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Ann Veronica Chapter 1 - Ann Veronica Talks to Her Father · The H. G. Wells Library

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Speaker 1: Chapter one of Anne Veronica. This is a LibriVox recording.
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Speaker 1: All libriyvox 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 and Veronica, a Modern love story by H. G. Wells.
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Speaker 1: The art of ignoring is one of the accomplishments of
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Speaker 1: every well bred girl, so carefully instilled that at last
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Speaker 1: she can even ignore her own thoughts and her own knowledge.
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Speaker 1: Chapter the first and Veronica talks to her father, Part one,
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Speaker 1: One Wednesday afternoon in late September, Anne Veronica Stanley came
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Speaker 1: down from London in a state of solemn excitement and
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Speaker 1: quite resolved to have things out with her father that
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Speaker 1: very evening. She had trembled on the verge such a
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Speaker 1: resolution before, but this time quite definitely she made it.
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Speaker 1: A crisis had been reached, and she was almost glad
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Speaker 1: it had been reached. She made up her mind in
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Speaker 1: the train home that it should be a decisive crisis.
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Speaker 1: It is for that reason that this novel begins with
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Speaker 1: her there, and neither earlier nor later. For it is
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Speaker 1: the history of this crisis and its consequences that this
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Speaker 1: novel has to tell She had a compartment to herself
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Speaker 1: in the train from London to Morningside Park, and she
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Speaker 1: sat with both her feet on the seat in an
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Speaker 1: attitude that would certainly have distressed her mother to see,
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Speaker 1: and horrified her grandmother beyond measure. She sat with her
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Speaker 1: knees up to her chin and her hands clasped before them,
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Speaker 1: and she was so lost in thought that she discovered
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Speaker 1: with a start from a lettered lamp that she was
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Speaker 1: at Morningside Park and thought she was moving out of
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Speaker 1: the station, where she was only moving in lord, she said.
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Speaker 1: She jumped up at once, caught up a leather clutch
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Speaker 1: containing note books, a fat text book, and a chocolate
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Speaker 1: and yellow covered pamphlet, and leaped neatly from the carriage,
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Speaker 1: only to discover that the train was slowing down and
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Speaker 1: that she had to traverse the full length of the platform,
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Speaker 1: passed it again as the result of her precipitation. Sold again,
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Speaker 1: she remarked, idiot, she raged inwardly, while she walked along
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Speaker 1: with that air of self contained serenity that is proper
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Speaker 1: to a young lady of nearly two and twenty under
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Speaker 1: the eye of the world. She walked down the station
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Speaker 1: approach past the neat obtrusive officers of the coal merchant
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Speaker 1: and the house agent, and sew to the wicket gate
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Speaker 1: by the butcher's shop that led to the field path
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Speaker 1: to her home. Outside the post office stood a now hatted,
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Speaker 1: blond young man in gray flannels who was elaborately affixing
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Speaker 1: a stamp to a letter. At the sight of her,
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Speaker 1: he became rigid and a singularly bright shade of pink.
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Speaker 1: She made herself serenely, unaware of his existence there were.
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Speaker 1: It may be it was his presence that sent her
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Speaker 1: by the field detour instead of by the direct path
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Speaker 1: up the avenue. Humph, he said, and regarded his letter
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Speaker 1: doubtfully before consigning it to the pillar box. Here goes.
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Speaker 1: He said that he hovered undecidedly for some seconds, with
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Speaker 1: his hands at his pockets and his mouth pocket to
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Speaker 1: a whistle, before he turned to go home by the avenue,
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Speaker 1: and Veronica forgot him as soon as she was through
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Speaker 1: the gate, and her face resumed its expression of stern preoccupation.
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Speaker 1: It's either now or ever, she said to herself. Morningside
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Speaker 1: Park was a suburb that had not altogether as people say,
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Speaker 1: come off. It consisted like pre roman gaul of three parts.
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Speaker 1: There was first the avenue, which ran in a consciously
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Speaker 1: elegant curve from the railway station into an undeveloped wilderness
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Speaker 1: of agriculture, with big yellow brick villas on either side.
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Speaker 1: And then there was the pavement, the little clump of
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Speaker 1: shops about the post office, and under the railway arch
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Speaker 1: was a congestion of workmen's dwellings. The road from Surbiton
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Speaker 1: and epsom ran under the arch, and like a bright
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Speaker 1: fungoid growth in the ditch, there was now appearing a
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Speaker 1: sort of fourth estate of little red and white, rough
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Speaker 1: cast villas with meretricious gables and very brassy window blinds.
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Speaker 1: Behind the avenue was a little hill, and an iron
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Speaker 1: fenced path went over the crest of this to a
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Speaker 1: style under an elm tree, and forked there, with one
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Speaker 1: branch going back into the avenue again. It's either now
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Speaker 1: or never, said Ane Veronica, again, ascending this style. Much
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Speaker 1: as I hate rowls, I've either got to make a
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Speaker 1: stand or give in Altogether. She seated herself in a
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Speaker 1: loose and easy attitude and surveyed the backs of the
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Speaker 1: avenue houses. Then her eyes wandered to where the new
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Speaker 1: red and white villas peeped among the trees. She seemed
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Speaker 1: to be making some sort of in ye gods, she said,
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Speaker 1: at last, what a place. Stuffy isn't the word for it?
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Speaker 1: I wonder what he takes me for. When presently she
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Speaker 1: got down from the style, a certain note of internal conflict,
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Speaker 1: a touch of doubt had gone from her warm tinted face.
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Speaker 1: She had now the clear and tranquil expression of one
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Speaker 1: whose mind is made up. Her back had stiffened, and
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Speaker 1: her hazel eyes looked steadfastly ahead. As she approached the
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Speaker 1: corner of the avenue, the blond, no hatted man in
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Speaker 1: gray flannels appeared. There was a certain air of force
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Speaker 1: fatuity in his manner. He saluted awkwardly. Hallo vee, he said, Hello, Teddy,
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Speaker 1: she answered. He hung vaguely for a moment as she passed,
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Speaker 1: but it was clear she was in no mood for Teddy's.
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Speaker 1: He realized that he was committed to the path across
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Speaker 1: the fields, an uninteresting walk at the best of times.
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Speaker 1: Oh damn it, he remarked, damn it with great bitterness
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Speaker 1: as he faced it. Part two. Anne Veronica Stanley was
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Speaker 1: twenty one and a half years old. She had black hair,
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Speaker 1: fine eyebrows, and a clear complexion. The forces that had
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Speaker 1: modeled her features had loved and lingered at their work
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Speaker 1: and made them subtle and fine. She was slenderer, and
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Speaker 1: sometimes she seemed tall, and walked and carried herself lightly
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Speaker 1: and joyfully, as one who commonly and habitually feels well.
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Speaker 1: And sometimes she stooped a little and was preoccupied. Her
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Speaker 1: lips came together with an expression between contentment and the
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Speaker 1: faintest shadow of a smile. Her manner was one of
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Speaker 1: quiet reserve, and behind this mask she was wildly discontented
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Speaker 1: and eager for freedom and life. She wanted to live.
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Speaker 1: She was vehemently impatient. She did not clearly know for
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Speaker 1: what to do, to be to experience, and experience was
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Speaker 1: slow in coming. All the world about her seemed to
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Speaker 1: be how can one put it in wrappers? Like a
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Speaker 1: house when people leave it in the summer, The blinds
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Speaker 1: were all drawn, the sunlight kept out. One could not
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Speaker 1: tell what colors these grace wathings hid. She wanted to know,
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Speaker 1: and there was no intimation whatever that the blinds would
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Speaker 1: ever go up, or the windows or doors be opened,
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Speaker 1: or the chandeliers that seemed to promise such a blaze
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Speaker 1: of fire, unveiled and furnished and lit. Dim souls flitted
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Speaker 1: about her, not only speaking, but it would seem even
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Speaker 1: thinking in undertones. During her school days, especially her earlier
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Speaker 1: school days, the world had been very explicit with her,
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Speaker 1: telling her what to do, what not to do, giving
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Speaker 1: her lessons to learn and games to play, and interests
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Speaker 1: of the most suitable and various kinds. Presently, she woke
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Speaker 1: up to the fact that there was a considerable group
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Speaker 1: of interests called being in life and getting married, with
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Speaker 1: certain attractive and amusing subsidiary developments such as flirtation and
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Speaker 1: being interested in people of the opposite sex. She approached
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Speaker 1: this field with her usual liveliness of apprehension, but here
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Speaker 1: she met with a check. These interests her world promptly,
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Speaker 1: through the agency of schoolmistresses, older schoolmates, her aunt, and
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Speaker 1: a number of other responsible and authoritative people, assured her
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Speaker 1: she must on no account think about miss Moffatt. The
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Speaker 1: history and moral instruction mistress was particularly explicit upon this score,
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Speaker 1: and they all agreed in indicating contempt and pity for
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Speaker 1: girls whose minds ran on such matters and who betrayed it.
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Speaker 1: In their conversation, or dress or bearing. It was, in
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Speaker 1: fact a group of interests quite unlike any other group,
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Speaker 1: peculiar and special, and one to be thoroughly ashamed of. Nevertheless,
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Speaker 1: and Veronica found it a difficult matter not to think
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Speaker 1: of these things. However, having a considerable amount of pride,
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Speaker 1: she decided she would disavow these undesirable topics and keep
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Speaker 1: her mind away from them just as far as she could.
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Speaker 1: But it left her at the end of her school
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Speaker 1: days with that rapt feeling I have described, and rather
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Speaker 1: at loose ends. The world she discovered with these matters barred,
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Speaker 1: had no particular place for her at all, nothing for
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Speaker 1: her to do except a functionless existence, varied by calls, tennis,
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Speaker 1: selected novels, walks, and dusting in her father's house. She
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Speaker 1: thought study would be better. She was a clever girl,
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Speaker 1: the best of her year in the high school, and
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Speaker 1: she made a valiant fight for Somerville or Newnham. But
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Speaker 1: her father had met and argued with a Somerville girl
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Speaker 1: at a friend's dinner table, and he thought that sort
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Speaker 1: of thing unsex a woman. He said simply that he
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Speaker 1: wanted her to live at home. There was a certain
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Speaker 1: amount of disputation, and meanwhile she went on at school.
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Speaker 1: They compromised at length on the science course at the
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Speaker 1: treadch god Women's College. She had already matriculated into London University.
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Speaker 1: From school, she came of age, and she bickered with
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Speaker 1: her aunt for latchkey privileges. On the strength of that
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Speaker 1: and her seasoned ticket, shamefaced curiosities began to come back
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Speaker 1: into her mind, thinly disguised as literature and art. She
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Speaker 1: read voraciously and presently because of her aunt's censorship. She
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Speaker 1: took to smuggling any books she thought might be prohibited
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Speaker 1: instead of bringing them home openly, and she went to
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Speaker 1: the theater whenever she could produce an acceptable friend to
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Speaker 1: accompany her. She passed her General Science examination with double honors,
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Speaker 1: and specialized in science. She happened to have an acute
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Speaker 1: sense of form and unusual mental lucidity, and she found
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Speaker 1: in biology, and particularly in comparative anatomy, a very considerable interest,
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Speaker 1: albeit the illumination it cast upon her personal life was
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Speaker 1: not altogether direct. She dissected well, and in a year
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Speaker 1: she found herself chafing at the limitations of the lady
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Speaker 1: Bachelor of science who retailed a store of faded learning
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Speaker 1: in the Trenchgold Laboratory. She had already realized that this
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Speaker 1: instructress was hopelessly wrong and foggy. It is the test
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Speaker 1: of the good comparative anatomist. Upon the skull, she discovered
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Speaker 1: a desire to enter as a student in the Imperial
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Speaker 1: College at Westminster, where Russell taught, and go on with
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Speaker 1: her work at the fountain Head. She had asked about
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Speaker 1: that already, and her father had replied evasively, we'll have
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Speaker 1: to see about that, little v We'll have to see
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Speaker 1: about that. In that posture of being seen about, the
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Speaker 1: matter hung until she seemed committed to another session at
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Speaker 1: the Trenchgold College, and in the meantime a small conflict
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Speaker 1: arose and brought the latch Key question, and in fact
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Speaker 1: the question of a Veronica's position generally, to an acute issue.
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Speaker 1: In addition to the various businessmen, solicitors, civil servants, and
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Speaker 1: widow ladies who lived in the Morningside Park Avenue, there
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Speaker 1: was a certain family of alien sympathies and artistic quality,
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Speaker 1: the widgets with which Anne Veronica had become very friendly.
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Speaker 1: Mister Widget was a journalist and art critic. Addicted to
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Speaker 1: a greenish gray tweed suit and art brown ties. He
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Speaker 1: smote corn cob pipes in the avenue on Sunday morning,
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Speaker 1: traveled third class to London by unusual trains and openly
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Speaker 1: despised golf. He occupied one of the smaller houses near
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Speaker 1: the station. He had one son who had been co educated,
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Speaker 1: and three daughters with peculiarly jolly red hair that Anne
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Speaker 1: Veronica found adorable. Two of these had been her particular
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Speaker 1: intimates at the high school and had done much to
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Speaker 1: send her mind exploring beyond the limits of the available literature.
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Speaker 1: At home. It was a cheerful, irresponsible, shamelessly hard up
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Speaker 1: family in the key of faded green and flattened purple.
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Speaker 1: And the girls went on from the high school to
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Speaker 1: the Fadden Art School and a bright, eventful life of
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Speaker 1: art student dances, socialist meetings, theater galleries, talking about work,
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Speaker 1: and even at intervals, work and ever and again they
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Speaker 1: drew Anne Veronica from her sound persistent industry into the
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Speaker 1: circle of these experiences. They had asked her to come
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Speaker 1: to the first of the two great annual Fadden Dancers,
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Speaker 1: the October one, and Ann Veronica had accepted with enthusiasm,
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Speaker 1: and now her father said she must not go. He
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Speaker 1: had put his foot down and said she must not go.
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Speaker 1: Going involved two things that all Anne Veronica's tact had
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Speaker 1: been ineffectual to conceal from her art and father. Her
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Speaker 1: usual dignified reserve had availed her nothing. One point was
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Speaker 1: that she was to wear fancy dress in the likeness
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Speaker 1: of a Corsair's bride, and the other was that she
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Speaker 1: was to spend whatever vestiges of the night remained after
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Speaker 1: the dance was over in London with the Widget girls
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Speaker 1: and a select party in quite a decent little hotel
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Speaker 1: near Fitzfory Square. But my dear, said Anne Veronica's aunt.
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Speaker 1: You see, said Anne Veronica, with the air of one
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Speaker 1: who shares a difficulty. I've promised to go. I didn't realize.
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Speaker 1: I don't see how I can get out of it. Now.
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Speaker 1: Then it was her father issued his ultimatum. He had
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Speaker 1: conveyed it to her, not verbally, but by means of
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Speaker 1: a letter, which seemed to her a singularly ignoble method
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Speaker 1: of prohibition. He couldn't look me in the face and
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Speaker 1: say it, said Anne Veronica. But of course it's aunt's doing.
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Speaker 1: Really and thus it was that, as Ann Veronica neared
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Speaker 1: the gates of home, she said to herself, I'll have
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Speaker 1: it out with him somehow, I'll have it out with him,
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Speaker 1: and if he won't, But she did not give even
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Speaker 1: unspoken words to the alternative at that time. Part three.
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Speaker 1: Ann Veronica's father was a solicitor with a good deal
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Speaker 1: of company business, A lean, trustworthy, worried looking, neuralgic, clean
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Speaker 1: shaven man of fifty three, with a hard mouth, a
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Speaker 1: sharp nose, iron gray hair, gray eyes, gold framed glasses,
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Speaker 1: and a small circular boldness at the crown of his head.
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Speaker 1: His name was Peter. He had had five children at
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Speaker 1: irregular intervals, of whom Anne Veronica was the youngest, so
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Speaker 1: that as a parent he came to her perhaps a
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Speaker 1: little practiced and jaded and inattentive, and he called her
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Speaker 1: his little v and patted her unexpectedly and disconcertingly, and
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Speaker 1: treated her promiscuously as of any age between eleven and
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Speaker 1: eight and twenty. The city worried him a good deal,
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Speaker 1: and what energy he had left over he spent partly
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Speaker 1: in golf, a game he treated very seriously, and partly
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Speaker 1: in the practices of microscopic petrography. He went in for
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Speaker 1: microscopy in the unphilosophical Victorian manner as his hobby. A
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Speaker 1: birthday present of a microscope had turned his mind to
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Speaker 1: technical microscopy when he was eighteen, and a chance friendship
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Speaker 1: with a Holborn microscope dealer had confirmed that bent he
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Speaker 1: had remarkably skillful fingers and a love of detailed processes,
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Speaker 1: and he had become one of the most dexterous amateur
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Speaker 1: makers of rock sections in the world. He spent a
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Speaker 1: good deal more money and time than he could afford
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Speaker 1: upon the little room at the top of the house
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Speaker 1: in producing new lapidary apparatus and new microscopic accessories, and
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Speaker 1: rubbing down slices of rock to a transparent thinness and
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Speaker 1: mounting them in a beautiful and dignified manner. He did it,
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Speaker 1: he said, to distract his mind. His chief successes he
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Speaker 1: exhibited to the Lone Dean Microscopical Society, where their high
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Speaker 1: technical merit never failed to excite admiration. Their scientific value
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Speaker 1: was less considerable, since he chose rocks entirely with a
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Speaker 1: view to the difficulty of handling or their attractiveness at conversation.
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Speaker 1: When done, he had a great contempt for the sections
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Speaker 1: the theorizers produced. They proved all sorts of things, perhaps,
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Speaker 1: but they were thick, unequal, pitiful pieces of work. Yet
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Speaker 1: an indiscriminating, wrong headed world gave such fellows all sorts
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Speaker 1: of distinctions. He read but little, and that chiefly healthy
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Speaker 1: light fiction with chromatic titles The Red Sword, the Black Helmet,
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Speaker 1: the Purple Robe. Also in order to distract his mind.
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Speaker 1: He read it in winter in the evening after dinner,
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Speaker 1: and and Veronica associated it with a tendency to monopolize
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Speaker 1: the lamp and to spread a very worn pair of dappled,
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Speaker 1: worn skinned slippers across the fender. She wondered occasionally why
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Speaker 1: his mind needed so much distraction. His favorite newspaper was
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Speaker 1: The Times, which he began at breakfast in the morning,
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Speaker 1: often without manifest irritation, and carried off to finish in
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Speaker 1: the train, leaving no other paper at home. It occurred
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Speaker 1: to Anne Veronica once that she had known him when
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Speaker 1: he was younger, but day had followed day, and each
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Speaker 1: had largely obliterated the impression of its predecessor. But she
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Speaker 1: certainly remembered that when she was a little girl he
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Speaker 1: sometimes wore tennis flannels, and also rode a bicycle very
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Speaker 1: dexterously in through the gates to the front door. And
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Speaker 1: in those days too, he used to help her mother
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Speaker 1: with her gardening and hover about her while she stood
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Speaker 1: on the ladder and hammered creepers to the scullery wall.
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Speaker 1: It had been Anne Veronica's lot, as the youngest child,
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Speaker 1: to live in a home that became less animated and
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Speaker 1: various as she grew up. Her mother had died when
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Speaker 1: she was thirteen. Her two much older sisters had married off,
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Speaker 1: one submissively, one insubordinately. Her two brothers had gone out
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Speaker 1: into the world well ahead of her, and so she
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Speaker 1: had made what she could of her father. But he
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Speaker 1: was not a father one could make much of. His
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Speaker 1: ideas about girls and women were of a sentimental and
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Speaker 1: modest quality. There were creatures he thought either too bad
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Speaker 1: for a modern vocabulary, and then frequently most undesirably desirable,
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Speaker 1: or too pure and good for life. He made the
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Speaker 1: simple classification of a large and various sex, to the
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Speaker 1: exclusion of all intermediate kinds. He held that the two
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Speaker 1: classes had to be kept apart, even in thought, and
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Speaker 1: remote from one another. Women are made like the Potter's vessels,
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Speaker 1: either for worship or contumely, and are withal fragile vessels.
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Speaker 1: He had never wanted daughters. Each time a daughter had
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Speaker 1: been born to him, he had concealed his chagrin with
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Speaker 1: great tenderness and effusion from his wife, and had sorn
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Speaker 1: unwontedly and with passionate sincerity in the bathroom. He was
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Speaker 1: a manly man, free from any strong maternal strain, and
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Speaker 1: he had loved his dark eyed, dainty, bright colored, and
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Speaker 1: active little wife with a real vein of passion in
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Speaker 1: his sentiment. But he had always felt, he had never
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Speaker 1: allowed himself to think of it, that the promptitude of
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Speaker 1: their family was a little indelicate of her and inn
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Speaker 1: sense and intrusion. He had, however, planned brilliant careers for
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Speaker 1: his two sons, and with a certain human amount of
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Speaker 1: warping and delay, they were pursuing these. One was in
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Speaker 1: the Indian civil service and one in the rapidly developing
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Speaker 1: motor business. The daughters, he had hoped, would be their
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Speaker 1: mother's care. He had no ideas about daughters. They happen
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Speaker 1: to a man. Of course, a little daughter is a
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Speaker 1: delightful thing enough It runs about gaily at romps. It
20:31
Speaker 1: is bright and pretty. It has enormous quantities of soft hair,
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Speaker 1: and more power of expressing affection than its brothers. It
20:39
Speaker 1: is a lovely little appendage to the mother, who smiles
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Speaker 1: over it, and it does things quaintly like her gestures,
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Speaker 1: with her very gestures. It makes wonderful sentences that you
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Speaker 1: can repeat in the city, and are good enough for punch.
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Speaker 1: You call it a lot of nicknames, babs and bibs
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Speaker 1: and viduals and v You whack it it playfully, and
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Speaker 1: it whacks you back. It loves to sit on your ned.
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Speaker 1: All that is jolly and as it should be. But
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Speaker 1: a little daughter is one thing, and a daughter quite another.
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Speaker 1: There one comes to a relationship that mister Stanley had
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Speaker 1: never thought out. When he found himself thinking about it,
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Speaker 1: it upset him so that he at once resorted to distraction.
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Speaker 1: The chromatic fiction with which he relieved his mind, glanced
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Speaker 1: but slightly at this aspect of life, and never with
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Speaker 1: any quality of guidance. Its heroes never had daughters. They
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Speaker 1: borrowed other peoples. The one fault, indeed, of the school
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Speaker 1: of fiction for him, was that it had rather a
21:37
Speaker 1: light way with parental rights. His instinct was in the
21:41
Speaker 1: direction of considering his daughters his absolute property, bound to
21:45
Speaker 1: obey him, his to give away or his to keep,
21:48
Speaker 1: to be a comfort in his declining years. Just as
21:50
Speaker 1: he thought fit about this conception of ownership, he perceived
21:55
Speaker 1: and desired a certain sentimental glamor. He liked everything properly dressed,
22:00
Speaker 1: But it remained ownership. Ownership seemed only a reasonable return
22:04
Speaker 1: for the cares and expenses of her daughter's upbringing. Daughters
22:08
Speaker 1: were not like sons. He perceived, however, that both the
22:12
Speaker 1: novels he read and the world he lived in discountenanced
22:16
Speaker 1: these assumptions. Nothing else was put in their place, and
22:20
Speaker 1: they remained souch a virtue, as it were in his mind.
22:23
Speaker 1: The new and the old counseled out. His daughters became
22:27
Speaker 1: quasi independent dependents, which is absurd. One married as he wished,
22:32
Speaker 1: and one against his wishes. And now here was and Veronica,
22:35
Speaker 1: his little v disconsented with her beautiful, safe and sheltering home,
22:40
Speaker 1: going about with hatless friends to socialist meetings and art
22:43
Speaker 1: class dancers, and displaying a disposition to carry his scientific
22:47
Speaker 1: ambitions to unwomanly lengths. She seemed to think he was
22:52
Speaker 1: merely the pay master handing over the means of her freedom.
22:56
Speaker 1: And now she insisted that she must leave the chaste
22:59
Speaker 1: and security of the Treach God Women's College for Russell's
23:02
Speaker 1: unbridled classes, and wanted to go to fancy dress dancers
23:06
Speaker 1: in pirate costume and spend the residue of the night
23:09
Speaker 1: with Widget's ramshackle girls in some indescribable hotel in Soho.
23:15
Speaker 1: He had done his best not to think about her
23:17
Speaker 1: at all, but the situation and his sister had become
23:20
Speaker 1: altogether too urgent. He had finally put aside the lilac sunbonnet,
23:25
Speaker 1: gone into his study, lit the gas fire, and written
23:29
Speaker 1: the letter that had brought these unsatisfactory relations to her head.
23:36
Speaker 1: Part four, My dear v he wrote these daughters. He
23:42
Speaker 1: gnawed his pen and reflected, tore the sheet up, and
23:44
Speaker 1: began again. My dear Veronica, your aunt tells me you
23:49
Speaker 1: have involved yourself in some arrangement with the Widget girls
23:52
Speaker 1: about a fancy dress ball in London. I gather you
23:56
Speaker 1: wish to go up in some fantastic get up, wrapped
23:58
Speaker 1: about in your opera cloak, and that after the festivities
24:02
Speaker 1: you propose to stay with these friends of yours, and
24:04
Speaker 1: without any older people in your party, at an hotel. Now,
24:09
Speaker 1: I am sorry to cross you in anything you have
24:11
Speaker 1: set your heart upon, but I regret to say hm.
24:15
Speaker 1: He reflected and crossed out the last four words. But
24:19
Speaker 1: this cannot be No, he said, and tried again. But
24:24
Speaker 1: I must tell you quite definitely that I feel it
24:27
Speaker 1: to be my duty to forbid any such exploit. Damn,
24:31
Speaker 1: he remarked the defaced letter, and taking a fresh sheet,
24:35
Speaker 1: he recopied what he had written. A certain irritation crept
24:39
Speaker 1: into his manner as he did so. I regret that
24:43
Speaker 1: you should ever have proposed it, he went on. He meditated,
24:47
Speaker 1: and began a new paragraph. The fact of it is,
24:51
Speaker 1: and this absurd project of yours only brings it to
24:53
Speaker 1: a head. You have begun to get hold of some
24:56
Speaker 1: very queer ideas about what a young lady in your
24:59
Speaker 1: position may or may not venture to do. I do
25:03
Speaker 1: not think you quite understand my ideals, or what is
25:06
Speaker 1: becoming as between father and daughter. Your attitude to me,
25:12
Speaker 1: he fell into a brown study. It was so difficult
25:15
Speaker 1: to put it precisely, and your aunt for a time
25:20
Speaker 1: he searched for the mulchust. Then he went on, and
25:24
Speaker 1: indeed to most of the established things in life is
25:28
Speaker 1: frankly unsatisfactory. You are restless, aggressive, critical, with all the crude,
25:34
Speaker 1: unthinking criticism of youth, you have no grasp upon the
25:37
Speaker 1: essential facts of life. I pray God you never may,
25:41
Speaker 1: and in your rash ignorance you are prepared to dash
25:44
Speaker 1: into positions that may end in life long regret. The
25:48
Speaker 1: life of a young girl is set about with prowling pitfalls.
25:52
Speaker 1: He was arrested for a moment by an indistinct picture
25:55
Speaker 1: of Veronica reading this last sentence, But he was now
25:59
Speaker 1: too deeply moved to trace a certain unsatisfactoriness to its
26:03
Speaker 1: source in a mixture of metaphors. Well, he said, argumentatively,
26:08
Speaker 1: it is that's all about it. It's time she knew.
26:12
Speaker 1: The life of a young girl is set about with
26:14
Speaker 1: prowling pitfalls from which she must be shielded at all costs.
26:19
Speaker 1: His lips tightened, and he frowned with solemn resolution. So
26:24
Speaker 1: long as I am your father, so long as your
26:26
Speaker 1: life is entrusted to my care, I feel bound by
26:29
Speaker 1: every obligation to use my authority to check this odd
26:33
Speaker 1: disposition of yours. Towards extravagant enterprises. A day will come
26:37
Speaker 1: when you will thank me. It is not, my dear Veronica,
26:40
Speaker 1: that I think there is any harm in you. There
26:43
Speaker 1: is not. But a girl is soiled not only by evil,
26:47
Speaker 1: but by the proximity of evil, and a reputation for
26:50
Speaker 1: rashness may do her as serious an injury as really
26:54
Speaker 1: reprehensible conduct. So do please believe that in this matter
26:58
Speaker 1: I am acting for the best. He signed his name
27:02
Speaker 1: and reflected that he opened the study door and called Molly,
27:06
Speaker 1: and returned to assume an attitude of authority on the hearthrug.
27:10
Speaker 1: Before the blue flames and orange glow of the gas fire,
27:14
Speaker 1: his sister appeared. She was dressed in one of those
27:17
Speaker 1: complicated dresses that are all lace and work and confused
27:21
Speaker 1: patternings of black and purple than cream about the body,
27:24
Speaker 1: and she was in many ways the younger feminine version
27:27
Speaker 1: of the same theme as himself. She had the same
27:31
Speaker 1: sharp nose, which indeed only Anne Veronica of all the
27:34
Speaker 1: family had escaped. She carried herself well, whereas her brother slouched,
27:39
Speaker 1: and there was a certain aristocratic dignity about her that
27:43
Speaker 1: she had acquired through her long engagement to a curate
27:45
Speaker 1: of family, a scion of the Wiltshire Edmondshaws. He had
27:50
Speaker 1: died before they married, and when her brother became a widower,
27:53
Speaker 1: she had come to his assistance and taken over much
27:56
Speaker 1: of the care of his youngest daughter. But from the
27:59
Speaker 1: first her rather old fashioned conception of life had jarred
28:03
Speaker 1: with the suburban atmosphere, the high school spirit, and the
28:06
Speaker 1: memories of the light and little Missus Stanley, whose family
28:10
Speaker 1: had been, by any reckoning, inconsiderable to use the kindliest term,
28:15
Speaker 1: Miss Stanley had determined from the outset to have the
28:18
Speaker 1: warmest affection for her youngest niece and to be a
28:21
Speaker 1: second mother in her life, a second and a better one.
28:24
Speaker 1: But she had found much to battle with, and there
28:27
Speaker 1: was much in herself that Ann Veronica failed to understand.
28:30
Speaker 1: She came in now with an air of reserve solicitude.
28:36
Speaker 1: Mister Stanley pointed to the letter, where the pipe he
28:38
Speaker 1: had drawn from his jacket pocket. What do you think
28:41
Speaker 1: of that, he asked. She took it up in her
28:44
Speaker 1: many ringed hands and read it judicially. He filled his
28:48
Speaker 1: pipe slowly. Yes, she said, at last, it is firm
28:53
Speaker 1: and affectionate. I could have said more, you seem to
28:58
Speaker 1: have said just what had to be said. It seems
29:01
Speaker 1: to me exactly what is wanted. She really must not
29:04
Speaker 1: go to that affair, she paused, and he waited for
29:07
Speaker 1: her to speak. I don't think she quite sees the
29:11
Speaker 1: harm of those people or the sort of life to
29:13
Speaker 1: which they would draw her, She said. They would spoil
29:16
Speaker 1: her every chance she has chances, he said, helping her out.
29:22
Speaker 1: She is an extremely attractive girl, she said, and added
29:26
Speaker 1: to some people. Of course, one doesn't like to talk
29:29
Speaker 1: about things until there are things to talk about. All
29:33
Speaker 1: the more reason why she shouldn't get herself talked about.
29:36
Speaker 1: That is exactly what I feel. Mister Stanley took the
29:40
Speaker 1: letter and stood with it in his hand thoughtfully for
29:43
Speaker 1: a time. I'd give anything, he remarked, to see our
29:47
Speaker 1: little v happily and comfortably married. He gave the note
29:51
Speaker 1: to the parlor maid the next morning in an inadvertent
29:54
Speaker 1: casual manner, just as he was leaving the house to
29:57
Speaker 1: catch his London train. When at veronicad go, she had
30:00
Speaker 1: at first a wild fantastic idea that it contained a
30:04
Speaker 1: tip Part five ann Veronica's resolve to have things out
30:12
Speaker 1: where her father was not accomplished without difficulty. He was
30:16
Speaker 1: not due from the city until about six, and so
30:19
Speaker 1: she went and played badminton with the Widget girls until
30:21
Speaker 1: dinner time. The atmosphere at dinner was not propitious. Her
30:25
Speaker 1: aunt was blandly amiable above a certain tremulous undertow, and
30:29
Speaker 1: talked as if to a caller about the alarming spread
30:32
Speaker 1: of marigold that summer at the end of the garden,
30:35
Speaker 1: a sort of yellow peril to all the smaller, hardy annuals,
30:38
Speaker 1: while her father brought some papers to the table and
30:41
Speaker 1: presented himself as preoccupied with them. It really seems as
30:45
Speaker 1: if we shall have to put down marigolds altogether next year.
30:49
Speaker 1: Aunt Molly repeated three times, and drew away with Marguerite's
30:53
Speaker 1: They seed beyond all reason. Elizabeth, the parlor maid, kept
30:57
Speaker 1: coming in to hand vegetables whenever they seen a chance
31:00
Speaker 1: of Anne Veronica asking for an interview. Directly dinner was over,
31:05
Speaker 1: Mister Stanley, having pretended to linger to smoke, fled suddenly
31:09
Speaker 1: upstairs to petrography, and when Veronica tapped, he answered through
31:13
Speaker 1: the locked door, go away, vee, I'm busy, and made
31:16
Speaker 1: a lapidary's wheel buzzed loudly. Breakfast too was an impossible occasion.
31:23
Speaker 1: He read the Times with an unusually passionate intentness, and
31:27
Speaker 1: then declared suddenly for the earlier of the two trains,
31:29
Speaker 1: he used, I'll come to the station, said Anne. Veronica,
31:33
Speaker 1: I may as well come up by this train. I
31:36
Speaker 1: may have to run, said her father, with an appeal
31:39
Speaker 1: to his watch. I'll run too, she volunteered, instead of
31:43
Speaker 1: which they walked sharply. I say, daddy, she began, and
31:48
Speaker 1: was suddenly short of breath. If it's about that dance Proderick,
31:52
Speaker 1: he said, it's no good, Veronica. I've made up my mind.
31:55
Speaker 1: You'll make me look a fool before all my friends.
31:58
Speaker 1: You shouldn't have made an en engagement until you'd consulted
32:01
Speaker 1: your aunt. I thought I was old enough, She gasped
32:06
Speaker 1: between laughter and crying. Her father's step quickened to a trot.
32:10
Speaker 1: I won't have you quarreling and crying in the avenue,
32:13
Speaker 1: he said, stop it. If you've got anything to say,
32:16
Speaker 1: you must say it to your aunt. But look here, Daddy.
32:20
Speaker 1: He flapped the Times at her with an imperious gesture.
32:23
Speaker 1: It's settled. You're not to go. You're not to go,
32:27
Speaker 1: but it's about other things. I don't care. This isn't
32:31
Speaker 1: the place. They may come to the study to night
32:34
Speaker 1: after dinner. I'm busy. It's important if I can't talk
32:41
Speaker 1: anywhere else, I do want an understanding. Ahead of them
32:46
Speaker 1: walked a gentleman whom it was evident they must at
32:49
Speaker 1: their present pace very speedily overtake. It was Rammage, the
32:53
Speaker 1: occupant of the big house at the end of the avenue.
32:56
Speaker 1: He had recently made mister Stanley's acquaintance in the train
33:00
Speaker 1: and showed him one or two trifling civilities. He was
33:03
Speaker 1: an outside broker and the proprietor of a financial newspaper.
33:07
Speaker 1: He had come up very rapidly in the last few years,
33:10
Speaker 1: and mister Stanley admired and detested him in almost equal measure.
33:15
Speaker 1: It was intolerable to think that he might overhear words
33:18
Speaker 1: and phrases. Mister Stanley's pace slackened. You've no right to
33:23
Speaker 1: badger me like this, Veronica, he said. I can't see
33:26
Speaker 1: what possible benefit can come of discussing things that are settled.
33:30
Speaker 1: If you want advice, your aunt is the person. However,
33:32
Speaker 1: if you must air your opinions to night, then daddy.
33:37
Speaker 1: He made an angry but conceivably an assenting noise, and
33:41
Speaker 1: then Rammage glanced back and stopped, saluted elaborately, and waited
33:45
Speaker 1: for them to come up. He was a square faced
33:48
Speaker 1: man of nearly fifty, with iron gray hair, a mobile,
33:52
Speaker 1: clean shaven mouth, and rather protuberant black eyes that now
33:56
Speaker 1: scrutinized Anne Veronica. He dressed rather after the fact of
34:00
Speaker 1: the West End, then the city, and affected a cultured
34:03
Speaker 1: urbanity that somehow disconcerted and always annoyed Anne Veronica's father extremely.
34:10
Speaker 1: He did not play golf, but took his exercise on horseback,
34:13
Speaker 1: which was also unsympathetic. Stuffy, these trees make the avenue,
34:18
Speaker 1: said mister Stanley as they drew alongside. To account for
34:21
Speaker 1: his own ruffled and heated expression, they ought to have
34:25
Speaker 1: been locked in the spring. There's plenty of time, said Rammage.
34:29
Speaker 1: Is miss Stanley coming up with us? I go second,
34:32
Speaker 1: she said, and change at Wimbledon. We'll all go second,
34:36
Speaker 1: said Rammage, if we may. Mister Stanley wanted to object strongly,
34:42
Speaker 1: but as he could not immediately think how to put it,
34:45
Speaker 1: he contented himself with a grunt, and the motion was
34:47
Speaker 1: carried how's missus Rammage? He asked, Very much as usual,
34:52
Speaker 1: said Rammage. She finds lying up so much, very irksome,
34:56
Speaker 1: but you see, she has to lie up. The topic
35:00
Speaker 1: of his invalid wife bored him, and he turned at
35:03
Speaker 1: once to ant Veronica. And where are you going? He said?
35:07
Speaker 1: Are you going on again this winter with that scientific
35:09
Speaker 1: work of yours? It's an instance of heredity, I suppose.
35:14
Speaker 1: For a moment mister Stanley almost liked Rammage. You're a biologist,
35:18
Speaker 1: aren't you. He began to talk of his own impressions
35:22
Speaker 1: of biology as a commonplace magazine reader who had to
35:25
Speaker 1: get what he could from the monthly reviews, and was
35:28
Speaker 1: glad to meet with any information from nearer the fountain head.
35:32
Speaker 1: In a little while he and she were talking quite
35:35
Speaker 1: easily and agreeably. They went on talking in the train.
35:39
Speaker 1: It seemed to her father a slight want of deference
35:41
Speaker 1: to him, and he listened and pretended to read the Times.
35:45
Speaker 1: He was struck disagreeably by Rammage's air of gallant consideration
35:49
Speaker 1: and ann Veronica's self possessed answers. These things did not
35:53
Speaker 1: harmonize with his conception of the forthcoming, if unavoidable interview.
35:59
Speaker 1: After all. It came to him suddenly as a harsh
36:01
Speaker 1: discovery that she might be, in a sense regarded as
36:04
Speaker 1: a grown up. He was a man who, in all
36:07
Speaker 1: things classified without nurance. And for him, they were, in
36:11
Speaker 1: the matter of age, just two feminine classes, and no
36:14
Speaker 1: more girls and women. The distinction lay chiefly in the
36:18
Speaker 1: right to pat their heads. But here was a girl.
36:22
Speaker 1: She must be a girl, since she was his daughter.
36:24
Speaker 1: Impatible imitating the woman quite remarkably and cleverly, he resumed
36:29
Speaker 1: his listening. She was discussing one of those modern advanced
36:33
Speaker 1: plays with a remarkable with an extraordinary confidence. His love making,
36:39
Speaker 1: she remarked, struck me as unconvincing. He seemed too noisy.
36:45
Speaker 1: The full significance of her words did not instantly appear
36:48
Speaker 1: to him. Then it dawned, good, heavens, she was discussing
36:53
Speaker 1: love making. For a time, he heard no more, and
36:57
Speaker 1: stared with stony eyes at a book war proclamation in
37:00
Speaker 1: leaded type that filled half a column of the Times
37:03
Speaker 1: that day. Could she understand what she was talking about?
37:07
Speaker 1: Luckily it was a second class carriage, and the ordinary
37:10
Speaker 1: fellow travelers were not there. Everybody, he felt, must be
37:13
Speaker 1: listening behind their papers. Of course, girls repeat phrases and
37:18
Speaker 1: opinions of which they cannot possibly understand the meaning. But
37:21
Speaker 1: a middle aged man like Rammoge ought to know better
37:24
Speaker 1: than to draw out a girl, the daughter of a
37:26
Speaker 1: friend and neighbor. Well, after all, he seemed to be
37:30
Speaker 1: turning the subject. Broddock is a heavy man, he was saying,
37:34
Speaker 1: And the main interest of the play was the embezzlement.
37:37
Speaker 1: Thank heaven, mister Stanley allowed his paper to drop a
37:41
Speaker 1: little and scrutinized the hats and brows of their three
37:44
Speaker 1: fellow travelers. They reached Wimbledon and Rammage whipped out to
37:48
Speaker 1: hand miss Stanley to the platform as though she had
37:51
Speaker 1: been a duchess, And she descended as though such attentions
37:54
Speaker 1: from middle aged but still gallant merchants were a matter
37:57
Speaker 1: of course. Then, as Image readjusted himself in a corner,
38:01
Speaker 1: he remarked, these young people shoot up Stanley. It seems
38:05
Speaker 1: only yesterday that she was running down the avenue, all
38:08
Speaker 1: hair and legs. Mister Stanley regarded him through his glasses
38:13
Speaker 1: with something approaching animosity. Now she's all hat and ideas,
38:18
Speaker 1: he said, with an eye of humor. She seems an
38:22
Speaker 1: unusually clever girl, said Rammage. Mister Stanley regarded his neighbor's
38:27
Speaker 1: clean shaven face almost arily, I'm not sure whether we
38:31
Speaker 1: don't rather overdo all this higher education, he said, with
38:34
Speaker 1: an effect of conveying profound meanings. Part six. He became
38:43
Speaker 1: quite sure by a sort of accumulation of reflection. As
38:47
Speaker 1: the day wore on. He found his youngest daughter intrusive
38:50
Speaker 1: in his thoughts all through the morning, and still more
38:53
Speaker 1: so in the afternoon. He saw her young and graceful
38:57
Speaker 1: back as she descended from the carriage, severely ignored him
39:01
Speaker 1: and recalled a glimpse he heard of her face, bright
39:03
Speaker 1: and serene as his train ran out of Wimbledon. He
39:07
Speaker 1: recalled with exasperating perplexity, her clear, matter of fact tone
39:11
Speaker 1: as she talked about love making being unconvincing. He was
39:15
Speaker 1: really very proud of her, and extraordinarily angry and resentful
39:19
Speaker 1: at the innocent and audacious self reliance that seemed to
39:22
Speaker 1: intimate her sense of absolute independence of him, her absolute
39:26
Speaker 1: security without him. After all, she only looked a woman.
39:31
Speaker 1: She was rash and ignorant, absolutely inexperienced. Absolutely, He began
39:37
Speaker 1: to think of speeches very firm explicit speeches he would make.
39:42
Speaker 1: He lunched in the legal club in Chancery Lane and
39:44
Speaker 1: met Oldiviy. Daughters were in the air that day. Ogilvy
39:49
Speaker 1: was full of a client's troubles in that matter, a
39:52
Speaker 1: grave and even tragic trouble. He told some of the particulars.
39:56
Speaker 1: Curious case, said Oldilvy, buttering his bread, cutting it up
40:00
Speaker 1: in a way. He had curious case and sets one thinking,
40:05
Speaker 1: he resumed after a mouthful. Here is a girl of
40:08
Speaker 1: sixteen or seventeen, seventeen and a half to be exact,
40:12
Speaker 1: running about as one might say in London school girl.
40:16
Speaker 1: Her family are solid West End people, Kensington people. Father dead.
40:21
Speaker 1: She goes out and comes home afterward, goes on to
40:24
Speaker 1: Oxford twenty one twenty two. Why doesn't she marry plenty
40:28
Speaker 1: of money under her father's will? Charming girl, He consumed
40:33
Speaker 1: irish view for some moments. Married already, he said, with
40:37
Speaker 1: his mouthful. Shopman, good God, said mister Stanley, good looking rascal.
40:44
Speaker 1: She met at Worthing, very romantic and all that he
40:46
Speaker 1: fixed it, but he left her alone. Pure romantic nonsense
40:52
Speaker 1: on her part. Sheer calculation on his went up to
40:56
Speaker 1: Somerset House to examine the will before he did it. Yes,
40:59
Speaker 1: nice position. She doesn't care for him now, not a
41:04
Speaker 1: bit what a girl of sixteen cares for his hair
41:06
Speaker 1: and a high color and moonlight and a tenor voice.
41:10
Speaker 1: I suppose most of our daughters would marry organ grinders
41:12
Speaker 1: if they had a chance at that age. My son
41:15
Speaker 1: wanted to marry a woman of thirty in a tobacconist's shop.
41:19
Speaker 1: Only a son's another story. We fixed that. Well, that's
41:23
Speaker 1: the situation. My people don't know what to do. Can't
41:26
Speaker 1: face a scandal, can't ask the gent to go abroad
41:28
Speaker 1: and condone a bigamy. He mistated her age and address.
41:32
Speaker 1: But you can't get home on him for a thing
41:34
Speaker 1: like that. There you are girl's spot for life, mays
41:38
Speaker 1: one want to go back to the Oriental system. Mister
41:42
Speaker 1: Stanley poured wine. Damn rascal, he said, isn't there a
41:46
Speaker 1: brother to kick him? Mere satisfaction, reflected Olgerviy, Mere sensuality.
41:53
Speaker 1: I rather think they have kicked him from the tone
41:55
Speaker 1: of some of the letters. Nice of course, but it
41:57
Speaker 1: doesn't alter the situation. It's these rascals, said mister Stanley,
42:03
Speaker 1: and paused. Always has been said Oldroviy, our interest lies
42:09
Speaker 1: in heading them off. There was a time when girls
42:13
Speaker 1: didn't get these extravagant ideas Lydia Languish for example. Anyhow,
42:19
Speaker 1: they didn't run about so much. Yes, that's about the beginning.
42:23
Speaker 1: It's these damn novels, all this torrent of misleading, spurious
42:27
Speaker 1: stuff that paused from the press, these sham ideals at
42:30
Speaker 1: advanced notions, women who did, and all that kind of thing.
42:36
Speaker 1: Oldervie reflected, this girl, she's really a very charming, frank person,
42:43
Speaker 1: has had her imagination fired, so she told me, by
42:45
Speaker 1: a school performance of Romeo and Juliet. Mister Stanley decided
42:51
Speaker 1: to treat that as irrelevant. There ought to be a
42:54
Speaker 1: censorship of books. We want it badly at the present time.
42:58
Speaker 1: Even with the censorship of plays. It's hardly a decent
43:00
Speaker 1: thing to which a man can take his wife and daughters.
43:03
Speaker 1: A creeping taint of suggestion everywhere. What would it be
43:06
Speaker 1: without that safeguard? Oldivy pursued his own topic. I'm inclined
43:13
Speaker 1: to think Stanley myself, that, as a matter of fact,
43:16
Speaker 1: it was that expagated Romeo and Juliet did the mischief.
43:19
Speaker 1: If our young person hadn't had the nurse part cut out,
43:22
Speaker 1: he she might have known more and done less. I
43:26
Speaker 1: was curious about that. All they left it was the
43:28
Speaker 1: moon and stars and the balcony and my romeo. Shakespeare
43:34
Speaker 1: is altogether different from the modern stuff, all together different.
43:37
Speaker 1: I'm not discussing Shakespeare. I don't want to bolderize Shakespeare.
43:41
Speaker 1: I'm not that sort. I quite agree, but this modern miasma,
43:45
Speaker 1: mister Stanley took mustard savagely. Well, we won't go into Shakespeare,
43:50
Speaker 1: said Oldivy. What interests me is that our young women
43:53
Speaker 1: nowadays are running about as free as air, practically, with
43:57
Speaker 1: registry officers and all sorts of accommodation around the corps.
44:00
Speaker 1: Nothing to check their proceedings but a declining habit of
44:03
Speaker 1: telling the truth and the limitations of their imaginations. And
44:07
Speaker 1: in that respect they stir up one another. Not my affair,
44:11
Speaker 1: of course, but I think we ought to teach them
44:13
Speaker 1: more or restrain them more, one or the other. They're
44:16
Speaker 1: too free for their innocence, or too innocent for their freedom.
44:19
Speaker 1: That's my point. Are you going to have an apple
44:22
Speaker 1: tartch Stanley? The apple tarts me very good lately, very good.
44:29
Speaker 1: Part seven at the end of dinner that evening, and
44:33
Speaker 1: Veronica began father. Her father looked at her over his
44:38
Speaker 1: glasses and spoke with grave deliberation. If there is anything
44:42
Speaker 1: you want to say to me, he said, you must
44:45
Speaker 1: say it in the study. I am going to smoke
44:47
Speaker 1: a little here and then I shall go to the
44:49
Speaker 1: study and don't see what you can have to say.
44:52
Speaker 1: I should have thought my note cleared up everything. There
44:55
Speaker 1: are some papers I have to look through to night,
44:57
Speaker 1: important papers. I won't keep you very long, daddy, said
45:02
Speaker 1: Anne Veronica. I don't see Molly, he remarked, taking a
45:07
Speaker 1: cigar from the box on the table, as his sister
45:09
Speaker 1: and daughter rose, why you and Vee shouldn't discuss this
45:12
Speaker 1: little affair, whatever it is, without bothering me. It was
45:18
Speaker 1: the first time this controversy had become triangular, for all
45:22
Speaker 1: three of them were shy by habit. He stopped in
45:25
Speaker 1: mid sentence and Anne Veronica opened the door for her aunt.
45:29
Speaker 1: The air was thick with feelings. Her aunt went out
45:32
Speaker 1: of the room with dignity and a rustle, and upstairs
45:36
Speaker 1: to the fastness of her own room. She agreed entirely
45:39
Speaker 1: with her brother. It distressed and confused her that the
45:42
Speaker 1: girl should not come to her. It seemed to show
45:46
Speaker 1: a want of affection, to be a deliberate and unmerited
45:49
Speaker 1: disregard to justify the reprisal of being hurt. When Anne
45:54
Speaker 1: Veronica came into the study, she found every evidence of
45:57
Speaker 1: a carefully foreseen grouping about the gas fire. Both arm
46:01
Speaker 1: chairs had been moved a little so as to face
46:03
Speaker 1: each other on either side of the fender, and in
46:06
Speaker 1: the circular glow of the green shaded lamp there lay
46:09
Speaker 1: cospicuously waiting a thick bundle of blue and white papers
46:13
Speaker 1: tied with pink tape. Her father held some printed documents
46:17
Speaker 1: in his hand and appeared not to observe her entry.
46:22
Speaker 1: Sit down, he said, and perused, perused is the word
46:26
Speaker 1: for it? For some moments? Then who put the paper by?
46:31
Speaker 1: And what is it all about? Veronica? He asked, with
46:33
Speaker 1: a deliberate note of irony, looking at her a little
46:36
Speaker 1: quizzically over his glasses. And Veronica looked bright and a
46:40
Speaker 1: little elated as she disregarded her father's invitation to be seated.
46:45
Speaker 1: She stood on the mat instead and looked down on him.
46:49
Speaker 1: Look here, daddy, she said, in a tone of great reasonableness.
46:53
Speaker 1: I must go to that dance, you know. Her father's
46:57
Speaker 1: irony deepened. Why, he asked suavely. Her answer was not
47:03
Speaker 1: quite ready. Well, because I don't see any reason why
47:06
Speaker 1: I shouldn't. You see I do. Why shouldn't I go?
47:12
Speaker 1: It isn't a suitable place, It isn't a suitable gathering.
47:17
Speaker 1: But Daddy, what do you know of the place and
47:19
Speaker 1: the gathering? And it's entirely out of order. It isn't right,
47:24
Speaker 1: it isn't correct. It's impossible for you to stay in
47:27
Speaker 1: an hotel in London. The idea is preposterous. I can't
47:30
Speaker 1: imagine what possessed you, Veronica. He put his head on
47:34
Speaker 1: one side, pulled down the corners of his mouth, and
47:37
Speaker 1: looked at her over his glasses. But why is it preposterous?
47:41
Speaker 1: Asked Anne Veronica, and fiddled with a pipe on the mantel. Surely,
47:46
Speaker 1: he remarked, with an expression of worried appeal. You see, Daddy,
47:51
Speaker 1: I don't think it is preposterous. That's really what I
47:54
Speaker 1: want to discuss. It comes to this. Am I to
47:57
Speaker 1: be trusted to take care of myself? Or am I
48:00
Speaker 1: not to judge from this proposal of yours? I should
48:03
Speaker 1: say not. I think I am, as long as you
48:09
Speaker 1: remain under my roof, he began, and paused, you're going
48:14
Speaker 1: to treat me as though I wasn't well. I don't
48:16
Speaker 1: think that's fair your ideas of fairness, he remarked, and
48:22
Speaker 1: discontinued that sentence. My dear girl, he said, in a
48:26
Speaker 1: tone of patient reasonableness, you are a mere child. You
48:30
Speaker 1: know nothing of life, nothing of its dangers, nothing of
48:34
Speaker 1: its possibilities. You think everything is harmless and simple and
48:38
Speaker 1: so forth. It isn't. It isn't. That's where you go
48:42
Speaker 1: wrong in some things. In many things. You must trust
48:46
Speaker 1: to your elders, to those who know more of life
48:48
Speaker 1: than you do. Your aunt and I have discussed all
48:51
Speaker 1: this matter. There it is you can't go. The conversation
48:56
Speaker 1: hung for a moment, and Veronica tried to keep hold
48:59
Speaker 1: of a complicated situation and not lose ahead. She had
49:03
Speaker 1: turned round sideways so as to look down into the fire.
49:08
Speaker 1: You see, father, she said, it isn't only this affair
49:11
Speaker 1: of the dance. I want to go to that because
49:14
Speaker 1: it's a new experience, because I think it will be
49:16
Speaker 1: interesting and give me a view of things. You say,
49:19
Speaker 1: I know nothing. That's probably true. But how am I
49:23
Speaker 1: to know of things? Some things I hope you may
49:26
Speaker 1: never know, he said. I'm not so sure. I want
49:31
Speaker 1: to know just as much as I can. Toun, he said, fuming,
49:36
Speaker 1: and put out his hand to the papers in the
49:38
Speaker 1: pink tape. Well I do. It's just that I want
49:42
Speaker 1: to say. I want to be a human being. I
49:45
Speaker 1: want to learn about things and know about things, and
49:47
Speaker 1: not to be predicted as something too precious for life.
49:50
Speaker 1: Cooped up in one narrow little corner, cooped up, he cried.
49:55
Speaker 1: Did I stand in the way of your going to college?
49:58
Speaker 1: Have I ever prevented you going a at any reasonable hour?
50:01
Speaker 1: You've got a bicycle, hm, said Ann. Veronica then went on,
50:07
Speaker 1: I want to be taken seriously. A girl at my
50:10
Speaker 1: age is grown up. I want to go on with
50:12
Speaker 1: my university work under proper conditions. Now that I've done
50:16
Speaker 1: the intermediate. It isn't as though I haven't done well.
50:19
Speaker 1: I've never muffed and examined yet. Roddy muff too, my
50:23
Speaker 1: father interrupted. Now look here, Veronica, let us be playing
50:27
Speaker 1: with each other. You are not going to that infidel
50:30
Speaker 1: Russell's classes. You are not going anywhere but to the
50:33
Speaker 1: trench called college. I've thought that out, and you must
50:36
Speaker 1: make up your mind to it. All sorts of considerations
50:39
Speaker 1: come in while you live in my house. You must
50:42
Speaker 1: follow my ideas. You are wrong even about that man's
50:45
Speaker 1: scientific position and his standard of work. There are men
50:49
Speaker 1: in the lone Dean who laugh at him, simply laugh
50:51
Speaker 1: at him. And I have seen work by his pupils
50:54
Speaker 1: myself that struck me as being well next door to shameful.
50:59
Speaker 1: Their stories about his demonstrator cape something or other, the
51:03
Speaker 1: kind of man who isn't content with his science and
51:06
Speaker 1: writes articles in the monthly reviews. Anyhow, there it is,
51:10
Speaker 1: you are not going there. The girl received this intimation
51:16
Speaker 1: in silence, but the face that looked down upon the
51:18
Speaker 1: gas fire took an expression of obstinacy that brought out
51:22
Speaker 1: a hitherto latent resemblance between parent and child. When she spoke,
51:26
Speaker 1: her lips twitched. Then I suppose when I have graduated,
51:30
Speaker 1: I am to come home, it seems the natural cause,
51:34
Speaker 1: and do nothing. There are plenty of things a girl
51:38
Speaker 1: can find to do at home, until some one takes
51:41
Speaker 1: pity on me and marries me. He raised his eyebrows
51:45
Speaker 1: in mild appeal. His foot tapped impatiently, and he took
51:48
Speaker 1: up the papers. Look here, father, she said, with a
51:53
Speaker 1: change in her voice. Suppose I won't stand it, He
51:57
Speaker 1: regarded her, as though this was a new idea. Suppose,
52:02
Speaker 1: for example, I go to this dance, you won't well.
52:07
Speaker 1: Her breath failed her for a moment. How would you
52:11
Speaker 1: prevent it, she asked? But I have forbidden it, he said,
52:15
Speaker 1: raising his voice. Yes I know. But suppose I go now, Veronica, No, no,
52:22
Speaker 1: this won't do. Understand me. I forbid it, and do
52:26
Speaker 1: not want to hear from you, even the threat of disobedience.
52:29
Speaker 1: He spoke loudly. The thing is forbidden. I am ready
52:34
Speaker 1: to give up anything that you show to be wrong.
52:37
Speaker 1: You will give up anything I wish you to give up.
52:41
Speaker 1: They stared at each other through a pause, and both
52:43
Speaker 1: faces were flushed and obstinate. She was trying, by some
52:47
Speaker 1: wonderful secret and motionless gymnastics to restrain her tears. But
52:51
Speaker 1: when she spoke, her lips quivered and they came. I
52:55
Speaker 1: mean to go to that dance, she blubbered. I mean
52:58
Speaker 1: to go to that dance. I meant to read with you,
53:00
Speaker 1: but you won't. Reason you're dogmatic. At the sight of
53:05
Speaker 1: her tears, his expression changed to a mingling of triumph
53:08
Speaker 1: and concern. He stood up, apparently intending to put an
53:11
Speaker 1: arm about her, but she stepped back from him. Quickly.
53:15
Speaker 1: She produced a handkerchief, and with one sweep of this
53:18
Speaker 1: and a simultaneous gulp, had abolished her fit of weeping.
53:22
Speaker 1: His voice now had lost its ironies. Now, Veronica, he pleaded, Veronica,
53:28
Speaker 1: this is most unreasonable. All we do is for your good.
53:32
Speaker 1: Neither your aunt nor I have any other thought. But
53:35
Speaker 1: what is best for you? Only you won't let me live,
53:39
Speaker 1: Only you won't let me exist. Mister Stanley lost patience.
53:45
Speaker 1: He bullied frankly, what nonsense is this? What raving, my
53:49
Speaker 1: dear child? You do live, you do exist. You have
53:53
Speaker 1: this home, You have friends, acquaintances, social standing, brothers and sisters,
53:58
Speaker 1: every advantage, instead of which you want to go to
54:01
Speaker 1: some mixed classes or other and cut up rabbits and
54:04
Speaker 1: dance about at nights in wild costumes with casual art
54:07
Speaker 1: student friends, and God knows who that that isn't living.
54:11
Speaker 1: You are beside yourself. You don't know what you ask
54:14
Speaker 1: nor what you say. You have neither reason nor logic.
54:17
Speaker 1: I am sorry to seem to hurt you, but all
54:20
Speaker 1: I say is for your good, you must not You
54:23
Speaker 1: shall not go of this. I am resolved. I put
54:26
Speaker 1: my foot down like like adamant, And a time will
54:29
Speaker 1: come Roonoka, mark my words. A time will come when
54:32
Speaker 1: you will bless me for my firmness. To night. It
54:35
Speaker 1: goes to my heart to disappoint you, but this thing
54:38
Speaker 1: must not be. He settled toward her, but she recalled
54:42
Speaker 1: from him, leaving him in possession of the hearth rug. Well,
54:46
Speaker 1: she said good night father. What he asked not a kiss.
54:51
Speaker 1: She affected not to hear. The door closed softly upon her.
54:57
Speaker 1: For a long time, he remained standing before the fire
54:59
Speaker 1: stare at the situation. Then he sat down and filled
55:03
Speaker 1: his pipe slowly and thoughtfully. I don't see what else
55:07
Speaker 1: I could have said, he remarked. End of chapter one,