A Room with a View
Freddy possessed to a high degree the power of lashing little girls to
fury, and in half a minute he had transformed Minnie from a
well-mannered child into a howling wilderness. Up in the house Cecil
heard them, and, though he was full of entertaining news, he did not
come down to impart it, in case he got hurt. He was not a coward and
bore necessary pain as well as any man. But he hated the physical
violence of the young. How right it was! Sure enough it ended in a cry.
“I wish the Miss Alans could see this,” observed Mr. Beebe, just as
Lucy, who was nursing the injured Minnie, was in turn lifted off her
feet by her brother.
“Who are the Miss Alans?” Freddy panted.
“They have taken Cissie Villa.”
“That wasn’t the name—”
Here his foot slipped, and they all fell most agreeably on to the
grass. An interval elapses.
“Wasn’t what name?” asked Lucy, with her brother’s head in her lap.
“Alan wasn’t the name of the people Sir Harry’s let to.”
“Nonsense, Freddy! You know nothing about it.”
“Nonsense yourself! I’ve this minute seen him. He said to me: ‘Ahem!
Honeychurch,’”—Freddy was an indifferent mimic—“‘ahem! ahem! I have at
last procured really dee-sire-rebel tenants.’ I said, ‘ooray, old boy!’
and slapped him on the back.”
“Exactly. The Miss Alans?”
“Rather not. More like Anderson.”
“Oh, good gracious, there isn’t going to be another muddle!” Mrs.
Honeychurch exclaimed. “Do you notice, Lucy, I’m always right? I _said_
don’t interfere with Cissie Villa. I’m always right. I’m quite uneasy
at being always right so often.”
“It’s only another muddle of Freddy’s. Freddy doesn’t even know the
name of the people he pretends have taken it instead.”
“Yes, I do. I’ve got it. Emerson.”
“What name?”
“Emerson. I’ll bet you anything you like.”
“What a weathercock Sir Harry is,” said Lucy quietly. “I wish I had
never bothered over it at all.”
Then she lay on her back and gazed at the cloudless sky. Mr. Beebe,
whose opinion of her rose daily, whispered to his niece that _that_ was
the proper way to behave if any little thing went wrong.
Meanwhile the name of the new tenants had diverted Mrs. Honeychurch
from the contemplation of her own abilities.
“Emerson, Freddy? Do you know what Emersons they are?”
“I don’t know whether they’re any Emersons,” retorted Freddy, who was
democratic. Like his sister and like most young people, he was
naturally attracted by the idea of equality, and the undeniable fact
that there are different kinds of Emersons annoyed him beyond measure.
“I trust they are the right sort of person. All right, Lucy”—she was
sitting up again—“I see you looking down your nose and thinking your
mother’s a snob. But there is a right sort and a wrong sort, and it’s
affectation to pretend there isn’t.”
“Emerson’s a common enough name,” Lucy remarked.
She was gazing sideways. Seated on a promontory herself, she could see
the pine-clad promontories descending one beyond another into the
Weald. The further one descended the garden, the more glorious was this
lateral view.
“I was merely going to remark, Freddy, that I trusted they were no
relations of Emerson the philosopher, a most trying man. Pray, does
that satisfy you?”
“Oh, yes,” he grumbled. “And you will be satisfied, too, for they’re
friends of Cecil; so”—elaborate irony—“you and the other country
families will be able to call in perfect safety.”
“_Cecil?_” exclaimed Lucy.
“Don’t be rude, dear,” said his mother placidly. “Lucy, don’t screech.
It’s a new bad habit you’re getting into.”
“But has Cecil—”
“Friends of Cecil’s,” he repeated, “‘and so really dee-sire-rebel.
Ahem! Honeychurch, I have just telegraphed to them.’”
She got up from the grass.
It was hard on Lucy. Mr. Beebe sympathized with her very much. While
she believed that her snub about the Miss Alans came from Sir Harry
Otway, she had borne it like a good girl. She might well “screech” when
she heard that it came partly from her lover. Mr. Vyse was a
tease—something worse than a tease: he took a malicious pleasure in
thwarting people. The clergyman, knowing this, looked at Miss
Honeychurch with more than his usual kindness.
When she exclaimed, “But Cecil’s Emersons—they can’t possibly be the
same ones—there is that—” he did not consider that the exclamation was
strange, but saw in it an opportunity of diverting the conversation
while she recovered her composure. He diverted it as follows:
“The Emersons who were at Florence, do you mean? No, I don’t suppose it
will prove to be them. It is probably a long cry from them to friends
of Mr. Vyse’s. Oh, Mrs. Honeychurch, the oddest people! The queerest
people! For our part we liked them, didn’t we?” He appealed to Lucy.
“There was a great scene over some violets. They picked violets and
filled all the vases in the room of these very Miss Alans who have
failed to come to Cissie Villa. Poor little ladies! So shocked and so
pleased. It used to be one of Miss Catharine’s great stories. ‘My dear
sister loves flowers,’ it began. They found the whole room a mass of
blue—vases and jugs—and the story ends with ‘So ungentlemanly and yet
so beautiful.’ It is all very difficult. Yes, I always connect those
Florentine Emersons with violets.”
“Fiasco’s done you this time,” remarked Freddy, not seeing that his
sister’s face was very red. She could not recover herself. Mr. Beebe
saw it, and continued to divert the conversation.
“These particular Emersons consisted of a father and a son—the son a
goodly, if not a good young man; not a fool, I fancy, but very
immature—pessimism, et cetera. Our special joy was the father—such a
sentimental darling, and people declared he had murdered his wife.”
In his normal state Mr. Beebe would never have repeated such gossip,
but he was trying to shelter Lucy in her little trouble. He repeated
any rubbish that came into his head.
“Murdered his wife?” said Mrs. Honeychurch. “Lucy, don’t desert us—go
on playing bumble-puppy. Really, the Pension Bertolini must have been
the oddest place. That’s the second murderer I’ve heard of as being
there. Whatever was Charlotte doing to stop? By-the-by, we really must
ask Charlotte here some time.”
Mr. Beebe could recall no second murderer. He suggested that his
hostess was mistaken. At the hint of opposition she warmed. She was
perfectly sure that there had been a second tourist of whom the same
story had been told. The name escaped her. What was the name? Oh, what
was the name? She clasped her knees for the name. Something in
Thackeray. She struck her matronly forehead.
Lucy asked her brother whether Cecil was in.
“Oh, don’t go!” he cried, and tried to catch her by the ankles.
“I must go,” she said gravely. “Don’t be silly. You always overdo it
when you play.”
As she left them her mother’s shout of “Harris!” shivered the tranquil
air, and reminded her that she had told a lie and had never put it
right. Such a senseless lie, too, yet it shattered her nerves and made
her connect these Emersons, friends of Cecil’s, with a pair of
nondescript tourists. Hitherto truth had come to her naturally. She saw
that for the future she must be more vigilant, and be—absolutely
truthful? Well, at all events, she must not tell lies. She hurried up
the garden, still flushed with shame. A word from Cecil would soothe
her, she was sure.
“Cecil!”
“Hullo!” he called, and leant out of the smoking-room window. He seemed
in high spirits. “I was hoping you’d come. I heard you all
bear-gardening, but there’s better fun up here. I, even I, have won a
great victory for the Comic Muse. George Meredith’s right—the cause of
Comedy and the cause of Truth are really the same; and I, even I, have
found tenants for the distressful Cissie Villa. Don’t be angry! Don’t
be angry! You’ll forgive me when you hear it all.”
He looked very attractive when his face was bright, and he dispelled
her ridiculous forebodings at once.
“I have heard,” she said. “Freddy has told us. Naughty Cecil! I suppose
I must forgive you. Just think of all the trouble I took for nothing!
Certainly the Miss Alans are a little tiresome, and I’d rather have
nice friends of yours. But you oughtn’t to tease one so.”
“Friends of mine?” he laughed. “But, Lucy, the whole joke is to come!
Come here.” But she remained standing where she was. “Do you know where
I met these desirable tenants? In the National Gallery, when I was up
to see my mother last week.”
“What an odd place to meet people!” she said nervously. “I don’t quite
understand.”
“In the Umbrian Room. Absolute strangers. They were admiring Luca
Signorelli—of course, quite stupidly. However, we got talking, and they
refreshed me not a little. They had been to Italy.”
“But, Cecil—” proceeded hilariously.
“In the course of conversation they said that they wanted a country
cottage—the father to live there, the son to run down for week-ends. I
thought, ‘What a chance of scoring off Sir Harry!’ and I took their
address and a London reference, found they weren’t actual
blackguards—it was great sport—and wrote to him, making out—”
“Cecil! No, it’s not fair. I’ve probably met them before—”
He bore her down.
“Perfectly fair. Anything is fair that punishes a snob. That old man
will do the neighbourhood a world of good. Sir Harry is too disgusting
with his ‘decayed gentlewomen.’ I meant to read him a lesson some time.
No, Lucy, the classes ought to mix, and before long you’ll agree with
me. There ought to be intermarriage—all sorts of things. I believe in
democracy—”
“No, you don’t,” she snapped. “You don’t know what the word means.”
He stared at her, and felt again that she had failed to be
Leonardesque. “No, you don’t!”
Her face was inartistic—that of a peevish virago.
“It isn’t fair, Cecil. I blame you—I blame you very much indeed. You
had no business to undo my work about the Miss Alans, and make me look
ridiculous. You call it scoring off Sir Harry, but do you realize that
it is all at my expense? I consider it most disloyal of you.”
She left him.
“Temper!” he thought, raising his eyebrows.
No, it was worse than temper—snobbishness. As long as Lucy thought that
his own smart friends were supplanting the Miss Alans, she had not
minded. He perceived that these new tenants might be of value
educationally. He would tolerate the father and draw out the son, who
was silent. In the interests of the Comic Muse and of Truth, he would
bring them to Windy Corner.
Chapter XI
In Mrs. Vyse’s Well-Appointed Flat
The Comic Muse, though able to look after her own interests, did not
disdain the assistance of Mr. Vyse. His idea of bringing the Emersons
to Windy Corner struck her as decidedly good, and she carried through
the negotiations without a hitch. Sir Harry Otway signed the agreement,
met Mr. Emerson, who was duly disillusioned. The Miss Alans were duly
offended, and wrote a dignified letter to Lucy, whom they held
responsible for the failure. Mr. Beebe planned pleasant moments for the
new-comers, and told Mrs. Honeychurch that Freddy must call on them as
soon as they arrived. Indeed, so ample was the Muse’s equipment that
she permitted Mr. Harris, never a very robust criminal, to droop his
head, to be forgotten, and to die.
Lucy—to descend from bright heaven to earth, whereon there are shadows
because there are hills—Lucy was at first plunged into despair, but
settled after a little thought that it did not matter the very least.
Now that she was engaged, the Emersons would scarcely insult her and
were welcome into the neighbourhood. And Cecil was welcome to bring
whom he would into the neighbourhood. Therefore Cecil was welcome to
bring the Emersons into the neighbourhood. But, as I say, this took a
little thinking, and—so illogical are girls—the event remained rather