Ankle Deep

by Angela Thirkell

  “I don’t think so, papa, but anyway I won’t if you’d rather not. Not that anyone would notice one.”

  “Whether they notice you or not, my child, you must remember that you lower yourself by going to such places, and in lowering yourself you lower the dignity and honor of all women.”

  Upon this appalling speech he got up and gravely kissed her on the forehead, to her unspeakable horror. It was inconceivably embarrassing, and nearly broke down Aurea’s patience.

  “Really, papa,” she expostulated, “I don’t know what I’ve done for you to be so unkind to me. I can’t help it if Valentine likes me, and it isn’t as if we had done anything disgraceful. If people can’t have lunch or dinner together with people without other people being angry with them, one might as well go to bed, or stay in Canada forever.” She began to sniff ominously. Mr. Howard did not recognize this sign of an impending storm, and was moreover slightly indignant that his kiss of peace had not been better received. So he addressed himself again to his daughter’s improvement.

  “You have been in a very unsatisfactory and restless state ever since you met this young man, Aurea.”

  “When you say ‘young man’, papa, it sounds as if he were fond of the cook, not of me. I only wish he were fond of the cook. No one would bother about whether she went to night clubs or not. I thought you liked Valentine, papa.”

  This unfortunately gave Mr. Howard another excellent opening.

  “So I do, Aurea,” he said. “And that is why I do not like to see my daughter running after him.”

  “Oh, papa! Running after him? I suppose you think he needs to be protected against me.” She sniffed rather more loudly and rapidly, and began to dab her eyes with her handkerchief.

  “Well,” said Mr. Howard, who felt he had now done his duty and by no means wished to face the consequences, “perhaps I do, my dear. But don’t cry about it,” he added kindly and unhelpfully. “I must go now and write some letters before dinner. When you come back from the theater we will finish our talk.”

  Aurea made a face of disgusted resignation which her father could not see. As her sniffs increased in volume, Mr. Howard thought it best to leave the room before he was involved in a scene, so he got up, took a step towards Aurea, thought better of it, fidgeted with a book on a table, muttered something about the post, and escaped.

  Chapter 8

  Aurea, left alone, could not check the flow of her tears. To be accused of having run after Valentine was too unkind a cut. Could there be any justice in what papa had said? True, she had liked Valentine from the very first moment she saw him, but not in a falling in love sort of way. If he had never told her that he loved her, she could have gone on feeling sentimentally fond of him quite happily. It made one reflect on the appalling power which resides in words. Until Valentine, too eager, too uncontrolled, let loose the fatal word love, all was fairly well. With the loosing of that word, all had been ill. There was quite definitely some primitive magic in the word that suddenly blinded one to all real values, leaving one in a world whose days were trances, whose nights were dreams. Had she succumbed too easily to this word of power? Aurea had spent a good deal of time in torturing herself quite unnecessarily by wondering if Valentine thought less of her for having answered his declaration with her own. A woman with more intelligence would, she thought, have kept Valentine very charmingly at arm’s length, and while confessing to some inclination for him, would have given always very much less than he did. While she, poor nincompoop, had stripped herself of every reticence from the first moment. It would have felt so ungenerous to hold back. When a gentleman, his eyes bulging out of his head, his tongue six sizes too large, his utterance that of intoxication, says he can think of nothing but you, is it kind or fair to withhold the fact that you can think of nothing but him? Possibly not, but it would, perhaps, thought Aurea, have been wiser. Perhaps if I had been less forthcoming to Valentine he would have been kinder to me sometimes. Another instance of the power of words, this time to confuse and mislead. One has read that in some countries there are certain words and phrases only to be used by women. We also have our words which, used by a man or a woman, mean entirely different things. If a man asks a woman to be kind, hasn’t the word one ultimate significance? If a woman asks a man to be kind to her, it usually means the beginning of muddles. She is asking for what to her seems reasonably her due in the way of consideration and attention; he is resenting what seem to him her unreasonable demands upon that precious but indefinable jewel, his complete freedom to be as selfish as he chooses. And how irritating a loving and exigent woman can be to a man, is what the female sex can barely understand. If Aurea had been less proud, she would have been the self-humiliating type that unavoidably rouses the sadistic instincts of any nice man; too ready to believe herself in the wrong, too ready to apologize for her lover’s lapses, and be graciously forgiven for what he has done. But though her heart was very humble, it was held up by her pride. If Mr. Howard had known how very manfully she had subdued her many impulses to throw herself into Valentine’s arms and see what would happen next; how often she had submitted with apparent cheerfulness to his thoughtlessness or selfishness rather than complain, he would perhaps have been a little less embarrassing about the honor of women. Aurea felt her cheeks burn as she thought of that revolting phrase. And what an evening it was going to be if it went on as it had begun. All one’s clothes packed except one old rag of a frock, papa preaching to one, Fanny and Arthur coming to dinner and taking far too much interest in her, Valentine coming to dinner and unable to get her alone, and probably flirting with Fanny, the theater where Fanny would be sure to put her next to Arthur, the uncertainty of getting Valentine to herself afterwards, the prospect of papa sitting up for her to finish their talk, then tomorrow and the last of England. It was too, too dreadful, and she broke out into the most undignified crying.

  Upon this Mrs. Howard, ready dressed for dinner, came in, and looked as if the last straw had been placed upon her back.

  “What is the matter, Aurea?” she asked, aghast at her daughter’s appearance.

  “Oh, mother, mother,” sobbed Aurea, throwing reticence and dignity to the winds, “it’s papa. He has been talking quite dreadfully about my making myself cheap and running after Valentine, and awful expressions about the honor of women. I do wish he wouldn’t enjoy himself quite so much at my expense, and on my last night too.”

  Mrs. Howard would have laughed if Aurea hadn’t looked so miserable, and been so obviously spoiling for hysteria.

  “Darling, you mustn’t cry so much,” she said kindly, but not too kindly. “Papa didn’t mean to be unkind. It’s only because he is so anxious about you.”

  “Well, I wish to goodness he weren’t,” said Aurea, blowing her nose defiantly. “He seemed much more anxious about Valentine. Here am I, perfectly respectable, and behaving like a lady, and not even letting Valentine hold my hand in taxis, or at least not very often, and what do I get for it but papa telling me I am the Scarlet Woman.”

  She cried again more hopelessly than before, while her distracted mother hovered around begging her to be reasonable and stop crying. “You’ll look wretched all evening, Aurea, if you don’t stop.”

  “Perhaps papa will be pleased if I do,” sniffled Aurea. “Perhaps he would like me not to go to the theater, and not see Valentine again, and have a thoroughly miserable evening.”

  “You mustn’t talk like that, Aurea,” said Mrs. Howard rather sharply. “Pull yourself together. Papa has been very much worried about you, and so have I, and if we didn’t trust you a great deal, one of us would have said something of the sort much earlier.”

  Aurea’s sobs were dying down, and she made an effort to talk properly, but her feelings were still lacerated.

  “It’s all very well for papa,” she said complainingly. “When he feels an attachment for an attractive female, he can be paternal and kiss her rather lingeringly on the forehead as if he were the Pope.”

&nb
sp; “Popes don’t kiss people’s foreheads, darling,” said Mrs. Howard, relieved by her daughter’s recovery. “And you mustn’t make me laugh at papa.”

  “Yes, I know, mother, people kiss Pope’s toes, which sounds like a piece of a chicken, but it’s all the same. And you really don’t mind laughing at papa. He is such a darling, but he is always so desperately right.”

  “Hush, Aurea.”

  “Well, only watch papa with Fanny tonight and see what there is to choose between us. And then just because I have an attachment for an attractive gentleman and have never kissed him at all, here is papa saying that we will finish our talk when I come back tonight, and I shall go quite mad if we do. I must have a chance of seeing Valentine alone before I go, mother. I must, I must.”

  “Aurea, you must be good. Papa does love you.”

  “I suppose he does,” said Aurea a little sulkily. Then, making an effort, she added, “I’m sorry. I know he does, and I’m an ungrateful pig.”

  Mrs. Howard breathed a sigh of relief that the storm was over. Probably Will had not been very tactful with Aurea. It was a foolish moment to choose for scolding the child when she was worn out with late nights and emotion and the thought of parting. She considered quickly and said, “You shall see Mr. Ensor alone, Aurea, when you come back. I’ll manage it somehow. I don’t know if I’m doing right, but I suppose you know what you are about.”

  Aurea’s pinched, tear-stained face became radiant.

  “Oh, thank you, thank you, darling. Oh, mother, I’m so sorry if I’m not behaving well. I’m a horrible daughter, and do nothing but be beastly and upsetting, and you have to bear it all. I can’t think how you can stand me.” And she hugged her mother violently.

  “I can always stand you,” said Mrs. Howard, touched by Aurea’s joy and gratitude. “That’s what mothers are there for. Now run up quickly and dress. I believe I hear Fanny already. She’s early.”

  “She would be too early tonight,” said Aurea, hurriedly collecting her out-of-door clothes and bag. But she was too late to slip away unseen. Fanny, followed by Arthur and Valentine, met her in the doorway. There was a hubbub of greetings, one look into Valentine’s eyes, and she escaped, calling that she would be down in a moment.

  While the others passed on to greet Mrs. Howard, Aurea lingered for a moment in the half open door to gaze sentimentally upon the back of Valentine’s head, but no one noticed her presence, as they all had their backs to her.

  Mrs. Howard said how do you do to her guests.

  “I’m afraid we’re frightfully early,” said Fanny; “but better too early than too late, and don’t bother about us; we can amuse ourselves. We brought Val along with us because he’s always late.”

  “I hadn’t noticed that you were a late person, Mr. Ensor,” said Mrs. Howard pleasantly. “A rather particularly punctual person, I should have said.”

  “He is never punctual, Mrs. Howard, unless he’s in love,” said Fanny. “I’ve seen him through about twenty love affairs, so I ought to know.”

  “Fanny, you are nothing if not tactless,” said Valentine. “Mrs. Howard please don’t believe a word she says. I have wasted so much time waiting for Fanny that I have learnt never to be punctual where she is concerned.”

  The door was suddenly closed. No one noticed, because Fanny, ever prompt to resent an insult, had turned on Valentine.

  “Ungrateful viper,” she hissed, so far as one can hiss a sentence without an “s” in it, “drinking all my good cocktails and bringing me here to insult me. Oh — Arthur — did you bring the tickets?”

  “Did you give them to me?” said Arthur.

  “Don’t try to put me off with evasions. Find them and let me see them, or we shall arrive at the theater, and have to go to the pit because we can’t run to four more stalls.”

  Assisted by Fanny, Arthur began to rummage in various pockets. His wife’s running comments made a cover under which Valentine had a chance to speak apart with Mrs. Howard.

  “Is anything wrong with Aurea tonight?” he asked anxiously. “She looks as if she had been crying.”

  “She is upset and overwrought. We all are with her going tomorrow. Don’t take any notice. She will be all right when she comes down. Don’t tire her and don’t keep her up late.”

  “Not supper after the play?”

  Mrs. Howard put her hand on his arm. “I’d be so glad,” she said earnestly, “if you’ll bring her straight home. She can’t stand much more.”

  Valentine felt sorry for her. “If I can get rid of Fanny and Arthur I’ll bring her straight back myself,” he promised. “May I come in and say goodby?”

  “Don’t be too long, will you?” she begged.

  “Goodby is soon said.”

  “I have known it take hours and hours,” said Mrs. Howard sharply. “But I have trusted you — a great deal more than was fair to you perhaps — and I appeal to you about this.”

  “I’ll be good,” said Valentine, touched by her anxiety. “I only want to tell Aurea —”

  But what he wanted, Mrs. Howard was never to know, for at that moment Fanny emitted a high screech.

  “And there they were in my bag the whole time,” she exclaimed indignantly. “Why didn’t you say so, Arthur?”

  “I asked you if you had given them to me,” said Arthur dispassionately.

  “A sensible question to ask when I had them!”

  “But you would insist,” said Arthur calmly, “that you had given them to me.”

  Fanny nearly burst with rage. “Let me never hear of tickets again,” she cried furiously.

  Valentine thought it time to interfere.

  “You’d better let me have the tickets, Arthur,” said he. “Fanny trusts me.”

  “Oh, no, I don’t,” said Fanny viciously. “Who upset the incubator? Who was going to dine with me on Tuesday four weeks ago and threw me over — who — oh, Arthur!”

  Arthur was talking to Mrs. Howard and did not hear.

  “ARTHUR!” his wife repeated in stentorian tones. “Forgive me, Mrs. Howard, but I want Arthur to go down and see if the car is locked.”

  “But you locked it yourself, Fanny, didn’t you? Don’t you remember giving me the key?”

  “Am I always to be met with evasions?” said Fanny, appealing to the company generally. “If you have the key you probably didn’t lock the car and I certainly didn’t. Here, Val, I don’t trust you, but you have some sense. Go down with Arthur and see if it is locked and tell me in which pocket he has the key when you come back.”

  “All right,” said Valentine agreeably. ‘“You don’t mind, Mrs. Howard?”

  “You’ll find Will somewhere about downstairs,” said Mrs. Howard to Arthur. “Do tell him it’s nearly time to dress for dinner. He has probably forgotten that we are dining early.”

  Arthur and Valentine went downstairs together. Mrs. Howard brought Fanny over to the fire and they sat down.

  “How are the children, Fanny?” she began.

  “Very well, thank you. The holidays begin soon, but I suppose I’ll survive them somehow.”

  “Aren’t they going to your mother-in-law?” said Mrs. Howard innocently.

  Fanny looked suspiciously at her, and then roared with laughter.

  “Quite right,” she admitted, “but I thought I’d get a little free sympathy. What’s the matter with Aurea? She’s been crying.”

  Mrs. Howard mentally wrung Fanny’s neck. “She is very upset, poor, poor child,” she said sadly.

  “Who has been upsetting her? If it’s a gentleman friend, let me see him and I’ll get my claws into him, that’s all,” said Fanny truculently.

  “Fanny, don’t be absurd, and I must say a little vulgar with your gentlemen friends. It is very upsetting for poor Aurea that she is leaving us tomorrow, and then all the packing and fuss. I rather hoped she would stay at home tonight, but perhaps it’s a better plan to pass the time away at a play. So please try to be a little considerate, Fanny.”


  Fanny for once had the grace to look slightly abashed and said meekly: “I am so sorry, Mrs. Howard. I do talk without thinking.”

  “You think too much, Fanny, and then you talk, and then the mischief is done,” said Mrs. Howard severely.

  “I’m really sorry,” said Fanny, a little frightened. “Please forgive me. What can I do to make up?”

  “Well, Fanny, you are very good at arranging things. Can you see that Mr. Ensor gets a taxi after the play, and brings Aurea straight home? If you go on to dance, she’ll be absolutely done up.”

  “We’ll all bring her home,” said Fanny.

  “No, dear, don’t do that. If you all come here you’ll stay on and talk, and she won’t go to bed and have a good night. Let Mr. Ensor take her home, and then he can go back and join you if you want to dance. He won’t want to stay here long.” And may Heaven forgive me for telling such a lie,” she added to herself.

  At any other time Fanny might have suspected Mrs. Howard’s motive, but after the affairs of the tickets and the key she was still fuming with rage against Arthur, and here was a chance to annoy him. He would naturally expect to escort Aurea while his wife went with Val. Very well, then, he should stay with his wife and be deprived of his last chance of philandering. Fanny’s temper must have been severely tried before she took such harsh measures against her Arthur, but he had been very trying and absent-minded all evening, and the key was only the last of a series of grievances which Fanny had been nursing.

  So she responded eagerly, “Of course I will. It may take some doing, as Val always wants to dance, but I’ll see them into a taxi, and I’ll give the driver the address myself, and I’ll follow them in another taxi, and if Val tries any dirty work on me I’ll have a real row with him in the street. What fun!”

  Mrs. Howard congratulated herself on having managed things well so far, but did not want Fanny to spoil them by overacting her part.

  “I don’t think you need go quite as far as that,” she said. “But if you’ll just see that they start in our direction, I shall be very grateful, dear. You needn’t be a sleuth.”