A Room with a View

Lucy and Charlotte’s Private Chat

When Lucy and Miss Bartlett are out of earshot on the lawn, the older woman’s manner shifts abruptly from wailing to briskness. She asks directly: “Have you told him about him yet?” Lucy understands immediately what her cousin means by “him”—George Emerson and his behavior in Florence. She replies that she has not told Cecil or anyone, and requests change for the sovereign. Later, back in the drawing-room where Miss Bartlett gazes at the framed photograph of St. John ascending, she returns to the subject with urgency: “How dreadful! How more than dreadful, if Mr. Vyse should come to hear of it from some other source.” Lucy dismisses this concern, arguing that no Florentine cab-driver could ever reach Cecil with such information. Miss Bartlett suggests other possibilities: “Or perhaps old Mr. Emerson knows. In fact, he is certain to know.” Lucy remains unconcerned, insisting that even if the news spreads, she trusts Cecil to laugh at it. When pressed whether he would contradict it, she reaffirms that he would laugh at it—but she knows in her heart that she cannot truly trust him, for he desires her untouched.

The Secret of George Emerson

Miss Bartlett sighs, admitting she is no match for Lucy in conversation, and blushes to recall how she interfered at Florence when Lucy was so well able to look after herself and so much cleverer in all ways. Lucy takes charge, suggesting they go outside before the others smash all the china, but stops to ask the crucial question: “Have you seen the young one yet?” Lucy confirms that she has, and when asked what happened, explains that they met at the Rectory and George talked about Italy like any other person. She insists the situation is really all right: “What advantage would he get from being a cad, to put it bluntly?” She expresses frustration that she cannot make Charlotte see it her way. She emphasizes that George has improved significantly—he no longer looks perpetually about to burst into tears—and now works as a clerk in the General Manager’s office at one of the big railways, not as a porter. His father had been in journalism but is now rheumatic and has retired. Lucy takes her guest’s arm and proposes they stop talking about this silly Italian business, wanting Charlotte to enjoy a restful visit at Windy Corner with no worrying. Yet as they speak, the reader may detect an unfortunate slip in Lucy’s speech—one that hints at the very secrets she believes she is keeping.

Defending George’s Character

Lucy mounts a determined defense of George Emerson, drawing on what she believes to be Cecil’s own wisdom: that there are two kinds of cads—the conscious and the subconscious. She explains that in Florence, George simply lost his head. She recalls how she fell into all those violets, and George was silly and surprised in the moment. Lucy does not think they ought to blame him very much, for it makes an enormous difference when you see a person against a backdrop of beautiful things unexpectedly. Through the window, Lucy glimpses Cecil himself, turning over the pages of a novel—a new one from Smith’s library, suggesting her mother has returned from the station. Charlotte droned her own refrain: “Once a cad, always a cad.” But Lucy pauses, feeling she has done justice to Cecil’s profundity, and continues her defense. She insists George does not admire her or any such nonsense—not one straw. She notes that Freddy rather likes him and has invited him up for Sunday, so Charlotte can judge for herself. She emphasizes again that George has improved and no longer looks like he might cry. The chapter ends with Lucy escaping into the garden, the images throbbing a little more vividly in her brain—the very images she has tried so hard to dismiss as mere nerves.

CHAPITRE XV.

Chapter XV, titled “The Disaster Within,” unfolds across a single autumnal Sunday at Windy Corners and the surrounding Weald. The chapter traces the Honeychurch household’s morning preparations for church, Lucy’s quiet anxieties about her engagement to Cecil and her intellectual shortcomings, a post-church encounter with the Emersons that exposes lingering tensions over the Miss Alans’ house, Lucy’s relief that George has kept their Florentine secret, a lunch and piano interlude where Cecil and George are both present, and an afternoon of tennis that ends with Cecil’s disruptive reading aloud.