Ann Veronica: A Modern Love Story

ING OF T

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er aunt focussed a brightly tactful disregard upon this throughout the meal. Ann Veronica had come down thinking of nothing in the world but her inflexible resolution to go to the dance in the teeth of all opposition. She did not know

, and after breakfast she strolled into the vegetable garden, and having taken up a position upon the staging of a disused greenhouse that had the double

ion about the letters and a disposition to treat the large ones as liberal-minded people nowadays treat opinions, as all amounting to the

always getting cut off so soon as it is beginning; and I went home that afternoon feeling I had said nothing-literally nothing-of the things I had meant to say to you and that were coursing through my head. They were things I had meant very much to talk to you about, so that I went home vexed and disappointed, and only relieved my

F LADIES A

hite and a

violets, sw

ewy is Nell

s live in Gwe

like a star i

ens it a ros

e is like sunshine

gladdens, she w

et. All bad verse-originally the epigram was Lan

or, your-I dare scarcely write the word-your husband. So I come suppliant. I am five-and-thirty, and I have knocked about in the world and tasted the quality of life. I had a hard fight to begin with to win my way into the Upper Division-I was third on a list of forty-seven-and since then I have found myself promoted almost yearly in a widening sphere of social service. Before I met you I never met any one whom I felt I could love, but you have discovered depths in my own nature I had scarcely suspected. Except for a few early ebullitions of passion, natural to a warm and romantic disposition, and leaving no harmful after-effects-ebullitions that by the standards of the higher truth I feel no one can justly cast a stone at, and of which I for one am by no means ashamed-I come to you a pure and unencumbered man. I love you. In

that side of life, of seeing you dressed like a queen and shining in some brilliant throng-mine; of your looking at flowers in some old-world garden, our garden-there are splendid places to be got down in Surrey, and a little runabout motor is quite within my means. You know they say, as, indeed, I have just quoted already, that all bad poetry is written in a state of emotion, but I have no doubt that this is true of bad offers of marriage. I have often felt before that it is only when one has nothing to say that one can write easy poetry. Witness Browning. And how can I get into one brief letter the complex accumulated desires of what is now, I find on reference to my diary, nearly six

t I have to say better said. It would be easy enough for me to write an eloquent letter about something else. Only I do not care to writ

incerel

RT MA

s letter through with

he smiled, but not unkindly. Then she went back and mixed up the sheet

e to write an answer. It's so different

of the greenhouse, advancing with an air of sere

, and walked out at a brisk and b

a long tramp, a

ne,

got a lot of thin

e softened and tender and confidential at this phase of her life. She seemed to have no idea whatever of the emotional states that were becoming to her

" said Mis

gard to the window, and a bookcase surmounted by a pig's skull, a dissected frog in a sealed bottle, and a pile of shiny, black-covered note-books. In the corner of the room were two hockey-sticks and a tennis-racket, and upon the walls Ann Veronica, by means of autotypes, had indicated her proclivities in art. But Miss Stanley took no notice of these things. She w

e and then another of the constituents of

y its waistbelt. As she raised it, its lower po

S!" she

t the room as if in app

her eye. She walked over to them still carrying the trousers in her hands, and stooped to examine them. They wer

verted to t

him?" whispere

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gh the proletarian portion of Morningside Park, and crossing these fields came into a pretty overhung lane that led towar

onica. "I wish this hadn't t

destrian meditation. Primarily it was her own problem, and in particular the answer she had to give to Mr. Manning's letter, but in order to get data for that she found that she, having a logical and ordered m

proportion, occupied the whole foreground of her thoughts and threw a color of rebellion over everything. She ke

stable lad mounted on one recalcitrant horse and leading another. When she got back to her questions again in the monotonous high-road that led up the hill, she found the image of Mr. Manning central in

isgust. The relationship seemed to have almost as much to do with blood and body as a mortgage. It was something that would create a mutual claim, a relationship. It was in

er mind. She was aware of it now as if it were a voice shouting outside a house, shouting passionate verities in a hot sunlight, a voice that cries while people talk insincerely in a darkened room and pretend not to hear. Its shouting now did in some occult manner convey a protest that Mr. Manning would on no account do, though he was tall and dark and handsom

"I don't see that his being a good sort matters. That re

road for the downland turf. "But I wish," she

tion for a time, while she

d crystallizing out again as the lark dropped to the nest

rt

back to the

was prepared to face the consequences. Suppose her father turned her out of doors

operty dagger with large glass jewels in the handle, that reposed in a drawer in her room. She was to be a Corsai

r, and with an effort di

Mr. Manning came into her thoughts again, an unexpected, tall, dark, self-contained presence at the Fadden. One might s

which made him preposterous, and as a Black Brunswicker, which was better, and as an Arab sheik. Also she had tried him as a dragoman and as a gendarme, which seemed the most suitable of all to his severely handsome, immobile profile. She felt he would tell people the way, control traffic, and refuse admissio

solutely; "I'm not the sort. That's why it's

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an ineradicable persuasion that it was tremendously important, and on no account to be thought about. Her first intimations of marria

athies, and to a large extent remote from her curiosity. She got into rows through meddling with their shoes and tennis-rackets, and had moments of carefully concealed admiration when she was privileged to see them just before her bedtime, rather radiantly dressed in white or pink or am

and a lace collar, who assisted as a page. She followed him about persistently, and succeeded, after a brisk, unchivalrous struggle (in which he pinched and asked her to "cheese it"), in k

l the meals were disarranged, and everybody, Ann Veronica included, appeared in new, bright costumes. She had to wear cream and a brown sash and a short frock and her hair down, an

ret to cellar, with a walking-dress and walking-boots to measure, and a bride's costume of the most ravishing description, and stockings a

ace be

avellin

al pewte

ilver mounted

ets" (twelve volumes)

.,

n in Wamblesmith. He had shaved his side-whiskers and come over in flannels, but he was still indisputably the same person who had attended Ann Veronica for the measles and when she swallowed the fish-bone. But his role was al

professional self transfigured, in the most beautiful light gray trousers Ann

about. Her father was distinctly irascible, and disposed more than ever to hide away among the petrological things-the study was turned out. At table he carved in a gloomy but resolute manner. On the Day he had trumpet-like

sily wanting other people to get in before them, and then the church. People sat in unusual

back and sloping shoulders and veiled head receding toward the altar. In some incomprehensible way that back view made her feel sorry for Alice. Also she remembered very vividly the smell of orange blossom, and Alice, drooping and spiritless, mumbling response

lung to each other. And Doctor Ralph stood by lookin

eeming with ideas about it when finally a wild outburst from the organ made it clear that, whatever snivelling there might be down in the chanc

at part very well, until she was carelessly served against her expressed wishes with mayonnaise. She

rther digestion. Only one thing emerged with any reasonable clarity in her mind at once, and that was that unless she was saved from drowning by an unmarried man, in which case the ceremony is un

e asked her mother why she a

and then added, "A littl

ce want to marr

as patent as an advertisement board. "I am sure

his arm round Alice and kissed her, and Alice called him "Squiggles," and stood in the shelter of his arms for a moment with an expression of satisfied proprietorship. She HAD cried, Ann Veronica knew. There had been fusses and scenes dimly

lly grown-up person, or older, and very dull. Then she and her husband went off to a Yorkshire practice, and had four m

rt

ol at Marticombe-on-Sea, a term before she went to

ended your father very much. I hope you will always love her, but I want you to remember she has offended your father and married without his consent. Y

en Ann Veronica returned home. She was in one of her old walking-dresses, her hair was done

put every one at their ease. "Been and mar

ed to "F

anything?" said Ann Veroni

in the jewel-drawer under the mirror. It presented a clean-shaven face with a large Corinthia

with her head first on one side and then on the othe

id Gwen to her mother, trying to

. Fortescue is an actor, and your fath

ca. "I thought they m

day," said Gwen. "But

es you an actress?"

sionalism creeping into her voice. "The other women don't much like it if husband

t the traditions of family life are strong. "I don't su

nd consented to receive Mr. Fortescue in the drawing-room, and actually shake hands w

y to his study, and Mr. Fortescue rambled round the garden with soft, propitiatory steps, the Corinthian no

of maidenly hesitation rambled out into the garden in a reverse direction t

arms akimbo and a careless, breat

vice. You An

say-did you

es

hy

umed a light-comedy expression. "I suppos

onica. "Have you go

bility," said Mr. Fo

ability?" ask

onica went on to ask a string of questions about acting, and whether her sister would

study, shockingly dingy in dusty mourning and tearful and resentful, and after that Gwen receded from the Morningside Park world, and not even the begging letters and distressful communicati

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de Park as being tied and dull and inelastic in comparison with the life of the young, and from a remarkably various reading among books. As a net result she had come to think of all married people much as one thinks of insects that have lost their wings, and

ll suddenly into another set of considerations that perple

t any cost! Her brothers had it practically-at least they had it far more than it seemed likely she would unless she exerted herself with quite exceptional vigor. Between her and the fair, far prospect of freedom and self-development

discovered herself for the first time-discovered herself as a sleep-walker might do, a

d heedless and unthinking, yet really guided and controlled by o

n upon the raw inexperience, upon the blinking ignorance of the newcomer; and before her eyes were fairly open, before she knew what had happened, a new set of guides and controls, a new set of obligations a

tween Chalking and Waldersham. Firstly, she did not intend to marry at all, and particularly she did not mean to marry Mr. Manning; secondly, by some measure or other, she meant to go on with her studies, not at the Tred

iculty in getting on to that vitally important matter. The whole of that relationship persist

id of something mean, some secondary kind of force. Suppose he stopped all her allowance, made it imperative that she should either stay in

an a g

e, that iron-gray man of the world, appeared dressed in a bowler hat and a suit of hard gray, astride of a black horse. He pulled rei

ve second. "I always get off here and lean o

bly; "you got it first. It's for

and remarked how soft his nose was, and secretly deplored the ugliness of equine teeth. Ramage teth

t Ann Veronica's side, and fo

arming toward its autumnal blaze that spread its

mage, regarding it and putting a wel

rt

ady," he said, looking up at her face

said Ann Veronica,

tary

them. I think over

obl

uite difficu

so. Your mother, for instance, couldn't. She h

y, and he let his admiration of he

ngs have chang

uch an age o

w. "Sufficient unto me is the change thereof

conceal it. And the change, the change of attitude! The way all the old clingingness has been thrown aside is amazing. And all the old-the old trick of shrinking up like a snail at a touc

said Ann Veronica, smiling,

to things you understood quite well in your heart and saw no harm in. That terrible Young Person!

ns and invisible blinkers. Now, you and I can gossip at a gate, and Honi soit qui mal y pense. The change has given man one good thing he never

ent on, after a

a really intelligent gir

an we were?" said Ann Veronica

ke bounds and sailed away on bicycles-my young days go back to t

haps. But are we

el

us, but we are bound all the same.

mage d

out," said A

es

dition one doesn

wh

anyth

rrogation with

go away as a son does and earn her independent income, she's still on a string. It may be a long string, long enough if

f the string, which, indeed, she owed to Hetty Widgett. "YOU wouldn't like to be independent?

pendent," said Ann Veronica

d y

the

nder

t's just to feel-o

aid Ramage, and kept

ly stands on his own feet. He buys his own clothes,

ike to d

act

u like to

out of the que

ected. "Why

ight mean r

id Ramage, w

de or profession. But-it's one of the things I've just been thinking over. Suppose-suppose a girl did want

pose

supp

more personal and intimate. "I wonder what you could do?"

d up to discuss a point. In the meanwhile, as he talked, he scrutinized her face, ran his eyes over her careless, gracious poise, wondered hard about her. He described her privately to himself as a splendid girl. It was clear she wanted to get away from home, that she was impatient to get away from home. Why? W

home bored her. He could quite understand the daughter of Mr. Stanley being bored and feeling limited. But was that enough? Dim, formless suspicions of something more vital wandered about his mind. Was the young lady impatient for experience? Was she adventurous? As a

t held his life together; beaded on that permanent relation had been an inter-weaving series of other feminine experiences, disturbing, absorbing, interesting, memorable affairs. Each one had been different from the others, each had had a quality all its own, a distinctive freshness, a distinctive beauty. He could not understand how men could live ignor

s of her chin and neck. Her grave fine face, her warm clear complexion, had already aroused his curiosity as he had gone to and fro in Morningside Park, and here sudden

ger to explain herself, to show herself in the right light. He was manifestly exer

sly as a fine person unduly limited. She even t

re girls don't think as you do an

culated. "I won

h a thing as feminine inexperience. As a sex you're a little under-trained-in affairs. I'd take it-forgive me if I seem a little urgent-as a sort of proof of friendliness. I can imagine nothing more

nswered, and behind her listening watched and thought a

at pleased her-the quality of a man who feels that things can be done, that one need not wait for the world to push one before one moved. Compared with her father and Mr. Mann

as a child. She was inclined to think that perhaps for a girl the converse of his method was the case; an older man, a man beyond the range of anything "nonsen

helpfulness that were almost ardent, he mounted a little clumsily and rode off at an amiable pace, looking his best, making a leg with his riding gaiters, smiling and saluting, while Ann Veronica turned no