“She really did frighten you,” said Henry, who was far from discouraging timidity in females. “Poor Margaret! And very naturally. Uneducated classes are so stupid.”
“Is Miss Avery uneducated classes?” Margaret asked, and found herself looking at the decoration scheme of Dolly’s drawing-room.
“She’s just one of the crew at the farm. People like that always assume things. She assumed you’d know who she was. She left all the Howards End keys in the front lobby, and assumed that you’d seen them as you came in, that you’d lock up the house when you’d done, and would bring them on down to her. And there was her niece hunting for them down at the farm. Lack of education makes people very casual. Hilton was full of women like Miss Avery once.”
“I shouldn’t have disliked it, perhaps.”
“Or Miss Avery giving me a wedding present,” said Dolly.
Which was illogical but interesting. Through Dolly, Margaret was destined to learn a good deal.
“But Charles said I must try not to mind, because she had known his grandmother.”
“As usual, you’ve got the story wrong, my good Dorothea.”
“I mean great-grandmother—the one who left Mrs. Wilcox the house. Weren’t both of them and Miss Avery friends when Howards End, too, was a farm?”
Her father-in-law blew out a shaft of smoke. His attitude to his dead wife was curious. He would allude to her, and hear her discussed, but never mentioned her by name. Nor was he interested in the dim, bucolic past. Dolly was—for the following reason.