E. M. Forster: Howards End

11. CHAPTER XI (continued)

"Now, Charles, you promised not so say those 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."