Lucy Honeychurch has a significant role in A Room with a View. She is a young Englishwoman visiting Italy with Charlotte Bartlett, her cousin. Charlotte is more conservative than Lucy and older. She is also serving as her travel companion. Charlotte serves as Forster's metaphor for the restrained and reticent quality of English civilization. He compares it to the far more emotive and liberal Italian culture. The two women are initially seen in their Florence hotel. Their hotel room, which offers a very limited view of Florence, makes them miserable.
Mr. Emerson and his son George, two other hotel visitors, offer to swap rooms with the two women so they can have a better view. At first, Charlotte is uncertain of this since she believes the Emersons are indecent. They are persuaded to take the room by Mr. Beebe, a priest who is likewise a guest at the hotel. The Miss Allens, two spinster sisters, and novelist Elinor Lavish are the other notable visitors to the hotel.
While in Florence, Lucy has several significant contacts with the Emersons, particularly George. She travels to Santa Croce, a well-known basilica in Florence, with Elinor Lavish the morning following the room exchange. Here, Lucy meets the Emersons. Mr. Emerson expresses some shockingly liberal opinions, shocking Lucy. The only English characters in A Room with a View who can relate to the lax morality of the Italians are the Emersons.
The following day, both Lucy and George are separately present when a murder takes place in a piazza. This profoundly distresses Lucy, who passes out. George saves the day and drives the woman back to the hotel. On their walk home, he kisses her, but she decides to ignore him. At the time, it would have been viewed as improper conduct. This forges closer communication between the two.
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Lucy is starting to feel something for George. Lucy keeps her distance from the Emersons because Charlotte does not like them. The people we have met so far travel to Fiesole, a hamlet outside of Florence, a few days later. George kisses Lucy while there after becoming emotional. Charlotte notices this, though, and is horrified. She demands that she leave Florence right away with Lucy.
The two women go to Rome for some time. Lucy spends time there with Cecil Vyse, a man she knew in England. Cecil is snobbish and arrogant. He proposes to Lucy twice in Rome but she rejects him. Lucy returns to her family home in a rural village in Surrey. Here Cecil proposes again and she accepts. Cecil looks down on Lucy and her family, but he believes he can improve her.
Mr Beebe has now also moved into the village. There is a vacant cottage that he and Lucy want the Miss Allens to move into. Forster introduces an ironic twist here. While in London, Cecil happened to meet the Emersons. He found them amusing and organised for them to move into the cottage. Cecil believed this would provide the village with entertainment. His arrogance is obvious here.
It is quite shocking for Lucy to see George again. He immediately develops a good relationship with her brother Freddy so she sees him often. In one incident, Freddy invites George to play tennis at their home. Cecil reads out a passage from a romance novel that he thinks is amusing. It turns out this is Elinor Lavish's novel. It is describing a fictional version of the moment that George kissed Lucy in Fiesole. It is clear to Lucy that Charlotte has told Elinor about the incident. This inspires George to take Lucy somewhere private, kiss her again, and confess his love.
Lucy is embarrassed by her inability to admit her affections for George. George is asked to leave the community by her. Also realizing that Cecil is actually the wrong choice for her, Lucy calls off their engagement. Later, she intends to travel to Greece with Miss Allens. Everything changes when Lucy unexpectedly runs into Mr. Emerson. She ought to face her own emotions and declare her love for George, he advises her. He is correct, Lucy realizes. In A Room with a View, Lucy and George get married and elope to Florence. They are staying in the same hotel where they first met, in a room with a view.
