Welcome to sleep stories with Steph your go-to podcast.
That offers you a calm and relaxing transition.
Into a great night's sleep.
It is time to relax and fully let go.
There is nothing you need to be doing now.
And know where you need to go.
Close your eyes.
And feel yourself sink into the support beneath you.
And let all the worries of the day go.
Drift away.
This is your time.
And your space.
Take a deep breath in through your nose.
And let it out with a long sigh.
That's it!
There is nothing you need to be doing now.
And know where you need to go.
Happy listening.
Chapter 5 Possibilities of a pleasant outing.
It was a family saying that you never knew which way Charlotte Barclay would turn.
She was perfectly pleasant and sensible over Lucy's adventure.
Found the abridged account of it quite adequate.
And paid suitable tribute to the courtesy of Mr George Emerson.
She and Miss Lavage had had an adventure also.
They had been stopped at the dead seal coming back.
And the young officials there who seemed impudent had tried to search their reticules for provisions.
It might have been most unpleasant.
Fortunately,
Miss Lavage was a match for anyone.
For good or for evil,
Lucy was left to face her problem alone.
None of her friends had seen her either in the piazza or later on by the embankment.
Mr Beeb indeed noticed her startled eyes at dinner time.
Had again passed to himself the remark of,
Too much Beethoven.
But he only supposed she was ready for an adventure,
Not that she had encountered one.
This solitude oppressed Lucy.
She was accustomed to have her thoughts confirmed by others,
Or at all events,
Contradicted.
It was too dreadful not to know whether she was thinking right or wrong.
At breakfast next morning she took a decisive action.
There were two plans between which she had to choose.
Mr.
B was walking up to the Torre de Gallup with the Emersons and some American ladies.
Would Miss Bartlett and Miss Honeychurch join the party?
Charlotte declined for herself.
She had been there in the rain the previous afternoon.
But she thought it an admirable idea for Lucy.
Who hated shopping,
Changing money,
Fetching letters and other irksome duties,
All of which Miss Bartlett must accomplish this morning,
And could easily accomplish alone.
No charlotte cried lucy with real warmth it's very kind of mr b but i'm certainly coming with you i'd much rather Very well,
Dear,
" said Miss Bartlet,
With a faint flush of pleasure that called forth a deep flush of shame on the cheeks of Lucy.
How abominably she behaved to Charlotte,
Now as always.
But now she should alter.
All this morning she would be really nice.
She slipped her arm into her cousin's and they started off.
The river was a lion that morning in strength,
Voice and colour.
Miss Bartlett insisted in leaning over the parapet to look at it.
Then she made her usual remark,
Which was,
Lucy fidgeted.
It was tiresome of Charlotte to have stopped exactly where she did.
Luc,
Lucia.
Oh,
You're watching for the Toro de Gallo party?
I feared you would repent of your choice.
Serious as the choice had been,
Lucy did not repent.
Yesterday had been a muddle.
Queer and odd,
The kind of thing one could not write down easily on paper.
But she had a feeling Charlotte and her shopping were preferable to George Emerson and the summit of the Torre de Gallo.
Since she could not unravel the tangle,
She must take care not to re-enter it.
She could sincerely.
.
.
Protest against Miss Bartlett's insinuations.
But though she had avoided the chief actor,
The scenery unfortunately remained.
Charlotte,
With a complacency of fate,
Led her from the river to the Piazza Signoria.
She could not have believed.
Loggia,
The fountain,
The palace tower would have such significance.
For a moment Lucy understood.
The nature of ghosts.
But though Lucy had avoided the chief actor,
The scenery unfortunately remained.
The exact site of the murder was occupied,
Not by a ghost.
But by Miss Lavish,
Who had the morning newspaper in her hand.
They were at the Piazza Signoria.
Lucy hailed them briskly.
The dreadful catastrophe of the previous day had given her an idea which she thought might work up into a book.
Oh,
Let me congratulate you,
Said Miss Bartlett,
After your despair of yesterday.
What a fortunate thing!
Aha,
Miss Honeychurch.
Come you here,
I am lost.
Now you're to tell me absolutely everything you saw from the beginning.
Lucy poked at the ground with her parasol.
Perhaps you would rather not.
I'm sorry.
If you could manage without it,
I think I would rather not.
The elder ladies exchanged glances,
Not of disapproval.
It is suitable that a girl should feel deeply.
.
.
It is I who am sorry,
Said Miss Lavish.
We literary hacks are shameless creatures.
I believe there's no secret of the human heart into which we wouldn't pry.
She marched cheerfully to the fountain and back and did a few calculations in realism.
Then she said that she had been in the piazza since 8 o'clock collecting material.
A good deal of it was unsuitable,
She said,
But of course one had to adapt.
The two men had quarrelled over a five-franc note.
For the five franc note she would substitute a young lady which would raise the tone of the tragedy and at the same time furnish an excellent plot.
What is the heroine's name?
Asked Miss Bartlett.
Leonora,
" said Miss Lavish.
Her own name was Eleanor.
I do hope she's nice.
And what is the plot?
Love,
Murder,
Abduction,
Revenge was the plot.
But it all came out while the fountain plushed to the satyrs and the morning sun.
I hope you will excuse me for boring on like this,
" Miss Lavish concluded.
It's so tempting to talk to really sympathetic people.
Of course that is the barest outline.
There will be a great deal of local colouring,
Descriptions of Florence and the neighbourhood.
And I shall also introduce some humorous characters.
And let me give you all fair warning.
I intend to be unmerciful to the British tourist.
Oh,
You wicked woman!
Cried Miss Bartlett.
I am sure you are thinking of the Emersons.
Miss Lavish gave a Machiavellian smile.
I confess,
In my Italy,
My sympathies are not with my own countrymen.
It is the neglected Italians who attract me and whose lives I'm going to paint so far as I can.
For I repeat and insist,
And I have always held most strongly,
That a tragedy such as yesterday's is not the less tragic because it happened in humble light.
There was a fitting silence when Miss Lavish concluded.
Then the cousins wished success to her labours and walked away,
Across the square.
She is my idea of a really clever woman.
Said Miss Bartlett.
That last remark struck me so particularly true.
It should be a most pathetic novel.
Lucy assented.
At present,
Her great aim was not to get put into it.
Her perceptions this morning were curiously keen and she believed that Miss Lavish had her on trial.
Ah,
Mr Eagle,
Why how nice,
What a pleasant surprise.
Not for me,
Said the chaplain blandly.
I have been watching you and Miss Honeychurch for quite a little time.
We were chatting to Miss Lavish,
" said Miss Barclay.
Is brow contracted.
Were you indeed?
Sono occupato.
The last remark was made to a vendor of panoramic photographs who was approaching with a courteous smile.
I'm about to venture a suggestion.
Would you and Miss Honeychurch be disposed to join me in a drive some day this week in the hills?
There is a point on that road we could get down and have an hour's ramble on the hillside.
The view thence of Florence is most beautiful.
Far better than the hackneyed view of yesterday.
It is the view that Alessio Baldovignetti is fond of introducing into his pictures That man had a decided feeling for landscape.
Miss Bartlett had not heard of this painter,
But she knew Mr.
Eager was no commonplace chaplain.
He was a member of the residential colony who had made Florence their home.
He knew the people who never walked about with bed acres,
Who had learned to take a siesta after lunch,
Who had took drives the pension tourists had never even heard of.
And sold by private influence galleries which were close to them.
Therefore,
An invitation from the chaplain was something to be proud of.
Between the two sections of his flock,
He was often the only link.
And as it was his avowed custom to select those of his migratory sheep who seemed worthy They must agree.
And how Lucy would enjoy it.
Tea at a renaissance villa.
A few days ago Lucy would have felt the same,
But the joys of life were grouping themselves anew.
A drive in the hills with Mr.
Eager and Miss Bartlett.
Even if culminating in a residential tea party was no longer the greatest of them.
She echoed the raptures of Charlotte somewhat faintly.
Only when she heard that Mr B was also coming.
Did her thanks become more sincere?
This very square I'm told witnessed yesterday the most sordid of tragedies.
The chaplain continued.
Humiliating indeed,
Said Miss Barket.
Miss Honeychurch happened to be passing through as it happened.
She can hardly bear it.
To think about it.
