บทที่ บทที่ 11 · 第11章

In Mrs. Vyse’s Well-Appointed Flat

The Comic Muse, though able to look after her own interests, did not

disdain the assistance of Mr. Vyse. His idea of bringing the Emersons

to Windy Corner struck her as decidedly good, and she carried through

the negotiations without a hitch. Sir Harry Otway signed the agreement,

met Mr. Emerson, who was duly disillusioned. The Miss Alans were duly

offended, and wrote a dignified letter to Lucy, whom they held

responsible for the failure. Mr. Beebe planned pleasant moments for the

new-comers, and told Mrs. Honeychurch that Freddy must call on them as

soon as they arrived. Indeed, so ample was the Muse’s equipment that

she permitted Mr. Harris, never a very robust criminal, to droop his

head, to be forgotten, and to die.

Lucy—to descend from bright heaven to earth, whereon there are shadows

because there are hills—Lucy was at first plunged into despair, but

settled after a little thought that it did not matter the very least.

Now that she was engaged, the Emersons would scarcely insult her and

were welcome into the neighbourhood. And Cecil was welcome to bring

whom he would into the neighbourhood. Therefore Cecil was welcome to

bring the Emersons into the neighbourhood. But, as I say, this took a

little thinking, and—so illogical are girls—the event remained rather

greater and rather more dreadful than it should have done. She was glad

that a visit to Mrs. Vyse now fell due; the tenants moved into Cissie

Villa while she was safe in the London flat.

“Cecil—Cecil darling,” she whispered the evening she arrived, and crept

into his arms.

Cecil, too, became demonstrative. He saw that the needful fire had been

kindled in Lucy. At last she longed for attention, as a woman should,

and looked up to him because he was a man.

“So you do love me, little thing?” he murmured.

“Oh, Cecil, I do, I do! I don’t know what I should do without you.”

Several days passed. Then she had a letter from Miss Bartlett. A

coolness had sprung up between the two cousins, and they had not

corresponded since they parted in August. The coolness dated from what

Charlotte would call “the flight to Rome,” and in Rome it had increased

amazingly. For the companion who is merely uncongenial in the mediaeval

world becomes exasperating in the classical. Charlotte, unselfish in

the Forum, would have tried a sweeter temper than Lucy’s, and once, in

the Baths of Caracalla, they had doubted whether they could continue

their tour. Lucy had said she would join the Vyses—Mrs. Vyse was an

acquaintance of her mother, so there was no impropriety in the plan and

Miss Bartlett had replied that she was quite used to being abandoned

suddenly. Finally nothing happened; but the coolness remained, and, for

Lucy, was even increased when she opened the letter and read as

follows. It had been forwarded from Windy Corner.

“TUNBRIDGE WELLS,

“_September_.

“DEAREST LUCIA,

“I have news of you at last! Miss Lavish has been bicycling in your

parts, but was not sure whether a call would be welcome. Puncturing her

tire near Summer Street, and it being mended while she sat very

woebegone in that pretty churchyard, she saw to her astonishment, a

door open opposite and the younger Emerson man come out. He said his

father had just taken the house. He _said_ he did not know that you

lived in the neighbourhood (?). He never suggested giving Eleanor a cup

of tea. Dear Lucy, I am much worried, and I advise you to make a clean

breast of his past behaviour to your mother, Freddy, and Mr. Vyse, who

will forbid him to enter the house, etc. That was a great misfortune,

and I dare say you have told them already. Mr. Vyse is so sensitive. I

remember how I used to get on his nerves at Rome. I am very sorry about

it all, and should not feel easy unless I warned you.

“Believe me,

“Your anxious and loving cousin,

“CHARLOTTE.”

Lucy was much annoyed, and replied as follows:

“BEAUCHAMP MANSIONS, S.W.

“DEAR CHARLOTTE,

“Many thanks for your warning. When Mr. Emerson forgot himself on the

mountain, you made me promise not to tell mother, because you said she

would blame you for not being always with me. I have kept that promise,

and cannot possibly tell her now. I have said both to her and Cecil

that I met the Emersons at Florence, and that they are respectable

people—which I _do_ think—and the reason that he offered Miss Lavish no

tea was probably that he had none himself. She should have tried at the

Rectory. I cannot begin making a fuss at this stage. You must see that

it would be too absurd. If the Emersons heard I had complained of them,

they would think themselves of importance, which is exactly what they

are not. I like the old father, and look forward to seeing him again.

As for the son, I am sorry for _him_ when we meet, rather than for

myself. They are known to Cecil, who is very well and spoke of you the

other day. We expect to be married in January.

“Miss Lavish cannot have told you much about me, for I am not at Windy

Corner at all, but here. Please do not put ‘Private’ outside your

envelope again. No one opens my letters.

“Yours affectionately,

“L. M. HONEYCHURCH.”

Secrecy has this disadvantage: we lose the sense of proportion; we

cannot tell whether our secret is important or not. Were Lucy and her

cousin closeted with a great thing which would destroy Cecil’s life if

he discovered it, or with a little thing which he would laugh at? Miss

Bartlett suggested the former. Perhaps she was right. It had become a

great thing now. Left to herself, Lucy would have told her mother and

her lover ingenuously, and it would have remained a little thing.

“Emerson, not Harris”; it was only that a few weeks ago. She tried to

tell Cecil even now when they were laughing about some beautiful lady

who had smitten his heart at school. But her body behaved so

ridiculously that she stopped.

She and her secret stayed ten days longer in the deserted Metropolis

visiting the scenes they were to know so well later on. It did her no

harm, Cecil thought, to learn the framework of society, while society

itself was absent on the golf-links or the moors. The weather was cool,

and it did her no harm. In spite of the season, Mrs. Vyse managed to

scrape together a dinner-party consisting entirely of the grandchildren

of famous people. The food was poor, but the talk had a witty weariness

that impressed the girl. One was tired of everything, it seemed. One

launched into enthusiasms only to collapse gracefully, and pick oneself

up amid sympathetic laughter. In this atmosphere the Pension Bertolini

and Windy Corner appeared equally crude, and Lucy saw that her London

career would estrange her a little from all that she had loved in the

past.

The grandchildren asked her to play the piano.

She played Schumann. “Now some Beethoven” called Cecil, when the

querulous beauty of the music had died. She shook her head and played

Schumann again. The melody rose, unprofitably magical. It broke; it was

resumed broken, not marching once from the cradle to the grave. The

sadness of the incomplete—the sadness that is often Life, but should

never be Art—throbbed in its disjected phrases, and made the nerves of

the audience throb. Not thus had she played on the little draped piano

at the Bertolini, and “Too much Schumann” was not the remark that Mr.

Beebe had passed to himself when she returned.

When the guests were gone, and Lucy had gone to bed, Mrs. Vyse paced up

and down the drawing-room, discussing her little party with her son.

Mrs. Vyse was a nice woman, but her personality, like many another’s,

had been swamped by London, for it needs a strong head to live among

many people. The too vast orb of her fate had crushed her; and she had

seen too many seasons, too many cities, too many men, for her

abilities, and even with Cecil she was mechanical, and behaved as if he

was not one son, but, so to speak, a filial crowd.

“Make Lucy one of us,” she said, looking round intelligently at the end

of each sentence, and straining her lips apart until she spoke again.

“Lucy is becoming wonderful—wonderful.”

“Her music always was wonderful.”

“Yes, but she is purging off the Honeychurch taint, most excellent

Honeychurches, but you know what I mean. She is not always quoting

servants, or asking one how the pudding is made.”

“Italy has done it.”

“Perhaps,” she murmured, thinking of the museum that represented Italy

to her. “It is just possible. Cecil, mind you marry her next January.

She is one of us already.”

“But her music!” he exclaimed. “The style of her! How she kept to

Schumann when, like an idiot, I wanted Beethoven. Schumann was right

for this evening. Schumann was the thing. Do you know, mother, I shall

have our children educated just like Lucy. Bring them up among honest

country folks for freshness, send them to Italy for subtlety, and

then—not till then—let them come to London. I don’t believe in these

London educations—” He broke off, remembering that he had had one

himself, and concluded, “At all events, not for women.”

“Make her one of us,” repeated Mrs. Vyse, and processed to bed.

As she was dozing off, a cry—the cry of nightmare—rang from Lucy’s

room. Lucy could ring for the maid if she liked but Mrs. Vyse thought

it kind to go herself. She found the girl sitting upright with her hand

on her cheek.

“I am so sorry, Mrs. Vyse—it is these dreams.”

“Bad dreams?”

“Just dreams.”

The elder lady smiled and kissed her, saying very distinctly: “You

should have heard us talking about you, dear. He admires you more than

ever. Dream of that.”

Lucy returned the kiss, still covering one cheek with her hand. Mrs.

Vyse recessed to bed. Cecil, whom the cry had not awoke, snored.

Darkness enveloped the flat.