Chapter XIX: Lying to Mr. Emerson
The Miss Alans were found in their beloved temperance hotel nearBloomsbury--a clean, airless establishment much patronized by provincialEngland. They always perched there before crossing the great seas,and for a week or two would fidget gently over clothes, guide-books,mackintosh squares, digestive bread, and other Continental necessaries.That there are shops abroad, even in Athens, never occurred to them, forthey regarded travel as a species of warfare, only to be undertakenby those who have been fully armed at the Haymarket Stores. MissHoneychurch, they trusted, would take care to equip herself duly.Quinine could now be obtained in tabloids; paper soap was a great helptowards freshening up one's face in the train. Lucy promised, a littledepressed.
"But, of course, you know all about these things, and you have Mr. Vyseto help you. A gentleman is such a stand-by."
Mrs. Honeychurch, who had come up to town with her daughter, began todrum nervously upon her card-case.
"We think it so good of Mr. Vyse to spare you," Miss Catharinecontinued. "It is not every young man who would be so unselfish. Butperhaps he will come out and join you later on."
"Or does his work keep him in London?" said Miss Teresa, the more acuteand less kindly of the two sisters.
"However, we shall see him when he sees you off. I do so long to seehim."
"No one will see Lucy off," interposed Mrs. Honeychurch. "She doesn'tlike it."
"No, I hate seeings-off," said Lucy.
"Really? How funny! I should have thought that in this case--"
"Oh, Mrs. Honeychurch, you aren't going? It is such a pleasure to havemet you!"
They escaped, and Lucy said with relief: "That's all right. We just gotthrough that time."
But her mother was annoyed. "I should be told, dear, that I amunsympathetic. But I cannot see why you didn't tell your friends aboutCecil and be done with it. There all the time we had to sit fencing, andalmost telling lies, and be seen through, too, I dare say, which is mostunpleasant."
Lucy had plenty to say in reply. She described the Miss Alans'character: they were such gossips, and if one told them, the news wouldbe everywhere in no time.
"But why shouldn't it be everywhere in no time?"
"Because I settled with Cecil not to announce it until I left England. Ishall tell them then. It's much pleasanter. How wet it is! Let's turn inhere."
"Here" was the British Museum. Mrs. Honeychurch refused. If they musttake shelter, let it be in a shop. Lucy felt contemptuous, for she wason the tack of caring for Greek sculpture, and had already borrowed amythical dictionary from Mr. Beebe to get up the names of the goddessesand gods.
"Oh, well, let it be shop, then. Let's go to Mudie's. I'll buy aguide-book."
"You know, Lucy, you and Charlotte and Mr. Beebe all tell me I'mso stupid, so I suppose I am, but I shall never understand thishole-and-corner work. You've got rid of Cecil--well and good, and I'mthankful he's gone, though I did feel angry for the minute. But why notannounce it? Why this hushing up and tip-toeing?"
"It's only for a few days."
"But why at all?"
Lucy was silent. She was drifting away from her mother. It was quiteeasy to say, "Because George Emerson has been bothering me, and if hehears I've given up Cecil may begin again"--quite easy, and it hadthe incidental advantage of being true. But she could not say it. Shedisliked confidences, for they might lead to self-knowledge and to thatking of terrors--Light. Ever since that last evening at Florence she haddeemed it unwise to reveal her soul.
Mrs. Honeychurch, too, was silent. She was thinking, "My daughter won'tanswer me; she would rather be with those inquisitive old maids thanwith Freddy and me. Any rag, tag, and bobtail apparently does if shecan leave her home." And as in her case thoughts never remained unspokenlong, she burst out with: "You're tired of Windy Corner."
This was perfectly true. Lucy had hoped to return to Windy Corner whenshe escaped from Cecil, but she discovered that her home existed nolonger. It might exist for Freddy, who still lived and thought straight,but not for one who had deliberately warped the brain. She did notacknowledge that her brain was warped, for the brain itself must assistin that acknowledgment, and she was disordering the very instruments oflife. She only felt, "I do not love George; I broke off my engagementbecause I did not love George; I must go to Greece because I do notlove George; it is more important that I should look up gods in thedictionary than that I should help my mother; everyone else is behavingvery badly." She only felt irritable and petulant, and anxious to dowhat she was not expected to do, and in this spirit she proceeded withthe conversation.
"Oh, mother, what rubbish you talk! Of course I'm not tired of WindyCorner."
"Then why not say so at once, instead of considering half an hour?"
She laughed faintly, "Half a minute would be nearer."
"Perhaps you would like to stay away from your home altogether?"
"Hush, mother! People will hear you"; for they had entered Mudie's. Shebought Baedeker, and then continued: "Of course I want to live at home;but as we are talking about it, I may as well say that I shall want tobe away in the future more than I have been. You see, I come into mymoney next year."
Tears came into her mother's eyes.
Driven by nameless bewilderment, by what is in older people termed"eccentricity," Lucy determined to make this point clear. "I've seen theworld so little--I felt so out of things in Italy. I have seen so littleof life; one ought to come up to London more--not a cheap ticket liketo-day, but to stop. I might even share a flat for a little with someother girl."
"And mess with typewriters and latch-keys," exploded Mrs. Honeychurch."And agitate and scream, and be carried off kicking by the police. Andcall it a Mission--when no one wants you! And call it Duty--whenit means that you can't stand your own home! And call it Work--whenthousands of men are starving with the competition as it is! And thento prepare yourself, find two doddering old ladies, and go abroad withthem."
"I want more independence," said Lucy lamely; she knew that she wantedsomething, and independence is a useful cry; we can always say that wehave not got it. She tried to remember her emotions in Florence: thosehad been sincere and passionate, and had suggested beauty rather thanshort skirts and latch-keys. But independence was certainly her cue.
"Very well. Take your independence and be gone. Rush up and down andround the world, and come back as thin as a lath with the bad food.Despise the house that your father built and the garden that he planted,and our dear view--and then share a flat with another girl."
Lucy screwed up her mouth and said: "Perhaps I spoke hastily."
"Oh, goodness!" her mother flashed. "How you do remind me of CharlotteBartlett!"
"Charlotte!" flashed Lucy in her turn, pierced at last by a vivid pain.
"More every moment."
"I don't know what you mean, mother; Charlotte and I are not the veryleast alike."
"Well, I see the likeness. The same eternal worrying, the same takingback of words. You and Charlotte trying to divide two apples among threepeople last night might be sisters."
"What rubbish! And if you dislike Charlotte so, it's rather a pity youasked her to stop. I warned you about her; I begged you, implored younot to, but of course it was not listened to."
"There you go."
"I beg your pardon?"
"Charlotte again, my dear; that's all; her very words."
Lucy clenched her teeth. "My point is that you oughtn't to haveasked Charlotte to stop. I wish you would keep to the point." And theconversation died off into a wrangle.
She and her mother shopped in silence, spoke little in the train, littleagain in the carriage, which met them at Dorking Station. It had pouredall day and as they ascended through the deep Surrey lanes showers ofwater fell from the over-hanging beech-trees and rattled on the hood.Lucy complained that the hood was stuffy. Leaning forward, she lookedout into the steaming dusk, and watched the carriage-lamp pass like asearch-light over mud and leav
es, and reveal nothing beautiful. "Thecrush when Charlotte gets in will be abominable," she remarked. Forthey were to pick up Miss Bartlett at Summer Street, where she had beendropped as the carriage went down, to pay a call on Mr. Beebe's oldmother. "We shall have to sit three a side, because the trees drop, andyet it isn't raining. Oh, for a little air!" Then she listened to thehorse's hoofs--"He has not told--he has not told." That melody wasblurred by the soft road. "CAN'T we have the hood down?" she demanded,and her mother, with sudden tenderness, said: "Very well, old lady, stopthe horse." And the horse was stopped, and Lucy and Powell wrestled withthe hood, and squirted water down Mrs. Honeychurch's neck. But nowthat the hood was down, she did see something that she would havemissed--there were no lights in the windows of Cissie Villa, and roundthe garden gate she fancied she saw a padlock.
"Is that house to let again, Powell?" she called.
"Yes, miss," he replied.
"Have they gone?"
"It is too far out of town for the young gentleman, and his father'srheumatism has come on, so he can't stop on alone, so they are trying tolet furnished," was the answer.
"They have gone, then?"
"Yes, miss, they have gone."
Lucy sank back. The carriage stopped at the Rectory. She got out to callfor Miss Bartlett. So the Emersons had gone, and all this bother aboutGreece had been unnecessary. Waste! That word seemed to sum up the wholeof life. Wasted plans, wasted money, wasted love, and she had woundedher mother. Was it possible that she had muddled things away? Quitepossible. Other people had. When the maid opened the door, she wasunable to speak, and stared stupidly into the hall.
Miss Bartlett at once came forward, and after a long preamble askeda great favour: might she go to church? Mr. Beebe and his mother hadalready gone, but she had refused to start until she obtained herhostess's full sanction, for it would mean keeping the horse waiting agood ten minutes more.
"Certainly," said the hostess wearily. "I forgot it was Friday. Let'sall go. Powell can go round to the stables."
"Lucy dearest--"
"No church for me, thank you."
A sigh, and they departed. The church was invisible, but up in thedarkness to the left there was a hint of colour. This was a stainedwindow, through which some feeble light was shining, and when the dooropened Lucy heard Mr. Beebe's voice running through the litany to aminute congregation. Even their church, built upon the slope of the hillso artfully, with its beautiful raised transept and its spire of silveryshingle--even their church had lost its charm; and the thing one nevertalked about--religion--was fading like all the other things.
She followed the maid into the Rectory.
Would she object to sitting in Mr. Beebe's study? There was only thatone fire.
She would not object.
Some one was there already, for Lucy heard the words: "A lady to wait,sir."
Old Mr. Emerson was sitting by the fire, with his foot upon agout-stool.
"Oh, Miss Honeychurch, that you should come!" he quavered; and Lucy sawan alteration in him since last Sunday.
Not a word would come to her lips. George she had faced, and could havefaced again, but she had forgotten how to treat his father.
"Miss Honeychurch, dear, we are so sorry! George is so sorry! He thoughthe had a right to try. I cannot blame my boy, and yet I wish he had toldme first. He ought not to have tried. I knew nothing about it at all."
If only she could remember how to behave!
He held up his hand. "But you must not scold him."
Lucy turned her back, and began to look at Mr. Beebe's books.
"I taught him," he quavered, "to trust in love. I said: 'When lovecomes, that is reality.' I said: 'Passion does not blind. No. Passionis sanity, and the woman you love, she is the only person you will everreally understand.'" He sighed: "True, everlastingly true, though my dayis over, and though there is the result. Poor boy! He is so sorry!He said he knew it was madness when you brought your cousin in; thatwhatever you felt you did not mean. Yet"--his voice gathered strength:he spoke out to make certain--"Miss Honeychurch, do you remember Italy?"
Lucy selected a book--a volume of Old Testament commentaries. Holdingit up to her eyes, she said: "I have no wish to discuss Italy or anysubject connected with your son."
"But you do remember it?"
"He has misbehaved himself from the first."
"I only was told that he loved you last Sunday. I never could judgebehaviour. I--I--suppose he has."
Feeling a little steadier, she put the book back and turned round tohim. His face was drooping and swollen, but his eyes, though they weresunken deep, gleamed with a child's courage.
"Why, he has behaved abominably," she said. "I am glad he is sorry. Doyou know what he did?"
"Not 'abominably,'" was the gentle correction. "He only tried when heshould not have tried. You have all you want, Miss Honeychurch: you aregoing to marry the man you love. Do not go out of George's life sayinghe is abominable."
"No, of course," said Lucy, ashamed at the reference to Cecil."'Abominable' is much too strong. I am sorry I used it about your son. Ithink I will go to church, after all. My mother and my cousin have gone.I shall not be so very late--"
"Especially as he has gone under," he said quietly.
"What was that?"
"Gone under naturally." He beat his palms together in silence; his headfell on his chest.
"I don't understand."
"As his mother did."
"But, Mr. Emerson--MR. EMERSON--what are you talking about?"
"When I wouldn't have George baptized," said he.
Lucy was frightened.
"And she agreed that baptism was nothing, but he caught that feverwhen he was twelve and she turned round. She thought it a judgement." Heshuddered. "Oh, horrible, when we had given up that sort of thing andbroken away from her parents. Oh, horrible--worst of all--worse thandeath, when you have made a little clearing in the wilderness, plantedyour little garden, let in your sunlight, and then the weeds creep inagain! A judgement! And our boy had typhoid because no clergyman haddropped water on him in church! Is it possible, Miss Honeychurch? Shallwe slip back into the darkness for ever?"
"I don't know," gasped Lucy. "I don't understand this sort of thing. Iwas not meant to understand it."
"But Mr. Eager--he came when I was out, and acted according to hisprinciples. I don't blame him or any one... but by the time Georgewas well she was ill. He made her think about sin, and she went underthinking about it."
It was thus that Mr. Emerson had murdered his wife in the sight of God.
"Oh, how terrible!" said Lucy, forgetting her own affairs at last.
"He was not baptized," said the old man. "I did hold firm." And helooked with unwavering eyes at the rows of books, as if--at whatcost!--he had won a victory over them. "My boy shall go back to theearth untouched."
She asked whether young Mr. Emerson was ill.
"Oh--last Sunday." He started into the present. "George last Sunday--no,not ill: just gone under. He is never ill. But he is his mother's son.Her eyes were his, and she had that forehead that I think so beautiful,and he will not think it worth while to live. It was always touch andgo. He will live; but he will not think it worth while to live. He willnever think anything worth while. You remember that church at Florence?"
Lucy did remember, and how she had suggested that George should collectpostage stamps.
"After you left Florence--horrible. Then we took the house here, and hegoes bathing with your brother, and became better. You saw him bathing?"
"I am so sorry, but it is no good discussing this affair. I am deeplysorry about it."
"Then there came something about a novel. I didn't follow it at all; Ihad to hear so much, and he minded telling me; he finds me too old. Ah,well, one must have failures. George comes down to-morrow, and takes meup to his London rooms. He can't bear to be about here, and I must bewhere he is."
"Mr. Emerson," cried the girl, "don't leave at least, not on my a
ccount.I am going to Greece. Don't leave your comfortable house."
It was the first time her voice had been kind and he smiled. "How goodeveryone is! And look at Mr. Beebe housing me--came over this morningand heard I was going! Here I am so comfortable with a fire."
"Yes, but you won't go back to London. It's absurd."
"I must be with George; I must make him care to live, and down here hecan't. He says the thought of seeing you and of hearing about you--I amnot justifying him: I am only saying what has happened."
"Oh, Mr. Emerson"--she took hold of his hand--"you mustn't. I've beenbother enough to the world by now. I can't have you moving out of yourhouse when you like it, and perhaps losing money through it--all on myaccount. You must stop! I am just going to Greece."
"All the way to Greece?"
Her manner altered.
"To Greece?"
"So you must stop. You won't talk about this business, I know. I cantrust you both."
"Certainly you can. We either have you in our lives, or leave you to thelife that you have chosen."
"I shouldn't want--"
"I suppose Mr. Vyse is very angry with George? No, it was wrong ofGeorge to try. We have pushed our beliefs too far. I fancy that wedeserve sorrow."
She looked at the books again--black, brown, and that acrid theologicalblue. They surrounded the visitors on every side; they were piled on thetables, they pressed against the very ceiling. To Lucy who could not seethat Mr. Emerson was profoundly religious, and differed from Mr. Beebechiefly by his acknowledgment of passion--it seemed dreadful that theold man should crawl into such a sanctum, when he was unhappy, and bedependent on the bounty of a clergyman.
More certain than ever that she was tired, he offered her his chair.
"No, please sit still. I think I will sit in the carriage."
"Miss Honeychurch, you do sound tired."
"Not a bit," said Lucy, with trembling lips.
"But you are, and there's a look of George about you. And what were yousaying about going abroad?"
She was silent.
"Greece"--and she saw that he was thinking the word over--"Greece; butyou were to be married this year, I thought."
"Not till January, it wasn't," said Lucy, clasping her hands. Would shetell an actual lie when it came to the point?
"I suppose that Mr. Vyse is going with you. I hope--it isn't becauseGeorge spoke that you are both going?"
"No."
"I hope that you will enjoy Greece with Mr. Vyse."
"Thank you."
At that moment Mr. Beebe came back from church. His cassock was coveredwith rain. "That's all right," he said kindly. "I counted on you twokeeping each other company. It's pouring again. The entire congregation,which consists of your cousin, your mother, and my mother, standswaiting in the church, till the carriage fetches it. Did Powell goround?"
"I think so; I'll see."
"No--of course, I'll see. How are the Miss Alans?"
"Very well, thank you."
"Did you tell Mr. Emerson about Greece?"
"I--I did."
"Don't you think it very plucky of her, Mr. Emerson, to undertake thetwo Miss Alans? Now, Miss Honeychurch, go back--keep warm. I think threeis such a courageous number to go travelling." And he hurried off to thestables.
"He is not going," she said hoarsely. "I made a slip. Mr. Vyse does stopbehind in England."
Somehow it was impossible to cheat this old man. To George, to Cecil,she would have lied again; but he seemed so near the end of things, sodignified in his approach to the gulf, of which he gave one account, andthe books that surrounded him another, so mild to the rough paths thathe had traversed, that the true chivalry--not the worn-out chivalryof sex, but the true chivalry that all the young may show to all theold--awoke in her, and, at whatever risk, she told him that Cecil wasnot her companion to Greece. And she spoke so seriously that the riskbecame a certainty, and he, lifting his eyes, said: "You are leavinghim? You are leaving the man you love?"
"I--I had to."
"Why, Miss Honeychurch, why?"
Terror came over her, and she lied again. She made the long, convincingspeech that she had made to Mr. Beebe, and intended to make to the worldwhen she announced that her engagement was no more. He heard her insilence, and then said: "My dear, I am worried about you. It seems tome"--dreamily; she was not alarmed--"that you are in a muddle."
She shook her head.
"Take an old man's word; there's nothing worse than a muddle in all theworld. It is easy to face Death and Fate, and the things that soundso dreadful. It is on my muddles that I look back with horror--on thethings that I might have avoided. We can help one another but little. Iused to think I could teach young people the whole of life, but I knowbetter now, and all my teaching of George has come down to this: bewareof muddle. Do you remember in that church, when you pretended to beannoyed with me and weren't? Do you remember before, when you refusedthe room with the view? Those were muddles--little, but ominous--and Iam fearing that you are in one now." She was silent. "Don't trust me,Miss Honeychurch. Though life is very glorious, it is difficult."She was still silent. "'Life' wrote a friend of mine, 'is a publicperformance on the violin, in which you must learn the instrument as yougo along.' I think he puts it well. Man has to pick up the use of hisfunctions as he goes along--especially the function of Love." Then heburst out excitedly; "That's it; that's what I mean. You love George!"And after his long preamble, the three words burst against Lucy likewaves from the open sea.
"But you do," he went on, not waiting for contradiction. "You love theboy body and soul, plainly, directly, as he loves you, and no other wordexpresses it. You won't marry the other man for his sake."
"How dare you!" gasped Lucy, with the roaring of waters in her ears."Oh, how like a man!--I mean, to suppose that a woman is always thinkingabout a man."
"But you are."
She summoned physical disgust.
"You're shocked, but I mean to shock you. It's the only hope at times. Ican reach you no other way. You must marry, or your life will be wasted.You have gone too far to retreat. I have no time for the tenderness, andthe comradeship, and the poetry, and the things that really matter, andfor which you marry. I know that, with George, you will find them, andthat you love him. Then be his wife. He is already part of you. Thoughyou fly to Greece, and never see him again, or forget his very name,George will work in your thoughts till you die. It isn't possible tolove and to part. You will wish that it was. You can transmute love,ignore it, muddle it, but you can never pull it out of you. I know byexperience that the poets are right: love is eternal."
Lucy began to cry with anger, and though her anger passed away soon, hertears remained.
"I only wish poets would say this, too: love is of the body; notthe body, but of the body. Ah! the misery that would be saved if weconfessed that! Ah! for a little directness to liberate the soul! Yoursoul, dear Lucy! I hate the word now, because of all the cant with whichsuperstition has wrapped it round. But we have souls. I cannot say howthey came nor whither they go, but we have them, and I see you ruiningyours. I cannot bear it. It is again the darkness creeping in; itis hell." Then he checked himself. "What nonsense I have talked--howabstract and remote! And I have made you cry! Dear girl, forgive myprosiness; marry my boy. When I think what life is, and how seldom loveis answered by love--Marry him; it is one of the moments for which theworld was made."
She could not understand him; the words were indeed remote. Yet as hespoke the darkness was withdrawn, veil after veil, and she saw to thebottom of her soul.
"Then, Lucy--"
"You've frightened me," she moaned. "Cecil--Mr. Beebe--the ticket'sbought--everything." She fell sobbing into the chair. "I'm caught inthe tangle. I must suffer and grow old away from him. I cannot break thewhole of life for his sake. They trusted me."
A carriage drew up at the front-door.
"Give George my love--once only. Tell him 'muddle.'" Then she arrangedher veil, while the tea
rs poured over her cheeks inside.
"Lucy--"
"No--they are in the hall--oh, please not, Mr. Emerson--they trust me--"
"But why should they, when you have deceived them?"
Mr. Beebe opened the door, saying: "Here's my mother."
"You're not worthy of their trust."
"What's that?" said Mr. Beebe sharply.
"I was saying, why should you trust her when she deceived you?"
"One minute, mother." He came in and shut the door.
"I don't follow you, Mr. Emerson. To whom do you refer? Trust whom?"
"I mean she has pretended to you that she did not love George. They haveloved one another all along."
Mr. Beebe looked at the sobbing girl. He was very quiet, and his whiteface, with its ruddy whiskers, seemed suddenly inhuman. A long blackcolumn, he stood and awaited her reply.
"I shall never marry him," quavered Lucy.
A look of contempt came over him, and he said, "Why not?"
"Mr. Beebe--I have misled you--I have misled myself--"
"Oh, rubbish, Miss Honeychurch!"
"It is not rubbish!" said the old man hotly. "It's the part of peoplethat you don't understand."
Mr. Beebe laid his hand on the old man's shoulder pleasantly.
"Lucy! Lucy!" called voices from the carriage.
"Mr. Beebe, could you help me?"
He looked amazed at the request, and said in a low, stern voice: "Iam more grieved than I can possibly express. It is lamentable,lamentable--incredible."
"What's wrong with the boy?" fired up the other again.
"Nothing, Mr. Emerson, except that he no longer interests me. MarryGeorge, Miss Honeychurch. He will do admirably."
He walked out and left them. They heard him guiding his motherup-stairs.
"Lucy!" the voices called.
She turned to Mr. Emerson in despair. But his face revived her. It wasthe face of a saint who understood.
"Now it is all dark. Now Beauty and Passion seem never to have existed.I know. But remember the mountains over Florence and the view. Ah, dear,if I were George, and gave you one kiss, it would make you brave. Youhave to go cold into a battle that needs warmth, out into the muddlethat you have made yourself; and your mother and all your friendswill despise you, oh, my darling, and rightly, if it is ever right todespise. George still dark, all the tussle and the misery without a wordfrom him. Am I justified?" Into his own eyes tears came. "Yes, for wefight for more than Love or Pleasure; there is Truth. Truth counts,Truth does count."
"You kiss me," said the girl. "You kiss me. I will try."
He gave her a sense of deities reconciled, a feeling that, in gainingthe man she loved, she would gain something for the whole world.Throughout the squalor of her homeward drive--she spoke at once--hissalutation remained. He had robbed the body of its taint, the world'staunts of their sting; he had shown her the holiness of direct desire.She "never exactly understood," she would say in after years, "how hemanaged to strengthen her. It was as if he had made her see the whole ofeverything at once."
Chapter XX: The End of the Middle Ages
The Miss Alans did go to Greece, but they went by themselves. They aloneof this little company will double Malea and plough the waters of theSaronic gulf. They alone will visit Athens and Delphi, and either shrineof intellectual song--that upon the Acropolis, encircled by blue seas;that under Parnassus, where the eagles build and the bronze charioteerdrives undismayed towards infinity. Trembling, anxious, cumbered withmuch digestive bread, they did proceed to Constantinople, they did goround the world. The rest of us must be contented with a fair, but aless arduous, goal. Italiam petimus: we return to the Pension Bertolini.
George said it was his old room.
"No, it isn't," said Lucy; "because it is the room I had, and I had yourfather's room. I forget why; Charlotte made me, for some reason."
He knelt on the tiled floor, and laid his face in her lap.
"George, you baby, get up."
"Why shouldn't I be a baby?" murmured George.
Unable to answer this question, she put down his sock, which she wastrying to mend, and gazed out through the window. It was evening andagain the spring.
"Oh, bother Charlotte," she said thoughtfully. "What can such people bemade of?"
"Same stuff as parsons are made of."
"Nonsense!"
"Quite right. It is nonsense."
"Now you get up off the cold floor, or you'll be starting rheumatismnext, and you stop laughing and being so silly."
"Why shouldn't I laugh?" he asked, pinning her with his elbows, andadvancing his face to hers. "What's there to cry at? Kiss me here." Heindicated the spot where a kiss would be welcome.
He was a boy after all. When it came to the point, it was she whoremembered the past, she into whose soul the iron had entered, shewho knew whose room this had been last year. It endeared him to herstrangely that he should be sometimes wrong.
"Any letters?" he asked.
"Just a line from Freddy."
"Now kiss me here; then here."
Then, threatened again with rheumatism, he strolled to the window,opened it (as the English will), and leant out. There was the parapet,there the river, there to the left the beginnings of the hills. Thecab-driver, who at once saluted him with the hiss of a serpent, mightbe that very Phaethon who had set this happiness in motion twelvemonths ago. A passion of gratitude--all feelings grow to passions in theSouth--came over the husband, and he blessed the people and the thingswho had taken so much trouble about a young fool. He had helped himself,it is true, but how stupidly!
All the fighting that mattered had been done by others--by Italy, by hisfather, by his wife.
"Lucy, you come and look at the cypresses; and the church, whatever itsname is, still shows."
"San Miniato. I'll just finish your sock."
"Signorino, domani faremo uno giro," called the cabman, with engagingcertainty.
George told him that he was mistaken; they had no money to throw away ondriving.
And the people who had not meant to help--the Miss Lavishes, the Cecils,the Miss Bartletts! Ever prone to magnify Fate, George counted up theforces that had swept him into this contentment.
"Anything good in Freddy's letter?"
"Not yet."
His own content was absolute, but hers held bitterness: theHoneychurches had not forgiven them; they were disgusted at her pasthypocrisy; she had alienated Windy Corner, perhaps for ever.
"What does he say?"
"Silly boy! He thinks he's being dignified. He knew we should go off inthe spring--he has known it for six months--that if mother wouldn't giveher consent we should take the thing into our own hands. They had fairwarning, and now he calls it an elopement. Ridiculous boy--"
"Signorino, domani faremo uno giro--"
"But it will all come right in the end. He has to build us both upfrom the beginning again. I wish, though, that Cecil had not turned socynical about women. He has, for the second time, quite altered. Whywill men have theories about women? I haven't any about men. I wish,too, that Mr. Beebe--"
"You may well wish that."
"He will never forgive us--I mean, he will never be interested in usagain. I wish that he did not influence them so much at Windy Corner. Iwish he hadn't--But if we act the truth, the people who really love usare sure to come back to us in the long run."
"Perhaps." Then he said more gently: "Well, I acted the truth--theonly thing I did do--and you came back to me. So possibly you know." Heturned back into the room. "Nonsense with that sock." He carried herto the window, so that she, too, saw all the view. They sank upon theirknees, invisible from the road, they hoped, and began to whisper oneanother's names. Ah! it was worth while; it was the great joy that theyhad expected, and countless little joys of which they had never dreamt.They were silent.
"Signorino, domani faremo--"
"Oh, bother that man!"
But Lucy remembered the vendor of photographs
and said, "No, don't berude to him." Then with a catching of her breath, she murmured: "Mr.Eager and Charlotte, dreadful frozen Charlotte. How cruel she would beto a man like that!"
"Look at the lights going over the bridge."
"But this room reminds me of Charlotte. How horrible to grow old inCharlotte's way! To think that evening at the rectory that she shouldn'thave heard your father was in the house. For she would have stopped megoing in, and he was the only person alive who could have made me seesense. You couldn't have made me. When I am very happy"--she kissedhim--"I remember on how little it all hangs. If Charlotte had onlyknown, she would have stopped me going in, and I should have gone tosilly Greece, and become different for ever."
"But she did know," said George; "she did see my father, surely. He saidso."
"Oh, no, she didn't see him. She was upstairs with old Mrs. Beebe, don'tyou remember, and then went straight to the church. She said so."
George was obstinate again. "My father," said he, "saw her, and I preferhis word. He was dozing by the study fire, and he opened his eyes,and there was Miss Bartlett. A few minutes before you came in. She wasturning to go as he woke up. He didn't speak to her."
Then they spoke of other things--the desultory talk of those who havebeen fighting to reach one another, and whose reward is to rest quietlyin each other's arms. It was long ere they returned to Miss Bartlett,but when they did her behaviour seemed more interesting. George, whodisliked any darkness, said: "It's clear that she knew. Then, whydid she risk the meeting? She knew he was there, and yet she went tochurch."
They tried to piece the thing together.
As they talked, an incredible solution came into Lucy's mind. Sherejected it, and said: "How like Charlotte to undo her work by a feeblemuddle at the last moment." But something in the dying evening, in theroar of the river, in their very embrace warned them that her words fellshort of life, and George whispered: "Or did she mean it?"
"Mean what?"
"Signorino, domani faremo uno giro--"
Lucy bent forward and said with gentleness: "Lascia, prego, lascia.Siamo sposati."
"Scusi tanto, signora," he replied in tones as gentle and whipped up hishorse.
"Buona sera--e grazie."
"Niente."
The cabman drove away singing.
"Mean what, George?"
He whispered: "Is it this? Is this possible? I'll put a marvel to you.That your cousin has always hoped. That from the very first moment wemet, she hoped, far down in her mind, that we should be like this--ofcourse, very far down. That she fought us on the surface, and yet shehoped. I can't explain her any other way. Can you? Look how she kept mealive in you all the summer; how she gave you no peace; how month aftermonth she became more eccentric and unreliable. The sight of us hauntedher--or she couldn't have described us as she did to her friend. Thereare details--it burnt. I read the book afterwards. She is not frozen,Lucy, she is not withered up all through. She tore us apart twice, butin the rectory that evening she was given one more chance to make ushappy. We can never make friends with her or thank her. But I do believethat, far down in her heart, far below all speech and behaviour, she isglad."
"It is impossible," murmured Lucy, and then, remembering the experiencesof her own heart, she said: "No--it is just possible."
Youth enwrapped them; the song of Phaethon announced passion requited,love attained. But they were conscious of a love more mysterious thanthis. The song died away; they heard the river, bearing down the snowsof winter into the Mediterranean.
A Room with a View Page 19