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Ann Veronica Chapter 6 - Expostulations · The H. G. Wells Library

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  Speaker 1: Chapter six of Anne Veronica. This is a LibriVox recording.
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  Speaker 1: All LibriVox recordings in the public domain. For more information
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  Speaker 1: or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Recording by
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  Speaker 1: Joy Chan Ann Veronica by H. G. Wells, Chapter six, Expostulations,
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  Speaker 1: Part one. The next morning opened calmly, and Anne Veronica
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  Speaker 1: sat in her own room, her very own room, and
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  Speaker 1: consumed an egg and marmalade, and read the advertisements in
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  Speaker 1: the Daily Telegraph. Then began expostulations, preluded by a telegram
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  Speaker 1: and headed by her aunt. The telegram reminded Anne Veronica
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  Speaker 1: that she had no place for interviews except her bed
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  Speaker 1: sitting room, as she sought her landlady and negotiated hastily
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  Speaker 1: for the use of the ground floor parlor, which very
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  Speaker 1: fortunately was vacant. She explained she was expecting an important
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  Speaker 1: interview and asked that her visitor should be duly shown in.
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  Speaker 1: Her aunt arrived about half past ten, in black and
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  Speaker 1: with an unusually thick spotted veil. She raised this with
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  Speaker 1: the air of a conspirator, unmasking and displayed a tear
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  Speaker 1: flushed face. For a moment, she remained silent. My dear,
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  Speaker 1: she said, when she could get her breath. You must
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  Speaker 1: come home at once. Anne Veronica closed the door quite
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  Speaker 1: softly and stood still. This has almost killed your father.
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  Speaker 1: After Gwen. I sent a telegram. He cares so much
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  Speaker 1: for you, He did so care for you. I sent
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  Speaker 1: a telegram to say I was all right, all right,
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  Speaker 1: And I never dreamed anything of the sort was going on.
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  Speaker 1: I had no idea. She sat down abruptly and threw
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  Speaker 1: her wrists limply upon the table. Oh, Veronica, she said,
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  Speaker 1: to leave your home. She had been weeping. She was
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  Speaker 1: weeping now. Anne Veronica was overcome by this amount of emotion.
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  Speaker 1: Why did you do it? Her aunt urged, Why could
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  Speaker 1: you not confide in us? Do what, said Anne Veronica,
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  Speaker 1: what you have done? But what have I done? Elope?
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  Speaker 1: Go off in this way? We had no idea. We
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  Speaker 1: had such a pride in you, such hope in you.
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  Speaker 1: I had no idea. You were not the happiest girl.
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  Speaker 1: Everything I could do. Your father sat up all night
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  Speaker 1: and till at last I persuaded him to go to bed.
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  Speaker 1: He wanted to put on his overcoat and come after
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  Speaker 1: you and look for you in London. We made sure
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  Speaker 1: it was just like Gwen, only Gwen left a letter
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  Speaker 1: on the pincushion. You didn't even do that, Vee, not
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  Speaker 1: even that I sent a telegram, Aunt said, and Veronica
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  Speaker 1: like a stab. You didn't even put the twelve words.
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  Speaker 1: I said, I was all right. Gwen said she was
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  Speaker 1: happy before that came. Your father didn't even know you
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  Speaker 1: were gone. He was just getting cross about your being
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  Speaker 1: late for dinner, you know his way. When it came,
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  Speaker 1: he opened it just off hand, and then when he
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  Speaker 1: saw what it was, he hit at the table and
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  Speaker 1: sent his soup spoon flying and splashing on to the tablecloth.
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  Speaker 1: My god, he said, I'll go after them and kill him.
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  Speaker 1: I'll go after them and kill him. For the moment,
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  Speaker 1: I thought it was a telegram from Gwen. But what
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  Speaker 1: did father imagine? Of course, he imagined any one would.
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  Speaker 1: What has happened, Peter, I asked. He was standing up
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  Speaker 1: with the telegram crumpled in his hand. He used the
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  Speaker 1: most awful word. Then he said, it's ann Veronica gone
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  Speaker 1: to join her sister. Gone. I said, gone. He said,
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  Speaker 1: read that, and threw the telegram at me so that
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  Speaker 1: it went into the tureen. He swore. When I tried
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  Speaker 1: to get it out with the ladle and told me
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  Speaker 1: what it said. Then he sat down again in a
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  Speaker 1: chair and said that people who wrote novels ought to
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  Speaker 1: be strung up. It was as much as I could
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  Speaker 1: do to prevent him flying out of the house there
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  Speaker 1: and then and coming after you. Never since I was
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  Speaker 1: a girl have I seen your father so moved. Oh,
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  Speaker 1: little V. He cried, little V, and put his face
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  Speaker 1: between his hands, and sat still for a long time
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  Speaker 1: before he broke out again. And Veronica had remained standing
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  Speaker 1: while her aunt spoke, Do you mean? Aunt? She asked
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  Speaker 1: that my father thought I had gone off with some man?
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  Speaker 1: What else could he think? Would any one dream you
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  Speaker 1: would be so mad as to go off alone after
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  Speaker 1: after what had happened the night before? Oh why raise
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  Speaker 1: up old scores if you could see him this morning?
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  Speaker 1: His poor face as white as a sheet, and all
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  Speaker 1: cut about was shaving. He was for coming up by
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  Speaker 1: the the very first train and looking for you. But
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  Speaker 1: I said to him, wait for the letters, and there
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  Speaker 1: sure enough was yours. Who could hardly open the envelope.
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  Speaker 1: He trembled, so then he threw the letter at me,
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  Speaker 1: Go and fetch her home. He said, it isn't what
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  Speaker 1: we thought it's just a practical joke of hers. And
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  Speaker 1: with that he went off to the city, stern and silent,
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  Speaker 1: leaving his bacon on his plate, a great slice of bacon,
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  Speaker 1: hardly touched. No breakfast. He's had no dinner, hardly a
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  Speaker 1: mouthful of soup since yesterday at tea. She stopped. Aunt
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  Speaker 1: and niece regarded each other silently. You must come home
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  Speaker 1: to him at once, said miss Stanley, and Veronica looked
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  Speaker 1: down at her fingers on the claret colored tablecloth. Her
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  Speaker 1: aunt had summoned up an altogether too vivid picture of
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  Speaker 1: her father as the masterful man, overbearing, emphatic, sentimental, noisy, aimless.
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  Speaker 1: Why on earth couldn't he leave her to grow in
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  Speaker 1: her own way? Her pride rose at the bear thought
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  Speaker 1: of return. I don't think I can do that, she said.
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  Speaker 1: She looked up and said a little breathlessly. I'm sorry, Aunt,
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  Speaker 1: but I don't think I can. Part two. Then it
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  Speaker 1: was the expostulations really began from first to last on
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  Speaker 1: this occasion. Her aunt expostulated for about two hours. But
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  Speaker 1: my dear, she began, it is impossible, It is quite
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  Speaker 1: out of the question. You simply can't. And to that
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  Speaker 1: through vast rhetorical meanderings she clung. It reached her only
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  Speaker 1: slowly that Anne Veronica was standing to her resolution. How
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  Speaker 1: will you live? She appealed, Think of what people will say?
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  Speaker 1: That became a refrain, Think of what Lady Polsworthy will say,
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  Speaker 1: Think of what so and so we'll say? What are
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  Speaker 1: we to tell people? Besides what am I to tell
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  Speaker 1: your father? At first, it had not been at all
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  Speaker 1: clear to Anne Veronica that she would refuse to return home.
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  Speaker 1: She had had some dream of a capitulation that should
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  Speaker 1: leave her an enlarged and defined freedom. But as her
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  Speaker 1: aunt put this aspect and that of her flight to her,
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  Speaker 1: as she wandered illogically and inconsistently from one urgent consideration
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  Speaker 1: to another, as she mingled assurances and aspects and emotions,
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  Speaker 1: it became clearer and clearer to the girl that they
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  Speaker 1: could be little or no change in the position of
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  Speaker 1: things if she returned. And what will mister Manning think?
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  Speaker 1: Said her aunt. I don't care what any one thinks,
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  Speaker 1: said Anne Veronica. I can't imagine what has come over you,
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  Speaker 1: said her aunt. I can't conceive what you want, you
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  Speaker 1: foolish girl. Ann Veronica took that in silence at the
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  Speaker 1: back of her mind, dearm. And yet disconcerting was the
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  Speaker 1: perception that she herself did not know what she wants.
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  Speaker 1: And yet she knew it was not fair to call
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  Speaker 1: her a foolish girl. Don't you care for mister Manning,
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  Speaker 1: said her aunt. I don't see what he has to
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  Speaker 1: do with my coming to London. He he worships the
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  Speaker 1: ground you tread on. You don't deserve it, but he does,
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  Speaker 1: or at least he did the day before yesterday, And
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  Speaker 1: here you are. Her aunt opened all the fingers of
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  Speaker 1: her gloved hand in a rhetorical gesture. It seems to
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  Speaker 1: me all madness, madness, just because your father wouldn't let
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  Speaker 1: you disobey him. Part three. In the afternoon, the task
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  Speaker 1: of expostulation was taken up by mister Stanley in person.
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  Speaker 1: Her father's ideas of expostulation were a little harsh and forcible,
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  Speaker 1: and over the cleric colored tablecloth and under the gas chandelier,
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  Speaker 1: with his hat and umbrella between them, like the mace
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  Speaker 1: in Parliament, he and his daughter contrived to have a
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  Speaker 1: violent quarrel. She he had intended to be quietly dignified,
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  Speaker 1: but he was in a smoldering rage from the beginning,
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  Speaker 1: and began by assuming, which alone was more than flesh
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  Speaker 1: and blood could stand, that the insurrection was over, and
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  Speaker 1: that she was coming home submissively. In his desire to
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  Speaker 1: be emphatic and to avenge himself for his over and
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  Speaker 1: night distresses, he speedily became brutal, more brutal than she
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  Speaker 1: had ever known him before. A nice time of anxiety
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  Speaker 1: you've given me, young lady, he said, as he entered
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  Speaker 1: the room. I hope you're satisfied. She was frightened. His
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  Speaker 1: anger always did frighten her, and in her resolve to
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  Speaker 1: conceal her fright, she carried a queen like dignity to
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  Speaker 1: what she felt even at the time was a preposterous pitch.
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  Speaker 1: She said. She hoped she had not distressed him by
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  Speaker 1: the course she had felt obliged to take, and he
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  Speaker 1: told her not to be a fool. She tried to
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  Speaker 1: keep her side up by declaring that he had put
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  Speaker 1: her into an impossible position, and he replied by shouting nonsense, nonsense,
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  Speaker 1: Any father in my place would have done what I did.
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  Speaker 1: Then he went on to say, well, you've had your
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  Speaker 1: little adventure, and I hope now you've had enough of it,
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  Speaker 1: so go upstairs and get your things together while I
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  Speaker 1: look out for a hansom, to which the only possible
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  Speaker 1: reply seemed to be I'm not coming home. Not coming home. No,
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  Speaker 1: And in spite of a resolve to be a person,
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  Speaker 1: Anne Veronica began to weep with terror at herself. Apparently
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  Speaker 1: she was always doomed to weep when she talked to
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  Speaker 1: her father, but he was always forcing her to say
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  Speaker 1: and do such unexpectedly conclusive things. She feared he might
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  Speaker 1: take her tears as a sign of weakness, so she said,
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  Speaker 1: I won't come home. I'd rather starve for a moment.
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  Speaker 1: The conversation hung upon that declaration. Then mister Stanley, putting
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  Speaker 1: his hands on the table in the manner rather of
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  Speaker 1: a barrister than a solicitor, and regarding her balefully through
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  Speaker 1: his glasses with quite undisguised animosity, asked, and may I
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  Speaker 1: presume to inquire then, what you mean to do? How
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  Speaker 1: do you propose to live? I shall live, sobbed Anne Veronica.
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  Speaker 1: You needn't be anxious about that. I shall contrive to live.
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  Speaker 1: But I am anxious, said mister Stanley. I am anxious.
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  Speaker 1: Do you think it's nothing to me to have my
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  Speaker 1: daughter running about London looking for odd jobs and disgracing herself.
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  Speaker 1: Shan't get odd jobs, said Anne Veronica, wiping her eyes,
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  Speaker 1: and from that point they went on to a thoroughly
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  Speaker 1: embittering wrangle. Mister Stanley used his authority and commanded Ann
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  Speaker 1: Veronica to come home, to which of course, she said
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  Speaker 1: she wouldn't, And then he warned her not to defy him,
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  Speaker 1: warned her very solemnly, and then commanded her again. He
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  Speaker 1: then said that if she would not obey him in
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  Speaker 1: this course, she should never die his doors again, and
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  Speaker 1: was indeed frightfully abusive. This threat terrified Ann Veronica so
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  Speaker 1: much that she declared, with sobs and vehemence, that she
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  Speaker 1: would never come home again, And for a time both
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  Speaker 1: talked at once and very wildly. He asked her whether
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  Speaker 1: she understood what she was saying, and went on to say,
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  Speaker 1: still more precisely, that she should never touch a penny
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  Speaker 1: of his money until she came home again, not one penny.
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  Speaker 1: Ane Veronica said she didn't care. Then abruptly mister Stanley
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  Speaker 1: changed his key. You poor child, he said, don't you
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  Speaker 1: see the infinite folly of these proceedings. Think, Think of
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  Speaker 1: the love and affection you abandon. Think of your aunt,
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  Speaker 1: a second mother to you. Think if your own mother
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  Speaker 1: was alive, He paused, deeply moved. If my own mother
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  Speaker 1: was alive, sobbed Anne Veronica, she would understand. The talk
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  Speaker 1: became more and more inconclusive and exhaust Anne Veronica found
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  Speaker 1: herself incompetent, undignified, and detestable, holding on desperately to a
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  Speaker 1: hardening antagonism to her father, quarreling with him, wrangling with him,
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  Speaker 1: thinking of reputees, almost as if he was a brother.
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  Speaker 1: It was horrible, but what could she do. She meant
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  Speaker 1: to live her own life, and he meant, with contempt
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  Speaker 1: and insults to prevent her. Anything else that was said
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  Speaker 1: she now regarded only as an aspect of, or diversion
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  Speaker 1: from that. In their retrospect, she was amazed to think
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  Speaker 1: how things had gone to pieces, For at the outset,
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  Speaker 1: she had been quite prepared to go home again upon terms.
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  Speaker 1: While waiting for his coming, she had stated her present
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  Speaker 1: and future relations with him, with what had seemed to
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  Speaker 1: her the most satisfactory lucidity and completeness. She had looked
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  Speaker 1: forward to an explanation. Instead had come this storm, this shouting,
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  Speaker 1: this weeping, this confusion of threats and irrelevant peals. It
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: was not only that her father had said all sorts
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  Speaker 1: of inconsistent and unreasonable things, but that, by some incomprehensible
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  Speaker 1: infection she herself had replied in the same vein. He
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  Speaker 1: had assumed that her leaving home was the point at issue,
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  Speaker 1: that everything turned on that, and that the sole alternative
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  Speaker 1: was obedience. And she had fallen in with that assumption
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  Speaker 1: until rebellion seemed a sacred principle. Moreover, atrociously and inexorably,
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  Speaker 1: he allowed it to appear, ever and again, in horrible gleams,
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  Speaker 1: that he suspected there was some man in the case,
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  Speaker 1: some man. And to conclude at all, was the figure
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  Speaker 1: of her father in the doorway, giving her a last chance,
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  Speaker 1: his hat in one hand, his umbrella in the other,
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  Speaker 1: shaken at her to emphasize his point. You understand, then,
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  Speaker 1: he was saying, you understand, I understand, said Anne Veronica, dear,
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  Speaker 1: wet and flushed with his reciprocal passion, but standing up
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  Speaker 1: to him with inequality that amazed even herself. I understand.
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  Speaker 1: She controlled a sob, not a penny, not one Penny,
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  Speaker 1: and never darken your doors again. Part four. The next day,
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  Speaker 1: her aunt came again and expostulated, and was just saying
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: it was an unheard of thing for a girl to
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  Speaker 1: leave her home, as Anne Veronica had done when her
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: father arrived and was shown in by the pleasant faced landlady.
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  Speaker 1: Her father had determined on a new line. He put
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  Speaker 1: down his hat and umbrella, rested his hands on his hips,
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  Speaker 1: and regarded Anne Veronica firmly. Now, he said quietly, it's
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  Speaker 1: time we stopped this nonsense, and Veronica was about to
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: reply when he went on with a still more deadly
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: quiet I am not here to bandy words with you.
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  Speaker 1: Let us have no more of this humbug. You are
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  Speaker 1: to come home, I thought, I explained. I don't think
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  Speaker 1: you can have heard me, said her father. I have
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  Speaker 1: told you to come home, I thought, I explained, Come home.
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  Speaker 1: Anne Veronica shrugged her shoulders very well, said her father.
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  Speaker 1: I think this ends the business, he said, turning to
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  Speaker 1: his sister. It's not for us to supplicate any more.
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  Speaker 1: She must learn wisdom as God pleases. But my dear Peter,
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: said Miss Stanley. No, said her brother conclusively, it's not
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: for a parent to go on persuading a child. Miss
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: Stanley rose and regarded Anne Veronica fixedly. The girl stood
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: with her hands behind her back, sulky, resolute and intelligent,
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  Speaker 1: as strand of her black hair over one eye, and
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: looking more than usually delicate featured, and more than like
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  Speaker 1: an obdurate child. She doesn't know she does. I can't
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: imagine what makes you fly out against everything like this,
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: said Miss Stanley to her niece. What is the good
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  Speaker 1: of talking, said her brother. She must go her own way.
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: A man's children nowadays are not his own. That's the
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: fact of the matter. Their minds are turned against him,
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: rubbishing novels and pernicious rascals. We can't even protect them
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: from themselves. An immense gulf seemed to open between father
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: and daughter as he said these words I don't see,
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: gasped Anne Veronica. Why parents and children shouldn't be friends friends,
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: said her father. When we see you going through disobedience
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: to the devil, come Molly, she must go her own way.
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  Speaker 1: I've tried to use my authority, and she defies me.
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  Speaker 1: What more is there to be? Said? She defies me.
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  Speaker 1: It was extraordinary, and Veronica felt suddenly an effect of
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: tremendous pathos. She would have given anything to have been
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: able to frame and make some appeal, some utterance that
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: should bridge the spottoless chasm that had opened between her
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: and her father, And she could find nothing whatever to
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  Speaker 1: say that was in the least sincere and appealing. Father.
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  Speaker 1: She cried, I have to live. He misunderstood her that,
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: he said grimly, with his hand on the door handle.
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  Speaker 1: Must be your own affair, unless you choose to live
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: at Morningside Park. Miss Stanley turned to her the She said,
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  Speaker 1: come home, before it is too late. Come Molly, said
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: mister Stanley. At the door, the said, Miss Stanley, you
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: hear what your father says. Miss Stanley struggled with emotion.
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: She made a curious movement toward her niece. Then, suddenly, convulsively,
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: she dabbed down something lumpy on the table and turned
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: to follow her brother. Anne. Veronica stared for a moment
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: in amazement at this dark green object that clashed as
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  Speaker 1: it was put down. It was a purse. She made
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  Speaker 1: a step forward, Aunt, she said, I can't. Then she
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  Speaker 1: caught a wild appeal in her aunt's blue eye halted,
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  Speaker 1: and the door clicked upon them. There was a pause,
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: and then the front door slammed. Anne Veronica realized that
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: she was alone with the world, and this time the
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: departure had a tremendous effect of finality. She had to
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: resist an impulse of sheer terror to run out after
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: them and give in God's She said, at last, I've
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: done it. This time well. She took up the neat
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: Morocco purse, opened it and examined the contents. It contained
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: three sovereigns, six and fourpence, two postage stamps, a small key,
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: and her aunt's return half ticket to Morningside Park. But
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: five after the interview, Anne Veronica considered herself formerly cut
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: off from home. If nothing else had clinched that the
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: purse had. Nevertheless, there came a resident of expostulations. Her
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: brother Roddy, who was in the motor line, came to expostulate.
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: Her sister Alice wrote, and mister Manning called her. Sister
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: Alice seemed to have developed a religious sense away there
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: in Yorkshire and made appeals that had no meaning for
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: Anne Veronica's mind. She exhausted Anne Veronica not to become
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: one of those unsexed intellectuals. Neither man nor woman. Anne
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: Veronica meditated over that phrase. That's him, said an Veronica
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: in sound idiomatic English. Poor old Alice. Her brother Roddy
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: came to her and demanded tea and asked her to
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: state a case. Bit thick on the old man, isn't it,
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: said Roddy, who had developed a bluff straightforward style in
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: the motor shop. Mind my smoking, said Roddy. I don't
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: see quite what your game is, V, but I suppose
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: you've got a game on somewhere. Run me lot, we are,
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: said Roddy. Alice. Alice gone dotty and all over kids, Gwen,
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: I saw Gren the other day, and the paint's thicker
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: than ever. Jim is up to the neck in Mahatmas
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: and theosophy and higher Thornton rot writes letters worse than Alice.
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: And now you're on the war path. I believe I'm
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: the only sane member of the family left. The g
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: V's as mad as any of you. In spite of
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: all his respectability, not a bit of him straight anywhere,
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: not one bit straight, not a bit of it. He's
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: been out after a eight percent since the beginning eight percent.
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: Who'll come a cropper one of these days? If you
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: ask me he's been near it once or twice already,
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: that's got his nerves to rags. I suppose we're all
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: human beings, really, but what price the sacred institution of
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: the family us as a bundle? Eh. I don't have
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: disagree with you, V. Really, only thing is I don't
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: see how you're going to pull it off. A home
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: may be a sort of cage, but still it's a home.
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: Gives your right to hang on to the old man
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: until he busts. Practically jolly hard life for a girl
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: getting a living not my affair. He asked questions and
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: listened to her views for a time. I'd chuck this
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: lark right off if I were you, V, he said,
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: I'm five years older than you and no end wiser
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: being a man. What you're after is too risky. It's
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: a damned hard thing to do. It's all very handsome
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: starting out on your own, but it's too damned hard.
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: That's my opinion. If you ask me, there's nothing a
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: girl can do that isn't sweated to the bone. You
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: square the GV and go home before you have to.
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: That's my advice. If you don't eat humble pie now,
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: you may live to fare worse later. I can't help
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: you assent. Life's hard enough nowadays for an unprotected male,
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: let alone a girl. You've got to take the world
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: as it is. And the only possible trade for a
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: girl that isn't sweated is to get hold of a
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: man and make him do it for her. It's no
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: good flying out at that V. I didn't arrange it.
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: It's providence. That's how things are. That's the order of
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: the world, like appendicitis. It isn't pretty, but we're made
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: so rot no doubt, but we can't alter it. You
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: go home and live on the GV and get some
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: other man to live on as soon as possible. It
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: isn't sentiment, but it's horse sense. All this woman who
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: did hery no damn good after all, old p Providence
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: I mean, has arranged it so that men will keep
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: you more or less. He made the universe on those lines.
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: You've got to take what you can get. That was
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: the quintessence of her brother, Roddy. He played variations on
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: this theme for the better part of an hour. You
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: go home, he said, at parting. You go home. It's
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: all very fine and all that vee this freedom but
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: it isn't going to work. The world isn't ready for
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: girls to start out on their own yet. That's the
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: plain fact of the case. Babies and females have got
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: to keep hold of somebody or go under anyhow for
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: the next few generations. You go home and wait a
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: century v and then try again. Then you may have
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: a bit of chance. Now you haven't the ghost of one,
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: not if you play the game fair. Part six. It
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: was remarkable to Anne Veronica how completely mister Manning, in
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: his entirely different dialect, endorsed her brother Roddy's view of things.
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: He came along, he said, just to call, with large,
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: loud apologies, radiantly kind and good Miss Stanley. It was
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: manifest had given him any Veronica's address. The kindly faced
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: landlady had failed to catch his name, and said he
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: was a tall, handsome gentleman with a great black mustache.
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: And Veronica, with a sigh at the cost of hospitality,
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: made a hasty negotiation for an extra tea and for
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: a fire in the ground floor apartment, and preened herself
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: carefully for the interview in the little apartment under the
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: gas chandelier. His inches and his Stoope were certainly very
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: effective in the bad light. He looked at once military
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: and sentimental and studious, like one of Weider's guardsmen. Revised
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: by mister Haldane and the London School of Economics, and
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: finished in the Celtic School. It's unforgivable of me to
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: call miss Stanley, he said, shaking hands in a peculiar,
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: high fashionable manner. But you know you said we might
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: be friends. It's dreadful for you to be here, he said,
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: indicating the yellow presence of the first fog of the
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: year without But your aunt told me something of what
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: had happened. It's just like your splendid pride to do
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: it quite. He sat in the armchair and took tea
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: and consumed several of the extra cakes which he had
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: sent out for, and talked to her and expressed himself,
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: looking very earnestly at her with his deep set eyes
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: and carefully avoiding any crumbs on his mustache the while
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: and Veronica sat fire lit by her tea tray, with
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: quite unconsciously the air of an expert hostess. But how
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: is it all going to end? Said mister Manning. Your father,
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: of course, he said, must come to realize just how
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: splendid you are. He doesn't understand. I've seen him, and
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: he doesn't a bit understand I didn't understand before that letter.
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: It makes me want to be just everything I can
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: be to you. You're like some splendid princess in exile
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: in these dreadful, dingy apartments. I'm afraid I'm anything but
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: a princess when it comes to earning a salary, said
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: Anne Veronica. But frankly, I mean to fight this through
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: if I possibly can, my God, said Manning in a
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: stage Aside earning a salary, you're like a princess in exile,
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: he repeated, overruling her. You come into these sordid surroundings.
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: You mustn't mind by calling them sordid, and it makes
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: them seem as though they didn't matter. I don't think
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: they do matter. I don't think any surroundings could throw
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: a shadow on you. Anne Veronica felt a slight embarrassment.
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: Won't you have some more tea, mister Manning, she asked,
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: You know, said mister Manning, relinquishing his cup without answering
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: her question. When I hear you talk of earning a living,
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: it's as if I heard of an archangel going on
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: the stock exchange, or Christ's selling doves. Forgive my daring.
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: I couldn't help the thought. It's a very good image,
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: said Anne Veronica. I knew you wouldn't mind. But does
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: it correspond with the facts of the case, you know,
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: mister Manning, All this sort of thing is very well
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: as sentiment, but does it correspond with their realities? Are
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: women truly such angelic things? And men so chivalrous? You
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: men have, I know, meant to make us queens and goddesses,
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: But in practice, well, look for example, at the stream
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: of girls one meets going to work of a morning, round, shouldered,
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: cheap and underfed. They aren't queens, and no one is
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: treating them as queens. And look again at the women
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: one finds letting lodgings. I was looking for rooms last week.
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: It got on my nerves. The women I saw worse
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: than any man everywhere I went and rapped at a
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: door I found behind it another dreadful, dingy woman, another
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: fallen queen. I suppose dingier than the last. Dirty You know,
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: in grain they're poor hands, I know, said mister Manning,
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: with entirely suitable emotion. And think of the ordinary wives
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: and mothers, with their anxiety, their limitations, their swarms of children.
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: Mister Manning displayed distress. He fended these things off from
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: him with the rump of his fourth piece of cake.
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: I know that our social order is dreadful enough, he said,
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: and sacrifices all that is best and most beautiful in life.
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: I don't defend it. And besides, when it comes to
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: the idea of Queen's and Veronica went on, there's twenty
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: one and a half million women to twenty million men.
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: Suppose our proper place is a shrine still that leaves
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: over a million shrines short, not reckoning widows who remarry,
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: and more boys die than girls, so that the real
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: disproportion among adults is even greater. I know, said mister Manning.
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: I know these dreadful statistics. I know there's a sort
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: of writing your impatience at the slowness of progress. But
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: tell me one thing I don't understand. Tell me one thing.
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: How can you help it by coming down into the
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: battle and the mire. That's the thing that concerns me. Oh,
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: I'm not trying to help it, said Anne Veronica. I'm
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: only arguing against your position of what a woman should be,
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: and trying to get it clear in my own mind.
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: I'm in this apartment and looking for work, because well,
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: what else can I do when my father practically locks
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: me up? I know, said mister Manning. I know. Don't
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: think I can't sympathize and understand. Still, here we are,
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: in this dingy, foggy city. Ye gods, what a wilderness
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: it is, every one trying to get the better of
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: every one, every one, regardless of every one. It's one
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: of those days when every one bumps against you, every
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: one pouring cold smoke into the air and making confusion worse,
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: confounded motor omnibuses clattering and smelling, or horse down in
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: the Tottenham Court Road, an old woman at the corner,
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: coughing dreadfully, all the painful sights of a great city,
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: and here you come into it to take your chanswers.
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: It's too valiant, miss Stanley, too valiant altogether. And Veronica meditated.
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: She had had two days of employment seeking. Now I
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: wonder if it is it isn't, said mister Manning, that
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: I mind courage in a woman I love and admire. Courage?
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: What could be more splendid than a beautiful girl facing
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: a great glorious tiger. You earn the lion again and
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: all that. But this isn't that sort of thing. This
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: is just a great, ugly, endless wilderness of selfish, sweating,
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: vulgar competition that you want to keep me out of. Exactly,
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: said mister Manning, in a sort of beautiful garden clothes,
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: wearing lovely dresses and picking beautiful flowers as one could,
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: while those other girls trudged a business, and those other
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: women let lodgings. And in reality even that magic garden
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: clothes resolves itself into a villain at Morningside Park, and
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: my father being more and more cross and overbearing at meals,
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: and a general feeling of insecurity and futility. Mister Manning
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: relinquished his cup and looked meaningly at and Veronica. There.
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: He said, you don't treat me fairly, miss Stanley. My
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: garden clothes would be a better thing than that. End
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: of Chapter six