A Room with a View - E. M. Forster [92]
They reached the Beehive Tavern at about five o’clock. That amiable hostelry possesses a verandah, in which the young and the unwise do dearly love to sit, while guests of more mature years seek a pleasant sanded room, and have tea at a table comfortably. Mr. Beebe saw that Miss Bartlett would be cold if she sat out, and that Minnie would be dull if she sat in, so he proposed a division of forces. They would hand the child her food through the window. Thus he was incidentally enabled to discuss the fortunes of Lucy.
“I have been thinking, Miss Bartlett,” he said, “and, unless you very much object, I would like to reopen that discussion.” She bowed. “Nothing about the past. I know little and care less about that; I am absolutely certain that it is to your cousin’s credit. She has acted loftily and rightly, and it is like her gentle modesty to say that we think too highly of her. But the future. Seriously, what do you think of this Greek plan?” He pulled out the letter again. “I don’t know whether you overheard, but she wants to join the Miss Alans in their mad career. It’s all—I can’t explain—it’s wrong.”
Miss Bartlett read the letter in silence, laid it down, seemed to hesitate, and then read it again.
“I can’t see the point of it myself.”
To his astonishment, she replied: “There I cannot agree with you. In it I spy Lucy’s salvation.”
“Really. Now, why?”
“She wanted to leave Windy Corner.”
“I know—but it seems so odd, so unlike her, so—I was going to say—selfish.”
“It is natural, surely—after such painful scenes—that she should desire a change.”
Here, apparently, was one of those points that the male intellect misses. Mr. Beebe exclaimed: “So she says herself, and since another lady agrees with her, I must own that I am partially convinced. Perhaps she must have a change. I have no sisters or—and I don’t understand these things. But why need she go as far as Greece?”
“You may well ask that,” replied Miss Bartlett, who was evidently interested, and had almost dropped her evasive manner. “Why Greece? (What is it, Minnie dear—jam?) Why not Tunbridge Wells? Oh, Mr. Beebe! I had a long and most unsatisfactory interview with dear Lucy this morning. I cannot help her. I will say no more. Perhaps I have already said too much. I am not to talk. I wanted her to spend six months with me at Tunbridge Wells, and she refused.”
Mr. Beebe poked at a crumb with his knife.
“But my feelings are of no importance. I know too well that I get on Lucy’s nerves. Our tour was a failure. She wanted to leave Florence, and when we got to Rome she did not want to be in Rome, and all the time I felt that I was spending her mother’s money—”
“Let us keep to the future, though,” interrupted Mr. Beebe. “I want your advice.”
“Very well,” said Charlotte, with a choky abruptness that was new to him, though familiar to Lucy. “I for one will help her to go to Greece. Will you?”
Mr. Beebe considered.
“It is absolutely necessary,” she continued, lowering her veil and whispering through it with a passion, an intensity, that surprised him. “I know—I know.” The darkness was coming on, and he felt that this odd woman really did know. “She must not stop here a moment, and we must keep quiet till she goes. I trust that the servants know nothing. Afterwards—but I may have said too much already. Only, Lucy and I are helpless against Mrs. Honeychurch alone. If you help we may succeed. Otherwise—”
“Otherwise—?”
“Otherwise,” she repeated as if the word held finality.
“Yes, I will help her,” said the clergyman, setting his jaw firm. “Come, let us go back now, and settle the whole thing up.”
Miss Bartlett burst into florid gratitude. The tavern sign—a beehive trimmed evenly with bees—creaked in the wind outside as she thanked him. Mr. Beebe did not quite understand the situation; but then, he