Kabanata Kabanata 8 · 第8章

Medieval

The drawing-room curtains at Windy Corner had been pulled to meet, for

the carpet was new and deserved protection from the August sun. They

were heavy curtains, reaching almost to the ground, and the light that

filtered through them was subdued and varied. A poet—none was

present—might have quoted, “Life like a dome of many coloured glass,”

or might have compared the curtains to sluice-gates, lowered against

the intolerable tides of heaven. Without was poured a sea of radiance;

within, the glory, though visible, was tempered to the capacities of

man.

Two pleasant people sat in the room. One—a boy of nineteen—was studying

a small manual of anatomy, and peering occasionally at a bone which lay

upon the piano. From time to time he bounced in his chair and puffed

and groaned, for the day was hot and the print small, and the human

frame fearfully made; and his mother, who was writing a letter, did

continually read out to him what she had written. And continually did

she rise from her seat and part the curtains so that a rivulet of light

fell across the carpet, and make the remark that they were still there.

“Where aren’t they?” said the boy, who was Freddy, Lucy’s brother. “I

tell you I’m getting fairly sick.”

“For goodness’ sake go out of my drawing-room, then?” cried Mrs.

Honeychurch, who hoped to cure her children of slang by taking it

literally.

Freddy did not move or reply.

“I think things are coming to a head,” she observed, rather wanting her

son’s opinion on the situation if she could obtain it without undue

supplication.

“Time they did.”

“I am glad that Cecil is asking her this once more.”

“It’s his third go, isn’t it?”

“Freddy I do call the way you talk unkind.”

“I didn’t mean to be unkind.” Then he added: “But I do think Lucy might

have got this off her chest in Italy. I don’t know how girls manage

things, but she can’t have said ‘No’ properly before, or she wouldn’t

have to say it again now. Over the whole thing—I can’t explain—I do

feel so uncomfortable.”

“Do you indeed, dear? How interesting!”

“I feel—never mind.”

He returned to his work.

“Just listen to what I have written to Mrs. Vyse. I said: ‘Dear Mrs.

Vyse.’”

“Yes, mother, you told me. A jolly good letter.”

“I said: ‘Dear Mrs. Vyse, Cecil has just asked my permission about it,

and I should be delighted, if Lucy wishes it. But—’” She stopped

reading, “I was rather amused at Cecil asking my permission at all. He

has always gone in for unconventionality, and parents nowhere, and so

forth. When it comes to the point, he can’t get on without me.”

“Nor me.”

“You?”

Freddy nodded.

“What do you mean?”

“He asked me for my permission also.”

She exclaimed: “How very odd of him!”

“Why so?” asked the son and heir. “Why shouldn’t my permission be

asked?”

“What do you know about Lucy or girls or anything? What ever did you

say?”

“I said to Cecil, ‘Take her or leave her; it’s no business of mine!’”

“What a helpful answer!” But her own answer, though more normal in its

wording, had been to the same effect.

“The bother is this,” began Freddy.

Then he took up his work again, too shy to say what the bother was.

Mrs. Honeychurch went back to the window.

“Freddy, you must come. There they still are!”

“I don’t see you ought to go peeping like that.”

“Peeping like that! Can’t I look out of my own window?”

But she returned to the writing-table, observing, as she passed her

son, “Still page 322?” Freddy snorted, and turned over two leaves. For

a brief space they were silent. Close by, beyond the curtains, the

gentle murmur of a long conversation had never ceased.

“The bother is this: I have put my foot in it with Cecil most awfully.”

He gave a nervous gulp. “Not content with ‘permission’, which I did

give—that is to say, I said, ‘I don’t mind’—well, not content with

that, he wanted to know whether I wasn’t off my head with joy. He

practically put it like this: Wasn’t it a splendid thing for Lucy and

for Windy Corner generally if he married her? And he would have an

answer—he said it would strengthen his hand.”

“I hope you gave a careful answer, dear.”

“I answered ‘No’” said the boy, grinding his teeth. “There! Fly into a

stew! I can’t help it—had to say it. I had to say no. He ought never to

have asked me.”

“Ridiculous child!” cried his mother. “You think you’re so holy and

truthful, but really it’s only abominable conceit. Do you suppose that

a man like Cecil would take the slightest notice of anything you say? I

hope he boxed your ears. How dare you say no?”

“Oh, do keep quiet, mother! I had to say no when I couldn’t say yes. I

tried to laugh as if I didn’t mean what I said, and, as Cecil laughed

too, and went away, it may be all right. But I feel my foot’s in it.

Oh, do keep quiet, though, and let a man do some work.”

“No,” said Mrs. Honeychurch, with the air of one who has considered the

subject, “I shall not keep quiet. You know all that has passed between

them in Rome; you know why he is down here, and yet you deliberately

insult him, and try to turn him out of my house.”

“Not a bit!” he pleaded. “I only let out I didn’t like him. I don’t

hate him, but I don’t like him. What I mind is that he’ll tell Lucy.”

He glanced at the curtains dismally.

“Well, _I_ like him,” said Mrs. Honeychurch. “I know his mother; he’s

good, he’s clever, he’s rich, he’s well connected—Oh, you needn’t kick

the piano! He’s well connected—I’ll say it again if you like: he’s well

connected.” She paused, as if rehearsing her eulogy, but her face

remained dissatisfied. She added: “And he has beautiful manners.”

“I liked him till just now. I suppose it’s having him spoiling Lucy’s

first week at home; and it’s also something that Mr. Beebe said, not

knowing.”

“Mr. Beebe?” said his mother, trying to conceal her interest. “I don’t

see how Mr. Beebe comes in.”

“You know Mr. Beebe’s funny way, when you never quite know what he

means. He said: ‘Mr. Vyse is an ideal bachelor.’ I was very cute, I

asked him what he meant. He said ‘Oh, he’s like me—better detached.’ I

couldn’t make him say any more, but it set me thinking. Since Cecil has

come after Lucy he hasn’t been so pleasant, at least—I can’t explain.”

“You never can, dear. But I can. You are jealous of Cecil because he

may stop Lucy knitting you silk ties.”

The explanation seemed plausible, and Freddy tried to accept it. But at

the back of his brain there lurked a dim mistrust. Cecil praised one

too much for being athletic. Was that it? Cecil made one talk in one’s

own way. This tired one. Was that it? And Cecil was the kind of fellow

who would never wear another fellow’s cap. Unaware of his own

profundity, Freddy checked himself. He must be jealous, or he would not

dislike a man for such foolish reasons.

“Will this do?” called his mother. “‘Dear Mrs. Vyse,—Cecil has just

asked my permission about it, and I should be delighted if Lucy wishes

it.’ Then I put in at the top, ‘and I have told Lucy so.’ I must write

the letter out again—‘and I have told Lucy so. But Lucy seems very

uncertain, and in these days young people must decide for themselves.’

I said that because I didn’t want Mrs. Vyse to think us old-fashioned.

She goes in for lectures and improving her mind, and all the time a

thick layer of flue under the beds, and the maid’s dirty thumb-marks

where you turn on the electric light. She keeps that flat abominably—”

“Suppose Lucy marries Cecil, would she live in a flat, or in the

country?”

“Don’t interrupt so foolishly. Where was I? Oh yes—‘Young people must

decide for themselves. I know that Lucy likes your son, because she

tells me everything, and she wrote to me from Rome when he asked her

first.’ No, I’ll cross that last bit out—it looks patronizing. I’ll

stop at ‘because she tells me everything.’ Or shall I cross that out,

too?”

“Cross it out, too,” said Freddy.

Mrs. Honeychurch left it in.

“Then the whole thing runs: ‘Dear Mrs. Vyse.—Cecil has just asked my

permission about it, and I should be delighted if Lucy wishes it, and I

have told Lucy so. But Lucy seems very uncertain, and in these days

young people must decide for themselves. I know that Lucy likes your

son, because she tells me everything. But I do not know—’”

“Look out!” cried Freddy.

The curtains parted.

Cecil’s first movement was one of irritation. He couldn’t bear the

Honeychurch habit of sitting in the dark to save the furniture.

Instinctively he gave the curtains a twitch, and sent them swinging

down their poles. Light entered. There was revealed a terrace, such as

is owned by many villas with trees each side of it, and on it a little

rustic seat, and two flower-beds. But it was transfigured by the view

beyond, for Windy Corner was built on the range that overlooks the

Sussex Weald. Lucy, who was in the little seat, seemed on the edge of a

green magic carpet which hovered in the air above the tremulous world.

Cecil entered.

Appearing thus late in the story, Cecil must be at once described. He

was medieval. Like a Gothic statue. Tall and refined, with shoulders

that seemed braced square by an effort of the will, and a head that was

tilted a little higher than the usual level of vision, he resembled

those fastidious saints who guard the portals of a French cathedral.

Well educated, well endowed, and not deficient physically, he remained

in the grip of a certain devil whom the modern world knows as

self-consciousness, and whom the medieval, with dimmer vision,

worshipped as asceticism. A Gothic statue implies celibacy, just as a

Greek statue implies fruition, and perhaps this was what Mr. Beebe

meant. And Freddy, who ignored history and art, perhaps meant the same

when he failed to imagine Cecil wearing another fellow’s cap.

Mrs. Honeychurch left her letter on the writing table and moved towards

her young acquaintance.

“Oh, Cecil!” she exclaimed—“oh, Cecil, do tell me!”

“I promessi sposi,” said he.

They stared at him anxiously.

“She has accepted me,” he said, and the sound of the thing in English

made him flush and smile with pleasure, and look more human.

“I am so glad,” said Mrs. Honeychurch, while Freddy proffered a hand

that was yellow with chemicals. They wished that they also knew

Italian, for our phrases of approval and of amazement are so connected

with little occasions that we fear to use them on great ones. We are

obliged to become vaguely poetic, or to take refuge in Scriptural

reminiscences.

“Welcome as one of the family!” said Mrs. Honeychurch, waving her hand

at the furniture. “This is indeed a joyous day! I feel sure that you

will make our dear Lucy happy.”

“I hope so,” replied the young man, shifting his eyes to the ceiling.

“We mothers—” simpered Mrs. Honeychurch, and then realized that she was

affected, sentimental, bombastic—all the things she hated most. Why

could she not be Freddy, who stood stiff in the middle of the room;

looking very cross and almost handsome?

“I say, Lucy!” called Cecil, for conversation seemed to flag.

Lucy rose from the seat. She moved across the lawn and smiled in at

them, just as if she was going to ask them to play tennis. Then she saw

her brother’s face. Her lips parted, and she took him in her arms. He

said, “Steady on!”

“Not a kiss for me?” asked her mother.

Lucy kissed her also.

“Would you take them into the garden and tell Mrs. Honeychurch all

about it?” Cecil suggested. “And I’d stop here and tell my mother.”

“We go with Lucy?” said Freddy, as if taking orders.

“Yes, you go with Lucy.”

They passed into the sunlight. Cecil watched them cross the terrace,

and descend out of sight by the steps. They would descend—he knew their

ways—past the shrubbery, and past the tennis-lawn and the dahlia-bed,

until they reached the kitchen garden, and there, in the presence of

the potatoes and the peas, the great event would be discussed.

Smiling indulgently, he lit a cigarette, and rehearsed the events that

had led to such a happy conclusion.

He had known Lucy for several years, but only as a commonplace girl who

happened to be musical. He could still remember his depression that

afternoon at Rome, when she and her terrible cousin fell on him out of

the blue, and demanded to be taken to St. Peter’s. That day she had

seemed a typical tourist—shrill, crude, and gaunt with travel. But

Italy worked some marvel in her. It gave her light, and—which he held

more precious—it gave her shadow. Soon he detected in her a wonderful

reticence. She was like a woman of Leonardo da Vinci’s, whom we love

not so much for herself as for the things that she will not tell us.

The things are assuredly not of this life; no woman of Leonardo’s could

have anything so vulgar as a “story.” She did develop most wonderfully

day by day.

So it happened that from patronizing civility he had slowly passed if

not to passion, at least to a profound uneasiness. Already at Rome he

had hinted to her that they might be suitable for each other. It had

touched him greatly that she had not broken away at the suggestion. Her

refusal had been clear and gentle; after it—as the horrid phrase

went—she had been exactly the same to him as before. Three months

later, on the margin of Italy, among the flower-clad Alps, he had asked

her again in bald, traditional language. She reminded him of a Leonardo

more than ever; her sunburnt features were shadowed by fantastic rock;

at his words she had turned and stood between him and the light with

immeasurable plains behind her. He walked home with her unashamed,

feeling not at all like a rejected suitor. The things that really

mattered were unshaken.

So now he had asked her once more, and, clear and gentle as ever, she

had accepted him, giving no coy reasons for her delay, but simply

saying that she loved him and would do her best to make him happy. His

mother, too, would be pleased; she had counselled the step; he must

write her a long account.

Glancing at his hand, in case any of Freddy’s chemicals had come off on

it, he moved to the writing table. There he saw “Dear Mrs. Vyse,”

followed by many erasures. He recoiled without reading any more, and

after a little hesitation sat down elsewhere, and pencilled a note on

his knee.

Then he lit another cigarette, which did not seem quite as divine as

the first, and considered what might be done to make Windy Corner

drawing-room more distinctive. With that outlook it should have been a

successful room, but the trail of Tottenham Court Road was upon it; he

could almost visualize the motor-vans of Messrs. Shoolbred and Messrs.

Maple arriving at the door and depositing this chair, those varnished

book-cases, that writing-table. The table recalled Mrs. Honeychurch’s

letter. He did not want to read that letter—his temptations never lay

in that direction; but he worried about it none the less. It was his

own fault that she was discussing him with his mother; he had wanted

her support in his third attempt to win Lucy; he wanted to feel that

others, no matter who they were, agreed with him, and so he had asked

their permission. Mrs. Honeychurch had been civil, but obtuse in

essentials, while as for Freddy—“He is only a boy,” he reflected. “I

represent all that he despises. Why should he want me for a

brother-in-law?”

The Honeychurches were a worthy family, but he began to realize that

Lucy was of another clay; and perhaps—he did not put it very

definitely—he ought to introduce her into more congenial circles as

soon as possible.

“Mr. Beebe!” said the maid, and the new rector of Summer Street was

shown in; he had at once started on friendly relations, owing to Lucy’s

praise of him in her letters from Florence.

Cecil greeted him rather critically.

“I’ve come for tea, Mr. Vyse. Do you suppose that I shall get it?”

“I should say so. Food is the thing one does get here—Don’t sit in that

chair; young Honeychurch has left a bone in it.”

“Pfui!”

“I know,” said Cecil. “I know. I can’t think why Mrs. Honeychurch

allows it.”

For Cecil considered the bone and the Maples’ furniture separately; he

did not realize that, taken together, they kindled the room into the

life that he desired.

“I’ve come for tea and for gossip. Isn’t this news?”

“News? I don’t understand you,” said Cecil. “News?”

Mr. Beebe, whose news was of a very different nature, prattled forward.

“I met Sir Harry Otway as I came up; I have every reason to hope that I

am first in the field. He has bought Cissie and Albert from Mr. Flack!”

“Has he indeed?” said Cecil, trying to recover himself. Into what a

grotesque mistake had he fallen! Was it likely that a clergyman and a

gentleman would refer to his engagement in a manner so flippant? But

his stiffness remained, and, though he asked who Cissie and Albert

might be, he still thought Mr. Beebe rather a bounder.

“Unpardonable question! To have stopped a week at Windy Corner and not

to have met Cissie and Albert, the semi-detached villas that have been

run up opposite the church! I’ll set Mrs. Honeychurch after you.”

“I’m shockingly stupid over local affairs,” said the young man

languidly. “I can’t even remember the difference between a Parish

Council and a Local Government Board. Perhaps there is no difference,

or perhaps those aren’t the right names. I only go into the country to

see my friends and to enjoy the scenery. It is very remiss of me. Italy

and London are the only places where I don’t feel to exist on

sufferance.”

Mr. Beebe, distressed at this heavy reception of Cissie and Albert,

determined to shift the subject.

“Let me see, Mr. Vyse—I forget—what is your profession?”

“I have no profession,” said Cecil. “It is another example of my

decadence. My attitude—quite an indefensible one—is that so long as I

am no trouble to any one I have a right to do as I like. I know I ought

to be getting money out of people, or devoting myself to things I don’t

care a straw about, but somehow, I’ve not been able to begin.”

“You are very fortunate,” said Mr. Beebe. “It is a wonderful

opportunity, the possession of leisure.”

His voice was rather parochial, but he did not quite see his way to

answering naturally. He felt, as all who have regular occupation must

feel, that others should have it also.

“I am glad that you approve. I daren’t face the healthy person—for

example, Freddy Honeychurch.”

“Oh, Freddy’s a good sort, isn’t he?”

“Admirable. The sort who has made England what she is.”

Cecil wondered at himself. Why, on this day of all others, was he so

hopelessly contrary? He tried to get right by inquiring effusively

after Mr. Beebe’s mother, an old lady for whom he had no particular

regard. Then he flattered the clergyman, praised his

liberal-mindedness, his enlightened attitude towards philosophy and

science.

“Where are the others?” said Mr. Beebe at last, “I insist on extracting

tea before evening service.”

“I suppose Anne never told them you were here. In this house one is so

coached in the servants the day one arrives. The fault of Anne is that

she begs your pardon when she hears you perfectly, and kicks the

chair-legs with her feet. The faults of Mary—I forget the faults of

Mary, but they are very grave. Shall we look in the garden?”

“I know the faults of Mary. She leaves the dust-pans standing on the

stairs.”

“The fault of Euphemia is that she will not, simply will not, chop the

suet sufficiently small.”

They both laughed, and things began to go better.

“The faults of Freddy—” Cecil continued.

“Ah, he has too many. No one but his mother can remember the faults of

Freddy. Try the faults of Miss Honeychurch; they are not innumerable.”

“She has none,” said the young man, with grave sincerity.

“I quite agree. At present she has none.”

“At present?”

“I’m not cynical. I’m only thinking of my pet theory about Miss

Honeychurch. Does it seem reasonable that she should play so

wonderfully, and live so quietly? I suspect that one day she will be

wonderful in both. The water-tight compartments in her will break down,

and music and life will mingle. Then we shall have her heroically good,

heroically bad—too heroic, perhaps, to be good or bad.”

Cecil found his companion interesting.

“And at present you think her not wonderful as far as life goes?”

“Well, I must say I’ve only seen her at Tunbridge Wells, where she was

not wonderful, and at Florence. Since I came to Summer Street she has

been away. You saw her, didn’t you, at Rome and in the Alps. Oh, I

forgot; of course, you knew her before. No, she wasn’t wonderful in

Florence either, but I kept on expecting that she would be.”

“In what way?”

Conversation had become agreeable to them, and they were pacing up and

down the terrace.

“I could as easily tell you what tune she’ll play next. There was

simply the sense that she had found wings, and meant to use them. I can

show you a beautiful picture in my Italian diary: Miss Honeychurch as a

kite, Miss Bartlett holding the string. Picture number two: the string

breaks.”

The sketch was in his diary, but it had been made afterwards, when he

viewed things artistically. At the time he had given surreptitious tugs

to the string himself.

“But the string never broke?”

“No. I mightn’t have seen Miss Honeychurch rise, but I should certainly

have heard Miss Bartlett fall.”

“It has broken now,” said the young man in low, vibrating tones.

Immediately he realized that of all the conceited, ludicrous,

contemptible ways of announcing an engagement this was the worst. He

cursed his love of metaphor; had he suggested that he was a star and

that Lucy was soaring up to reach him?

“Broken? What do you mean?”

“I meant,” said Cecil stiffly, “that she is going to marry me.”

The clergyman was conscious of some bitter disappointment which he

could not keep out of his voice.

“I am sorry; I must apologize. I had no idea you were intimate with

her, or I should never have talked in this flippant, superficial way.

Mr. Vyse, you ought to have stopped me.” And down the garden he saw

Lucy herself; yes, he was disappointed.

Cecil, who naturally preferred congratulations to apologies, drew down

his mouth at the corners. Was this the reception his action would get

from the world? Of course, he despised the world as a whole; every

thoughtful man should; it is almost a test of refinement. But he was

sensitive to the successive particles of it which he encountered.

Occasionally he could be quite crude.

“I am sorry I have given you a shock,” he said dryly. “I fear that

Lucy’s choice does not meet with your approval.”

“Not that. But you ought to have stopped me. I know Miss Honeychurch

only a little as time goes. Perhaps I oughtn’t to have discussed her so

freely with any one; certainly not with you.”

“You are conscious of having said something indiscreet?”

Mr. Beebe pulled himself together. Really, Mr. Vyse had the art of

placing one in the most tiresome positions. He was driven to use the

prerogatives of his profession.

“No, I have said nothing indiscreet. I foresaw at Florence that her

quiet, uneventful childhood must end, and it has ended. I realized

dimly enough that she might take some momentous step. She has taken it.

She has learnt—you will let me talk freely, as I have begun freely—she

has learnt what it is to love: the greatest lesson, some people will

tell you, that our earthly life provides.” It was now time for him to

wave his hat at the approaching trio. He did not omit to do so. “She

has learnt through you,” and if his voice was still clerical, it was

now also sincere; “let it be your care that her knowledge is profitable

to her.”

“Grazie tante!” said Cecil, who did not like parsons.

“Have you heard?” shouted Mrs. Honeychurch as she toiled up the sloping

garden. “Oh, Mr. Beebe, have you heard the news?”

Freddy, now full of geniality, whistled the wedding march. Youth seldom

criticizes the accomplished fact.

“Indeed I have!” he cried. He looked at Lucy. In her presence he could

not act the parson any longer—at all events not without apology. “Mrs.

Honeychurch, I’m going to do what I am always supposed to do, but

generally I’m too shy. I want to invoke every kind of blessing on them,

grave and gay, great and small. I want them all their lives to be

supremely good and supremely happy as husband and wife, as father and

mother. And now I want my tea.”

“You only asked for it just in time,” the lady retorted. “How dare you

be serious at Windy Corner?”

He took his tone from her. There was no more heavy beneficence, no more

attempts to dignify the situation with poetry or the Scriptures. None

of them dared or was able to be serious any more.

An engagement is so potent a thing that sooner or later it reduces all

who speak of it to this state of cheerful awe. Away from it, in the

solitude of their rooms, Mr. Beebe, and even Freddy, might again be

critical. But in its presence and in the presence of each other they

were sincerely hilarious. It has a strange power, for it compels not

only the lips, but the very heart. The chief parallel to compare one

great thing with another—is the power over us of a temple of some alien

creed. Standing outside, we deride or oppose it, or at the most feel

sentimental. Inside, though the saints and gods are not ours, we become

true believers, in case any true believer should be present.

So it was that after the gropings and the misgivings of the afternoon

they pulled themselves together and settled down to a very pleasant

tea-party. If they were hypocrites they did not know it, and their

hypocrisy had every chance of setting and of becoming true. Anne,

putting down each plate as if it were a wedding present, stimulated

them greatly. They could not lag behind that smile of hers which she

gave them ere she kicked the drawing-room door. Mr. Beebe chirruped.

Freddy was at his wittiest, referring to Cecil as the “Fiasco”—family

honoured pun on fiance. Mrs. Honeychurch, amusing and portly, promised

well as a mother-in-law. As for Lucy and Cecil, for whom the temple had

been built, they also joined in the merry ritual, but waited, as

earnest worshippers should, for the disclosure of some holier shrine of

joy.