<h3 align="CENTER">Chapter 13</h3>
<p>Over two years passed, and the Schlegel household continued to
lead its life of cultured but not ignoble ease, still swimming
gracefully on the grey tides of London. Concerts and plays swept
past them, money had been spent and renewed, reputations won and
lost, and the city herself, emblematic of their lives, rose and
fell in a continual flux, while her shallows washed more widely
against the hills of Surrey and over the fields of
Hertfordshire. This famous building had arisen, that was
doomed. Today Whitehall had been transformed: it would be the
turn of Regent Street tomorrow. And month by month the roads
smelt more strongly of petrol, and were more difficult to cross,
and human beings heard each other speak with greater difficulty,
breathed less of the air, and saw less of the sky. Nature
withdrew: the leaves were falling by midsummer; the sun shone
through dirt with an admired obscurity.<br/>
To speak against London is no longer fashionable. The Earth
as an artistic cult has had its day, and the literature of the
near future will probably ignore the country and seek inspiration
from the town. One can understand the reaction. Of Pan and the
elemental forces, the public has heard a little too much--they
seem Victorian, while London is Georgian--and those who care for
the earth with sincerity may wait long ere the pendulum swings
back to her again. Certainly London fascinates. One visualizes
it as a tract of quivering grey, intelligent without purpose, and
excitable without love; as a spirit that has altered before it
can be chronicled; as a heart that certainly beats, but with no
pulsation of humanity. It lies beyond everything: Nature, with
all her cruelty, comes nearer to us than do these crowds of men.
A friend explains himself: the earth is explicable--from her we
came, and we must return to her. But who can explain Westminster
Bridge Road or Liverpool Street in the morning--the city
inhaling--or the same thoroughfares in the evening--the city
exhaling her exhausted air? We reach in desperation beyond the
fog, beyond the very stars, the voids of the universe are
ransacked to justify the monster, and stamped with a human face.
London is religion's opportunity--not the decorous religion of
theologians, but anthropomorphic, crude. Yes, the continuous
flow would be tolerable if a man of our own sort--not anyone
pompous or tearful--were caring for us up in the sky.<br/>
The Londoner seldom understands his city until it sweeps him,
too, away from his moorings, and Margaret's eyes were not opened
until the lease of Wickham Place expired. She had always known
that it must expire, but the knowledge only became vivid about
nine months before the event. Then the house was suddenly ringed
with pathos. It had seen so much happiness. Why had it to be
swept away? In the streets of the city she noted for the first
time the architecture of hurry, and heard the language of hurry
on the mouths of its inhabitants--clipped words, formless
sentences, potted expressions of approval or disgust. Month by
month things were stepping livelier, but to what goal? The
population still rose, but what was the quality of the men born?
The particular millionaire who owned the freehold of Wickham
Place, and desired to erect Babylonian flats upon it--what right
had he to stir so large a portion of the quivering jelly? He was
not a fool--she had heard him expose Socialism--but true insight
began just where his intelligence ended, and one gathered that
this was the case with most millionaires. What right had such
men--But Margaret checked herself. That way lies madness. Thank
goodness she, too, had some money, and could purchase a new
home.<br/>
Tibby, now in his second year at Oxford, was down for the
Easter vacation, and Margaret took the opportunity of having a
serious talk with him. Did he at all know where he wanted to
live? Tibby didn't know that he did know. Did he at all know
what he wanted to do? He was equally uncertain, but when pressed
remarked that he should prefer to be quite free of any
profession. Margaret was not shocked, but went on sewing for a
few minutes before she replied:<br/>
"I was thinking of Mr. Vyse. He never strikes me as
particularly happy."<br/>
"Ye-es," said Tibby, and then held his mouth open in a
curious quiver, as if he, too, had thoughts of Mr. Vyse, had seen
round, through, over, and beyond Mr. Vyse, had weighed Mr. Vyse,
grouped him, and finally dismissed him as having no possible
bearing on the subject under discussion. That bleat of Tibby's
infuriated Helen. But Helen was now down in the dining-room
preparing a speech about political economy. At times her voice
could be heard declaiming through the floor.<br/>
"But Mr. Vyse is rather a wretched, weedy man, don't you
think? Then there's Guy. That was a pitiful business.
Besides"--shifting to the general--" every one is the better for
some regular work."<br/>
Groans.<br/>
"I shall stick to it," she continued, smiling. "I am not
saying it to educate you; it is what I really think. I believe
that in the last century men have developed the desire for work,
and they must not starve it. It's a new desire. It goes with a
great deal that's bad, but in itself it's good, and I hope that
for women, too, 'not to work' will soon become as shocking as
'not to be married' was a hundred years ago."<br/>
"I have no experience of this profound desire to which you
allude," enunciated Tibby.<br/>
"Then we'll leave the subject till you do. I'm not going to
rattle you round. Take your time. Only do think over the lives
of the men you like most, and see how they've arranged them."<br/>
"I like Guy and Mr. Vyse most," said Tibby faintly, and leant
so far back in his chair that he extended in a horizontal line
from knees to throat.<br/>
"And don't think I'm not serious because I don't use the
traditional arguments--making money, a sphere awaiting you, and
so on--all of which are, for various reasons, cant." She sewed
on. "I'm only your sister. I haven't any authority over you,
and I don't want to have any. Just to put before you what I
think the truth. You see"--she shook off the pince-nez to which
she had recently taken--"in a few years we shall be the same age
practically, and I shall want you to help me. Men are so much
nicer than women."<br/>
"Labouring under such a delusion, why do you not marry?"<br/>
"I sometimes jolly well think I would if I got the
chance."<br/>
"Has nobody arst you?"<br/>
"Only ninnies."<br/>
"Do people ask Helen?"<br/>
"Plentifully."<br/>
"Tell me about them."<br/>
"No."<br/>
"Tell me about your ninnies, then."<br/>
"They were men who had nothing better to do," said his
sister, feeling that she was entitled to score this point. "So
take warning: you must work, or else you must pretend to work,
which is what I do. Work, work, work if you'd save your soul and
your body. It is honestly a necessity, dear boy. Look at the
Wilcoxes, look at Mr. Pembroke. With all their defects of temper
and understanding, such men give me more pleasure than many who
are better equipped and I think it is because they have worked
regularly and honestly.<br/>
"Spare me the Wilcoxes," he moaned.<br/>
"I shall not. They are the right sort."<br/>
"Oh, goodness me, Meg!" he protested, suddenly sitting up,
alert and angry. Tibby, for all his defects, had a genuine
personality.<br/>
"Well, they're as near the right sort as you can
imagine."<br/>
"No, no--oh, no!"<br/>
"I was thinking of the younger son, whom I once classed as a
ninny, but who came back so ill from Nigeria. He's gone out
there again, Evie Wilcox tells me--out to his duty."<br/>
"Duty" always elicited a groan.<br/>
"He doesn't want the money, it is work he wants, though it is
beastly work--dull country, dishonest natives, an eternal fidget
over fresh water and food. A nation who can produce men of that
sort may well be proud. No wonder England has become an
Empire."<br/>
"<em>Empire!</em>"<br/>
"I can't bother over results," said Margaret, a little
sadly. "They are too difficult for me. I can only look at the
men. An Empire bores me, so far, but I can appreciate the
heroism that builds it up. London bores me, but what thousands
of splendid people are labouring to make London--"<br/>
"What it is," he sneered.<br/>
"What it is, worse luck. I want activity without
civilization. How paradoxical! Yet I expect that is what we
shall find in heaven."<br/>
"And I," said Tibby, "want civilization without activity,
which, I expect, is what we shall find in the other place."<br/>
"You needn't go as far as the other place, Tibbi-kins, if you
want that. You can find it at Oxford."<br/>
"Stupid--"<br/>
"If I'm stupid, get me back to the house-hunting. I'll even
live in Oxford if you like--North Oxford. I'll live anywhere
except Bournemouth, Torquay, and Cheltenham. Oh yes, or
Ilfracombe and Swanage and Tunbridge Wells and Surbiton and
Bedford. There on no account."<br/>
"London, then."<br/>
"I agree, but Helen rather wants to get away from London.
However, there's no reason we shouldn't have a house in the
country and also a flat in town, provided we all stick together
and contribute. Though of course--Oh, how one does maunder on,
and to think, to think of the people who are really poor. How do
they live? Not to move about the world would kill me."<br/>
As she spoke, the door was flung open, and Helen burst in in
a state of extreme excitement.<br/>
"Oh, my dears, what do you think? You'll never guess. A
woman's been here asking me for her husband. Her
<em>what?</em>" (Helen was fond of supplying her own surprise.)
"Yes, for her husband, and it really is so."<br/>
"Not anything to do with Bracknell?" cried Margaret, who had
lately taken on an unemployed of that name to clean the knives
and boots.<br/>
"I offered Bracknell, and he was rejected. So was Tibby.
(Cheer up, Tibby!) It's no one we know. I said, 'Hunt, my good
woman; have a good look round, hunt under the tables, poke up the
chimney, shake out the antimacassars. Husband? husband?' Oh,
and she so magnificently dressed and tinkling like a
chandelier."<br/>
"Now, Helen, what did happen really?"<br/>
"What I say. I was, as it were, orating my speech. Annie
opens the door like a fool, and shows a female straight in on me,
with my mouth open. Then we began--very civilly. 'I want my
husband, what I have reason to believe is here.' No--how unjust
one is. She said 'whom,' not 'what.' She got it perfectly. So I
said, 'Name, please?' and she said, 'Lan, Miss,' and there we
were.<br/>
"Lan?"<br/>
"Lan or Len. We were not nice about our vowels.
Lanoline."<br/>
"But what an extraordinary--"<br/>
"I said, 'My good Mrs. Lanoline, we have some grave
misunderstanding here. Beautiful as I am, my modesty is even
more remarkable than my beauty, and never, never has Mr. Lanoline
rested his eyes on mine.'"<br/>
"I hope you were pleased," said Tibby.<br/>
"Of course," Helen squeaked. "A perfectly delightful
experience. Oh, Mrs. Lanoline's a dear--she asked for a husband
as if he was an umbrella. She mislaid him Saturday
afternoon--and for a long time suffered no inconvenience. But
all night, and all this morning her apprehensions grew.
Breakfast didn't seem the same--no, no more did lunch, and so she
strolled up to 2, Wickham Place as being the most likely place
for the missing article."<br/>
"But how on earth--"<br/>
"Don't begin how on earthing. 'I know what I know,' she kept
repeating, not uncivilly, but with extreme gloom. In vain I
asked her what she did know. Some knew what others knew, and
others didn't, and if they didn't, then others again had better
be careful. Oh dear, she was incompetent! She had a face like a
silkworm, and the dining-room reeks of orris-root. We chatted
pleasantly a little about husbands, and I wondered where hers was
too, and advised her to go to the police. She thanked me. We
agreed that Mr. Lanoline's a notty, notty man, and hasn't no
business to go on the lardy-da. But I think she suspected me up
to the last. Bags I writing to Aunt Juley about this. Now, Meg,
remember--bags I."<br/>
"Bag it by all means," murmured Margaret, putting down her
work. "I'm not sure that this is so funny, Helen. It means some
horrible volcano smoking somewhere, doesn't it?"<br/>
"I don't think so--she doesn't really mind. The admirable
creature isn't capable of tragedy."<br/>
"Her husband may be, though," said Margaret, moving to the
window.<br/>
"Oh, no, not likely. No one capable of tragedy could have
married Mrs. Lanoline."<br/>
"Was she pretty?"<br/>
"Her figure may have been good once."<br/>
The flats, their only outlook, hung like an ornate curtain
between Margaret and the welter of London. Her thoughts turned
sadly to house-hunting. Wickham Place had been so safe. She
feared, fantastically, that her own little flock might be moving
into turmoil and squalor, into nearer contact with such episodes
as these.<br/>
"Tibby and I have again been wondering where we'll live next
September," she said at last.<br/>
"Tibby had better first wonder what he'll do," retorted
Helen; and that topic was resumed, but with acrimony. Then tea
came, and after tea Helen went on preparing her speech, and
Margaret prepared one, too, for they were going out to a
discussion society on the morrow. But her thoughts were
poisoned. Mrs. Lanoline had risen out of the abyss, like a faint
smell, a goblin football, telling of a life where love and hatred
had both decayed.</p>
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