The Spoiling of Veronica

by Barry Pain

THE SPOILING OF VERONICA.

By Barry Pain.

WHEN my daughter Jane told me that she intended to marry Harry Delaroche I was not at all surprised nor very much interested. But I believe that I did the thing all right. There was a wedding and a reception, and Jane had carte blanche. Not being particularly well I kept to my own room and heard the reception going on underneath me. It was the usual thing I fancy—one room given up to long tables, crowded with expensive presents and guarded by detectives (whose personal appearance would not have deceived a common house-fly), and another room with refreshments in it.

It was the usual thing—very small sandwiches, very big strawberries, very bad champagne, waiters in white waistcoats and the pink Hungarians by the afternoon—young men who had taken in young women and wanted these waiters to come over to the Macedoine and help them—three sorts of ices and only one sort of remark. As I have said to Jane, if that is refreshment give me tedium.

But it was perfectly usual, and with Jane that is the important point. She and my other married daughters made excuses for my absence. I sat upstairs and wrote out the cheques for the Piccadilly people, and the man who did the awnings, and so on. Fathers are cheque-writing animals. I also gave Jane and Harry all their table-silver, and I daresay the whole thing cost me nearer a thousand than five hundred before I had done with it.

I did the right thing again when Veronica was born. I was godfather to a lump of something in flannel and trimmings. I gave it a Bible, a prayer-book, a silver rattle, a gold mug, a coral necklace, and fifty pounds for it to start a bank account with.

But I can't say that I was interested in Veronica at the time. I had wanted a grandson. I was satisfied with the child though. I did not see it—it was shown to me. But one does not see babies. But the doctor told me that it was a healthy child, and I thought Jane would make a good mother. She had always seemed a worldly little woman, as hard as nails, and not at all likely to give way to that weakness and indulgence which ruins so many children. As I say, I was not particularly interested, but I was satisfied. There did not seem to be anything to be anxious about.

Shortly after that my doctor seemed to think that I ought to go to Carlsbad (where he had a friend, another doctor), and I started off. I did not actually go to Carlsbad, but to a variety of places in Japan, where my doctor had not any friends at all. It was rather amusing, and I stopped there for some time—three years, possibly. Then I came back to see my granddaughter. I had had a series of long letters from Jane, all about Veronica, and I had begun to be less satisfied.

Jane was not quite coming up to my expectations. She did not take Veronica sensibly. To read her letters you would have thought that the whole universe had culminated in Veronica and had no need to go any further. A sensible mother can always see the defects of her own child. I went to stay with Jane on purpose to point out to her that she had become simply silly. But I happened to arrive at the time when Veronica had honoured the measles by having them. Jane was mostly in tears. Harry let his cigars out, pretended to be listening to me when he was really listening to footsteps in the nursery overhead, and filled in the intervals by telegraphing for fresh nurses and more doctors.

I stopped two days, gave Veronica a rocking-horse, which she was not at the time even allowed to see, and then was called away by telegram. Harry is not the only man who can send telegrams. I went at first to Monte Carlo.

I did not stop there very long. I should not in the least have minded my valet playing at the tables in my clothes and with my money, if he had sometimes won. The older one grows the less one minds what one's servants do. But the poor man always lost apparently. He was in other respects an excellent fellow, and thoroughly understood travelling, and so I took him away. I had long thought that I should like to understand India better, and so I took him there. After two or three years I understood it so well that I began a book on the English in India. It took me two or three years more to finish it, and by the time I had done that I understood the subject so well that I burnt my book on it. Then I went back to England.

I had several reasons for going back. My daughters had complained a great deal of my long absence. A lot of money had accumulated at the bank, and I wanted to have a talk with my solicitor about investments for it. I was too old for any more travelling; and I think that one dies with the greatest propriety and the least inconvenience to other people when one dies in one's own house. Then there was the question of my only grandchild, Veronica.

By this time I was emphatically dissatisfied. I was Veronica's godfather as well as her grandfather, and I had a duty to perform. The child was evidently being completely spoiled, and it was my business to put a stop to it. Harry and Jane had absolutely given up their house in town and gone to live somewhere in Surrey, because they thought the country better for Veronica. Now, if I had been asked, I should have said that Jane would not only have refused to give up a London season, but would have refused to give up one week of one London season on any consideration whatever. And now the simpleton had so changed that she was burying herself in the country all through the spring and summer merely to gratify a child's whim. It was preposterous!

The fact was that Jane had turned completely soft. Harry was just as bad. He had had Veronica's portrait painted by Crossdyk, which I knew for a fact he could not, properly speaking, afford, and must inevitably tend to make the child vain. In her letters Jane was eternally raving about Veronica's beauty, or cleverness, or goodness, or naughtiness. Now there is nothing that I detest more than a spoiled child, and I was absolutely determined to put my foot down. So I told Jane that I was coming to stay with her, and hinted that I purposed to show her that silly indulgence was not true kindness. She wrote back effusively, hoping that I should make "a long, long stay."

I arrived one night after dinner, and inquired after Veronica. I was told that she had gone to bed at her regular hour, but that I might see her in the morning.

"You might have kept her up for me," I said.

"So we would have done," said Jane; "but she has not been behaving very well to-day, and so I could not allow her to have any treat."

"Spoiled children never do behave well," I remarked incisively. Jane smiled in her superior way.

I did not sleep very well that night. The place was strange to me, and old people lose the art of sleeping, so I was up early next morning, some time before breakfast, and wandered about the big, old-fashioned garden. At the end of an alley, with a clipped yew-hedge on each side of it, I came upon a summer-house. A girl was looking out of the window of the summer-house, and I saw at once that the girl was Veronica. She was very like Jane, but with a sort of wild gipsy look that she had got from Harry. I don't mean to say for one moment that she justified her mother's absurd eulogia on her personal appearance, but she had niceish eyes and good hair, and her scarlet frock suited her.

"Hullo!" I said. "Good-morning, Veronica. You're up early, and you don't know who I am."

"You're my grandpapa," she said, in rather a pleasant voice—pleasant, but nothing to make a fuss about. "Won't you come in?"

I opened the door and went in.

"Now you've done it," she said, rather solemnly.

"Done what, Veronica?"

"Broken the stamp-paper, grandpapa."

"What stamp-paper?"

"This is my prison. I'm shut up here when I've done anything wrong. My governess, Mademoiselle, fixes a piece of stamp-paper outside where the door shuts. Then she can always tell if I've opened the door—which I'm not allowed to do. But I didn't do it this time. You did it yourself."

"Bless my soul, I never saw the stamp-paper at all! Yes, I've done it right enough. And what will happen now?"

She looked reflective. "Depends—might be nothing. Grown-up people are allowed to do a good many things that I'm not. You can't always tell what Mademoiselle will do."

"And how long are you put iu prison at a time?"

"Half an hour to an hour, according to what I've done. I'm in for half an hour this time."

"And what is it you've done?"

"The thing I'm really imprisoned for is about an atlas. I said there ought to be a map of hell in it, and Mademoiselle said 'hush!' and I was not to talk like that. And I said that she'd said that before one went anywhere one ought to study the geography of the place and take an intelligent interest; and then before I'd time to explain any more, she sentenced me to half an hour in prison." She sat on the table swinging her legs, and recounted her offence with complete nonchalance. When she had finished she scrutinised my face rather severely, and added, "and Mademoiselle said it was no laughing matter."

"No more it is. Have you had breakfast?"

"Not yet. I'm in prison from eight to half-past, and I have breakfast when I come out. I get up every morning at seven and do three quarters of an hour's lessons before breakfast when I'm not in prison. I've breakfast same time you do, only mine's upstairs, and not nearly so many things. I'm keeping an account of how many eggs I eat in one year. Last month was the best yet; it had thirty-eight eggs in it, and one of them a duck's."

"And which do you like best, lessons or prison?"

"Don't like either of them. When prison comes in lessons then the lessons are put on into play. If Mademoiselle found I'd opened the prison door I should get double prison as a punishment."

"I must explain to Mademoiselle that it was my fault that the door was opened this time, and that you haven't been out."

"And you'd better explain, too, that it was your fault I talked. I'm not allowed to talk when I'm in prison. But you spoke to me first, and it would have been rude if I hadn't answered."

"Very rude. It's just half -past. As soon as Mademoiselle comes I will explain to her."

Veronica wrinkled her pretty forehead in thought. "No," she said, "I know a better thing. Lessons begin again at half-past nine. At ten I shall be at sums, which is the worst part. You come in just at ten into the school-room and talk rather a long time to Mademoiselle."

"I'll be there, Veronica, without fail." I had arranged to drive with Harry and Jane directly after breakfast, but I knew I could easily put them off. "And what ought I to do after that?"

"If I were you I should have the pony and drive to Cullay. It's a lovely drive, and there's a lot of good shops in Cullay. I shall have to be at lessons, though there'd be plenty of room in the cart, of course."

"Ah! I must think about that. Good-bye till ten o'clock."

A nice-natured child, I considered, and possibly on the whole an attractive child. It was a great pity that Jane spoiled her. As I said to Jane at breakfast, by her foolish and excessive indulgence she made Veronica naughty, and then had to punish her with equal foolishness and excess. It was abominable that the child should be shut up in a summer-house like that. Firm rational treatment was what she wanted.

At the last moment I declined to drive with Harry and Jane. I said that I hardly felt up to it, but that I might possibly potter over to Cullay with the pony-cart. They were very kind, but I wouldn't let them give up their drive for me.

"Won't you find it dreadfully lonely?" asked Jane

"No," I said, "I don't think I shall."

Nor did I.

As soon as Jane and Harry were out of sight I found out where the schoolroom was, took my life in my hands and entered. As I did so I heard Veronica in her sweetest tones asking who invented sums, and recognised that she was endeavouring to create a slight diversion. She, seemed very pleased to see me. Mademoiselle seemed very surprised.

She was a close-fitted, neat little Frenchwoman. I explained who I was, and the grievous offence that I had committed in the matter of the stamp-paper and the summer-house door. It was pardoned at once dismissed as if it had been nothing. Mademoiselle had doubtless remarked that the weather was for once attempting to equal the summer brilliance that was a commonplace in her delightful native land. She had. I had therefore hoped to take Veronica out with me. Veronica's gipsy eyes gleamed. Mademoiselle informed me that Veronica would be free at twelve. Then I boldly asked for a holiday. Mademoiselle thought it was hardly within her discretion to grant that without consulting with Mr. Delaroche. I was sorry, but my daughter was out. However, I would answer for her, and take the responsibility—Mademoiselle's permission was the one thing that we required. It was given. "Then," I said, "we will start at once." Veronica flew jubilantly to put on her hat. "Now, Mademoiselle," I said, when Veronica had gone, "between ourselves, don't you think that my daughter is just a little inclined to spoil Veronica,"

"Ah!" said Madamoiselle, "but she is Mrs. Delaroche's only child."

"Very true," I replied, "and she is also my only grandchild, but I should not feel justified on that account in spoiling her."

Veronica drove the pony—a quiet old pony—and talked all the time. Her language was rather quaint. She had picked up one or two expressions from her father and, I am afraid, one or two from her father's stable-boys, I thought that she had taken a wrong turn. "I'll lay you a fiver I haven't," she answered at once. She brought out this and similar remarks with the utmost gravity, and did not seem to understand why they should amuse me. We had a very good time in Cullay. The shops were all that Veronica had said. As Jane and Harry were coming back from their drive through Cullay they noticed their pony standing outside the confectioner's in the High Street, and caught us just as we were leaving the shop.

"Now then," said Harry to me grimly, "what have you been having?"

"I have had," I replied, "a glass of lemonade, a warm cheesecake and some pineapple jujubes."

"I see," he said. "And the kid?"

"The same, with a few trifling additions."

"And now, I suppose, you're both going home to die."

"On the contrary, we're both going home to lunch."

"And I've been photographed three times in different ways," added Veronica, "and grandpapa's bought me 'Swiss Family Robinson' and a musical box, and he's going to order some fireworks from London for us to let off one night."

"This," said Harry, "is simply the most reckless and depraved dissipation."

"Veronica had her lessons to do," remarked Jane.

"Yes, my dear," I said, "but I ventured——"

Jane smiled a very superior smile indeed.

When we got home I tackled Jane on the subject. "If you hadn't been bent on spoiling Veronica, you'd have given her a holiday this morning yourself, instead of forcing me to do it."

"O, papa, I don't see that."

"You want her to regard me with respect, to treat me as a person of some importance?"

"Of course, of course we do."

"Then the right thing to have done would have been to have marked my return after all these years by giving the child a holiday. Surely it is a salutary lesson to teach a child to respect her grandfather."

"Yes, certainly."

"Then give her a holiday again to-morrow."

"No, no, papa. That would be two holidays running. We mustn't let her be lazy."

I have always noticed that with people who spoil children they think they can make up for their weakness in some points by being unnecessarily strict in others. As a matter of fact Jane was by no means anxious to have Veronica properly educated—not, at any rate, in the widest sense of the term. When the fireworks arrived Veronica was naturally anxious to let them all off herself; so far from being lazy she was much more eager to learn than Jane was to teach.

Of course Jane insisted that this would be very dangerous, and Veronica must not touch the fireworks. However, I had my own way, and Veronica did let them off, under the supervision of Harry and myself. Now, of course, if she ever has to do anything of the kind again she will know how to do it. There was another point, I thought Veronica ought to dine downstairs in the evening; she had, in fact, suggested it to me herself. A child cannot begin too early to learn correct behaviour at table. Here, however, Jane was hopelessly obstinate, and Harry backed her up.

"One would like occasionally," he said, "to talk to you not in the presence of Veronica. She's a child that understands too much."

I certainly did see a great deal of the child. She was good enough to say that I had turned out much better than she had expected, and she took trouble to improve me still further. She introduced me afresh to various forms of amusement to which I had long been a stranger. I had a proper see-saw put up for her in the garden, and we took violent exercise together on it, I should say it was excellent for the liver, and I wonder why more people of advanced age do not try it. Then there was toffee-making; when this is done with a very hot fire in a very small schoolroom in midsummer it opens the pores and is remarkably healthy. Certainly I never was better in my life than I was at Jane's house, and I stopped there a long time. It was not particularly amusing, of course; in fact the folk round about that Jane occasionally asked to dine were so dull as to be positively painful. Except that the country air suited me I hardly know why I prolonged my visit.

On the morning before the day which I had fixed for my departure I happened to be in the garden, and found Veronica at the window of her prison.

"Well, Veronica," I said sternly, "what are you in for this time?"

"Properly, I'm not allowed to speak. I'm in for an hour this time, and I wish I was out."

"What were the crimes?"

"Spilling ink, killing a fly in lessons—it had bitten me three times before I went for it—being impertinent, and getting different answers to my sums from the ones in the book, and a few other things."

"Dear me!" I said, "this is very bad. Why can't you get the right answers to your sums?"

"I do. It's the answers in the book that are wrong." She looked mutinous. "And I'm tired of being in here, and I haven't done half an hour yet. Can't you come in?"

"How about the stamp-paper?" I asked.

"You might look at it carefully, you know, and then got another piece just like it to fix on instead when you come out."

"Veronica," I said, "don't suggest dishonourable actions, I can think of them for myself."

"You ought to do something, grandpapa, anyhow. If you hadn't told me how to make booby-trap I shouldn't have made one for Mademoiselle."

"Ah! you didn't mention you'd done that."

"That was included in the impertinence." She sighed. "It wouldn't be so bad if I'd got 'Swiss Family Robinson' to read."

"I suppose I couldn't hand it in through the window?"

"Window isn't made to open, else either it would have been stamp-papered like the door or I should have nipped out of it."

The window had little leaded panes. One of these panes was broken in fact it was through this we held our conversation.

"And you couldn't get the book through there," I said.

"No," said Veronica, "but you could get chocolates through it." She was a most ingenious child.

I was back in two or three minutes with the chocolates.

"It's lucky I put a stone through that little pane," said Veronica. "You can't get the whole packet through at once, though; you must pass them in a few at a time."

As I was doing so Jane came suddenly round the corner. I tried to hide the chocolates, but I was too late. Jane walked me off to the lawn, where Harry was sitting in the shade smoking cigarettes and reading the Field.

My daughter took me by the coat-sleeve and brought me up before Harry.

"This," she said, "is a most wicked and unprincipled old man. Look at him."

"My lud," I pleaded, "I've regretted that fact for years, but I've never denied it."

"What," asked Harry, "is the offence this time? More warm cheesecakes an hour before lunch?"

"Much worse, my lud." She recounted the offence that I had committed, with some slight exaggerations. For instance, it was not a large sack of chocolates, but a small paper packet.

"Have you anything to say for yourself?" asked Harry.

When I came to think it over I found that I had not. "I reserve my defence," I said with dignity.

"The fact of the case is," said Harry, "that nobody ever spoiled a child so completely and so disgracefully as you spoil Veronica."

"Hear, hear!" said Jane.

"My lud," I replied, "I submit, with all possible respect, that your ludship and this female are both mad. Why, I came here on purpose to prevent you two from spoiling the child!"

"You've done it," said Harry. "We can't spoil what you've spoiled already. In consideration of your years, and of the fact that I've been smoking your cigarettes all the morning, because they're better than mine, I am disposed to be lenient. Reform for the future, and"—the gong sounded faintly from the house—"come into lunch."

They keep up their delusion that I spoiled Veronica to this day, and I regret to say that they continue to spoil her themselves.