Ankle Deep

by Angela Thirkell

  Life had been very good to him, except in the matter of his only daughter’s marriage. In spite of his theoretical acceptance of things as they were, he sometimes blamed himself bitterly for having allowed Aurea’s marriage — though what a father can do to prevent his daughter marrying nowadays, one hardly knows. Aurea was good and obedient enough, but when she became possessed by an idea she showed astounding powers of blindness and obstinacy, and was as if driven by some inward force which would stop at no obstacle. It was a subject which his pride would never let him discuss, so that Ned Palgrave’s name was only mentioned on necessary occasions. In Aurea he saw his own image again (though it is improbable that he recognized her obsession by ideas and her obstinacy as an inheritance from himself), but without the support of the philosophy and the deep though undogmatic religious sense that had been his mainstay through life. Aurea was, he saw, what, coining a phrase, one might call anima naturaliterpagana. She was immune to any help or comfort of faith, and would always have to rely on her own strength entirely. And strength has hard work unsupported.

  But though he lived on mountain-heights, he could, as Aurea well knew, make disconcerting swoops into lower air. He knew far more about his daughter than she imagined. He had seen, as Vanna and all other people who cared for the girl had seen, that marriage was Aurea’s only vocation. Home, husband and children would fill her life. Only in love and safety could she discover herself, and grow in beauty and strength. But if marriage went wrong, it would go hard with Aurea and those nearest to her. Though he had not cared much for Ned Palgrave, he had felt that Aurea must make her own life. There was nothing against Ned except that he was too easily pleased, and with all his charm, hadn’t quite the fineness of fiber and perception that his Aurea would need. However, the child had been very happy at first, and he had stifled his misgivings. Now, one of a woman’s worst misfortunes had happened to her; she had grown out of her husband, as Mr. Howard had feared. Her face this time was a little harder, her mouth a little more set, her ways more restless than a father would wish to see. It cut him to the quick to see his daughter’s delight in being a child at home again, and her shrinking from returning to her husband, much as she missed her children. Long habit of silence about emotional things made it impossible for him to ask questions or give counsel. He could only watch Aurea in silent anxiety, with loving watchful eyes. Things were not well, but one mustn’t ask too much, and they were well enough till she had met Ensor in an unlucky hour. Mr. Howard had judged Ensor and approved him, but no good could come of what he called to himself Aurea’s infatuation. He trusted her sense of duty absolutely and had no fear that she would deviate, but he felt a certain lack of dignity in her complete submission to an idea. By a kind of inverted pride, he ignored the very large part which Ensor had played in precipitating the affair, and blamed Aurea for everything. He did not attempt to explain this attitude to himself, but if he had put it into words, he would probably have said, “My daughter, because she is mine, is so strong and fine a thing that she can bear every burden of the world. No harm can touch her save by her own weakness. If any man who is not her husband, loves her, it is only through her own will. Her spell is upon him, but she should walk untouched in mind. She has descended from her starry height to let a mortal love her. Hers is the blame.” Which was all very glorious, but put poor Aurea a little too high. She, too, needed the marketplace, and was sadly unexpert in the ways of men in love. A certain virginal quality about her had let her pass through life with only one love affair — the man she married. When, therefore, to an empty heart treasures of love were offered, she had no arts to turn aside the gifts, and not to be outdone in generosity, gave all she could in return. It did not diminish her troubles when she began to realize, by what her father had said as they walked across the park, that he might look on her as the temptress, and Valentine as the innocent bleating victim.

  In those few weeks she longed for a confidante. People in novels always had a female friend to whom they could safely confide everything: look at Diana of the Crossways and her dismal Emma, or even Tilburina. Or sometimes it was a man, older than themselves, to whom they told all their difficulties over an expensive lunch, receiving stores of ripe wisdom to guide their conduct. But in real life these confidantes appear to be rare. Aurea could think of several people who would be very sympathetic, but none who could be relied upon not to spread the news. Also it was so very difficult to talk about Valentine at all, because the moment one began one’s voice became strange and affected, one’s tongue was suddenly much too large, or so dry that it wouldn’t work; one felt one’s face looking tight and strained. She had tried to say something to Arthur, who was such a safe old friend, but nothing had come of it. If only he had said to her, “You and Val are in love, aren’t you?” it would have been such a help. Of course, one would have felt terribly embarrassed, but at least the ice would have been broken, and one could have begun to talk. Even with Valentine himself it was no easier. One could write pages and pages of explanations and outpourings, but she was very doubtful whether Valentine was interested in them, or indeed in anything she said. Some essential part of her meant everything to him, that was clear; but like the rest of his sex he had marvelous powers of ignoring what he didn’t want to know, and entrenched himself behind a double barrier of neither listening to nor understanding what one said to him. In fact, why one cared for him at all, considering how he trampled roughshod over one, Aurea couldn’t conceive. Just love, she supposed, whatever that apparently simple word with all its hidden implications might mean. If only one could stop the machinery for five minutes, and look around and take breath. But one couldn’t; and time moved on so swiftly towards the day that was to end all, and still she was no nearer Valentine than she had been when they first met. A little more experience would have taught her that love brings one no nearer to people at all; but there would be plenty of time to discover this and a thousand other disillusionments when the waste of seas divided her way from his. It was curious that one still had no particular sense of wrong-doing; except that her childhood’s conscience told her that mother and papa would not approve. Aurea had been a fairly innocent but quite deliberate, hypocrite to them. To her father she had said very little, and greatly feared that he knew too much. With her mother she had bluffed more brazenly, owned frankly to a love affair, and left her mother persuaded that she was exaggerating. What made it all the more difficult was her parents’ attitude of quite friendly interest in Valentine, combined with her father’s slightly condemnatory attitude toward her, as one who Led Men On. Of course, darling papa enjoyed thinking the worst of one so frightfully that it was on the whole worth behaving a little badly for the pleasure he got out of it, bless him.

  The last week passed. Aurea and Valentine had one frenzied dinner, too painful to be repeated, and four frenzied lunches together. They also walked miserably about the National Gallery, the Tate Gallery, the British Museum and the Brompton Cemetery, holding hands whenever possible, and falling foul of each other whenever they opened their mouths, through sheer nervousness. They found the Brompton Cemetery, especially that remote part which marches with the railway, the most conducive to lovemaking, but even so, such events as funerals, and people bringing flowers to put in jam jars, were far too apt to intrude.

  Fanny tried to arrange a farewell party for Aurea on the spur of the moment, but Arthur for once did not seem ready to support her.

  “Why not a party?” said Fanny. “We ought to cheer Aurea up as she’s leaving us. We might have Val and Ronnie, and make a night of it.”

  Arthur said he didn’t feel like making a night. Why not, he said, ask Aurea to dine with them and go to a play. They might ask Val too, and then he and Fanny could go on and dance if they liked while he, Arthur, took Aurea home. Fanny agreed, and rang Valentine up. “Come to dinner and a play tonight, Val.”

  “I’d love to, Fanny, but I’m not quite sure —”

  “Never mind about not being sure. Aurea goe
s tomorrow and this is her party. You’ve got to come and chaperone me while she and Arthur say goodbye to each other. Come and have a cocktail first.”

  Mr. Ensor said after all perhaps he could manage it, and left Fanny thinking that he was coming on her account. But when she rang Aurea up, she found unexpected opposition. Mrs. Howard answered the telephone, and at first wouldn’t hear of it.

  “No, Fanny, this is Aurea’s last night, and her father and I simply can’t spare her. You and Arthur can look in on us after dinner and say goodbye.”

  But this wasn’t in the least what Fanny meant, and she begged and prayed so prettily that Mrs. Howard began to relent. “I’ll see Aurea when she comes in and let you know,” was her last word, with which Fanny had to be content.

  Aurea was lunching with Valentine. They were both so overwrought that the waiter benefited to the extent of two cocktails and most of Valentine’s beer, while the pig-tub, or whatever is the city equivalent of that useful institution, probably received most of the lunch they had ordered, but could not eat.

  “What are we to do about tonight?” said Aurea. “Mother and papa expect me to stay in, and I shall die.”

  “Couldn’t they possibly do without you?” said Mr. Ensor. “Can’t you dine with me? I’ll bring you back early, truth and honor.”

  “Possibly I might, but I can’t bear to think of hurting them. Oh, dear, how awful it all is. Look here, Valentine, I will ask mother when I get back, and ring you up. Would that do?”

  “Darling,” said Mr. Ensor. “Only I’ll ring you up. It might be more convenient. At half-past three.”

  “Do you promise, Valentine?”

  “Of course I promise. Nothing on earth shall stop me,” said Valentine heroically, for which Aurea admired him very much.

  So they walked hand in hand like idiots to the bus stop, and Aurea went home and Valentine went back to work. When Aurea got in, her mother was hovering about waiting for her.

  “Darling,” she said, “Fanny wants you to go to dinner there tonight. Of course, you must do what you like, but I know papa will be terribly disappointed.”

  “Oh, mother, I don’t know. I can’t bear to leave you both, but it will be so awful at home, if you know what I mean. Wouldn’t going out be almost better? So as not to be alone?”

  Aurea looked so white and drawn that her mother rather agreed, and suggested that she should dine at home and ask the Turners around afterwards. While Aurea was trying to think of a tactful way to suggest that she should spend the whole evening with Valentine, and not finding any, the telephone rang. Aurea plunged at it like a madwoman, and felt the earth reeling as Valentine’s voice came through.

  “Dear darling,” said Mr. Ensor, who had a fine contempt for what the exchange might overhear, “Fanny has just rung me up to ask me to dine and go to a play and says you are coming. Wouldn’t that be rather a solution? Then I could bring you back afterwards.”

  “Wait while I ask mother. Oh, mother, it is Valentine. Apparently, Fanny had made all her plans, and was taking us to a theater. It seems too bad to let her down now. Do you think papa would mind frightfully?”

  Mrs. Howard noticed her daughter’s unblushing use of the word “us,” but made no comment. Her heart was wrung by the child’s anxiety, though she knew Will would feel the desertion.

  “What shall I say, mother? It will be all right to go, won’t it? Yes, Valentine, hold on a minute. Mamma is weakening.”

  Mrs. Howard made a decision. “You go to the play, then,” she said firmly, “but you must all dine here first. We’ll say dinner at seven-fifteen, and then papa will see more of you.”

  “Oh, thank you, mother. Valentine, mother says we must all dine here at a quarter past seven, and then we can go to Fanny’s play and arrange the rest later. Will that be all right?”

  “I suppose it will have to be — but thank Mrs. Howard very much for asking me. Will you be telling Fanny?”

  “Yes, we’ll tell Fanny, and oh, Valentine, couldn’t you come around a little earlier than the others?”

  “Darling, I’d love to, but I have promised Fanny to go for a cocktail first, so I can’t very well say no now, can I?”

  “Oh, Valentine, my last night.”

  “I know, I know, darling. Do you think I don’t feel that? But I did promise — you understand, don’t you?”

  “Very well.”

  “Goodbye then, darling. Bless you and bless you.”

  Aurea hung up the receiver, her joy suddenly darkened.

  “Thank you very much, mother,” she said dully. “It’s very good of you. Valentine says thank you very much, and he will come to dinner at a quarter past seven. Will you tell Fanny or shall I?”

  “I will tell Fanny. You had better go up and rest before you go out to tea.”

  Aurea trailed wearily upstairs, and Mrs. Howard applied herself to the telephone. She was not in a mood to stand Fanny’s nonsense and the affair was quickly settled.

  “Dinner here at seven-fifteen sharp, Fanny, and I want a few words with you alone, so come a little before seven if you can.”

  “All right, Mrs. Howard. Do you mind if we bring Val along with us?”

  “Yes, do.”

  Mrs. Howard left the telephone and composed herself to thinking out plans for the evening. After the sight of Aurea’s haggard face she had decided to be perfectly ruthless with everyone, even with Will, so that the child should have time to say goodbye to Mr. Ensor. It probably wasn’t going to do anyone any good, but to refuse Aurea this last meeting would be like telling a condemned criminal that he couldn’t have the sausage for breakfast which he had ordered for his last morning. The child couldn’t be more nervous and unhappy than she was, and if having half an hour, or an hour, or even an hour and a half alone with Mr. Ensor would still the anxiety in her eyes, she should have it, even if it meant locking Will into his study, or drugging him. Evidently a good deal of diplomacy would be needed. Fanny was the key to the situation. She would, of course, want to take them to a dancing place, and then all come back in a taxi or two in the morning, dropping Aurea first. Or it was quite conceivable that she might take Mr. Ensor off herself, sending Aurea back in charge of Arthur. She knew Aurea would behave well whatever happened, but was determined to make things happen nicely for her. Will would be difficult, but something would probably happen to smooth her path where he was concerned, though it could hardly be expected that Providence would arrange for him to have another crashing cold at a few hours’ notice. It was on Fanny that she must concentrate. Really, she would like to beat Fanny as the unconscious originator of all this trouble. If only Fanny hadn’t asked Mr. Ensor down for a weekend, Aurea would have gone on placidly enjoying her life at home, and gone back to Canada with no more than her usual homesickness. Ned wasn’t a bad husband, and later on he might manage to let her come with the children — send the boy to an English university, perhaps, if the Howards helped; and after all, what was money for if it wasn’t to help one’s only daughter and her children? But now all poor Aurea’s chance of peace was wrecked because of a weekend. Oh, why couldn’t men control themselves and be quiet? Aurea would never have fallen in love unless Mr. Ensor had taken the first steps, or if she had, she would have squashed and stifled it industriously. If only he had held his tongue, or goggled less abjectly, said Mrs. Howard angrily to herself, the child would never have opened the gates of her heart. She was far too trusting. Mr. Ensor was a very nice young man and couldn’t have meant to do wrong, but he had taken Aurea by surprise, battered her suddenly into submission, and with the fatal generosity of the inexperienced she had given her heart and mind completely. If only he was good enough for her, thought the mother irritably. He can’t really understand or appreciate my Aurea. He simply falls in love, Fanny says he is always doing it, and is determined to get what he wants. Her unusual gifts, her diffident charm, her childish trust are quite beyond his comprehension. I believe he really cares for her, but it isn’t going to break his heart.
Of course, it isn’t going to break Aurea’s heart either, because she is too strong, much stronger than Mr. Ensor, if he had the wits to see it, but she won’t easily get over it. Then Mrs. Howard thought of Aurea alone for a week on the Atlantic, racked by seasickness and lost love, and her wrath rose high. “I wish Fanny and Mr. Ensor were boiled in a pot,” she said aloud, viciously. It didn’t occur to Mrs. Howard to consider how much those two young people were making her suffer herself; it was a mother’s job to stand by and help, and any pain one received was all in the day’s work.