Ankle Deep

by Angela Thirkell

  “Not so very horrid,” said Valentine; “they arrange it all for you.”

  Aurea felt unequal to any further statement than “Oh”, which doesn’t commit one, but she was able to say it more naturally. Valentine, still looking down on her, said, “I’m sorry.”

  Aurea, knitting very hard, said: “If you would perhaps sit down again, we might be a lady and gentleman having a conversation.”

  “I’d like that of all things. I am rather good at conversation.”

  “And I am celebrated for my act of a lady entertaining a gentleman. Shall I begin?”

  “I would adore it,” said Valentine. Then they both laughed, and felt more comfortable, and asked each other questions. Aurea told Valentine how old her children were, and what they wanted to do when they grew up, and Valentine told Aurea about his lodgings, and how his landlady wasn’t good at sewing on buttons. And as for shirts, he said, the number he had to give away just because the cuffs were frayed would appall her. Aurea became quite pale at this thought. It would be, she felt, almost unbearable not to see more of a man so romantically persecuted by fate.

  “Do you think, Valentine,” she asked, “that you would dine with us one evening if my mamma will have you?”

  “When?”

  “Would Tuesday be a good day?” she inquired.

  Valentine said it would be a good day, shelving till later the problem of getting out of a previous invitation to dine with Arthur and Fanny.

  “Mother and I are going to a party,” said Aurea, “but not till half-past ten. So if you would dine with us at eight, that would give us heaps of time, and we would drop you somewhere when we go.”

  Valentine said that would be perfect, and could be dropped somewhere near South Kensington Station.

  Just then Fanny burst in, followed by Mrs. Howard, who sat down near the fire demanding sympathy from Aurea. Fanny had kept her for nearly an hour in a shed among the incubators. It was cold, and there were only packing-cases to sit on, and finally Fanny had wanted her to help chickens out of their shells. But at such sticky pleasure she drew the line, and had insisted on coming in.

  Meanwhile Fanny was complaining to Valentine.

  “How foully stuffy it is in here,” she said. “Val, you really are a most useless guest. I didn’t ask you down here to sit and frowst by a fire all day. Come and help me to shift the incubator. I want it in the other shed, nearer the furnace.”

  “All right, you cowardly bully,” replied her guest. “You know a gentleman can’t refuse a lady when she is mean enough to ask him in front of other people.”

  “Come on, then,” Fanny began, when Valentine interrupted her.

  “Oh, by the way, Fanny, I’m so sorry, but I was a perfect idiot to say I’d dine with you on Tuesday without looking at my engagement book. I had an engagement already. Will it matter frightfully?”

  Fanny looked at him with deep suspicion, but apparently reassured by the serene candor of his countenance she only answered, “Make it Wednesday, then,” and dragged him from the room.

  “And how did you and Mr. Ensor get on, darling?” asked Mrs. Howard.

  “Very nicely, mother. Of course, it’s a pity about his face, but that can’t be helped.”

  “I see nothing wrong with his face,” said Mrs. Howard.

  “Did papa like him?”

  “I expect so. He always likes young men who call him ‘sir’.”

  “Well, in that case, mother, what about asking him to dinner?”

  “Yes, darling, if you want to. Friday week would do nicely. Friday is always a good day for papa, but this week he is engaged.”

  “I thought perhaps something a little nearer than that.”

  “I hardly think you’d get him, Aurea. Fanny says he is out a great deal.”

  “Why was Fanny talking about him?” asked Aurea eagerly.

  “She was on her eternal subject of matchmaking. She said she wanted to find a wife for him, but he was so much in debt that it must be someone with money. I do wish dear Fanny weren’t quite so blatant. She worked herself up so much about it that she dropped an eggy chicken into my lap. The chicken was all right, but I couldn’t bear any more, so I came indoors.”

  “Well, she isn’t matchmaking this weekend. You and I aren’t eligible. Mother, what about next Tuesday for asking Mr. Ensor to dinner?”

  Mrs. Howard began to be a little surprised at her daughter’s unusual persistency. “Well, darling,” she said, with a slight note of patience in her voice, “your father will be out, and you and I, if you remember, are going to the Sinclairs’ party.”

  “Oh, but it wouldn’t really matter about papa, would it? And if we dined at eight we needn’t leave till half past ten, and that would give us heaps of time to talk to Mr. Ensor.”

  If Mrs. Howard had possessed a lorgnon, she would have put it up. Failing this, she looked her daughter in the face. “I suppose what you mean, Aurea, is that I should go and finish dressing or write letters, and you should talk to Mr. Ensor.”

  “That was rather in my thoughts, mother,” said Aurea meekly. “Do let us have him for Tuesday. It would be such fun, and I haven’t much longer to enjoy myself in.”

  This appeal, of course, was bound to melt Mrs. Howard, and Aurea, one regrets to say, knew it.

  “Very well, darling,” said his mother. “You can ask him, but don’t expect him to come.”

  “Oh, but I know he can come, mother, because I asked him.”

  “I might have guessed that,” said Mrs. Howard with resignation. “You are very direct in your methods with your young men, Aurea, even if you do go roundabout with your mother.”

  “I love you more than the whole lot of them put together,” said Aurea, throwing her arms around her mother with great vehemence. “If you’d rather not have Mr. Ensor, we won’t.”

  “Silly child. Of course we’ll have him.” Aurea ought to have blushed now, but she didn’t.

  Then Arthur and Mr. Howard came back from their walk. Mr. Howard was enthusiastic about it, but on being pressed for details could give no comprehensible description of the path they had taken. His attention, he said, had been largely occupied by the delightful conversation he and Arthur had had about the recent excavations in Rome. Aurea turned to Arthur and said in a low voice, “Arthur, I admire you tremendously. How on earth did you keep your end up with papa about excavations.”

  “I didn’t,” said Arthur. “Your father held both ends up at once. I only listened, and saw that he took the right turning.”

  “Bless his heart, I might have known it,” said Aurea, beaming affectionately on her father.

  “Are you coming for a walk with me this afternoon?” asked Arthur.

  “I’d love to.”

  Then the restless Fanny burst back into the room, announcing that there was time for some bridge before lunch. Mr. Howard exercised a damping effect on the party by stating that whist had been good enough for him, and settling himself obtrusively with a book, Mrs. Howard also preferred to read, so Fanny gave up her bridge plan for the time and turned her attention to Aurea, making various piercing inquiries as to how she had spent her morning. Aurea emerged from this catechism with credit, and Fanny announced that Aurea would be a good friend for Valentine.

  “He needs a few female friends with economical tastes like you and me, Aurea. All the young women seem to expect dinners and theaters and dancing clubs and what not nowadays, and Val is hopelessly in debt.”

  “Fanny,” said Arthur, “I shall take to beating you with a stick if you don’t hold your tongue. My wife, Aurea, is a model of devotion and a perfect mother, but she seems to think every unattached young man she knows is created for the express purpose of taking her out for the evening. That is why most of her friends are in debt.”

  “Wasn’t Mr. Ensor married once?” said Aurea with a little difficulty.

  “Yes, Aurea,” responded the ever ready Fanny, “and a great mistake it was. But now he is free again, and it is a shame that
a really nice young man shouldn’t be able to marry again simply because —”

  As Arthur made an ill-advised attempt to stem this flow of confidences, she turned on him.

  “Arthur, if you interrupt me before I have said what you may or may not think I am going to say, I’ll BITE you. Simply, Aurea, because he is paying a whacking allowance to his wife as was, besides all the lawyers’ bills. All right, Arthur, now you can stop me.”

  “But does he want to marry again?” asked Aurea.

  This time Arthur got in first.

  “Aurea, you mustn’t listen to Fanny, she is incorrigible. Val doesn’t want to marry anyone as far as I know, and it is no business of Fanny’s, but she can’t be happy unless she’s meddling.”

  “Did you arrange his first meeting, Fanny?” said Aurea, with a shade of malice which was lost on Fanny.

  “I did,” said she modestly. “My first success.”

  Arthur gave up any further attempt to control his wife. “Success, she calls it — Oh, Lord!” he remarked in a private way.

  ‘“Well, Fanny,” said Aurea with much spirit, “if that’s all you can do for the poor man and then to get him down for a weekend with nothing but middle-aged married women about, I don’t think much of your match making.”

  “He who lives longest sees most,” said Fanny oracularly.

  “Very true, my dear,” said Arthur, “but singularly wanting in application to this particular case.”

  Fanny evaded the question by hailing Valentine, who came in at the moment, for a game of bridge. Valentine said she knew how he played, and if she didn’t like it she could lump it. Arthur and Fanny began to wrangle about which cards to use, Fanny maintaining that any cards were good enough for friends, Arthur that practically no cards were good enough for guests. Under cover of their argument Aurea approached Valentine.

  “I rather gather from my mamma that papa is pleased with you,” she said, “because you are a respectful young man, and call him ‘sir’.”

  “Anything else I can do to oblige?”

  “Well, if you wanted papa to feel passionate devotion for you, could you say something about Roman excavations? I don’t mean now — just any time. You needn’t know much about them. Arthur can do it, so I should think you can.”

  “Are you asking me to fawn in a sycophantic way upon your father?” asked Valentine, nobly.

  “Yes, please,” said Aurea, quite deliberately doing what her mother would have called making eyes at Valentine.

  “No Ensor ever refused a dare,” said the representative of that name, and alarmed Aurea by going straight up to Mr. Howard.

  “Are you playing bridge, sir?” he inquired.

  Mr. Howard shut his book in a temporary way with one finger in his place, and looked up with a patient expression.

  “No, Ensor. Whist was good enough for me. You young people amuse yourselves. I shall read.”

  This was not an inspiring beginning. Fanny and Arthur had finished their wrangle and were getting out a table. Valentine decided that a quick assault was his only chance.

  “I expect, sir, you are interested in the new Roman excavations. I was in Rome for a few days last autumn and saw something of them.”

  Mr. Howard took his finger out of his book and removed his glasses. The folly of bridge was forgotten. “How very interesting, Ensor,” he said, “most interesting. I’ve been wanting to run over myself, but I can’t get away at present. I should like to hear what you thought of them.”

  Valentine had it on the tip of his tongue to say, “massive and concrete,” but thought better of it. He had literally seen them, but had no scholar’s knowledge of the subject, though he was good at picking information from other people. He looked appealingly at Aurea, but she was sharpening pencils into the hearth, so he faced the assault again.

  “Well, sir, I only got a layman’s impression of them — I know very little of the subject. But it would be a great pleasure to me to tell you anything I can. If you cared to ask me questions I could give you some sort of answer, and probably,” he added, with his disarming smile, and incidentally with great truth, “you could make a good deal clear to me that I didn’t understand.”

  Mr. Howard put the book down. All was going well, but Fanny called for Valentine and Aurea to begin the game. Valentine apologized for having to go and asked if they could have their talk later on.

  “Never mind, Will,” said Mrs. Howard looking up from her book. “You can pick Mr. Ensor’s brains in the train tomorrow.”

  “Oh, I’m terribly sorry, Mrs. Howard,” said Valentine, “but I’m not going up by the early train after all. Will that be all right, Fanny, if I come with you?”

  Fanny, who attributed Valentine’s change of plan to her own charms, said it would be quite all right.

  “But if you’d let me come and call some time,” said Valentine, “I’d be awfully pleased to tell Mr. Howard anything I can about the excavations.”

  “Of course we will be delighted,” said Mrs. Howard. “Oh, but you are dining with us on Tuesday, aren’t you?”

  Unfortunately these words reached Fanny’s ears. “But — but —” she began. Then all her better nature, or her love of mischief, came to the rescue, and gulping down the furious expostulation which was surging in her, she decided not to spoil Valentine’s game. After all, she had asked Aurea down to amuse him, and if they had got off at once, she vulgarly said to herself, and Valentine wanted to dine with the Howards and throw her and Arthur over, why, it would be kindness to let him. So she contented herself with making a hideous face at Valentine, who looked deprecatingly at her and moved over to the card table.

  Meanwhile, Mr. Howard was explaining that he would be out on Tuesday, and that though it was his house he got very little consideration in it. Mrs. Howard, knowing how much he enjoyed his attitude, expressed contrition.

  “Oh, it’s all right, Mary, quite all right. But I do wish you wouldn’t change your mind so often.” He put on his glasses and retired into his book.

  The cards had been cut. Arthur and Fanny played together. “And please remember, Arthur,” said his wife, “that I occasionally like to play a hand.”

  “Last time we were partners,” said Arthur to the company generally, “I was dummy for every game but one.”

  “Indeed you weren’t,” answered Fanny, “unless you mean the evening you were asleep and I saved your life. Get on with the dealing, Arthur.”

  “That’s very nice, Valentine, that you are coming up tomorrow with Fanny and me,” said Aurea, “but I’m afraid you’ll find you’re rather squashed in the back seat with all the rugs and suitcases.”

  “I had a kind of idea,” said Valentine, “that some of the suitcases were going in front with Fanny.”

  “Then, where do I go?”

  “I had a feeling that you were coming in the back with me.”

  “If Fanny prefers the company of the suitcases, I suppose I might.”

  Fanny, who had been collecting ashtrays, heard the last words as she returned to the table.

  “What’s that, Aurea?” she said. “Do you want to go behind? Do. Arthur, for God’s sake finish sorting your cards and let’s get on.”

  Fanny was a born player of bridge, which she played with a poker face, a gambler’s instincts, and invariable luck. None of the others played seriously, so there was bound to be trouble, which indeed began when Arthur, looking at his hand, said gloomily:

  “A job lot if ever I saw one. No bid.”

  “What kind of convention is that?” asked Fanny tartly.

  “No convention. A rotten hand,” said Arthur defiantly.

  Fanny was going to retort, when Aurea bid a heart. Fanny bid a spade, Valentine two hearts.

  “No bid,” said Arthur. Then, noticing his wife’s expression, he added, “All right, Fanny, come and look at my hand if you don’t believe me.”

  “No bid,” said Aurea, but Fanny, invoking the shades of the Portland Club, gave a short and brillia
nt lecture on the laws of bridge to all who cared to listen. Arthur endured it with patience because he hated cards, and the longer Fanny talked the less time there would be for playing. Aurea and Valentine were both secretly and romantically struck by the fact that the game would probably be played, whenever Fanny chose to allow it to proceed, in hearts, their joint contribution. Each would have been ashamed to confess it to the other, but such trifles can pull strongly at unanchored minds. Valentine finally cut across Fanny’s lecture by asking her if she had anything to say, which nearly deprived her of her reason with rage. So two hearts it was, and Fanny’s lead.

  Fanny played brilliantly. Arthur was perpetual dummy. Valentine and Aurea played in a dream. Aurea, in any case, was the kind of player who scores by copying from a next-door neighbor, taking great care to put the figures in the opposite column of course, so it is hardly surprising that the Turners won four and sixpence each from their guests.

  While the party lay torpid after Fanny’s excellent lunch, their hostess did some thinking. So far her plans had gone fairly well. The Howards were quietly enjoying themselves. Mrs. Howard would always fit in, and Mr. Howard had got a lot of pleasure out of disapproving of bridge. They wouldn’t want to walk far on such a cold, wet afternoon. Aurea must walk, but with whom? Fanny’s original plan had been to send Aurea out with Arthur to annoy Valentine, and though Valentine, in spite of his treacherous behavior about dinner on Tuesday, hardly looked as if he would be annoyed enough to make it worth while, she did not alter her plan. Accordingly, at three o’clock she ordered Arthur to take Aurea for a good tramp and be back for tea at five. Both her victims seemed content and set off in mackintoshes. Mr. Howard showed symptoms of wanting to go too, but Fanny, determined that her Arthur should have fair play, delayed him, and finally sent him for a shorter walk with Valentine.