H. Wells - Ann Veronica

would not obey him in this course she should "never darken his

doors again," and was, indeed, frightfully abusive. This threat

terrified Ann Veronica so much that she declared with sobs and

vehemence that she would never come home again, and for a time

both talked at once and very wildly. He asked her whether she

understood what she was saying, and went on to say still more

precisely that she should never touch a penny of his money until

she came home again--not one penny. Ann Veronica said she didn't

care.

Then abruptly Mr. Stanley changed his key. "You poor child!" he

said; "don't you see the infinite folly of these proceedings?

Think! Think of the love and affection you abandon! Think of

your aunt, a second mother to you. Think if your own mother was

alive!"

He paused, deeply moved.

"If my own mother was alive," sobbed Ann Veronica, "she would

understand."

The talk became more and more inconclusive and exhausting. Ann

Veronica found herself incompetent, undignified, and detestable,

holding on desperately to a hardening antagonism to her father,

quarrelling with him, wrangling with him, thinking of

repartees--almost as if he was a brother. It was horrible, but

what could she do? She meant to live her own life, and he meant,

with contempt and insults, to prevent her. Anything else that

was said she now regarded only as an aspect of or diversion from

that.

In the retrospect she was amazed to think how things had gone to

pieces, for at the outset she had been quite prepared to go home

again upon terms. While waiting for his coming she had stated

her present and future relations with him with what had seemed to

her the most satisfactory lucidity and completeness. She had

looked forward to an explanation. Instead had come this storm,

this shouting, this weeping, this confusion of threats and

irrelevant appeals. It was not only that her father had said all

sorts of inconsistent and unreasonable things, but that by some

incomprehensible infection she herself had replied in the same

vein. He had assumed that her leaving home was the point at

issue, that everything turned on that, and that the sole

alternative was obedience, and she had fallen in with that

assumption until rebellion seemed a sacred principle. Moreover,

atrociously and inexorably, he allowed it to appear ever and

again in horrible gleams that he suspected there was some man in

the case. . . . Some man!

And to conclude it all was the figure of her father in the

doorway, giving her a last chance, his hat in one hand, his

umbrella in the other, shaken at her to emphasize his point.

"You understand, then," he was saying, "you understand?"

"I understand," said Ann Veronica, tear-wet and flushed with a

reciprocal passion, but standing up to him with an equality that

amazed even herself, "I understand." She controlled a sob. "Not

a penny--not one penny--and never darken your doors again!"

Part 4

The next day her aunt came again and expostulated, and was just

saying it was "an unheard-of thing" for a girl to leave her home

as Ann Veronica had done, when her father arrived, and was shown

in by the pleasant-faced landlady.

Her father had determined on a new line. He put down his hat and

umbrella, rested his hands on his hips, and regarded Ann Veronica

firmly.

"Now," he said, quietly, "it's time we stopped this nonsense."

Ann Veronica was about to reply, when he went on, with a still

more deadly quiet: "I am not here to bandy words with you. Let

us have no more of this humbug. You are to come home."

"I thought I explained--"

"I don't think you can have heard me," said her father; "I have

told you to come home."

"I thought I explained--"

"Come home!"

Ann Veronica shrugged her shoulders.

"Very well," said her father.

"I think this ends the business," he said, turning to his sister.

"It's not for us to supplicate any more. She must learn

wisdom--as God pleases."

"But, my dear Peter!" said Miss Stanley.

"No," said her brother, conclusively, "it's not for a parent to

go on persuading a child."

Miss Stanley rose and regarded Ann Veronica fixedly. The girl

stood with her hands behind her back, sulky, resolute, and

intelligent, a strand of her black hair over one eye and looking

more than usually delicate-featured, and more than ever like an

obdurate child.

"She doesn't know."

"She does."

"I can't imagine what makes you fly out against everything like

this," said Miss Stanley to her niece.

"What is the good of talking?" said her brother. "She must go her

own way. A man's children nowadays are not his own. That's the

fact of the matter. Their minds are turned against him. . . .

Rubbishy novels and pernicious rascals. We can't even protect

them from themselves."

An immense gulf seemed to open between father and daughter as he

said these words.

"I don't see," gasped Ann Veronica, "why parents and children . .

. shouldn't be friends."

"Friends!" said her father. "When we see you going through

disobedience to the devil! Come, Molly, she must go her own way.

I've tried to use my authority. And she defies me. What more is

there to be said? She defies me!"

It was extraordinary. Ann Veronica felt suddenly an effect of

tremendous pathos; she would have given anything to have been

able to frame and make some appeal, some utterance that should

bridge this bottomless chasm that had opened between her and her

father, and she could find nothing whatever to say that was in

the least sincere and appealing.

"Father," she cried, "I have to live!"

He misunderstood her. "That," he said, grimly, with his hand on

the door-handle, "must be your own affair, unless you choose to

live at Morningside Park."

Miss Stanley turned to her. "Vee," she said, "come home. Before

it is too late."

"Come, Molly," said Mr. Stanley, at the door.

"Vee!" said Miss Stanley, "you hear what your father says!"

Miss Stanley struggled with emotion. She made a curious movement

toward her niece, then suddenly, convulsively, she dabbed down

something lumpy on the table and turned to follow her brother.

Ann Veronica stared for a moment in amazement at this dark-green

object that clashed as it was put down. It was a purse. She made

a step forward. "Aunt!" she said, "I can't--"

Then she caught a wild appeal in her aunt's blue eye, halted, and

the door clicked upon them.

There was a pause, and then the front door slammed. . . .

Ann Veronica realized that she was alone with the world. And

this time the departure had a tremendous effect of finality. She

had to resist an impulse of sheer terror, to run out after them

and give in.

"Gods," she said, at last, "I've done it this time!"

"Well!" She took up the neat morocco purse, opened it, and

examined the contents.

It contained three sovereigns, six and fourpence, two postage

stamps, a small key, and her aunt's return half ticket to

Morningside Park.

Part 5

After the interview Ann Veronica considered herself formally cut

off from home. If nothing else had clinched that, the purse had.

Nevertheless there came a residuum of expostulations. Her

brother Roddy, who was in the motor line, came to expostulate;

her sister Alice wrote. And Mr. Manning called.

Her sister Alice seemed to have developed a religious sense away