A Room With a View by E. M. Forster (top fiction books of all time TXT) 📕

anything else⁠—even a misfortune with the meat.”

Cecil laid his hand over his eyes.

“So would I,” asserted Freddy, backing his mother up⁠—backing up the spirit of her remark rather than the substance.

“And I have been thinking,” she added rather nervously, “surely we could squeeze Charlotte in here next week, and give her a nice holiday while the plumbers at Tunbridge Wells finish. I have not seen poor Charlotte for so long.”

It was more than her nerves could stand. And she could not protest violently after her mother’s goodness to her upstairs.

“Mother, no!” she pleaded. “It’s impossible. We can’t have Charlotte on the top of the other things; we’re squeezed to death as it is. Freddy’s got a friend coming Tuesday, there’s Cecil, and you’ve promised to take in Minnie Beebe because of the diphtheria scare. It simply can’t be done.”

“Nonsense! It can.”

“If Minnie sleeps in the bath. Not otherwise.”

“Minnie can sleep with you.”

“I won’t have her.”

“Then, if you’re so selfish, Mr. Floyd must share a room with Freddy.”

“Miss Bartlett, Miss Bartlett, Miss Bartlett,” moaned Cecil, again laying his hand over his eyes.

“It’s impossible,” repeated Lucy. “I don’t want to make difficulties, but it really isn’t fair on the maids to fill up the house so.”

Alas!

“The truth is, dear, you don’t like Charlotte.”

“No, I don’t. And no more does Cecil. She gets on our nerves. You haven’t seen her lately, and don’t realize how tiresome she can be, though so good. So please, mother, don’t worry us this last summer; but spoil us by not asking her to come.”

“Hear, hear!” said Cecil.

Mrs. Honeychurch, with more gravity than usual, and with more feeling than she usually permitted herself, replied: “This isn’t very kind of you two. You have each other and all these woods to walk in, so full of beautiful things; and poor Charlotte has only the water turned off and plumbers. You are young, dears, and however clever young people are, and however many books they read, they will never guess what it feels like to grow old.”

Cecil crumbled his bread.

“I must say Cousin Charlotte was very kind to me that year I called on my bike,” put in Freddy. “She thanked me for coming till I felt like such a fool, and fussed round no end to get an egg boiled for my tea just right.”

“I know, dear. She is kind to everyone, and yet Lucy makes this difficulty when we try to give her some little return.”

But Lucy hardened her heart. It was no good being kind to Miss Bartlett. She had tried herself too often and too recently. One might lay up treasure in heaven by the attempt, but one enriched neither Miss Bartlett nor anyone else upon earth. She was reduced to saying: “I can’t help it, mother. I don’t like Charlotte. I admit it’s horrid of me.”

“From your own account, you told her as much.”

“Well, she would leave Florence so stupidly. She flurried⁠—”

The ghosts were returning; they filled Italy, they were even usurping the places she had known as a child. The Sacred Lake would never be the same again, and, on Sunday week, something would even happen to Windy Corner. How would she fight against ghosts? For a moment the visible world faded away, and memories and emotions alone seemed real.

“I suppose Miss Bartlett must come, since she boils eggs so well,” said Cecil, who was in rather a happier frame of mind, thanks to the admirable cooking.

“I didn’t mean the egg was well boiled,” corrected Freddy, “because in point of fact she forgot to take it off, and as a matter of fact I don’t care for eggs. I only meant how jolly kind she seemed.”

Cecil frowned again. Oh, these Honeychurches! Eggs, boilers, hydrangeas, maids⁠—of such were their lives compact. “May me and Lucy get down from our chairs?” he asked, with scarcely veiled insolence. “We don’t want no dessert.”

XIV How Lucy Faced the External Situation Bravely

Of course Miss Bartlett accepted. And, equally of course, she felt sure that she would prove a nuisance, and begged to be given an inferior spare room⁠—something with no view, anything. Her love to Lucy. And, equally of course, George Emerson could come to tennis on the Sunday week.

Lucy faced the situation bravely, though, like most of us, she only faced the situation that encompassed her. She never gazed inwards. If at times strange images rose from the depths, she put them down to nerves. When Cecil brought the Emersons to Summer Street, it had upset her nerves. Charlotte would burnish up past foolishness, and this might upset her nerves. She was nervous at night. When she talked to George⁠—they met again almost immediately at the Rectory⁠—his voice moved her deeply, and she wished to remain near him. How dreadful if she really wished to remain near him! Of course, the wish was due to nerves, which love to play such perverse tricks upon us. Once she had suffered from “things that came out of nothing and meant she didn’t know what.” Now Cecil had explained psychology to her one wet afternoon, and all the troubles of youth in an unknown world could be dismissed.

It is obvious enough for the reader to conclude, “She loves young Emerson.” A reader in Lucy’s place would not find it obvious. Life is easy to chronicle, but bewildering to practice, and we welcome “nerves” or any other shibboleth that will cloak our personal desire. She loved Cecil; George made her nervous; will the reader explain to her that the phrases should have been reversed?

But the external situation⁠—she will face that bravely.

The meeting at the Rectory had passed off well enough. Standing between Mr. Beebe and Cecil, she had made a few temperate allusions to Italy, and George had replied. She was anxious to show that she was not shy, and was glad that he did not seem shy either.

“A nice fellow,” said Mr. Beebe afterwards “He will work off his crudities in time. I rather mistrust young men who slip into life