Ann Veronica: A Modern Love Story

by H. G. Wells

  It seemed at first the most beautiful afternoon of all time to her,and perhaps the thrill of her excitement did add a distinctive andculminating keenness to the day. The river, the big buildings on thenorth bank, Westminster, and St. Paul's, were rich and wonderful withthe soft sunshine of London, the softest, the finest grained, the mostpenetrating and least emphatic sunshine in the world. The very cartsand vans and cabs that Wellington Street poured out incessantly uponthe bridge seemed ripe and good in her eyes. A traffic of copious bargesslumbered over the face of the river-barges either altogether stagnantor dreaming along in the wake of fussy tugs; and above circled, urbanelyvoracious, the London seagulls. She had never been there before at thathour, in that light, and it seemed to her as if she came to it all forthe first time. And this great mellow place, this London, now was hers,to struggle with, to go where she pleased in, to overcome and live in."I am glad," she told herself, "I came."

  She marked an hotel that seemed neither opulent nor odd in a little sidestreet opening on the Embankment, made up her mind with an effort, and,returning by Hungerford Bridge to Waterloo, took a cab to this chosenrefuge with her two pieces of luggage. There was just a minute'shesitation before they gave her a room.

  The young lady in the bureau said she would inquire, and Ann Veronica,while she affected to read the appeal on a hospital collecting-box uponthe bureau counter, had a disagreeable sense of being surveyed frombehind by a small, whiskered gentleman in a frock-coat, who came out ofthe inner office and into the hall among a number of equally observantgreen porters to look at her and her bags. But the survey wassatisfactory, and she found herself presently in Room No. 47,straightening her hat and waiting for her luggage to appear.

  "All right so far," she said to herself....

  Part 4

  But presently, as she sat on the one antimacassared red silk chairand surveyed her hold-all and bag in that tidy, rather vacant, anddehumanized apartment, with its empty wardrobe and desert toilet-tableand pictureless walls and stereotyped furnishings, a sudden blanknesscame upon her as though she didn't matter, and had been thrust away intothis impersonal corner, she and her gear....

  She decided to go out into the London afternoon again and get somethingto eat in an Aerated Bread shop or some such place, and perhaps find acheap room for herself. Of course that was what she had to do; she hadto find a cheap room for herself and work!

  This Room No. 47 was no more than a sort of railway compartment on theway to that.

  How does one get work?

  She walked along the Strand and across Trafalgar Square, and by theHaymarket to Piccadilly, and so through dignified squares and palatialalleys to Oxford Street; and her mind was divided between a speculativetreatment of employment on the one hand, and breezes--zephyr breezes--ofthe keenest appreciation for London, on the other. The jolly part of itwas that for the first time in her life so far as London was concerned,she was not going anywhere in particular; for the first time in her lifeit seemed to her she was taking London in.

  She tried to think how people get work. Ought she to walk into someof these places and tell them what she could do? She hesitated at thewindow of a shipping-office in Cockspur Street and at the Army andNavy Stores, but decided that perhaps there would be some special andcustomary hour, and that it would be better for her to find this outbefore she made her attempt. And, besides, she didn't just immediatelywant to make her attempt.

  She fell into a pleasant dream of positions and work. Behind every oneof these myriad fronts she passed there must be a career or careers. Herideas of women's employment and a modern woman's pose in life were basedlargely on the figure of Vivie Warren in Mrs. Warren's Profession. Shehad seen Mrs. Warren's Profession furtively with Hetty Widgett from thegallery of a Stage Society performance one Monday afternoon. Most ofit had been incomprehensible to her, or comprehensible in a way thatchecked further curiosity, but the figure of Vivien, hard, capable,successful, and bullying, and ordering about a veritable Teddy in theperson of Frank Gardner, appealed to her. She saw herself in very muchVivie's position--managing something.

  Her thoughts were deflected from Vivie Warren by the peculiar behaviorof a middle-aged gentleman in Piccadilly. He appeared suddenly fromthe infinite in the neighborhood of the Burlington Arcade, crossingthe pavement toward her and with his eyes upon her. He seemed to herindistinguishably about her father's age. He wore a silk hat a littletilted, and a morning coat buttoned round a tight, contained figure;and a white slip gave a finish to his costume and endorsed the quietdistinction of his tie. His face was a little flushed perhaps, and hissmall, brown eyes were bright. He stopped on the curb-stone, not facingher but as if he was on his way to cross the road, and spoke to hersuddenly over his shoulder.

  "Whither away?" he said, very distinctly in a curiously wheedling voice.Ann Veronica stared at his foolish, propitiatory smile, his hungry gaze,through one moment of amazement, then stepped aside and went on her waywith a quickened step. But her mind was ruffled, and its mirror-likesurface of satisfaction was not easily restored.

  Queer old gentleman!

  The art of ignoring is one of the accomplishments of every well-bredgirl, so carefully instilled that at last she can even ignore her ownthoughts and her own knowledge. Ann Veronica could at the same time askherself what this queer old gentleman could have meant by speaking toher, and know--know in general terms, at least--what that accostingsignified. About her, as she had gone day by day to and from theTredgold College, she had seen and not seen many an incidental aspectof those sides of life about which girls are expected to know nothing,aspects that were extraordinarily relevant to her own position andoutlook on the world, and yet by convention ineffably remote. For allthat she was of exceptional intellectual enterprise, she had neveryet considered these things with unaverted eyes. She had viewed themaskance, and without exchanging ideas with any one else in the worldabout them.

  She went on her way now no longer dreaming and appreciative, butdisturbed and unwillingly observant behind her mask of serenecontentment.

  That delightful sense of free, unembarrassed movement was gone.

  As she neared the bottom of the dip in Piccadilly she saw a womanapproaching her from the opposite direction--a tall woman who at thefirst glance seemed altogether beautiful and fine. She came along withthe fluttering assurance of some tall ship. Then as she drew nearerpaint showed upon her face, and a harsh purpose behind the quietexpression of her open countenance, and a sort of unreality in hersplendor betrayed itself for which Ann Veronica could not recall theright word--a word, half understood, that lurked and hid in her mind,the word "meretricious." Behind this woman and a little to the sideof her, walked a man smartly dressed, with desire and appraisal in hiseyes. Something insisted that those two were mysteriously linked--thatthe woman knew the man was there.

  It was a second reminder that against her claim to go free anduntrammelled there was a case to be made, that after all it was truethat a girl does not go alone in the world unchallenged, nor ever hasgone freely alone in the world, that evil walks abroad and dangers, andpetty insults more irritating than dangers, lurk.

  It was in the quiet streets and squares toward Oxford Street thatit first came into her head disagreeably that she herself was beingfollowed. She observed a man walking on the opposite side of the way andlooking toward her.

  "Bother it all!" she swore. "Bother!" and decided that this was not so,and would not look to right or left again.

  Beyond the Circus Ann Veronica went into a British Tea-Table Companyshop to get some tea. And as she was yet waiting for her tea to come shesaw this man again. Either it was an unfortunate recovery of a trail, orhe had followed her from Mayfair. There was no mistaking his intentionsthis time. He came down the shop looking for her quite obviously, andtook up a position on the other side against a mirror in which he wasable to regard her steadfastly.

  Beneath the serene unconcern of Ann Veronica's face was a boilingtumult. She was furiously angry. She gazed with a quiet de
tachmenttoward the window and the Oxford Street traffic, and in her heart shewas busy kicking this man to death. He HAD followed her! What had hefollowed her for? He must have followed her all the way from beyondGrosvenor Square.

  He was a tall man and fair, with bluish eyes that were ratherprotuberant, and long white hands of which he made a display. He hadremoved his silk hat, and now sat looking at Ann Veronica over anuntouched cup of tea; he sat gloating upon her, trying to catch her eye.Once, when he thought he had done so, he smiled an ingratiating smile.He moved, after quiet intervals, with a quick little movement, and everand again stroked his small mustache and coughed a self-conscious cough.

  "That he should be in the same world with me!" said Ann Veronica,reduced to reading the list of good things the British Tea-Table Companyhad priced for its patrons.

  Heaven knows what dim and tawdry conceptions of passion and desire werein that blond cranium, what romance-begotten dreams of intrigue andadventure! but they sufficed, when presently Ann Veronica went outinto the darkling street again, to inspire a flitting, dogged pursuit,idiotic, exasperating, indecent.

  She had no idea what she should do. If she spoke to a policeman she didnot know what would ensue. Perhaps she would have to charge this man andappear in a police-court next day.

  She became angry with herself. She would not be driven in by thispersistent, sneaking aggression. She would ignore him. Surely she couldignore him. She stopped abruptly, and looked in a flower-shop window. Hepassed, and came loitering back and stood beside her, silently lookinginto her face.

  The afternoon had passed now into twilight. The shops were lightingup into gigantic lanterns of color, the street lamps were glowinginto existence, and she had lost her way. She had lost her sense ofdirection, and was among unfamiliar streets. She went on from street tostreet, and all the glory of London had departed. Against the sinister,the threatening, monstrous inhumanity of the limitless city, there wasnothing now but this supreme, ugly fact of a pursuit--the pursuit of theundesired, persistent male.

  For a second time Ann Veronica wanted to swear at the universe.

  There were moments when she thought of turning upon this man andtalking to him. But there was something in his face at once stupid andinvincible that told her he would go on forcing himself upon her, thathe would esteem speech with her a great point gained. In the twilighthe had ceased to be a person one could tackle and shame; he had becomesomething more general, a something that crawled and sneaked toward herand would not let her alone....

  Then, when the tension was getting unendurable, and she was on the vergeof speaking to some casual passer-by and demanding help, her followervanished. For a time she could scarcely believe he was gone. He had. Thenight had swallowed him up, but his work on her was done. She had losther nerve, and there was no more freedom in London for her that night.She was glad to join in the stream of hurrying homeward workers that wasnow welling out of a thousand places of employment, and to imitate theirdriven, preoccupied haste. She had followed a bobbing white hat and grayjacket until she reached the Euston Road corner of Tottenham Court Road,and there, by the name on a bus and the cries of a conductor, she madea guess of her way. And she did not merely affect to be driven--she feltdriven. She was afraid people would follow her, she was afraid of thedark, open doorways she passed, and afraid of the blazes of light; shewas afraid to be alone, and she knew not what it was she feared.

  It was past seven when she got back to her hotel. She thought then thatshe had shaken off the man of the bulging blue eyes forever, but thatnight she found he followed her into her dreams. He stalked her, hestared at her, he craved her, he sidled slinking and propitiatoryand yet relentlessly toward her, until at last she awoke from thesuffocating nightmare nearness of his approach, and lay awake in fearand horror listening to the unaccustomed sounds of the hotel.

  She came very near that night to resolving that she would return toher home next morning. But the morning brought courage again, and thosefirst intimations of horror vanished completely from her mind.

  Part 5

  She had sent her father a telegram from the East Strand post-officeworded thus:

  | All | is | well | with | me | |---------|-----------|----------|----------|---------| | and | quite | safe | Veronica | | -----------------------------------------------------

  and afterward she had dined a la carte upon a cutlet, and had then setherself to write an answer to Mr. Manning's proposal of marriage. Butshe had found it very difficult.

  "DEAR MR. MANNING," she had begun. So far it had been plain sailing,and it had seemed fairly evident to go on: "I find it very difficult toanswer your letter."

  But after that neither ideas nor phrases had come and she had fallenthinking of the events of the day. She had decided that she would spendthe next morning answering advertisements in the papers that abounded inthe writing-room; and so, after half an hour's perusal of back numbersof the Sketch in the drawing-room, she had gone to bed.

  She found next morning, when she came to this advertisement answering,that it was more difficult than she had supposed. In the first placethere were not so many suitable advertisements as she had expected.She sat down by the paper-rack with a general feeling of resemblanceto Vivie Warren, and looked through the Morning Post and Standard andTelegraph, and afterward the half-penny sheets. The Morning Post washungry for governesses and nursery governesses, but held out no otherhopes; the Daily Telegraph that morning seemed eager only for skirthands. She went to a writing-desk and made some memoranda on a sheet ofnote-paper, and then remembered that she had no address as yet to whichletters could be sent.

  She decided to leave this matter until the morrow and devote the morningto settling up with Mr. Manning. At the cost of quite a number of torndrafts she succeeded in evolving this:

  "DEAR MR. MANNING,--I find it very difficult to answer your letter.I hope you won't mind if I say first that I think it does me anextraordinary honor that you should think of any one like myselfso highly and seriously, and, secondly, that I wish it had not beenwritten."

  She surveyed this sentence for some time before going on. "I wonder,"she said, "why one writes him sentences like that? It'll have to go,"she decided, "I've written too many already." She went on, with adesperate attempt to be easy and colloquial:

  "You see, we were rather good friends, I thought, and now perhaps itwill be difficult for us to get back to the old friendly footing. But ifthat can possibly be done I want it to be done. You see, the plain factof the case is that I think I am too young and ignorant for marriage.I have been thinking these things over lately, and it seems to me thatmarriage for a girl is just the supremest thing in life. It isn't justone among a number of important things; for her it is the importantthing, and until she knows far more than I know of the facts of life,how is she to undertake it? So please; if you will, forget that youwrote that letter, and forgive this answer. I want you to think of mejust as if I was a man, and quite outside marriage altogether.

  "I do hope you will be able to do this, because I value men friends.I shall be very sorry if I cannot have you for a friend. I think thatthere is no better friend for a girl than a man rather older thanherself.

  "Perhaps by this time you will have heard of the step I have taken inleaving my home. Very likely you will disapprove highly of what I havedone--I wonder? You may, perhaps, think I have done it just in a fit ofchildish petulance because my father locked me in when I wanted to goto a ball of which he did not approve. But really it is much morethan that. At Morningside Park I feel as though all my growing up waspresently to stop, as though I was being shut in from the light of life,and, as they say in botany, etiolated. I was just like a sort of dummythat does things as it is told--that is to say, as the strings arepulled. I want to be a person by myself, and to pull my own strings. Ihad rather have trouble and hardship like that than be taken care of byothers. I want to be myself. I wonder if a man can quite understand thatpassiona
te feeling? It is quite a passionate feeling. So I am alreadyno longer the girl you knew at Morningside Park. I am a young personseeking employment and freedom and self-development, just as in quiteour first talk of all I said I wanted to be.

  "I do hope you will see how things are, and not be offended with me orfrightfully shocked and distressed by what I have done.

  "Very sincerely yours,

  "ANN VERONICA STANLEY."

  Part 6

  In the afternoon she resumed her search for apartments. The intoxicatingsense of novelty had given place to a more business-like mood. Shedrifted northward from the Strand, and came on some queer and dingyquarters.

  She had never imagined life was half so sinister as it looked to her inthe beginning of these investigations. She found herself again in thepresence of some element in life about which she had been trained notto think, about which she was perhaps instinctively indisposed to think;something which jarred, in spite of all her mental resistance, withall her preconceptions of a clean and courageous girl walking out fromMorningside Park as one walks out of a cell into a free and spaciousworld. One or two landladies refused her with an air of conscious virtuethat she found hard to explain. "We don't let to ladies," they said.