________________________________________________
_ The Comic Muse, though able to look after her own interests, did
not disdain the assistance of Mr. Vyse. His idea of bringing the
Emersons to Windy Corner struck her as decidedly good, and she
carried through the negotiations without a hitch. Sir Harry Otway
signed the agreement, met Mr. Emerson, who was duly
disillusioned. The Miss Alans were duly offended, and wrote a
dignified letter to Lucy, whom they held responsible for the
failure. Mr. Beebe planned pleasant moments for the new-comers,
and told Mrs. Honeychurch that Freddy must call on them as soon
as they arrived. Indeed, so ample was the Muse's equipment that
she permitted Mr. Harris, never a very robust criminal, to droop
his head, to be forgotten, and to die.
Lucy--to descend from bright heaven to earth, whereon there are
shadows because there are hills--Lucy was at first plunged into
despair, but settled after a little thought that it did not
matter the very least. Now that she was engaged, the Emersons
would scarcely insult her and were welcome into the
neighbourhood. And Cecil was welcome to bring whom he would into
the neighbourhood. Therefore Cecil was welcome to bring the
Emersons into the neighbourhood. But, as I say, this took a
little thinking, and--so illogical are girls--the event remained
rather greater and rather more dreadful than it should have done.
She was glad that a visit to Mrs. Vyse now fell due; the tenants
moved into Cissie Villa while she was safe in the London flat.
"Cecil--Cecil darling," she whispered the evening she arrived,
and crept into his arms.
Cecil, too, became demonstrative. He saw that the needful fire
had been kindled in Lucy. At last she longed for attention, as a
woman should, and looked up to him because he was a man.
"So you do love me, little thing?" he murmured.
"Oh, Cecil, I do, I do! I don't know what I should do without
you."
Several days passed. Then she had a letter from Miss Bartlett.
A coolness had sprung up between the two cousins, and they had
not corresponded since they parted in August. The coolness dated
from what Charlotte would call "the flight to Rome," and in Rome
it had increased amazingly. For the companion who is merely
uncongenial in the mediaeval world becomes exasperating in the
classical. Charlotte, unselfish in the Forum, would have tried a
sweeter temper than Lucy's, and once, in the Baths of Caracalla,
they had doubted whether they could continue their tour. Lucy had
said she would join the Vyses--Mrs. Vyse was an acquaintance of
her mother, so there was no impropriety in the plan and Miss
Bartlett had replied that she was quite used to being abandoned
suddenly. Finally nothing happened; but the coolness remained,
and, for Lucy, was even increased when she opened the letter and
read as follows. It had been forwarded from Windy Corner.
"Tunbridge Wells,
September.
"Dearest Lucia,
"I have news of you at last! Miss Lavish has been bicycling in
your parts, but was not sure whether a call would be welcome.
Puncturing her tire near Summer Street, and it being mended while
she sat very woebegone in that pretty churchyard, she saw to her
astonishment, a door open opposite and the younger Emerson man
come out. He said his father had just taken the house. He SAID he
did not know that you lived in the neighbourhood (?). He never
suggested giving Eleanor a cup of tea. Dear Lucy, I am much
worried, and I advise you to make a clean breast of his past
behaviour to your mother, Freddy, and Mr. Vyse, who will forbid
him to enter the house, etc. That was a great misfortune, and I
dare say you have told them already. Mr. Vyse is so sensitive. I
remember how I used to get on his nerves at Rome. I am very sorry
about it all, and should not feel easy unless I warned you.
"Believe me,
"Your anxious and loving cousin,
Charlotte."
Lucy was much annoyed, and replied as follows:
"Beauchamp Mansions, S.W.
"Dear Charlotte,
"Many thanks for your warning. When Mr. Emerson forgot himself on
the mountain, you made me promise not to tell mother, because you
said she would blame you for not being always with me. I have
kept that promise, and cannot possibly tell her now. I have said
both to her and Cecil that I met the Emersons at Florence, and
that they are respectable people--which I do think--and the
reason that he offered Miss Lavish no tea was probably that he
had none himself. She should have tried at the Rectory. I cannot
begin making a fuss at this stage. You must see that it would be
too absurd. If the Emersons heard I had complained of them, they
would think themselves of importance, which is exactly what they
are not. I like the old father, and look forward to seeing him
again. As for the son, I am sorry for him when we meet, rather
than for myself. They are known to Cecil, who is very well and
spoke of you the other day. We expect to be married in January.
"Miss Lavish cannot have told you much about me, for I am not at
Windy Corner at all, but here. Please do not put 'Private'
outside your envelope again. No one opens my letters.
"Yours affectionately,
"L. M. Honeychurch."
Secrecy has this disadvantage: we lose the sense of proportion;
we cannot tell whether our secret is important or not. Were Lucy
and her cousin closeted with a great thing which would destroy
Cecil's life if he discovered it, or with a little thing which he
would laugh at? Miss Bartlett suggested the former. Perhaps she
was right. It had become a great thing now. Left to herself, Lucy
would have told her mother and her lover ingenuously, and it
would have remained a little thing. "Emerson, not Harris"; it was
only that a few weeks ago. She tried to tell Cecil even now when
they were laughing about some beautiful lady who had smitten his
heart at school. But her body behaved so ridiculously that she
stopped.
She and her secret stayed ten days longer in the deserted
Metropolis visiting the scenes they were to know so well later
on. It did her no harm, Cecil thought, to learn the framework of
society, while society itself was absent on the golf-links or the
moors. The weather was cool, and it did her no harm. In spite of
the season, Mrs. Vyse managed to scrape together a dinner-party
consisting entirely of the grandchildren of famous people. The
food was poor, but the talk had a witty weariness that impressed
the girl. One was tired of everything, it seemed. One launched
into enthusiasms only to collapse gracefully, and pick oneself up
amid sympathetic laughter. In this atmosphere the Pension
Bertolini and Windy Corner appeared equally crude, and Lucy saw
that her London career would estrange her a little from all that
she had loved in the past.
The grandchildren asked her to play the piano.
She played Schumann. "Now some Beethoven" called Cecil, when the
querulous beauty of the music had died. She shook her head and
played Schumann again. The melody rose, unprofitably magical. It
broke; it was resumed broken, not marching once from the cradle
to the grave. The sadness of the incomplete--the sadness that is
often Life, but should never be Art--throbbed in its disjected
phrases, and made the nerves of the audience throb. Not thus had
she played on the little draped piano at the Bertolini, and "Too
much Schumann" was not the remark that Mr. Beebe had passed to
himself when she returned.
When the guests were gone, and Lucy had gone to bed, Mrs. Vyse
paced up and down the drawing-room, discussing her little party
with her son. Mrs. Vyse was a nice woman, but her personality,
like many another's, had been swamped by London, for it needs a
strong head to live among many people. The too vast orb of her
fate had crushed her; and she had seen too many seasons, too many
cities, too many men, for her abilities, and even with Cecil she
was mechanical, and behaved as if he was not one son, but, so to
speak, a filial crowd.
"Make Lucy one of us," she said, looking round intelligently at
the end of each sentence, and straining her lips apart until she
spoke again. "Lucy is becoming wonderful--wonderful."
"Her music always was wonderful."
"Yes, but she is purging off the Honeychurch taint, most
excellent Honeychurches, but you know what I mean. She is not
always quoting servants, or asking one how the pudding is made."
"Italy has done it."
"Perhaps," she murmured, thinking of the museum that represented
Italy to her. "It is just possible. Cecil, mind you marry her
next January. She is one of us already."
"But her music!" he exclaimed. "The style of her! How she kept to
Schumann when, like an idiot, I wanted Beethoven. Schumann was
right for this evening. Schumann was the thing. Do you know,
mother, I shall have our children educated just like Lucy. Bring
them up among honest country folks for freshness, send them to
Italy for subtlety, and then--not till then--let them come to
London. I don't believe in these London educations--" He broke
off, remembering that he had had one himself, and concluded, "At
all events, not for women."
"Make her one of us," repeated Mrs. Vyse, and processed to bed.
As she was dozing off, a cry--the cry of nightmare--rang from
Lucy's room. Lucy could ring for the maid if she liked but Mrs.
Vyse thought it kind to go herself. She found the girl sitting
upright with her hand on her cheek.
"I am so sorry, Mrs. Vyse--it is these dreams."
"Bad dreams?"
"Just dreams."
The elder lady smiled and kissed her, saying very distinctly:
"You should have heard us talking about you, dear. He admires you
more than ever. Dream of that."
Lucy returned the kiss, still covering one cheek with her hand.
Mrs. Vyse recessed to bed. Cecil, whom the cry had not awoke,
snored. Darkness enveloped the flat. _
Read next: Part II: Chapter XII - Twelfth Chapter
Read previous: Part II: Chapter X - Cecil as a Humourist
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