Ankle Deep

by Angela Thirkell

  “Yes, papa, quite a lot. You see, he is at Fanny’s a great deal.”

  “Is he one of Fanny’s young men?”

  “Yes, one of her collection, papa.”

  Again a shock. Why on earth should papa, ordinarily the blindest of men, suddenly develop acute eyesight about Valentine of all people. Oh, if only she had never mentioned his name. If papa touched on any piece of gossip it must be on its last legs with age. As a rule, he lived on mountain heights with the classics, but occasionally he made these terrifying eagle swoops into the realms of ordinary life and women’s talk, and appeared to relish them exceedingly. If he spoke of Valentine as one of Fanny’s young men, it must have been said a thousand times already before it reached him. Of course Fanny had swains by the score, so it didn’t mean anything particular — only it hurt. One was in such a helpless position if people spoke of Valentine as anyone else’s property. One couldn’t say “He is not: he is mine,” and throw down a gauntlet or wave a flag. To begin with one would be far too self-conscious to do such a thing. Then, what right had one to say it? What real claim had one on Valentine? Only the claim of loving him hopelessly forever, only the claim of being loved with exhausting intensity for a few weeks. Probably not a claim that a man would recognize; certainly not a claim that he would recognize. Aurea had already noticed in him a certain shy aloofness, a fear of some quite imaginary attack upon his freedom of mind and habit. He hated to be asked to make engagements, though he would be eager in making them himself. He had never, she reflected, broken any engagement for her since that first evening when he had thrown Fanny over. If she had suggested any time of meeting that clashed with his plans, he always explained, carefully and kindly, that he could not break his word to go to such a lady’s dance, or such a charmer’s dinner, or such a nymph’s cocktail party. Aurea, on the other hand, had never told him what her other plans were, but ruthlessly hacked and hewed at them, so that he might find her ready whenever he wanted her. He would ring up from his office for long talks, and Aurea would hang about the house till he had telephoned; but he didn’t much like her to ring him up, saying that it was sometimes rather awkward. What a poor position one is in, she thought, if one is the person that loves most. It simply cramps one’s style and hampers one in every way. What fun it must be to be a heartless charmer, and throw gentlemen over right and left without a thought, and have them always clamoring for more ill-treatment, while I give my whole heart and must be content with what crumbs I can get. All the same, I would rather be like that. It is something to know that I love Valentine more than he does me, and I think I would prefer it so. The giving is all.

  Mr. Howard had not pursued the subject of Valentine, and they walked on, sometimes silent, sometimes talking idly, till they reached Fanny’s house. Fanny was lazily at home working on one of the quilts. There was a fire though the day was not cold, and a lamp though the afternoon was barely darkening, and every sign that Fanny meant to be comfortable. Her mobile marmoset face lighted up at the sight of the Howards, and she threw herself upon Aurea with tender embraces. To Mr. Howard she turned what the French call a candid front, and upon this front he imprinted a paternal kiss, holding her at the same time with a hand on each shoulder. Fanny managed to wink at Aurea.

  “Arthur will be back soon, and he specially said you weren’t to go, Aurea, till he came. And Val rang up to say he would look in later for a cocktail. So there we all shall be. Dear Mr. Howard, come and sit here on the sofa with me, and Aurea, I’m going to put you in that large chair near the fire to have the pleasure of looking at you, and then Arthur can talk to you when he comes in.”

  They had hardly finished tea when Arthur arrived and, according to plan, was told to sit by Aurea. Neither of them had much to say, but talk was quite unnecessary while Fanny held the field. Aurea asked Arthur how the children were. He said quite well.

  “And what’s far worse,” said Fanny, “the holidays begin soon and I am getting quite thin at the very thought of them.”

  “You don’t look thin, my dear,” said Mr. Howard, with courtly foreign grace, “you look delightful.”

  “You could see every bone in my body if you looked,” declared the fond mother. “And look at my hands. All my rings are falling off. I lost my wedding ring last week.”

  Mr. Howard was slightly shocked. “Lost it?” he repeated. “But you don’t mean to say you have been going about without a wedding ring all this time?”

  “Well, you see, I hadn’t got it, so I couldn’t wear it, could I?”

  “But — isn’t it a little unsuitable? I mean — mightn’t people think…”

  “Oh, no, I don’t think they would.”

  “But what are you doing to do?” asked Mr. Howard, quite puzzled. “You must ask Arthur to get you another.”

  “He would be so cross,” said Fanny, instantly becoming the oppressed wife. “It’s the second time I’ve lost mine, not counting the one I took off and threw at him and it went in the fire.”

  “This is indeed a bad habit to form,” said Mr. Howard.

  “Yes, isn’t it? And I don’t quite know what I’ll do this time, because Arthur will be so annoyed and it would look so peculiar to go into a shop and buy a wedding ring for oneself. Of course there’s always Woolworth’s. You can get an awfully good ring there for sixpence, or three for a shilling.”

  Mr. Howard was upset by Fanny’s attitude to the symbol of matrimony. “Really,” he said, “it is a more serious matter than that.”

  Fanny looked across the tea table to the other side of the fire. Arthur was showing Aurea some old photographs of their young days, with Aurea in incredible frocks and her hair puffed out all around her face. They were giggling over them and discovering old friends and enemies among the house party. So, feeling safe from interruption, she became contrite, and even managed to put a suspicion of tears into her voice as she said, “Yes, I know it’s serious. But you can see how awkward it is. And as you said, people might say all sorts of things if I went to buy a wedding ring alone.”

  “Would it be a help if I came with you?”

  “Oh, Mr. Howard,” said the innocent Fanny, opening her large dark eyes very wide. “How good of you. But I couldn’t dream of bothering you.”

  “No bother at all, my dear. Suppose we go one day next week, unless you have found the old one by then.”

  “Oh, I never find them. I dare say this one slipped off at Waterside while I was cleaning the car. If it did, I shan’t find it again till the machinery sticks.”

  Mr. Howard registered surprise, but mastering himself, suggested Tuesday next week. Fanny offered to pick him up in the car.

  “Thank you, Fanny. Say about eleven then?”

  This wasn’t at all what Fanny meant. “Wouldn’t that be a little early?” she said meekly. “I mean, if you were lunching in town or anything, you would have such a long gap to fill in and none of the cinemas are open except the educational ones about insects coming out of cocoons, all very indelicate and uninteresting.”

  So Mr. Howard quite agreed, and they decided on half-past twelve, with lunch to follow, and Fanny, out of pure devilry, said that she would ask Mrs. Howard too. That lady’s husband said it would be delightful, but that was the day she would be at Dorking, and would Fanny ask her another time.

  Aurea and Arthur had enjoyed themselves with the photographs. Arthur had been thinking of Aurea a great deal since their last meeting at the Sinclairs’, and weighing it all with a scientific mind, had come to the conclusion that he loved her deeply. With a man’s happy capacity for caring for more than one woman at a time, he combined a steadfast devotion to his Fanny with a rekindling of old fires. How he reconciled the two devotions was his affair. He was, luckily for himself, almost devoid of conscience as far as the paralyzing and inhibiting effects of that ill-arranged organ are in question. He did not greatly concern himself with the right or wrong of his feelings. What he felt was a fact; it had happened and therefore one accepted it. A great simpl
ification of life’s subtler troubles. Fanny was there, beloved, his wife, unassailable. Aurea was there, a warm and enchanting ghost from his youth, once loved, always loved, unhappy, inarticulate, asking nothing, unconsciously demanding everything. If these two loyalties clashed, there was no doubt to which of his loves his stronger allegiance would be. But that did not keep him from worshipping this once adored girl, this presently adored woman, whose delicate face showed humor and unhappiness, who was so childishly and totally unfitted to deal with life. Aurea’s presence recalled his early passion so strongly that he felt like a young man, half adoring, half afraid to speak. And all the time there was his Fanny flirting outrageously with Aurea’s father, and nothing could shake his loyalty to Fanny.

  He got up, drew the curtains and turned on more lights.

  “Ring the bell, darling,” said Fanny, “and say cocktails, because Val is coming and he’ll want a drink.”

  Tea was cleared away, cocktails brought, and almost immediately Valentine arrived.

  “Come and have a drink, Val,” exclaimed his hostess, “you know everyone.”

  Valentine smiled at everyone. Aurea smiled back, her heart banging about so furiously that everyone must see it, she felt.

  “We’ve had a lovely tea party, Val,” continued the irrepressible Fanny, “and Aurea is looking so lovely. Look at her there, Val. Isn’t it a face anyone might fall in love with?”

  A more ill-judged remark in mixed company even Fanny had never made. Valentine managed to say, with the requisite absence of conviction, that it was. Poor Aurea blushed again and hated herself. Arthur saw the blush and misinterpreted it. Mr. Howard felt a lamentable want of taste in his dear Fanny’s remark. There was a moment’s uncomfortable silence.

  Aurea spoke first. “I think papa and I ought to be going now. He has to go to town, and I am going home.”

  “I’m dining with Vanna,” said Fanny. “She wants to see you some day, Aurea. That’s in your direction; we could start in a taxi together. What about Val?”

  “I am dining in Chelsea,” said Valentine.

  “Then you can give us both a lift. I’ll split the taxi with you and Aurea, but mind, I’m only the extra sixpence.”

  She fled upstairs to get her hat and coat, and was down again in a moment. “Come on, children,” she cried, “we’ll pick up a taxi.”

  “Goodbye, Arthur,” said Aurea. “I loved seeing the photographs.”

  “Oh,” said Arthur.

  A taxi was soon found, and all three got into it. “Drop me first,” commanded Fanny, “Vanna is only a few streets off.” When Vanna’s front door had shut on her, Aurea turned happily to Valentine. “This is fun,” she said. “Now you can drive me home first. I thought we would never have a chance of seeing each other.”

  “Aurea, dear, I am so sorry, but I am almost late already where I am dining. Do you mind if we go there first, and you take the taxi on?”

  “Oh, but, Valentine, it won’t take you long to drive me home first.”

  “Darling, it will. You know how difficult it is to say goodbye to you. I shall spend at least ten minutes on your doorstep, and be frightfully late.”

  “Oh, Valentine, they wouldn’t mind if you were a little late. Oh, do come home with me first.”

  “Dear child, I would adore to, but I am so late already. I know you will understand.”

  One of the world’s silliest remarks. No one ever understands — at least, not in the way one means. And probably they will misunderstand more than ever. Aurea stiffened. She did not understand — not at all. If Valentine didn’t care enough for her to be a few minutes late for dinner — and not a formal dinner either, as he wasn’t dressing — what was the world coming to? Why should it always be she who gave in?

  “Oh, all right, have it your own way,” said she, rather rudely shrugging her shoulders.

  This rude attitude of hers put Valentine more or less in the right, but he very foolishly gave his position away by saying, “You don’t mind, darling, do you?” which is another of the world’s silly remarks, and immediately makes one mind very much indeed, besides unnecessarily reopening the argument.

  “Of course I do,” said Aurea sharply. “What difference would it make if you took me home first? And we shan’t be seeing each other again for two days, Valentine.”

  “You know I’d love to, darling,” said Valentine, a little too patiently, “but one must keep engagements, mustn’t one?”

  “Yes, to everyone but me,” said Aurea, turning like a tigress upon her lover, as far as is possible in the limited space of a taxi. “Just because you know I am always waiting for you, you think I am not to be considered at all. It serves me right for being such a fool. It’s not fair.”

  “Darling, darling, do be reasonable,” said Valentine in his most affectionate voice. “You do see that one can’t play fast and loose with one’s friends, don’t you?”

  “No, only with people that love you,” said Aurea furiously. The taxi had just reached the bottom of Sloane Street, and was whisking around the maelstrom of Sloane Square, so that she was thrown heavily against Valentine, but in her miserable fury she didn’t even notice it. “Stop this taxi, Valentine. I can quite well go home by myself, thank you, if you don’t care to take me.”

  “But, Aurea, do be sensible…”

  Sensible! She banged on the glass and stopped the taxi. Before Valentine could recover from his astonishment, she had got out and told the driver to go on. The traffic was held up, and she took advantage of this delay to put her head into the taxi and say coldly, “At least you might have got out yourself and taken another taxi to your beastly party, instead of leaving me alone in the middle of London like this.” The taxi moved on. Aurea had to wait a long time as the buses were very full. Luckily it was dark by now, and if one had a quivering lip and brimming eyes it didn’t matter. Nobody knew one. She got home in time for dinner and made a valiant effort to behave in front of her mother. Friends came in after dinner, but she could hardly see or hear for misery. Oh, why couldn’t Valentine be kind when there was so very little time; when she would have given up every engagement in the world for him. How could he be so cruel? How could she have been so impatient and horrible? And now perhaps he was annoyed, and wouldn’t want to have lunch with her the day after tomorrow, which would be unbearable. She didn’t know the name of the people he was with — he was very reticent about his friends, and she was not curious — and couldn’t ring up. And if she did, he probably wouldn’t like it. What to do, oh, what to do? Before she went to bed, the foolish, distracted creature did what her silly sex will always do — wrote to beg her lover’s pardon for being in the right.

  “Forgive me” she wrote, “for a word spoken in haste. One’s nerves are raw. I couldn’t help it. Please, please ring me up tomorrow. Always A.”

  As for Valentine, he was much taken aback by his gentle Aurea’s revolt. He was genuinely horrified that she should think him capable of deserting her in the middle of the road and going off in a taxi; but after all, he had not turned her out of the cab, it was she who had got out of her own accord. He ought certainly to have stopped the taxi and gone back, but he might not have found her again in the dark, and anyway, it would have meant beginning the argument afresh. He would have had to give in, if only as an amende for his involuntary impoliteness, and then he would have been later than ever. Besides, the unreasonableness of the woman. He did love her more than anything in the world, and would do anything for her in the way of (rather vaguely) protecting her from nothing in particular, or dying under slow torture (a contingency so remote as not to come under serious consideration) for her sake. But if one lived in the world, one must keep one’s commitments to it, and being punctual at dinner was one of them. So he put Aurea safely at the back of his mind, and next morning when he got her pitiful, ill-advised note, he called himself a brute, and rang her up, and said it was all forgotten. Aurea nearly burst with indignation at this calmly superior attitude, but was afraid
to annoy him by insisting that he had really been in the wrong by being so discourteous. So when he said, “Dear darling, I had to go on to those people, really, hadn’t I?” the poor fool melted to his voice and said, “Of course you had, darling.” And the rest of their conversation was nauseatingly dull to anyone else, and does not concern us. But alas for the proper pride of womankind!

  Chapter 6

  Not long after this Arthur’s mother rang Aurea up, asking her to dine that evening. Aurea wasn’t sure if it would be amusing or not, till she remembered that Valentine was apt to drop in between work and dinner. So she accepted Vanna’s invitation. Then she thought she would like to make sure of seeing Valentine, so she rang him up.

  “E. and S. Bank speaking,” said the competent female voice.

  “Oh, could I speak to Mr. Ensor?” said Aurea, while all heaven’s lightnings crashed in her head, and she felt empty all over. This was only the effect of being about to speak to Valentine.

  “I’m sorry, he’s in conference,” said the voice.

  Fanny would have walked over the voice and got through at once, but Aurea was afraid of the competent voice, and also a little afraid of bothering Valentine.

  “Could you take a message for him to ring up Mrs. Palgrave?”

  The voice wrote down the name and telephone number and rang off. Aurea walked restlessly about, played a little on the piano, ate a biscuit that she didn’t want, and did a little knitting. Presently the telephone bell rang. It was Valentine, introduced by the competent voice.

  “Oh, Valentine,” she said, in a polite voice, in case anyone was listening in the bank, “I am dining with Mrs. Turner this evening. If I went a little earlier, do you think you would drop in after work and stay a little later?”