Ankle Deep

by Angela Thirkell

  Mrs. Howard took her company into the drawing room, telling Valentine he might smoke there. Aurea went off to the other end of the room, and began making little noises on the piano. Valentine would obviously have liked to follow her, but politeness kept him by his hostess.

  “Do you like your coffee black, Mr. Ensor?”

  “Please, and two lumps, may I?”

  “Will was so disappointed to miss you, but he hopes to have his talk with you another time.”

  Valentine’s eyes were glued on Aurea and his attention was elsewhere. When his hostess stopped speaking, he brought it back with a jerk.

  “I’m frightfully sorry,” he said. “I didn’t hear what you were saying. The piano distracted me.”

  “So I noticed,” said Mrs. Howard drily. “I was only saying that Will was sorry he had to be out tonight.”

  “So am I,” said Valentine effusively and untruthfully.

  “But you must come again and have your talk with him.”

  “I’d love to.”

  “And I’d like to have a talk with you myself some time,” said Mrs. Howard, “but just now you must excuse me, as I’ve got some letters that must be written. Aurea will look after you.”

  “That’s splendid,” said the distracted Valentine. “I mean I’m awfully sorry — I mean —”

  Mrs. Howard gathered her scarf and bag, and rose in a slightly annihilating way. “Aurea,” she said.

  Aurea stopped playing.

  “We must start about a quarter past ten.”

  “All right, mother darling, I’ll be ready.” She resumed her playing, while Ensor opened the door for Mrs. Howard. Then he lit a cigarette and came over to the piano and watched Aurea.

  “Hello, Valentine,” said she. “Has mother done her famous act of Mrs. Howard exhibiting tact?”

  Valentine said nothing. His whole body and mind were in indescribable turmoil. This, he reflected, without considering how often he had previously made the same reflection, was quite unlike anything that had ever happened before. Here was this enchanting creature, older than the charmers, yet more attractive; far more experienced in some ways, yet of heartbreaking innocence; ill-mated, or so he had gathered from her father, but not asking for pity; confidingly friendly, but able to keep one at arm’s length. How heavenly it would be to have her for a friend, to give her the cool affection which was so obviously all she needed, never to disturb her. A good resolution, but Valentine was a bad gardener, and could not resist the temptation to dig up his seeds and examine their progress. Quite suddenly, in a voice that wasn’t his, he said, “Aurea, you have the loveliest hands in the world, and the loveliest voice.”

  Aurea stopped playing and looked up. Of course it was unavoidable that this should happen, but she must get time.

  “You aren’t by any chance falling temporarily in love with me, are you?” she asked lightly.

  “No,” said Valentine, so fiercely that it surprised them both. He turned his back on Aurea and walked to the far end of the room.

  Aurea got up and went toward him. Valentine turned, and they met face to face.

  “I can only say,” said Valentine with a rapid thick utterance, “that I have thought of you consecutively for every single moment since yesterday.”

  Aurea was quite still. “I know, I know,” she said.

  “I thought I was old enough to be a man of the world, and have savoir faire,” said Valentine, managing to laugh at himself a little, “and in general keep my senses. But I can think of nothing but you — you — you.”

  Aurea didn’t move. “Yes, I know,” she said.

  “How do you know?”

  “Because,” said Aurea, speaking quickly, as if there were not a moment to lose, “there hasn’t been a moment since Fanny and I left you yesterday that you haven’t been in my thoughts.”

  “Then you have felt it too.”

  “I haven’t slept all night. I have put it to myself in every possible way. I have thought how ugly it could all sound. Here are you, a man who has lately been divorced and, as far as outsiders know, for good reasons. Here am I, a respectable married woman with two growing-up children, away from my husband. One’s friends could make it sound very unromantic, couldn’t they?”

  They stood an arm’s length apart and looked at each other. Valentine, Aurea recognized rather wearily, was less under control than she was. She knew that she only had to move a step forward for Valentine to take her in his arms. But what then? It didn’t perhaps matter so frightfully whether a man kissed one or not, but in Aurea there rose suddenly a passionate desire that Valentine should not be with her as he probably was with other charmers. They kissed and laughed and forgot. She would never forget, but she would not let herself have even a kiss to remember: as for laughing, that, thank heaven, one could always do. Valentine should never find her easy. He could think her cold if he liked, but she would die before she would betray her own answering ardor. I think, she said sardonically to herself, I care more for his honor than I do for my own. He will have to love me without touching me, or not at all.

  “Sit down, Valentine, and talk to me,” she managed to say. “Why did you tell me about yourself on Sunday morning?”

  “I don’t know. I had to.”

  “Do you usually find it a good opening with ladies?”

  “You have no right to say that, Aurea,” said Valentine furiously.

  “How can I tell? Fanny says that charmers by the hundred are at your feet.”

  “Fanny,” said Valentine, becoming a little more normal in manner, “is an untruthful, exaggerating minx. Aurea, I have a thousand million things to say to you and I can’t think of one of them.”

  “Then try to answer my question. Why did you suddenly burst out at me with your life’s story?”

  “Aurea, I couldn’t bear you to think me anything that I am not. I wanted you to know the best and worst of me. I adored you.”

  “Gentlemen don’t usually adore one all in five minutes like that.”

  “No one could see you without adoring you. Give me your hand.”

  Not seeing any alternative, Aurea gave it.

  “May I give you one very gentle kiss?” said Valentine, who was quite recovering his good spirits.

  “Oh, no.”

  “Are you afraid that a flame will run through us both if I do?”

  Aurea withdrew her hand and got up. “Oh, no!” she said, and then she walked up and down the room in great agitation, saying, “Oh, hell! Oh, hell!” in such a plaintive, helpless voice that Valentine couldn’t help laughing.

  “It’s going to be much more hell before we have done with each other,” he said cheerfully. “Sit down, Aurea, I won’t touch you — truth and honor, I won’t.”

  Aurea sat down. Valentine lit another cigarette. “Oh, heavens,” he remarked, “why didn’t I know you when we first met? I could have made you happy.”

  “I very much doubt it. Besides, you must remember that we are very near the same age, which means that when we were both about twenty, I was years older than you. You were only a fledgling then, while I was old enough to be married next year.”

  “By heavens,” said Valentine, “I’d marry you tomorrow if you were free.”

  “But you see I’m not,” said Aurea, finding the conversation distinctly easier. “In fact, I’m a perfectly respectable married woman, and likely to remain so.”

  “I adore you and adore you,” said Valentine irrelevantly.

  Aurea couldn’t help laughing. “Dear Valentine,” she said, “it is perfectly charming and terribly flattering of you to go on like that, and to goggle your eyes at me to that extent, but suppose you try to have about a pennyworth of sense.”

  “How can I with you about?”

  He looked so ardent that Aurea hastily remarked in an abstracted way, “I often wonder what makes men breathe so loud when they think they are in love.”

  “I would like to shake you,” said Valentine, with much feeling.

&nb
sp; “Then want must be your master. Dear Valentine, do listen for a moment while I talk to you. You seem a little overwrought tonight, and you’ll probably repent it all tomorrow morning. Let me make it easier for you. Couldn’t you put your hand on your heart and say, ‘Darling Aurea, I have been an absolute half-wit and the victim of a divine frenzy. The frenzy having now abated, please forget about it, and be a very dear friend till you leave England.’ Couldn’t you do that for me? I wouldn’t think a pennyworth the worse of you for it — perhaps even a pennyworth the better.”

  “No.”

  “Oh, please do. It would truly be best, and later on you’ll be quite grateful to me that things went no further.”

  “Don’t,” said Valentine, getting up and walking over to the fire. Aurea followed him and they stood looking at the flames.

  “It’s all so overwhelming and romantic and ridiculous,” she said in a low voice, “and I never could resist romance.”

  “Is it only romance, Aurea?”

  “No,” she said, “it’s something more.”

  She was trembling so, that Valentine could only control his burning desire to take her in his arms by remembering that to frighten her would be the worst thing he could do for himself, and certainly not the way to requite her mother’s hospitality. So, without coming any nearer to her, he said: “Is it love?”

  “I don’t know,” said she, never withdrawing her eyes from the flames, “whether it is you that I love, or only a thought that I have of you.”

  “My lovely darling,” said Valentine in a voice of such peaceful tenderness that Aurea felt it like a sword in her heart. Summoning all her resolution, she looked at him steadily before answering, “I can’t very well say that to you, can I?”

  Valentine had to laugh. “Perhaps ape-face would be more to the point,” he remarked.

  “I do like to hear you being sensible,” said Aurea, and sat down by the fire. Her danger point, she felt, had passed. She was mistress of herself, and could now give her mind to helping Valentine, who was still abundantly in need of help, as was proved by his next remark.

  “Aurea,” he said in an exalted voice, “this marvelous thing has come to us both, and we must go through with it to the end, whatever it means.” And a sillier remark, even by a man in love, has seldom been made.

  “My poor Valentine,” said his adored one, “your brain must be made of cotton wool. Let me explain to you again, firmly but kindly, that I am nothing if not respectable, and that everything comes to an end for me when I sail for Canada. Need I say it again?”

  “I suppose not,” said Valentine, and then foolishly added: “But you don’t mind being friends till then?”

  “It’s such an elastic word, Valentine. Friends, yes, with all my heart, but only as far as a line which I draw. I don’t want you to have anything to regret when I am gone, and you sometimes perhaps think of me.”

  “My dear, I know, I know, that there can never be anything between us such as every lover must long for, but I can’t help adoring. Will you let me?”

  “I don’t seem to have very much control over what you do, or don’t do,” said Aurea piteously. “Oh, dear, how very upsetting it all is. If only I could cry.”

  “I couldn’t bear to see you cry,” said Valentine earnestly.

  “Selfish beast.”

  “I’m so sorry. Do cry. Would you like to cry on my shoulder?”

  “Of course I should,” said Aurea promptly, “but I’m not going to. Do you think I have no principles?”

  “I wish I did.”

  “I can’t think,” said Aurea, striking out a new train of thought, “why I don’t feel wicked or remorseful, but I really don’t in the least. But perhaps,” she added hopefully, “it will come in time.”

  She looked so delighted at the comforting thought, that Valentine’s heart smote him for the grief he was so abundantly bringing to this beloved creature. But it was only a temporary smiting. The telephone bell rang, and Aurea went to the receiver.

  “Hello,” she said, “yes, darling, yes, we are going. You are? I thought you were staying at home tonight. Wait a minute and I’ll ask mother.” She put her hand over the mouthpiece and turned an agonized face to Valentine.

  “Valentine, it’s Fanny. She says if you can change your mind so can she, and they are going to the Sinclairs after all and want to pick us up. I don’t know what to say. I wish she wouldn’t, but she knows you are here, and I don’t want to seem rude.”

  “Pretend you are cut off.”

  “Have you yet met the telephone that could get cut off if Fanny wanted to talk? I’ll have to say yes.” After a little more talk she put the receiver up.

  “She and Arthur are coming around directly,” she said with gloomy resignation.

  “They would,” said Valentine.

  Conversation languished. What more was there to say? Both were so shaken with passion that speech was nothing but a barrier. But as the barrier had to be kept up, speech was necessary.

  “I must tell mother that Fanny is coming,” said Aurea.

  “Wait a moment, Aurea. I’ve got to see you again. When can it be?”

  “Whenever you like.”

  They both spoke in low hurried voices as if enemies were watching and listening.

  “May I take you out to dinner tomorrow?”

  “I thought you were dining with Fanny. You can’t very well throw her over twice.”

  “Thursday, then?”

  “I’d love to.”

  “And may I call on you tomorrow rather late?”

  “You may.”

  “And may I ring you up tomorrow morning?”

  “Do.”

  “I’ll be here then with a taxi at half-past seven on Thursday.”

  “And may I remind you,” said Aurea, “that taxis are apt to have rather an intoxicating effect on gentlemen of your sex?”

  “You needn’t have said that,” said Valentine gravely. “Give me your hand.” He raised it to his lips, and let it go. “That,” he said firmly, “is what I think of you.”

  “You are rather an angel,” said Aurea. They moved apart as Mrs. Howard came in, anxious because Aurea wasn’t ready. Aurea told her that Fanny was coming, and was sent upstairs to tidy herself.

  “Come and sit down, Mr. Ensor,” said Mrs. Howard. “Did you and Aurea find things to talk about?”

  “Quite a lot,” said he. “We got on very well. I hope you’ll let me take her out to dinner on Thursday.”

  “I’m sure she would like it.”

  “And then may I take her to a show, and perhaps to supper?”

  “Yes, I suppose so,” said Mrs. Howard, rather surprised. “Don’t you young people usually make your own plans without consulting us?”

  Valentine looked a little confused. “You see, Mrs. Howard,” he said, “Aurea is rather different.”

  “She is; though I shouldn’t have thought you were old enough to notice it.”

  “One couldn’t help noticing it. She isn’t a bit like anyone else. Not like Fanny.”

  “I should think not,” said Mrs. Howard, bridling, if any one bridles now.

  “You see,” said Valentine, frowning with the effort of unwonted thought, “Fanny is grown up and Aurea isn’t.”

  Mrs. Howard was taken aback. Aurea’s quality of un-grownupness was obvious enough to her father and mother. They loved it because it was herself, and deplored it because it left her so fatally unprotected against life. But they didn’t think it was so noticeable to the first comer. To her liking for Valentine, Mrs. Howard began to add a certain respect for his insight into her child.

  “Yes,” she sighed, “it is difficult to remember that Aurea is a grown-up person with responsibilities.”

  “And meeting her in your house makes her seem even younger,” said Valentine. “It is ridiculous to think of her with growing-up children.”

  “And a husband,” said Mrs. Howard.

  Valentine nearly jumped at these words. Had Mrs.
Howard said them pointedly, or was it just a statement? When you have been making love violently to a married woman, your conscience may be a little uneasy in front of her mother with whom you are dining. More had been said or implied between him and Aurea than could ever be undone, and if Mrs. Howard was meaning to warn him, it was too late.