Ann Veronica (40 page)

"Of course," said Capes, and threw a newly lit cigar into the fire
through sheer nervousness. "Have some more port wine, sir?"

"It's a very sound wine," said Mr. Stanley, consenting with dignity.

"Ann Veronica has never looked quite so well, I think," said Capes,
clinging, because of a preconceived plan, to the suppressed topic.

At last the evening was over, and Capes and his wife had gone down to
see Mr. Stanley and his sister into a taxicab, and had waved an amiable
farewell from the pavement steps.

"Great dears!" said Capes, as the vehicle passed out of sight.

"Yes, aren't they?" said Ann Veronica, after a thoughtful pause. And
then, "They seem changed."

"Come in out of the cold," said Capes, and took her arm.

"They seem smaller, you know, even physically smaller," she said.

"You've grown out of them.... Your aunt liked the pheasant."

"She liked everything. Did you hear us through the archway, talking
cookery?"

They went up by the lift in silence.

"It's odd," said Ann Veronica, re-entering the flat.

"What's odd?"

"Oh, everything!"

She shivered, and went to the fire and poked it. Capes sat down in the
arm-chair beside her.

"Life's so queer," she said, kneeling and looking into the flames. "I
wonder—I wonder if we shall ever get like that."

She turned a firelit face to her husband. "Did you tell him?"

Capes smiled faintly. "Yes."

"How?"

"Well—a little clumsily."

"But how?"

"I poured him out some port wine, and I said—let me see—oh, 'You are
going to be a grandfather!'"

"Yes. Was he pleased?"

"Calmly! He said—you won't mind my telling you?"

"Not a bit."

"He said, 'Poor Alice has got no end!'"

"Alice's are different," said Ann Veronica, after an interval. "Quite
different. She didn't choose her man.... Well, I told aunt....
Husband of mine, I think we have rather overrated the emotional capacity
of those—those dears."

"What did your aunt say?"

"She didn't even kiss me. She said"—Ann Veronica shivered again—"'I
hope it won't make you uncomfortable, my dear'—like that—'and
whatever you do, do be careful of your hair!' I think—I judge from
her manner—that she thought it was just a little indelicate of
us—considering everything; but she tried to be practical and
sympathetic and live down to our standards."

Capes looked at his wife's unsmiling face.

"Your father," he said, "remarked that all's well that ends well, and
that he was disposed to let bygones be bygones. He then spoke with a
certain fatherly kindliness of the past...."

"And my heart has ached for him!"

"Oh, no doubt it cut him at the time. It must have cut him."

"We might even have—given it up for them!"

"I wonder if we could."

"I suppose all IS well that ends well. Somehow to-night—I don't know."

"I suppose so. I'm glad the old sore is assuaged. Very glad. But if we
had gone under—!"

They regarded one another silently, and Ann Veronica had one of her
penetrating flashes.

"We are not the sort that goes under," said Ann Veronica, holding her
hands so that the red reflections vanished from her eyes. "We settled
long ago—we're hard stuff. We're hard stuff!"

Then she went on: "To think that is my father! Oh, my dear! He stood
over me like a cliff; the thought of him nearly turned me aside from
everything we have done. He was the social order; he was law and wisdom.
And they come here, and they look at our furniture to see if it is good;
and they are not glad, it does not stir them, that at last, at last we
can dare to have children."

She dropped back into a crouching attitude and began to weep. "Oh,
my dear!" she cried, and suddenly flung herself, kneeling, into her
husband's arms.

"Do you remember the mountains? Do you remember how we loved one
another? How intensely we loved one another! Do you remember the light
on things and the glory of things? I'm greedy, I'm greedy! I want
children like the mountains and life like the sky. Oh! and love—love!
We've had so splendid a time, and fought our fight and won. And it's
like the petals falling from a flower. Oh, I've loved love, dear! I've
loved love and you, and the glory of you; and the great time is over,
and I have to go carefully and bear children, and—take care of my
hair—and when I am done with that I shall be an old woman. The petals
have fallen—the red petals we loved so. We're hedged about with
discretions—and all this furniture—and successes! We are successful
at last! Successful! But the mountains, dear! We won't forget the
mountains, dear, ever. That shining slope of snow, and how we talked of
death! We might have died! Even when we are old, when we are rich as we
may be, we won't forget the tune when we cared nothing for anything but
the joy of one another, when we risked everything for one another, when
all the wrappings and coverings seemed to have fallen from life and left
it light and fire. Stark and stark! Do you remember it all?... Say
you will never forget! That these common things and secondary things
sha'n't overwhelm us. These petals! I've been wanting to cry all the
evening, cry here on your shoulder for my petals. Petals!... Silly
woman!... I've never had these crying fits before...."

"Blood of my heart!" whispered Capes, holding her close to him. "I know.
I understand."