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Ann Veronica Chapter 2 - Ann Veronica gathers points of view · The H. G. Wells Library

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Speaker 1: Chapter two of Anne Veronica. This is a LibriVox recording.
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Speaker 1: All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
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Speaker 1: information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot Org. Recording
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Speaker 1: by Joy Chan and Veronica by H. G. Wells, Chapter
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Speaker 1: the second and Veronica gathers Points of View Part one?
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Speaker 1: Are you coming to the Faden dance? And Veronica asked
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Speaker 1: Constance Widget. Anne Veronica considered her answer. I mean to,
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Speaker 1: she replied, you're making your dress such as it is.
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Speaker 1: They were in the elder Widget Girl's bedroom. Hetty was
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Speaker 1: laid up, she said, with a sprained ankle, and a
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Speaker 1: miscellaneous party was gossiping away her tedium. It was a large, littered,
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Speaker 1: self forgetful apartment, decorated with unframed charcoal sketches by various
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Speaker 1: incipient masters, and an open bookcase surmounted by plaster casts
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Speaker 1: and the half of a human skull displayed an odd
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Speaker 1: miscellany of books Shaw and Swinburne, Tom Jones, Fabion Essays,
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Speaker 1: Pope and Duma Cheek by Jow. Constance Widget's abundant copper
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Speaker 1: red hair was bent down over some dimly remunerative work
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Speaker 1: stenciling in colors upon rough white material at a kitchen
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Speaker 1: table she had dragged upstairs for the purpose, while on
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Speaker 1: her bed there was seated a slender lady of thirty
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Speaker 1: or so in a dingy green dress, whom Constance had
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Speaker 1: introduced with a wave of her hand as Miss Mineva.
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Speaker 1: Miss Mineva looked out on the world through large emotional
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Speaker 1: blue eyes that were further magnified by the glasses she wore,
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Speaker 1: and her nose was pinched and pink, and her mouth
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Speaker 1: was whimsically petulant. Her glasses moved quickly as her glance
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Speaker 1: traveled from face to face. She seemed bursting with the
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Speaker 1: desire to talk and watching for her oppertune. On her
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Speaker 1: lappel was an ivory button bearing the words verts for Women.
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Speaker 1: Anne Veronica sat at the foot of the sufferer's bed,
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Speaker 1: while Teddy Widget, being something of an athlete, occupied the
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Speaker 1: only bedroom chair, a decadent piece essentially a tripod and
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Speaker 1: largely a formality, and smoked cigarettes and tried to conceal
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Speaker 1: the fact that he was looking all the time at
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Speaker 1: Anne Veronica's eyebrows. Teddy was the hatless young man who
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Speaker 1: had turned Anne Veronica aside from the avenue two days before.
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Speaker 1: He was the junior of both his sisters, co educated
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Speaker 1: and much broken in to feminine society. A bowl of roses,
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Speaker 1: just brought by Anne Veronica adorned the communal dressing table,
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Speaker 1: and Anne Veronica was particularly trim in preparation for a
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Speaker 1: call she was to make with her aunt later in
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Speaker 1: the afternoon. Anne Veronica decided to be more explicit. I've been,
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Speaker 1: she said, forbidden to come. Hello, said Hetty, turning her
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Speaker 1: head on the pillow, and Teddy remarked with profound emotion.
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Speaker 1: My god, yes, said Anne Veronica. And that complicates the situation, Auntie,
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Speaker 1: asked Constance, who was conversant with Anne Veronica's affairs. No,
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Speaker 1: my father, it's it's a serious prohibition, why, asked Hetty.
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Speaker 1: That's the point. I asked him why, And he hadn't
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Speaker 1: a reason. You asked your father for a reason, said
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Speaker 1: Miss Minerva with great intensity. Yes, I tried to have
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Speaker 1: it out with him, but he wouldn't have it out.
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Speaker 1: Anne Veronica reflected for an instant That's why I think
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Speaker 1: I ought to come. You asked your father for a reason,
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Speaker 1: Miss Minerva repeated. We always have things out with our father.
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Speaker 1: Poor dear, said Hetty. He's got almost to like it. Men,
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Speaker 1: said Miss Minerva. Never have a reason. Never, and they don't.
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Speaker 1: I don't know it. They have no idea of it.
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Speaker 1: It's one of their worst traits, one of their very worst.
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Speaker 1: But I say thee, said Constance. If you come and
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Speaker 1: you are forbidden to come, there'll be the deuce of
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Speaker 1: a row. Anne Veronica was deciding for further confidences. Her
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Speaker 1: situation was perplexing her very much, and the widget atmosphere
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Speaker 1: was lax and sympathetic and provocative of discussion. It isn't
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Speaker 1: only the dance, she said. There's the classes, said Constance,
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Speaker 1: though well informed, there's the whole situation. Apparently I'm not
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Speaker 1: to exist yet. I'm not to study, I'm not to grow.
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Speaker 1: I've got to stay at home and remain in a
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Speaker 1: state of suspended animation dusting, said miss Mineverh in a
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Speaker 1: supultraal voice. And till you marry, thee said Hetty. Well,
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Speaker 1: I don't feel like standing it. Thousands of women have
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Speaker 1: married merely for freedom, said miss minever thousands ah and
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Speaker 1: found it away worse slavery, I suppose, said Constance, stenciling
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Speaker 1: away at bright pink petals. It's our lot. But it's
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Speaker 1: very beastly. What's our lot, asked her sister, slavery downtroddenness.
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Speaker 1: When I think of it, I feel all over boot
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Speaker 1: marks men's boots. We hide it bravely, but so it
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Speaker 1: is damn I've splashed. Miss Minifer's manner became impressive. She
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Speaker 1: addressed and Veronica with an air of conveying great open
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Speaker 1: secrets to her. As things are at present, she said,
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Speaker 1: it is true we live under man made institutions, and
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Speaker 1: that is what they amount to. Every girl in the
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Speaker 1: world practically, except a few of us who teach or
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Speaker 1: typewrite and then were underpaid and sweated. It's dreadful to
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Speaker 1: think how we are sweated. She had lost a generalization.
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Speaker 1: Whatever it was, she hung for a moment, and then
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Speaker 1: went on conclusively, until we have the vote, that is
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Speaker 1: how things will be. I'm all for the vote, said Teddy.
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Speaker 1: I suppose a girl must be underpaid and sweated, said
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Speaker 1: Anne Veronica. I suppose there's no way of getting a
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Speaker 1: decent income independently. Women have practically no economic freedom, said
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Speaker 1: Miss Miniver, because they have no political freedom. Men have
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Speaker 1: seen to that. Though one profession, then one decent profession.
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Speaker 1: I mean for women, except the stage is teaching, and
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Speaker 1: there we trample on one another. Everywhere else, the law, medicine,
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Speaker 1: the stock exchange, prejudice bars us. There's art, said Anne Veronica,
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Speaker 1: and writing, every one hasn't the gift. Even there, a
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Speaker 1: woman never gets a fair chance. Men are against her.
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Speaker 1: Whatever she does is minimized. All the best novels have
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Speaker 1: been written by women. And yet see how men sneer
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Speaker 1: at the lady novelists. Still, there's only one way to
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Speaker 1: get on for a woman, and that is to please men.
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Speaker 1: That is what they think we are for at beasts,
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Speaker 1: said Teddy beasts. But miss Minivh took no notice of
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Speaker 1: his admission. Of course, said miss Minnevh. She went on,
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Speaker 1: in a regularly undulating voice. We do please men. We
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Speaker 1: have that gift. We can see round them and behind
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Speaker 1: them and through them, and most of us use that
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Speaker 1: knowledge in the silent way we have for our great ends,
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Speaker 1: not all of us, but some of us too many.
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Speaker 1: I wonder what men would say if we threw the
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Speaker 1: mask aside, if we really told them what we thought
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Speaker 1: of them, really showed them what we were. A flush
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Speaker 1: of excitement crept into her cheeks. Maternity she said, has
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Speaker 1: been our undoing. From that, she opened out into a long, confused,
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Speaker 1: emphatic discourse on the position of women, full of wonderful statements,
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Speaker 1: while Constance worked at her stenciling, and Ann Veronica and
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Speaker 1: Hetty listened, and Teddy contributed sympathetic noises and consumed cheap cigarettes.
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Speaker 1: As she talked, she made weak little gestures with her hands,
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Speaker 1: and she thrust her face forward from her bent shoulders
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Speaker 1: as she peered, sometimes at Anne Veronica and sometimes at
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Speaker 1: a photograph of the Axenstrasse near Flulin that hung upon
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Speaker 1: the wall. And Veronica watched her face, vaguely sympathizing with
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Speaker 1: her vaguely disliking her physical insufficiency, and her convulsive movements,
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Speaker 1: and the fine eyebrows were knit with a faint perplexity. Essentially,
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Speaker 1: the talk was a mixture of fragments of sentences heard,
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Speaker 1: of passages read, or arguments indicated rather than stated, and
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Speaker 1: all of it was served in a source of strange enthusiasm,
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Speaker 1: thin yet intense. Anne Veronica had had some training at
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Speaker 1: the Trenchgold College in disentangling threads from confused statements, and
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Speaker 1: she had a curious persuasion that in all this fluent muddle.
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Speaker 1: There was something, something real, something that signified, but was
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Speaker 1: very hard to follow. She did not understand the note
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Speaker 1: of hostility to men that ran through it all, the
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Speaker 1: bit of vindictiveness that lit Miss Miniva's cheeks and eyes,
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Speaker 1: the sense of some at last and supportable wrong slowly accumulated.
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Speaker 1: She had no inkling of that insupportable wrong. We are
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Speaker 1: the species, said Miss Miniver. Men are only incidents. They
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Speaker 1: give themselves airs. But so it is in all the
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Speaker 1: species of animals. The females are more important than the males.
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Speaker 1: The males have to please them. Look at the cock's feathers.
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Speaker 1: Look at the competition there is everywhere except among humans.
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Speaker 1: The stags and oxen and things all have to fight
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Speaker 1: for us. Everywhere. Only in man is the male made
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Speaker 1: the most important, and that happens through our maternity. It's
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Speaker 1: our very importance that degrades us. While we were minding
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Speaker 1: the children, they stole our rights and liberties. The children
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Speaker 1: made us slaves, and the men took advantage of it.
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Speaker 1: It's missus, Shalford says, the accidental conquering the essential. Originally
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Speaker 1: in the first animals, there were no males, none at all.
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Speaker 1: It has been proved, then they appear among the lower things.
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Speaker 1: She made meticulous gestures to figure the scale of life.
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Speaker 1: She seemed to be holding up specimens and peering through
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Speaker 1: her glasses at them. Among crustaceans and things just as
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Speaker 1: little creatures, ever so inferior to the females, mere hangers
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Speaker 1: on things you would laugh at. And among human beings too. Women,
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Speaker 1: to begin with, were the rulers and leaders. They owned
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Speaker 1: all the property, they invented all the ants. The primitive
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Speaker 1: government was the matriarchate. The matriarchate, the lords of creation
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Speaker 1: just ran about and did what they were told. But
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Speaker 1: is that really so, said Anne Veronica. That has been proved,
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Speaker 1: said miss Mineva, and added by American professors. But how
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Speaker 1: did they prove it by science? Said miss Mineva, and
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Speaker 1: hurried on, putting out a rhetorical hand that showed a
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Speaker 1: slash of finger through its glove. And now look at us,
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Speaker 1: see what we have become, toys, delicate trifles, a sex
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Speaker 1: of invalids. It is we who have become the parasites
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Speaker 1: and toys. It was Anne Veronica, felt at once absurd
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Speaker 1: and extraordinary. Right Hetty, who had periods of lucid expression.
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Speaker 1: Put the thing for her from her pillow. She charged
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Speaker 1: boldly into the space of Miss Minerva's rhetorical pause. It
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Speaker 1: isn't quite that we're toys. Nobody toys with me. Nobody
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Speaker 1: regards constance or v as a delicate trifle. Teddy made
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Speaker 1: some confused noise, a thoracic street row, some remark, was
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Speaker 1: assassinated by a rival in his throat, and buried hastily
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Speaker 1: under a cough. They'd better not said, hetty. The pointer is.
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Speaker 1: We're not toys. Toys. Isn't the word We're litter. We're
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Speaker 1: handfuls were regarded as inflammable litter that mustn't be left about.
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Speaker 1: We are the species, and maternity is our game. That's
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Speaker 1: all right, but nobody wants that admitted for fear. We
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Speaker 1: should all catch fire and set about fulfilling the purpose
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Speaker 1: of our beings without waiting for further explanations, as if
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Speaker 1: we didn't know. The practical trouble is our ages. They
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Speaker 1: used to marry us off at seventeen, rush us into
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Speaker 1: things before we had time to protest. They don't now.
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Speaker 1: Heaven knows why they don't marry most of us off
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Speaker 1: now Until high up in the twenties, and the age
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Speaker 1: gets higher. We have to hang about in the interval.
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Speaker 1: There's a great gulf opened, and nobody's got any plans
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Speaker 1: what to do with us. So the world is choked
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Speaker 1: with waste and waiting daughters hanging about, and they start
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Speaker 1: thinking and asking questions, and begin to be neither one
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Speaker 1: thing nor the other. We're partly human beings and partly
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Speaker 1: females in suspense. Miss Minerva followed with an expression of perplexity,
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Speaker 1: her mouth shaped to futile expositions. The widget method of
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Speaker 1: thought puzzled her weakly rhetorical mind. There is no remedy, girls,
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Speaker 1: she began breathlessly, except the vote. Give us that. And
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Speaker 1: Veronica came in with a certain disregard of Miss Miniva.
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Speaker 1: That's it, she said. They have no plans for us,
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Speaker 1: They have no ideas what to do with us, except,
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Speaker 1: said Constance, surveying her work with her head on one side,
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Speaker 1: to keep the matches from the litter. And they won't
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Speaker 1: let us make plans for ourselves. We will, said Miss Minerva,
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Speaker 1: refusing to be suppressed. If some of us have to
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Speaker 1: be killed together it and she pressed her lips together
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Speaker 1: in white resolution, and nodded as she was manifestly full
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Speaker 1: of that same passion for conflict and self sacrifice that
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Speaker 1: has given the world martyrs since the beginning of things.
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Speaker 1: I wish I could make every woman, every girl, see
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Speaker 1: this as clearly as I see it. Just what the
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Speaker 1: vert means to us, Just what it means Part two.
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Speaker 1: As Aunt Veronica went back along the avenue to her aunt,
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Speaker 1: she became aware of a light footed pursuer running Teddy
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Speaker 1: overtook her, a little out of breath, his innocent face flushed,
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Speaker 1: his straw colored hair disordered. He was out of breath
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Speaker 1: and spoke in broken sentences. I say THEE half a
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Speaker 1: minute of THEE. It's like this. You warn't freedom. Look here,
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Speaker 1: you know if you want freedom, just an idea of mine.
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Speaker 1: You know how those Russian students do in Russia. Just
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Speaker 1: a formal marriage, mere formality liberates the girl from parental control.
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Speaker 1: See you marry me, simply, no further responsibility whatever, without hindrance,
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Speaker 1: present occupation. Why not quite willing get a license? Just
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Speaker 1: an idea of mine, doesn't matter a bit to me.
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Speaker 1: Do anything to please you THEE, anything not fit to
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Speaker 1: be dust in your boots. Still there you are he paused.
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Speaker 1: Anne Veronica's desire to laugh unrestrainedly was checked by the
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Speaker 1: tremendous earnestness of his expression. Awfully good of you, Teddy,
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Speaker 1: she said. He nodded silently, too full for words. But
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Speaker 1: I don't see, said Anne Veronica, just how it fits
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Speaker 1: the present situation. No, well, I just suggested it. Threw
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Speaker 1: it out of course if at any time see reason.
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Speaker 1: Also your opinion. Always at your service. No offense, I
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Speaker 1: hope all right. I'm off due to play hockey Jackson's
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Speaker 1: horrid snorters so long. Be just suggested it. See nothing
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Speaker 1: really passing, thought Teddy, said Anne Veronica. You are a
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Speaker 1: dear Oh quiet, said Teddy convulsively, and lifted an imaginary
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Speaker 1: hat and left her Part three. The call ann Veronica
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Speaker 1: paid with her aunt that afternoon had at first much
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Speaker 1: the same relation to the widget conversation that a plaster
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Speaker 1: statue of mister Gladstone would have to a carelessly displayed
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Speaker 1: interior on our dissecting room table. The widgets talked with
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Speaker 1: a remarkable absence of external coverings. The Polesworthies found all
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Speaker 1: the meanings of life on its surfaces. They seemed the
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Speaker 1: most rapt in allver and Veronica's rapid world. The rigid
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Speaker 1: mental furniture was perhaps worn and shabby, but there it
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Speaker 1: was before you, undisguised, fading visibly in an almost pitiless sunlight.
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Speaker 1: Lady Polesworthy was the widow of the Knight who had
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Speaker 1: won his spurs in the whole cell coal trade. She
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Speaker 1: was of good seventeenth century attorney blood, a County family,
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Speaker 1: and distantly related to Aunt Molly's deceased curate. She was
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Speaker 1: the social leader of Morningside Park and, in her superficial
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Speaker 1: and euphuistic way, an extremely kind and pleasant woman. With
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Speaker 1: her lived a Missus Pramleigh, a sister of the Morningside
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Speaker 1: Park Doctor and a very active and useful member of
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Speaker 1: the Committee of the Impoverished Gentlewoman's Aid Society. Both ladies
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Speaker 1: were on easy and friendly terms with all that was
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Speaker 1: best in Morningside Park Society. They had an afternoon once
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Speaker 1: a month that was quite well attended. They sometimes gave
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Speaker 1: musical evenings. They dined out and gave a finish to
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Speaker 1: people's dinners. They had a full sized croquet lawn and
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Speaker 1: tennis beyond, and understood the art of bringing people together.
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Speaker 1: And they never talked of anything at all, never discussed,
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Speaker 1: never even encouraged to gossip. They were just nice. Anne
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Speaker 1: Veronica found herself walking back down the avenue that had
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Speaker 1: just been the scene of her first proposal beside her
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Speaker 1: aunt and speculating for the first time in her life
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Speaker 1: about that lady's mental attitudes. Her prevailing effect was one
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Speaker 1: of quiet and complete assurance, as though she knew all
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Speaker 1: about everything and was only restrained by her instinctive delicacy
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Speaker 1: from telling what she knew. But the restraint exercised by
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Speaker 1: her instinctive delicacy was very great, over and above course
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Speaker 1: or sexual matters. It covered religion and politics and any
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Speaker 1: mention of mammy matters or crime, and Anne Veronaca found
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Speaker 1: herself wondering whether these exclusions represented, after all, anything more
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Speaker 1: than suppressions. Was there anything at all in those locked
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Speaker 1: rooms of her aunt's mind. Were a fully furnished and
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Speaker 1: only a little dusty and cobweby and in need of
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Speaker 1: an airing? Or were they stark vacancy except perhaps for
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Speaker 1: cockroach or so or the gnawing of a rat. What
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Speaker 1: was the mental equivalent of a rat's gnawing? The image
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Speaker 1: was going astray, But what would her aunt think of
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Speaker 1: Teddy's recent offhand suggestion of marriage. What would she think
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Speaker 1: of the widget conversation. Suppose she was to tell her
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Speaker 1: aunt quietly but firmly about the parasitic males of degraded crestacea.
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Speaker 1: The girl suppressed a truckle that would have been inexplicable.
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Speaker 1: There came a wild rush of anthropological law into her brain,
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Speaker 1: a flare of indecorous humor. It was one of the
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Speaker 1: secret troubles of her mind, this grotesque twist her ideas
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Speaker 1: would sometimes take as though they rebelled and rioted. After all,
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Speaker 1: she found herself reflecting. Behind her aunt's complacent visage, there
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Speaker 1: was a past as lurid as any one's, not, of course,
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Speaker 1: her aunt's own personal past, which was apparently just accurate
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Speaker 1: and almost incredibly jejune, but an ancestral past with all
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Speaker 1: sorts of scandalous things in it, fire and slaughterings, exagemy
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Speaker 1: marriage by capture, corrobberies, cannibalism, ancestresses with perhaps dim anticipatory
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Speaker 1: likenesses to her aunt, their hair less, neatly done, no doubt,
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Speaker 1: their manners and jestures as yet undisciplined, but still ancestresses
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Speaker 1: in the direct line must have danced through a brief
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Speaker 1: and stirring life in the wody buff Was there no
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Speaker 1: echo anywhere Miss Stanley's pacified brain. Those empty rooms, if
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Speaker 1: they were empty, were the equivalents of astoundedly decorated predecessors.
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Speaker 1: Perhaps it was just as well there was no inherited memory,
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Speaker 1: and Veronica was by this time quite shocked at her
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Speaker 1: own thoughts, And yet they would go on with their freaks.
19:52
Speaker 1: Great vistas of history opened, and she and her aunt
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Speaker 1: were near reverting to the primitive and passionate and entirely
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Speaker 1: inter chorous of boreal was swinging from branches by the arms,
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Speaker 1: and really going on quite dreadfully when there arrived, while
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Speaker 1: the Polesworthies happily checked this place of fancy and brought
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Speaker 1: Anne Veronica back to the exigencies of the rapid life again.
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Speaker 1: Lady Polsworthy liked Anne Veronica because she was never awkward,
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Speaker 1: had steady eyes, and an almost invariable neatness and dignity
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Speaker 1: in her clothes. She seemed just as stiff and shy
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Speaker 1: as a girl ought to be. Lady poll'sworthily thought, neither
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Speaker 1: garrulous nor unready, and free from nearly all the heavy aggressiveness,
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Speaker 1: the overgrown, overblown quality, the egotism and want of consideration
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Speaker 1: of the typical modern girl. But then, Lady Polsworthy had
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Speaker 1: never seen Anne Veronica running like the wind at hockey.
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Speaker 1: She had never seen her sitting on tables, nor heard
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Speaker 1: her discussing theology, and had failed to observe that the
20:52
Speaker 1: graceful figure was a natural one and not due to
20:55
Speaker 1: abley chosen stays. She took it for granted. Anne Veronica
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Speaker 1: wore stays, mild stays perhaps, but stays, and thought no
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Speaker 1: more of the matter. She had seen her really only
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Speaker 1: at teas, with the Stanley strain in her uppermost. There
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Speaker 1: are so many girls nowadays who are quite unpresentable at tea,
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Speaker 1: with their untrimmed laughs, the awful dispositions of their legs
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Speaker 1: when they sit down, their slangy disrespect. They no longer smoke,
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Speaker 1: it is true, like the girls of the eighties and nineties. Nevertheless,
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Speaker 1: to have fine intelligence, they have the flavor of tobacco.
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Speaker 1: They have no amenities. They scratch the mellow surface of things,
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Speaker 1: almost as if they did it on purpose. And Lady
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Speaker 1: Poulsworthy and Missus Pramley lived for amenities and the mellowed
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Speaker 1: surfaces of things. Ane Veronica was one of the few
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Speaker 1: young people, and one must have young people, just as
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Speaker 1: one must have flowers. One could ask to a little
21:48
Speaker 1: gathering without the risk of a painful discord. Then the
21:52
Speaker 1: distant relationship to Miss Stanley gave them a slight but
21:55
Speaker 1: pleasant sense of proprietorship in the girl they had their
21:58
Speaker 1: little dreams about her. Missus Pramley received them in the
22:02
Speaker 1: pretty chintz drawing room, which opened by French windows on
22:05
Speaker 1: the trim garden, with its croquet lawn, its tennis net
22:09
Speaker 1: in the middle distance, and its remote rose alley lined
22:12
Speaker 1: with smart dahlias and flaming sunflowers. Her eye met Miss
22:16
Speaker 1: Stanley's understandingly, and she was, of anything a trifle more
22:20
Speaker 1: affectionate in her greeting to Anne Veronica. Then Anne Veronica
22:24
Speaker 1: passed on toward the tea in the garden, which was
22:26
Speaker 1: dotted with the elite Morningside Park Society, and there she
22:30
Speaker 1: was pounced upon by Lady Paulsworthy and given tea and
22:33
Speaker 1: lead about across the lawn and hovering indecisively, Anne Veronica
22:38
Speaker 1: saw and immediately affected not to see mister Manning, Lady
22:42
Speaker 1: Paul'sworthy's nephew, a tall young man of seven and thirty,
22:46
Speaker 1: with a handsome, thoughtful, impassive face, a full black mustache,
22:51
Speaker 1: and a certain heavy luxuriousness of gesture. The party resolved
22:56
Speaker 1: itself for Anne Veronica into a game in which she
22:58
Speaker 1: maneuvered unostentationously and finally unsuccessfully to avoid talking alone with
23:04
Speaker 1: this gentleman. Mister Manning had shown on previous occasions that
23:09
Speaker 1: he found Anne Veronica interesting and that he wished to
23:12
Speaker 1: interest her. He was a civil servant of some standing,
23:15
Speaker 1: and after a previous conversation upon esthetics of a sententious,
23:19
Speaker 1: nebulous and sympathetic character, he had sent her a small
23:22
Speaker 1: volume which he described as the fruits of his leisure,
23:26
Speaker 1: and which was, as a matter of fact, rather carefully finished. First,
23:30
Speaker 1: it dealt with fine aspects of mister Manning's feelings, and
23:33
Speaker 1: as of Anne Veronica's mind was still largely engaged with
23:36
Speaker 1: fundamentals and found no pleasure in metrical forms. She had
23:40
Speaker 1: not as yet cut its pages, so that as she
23:43
Speaker 1: saw him, she remarked to herself very faintly but definitely
23:46
Speaker 1: oh golly, and set up a campaign of avoidance that
23:49
Speaker 1: mister Manning at last broke down by coming directly at her.
23:53
Speaker 1: She talked with the Vicar's art about some of the
23:55
Speaker 1: details of the alleged smell of the new church lamps.
23:59
Speaker 1: He did not so much cut into this conversation as
24:01
Speaker 1: loom over it, for he was a tall, if rather
24:04
Speaker 1: studiously stooping man. The face that looked down upon Anne
24:08
Speaker 1: Veronica was full of amiable intention. Splendid you are looking
24:12
Speaker 1: to day, miss Stanley, he said, how well and jolly
24:16
Speaker 1: you must be feeling. He beamed over the effect of this,
24:19
Speaker 1: and shook hands with effusion, and Lady Polsworthy suddenly appeared
24:23
Speaker 1: as his confederate and disentangled the Vicar's heart. I love
24:27
Speaker 1: this warm end of summer more than words can tell,
24:30
Speaker 1: he said, I've tried to make words tell it. It's
24:33
Speaker 1: no good. Mild you know, and boon you aren't music.
24:38
Speaker 1: Anne Veronica agreed, and tried to make the manner of
24:41
Speaker 1: her assent cover a possible knowledge of a probable poem.
24:45
Speaker 1: Splendid it must be to be a composer, glorious the
24:48
Speaker 1: pastoral Beethoven, He's the best of them, don't you think? Toante,
24:53
Speaker 1: Tomante and Veronica, did, what have you been doing since
24:58
Speaker 1: our last talk? Still cutting out, red improving into things?
25:01
Speaker 1: I have often thought of that talk of ours. Often
25:05
Speaker 1: he did not appear to require any answer to his question.
25:09
Speaker 1: Often he repeated, A little heavily beautiful these autumn flowers are,
25:15
Speaker 1: said Anne Veronica, in a wide, uncomfortable pause. Do come
25:19
Speaker 1: and see the markomless daisies at the end of the garden,
25:22
Speaker 1: said mister Manning. Their dream, and Anne Veronica found herself
25:26
Speaker 1: being carried off to an isolation even remoter and more
25:30
Speaker 1: conspicuous than the corner of the lawn, with the whole
25:33
Speaker 1: of the party aiding and abetting and glancing at them. Damn,
25:37
Speaker 1: said Anne Veronica to herself, rousing herself for a conflict.
25:42
Speaker 1: Mister Manning told her he loved beauty and extorted a
25:45
Speaker 1: similar admission from her. He then expatiated upon his love
25:49
Speaker 1: of beauty. He said that for him beauty justified life,
25:53
Speaker 1: that he could not imagine a good action that was
25:55
Speaker 1: not a beautiful one, nor any beautiful thing that could
25:58
Speaker 1: be altogether bad. Anne Veronica hazarded an opinion that as
26:02
Speaker 1: a matter of history, some very beautiful people had to
26:06
Speaker 1: a quite considerable extent been bad. But mister Manning questioned
26:10
Speaker 1: whether when they were bad they were merely beautiful, or
26:13
Speaker 1: when they were beautiful bad. Anne Veronica found her attention
26:17
Speaker 1: wandering a little as he told her that he was
26:19
Speaker 1: not ashamed to feel almost slavish in the presence of
26:22
Speaker 1: really beautiful people. And then they came to the Michaelmas daisies.
26:27
Speaker 1: They were really very fine and abundant, with a blaze
26:30
Speaker 1: of perennial sunflowers behind them. They make me want to shout,
26:35
Speaker 1: said mister Manning, with the sweep of the arm. They're
26:38
Speaker 1: very good this year, said Anne Veronica, avoiding controversial matter.
26:43
Speaker 1: Either I want to shout, said mister Manning when I
26:45
Speaker 1: see beautiful things, or else I want to weep. He
26:49
Speaker 1: paused and looked at her and said, with a sudden
26:52
Speaker 1: drop into a confidential undertone. Or else I want to pray.
26:57
Speaker 1: When is Michaelmas Day, said Anne Veronica a little abruptly.
27:01
Speaker 1: Heaven knows, said mister Manning, and added the twenty ninth.
27:06
Speaker 1: I thought it was earlier, said Anne Veronica. Wasn't Parliament
27:09
Speaker 1: to reassemble. He put out his hand and leaned against
27:14
Speaker 1: a tree and crossed his legs you're not interested in politics,
27:17
Speaker 1: he asked, almost with a note of protest. Well, rather,
27:22
Speaker 1: said Anne Veronica. It seems it's interesting, do you think
27:27
Speaker 1: so I find my interest in that sort of thing.
27:30
Speaker 1: Decline and decline. I'm curious, perhaps because I don't know.
27:36
Speaker 1: I suppose an intelligent person ought to be interested in
27:38
Speaker 1: political affairs. They concern us, all, I wonder, said mister
27:44
Speaker 1: Manning with a baffling smile. I think they do, after all,
27:48
Speaker 1: their history in the making. Sort of history, said mister Manning,
27:53
Speaker 1: and repeated, a sort of history. But look at these
27:56
Speaker 1: glorious daisies. But don't you think political questions are important?
28:03
Speaker 1: I don't think they are this afternoon, and I don't
28:05
Speaker 1: think they are to you. And Veronica turned her back
28:09
Speaker 1: on the Michaelmas daisies and faced toward the house with
28:12
Speaker 1: an air of duty completed. Just come to that seat.
28:16
Speaker 1: Now you are here, miss Stanley, and look down the
28:18
Speaker 1: other path. There's a vista of just the common sort,
28:22
Speaker 1: better even than these, Anne Veronica walked, as he indicated.
28:27
Speaker 1: You know, I'm old fashioned, Miss Stanley. I don't think
28:30
Speaker 1: women need to trouble about political questions. I want to vote,
28:35
Speaker 1: said Anne Veronica, really, said mister Manning in an earnest voice,
28:39
Speaker 1: and waved his hand to the alley of mauve and purple.
28:43
Speaker 1: I wish you didn't. Why not, she turned on him.
28:47
Speaker 1: It jars, It jars with all my ideas. Women to
28:51
Speaker 1: me are something so serene, so fine, so feminine, and
28:55
Speaker 1: politics are so dusty, so sordid, so wearisome and quarrelsome.
29:00
Speaker 1: It seems to me a woman's duty to be beautiful,
29:02
Speaker 1: to be beautiful, and to behave beautifully, and politics are
29:06
Speaker 1: by their very nature ugly. You see, I I am
29:10
Speaker 1: a woman worshiper. I worshiped women long before I found
29:13
Speaker 1: any woman I might ever hope to worship, long ago.
29:16
Speaker 1: And the idea of committees, of hustings of the gender papers.
29:22
Speaker 1: I don't see why the responsibility of beauty should all
29:25
Speaker 1: be shifted on to the women, said Anne Veronica, suddenly
29:28
Speaker 1: remembering a part of Miss Minniver's discourse. It rests with them,
29:32
Speaker 1: by the nature of things. Why should you, who are
29:35
Speaker 1: queens come down from your thrones if you can afford it,
29:38
Speaker 1: We can't. We can't afford to turn our women, our Madonnas,
29:42
Speaker 1: our Saint Catherines, our mona lisas our goddesses and angels
29:46
Speaker 1: and fairy princesses into a sort of man. Womanhood is
29:50
Speaker 1: sacred to me. My politics in that matter wouldn't be
29:53
Speaker 1: to give women votes. I'm a socialist, miss Stanley, what,
29:57
Speaker 1: said Anne Veronica, startled, A socialist of the order of
30:01
Speaker 1: John Ruskin. Indeed, I am. I would make this country
30:05
Speaker 1: a collective monarchy, and all the girls and women in
30:07
Speaker 1: it should be the queen. They should never come into
30:09
Speaker 1: contact with politics, or economics or any of those things,
30:13
Speaker 1: and we men would work for them and serve them
30:15
Speaker 1: in loyal fealty. That's rather the theory now, said Anne Veronica.
30:20
Speaker 1: Only so many men neglect their duties. Yes, said mister Manning,
30:25
Speaker 1: with an air of emerging from an elaborate demonstration. And
30:29
Speaker 1: so each of us must, under existing conditions, being chivalrous,
30:32
Speaker 1: indeed to all women, choose for himself his own particular
30:36
Speaker 1: and worshipful queen, so far as one can judge from
30:40
Speaker 1: the system and practice, said Anne Veronica, speaking in a loud,
30:44
Speaker 1: common sense, detached tone, and beginning to walk slowly but
30:47
Speaker 1: resolutely toward the lawn. It doesn't work. Every one must
30:53
Speaker 1: be experimental, said mister Manning and glanced round hastily for
30:56
Speaker 1: further horticultural points of interest in secluded corners. None presented
31:01
Speaker 1: themselves to save him from that return. That's all very
31:05
Speaker 1: well when one isn't the material experimented upon. Anne Veronica
31:08
Speaker 1: had remarked, women would they do have far more power
31:13
Speaker 1: than they think, as influences, as inspirations. Anne Veronica said
31:19
Speaker 1: nothing in answer to that. You say you want to vote,
31:23
Speaker 1: said mister Manning abruptly. I think I ought to have one. Well,
31:28
Speaker 1: I have two, said mister Manning, one in Oxford University
31:31
Speaker 1: and one in Kensington. He caught up and went on
31:35
Speaker 1: with a sort of clumsiness. Let me present you with
31:37
Speaker 1: them and be your voter. There followed an instant's pause,
31:42
Speaker 1: and then Ann Veronica had decided to misunderstand. I want
31:47
Speaker 1: to vote for myself, She said, I don't see why
31:50
Speaker 1: I should take at second hand, though it's very kind
31:52
Speaker 1: of you and rather unscrupulous. Have you ever voted, mister Manning?
31:57
Speaker 1: I suppose that's a sort of place like a ticket
31:59
Speaker 1: office and a ballot Her face assumed an expression of
32:03
Speaker 1: intellectual conflict. What is a ballot box like? Exactly? She asked,
32:08
Speaker 1: as though it was very important to her. Mister Manning
32:11
Speaker 1: regarded her thoughtfully for a moment in strict his mustache.
32:15
Speaker 1: A ballot box, you know, he said, is very largely
32:19
Speaker 1: just a box. He made quite a long pause and
32:22
Speaker 1: went on with a sigh. You have a voting paper
32:26
Speaker 1: given you. They emerged into the publicity of the lawn. Yes,
32:31
Speaker 1: said Anne Veronica, yes to his explanation, and saw across
32:36
Speaker 1: the lawn Lady Polsworthy talking to her aunt, and both
32:39
Speaker 1: of them staring frankly across at her Mister Manning as
32:42
Speaker 1: they talked. End of Chapter two