الفصل الفصل 3 · 第3章

Music, Violets, and the Letter “S”

It so happened that Lucy, who found daily life rather chaotic, entered

a more solid world when she opened the piano. She was then no longer

either deferential or patronizing; no longer either a rebel or a slave.

The kingdom of music is not the kingdom of this world; it will accept

those whom breeding and intellect and culture have alike rejected. The

commonplace person begins to play, and shoots into the empyrean without

effort, whilst we look up, marvelling how he has escaped us, and

thinking how we could worship him and love him, would he but translate

his visions into human words, and his experiences into human actions.

Perhaps he cannot; certainly he does not, or does so very seldom. Lucy

had done so never.

She was no dazzling _exécutante;_ her runs were not at all like strings

of pearls, and she struck no more right notes than was suitable for one

of her age and situation. Nor was she the passionate young lady, who

performs so tragically on a summer’s evening with the window open.

Passion was there, but it could not be easily labelled; it slipped

between love and hatred and jealousy, and all the furniture of the

pictorial style. And she was tragical only in the sense that she was

great, for she loved to play on the side of Victory. Victory of what

and over what—that is more than the words of daily life can tell us.

But that some sonatas of Beethoven are written tragic no one can

gainsay; yet they can triumph or despair as the player decides, and

Lucy had decided that they should triumph.

A very wet afternoon at the Bertolini permitted her to do the thing she

really liked, and after lunch she opened the little draped piano. A few

people lingered round and praised her playing, but finding that she

made no reply, dispersed to their rooms to write up their diaries or to

sleep. She took no notice of Mr. Emerson looking for his son, nor of

Miss Bartlett looking for Miss Lavish, nor of Miss Lavish looking for

her cigarette-case. Like every true performer, she was intoxicated by

the mere feel of the notes: they were fingers caressing her own; and by

touch, not by sound alone, did she come to her desire.

Mr. Beebe, sitting unnoticed in the window, pondered this illogical

element in Miss Honeychurch, and recalled the occasion at Tunbridge

Wells when he had discovered it. It was at one of those entertainments

where the upper classes entertain the lower. The seats were filled with

a respectful audience, and the ladies and gentlemen of the parish,

under the auspices of their vicar, sang, or recited, or imitated the

drawing of a champagne cork. Among the promised items was “Miss

Honeychurch. Piano. Beethoven,” and Mr. Beebe was wondering whether it

would be Adelaida, or the march of The Ruins of Athens, when his

composure was disturbed by the opening bars of Opus 111. He was in

suspense all through the introduction, for not until the pace quickens

does one know what the performer intends. With the roar of the opening

theme he knew that things were going extraordinarily; in the chords

that herald the conclusion he heard the hammer strokes of victory. He

was glad that she only played the first movement, for he could have

paid no attention to the winding intricacies of the measures of

nine-sixteen. The audience clapped, no less respectful. It was Mr.

Beebe who started the stamping; it was all that one could do.

“Who is she?” he asked the vicar afterwards.

“Cousin of one of my parishioners. I do not consider her choice of a

piece happy. Beethoven is so usually simple and direct in his appeal

that it is sheer perversity to choose a thing like that, which, if

anything, disturbs.”

“Introduce me.”

“She will be delighted. She and Miss Bartlett are full of the praises

of your sermon.”

“My sermon?” cried Mr. Beebe. “Why ever did she listen to it?”

When he was introduced he understood why, for Miss Honeychurch,

disjoined from her music stool, was only a young lady with a quantity

of dark hair and a very pretty, pale, undeveloped face. She loved going

to concerts, she loved stopping with her cousin, she loved iced coffee

and meringues. He did not doubt that she loved his sermon also. But

before he left Tunbridge Wells he made a remark to the vicar, which he

now made to Lucy herself when she closed the little piano and moved

dreamily towards him:

“If Miss Honeychurch ever takes to live as she plays, it will be very

exciting both for us and for her.”

Lucy at once re-entered daily life.

“Oh, what a funny thing! Some one said just the same to mother, and she

said she trusted I should never live a duet.”

“Doesn’t Mrs. Honeychurch like music?”

“She doesn’t mind it. But she doesn’t like one to get excited over

anything; she thinks I am silly about it. She thinks—I can’t make out.

Once, you know, I said that I liked my own playing better than any

one’s. She has never got over it. Of course, I didn’t mean that I

played well; I only meant—”

“Of course,” said he, wondering why she bothered to explain.

“Music—” said Lucy, as if attempting some generality. She could not

complete it, and looked out absently upon Italy in the wet. The whole

life of the South was disorganized, and the most graceful nation in

Europe had turned into formless lumps of clothes.

The street and the river were dirty yellow, the bridge was dirty grey,

and the hills were dirty purple. Somewhere in their folds were

concealed Miss Lavish and Miss Bartlett, who had chosen this afternoon

to visit the Torre del Gallo.

“What about music?” said Mr. Beebe.

“Poor Charlotte will be sopped,” was Lucy’s reply.

The expedition was typical of Miss Bartlett, who would return cold,

tired, hungry, and angelic, with a ruined skirt, a pulpy Baedeker, and

a tickling cough in her throat. On another day, when the whole world

was singing and the air ran into the mouth, like wine, she would refuse

to stir from the drawing-room, saying that she was an old thing, and no

fit companion for a hearty girl.

“Miss Lavish has led your cousin astray. She hopes to find the true

Italy in the wet I believe.”

“Miss Lavish is so original,” murmured Lucy. This was a stock remark,

the supreme achievement of the Pension Bertolini in the way of

definition. Miss Lavish was so original. Mr. Beebe had his doubts, but

they would have been put down to clerical narrowness. For that, and for

other reasons, he held his peace.

“Is it true,” continued Lucy in awe-struck tone, “that Miss Lavish is

writing a book?”

“They do say so.”

“What is it about?”

“It will be a novel,” replied Mr. Beebe, “dealing with modern Italy.

Let me refer you for an account to Miss Catharine Alan, who uses words

herself more admirably than any one I know.”

“I wish Miss Lavish would tell me herself. We started such friends. But

I don’t think she ought to have run away with Baedeker that morning in

Santa Croce. Charlotte was most annoyed at finding me practically

alone, and so I couldn’t help being a little annoyed with Miss Lavish.”

“The two ladies, at all events, have made it up.”

He was interested in the sudden friendship between women so apparently

dissimilar as Miss Bartlett and Miss Lavish. They were always in each

other’s company, with Lucy a slighted third. Miss Lavish he believed he

understood, but Miss Bartlett might reveal unknown depths of

strangeness, though not perhaps, of meaning. Was Italy deflecting her

from the path of prim chaperon, which he had assigned to her at

Tunbridge Wells? All his life he had loved to study maiden ladies; they

were his specialty, and his profession had provided him with ample

opportunities for the work. Girls like Lucy were charming to look at,

but Mr. Beebe was, from rather profound reasons, somewhat chilly in his

attitude towards the other sex, and preferred to be interested rather

than enthralled.

Lucy, for the third time, said that poor Charlotte would be sopped. The

Arno was rising in flood, washing away the traces of the little carts

upon the foreshore. But in the south-west there had appeared a dull

haze of yellow, which might mean better weather if it did not mean

worse. She opened the window to inspect, and a cold blast entered the

room, drawing a plaintive cry from Miss Catharine Alan, who entered at

the same moment by the door.

“Oh, dear Miss Honeychurch, you will catch a chill! And Mr. Beebe here

besides. Who would suppose this is Italy? There is my sister actually

nursing the hot-water can; no comforts or proper provisions.”

She sidled towards them and sat down, self-conscious as she always was

on entering a room which contained one man, or a man and one woman.

“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.”