A Room with a View - E. M. Forster [78]
She longed to shout the words: “It is all right. It’s a secret between us two for ever. Cecil will never hear.” She was even glad that Miss Bartlett had made her promise secrecy, that last dark evening at Florence, when they had knelt packing in her room. The secret, big or little, was guarded. Only three English people knew of it in the world.
Thus she interpreted her joy. She greeted Cecil with unusual radiance, because she felt so safe. As he helped her out of the carriage, she said:
“The Emersons have been so nice. George Emerson has improved enormously.”
“Oh, how are my proteges?” asked Cecil, who took no real interest in them, and had long since forgotten his resolution to bring them to Windy Corner for educational purposes.
“Protégés!” she exclaimed with some warmth.
For the only relationship which Cecil conceived was feudal: that of protector and protected. He had no glimpse of the comradeship after which the girl’s soul yearned.
“You shall see for yourself how your proteges are. George Emerson is coming up this afternoon. He is a most interesting man to talk to. Only don’t—” She nearly said, “Don’t protect him.” But the bell was ringing for lunch, and, as often happened, Cecil had paid no great attention to her remarks. Charm, not argument, was to be her forte.
Lunch was a cheerful meal. Generally Lucy was depressed at meals. Some one had to be soothed—either Cecil or Miss Bartlett or a Being not visible to the mortal eye—a Being who whispered to her soul: “It will not last, this cheerfulness. In January you must go to London to entertain the grandchildren of celebrated men.” But to-day she felt she had received a guarantee. Her mother would always sit there, her brother here. The sun, though it had moved a little since the morning, would never be hidden behind the western hills. After luncheon they asked her to play. She had seen Gluck’s Armide that year, and played from memory the music of the enchanted garden—the music to which Renaud approaches, beneath the light of an eternal dawn, the music that never gains, never wanes, but ripples for ever like the tideless seas of fairyland. Such music is not for the piano, and her audience began to get restive, and Cecil, sharing the discontent, called out: “Now play us the other garden—the one in Parsifal.”
She closed the instrument.
“Not very dutiful,” said her mother’s voice.
Fearing that she had offended Cecil, she turned quickly round. There George was. He had crept in without interrupting her.
“Oh, I had no idea!” she exclaimed, getting very red; and then, without a word of greeting, she re-opened the piano. Cecil should have the Parsifal, and anything else that he liked.
“Our performer has changed her mind,” said Miss Bartlett, perhaps implying, she will play the music to Mr. Emerson. Lucy did not know what to do nor even what she wanted to do. She played a few bars of the Flower Maidens’ song very badly and then she stopped.
“I vote tennis,” said Freddy, disgusted at the scrappy entertainment.
“Yes, so do I.” Once more she closed the unfortunate piano. “I vote you have a men’s four.”
“All right.”
“Not for me, thank you,” said Cecil. “I will not spoil the set.” He never realized that it may be an act of kindness in a bad player to make up a fourth.
“Oh, come along, Cecil. I’m bad, Floyd’s rotten, and so I dare say’s Emerson.”
George corrected him: “I am not bad.”
One looked down one’s nose at this. “Then certainly I won’t play,” said Cecil, while Miss Bartlett, under the impression that she was snubbing George added: “I agree with you, Mr. Vyse. You had much better not play. Much better not.”
Minnie, rushing in where Cecil feared to tread, announced that she would play. “I shall miss every ball