Part 7
At the end of dinner that evening Ann Veronica began: "Father!"
Her father looked at her over his glasses and spoke with grave
deliberation; "If there is anything you want to say to me," he
said, "you must say it in the study. I am going to smoke a
little here, and then I shall go to the study. I don't see what
you can have to say. I should have thought my note cleared up
everything. There are some papers I have to look through
to-night--important papers."
"I won't keep you very long, daddy," said Ann Veronica.
"I don't see, Mollie," he remarked, taking a cigar from the box
on the table as his sister and daughter rose, "why you and Vee
shouldn't discuss this little affair--whatever it is--without
bothering me."
It was the first time this controversy had become triangular, for
all three of them were shy by habit.
He stopped in mid-sentence, and Ann Veronica opened the door for
her aunt. The air was thick with feelings. Her aunt went out of
the room with dignity and a rustle, and up-stairs to the fastness
of her own room. She agreed entirely with her brother. It
distressed and confused her that the girl should not come to her.
It seemed to show a want of affection, to be a deliberate and
unmerited disregard, to justify the reprisal of being hurt.
When Ann Veronica came into the study she found every evidence of
a carefully foreseen grouping about the gas fire. Both
arm-chairs had been moved a little so as to face each other on
either side of the fender, and in the circular glow of the
green-shaded lamp there lay, conspicuously waiting, a thick
bundle of blue and white papers tied with pink tape. Her father
held some printed document in his hand, and appeared not to
observe her entry. "Sit down," he said, and perused--"perused"
is the word for it--for some moments. Then he put the paper by.
"And what is it all about, Veronica?" he asked, with a deliberate
note of irony, looking at her a little quizzically over his
glasses.
Ann Veronica looked bright and a little elated, and she
disregarded her father's invitation to be seated. She stood on
the mat instead, and looked down on him. "Look here, daddy," she
said, in a tone of great reasonableness, "I MUST go to that
dance, you know."
Her father's irony deepened. "Why?" he asked, suavely.
Her answer was not quite ready. "Well, because I don't see any
reason why I shouldn't."
"You see I do."
"Why shouldn't I go?"
"It isn't a suitable place; it isn't a suitable gathering."
"But, daddy, what do you know of the place and the gathering?"
"And it's entirely out of order; it isn't right, it isn't
correct; it's impossible for you to stay in an hotel in
London--the idea is preposterous. I can't imagine what possessed
you, Veronica."
He put his head on one side, pulled down the corners of his
mouth, and looked at her over his glasses.
"But why is it preposterous?" asked Ann Veronica, and fiddled
with a pipe on the mantel.
"Surely!" he remarked, with an expression of worried appeal.
"You see, daddy, I don't think it IS preposterous. That's really
what I want to discuss. It comes to this--am I to be trusted to
take care of myself, or am I not?"
"To judge from this proposal of yours, I should say not."
"I think I am."
"As long as you remain under my roof--" he began, and paused.
"You are going to treat me as though I wasn't. Well, I don't
think that's fair."
"Your ideas of fairness--" he remarked, and discontinued that
sentence. "My dear girl," he said, in a tone of patient
reasonableness, "you are a mere child. You know nothing of life,
nothing of its dangers, nothing of its possibilities. You think
everything is harmless and simple, and so forth. It isn't. It
isn't. That's where you go wrong. In some things, in many
things, you must trust to your elders, to those who know more of
life than you do. Your aunt and I have discussed all this
matter. There it is. You can't go."
The conversation hung for a moment. Ann Veronica tried to keep
hold of a complicated situation and not lose her head. She had
turned round sideways, so as to look down into the fire.
"You see, father," she said, "it isn't only this affair of the
dance. I want to go to that because it's a new experience,
because I think it will be interesting and give me a view of
things. You say I know nothing. That's probably true. But how
am I to know of things?"
"Some things I hope you may never know," he said.
"I'm not so sure. I want to know--just as much as I can."
"Tut!" he said, fuming, and put out his hand to the papers in the
pink tape.
"Well, I do. It's just that I want to say. I want to be a human
being; I want to learn about things and know about things, and
not to be protected as something too precious for life, cooped up
in one narrow little corner."
"Cooped up!" he cried. "Did I stand in the way of your going to
college? Have I ever prevented you going about at any reasonable
hour? You've got a bicycle!"
"H'm!" said Ann Veronica, and then went on "I want to be taken
seriously. A girl--at my age--is grown-up. I want to go on with
my University work under proper conditions, now that I've done
the Intermediate. It isn't as though I haven't done well. I've
never muffed an exam. yet. Roddy muffed two. . . ."
Her father interrupted. "Now look here, Veronica, let us be
plain with each other. You are not going to that infidel
Russell's classes. You are not going anywhere but to the
Tredgold College. I've thought that out, and you must make up
your mind to it. All sorts of considerations come in. While you
live in my house you must follow my ideas. You are wrong even
about that man's scientific position and his standard of work.
There are men in the Lowndean who laugh at him--simply laugh at
him. And I have seen work by his pupils myself that struck me as
being--well, next door to shameful. There's stories, too, about
his demonstrator, Capes Something or other. The kind of man
who isn't content with his science, and writes articles in the
monthly reviews. Anyhow, there it is: YOU ARE NOT GOING THERE."
The girl received this intimation in silence. but the face that
looked down upon the gas fire took an expression of obstinacy
that brought out a hitherto latent resemblance between parent and
child. When she spoke, her lips twitched.
"Then I suppose when I have graduated I am to come home?"
"It seems the natural course "
"And do nothing?"
"There are plenty of things a girl can find to do at home."
"Until some one takes pity on me and marries me?"
He raised his eyebrows in mild appeal. His foot tapped
impatiently, and he took up the papers.
"Look here, father," she said, with a change in her voice,
"suppose I won't stand it?"
He regarded her as though this was a new idea.
"Suppose, for example, I go to this dance?"
"You won't."
"Well"--her breath failed her for a moment. "How would you
prevent it?" she asked.
"But I have forbidden it!" he said, raising his voice.
"Yes, I know. But suppose I go?"
"Now, Veronica! No, no. This won't do. Understand me! I
forbid it. I do not want to hear from you even the threat of
disobedience." He spoke loudly. "The thing is forbidden!"
"I am ready to give up anything that you show to be wrong."
"You will give up anything I wish you to give up."
They stared at each other through a pause, and both faces were
flushed and obstinate.
She was trying by some wonderful, secret, and motionless
gymnastics to restrain her tears. But when she spoke her lips
quivered, and they came. "I mean to go to that dance!" she
blubbered. "I mean to go to that dance! I meant to reason with
you, but you won't reason. You're dogmatic."
At the sight of her tears his expression changed to a mingling of
triumph and concern. He stood up, apparently intending to put an
arm about her, but she stepped back from him quickly. She
produced a handkerchief, and with one sweep of this and a
simultaneous gulp had abolished her fit of weeping. His voice
now had lost its ironies.
"Now, Veronica," he pleaded, "Veronica, this is most
unreasonable. All we do is for your good. Neither your aunt nor
I have any other thought but what is best for you."
"Only you won't let me live. Only you won't let me exist!"
Mr. Stanley lost patience. He bullied frankly.
"What nonsense is this? What raving! My dear child, you DO
live, you DO exist! You have this home. You have friends,
acquaintances, social standing, brothers and sisters, every
advantage! Instead of which, you want to go to some mixed
classes or other and cut up rabbits and dance about at nights in
wild costumes with casual art student friends and God knows who.
That--that isn't living! You are beside yourself. You don't
know what you ask nor what you say. You have neither reason nor
logic. I am sorry to seem to hurt you, but all I say is for your
good. You MUST not, you SHALL not go. On this I am resolved. I
put my foot down like--like adamant. And a time will come,
Veronica, mark my words, a time will come when you will bless me
for my firmness to-night. It goes to my heart to disappoint you,
but this thing must not be."
He sidled toward her, but she recoiled from him, leaving him in
possession of the hearth-rug.
"Well," she said, "good-night, father."
"What!" he asked; "not a kiss?"
She affected not to hear.
The door closed softly upon her. For a long time he remained
standing before the fire, staring at the situation. Then he sat
down and filled his pipe slowly and thoughtfully. . . .
"I don't see what else I could have said," he remarked.
