A Room with a View

第十八章

This chapter centers on Mr. Beebe’s visit to Windy Corner, where he first shares gossip about the Miss Alans scrapping their original travel plans to visit Cissie Villa, opting instead for a trip to Greece. He learns from Freddy Honeychurch that Lucy has broken off her engagement to Cecil Vyse the night prior, and feels relieved by the news. Upon arriving at the house, he finds the household in disarray after a storm destroyed the dahlia garden, with family members on edge. He speaks with Lucy, who reveals she ended the engagement because Cecil was overly controlling, and expresses a desperate desire to travel abroad with the Miss Alans to escape the tension at home. The chapter closes with Mr. Beebe and Miss Bartlett discussing the importance of avoiding local gossip about the broken engagement.

Mr. Beebe’s Impression of Windy Corner

Mr. Beebe observes Windy Corner’s dramatic natural placement: it sits a few hundred feet down the southern slope of the ridge, at the base of a large hill buttress, flanked by fern and pine-filled ravines with a highway running into the Weald. He finds the house’s plain, cube-shaped design (with a small rhinoceros-horn turret added by Mrs. Honeychurch for watching the road in wet weather) impertinent against the glorious landscape, but notes it feels as natural and inevitable as a naturally occurring feature of the countryside, unlike the overly designed, temporary-feeling homes of other local families.

Meeting Cecil and Freddy on the Hill

As Mr. Beebe approaches Windy Corner, he sees a carriage depart, and recognizes Cecil Vyse (wearing a bowler hat, preparing to travel to the station) and Freddy Honeychurch (wearing a cap, seeing Cecil off) walking up the short cuts to the ridge summit. The pair are subdued and distant when they greet him, and Cecil listens politely as Mr. Beebe shares the gossip about the Miss Alans’ upcoming trip to Greece.