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! Isuppose 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.
