Part 1

The next morning opened calmly, and Ann Veronica sat in her own room,

her very own room, and consumed an egg and marmalade, and read the

advertisements in the Daily Telegraph. Then began expostulations,

preluded by a telegram and headed by her aunt. The telegram reminded

Ann Veronica that she had no place for interviews except her

bed-sitting-room, and she sought her landlady and negotiated hastily for

the use of the ground floor parlor, which very fortunately was vacant.

She explained she was expecting an important interview, and asked that

her visitor should be duly shown in. Her aunt arrived about half-past

ten, in black and with an unusually thick spotted veil. She raised this

with the air of a conspirator unmasking, and displayed a tear-flushed

face. For a moment she remained silent.

“My dear,” she said, when she could get her breath, “you must come home

at once.”

Ann Veronica closed the door quite softly and stood still.

“This has almost killed your father.... After Gwen!”

“I sent a telegram.”

“He cares so much for you. He did so care for you.”

“I sent a telegram to say I was all right.”

“All right! And I never dreamed anything of the sort was going on. I

had no idea!” She sat down abruptly and threw her wrists limply upon the

table. “Oh, Veronica!” she said, “to leave your home!”

She had been weeping. She was weeping now. Ann Veronica was overcome by

this amount of emotion.

“Why did you do it?” her aunt urged. “Why could you not confide in us?”

“Do what?” said Ann Veronica.

“What you have done.”

“But what have I done?”

“Elope! Go off in this way. We had no idea. We had such a pride in

you, such hope in you. I had no idea you were not the happiest girl.

Everything I could do! Your father sat up all night. Until at last I

persuaded him to go to bed. He wanted to put on his overcoat and come

after you and look for you--in London. We made sure it was just like

Gwen. Only Gwen left a letter on the pincushion. You didn’t even do that

Vee; not even that.”

“I sent a telegram, aunt,” said Ann Veronica.

“Like a stab. You didn’t even put the twelve words.”

“I said I was all right.”

“Gwen said she was happy. Before that came your father didn’t even

know you were gone. He was just getting cross about your being late for

dinner--you know his way--when it came. He opened it--just off-hand, and

then when he saw what it was he hit at the table and sent his soup spoon

flying and splashing on to the tablecloth. ‘My God!’ he said, ‘I’ll go

after them and kill him. I’ll go after them and kill him.’ For the

moment I thought it was a telegram from Gwen.”

“But what did father imagine?”

“Of course he imagined! Any one would! ‘What has happened, Peter?’ I

asked. He was standing up with the telegram crumpled in his hand. He

used a most awful word! Then he said, ‘It’s Ann Veronica gone to join

her sister!’ ‘Gone!’ I said. ‘Gone!’ he said. ‘Read that,’ and threw the

telegram at me, so that it went into the tureen. He swore when I tried

to get it out with the ladle, and told me what it said. Then he sat

down again in a chair and said that people who wrote novels ought to be

strung up. It was as much as I could do to prevent him flying out of the

house there and then and coming after you. Never since I was a girl have

I seen your father so moved. ‘Oh! little Vee!’ he cried, ‘little Vee!’

and put his face between his hands and sat still for a long time before

he broke out again.”

Ann Veronica had remained standing while her aunt spoke.

“Do you mean, aunt,” she asked, “that my father thought I had gone

off--with some man?”

“What else COULD he think? Would any one DREAM you would be so mad as to

go off alone?”

“After--after what had happened the night before?”

“Oh, why raise up old scores? If you could see him this morning, his

poor face as white as a sheet and all cut about with shaving! He was

for coming up by the very first train and looking for you, but I said to

him, ‘Wait for the letters,’ and there, sure enough, was yours. He could

hardly open the envelope, he trembled so. Then he threw the letter at

me. ‘Go and fetch her home,’ he said; ‘it isn’t what we thought! It’s

just a practical joke of hers.’ And with that he went off to the City,

stern and silent, leaving his bacon on his plate--a great slice of bacon

hardly touched. No breakfast, he’s had no dinner, hardly a mouthful of

soup--since yesterday at tea.”

She stopped. Aunt and niece regarded each other silently.

“You must come home to him at once,” said Miss Stanley.

Ann Veronica looked down at her fingers on the claret-colored

table-cloth. Her aunt had summoned up an altogether too vivid picture

of her father as the masterful man, overbearing, emphatic, sentimental,

noisy, aimless. Why on earth couldn’t he leave her to grow in her own

way? Her pride rose at the bare thought of return.

“I don’t think I CAN do that,” she said. She looked up and said, a

little breathlessly, “I’m sorry, aunt, but I don’t think I can.”