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<h2> Chapter III: Music, Violets, and the Letter "S" </h2>
<p>It so happened that Lucy, who found daily life rather chaotic, entered a
more solid world when she opened the piano. She was then no longer either
deferential or patronizing; no longer either a rebel or a slave. The
kingdom of music is not the kingdom of this world; it will accept those
whom breeding and intellect and culture have alike rejected. The
commonplace person begins to play, and shoots into the empyrean without
effort, whilst we look up, marvelling how he has escaped us, and thinking
how we could worship him and love him, would he but translate his visions
into human words, and his experiences into human actions. Perhaps he
cannot; certainly he does not, or does so very seldom. Lucy had done so
never.</p>
<p>She was no dazzling executante; her runs were not at all like strings of
pearls, and she struck no more right notes than was suitable for one of
her age and situation. Nor was she the passionate young lady, who performs
so tragically on a summer's evening with the window open. Passion was
there, but it could not be easily labelled; it slipped between love and
hatred and jealousy, and all the furniture of the pictorial style. And she
was tragical only in the sense that she was great, for she loved to play
on the side of Victory. Victory of what and over what—that is more
than the words of daily life can tell us. But that some sonatas of
Beethoven are written tragic no one can gainsay; yet they can triumph or
despair as the player decides, and Lucy had decided that they should
triumph.</p>
<p>A very wet afternoon at the Bertolini permitted her to do the thing she
really liked, and after lunch she opened the little draped piano. A few
people lingered round and praised her playing, but finding that she made
no reply, dispersed to their rooms to write up their diaries or to sleep.
She took no notice of Mr. Emerson looking for his son, nor of Miss
Bartlett looking for Miss Lavish, nor of Miss Lavish looking for her
cigarette-case. Like every true performer, she was intoxicated by the mere
feel of the notes: they were fingers caressing her own; and by touch, not
by sound alone, did she come to her desire.</p>
<p>Mr. Beebe, sitting unnoticed in the window, pondered this illogical
element in Miss Honeychurch, and recalled the occasion at Tunbridge Wells
when he had discovered it. It was at one of those entertainments where the
upper classes entertain the lower. The seats were filled with a respectful
audience, and the ladies and gentlemen of the parish, under the auspices
of their vicar, sang, or recited, or imitated the drawing of a champagne
cork. Among the promised items was "Miss Honeychurch. Piano. Beethoven,"
and Mr. Beebe was wondering whether it would be Adelaida, or the march of
The Ruins of Athens, when his composure was disturbed by the opening bars
of Opus III. He was in suspense all through the introduction, for not
until the pace quickens does one know what the performer intends. With the
roar of the opening theme he knew that things were going extraordinarily;
in the chords that herald the conclusion he heard the hammer strokes of
victory. He was glad that she only played the first movement, for he could
have paid no attention to the winding intricacies of the measures of
nine-sixteen. The audience clapped, no less respectful. It was Mr. Beebe
who started the stamping; it was all that one could do.</p>
<p>"Who is she?" he asked the vicar afterwards.</p>
<p>"Cousin of one of my parishioners. I do not consider her choice of a piece
happy. Beethoven is so usually simple and direct in his appeal that it is
sheer perversity to choose a thing like that, which, if anything,
disturbs."</p>
<p>"Introduce me."</p>
<p>"She will be delighted. She and Miss Bartlett are full of the praises of
your sermon."</p>
<p>"My sermon?" cried Mr. Beebe. "Why ever did she listen to it?"</p>
<p>When he was introduced he understood why, for Miss Honeychurch, disjoined
from her music stool, was only a young lady with a quantity of dark hair
and a very pretty, pale, undeveloped face. She loved going to concerts,
she loved stopping with her cousin, she loved iced coffee and meringues.
He did not doubt that she loved his sermon also. But before he left
Tunbridge Wells he made a remark to the vicar, which he now made to Lucy
herself when she closed the little piano and moved dreamily towards him:</p>
<p>"If Miss Honeychurch ever takes to live as she plays, it will be very
exciting both for us and for her."</p>
<p>Lucy at once re-entered daily life.</p>
<p>"Oh, what a funny thing! Some one said just the same to mother, and she
said she trusted I should never live a duet."</p>
<p>"Doesn't Mrs. Honeychurch like music?"</p>
<p>"She doesn't mind it. But she doesn't like one to get excited over
anything; she thinks I am silly about it. She thinks—I can't make
out. Once, you know, I said that I liked my own playing better than any
one's. She has never got over it. Of course, I didn't mean that I played
well; I only meant—"</p>
<p>"Of course," said he, wondering why she bothered to explain.</p>
<p>"Music—" said Lucy, as if attempting some generality. She could not
complete it, and looked out absently upon Italy in the wet. The whole life
of the South was disorganized, and the most graceful nation in Europe had
turned into formless lumps of clothes.</p>
<p>The street and the river were dirty yellow, the bridge was dirty grey, and
the hills were dirty purple. Somewhere in their folds were concealed Miss
Lavish and Miss Bartlett, who had chosen this afternoon to visit the Torre
del Gallo.</p>
<p>"What about music?" said Mr. Beebe.</p>
<p>"Poor Charlotte will be sopped," was Lucy's reply.</p>
<p>The expedition was typical of Miss Bartlett, who would return cold, tired,
hungry, and angelic, with a ruined skirt, a pulpy Baedeker, and a tickling
cough in her throat. On another day, when the whole world was singing and
the air ran into the mouth, like wine, she would refuse to stir from the
drawing-room, saying that she was an old thing, and no fit companion for a
hearty girl.</p>
<p>"Miss Lavish has led your cousin astray. She hopes to find the true Italy
in the wet I believe."</p>
<p>"Miss Lavish is so original," murmured Lucy. This was a stock remark, the
supreme achievement of the Pension Bertolini in the way of definition.
Miss Lavish was so original. Mr. Beebe had his doubts, but they would have
been put down to clerical narrowness. For that, and for other reasons, he
held his peace.</p>
<p>"Is it true," continued Lucy in awe-struck tone, "that Miss Lavish is
writing a book?"</p>
<p>"They do say so."</p>
<p>"What is it about?"</p>
<p>"It will be a novel," replied Mr. Beebe, "dealing with modern Italy. Let
me refer you for an account to Miss Catharine Alan, who uses words herself
more admirably than any one I know."</p>
<p>"I wish Miss Lavish would tell me herself. We started such friends. But I
don't think she ought to have run away with Baedeker that morning in Santa
Croce. Charlotte was most annoyed at finding me practically alone, and so
I couldn't help being a little annoyed with Miss Lavish."</p>
<p>"The two ladies, at all events, have made it up."</p>
<p>He was interested in the sudden friendship between women so apparently
dissimilar as Miss Bartlett and Miss Lavish. They were always in each
other's company, with Lucy a slighted third. Miss Lavish he believed he
understood, but Miss Bartlett might reveal unknown depths of strangeness,
though not perhaps, of meaning. Was Italy deflecting her from the path of
prim chaperon, which he had assigned to her at Tunbridge Wells? All his
life he had loved to study maiden ladies; they were his specialty, and his
profession had provided him with ample opportunities for the work. Girls
like Lucy were charming to look at, but Mr. Beebe was, from rather
profound reasons, somewhat chilly in his attitude towards the other sex,
and preferred to be interested rather than enthralled.</p>
<p>Lucy, for the third time, said that poor Charlotte would be sopped. The
Arno was rising in flood, washing away the traces of the little carts upon
the foreshore. But in the south-west there had appeared a dull haze of
yellow, which might mean better weather if it did not mean worse. She
opened the window to inspect, and a cold blast entered the room, drawing a
plaintive cry from Miss Catharine Alan, who entered at the same moment by
the door.</p>
<p>"Oh, dear Miss Honeychurch, you will catch a chill! And Mr. Beebe here
besides. Who would suppose this is Italy? There is my sister actually
nursing the hot-water can; no comforts or proper provisions."</p>
<p>She sidled towards them and sat down, self-conscious as she always was on
entering a room which contained one man, or a man and one woman.</p>
<p>"I could hear your beautiful playing, Miss Honeychurch, though I was in my
room with the door shut. Doors shut; indeed, most necessary. No one has
the least idea of privacy in this country. And one person catches it from
another."</p>
<p>Lucy answered suitably. Mr. Beebe was not able to tell the ladies of his
adventure at Modena, where the chambermaid burst in upon him in his bath,
exclaiming cheerfully, "Fa niente, sono vecchia." He contented himself
with saying: "I quite agree with you, Miss Alan. The Italians are a most
unpleasant people. They pry everywhere, they see everything, and they know
what we want before we know it ourselves. We are at their mercy. They read
our thoughts, they foretell our desires. From the cab-driver down to—to
Giotto, they turn us inside out, and I resent it. Yet in their heart of
hearts they are—how superficial! They have no conception of the
intellectual life. How right is Signora Bertolini, who exclaimed to me the
other day: 'Ho, Mr. Beebe, if you knew what I suffer over the children's
edjucaishion. HI won't 'ave my little Victorier taught by a hignorant
Italian what can't explain nothink!'"</p>
<p>Miss Alan did not follow, but gathered that she was being mocked in an
agreeable way. Her sister was a little disappointed in Mr. Beebe, having
expected better things from a clergyman whose head was bald and who wore a
pair of russet whiskers. Indeed, who would have supposed that tolerance,
sympathy, and a sense of humour would inhabit that militant form?</p>
<p>In the midst of her satisfaction she continued to sidle, and at last the
cause was disclosed. From the chair beneath her she extracted a gun-metal
cigarette-case, on which were powdered in turquoise the initials "E. L."</p>
<p>"That belongs to Lavish." said the clergyman. "A good fellow, Lavish, but
I wish she'd start a pipe."</p>
<p>"Oh, Mr. Beebe," said Miss Alan, divided between awe and mirth. "Indeed,
though it is dreadful for her to smoke, it is not quite as dreadful as you
suppose. She took to it, practically in despair, after her life's work was
carried away in a landslip. Surely that makes it more excusable."</p>
<p>"What was that?" asked Lucy.</p>
<p>Mr. Beebe sat back complacently, and Miss Alan began as follows: "It was a
novel—and I am afraid, from what I can gather, not a very nice
novel. It is so sad when people who have abilities misuse them, and I must
say they nearly always do. Anyhow, she left it almost finished in the
Grotto of the Calvary at the Capuccini Hotel at Amalfi while she went for
a little ink. She said: 'Can I have a little ink, please?' But you know
what Italians are, and meanwhile the Grotto fell roaring on to the beach,
and the saddest thing of all is that she cannot remember what she has
written. The poor thing was very ill after it, and so got tempted into
cigarettes. It is a great secret, but I am glad to say that she is writing
another novel. She told Teresa and Miss Pole the other day that she had
got up all the local colour—this novel is to be about modern Italy;
the other was historical—but that she could not start till she had
an idea. First she tried Perugia for an inspiration, then she came here—this
must on no account get round. And so cheerful through it all! I cannot
help thinking that there is something to admire in every one, even if you
do not approve of them."</p>
<p>Miss Alan was always thus being charitable against her better judgment. A
delicate pathos perfumed her disconnected remarks, giving them unexpected
beauty, just as in the decaying autumn woods there sometimes rise odours
reminiscent of spring. She felt she had made almost too many allowances,
and apologized hurriedly for her toleration.</p>
<p>"All the same, she is a little too—I hardly like to say unwomanly,
but she behaved most strangely when the Emersons arrived."</p>
<p>Mr. Beebe smiled as Miss Alan plunged into an anecdote which he knew she
would be unable to finish in the presence of a gentleman.</p>
<p>"I don't know, Miss Honeychurch, if you have noticed that Miss Pole, the
lady who has so much yellow hair, takes lemonade. That old Mr. Emerson,
who puts things very strangely—"</p>
<p>Her jaw dropped. She was silent. Mr. Beebe, whose social resources were
endless, went out to order some tea, and she continued to Lucy in a hasty
whisper:</p>
<p>"Stomach. He warned Miss Pole of her stomach-acidity, he called it—and
he may have meant to be kind. I must say I forgot myself and laughed; it
was so sudden. As Teresa truly said, it was no laughing matter. But the
point is that Miss Lavish was positively ATTRACTED by his mentioning S.,
and said she liked plain speaking, and meeting different grades of
thought. She thought they were commercial travellers—'drummers' was
the word she used—and all through dinner she tried to prove that
England, our great and beloved country, rests on nothing but commerce.
Teresa was very much annoyed, and left the table before the cheese, saying
as she did so: 'There, Miss Lavish, is one who can confute you better than
I,' and pointed to that beautiful picture of Lord Tennyson. Then Miss
Lavish said: 'Tut! The early Victorians.' Just imagine! 'Tut! The early
Victorians.' My sister had gone, and I felt bound to speak. I said: 'Miss
Lavish, I am an early Victorian; at least, that is to say, I will hear no
breath of censure against our dear Queen.' It was horrible speaking. I
reminded her how the Queen had been to Ireland when she did not want to
go, and I must say she was dumbfounded, and made no reply. But, unluckily,
Mr. Emerson overheard this part, and called in his deep voice: 'Quite so,
quite so! I honour the woman for her Irish visit.' The woman! I tell
things so badly; but you see what a tangle we were in by this time, all on
account of S. having been mentioned in the first place. But that was not
all. After dinner Miss Lavish actually came up and said: 'Miss Alan, I am
going into the smoking-room to talk to those two nice men. Come, too.'
Needless to say, I refused such an unsuitable invitation, and she had the
impertinence to tell me that it would broaden my ideas, and said that she
had four brothers, all University men, except one who was in the army, who
always made a point of talking to commercial travellers."</p>
<p>"Let me finish the story," said Mr. Beebe, who had returned.</p>
<p>"Miss Lavish tried Miss Pole, myself, every one, and finally said: 'I
shall go alone.' She went. At the end of five minutes she returned
unobtrusively with a green baize board, and began playing patience."</p>
<p>"Whatever happened?" cried Lucy.</p>
<p>"No one knows. No one will ever know. Miss Lavish will never dare to tell,
and Mr. Emerson does not think it worth telling."</p>
<p>"Mr. Beebe—old Mr. Emerson, is he nice or not nice? I do so want to
know."</p>
<p>Mr. Beebe laughed and suggested that she should settle the question for
herself.</p>
<p>"No; but it is so difficult. Sometimes he is so silly, and then I do not
mind him. Miss Alan, what do you think? Is he nice?"</p>
<p>The little old lady shook her head, and sighed disapprovingly. Mr. Beebe,
whom the conversation amused, stirred her up by saying:</p>
<p>"I consider that you are bound to class him as nice, Miss Alan, after that
business of the violets."</p>
<p>"Violets? Oh, dear! Who told you about the violets? How do things get
round? A pension is a bad place for gossips. No, I cannot forget how they
behaved at Mr. Eager's lecture at Santa Croce. Oh, poor Miss Honeychurch!
It really was too bad. No, I have quite changed. I do NOT like the
Emersons. They are not nice."</p>
<p>Mr. Beebe smiled nonchalantly. He had made a gentle effort to introduce
the Emersons into Bertolini society, and the effort had failed. He was
almost the only person who remained friendly to them. Miss Lavish, who
represented intellect, was avowedly hostile, and now the Miss Alans, who
stood for good breeding, were following her. Miss Bartlett, smarting under
an obligation, would scarcely be civil. The case of Lucy was different.
She had given him a hazy account of her adventures in Santa Croce, and he
gathered that the two men had made a curious and possibly concerted
attempt to annex her, to show her the world from their own strange
standpoint, to interest her in their private sorrows and joys. This was
impertinent; he did not wish their cause to be championed by a young girl:
he would rather it should fail. After all, he knew nothing about them, and
pension joys, pension sorrows, are flimsy things; whereas Lucy would be
his parishioner.</p>
<p>Lucy, with one eye upon the weather, finally said that she thought the
Emersons were nice; not that she saw anything of them now. Even their
seats at dinner had been moved.</p>
<p>"But aren't they always waylaying you to go out with them, dear?" said the
little lady inquisitively.</p>
<p>"Only once. Charlotte didn't like it, and said something—quite
politely, of course."</p>
<p>"Most right of her. They don't understand our ways. They must find their
level."</p>
<p>Mr. Beebe rather felt that they had gone under. They had given up their
attempt—if it was one—to conquer society, and now the father
was almost as silent as the son. He wondered whether he would not plan a
pleasant day for these folk before they left—some expedition,
perhaps, with Lucy well chaperoned to be nice to them. It was one of Mr.
Beebe's chief pleasures to provide people with happy memories.</p>
<p>Evening approached while they chatted; the air became brighter; the
colours on the trees and hills were purified, and the Arno lost its muddy
solidity and began to twinkle. There were a few streaks of bluish-green
among the clouds, a few patches of watery light upon the earth, and then
the dripping facade of San Miniato shone brilliantly in the declining sun.</p>
<p>"Too late to go out," said Miss Alan in a voice of relief. "All the
galleries are shut."</p>
<p>"I think I shall go out," said Lucy. "I want to go round the town in the
circular tram—on the platform by the driver."</p>
<p>Her two companions looked grave. Mr. Beebe, who felt responsible for her
in the absence of Miss Bartlett, ventured to say:</p>
<p>"I wish we could. Unluckily I have letters. If you do want to go out
alone, won't you be better on your feet?"</p>
<p>"Italians, dear, you know," said Miss Alan.</p>
<p>"Perhaps I shall meet some one who reads me through and through!"</p>
<p>But they still looked disapproval, and she so far conceded to Mr. Beebe as
to say that she would only go for a little walk, and keep to the street
frequented by tourists.</p>
<p>"She oughtn't really to go at all," said Mr. Beebe, as they watched her
from the window, "and she knows it. I put it down to too much Beethoven."</p>
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