A Room with a View

Lucy’s Anxiety and the Red Library Book

Lucy steps out of the drawing-room window into the morning light, wearing a cerise dress that proves a failure and a garnet brooch with a ruby engagement ring. She gazes at the Weald, frowning bravely, trying not to cry. Her mother summons her to fetch a sixpence for Minnie, and Lucy picks up the abandoned library book—Cecil’s copy of Under a Loggia—which she places under the Atlas to press. She broods over her lack of learning, having that morning confused Francesco Francia with Piero della Francesca, and feels the familiar anxiety about her engagement and her fading memory of Italy.

Post-Church Meeting with the Emersons

After church, the Honeychurches find the Emersons smoking in the garden of Cissie Villa. Old Mr. Emerson is warm and welcoming; George speaks coolly about their landlord’s disappointment at their tenancy and the awkwardness over the Miss Alans being displaced. George delivers his measured philosophy that wherever one stands one casts a shadow, urging them to choose a place and face the sunshine. Mrs. Honeychurch is charmed, Lucy is relieved that Cecil’s name never enters the conversation, and Mr. Beebe and Miss Bartlett linger nearby. Miss Bartlett greets the Emersons with stiff formality from the safety of the victoria, while George blushes and retreats indoors, his awkwardness touching Lucy deeply.

Lucy’s Relief Over George’s Secrecy

Driving home, Lucy’s spirits leap disproportionately at the realization that Mr. Emerson has not been told of the Florence escapade. The horses’ hoofs seem to sing “He has not told,” and her mind expands the tune into reassurance: George, who tells his father everything, has kept her secret, did not laugh at her, and does not love her—though the second point is almost as terrifying as the first. She greets Cecil with unusual radiance, tells him warmly that the Emersons have been nice and that George has improved, and inwardly recoils at his feudal notion of them as “protégés.”