“No, only withered.”
“It will sweeten tomorrow.”
Helen smiled. “Oh, Meg, you are a person,” she said. “Think of the racket and torture this time last year. But now I couldn’t stop unhappy if I tried. What a change—and all through you!”
“Oh, we merely settled down. You and Henry learnt to understand one another and to forgive, all through the autumn and the winter.”
“Yes, but who settled us down?”
Margaret did not reply. The scything had begun, and she took off her pince-nez to watch it.
“You!” cried Helen. “You did it all, sweetest, though you’re too stupid to see. Living here was your plan—I wanted you; he wanted you; and every one said it was impossible, but you knew. Just think of our lives without you, Meg—I and baby with Monica, revolting by theory, he handed about from Dolly to Evie. But you picked up the pieces, and made us a home. Can’t it strike you—even for a moment—that your life has been heroic? Can’t you remember the two months after Charles’s arrest, when you began to act, and did all?”
“You were both ill at the time,” said Margaret. “I did the obvious things. I had two invalids to nurse. Here was a house, ready furnished and empty. It was obvious. I didn’t know myself it would turn into a permanent home. No doubt I have done a little towards straightening the tangle, but things that I can’t phrase have helped me.”
“I hope it will be permanent,” said Helen, drifting away to other thoughts.
“I think so. There are moments when I feel Howards End peculiarly our own.”