A Room with a View

Discussion of Household Servant Faults

Pursuing tea before evening service, Mr. Beebe and Cecil enumerate the faults of the household servants: Anne apologizes when she has heard perfectly and kicks chair-legs, Mary leaves dust-pans on the stairs, and Euphemia refuses to chop the suet sufficiently small. Their shared laughter improves the mood between them.

Mr. Beebe’s Theory About Lucy Honeychurch

Discussing Lucy Honeychurch, Mr. Beebe offers his “pet theory”: it seems unreasonable that she should play so wonderfully yet live so quietly, and he suspects that one day her “water-tight compartments” will break down, making her “heroically good” or “heroically bad.” He admits he has only seen her at Tunbridge Wells and Florence and has been waiting for her to become “wonderful” in life as well as in music.

Cecil’s Diary Sketch of Lucy as Kite

Cecil shares a metaphor from his Italian diary, depicting Lucy as a kite and Charlotte Bartlett as the one holding the string. The second picture shows the string breaking, though Cecil concedes that in reality the string never broke, and he would have heard Miss Bartlett fall before seeing Miss Honeychurch rise.

Cecil Announces Engagement to Lucy

In low, vibrating tones, Cecil announces that the string “has broken now,” meaning Lucy is going to marry him. He immediately recognizes this as “the worst” of all the conceited ways to announce an engagement and curses his love of metaphor. Mr. Beebe, stunned, asks for clarification, and Cecil stiffly confirms the news.

Mr. Beebe’s Reaction to the Engagement

Mr. Beebe, conscious of bitter disappointment, apologizes for having spoken of Lucy so flippantly, saying he ought to have been stopped. He reflects that her “quiet, uneventful childhood must end,” and it has; she has learnt “what it is to love” through Cecil, and he urges Cecil to ensure her knowledge is “profitable to her.” Cecil, who dislikes parsons, responds with a dry “Grazie tante!”