第 十五 章 · 第15章

The Disaster Within

The Sunday after Miss Bartlett’s arrival was a glorious day, like most

of the days of that year. In the Weald, autumn approached, breaking up

the green monotony of summer, touching the parks with the grey bloom of

mist, the beech-trees with russet, the oak-trees with gold. Up on the

heights, battalions of black pines witnessed the change, themselves

unchangeable. Either country was spanned by a cloudless sky, and in

either arose the tinkle of church bells.

The garden of Windy Corners was deserted except for a red book, which

lay sunning itself upon the gravel path. From the house came incoherent

sounds, as of females preparing for worship. “The men say they won’t

go”—“Well, I don’t blame them”—Minnie says, “need she go?”—“Tell her,

no nonsense”—“Anne! Mary! Hook me behind!”—“Dearest Lucia, may I

trespass upon you for a pin?” For Miss Bartlett had announced that she

at all events was one for church.

The sun rose higher on its journey, guided, not by Phaethon, but by

Apollo, competent, unswerving, divine. Its rays fell on the ladies

whenever they advanced towards the bedroom windows; on Mr. Beebe down

at Summer Street as he smiled over a letter from Miss Catharine Alan;

on George Emerson cleaning his father’s boots; and lastly, to complete

the catalogue of memorable things, on the red book mentioned

previously. The ladies move, Mr. Beebe moves, George moves, and

movement may engender shadow. But this book lies motionless, to be

caressed all the morning by the sun and to raise its covers slightly,

as though acknowledging the caress.

Presently Lucy steps out of the drawing-room window. Her new cerise

dress has been a failure, and makes her look tawdry and wan. At her

throat is a garnet brooch, on her finger a ring set with rubies—an

engagement ring. Her eyes are bent to the Weald. She frowns a

little—not in anger, but as a brave child frowns when he is trying not

to cry. In all that expanse no human eye is looking at her, and she may

frown unrebuked and measure the spaces that yet survive between Apollo

and the western hills.

“Lucy! Lucy! What’s that book? Who’s been taking a book out of the

shelf and leaving it about to spoil?”

“It’s only the library book that Cecil’s been reading.”

“But pick it up, and don’t stand idling there like a flamingo.”

Lucy picked up the book and glanced at the title listlessly, Under a

Loggia. She no longer read novels herself, devoting all her spare time

to solid literature in the hope of catching Cecil up. It was dreadful

how little she knew, and even when she thought she knew a thing, like

the Italian painters, she found she had forgotten it. Only this morning

she had confused Francesco Francia with Piero della Francesca, and

Cecil had said, “What! you aren’t forgetting your Italy already?” And

this too had lent anxiety to her eyes when she saluted the dear view

and the dear garden in the foreground, and above them, scarcely

conceivable elsewhere, the dear sun.

“Lucy—have you a sixpence for Minnie and a shilling for yourself?”

She hastened in to her mother, who was rapidly working herself into a

Sunday fluster.

“It’s a special collection—I forget what for. I do beg, no vulgar

clinking in the plate with halfpennies; see that Minnie has a nice

bright sixpence. Where is the child? Minnie! That book’s all warped.

(Gracious, how plain you look!) Put it under the Atlas to press.

Minnie!”

“Oh, Mrs. Honeychurch—” from the upper regions.

“Minnie, don’t be late. Here comes the horse”—it was always the horse,

never the carriage. “Where’s Charlotte? Run up and hurry her. Why is

she so long? She had nothing to do. She never brings anything but

blouses. Poor Charlotte—How I do detest blouses! Minnie!”

Paganism is infectious—more infectious than diphtheria or piety—and the

Rector’s niece was taken to church protesting. As usual, she didn’t see

why. Why shouldn’t she sit in the sun with the young men? The young

men, who had now appeared, mocked her with ungenerous words. Mrs.

Honeychurch defended orthodoxy, and in the midst of the confusion Miss

Bartlett, dressed in the very height of the fashion, came strolling

down the stairs.

“Dear Marian, I am very sorry, but I have no small change—nothing but

sovereigns and half crowns. Could any one give me—”

“Yes, easily. Jump in. Gracious me, how smart you look! What a lovely

frock! You put us all to shame.”

“If I did not wear my best rags and tatters now, when should I wear

them?” said Miss Bartlett reproachfully. She got into the victoria and

placed herself with her back to the horse. The necessary roar ensued,

and then they drove off.

“Good-bye! Be good!” called out Cecil.

Lucy bit her lip, for the tone was sneering. On the subject of “church

and so on” they had had rather an unsatisfactory conversation. He had

said that people ought to overhaul themselves, and she did not want to

overhaul herself; she did not know it was done. Honest orthodoxy Cecil

respected, but he always assumed that honesty is the result of a

spiritual crisis; he could not imagine it as a natural birthright, that

might grow heavenward like flowers. All that he said on this subject

pained her, though he exuded tolerance from every pore; somehow the

Emersons were different.

She saw the Emersons after church. There was a line of carriages down

the road, and the Honeychurch vehicle happened to be opposite Cissie

Villa. To save time, they walked over the green to it, and found father

and son smoking in the garden.

“Introduce me,” said her mother. “Unless the young man considers that

he knows me already.”

He probably did; but Lucy ignored the Sacred Lake and introduced them

formally. Old Mr. Emerson claimed her with much warmth, and said how

glad he was that she was going to be married. She said yes, she was

glad too; and then, as Miss Bartlett and Minnie were lingering behind

with Mr. Beebe, she turned the conversation to a less disturbing topic,

and asked him how he liked his new house.

“Very much,” he replied, but there was a note of offence in his voice;

she had never known him offended before. He added: “We find, though,

that the Miss Alans were coming, and that we have turned them out.

Women mind such a thing. I am very much upset about it.”

“I believe that there was some misunderstanding,” said Mrs. Honeychurch

uneasily.

“Our landlord was told that we should be a different type of person,”

said George, who seemed disposed to carry the matter further. “He

thought we should be artistic. He is disappointed.”

“And I wonder whether we ought to write to the Miss Alans and offer to

give it up. What do you think?” He appealed to Lucy.

“Oh, stop now you have come,” said Lucy lightly. She must avoid

censuring Cecil. For it was on Cecil that the little episode turned,

though his name was never mentioned.

“So George says. He says that the Miss Alans must go to the wall. Yet

it does seem so unkind.”

“There is only a certain amount of kindness in the world,” said George,

watching the sunlight flash on the panels of the passing carriages.

“Yes!” exclaimed Mrs. Honeychurch. “That’s exactly what I say. Why all

this twiddling and twaddling over two Miss Alans?”

“There is a certain amount of kindness, just as there is a certain

amount of light,” he continued in measured tones. “We cast a shadow on

something wherever we stand, and it is no good moving from place to

place to save things; because the shadow always follows. Choose a place

where you won’t do harm—yes, choose a place where you won’t do very

much harm, and stand in it for all you are worth, facing the sunshine.”

“Oh, Mr. Emerson, I see you’re clever!”

“Eh—?”

“I see you’re going to be clever. I hope you didn’t go behaving like

that to poor Freddy.”

George’s eyes laughed, and Lucy suspected that he and her mother would

get on rather well.

“No, I didn’t,” he said. “He behaved that way to me. It is his

philosophy. Only he starts life with it; and I have tried the Note of

Interrogation first.”

“What _do_ you mean? No, never mind what you mean. Don’t explain. He

looks forward to seeing you this afternoon. Do you play tennis? Do you

mind tennis on Sunday—?”

“George mind tennis on Sunday! George, after his education, distinguish

between Sunday—”

“Very well, George doesn’t mind tennis on Sunday. No more do I. That’s

settled. Mr. Emerson, if you could come with your son we should be so

pleased.”

He thanked her, but the walk sounded rather far; he could only potter

about in these days.

She turned to George: “And then he wants to give up his house to the

Miss Alans.”

“I know,” said George, and put his arm round his father’s neck. The

kindness that Mr. Beebe and Lucy had always known to exist in him came

out suddenly, like sunlight touching a vast landscape—a touch of the

morning sun? She remembered that in all his perversities he had never

spoken against affection.

Miss Bartlett approached.

“You know our cousin, Miss Bartlett,” said Mrs. Honeychurch pleasantly.

“You met her with my daughter in Florence.”

“Yes, indeed!” said the old man, and made as if he would come out of

the garden to meet the lady. Miss Bartlett promptly got into the

victoria. Thus entrenched, she emitted a formal bow. It was the pension

Bertolini again, the dining-table with the decanters of water and wine.

It was the old, old battle of the room with the view.

George did not respond to the bow. Like any boy, he blushed and was

ashamed; he knew that the chaperon remembered. He said: “I—I’ll come up

to tennis if I can manage it,” and went into the house. Perhaps

anything that he did would have pleased Lucy, but his awkwardness went

straight to her heart; men were not gods after all, but as human and as

clumsy as girls; even men might suffer from unexplained desires, and

need help. To one of her upbringing, and of her destination, the

weakness of men was a truth unfamiliar, but she had surmised it at

Florence, when George threw her photographs into the River Arno.

“George, don’t go,” cried his father, who thought it a great treat for

people if his son would talk to them. “George has been in such good

spirits today, and I am sure he will end by coming up this afternoon.”

Lucy caught her cousin’s eye. Something in its mute appeal made her

reckless. “Yes,” she said, raising her voice, “I do hope he will.” Then

she went to the carriage and murmured, “The old man hasn’t been told; I

knew it was all right.” Mrs. Honeychurch followed her, and they drove

away.

Satisfactory that Mr. Emerson had not been told of the Florence

escapade; yet Lucy’s spirits should not have leapt up as if she had

sighted the ramparts of heaven. Satisfactory; yet surely she greeted it

with disproportionate joy. All the way home the horses’ hoofs sang a

tune to her: “He has not told, he has not told.” Her brain expanded the

melody: “He has not told his father—to whom he tells all things. It was

not an exploit. He did not laugh at me when I had gone.” She raised her

hand to her cheek. “He does not love me. No. How terrible if he did!

But he has not told. He will not tell.”

She longed to shout the words: “It is all right. It’s a secret between

us two for ever. Cecil will never hear.” She was even glad that Miss

Bartlett had made her promise secrecy, that last dark evening at

Florence, when they had knelt packing in his room. The secret, big or

little, was guarded.

Only three English people knew of it in the world. Thus she interpreted

her joy. She greeted Cecil with unusual radiance, because she felt so

safe. As he helped her out of the carriage, she said:

“The Emersons have been so nice. George Emerson has improved

enormously.”

“How are my protégés?” asked Cecil, who took no real interest in them,

and had long since forgotten his resolution to bring them to Windy

Corner for educational purposes.

“Protégés!” she exclaimed with some warmth. For the only relationship

which Cecil conceived was feudal: that of protector and protected. He

had no glimpse of the comradeship after which the girl’s soul yearned.

“You shall see for yourself how your protégés are. George Emerson is

coming up this afternoon. He is a most interesting man to talk to. Only

don’t—” She nearly said, “Don’t protect him.” But the bell was ringing

for lunch, and, as often happened, Cecil had paid no great attention to

her remarks. Charm, not argument, was to be her forte.

Lunch was a cheerful meal. Generally Lucy was depressed at meals. Some

one had to be soothed—either Cecil or Miss Bartlett or a Being not

visible to the mortal eye—a Being who whispered to her soul: “It will

not last, this cheerfulness. In January you must go to London to

entertain the grandchildren of celebrated men.” But to-day she felt she

had received a guarantee. Her mother would always sit there, her

brother here. The sun, though it had moved a little since the morning,

would never be hidden behind the western hills. After luncheon they

asked her to play. She had seen Gluck’s Armide that year, and played

from memory the music of the enchanted garden—the music to which Renaud

approaches, beneath the light of an eternal dawn, the music that never

gains, never wanes, but ripples for ever like the tideless seas of

fairyland. Such music is not for the piano, and her audience began to

get restive, and Cecil, sharing the discontent, called out: “Now play

us the other garden—the one in Parsifal.”

She closed the instrument.

“Not very dutiful,” said her mother’s voice.

Fearing that she had offended Cecil, she turned quickly round. There

George was. He had crept in without interrupting her.

“Oh, I had no idea!” she exclaimed, getting very red; and then, without

a word of greeting, she reopened the piano. Cecil should have the

Parsifal, and anything else that he liked.

“Our performer has changed her mind,” said Miss Bartlett, perhaps

implying, she will play the music to Mr. Emerson. Lucy did not know

what to do nor even what she wanted to do. She played a few bars of the

Flower Maidens’ song very badly and then she stopped.

“I vote tennis,” said Freddy, disgusted at the scrappy entertainment.

“Yes, so do I.” Once more she closed the unfortunate piano. “I vote you

have a men’s four.”

“All right.”

“Not for me, thank you,” said Cecil. “I will not spoil the set.” He

never realized that it may be an act of kindness in a bad player to

make up a fourth.

“Oh, come along Cecil. I’m bad, Floyd’s rotten, and so I dare say’s

Emerson.”

George corrected him: “I am not bad.”

One looked down one’s nose at this. “Then certainly I won’t play,” said

Cecil, while Miss Bartlett, under the impression that she was snubbing

George, added: “I agree with you, Mr. Vyse. You had much better not

play. Much better not.”

Minnie, rushing in where Cecil feared to tread, announced that she

would play. “I shall miss every ball anyway, so what does it matter?”

But Sunday intervened and stamped heavily upon the kindly suggestion.

“Then it will have to be Lucy,” said Mrs. Honeychurch; “you must fall

back on Lucy. There is no other way out of it. Lucy, go and change your

frock.”

Lucy’s Sabbath was generally of this amphibious nature. She kept it

without hypocrisy in the morning, and broke it without reluctance in

the afternoon. As she changed her frock, she wondered whether Cecil was

sneering at her; really she must overhaul herself and settle everything

up before she married him.

Mr. Floyd was her partner. She liked music, but how much better tennis

seemed. How much better to run about in comfortable clothes than to sit

at the piano and feel girt under the arms. Once more music appeared to

her the employment of a child. George served, and surprised her by his

anxiety to win. She remembered how he had sighed among the tombs at

Santa Croce because things wouldn’t fit; how after the death of that

obscure Italian he had leant over the parapet by the Arno and said to

her: “I shall want to live, I tell you.” He wanted to live now, to win

at tennis, to stand for all he was worth in the sun—the sun which had

begun to decline and was shining in her eyes; and he did win.

Ah, how beautiful the Weald looked! The hills stood out above its

radiance, as Fiesole stands above the Tuscan Plain, and the South

Downs, if one chose, were the mountains of Carrara. She might be

forgetting her Italy, but she was noticing more things in her England.

One could play a new game with the view, and try to find in its

innumerable folds some town or village that would do for Florence. Ah,

how beautiful the Weald looked!

But now Cecil claimed her. He chanced to be in a lucid critical mood,

and would not sympathize with exaltation. He had been rather a nuisance

all through the tennis, for the novel that he was reading was so bad

that he was obliged to read it aloud to others. He would stroll round

the precincts of the court and call out: “I say, listen to this, Lucy.

Three split infinitives.”

“Dreadful!” said Lucy, and missed her stroke. When they had finished

their set, he still went on reading; there was some murder scene, and

really everyone must listen to it. Freddy and Mr. Floyd were obliged to

hunt for a lost ball in the laurels, but the other two acquiesced.

“The scene is laid in Florence.”

“What fun, Cecil! Read away. Come, Mr. Emerson, sit down after all your

energy.” She had “forgiven” George, as she put it, and she made a point

of being pleasant to him.

He jumped over the net and sat down at her feet asking: “You—and are

you tired?”

“Of course I’m not!”

“Do you mind being beaten?”

She was going to answer, “No,” when it struck her that she did mind, so

she answered, “Yes.” She added merrily, “I don’t see _you’re_ such a

splendid player, though. The light was behind you, and it was in my

eyes.”

“I never said I was.”

“Why, you did!”

“You didn’t attend.”

“You said—oh, don’t go in for accuracy at this house. We all

exaggerate, and we get very angry with people who don’t.”

“‘The scene is laid in Florence,’” repeated Cecil, with an upward note.

Lucy recollected herself.

“‘Sunset. Leonora was speeding—’”

Lucy interrupted. “Leonora? Is Leonora the heroine? Who’s the book by?”

“Joseph Emery Prank. ‘Sunset. Leonora speeding across the square. Pray

the saints she might not arrive too late. Sunset—the sunset of Italy.

Under Orcagna’s Loggia—the Loggia de’ Lanzi, as we sometimes call it

now—’”

Lucy burst into laughter. “‘Joseph Emery Prank’ indeed! Why it’s Miss

Lavish! It’s Miss Lavish’s novel, and she’s publishing it under

somebody else’s name.”

“Who may Miss Lavish be?”

“Oh, a dreadful person—Mr. Emerson, you remember Miss Lavish?”

Excited by her pleasant afternoon, she clapped her hands.

George looked up. “Of course I do. I saw her the day I arrived at

Summer Street. It was she who told me that you lived here.”

“Weren’t you pleased?” She meant “to see Miss Lavish,” but when he bent

down to the grass without replying, it struck her that she could mean

something else. She watched his head, which was almost resting against

her knee, and she thought that the ears were reddening. “No wonder the

novel’s bad,” she added. “I never liked Miss Lavish. But I suppose one

ought to read it as one’s met her.”

“All modern books are bad,” said Cecil, who was annoyed at her

inattention, and vented his annoyance on literature. “Every one writes

for money in these days.”

“Oh, Cecil—!”

“It is so. I will inflict Joseph Emery Prank on you no longer.”

Cecil, this afternoon seemed such a twittering sparrow. The ups and

downs in his voice were noticeable, but they did not affect her. She

had dwelt amongst melody and movement, and her nerves refused to answer

to the clang of his. Leaving him to be annoyed, she gazed at the black

head again. She did not want to stroke it, but she saw herself wanting

to stroke it; the sensation was curious.

“How do you like this view of ours, Mr. Emerson?”

“I never notice much difference in views.”

“What do you mean?”

“Because they’re all alike. Because all that matters in them is

distance and air.”

“H’m!” said Cecil, uncertain whether the remark was striking or not.

“My father”—he looked up at her (and he was a little flushed)—“says

that there is only one perfect view—the view of the sky straight over

our heads, and that all these views on earth are but bungled copies of

it.”

“I expect your father has been reading Dante,” said Cecil, fingering

the novel, which alone permitted him to lead the conversation.

“He told us another day that views are really crowds—crowds of trees

and houses and hills—and are bound to resemble each other, like human

crowds—and that the power they have over us is sometimes supernatural,

for the same reason.”

Lucy’s lips parted.

“For a crowd is more than the people who make it up. Something gets

added to it—no one knows how—just as something has got added to those

hills.”

He pointed with his racquet to the South Downs.

“What a splendid idea!” she murmured. “I shall enjoy hearing your

father talk again. I’m so sorry he’s not so well.”

“No, he isn’t well.”

“There’s an absurd account of a view in this book,” said Cecil. “Also

that men fall into two classes—those who forget views and those who

remember them, even in small rooms.”

“Mr. Emerson, have you any brothers or sisters?”

“None. Why?”

“You spoke of ‘us.’”

“My mother, I was meaning.”

Cecil closed the novel with a bang.

“Oh, Cecil—how you made me jump!”

“I will inflict Joseph Emery Prank on you no longer.”

“I can just remember us all three going into the country for the day

and seeing as far as Hindhead. It is the first thing that I remember.”

Cecil got up; the man was ill-bred—he hadn’t put on his coat after

tennis—he didn’t do. He would have strolled away if Lucy had not

stopped him.

“Cecil, do read the thing about the view.”

“Not while Mr. Emerson is here to entertain us.”

“No—read away. I think nothing’s funnier than to hear silly things read

out loud. If Mr. Emerson thinks us frivolous, he can go.”

This struck Cecil as subtle, and pleased him. It put their visitor in

the position of a prig. Somewhat mollified, he sat down again.

“Mr. Emerson, go and find tennis balls.” She opened the book. Cecil

must have his reading and anything else that he liked. But her

attention wandered to George’s mother, who—according to Mr. Eager—had

been murdered in the sight of God and—according to her son—had seen as

far as Hindhead.

“Am I really to go?” asked George.

“No, of course not really,” she answered.

“Chapter two,” said Cecil, yawning. “Find me chapter two, if it isn’t

bothering you.”

Chapter two was found, and she glanced at its opening sentences.

She thought she had gone mad.

“Here—hand me the book.”

She heard her voice saying: “It isn’t worth reading—it’s too silly to

read—I never saw such rubbish—it oughtn’t to be allowed to be printed.”

He took the book from her.

“‘Leonora,’” he read, “‘sat pensive and alone. Before her lay the rich

champaign of Tuscany, dotted over with many a smiling village. The

season was spring.’”

Miss Lavish knew, somehow, and had printed the past in draggled prose,

for Cecil to read and for George to hear.

“‘A golden haze,’” he read. He read: “‘Afar off the towers of Florence,

while the bank on which she sat was carpeted with violets. All

unobserved Antonio stole up behind her—’”

Lest Cecil should see her face she turned to George and saw his face.

He read: “‘There came from his lips no wordy protestation such as

formal lovers use. No eloquence was his, nor did he suffer from the

lack of it. He simply enfolded her in his manly arms.’”

“This isn’t the passage I wanted,” he informed them, “there is another

much funnier, further on.” He turned over the leaves.

“Should we go in to tea?” said Lucy, whose voice remained steady.

She led the way up the garden, Cecil following her, George last. She

thought a disaster was averted. But when they entered the shrubbery it

came. The book, as if it had not worked mischief enough, had been

forgotten, and Cecil must go back for it; and George, who loved

passionately, must blunder against her in the narrow path.

“No—” she gasped, and, for the second time, was kissed by him.

As if no more was possible, he slipped back; Cecil rejoined her; they

reached the upper lawn alone.