A Room With A View | Page 8

rebellious spirit in her which
wondered whether the acceptance might not have been less delicate and
more beautiful. At all events, she entered her own room without any
feeling of joy.
"I want to explain," said Miss Bartlett, "why it is that I have taken the
largest room. Naturally, of course, I should have given it to you; but I
happen to know that it belongs to the young man, and I was sure your
mother would not like it."
Lucy was bewildered.
"If you are to accept a favour it is more suitable you should be under an
obligation to his father than to him. I am a woman of the world, in my
small way, and I know where things lead to. How- ever, Mr. Beebe is a
guarantee of a sort that they will not presume on this."
"Mother wouldn't mind I'm sure," said Lucy, but again had the sense of
larger and unsuspected issues.

Miss Bartlett only sighed, and enveloped her in a protecting embrace as
she wished her good-night. It gave Lucy the sensation of a fog, and
when she reached her own room she opened the window and breathed
the clean night air, thinking of the kind old man who had enabled her to
see the lights dancing in the Arno and the cypresses of San Miniato,
and the foot-hills of the Apennines, black against the rising moon.
Miss Bartlett, in her room, fastened the window-shutters and locked the
door, and then made a tour of the apartment to see where the cupboards
led, and whether there were any oubliettes or secret entrances. It was
then that she saw, pinned up over the washstand, a sheet of paper on
which was scrawled an enormous note of interrogation. Nothing more.
"What does it mean?" she thought, and she examined it carefully by the
light of a candle. Meaningless at first, it gradually became menacing,
obnoxious, portentous with evil. She was seized with an impulse to
destroy it, but fortunately remembered that she had no right to do so,
since it must be the property of young Mr. Emerson. So she unpinned it
carefully, and put it between two pieces of blotting-paper to keep it
clean for him. Then she completed her inspection of the room, sighed
heavily according to her habit, and went to bed.


Chapter II
: In Santa Croce with No Baedeker
It was pleasant to wake up in Florence, to open the eyes upon a bright
bare room, with a floor of red tiles which look clean though they are
not; with a painted ceiling whereon pink griffins and blue amorini sport
in a forest of yellow violins and bassoons. It was pleasant, too, to fling
wide the windows, pinching the fingers in unfamiliar fastenings, to lean
out into sunshine with beautiful hills and trees and marble churches
opposite, and close below, the Arno, gurgling against the embankment
of the road.
Over the river men were at work with spades and sieves on the sandy
foreshore, and on the river was a boat, also diligently employed for
some mysterious end. An electric tram came rushing underneath the
window. No one was inside it, except one tourist; but its platforms were

overflowing with Italians, who preferred to stand. Children tried to
hang on behind, and the conductor, with no malice, spat in their faces
to make them let go. Then soldiers appeared--good-looking, undersized
men--wearing each a knapsack covered with mangy fur, and a
great-coat which had been cut for some larger soldier. Beside them
walked officers, looking foolish and fierce, and before them went little
boys, turning somersaults in time with the band. The tramcar became
entangled in their ranks, and moved on painfully, like a caterpillar in a
swarm of ants. One of the little boys fell down, and some white
bullocks came out of an archway. Indeed, if it had not been for the
good advice of an old man who was selling button-hooks, the road
might never have got clear.
Over such trivialities as these many a valuable hour may slip away, and
the traveller who has gone to Italy to study the tactile values of Giotto,
or the corruption of the Papacy, may return remembering nothing but
the blue sky and the men and women who live under it. So it was as
well that Miss Bartlett should tap and come in, and having commented
on Lucy's leaving the door unlocked, and on her leaning out of the
window before she was fully dressed, should urge her to hasten herself,
or the best of the day would be gone. By the time Lucy was ready her
cousin had done her breakfast, and was listening to the clever lady
among the crumbs.
A conversation then ensued, on not unfamiliar lines.