A Room With a View E. M. Forster (romantic books to read .txt) đ
- Author: E. M. Forster
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âI want more independence,â said Lucy lamely; she knew that she wanted something, and independence is a useful cry; we can always say that we have not got it. She tried to remember her emotions in Florence: those had been sincere and passionate, and had suggested beauty rather than short skirts and latchkeys. But independence was certainly her cue.
âVery well. Take your independence and be gone. Rush up and down and round the world, and come back as thin as a lath with the bad food. Despise the house that your father built and the garden that he planted, and our dear viewâ âand then share a flat with another girl.â
Lucy screwed up her mouth and said: âPerhaps I spoke hastily.â
âOh, goodness!â her mother flashed. âHow you do remind me of Charlotte Bartlett!â
âCharlotte?â flashed Lucy in her turn, pierced at last by a vivid pain.
âMore every moment.â
âI donât know what you mean, mother; Charlotte and I are not the very least alike.â
âWell, I see the likeness. The same eternal worrying, the same taking back of words. You and Charlotte trying to divide two apples among three people last night might be sisters.â
âWhat rubbish! And if you dislike Charlotte so, itâs rather a pity you asked her to stop. I warned you about her; I begged you, implored you not to, but of course it was not listened to.â
âThere you go.â
âI beg your pardon?â
âCharlotte again, my dear; thatâs all; her very words.â
Lucy clenched her teeth. âMy point is that you oughtnât to have asked Charlotte to stop. I wish you would keep to the point.â And the conversation died off into a wrangle.
She and her mother shopped in silence, spoke little in the train, little again in the carriage, which met them at Dorking Station. It had poured all day, and as they ascended through the deep Surrey lanes showers of water fell from the overhanging beech-trees and rattled on the hood. Lucy complained that the hood was stuffy. Leaning forward, she looked out into the steaming dusk, and watched the carriage-lamp pass like a searchlight over mud and leaves, and reveal nothing beautiful. âThe crush when Charlotte gets in will be abominable,â she remarked. For they were to pick up Miss Bartlett at Summer Street, where she had been dropped as the carriage went down, to pay a call on Mr. Beebeâs old mother. âWe shall have to sit three a side, because the trees drop, and yet it isnât raining. Oh, for a little air!â Then she listened to the horseâs hoofsâ ââHe has not toldâ âhe has not told.â That melody was blurred by the soft road. âCanât we have the hood down?â she demanded, and her mother, with sudden tenderness, said: âVery well, old lady, stop the horse.â And the horse was stopped, and Lucy and Powell wrestled with the hood, and squirted water down Mrs. Honeychurchâs neck. But now that the hood was down, she did see something that she would have missedâ âthere were no lights in the windows of Cissie Villa, and round the garden gate she fancied she saw a padlock.
âIs that house to let again, Powell?â she called.
âYes, miss,â he replied.
âHave they gone?â
âIt is too far out of town for the young gentleman, and his fatherâs rheumatism has come on, so he canât stop on alone, so they are trying to let furnished,â was the answer.
âThey have gone, then?â
âYes, miss, they have gone.â
Lucy sank back. The carriage stopped at the Rectory. She got out to call for Miss Bartlett. So the Emersons had gone, and all this bother about Greece had been unnecessary. Waste! That word seemed to sum up the whole of life. Wasted plans, wasted money, wasted love, and she had wounded her mother. Was it possible that she had muddled things away? Quite possible. Other people had. When the maid opened the door, she was unable to speak, and stared stupidly into the hall.
Miss Bartlett at once came forward, and after a long preamble asked a great favour: might she go to church? Mr. Beebe and his mother had already gone, but she had refused to start until she obtained her hostessâs full sanction, for it would mean keeping the horse waiting a good ten minutes more.
âCertainly,â said the hostess wearily. âI forgot it was Friday. Letâs all go. Powell can go round to the stables.â
âLucy dearestâ ââ
âNo church for me, thank you.â
A sigh, and they departed. The church was invisible, but up in the darkness to the left there was a hint of colour. This was a stained window, through which some feeble light was shining, and when the door opened Lucy heard Mr. Beebeâs voice running through the litany to a minute congregation. Even their church, built upon the slope of the hill so artfully, with its beautiful raised transept and its spire of silvery shingleâ âeven their church had lost its charm; and the thing one never talked aboutâ âreligionâ âwas fading like all the other things.
She followed the maid into the Rectory.
Would she object to sitting in Mr. Beebeâs study? There was only that one fire.
She would not object.
Someone was there already, for Lucy heard the words: âA lady to wait, sir.â
Old Mr. Emerson was sitting by the fire, with his foot upon a gout-stool.
âOh, Miss Honeychurch, that you should come!â he quavered; and Lucy saw an alteration in him since last Sunday.
Not a word would come to her lips. George she had faced, and could have faced again, but she had forgotten how to treat his father.
âMiss Honeychurch, dear, we are so sorry! George is so sorry! He thought he had a right to try. I cannot blame my boy, and yet I wish he had told me first. He ought not to have tried. I knew nothing about it at
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