Ann Veronica: A Modern Love Story Read online

  He consumed Irish stew for some moments.

  "Married already," he said, with his mouth full. "Shopman."

  "Good God!" said Mr. Stanley.

  "Good-looking rascal she met at Worthing. Very romantic and all that. Hefixed it."

  "But--"

  "He left her alone. Pure romantic nonsense on her part. Sheercalculation on his. Went up to Somerset House to examine the will beforehe did it. Yes. Nice position."

  "She doesn't care for him now?"

  "Not a bit. What a girl of sixteen cares for is hair and a high colorand moonlight and a tenor voice. I suppose most of our daughters wouldmarry organ-grinders if they had a chance--at that age. My son wantedto marry a woman of thirty in a tobacconist's shop. Only a son's anotherstory. We fixed that. Well, that's the situation. My people don't knowwhat to do. Can't face a scandal. Can't ask the gent to go abroad andcondone a bigamy. He misstated her age and address; but you can't gethome on him for a thing like that.... There you are! Girl spoilt forlife. Makes one want to go back to the Oriental system!"

  Mr. Stanley poured wine. "Damned Rascal!" he said. "Isn't there abrother to kick him?"

  "Mere satisfaction," reflected Ogilvy. "Mere sensuality. I rather thinkthey have kicked him, from the tone of some of the letters. Nice, ofcourse. But it doesn't alter the situation."

  "It's these Rascals," said Mr. Stanley, and paused.

  "Always has been," said Ogilvy. "Our interest lies in heading them off."

  "There was a time when girls didn't get these extravagant ideas."

  "Lydia Languish, for example. Anyhow, they didn't run about so much."

  "Yes. That's about the beginning. It's these damned novels. All thistorrent of misleading, spurious stuff that pours from the press. Thesesham ideals and advanced notions. Women who Dids, and all that kind ofthing...."

  Ogilvy reflected. "This girl--she's really a very charming, frankperson--had had her imagination fired, so she told me, by a schoolperformance of Romeo and Juliet."

  Mr. Stanley decided to treat that as irrelevant. "There ought to be aCensorship of Books. We want it badly at the present time. Even WITHthe Censorship of Plays there's hardly a decent thing to which a man cantake his wife and daughters, a creeping taint of suggestion everywhere.What would it be without that safeguard?"

  Ogilvy pursued his own topic. "I'm inclined to think, Stanley, myselfthat as a matter of fact it was the expurgated Romeo and Juliet did themischief. If our young person hadn't had the nurse part cut out, eh? Shemight have known more and done less. I was curious about that. All theyleft it was the moon and stars. And the balcony and 'My Romeo!'"

  "Shakespeare is altogether different from the modern stuff. Altogetherdifferent. I'm not discussing Shakespeare. I don't want to BowdlerizeShakespeare. I'm not that sort I quite agree. But this modern miasma--"

  Mr. Stanley took mustard savagely.

  "Well, we won't go into Shakespeare," said Ogilvy "What interests meis that our young women nowadays are running about as free as airpractically, with registry offices and all sorts of accommodation roundthe corner. Nothing to check their proceedings but a declining habit oftelling the truth and the limitations of their imaginations. And in thatrespect they stir up one another. Not my affair, of course, but I thinkwe ought to teach them more or restrain them more. One or the other.They're too free for their innocence or too innocent for their freedom.That's my point. Are you going to have any apple-tart, Stanley? Theapple-tart's been very good lately--very good!"

  Part 7

  At the end of dinner that evening Ann Veronica began: "Father!"

  Her father looked at her over his glasses and spoke with gravedeliberation "If there is anything you want to say to me," he said,"you must say it in the study. I am going to smoke a little here, andthen I shall go to the study. I don't see what you can have to say. Ishould have thought my note cleared up everything. There are some papersI have to look through to-night--important papers."

  "I won't keep you very long, daddy," said Ann Veronica.

  "I don't see, Mollie," he remarked, taking a cigar from the box onthe table as his sister and daughter rose, "why you and Vee shouldn'tdiscuss this little affair--whatever it is--without bothering me."

  It was the first time this controversy had become triangular, for allthree of them were shy by habit.

  He stopped in mid-sentence, and Ann Veronica opened the door for heraunt. The air was thick with feelings. Her aunt went out of the roomwith dignity and a rustle, and up-stairs to the fastness of her ownroom. She agreed entirely with her brother. It distressed and confusedher that the girl should not come to her.

  It seemed to show a want of affection, to be a deliberate and unmeriteddisregard, to justify the reprisal of being hurt.

  When Ann Veronica came into the study she found every evidence of acarefully foreseen grouping about the gas fire. Both arm-chairs had beenmoved a little so as to face each other on either side of thefender, and in the circular glow of the green-shaded lamp there lay,conspicuously waiting, a thick bundle of blue and white papers tiedwith pink tape. Her father held some printed document in his hand,and appeared not to observe her entry. "Sit down," he said, andperused--"perused" is the word for it--for some moments. Then he putthe paper by. "And what is it all about, Veronica?" he asked, with adeliberate note of irony, looking at her a little quizzically over hisglasses.

  Ann Veronica looked bright and a little elated, and she disregardedher father's invitation to be seated. She stood on the mat instead, andlooked down on him. "Look here, daddy," she said, in a tone of greatreasonableness, "I MUST go to that dance, you know."

  Her father's irony deepened. "Why?" he asked, suavely.

  Her answer was not quite ready. "Well, because I don't see any reasonwhy I shouldn't."

  "You see I do."

  "Why shouldn't I go?"

  "It isn't a suitable place; it isn't a suitable gathering."

  "But, daddy, what do you know of the place and the gathering?"

  "And it's entirely out of order; it isn't right, it isn't correct;it's impossible for you to stay in an hotel in London--the idea ispreposterous. I can't imagine what possessed you, Veronica."

  He put his head on one side, pulled down the corners of his mouth, andlooked at her over his glasses.

  "But why is it preposterous?" asked Ann Veronica, and fiddled with apipe on the mantel.

  "Surely!" he remarked, with an expression of worried appeal.

  "You see, daddy, I don't think it IS preposterous. That's really whatI want to discuss. It comes to this--am I to be trusted to take care ofmyself, or am I not?"

  "To judge from this proposal of yours, I should say not."

  "I think I am."

  "As long as you remain under my roof--" he began, and paused.

  "You are going to treat me as though I wasn't. Well, I don't thinkthat's fair."

  "Your ideas of fairness--" he remarked, and discontinued that sentence."My dear girl," he said, in a tone of patient reasonableness, "you are amere child. You know nothing of life, nothing of its dangers, nothing ofits possibilities. You think everything is harmless and simple, and soforth. It isn't. It isn't. That's where you go wrong. In some things,in many things, you must trust to your elders, to those who know more oflife than you do. Your aunt and I have discussed all this matter. Thereit is. You can't go."

  The conversation hung for a moment. Ann Veronica tried to keep hold ofa complicated situation and not lose her head. She had turned roundsideways, so as to look down into the fire.

  "You see, father," she said, "it isn't only this affair of the dance.I want to go to that because it's a new experience, because I thinkit will be interesting and give me a view of things. You say I knownothing. That's probably true. But how am I to know of things?"

  "Some things I hope you may never know," he said.

  "I'm not so sure. I want to know--just as much as I can."

  "Tut!" he said, fuming, and put out his hand to the papers in the pinktape.
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  "Well, I do. It's just that I want to say. I want to be a human being;I want to learn about things and know about things, and not to beprotected as something too precious for life, cooped up in one narrowlittle corner."

  "Cooped up!" he cried. "Did I stand in the way of your going to college?Have I ever prevented you going about at any reasonable hour? You've gota bicycle!"

  "H'm!" said Ann Veronica, and then went on "I want to be takenseriously. A girl--at my age--is grown-up. I want to go on withmy University work under proper conditions, now that I've done theIntermediate. It isn't as though I haven't done well. I've never muffedan exam yet. Roddy muffed two...."

  Her father interrupted. "Now look here, Veronica, let us be plain witheach other. You are not going to that infidel Russell's classes. You arenot going anywhere but to the Tredgold College. I've thought that out,and you must make up your mind to it. All sorts of considerations comein. While you live in my house you must follow my ideas. You are wrongeven about that man's scientific position and his standard of work.There are men in the Lowndean who laugh at him--simply laugh at him.And I have seen work by his pupils myself that struck me as being--well,next door to shameful. There's stories, too, about his demonstrator,Capes Something or other. The kind of man who isn't content with hisscience, and writes articles in the monthly reviews. Anyhow, there itis: YOU ARE NOT GOING THERE."

  The girl received this intimation in silence, but the face that lookeddown upon the gas fire took an expression of obstinacy that brought outa hitherto latent resemblance between parent and child. When she spoke,her lips twitched.

  "Then I suppose when I have graduated I am to come home?"

  "It seems the natural course--"

  "And do nothing?"

  "There are plenty of things a girl can find to do at home."

  "Until some one takes pity on me and marries me?"

  He raised his eyebrows in mild appeal. His foot tapped impatiently, andhe took up the papers.

  "Look here, father," she said, with a change in her voice, "suppose Iwon't stand it?"

  He regarded her as though this was a new idea.

  "Suppose, for example, I go to this dance?"

  "You won't."

  "Well"--her breath failed her for a moment. "How would you prevent it?"she asked.

  "But I have forbidden it!" he said, raising his voice.

  "Yes, I know. But suppose I go?"

  "Now, Veronica! No, no. This won't do. Understand me! I forbid it. Ido not want to hear from you even the threat of disobedience." He spokeloudly. "The thing is forbidden!"

  "I am ready to give up anything that you show to be wrong."

  "You will give up anything I wish you to give up."

  They stared at each other through a pause, and both faces were flushedand obstinate.

  She was trying by some wonderful, secret, and motionless gymnastics torestrain her tears. But when she spoke her lips quivered, and theycame. "I mean to go to that dance!" she blubbered. "I mean to go tothat dance! I meant to reason with you, but you won't reason. You'redogmatic."

  At the sight of her tears his expression changed to a mingling oftriumph and concern. He stood up, apparently intending to put anarm about her, but she stepped back from him quickly. She produced ahandkerchief, and with one sweep of this and a simultaneous gulp hadabolished her fit of weeping. His voice now had lost its ironies.

  "Now, Veronica," he pleaded, "Veronica, this is most unreasonable. Allwe do is for your good. Neither your aunt nor I have any other thoughtbut what is best for you."

  "Only you won't let me live. Only you won't let me exist!"

  Mr. Stanley lost patience. He bullied frankly.

  "What nonsense is this? What raving! My dear child, you DO live, youDO exist! You have this home. You have friends, acquaintances, socialstanding, brothers and sisters, every advantage! Instead of which, youwant to go to some mixed classes or other and cut up rabbits and danceabout at nights in wild costumes with casual art student friends and Godknows who. That--that isn't living! You are beside yourself. You don'tknow what you ask nor what you say. You have neither reason nor logic.I am sorry to seem to hurt you, but all I say is for your good. YouMUST not, you SHALL not go. On this I am resolved. I put my foot downlike--like adamant. And a time will come, Veronica, mark my words, atime will come when you will bless me for my firmness to-night. It goesto my heart to disappoint you, but this thing must not be."

  He sidled toward her, but she recoiled from him, leaving him inpossession of the hearth-rug.

  "Well," she said, "good-night, father."

  "What!" he asked; "not a kiss?"

  She affected not to hear.

  The door closed softly upon her. For a long time he remained standingbefore the fire, staring at the situation. Then he sat down and filledhis pipe slowly and thoughtfully....

  "I don't see what else I could have said," he remarked.

  CHAPTER THE SECOND

  ANN VERONICA GATHERS POINTS OF VIEW

  Part 1

  "Are you coming to the Fadden Dance, Ann Veronica?" asked ConstanceWidgett.

  Ann Veronica considered her answer. "I mean to," she replied.

  "You are making your dress?"

  "Such as it is."

  They were in the elder Widgett girl's bedroom; Hetty was laid up, shesaid, with a sprained ankle, and a miscellaneous party was gossipingaway her tedium. It was a large, littered, self-forgetful apartment,decorated with unframed charcoal sketches by various incipient masters;and an open bookcase, surmounted by plaster casts and the half of ahuman skull, displayed an odd miscellany of books--Shaw and Swinburne,Tom Jones, Fabian Essays, Pope and Dumas, cheek by jowl. ConstanceWidgett's abundant copper-red hair was bent down over some dimlyremunerative work--stencilling in colors upon rough, white material--ata kitchen table she had dragged up-stairs for the purpose, while on herbed there was seated a slender lady of thirty or so in a dingy greendress, whom Constance had introduced with a wave of her hand as MissMiniver. Miss Miniver looked out on the world through large emotionalblue eyes that were further magnified by the glasses she wore, and hernose was pinched and pink, and her mouth was whimsically petulant. Herglasses moved quickly as her glance travelled from face to face.She seemed bursting with the desire to talk, and watching for heropportunity. On her lapel was an ivory button, bearing the words "Votesfor Women." Ann Veronica sat at the foot of the sufferer's bed, whileTeddy Widgett, being something of an athlete, occupied the onlybed-room chair--a decadent piece, essentially a tripod and largely aformality--and smoked cigarettes, and tried to conceal the fact thathe was looking all the time at Ann Veronica's eyebrows. Teddy was thehatless young man who had turned Ann Veronica aside from the Avenue twodays before. He was the junior of both his sisters, co-educated andmuch broken in to feminine society. A bowl of roses, just brought byAnn Veronica, adorned the communal dressing-table, and Ann Veronica wasparticularly trim in preparation for a call she was to make with heraunt later in the afternoon.

  Ann Veronica decided to be more explicit. "I've been," she said,"forbidden to come."

  "Hul-LO!" said Hetty, turning her head on the pillow; and Teddy remarkedwith profound emotion, "My God!"

  "Yes," said Ann Veronica, "and that complicates the situation."

  "Auntie?" asked Constance, who was conversant with Ann Veronica'saffairs.

  "No! My father. It's--it's a serious prohibition."

  "Why?" asked Hetty.

  "That's the point. I asked him why, and he hadn't a reason."

  "YOU ASKED YOUR FATHER FOR A REASON!" said Miss Miniver, with greatintensity.

  "Yes. I tried to have it out with him, but he wouldn't have it out." AnnVeronica reflected for an instant "That's why I think I ought to come."

  "You asked your father for a reason!" Miss Miniver repeated.

  "We always have things out with OUR father, poor dear!" said Hetty."He's got almost to like it."

  "Men," said Miss Miniver, "NEVER have a reason. Never! And they don'tknow it!
They have no idea of it. It's one of their worst traits, one oftheir very worst."

  "But I say, Vee," said Constance, "if you come and you are forbidden tocome there'll be the deuce of a row."

  Ann Veronica was deciding for further confidences. Her situationwas perplexing her very much, and the Widgett atmosphere was lax andsympathetic, and provocative of discussion. "It isn't only the dance,"she said.

  "There's the classes," said Constance, the well-informed.

  "There's the whole situation. Apparently I'm not to exist yet. I'm notto study, I'm not to grow. I've got to stay at home and remain in astate of suspended animation."

  "DUSTING!" said Miss Miniver, in a sepulchral voice.

  "Until you marry, Vee," said Hetty.

  "Well, I don't feel like standing it."

  "Thousands of women have married merely for freedom," said Miss Miniver."Thousands! Ugh! And found it a worse slavery."

  "I suppose," said Constance, stencilling away at bright pink petals,"it's our lot. But it's very beastly."

  "What's our lot?" asked her sister.

  "Slavery! Downtroddenness! When I think of it I feel all over bootmarks--men's boots. We hide it bravely, but so it is. Damn! I'vesplashed."

  Miss Miniver's manner became impressive. She addressed Ann Veronicawith an air of conveying great open secrets to her. "As things are atpresent," she said, "it is true. We live under man-made institutions,and that is what they amount to. Every girl in the world practically,except a few of us who teach or type-write, and then we're underpaid andsweated--it's dreadful to think how we are sweated!" She had lost hergeneralization, whatever it was. She hung for a moment, and then wenton, conclusively, "Until we have the vote that is how things WILL be."