Chapter V: Possibilities of a Pleasant Outing
It was a family saying that "you never knew which way Charlotte
Bartlett would turn." She was perfectly pleasant and sensible
over Lucy's adventure, found the abridged account of it quite
adequate, and paid suitable tribute to the courtesy of Mr. George
Emerson. She and Miss Lavish had had an adventure also. They had
been stopped at the Dazio coming back, and the young officials
there, who seemed impudent and desoeuvre, had tried to search
their reticules for provisions. It might have been most
unpleasant. Fortunately Miss Lavish was a match for any one.
For good or for evil, Lucy was left to face her problem alone.
None of her friends had seen her, either in the Piazza or, later
on, by the embankment. Mr. Beebe, indeed, noticing her startled
eyes at dinner-time, had again passed to himself the remark of
"Too much Beethoven." But he only supposed that she was ready for
an adventure, not that she had encountered it. This solitude
oppressed her; she was accustomed to have her thoughts confirmed
by others or, at all events, contradicted; it was too dreadful
not to know whether she was thinking right or wrong.
At breakfast next morning she took decisive action. There were
two plans between which she had to choose. Mr. Beebe was walking
up to the Torre del Gallo with the Emersons and some American
ladies. Would Miss Bartlett and Miss Honeychurch join the party?
Charlotte declined for herself; she had been there in the rain
the previous afternoon. But she thought it an admirable idea for
Lucy, who hated shopping, changing money, fetching letters, and
other irksome duties--all of which Miss Bartlett must accomplish
this morning and could easily accomplish alone.
"No, Charlotte!" cried the girl, with real warmth. "It's very
kind of Mr. Beebe, but I am certainly coming with you. I had much
rather."
"Very well, dear," said Miss Bartlett, with a faint flush of
pleasure that called forth a deep flush of shame on the cheeks of
Lucy. How abominably she behaved to Charlotte, now as always! But
now she should alter. All morning she would be really nice to
her.
She slipped her arm into her cousin's, and they started off along
the Lung' Arno. The river was a lion that morning in strength,
voice, and colour. Miss Bartlett insisted on leaning over the
parapet to look at it. She then made her usual remark, which was
"How I do wish Freddy and your mother could see this, too!"
Lucy fidgeted; it was tiresome of Charlotte to have stopped
exactly where she did.
"Look, Lucia! Oh, you are watching for the Torre del Gallo party.
I feared you would repent you of your choice."
Serious as the choice had been, Lucy did not repent. Yesterday
had been a muddle--queer and odd, the kind of thing one could not
write down easily on paper--but she had a feeling that Charlotte
and her shopping were preferable to George Emerson and the summit
of the Torre del Gallo. Since she could not unravel the tangle,
she must take care not to re-enter it. She could protest
sincerely against Miss Bartlett's insinuations.
But though she had avoided the chief actor, the scenery
unfortunately remained. Charlotte, with the complacency of fate,
led her from the river to the Piazza Signoria. She could not have
believed that stones, a Loggia, a fountain, a palace tower,
would have such significance. For a moment she understood the
nature of ghosts.
The exact site of the murder was occupied, not by a ghost, but by
Miss Lavish, who had the morning newspaper in her hand. She
hailed them briskly. The dreadful catastrophe of the previous day
had given her an idea which she thought would work up into a
book.
"Oh, let me congratulate you!" said Miss Bartlett. "After your
despair of yesterday! What a fortunate thing!"
"Aha! Miss Honeychurch, come you here I am in luck. Now, you are
to tell me absolutely everything that you saw from the
beginning." Lucy poked at the ground with her parasol.
"But perhaps you would rather not?"
"I'm sorry--if you could manage without it, I think I would
rather not."
The elder ladies exchanged glances, not of disapproval; it is
suitable that a girl should feel deeply.
"It is I who am sorry," said Miss Lavish. "literary hacks are
shameless creatures. I believe there's no secret of the human
heart into which we wouldn't pry."
She marched cheerfully to the fountain and back, and did a few
calculations in realism. Then she said that she had been in the
Piazza since eight o'clock collecting material. A good deal of it
was unsuitable, but of course one always had to adapt. The two
men had quarrelled over a five-franc note. For the five-franc
note she should substitute a young lady, which would raise the
tone of the tragedy, and at the same time furnish an excellent
plot.
"What is the heroine's name?" asked Miss Bartlett.
"Leonora," said Miss Lavish; her own name was Eleanor.
"I do hope she's nice."
That desideratum would not be omitted.
"And what is the plot?"
Love, murder, abduction, revenge, was the plot. But it all came
while the fountain plashed to the satyrs in the morning sun.
"I hope you will excuse me for boring on like this," Miss Lavish
concluded. "It is so tempting to talk to really sympathetic
people. Of course, this is the barest outline. There will be a
deal of local colouring, descriptions of Florence and the
neighbourhood, and I shall also introduce some humorous
characters. And let me give you all fair warning: I intend to be
unmerciful to the British tourist."
"Oh, you wicked woman," cried Miss Bartlett. "I am sure you are
thinking of the Emersons."
Miss Lavish gave a Machiavellian smile.
"I confess that in Italy my sympathies are not with my own
countrymen. It is the neglected Italians who attract me, and
whose lives I am going to paint so far as I can. For I repeat and
I insist, and I have always held most strongly, that a tragedy
such as yesterday's is not the less tragic because it happened in
humble life."
There was a fitting silence when Miss Lavish had concluded. Then
the cousins wished success to her labours, and walked slowly away
across the square.
"She is my idea of a really clever woman," said Miss Bartlett.
"That last remark struck me as so particularly true. It should be
a most pathetic novel."
Lucy assented. At present her great aim was not to get put into
it. Her perceptions this morning were curiously keen, and she
believed that Miss Lavish had her on trial for an ingenue.
"She is emancipated, but only in the very best sense of the
word," continued Miss Bartlett slowly. "None but the superficial
would be shocked at her. We had a long talk yesterday. She
believes in justice and truth and human interest. She told me
also that she has a high opinion of the destiny of woman--Mr.
Eager! Why, how nice! What a pleasant surprise!"
"Ah, not for me," said the chaplain blandly, "for I have been
watching you and Miss Honeychurch for quite a little time."
"We were chatting to Miss Lavish."
His brow contracted.
"So I saw. Were you indeed? Andate via! sono occupato!" The
last remark was made to a vender of panoramic photographs who was
approaching with a courteous smile. "I am about to venture a
suggestion. Would you and Miss Honeychurch be disposed to join me
in a drive some day this week--a drive in the hills? We might go
up by Fiesole and back by Settignano. There is a point on
that road where we could get down and have an hour's ramble on
the hillside. The view thence of Florence is most beautiful--far
better than the hackneyed view of Fiesole. It is the view that
Alessio Baldovinetti is fond of introducing into his pictures.
That man had a decided feeling for landscape. Decidedly. But who
looks at it to-day? Ah, the world is too much for us."
Miss Bartlett had not heard of Alessio Baldovinetti, but she knew
that Mr. Eager was no commonplace chaplain. He was a member of
the residential colony who had made Florence their home. He knew
the people who never walked about with Baedekers, who had learnt
to take a siesta after lunch, who took drives the pension
tourists had never heard of, and saw by private influence
galleries which were closed to them. Living in delicate
seclusion, some in furnished flats, others in Renaissance villas
on Fiesole's slope, they read, wrote, studied, and exchanged
ideas, thus attaining to that intimate knowledge, or rather
perception, of Florence which is denied to all who carry in their
pockets the coupons of Cook.
Therefore an invitation from the chaplain was something to be
proud of. Between the two sections of his flock he was often the
only link, and it was his avowed custom to select those of his
migratory sheep who seemed worthy, and give them a few hours in
the pastures of the permanent. Tea at a Renaissance villa?
Nothing had been said about it yet. But if it did come to that--
how Lucy would enjoy it!
A few days ago and Lucy would have felt the same. But the joys of
life were grouping themselves anew. A drive in the hills with Mr.
Eager and Miss Bartlett--even if culminating in a residential
tea-party--was no longer the greatest of them. She echoed the
raptures of Charlotte somewhat faintly. Only when she heard that
Mr. Beebe was also coming did her thanks become more sincere.
"So we shall be a partie carree," said the chaplain. "In these
days of toil and tumult one has great needs of the country and
its message of purity. Andate via! andate presto, presto! Ah,
the town! Beautiful as it is, it is the town."
They assented.
"This very square--so I am told--witnessed yesterday the most
sordid of tragedies. To one who loves the Florence of Dante and
Savonarola there is something portentous in such desecration--
portentous and humiliating."
"Humiliating indeed," said Miss Bartlett. "Miss Honeychurch
happened to be passing through as it happened. She can hardly
bear to speak of it." She glanced at Lucy proudly.
"And how came we to have you here?" asked the chaplain
paternally.
Miss Bartlett's recent liberalism oozed away at the question.
"Do not blame her, please, Mr. Eager. The fault is mine: I left
her unchaperoned."
"So you were here alone, Miss Honeychurch?" His voice suggested
sympathetic reproof but at the same time indicated that a few
harrowing details would not be unacceptable. His dark, handsome
face drooped mournfully towards her to catch her reply.
"Practically."
"One of our pension acquaintances kindly brought her home," said
Miss Bartlett, adroitly concealing the sex of the preserver.
"For her also it must have been a terrible experience. I trust
that neither of you was at all--that it was not in your immediate
proximity?"
Of the many things Lucy was noticing to-day, not the least
remarkable was this: the ghoulish fashion in which respectable
people will nibble after blood. George Emerson had kept the
subject strangely pure.
"He died by the fountain, I believe," was her reply.
"And you and your friend--"
"Were over at the Loggia."
"That must have saved you much. You have not, of course, seen the
disgraceful illustrations which the gutter Press-- This man is
a public nuisance; he knows that I am a resident perfectly well,
and yet he goes on worrying me to buy his vulgar views."
Surely the vendor of photographs was in league with Lucy--in the
eternal league of Italy with youth. He had suddenly extended his
book before Miss Bartlett and Mr. Eager, binding their hands
together by a long glossy ribbon of churches, pictures, and
views.
"This is too much!" cried the chaplain, striking petulantly at
one of Fra Angelico's angels. She tore. A shrill cry rose from
the vendor. The book it seemed, was more valuable than one would
have supposed.
"Willingly would I purchase--" began Miss Bartlett.
"Ignore him," said Mr. Eager sharply, and they all walked rapidly
away from the square.
But an Italian can never be ignored, least of all when he has a
grievance. His mysterious persecution of Mr. Eager became
relentless; the air rang with his threats and lamentations. He
appealed to Lucy; would not she intercede? He was poor--he
sheltered a family--the tax on bread. He waited, he gibbered, he
was recompensed, he was dissatisfied, he did not leave them until
he had swept their minds clean of all thoughts whether pleasant
or unpleasant.
Shopping was the topic that now ensued. Under the chaplain's
guidance they selected many hideous presents and mementoes--
florid little picture-frames that seemed fashioned in gilded
pastry; other little frames, more severe, that stood on little
easels, and were carven out of oak; a blotting book of vellum;
a Dante of the same material; cheap mosaic brooches, which the
maids, next Christmas, would never tell from real; pins, pots,
heraldic saucers, brown art-photographs; Eros and Psyche in
alabaster; St. Peter to match--all of which would have cost less
in London.
This successful morning left no pleasant impressions on Lucy. She
had been a little frightened, both by Miss Lavish and by Mr.
Eager, she knew not why. And as they frightened her, she had,
strangely enough, ceased to respect them. She doubted that Miss
Lavish was a great artist. She doubted that Mr. Eager was as full
of spirituality and culture as she had been led to suppose. They
were tried by some new test, and they were found wanting. As for
Charlotte--as for Charlotte she was exactly the same. It might be
possible to be nice to her; it was impossible to love her.
"The son of a labourer; I happen to know it for a fact. A
mechanic of some sort himself when he was young; then he took to
writing for the Socialistic Press. I came across him at Brixton."
They were talking about the Emersons.
"How wonderfully people rise in these days!" sighed Miss
Bartlett, fingering a model of the leaning Tower of Pisa.
"Generally," replied Mr. Eager, "one has only sympathy for their
success. The desire for education and for social advance--in
these things there is something not wholly vile. There are some
working men whom one would be very willing to see out here in
Florence--little as they would make of it."
"Is he a journalist now?" Miss Bartlett asked, "He is not; he
made an advantageous marriage."
He uttered this remark with a voice full of meaning, and ended
with a sigh.
"Oh, so he has a wife."
"Dead, Miss Bartlett, dead. I wonder--yes I wonder how he has the
effrontery to look me in the face, to dare to claim acquaintance
with me. He was in my London parish long ago. The other day in
Santa Croce, when he was with Miss Honeychurch, I snubbed him.
Let him beware that he does not get more than a snub."
"What?" cried Lucy, flushing.
"Exposure!" hissed Mr. Eager.
He tried to change the subject; but in scoring a dramatic point
he had interested his audience more than he had intended. Miss
Bartlett was full of very natural curiosity. Lucy, though she
wished never to see the Emersons again, was not disposed to
condemn them on a single word.
"Do you mean," she asked, "that he is an irreligious man? We know
that already."
"Lucy, dear--" said Miss Bartlett, gently reproving her cousin's
penetration.
"I should be astonished if you knew all. The boy--an innocent
child at the time--I will exclude. God knows what his education
and his inherited qualities may have made him."
"Perhaps," said Miss Bartlett, "it is something that we had
better not hear."
"To speak plainly," said Mr. Eager, "it is. I will say no more."
For the first time Lucy's rebellious thoughts swept out in
words--for the first time in her life.
"You have said very little."
"It was my intention to say very little," was his frigid reply.
He gazed indignantly at the girl, who met him with equal
indignation. She turned towards him from the shop counter; her
breast heaved quickly. He observed her brow, and the sudden
strength of her lips. It was intolerable that she should
disbelieve him.
"Murder, if you want to know," he cried angrily. "That man
murdered his wife!"
"How?" she retorted.
"To all intents and purposes he murdered her. That day in Santa
Croce--did they say anything against me?"
"Not a word, Mr. Eager--not a single word."
"Oh, I thought they had been libelling me to you. But I suppose
it is only their personal charms that makes you defend them."
"I'm not defending them," said Lucy, losing her courage, and
relapsing into the old chaotic methods. "They're nothing to me."
"How could you think she was defending them?" said Miss Bartlett,
much discomfited by the unpleasant scene. The shopman was
possibly listening.
"She will find it difficult. For that man has murdered his wife
in the sight of God."
The addition of God was striking. But the chaplain was really
trying to qualify a rash remark. A silence followed which might
have been impressive, but was merely awkward. Then Miss Bartlett
hastily purchased the Leaning Tower, and led the way into the
street.
"I must be going," said he, shutting his eyes and taking out his
watch.
Miss Bartlett thanked him for his kindness, and spoke with
enthusiasm of the approaching drive.
"Drive? Oh, is our drive to come off?"
Lucy was recalled to her manners, and after a little exertion the
complacency of Mr. Eager was restored.
"Bother the drive!" exclaimed the girl, as soon as he had
departed. "It is just the drive we had arranged with Mr. Beebe
without any fuss at all. Why should he invite us in that absurd
manner? We might as well invite him. We are each paying for
ourselves."
Miss Bartlett, who had intended to lament over the Emersons, was
launched by this remark into unexpected thoughts.
"If that is so, dear--if the drive we and Mr. Beebe are going
with Mr. Eager is really the same as the one we are going with
Mr. Beebe, then I foresee a sad kettle of fish."
"How?"
"Because Mr. Beebe has asked Eleanor Lavish to come, too."
"That will mean another carriage."
"Far worse. Mr. Eager does not like Eleanor. She knows it
herself. The truth must be told; she is too unconventional for
him."
They were now in the newspaper-room at the English bank. Lucy
stood by the central table, heedless of Punch and the Graphic,
trying to answer, or at all events to formulate the questions
rioting in her brain. The well-known world had broken up, and
there emerged Florence, a magic city where people thought and did
the most extraordinary things. Murder, accusations of murder,
A lady clinging to one man and being rude to another--were these
the daily incidents of her streets? Was there more in her frank
beauty than met the eye--the power, perhaps, to evoke passions,
good and bad, and to bring them speedily to a fulfillment?
Happy Charlotte, who, though greatly troubled over things that
did not matter, seemed oblivious to things that did; who could
conjecture with admirable delicacy "where things might lead to,"
but apparently lost sight of the goal as she approached it. Now
she was crouching in the corner trying to extract a circular note
from a kind of linen nose-bag which hung in chaste concealment
round her neck. She had been told that this was the only safe way
to carry money in Italy; it must only be broached within the
walls of the English bank. As she groped she murmured: "Whether
it is Mr. Beebe who forgot to tell Mr. Eager, or Mr. Eager who
forgot when he told us, or whether they have decided to leave
Eleanor out altogether--which they could scarcely do--but in any
case we must be prepared. It is you they really want; I am only
asked for appearances. You shall go with the two gentlemen, and I
and Eleanor will follow behind. A one-horse carriage would do for
us. Yet how difficult it is!"
"It is indeed," replied the girl, with a gravity that sounded
sympathetic.
"What do you think about it?" asked Miss Bartlett, flushed from
the struggle, and buttoning up her dress.
"I don't know what I think, nor what I want."
"Oh, dear, Lucy! I do hope Florence isn't boring you. Speak the
word, and, as you know, I would take you to the ends of the earth
to-morrow."
"Thank you, Charlotte," said Lucy, and pondered over the offer.
There were letters for her at the bureau--one from her brother,
full of athletics and biology; one from her mother, delightful as
only her mother's letters could be. She had read in it of the
crocuses which had been bought for yellow and were coming up
puce, of the new parlour-maid, who had watered the ferns with
essence of lemonade, of the semi-detached cottages which were
ruining Summer Street, and breaking the heart of Sir Harry Otway.
She recalled the free, pleasant life of her home, where she was
allowed to do everything, and where nothing ever happened to her.
The road up through the pine-woods, the clean drawing-room, the
view over the Sussex Weald--all hung before her bright and
distinct, but pathetic as the pictures in a gallery to which,
after much experience, a traveller returns.
"And the news?" asked Miss Bartlett.
"Mrs. Vyse and her son have gone to Rome," said Lucy, giving
the news that interested her least. "Do you know the Vyses?"
"Oh, not that way back. We can never have too much of the dear
Piazza Signoria."
"They're nice people, the Vyses. So clever--my idea of what's
really clever. Don't you long to be in Rome?"
"I die for it!"
The Piazza Signoria is too stony to be brilliant. It has no
grass, no flowers, no frescoes, no glittering walls of marble or
comforting patches of ruddy brick. By an odd chance--unless we
believe in a presiding genius of places--the statues that relieve
its severity suggest, not the innocence of childhood, nor the
glorious bewilderment of youth, but the conscious achievements of
maturity. Perseus and Judith, Hercules and Thusnelda, they have
done or suffered something, and though they are immortal,
immortality has come to them after experience, not before. Here,
not only in the solitude of Nature, might a hero meet a goddess,
or a heroine a god.
"Charlotte!" cried the girl suddenly. "Here's an idea. What if we
popped off to Rome to-morrow--straight to the Vyses' hotel? For
I do know what I want. I'm sick of Florence. No, you said you'd
go to the ends of the earth! Do! Do!"
Miss Bartlett, with equal vivacity, replied:
"Oh, you droll person! Pray, what would become of your drive in
the hills?"
They passed together through the gaunt beauty of the square,
laughing over the unpractical suggestion.