Ann Veronica: A Modern Love Story Read online

  "Is it very beautiful?"

  "When I saw it there it was very beautiful. It was wonderful. It was thecrowned queen of mountains in her robes of shining white. It towered uphigh above the level of the pass, thousands of feet, still, shining, andwhite, and below, thousands of feet below, was a floor of little woollyclouds. And then presently these clouds began to wear thin and exposesteep, deep slopes, going down and down, with grass and pine-trees, downand down, and at last, through a great rent in the clouds, bare roofs,shining like very minute pin-heads, and a road like a fibre of whitesilk-Macugnana, in Italy. That will be a fine day--it will have to be,when first you set eyes on Italy.... That's as far as we go."

  "Can't we go down into Italy?"

  "No," he said; "it won't run to that now. We must wave our hands at theblue hills far away there and go back to London and work."

  "But Italy--"

  "Italy's for a good girl," he said, and laid his hand for a moment onher shoulder. "She must look forward to Italy."

  "I say," she reflected, "you ARE rather the master, you know."

  The idea struck him as novel. "Of course I'm manager for thisexpedition," he said, after an interval of self-examination.

  She slid her cheek down the tweed sleeve of his coat. "Nice sleeve," shesaid, and came to his hand and kissed it.

  "I say!" he cried. "Look here! Aren't you going a little too far?This--this is degradation--making a fuss with sleeves. You mustn't dothings like that."

  "Why not?"

  "Free woman--and equal."

  "I do it--of my own free will," said Ann Veronica, kissing his handagain. "It's nothing to what I WILL do."

  "Oh, well!" he said, a little doubtfully, "it's just a phase," and bentdown and rested his hand on her shoulder for a moment, with his heartbeating and his nerves a-quiver. Then as she lay very still, with herhands clinched and her black hair tumbled about her face, he came stillcloser and softly kissed the nape of her neck....

  Part 6

  Most of the things that he had planned they did. But they climbed morethan he had intended because Ann Veronica proved rather a good climber,steady-headed and plucky, rather daring, but quite willing to becautious at his command.

  One of the things that most surprised him in her was her capacity forblind obedience. She loved to be told to do things.

  He knew the circle of mountains about Saas Fee fairly well: he had beenthere twice before, and it was fine to get away from the stragglingpedestrians into the high, lonely places, and sit and munch sandwichesand talk together and do things together that were just a littledifficult and dangerous. And they could talk, they found; and neveronce, it seemed, did their meaning and intention hitch. They wereenormously pleased with one another; they found each other beyondmeasure better than they had expected, if only because of the want ofsubstance in mere expectation. Their conversation degenerated againand again into a strain of self-congratulation that would have irked aneavesdropper.

  "You're--I don't know," said Ann Veronica. "You're splendid."

  "It isn't that you're splendid or I," said Capes. "But we satisfy oneanother. Heaven alone knows why. So completely! The oddest fitness!What is it made of? Texture of skin and texture of mind? Complexion andvoice. I don't think I've got illusions, nor you.... If I had nevermet anything of you at all but a scrap of your skin binding a book, AnnVeronica, I know I would have kept that somewhere near to me.... Allyour faults are just jolly modelling to make you real and solid."

  "The faults are the best part of it," said Ann Veronica; "why, even ourlittle vicious strains run the same way. Even our coarseness."

  "Coarse?" said Capes, "We're not coarse."

  "But if we were?" said Ann Veronica.

  "I can talk to you and you to me without a scrap of effort," saidCapes; "that's the essence of it. It's made up of things as small as thediameter of hairs and big as life and death.... One always dreamedof this and never believed it. It's the rarest luck, the wildest, mostimpossible accident. Most people, every one I know else, seem to havemated with foreigners and to talk uneasily in unfamiliar tongues, to beafraid of the knowledge the other one has, of the other one's perpetualmisjudgment and misunderstandings.

  "Why don't they wait?" he added.

  Ann Veronica had one of her flashes of insight.

  "One doesn't wait," said Ann Veronica.

  She expanded that. "_I_ shouldn't have waited," she said. "I might havemuddled for a time. But it's as you say. I've had the rarest luck andfallen on my feet."

  "We've both fallen on our feet! We're the rarest of mortals! The realthing! There's not a compromise nor a sham nor a concession betweenus. We aren't afraid; we don't bother. We don't consider each other;we needn't. That wrappered life, as you call it--we've burned theconfounded rags! Danced out of it! We're stark!"

  "Stark!" echoed Ann Veronica.

  Part 7

  As they came back from that day's climb--it was up the Mittaghorn--theyhad to cross a shining space of wet, steep rocks between two grassslopes that needed a little care. There were a few loose, brokenfragments of rock to reckon with upon the ledges, and one place wherehands did as much work as toes. They used the rope--not that a rope wasat all necessary, but because Ann Veronica's exalted state of mind madethe fact of the rope agreeably symbolical; and, anyhow, it did insure ajoint death in the event of some remotely possibly mischance. Capes wentfirst, finding footholds and, where the drops in the strata-edges camelike long, awkward steps, placing Ann Veronica's feet. About half-wayacross this interval, when everything seemed going well, Capes had ashock.

  "Heavens!" exclaimed Ann Veronica, with extraordinary passion. "My God!"and ceased to move.

  Capes became rigid and adhesive. Nothing ensued. "All right?" he asked.

  "I'll have to pay it."

  "Eh?"

  "I've forgotten something. Oh, cuss it!"

  "Eh?"

  "He said I would."

  "What?"

  "That's the devil of it!"

  "Devil of what?... You DO use vile language!"

  "Forget about it like this."

  "Forget WHAT?"

  "And I said I wouldn't. I said I'd do anything. I said I'd make shirts."

  "Shirts?"

  "Shirts at one--and--something a dozen. Oh, goodness! Bilking! AnnVeronica, you're a bilker!"

  Pause.

  "Will you tell me what all this is about?" said Capes.

  "It's about forty pounds."

  Capes waited patiently.

  "G. I'm sorry.... But you've got to lend me forty pounds."

  "It's some sort of delirium," said Capes. "The rarefied air? I thoughtyou had a better head."

  "No! I'll explain lower. It's all right. Let's go on climbing now. It'sa thing I've unaccountably overlooked. All right really. It can waita bit longer. I borrowed forty pounds from Mr. Ramage. Thank goodnessyou'll understand. That's why I chucked Manning.... All right, I'mcoming. But all this business has driven it clean out of my head....That's why he was so annoyed, you know."

  "Who was annoyed?"

  "Mr. Ramage--about the forty pounds." She took a step. "My dear," sheadded, by way of afterthought, "you DO obliterate things!"

  Part 8

  They found themselves next day talking love to one another high up onsome rocks above a steep bank of snow that overhung a precipice on theeastern side of the Fee glacier. By this time Capes' hair had bleachednearly white, and his skin had become a skin of red copper shot withgold. They were now both in a state of unprecedented physical fitness.And such skirts as Ann Veronica had had when she entered the valley ofSaas were safely packed away in the hotel, and she wore a leather beltand loose knickerbockers and puttees--a costume that suited the fine,long lines of her limbs far better than any feminine walking-dress coulddo. Her complexion had resisted the snow-glare wonderfully; her skin hadonly deepened its natural warmth a little under the Alpine sun. She hadpushed aside her azure veil, taken off her snow-glasses, and sat smilingunder her hand at the shini
ng glories--the lit cornices, the blueshadows, the softly rounded, enormous snow masses, the deep placesfull of quivering luminosity--of the Taschhorn and Dom. The sky wascloudless, effulgent blue.

  Capes sat watching and admiring her, and then he fell praising the dayand fortune and their love for each other.

  "Here we are," he said, "shining through each other like light through astained-glass window. With this air in our blood, this sunlight soakingus.... Life is so good. Can it ever be so good again?"

  Ann Veronica put out a firm hand and squeezed his arm. "It's very good,"she said. "It's glorious good!"

  "Suppose now--look at this long snow-slope and then that blue deepbeyond--do you see that round pool of color in the ice--a thousand feetor more below? Yes? Well, think--we've got to go but ten steps and liedown and put our arms about each other. See? Down we should rush in afoam--in a cloud of snow--to flight and a dream. All the rest ofour lives would be together then, Ann Veronica. Every moment. And noill-chances."

  "If you tempt me too much," she said, after a silence, "I shall doit. I need only just jump up and throw myself upon you. I'm a desperateyoung woman. And then as we went down you'd try to explain. And thatwould spoil it.... You know you don't mean it."

  "No, I don't. But I liked to say it."

  "Rather! But I wonder why you don't mean it?"

  "Because, I suppose, the other thing is better. What other reason couldthere be? It's more complex, but it's better. THIS, this glissade, wouldbe damned scoundrelism. You know that, and I know that, though we mightbe put to it to find a reason why. It would be swindling. Drawing thepay of life and then not living. And besides--We're going to live, AnnVeronica! Oh, the things we'll do, the life we'll lead! There'll betrouble in it at times--you and I aren't going to run without friction.But we've got the brains to get over that, and tongues in our heads totalk to each other. We sha'n't hang up on any misunderstanding. Not us.And we're going to fight that old world down there. That old world thathad shoved up that silly old hotel, and all the rest of it.... If wedon't live it will think we are afraid of it.... Die, indeed! We'regoing to do work; we're going to unfold about each other; we're going tohave children."

  "Girls!" cried Ann Veronica.

  "Boys!" said Capes.

  "Both!" said Ann Veronica. "Lots of 'em!"

  Capes chuckled. "You delicate female!"

  "Who cares," said Ann Veronica, "seeing it's you? Warm, soft littlewonders! Of course I want them."

  Part 9

  "All sorts of things we're going to do," said Capes; "all sorts of timeswe're going to have. Sooner or later we'll certainly do something toclean those prisons you told me about--limewash the underside of life.You and I. We can love on a snow cornice, we can love over a pail ofwhitewash. Love anywhere. Anywhere! Moonlight and music--pleasing, youknow, but quite unnecessary. We met dissecting dogfish.... Do youremember your first day with me?... Do you indeed remember? The smellof decay and cheap methylated spirit!... My dear! we've had so manymoments! I used to go over the times we'd had together, the things we'dsaid--like a rosary of beads. But now it's beads by the cask--like thehold of a West African trader. It feels like too much gold-dust clutchedin one's hand. One doesn't want to lose a grain. And one must--some ofit must slip through one's fingers."

  "I don't care if it does," said Ann Veronica. "I don't care a rap forremembering. I care for you. This moment couldn't be better until thenext moment comes. That's how it takes me. Why should WE hoard? Wearen't going out presently, like Japanese lanterns in a gale. It's thepoor dears who do, who know they will, know they can't keep it up, whoneed to clutch at way-side flowers. And put 'em in little books forremembrance. Flattened flowers aren't for the likes of us. Moments,indeed! We like each other fresh and fresh. It isn't illusions--for us.We two just love each other--the real, identical other--all the time."

  "The real, identical other," said Capes, and took and bit the tip of herlittle finger.

  "There's no delusions, so far as I know," said Ann Veronica.

  "I don't believe there is one. If there is, it's a merewrapping--there's better underneath. It's only as if I'd begun to knowyou the day before yesterday or there-abouts. You keep on coming truer,after you have seemed to come altogether true. You... brick!"

  Part 10

  "To think," he cried, "you are ten years younger than I!... There aretimes when you make me feel a little thing at your feet--a young, silly,protected thing. Do you know, Ann Veronica, it is all a lie about yourbirth certificate; a forgery--and fooling at that. You are one of theImmortals. Immortal! You were in the beginning, and all the men in theworld who have known what love is have worshipped at your feet. You haveconverted me to--Lester Ward! You are my dear friend, you are a slip ofa girl, but there are moments when my head has been on your breast, whenyour heart has been beating close to my ears, when I have known you forthe goddess, when I have wished myself your slave, when I have wishedthat you could kill me for the joy of being killed by you. You are theHigh Priestess of Life...."

  "Your priestess," whispered Ann Veronica, softly. "A silly littlepriestess who knew nothing of life at all until she came to you."

  Part 11

  They sat for a time without speaking a word, in an enormous shiningglobe of mutual satisfaction.

  "Well," said Capes, at length, "we've to go down, Ann Veronica. Lifewaits for us."

  He stood up and waited for her to move.

  "Gods!" cried Ann Veronica, and kept him standing. "And to think thatit's not a full year ago since I was a black-hearted rebel school-girl,distressed, puzzled, perplexed, not understanding that this greatforce of love was bursting its way through me! All those namelessdiscontents--they were no more than love's birth-pangs. I felt--Ifelt living in a masked world. I felt as though I had bandaged eyes. Ifelt--wrapped in thick cobwebs. They blinded me. They got in my mouth.And now--Dear! Dear! The dayspring from on high hath visited me. I love.I am loved. I want to shout! I want to sing! I am glad! I am glad to bealive because you are alive! I am glad to be a woman because you are aman! I am glad! I am glad! I am glad! I thank God for life and you. Ithank God for His sunlight on your face. I thank God for the beautyyou love and the faults you love. I thank God for the very skin that ispeeling from your nose, for all things great and small that make us whatwe are. This is grace I am saying! Oh! my dear! all the joy and weepingof life are mixed in me now and all the gratitude. Never a new-borndragon-fly that spread its wings in the morning has felt as glad as I!"

  CHAPTER THE SEVENTEENTH

  IN PERSPECTIVE

  Part 1

  About four years and a quarter later--to be exact, it was four years andfour months--Mr. and Mrs. Capes stood side by side upon an old Persiancarpet that did duty as a hearthrug in the dining-room of their flatand surveyed a shining dinner-table set for four people, lit byskilfully-shaded electric lights, brightened by frequent gleams ofsilver, and carefully and simply adorned with sweet-pea blossom. Capeshad altered scarcely at all during the interval, except for a newquality of smartness in the cut of his clothes, but Ann Veronica wasnearly half an inch taller; her face was at once stronger and softer,her neck firmer and rounder, and her carriage definitely more womanlythan it had been in the days of her rebellion. She was a woman now tothe tips of her fingers; she had said good-bye to her girlhood in theold garden four years and a quarter ago. She was dressed in a simpleevening gown of soft creamy silk, with a yoke of dark old embroiderythat enhanced the gentle gravity of her style, and her black hair flowedoff her open forehead to pass under the control of a simple ribbon ofsilver. A silver necklace enhanced the dusky beauty of her neck. Bothhusband and wife affected an unnatural ease of manner for the benefit ofthe efficient parlor-maid, who was putting the finishing touches to thesideboard arrangements.

  "It looks all right," said Capes.

  "I think everything's right," said Ann Veronica, with the roaming eye ofa capable but not devoted house-mistress.

  "I wonder if they will seem altered," she remarked f
or the third time.

  "There I can't help," said Capes.

  He walked through a wide open archway, curtained with deep-bluecurtains, into the apartment that served as a reception-room. AnnVeronica, after a last survey of the dinner appointments, followed him,rustling, came to his side by the high brass fender, and touched two orthree ornaments on the mantel above the cheerful fireplace.

  "It's still a marvel to me that we are to be forgiven," she said,turning.

  "My charm of manner, I suppose. But, indeed, he's very human."

  "Did you tell him of the registry office?"

  "No--o--certainly not so emphatically as I did about the play."

  "It was an inspiration--your speaking to him?"

  "I felt impudent. I believe I am getting impudent. I had not been nearthe Royal Society since--since you disgraced me. What's that?"