Chapter X: Cecil as a Humourist
The society out of which Cecil proposed to rescue Lucy was
perhaps no very splendid affair, yet it was more splendid than
her antecedents entitled her to. Her father, a prosperous local
solicitor, had built Windy Corner, as a speculation at the time
the district was opening up, and, falling in love with his own
creation, had ended by living there himself. Soon after his
marriage the social atmosphere began to alter. Other houses were
built on the brow of that steep southern slope and others, again,
among the pine-trees behind, and northward on the chalk barrier
of the downs. Most of these houses were larger than Windy Corner,
and were filled by people who came, not from the district, but
from London, and who mistook the Honeychurches for the remnants
of an indigenous aristocracy. He was inclined to be frightened,
but his wife accepted the situation without either pride or
humility. "I cannot think what people are doing," she would say,
"but it is extremely fortunate for the children." She called
everywhere; her calls were returned with enthusiasm, and by the
time people found out that she was not exactly of their milieu,
they liked her, and it did not seem to matter. When Mr.
Honeychurch died, he had the satisfaction--which few honest
solicitors despise--of leaving his family rooted in the best
society obtainable.
The best obtainable. Certainly many of the immigrants were rather
dull, and Lucy realized this more vividly since her return from
Italy. Hitherto she had accepted their ideals without questioning
--their kindly affluence, their inexplosive religion, their
dislike of paper-bags, orange-peel, and broken bottles. A Radical
out and out, she learnt to speak with horror of Suburbia. Life,
so far as she troubled to conceive it, was a circle of rich,
pleasant people, with identical interests and identical foes.
In this circle, one thought, married, and died. Outside it were
poverty and vulgarity for ever trying to enter, just as the
London fog tries to enter the pine-woods pouring through the gaps
in the northern hills. But, in Italy, where any one who chooses
may warm himself in equality, as in the sun, this conception of
life vanished. Her senses expanded; she felt that there was no
one whom she might not get to like, that social barriers were
irremovable, doubtless, but not particularly high. You jump over
them just as you jump into a peasant's olive-yard in the
Apennines, and he is glad to see you. She returned with new eyes.
So did Cecil; but Italy had quickened Cecil, not to tolerance,
but to irritation. He saw that the local society was narrow, but,
instead of saying, "Does that very much matter?" he rebelled, and
tried to substitute for it the society he called broad. He did
not realize that Lucy had consecrated her environment by the
thousand little civilities that create a tenderness in time, and
that though her eyes saw its defects, her heart refused to
despise it entirely. Nor did he realize a more important point--
that if she was too great for this society, she was too great for
all society, and had reached the stage where personal intercourse
would alone satisfy her. A rebel she was, but not of the kind he
understood--a rebel who desired, not a wider dwelling-room, but
equality beside the man she loved. For Italy was offering her the
most priceless of all possessions--her own soul.
Playing bumble-puppy with Minnie Beebe, niece to the rector, and
aged thirteen--an ancient and most honourable game, which
consists in striking tennis-balls high into the air, so that they
fall over the net and immoderately bounce; some hit Mrs.
Honeychurch; others are lost. The sentence is confused, but the
better illustrates Lucy's state of mind, for she was trying to
talk to Mr. Beebe at the same time.
"Oh, it has been such a nuisance--first he, then they--no one
knowing what they wanted, and every one so tiresome."
"But they really are coming now," said Mr. Beebe. "I wrote to
Miss Teresa a few days ago--she was wondering how often the
butcher called, and my reply of once a month must have impressed
her favourably. They are coming. I heard from them this morning.
"I shall hate those Miss Alans!" Mrs. Honeychurch cried. "Just
because they're old and silly one's expected to say 'How sweet!'
I hate their 'if'-ing and 'but'-ing and 'and'-ing. And poor Lucy
--serve her right--worn to a shadow."
Mr. Beebe watched the shadow springing and shouting over the
tennis-court. Cecil was absent--one did not play bumble-puppy
when he was there.
"Well, if they are coming-- No, Minnie, not Saturn." Saturn was a
tennis-ball whose skin was partially unsewn. When in motion his
orb was encircled by a ring. "If they are coming, Sir Harry will
let them move in before the twenty-ninth, and he will cross out
the clause about whitewashing the ceilings, because it made them
nervous, and put in the fair wear and tear one.--That doesn't
count. I told you not Saturn."
"Saturn's all right for bumble-puppy," cried Freddy, joining
them. "Minnie, don't you listen to her."
"Saturn doesn't bounce."
"Saturn bounces enough."
"No, he doesn't."
"Well; he bounces better than the Beautiful White Devil."
"Hush, dear," said Mrs. Honeychurch.
"But look at Lucy--complaining of Saturn, and all the time's got
the Beautiful White Devil in her hand, ready to plug it in.
That's right, Minnie, go for her--get her over the shins with the
racquet--get her over the shins!"
Lucy fell, the Beautiful White Devil rolled from her hand.
Mr. Beebe picked it up, and said: "The name of this ball is
Vittoria Corombona, please." But his correction passed
unheeded.
Freddy possessed to a high degree the power of lashing little
girls to fury, and in half a minute he had transformed Minnie
from a well-mannered child into a howling wilderness. Up in the
house Cecil heard them, and, though he was full of entertaining
news, he did not come down to impart it, in case he got hurt. He
was not a coward and bore necessary pain as well as any man. But
he hated the physical violence of the young. How right it was!
Sure enough it ended in a cry.
"I wish the Miss Alans could see this," observed Mr. Beebe, just
as Lucy, who was nursing the injured Minnie, was in turn lifted
off her feet by her brother.
"Who are the Miss Alans?" Freddy panted.
"They have taken Cissie Villa."
"That wasn't the name--"
Here his foot slipped, and they all fell most agreeably on to the
grass. An interval elapses.
"Wasn't what name?" asked Lucy, with her brother's head in her
lap.
"Alan wasn't the name of the people Sir Harry's let to."
"Nonsense, Freddy! You know nothing about it."
"Nonsense yourself! I've this minute seen him. He said to me:
'Ahem! Honeychurch,'"--Freddy was an indifferent mimic--"'ahem!
ahem! I have at last procured really dee-sire-rebel tenants.' I
said, 'ooray, old boy!' and slapped him on the back."
"Exactly. The Miss Alans?"
"Rather not. More like Anderson."
"Oh, good gracious, there isn't going to be another muddle!" Mrs.
Honeychurch exclaimed. "Do you notice, Lucy, I'm always right? I
said don't interfere with Cissie Villa. I'm always right. I'm
quite uneasy at being always right so often."
"It's only another muddle of Freddy's. Freddy doesn't even know
the name of the people he pretends have taken it instead."
"Yes, I do. I've got it. Emerson."
"What name?"
"Emerson. I'll bet you anything you like."
"What a weathercock Sir Harry is," said Lucy quietly. "I wish I
had never bothered over it at all."
Then she lay on her back and gazed at the cloudless sky. Mr.
Beebe, whose opinion of her rose daily, whispered to his niece
that THAT was the proper way to behave if any little thing went
wrong.
Meanwhile the name of the new tenants had diverted Mrs.
Honeychurch from the contemplation of her own abilities.
"Emerson, Freddy? Do you know what Emersons they are?"
"I don't know whether they're any Emersons," retorted Freddy, who
was democratic. Like his sister and like most young people, he
was naturally attracted by the idea of equality, and the
undeniable fact that there are different kinds of Emersons
annoyed him beyond measure.
"I trust they are the right sort of person. All right, Lucy"--she
was sitting up again--"I see you looking down your nose and
thinking your mother's a snob. But there is a right sort and a
wrong sort, and it's affectation to pretend there isn't."
"Emerson's a common enough name," Lucy remarked.
She was gazing sideways. Seated on a promontory herself, she
could see the pine-clad promontories descending one beyond
another into the Weald. The further one descended the garden, the
more glorious was this lateral view.
"I was merely going to remark, Freddy, that I trusted they were
no relations of Emerson the philosopher, a most trying man. Pray,
does that satisfy you?"
"Oh, yes," he grumbled. "And you will be satisfied, too, for
they're friends of Cecil; so--elaborate irony--"you and the other
country families will be able to call in perfect safety."
"CECIL?" exclaimed Lucy.
"Don't be rude, dear," said his mother placidly. "Lucy, don't
screech. It's a new bad habit you're getting into."
"But has Cecil--"
"Friends of Cecil's," he repeated, "'and so really dee-sire-
rebel. Ahem! Honeychurch, I have just telegraphed to them.'"
She got up from the grass.
It was hard on Lucy. Mr. Beebe sympathized with her very much.
While she believed that her snub about the Miss Alans came from
Sir Harry Otway, she had borne it like a good girl. She might
well "screech" when she heard that it came partly from her lover.
Mr. Vyse was a tease--something worse than a tease: he took a
malicious pleasure in thwarting people. The clergyman, knowing
this, looked at Miss Honeychurch with more than his usual
kindness.
When she exclaimed, "But Cecil's Emersons--they can't possibly be
the same ones--there is that--" he did not consider that the
exclamation was strange, but saw in it an opportunity of
diverting the conversation while she recovered her composure. He
diverted it as follows:
"The Emersons who were at Florence, do you mean? No, I don't
suppose it will prove to be them. It is probably a long cry from
them to friends of Mr. Vyse's. Oh, Mrs. Honeychurch, the oddest
people! The queerest people! For our part we liked them, didn't
we?" He appealed to Lucy. "There was a great scene over some
violets. They picked violets and filled all the vases in the room
of these very Miss Alans who have failed to come to Cissie Villa.
Poor little ladies! So shocked and so pleased. It used to be one
of Miss Catharine's great stories. 'My dear sister loves
flowers,' it began. They found the whole room a mass of blue
--vases and jugs--and the story ends with 'So ungentlemanly and
yet so beautiful.' It is all very difficult. Yes, I always connect
those Florentine Emersons with violets."
"Fiasco's done you this time," remarked Freddy, not seeing that
his sister's face was very red. She could not recover herself.
Mr. Beebe saw it, and continued to divert the conversation.
"These particular Emersons consisted of a father and a son--the
son a goodly, if not a good young man; not a fool, I fancy, but
very immature--pessimism, et cetera. Our special joy was the
father--such a sentimental darling, and people declared he had
murdered his wife."
In his normal state Mr. Beebe would never have repeated such
gossip, but he was trying to shelter Lucy in her little trouble.
He repeated any rubbish that came into his head.
"Murdered his wife?" said Mrs. Honeychurch. "Lucy, don't desert
us--go on playing bumble-puppy. Really, the Pension Bertolini
must have been the oddest place. That's the second murderer I've
heard of as being there. Whatever was Charlotte doing to stop?
By-the-by, we really must ask Charlotte here some time."
Mr. Beebe could recall no second murderer. He suggested that his
hostess was mistaken. At the hint of opposition she warmed. She
was perfectly sure that there had been a second tourist of whom
the same story had been told. The name escaped her. What was the
name? Oh, what was the name? She clasped her knees for the name.
Something in Thackeray. She struck her matronly forehead.
Lucy asked her brother whether Cecil was in.
"Oh, don't go!" he cried, and tried to catch her by the ankles.
"I must go," she said gravely. "Don't be silly. You always overdo
it when you play."
As she left them her mother's shout of "Harris!" shivered the
tranquil air, and reminded her that she had told a lie and had
never put it right. Such a senseless lie, too, yet it shattered
her nerves and made her connect these Emersons, friends of
Cecil's, with a pair of nondescript tourists. Hitherto truth had
come to her naturally. She saw that for the future she must be
more vigilant, and be--absolutely truthful? Well, at all events,
she must not tell lies. She hurried up the garden, still flushed
with shame. A word from Cecil would soothe her, she was sure.
"Cecil!"
"Hullo!" he called, and leant out of the smoking-room window. He
seemed in high spirits. "I was hoping you'd come. I heard you all
bear-gardening, but there's better fun up here. I, even I, have
won a great victory for the Comic Muse. George Meredith's right--
the cause of Comedy and the cause of Truth are really the same;
and I, even I, have found tenants for the distressful Cissie
Villa. Don't be angry! Don't be angry! You'll forgive me when you
hear it all."
He looked very attractive when his face was bright, and he
dispelled her ridiculous forebodings at once.
"I have heard," she said. "Freddy has told us. Naughty Cecil! I
suppose I must forgive you. Just think of all the trouble I took
for nothing! Certainly the Miss Alans are a little tiresome, and
I'd rather have nice friends of yours. But you oughtn't to tease
one so."
"Friends of mine?" he laughed. "But, Lucy, the whole joke is to
come! Come here." But she remained standing where she was. "Do
you know where I met these desirable tenants? In the National
Gallery, when I was up to see my mother last week."
"What an odd place to meet people!" she said nervously. "I don't
quite understand."
"In the Umbrian Room. Absolute strangers. They were admiring Luca
Signorelli--of course, quite stupidly. However, we got talking,
and they refreshed me not--a little. They had been to Italy."
"But, Cecil--" proceeded hilariously.
"In the course of conversation they said that they wanted a
country cottage--the father to live there, the son to run down
for week-ends. I thought, 'What a chance of scoring off Sir
Harry!' and I took their address and a London reference, found
they weren't actual blackguards--it was great sport--and wrote to
him, making out--"
"Cecil! No, it's not fair. I've probably met them before--"
He bore her down.
"Perfectly fair. Anything is fair that punishes a snob. That old
man will do the neighbourhood a world of good. Sir Harry is too
disgusting with his 'decayed gentlewomen.' I meant to read him a
lesson some time. No, Lucy, the classes ought to mix, and before
long you'll agree with me. There ought to be intermarriage--all
sorts of things. I believe in democracy--"
"No, you don't," she snapped. "You don't know what the word
means."
He stared at her, and felt again that she had failed to be
Leonardesque. "No, you don't!"
Her face was inartistic--that of a peevish virago.
"It isn't fair, Cecil. I blame you--I blame you very much indeed.
You had no business to undo my work about the Miss Alans, and
make me look ridiculous. You call it scoring off Sir Harry, but
do you realize that it is all at my expense? I consider it most
disloyal of you."
She left him.
"Temper!" he thought, raising his eyebrows.
No, it was worse than temper--snobbishness. As long as Lucy
thought that his own smart friends were supplanting the Miss
Alans, she had not minded. He perceived that these new tenants
might be of value educationally. He would tolerate the father and
draw out the son, who was silent. In the interests of the Comic
Muse and of Truth, he would bring them to Windy Corner.