A Room with a View - E. M. Forster [99]
“I think so; I’ll see.”
“No—of course, I’ll see. How are the Miss Alans?”
“Very well, thank you.”
“Did you tell Mr. Emerson about Greece?”
“I—I did.”
“Don’t you think it very plucky of her, Mr. Emerson, to undertake the two Miss Alans? Now, Miss Honeychurch, go back—keep warm. I think three is such a courageous number to go travelling.” And he hurried off to the stables.
“He is not going,” she said hoarsely. “I made a slip. Mr. Vyse does stop behind in England.” Somehow it was impossible to cheat this old man. To George, to Cecil, she would have lied again; but he seemed so near the end of things, so dignified in his approach to the gulf, of which he gave one account, and the books that surrounded him another, so mild to the rough paths that he had traversed, that the true chivalry—not the worn-out chivalry of sex, but the true chivalry that all the young may show to all the old—awoke in her, and, at whatever risk, she told him that Cecil was not her companion to Greece. And she spoke so seriously that the risk became a certainty, and he, lifting his eyes, said: “You are leaving him? You are leaving the man you love?”
“I—I had to.”
“Why, Miss Honeychurch, why?”
Terror came over her, and she lied again. She made the long, convincing speech that she had made to Mr. Beebe, and intended to make to the world when she announced that her engagement was no more. He heard her in silence, and then said: “My dear, I am worried about you. It seems to me”—dreamily; she was not alarmed—“that you are in a muddle.”
She shook her head.
“Take an old man’s word; there’s nothing worse than a muddle in all the world. It is easy to face Death and Fate, and the things that sound so dreadful. It is on my muddles that I look back with horror—on the things that I might have avoided. We can help one another but little. I used to think I could teach young people the whole of life, but I know better now, and all my teaching of George has come down to this: beware of muddle. Do you remember in that church, when you pretended to be annoyed with me and weren’t? Do you remember before, when you refused the room with the view? Those were muddles—little, but ominous—and I am fearing that you are in one now.” She was silent. “Don’t trust me, Miss Honeychurch. Though life is very glorious, it is difficult.” She was still silent. “‘Life,’ wrote a friend of mine, ‘is a public performance on the violin, in which you must learn the instrument as you go along.’ac I think he puts it well. Man has to pick up the use of his functions as he goes along—especially the function of Love.” Then he burst out excitedly: “That’s it; that’s what I mean. You love George!” And after his long preamble, the three words burst against Lucy like waves from the open sea.
“But you do,” he went on, not waiting for contradiction. “You love the boy body and soul; plainly, directly, as he loves you, and no other word expresses it. You won’t marry the other man for his sake.”
“How dare you!” gasped Lucy, with the roaring of waters in her ears. “Oh, how like a man!—I mean, to suppose that a woman is always thinking about a man.”
“But you are.”
She summoned physical disgust.
“You’re shocked, but I mean to shock you. It’s the only hope at times. I can reach you no other way. You must marry, or your life will be wasted. You have gone too far to retreat. I have no time for the tenderness, and the comradeship, and the poetry, and the things that really matter, and for which you marry. I know that, with George, you will find them, and that you love him. Then be his wife. He is already part of you. Though you fly to Greece, and never see him again, or forget his very name, George will work in your thoughts till you die. It isn’t possible to love and