"Oh, that reminds me--you never told me what Charlotte said in her letter.""One thing and another," said Lucy, wondering whether she would get through the meal without a lie. "Among other things, that an awful friend of hers had been bicycling through Summer Street, wondered if she'd come up and see us, and mercifully didn't.""Lucy, I do call the way you talk unkind.""She was a novelist," said Lucy craftily. The remark was a happy one, for nothing roused Mrs. Honeychurch so much as literature in the hands of females. She would abandon every topic to inveigh against those women who (instead of minding their houses and their children) seek notoriety by print. Her attitude was: "If books must be written, let them be written by men"; and she de-veloped it at great length, while Cecil yawned and Freddy played at "This year, next year, now, never," with his plum-stones, and Lucy artfully fed the flames of her mother's wrath. But soon the conflagration died down, and the ghosts began to gather in the darkness. There were too many ghosts about. The original ghost--that touch of lips on her cheek--had surely been laid long ago;it could be nothing to her that a man had kissed her on a mountain once. But it had begotten a spectral family--Mr. Harris, Miss Bartlett's letter, Mr. Beebe's memories of violets--and one or other of these was bound to haunt her before Cecil's very eyes. It was Miss Bartlett who returned now, and with appalling vividness.
"I have been thinking, Lucy, of that letter of Charlotte's. How is she?""I tore the thing up."
"Didn't she say how she was? How does she sound? Cheerful?""Oh, yes I suppose so--no--not very cheerful, I suppose.""Then, depend upon it, it IS the boiler. I know myself how water preys upon one's mind. I would rather anything else--even a misfortune with the meat."Cecil laid his hand over his eyes.
"So would I," asserted Freddy, backing his mother up--backing up the spirit of her remark rather than the substance.
"And I have been thinking," she added rather nervously, "surely we could squeeze Charlotte in here next week, and give her a nice holiday while plumbers at Tunbridge Wells finish. I have not seen poor Charlotte for so long."It was more than her nerves could stand. And she could not protest violently after her mother's goodness to her upstairs.
"Mother, no!" she pleaded. "It's impossible. We can't have Charlotte on the top of the other things; we're squeezed to death as it is. Freddy's got a friend coming Tuesday, there's Cecil, and you've promised to take in Minnie Beebe because of the diphtheria scare. It simply can't be done.""Nonsense! It can."
"If Minnie sleeps in the bath. Not otherwise.""Minnie can sleep with you."
"I won't have her."
"Then, if you're so selfish, Mr. Floyd must share a room with Freddy.""Miss Bartlett, Miss Bartlett, Miss Bartlett," moaned Cecil, again laying his hand over his eyes.
"It's impossible," repeated Lucy. "I don't want to make difficulties, but it really isn't fair on the maids to fill up the house so."Alas!
"The truth is, dear, you don't like Charlotte.""No, I don't. And no more does Cecil. She gets on our nerves. You haven't seen her lately, and don't realize how tiresome she can be, though so good. So please, mother, don't worry us this last summer; but spoil us by not asking her to come.""Hear, hear!" said Cecil.
Mrs. Honeychurch, with more gravity than usual, and with more feeling than she usually permitted herself, replied: "This isn't very kind of you two. You have each other and all these woods to walk in, so full of beautiful things; and poor Charlotte has only the water turned off and plumbers. You are young, dears, and however clever young people are, and however many books they read, they will never guess what it feels like to grow old."Cecil crumbled his bread.
"I must say Cousin Charlotte was very kind to me that year Icalled on my bike," put in Freddy. "She thanked me for coming till I felt like such a fool, and fussed round no end to get an egg boiled for my tea just right.""I know, dear. She is kind to every one, and yet Lucy makes this difficulty when we try to give her some little return."But Lucy hardened her heart. It was no good being kind to Miss Bartlett. She had tried herself too often and too recently. One might lay up treasure in heaven by the attempt, but one enriched neither Miss Bartlett nor any one else upon earth. She was reduced to saying: "I can't help it, mother. I don't like Charlotte. I admit it's horrid of me.""From your own account, you told her as much.""Well, she would leave Florence so stupidly. She flurried--"The ghosts were returning; they filled Italy, they were even usurping the places she had known as a child. The Sacred Lake would never be the same again, and, on Sunday week, something would even happen to Windy Corner. How would she fight against ghosts? For a moment the visible world faded away, and memories and emotions alone seemed real.
"I suppose Miss Bartlett must come, since she boils eggs so well," said Cecil, who was in rather a happier frame of mind, thanks to the admirable cooking.
"I didn't mean the egg was WELL boiled," corrected Freddy, "because in point of fact she forgot to take it off, and as a matter of fact I don't care for eggs. I only meant how jolly kind she seemed."Cecil frowned again. Oh, these Honeychurches! Eggs, boilers, hydrangeas, maids--of such were their lives compact. "May me and Lucy get down from our chairs?" he asked, with scarcely veiled insolence. "We don't want no dessert."
