A Room with a View - E. M. Forster [68]
“No, I don’t think so, mother; Cecil’s all right.”
“Perhaps he’s tired.”
Lucy compromised: perhaps Cecil was a little tired.
“Because otherwise”—she pulled out her bonnet-pins with gathering displeasure—because otherwise I cannot account for him.”
“I do think Mrs. Butterworth is rather tiresome, if you mean that.”
“Cecil has told you to think so. You were devoted to her as a little girl, and nothing will describe her goodness to you through the typhoid fever. No—it is just the same thing everywhere.”
“Let me just put your bonnet away, may I?”
“Surely he could answer her civilly for one half-hour?”
“Cecil has a very high standard for people,” faltered Lucy, seeing trouble ahead. “It’s part of his ideals—it is really that that makes him sometimes seem—”
“Oh, rubbish! If high ideals make a young man rude, the sooner he gets rid of them the better,” said Mrs. Honeychurch, handing her the bonnet.
“Now, mother! I’ve seen you cross with Mrs. Butterworth yourself!”
“Not in that way. At times I could wring her neck. But not in that way. No. It is the same with Cecil all over.”
“By-the-by—I never told you. I had a letter from Charlotte while I was away in London.”
This attempt to divert the conversation was too puerile, and Mrs. Honeychurch resented it.
“Since Cecil came back from London, nothing appears to please him. Whenever I speak he winces—1 see him, Lucy; it is useless to contradict me. No doubt I am neither artistic nor literary nor intellectual nor musical, but I cannot help the drawing-room furniture; your father bought it and we must put up with it, will Cecil kindly remember.”
“I—I see what you mean, and certainly Cecil oughtn’t to. But he does not mean to be uncivil—he once explained—it is the things that upset him—he is easily upset by ugly things—he is not uncivil to people.”
“Is it a thing or a person when Freddy sings?”
“You can’t expect a really musical person to enjoy comic songs as we do.”
“Then why didn’t he leave the room? Why sit wriggling and sneering and spoiling everyone’s pleasure?”
“We mustn’t be unjust to people,” faltered Lucy. Something had enfeebled her, and the case for Cecil, which she had mastered so perfectly in London, would not come forth in an effective form. The two civilizations had clashed—Cecil hinted that they might—and she was dazzled and bewildered, as though the radiance that lies behind all civilization had blinded her eyes. Good taste and bad taste were only catch-words, garments of diverse cut and music itself dissolved to a whisper through pine-trees, where the song is not distinguishable from the comic song.
She remained in much embarrassment, while Mrs. Honeychurch changed her frock for dinner; and every now and then she said a word, and made things no better. There was no concealing the fact—Cecil had meant to be supercilious, and he had succeeded. And Lucy—she knew not why—wished that the trouble could have come at any other time.
“Go and dress, dear; you’ll be late.”
“All right, mother—”
“Don’t say ‘All right’ and stop. Go.”
She obeyed, but loitered disconsolately at the landing window. It faced north, so there was little view, and no view of the sky. Now, as in the winter, the pine-trees hung close to her eyes. One connected the landing window with depression. No definite problem menaced her, but she sighed to herself, “Oh, dear, what shall I do, what shall I do?” It seemed to her that every one else was behaving very badly. And she ought not to have mentioned Miss Bartlett’s letter. She must be more careful; her mother was rather inquisitive, and might have asked what it was about. Oh, dear, what should she do?—and then Freddy came bounding up-stairs, and joined the ranks of the ill-behaved.
“I say, those are topping people.”
“My dear baby, how tiresome you’ve been! You had no business to take them bathing in the Sacred Lake; it’s much too public. It was all right for you, but most awkward for every one else. Do be more careful. You forget the place is growing half suburban.”
“I say, is anything on to-morrow week?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Then I want to ask the Emersons up to Sunday tennis.