H. Wells - Ann Veronica

there in Yorkshire, and made appeals that had no meaning for Ann

Veronica's mind. She exhorted Ann Veronica not to become one of

"those unsexed intellectuals, neither man nor woman."

Ann Veronica meditated over that phrase. "That's HIM," said Ann

Veronica, in sound, idiomatic English. "Poor old Alice!"

Her brother Roddy came to her and demanded tea, and asked her to

state a case. "Bit thick on the old man, isn't it?" said Roddy,

who had developed a bluff, straightforward style in the motor

shop.

"Mind my smoking?" said Roddy. "I don't see quite what your game

is, Vee, but I suppose you've got a game on somewhere.

"Rummy lot we are!" said Roddy. "Alice--Alice gone dotty, and

all over kids. Gwen--I saw Gwen the other day, and the paint's

thicker than ever. Jim is up to the neck in Mahatmas and

Theosophy and Higher Thought and rot--writes letters worse than

Alice. And now YOU'RE on the war-path. I believe I'm the only

sane member of the family left. The G.V.'s as mad as any of you,

in spite of all his respectability; not a bit of him straight

anywhere, not one bit."

"Straight?"

"Not a bit of it! He's been out after eight per cent. since the

beginning. Eight per cent.! He'll come a cropper one of these

days, if you ask me. He's been near it once or twice already.

That's got his nerves to rags. I suppose we're all human beings

really, but what price the sacred Institution of the Family! Us

as a bundle! Eh? . . . I don't half disagree with you, Vee,

really; only thing is, I don't see how you're going to pull it

off. A home MAY be a sort of cage, but still--it's a home.

Gives you a right to hang on to the old man until he

busts--practically. Jolly hard life for a girl, getting a

living. Not MY affair."

He asked questions and listened to her views for a time.

"I'd chuck this lark right off if I were you, Vee," he said.

"I'm five years older than you, and no end wiser, being a man.

What you're after is too risky. It's a damned hard thing to do.

It's all very handsome starting out on your own, but it's too

damned hard. That's my opinion, if you ask me. There's nothing a

girl can do that isn't sweated to the bone. You square the G.V.,

and go home before you have to. That's my advice. If you don't

eat humble-pie now you may live to fare worse later. _I_ can't

help you a cent. Life's hard enough nowadays for an unprotected

male. Let alone a girl. You got to take the world as it is, and

the only possible trade for a girl that isn't sweated is to get

hold of a man and make him do it for her. It's no good flying

out at that, Vee; _I_ didn't arrange it. It's Providence.

That's how things are; that's the order of the world. Like

appendicitis. It isn't pretty, but we're made so. Rot, no

doubt; but we can't alter it. You go home and live on the G.V.,

and get some other man to live on as soon as possible. It isn't

sentiment but it's horse sense. All this Woman-who-Diddery--no

damn good. After all, old P.--Providence, I mean--HAS arranged

it so that men will keep you, more or less. He made the universe

on those lines. You've got to take what you can get."

That was the quintessence of her brother Roddy.

He played variations on this theme for the better part of an

hour.

"You go home," he said, at parting; "you go home. It's all very

fine and all that, Vee, this freedom, but it isn't going to work.

The world isn't ready for girls to start out on their own yet;

that's the plain fact of the case. Babies and females have got

to keep hold of somebody or go under--anyhow, for the next few

generations. You go home and wait a century, Vee, and then try

again. Then you may have a bit of a chance. Now you haven't the

ghost of one--not if you play the game fair."

Part 6

It was remarkable to Ann Veronica how completely Mr. Manning, in

his entirely different dialect, indorsed her brother Roddy's view

of things. He came along, he said, just to call, with large,

loud apologies, radiantly kind and good. Miss Stanley, it was

manifest, had given him Ann Veronica's address. The kindly faced

landlady had failed to catch his name, and said he was a tall,

handsome gentleman with a great black mustache. Ann Veronica,

with a sigh at the cost of hospitality, made a hasty negotiation

for an extra tea and for a fire in the ground-floor apartment,

and preened herself carefully for the interview. In the little

apartment, under the gas chandelier, his inches and his stoop

were certainly very effective. In the bad light he looked at

once military and sentimental and studious, like one of Ouida's

guardsmen revised by Mr. Haldane and the London School of

Economics and finished in the Keltic school.

"It's unforgivable of me to call, Miss Stanley," he said, shaking

hands in a peculiar, high, fashionable manner; "but you know you

said we might be friends."

"It's dreadful for you to be here," he said, indicating the

yellow presence of the first fog of the year without, "but your

aunt told me something of what had happened. It's just like your

Splendid Pride to do it. Quite!"

He sat in the arm-chair and took tea, and consumed several of the

extra cakes which she had sent out for and talked to her and

expressed himself, looking very earnestly at her with his

deep-set eyes, and carefully avoiding any crumbs on his mustache

the while. Ann Veronica sat firelit by her tea-tray with, quite

unconsciously, the air of an expert hostess.

"But how is it all going to end?" said Mr. Manning.

"Your father, of course," he said, "must come to realize just how

Splendid you are! He doesn't understand. I've seen him, and he

doesn't a bit understand. _I_ didn't understand before that

letter. It makes me want to be just everything I CAN be to you.

You're like some splendid Princess in Exile in these Dreadful

Dingy apartments!"

"I'm afraid I'm anything but a Princess when it comes to earning

a salary," said Ann Veronica. "But frankly, I mean to fight this

through if I possibly can."

"My God!" said Manning, in a stage-aside. "Earning a salary!"

"You're like a Princess in Exile!" he repeated, overruling her.

"You come into these sordid surroundings--you mustn't mind my

calling them sordid--and it makes them seem as though they didn't

matter. . . . I don't think they do matter. I don't think any

surroundings could throw a shadow on you."

Ann Veronica felt a slight embarrassment. "Won't you have some

more tea, Mr. Manning?" she asked.

"You know--," said Mr. Manning, relinquishing his cup without

answering her question, "when I hear you talk of earning a

living, it's as if I heard of an archangel going on the Stock

Exchange--or Christ selling doves. . . . Forgive my daring. I

couldn't help the thought."

"It's a very good image," said Ann Veronica.

"I knew you wouldn't mind."

"But does it correspond with the facts of the case? You know, Mr.

Manning, all this sort of thing is very well as sentiment, but

does it correspond with the realities? Are women truly such

angelic things and men so chivalrous? You men have, I know,

meant to make us Queens and Goddesses, but in practice--well,

look, for example, at the stream of girls one meets going to work

of a morning, round-shouldered, cheap, and underfed! They aren't

queens, and no one is treating them as queens. And look, again,

at the women one finds letting lodgings. . . . I was looking for