Ann Veronica: A Modern Love Story

by H. G. Wells

  "By God! Ann Veronica," he said, sighing deeply. "This stirs one."

  She sat quite still looking at him.

  "I wish you and I had drunk that love potion," he said.

  She found no ready reply to that, and he went on: "This music is thefood of love. It makes me desire life beyond measure. Life! Life andlove! It makes me want to be always young, always strong, alwaysdevoting my life--and dying splendidly."

  "It is very beautiful," said Ann Veronica in a low tone.

  They said no more for a moment, and each was now acutely aware of theother. Ann Veronica was excited and puzzled, with a sense of a strangeand disconcerting new light breaking over her relations with Ramage.She had never thought of him at all in that way before. It did not shockher; it amazed her, interested her beyond measure. But also this mustnot go on. She felt he was going to say something more--somethingstill more personal and intimate. She was curious, and at the same timeclearly resolved she must not hear it. She felt she must get him talkingupon some impersonal theme at any cost. She snatched about in her mind."What is the exact force of a motif?" she asked at random. "Before Iheard much Wagnerian music I heard enthusiastic descriptions of it froma mistress I didn't like at school. She gave me an impression of a sortof patched quilt; little bits of patterned stuff coming up again andagain."

  She stopped with an air of interrogation.

  Ramage looked at her for a long and discriminating interval withoutspeaking. He seemed to be hesitating between two courses of action. "Idon't know much about the technique of music," he said at last, with hiseyes upon her. "It's a matter of feeling with me."

  He contradicted himself by plunging into an exposition of motifs.

  By a tacit agreement they ignored the significant thing between them,ignored the slipping away of the ground on which they had stood togetherhitherto....

  All through the love music of the second act, until the hunting horns ofMark break in upon the dream, Ann Veronica's consciousness was floodedwith the perception of a man close beside her, preparing some new thingto say to her, preparing, perhaps, to touch her, stretching hungryinvisible tentacles about her. She tried to think what she should do inthis eventuality or that. Her mind had been and was full of the thoughtof Capes, a huge generalized Capes-lover. And in some incomprehensibleway, Ramage was confused with Capes; she had a grotesque disposition topersuade herself that this was really Capes who surrounded her, as itwere, with wings of desire. The fact that it was her trusted friendmaking illicit love to her remained, in spite of all her effort, aninsignificant thing in her mind. The music confused and distracted her,and made her struggle against a feeling of intoxication. Her head swam.That was the inconvenience of it; her head was swimming. The musicthrobbed into the warnings that preceded the king's irruption.

  Abruptly he gripped her wrist. "I love you, Ann Veronica. I loveyou--with all my heart and soul."

  She put her face closer to his. She felt the warm nearness of his."DON'T!" she said, and wrenched her wrist from his retaining hand.

  "My God! Ann Veronica," he said, struggling to keep his hold upon her;"my God! Tell me--tell me now--tell me you love me!"

  His expression was as it were rapaciously furtive. She answered inwhispers, for there was the white arm of a woman in the next box peepingbeyond the partition within a yard of him.

  "My hand! This isn't the place."

  He released her hand and talked in eager undertones against an auditorybackground of urgency and distress.

  "Ann Veronica," he said, "I tell you this is love. I love the soles ofyour feet. I love your very breath. I have tried not to tell you--triedto be simply your friend. It is no good. I want you. I worship you. Iwould do anything--I would give anything to make you mine.... Do youhear me? Do you hear what I am saying?... Love!"

  He held her arm and abandoned it again at her quick defensive movement.For a long time neither spoke again.

  She sat drawn together in her chair in the corner of the box, at a losswhat to say or do--afraid, curious, perplexed. It seemed to her thatit was her duty to get up and clamor to go home to her room, to protestagainst his advances as an insult. But she did not in the least wantto do that. These sweeping dignities were not within the compass of herwill; she remembered she liked Ramage, and owed things to him, and shewas interested--she was profoundly interested. He was in love withher! She tried to grasp all the welter of values in the situationsimultaneously, and draw some conclusion from their disorder.

  He began to talk again in quick undertones that she could not clearlyhear.

  "I have loved you," he was saying, "ever since you sat on that gate andtalked. I have always loved you. I don't care what divides us. I don'tcare what else there is in the world. I want you beyond measure orreckoning...."

  His voice rose and fell amidst the music and the singing of Tristan andKing Mark, like a voice heard in a badly connected telephone. She staredat his pleading face.

  She turned to the stage, and Tristan was wounded in Kurvenal's arms,with Isolde at his feet, and King Mark, the incarnation of masculineforce and obligation, the masculine creditor of love and beauty, stoodover him, and the second climax was ending in wreaths and reek ofmelodies; and then the curtain was coming down in a series of shortrushes, the music had ended, and the people were stirring and breakingout into applause, and the lights of the auditorium were resuming. Thelighting-up pierced the obscurity of the box, and Ramage stopped hisurgent flow of words abruptly and sat back. This helped to restore AnnVeronica's self-command.

  She turned her eyes to him again, and saw her late friend and pleasantand trusted companion, who had seen fit suddenly to change into a lover,babbling interesting inacceptable things. He looked eager and flushedand troubled. His eyes caught at hers with passionate inquiries. "Tellme," he said; "speak to me." She realized it was possible to be sorryfor him--acutely sorry for the situation. Of course this thing wasabsolutely impossible. But she was disturbed, mysteriously disturbed.She remembered abruptly that she was really living upon his money. Sheleaned forward and addressed him.

  "Mr. Ramage," she said, "please don't talk like this."

  He made to speak and did not.

  "I don't want you to do it, to go on talking to me. I don't want to hearyou. If I had known that you had meant to talk like this I wouldn't havecome here."

  "But how can I help it? How can I keep silence?"

  "Please!" she insisted. "Please not now."

  "I MUST talk with you. I must say what I have to say!"

  "But not now--not here."

  "It came," he said. "I never planned it--And now I have begun--"

  She felt acutely that he was entitled to explanations, and as acutelythat explanations were impossible that night. She wanted to think.

  "Mr. Ramage," she said, "I can't--Not now. Will you please--Not now, orI must go."

  He stared at her, trying to guess at the mystery of her thoughts.

  "You don't want to go?"

  "No. But I must--I ought--"

  "I MUST talk about this. Indeed I must."

  "Not now."

  "But I love you. I love you--unendurably."

  "Then don't talk to me now. I don't want you to talk to me now. There isa place--This isn't the place. You have misunderstood. I can't explain--"

  They regarded one another, each blinded to the other. "Forgive me," hedecided to say at last, and his voice had a little quiver of emotion,and he laid his hand on hers upon her knee. "I am the most foolish ofmen. I was stupid--stupid and impulsive beyond measure to burst uponyou in this way. I--I am a love-sick idiot, and not accountable for myactions. Will you forgive me--if I say no more?"

  She looked at him with perplexed, earnest eyes.

  "Pretend," he said, "that all I have said hasn't been said. And let usgo on with our evening. Why not? Imagine I've had a fit of hysteria--andthat I've come round."

  "Yes," she said, and abruptly she liked him enormously. She felt thiswas the sensible way out of this oddly sinister sit
uation.

  He still watched her and questioned her.

  "And let us have a talk about this--some other time. Somewhere, where wecan talk without interruption. Will you?"

  She thought, and it seemed to him she had never looked soself-disciplined and deliberate and beautiful. "Yes," she said, "thatis what we ought to do." But now she doubted again of the quality of thearmistice they had just made.

  He had a wild impulse to shout. "Agreed," he said with queer exaltation,and his grip tightened on her hand. "And to-night we are friends?"

  "We are friends," said Ann Veronica, and drew her hand quickly away fromhim.

  "To-night we are as we have always been. Except that this music we havebeen swimming in is divine. While I have been pestering you, have youheard it? At least, you heard the first act. And all the third act islove-sick music. Tristan dying and Isolde coming to crown his death.Wagner had just been in love when he wrote it all. It begins with thatqueer piccolo solo. Now I shall never hear it but what this evening willcome pouring back over me."

  The lights sank, the prelude to the third act was beginning, themusic rose and fell in crowded intimations of lovers separated--loversseparated with scars and memories between them, and the curtain wentreefing up to display Tristan lying wounded on his couch and theshepherd crouching with his pipe.

  Part 2

  They had their explanations the next evening, but they were explanationsin quite other terms than Ann Veronica had anticipated, quite other andmuch more startling and illuminating terms. Ramage came for her at herlodgings, and she met him graciously and kindly as a queen who knows shemust needs give sorrow to a faithful liege. She was unusually softand gentle in her manner to him. He was wearing a new silk hat, with aslightly more generous brim than its predecessor, and it suited his typeof face, robbed his dark eyes a little of their aggressiveness and gavehim a solid and dignified and benevolent air. A faint anticipation oftriumph showed in his manner and a subdued excitement.

  "We'll go to a place where we can have a private room," he said."Then--then we can talk things out."

  So they went this time to the Rococo, in Germain Street, and up-stairsto a landing upon which stood a bald-headed waiter with whiskers like aFrench admiral and discretion beyond all limits in his manner. He seemedto have expected them. He ushered them with an amiable flat hand into aminute apartment with a little gas-stove, a silk crimson-covered sofa,and a bright little table, gay with napery and hot-house flowers.

  "Odd little room," said Ann Veronica, dimly apprehending that obtrusivesofa.

  "One can talk without undertones, so to speak," said Ramage."It's--private." He stood looking at the preparations before them withan unusual preoccupation of manner, then roused himself to take herjacket, a little awkwardly, and hand it to the waiter who hung it in thecorner of the room. It appeared he had already ordered dinner andwine, and the whiskered waiter waved in his subordinate with the soupforthwith.

  "I'm going to talk of indifferent themes," said Ramage, a littlefussily, "until these interruptions of the service are over. Then--thenwe shall be together.... How did you like Tristan?"

  Ann Veronica paused the fraction of a second before her reply came.

  "I thought much of it amazingly beautiful."

  "Isn't it. And to think that man got it all out of the poorest littlelove-story for a respectable titled lady! Have you read of it?"

  "Never."

  "It gives in a nutshell the miracle of art and the imagination. You getthis queer irascible musician quite impossibly and unfortunately inlove with a wealthy patroness, and then out of his brain comes THIS, atapestry of glorious music, setting out love to lovers, lovers who lovein spite of all that is wise and respectable and right."

  Ann Veronica thought. She did not want to seem to shrink fromconversation, but all sorts of odd questions were running through hermind. "I wonder why people in love are so defiant, so careless of otherconsiderations?"

  "The very hares grow brave. I suppose because it IS the chief thing inlife." He stopped and said earnestly: "It is the chief thing inlife, and everything else goes down before it. Everything, my dear,everything!... But we have got to talk upon indifferent themes untilwe have done with this blond young gentleman from Bavaria...."

  The dinner came to an end at last, and the whiskered waiter presentedhis bill and evacuated the apartment and closed the door behind him withan almost ostentatious discretion. Ramage stood up, and suddenly turnedthe key in the door in an off-hand manner. "Now," he said, "no one canblunder in upon us. We are alone and we can say and do what we please.We two." He stood still, looking at her.

  Ann Veronica tried to seem absolutely unconcerned. The turning of thekey startled her, but she did not see how she could make an objection.She felt she had stepped into a world of unknown usages.

  "I have waited for this," he said, and stood quite still, looking at heruntil the silence became oppressive.

  "Won't you sit down," she said, "and tell me what you want to say?" Hervoice was flat and faint. Suddenly she had become afraid. She strugglednot to be afraid. After all, what could happen?

  He was looking at her very hard and earnestly. "Ann Veronica," he said.

  Then before she could say a word to arrest him he was at her side."Don't!" she said, weakly, as he had bent down and put one arm about herand seized her hands with his disengaged hand and kissed her--kissed heralmost upon her lips. He seemed to do ten things before she could thinkto do one, to leap upon her and take possession.

  Ann Veronica's universe, which had never been altogether so respectfulto her as she could have wished, gave a shout and whirled head overheels. Everything in the world had changed for her. If hate could kill,Ramage would have been killed by a flash of hate. "Mr. Ramage!" shecried, and struggled to her feet.

  "My darling!" he said, clasping her resolutely in his arms, "mydearest!"

  "Mr. Ramage!" she began, and his mouth sealed hers and his breath wasmixed with her breath. Her eye met his four inches away, and his wasglaring, immense, and full of resolution, a stupendous monster of aneye.

  She shut her lips hard, her jaw hardened, and she set herself tostruggle with him. She wrenched her head away from his grip and got herarm between his chest and hers. They began to wrestle fiercely. Eachbecame frightfully aware of the other as a plastic energetic body,of the strong muscles of neck against cheek, of hands grippingshoulder-blade and waist. "How dare you!" she panted, with her worldscreaming and grimacing insult at her. "How dare you!"

  They were both astonished at the other's strength. Perhaps Ramage wasthe more astonished. Ann Veronica had been an ardent hockey player andhad had a course of jiu-jitsu in the High School. Her defence ceasedrapidly to be in any sense ladylike, and became vigorous and effective;a strand of black hair that had escaped its hairpins came athwartRamage's eyes, and then the knuckles of a small but very hardly clinchedfist had thrust itself with extreme effectiveness and painfulness underhis jawbone and ear.

  "Let go!" said Ann Veronica, through her teeth, strenuously inflictingagony, and he cried out sharply and let go and receded a pace.

  "NOW!" said Ann Veronica. "Why did you dare to do that?"

  Part 3

  Each of them stared at the other, set in a universe that had changed itssystem of values with kaleidoscopic completeness. She was flushed, andher eyes were bright and angry; her breath came sobbing, and her hairwas all abroad in wandering strands of black. He too was flushed andruffled; one side of his collar had slipped from its stud and he held ahand to the corner of his jaw.

  "You vixen!" said Mr. Ramage, speaking the simplest first thought of hisheart.

  "You had no right--" panted Ann Veronica.

  "Why on earth," he asked, "did you hurt me like that?"

  Ann Veronica did her best to think she had not deliberately attempted tocause him pain. She ignored his question.

  "I never dreamt!" she said.

  "What on earth did you expect me to do, then?" he asked.

 
Part 4

  Interpretation came pouring down upon her almost blindingly; sheunderstood now the room, the waiter, the whole situation. Sheunderstood. She leaped to a world of shabby knowledge, of furtive baserealizations. She wanted to cry out upon herself for the uttermost foolin existence.

  "I thought you wanted to have a talk to me," she said.

  "I wanted to make love to you.

  "You knew it," he added, in her momentary silence.

  "You said you were in love with me," said Ann Veronica; "I wanted toexplain--"

  "I said I loved and wanted you." The brutality of his first astonishmentwas evaporating. "I am in love with you. You know I am in love with you.And then you go--and half throttle me.... I believe you've crushed agland or something. It feels like it."

  "I am sorry," said Ann Veronica. "What else was I to do?"

  For some seconds she stood watching him and both were thinking veryquickly. Her state of mind would have seemed altogether discreditable toher grandmother. She ought to have been disposed to faint and scream atall these happenings; she ought to have maintained a front of outrageddignity to veil the sinking of her heart. I would like to have to tellit so. But indeed that is not at all a good description of her attitude.She was an indignant queen, no doubt she was alarmed and disgustedwithin limits; but she was highly excited, and there was something, somelow adventurous strain in her being, some element, subtle at least ifbase, going about the rioting ways and crowded insurgent meeting-placesof her mind declaring that the whole affair was after all--they are theonly words that express it--a very great lark indeed. At the bottomof her heart she was not a bit afraid of Ramage. She had unaccountablegleams of sympathy with and liking for him. And the grotesquest factwas that she did not so much loathe, as experience with a quite criticalcondemnation this strange sensation of being kissed. Never before hadany human being kissed her lips....