Part 3
In the afternoon the task of expostulation was taken up by Mr.
Stanley in person. Her father's ideas of expostulation were a
little harsh and forcible, and over the claret-colored
table-cloth and under the gas chandelier, with his hat and
umbrella between them like the mace in Parliament, he and his
daughter contrived to have a violent quarrel. She had intended
to be quietly dignified, but he was in a smouldering rage from
the beginning, and began by assuming, which alone was more than
flesh and blood could stand, that the insurrection was over and
that she was coming home submissively. In his desire to be
emphatic and to avenge himself for his over-night distresses, he
speedily became brutal, more brutal than she had ever known him
before.
"A nice time of anxiety you've given me, young lady," he said, as
he entered the room. "I hope you're satisfied."
She was frightened--his anger always did frighten her--and in her
resolve to conceal her fright she carried a queen-like dignity to
what she felt even at the time was a preposterous pitch. She
said she hoped she had not distressed him by the course she had
felt obliged to take, and he told her not to be a fool. She
tried to keep her side up by declaring that he had put her into
an impossible position, and he replied by shouting, "Nonsense!
Nonsense! Any father in my place would have done what I did."
Then he went on to say: "Well, you've had your little adventure,
and I hope now you've had enough of it. So go up-stairs and get
your things together while I look out for a hansom."
To which the only possible reply seemed to be, "I'm not coming
home."
"Not coming home!"
"No!" And, in spite of her resolve to be a Person, Ann Veronica
began to weep with terror at herself. Apparently she was always
doomed to weep when she talked to her father. But he was always
forcing her to say and do such unexpectedly conclusive things.
She feared he might take her tears as a sign of weakness. So she
said: "I won't come home. I'd rather starve!"
For a moment the conversation hung upon that declaration. Then
Mr. Stanley, putting his hands on the table in the manner rather
of a barrister than a solicitor, and regarding her balefully
through his glasses with quite undisguised animosity, asked, "And
may I presume to inquire, then, what you mean to do?--how do you
propose to live?"
"I shall live," sobbed Ann Veronica. "You needn't be anxious
about that! I shall contrive to live."
"But I AM anxious," said Mr. Stanley, "I am anxious. Do you
think it's nothing to me to have my daughter running about London
looking for odd jobs and disgracing herself?"
"Sha'n't get odd jobs," said Ann Veronica, wiping her eyes.
And from that point they went on to a thoroughly embittering
wrangle. Mr. Stanley used his authority, and commanded Ann
Veronica to come home, to which, of course, she said she
wouldn't; and then he warned her not to defy him, warned her very
solemnly, and then commanded her again. He then said that if she
would not obey him in this course she should "never darken his
doors again," and was, indeed, frightfully abusive. This threat
terrified Ann Veronica so much that she declared with sobs and
vehemence that she would never come home again, and for a time
both talked at once and very wildly. He asked her whether she
understood what she was saying, and went on to say still more
precisely that she should never touch a penny of his money until
she came home again--not one penny. Ann Veronica said she didn't
care.
Then abruptly Mr. Stanley changed his key. "You poor child!" he
said; "don't you see the infinite folly of these proceedings?
Think! Think of the love and affection you abandon! Think of
your aunt, a second mother to you. Think if your own mother was
alive!"
He paused, deeply moved.
"If my own mother was alive," sobbed Ann Veronica, "she would
understand."
The talk became more and more inconclusive and exhausting. Ann
Veronica found herself incompetent, undignified, and detestable,
holding on desperately to a hardening antagonism to her father,
quarrelling with him, wrangling with him, thinking of
repartees--almost as if he was a brother. It was horrible, but
what could she do? She meant to live her own life, and he meant,
with contempt and insults, to prevent her. Anything else that
was said she now regarded only as an aspect of or diversion from
that.
In the retrospect she was amazed to think how things had gone to
pieces, for at the outset she had been quite prepared to go home
again upon terms. While waiting for his coming she had stated
her present and future relations with him with what had seemed to
her the most satisfactory lucidity and completeness. She had
looked forward to an explanation. Instead had come this storm,
this shouting, this weeping, this confusion of threats and
irrelevant appeals. It was not only that her father had said all
sorts of inconsistent and unreasonable things, but that by some
incomprehensible infection she herself had replied in the same
vein. He had assumed that her leaving home was the point at
issue, that everything turned on that, and that the sole
alternative was obedience, and she had fallen in with that
assumption until rebellion seemed a sacred principle. Moreover,
atrociously and inexorably, he allowed it to appear ever and
again in horrible gleams that he suspected there was some man in
the case. . . . Some man!
And to conclude it all was the figure of her father in the
doorway, giving her a last chance, his hat in one hand, his
umbrella in the other, shaken at her to emphasize his point.
"You understand, then," he was saying, "you understand?"
"I understand," said Ann Veronica, tear-wet and flushed with a
reciprocal passion, but standing up to him with an equality that
amazed even herself, "I understand." She controlled a sob. "Not
a penny--not one penny--and never darken your doors again!"
