Ann Veronica: A Modern Love Story

by H. G. Wells

  This intercourse, which had been planned to warm Ann Veronica to afamiliar affection with Ramage, was certainly warming Ramage to aconstantly deepening interest in Ann Veronica. He felt that he wasgetting on with her very slowly indeed, but he did not see how he couldget on faster. He had, he felt, to create certain ideas and vivifycertain curiosities and feelings in her. Until that was done a certainexperience of life assured him that a girl is a locked coldness againsta man's approach. She had all the fascination of being absolutelyperplexing in this respect. On the one hand, she seemed to think plainlyand simply, and would talk serenely and freely about topics that mostwomen have been trained either to avoid or conceal; and on the other shewas unconscious, or else she had an air of being unconscious--that wasthe riddle--to all sorts of personal applications that almost any girlor woman, one might have thought, would have made. He was always doinghis best to call her attention to the fact that he was a man of spiritand quality and experience, and she a young and beautiful woman, andthat all sorts of constructions upon their relationship were possible,trusting her to go on from that to the idea that all sorts ofrelationships were possible. She responded with an unfalteringappearance of insensibility, and never as a young and beautiful womanconscious of sex; always in the character of an intelligent girlstudent.

  His perception of her personal beauty deepened and quickened with eachencounter. Every now and then her general presence became radiantlydazzling in his eyes; she would appear in the street coming toward him,a surprise, so fine and smiling and welcoming was she, so expanded andilluminated and living, in contrast with his mere expectation. Or hewould find something--a wave in her hair, a little line in the contourof her brow or neck, that made an exquisite discovery.

  He was beginning to think about her inordinately. He would sit inhis inner office and compose conversations with her, penetrating,illuminating, and nearly conclusive--conversations that never proved tobe of the slightest use at all with her when he met her face to face.And he began also at times to wake at night and think about her.

  He thought of her and himself, and no longer in that vein of incidentaladventure in which he had begun. He thought, too, of the fretful invalidwho lay in the next room to his, whose money had created his businessand made his position in the world.

  "I've had most of the things I wanted," said Ramage, in the stillness ofthe night.

  Part 3

  For a time Ann Veronica's family had desisted from direct offers of afree pardon they were evidently waiting for her resources to come toan end. Neither father, aunt, nor brothers made a sign, and thenone afternoon in early February her aunt came up in a state betweenexpostulation and dignified resentment, but obviously very anxious forAnn Veronica's welfare. "I had a dream in the night," she said. "I sawyou in a sort of sloping, slippery place, holding on by your hands andslipping. You seemed to me to be slipping and slipping, and your facewas white. It was really most vivid, most vivid! You seemed to beslipping and just going to tumble and holding on. It made me wake up,and there I lay thinking of you, spending your nights up here all alone,and no one to look after you. I wondered what you could be doing andwhat might be happening to you. I said to myself at once, 'Either thisis a coincidence or the caper sauce.' But I made sure it was you. I feltI MUST do something anyhow, and up I came just as soon as I could to seeyou."

  She had spoken rather rapidly. "I can't help saying it," she said, withthe quality of her voice altering, "but I do NOT think it is right foran unprotected girl to be in London alone as you are."

  "But I'm quite equal to taking care of myself, aunt."

  "It must be most uncomfortable here. It is most uncomfortable for everyone concerned."

  She spoke with a certain asperity. She felt that Ann Veronica had dupedher in that dream, and now that she had come up to London she might aswell speak her mind.

  "No Christmas dinner," she said, "or anything nice! One doesn't evenknow what you are doing."

  "I'm going on working for my degree."

  "Why couldn't you do that at home?"

  "I'm working at the Imperial College. You see, aunt, it's the onlypossible way for me to get a good degree in my subjects, and fatherwon't hear of it. There'd only be endless rows if I was at home. And howcould I come home--when he locks me in rooms and all that?"

  "I do wish this wasn't going on," said Miss Stanley, after a pause. "Ido wish you and your father could come to some agreement."

  Ann Veronica responded with conviction: "I wish so, too."

  "Can't we arrange something? Can't we make a sort of treaty?"

  "He wouldn't keep it. He would get very cross one evening and no onewould dare to remind him of it."

  "How can you say such things?"

  "But he would!"

  "Still, it isn't your place to say so."

  "It prevents a treaty."

  "Couldn't _I_ make a treaty?"

  Ann Veronica thought, and could not see any possible treaty that wouldleave it open for her to have quasi-surreptitious dinners with Ramageor go on walking round the London squares discussing Socialism with MissMiniver toward the small hours. She had tasted freedom now, and so farshe had not felt the need of protection. Still, there certainly wassomething in the idea of a treaty.

  "I don't see at all how you can be managing," said Miss Stanley, and AnnVeronica hastened to reply, "I do on very little." Her mind went back tothat treaty.

  "And aren't there fees to pay at the Imperial College?" her aunt wassaying--a disagreeable question.

  "There are a few fees."

  "Then how have you managed?"

  "Bother!" said Ann Veronica to herself, and tried not to look guilty. "Iwas able to borrow the money."

  "Borrow the money! But who lent you the money?"

  "A friend," said Ann Veronica.

  She felt herself getting into a corner. She sought hastily in her mindfor a plausible answer to an obvious question that didn't come. Her auntwent off at a tangent. "But my dear Ann Veronica, you will be gettinginto debt!"

  Ann Veronica at once, and with a feeling of immense relief, took refugein her dignity. "I think, aunt," she said, "you might trust to myself-respect to keep me out of that."

  For the moment her aunt could not think of any reply to thiscounterstroke, and Ann Veronica followed up her advantage by a suddeninquiry about her abandoned boots.

  But in the train going home her aunt reasoned it out.

  "If she is borrowing money," said Miss Stanley, "she MUST be gettinginto debt. It's all nonsense...."

  Part 4

  It was by imperceptible degrees that Capes became important in AnnVeronica's thoughts. But then he began to take steps, and, at last,strides to something more and more like predominance. She began by beinginterested in his demonstrations and his biological theory, then she wasattracted by his character, and then, in a manner, she fell in love withhis mind.

  One day they were at tea in the laboratory and a discussion sprang upabout the question of women's suffrage. The movement was then in itsearlier militant phases, and one of the women only, Miss Garvice,opposed it, though Ann Veronica was disposed to be lukewarm. But a man'sopposition always inclined her to the suffrage side; she had a curiousfeeling of loyalty in seeing the more aggressive women through. Capeswas irritatingly judicial in the matter, neither absurdly against, inwhich case one might have smashed him, or hopelessly undecided, buttepidly sceptical. Miss Klegg and the youngest girl made a vigorousattack on Miss Garvice, who had said she thought women lost somethinginfinitely precious by mingling in the conflicts of life. The discussionwandered, and was punctuated with bread and butter. Capes was inclinedto support Miss Klegg until Miss Garvice cornered him by quoting himagainst himself, and citing a recent paper in the Nineteenth Century, inwhich, following Atkinson, he had made a vigorous and damaging attackon Lester Ward's case for the primitive matriarchate and the predominantimportance of the female throughout the animal kingdom.

  Ann Veronica was not aware of this literary side of h
er teacher; she hada little tinge of annoyance at Miss Garvice's advantage. Afterwardsshe hunted up the article in question, and it seemed to her quitedelightfully written and argued. Capes had the gift of easy, unaffectedwriting, coupled with very clear and logical thinking, and to followhis written thought gave her the sensation of cutting things with aperfectly new, perfectly sharp knife. She found herself anxious to readmore of him, and the next Wednesday she went to the British Museum andhunted first among the half-crown magazines for his essays and thenthrough various scientific quarterlies for his research papers. Theordinary research paper, when it is not extravagant theorizing, is aptto be rather sawdusty in texture, and Ann Veronica was delighted to findthe same easy and confident luminosity that distinguished his work forthe general reader. She returned to these latter, and at the back ofher mind, as she looked them over again, was a very distinct resolveto quote them after the manner of Miss Garvice at the very firstopportunity.

  When she got home to her lodgings that evening she reflected withsomething like surprise upon her half-day's employment, and decidedthat it showed nothing more nor less than that Capes was a really veryinteresting person indeed.

  And then she fell into a musing about Capes. She wondered why he was sodistinctive, so unlike other men, and it never occurred to her for sometime that this might be because she was falling in love with him.

  Part 5

  Yet Ann Veronica was thinking a very great deal about love. A dozenshynesses and intellectual barriers were being outflanked or brokendown in her mind. All the influences about her worked with her ownpredisposition and against all the traditions of her home and upbringingto deal with the facts of life in an unabashed manner. Ramage, by ahundred skilful hints had led her to realize that the problem of her ownlife was inseparably associated with, and indeed only one special caseof, the problems of any woman's life, and that the problem of a woman'slife is love.

  "A young man comes into life asking how best he may place himself,"Ramage had said; "a woman comes into life thinking instinctively howbest she may give herself."

  She noted that as a good saying, and it germinated and spread tentaclesof explanation through her brain. The biological laboratory, perpetuallyviewing life as pairing and breeding and selection, and again pairingand breeding, seemed only a translated generalization of that assertion.And all the talk of the Miniver people and the Widgett people seemedalways to be like a ship in adverse weather on the lee shore of love."For seven years," said Ann Veronica, "I have been trying to keep myselffrom thinking about love....

  "I have been training myself to look askance at beautiful things."

  She gave herself permission now to look at this squarely. She madeherself a private declaration of liberty. "This is mere nonsense, meretongue-tied fear!" she said. "This is the slavery of the veiled life.I might as well be at Morningside Park. This business of love is thesupreme affair in life, it is the woman's one event and crisis thatmakes up for all her other restrictions, and I cower--as we allcower--with a blushing and paralyzed mind until it overtakes me!...

  "I'll be hanged if I do."

  But she could not talk freely about love, she found, for all thatmanumission.

  Ramage seemed always fencing about the forbidden topic, probing foropenings, and she wondered why she did not give him them. But somethinginstinctive prevented that, and with the finest resolve not to be"silly" and prudish she found that whenever he became at all boldin this matter she became severely scientific and impersonal, almostentomological indeed, in her method; she killed every remark as he madeit and pinned it out for examination. In the biological laboratory thatwas their invincible tone. But she disapproved more and more of her ownmental austerity. Here was an experienced man of the world, her friend,who evidently took a great interest in this supreme topic and waswilling to give her the benefit of his experiences! Why should not shebe at her ease with him? Why should not she know things? It is hardenough anyhow for a human being to learn, she decided, but it is a dozentimes more difficult than it need be because of all this locking of thelips and thoughts.

  She contrived to break down the barriers of shyness at last in onedirection, and talked one night of love and the facts of love with MissMiniver.

  But Miss Miniver was highly unsatisfactory. She repeated phrases of Mrs.Goopes's: "Advanced people," she said, with an air of great elucidation,"tend to GENERALIZE love. 'He prayeth best who loveth best--all thingsboth great and small.' For my own part I go about loving."

  "Yes, but men;" said Ann Veronica, plunging; "don't you want the love ofmen?"

  For some seconds they remained silent, both shocked by this question.

  Miss Miniver looked over her glasses at her friend almost balefully."NO!" she said, at last, with something in her voice that reminded AnnVeronica of a sprung tennis-racket.

  "I've been through all that," she went on, after a pause.

  She spoke slowly. "I have never yet met a man whose intellect I couldrespect."

  Ann Veronica looked at her thoughtfully for a moment, and decided topersist on principle.

  "But if you had?" she said.

  "I can't imagine it," said Miss Miniver. "And think, think"--her voicesank--"of the horrible coarseness!"

  "What coarseness?" said Ann Veronica.

  "My dear Vee!" Her voice became very low. "Don't you know?"

  "Oh! I know--"

  "Well--" Her face was an unaccustomed pink.

  Ann Veronica ignored her friend's confusion.

  "Don't we all rather humbug about the coarseness? All we women, I mean,"said she. She decided to go on, after a momentary halt. "We pretendbodies are ugly. Really they are the most beautiful things in the world.We pretend we never think of everything that makes us what we are."

  "No," cried Miss Miniver, almost vehemently. "You are wrong! I did notthink you thought such things. Bodies! Bodies! Horrible things! We aresouls. Love lives on a higher plane. We are not animals. If ever Idid meet a man I could love, I should love him"--her voice droppedagain--"platonically."

  She made her glasses glint. "Absolutely platonically," she said.

  "Soul to soul."

  She turned her face to the fire, gripped her hands upon her elbows, anddrew her thin shoulders together in a shrug. "Ugh!" she said.

  Ann Veronica watched her and wondered about her.

  "We do not want the men," said Miss Miniver; "we do not want them, withtheir sneers and loud laughter. Empty, silly, coarse brutes. Brutes!They are the brute still with us! Science some day may teach us a wayto do without them. It is only the women matter. It is not every sort ofcreature needs--these males. Some have no males."

  "There's green-fly," admitted Ann Veronica. "And even then--"

  The conversation hung for a thoughtful moment.

  Ann Veronica readjusted her chin on her hand. "I wonder which of us isright," she said. "I haven't a scrap--of this sort of aversion."

  "Tolstoy is so good about this," said Miss Miniver, regardless of herfriend's attitude. "He sees through it all. The Higher Life and theLower. He sees men all defiled by coarse thoughts, coarse ways of livingcruelties. Simply because they are hardened by--by bestiality,and poisoned by the juices of meat slain in anger and fermenteddrinks--fancy! drinks that have been swarmed in by thousands andthousands of horrible little bacteria!"

  "It's yeast," said Ann Veronica--"a vegetable."

  "It's all the same," said Miss Miniver. "And then they are swollen upand inflamed and drunken with matter. They are blinded to all fineand subtle things--they look at life with bloodshot eyes and dilatednostrils. They are arbitrary and unjust and dogmatic and brutish andlustful."

  "But do you really think men's minds are altered by the food they eat?"

  "I know it," said Miss Miniver. "Experte credo. When I am leading a truelife, a pure and simple life free of all stimulants and excitements, Ithink--I think--oh! with pellucid clearness; but if I so much as take amouthful of meat--or anything--the mirror is all blurred."

 
Part 6

  Then, arising she knew not how, like a new-born appetite, came a cravingin Ann Veronica for the sight and sound of beauty.

  It was as if her aesthetic sense had become inflamed. Her mind turnedand accused itself of having been cold and hard. She began to look forbeauty and discover it in unexpected aspects and places. Hitherto shehad seen it chiefly in pictures and other works of art, incidentally,and as a thing taken out of life. Now the sense of beauty was spreadingto a multitude of hitherto unsuspected aspects of the world about her.

  The thought of beauty became an obsession. It interwove with herbiological work. She found herself asking more and more curiously, "Why,on the principle of the survival of the fittest, have I any sense ofbeauty at all?" That enabled her to go on thinking about beauty when itseemed to her right that she should be thinking about biology.

  She was very greatly exercised by the two systems of values--the twoseries of explanations that her comparative anatomy on the one hand andher sense of beauty on the other, set going in her thoughts. She couldnot make up her mind which was the finer, more elemental thing, whichgave its values to the other. Was it that the struggle of thingsto survive produced as a sort of necessary by-product these intensepreferences and appreciations, or was it that some mystical outer thing,some great force, drove life beautyward, even in spite of expediency,regardless of survival value and all the manifest discretions of life?She went to Capes with that riddle and put it to him very carefully andclearly, and he talked well--he always talked at some length when shetook a difficulty to him--and sent her to a various literature upon themarkings of butterflies, the incomprehensible elaboration and splendorof birds of Paradise and humming-birds' plumes, the patterning oftigers, and a leopard's spots. He was interesting and inconclusive, andthe original papers to which he referred her discursive were at bestonly suggestive. Afterward, one afternoon, he hovered about her, andcame and sat beside her and talked of beauty and the riddle of beautyfor some time. He displayed a quite unprofessional vein of mysticism inthe matter. He contrasted with Russell, whose intellectual methods were,so to speak, sceptically dogmatic. Their talk drifted to the beauty ofmusic, and they took that up again at tea-time.