Part Two
Chapter 10: Cecil as a Humourist
(continued)
It was hard on Lucy. Mr. Beebe sympathized with her very much.
While she believed that her snub about the Miss Alans came from
Sir Harry Otway, she had borne it like a good girl. She might
well "screech" when she heard that it came partly from her lover.
Mr. Vyse was a tease--something worse than a tease: he took a
malicious pleasure in thwarting people. The clergyman, knowing
this, looked at Miss Honeychurch with more than his usual
kindness.
When she exclaimed, "But Cecil's Emersons--they can't possibly be
the same ones--there is that--" he did not consider that the
exclamation was strange, but saw in it an opportunity of
diverting the conversation while she recovered her composure. He
diverted it as follows:
"The Emersons who were at Florence, do you mean? No, I don't
suppose it will prove to be them. It is probably a long cry from
them to friends of Mr. Vyse's. Oh, Mrs. Honeychurch, the oddest
people! The queerest people! For our part we liked them, didn't
we?" He appealed to Lucy. "There was a great scene over some
violets. They picked violets and filled all the vases in the room
of these very Miss Alans who have failed to come to Cissie Villa.
Poor little ladies! So shocked and so pleased. It used to be one
of Miss Catharine's great stories. 'My dear sister loves
flowers,' it began. They found the whole room a mass of blue
--vases and jugs--and the story ends with 'So ungentlemanly and
yet so beautiful.' It is all very difficult. Yes, I always connect
those Florentine Emersons with violets."
"Fiasco's done you this time," remarked Freddy, not seeing that
his sister's face was very red. She could not recover herself.
Mr. Beebe saw it, and continued to divert the conversation.
"These particular Emersons consisted of a father and a son--the
son a goodly, if not a good young man; not a fool, I fancy, but
very immature--pessimism, et cetera. Our special joy was the
father--such a sentimental darling, and people declared he had
murdered his wife."
In his normal state Mr. Beebe would never have repeated such
gossip, but he was trying to shelter Lucy in her little trouble.
He repeated any rubbish that came into his head.
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