Ann Veronica: A Modern Love Story

by H. G. Wells

  "Ritter's!" said Ramage to the driver, "Dean Street."

  It was rare that Ann Veronica used hansoms, and to be in one was itselfeventful and exhilarating. She liked the high, easy swing of the thingover its big wheels, the quick clatter-patter of the horse, the passageof the teeming streets. She admitted her pleasure to Ramage.

  And Ritter's, too, was very amusing and foreign and discreet; a littlerambling room with a number of small tables, with red electric lightshades and flowers. It was an overcast day, albeit not foggy, andthe electric light shades glowed warmly, and an Italian waiter withinsufficient English took Ramage's orders, and waited with an appearanceof affection. Ann Veronica thought the whole affair rather jolly. Rittersold better food than most of his compatriots, and cooked it better, andRamage, with a fine perception of a feminine palate, ordered Vero Capri.It was, Ann Veronica felt, as a sip or so of that remarkable blendwarmed her blood, just the sort of thing that her aunt would notapprove, to be lunching thus, tete-a-tete with a man; and yet at thesame time it was a perfectly innocent as well as agreeable proceeding.

  They talked across their meal in an easy and friendly manner about AnnVeronica's affairs. He was really very bright and clever, with a sort ofconversational boldness that was just within the limits of permissibledaring. She described the Goopes and the Fabians to him, and gave hima sketch of her landlady; and he talked in the most liberal andentertaining way of a modern young woman's outlook. He seemed to knowa great deal about life. He gave glimpses of possibilities. He rousedcuriosities. He contrasted wonderfully with the empty showing-off ofTeddy. His friendship seemed a thing worth having....

  But when she was thinking it over in her room that evening vague andbaffling doubts came drifting across this conviction. She doubted howshe stood toward him and what the restrained gleam of his face mightsignify. She felt that perhaps, in her desire to play an adequate partin the conversation, she had talked rather more freely than she ought tohave done, and given him a wrong impression of herself.

  Part 7

  That was two days before Christmas Eve. The next morning came a compactletter from her father.

  "MY DEAR DAUGHTER," it ran,--"Here, on the verge of the seasonof forgiveness I hold out a last hand to you in the hope of areconciliation. I ask you, although it is not my place to ask you, toreturn home. This roof is still open to you. You will not be tauntedif you return and everything that can be done will be done to make youhappy.

  "Indeed, I must implore you to return. This adventure of yours has goneon altogether too long; it has become a serious distress to both youraunt and myself. We fail altogether to understand your motives in doingwhat you are doing, or, indeed, how you are managing to do it, or whatyou are managing on. If you will think only of one trifling aspect--theinconvenience it must be to us to explain your absence--I think you maybegin to realize what it all means for us. I need hardly say that youraunt joins with me very heartily in this request.

  "Please come home. You will not find me unreasonable with you.

  "Your affectionate

  "FATHER."

  Ann Veronica sat over her fire with her father's note in her hand."Queer letters he writes," she said. "I suppose most people's lettersare queer. Roof open--like a Noah's Ark. I wonder if he really wants meto go home. It's odd how little I know of him, and of how he feels andwhat he feels."

  "I wonder how he treated Gwen."

  Her mind drifted into a speculation about her sister. "I ought to lookup Gwen," she said. "I wonder what happened."

  Then she fell to thinking about her aunt. "I would like to go home," shecried, "to please her. She has been a dear. Considering how little helets her have."

  The truth prevailed. "The unaccountable thing is that I wouldn't go hometo please her. She is, in her way, a dear. One OUGHT to want to pleaseher. And I don't. I don't care. I can't even make myself care."

  Presently, as if for comparison with her father's letter, she got outRamage's check from the box that contained her papers. For so far shehad kept it uncashed. She had not even endorsed it.

  "Suppose I chuck it," she remarked, standing with the mauve slip in herhand--"suppose I chuck it, and surrender and go home! Perhaps, afterall, Roddy was right!

  "Father keeps opening the door and shutting it, but a time will come--

  "I could still go home!"

  She held Ramage's check as if to tear it across. "No," she said at last;"I'm a human being--not a timid female. What could I do at home? Theother's a crumple-up--just surrender. Funk! I'll see it out."

  CHAPTER THE EIGHTH

  BIOLOGY

  Part 1

  January found Ann Veronica a student in the biological laboratory of theCentral Imperial College that towers up from among the back streets inthe angle between Euston Road and Great Portland Street. She was workingvery steadily at the Advanced Course in Comparative Anatomy, wonderfullyrelieved to have her mind engaged upon one methodically developing themein the place of the discursive uncertainties of the previous two months,and doing her utmost to keep right in the back of her mind and outof sight the facts, firstly, that she had achieved this haven ofsatisfactory activity by incurring a debt to Ramage of forty pounds,and, secondly, that her present position was necessarily temporary andher outlook quite uncertain.

  The biological laboratory had an atmosphere that was all its own.

  It was at the top of the building, and looked clear over a clusteringmass of inferior buildings toward Regent's Park. It was long and narrow,a well-lit, well-ventilated, quiet gallery of small tables and sinks,pervaded by a thin smell of methylated spirit and of a mitigatedand sterilized organic decay. Along the inner side was a wonderfullyarranged series of displayed specimens that Russell himself hadprepared. The supreme effect for Ann Veronica was its surpassingrelevance; it made every other atmosphere she knew seem discursive andconfused. The whole place and everything in it aimed at one thing--toillustrate, to elaborate, to criticise and illuminate, and make everplainer and plainer the significance of animal and vegetable structure.It dealt from floor to ceiling and end to end with the Theory of theForms of Life; the very duster by the blackboard was there to do itsshare in that work, the very washers in the taps; the room was moresimply concentrated in aim even than a church. To that, perhaps, alarge part of its satisfyingness was due. Contrasted with the confusedmovement and presences of a Fabian meeting, or the inexplicableenthusiasm behind the suffrage demand, with the speeches that werepartly egotistical displays, partly artful manoeuvres, and partlyincoherent cries for unsoundly formulated ends, compared with thecomings and goings of audiences and supporters that were like theeddy-driven drift of paper in the street, this long, quiet, methodicalchamber shone like a star seen through clouds.

  Day after day for a measured hour in the lecture-theatre, with elaboratepower and patience, Russell pieced together difficulty and suggestion,instance and counter-instance, in the elaborate construction of thefamily tree of life. And then the students went into the long laboratoryand followed out these facts in almost living tissue with microscope andscalpel, probe and microtome, and the utmost of their skill and care,making now and then a raid into the compact museum of illustration nextdoor, in which specimens and models and directions stood in disciplinedranks, under the direction of the demonstrator Capes. There was a coupleof blackboards at each end of the aisle of tables, and at these Capes,with quick and nervous speech that contrasted vividly with Russell'sslow, definitive articulation, directed the dissection and madeilluminating comments on the structures under examination. Then hewould come along the laboratory, sitting down by each student inturn, checking the work and discussing its difficulties, and answeringquestions arising out of Russell's lecture.

  Ann Veronica had come to the Imperial College obsessed by thegreat figure of Russell, by the part he had played in the Darwiniancontroversies, and by the resolute effect of the grim-lipped, yellow,leonine face beneath the mane of silvery hair. Capes was rather adiscovery. Capes was something superadded. Ru
ssell burned like a beacon,but Capes illuminated by darting flashes and threw light, even if itwas but momentary light, into a hundred corners that Russell leftsteadfastly in the shade.

  Capes was an exceptionally fair man of two or three-and-thirty, soruddily blond that it was a mercy he had escaped light eyelashes, andwith a minor but by no means contemptible reputation of his own. Hetalked at the blackboard in a pleasant, very slightly lisping voice witha curious spontaneity, and was sometimes very clumsy in his exposition,and sometimes very vivid. He dissected rather awkwardly and hurriedly,but, on the whole, effectively, and drew with an impatient directnessthat made up in significance what it lacked in precision. Across theblackboard the colored chalks flew like flights of variously tintedrockets as diagram after diagram flickered into being.

  There happened that year to be an unusual proportion of girls and womenin the advanced laboratory, perhaps because the class as a whole was anexceptionally small one. It numbered nine, and four of these were womenstudents. As a consequence of its small size, it was possible to getalong with the work on a much easier and more colloquial footing thana larger class would have permitted. And a custom had grown up of ageneral tea at four o'clock, under the auspices of a Miss Garvice, atall and graceful girl of distinguished intellectual incompetence, inwhom the hostess instinct seemed to be abnormally developed.

  Capes would come to these teas; he evidently liked to come, and hewould appear in the doorway of the preparation-room, a pleasing note ofshyness in his manner, hovering for an invitation.

  From the first, Ann Veronica found him an exceptionally interesting man.To begin with, he struck her as being the most variable person she hadever encountered. At times he was brilliant and masterful, talked roundand over every one, and would have been domineering if he had notbeen extraordinarily kindly; at times he was almost monosyllabic, anddefeated Miss Garvice's most skilful attempts to draw him out. Sometimeshe was obviously irritable and uncomfortable and unfortunate in hisefforts to seem at ease. And sometimes he overflowed with a peculiarlymalignant wit that played, with devastating effect, upon any topics thathad the courage to face it. Ann Veronica's experiences of men had beenamong more stable types--Teddy, who was always absurd; her father,who was always authoritative and sentimental; Manning, who was alwaysManning. And most of the others she had met had, she felt, the samesteadfastness. Goopes, she was sure was always high-browed and slow andSocratic. And Ramage too--about Ramage there would always be that air ofavidity, that air of knowledge and inquiry, the mixture of things in histalk that were rather good with things that were rather poor. But onecould not count with any confidence upon Capes.

  The five men students were a mixed company. There was a very white-facedyoungster of eighteen who brushed back his hair exactly in Russell'smanner, and was disposed to be uncomfortably silent when he wasnear her, and to whom she felt it was only Christian kindness to beconsistently pleasant; and a lax young man of five-and-twenty in navyblue, who mingled Marx and Bebel with the more orthodox gods of thebiological pantheon. There was a short, red-faced, resolute youth whoinherited an authoritative attitude upon bacteriology from his father;a Japanese student of unassuming manners who drew beautifully and hadan imperfect knowledge of English; and a dark, unwashed Scotchmanwith complicated spectacles, who would come every morning as a sort ofvolunteer supplementary demonstrator, look very closely at her workand her, tell her that her dissections were "fairish," or "very fairishindeed," or "high above the normal female standard," hover as if forsome outbreak of passionate gratitude and with admiring retrospectsthat made the facetted spectacles gleam like diamonds, return to his ownplace.

  The women, Ann Veronica thought, were not quite so interesting as themen. There were two school-mistresses, one of whom--Miss Klegg--mighthave been a first cousin to Miss Miniver, she had so many Minivertraits; there was a preoccupied girl whose name Ann Veronica neverlearned, but who worked remarkably well; and Miss Garvice, who beganby attracting her very greatly--she moved so beautifully--and ended bygiving her the impression that moving beautifully was the beginning andend of her being.

  Part 2

  The next few weeks were a time of the very liveliest thought and growthfor Ann Veronica. The crowding impressions of the previous weeks seemedto run together directly her mind left the chaotic search for employmentand came into touch again with a coherent and systematic developmentof ideas. The advanced work at the Central Imperial College was in theclosest touch with living interests and current controversies; it drewits illustrations and material from Russell's two great researches--uponthe relation of the brachiopods to the echinodermata, and upon thesecondary and tertiary mammalian and pseudo-mammalian factors in thefree larval forms of various marine organisms. Moreover, a vigorous fireof mutual criticism was going on now between the Imperial College andthe Cambridge Mendelians and echoed in the lectures. From beginning toend it was first-hand stuff.

  But the influence of the science radiated far beyond its own specialfield--beyond those beautiful but highly technical problems with whichwe do not propose for a moment to trouble the naturally terrifiedreader. Biology is an extraordinarily digestive science. It throws out anumber of broad experimental generalizations, and then sets out tobring into harmony or relation with these an infinitely multifariouscollection of phenomena. The little streaks upon the germinating areaof an egg, the nervous movements of an impatient horse, the trick ofa calculating boy, the senses of a fish, the fungus at the root of agarden flower, and the slime upon a sea-wet rock--ten thousand suchthings bear their witness and are illuminated. And not only did thesetentacular generalizations gather all the facts of natural history andcomparative anatomy together, but they seemed always stretching outfurther and further into a world of interests that lay altogetheroutside their legitimate bounds.

  It came to Ann Veronica one night after a long talk with Miss Miniver,as a sudden remarkable thing, as a grotesque, novel aspect, that thisslowly elaborating biological scheme had something more than an academicinterest for herself. And not only so, but that it was after all, a moresystematic and particular method of examining just the same questionsthat underlay the discussions of the Fabian Society, the talk of theWest Central Arts Club, the chatter of the studios and the deep, thebottomless discussions of the simple-life homes. It was the same Bioswhose nature and drift and ways and methods and aspects engagedthem all. And she, she in her own person too, was this eternal Bios,beginning again its recurrent journey to selection and multiplicationand failure or survival.

  But this was but a momentary gleam of personal application, and at thistime she followed it up no further.

  And now Ann Veronica's evenings were also becoming very busy. Shepursued her interest in the Socialist movement and in the Suffragistagitation in the company of Miss Miniver. They went to various centraland local Fabian gatherings, and to a number of suffrage meetings. TeddyWidgett hovered on the fringe of all these gatherings, blinking at AnnVeronica and occasionally making a wildly friendly dash at her, andcarrying her and Miss Miniver off to drink cocoa with a choice diversityof other youthful and congenial Fabians after the meetings. Then Mr.Manning loomed up ever and again into her world, full of a futilesolicitude, and almost always declaring she was splendid, splendid, andwishing he could talk things out with her. Teas he contributed to thecommissariat of Ann Veronica's campaign--quite a number of teas. Hewould get her to come to tea with him, usually in a pleasant tea-roomover a fruit-shop in Tottenham Court Road, and he would discuss his ownpoint of view and hint at a thousand devotions were she but to commandhim. And he would express various artistic sensibilities and aestheticappreciations in carefully punctuated sentences and a large, clearvoice. At Christmas he gave her a set of a small edition of Meredith'snovels, very prettily bound in flexible leather, being guided in thechoice of an author, as he intimated, rather by her preferences than hisown.

  There was something markedly and deliberately liberal-minded in hismanner in all their encounters. He conveyed not only his sen
se of theextreme want of correctitude in their unsanctioned meetings, but alsothat, so far as he was concerned, this irregularity mattered not atall, that he had flung--and kept on flinging--such considerations to thewind.

  And, in addition, she was now seeing and talking to Ramage almostweekly, on a theory which she took very gravely, that they wereexceptionally friends. He would ask her to come to dinner with him insome little Italian or semi-Bohemian restaurant in the district towardSoho, or in one of the more stylish and magnificent establishments aboutPiccadilly Circus, and for the most part she did not care to refuse.Nor, indeed, did she want to refuse. These dinners, from their lavishdisplay of ambiguous hors d'oeuvre to their skimpy ices in dishes offrilled paper, with their Chianti flasks and Parmesan dishes and theirpolyglot waiters and polyglot clientele, were very funny and bright;and she really liked Ramage, and valued his help and advice. It wasinteresting to see how different and characteristic his mode of approachwas to all sorts of questions that interested her, and it was amusing todiscover this other side to the life of a Morningside Park inhabitant.She had thought that all Morningside Park householders came home beforeseven at the latest, as her father usually did. Ramage talked alwaysabout women or some woman's concern, and very much about Ann Veronica'sown outlook upon life. He was always drawing contrasts between a woman'slot and a man's, and treating her as a wonderful new departure in thiscomparison. Ann Veronica liked their relationship all the more becauseit was an unusual one.

  After these dinners they would have a walk, usually to the ThamesEmbankment to see the two sweeps of river on either side of WaterlooBridge; and then they would part at Westminster Bridge, perhaps, andhe would go on to Waterloo. Once he suggested they should go to amusic-hall and see a wonderful new dancer, but Ann Veronica did not feelshe cared to see a new dancer. So, instead, they talked of dancingand what it might mean in a human life. Ann Veronica thought it wasa spontaneous release of energy expressive of well-being, but Ramagethought that by dancing, men, and such birds and animals as dance, cometo feel and think of their bodies.