A Room with a View
But it had begotten a spectral family—Mr. Harris, Miss Bartlett’s
letter, Mr. Beebe’s memories of violets—and one or other of these was
bound to haunt her before Cecil’s very eyes. It was Miss Bartlett who
returned now, and with appalling vividness.
“I have been thinking, Lucy, of that letter of Charlotte’s. How is
she?”
“I tore the thing up.”
“Didn’t she say how she was? How does she sound? Cheerful?”
“Oh, yes I suppose so—no—not very cheerful, I suppose.”
“Then, depend upon it, it _is_ the boiler. I know myself how water
preys upon one’s mind. I would rather anything else—even a misfortune
with the meat.”
Cecil laid his hand over his eyes.
“So would I,” asserted Freddy, backing his mother up—backing up the
spirit of her remark rather than the substance.
“And I have been thinking,” she added rather nervously, “surely we
could squeeze Charlotte in here next week, and give her a nice holiday
while the plumbers at Tunbridge Wells finish. I have not seen poor
Charlotte for so long.”
It was more than her nerves could stand. And she could not protest
violently after her mother’s goodness to her upstairs.
“Mother, no!” she pleaded. “It’s impossible. We can’t have Charlotte on
the top of the other things; we’re squeezed to death as it is. Freddy’s
got a friend coming Tuesday, there’s Cecil, and you’ve promised to take
in Minnie Beebe because of the diphtheria scare. It simply can’t be
done.”
“Nonsense! It can.”
“If Minnie sleeps in the bath. Not otherwise.”
“Minnie can sleep with you.”
“I won’t have her.”
“Then, if you’re so selfish, Mr. Floyd must share a room with Freddy.”
“Miss Bartlett, Miss Bartlett, Miss Bartlett,” moaned Cecil, again
laying his hand over his eyes.
“It’s impossible,” repeated Lucy. “I don’t want to make difficulties,
but it really isn’t fair on the maids to fill up the house so.”
Alas!
“The truth is, dear, you don’t like Charlotte.”
“No, I don’t. And no more does Cecil. She gets on our nerves. You
haven’t seen her lately, and don’t realize how tiresome she can be,
though so good. So please, mother, don’t worry us this last summer; but
spoil us by not asking her to come.”
“Hear, hear!” said Cecil.
Mrs. Honeychurch, with more gravity than usual, and with more feeling
than she usually permitted herself, replied: “This isn’t very kind of
you two. You have each other and all these woods to walk in, so full of
beautiful things; and poor Charlotte has only the water turned off and
plumbers. You are young, dears, and however clever young people are,
and however many books they read, they will never guess what it feels
like to grow old.”
Cecil crumbled his bread.
“I must say Cousin Charlotte was very kind to me that year I called on
my bike,” put in Freddy. “She thanked me for coming till I felt like
such a fool, and fussed round no end to get an egg boiled for my tea
just right.”
“I know, dear. She is kind to everyone, and yet Lucy makes this
difficulty when we try to give her some little return.”
But Lucy hardened her heart. It was no good being kind to Miss
Bartlett. She had tried herself too often and too recently. One might
lay up treasure in heaven by the attempt, but one enriched neither Miss
Bartlett nor any one else upon earth. She was reduced to saying: “I
can’t help it, mother. I don’t like Charlotte. I admit it’s horrid of
me.”
“From your own account, you told her as much.”
“Well, she would leave Florence so stupidly. She flurried—”
The ghosts were returning; they filled Italy, they were even usurping
the places she had known as a child. The Sacred Lake would never be the
same again, and, on Sunday week, something would even happen to Windy
Corner. How would she fight against ghosts? For a moment the visible
world faded away, and memories and emotions alone seemed real.
“I suppose Miss Bartlett must come, since she boils eggs so well,” said
Cecil, who was in rather a happier frame of mind, thanks to the
admirable cooking.
“I didn’t mean the egg was _well_ boiled,” corrected Freddy, “because
in point of fact she forgot to take it off, and as a matter of fact I
don’t care for eggs. I only meant how jolly kind she seemed.”
Cecil frowned again. Oh, these Honeychurches! Eggs, boilers,
hydrangeas, maids—of such were their lives compact. “May me and Lucy
get down from our chairs?” he asked, with scarcely veiled insolence.
“We don’t want no dessert.”
Chapter XIV
How Lucy Faced the External Situation Bravely
Of course Miss Bartlett accepted. And, equally of course, she felt sure
that she would prove a nuisance, and begged to be given an inferior
spare room—something with no view, anything. Her love to Lucy. And,
equally of course, George Emerson could come to tennis on the Sunday
week.
Lucy faced the situation bravely, though, like most of us, she only
faced the situation that encompassed her. She never gazed inwards. If
at times strange images rose from the depths, she put them down to
nerves. When Cecil brought the Emersons to Summer Street, it had upset
her nerves. Charlotte would burnish up past foolishness, and this might
upset her nerves. She was nervous at night. When she talked to
George—they met again almost immediately at the Rectory—his voice moved
her deeply, and she wished to remain near him. How dreadful if she
really wished to remain near him! Of course, the wish was due to
nerves, which love to play such perverse tricks upon us. Once she had
suffered from “things that came out of nothing and meant she didn’t
know what.” Now Cecil had explained psychology to her one wet
afternoon, and all the troubles of youth in an unknown world could be
dismissed.
It is obvious enough for the reader to conclude, “She loves young
Emerson.” A reader in Lucy’s place would not find it obvious. Life is
easy to chronicle, but bewildering to practice, and we welcome “nerves”
or any other shibboleth that will cloak our personal desire. She loved
Cecil; George made her nervous; will the reader explain to her that the
phrases should have been reversed?
But the external situation—she will face that bravely.
The meeting at the Rectory had passed off well enough. Standing between
Mr. Beebe and Cecil, she had made a few temperate allusions to Italy,
and George had replied. She was anxious to show that she was not shy,
and was glad that he did not seem shy either.
“A nice fellow,” said Mr. Beebe afterwards “He will work off his
crudities in time. I rather mistrust young men who slip into life
gracefully.”
Lucy said, “He seems in better spirits. He laughs more.”
“Yes,” replied the clergyman. “He is waking up.”
That was all. But, as the week wore on, more of her defences fell, and
she entertained an image that had physical beauty. In spite of the
clearest directions, Miss Bartlett contrived to bungle her arrival. She
was due at the South-Eastern station at Dorking, whither Mrs.
Honeychurch drove to meet her. She arrived at the London and Brighton
station, and had to hire a cab up. No one was at home except Freddy and
his friend, who had to stop their tennis and to entertain her for a
solid hour. Cecil and Lucy turned up at four o’clock, and these, with
little Minnie Beebe, made a somewhat lugubrious sextette upon the upper
lawn for tea.
“I shall never forgive myself,” said Miss Bartlett, who kept on rising
from her seat, and had to be begged by the united company to remain. “I
have upset everything. Bursting in on young people! But I insist on
paying for my cab up. Grant that, at any rate.”
“Our visitors never do such dreadful things,” said Lucy, while her
brother, in whose memory the boiled egg had already grown
unsubstantial, exclaimed in irritable tones: “Just what I’ve been
trying to convince Cousin Charlotte of, Lucy, for the last half hour.”
“I do not feel myself an ordinary visitor,” said Miss Bartlett, and
looked at her frayed glove.
“All right, if you’d really rather. Five shillings, and I gave a bob to
the driver.”
Miss Bartlett looked in her purse. Only sovereigns and pennies. Could
any one give her change? Freddy had half a quid and his friend had four
half-crowns. Miss Bartlett accepted their moneys and then said: “But
who am I to give the sovereign to?”
“Let’s leave it all till mother comes back,” suggested Lucy.
“No, dear; your mother may take quite a long drive now that she is not
hampered with me. We all have our little foibles, and mine is the
prompt settling of accounts.”
Here Freddy’s friend, Mr. Floyd, made the one remark of his that need
be quoted: he offered to toss Freddy for Miss Bartlett’s quid. A
solution seemed in sight, and even Cecil, who had been ostentatiously
drinking his tea at the view, felt the eternal attraction of Chance,
and turned round.
But this did not do, either.
“Please—please—I know I am a sad spoil-sport, but it would make me
wretched. I should practically be robbing the one who lost.”
“Freddy owes me fifteen shillings,” interposed Cecil. “So it will work
out right if you give the pound to me.”
“Fifteen shillings,” said Miss Bartlett dubiously. “How is that, Mr.
Vyse?”
“Because, don’t you see, Freddy paid your cab. Give me the pound, and
we shall avoid this deplorable gambling.”
Miss Bartlett, who was poor at figures, became bewildered and rendered
up the sovereign, amidst the suppressed gurgles of the other youths.
For a moment Cecil was happy. He was playing at nonsense among his
peers. Then he glanced at Lucy, in whose face petty anxieties had
marred the smiles. In January he would rescue his Leonardo from this
stupefying twaddle.
“But I don’t see that!” exclaimed Minnie Beebe who had narrowly watched
the iniquitous transaction. “I don’t see why Mr. Vyse is to have the
quid.”
“Because of the fifteen shillings and the five,” they said solemnly.
“Fifteen shillings and five shillings make one pound, you see.”
“But I don’t see—”
They tried to stifle her with cake.
“No, thank you. I’m done. I don’t see why—Freddy, don’t poke me. Miss
Honeychurch, your brother’s hurting me. Ow! What about Mr. Floyd’s ten
shillings? Ow! No, I don’t see and I never shall see why Miss
What’s-her-name shouldn’t pay that bob for the driver.”
“I had forgotten the driver,” said Miss Bartlett, reddening. “Thank
you, dear, for reminding me. A shilling was it? Can any one give me
change for half a crown?”
“I’ll get it,” said the young hostess, rising with decision.
“Cecil, give me that sovereign. No, give me up that sovereign. I’ll get
Euphemia to change it, and we’ll start the whole thing again from the
beginning.”
“Lucy—Lucy—what a nuisance I am!” protested Miss Bartlett, and followed
her across the lawn. Lucy tripped ahead, simulating hilarity. When they
were out of earshot Miss Bartlett stopped her wails and said quite
briskly: “Have you told him about him yet?”
“No, I haven’t,” replied Lucy, and then could have bitten her tongue
for understanding so quickly what her cousin meant. “Let me see—a
sovereign’s worth of silver.”
She escaped into the kitchen. Miss Bartlett’s sudden transitions were
too uncanny. It sometimes seemed as if she planned every word she spoke
or caused to be spoken; as if all this worry about cabs and change had
been a ruse to surprise the soul.
“No, I haven’t told Cecil or any one,” she remarked, when she returned.
“I promised you I shouldn’t. Here is your money—all shillings, except
two half-crowns. Would you count it? You can settle your debt nicely
now.”
Miss Bartlett was in the drawing-room, gazing at the photograph of St.
John ascending, which had been framed.
“How dreadful!” she murmured, “how more than dreadful, if Mr. Vyse
should come to hear of it from some other source.”
“Oh, no, Charlotte,” said the girl, entering the battle. “George