prompt:
Chapter: The Miss Alans were found in their beloved temperance hotel near
Bloomsbury--a clean, airless establishment much patronized by provincial
England. They always perched there before crossing the great seas,
and for a week or two would fidget gently over clothes, guide-books,
mackintosh squares, digestive bread, and other Continental necessaries.
That there are shops abroad, even in Athens, never occurred to them, for
they regarded travel as a species of warfare, only to be undertaken
by those who have been fully armed at the Haymarket Stores. Miss
Honeychurch, they trusted, would take care to equip herself duly.
Quinine could now be obtained in tabloids; paper soap was a great help
towards freshening up one's face in the train. Lucy promised, a little
depressed.

"But, of course, you know all about these things, and you have Mr. Vyse
to help you. A gentleman is such a stand-by."

Mrs. Honeychurch, who had come up to town with her daughter, began to
drum nervously upon her card-case.

"We think it so good of Mr. Vyse to spare you," Miss Catharine
continued. "It is not every young man who would be so unselfish. But
perhaps he will come out and join you later on."

"Or does his work keep him in London?" said Miss Teresa, the more acute
and less kindly of the two sisters.

"However, we shall see him when he sees you off. I do so long to see
him."

"No one will see Lucy off," interposed Mrs. Honeychurch. "She doesn't
like it."

"No, I hate seeings-off," said Lucy.

"Really? How funny! I should have thought that in this case--"

"Oh, Mrs. Honeychurch, you aren't going? It is such a pleasure to have
met you!"

They escaped, and Lucy said with relief: "That's all right. We just got
through that time."

But her mother was annoyed. "I should be told, dear, that I am
unsympathetic. But I cannot see why you didn't tell your friends about
Cecil and be done with it. There all the time we had to sit fencing, and
almost telling lies, and be seen through, too, I dare say, which is most
unpleasant."

Lucy had plenty to say in reply. She described the Miss Alans'
character: they were such gossips, and if one told them, the news would
be everywhere in no time.

"But why shouldn't it be everywhere in no time?"

"Because I settled with Cecil not to announce it until I left England. I
shall tell them then. It's much pleasanter. How wet it is! Let's turn in
here."

"Here" was the British Museum. Mrs. Honeychurch refused. If they must
take shelter, let it be in a shop. Lucy felt contemptuous, for she was
on the tack of caring for Greek sculpture, and had already borrowed a
mythical dictionary from Mr. Beebe to get up the names of the goddesses
and gods.

"Oh, well, let it be shop, then. Let's go to Mudie's. I'll buy a
guide-book."

"You know, Lucy, you and Charlotte and Mr. Beebe all tell me I'm
so stupid, so I suppose I am, but I shall never understand this
hole-and-corner work. You've got rid of Cecil--well and good, and I'm
thankful he's gone, though I did feel angry for the minute. But why not
announce it? Why this hushing up and tip-toeing?"

"It's only for a few days."

"But why at all?"

Lucy was silent. She was drifting away from her mother. It was quite
easy to say, "Because George Emerson has been bothering me, and if he
hears I've given up Cecil may begin again"--quite easy, and it had
the incidental advantage of being true. But she could not say it. She
disliked confidences, for they might lead to self-knowledge and to that
king of terrors--Light. Ever since that last evening at Florence she had
deemed it unwise to reveal her soul.

Mrs. Honeychurch, too, was silent. She was thinking, "My daughter won't
answer me; she would rather be with those inquisitive old maids than
with Freddy and me. Any rag, tag, and bobtail apparently does if she
can leave her home." And as in her case thoughts never remained unspoken
long, she burst out with: "You're tired of Windy Corner."

This was perfectly true. Lucy had hoped to return to Windy Corner when
she escaped from Cecil, but she discovered that her home existed no
longer. It might exist for Freddy, who still lived and thought straight,
but not for one who had deliberately warped the brain. She did not
acknowledge that her brain was warped, for the brain itself must assist
in that acknowledgment, and she was disordering the very instruments of
life. She only felt, "I do not love George; I broke off my engagement
because I did not love George; I must go to Greece because I do not
love George; it is more important that I should look up gods in the
dictionary than that I should help my mother; everyone else is behaving
very badly." She only felt irritable and petulant, and anxious to do
what she was not expected to do, and in this spirit she proceeded with
the conversation.

"Oh, mother, what rubbish you talk! Of course I'm not tired of Windy
Corner."

"Then why not say so at once, instead of considering half an hour?"

She laughed faintly, "Half a minute would be nearer."

"Perhaps you would like to stay away from your home altogether?"

"Hush, mother! People will hear you"; for they had entered Mudie's. She
bought Baedeker, and then continued: "Of course I want to live at home;
but as we are talking about it, I may as well say that I shall want to
be away in the future more than I have been. You see, I come into my
money next year."

Tears came into her mother's eyes.

Driven by nameless bewilderment, by what is in older people termed
"eccentricity," Lucy determined to make this point clear. "I've seen the
world so little--I felt so out of things in Italy. I have seen so little
of life; one ought to come up to London more--not a cheap ticket like
to-day, but to stop. I might even share a flat for a little with some
other girl."

"And mess with typewriters and latch-keys," exploded Mrs. Honeychurch.
"And agitate and scream, and be carried off kicking by the police. And
call it a Mission--when no one wants you! And call it Duty--when
it means that you can't stand your own home! And call it Work--when
thousands of men are starving with the competition as it is! And then
to prepare yourself, find two doddering old ladies, and go abroad with
them."

"I want more independence," 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 latch-keys. But independence was certainly her cue.

"Very 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 view--and then share a flat with another girl."

Lucy screwed up her mouth and said: "Perhaps I spoke hastily."

"Oh, goodness!" her mother flashed. "How you do remind me of Charlotte
Bartlett!"

"Charlotte!" flashed Lucy in her turn, pierced at last by a vivid pain.

"More every moment."

"I don't know what you mean, mother; Charlotte and I are not the very
least alike."

"Well, 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."

"What rubbish! And if you dislike Charlotte so, it's 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."

"There you go."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Charlotte again, my dear; that's all; her very words."

Lucy clenched her teeth. "My point is that you oughtn't to have
asked Charlotte to stop. I wish you would keep to the point." 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 over-hanging 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
search-light over mud and leaves, and reveal nothing beautiful. "The
crush when Charlotte gets in will be abominable," 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. Beebe's old
mother. "We shall have to sit three a side, because the trees drop, and
yet it isn't raining. Oh, for a little air!" Then she listened to the
horse's hoofs--"He has not told--he has not told." That melody was
blurred by the soft road. "CAN'T we have the hood down?" she demanded,
and her mother, with sudden tenderness, said: "Very well, old lady, stop
the horse." And the horse was stopped, and Lucy and Powell wrestled with
the hood, and squirted water down Mrs. Honeychurch's neck. But now
that the hood was down, she did see something that she would have
missed--there were no lights in the windows of Cissie Villa, and round
the garden gate she fancied she saw a padlock.

"Is that house to let again, Powell?" she called.

"Yes, miss," he replied.

"Have they gone?"

"It is too far out of town for the young gentleman, and his father's
rheumatism has come on, so he can't stop on alone, so they are trying to
let furnished," was the answer.

"They have gone, then?"

"Yes, miss, they have gone."

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
hostess's full sanction, for it would mean keeping the horse waiting a
good ten minutes more.

"Certainly," said the hostess wearily. "I forgot it was Friday. Let's
all go. Powell can go round to the stables."

"Lucy dearest--"

"No church for me, thank you."

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. Beebe's 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
shingle--even their church had lost its charm; and the thing one never
talked about--religion--was fading like all the other things.

She followed the maid into the Rectory.

Would she object to sitting in Mr. Beebe's study? There was only that
one fire.

She would not object.

Some one was there already, for Lucy heard the words: "A lady to wait,
sir."

Old Mr. Emerson was sitting by the fire, with his foot upon a
gout-stool.

"Oh, Miss Honeychurch, that you should come!" 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.

"Miss 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 all."

If only she could remember how to behave!

He held up his hand. "But you must not scold him."

Lucy turned her back, and began to look at Mr. Beebe's books.

"I taught him," he quavered, "to trust in love. I said: 'When love
comes, that is reality.' I said: 'Passion does not blind. No. Passion
is sanity, and the woman you love, she is the only person you will ever
really understand.'" He sighed: "True, everlastingly true, though my day
is over, and though there is the result. Poor boy! He is so sorry!
He said he knew it was madness when you brought your cousin in; that
whatever you felt you did not mean. Yet"--his voice gathered strength:
he spoke out to make certain--"Miss Honeychurch, do you remember Italy?"

Lucy selected a book--a volume of Old Testament commentaries. Holding
it up to her eyes, she said: "I have no wish to discuss Italy or any
subject connected with your son."

"But you do remember it?"

"He has misbehaved himself from the first."

"I only was told that he loved you last Sunday. I never could judge
behaviour. I--I--suppose he has."

Feeling a little steadier, she put the book back and turned round to
him. His face was drooping and swollen, but his eyes, though they were
sunken deep, gleamed with a child's courage.

"Why, he has behaved abominably," she said. "I am glad he is sorry. Do
you know what he did?"

"Not 'abominably,'" was the gentle correction. "He only tried when he
should not have tried. You have all you want, Miss Honeychurch: you are
going to marry the man you love. Do not go out of George's life saying
he is abominable."

"No, of course," said Lucy, ashamed at the reference to Cecil.
"'Abominable' is much too strong. I am sorry I used it about your son. I
think I will go to church, after all. My mother and my cousin have gone.
I shall not be so very late--"

"Especially as he has gone under," he said quietly.

"What was that?"

"Gone under naturally." He beat his palms together in silence; his head
fell on his chest.

"I don't understand."

"As his mother did."

"But, Mr. Emerson--MR. EMERSON--what are you talking about?"

"When I wouldn't have George baptized," said he.

Lucy was frightened.

"And she agreed that baptism was nothing, but he caught that fever
when he was twelve and she turned round. She thought it a judgement." He
shuddered. "Oh, horrible, when we had given up that sort of thing and
broken away from her parents. Oh, horrible--worst of all--worse than
death, when you have made a little clearing in the wilderness, planted
your little garden, let in your sunlight, and then the weeds creep in
again! A judgement! And our boy had typhoid because no clergyman had
dropped water on him in church! Is it possible, Miss Honeychurch? Shall
we slip back into the darkness for ever?"

"I don't know," gasped Lucy. "I don't understand this sort of thing. I
was not meant to understand it."

"But Mr. Eager--he came when I was out, and acted according to his
principles. I don't blame him or any one... but by the time George
was well she was ill. He made her think about sin, and she went under
thinking about it."

It was thus that Mr. Emerson had murdered his wife in the sight of God.

"Oh, how terrible!" said Lucy, forgetting her own affairs at last.

"He was not baptized," said the old man. "I did hold firm." And he
looked with unwavering eyes at the rows of books, as if--at what
cost!--he had won a victory over them. "My boy shall go back to the
earth untouched."

She asked whether young Mr. Emerson was ill.

"Oh--last Sunday." He started into the present. "George last Sunday--no,
not ill: just gone under. He is never ill. But he is his mother's son.
Her eyes were his, and she had that forehead that I think so beautiful,
and he will not think it worth while to live. It was always touch and
go. He will live; but he will not think it worth while to live. He will
never think anything worth while. You remember that church at Florence?"

Lucy did remember, and how she had suggested that George should collect
postage stamps.

"After you left Florence--horrible. Then we took the house here, and he
goes bathing with your brother, and became better. You saw him bathing?"

"I am so sorry, but it is no good discussing this affair. I am deeply
sorry about it."

"Then there came something about a novel. I didn't follow it at all; I
had to hear so much, and he minded telling me; he finds me too old. Ah,
well, one must have failures. George comes down to-morrow, and takes me
up to his London rooms. He can't bear to be about here, and I must be
where he is."

"Mr. Emerson," cried the girl, "don't leave at least, not on my account.
I am going to Greece. Don't leave your comfortable house."

It was the first time her voice had been kind and he smiled. "How good
everyone is! And look at Mr. Beebe housing me--came over this morning
and heard I was going! Here I am so comfortable with a fire."

"Yes, but you won't go back to London. It's absurd."

"I must be with George; I must make him care to live, and down here he
can't. He says the thought of seeing you and of hearing about you--I am
not justifying him: I am only saying what has happened."

"Oh, Mr. Emerson"--she took hold of his hand--"you mustn't. I've been
bother enough to the world by now. I can't have you moving out of your
house when you like it, and perhaps losing money through it--all on my
account. You must stop! I am just going to Greece."

"All the way to Greece?"

Her manner altered.

"To Greece?"

"So you must stop. You won't talk about this business, I know. I can
trust you both."

"Certainly you can. We either have you in our lives, or leave you to the
life that you have chosen."

"I shouldn't want--"

"I suppose Mr. Vyse is very angry with George? No, it was wrong of
George to try. We have pushed our beliefs too far. I fancy that we
deserve sorrow."

She looked at the books again--black, brown, and that acrid theological
blue. They surrounded the visitors on every side; they were piled on the
tables, they pressed against the very ceiling. To Lucy who could not see
that Mr. Emerson was profoundly religious, and differed from Mr. Beebe
chiefly by his acknowledgment of passion--it seemed dreadful that the
old man should crawl into such a sanctum, when he was unhappy, and be
dependent on the bounty of a clergyman.

More certain than ever that she was tired, he offered her his chair.

"No, please sit still. I think I will sit in the carriage."

"Miss Honeychurch, you do sound tired."

"Not a bit," said Lucy, with trembling lips.

"But you are, and there's a look of George about you. And what were you
saying about going abroad?"

She was silent.

"Greece"--and she saw that he was thinking the word over--"Greece; but
you were to be married this year, I thought."

"Not till January, it wasn't," said Lucy, clasping her hands. Would she
tell an actual lie when it came to the point?

"I suppose that Mr. Vyse is going with you. I hope--it isn't because
George spoke that you are both going?"

"No."

"I hope that you will enjoy Greece with Mr. Vyse."

"Thank you."

At that moment Mr. Beebe came back from church. His cassock was covered
with rain. "That's all right," he said kindly. "I counted on you two
keeping each other company. It's pouring again. The entire congregation,
which consists of your cousin, your mother, and my mother, stands
waiting in the church, till the carriage fetches it. Did Powell go
round?"

"I think so; I'll see."

"No--of course, I'll see. How are the Miss Alans?"

"Very well, thank you."

"Did you tell Mr. Emerson about Greece?"

"I--I did."

"Don't you think it very plucky of her, Mr. Emerson, to undertake the
two Miss Alans? Now, Miss Honeychurch, go back--keep warm. I think three
is such a courageous number to go travelling." And he hurried off to the
stables.

"He is not going," she said hoarsely. "I made a slip. Mr. Vyse does stop
behind in England."

Somehow it was impossible to cheat this old man. To George, to Cecil,
she would have lied again; but he seemed so near the end of things, so
dignified in his approach to the gulf, of which he gave one account, and
the books that surrounded him another, so mild to the rough paths that
he had traversed, that the true chivalry--not the worn-out chivalry
of sex, but the true chivalry that all the young may show to all the
old--awoke in her, and, at whatever risk, she told him that Cecil was
not her companion to Greece. And she spoke so seriously that the risk
became a certainty, and he, lifting his eyes, said: "You are leaving
him? You are leaving the man you love?"

"I--I had to."

"Why, Miss Honeychurch, why?"

Terror came over her, and she lied again. She made the long, convincing
speech that she had made to Mr. Beebe, and intended to make to the world
when she announced that her engagement was no more. He heard her in
silence, and then said: "My dear, I am worried about you. It seems to
me"--dreamily; she was not alarmed--"that you are in a muddle."

She shook her head.

"Take an old man's word; there's nothing worse than a muddle in all the
world. It is easy to face Death and Fate, and the things that sound
so dreadful. It is on my muddles that I look back with horror--on the
things that I might have avoided. We can help one another but little. I
used to think I could teach young people the whole of life, but I know
better now, and all my teaching of George has come down to this: beware
of muddle. Do you remember in that church, when you pretended to be
annoyed with me and weren't? Do you remember before, when you refused
the room with the view? Those were muddles--little, but ominous--and I
am fearing that you are in one now." She was silent. "Don't trust me,
Miss Honeychurch. Though life is very glorious, it is difficult."
She was still silent. "'Life' wrote a friend of mine, 'is a public
performance on the violin, in which you must learn the instrument as you
go along.' I think he puts it well. Man has to pick up the use of his
functions as he goes along--especially the function of Love." Then he
burst out excitedly; "That's it; that's what I mean. You love George!"
And after his long preamble, the three words burst against Lucy like
waves from the open sea.

"But you do," he went on, not waiting for contradiction. "You love the
boy body and soul, plainly, directly, as he loves you, and no other word
expresses it. You won't marry the other man for his sake."

"How dare you!" gasped Lucy, with the roaring of waters in her ears.
"Oh, how like a man!--I mean, to suppose that a woman is always thinking
about a man."

"But you are."

She summoned physical disgust.

"You're shocked, but I mean to shock you. It's the only hope at times. I
can reach you no other way. You must marry, or your life will be wasted.
You have gone too far to retreat. I have no time for the tenderness, and
the comradeship, and the poetry, and the things that really matter, and
for which you marry. I know that, with George, you will find them, and
that you love him. Then be his wife. He is already part of you. Though
you fly to Greece, and never see him again, or forget his very name,
George will work in your thoughts till you die. It isn't possible to
love and to part. You will wish that it was. You can transmute love,
ignore it, muddle it, but you can never pull it out of you. I know by
experience that the poets are right: love is eternal."

Lucy began to cry with anger, and though her anger passed away soon, her
tears remained.

"I only wish poets would say this, too: love is of the body; not
the body, but of the body. Ah! the misery that would be saved if we
confessed that! Ah! for a little directness to liberate the soul! Your
soul, dear Lucy! I hate the word now, because of all the cant with which
superstition has wrapped it round. But we have souls. I cannot say how
they came nor whither they go, but we have them, and I see you ruining
yours. I cannot bear it. It is again the darkness creeping in; it
is hell." Then he checked himself. "What nonsense I have talked--how
abstract and remote! And I have made you cry! Dear girl, forgive my
prosiness; marry my boy. When I think what life is, and how seldom love
is answered by love--Marry him; it is one of the moments for which the
world was made."

She could not understand him; the words were indeed remote. Yet as he
spoke the darkness was withdrawn, veil after veil, and she saw to the
bottom of her soul.

"Then, Lucy--"

"You've frightened me," she moaned. "Cecil--Mr. Beebe--the ticket's
bought--everything." She fell sobbing into the chair. "I'm caught in
the tangle. I must suffer and grow old away from him. I cannot break the
whole of life for his sake. They trusted me."

A carriage drew up at the front-door.

"Give George my love--once only. Tell him 'muddle.'" Then she arranged
her veil, while the tears poured over her cheeks inside.

"Lucy--"

"No--they are in the hall--oh, please not, Mr. Emerson--they trust me--"

"But why should they, when you have deceived them?"

Mr. Beebe opened the door, saying: "Here's my mother."

"You're not worthy of their trust."

"What's that?" said Mr. Beebe sharply.

"I was saying, why should you trust her when she deceived you?"

"One minute, mother." He came in and shut the door.

"I don't follow you, Mr. Emerson. To whom do you refer? Trust whom?"

"I mean she has pretended to you that she did not love George. They have
loved one another all along."

Mr. Beebe looked at the sobbing girl. He was very quiet, and his white
face, with its ruddy whiskers, seemed suddenly inhuman. A long black
column, he stood and awaited her reply.

"I shall never marry him," quavered Lucy.

A look of contempt came over him, and he said, "Why not?"

"Mr. Beebe--I have misled you--I have misled myself--"

"Oh, rubbish, Miss Honeychurch!"

"It is not rubbish!" said the old man hotly. "It's the part of people
that you don't understand."

Mr. Beebe laid his hand on the old man's shoulder pleasantly.

"Lucy! Lucy!" called voices from the carriage.

"Mr. Beebe, could you help me?"

He looked amazed at the request, and said in a low, stern voice: "I
am more grieved than I can possibly express. It is lamentable,
lamentable--incredible."

"What's wrong with the boy?" fired up the other again.

"Nothing, Mr. Emerson, except that he no longer interests me. Marry
George, Miss Honeychurch. He will do admirably."

He walked out and left them. They heard him guiding his mother
up-stairs.

"Lucy!" the voices called.

She turned to Mr. Emerson in despair. But his face revived her. It was
the face of a saint who understood.

"Now it is all dark. Now Beauty and Passion seem never to have existed.
I know. But remember the mountains over Florence and the view. Ah, dear,
if I were George, and gave you one kiss, it would make you brave. You
have to go cold into a battle that needs warmth, out into the muddle
that you have made yourself; and your mother and all your friends
will despise you, oh, my darling, and rightly, if it is ever right to
despise. George still dark, all the tussle and the misery without a word
from him. Am I justified?" Into his own eyes tears came. "Yes, for we
fight for more than Love or Pleasure; there is Truth. Truth counts,
Truth does count."

"You kiss me," said the girl. "You kiss me. I will try."

He gave her a sense of deities reconciled, a feeling that, in gaining
the man she loved, she would gain something for the whole world.
Throughout the squalor of her homeward drive--she spoke at once--his
salutation remained. He had robbed the body of its taint, the world's
taunts of their sting; he had shown her the holiness of direct desire.
She "never exactly understood," she would say in after years, "how he
managed to strengthen her. It was as if he had made her see the whole of
everything at once."

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: In Chapter 19, Lucy and her mother go to London to visit the Miss Alans and make arrangements for the trip. The Miss Alans express surprise that Cecil is allowing her to make the trip and that he will not even be present to see her off. Still intent on keeping the broken engagement a secret until she has left England, Lucy does not tell the Miss Alans the truth. Now over her disappointment, Mrs. Honeychurch is relieved that Lucy is not marrying Cecil, and she doesn't understand why Lucy is keeping it a secret. Furthermore, she still doesn't understand why Lucy insists on leaving Windy Corner. You're tired of Windy Corner," she blurts out. Lucy is mixed up. It is true that she cannot be content at home, but this is because she is in a turmoil. She keeps telling herself that she does not love George and that she must go to Greece to get away from him. She admits to her mother that when she gets back from Greece, she'd like to live in London, that she wants more independence. Her mother grows angry and says that Lucy reminds her of Charlotte Bartlett, in the way she is always worrying and taking back words. Lucy is shocked, believing that she and Charlotte are nothing alike. After shopping in London and buying a Baedeker for Lucy, the two women return home. Their carriage passes by Cissie Villa, which is locked up. They learn that the Emersons have left. Lucy starts to wonder if she has made a big muddle. The women stop at the Rectory to pick up Miss Bartlett, who asks to be taken to church. Lucy, not wanting to go to church, will wait in the Rectory. To her surprise, she sees Mr. Emerson there by the fire. He apologizes to Lucy for George's behavior. I taught him to trust in love," he explains. When love comes, that is reality. Lucy protests that George has behaved "abominably," and Mr. Emerson asks her to be kind, as George has "gone under"--he is very depressed and does not want to live. Mr. Emerson reveals that the same had happened to George's mother. They had agreed not to baptize George, but when the boy became ill from typhoid, his mother, believing the illness a judgment from God, became depressed and died. This is what Mr. Eager had meant; from Mr. Eager's point of view, Mr. Emerson had killed his wife by refusing to baptize his son. Lucy feels very sorry, and is sad to hear about George. She pleads with Mr. Emerson not to leave the villa, but to stay, because at all events, she will be going to Greece. Mr. Emerson is surprised to hear that she is going to Greece, and even more so when he finds out that it is not with Cecil. She admits to him that she has left Cecil, and gives him her reasons. You are in a muddle," he tells her, and guesses the real reason for her trip--she loves George. Lucy begins to cry. The tickets have been bought, and she has lied to everyone. Mr. Beebe enters again, and Mr. Emerson tells him that Lucy has lied. He is disappointed in her, but Mr. Emerson gives her courage. Remember the mountains over Florence and the view. Truth counts, Truth does count. Later, she will wonder at how he was able to strengthen her, to make her see the holiness of desire


prompt:
Chapter: The Miss Alans did go to Greece, but they went by themselves. They alone
of this little company will double Malea and plough the waters of the
Saronic gulf. They alone will visit Athens and Delphi, and either shrine
of intellectual song--that upon the Acropolis, encircled by blue seas;
that under Parnassus, where the eagles build and the bronze charioteer
drives undismayed towards infinity. Trembling, anxious, cumbered with
much digestive bread, they did proceed to Constantinople, they did go
round the world. The rest of us must be contented with a fair, but a
less arduous, goal. Italiam petimus: we return to the Pension Bertolini.

George said it was his old room.

"No, it isn't," said Lucy; "because it is the room I had, and I had your
father's room. I forget why; Charlotte made me, for some reason."

He knelt on the tiled floor, and laid his face in her lap.

"George, you baby, get up."

"Why shouldn't I be a baby?" murmured George.

Unable to answer this question, she put down his sock, which she was
trying to mend, and gazed out through the window. It was evening and
again the spring.

"Oh, bother Charlotte," she said thoughtfully. "What can such people be
made of?"

"Same stuff as parsons are made of."

"Nonsense!"

"Quite right. It is nonsense."

"Now you get up off the cold floor, or you'll be starting rheumatism
next, and you stop laughing and being so silly."

"Why shouldn't I laugh?" he asked, pinning her with his elbows, and
advancing his face to hers. "What's there to cry at? Kiss me here." He
indicated the spot where a kiss would be welcome.

He was a boy after all. When it came to the point, it was she who
remembered the past, she into whose soul the iron had entered, she
who knew whose room this had been last year. It endeared him to her
strangely that he should be sometimes wrong.

"Any letters?" he asked.

"Just a line from Freddy."

"Now kiss me here; then here."

Then, threatened again with rheumatism, he strolled to the window,
opened it (as the English will), and leant out. There was the parapet,
there the river, there to the left the beginnings of the hills. The
cab-driver, who at once saluted him with the hiss of a serpent, might
be that very Phaethon who had set this happiness in motion twelve
months ago. A passion of gratitude--all feelings grow to passions in the
South--came over the husband, and he blessed the people and the things
who had taken so much trouble about a young fool. He had helped himself,
it is true, but how stupidly!

All the fighting that mattered had been done by others--by Italy, by his
father, by his wife.

"Lucy, you come and look at the cypresses; and the church, whatever its
name is, still shows."

"San Miniato. I'll just finish your sock."

"Signorino, domani faremo uno giro," called the cabman, with engaging
certainty.

George told him that he was mistaken; they had no money to throw away on
driving.

And the people who had not meant to help--the Miss Lavishes, the Cecils,
the Miss Bartletts! Ever prone to magnify Fate, George counted up the
forces that had swept him into this contentment.

"Anything good in Freddy's letter?"

"Not yet."

His own content was absolute, but hers held bitterness: the
Honeychurches had not forgiven them; they were disgusted at her past
hypocrisy; she had alienated Windy Corner, perhaps for ever.

"What does he say?"

"Silly boy! He thinks he's being dignified. He knew we should go off in
the spring--he has known it for six months--that if mother wouldn't give
her consent we should take the thing into our own hands. They had fair
warning, and now he calls it an elopement. Ridiculous boy--"

"Signorino, domani faremo uno giro--"

"But it will all come right in the end. He has to build us both up
from the beginning again. I wish, though, that Cecil had not turned so
cynical about women. He has, for the second time, quite altered. Why
will men have theories about women? I haven't any about men. I wish,
too, that Mr. Beebe--"

"You may well wish that."

"He will never forgive us--I mean, he will never be interested in us
again. I wish that he did not influence them so much at Windy Corner. I
wish he hadn't--But if we act the truth, the people who really love us
are sure to come back to us in the long run."

"Perhaps." Then he said more gently: "Well, I acted the truth--the
only thing I did do--and you came back to me. So possibly you know." He
turned back into the room. "Nonsense with that sock." He carried her
to the window, so that she, too, saw all the view. They sank upon their
knees, invisible from the road, they hoped, and began to whisper one
another's names. Ah! it was worth while; it was the great joy that they
had expected, and countless little joys of which they had never dreamt.
They were silent.

"Signorino, domani faremo--"

"Oh, bother that man!"

But Lucy remembered the vendor of photographs and said, "No, don't be
rude to him." Then with a catching of her breath, she murmured: "Mr.
Eager and Charlotte, dreadful frozen Charlotte. How cruel she would be
to a man like that!"

"Look at the lights going over the bridge."

"But this room reminds me of Charlotte. How horrible to grow old in
Charlotte's way! To think that evening at the rectory that she shouldn't
have heard your father was in the house. For she would have stopped me
going in, and he was the only person alive who could have made me see
sense. You couldn't have made me. When I am very happy"--she kissed
him--"I remember on how little it all hangs. If Charlotte had only
known, she would have stopped me going in, and I should have gone to
silly Greece, and become different for ever."

"But she did know," said George; "she did see my father, surely. He said
so."

"Oh, no, she didn't see him. She was upstairs with old Mrs. Beebe, don't
you remember, and then went straight to the church. She said so."

George was obstinate again. "My father," said he, "saw her, and I prefer
his word. He was dozing by the study fire, and he opened his eyes,
and there was Miss Bartlett. A few minutes before you came in. She was
turning to go as he woke up. He didn't speak to her."

Then they spoke of other things--the desultory talk of those who have
been fighting to reach one another, and whose reward is to rest quietly
in each other's arms. It was long ere they returned to Miss Bartlett,
but when they did her behaviour seemed more interesting. George, who
disliked any darkness, said: "It's clear that she knew. Then, why
did she risk the meeting? She knew he was there, and yet she went to
church."

They tried to piece the thing together.

As they talked, an incredible solution came into Lucy's mind. She
rejected it, and said: "How like Charlotte to undo her work by a feeble
muddle at the last moment." But something in the dying evening, in the
roar of the river, in their very embrace warned them that her words fell
short of life, and George whispered: "Or did she mean it?"

"Mean what?"

"Signorino, domani faremo uno giro--"

Lucy bent forward and said with gentleness: "Lascia, prego, lascia.
Siamo sposati."

"Scusi tanto, signora," he replied in tones as gentle and whipped up his
horse.

"Buona sera--e grazie."

"Niente."

The cabman drove away singing.

"Mean what, George?"

He whispered: "Is it this? Is this possible? I'll put a marvel to you.
That your cousin has always hoped. That from the very first moment we
met, she hoped, far down in her mind, that we should be like this--of
course, very far down. That she fought us on the surface, and yet she
hoped. I can't explain her any other way. Can you? Look how she kept me
alive in you all the summer; how she gave you no peace; how month after
month she became more eccentric and unreliable. The sight of us haunted
her--or she couldn't have described us as she did to her friend. There
are details--it burnt. I read the book afterwards. She is not frozen,
Lucy, she is not withered up all through. She tore us apart twice, but
in the rectory that evening she was given one more chance to make us
happy. We can never make friends with her or thank her. But I do believe
that, far down in her heart, far below all speech and behaviour, she is
glad."

"It is impossible," murmured Lucy, and then, remembering the experiences
of her own heart, she said: "No--it is just possible."

Youth enwrapped them; the song of Phaethon announced passion requited,
love attained. But they were conscious of a love more mysterious than
this. The song died away; they heard the river, bearing down the snows
of winter into the Mediterranean.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: Chapter 20 is titled "The End of the Middle Ages" because it marks the beginning of Lucy's Renaissance, her rebirth as a happily married woman. The Miss Alans go to Greece, but they go alone. Lucy and George, newly married, go back to the Pension Bertolini in Florence, where they first met. George has his head in Lucy's lap and is being silly and childish, which endears him to Lucy. He gets up to look out the window at the view, feeling full of gratitude that he is here with Lucy, and thinking of all the people who helped him to get there. Lucy's happiness is less complete. All of Windy Corner is upset, and Freddy has written an indignant letter protesting their "elopement. The two have had to marry without Mrs. Honeychurch's consent. Cecil has grown cynical about women, and Mr. Beebe still has not forgiven them. George and Lucy can only hope that if they act the truth, people who really love them will come back to them in the end. A carriage driver pesters them from the street below, trying to sell them on a ride in the countryside. Lucy thinks of Charlotte, and how rude she would be to such a man. She grows cross thinking of Charlotte and how her cousin had tried to ruin her happiness with George. George stops her. On the day that Lucy spoke to Mr. Emerson, Charlotte had known very well that the old man was in the Rectory, and yet she did not stop Lucy. It even seemed, on reflection, that Charlotte had deliberately arranged it so that Lucy would talk to Mr. Emerson. Charlotte, deep down, could have been hoping for them to be together all along, although she objected on the surface. At the Rectory she had given them one last chance to be happy. Lucy rejects the idea, but then decides that "it is just possible. The two of them are enwrapped in youthful love, but as they contemplate the mystery of how they came together, they are conscious of something deeper and more mysterious than this--a love eternal as the river outside their window.