A Room With A View, E. M. Forster [best mystery novels of all time txt] 📗

Beebe,” said Freddy, “but have you any matches?”

“I have,” said Cecil, and it did not escape Mr. Beebe’s notice that he spoke to the boy more kindly.

“You have never met these Miss Alans, have you, Mr. Vyse?”

“Never.”

“Then you don’t see the wonder of this Greek visit. I haven’t been to Greece myself, and don’t mean to go, and I can’t imagine any of my friends going. It is altogether too big for our little lot. Don’t you think so? Italy is just about as much as we can manage. Italy is heroic, but Greece is godlike or devilish—I am not sure which, and in either case absolutely out of our suburban focus. All right, Freddy—I am not being clever, upon my word I am not—I took the idea from another fellow; and give me those matches when you’ve done with them.” He lit a cigarette, and went on talking to the two young men. “I was saying, if our poor little Cockney lives must have a background, let it be Italian. Big enough in all conscience. The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel for me. There the contrast is just as much as I can realize. But not the Parthenon, not the frieze of Phidias at any price; and here comes the victoria.”

“You’re quite right,” said Cecil. “Greece is not for our little lot”; and he got in. Freddy followed, nodding to the clergyman, whom he trusted not to be pulling one’s leg, really. And before they had gone a dozen yards he jumped out, and came running back for Vyse’s match-box, which had not been returned. As he took it, he said: “I’m so glad you only talked about books. Cecil’s hard hit. Lucy won’t marry him. If you’d gone on about her, as you did about them, he might have broken down.”

“But when—”

“Late last night. I must go.”

“Perhaps they won’t want me down there.”

“No—go on. Good-bye.”

“Thank goodness!” exclaimed Mr. Beebe to himself, and struck the saddle of his bicycle approvingly, “It was the one foolish thing she ever did. Oh, what a glorious riddance!” And, after a little thought, he negotiated the slope into Windy Corner, light of heart. The house was again as it ought to be—cut off forever from Cecil’s pretentious world.

He would find Miss Minnie down in the garden.

In the drawing-room Lucy was tinkling at a Mozart Sonata. He hesitated a moment, but went down the garden as requested. There he found a mournful company. It was a blustering day, and the wind had taken and broken the dahlias. Mrs. Honeychurch, who looked cross, was tying them up, while Miss Bartlett, unsuitably dressed, impeded her with offers of assistance. At a little distance stood Minnie and the “garden-child,” a minute importation, each holding either end of a long piece of bass.

“Oh, how do you do, Mr. Beebe? Gracious what a mess everything is! Look at my scarlet pompons, and the wind blowing your skirts about, and the ground so hard that not a prop will stick in, and then the carriage having to go out, when I had counted on having Powell, who—give every one their due—does tie up dahlias properly.”

Evidently Mrs. Honeychurch was shattered.

“How do you do?” said Miss Bartlett, with a meaning glance, as though conveying that more than dahlias had been broken off by the autumn gales.

“Here, Lennie, the bass,” cried Mrs. Honeychurch. The garden-child, who did not know what bass was, stood rooted to the path with horror. Minnie slipped to her uncle and whispered that every one was very disagreeable to-day, and that it was not her fault if dahlia-strings would tear longways instead of across.

“Come for a walk with me,” he told her. “You have worried them as much as they can stand. Mrs. Honeychurch, I only called in aimlessly. I shall take her up to tea at the Beehive Tavern, if I may.”

“Oh, must you? Yes do.—Not the scissors, thank you, Charlotte, when both my hands are full already—I’m perfectly certain that the orange cactus will go before I can get to it.”

Mr. Beebe, who was an adept at relieving situations, invited Miss Bartlett to accompany them to this mild festivity.

“Yes, Charlotte, I don’t want you—do go; there’s nothing to stop about for, either in the house or out of it.”

Miss Bartlett said that her duty lay in the dahlia bed, but when she had exasperated every one, except Minnie, by a refusal, she turned round and exasperated Minnie by an acceptance. As they walked up the garden, the orange cactus fell, and Mr. Beebe’s last vision was of the garden-child clasping it like a lover, his dark head buried in a wealth of blossom.

“It is terrible, this havoc among the flowers,” he remarked.

“It is always terrible when the promise of months is destroyed in a moment,” enunciated Miss Bartlett.

“Perhaps we ought to send Miss Honeychurch down to her mother. Or will she come with us?”

“I think we had better leave Lucy to herself, and to her own pursuits.”

“They’re angry with Miss Honeychurch because she was late for breakfast,” whispered Minnie, “and Floyd has gone, and Mr. Vyse has gone, and Freddy won’t play with me. In fact, Uncle Arthur, the house is not AT ALL what it was yesterday.”

“Don’t be a prig,” said her Uncle Arthur. “Go and put on your boots.”

He stepped into the drawing-room, where Lucy was still attentively pursuing the Sonatas of Mozart. She stopped when he entered.

“How do you do? Miss Bartlett and Minnie are coming with me to tea at the Beehive. Would you come too?”

“I don’t think I will, thank you.”

“No, I didn’t suppose you would care to much.”

Lucy turned to the piano and struck a few chords.

“How delicate those Sonatas are!” said Mr. Beebe, though at the bottom of his heart, he thought them silly little things.

Lucy passed into Schumann.

“Miss Honeychurch!”

“Yes.”

“I met them on the hill. Your brother told me.”

“Oh he did?” She sounded annoyed. Mr. Beebe felt hurt, for he had thought that she would like him to be told.

“I needn’t say that it will go no further.”

“Mother, Charlotte, Cecil, Freddy, you,” said Lucy, playing a note for each person who knew, and then playing a sixth note.

“If you’ll let me say so, I am very glad, and I am certain that you have done the right thing.”

“So I hoped other people would think, but they don’t seem to.”

“I could see that Miss Bartlett thought it unwise.”

“So does mother. Mother minds dreadfully.”

“I am very sorry for that,” said Mr. Beebe with feeling.

Mrs. Honeychurch, who hated all changes, did mind, but not nearly as much as her daughter pretended, and only for the minute. It was really a ruse of Lucy’s to justify her despondency—a ruse of which she was not herself conscious, for she was marching in the armies of darkness.

“And Freddy minds.”

“Still, Freddy never hit it off with Vyse much, did he? I gathered that he disliked the engagement, and felt it might separate him from you.”

“Boys are so odd.”

Minnie could be heard arguing with Miss Bartlett through the floor. Tea at the Beehive apparently involved a complete change of apparel. Mr. Beebe saw that Lucy—very properly—did not wish to discuss her action, so after a sincere expression of sympathy, he said, “I have had an absurd letter from Miss Alan. That was really what brought me over. I thought it might amuse you all.”

“How delightful!” said Lucy, in a dull voice.

For the sake of something to do, he began to read her the letter. After a few words her eyes grew alert, and soon she interrupted him with “Going abroad? When do they start?”

“Next week, I gather.”

“Did Freddy say whether he was driving straight back?”

“No, he didn’t.”

“Because I do hope he won’t go gossiping.”

So she did want to talk about her broken engagement. Always complaisant, he put the letter away. But she, at once exclaimed in a high voice, “Oh, do tell me more about the Miss Alans! How perfectly splendid of them to go abroad!”

“I want them to start from Venice, and go in a cargo steamer down the Illyrian coast!”

She laughed heartily. “Oh, delightful! I wish they’d take me.”

“Has Italy filled you with the fever of travel? Perhaps George Emerson is right. He says that ‘Italy is only an euphuism for Fate.’”

“Oh, not Italy, but Constantinople. I have always longed to go to Constantinople. Constantinople is practically Asia, isn’t it?”

Mr. Beebe reminded her that Constantinople was still unlikely, and that the Miss Alans only aimed at Athens, “with Delphi, perhaps, if the roads are safe.” But this made no difference to her enthusiasm. She had always longed to go to Greece even more, it seemed. He saw, to his surprise, that she was apparently serious.

“I didn’t realize that you and the Miss Alans were still such friends, after Cissie Villa.”

“Oh, that’s nothing; I assure you Cissie Villa’s nothing to me; I would give anything to go with them.”

“Would your mother spare you again so soon? You have scarcely been home three months.”

“She MUST spare me!” cried Lucy, in growing excitement. “I simply MUST go away. I have to.” She ran her fingers hysterically through her hair. “Don’t you see that I HAVE to go away? I didn’t realize at the time—and of course I want to see Constantinople so particularly.”

“You mean that since you have broken off your engagement you feel—”

“Yes, yes. I knew you’d understand.”

Mr. Beebe did not quite understand. Why could not Miss Honeychurch repose in the bosom of her family? Cecil had evidently taken up the dignified line, and was not going to annoy her. Then it struck him that her family itself might be annoying. He hinted this to her, and she accepted the hint eagerly.

“Yes, of course; to go to Constantinople until they are used to the idea and everything has calmed down.”

“I am afraid it has been a bothersome business,” he said gently.

“No, not at all. Cecil was very kind indeed; only—I had better tell you the whole truth, since you have heard a little—it was that he is so masterful. I found that he wouldn’t let me go my own way. He would improve me in places where I can’t be improved. Cecil won’t let a woman decide for herself—in fact, he daren’t. What nonsense I do talk! but that is the kind of thing.”

“It is what I gathered from my own observation of Mr. Vyse; it is what I gather from all that I have known of you. I do sympathize and agree most profoundly. I agree so much that you must let me make one little criticism: Is it worth while rushing off to Greece?”

“But I must go somewhere!” she cried. “I have been worrying all the morning, and here comes the very thing.” She struck her knees with clenched fists, and repeated: “I must! And the time I shall have with mother, and all the money she spent on me last spring. You all think much too highly of me. I wish you weren’t so kind.” At this moment Miss Bartlett entered, and her nervousness increased. “I must get away, ever so far. I must know my own mind and where I want to go.”

“Come along; tea, tea, tea,” said Mr. Beebe, and bustled his guests out of the front-door. He hustled them so quickly that he forgot his hat. When he returned for it he heard, to his relief and surprise, the tinkling of a Mozart Sonata.

“She is playing again,” he said to Miss Bartlett.

“Lucy can always play,” was the acid reply.

“One is very thankful that she