Howards End E. M. Forster (best summer reads of all time .TXT) 📖

“It’s all right,” called Margaret, catching them up. “Dempster’s Bank’s better.”

“But I think you told us the Porphyrion was bad, and would smash before Christmas.”

“Did I? It was still outside the Tariff Ring, and had to take rotten policies. Lately it came in⁠—safe as houses now.”

“In other words, Mr. Bast need never have left it.”

“No, the fellow needn’t.”

“⁠—and needn’t have started life elsewhere at a greatly reduced salary.”

“He only says ‘reduced,’ ” corrected Margaret, seeing trouble ahead.

“With a man so poor, every reduction must be great. I consider it a deplorable misfortune.”

Mr. Wilcox, intent on his business with Mrs. Munt, was going steadily on, but the last remark made him say: “What? What’s that? Do you mean that I’m responsible?”

“You’re ridiculous, Helen.”

“You seem to think⁠—” He looked at his watch. “Let me explain the point to you. It is like this. You seem to assume, when a business concern is conducting a delicate negotiation, it ought to keep the public informed stage by stage. The Porphyrion, according to you, was bound to say, ‘I am trying all I can to get into the Tariff Ring. I am not sure that I shall succeed, but it is the only thing that will save me from insolvency, and I am trying.’ My dear Helen⁠—”

“Is that your point? A man who had little money has less⁠—that’s mine.”

“I am grieved for your clerk. But it is all in the day’s work. It’s part of the battle of life.”

“A man who had little money⁠—” she repeated, “has less, owing to us. Under these circumstances I consider ‘the battle of life’ a happy expression.”

“Oh come, come!” he protested pleasantly, “you’re not to blame. No one’s to blame.”

“Is no one to blame for anything?”

“I wouldn’t say that, but you’re taking it far too seriously. Who is this fellow?”

“We have told you about the fellow twice already,” said Helen. “You have even met the fellow. He is very poor and his wife is an extravagant imbecile. He is capable of better things. We⁠—we, the upper classes⁠—thought we would help him from the height of our superior knowledge⁠—and here’s the result!”

He raised his finger. “Now, a word of advice.”

“I require no more advice.”

“A word of advice. Don’t take up that sentimental attitude over the poor. See that she doesn’t, Margaret. The poor are poor, and one’s sorry for them, but there it is. As civilisation moves forward, the shoe is bound to pinch in places, and it’s absurd to pretend that anyone is responsible personally. Neither you, nor I, nor my informant, nor the man who informed him, nor the directors of the Porphyrion, are to blame for this clerk’s loss of salary. It’s just the shoe pinching⁠—no one can help it; and it might easily have been worse.”

Helen quivered with indignation.

“By all means subscribe to charities⁠—subscribe to them largely⁠—but don’t get carried away by absurd schemes of Social Reform. I see a good deal behind the scenes, and you can take it from me that there is no Social Question⁠—except for a few journalists who try to get a living out of the phrase. There are just rich and poor, as there always have been and always will be. Point me out a time when men have been equal⁠—”

“I didn’t say⁠—”

“Point me out a time when desire for equality has made them happier. No, no. You can’t. There always have been rich and poor. I’m no fatalist. Heaven forbid! But our civilisation is moulded by great impersonal forces” (his voice grew complacent; it always did when he eliminated the personal), “and there always will be rich and poor. You can’t deny it” (and now it was a respectful voice)⁠—“and you can’t deny that, in spite of all, the tendency of civilisation has on the whole been upward.”

“Owing to God, I suppose,” flashed Helen.

He stared at her.

“You grab the dollars. God does the rest.”

It was no good instructing the girl if she was going to talk about God in that neurotic modern way. Fraternal to the last, he left her for the quieter company of Mrs. Munt. He thought, “She rather reminds me of Dolly.”

Helen looked out at the sea.

“Don’t ever discuss political economy with Henry,” advised her sister. “It’ll only end in a cry.”

“But he must be one of those men who have reconciled science with religion,” said Helen slowly. “I don’t like those men. They are scientific themselves, and talk of the survival of the fittest, and cut down the salaries of their clerks, and stunt the independence of all who may menace their comfort, but yet they believe that somehow good⁠—it is always that sloppy ‘somehow’ will be the outcome, and that in some mystical way the Mr. Basts of the future will benefit because the Mr. Brits of today are in pain.”

“He is such a man in theory. But oh, Helen, in theory!”

“But oh, Meg, what a theory!”

“Why should you put things so bitterly, dearie?”

“Because I’m an old maid,” said Helen, biting her lip. “I can’t think why I go on like this myself.” She shook off her sister’s hand and went into the house. Margaret, distressed at the day’s beginning, followed the Bournemouth steamer with her eyes. She saw that Helen’s nerves were exasperated by the unlucky Bast business beyond the bounds of politeness. There might at any minute be a real explosion, which even Henry would notice. Henry must be removed.

“Margaret!” her aunt called. “Magsy! It isn’t true, surely, what Mr. Wilcox says, that you want to go away early next week?”

“Not ‘want,’ ” was Margaret’s prompt reply; “but there is so much to be settled, and I do want to see the Charles’s.”

“But going away without taking the Weymouth trip, or even the Lulworth?” said Mrs. Munt, coming nearer. “Without going once more up Nine Barrows Down?”

“I’m afraid so.”

Mr. Wilcox rejoined her with, “Good! I did the breaking of the ice.”

A wave of tenderness came over her. She put a hand on either shoulder, and looked deeply into the black, bright eyes. What was behind their competent stare?