A Room with a View
beyond, for Windy Corner was built on the range that overlooks the
Sussex Weald. Lucy, who was in the little seat, seemed on the edge of a
green magic carpet which hovered in the air above the tremulous world.
Cecil entered.
Appearing thus late in the story, Cecil must be at once described. He
was medieval. Like a Gothic statue. Tall and refined, with shoulders
that seemed braced square by an effort of the will, and a head that was
tilted a little higher than the usual level of vision, he resembled
those fastidious saints who guard the portals of a French cathedral.
Well educated, well endowed, and not deficient physically, he remained
in the grip of a certain devil whom the modern world knows as
self-consciousness, and whom the medieval, with dimmer vision,
worshipped as asceticism. A Gothic statue implies celibacy, just as a
Greek statue implies fruition, and perhaps this was what Mr. Beebe
meant. And Freddy, who ignored history and art, perhaps meant the same
when he failed to imagine Cecil wearing another fellow’s cap.
Mrs. Honeychurch left her letter on the writing table and moved towards
her young acquaintance.
“Oh, Cecil!” she exclaimed—“oh, Cecil, do tell me!”
“I promessi sposi,” said he.
They stared at him anxiously.
“She has accepted me,” he said, and the sound of the thing in English
made him flush and smile with pleasure, and look more human.
“I am so glad,” said Mrs. Honeychurch, while Freddy proffered a hand
that was yellow with chemicals. They wished that they also knew
Italian, for our phrases of approval and of amazement are so connected
with little occasions that we fear to use them on great ones. We are
obliged to become vaguely poetic, or to take refuge in Scriptural
reminiscences.
“Welcome as one of the family!” said Mrs. Honeychurch, waving her hand
at the furniture. “This is indeed a joyous day! I feel sure that you
will make our dear Lucy happy.”
“I hope so,” replied the young man, shifting his eyes to the ceiling.
“We mothers—” simpered Mrs. Honeychurch, and then realized that she was
affected, sentimental, bombastic—all the things she hated most. Why
could she not be Freddy, who stood stiff in the middle of the room;
looking very cross and almost handsome?
“I say, Lucy!” called Cecil, for conversation seemed to flag.
Lucy rose from the seat. She moved across the lawn and smiled in at
them, just as if she was going to ask them to play tennis. Then she saw
her brother’s face. Her lips parted, and she took him in her arms. He
said, “Steady on!”
“Not a kiss for me?” asked her mother.
Lucy kissed her also.
“Would you take them into the garden and tell Mrs. Honeychurch all
about it?” Cecil suggested. “And I’d stop here and tell my mother.”
“We go with Lucy?” said Freddy, as if taking orders.
“Yes, you go with Lucy.”
They passed into the sunlight. Cecil watched them cross the terrace,
and descend out of sight by the steps. They would descend—he knew their
ways—past the shrubbery, and past the tennis-lawn and the dahlia-bed,
until they reached the kitchen garden, and there, in the presence of
the potatoes and the peas, the great event would be discussed.
Smiling indulgently, he lit a cigarette, and rehearsed the events that
had led to such a happy conclusion.
He had known Lucy for several years, but only as a commonplace girl who
happened to be musical. He could still remember his depression that
afternoon at Rome, when she and her terrible cousin fell on him out of
the blue, and demanded to be taken to St. Peter’s. That day she had
seemed a typical tourist—shrill, crude, and gaunt with travel. But
Italy worked some marvel in her. It gave her light, and—which he held
more precious—it gave her shadow. Soon he detected in her a wonderful
reticence. She was like a woman of Leonardo da Vinci’s, whom we love
not so much for herself as for the things that she will not tell us.
The things are assuredly not of this life; no woman of Leonardo’s could
have anything so vulgar as a “story.” She did develop most wonderfully
day by day.
So it happened that from patronizing civility he had slowly passed if
not to passion, at least to a profound uneasiness. Already at Rome he
had hinted to her that they might be suitable for each other. It had
touched him greatly that she had not broken away at the suggestion. Her
refusal had been clear and gentle; after it—as the horrid phrase
went—she had been exactly the same to him as before. Three months
later, on the margin of Italy, among the flower-clad Alps, he had asked
her again in bald, traditional language. She reminded him of a Leonardo
more than ever; her sunburnt features were shadowed by fantastic rock;
at his words she had turned and stood between him and the light with
immeasurable plains behind her. He walked home with her unashamed,
feeling not at all like a rejected suitor. The things that really
mattered were unshaken.
So now he had asked her once more, and, clear and gentle as ever, she
had accepted him, giving no coy reasons for her delay, but simply
saying that she loved him and would do her best to make him happy. His
mother, too, would be pleased; she had counselled the step; he must
write her a long account.
Glancing at his hand, in case any of Freddy’s chemicals had come off on
it, he moved to the writing table. There he saw “Dear Mrs. Vyse,”
followed by many erasures. He recoiled without reading any more, and
after a little hesitation sat down elsewhere, and pencilled a note on
his knee.
Then he lit another cigarette, which did not seem quite as divine as
the first, and considered what might be done to make Windy Corner
drawing-room more distinctive. With that outlook it should have been a
successful room, but the trail of Tottenham Court Road was upon it; he
could almost visualize the motor-vans of Messrs. Shoolbred and Messrs.
Maple arriving at the door and depositing this chair, those varnished
book-cases, that writing-table. The table recalled Mrs. Honeychurch’s
letter. He did not want to read that letter—his temptations never lay
in that direction; but he worried about it none the less. It was his
own fault that she was discussing him with his mother; he had wanted
her support in his third attempt to win Lucy; he wanted to feel that
others, no matter who they were, agreed with him, and so he had asked
their permission. Mrs. Honeychurch had been civil, but obtuse in
essentials, while as for Freddy—“He is only a boy,” he reflected. “I
represent all that he despises. Why should he want me for a
brother-in-law?”
The Honeychurches were a worthy family, but he began to realize that
Lucy was of another clay; and perhaps—he did not put it very
definitely—he ought to introduce her into more congenial circles as
soon as possible.
“Mr. Beebe!” said the maid, and the new rector of Summer Street was
shown in; he had at once started on friendly relations, owing to Lucy’s
praise of him in her letters from Florence.
Cecil greeted him rather critically.
“I’ve come for tea, Mr. Vyse. Do you suppose that I shall get it?”
“I should say so. Food is the thing one does get here—Don’t sit in that
chair; young Honeychurch has left a bone in it.”
“Pfui!”
“I know,” said Cecil. “I know. I can’t think why Mrs. Honeychurch
allows it.”
For Cecil considered the bone and the Maples’ furniture separately; he
did not realize that, taken together, they kindled the room into the
life that he desired.
“I’ve come for tea and for gossip. Isn’t this news?”
“News? I don’t understand you,” said Cecil. “News?”
Mr. Beebe, whose news was of a very different nature, prattled forward.
“I met Sir Harry Otway as I came up; I have every reason to hope that I
am first in the field. He has bought Cissie and Albert from Mr. Flack!”
“Has he indeed?” said Cecil, trying to recover himself. Into what a
grotesque mistake had he fallen! Was it likely that a clergyman and a
gentleman would refer to his engagement in a manner so flippant? But
his stiffness remained, and, though he asked who Cissie and Albert
might be, he still thought Mr. Beebe rather a bounder.
“Unpardonable question! To have stopped a week at Windy Corner and not
to have met Cissie and Albert, the semi-detached villas that have been
run up opposite the church! I’ll set Mrs. Honeychurch after you.”
“I’m shockingly stupid over local affairs,” said the young man
languidly. “I can’t even remember the difference between a Parish
Council and a Local Government Board. Perhaps there is no difference,
or perhaps those aren’t the right names. I only go into the country to
see my friends and to enjoy the scenery. It is very remiss of me. Italy
and London are the only places where I don’t feel to exist on
sufferance.”
Mr. Beebe, distressed at this heavy reception of Cissie and Albert,
determined to shift the subject.
“Let me see, Mr. Vyse—I forget—what is your profession?”
“I have no profession,” said Cecil. “It is another example of my
decadence. My attitude—quite an indefensible one—is that so long as I
am no trouble to any one I have a right to do as I like. I know I ought
to be getting money out of people, or devoting myself to things I don’t
care a straw about, but somehow, I’ve not been able to begin.”
“You are very fortunate,” said Mr. Beebe. “It is a wonderful
opportunity, the possession of leisure.”
His voice was rather parochial, but he did not quite see his way to
answering naturally. He felt, as all who have regular occupation must
feel, that others should have it also.
“I am glad that you approve. I daren’t face the healthy person—for
example, Freddy Honeychurch.”
“Oh, Freddy’s a good sort, isn’t he?”
“Admirable. The sort who has made England what she is.”
Cecil wondered at himself. Why, on this day of all others, was he so
hopelessly contrary? He tried to get right by inquiring effusively
after Mr. Beebe’s mother, an old lady for whom he had no particular
regard. Then he flattered the clergyman, praised his
liberal-mindedness, his enlightened attitude towards philosophy and
science.
“Where are the others?” said Mr. Beebe at last, “I insist on extracting
tea before evening service.”
“I suppose Anne never told them you were here. In this house one is so
coached in the servants the day one arrives. The fault of Anne is that
she begs your pardon when she hears you perfectly, and kicks the
chair-legs with her feet. The faults of Mary—I forget the faults of
Mary, but they are very grave. Shall we look in the garden?”
“I know the faults of Mary. She leaves the dust-pans standing on the
stairs.”
“The fault of Euphemia is that she will not, simply will not, chop the
suet sufficiently small.”
They both laughed, and things began to go better.
“The faults of Freddy—” Cecil continued.
“Ah, he has too many. No one but his mother can remember the faults of
Freddy. Try the faults of Miss Honeychurch; they are not innumerable.”
“She has none,” said the young man, with grave sincerity.
“I quite agree. At present she has none.”
“At present?”
“I’m not cynical. I’m only thinking of my pet theory about Miss
Honeychurch. Does it seem reasonable that she should play so
wonderfully, and live so quietly? I suspect that one day she will be
wonderful in both. The water-tight compartments in her will break down,
and music and life will mingle. Then we shall have her heroically good,
heroically bad—too heroic, perhaps, to be good or bad.”
Cecil found his companion interesting.
“And at present you think her not wonderful as far as life goes?”
“Well, I must say I’ve only seen her at Tunbridge Wells, where she was
not wonderful, and at Florence. Since I came to Summer Street she has
been away. You saw her, didn’t you, at Rome and in the Alps. Oh, I