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Ann Veronica Chapter 5 - The flight to London · The H. G. Wells Library

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Speaker 1: Chapter five of Anne Veronica. This is a LibriVox recording.
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Speaker 1: All LibriVox recordings in the public domain. For more information
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Speaker 1: or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Recording by
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Speaker 1: Joy Chan Ann Veronica by H. G. Wells. Chapter the
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Speaker 1: fifth the Flight to London, Part one. Anne Veronica had
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Speaker 1: an impression that she did not sleep at all that night,
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Speaker 1: and at any rate she got through an immense amount
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Speaker 1: of feverish feeling and thinking what was she going to do?
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Speaker 1: One main idea possessed her. She must get away from home.
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Speaker 1: She must assert herself at once, or perish very well.
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Speaker 1: She would say. Then I must go to remain, she felt,
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Speaker 1: was to concede everything, and she would have to go
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Speaker 1: to morrow. It was clear it must be tomorrow. If
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Speaker 1: she delayed a day, she would delay two days. If
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Speaker 1: she delayed two days, she would delay a week, and
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Speaker 1: after a week things would be adjusted to submission. Forever.
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Speaker 1: I'll go, she vowed to the night, or I'll die.
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Speaker 1: She made plans and estimated means and resources. These and
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Speaker 1: her general preparations had perhaps a certain disproportion. She had
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Speaker 1: a gold watch, and very good gold watch that had
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Speaker 1: been her mother's, A pearl necklace that was also pretty good,
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Speaker 1: some unpretending rings, some silver bangles, and a few other
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Speaker 1: such inferior trinkets. Three pounds thirteen shillings unspent of her
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Speaker 1: dress and book allowance, and a few good saleable books.
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Speaker 1: So equipped, she proposed to set up a separate establishment
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Speaker 1: in the world and then she would find work. For
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Speaker 1: most of a long and fluctuating night, she was fairly
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Speaker 1: confident that she would find work. She knew herself to
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Speaker 1: be strong, intelligent, and capable by the standards of most
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Speaker 1: of the girls. She knew she was not quite clear
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Speaker 1: how she should find it, but she felt she would.
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Speaker 1: Then she would write and tell her father what she
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Speaker 1: had done and put their relationship on a new footing.
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Speaker 1: That was how she projected it, and in general terms,
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Speaker 1: it seemed plausible and possible. But in between these wider
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Speaker 1: phases of comparative confidence were gaps of disconcerting doubt when
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Speaker 1: the universe was presented as making sinister and threatening faces
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Speaker 1: at her, defying her to defy, preparing a humiliating and
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Speaker 1: shameful overthrow. I don't care, said Anne Veronica to the darkness.
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Speaker 1: I'll fight it. She tried to plan her proceedings in detail.
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Speaker 1: The only difficulties that presented themselves clearly to her were
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Speaker 1: the difficulties of getting away from Morningside Park, and not
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Speaker 1: the difficulties at the other end of the journey. These
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Speaker 1: were so outside her experience that she found it possible
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Speaker 1: to thrust them almost out of sight by saying they
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Speaker 1: would be all right in confident tones to herself. But
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Speaker 1: still she knew they were not right, and at times
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Speaker 1: there became a horrible obsession as of something waiting for
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Speaker 1: her round the corner. She tried to imagine herself getting something,
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Speaker 1: to project herself as sitting down at a desk and writing,
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Speaker 1: or as returning after her work to unpleasantly equipped and
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Speaker 1: free and independent flat. For a time she furnished the flat,
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Speaker 1: but even with that furniture, it remained extremely vague. The
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Speaker 1: possible good of the possible evil as well the possible evil.
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Speaker 1: I'll go, said Anne for Veronica, for the hundredth time.
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Speaker 1: I'll go. I don't care what happens. She awoke out
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Speaker 1: of a doze as though she had never been sleeping.
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Speaker 1: It was time to get up. She sat on the
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Speaker 1: edge of her bed and looked about her at her
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Speaker 1: room at the row of black covered books and the
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Speaker 1: pig's skull. I must take them, she said, to help
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Speaker 1: herself over her own incredulity. How shall I get my
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Speaker 1: luggage out of the house. The figure of her aunt,
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Speaker 1: a little distant, a little propitiatory, behind the coffee things,
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Speaker 1: filled her with a sense of almost catastrophic adventure. Perhaps
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Speaker 1: she might never come back to that breakfast room again. Never,
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Speaker 1: Perhaps some day, quite soon she might regret that breakfast room.
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Speaker 1: She helped herself to the remainder of the slightly congealed bacon,
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Speaker 1: and reverted to the problem of getting her luggage out
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Speaker 1: of the house. She decided to call in the help
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Speaker 1: of Teddy Widget or, failing him, of one of his sisters.
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Speaker 1: Part two. She found the younger generation of the Widgets
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Speaker 1: engaged in languid reminiscences, and all, as they expressed it,
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Speaker 1: a bit decayed. Everyone became tremendously animated when they heard
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Speaker 1: that Anne Veronica had failed them, because she had been,
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Speaker 1: as she expressed it, locked in my God, said Teddy,
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Speaker 1: more impressively than ever. But what are you going to do?
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Speaker 1: Asked Hetty? What can one do? Asked Anne Veronica? Would
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Speaker 1: you stand it. I'm going to clear out, clear out,
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Speaker 1: cried Hetty. Go to London, said Anne Veronica. She had
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Speaker 1: expected sympathetic admiration, but instead the whole Widget family except Teddy,
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Speaker 1: expressed a common dismay. But how can you, asked Constance.
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Speaker 1: Who will you stop with? I shall go on my own.
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Speaker 1: Take a room, I say, said Constance. But who's going
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Speaker 1: to pay for the room? I've got money, said Anne Veronica.
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Speaker 1: Anything is better than this, this stifled life down here.
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Speaker 1: And seeing that Hetty and Constance were obviously developing objections,
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Speaker 1: she plunged at once into a demand for help. I've
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Speaker 1: got nothing in the world to pack with except a
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Speaker 1: toy sized portmanteau. Can you lend me some stuff? You
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Speaker 1: are a chap, said Constance. Anne warmed only slowly from
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Speaker 1: the idea of dissuasion to the idea of help. But
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Speaker 1: they did what they could for her. They agreed to
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Speaker 1: lend her their hold all and a large formless bag,
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Speaker 1: which they called the communal trunk, and Teddy declared himself
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Speaker 1: ready to go to the ends of the earth for
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Speaker 1: her and carry her luggage all the way. Hetty, looking
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Speaker 1: out for the window she always smoked her after breakfast
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Speaker 1: cigarette at the window for the benefit of the less
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Speaker 1: advanced section of Morningside Park society, and trying not to
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Speaker 1: raise objections, saw Miss Stanley going down toward the shops.
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Speaker 1: If you must go on with it, said Hetty, now's
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Speaker 1: your time, and Anne Veronica at once went back with
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Speaker 1: the hold all, trying not to hurry indecently, but to
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Speaker 1: keep up her dignified air of being a wrong person
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Speaker 1: doing the right thing. At a smile trot to pack,
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Speaker 1: Teddy went round by the garden backs and dropped the
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Speaker 1: bag over the fence. All this was exciting and entertaining.
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Speaker 1: Her aunt returned before the packing was done, and Anne
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Speaker 1: Veronica ludged with an uneasy sense of bag and hold
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Speaker 1: all packed up stairs and inadequately hidden from chance and
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Speaker 1: Pruda's by the valance of the bed. She went down,
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Speaker 1: flushed and lighthearted, to the widgets after lunch to make
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Speaker 1: some final arrangements, and then, as soon as her aunt
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Speaker 1: had retired to lie down for her usual digestive hour,
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Speaker 1: took the risk of the servants having the enterprise to
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Speaker 1: report her proceedings, and carried her bag and hold all
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Speaker 1: to the garden gate. Whence Teddy in a state of
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Speaker 1: ecstatic service bore them to the railway station. Then she
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Speaker 1: went upstairs again, dressed herself carefully for town, put on
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Speaker 1: her most businesslike looking hat, and with a wave of
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Speaker 1: emotion she found it hard to control, walked down to
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Speaker 1: catch the three seventeen up train. Teddy handed her into
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Speaker 1: the second class compartment, her season ticket warranted, and declared
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Speaker 1: she was simply splendid. If you want anything, he said,
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Speaker 1: or get into any trouble wire me, I'd come back
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Speaker 1: from the ends of the earth. I'd do anything thee
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Speaker 1: It's horrible to think of you. You're an awful brick Teddy,
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Speaker 1: she said, who wouldn't bee for you? The train began
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Speaker 1: to move. You're splendid, said Teddy, with his hair wild
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Speaker 1: in the wind. Good luck, good luck. She waved for
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Speaker 1: the window until the bend hid him. She found herself
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Speaker 1: alone in the train, asking herself what she must do next,
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Speaker 1: and trying not to think of herself as cut off
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Speaker 1: from home or any refuge whatever from the world she
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Speaker 1: had resolved to face. She felt smaller and more adventurous
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Speaker 1: even than she had expected to feel. Let me see,
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Speaker 1: she said to herself, trying to control a slight sinking
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Speaker 1: of the heart. I'm going to take your room in
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Speaker 1: a lodging house because that is cheaper, But perhaps I
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Speaker 1: had better get a room in an hotel to night
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Speaker 1: and look round. It's found to be all right, she said,
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Speaker 1: But her heart kept on sinking. What hotel should she
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Speaker 1: go to? If she told a cabman to drive to
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Speaker 1: an hotel, any hotel, what would he do or say?
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Speaker 1: He might drive to something dreadfully expensive and not at
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Speaker 1: all the quiet sort of things she required. Finally she
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Speaker 1: decided that even for an hotel, she must look round,
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Speaker 1: and that meanwhile she would book her luggage at Waterloo.
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Speaker 1: She told the porter to take it to the booking office,
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Speaker 1: and it was only after a disconcerting moment or so
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Speaker 1: that she foulded. She ought to have directed him to
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Speaker 1: go to the cloak room, but that was soon put right.
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Speaker 1: As she walked out into London with a peculiar exultation
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Speaker 1: of mind, an exultation that partook of panic and defiance,
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Speaker 1: but was chiefly a sense of vast, unexampled release, she
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Speaker 1: inhaled a deep breath of air London Air. Part three.
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Speaker 1: She dismissed the first hotels she passed. She scarcely knew why,
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Speaker 1: mainly perhaps from the mere dread of entering them, and
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Speaker 1: crossed waterlely Bridge at a leisurely pace. It was high afternoon,
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Speaker 1: there was no great throng of foot passengers, and many
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Speaker 1: an eye from omnibus and pavement rested gratefully on her fresh,
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Speaker 1: trim presence as she passed, young and erect, with the
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Speaker 1: light of determination shining through the quiet self possession of
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Speaker 1: her face. She was dressed as English girls do dress
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Speaker 1: for town, without either coquetry or harshness. Her colorless blouse
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Speaker 1: confessed a pretty neck, her eyes were bright and steady,
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Speaker 1: and her dark hair waved loosely and graciously over her ears.
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Speaker 1: It seemed at first the most beautiful afternoon of all
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Speaker 1: time to her, and perhaps the thrill of her excitement
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Speaker 1: did add a distinctive and culminating keenness to the day.
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Speaker 1: The river, the big buildings on the north bank, Westminster
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Speaker 1: and Saint Paul's were rich and wonderful, with the soft
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Speaker 1: sunshine of London, the softest of finest grain, the most
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Speaker 1: penetrating and least emphatic sunshine in the world. The very
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Speaker 1: carts and vans and cabs that Wellingcoln Street poured out
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Speaker 1: incessantly upon the bridge seemed ripe and good in her eyes.
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Speaker 1: A traffic of copious barges slumbered over the face of
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Speaker 1: the river, barges either altogether stagnant or dreaming along in
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Speaker 1: the wake of fussy tugs, and above circled urbanely voracious
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Speaker 1: the London Sea gulls. She had never been there before
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Speaker 1: at that hour, in that light, and it seemed to
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Speaker 1: her as if she came to it all for the
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Speaker 1: first time. And this great mellow place, this London, now
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Speaker 1: was hers to struggle with, to go where she pleased
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Speaker 1: in to overcome and live in. I am glad, she
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Speaker 1: told herself. I came. She marked an hotel that seemed
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Speaker 1: neither opulent nor odd, in a little side street opening
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Speaker 1: on the embankment, made up her mind with an effort, and,
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Speaker 1: returning by Hungerford Bridge to Waterloo, took a cab to
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Speaker 1: this chosen refuge with her two pieces of luggage. There
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Speaker 1: was just a moment's hesitation before they gave her a room.
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Speaker 1: The young lady in the bureau said she would inquire
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Speaker 1: and Anne Veronica while she affected to read the appeal
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Speaker 1: on a hospital collecting box upon the bureau counter, had
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Speaker 1: a disagreeable sense of being surveyed from behind by a small,
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Speaker 1: whisked gentleman in a frock coat who came out of
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Speaker 1: the inner office and into the hall among a number
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Speaker 1: of equally observed green porters to look at her and
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Speaker 1: her bags. But the survey was satisfactory, as she found
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Speaker 1: herself presently a room Nomber forty seven, straightening her hat
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Speaker 1: and waiting for her luggage to appear. All right, so far,
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Speaker 1: she said to herself Part four. But presently, as she
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Speaker 1: sat on the one antimachusid red silk chair and surveyed
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Speaker 1: her hold aor and bag in that tidy, rather vacant
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Speaker 1: and dehumanized apartment, with its empty wardrobe and desert toilet table,
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Speaker 1: and pictureless walls and stereotyped furnishings, a sudden blankness came
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Speaker 1: upon her, as though she didn't matter and had been
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Speaker 1: thrust away into this impersonal corner. She and her gear.
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Speaker 1: She decided to go out into the London afternoon again
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Speaker 1: and get something to eat in an aerated bread shop
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Speaker 1: or some such place, and perhaps find a cheap room
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Speaker 1: for herself. Of course, that was what she had to do.
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Speaker 1: She had to find a cheap room for herself and work.
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Speaker 1: This room number forty seven was no more than a
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Speaker 1: sort of railway compartment. On the way to that, how
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Speaker 1: does one get work? She walked along the strands and
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Speaker 1: across Trafalgar Square and by the Hay Market to Piccadilly,
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Speaker 1: and so through dignified squares and palatial alleys to Oxford's,
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Speaker 1: and her mind was divided between a speculative treatment of
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Speaker 1: employment on the one hand, and breezes zephyr breezes of
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Speaker 1: the keenest appreciation for London on the other. The jolly
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Speaker 1: part of it was that, for the first time in
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Speaker 1: her life, so far as London was concerned, she was
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Speaker 1: not going anywhere in particular. For the first time in
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Speaker 1: her life, it seemed to her she was taking London in.
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Speaker 1: She tried to think how people get work. Ought she
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Speaker 1: to walk into some of these places and tell them
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Speaker 1: what she could do. She hesitated at the window of
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Speaker 1: her shipping office in Cockspur Street and at the Army
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Speaker 1: and Navy stores, but decided that perhaps there would be
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Speaker 1: some special and customary hour, and that it would be
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Speaker 1: better for her to find this out before she made
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Speaker 1: her attempt, and besides, she didn't just immediately want to
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Speaker 1: make her attempt. She fell into a pleasant dream of
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Speaker 1: positions and work. Behind every one of these myriad fronts
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Speaker 1: she passed, there must be a career or careers. Her
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Speaker 1: ideas of women's in oom and a modern woman's pose
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Speaker 1: in life were based largely on the figure of viv
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Speaker 1: Warren in Missus Warren's profession. She had seen Missus Warren's
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Speaker 1: profession furtively with Hetty Widget from the gallery of a
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Speaker 1: Stage Society performance one Monday afternoon. Most of it had
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Speaker 1: been incomprehensible to her, or comprehensible in a way that
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Speaker 1: checked further curiosity. But the figure of Vivian hard, capable,
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Speaker 1: successful and bullying and ordering about a veritable teddy in
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Speaker 1: the person of Frank Gardner appealed to her. She saw
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Speaker 1: herself in very much Vivi's position, managing something. Her thoughts
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Speaker 1: were deflected from viv Warren by the peculiar behavior of
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Speaker 1: a middle aged gentleman in Piccadilly. He appeared suddenly from
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Speaker 1: the infinite in the neighborhood of the Burlington Arcade, crossing
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Speaker 1: the pavement toward her and with his eyes upon her.
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Speaker 1: He seemed to her indistinguishably about her father's age. He
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Speaker 1: wore a silk hat a little tilted, and a morning
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Speaker 1: coat buttoned round a tight contained figure, and a white
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Speaker 1: slip gave a finish to his costume, and endorsed the
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Speaker 1: quiet distinction of his tie. His face was a little flushed, perhaps,
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Speaker 1: and his small brown eyes were bright. He stopped on
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Speaker 1: the curbstone, not facing her, but as if he was
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Speaker 1: on his way to cross the road, and spoke to
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Speaker 1: her suddenly over his shoulder. Whither away, he said, very distinctively,
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Speaker 1: in a curiously wheedling voice. Anne Veronica stared at his
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Speaker 1: foolish propitiatory smile, his hungry gaze through one moment of amazement,
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Speaker 1: then stepped aside and went on her way with a
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Speaker 1: quickened step. But her mind was ruffled, and its mirror
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Speaker 1: like surface of satisfaction was not easily restored. Queer, old gentleman,
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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: Anne Veronica could at the same time ask herself what
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Speaker 1: this queer old gentlemen could have meant by speaking to her,
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Speaker 1: and no, no, in general terms, at least what that
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Speaker 1: accosting signified about her. As she had gone day by
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Speaker 1: day to and from the Treach Gold College, she had
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Speaker 1: seen and not seen many an incidental aspect of those
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Speaker 1: sides of life about which girls are expected to know nothing,
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Speaker 1: aspects that were extraordinarily relevant to her own position and
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Speaker 1: outlook on the world, and yet by convention ineffably remote.
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Speaker 1: For all that she was of exceptional intellectual enterprise, she
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Speaker 1: had never yet considered these things with unaverted eyes. She
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Speaker 1: had viewed them askance, and without exchanging ideas with any
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Speaker 1: one else in the world about them. She went on
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Speaker 1: her way, now no longer dreaming and appreciative, but disturbed
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Speaker 1: and unwillingly observant. Behind her mask of serene contentment, that
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Speaker 1: delightful sense of free, unembarrassed movement was gone. As she
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Speaker 1: neared the bottom of the dip in Piccadilly, she saw
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Speaker 1: a woman approaching her from the opposite direction, a tall
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Speaker 1: woman who, at the first glance seemed altogether beautiful and fine.
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Speaker 1: She came along with the fluttering assurance of some tall ship,
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Speaker 1: then As she drew nearer, paint showed upon her face,
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Speaker 1: and a harsh purpose behind the quiet expression of her
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Speaker 1: open countenance, and a sort of unreality in her splendor
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Speaker 1: betrayed itself, for which Aunt Veronica could not recall the
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Speaker 1: right word, A word half understood that lurked, and hid
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Speaker 1: in her mind, the word meretricious. Behind this woman, and
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Speaker 1: a little to the side of her, walked a man,
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Speaker 1: smartly dressed, with desire and appraisal in his eyes. Something
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Speaker 1: insisted that these two were asteriously linked, that the woman
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Speaker 1: knew the man was there. It was the second reminder that,
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Speaker 1: against her claim to go free and untrammeled, there was
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Speaker 1: a case to be made that, after all, it was
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Speaker 1: true that a girl does not go alone in the
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Speaker 1: world unchallenged, nor ever has gone freely alone in the world.
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Speaker 1: That evil walks abroad, and dangers and petty in more
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Speaker 1: irritating than dangers lurk. It was in the quiet streets
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Speaker 1: and squares toward Oxford Street that at first came into
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Speaker 1: her head disagreeably that she herself was being followed. She
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Speaker 1: observed a man walking on the opposite side of the
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Speaker 1: way and looking toward her. Bother it all, she saw
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Speaker 1: bother and decided that this was not so, and would
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Speaker 1: not look to right or left again. Beyond the circus
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Speaker 1: and Veronica went into a British tea table company shop
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Speaker 1: to get some tea, And as she was yet waiting
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Speaker 1: for her tea to come, she saw this man again.
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Speaker 1: Either it was an unfortunate recovery of a trail, or
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Speaker 1: he had followed her from Mayfair. There was no mistaking
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Speaker 1: his intentions this time. He came down the shop looking
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Speaker 1: for her, quite obviously, and took up a position on
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Speaker 1: the other side against a mirror, in which he was
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Speaker 1: able to regard her steadfastly Beneath the serene unconcern of Anne.
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Speaker 1: Veronica's face was a boiling tumult. She was furiously angry.
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Speaker 1: She gazed with a quiet attachment toward the window and
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Speaker 1: the Oxford Street traffic, and in her heart she was
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Speaker 1: busy kicking this man to death. He had followed her?
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Speaker 1: What had he followed her? For he must have followed
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Speaker 1: her all the way from beyond Grosnoff Square. He was
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Speaker 1: a tall man and fair, with bluish eyes that were
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Speaker 1: rather protuberant, and long white hands of which he made
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Speaker 1: a display He had removed his silk hat and now
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Speaker 1: sat looking at Anne Veronica over an untouched cup of tea.
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Speaker 1: He sat gloating upon her, trying to catch her eye. Once,
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Speaker 1: when he thought he had done so, he smiled an
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Speaker 1: ingratiating smile. He moved after quiet intervals with a quick
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Speaker 1: little movement, and ever and again stroked his small mustache
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Speaker 1: and coughed a self conscious cough. That he should be
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Speaker 1: in the same world with me, said Anne Veronica, reduced
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Speaker 1: to reading the list of good things the British tea
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Speaker 1: table company had priced for its patrons. Heaven knows what
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Speaker 1: dim and tordry conceptions of passion and desire were in
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Speaker 1: that blond cranium, what romance begotten dreams of intrigue and adventure.
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Speaker 1: But they sufficed when presently Anne Veronica went out into
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Speaker 1: the darkling street again to inspire a flitting dogged pursuit, idiotic, exasperating, indecent.
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Speaker 1: She had no idea what she should do if she
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Speaker 1: spoke to a policeman. She did not know what would ensue.
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Speaker 1: Perhaps she would have to charge this man and appear
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Speaker 1: in a police court next day. She became angry with herself.
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Speaker 1: She would not be driven in by this persistent, sneaking aggression.
21:37
Speaker 1: She would ignore him. Surely she could ignore him. She
21:41
Speaker 1: stopped abruptly and looked in a flower shop window. He
21:44
Speaker 1: passed and came loitering back, and stood beside her, silently,
21:48
Speaker 1: looking to her face. The afternoon had passed now into twilight.
21:53
Speaker 1: The shops were lighting up into gigantic lanterns of color,
21:56
Speaker 1: the street lamps were glowing into existence, and she had
21:59
Speaker 1: lost her way. She had lost her sense of direction
22:02
Speaker 1: and was among unfamiliar streets. She went on from street
22:06
Speaker 1: to street, and all the glory of London had departed
22:09
Speaker 1: against the sinister, the threatening, monstrous inhumanity of the limitless city.
22:14
Speaker 1: There was nothing now but this supreme, ugly fact of
22:17
Speaker 1: a pursuit, the pursuit of the undesired persistent mail. For
22:23
Speaker 1: a second time, Anne Veronica wanted to swear at the universe.
22:27
Speaker 1: There were moments when she thought of turning upon this
22:30
Speaker 1: man and talking to him, But there was something in
22:32
Speaker 1: his face, at once stupid and invincible, that told her
22:35
Speaker 1: he would go on forcing himself upon her, that he
22:38
Speaker 1: would esteem speech with her. A great point gained in
22:42
Speaker 1: the twilight. He had ceased to be a person one
22:44
Speaker 1: could tackle and shame. He became something more general, as
22:48
Speaker 1: something that crawled and sneaked toward her and would not
22:51
Speaker 1: let her alone. Then, when the tension was getting unendurable
22:55
Speaker 1: and she was on the verge of speaking to some
22:57
Speaker 1: casual passer by and demanding help, her follower vanished. For
23:02
Speaker 1: a time she could scarcely believe he was gone. He
23:06
Speaker 1: had the night had swallowed him up, but his work
23:09
Speaker 1: on her was done. She had lost to nerve, and
23:11
Speaker 1: there was no more freedom in London for her. That night,
23:15
Speaker 1: she was glad to join in the stream of hurrying
23:17
Speaker 1: homeward workers that was now welling out of a thousand
23:20
Speaker 1: places of employment, and to imitate their driven, preoccupied haste.
23:25
Speaker 1: She had followed a bobbing white hat and gray jacket
23:27
Speaker 1: until she reached the Euston Road corner of Tottenham Court Road,
23:31
Speaker 1: and there by the name on a bus and the
23:33
Speaker 1: cries of a conductor. She made a guess of her way,
23:37
Speaker 1: and she did not merely affect to be driven. She
23:40
Speaker 1: felt driven. She was afraid people would follow her. She
23:43
Speaker 1: was afraid of the dark, open doorways she passed, and
23:46
Speaker 1: afraid of the blazers of light. She was afraid to
23:49
Speaker 1: be alone, and she knew not what it was she feared.
23:54
Speaker 1: It was past seven when she got back to her hotel.
23:57
Speaker 1: She thought then that she had shaken off the man
23:59
Speaker 1: of the Bowlding blue eyes forever. But that night she
24:02
Speaker 1: found he followed her into her dreams. He stalked her,
24:05
Speaker 1: He stared at her, he craved her. He sidled, slinking
24:09
Speaker 1: and propitiatory, and yet relentlessly toward her, And till at
24:13
Speaker 1: last she awoke from the suffocating nightmare nearness of his approach,
24:17
Speaker 1: and lay awake in fear and horror, listening to the
24:20
Speaker 1: unaccustomed sounds of the hotel. She came very near that
24:24
Speaker 1: night to resolving that she would return to her home
24:27
Speaker 1: next morning. But the morning brought courage again, and those
24:31
Speaker 1: first intimations of horror vanished completely from her mind. Part five.
24:39
Speaker 1: She had sent her father a telegram from the East
24:42
Speaker 1: Strand Post Office, worded thus all is well with me
24:45
Speaker 1: and quite safe Veronica. And afterwards she had dined a
24:49
Speaker 1: la carte upon a cutlet, and had then set herself
24:52
Speaker 1: to write an answer to mister Manning's proposal of marriage.
24:55
Speaker 1: But she had found it very difficult. Dear mister Manning.
24:59
Speaker 1: She had begun so far had been plain sailing, and
25:03
Speaker 1: it had seemed fairly evident to go on, I find
25:06
Speaker 1: it very difficult to answer your letter. But after that
25:11
Speaker 1: neither ideas nor phrases had come, and she had fallen.
25:14
Speaker 1: Thinking of the events of the day. She had decided
25:17
Speaker 1: that she would spend the next morning answering advertisements in
25:20
Speaker 1: the papers that abounded in the writing room, and so,
25:23
Speaker 1: after half an hour's perusal of back numbers of the
25:26
Speaker 1: sketch in the drawing room, she had gone to bed.
25:29
Speaker 1: She found next morning when she came to this advertisement answering,
25:33
Speaker 1: that it was more difficult than she had supposed. In
25:36
Speaker 1: the first place, there were not so many suitable advertisements
25:39
Speaker 1: as she had expected. She sat down by the paper rack,
25:43
Speaker 1: with a general feeling of resemblance to viv Warren, and
25:46
Speaker 1: looked through the Morning Post and Standard and Telegraph, and
25:49
Speaker 1: afterwards the half penny sheets. The Morning Post was hungry
25:53
Speaker 1: for governesses and nursery governesses, but held out no other hopes.
25:58
Speaker 1: The Daily Telegraph that morning seemed easy go only for
26:00
Speaker 1: skirt hands. She went to a writing desk and made
26:03
Speaker 1: some memoranda on a sheet of notepaper, and then remembered
26:07
Speaker 1: that she had no address as yet to which letters
26:09
Speaker 1: could be sent. She decided to leave this matter until
26:14
Speaker 1: the morrow and devote the morning to settling up with
26:16
Speaker 1: mister Manning. At the cost of quite a number of
26:19
Speaker 1: torn drafts, she succeeded in evolving this. Dear mister Manning,
26:25
Speaker 1: I find it very difficult to answer your letter. I
26:28
Speaker 1: hope you won't mind if I say first that I
26:31
Speaker 1: think it does me an extraordinary honor that you should
26:33
Speaker 1: think of any one like myself so highly and seriously,
26:37
Speaker 1: and secondly that I wish it had not been written.
26:42
Speaker 1: She surveyed this sentence for some time before going on.
26:45
Speaker 1: I wonder, she said, why one writes him sentences like that.
26:50
Speaker 1: I'll have to go, she decided, I've written too many already.
26:54
Speaker 1: She went on with a desperate attempt to be easy
26:57
Speaker 1: and colloquial. You see, we were rather good friends, I thought,
27:02
Speaker 1: and now perhaps it will be difficult for us to
27:04
Speaker 1: get back to the old friendly footing. But if that
27:07
Speaker 1: can possibly be done, I want it to be done.
27:10
Speaker 1: You see, the plain fact of the case is that
27:13
Speaker 1: I think I am too young and ignorant for marriage.
27:16
Speaker 1: I have been thinking these things over lately, and it
27:18
Speaker 1: seems to me that marriage for a girl is just
27:21
Speaker 1: the supremest thing in life. It isn't just one among
27:24
Speaker 1: a number of important things. For her, it is the
27:27
Speaker 1: important thing. And until she knows far more than I know,
27:30
Speaker 1: of the facts of life, how was she to undertake it?
27:34
Speaker 1: So please, if you will forget that you wrote that
27:37
Speaker 1: letter and forgive this answer, I want you to think
27:40
Speaker 1: of me just as if I was a man, and
27:42
Speaker 1: quite outside marriage altogether. I do hope you will be
27:46
Speaker 1: able to do this, because I value men friends. I
27:50
Speaker 1: shall be very sorry if I cannot have you for
27:52
Speaker 1: a friend. I think that there is no better friend
27:55
Speaker 1: for a girl than a man rather older than herself.
27:58
Speaker 1: Perhaps by this time you will have heard of the
28:00
Speaker 1: step I have taken in leaving my home. Very likely
28:03
Speaker 1: you will disapprove highly of what I have done. I
28:06
Speaker 1: wonder you may perhaps think I have done it just
28:10
Speaker 1: in a fit of childish petulance, because my father locked
28:13
Speaker 1: me in when I wanted to go to a ball
28:14
Speaker 1: of which he did not prove. But really tis much
28:17
Speaker 1: more than that. At Morningside Park, I feel as though
28:21
Speaker 1: all my growing up was presently to stop, as though
28:24
Speaker 1: I was being shut in from the light of life.
28:26
Speaker 1: And as they say in Botany, etiolated, I was just
28:31
Speaker 1: like a sort of dummy that does things as it
28:33
Speaker 1: is told, that is to say, as the strings are pulled.
28:37
Speaker 1: I want to be a person by myself, and to
28:39
Speaker 1: pull my own strings. I had rather have trouble and
28:42
Speaker 1: hardship like that than be taken care of by others.
28:45
Speaker 1: I want to be myself. I wonder if a man
28:48
Speaker 1: can quite understand that passionate feeling. It is quite a
28:52
Speaker 1: passionate feeling. So I am already no longer the girl
28:55
Speaker 1: you knew at Morningside Park. I am a young person
28:58
Speaker 1: seeking employment, freedom and self development. Just as in quite
29:03
Speaker 1: our first talk of all I said I wanted to be.
29:07
Speaker 1: I do hope you will see how things are and
29:09
Speaker 1: not be offended with me or frightfully shocked and distressed
29:12
Speaker 1: by what I have done. Very sincerely, yours and Veronica Stanley,
29:21
Speaker 1: Part six. In the afternoon, she resumed her search for apartments.
29:26
Speaker 1: The intoxicating sense of novelty had given place to a
29:30
Speaker 1: more businesslike mood. She drifted northward from the strand and
29:34
Speaker 1: came on some queer and dingy quarters. She had never
29:37
Speaker 1: imagined life was half so sinister as it looked to her.
29:41
Speaker 1: In the beginning of these investigations, she found herself again
29:45
Speaker 1: in the presence of some element in life about which
29:47
Speaker 1: she had been trained not to think, about, which she
29:50
Speaker 1: was perhaps instinctively indisposed to think, something which jarred, in
29:54
Speaker 1: spite of all her mental resistance, with all her preconceptions
29:57
Speaker 1: of a clean and courageous girl walking out from all
30:00
Speaker 1: Morningside Park as one walks out of a cell into
30:03
Speaker 1: a free and spacious world. One or two landladies refused
30:07
Speaker 1: her with an air of conscious virtue that she found
30:09
Speaker 1: hard to explain. We don't let to ladies, they said.
30:15
Speaker 1: She drifted via Theobald's Road obliquely toward the region about
30:19
Speaker 1: Fitchfield Street. Such apartments, as she saw, were either scandalously
30:23
Speaker 1: dirty or unaccountably dear, or both, and some were adorned
30:28
Speaker 1: with engravings that struck her as being more vulgar and
30:31
Speaker 1: undesirable than anything she had ever seen in her life.
30:35
Speaker 1: Anne Veronica loved beautiful things, and the beauty of undraped loveliness,
30:40
Speaker 1: not least among them. But these were pictures that did
30:43
Speaker 1: but insist coarsely upon the roundness of women's bodies. The
30:47
Speaker 1: windows of these rooms were obscured with draperies, their floors
30:51
Speaker 1: a carpet patchwork. The China ornaments on their mantles were
30:54
Speaker 1: of a class apart. After the first onset, several of
30:58
Speaker 1: the women who had apartments to let said she would
31:01
Speaker 1: not do for them, and in effect dismissed her. This
31:05
Speaker 1: also struck her as odd about many of these houses
31:09
Speaker 1: hung a mysterious tint, as of something weakly and commonly
31:13
Speaker 1: and dustily evil. The women who negotiated the rooms looked
31:17
Speaker 1: out through a friendly manner, as though it was a
31:19
Speaker 1: mask with hard, defiant eyes. Then one old crone, short
31:24
Speaker 1: sighted and shaky handed, called anne veronicadiri, and made some
31:28
Speaker 1: remark obscure and slangy, of which the spirit, rather than
31:33
Speaker 1: the words, penetrated to her understanding. For a time she
31:37
Speaker 1: looked at no more apartments, and walked through gaunt and
31:40
Speaker 1: ill clean streets, through the sordid underside of life, perplexed
31:44
Speaker 1: and troubled, ashamed of her previous obtuseness, she had something
31:49
Speaker 1: of the feeling a Hindu must experience who has been
31:52
Speaker 1: into surroundings or touched something that offends his caste. She
31:56
Speaker 1: passed people in the streets and regarded them with a
31:58
Speaker 1: quickening apprehension. Once or twice came girls dressed in slatternly finery,
32:03
Speaker 1: going toward Reachment Street. From out these places, it did
32:07
Speaker 1: not occur to her that they at least had found
32:09
Speaker 1: a way of earning a living, and had that much
32:12
Speaker 1: economic superiority to herself. It did not occur to her that,
32:16
Speaker 1: save for some accidents of education and character, they had
32:19
Speaker 1: souls like her own. For a time, Ann Veronica went
32:24
Speaker 1: on her way, gaging the quality of sordid streets. At last,
32:28
Speaker 1: a little way to the northward of Euston Road, the
32:30
Speaker 1: moral cloud seemed to lift the moral atmosphere to change.
32:34
Speaker 1: Clean blinds appeared in the windows, clean door steps before
32:38
Speaker 1: the doors. A different appeal in the neatly placed cards
32:41
Speaker 1: bearing the word apartments in the clear, bright windows. At last,
32:47
Speaker 1: in a street near the Hampstead Road, she hit upon
32:50
Speaker 1: a room that had an exceptional quality of space and order,
32:53
Speaker 1: and a tall woman with a kindly face. To show it,
32:57
Speaker 1: Your student, perhaps, said the tall woman at the trench
33:02
Speaker 1: Gold Women's College, said Anne Veronica. She felt it would
33:06
Speaker 1: save explanations if she did not state she had left
33:08
Speaker 1: her home and was looking for employment. The room was
33:11
Speaker 1: papered with green, large patented paper that was at worse
33:15
Speaker 1: a trifle dingy, and the arm chair and the seats
33:18
Speaker 1: of the other chairs were covered with the unusual brightness
33:20
Speaker 1: of a large patterned chintz, which also supplied the window curtain.
33:25
Speaker 1: There was a round table covered not with the usual
33:28
Speaker 1: tapestry cover, but with a plain green cloth that went
33:31
Speaker 1: passably with the wall paper. In the recess beside the
33:34
Speaker 1: fireplace was some open bookshelves. The carpet was a quiet
33:38
Speaker 1: drugget and not excessively worn, and the bed in the
33:41
Speaker 1: corner was covered by a white quilt. There were neither
33:44
Speaker 1: text nor rubbish on the walls, but only a stirring
33:47
Speaker 1: version of Belchazzar's Feast as steal engraving the early Victorian
33:51
Speaker 1: manner that had some satisfactory blacks. And the woman who
33:55
Speaker 1: showed this room was tall, with an understanding eye and
33:58
Speaker 1: the quiet manner of the well tree and servant. Anne
34:02
Speaker 1: Veronica brought her luggage in a cab from the hotel.
34:05
Speaker 1: She tipped the hotel porter sixpence and overpaid the cabman eighteenpence,
34:10
Speaker 1: unpacked some of her books and possessions, and so made
34:13
Speaker 1: the room a little home like, and then sat down
34:16
Speaker 1: in a by no means uncomfortable arm chair before the fire.
34:20
Speaker 1: She had arranged for a supper of tea, a boiled egg,
34:23
Speaker 1: and some tinned peaches. She had discussed the general question
34:26
Speaker 1: of supplies with the helpful landlady, and now said Anne Veronica,
34:31
Speaker 1: surveying her apartment with an unprecedented sense of proprietorship, what
34:36
Speaker 1: is the next step? She spent the evening in writing.
34:41
Speaker 1: It was a little difficult to her father, and which
34:44
Speaker 1: was easier to the widgets. She was greatly heartened by
34:47
Speaker 1: doing this. The necessity of defending herself and assuming a
34:51
Speaker 1: confident and secure tone did much to dispel the sense
34:54
Speaker 1: of being exposed and indefensible in the huge, dingy world
34:58
Speaker 1: that abounded. In sinister possible, She addressed her letters, meditated
35:03
Speaker 1: on them for a time, and then took them out
35:06
Speaker 1: and posted them. Afterwards, she wanted to get her letter
35:09
Speaker 1: to her father back in order to read it over again,
35:12
Speaker 1: and if it tallied with a general impression of it,
35:15
Speaker 1: rewrite it. He would know her address to morrow. She
35:20
Speaker 1: reflected upon that with a thrill of terror that was
35:22
Speaker 1: also somehow, in some faint remote way, gleeful. Dear old Daddy,
35:28
Speaker 1: she said, he'll make a fearful fuss. Well, it had
35:32
Speaker 1: to happen somewhere, somehow. I wonder what he'll say. End
35:39
Speaker 1: of Chapter five