A Room With a View, E. M. Forster [great books to read TXT] 📗

“What on earth are those people doing upstairs? Emerson⁠—we think we’ll come another time.”

George ran downstairs and pushed them into the room without speaking.

“Let me introduce Mr. Honeychurch, a neighbour.”

Then Freddy hurled one of the thunderbolts of youth. Perhaps he was shy, perhaps he was friendly, or perhaps he thought that George’s face wanted washing. At all events he greeted him with, “How d’ye do? Come and have a bathe.”

“Oh, all right,” said George, impassive.

Mr. Beebe was highly entertained.

“ ‘How d’ye do? how d’ye do? Come and have a bathe,’ ” he chuckled. “That’s the best conversational opening I’ve ever heard. But I’m afraid it will only act between men. Can you picture a lady who has been introduced to another lady by a third lady opening civilities with ‘How do you do? Come and have a bathe’? And yet you will tell me that the sexes are equal.”

“I tell you that they shall be,” said Mr. Emerson, who had been slowly descending the stairs. “Good afternoon, Mr. Beebe. I tell you they shall be comrades, and George thinks the same.”

“We are to raise ladies to our level?” the clergyman inquired.

“The Garden of Eden,” pursued Mr. Emerson, still descending, “which you place in the past, is really yet to come. We shall enter it when we no longer despise our bodies.”

Mr. Beebe disclaimed placing the Garden of Eden anywhere.

“In this⁠—not in other things⁠—we men are ahead. We despise the body less than women do. But not until we are comrades shall we enter the garden.”

“I say, what about this bathe?” murmured Freddy, appalled at the mass of philosophy that was approaching him.

“I believed in a return to Nature once. But how can we return to Nature when we have never been with her? Today, I believe that we must discover Nature. After many conquests we shall attain simplicity. It is our heritage.”

“Let me introduce Mr. Honeychurch, whose sister you will remember at Florence.”

“How do you do? Very glad to see you, and that you are taking George for a bathe. Very glad to hear that your sister is going to marry. Marriage is a duty. I am sure that she will be happy, for we know Mr. Vyse, too. He has been most kind. He met us by chance in the National Gallery, and arranged everything about this delightful house. Though I hope I have not vexed Sir Harry Otway. I have met so few Liberal landowners, and I was anxious to compare his attitude towards the game laws with the Conservative attitude. Ah, this wind! You do well to bathe. Yours is a glorious country, Honeychurch!”

“Not a bit!” mumbled Freddy. “I must⁠—that is to say, I have to⁠—have the pleasure of calling on you later on, my mother says, I hope.”

“Call, my lad? Who taught us that drawing-room twaddle? Call on your grandmother! Listen to the wind among the pines! Yours is a glorious country.”

Mr. Beebe came to the rescue.

“Mr. Emerson, he will call, I shall call; you or your son will return our calls before ten days have elapsed. I trust that you have realized about the ten days’ interval. It does not count that I helped you with the stair-eyes yesterday. It does not count that they are going to bathe this afternoon.”

“Yes, go and bathe, George. Why do you dawdle talking? Bring them back to tea. Bring back some milk, cakes, honey. The change will do you good. George has been working very hard at his office. I can’t believe he’s well.”

George bowed his head, dusty and sombre, exhaling the peculiar smell of one who has handled furniture.

“Do you really want this bathe?” Freddy asked him. “It is only a pond, don’t you know. I dare say you are used to something better.”

“Yes⁠—I have said ‘Yes’ already.”

Mr. Beebe felt bound to assist his young friend, and led the way out of the house and into the pine-woods. How glorious it was! For a little time the voice of old Mr. Emerson pursued them dispensing good wishes and philosophy. It ceased, and they only heard the fair wind blowing the bracken and the trees. Mr. Beebe, who could be silent, but who could not bear silence, was compelled to chatter, since the expedition looked like a failure, and neither of his companions would utter a word. He spoke of Florence. George attended gravely, assenting or dissenting with slight but determined gestures that were as inexplicable as the motions of the treetops above their heads.

“And what a coincidence that you should meet Mr. Vyse! Did you realize that you would find all the Pension Bertolini down here?”

“I did not. Miss Lavish told me.”

“When I was a young man, I always meant to write a ‘History of Coincidence.’ ”

No enthusiasm.

“Though, as a matter of fact, coincidences are much rarer than we suppose. For example, it isn’t purely coincidentally that you are here now, when one comes to reflect.”

To his relief, George began to talk.

“It is. I have reflected. It is Fate. Everything is Fate. We are flung together by Fate, drawn apart by Fate⁠—flung together, drawn apart. The twelve winds blow us⁠—we settle nothing⁠—”

“You have not reflected at all,” rapped the clergyman. “Let me give you a useful tip, Emerson: attribute nothing to Fate. Don’t say, ‘I didn’t do this,’ for you did it, ten to one. Now I’ll cross-question you. Where did you first meet Miss Honeychurch and myself?”

“Italy.”

“And where did you meet Mr. Vyse, who is going to marry Miss Honeychurch?”

“National Gallery.”

“Looking at Italian art. There you are, and yet you talk of coincidence and Fate. You naturally seek out things Italian, and so do we and our friends. This narrows the field immeasurably we meet again in it.”

“It is Fate that I am here,” persisted George. “But you can call it Italy if it makes you less unhappy.”

Mr. Beebe slid away from such heavy treatment of the subject. But he was infinitely tolerant of the young, and had no desire to snub George.

“And so for this and for other reasons my ‘History of Coincidence’ is still to write.”

Silence.

Wishing to round off