The Performance Prison — A Room with a View

Lucy does not come in to tea. She must write letters. Upstairs she sends for Charlotte, and her first aim is to defeat herself. George is nothing. He never was. He behaved abominably. She never encouraged him. Then she asks about the hillside in Miss Lavish's novel, Florence in the distance, the violets. Charlotte must have told. Charlotte swears Miss Lavish shall never be her friend again, and admits she mentioned it over tea in Rome, in the strictest confidence. Lucy had been made to promise silence even to her mother. Cecil read the passage aloud to her and to Mr Emerson, and George kissed her again behind Cecil's back, walking up the garden.

Charlotte can only accuse herself. Lucy wants him given a setting down, and she cannot tell her mother or Cecil, owing to Charlotte. What is wanted is a man with a whip. Charlotte says she always knew he was a cad, from the moment he announced that his father was in his bath. George is still in the garden. Speak to him, Lucy says. Charlotte answers that only a gentleman can settle it. He is coming up the path with a tennis ball, and Lucy sees that this is what her cousin meant her to do. No one will help. She will speak to him herself.

Freddy is sent out of the dining-room. Lucy points at the door. She cannot have it. He is to leave the house and never come into it again as long as she lives here. No discussion. George ignores Charlotte and asks whether she means to marry that man. She calls him ridiculous. He answers that she cannot live with Vyse, who is safe with books and pictures and kills when he comes to people. In the National Gallery Cecil winced because Mr Emerson mispronounced the painters. Then he brought them here to trick a kind neighbour, and then he taught Lucy and her mother whether they were shocked. He will not let a woman decide. George is not ashamed of the kiss. The book pushed him. But he loves her, and he wants her to have her own thoughts even in his arms. He has cared for her since the man died. As she came through the wood, nothing else mattered. He called, because he wanted to live.

She asks whether loving Cecil is a detail. He says this is their last chance, and he turns to Charlotte, sitting like a portent against the evening. She would not stop them if she understood. He has been into the dark, and he will go back into it unless she tries. He picks up his racquet, says that love and youth matter intellectually, closes the front door carefully, and climbs the withered fern behind the house. The women rejoice in stealth. Lucy thinks he is the mad one, and that her admirer will hardly trouble her again. Outside, Freddy calls that there is still light for another set, and that Cecil must play, just this once. It is Mr Floyd's last day. Cecil answers that he is no athlete. Some chaps are no good for anything but books. He will not inflict himself on them. The scales fall from Lucy's eyes. How had she stood him for a moment? He was absolutely intolerable, and the same evening she broke off her engagement.