Howards End

naughty—"
    "Look here, I’m in no mood for foolery. It’s no morning for it either."
    "I tell you—I keep on telling you—Miss Schlegel—she’s got it—your mother’s left it to her—and you’ve all got to move out!"
    "HOWARDS END?"
    "HOWARDS END!" she screamed, mimicking him, and as she did so Evie came dashing out of the shubbery.
    "Dolly, go back at once! My father’s much annoyed with you. Charles"—she hit herself wildly—"come in at once to father. He’s had a letter that’s too awful."
    Charles began to run, but checked himself, and stepped heavily across the gravel path. There the house was with the nine windows, the unprolific vine. He exclaimed, "Schlegels again!" and as if to complete chaos, Dolly said, "Oh no, the matron of the nursing home has written instead of her."
    "Come in, all three of you!" cried his father, no longer inert.
    "Dolly, why have you disobeyed me?"
    "Oh, Mr. Wilcox—"
    "I told you not to go out to the garage. I’ve heard you all shouting in the garden. I won’t have it. Come in."
    He stood in the porch, transformed, letters in his hand.
    "Into the dining–room, every one of you. We can’t discuss private matters in the middle of all the servants. Here, Charles, here; read these. See what you make."
    Charles took two letters, and read them as he followed the procession. The first was a covering note from the matron. Mrs. Wilcox had desired her, when the funeral should be over, to forward the enclosed. The enclosed—it was from his mother herself. She had written: "To my husband: I should like Miss Schlegel (Margaret) to have Howards End."
    "I suppose we’re going to have a talk about this?" he remarked, ominously calm.
    "Certainly. I was coming out to you when Dolly—"
    "Well, let’s sit down."
    "Come, Evie, don’t waste time, sit—down."
    In silence they drew up to the breakfast–table. The events of yesterday—indeed, of this morning suddenly receded into a past so remote that they seemed scarcely to have lived in it. Heavy breathings were heard. They were calming themselves. Charles, to steady them further, read the enclosure out loud: "A note in my mother’s handwriting, in an envelope addressed to my father, sealed. Inside: 'I should like Miss Schlegel (Margaret) to have Howards End.' No date, no signature. Forwarded through the matron of that nursing home. Now, the question is—"
    Dolly interrupted him. "But I say that note isn’t legal. Houses ought to be done by a lawyer, Charles, surely."
    Her husband worked his jaw severely. Little lumps appeared in front of either ear—a symptom that she had not yet learnt to respect, and she asked whether she might see the note. Charles looked at his father for permission, who said abstractedly, "Give it her." She seized it, and at once exclaimed: "Why, it’s only in pencil! I said so. Pencil never counts."
    "We know that it is not legally binding, Dolly," said Mr. Wilcox, speaking from out of his fortress. "We are aware of that. Legally, I should be justified in tearing it up and throwing it into the fire. Of course, my dear, we consider you as one of the family, but it will be better if you do not interfere with what you do not understand."
    Charles, vexed both with his father and his wife, then repeated: "The question is—" He had cleared a space of the breakfast–table from plates and knives, so that he could draw patterns on the tablecloth. "The question is whether Miss Schlegel, during the fortnight we were all away, whether she unduly—" He stopped.
    "I don’t think that," said his father, whose nature was nobler than his son’s.
    "Don’t think what?"
    "That she would have—that it is a case of undue influence. No, to my mind the question is the—the invalid’s condition at the time she wrote."
    "My dear father, consult an expert if you like, but I don’t admit it is my mother’s writing."
    "Why, you just said it was!" cried Dolly.
    "Never mind if I did," he blazed out; "and hold your tongue."
    The poor little wife coloured at this, and, drawing her handkerchief from her pocket, shed a few tears. No one noticed her. Evie was scowling like an angry boy. The two men were gradually assuming the manner of the committee–room. They were both at their best when serving on committees. They did not make the mistake of handling human affairs in the bulk, but disposed of them item by item, sharply. Caligraphy was the item before them now, and on it they turned their well–trained brains.