A Room with a View
“I could hear your beautiful playing, Miss Honeychurch, though I was in
my room with the door shut. Doors shut; indeed, most necessary. No one
has the least idea of privacy in this country. And one person catches
it from another.”
Lucy answered suitably. Mr. Beebe was not able to tell the ladies of
his adventure at Modena, where the chambermaid burst in upon him in his
bath, exclaiming cheerfully, “Fa niente, sono vecchia.” He contented
himself with saying: “I quite agree with you, Miss Alan. The Italians
are a most unpleasant people. They pry everywhere, they see everything,
and they know what we want before we know it ourselves. We are at their
mercy. They read our thoughts, they foretell our desires. From the
cab-driver down to—to Giotto, they turn us inside out, and I resent it.
Yet in their heart of hearts they are—how superficial! They have no
conception of the intellectual life. How right is Signora Bertolini,
who exclaimed to me the other day: ‘Ho, Mr. Beebe, if you knew what I
suffer over the children’s edjucaishion. _Hi_ won’t ’ave my little
Victorier taught by a hignorant Italian what can’t explain nothink!’”
Miss Alan did not follow, but gathered that she was being mocked in an
agreeable way. Her sister was a little disappointed in Mr. Beebe,
having expected better things from a clergyman whose head was bald and
who wore a pair of russet whiskers. Indeed, who would have supposed
that tolerance, sympathy, and a sense of humour would inhabit that
militant form?
In the midst of her satisfaction she continued to sidle, and at last
the cause was disclosed. From the chair beneath her she extracted a
gun-metal cigarette-case, on which were powdered in turquoise the
initials “E. L.”
“That belongs to Lavish.” said the clergyman. “A good fellow, Lavish,
but I wish she’d start a pipe.”
“Oh, Mr. Beebe,” said Miss Alan, divided between awe and mirth.
“Indeed, though it is dreadful for her to smoke, it is not quite as
dreadful as you suppose. She took to it, practically in despair, after
her life’s work was carried away in a landslip. Surely that makes it
more excusable.”
“What was that?” asked Lucy.
Mr. Beebe sat back complacently, and Miss Alan began as follows: “It
was a novel—and I am afraid, from what I can gather, not a very nice
novel. It is so sad when people who have abilities misuse them, and I
must say they nearly always do. Anyhow, she left it almost finished in
the Grotto of the Calvary at the Capuccini Hotel at Amalfi while she
went for a little ink. She said: ‘Can I have a little ink, please?’ But
you know what Italians are, and meanwhile the Grotto fell roaring on to
the beach, and the saddest thing of all is that she cannot remember
what she has written. The poor thing was very ill after it, and so got
tempted into cigarettes. It is a great secret, but I am glad to say
that she is writing another novel. She told Teresa and Miss Pole the
other day that she had got up all the local colour—this novel is to be
about modern Italy; the other was historical—but that she could not
start till she had an idea. First she tried Perugia for an inspiration,
then she came here—this must on no account get round. And so cheerful
through it all! I cannot help thinking that there is something to
admire in everyone, even if you do not approve of them.”
Miss Alan was always thus being charitable against her better
judgement. A delicate pathos perfumed her disconnected remarks, giving
them unexpected beauty, just as in the decaying autumn woods there
sometimes rise odours reminiscent of spring. She felt she had made
almost too many allowances, and apologized hurriedly for her
toleration.
“All the same, she is a little too—I hardly like to say unwomanly, but
she behaved most strangely when the Emersons arrived.”
Mr. Beebe smiled as Miss Alan plunged into an anecdote which he knew
she would be unable to finish in the presence of a gentleman.
“I don’t know, Miss Honeychurch, if you have noticed that Miss Pole,
the lady who has so much yellow hair, takes lemonade. That old Mr.
Emerson, who puts things very strangely—”
Her jaw dropped. She was silent. Mr. Beebe, whose social resources were
endless, went out to order some tea, and she continued to Lucy in a
hasty whisper:
“Stomach. He warned Miss Pole of her stomach-acidity, he called it—and
he may have meant to be kind. I must say I forgot myself and laughed;
it was so sudden. As Teresa truly said, it was no laughing matter. But
the point is that Miss Lavish was positively _attracted_ by his
mentioning S., and said she liked plain speaking, and meeting different
grades of thought. She thought they were commercial
travellers—‘drummers’ was the word she used—and all through dinner she
tried to prove that England, our great and beloved country, rests on
nothing but commerce. Teresa was very much annoyed, and left the table
before the cheese, saying as she did so: ‘There, Miss Lavish, is one
who can confute you better than I,’ and pointed to that beautiful
picture of Lord Tennyson. Then Miss Lavish said: ‘Tut! The early
Victorians.’ Just imagine! ‘Tut! The early Victorians.’ My sister had
gone, and I felt bound to speak. I said: ‘Miss Lavish, _I_ am an early
Victorian; at least, that is to say, I will hear no breath of censure
against our dear Queen.’ It was horrible speaking. I reminded her how
the Queen had been to Ireland when she did not want to go, and I must
say she was dumbfounded, and made no reply. But, unluckily, Mr. Emerson
overheard this part, and called in his deep voice: ‘Quite so, quite so!
I honour the woman for her Irish visit.’ The woman! I tell things so
badly; but you see what a tangle we were in by this time, all on
account of S. having been mentioned in the first place. But that was
not all. After dinner Miss Lavish actually came up and said: ‘Miss
Alan, I am going into the smoking-room to talk to those two nice men.
Come, too.’ Needless to say, I refused such an unsuitable invitation,
and she had the impertinence to tell me that it would broaden my ideas,
and said that she had four brothers, all University men, except one who
was in the army, who always made a point of talking to commercial
travellers.”
“Let me finish the story,” said Mr. Beebe, who had returned.
“Miss Lavish tried Miss Pole, myself, everyone, and finally said: ‘I
shall go alone.’ She went. At the end of five minutes she returned
unobtrusively with a green baize board, and began playing patience.”
“Whatever happened?” cried Lucy.
“No one knows. No one will ever know. Miss Lavish will never dare to
tell, and Mr. Emerson does not think it worth telling.”
“Mr. Beebe—old Mr. Emerson, is he nice or not nice? I do so want to
know.”
Mr. Beebe laughed and suggested that she should settle the question for
herself.
“No; but it is so difficult. Sometimes he is so silly, and then I do
not mind him. Miss Alan, what do you think? Is he nice?”
The little old lady shook her head, and sighed disapprovingly. Mr.
Beebe, whom the conversation amused, stirred her up by saying:
“I consider that you are bound to class him as nice, Miss Alan, after
that business of the violets.”
“Violets? Oh, dear! Who told you about the violets? How do things get
round? A pension is a bad place for gossips. No, I cannot forget how
they behaved at Mr. Eager’s lecture at Santa Croce. Oh, poor Miss
Honeychurch! It really was too bad. No, I have quite changed. I do
_not_ like the Emersons. They are _not_ nice.”
Mr. Beebe smiled nonchalantly. He had made a gentle effort to introduce
the Emersons into Bertolini society, and the effort had failed. He was
almost the only person who remained friendly to them. Miss Lavish, who
represented intellect, was avowedly hostile, and now the Miss Alans,
who stood for good breeding, were following her. Miss Bartlett,
smarting under an obligation, would scarcely be civil. The case of Lucy
was different. She had given him a hazy account of her adventures in
Santa Croce, and he gathered that the two men had made a curious and
possibly concerted attempt to annex her, to show her the world from
their own strange standpoint, to interest her in their private sorrows
and joys. This was impertinent; he did not wish their cause to be
championed by a young girl: he would rather it should fail. After all,
he knew nothing about them, and pension joys, pension sorrows, are
flimsy things; whereas Lucy would be his parishioner.
Lucy, with one eye upon the weather, finally said that she thought the
Emersons were nice; not that she saw anything of them now. Even their
seats at dinner had been moved.
“But aren’t they always waylaying you to go out with them, dear?” said
the little lady inquisitively.
“Only once. Charlotte didn’t like it, and said something—quite
politely, of course.”
“Most right of her. They don’t understand our ways. They must find
their level.”
Mr. Beebe rather felt that they had gone under. They had given up their
attempt—if it was one—to conquer society, and now the father was almost
as silent as the son. He wondered whether he would not plan a pleasant
day for these folk before they left—some expedition, perhaps, with Lucy
well chaperoned to be nice to them. It was one of Mr. Beebe’s chief
pleasures to provide people with happy memories.
Evening approached while they chatted; the air became brighter; the
colours on the trees and hills were purified, and the Arno lost its
muddy solidity and began to twinkle. There were a few streaks of
bluish-green among the clouds, a few patches of watery light upon the
earth, and then the dripping façade of San Miniato shone brilliantly in
the declining sun.
“Too late to go out,” said Miss Alan in a voice of relief. “All the
galleries are shut.”
“I think I shall go out,” said Lucy. “I want to go round the town in
the circular tram—on the platform by the driver.”
Her two companions looked grave. Mr. Beebe, who felt responsible for
her in the absence of Miss Bartlett, ventured to say:
“I wish we could. Unluckily I have letters. If you do want to go out
alone, won’t you be better on your feet?”
“Italians, dear, you know,” said Miss Alan.
“Perhaps I shall meet someone who reads me through and through!”
But they still looked disapproval, and she so far conceded to Mr. Beebe
as to say that she would only go for a little walk, and keep to the
street frequented by tourists.
“She oughtn’t really to go at all,” said Mr. Beebe, as they watched her
from the window, “and she knows it. I put it down to too much
Beethoven.”
Chapter IV
Fourth Chapter
Mr. Beebe was right. Lucy never knew her desires so clearly as after
music. She had not really appreciated the clergyman’s wit, nor the
suggestive twitterings of Miss Alan. Conversation was tedious; she
wanted something big, and she believed that it would have come to her
on the wind-swept platform of an electric tram. This she might not
attempt. It was unladylike. Why? Why were most big things unladylike?
Charlotte had once explained to her why. It was not that ladies were
inferior to men; it was that they were different. Their mission was to
inspire others to achievement rather than to achieve themselves.
Indirectly, by means of tact and a spotless name, a lady could
accomplish much. But if she rushed into the fray herself she would be
first censured, then despised, and finally ignored. Poems had been
written to illustrate this point.
There is much that is immortal in this medieval lady. The dragons have
gone, and so have the knights, but still she lingers in our midst. She
reigned in many an early Victorian castle, and was Queen of much early
Victorian song. It is sweet to protect her in the intervals of
business, sweet to pay her honour when she has cooked our dinner well.