Ann Veronica: A Modern Love Story Page 10

  She drifted, via Theobald's Road, obliquely toward the region aboutTitchfield Street. Such apartments as she saw were either scandalouslydirty or unaccountably dear, or both. And some were adorned withengravings that struck her as being more vulgar and undesirable thananything she had ever seen in her life. Ann Veronica loved beautifulthings, and the beauty of undraped loveliness not least among them; butthese were pictures that did but insist coarsely upon the roundness ofwomen's bodies. The windows of these rooms were obscured with draperies,their floors a carpet patchwork; the china ornaments on their mantelswere of a class apart. After the first onset several of the women whohad apartments to let said she would not do for them, and in effectdismissed her. This also struck her as odd.

  About many of these houses hung a mysterious taint as of somethingweakly and commonly and dustily evil; the women who negotiated the roomslooked out through a friendly manner as though it was a mask, with hard,defiant eyes. Then one old crone, short-sighted and shaky-handed, calledAnn Veronica "dearie," and made some remark, obscure and slangy, ofwhich the spirit rather than the words penetrated to her understanding.

  For a time she looked at no more apartments, and walked throughgaunt and ill-cleaned streets, through the sordid under side of life,perplexed and troubled, ashamed of her previous obtuseness.

  She had something of the feeling a Hindoo must experience who has beeninto surroundings or touched something that offends his caste. Shepassed people in the streets and regarded them with a quickeningapprehension, once or twice came girls dressed in slatternly finery,going toward Regent Street from out these places. It did not occur toher that they at least had found a way of earning a living, and had thatmuch economic superiority to herself. It did not occur to her that savefor some accidents of education and character they had souls like herown.

  For a time Ann Veronica went on her way gauging the quality of sordidstreets. At last, a little way to the northward of Euston Road, themoral cloud seemed to lift, the moral atmosphere to change; clean blindsappeared in the windows, clean doorsteps before the doors, a differentappeal in the neatly placed cards bearing the word

  -------------------------- | APARTMENTS | --------------------------

  in the clear bright windows. At last in a street near the Hampstead Roadshe hit upon a room that had an exceptional quality of space and order,and a tall woman with a kindly face to show it. "You're a student,perhaps?" said the tall woman. "At the Tredgold Women's College," saidAnn Veronica. She felt it would save explanations if she did not stateshe had left her home and was looking for employment. The room waspapered with green, large-patterned paper that was at worst a trifledingy, and the arm-chair and the seats of the other chairs were coveredwith the unusual brightness of a large-patterned chintz, which alsosupplied the window-curtain. There was a round table covered, not withthe usual "tapestry" cover, but with a plain green cloth that wentpassably with the wall-paper. In the recess beside the fireplacewere some open bookshelves. The carpet was a quiet drugget and notexcessively worn, and the bed in the corner was covered by a whitequilt. There were neither texts nor rubbish on the walls, but only astirring version of Belshazzar's feast, a steel engraving in the earlyVictorian manner that had some satisfactory blacks. And the woman whoshowed this room was tall, with an understanding eye and the quietmanner of the well-trained servant.

  Ann Veronica brought her luggage in a cab from the hotel; she tipped thehotel porter sixpence and overpaid the cabman eighteenpence, unpackedsome of her books and possessions, and so made the room a littlehomelike, and then sat down in a by no means uncomfortable arm-chairbefore the fire. She had arranged for a supper of tea, a boiled egg, andsome tinned peaches. She had discussed the general question of supplieswith the helpful landlady. "And now," said Ann Veronica surveying herapartment with an unprecedented sense of proprietorship, "what is thenext step?"

  She spent the evening in writing--it was a little difficult--to herfather and--which was easier--to the Widgetts. She was greatly heartenedby doing this. The necessity of defending herself and assuming aconfident and secure tone did much to dispell the sense of beingexposed and indefensible in a huge dingy world that abounded in sinisterpossibilities. She addressed her letters, meditated on them for a time,and then took them out and posted them. Afterward she wanted to get herletter to her father back in order to read it over again, and, if ittallied with her general impression of it, re-write it.

  He would know her address to-morrow. She reflected upon that with athrill of terror that was also, somehow, in some faint remote way,gleeful.

  "Dear old Daddy," she said, "he'll make a fearful fuss. Well, it had tohappen somewhen.... Somehow. I wonder what he'll say?"

  CHAPTER THE SIXTH

  EXPOSTULATIONS

  Part 1

  The next morning opened calmly, and Ann Veronica sat in her own room,her very own room, and consumed an egg and marmalade, and read theadvertisements in the Daily Telegraph. Then began expostulations,preluded by a telegram and headed by her aunt. The telegram remindedAnn Veronica that she had no place for interviews except herbed-sitting-room, and she sought her landlady and negotiated hastily forthe use of the ground floor parlor, which very fortunately was vacant.She explained she was expecting an important interview, and asked thather visitor should be duly shown in. Her aunt arrived about half-pastten, in black and with an unusually thick spotted veil. She raised thiswith the air of a conspirator unmasking, and displayed a tear-flushedface. For a moment she remained silent.

  "My dear," she said, when she could get her breath, "you must come homeat once."

  Ann Veronica closed the door quite softly and stood still.

  "This has almost killed your father.... After Gwen!"

  "I sent a telegram."

  "He cares so much for you. He did so care for you."

  "I sent a telegram to say I was all right."

  "All right! And I never dreamed anything of the sort was going on. Ihad no idea!" She sat down abruptly and threw her wrists limply upon thetable. "Oh, Veronica!" she said, "to leave your home!"

  She had been weeping. She was weeping now. Ann Veronica was overcome bythis amount of emotion.

  "Why did you do it?" her aunt urged. "Why could you not confide in us?"

  "Do what?" said Ann Veronica.

  "What you have done."

  "But what have I done?"

  "Elope! Go off in this way. We had no idea. We had such a pride inyou, such hope in you. I had no idea you were not the happiest girl.Everything I could do! Your father sat up all night. Until at last Ipersuaded him to go to bed. He wanted to put on his overcoat and comeafter you and look for you--in London. We made sure it was just likeGwen. Only Gwen left a letter on the pincushion. You didn't even do thatVee; not even that."

  "I sent a telegram, aunt," said Ann Veronica.

  "Like a stab. You didn't even put the twelve words."

  "I said I was all right."

  "Gwen said she was happy. Before that came your father didn't evenknow you were gone. He was just getting cross about your being late fordinner--you know his way--when it came. He opened it--just off-hand, andthen when he saw what it was he hit at the table and sent his soup spoonflying and splashing on to the tablecloth. 'My God!' he said, 'I'll goafter them and kill him. I'll go after them and kill him.' For themoment I thought it was a telegram from Gwen."

  "But what did father imagine?"

  "Of course he imagined! Any one would! 'What has happened, Peter?' Iasked. He was standing up with the telegram crumpled in his hand. Heused a most awful word! Then he said, 'It's Ann Veronica gone to joinher sister!' 'Gone!' I said. 'Gone!' he said. 'Read that,' and threw thetelegram at me, so that it went into the tureen. He swore when I triedto get it out with the ladle, and told me what it said. Then he satdown again in a chair and said that people who wrote novels ought to bestrung up. It was as much as I could do to prevent him flying out of thehouse there and then and coming after you. Never since I was a girl haveI s
een your father so moved. 'Oh! little Vee!' he cried, 'little Vee!'and put his face between his hands and sat still for a long time beforehe broke out again."

  Ann Veronica had remained standing while her aunt spoke.

  "Do you mean, aunt," she asked, "that my father thought I had goneoff--with some man?"

  "What else COULD he think? Would any one DREAM you would be so mad as togo off alone?"

  "After--after what had happened the night before?"

  "Oh, why raise up old scores? If you could see him this morning, hispoor face as white as a sheet and all cut about with shaving! He wasfor coming up by the very first train and looking for you, but I said tohim, 'Wait for the letters,' and there, sure enough, was yours. He couldhardly open the envelope, he trembled so. Then he threw the letter atme. 'Go and fetch her home,' he said; 'it isn't what we thought! It'sjust a practical joke of hers.' And with that he went off to the City,stern and silent, leaving his bacon on his plate--a great slice of baconhardly touched. No breakfast, he's had no dinner, hardly a mouthful ofsoup--since yesterday at tea."

  She stopped. Aunt and niece regarded each other silently.

  "You must come home to him at once," said Miss Stanley.

  Ann Veronica looked down at her fingers on the claret-coloredtable-cloth. Her aunt had summoned up an altogether too vivid pictureof her father as the masterful man, overbearing, emphatic, sentimental,noisy, aimless. Why on earth couldn't he leave her to grow in her ownway? Her pride rose at the bare thought of return.

  "I don't think I CAN do that," she said. She looked up and said, alittle breathlessly, "I'm sorry, aunt, but I don't think I can."

  Part 2

  Then it was the expostulations really began.

  From first to last, on this occasion, her aunt expostulated for abouttwo hours. "But, my dear," she began, "it is Impossible! It is quite outof the Question. You simply can't." And to that, through vast rhetoricalmeanderings, she clung. It reached her only slowly that Ann Veronica wasstanding to her resolution. "How will you live?" she appealed. "Thinkof what people will say!" That became a refrain. "Think of what LadyPalsworthy will say! Think of what"--So-and-so--"will say! What are weto tell people?

  "Besides, what am I to tell your father?"

  At first it had not been at all clear to Ann Veronica that she wouldrefuse to return home; she had had some dream of a capitulation thatshould leave her an enlarged and defined freedom, but as her aunt putthis aspect and that of her flight to her, as she wandered illogicallyand inconsistently from one urgent consideration to another, as shemingled assurances and aspects and emotions, it became clearer andclearer to the girl that there could be little or no change in theposition of things if she returned. "And what will Mr. Manning think?"said her aunt.

  "I don't care what any one thinks," said Ann Veronica.

  "I can't imagine what has come over you," said her aunt. "I can'tconceive what you want. You foolish girl!"

  Ann Veronica took that in silence. At the back of her mind, dim and yetdisconcerting, was the perception that she herself did not know what shewanted. And yet she knew it was not fair to call her a foolish girl.

  "Don't you care for Mr. Manning?" said her aunt.

  "I don't see what he has to do with my coming to London?"

  "He--he worships the ground you tread on. You don't deserve it, but hedoes. Or at least he did the day before yesterday. And here you are!"

  Her aunt opened all the fingers of her gloved hand in a rhetoricalgesture. "It seems to me all madness--madness! Just because yourfather--wouldn't let you disobey him!"

  Part 3

  In the afternoon the task of expostulation was taken up by Mr. Stanleyin person. Her father's ideas of expostulation were a little harsh andforcible, and over the claret-colored table-cloth and under the gaschandelier, with his hat and umbrella between them like the mace inParliament, he and his daughter contrived to have a violent quarrel. Shehad intended to be quietly dignified, but he was in a smouldering ragefrom the beginning, and began by assuming, which alone was more thanflesh and blood could stand, that the insurrection was over and that shewas coming home submissively. In his desire to be emphatic and to avengehimself for his over-night distresses, he speedily became brutal, morebrutal than she had ever known him before.

  "A nice time of anxiety you've given me, young lady," he said, as heentered the room. "I hope you're satisfied."

  She was frightened--his anger always did frighten her--and in herresolve to conceal her fright she carried a queen-like dignity to whatshe felt even at the time was a preposterous pitch. She said she hopedshe had not distressed him by the course she had felt obliged to take,and he told her not to be a fool. She tried to keep her side up bydeclaring that he had put her into an impossible position, and hereplied by shouting, "Nonsense! Nonsense! Any father in my place wouldhave done what I did."

  Then he went on to say: "Well, you've had your little adventure, and Ihope now you've had enough of it. So go up-stairs and get your thingstogether while I look out for a hansom."

  To which the only possible reply seemed to be, "I'm not coming home."

  "Not coming home!"

  "No!" And, in spite of her resolve to be a Person, Ann Veronica beganto weep with terror at herself. Apparently she was always doomed to weepwhen she talked to her father. But he was always forcing her to say anddo such unexpectedly conclusive things. She feared he might take hertears as a sign of weakness. So she said: "I won't come home. I'd ratherstarve!"

  For a moment the conversation hung upon that declaration. Then Mr.Stanley, putting his hands on the table in the manner rather of abarrister than a solicitor, and regarding her balefully through hisglasses with quite undisguised animosity, asked, "And may I presume toinquire, then, what you mean to do?--how do you propose to live?"

  "I shall live," sobbed Ann Veronica. "You needn't be anxious about that!I shall contrive to live."

  "But I AM anxious," said Mr. Stanley, "I am anxious. Do you think it'snothing to me to have my daughter running about London looking for oddjobs and disgracing herself?"

  "Sha'n't get odd jobs," said Ann Veronica, wiping her eyes.

  And from that point they went on to a thoroughly embittering wrangle.Mr. Stanley used his authority, and commanded Ann Veronica to come home,to which, of course, she said she wouldn't; and then he warned her notto defy him, warned her very solemnly, and then commanded her again.He then said that if she would not obey him in this course she should"never darken his doors again," and was, indeed, frightfully abusive.This threat terrified Ann Veronica so much that she declared with sobsand vehemence that she would never come home again, and for a time bothtalked at once and very wildly. He asked her whether she understood whatshe was saying, and went on to say still more precisely that she shouldnever touch a penny of his money until she came home again--not onepenny. Ann Veronica said she didn't care.

  Then abruptly Mr. Stanley changed his key. "You poor child!" he said;"don't you see the infinite folly of these proceedings? Think! Think ofthe love and affection you abandon! Think of your aunt, a second motherto you. Think if your own mother was alive!"

  He paused, deeply moved.

  "If my own mother was alive," sobbed Ann Veronica, "she wouldunderstand."

  The talk became more and more inconclusive and exhausting. Ann Veronicafound herself incompetent, undignified, and detestable, holding ondesperately to a hardening antagonism to her father, quarrelling withhim, wrangling with him, thinking of repartees--almost as if he was abrother. It was horrible, but what could she do? She meant to liveher own life, and he meant, with contempt and insults, to prevent her.Anything else that was said she now regarded only as an aspect of ordiversion from that.

  In the retrospect she was amazed to think how things had gone to pieces,for at the outset she had been quite prepared to go home again uponterms. While waiting for his coming she had stated her presentand future relations with him with what had seemed to her the mostsatisfactory lucidity and completeness. She had looked
forward to anexplanation. Instead had come this storm, this shouting, this weeping,this confusion of threats and irrelevant appeals. It was not only thather father had said all sorts of inconsistent and unreasonable things,but that by some incomprehensible infection she herself had replied inthe same vein. He had assumed that her leaving home was the point atissue, that everything turned on that, and that the sole alternative wasobedience, and she had fallen in with that assumption until rebellionseemed a sacred principle. Moreover, atrociously and inexorably, heallowed it to appear ever and again in horrible gleams that he suspectedthere was some man in the case.... Some man!

  And to conclude it all was the figure of her father in the doorway,giving her a last chance, his hat in one hand, his umbrella in theother, shaken at her to emphasize his point.

  "You understand, then," he was saying, "you understand?"

  "I understand," said Ann Veronica, tear-wet and flushed with areciprocal passion, but standing up to him with an equality that amazedeven herself, "I understand." She controlled a sob. "Not a penny--notone penny--and never darken your doors again!"

  Part 4

  The next day her aunt came again and expostulated, and was just sayingit was "an unheard-of thing" for a girl to leave her home as AnnVeronica had done, when her father arrived, and was shown in by thepleasant-faced landlady.

  Her father had determined on a new line. He put down his hat andumbrella, rested his hands on his hips, and regarded Ann Veronicafirmly.