Chapter VIII: 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 give 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.