Chapter V: Possibilities of a Pleasant Outing
It was a family saying that "you never knew which way Charlotte Bartlettwould turn." She was perfectly pleasant and sensible over Lucy'sadventure, found the abridged account of it quite adequate, and paidsuitable tribute to the courtesy of Mr. George Emerson. She and MissLavish had had an adventure also. They had been stopped at the Daziocoming back, and the young officials there, who seemed impudent anddesoeuvre, had tried to search their reticules for provisions. It mighthave been most unpleasant. Fortunately Miss Lavish was a match for anyone.
For good or for evil, Lucy was left to face her problem alone. Noneof her friends had seen her, either in the Piazza or, later on, bythe embankment. Mr. Beebe, indeed, noticing her startled eyes atdinner-time, had again passed to himself the remark of "Too muchBeethoven." But he only supposed that she was ready for an adventure,not that she had encountered it. This solitude oppressed her; she wasaccustomed to have her thoughts confirmed by others or, at all events,contradicted; it was too dreadful not to know whether she was thinkingright or wrong.
At breakfast next morning she took decisive action. There were two plansbetween which she had to choose. Mr. Beebe was walking up to theTorre del Gallo with the Emersons and some American ladies. Would MissBartlett and Miss Honeychurch join the party? Charlotte declined forherself; she had been there in the rain the previous afternoon. Butshe thought it an admirable idea for Lucy, who hated shopping, changingmoney, fetching letters, and other irksome duties--all of which MissBartlett must accomplish this morning and could easily accomplish alone.
"No, Charlotte!" cried the girl, with real warmth. "It's very kind ofMr. Beebe, but I am certainly coming with you. I had much rather."
"Very well, dear," said Miss Bartlett, with a faint flush of pleasurethat called forth a deep flush of shame on the cheeks of Lucy. Howabominably she behaved to Charlotte, now as always! But now she shouldalter. All morning she would be really nice to her.
She slipped her arm into her cousin's, and they started off along theLung' Arno. The river was a lion that morning in strength, voice, andcolour. Miss Bartlett insisted on leaning over the parapet to look atit. She then made her usual remark, which was "How I do wish Freddy andyour mother could see this, too!"
Lucy fidgeted; it was tiresome of Charlotte to have stopped exactlywhere she did.
"Look, Lucia! Oh, you are watching for the Torre del Gallo party. Ifeared you would repent you of your choice."
Serious as the choice had been, Lucy did not repent. Yesterday had beena muddle--queer and odd, the kind of thing one could not write downeasily on paper--but she had a feeling that Charlotte and her shoppingwere preferable to George Emerson and the summit of the Torre delGallo. Since she could not unravel the tangle, she must take care notto re-enter it. She could protest sincerely against Miss Bartlett'sinsinuations.
But though she had avoided the chief actor, the scenery unfortunatelyremained. Charlotte, with the complacency of fate, led her from theriver to the Piazza Signoria. She could not have believed that stones, aLoggia, a fountain, a palace tower, would have such significance. For amoment she understood the nature of ghosts.
The exact site of the murder was occupied, not by a ghost, but by MissLavish, who had the morning newspaper in her hand. She hailed thembriskly. The dreadful catastrophe of the previous day had given her anidea which she thought would work up into a book.
"Oh, let me congratulate you!" said Miss Bartlett. "After your despairof yesterday! What a fortunate thing!"
"Aha! Miss Honeychurch, come you here I am in luck. Now, you are to tellme absolutely everything that you saw from the beginning." Lucy poked atthe 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 suitablethat a girl should feel deeply.
"It is I who am sorry," said Miss Lavish "literary hacks are shamelesscreatures. I believe there's no secret of the human heart into which wewouldn't pry."
She marched cheerfully to the fountain and back, and did a fewcalculations in realism. Then she said that she had been in thePiazza since eight o'clock collecting material. A good deal of it wasunsuitable, but of course one always had to adapt. The two men hadquarrelled over a five-franc note. For the five-franc note she shouldsubstitute a young lady, which would raise the tone of the tragedy, andat 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 whilethe fountain plashed to the satyrs in the morning sun.
"I hope you will excuse me for boring on like this," Miss Lavishconcluded. "It is so tempting to talk to really sympathetic people.Of course, this is the barest outline. There will be a deal of localcolouring, descriptions of Florence and the neighbourhood, and I shallalso introduce some humorous characters. And let me give you all fairwarning: I intend to be unmerciful to the British tourist."
"Oh, you wicked woman," cried Miss Bartlett. "I am sure you are thinkingof 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 goingto paint so far as I can. For I repeat and I insist, and I have alwaysheld most strongly, that a tragedy such as yesterday's is not the lesstragic because it happened in humble life."
There was a fitting silence when Miss Lavish had concluded. Then thecousins wished success to her labours, and walked slowly away across thesquare.
"She is my idea of a really clever woman," said Miss Bartlett. "Thatlast remark struck me as so particularly true. It should be a mostpathetic novel."
Lucy assented. At present her great aim was not to get put into it. Herperceptions this morning were curiously keen, and she believed that MissLavish 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 beshocked at her. We had a long talk yesterday. She believes in justiceand truth and human interest. She told me also that she has a highopinion of the destiny of woman--Mr. Eager! Why, how nice! What apleasant surprise!"
"Ah, not for me," said the chaplain blandly, "for I have been watchingyou 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 remarkwas made to a vender of panoramic photographs who was approaching with acourteous smile. "I am about to venture a suggestion. Would you andMiss Honeychurch be disposed to join me in a drive some day this week--adrive 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 anhour's ramble on the hillside. The view thence of Florence is mostbeautiful--far better than the hackneyed view of Fiesole. It is the viewthat Alessio Baldovinetti is fond of introducing into his pictures. Thatman had a decided feeling for landscape. Decidedly. But who looks at itto-day? Ah, the world is too much for us."
Miss Bartlett had not heard of Alessio Baldovinetti, but she knewthat Mr. Eager was no commonplace chaplain. He was a member of theresidential colony who had made Florence their home. He knew the peoplewho never walked about with Baedekers, who had learnt to take a siestaafter lunch, who took drives the pension tourists had never heard of,and saw by private influence galleries which were closed to them. Livingin delicate seclusion, some in furnished flats, others in Renaissancevillas on Fiesole's slope, they read, wrote, studied, and exchangedideas, thus attaining to that intimate knowledge, or rather perception,of Florence which is denied to all
who carry in their pockets thecoupons 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 itwas his avowed custom to select those of his migratory sheep who seemedworthy, and give them a few hours in the pastures of the permanent. Teaat a Renaissance villa? Nothing had been said about it yet. But if itdid come to that--how Lucy would enjoy it!
A few days ago and Lucy would have felt the same. But the joys of lifewere grouping themselves anew. A drive in the hills with Mr. Eager andMiss Bartlett--even if culminating in a residential tea-party--wasno longer the greatest of them. She echoed the raptures of Charlottesomewhat faintly. Only when she heard that Mr. Beebe was also coming didher thanks become more sincere.
"So we shall be a partie carree," said the chaplain. "In these days oftoil and tumult one has great needs of the country and its message ofpurity. Andate via! andate presto, presto! Ah, the town! Beautiful as itis, it is the town."
They assented.
"This very square--so I am told--witnessed yesterday the most sordid oftragedies. To one who loves the Florence of Dante and Savonarolathere is something portentous in such desecration--portentous andhumiliating."
"Humiliating indeed," said Miss Bartlett. "Miss Honeychurch happened tobe 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. "Donot blame her, please, Mr. Eager. The fault is mine: I left herunchaperoned."
"So you were here alone, Miss Honeychurch?" His voice suggestedsympathetic reproof but at the same time indicated that a few harrowingdetails would not be unacceptable. His dark, handsome face droopedmournfully towards her to catch her reply.
"Practically."
"One of our pension acquaintances kindly brought her home," said MissBartlett, adroitly concealing the sex of the preserver.
"For her also it must have been a terrible experience. I trust thatneither 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 remarkablewas this: the ghoulish fashion in which respectable people will nibbleafter 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 thedisgraceful illustrations which the gutter Press--This man is a publicnuisance; he knows that I am a resident perfectly well, and yet he goeson worrying me to buy his vulgar views."
Surely the vendor of photographs was in league with Lucy--in the eternalleague of Italy with youth. He had suddenly extended his book beforeMiss Bartlett and Mr. Eager, binding their hands together by a longglossy ribbon of churches, pictures, and views.
"This is too much!" cried the chaplain, striking petulantly at one ofFra Angelico's angels. She tore. A shrill cry rose from the vendor. Thebook 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 awayfrom the square.
But an Italian can never be ignored, least of all when he has agrievance. 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 onbread. He waited, he gibbered, he was recompensed, he was dissatisfied,he did not leave them until he had swept their minds clean of allthoughts whether pleasant or unpleasant.
Shopping was the topic that now ensued. Under the chaplain's guidancethey selected many hideous presents and mementoes--florid littlepicture-frames that seemed fashioned in gilded pastry; other littleframes, more severe, that stood on little easels, and were carven outof oak; a blotting book of vellum; a Dante of the same material; cheapmosaic brooches, which the maids, next Christmas, would never tell fromreal; pins, pots, heraldic saucers, brown art-photographs; Eros andPsyche in alabaster; St. Peter to match--all of which would have costless in London.
This successful morning left no pleasant impressions on Lucy. She hadbeen a little frightened, both by Miss Lavish and by Mr. Eager, she knewnot why. And as they frightened her, she had, strangely enough, ceasedto respect them. She doubted that Miss Lavish was a great artist. Shedoubted that Mr. Eager was as full of spirituality and culture as shehad been led to suppose. They were tried by some new test, and they werefound wanting. As for Charlotte--as for Charlotte she was exactly thesame. It might be possible to be nice to her; it was impossible to loveher.
"The son of a labourer; I happen to know it for a fact. A mechanic ofsome sort himself when he was young; then he took to writing for theSocialistic 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 theirsuccess. The desire for education and for social advance--in thesethings there is something not wholly vile. There are some working menwhom one would be very willing to see out here in Florence--little asthey 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 asigh.
"Oh, so he has a wife."
"Dead, Miss Bartlett, dead. I wonder--yes I wonder how he has theeffrontery to look me in the face, to dare to claim acquaintance withme. 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 hedoes 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 hadinterested his audience more than he had intended. Miss Bartlett wasfull of very natural curiosity. Lucy, though she wished never to see theEmersons again, was not disposed to condemn them on a single word.
"Do you mean," she asked, "that he is an irreligious man? We know thatalready."
"Lucy, dear--" said Miss Bartlett, gently reproving her cousin'spenetration.
"I should be astonished if you knew all. The boy--an innocent child atthe time--I will exclude. God knows what his education and his inheritedqualities may have made him."
"Perhaps," said Miss Bartlett, "it is something that we had better nothear."
"To speak plainly," said Mr. Eager, "it is. I will say no more." For thefirst time Lucy's rebellious thoughts swept out in words--for the firsttime 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 wasintolerable that she should disbelieve him.
"Murder, if you want to know," he cried angrily. "That man murdered hiswife!"
"How?" she retorted.
"To all intents and purposes he murdered her. That day in SantaCroce--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 isonly their personal charms that makes you defend them."
"I'm not defending them," said Lucy, losing her courage, and relapsinginto the old chaotic methods. "They're nothing to me."
"How could you think she was defending them?" said Miss Bartlett, muchdiscomfited by the unpleasant scene. The shopman was possibly listening.
"She will find it difficult. For that man has murdered his wife in thesi
ght of God."
The addition of God was striking. But the chaplain was really tryingto qualify a rash remark. A silence followed which might have beenimpressive, but was merely awkward. Then Miss Bartlett hastily purchasedthe 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 ofthe approaching drive.
"Drive? Oh, is our drive to come off?"
Lucy was recalled to her manners, and after a little exertion thecomplacency of Mr. Eager was restored.
"Bother the drive!" exclaimed the girl, as soon as he had departed. "Itis just the drive we had arranged with Mr. Beebe without any fuss atall. Why should he invite us in that absurd manner? We might as wellinvite him. We are each paying for ourselves."
Miss Bartlett, who had intended to lament over the Emersons, waslaunched 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 Iforesee 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. Thetruth must be told; she is too unconventional for him."
They were now in the newspaper-room at the English bank. Lucy stood bythe central table, heedless of Punch and the Graphic, trying to answer,or at all events to formulate the questions rioting in her brain. Thewell-known world had broken up, and there emerged Florence, a magiccity where people thought and did the most extraordinary things. Murder,accusations of murder, a lady clinging to one man and being rude toanother--were these the daily incidents of her streets? Was there morein her frank beauty than met the eye--the power, perhaps, to evokepassions, good and bad, and to bring them speedily to a fulfillment?
Happy Charlotte, who, though greatly troubled over things that did notmatter, seemed oblivious to things that did; who could conjecture withadmirable delicacy "where things might lead to," but apparently lostsight of the goal as she approached it. Now she was crouching in thecorner trying to extract a circular note from a kind of linen nose-bagwhich hung in chaste concealment round her neck. She had been told thatthis was the only safe way to carry money in Italy; it must onlybe broached within the walls of the English bank. As she groped shemurmured: "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 leaveEleanor out altogether--which they could scarcely do--but in any casewe must be prepared. It is you they really want; I am only asked forappearances. You shall go with the two gentlemen, and I and Eleanor willfollow behind. A one-horse carriage would do for us. Yet how difficultit is!"
"It is indeed," replied the girl, with a gravity that soundedsympathetic.
"What do you think about it?" asked Miss Bartlett, flushed from thestruggle, 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, fullof athletics and biology; one from her mother, delightful as only hermother's letters could be. She had read in it of the crocuses which hadbeen 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-detachedcottages which were ruining Summer Street, and breaking the heart of SirHarry Otway. She recalled the free, pleasant life of her home, where shewas allowed to do everything, and where nothing ever happened to her.The road up through the pine-woods, the clean drawing-room, the viewover the Sussex Weald--all hung before her bright and distinct, butpathetic as the pictures in a gallery to which, after much experience, atraveller returns.
"And the news?" asked Miss Bartlett.
"Mrs. Vyse and her son have gone to Rome," said Lucy, giving the newsthat interested her least. "Do you know the Vyses?"
"Oh, not that way back. We can never have too much of the dear PiazzaSignoria."
"They're nice people, the Vyses. So clever--my idea of what's reallyclever. 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 comfortingpatches of ruddy brick. By an odd chance--unless we believe in apresiding genius of places--the statues that relieve its severitysuggest, not the innocence of childhood, nor the glorious bewildermentof youth, but the conscious achievements of maturity. Perseus andJudith, Hercules and Thusnelda, they have done or suffered something,and though they are immortal, immortality has come to them afterexperience, not before. Here, not only in the solitude of Nature, mighta hero meet a goddess, or a heroine a god.
"Charlotte!" cried the girl suddenly. "Here's an idea. What if we poppedoff to Rome to-morrow--straight to the Vyses' hotel? For I do know whatI want. I'm sick of Florence. No, you said you'd go to the ends of theearth! Do! Do!"
Miss Bartlett, with equal vivacity, replied:
"Oh, you droll person! Pray, what would become of your drive in thehills?"
They passed together through the gaunt beauty of the square, laughingover the unpractical suggestion.