A Room With A View | Page 9

Miss Bartlett was,
after all, a wee bit tired, and thought they had better spend the morning
settling in; unless Lucy would at all like to go out? Lucy would rather
like to go out, as it was her first day in Florence, but, of course, she
could go alone. Miss Bartlett could not allow this. Of course she would
accompany Lucy everywhere. Oh, certainly not; Lucy would stop with
her cousin. Oh, no! that would never do. Oh, yes!
At this point the clever lady broke in.
"If it is Mrs. Grundy who is troubling you, I do assure you that you can
neglect the good person. Being English, Miss Honeychurch will be
perfectly safe. Italians understand. A dear friend of mine, Contessa
Baroncelli, has two daughters, and when she cannot send a maid to
school with them, she lets them go in sailor-hats instead. Every one
takes them for English, you see, especially if their hair is strained
tightly behind."

Miss Bartlett was unconvinced by the safety of Contessa Baroncelli's
daughters. She was determined to take Lucy herself, her head not being
so very bad. The clever lady then said that she was going to spend a
long morning in Santa Croce, and if Lucy would come too, she would
be delighted.
"I will take you by a dear dirty back way, Miss Honeychurch, and if
you bring me luck, we shall have an adventure."
Lucy said that this was most kind, and at once opened the Baedeker, to
see where Santa Croce was.
"Tut, tut! Miss Lucy! I hope we shall soon emancipate you from
Baedeker. He does but touch the surface of things. As to the true
Italy--he does not even dream of it. The true Italy is only to be found by
patient observation."
This sounded very interesting, and Lucy hurried over her breakfast, and
started with her new friend in high spirits. Italy was coming at last. The
Cockney Signora and her works had vanished like a bad dream.
Miss Lavish--for that was the clever lady's name--turned to the right
along the sunny Lung' Arno. How delightfully warm! But a wind down
the side streets cut like a knife, didn't it? Ponte alle Grazie--particularly
interesting, mentioned by Dante. San Miniato--beautiful as well as
interesting; the crucifix that kissed a murderer--Miss Honeychurch
would remember the story. The men on the river were fishing. (Untrue;
but then, so is most information.) Then Miss Lavish darted under the
archway of the white bullocks, and she stopped, and she cried:
"A smell! a true Florentine smell! Every city, let me teach you, has its
own smell."
"Is it a very nice smell?" said Lucy, who had inherited from her mother
a distaste to dirt.
"One doesn't come to Italy for niceness," was the retort; "one comes for
life. Buon giorno! Buon giorno!" bowing right and left. "Look at that
adorable wine-cart! How the driver stares at us, dear, simple soul!"
So Miss Lavish proceeded through the streets of the city of Florence,
short, fidgety, and playful as a kitten, though without a kitten's grace. It
was a treat for the girl to be with any one so clever and so cheerful; and
a blue military cloak, such as an Italian officer wears, only increased
the sense of festivity.
"Buon giorno! Take the word of an old woman, Miss Lucy: you will

never repent of a little civility to your inferiors. That is the true
democracy. Though I am a real Radical as well. There, now you're
shocked."
"Indeed, I'm not!" exclaimed Lucy. "We are Radicals, too, out and out.
My father always voted for Mr. Gladstone, until he was so dreadful
about Ireland."
"I see, I see. And now you have gone over to the enemy."
"Oh, please--! If my father was alive, I am sure he would vote Radical
again now that Ireland is all right. And as it is, the glass over our front
door was broken last election, and Freddy is sure it was the Tories; but
mother says nonsense, a tramp."
"Shameful! A manufacturing district, I suppose?"
"No--in the Surrey hills. About five miles from Dorking, looking over
the Weald."
Miss Lavish seemed interested, and slackened her trot.
"What a delightful part; I know it so well. It is full of the very nicest
people. Do you know Sir Harry Otway--a Radical if ever there was?"
"Very well indeed."
"And old Mrs. Butterworth the philanthropist?" "Why, she rents a field
of us! How funny!"
Miss Lavish looked at the narrow ribbon of sky, and murmured: "Oh,
you have property in Surrey?"
"Hardly any," said Lucy, fearful of being thought a snob. "Only thirty
acres--just the garden, all downhill, and some fields."
Miss Lavish was not disgusted, and said it was just the size of her
aunt's