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Chapter 1: What exclusive content is available on the premium feed?
If you're enjoying this book, then I know you will love the exclusive stories on our premium feed. Follow the link in the show notes to try it for free for seven days and dive into more of your favourite sleepy stories. Hello, it's Elizabeth, and I'm excited to share with you the newest show from Slumber Studios. It's called Sleepy History, and it's exactly what it sounds like.
Intriguing stories, people, mysteries and events from history, delivered in a supremely calming atmosphere. Explore the legend of El Dorado. See what life was like for the Roman gladiators. Uncover the myths and mysteries of Stonehenge.
Chapter 2: What is the new show introduced by Elizabeth?
You'll find interesting but relaxing episodes like these on Sleepy History, and the same great production quality you've come to know and love from the Sleepy Bookshelf. So check it out, and perhaps you'll have another way to get a good night's rest. Just search Sleepy History in your preferred podcast player.
Good evening, and welcome to the Sleepy Bookshelf, where we put down our worries from the day and pick up a good book. I'm Elizabeth, your host. Thank you so much for coming tonight. This evening, we'll be returning to A Room with a View by E.M. Forster. But before we do that,
Imagine yourself resting beneath a calm sky where every thought drifts past like a slow moving cloud, never staying long. Take a slow breath in and gently release it. You have done enough for today. The noise, the questions, the rush of the day can all settle peacefully behind you now. There is only the comfort of stillness, the quiet warmth around you.
And of course, the gentle unfolding of the story ahead. As George and Lucy returned to the group, an uneasy tension lingered. The driver announced that George preferred to walk back into town. But during the carriage ride, a storm began. As they entered the city, the carriages stopped as Mr. Emerson began to worry about his son's safety.
Suddenly, lightning struck a tram wire ahead, and the group became relieved that fate had avoided their potential injury. Lucy became emotional and confessed the afternoon's events to Charlotte, who had only come upon the kiss. That evening, Lucy hoped she could honestly untangle her feelings with Charlotte's support, but the discussion turned into a warning about George's character.
Charlotte insisted Lucy must avoid scandal and explained they would leave for Rome early in the morning. As they packed, George returned to the pension in the rain. Charlotte intercepted him before Lucy could, and all Lucy heard was Charlotte asking for a word with him in the drawing room, and then later a curt goodnight. The next morning, they left.
Tonight, we return to the story as Lucy and Charlotte arrive home in England after their travels. So, just lie back and relax, as I turn to the next pages of A Room with a View. Part 2 Chapter 8 Medieval The drawing room curtains at Windy Corner had been pulled to meet, for the carpet was new and deserved protection from the August sun.
They were heavy curtains, reaching almost to the ground, and the light that filtered through them was subdued and varied A poet, none was present, might have quoted, Life like a dome of many-colored glass. Or might have compared the curtains to sluice gates, lowered against the intolerable tides of heaven. Without was poured a sea of radiance.
Within, the glory, though visible, was tempered to the capacities of man. Two pleasant people sat in the room. One, a boy of 19, was studying a small manual of anatomy and peering occasionally at a bone which lay upon the piano. From time to time he bounced in his chair and puffed and groaned, for the day was hot and the print small, and the human frame fearfully made.
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Chapter 3: How does the story of George and Lucy develop?
He returned to his work.
Just listen to what I have written to Mrs. Weiss. I said, Dear Mrs. Weiss... Yes, mother, you told me.
A jolly good letter.
I said, Dear Mrs. Weiss, Cecil has just asked my permission about it, and I should be delighted if Lucy wishes it.
But, she stopped reading. I was rather amused at Cecil asking my permission at all.
He's always gone in for unconventionality, and parents know where and so forth. And it comes to the point he can't get on without me.
Nor me. You? Freddie nodded. What do you mean? He asked me for my permission also. She exclaimed. How very odd of him. Why so? Asked the son and heir. Why shouldn't my permission be asked? What do you know about Lucy or girls or anything? Whatever did you say? I said to Cecil, take her or leave her. It's no business of mine. What a helpful answer.
But her own answer, though more normal in its wording, had been to the same effect. The bother is this, began Freddy. Then he took up his work again, too shy to say what the bother was. Mrs. Honeychurch went back to the window. Freddy, you must come. There they still are. I don't see you ought to go peeping like that. Peeping like that?
Can't I look out of my own window?
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Chapter 4: What emotional conflict does Lucy face after the carriage ride?
Mrs. Honeychurch left her letter on the writing table and moved towards her young acquaintance. Oh, Cecil, she exclaimed. Oh, Cecil, do tell me. E promessi sposi, said he. They stared at him anxiously. She has accepted me, he said, and the sound of the thing in English made him flush and smile with pleasure and look more human.
Oh, I am so glad, said Mrs. Honeychurch, while Freddy proffered a hand that was yellow with chemicals. They wished that they also knew Italian, for our phrases of approval and of amazement are so connected with little occasions that we fear to use them on great ones. We are obliged to become vaguely poetic, or to take refuge in scriptural reminiscences.
Welcome as one of the family, said Mrs. Honeychurch, waving her hand at the furniture.
This is indeed a joyous day. I feel sure that you will make our dear Lucy happy.
I hope so, replied the young man, shifting his eyes to the ceiling. We mothers, simpered Mrs. Honeychurch, and then realized that she was affected, sentimental, bombastic, all the things she hated most. Why could she not be Freddy, who stood stiff in the middle of the room, looking very cross and almost handsome? I say, Lucy, called Cecil for conversation seemed to flag. Lucy rose from the seat.
She moved across the lawn and smiled in at them, just as if she was going to ask them to play tennis. Then she saw her brother's face. Her lips parted and she took him in her arms. He said, steady on.
Not a kiss for me, asked her mother.
Lucy kissed her also.
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Chapter 5: What warning does Charlotte give Lucy about George?
Would you take them into the garden and tell Mrs. Honeychurch all about it? Cecil suggested. And I'd stop here and tell my mother. We go with Lucy, said Freddy as if taking orders. Yes, you go with Lucy. They passed into the sunlight. Cecil watched them cross the terrace and descend out of sight by the steps.
They would descend, he knew their ways, past the shrubbery and past the tennis lawn and the dahlia bed until they reached the kitchen garden.
Chapter 6: How do the Honeychurch family dynamics influence Lucy's decisions?
And there, in the presence of the potatoes and the peas, the great event would be discussed. Smiling indulgently, he lit a cigarette and rehearsed the events that had led to such a happy conclusion. He had known Lucy for several years, but only as a commonplace girl who happened to be musical.
He could still remember his depression that afternoon at Rome, when she and her terrible cousin fell on him out of the blue and demanded to be taken to St. Peter's. That day she had seemed a typical tourist, shrill, crude, and gaunt with travel. But Italy worked some marvel in her. It gave her light, and, which she held more precious, it gave her shadow.
Soon he detected in her a wonderful reticence. She was like a woman of Leonardo da Vinci's, whom we love not so much for herself as for the things that she will not tell us. The things are assuredly not of this life. No woman of Leonardo's could have anything so vulgar as a story. She did develop most wonderfully day by day.
So it happened that from patronizing civility, he had slowly passed, if not to passion, at least to a profound uneasiness. Already at Rome, he had hinted to her that they might be suitable for each other. It had touched him greatly that she had not broken away at the suggestion. Her refusal had been clear and gentle.
After it, as horrid phrase went, she had been exactly the same to him as before. Three months later, on the margin of Italy, among the flower-clad Alps, he had asked her again in bald, traditional language. She reminded him of a Leonardo more than ever. Her sunburnt features were shadowed by fantastic rock.
At his words, she had turned and stood between him and the light, with immeasurable planes behind her. He had walked home with her, unashamed, feeling not at all like a rejected suitor. The things that really mattered were unshaken.
So now he had asked her once more, and clear and gentle as ever she had accepted him, giving no coy reasons for her delay, but simply saying that she loved him and would do her best to make him happy.
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Chapter 7: What significant change occurs when Lucy returns home?
His mother, too, would be pleased. She had counseled the step. He must write her a longer count. Glancing at his hand, in case any of Freddy's chemicals had come off on it, he moved to the writing table. There he saw Dear Mrs. Weiss, followed by many erasures. He recoiled without reading any more and after a little hesitation sat down elsewhere and penciled a note on his knee.
Then he lit another cigarette, which did not seem quite as divine as the first, and considered what might be done to make Windy Corner Drawing Room more distinctive. With that outlook, it should have been a successful room, but the trail of Tottenham Court Road was upon it. He could almost visualize the motor cars of messieurs.
School bread and Mrs. Maple arriving at the door and depositing this chair, those varnished bookcases, that writing table. The table recalled Mrs. Honeychurch's letter. He did not want to read that letter. His temptations never lay in that direction. But he worried about it nonetheless. It was his own fault that she was discussing him with his mother.
He had wanted her support in his third attempt to win Lucy. He wanted to feel that others, no matter who they were, agreed with him. And so he had asked their permission. Mrs. Honeychurch had been civil, but obtuse in essentials. While as for Freddy, he is only a boy, he reflected. I represent all that he despises. Why should he want me for a brother-in-law?
The Honeychurches were a worthy family, but he began to realize that Lucy was of another clay, and perhaps, he did not put it very definitely, he ought to introduce her to more congenial circles as soon as possible. Mr. Beeb, said the maid, and the new rector of Summer Street was shown in. He had at once started on friendly relations, owing to Lucy's praise of him in her letters from Florence.
Cecil greeted him rather critically. I've come for tea, Mr. Weiss. Do you suppose that I shall get it? I should say so. Food is the one thing that does get here. Don't sit in that chair. Young Honeychurch has left a bone in it. I know, said Cecil. I know. I can't think why Mrs. Honeychurch allows it. For Cecil considered the bone and the maples furniture separately.
He did not realize that taken together, they kindled the room into the life that he desired. I've come for tea and for gossip. Isn't this news? News. I don't understand you, said Cecil. News. Mr. Beebe, whose news was of a very different nature, prattled forward. I met Sir Harry Otway as I came up. I have every reason to hope that I am first in the field.
He has brought Sissy and Albert from Mr. Flack. Ah, has he indeed, said Cecil, trying to recover himself. Into what a grotesque mistake he had fallen. Was it likely that a clergyman and a gentleman would refer to his engagement in a manner so flippant? But his stiffness remained, and though he asked who Sissy and Albert might be, he still thought Mr. B. rather a bounder. Unpardonable question.
To have stopped a week at Windy Corner and to not have met Sissy and Albert, the semi-detached villas that have been run up opposite the church. I'll set Mrs. Honeychurch after you. "'I'm shockingly stupid over local affairs,' said the young man languidly. "'I can't even remember the difference between a parish council and a local government board.' Perhaps there is no difference.
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