameless and maternal sow.She did not know what animals were coming to.

But her gentility withered at the touch of the sweet air.The wind was rising,scattering the straw and ruffling the tails of the ducks as they floated in families over Evie's pendant.One of those delicious gales of spring,in which leaves stiff in bud seem to rustle,swept over the land and then fell silent."Georgia,"sang the thrush.

"Cuckoo,"came furtively from the cliff of pine-trees."Georgia,pretty Georgia,"and the other birds joined in with nonsense.The hedge was a half-painted picture which would be finished in a few days.