Chapter: "The Signora had no business to do it," said Miss Bartlett, "no business
at all. She promised us south rooms with a view close together, instead
of which here are north rooms, looking into a courtyard, and a long way
apart. Oh, Lucy!"

"And a Cockney, besides!" said Lucy, who had been further saddened by
the Signora's unexpected accent. "It might be London." She looked at the
two rows of English people who were sitting at the table; at the row
of white bottles of water and red bottles of wine that ran between the
English people; at the portraits of the late Queen and the late Poet
Laureate that hung behind the English people, heavily framed; at the
notice of the English church (Rev. Cuthbert Eager, M. A. Oxon.), that
was the only other decoration of the wall. "Charlotte, don't you feel,
too, that we might be in London? I can hardly believe that all kinds of
other things are just outside. I suppose it is one's being so tired."

"This meat has surely been used for soup," said Miss Bartlett, laying
down her fork.

"I want so to see the Arno. The rooms the Signora promised us in her
letter would have looked over the Arno. The Signora had no business to
do it at all. Oh, it is a shame!"

"Any nook does for me," Miss Bartlett continued; "but it does seem hard
that you shouldn't have a view."

Lucy felt that she had been selfish. "Charlotte, you mustn't spoil me:
of course, you must look over the Arno, too. I meant that. The first
vacant room in the front--" "You must have it," said Miss Bartlett, part
of whose travelling expenses were paid by Lucy's mother--a piece of
generosity to which she made many a tactful allusion.

"No, no. You must have it."

"I insist on it. Your mother would never forgive me, Lucy."

"She would never forgive me."

The ladies' voices grew animated, and--if the sad truth be owned--a
little peevish. They were tired, and under the guise of unselfishness
they wrangled. Some of their neighbours interchanged glances, and one
of them--one of the ill-bred people whom one does meet abroad--leant
forward over the table and actually intruded into their argument. He
said:

"I have a view, I have a view."

Miss Bartlett was startled. Generally at a pension people looked them
over for a day or two before speaking, and often did not find out that
they would "do" till they had gone. She knew that the intruder was
ill-bred, even before she glanced at him. He was an old man, of heavy
build, with a fair, shaven face and large eyes. There was something
childish in those eyes, though it was not the childishness of senility.
What exactly it was Miss Bartlett did not stop to consider, for her
glance passed on to his clothes. These did not attract her. He was
probably trying to become acquainted with them before they got into the
swim. So she assumed a dazed expression when he spoke to her, and then
said: "A view? Oh, a view! How delightful a view is!"

"This is my son," said the old man; "his name's George. He has a view
too."

"Ah," said Miss Bartlett, repressing Lucy, who was about to speak.

"What I mean," he continued, "is that you can have our rooms, and we'll
have yours. We'll change."

The better class of tourist was shocked at this, and sympathized with
the new-comers. Miss Bartlett, in reply, opened her mouth as little
as possible, and said "Thank you very much indeed; that is out of the
question."

"Why?" said the old man, with both fists on the table.

"Because it is quite out of the question, thank you."

"You see, we don't like to take--" began Lucy. Her cousin again
repressed her.

"But why?" he persisted. "Women like looking at a view; men don't." And
he thumped with his fists like a naughty child, and turned to his son,
saying, "George, persuade them!"

"It's so obvious they should have the rooms," said the son. "There's
nothing else to say."

He did not look at the ladies as he spoke, but his voice was perplexed
and sorrowful. Lucy, too, was perplexed; but she saw that they were in
for what is known as "quite a scene," and she had an odd feeling that
whenever these ill-bred tourists spoke the contest widened and deepened
till it dealt, not with rooms and views, but with--well, with something
quite different, whose existence she had not realized before. Now the
old man attacked Miss Bartlett almost violently: Why should she not
change? What possible objection had she? They would clear out in half an
hour.

Miss Bartlett, though skilled in the delicacies of conversation, was
powerless in the presence of brutality. It was impossible to snub any
one so gross. Her face reddened with displeasure. She looked around as
much as to say, "Are you all like this?" And two little old ladies, who
were sitting further up the table, with shawls hanging over the backs
of the chairs, looked back, clearly indicating "We are not; we are
genteel."

"Eat your dinner, dear," she said to Lucy, and began to toy again with
the meat that she had once censured.

Lucy mumbled that those seemed very odd people opposite.

"Eat your dinner, dear. This pension is a failure. To-morrow we will
make a change."

Hardly had she announced this fell decision when she reversed it. The
curtains at the end of the room parted, and revealed a clergyman, stout
but attractive, who hurried forward to take his place at the table,
cheerfully apologizing for his lateness. Lucy, who had not yet acquired
decency, at once rose to her feet, exclaiming: "Oh, oh! Why, it's
Mr. Beebe! Oh, how perfectly lovely! Oh, Charlotte, we must stop now,
however bad the rooms are. Oh!"

Miss Bartlett said, with more restraint:

"How do you do, Mr. Beebe? I expect that you have forgotten us: Miss
Bartlett and Miss Honeychurch, who were at Tunbridge Wells when you
helped the Vicar of St. Peter's that very cold Easter."

The clergyman, who had the air of one on a holiday, did not remember
the ladies quite as clearly as they remembered him. But he came forward
pleasantly enough and accepted the chair into which he was beckoned by
Lucy.

"I AM so glad to see you," said the girl, who was in a state of
spiritual starvation, and would have been glad to see the waiter if
her cousin had permitted it. "Just fancy how small the world is. Summer
Street, too, makes it so specially funny."

"Miss Honeychurch lives in the parish of Summer Street," said Miss
Bartlett, filling up the gap, "and she happened to tell me in the course
of conversation that you have just accepted the living--"

"Yes, I heard from mother so last week. She didn't know that I knew you
at Tunbridge Wells; but I wrote back at once, and I said: 'Mr. Beebe
is--'"

"Quite right," said the clergyman. "I move into the Rectory at Summer
Street next June. I am lucky to be appointed to such a charming
neighbourhood."

"Oh, how glad I am! The name of our house is Windy Corner." Mr. Beebe
bowed.

"There is mother and me generally, and my brother, though it's not often
we get him to ch---- The church is rather far off, I mean."

"Lucy, dearest, let Mr. Beebe eat his dinner."

"I am eating it, thank you, and enjoying it."

He preferred to talk to Lucy, whose playing he remembered, rather than
to Miss Bartlett, who probably remembered his sermons. He asked the girl
whether she knew Florence well, and was informed at some length that she
had never been there before. It is delightful to advise a newcomer, and
he was first in the field. "Don't neglect the country round," his advice
concluded. "The first fine afternoon drive up to Fiesole, and round by
Settignano, or something of that sort."

"No!" cried a voice from the top of the table. "Mr. Beebe, you are
wrong. The first fine afternoon your ladies must go to Prato."

"That lady looks so clever," whispered Miss Bartlett to her cousin. "We
are in luck."

And, indeed, a perfect torrent of information burst on them. People told
them what to see, when to see it, how to stop the electric trams, how to
get rid of the beggars, how much to give for a vellum blotter, how
much the place would grow upon them. The Pension Bertolini had decided,
almost enthusiastically, that they would do. Whichever way they looked,
kind ladies smiled and shouted at them. And above all rose the voice of
the clever lady, crying: "Prato! They must go to Prato. That place is
too sweetly squalid for words. I love it; I revel in shaking off the
trammels of respectability, as you know."

The young man named George glanced at the clever lady, and then returned
moodily to his plate. Obviously he and his father did not do. Lucy, in
the midst of her success, found time to wish they did. It gave her no
extra pleasure that any one should be left in the cold; and when she
rose to go, she turned back and gave the two outsiders a nervous little
bow.

The father did not see it; the son acknowledged it, not by another bow,
but by raising his eyebrows and smiling; he seemed to be smiling across
something.

She hastened after her cousin, who had already disappeared through the
curtains--curtains which smote one in the face, and seemed heavy with
more than cloth. Beyond them stood the unreliable Signora, bowing
good-evening to her guests, and supported by 'Enery, her little boy, and
Victorier, her daughter. It made a curious little scene, this attempt
of the Cockney to convey the grace and geniality of the South. And even
more curious was the drawing-room, which attempted to rival the solid
comfort of a Bloomsbury boarding-house. Was this really Italy?

Miss Bartlett was already seated on a tightly stuffed arm-chair, which
had the colour and the contours of a tomato. She was talking to Mr.
Beebe, and as she spoke, her long narrow head drove backwards and
forwards, slowly, regularly, as though she were demolishing some
invisible obstacle. "We are most grateful to you," she was saying.
"The first evening means so much. When you arrived we were in for a
peculiarly mauvais quart d'heure."

He expressed his regret.

"Do you, by any chance, know the name of an old man who sat opposite us
at dinner?"

"Emerson."

"Is he a friend of yours?"

"We are friendly--as one is in pensions."

"Then I will say no more."

He pressed her very slightly, and she said more.

"I am, as it were," she concluded, "the chaperon of my young cousin,
Lucy, and it would be a serious thing if I put her under an obligation
to people of whom we know nothing. His manner was somewhat unfortunate.
I hope I acted for the best."

"You acted very naturally," said he. He seemed thoughtful, and after
a few moments added: "All the same, I don't think much harm would have
come of accepting."

"No harm, of course. But we could not be under an obligation."

"He is rather a peculiar man." Again he hesitated, and then said gently:
"I think he would not take advantage of your acceptance, nor expect you
to show gratitude. He has the merit--if it is one--of saying exactly
what he means. He has rooms he does not value, and he thinks you would
value them. He no more thought of putting you under an obligation than
he thought of being polite. It is so difficult--at least, I find it
difficult--to understand people who speak the truth."

Lucy was pleased, and said: "I was hoping that he was nice; I do so
always hope that people will be nice."

"I think he is; nice and tiresome. I differ from him on almost every
point of any importance, and so, I expect--I may say I hope--you will
differ. But his is a type one disagrees with rather than deplores. When
he first came here he not unnaturally put people's backs up. He has no
tact and no manners--I don't mean by that that he has bad manners--and
he will not keep his opinions to himself. We nearly complained about
him to our depressing Signora, but I am glad to say we thought better of
it."

"Am I to conclude," said Miss Bartlett, "that he is a Socialist?"

Mr. Beebe accepted the convenient word, not without a slight twitching
of the lips.

"And presumably he has brought up his son to be a Socialist, too?"

"I hardly know George, for he hasn't learnt to talk yet. He seems a nice
creature, and I think he has brains. Of course, he has all his father's
mannerisms, and it is quite possible that he, too, may be a Socialist."

"Oh, you relieve me," said Miss Bartlett. "So you think I ought to
have accepted their offer? You feel I have been narrow-minded and
suspicious?"

"Not at all," he answered; "I never suggested that."

"But ought I not to apologize, at all events, for my apparent rudeness?"

He replied, with some irritation, that it would be quite unnecessary,
and got up from his seat to go to the smoking-room.

"Was I a bore?" said Miss Bartlett, as soon as he had disappeared. "Why
didn't you talk, Lucy? He prefers young people, I'm sure. I do hope I
haven't monopolized him. I hoped you would have him all the evening, as
well as all dinner-time."

"He is nice," exclaimed Lucy. "Just what I remember. He seems to see
good in everyone. No one would take him for a clergyman."

"My dear Lucia--"

"Well, you know what I mean. And you know how clergymen generally laugh;
Mr. Beebe laughs just like an ordinary man."

"Funny girl! How you do remind me of your mother. I wonder if she will
approve of Mr. Beebe."

"I'm sure she will; and so will Freddy."

"I think everyone at Windy Corner will approve; it is the fashionable
world. I am used to Tunbridge Wells, where we are all hopelessly behind
the times."

"Yes," said Lucy despondently.

There was a haze of disapproval in the air, but whether the disapproval
was of herself, or of Mr. Beebe, or of the fashionable world at Windy
Corner, or of the narrow world at Tunbridge Wells, she could not
determine. She tried to locate it, but as usual she blundered. Miss
Bartlett sedulously denied disapproving of any one, and added "I am
afraid you are finding me a very depressing companion."

And the girl again thought: "I must have been selfish or unkind; I must
be more careful. It is so dreadful for Charlotte, being poor."

Fortunately one of the little old ladies, who for some time had been
smiling very benignly, now approached and asked if she might be allowed
to sit where Mr. Beebe had sat. Permission granted, she began to chatter
gently about Italy, the plunge it had been to come there, the gratifying
success of the plunge, the improvement in her sister's health, the
necessity of closing the bed-room windows at night, and of thoroughly
emptying the water-bottles in the morning. She handled her subjects
agreeably, and they were, perhaps, more worthy of attention than
the high discourse upon Guelfs and Ghibellines which was proceeding
tempestuously at the other end of the room. It was a real catastrophe,
not a mere episode, that evening of hers at Venice, when she had found
in her bedroom something that is one worse than a flea, though one
better than something else.

"But here you are as safe as in England. Signora Bertolini is so
English."

"Yet our rooms smell," said poor Lucy. "We dread going to bed."

"Ah, then you look into the court." She sighed. "If only Mr. Emerson was
more tactful! We were so sorry for you at dinner."

"I think he was meaning to be kind."

"Undoubtedly he was," said Miss Bartlett.

"Mr. Beebe has just been scolding me for my suspicious nature. Of
course, I was holding back on my cousin's account."

"Of course," said the little old lady; and they murmured that one could
not be too careful with a young girl.

Lucy tried to look demure, but could not help feeling a great fool. No
one was careful with her at home; or, at all events, she had not noticed
it.

"About old Mr. Emerson--I hardly know. No, he is not tactful; yet, have
you ever noticed that there are people who do things which are most
indelicate, and yet at the same time--beautiful?"

"Beautiful?" said Miss Bartlett, puzzled at the word. "Are not beauty
and delicacy the same?"

"So one would have thought," said the other helplessly. "But things are
so difficult, I sometimes think."

She proceeded no further into things, for Mr. Beebe reappeared, looking
extremely pleasant.

"Miss Bartlett," he cried, "it's all right about the rooms. I'm so glad.
Mr. Emerson was talking about it in the smoking-room, and knowing what
I did, I encouraged him to make the offer again. He has let me come and
ask you. He would be so pleased."

"Oh, Charlotte," cried Lucy to her cousin, "we must have the rooms now.
The old man is just as nice and kind as he can be."

Miss Bartlett was silent.

"I fear," said Mr. Beebe, after a pause, "that I have been officious. I
must apologize for my interference."

Gravely displeased, he turned to go. Not till then did Miss Bartlett
reply: "My own wishes, dearest Lucy, are unimportant in comparison with
yours. It would be hard indeed if I stopped you doing as you liked at
Florence, when I am only here through your kindness. If you wish me to
turn these gentlemen out of their rooms, I will do it. Would you then,
Mr. Beebe, kindly tell Mr. Emerson that I accept his kind offer, and
then conduct him to me, in order that I may thank him personally?"

She raised her voice as she spoke; it was heard all over the
drawing-room, and silenced the Guelfs and the Ghibellines. The
clergyman, inwardly cursing the female sex, bowed, and departed with her
message.

"Remember, Lucy, I alone am implicated in this. I do not wish the
acceptance to come from you. Grant me that, at all events."

Mr. Beebe was back, saying rather nervously:

"Mr. Emerson is engaged, but here is his son instead."

The young man gazed down on the three ladies, who felt seated on the
floor, so low were their chairs.

"My father," he said, "is in his bath, so you cannot thank him
personally. But any message given by you to me will be given by me to
him as soon as he comes out."

Miss Bartlett was unequal to the bath. All her barbed civilities came
forth wrong end first. Young Mr. Emerson scored a notable triumph to the
delight of Mr. Beebe and to the secret delight of Lucy.

"Poor young man!" said Miss Bartlett, as soon as he had gone.

"How angry he is with his father about the rooms! It is all he can do to
keep polite."

"In half an hour or so your rooms will be ready," said Mr. Beebe. Then
looking rather thoughtfully at the two cousins, he retired to his own
rooms, to write up his philosophic diary.

"Oh, dear!" breathed the little old lady, and shuddered as if all the
winds of heaven had entered the apartment. "Gentlemen sometimes do not
realize--" Her voice faded away, but Miss Bartlett seemed to understand
and a conversation developed, in which gentlemen who did not thoroughly
realize played a principal part. Lucy, not realizing either, was reduced
to literature. Taking up Baedeker's Handbook to Northern Italy, she
committed to memory the most important dates of Florentine History. For
she was determined to enjoy herself on the morrow. Thus the half-hour
crept profitably away, and at last Miss Bartlett rose with a sigh, and
said:

"I think one might venture now. No, Lucy, do not stir. I will
superintend the move."

"How you do do everything," said Lucy.

"Naturally, dear. It is my affair."

"But I would like to help you."

"No, dear."

Charlotte's energy! And her unselfishness! She had been thus all her
life, but really, on this Italian tour, she was surpassing herself. So
Lucy felt, or strove to feel. And yet--there was a 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. However, 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 1 opens at the Pension Bertolini, a small, English-owned hotel in Florence, Italy. Lucy Honeychurch, a young English girl, and her older, unmarried cousin and chaperone, Charlotte Bartlett, have just arrived at the hotel and are disappointed to find that their rooms do not have a view of the Arno River as promised. Another guest, Mr. Emerson, overhears them complaining of the situation at dinner. He insists that they exchange with him and his son George, as their rooms do have a view. Thinking Mr. Emerson very rude and ill-bred, Charlotte refuses the offer and determines that they will leave this hotel. At that moment, another guest enters the dining room. This is Mr. Beebe, a clergyman whom the two women know from England and who, coincidentally, is about to move to Lucy's parish. Mr. Beebe sets them at ease and they decide to stay in the hotel. The other guests of the pension, all English, enfold Lucy and Charlotte into their society, giving them helpful advice as to where they should stay and what they should do in Florence. The Emersons are left out of the conversation, but as Lucy and Charlotte leave the table, Lucy bows at George and he smiles at her. After dinner, Charlotte asks Mr. Beebe what they should do about the Emersons' offer to switch rooms. Mr. Beebe advises them to accept. He explains that Mr. Emerson has no tact and no manners, but that he would never think of holding the women under any obligation; he is simply a man who means exactly what he says. Charlotte concludes disapprovingly that Mr. Emerson is a Socialist. Miss Alan, a little old lady who has overheard everything, agrees that Mr. Emerson has no tact, but wisely observes that sometimes people do things which are "most indelicate, and yet at the same time--beautiful. Lucy and Charlotte switch rooms with the men, Charlotte making a point of taking the room that had belonged to George. Later that night, she is puzzled to find, pinned above the washstand, a piece of paper on which is written a large question mark

