Ankle Deep

by Angela Thirkell

  “Quite right,” said Arthur. “I always felt that myself, but Fanny thinks it is real vice, bless her.”

  “And look at their clothes,” said Aurea, encouraged by this sympathy. “Some in coats and skirts, and the ones in evening dress all wearing bridge coats so that you shan’t see their naked arms.”

  Arthur advised her to suspend judgment about clothes till the theater people came on.

  “Would I see real vice then?” she asked hopefully.

  “I’ll give you the chance, anyway.”

  “What fun!”

  Food came.

  “When do you go back?” said Arthur.

  “Thank you for your tactless reminder, Arthur, I go today week, damn and blast it.”

  “I like to hear you curse,” said Arthur placidly.

  “All right then. Damn and blast leaving England, and curse it and damn its bloody eyes to hell. That’s the best I can do,” she said, not without a modest pride.

  Arthur laughed quite loudly for him.

  “All right. Laugh. But I mean what I say.”

  “Poor girl. Cheer up, it will be better on the ship.”

  “Oh, will it? Well, Arthur, that’s just exactly about all you know about it. It will be wet and windy on the wharf, and then the steamer will be icy cold with damp decks on top, and centrally-heated till it blows your head off below. The bar won’t be open, and the head-waiter will despise me because I am traveling alone and can’t afford to tip heavily. The head steward will put me at a table with the ship’s Sister to keep me good and quiet. Also I’ll be lucky if I get unpacked before we start rolling, and when we do, I don’t care what happens to me. Let me tell you, Arthur, that on an Atlantic crossing you discover depths in your stomach that you have never dreamed of.”

  “Then you must be a bad sailor.”

  “Marvelous, my dear Holmes.”

  “Well, never mind, Aurea. It won’t really be so bad. You’ll soon be coming back, I expect.”

  Aurea’s exuberance subsided. “I mout and then I moutn’t.”

  Arthur looked questioningly at her.

  “Brer Rabbit,” she said explanatorily.

  “Oh, I see. Aurea, all your friends will be wanting you to come back.”

  Aurea was looking straight in front of her, and didn’t answer for a moment. Where was Valentine? At what theater, at what dance? Where was Fanny? With him? Would either of them be among the friends that wanted her to come back? No, that would not be.

  “Will they, Arthur?”

  “One will, at any rate.”

  “You, do you mean?” said she uninterestedly. “Thank you, Arthur. But that doesn’t make leaving mother and papa any easier.”

  “There will be your children,” said Arthur in a comforting voice.

  “Oh, yes, bless them. And they need me, which is something.”

  Arthur was pleased with this small success. Unfortunately in his desire to comfort Aurea, he continued, “And your husband.”

  Still without turning her head Aurea said gently, “Always tactless, Arthur dear.”

  The memory of their talk at Waterside came over Arthur in full flood. Of all the inconsiderate, cruel things he could have said, this was perhaps the worst. He cursed himself for his stupidity. All evening he had been behaving like a perfect beast. First worrying Aurea by taking her arm in the taxi, then reminding her of Palgrave whom she obviously wanted to forget as long as possible. Why she so much objected to being touched, he couldn’t think. It had meant nothing; only a friendly gesture, but apparently to her profoundly repugnant. It must be that an unsuccessful marriage had made her man-shy. Unhappiness drove women to extremes — some drowned care in rather indiscriminate love-affairs as Valentine’s wife had done. Sylvia and Aurea; there couldn’t be two more different women. Sylvia screaming loudly for sympathy and getting it with an arm around her waist and a tearstained collapse into any gentleman’s embraces; Aurea freezing and shutting herself up alone. He saw again the momentary terror in her face when he had taken her arm. She had mastered it quickly enough, for her manners were very good, but it was there. If she could be frightened by such an ordinary action on the part of a very old friend, she must have been more frightened than anybody knew. He couldn’t make himself believe that it was he in particular who was repellent to her. She had shown in so many ways her pleasure at seeing him again, getting to know him again. It must be that the poor child was suspicious of all men. What waste it seemed of that beloved creature. He had only wanted to have her arm through his, and show a friendly spirit — or, to be quite candid, was it a living spirit? He didn’t feel equal to deciding. Why need she have taken it so seriously, and even tried to stop the taxi as if he were a white slaver? There was only one reason that would make a woman shun one so fiercely; that she found one physically disgusting. But no, there was another possible reason. What a fool he had been not to think of it before. Or no, it would have been fatuous to consider it, it was fatuous to consider it now, except that it fitted so well with everything that had happened. He knew Aurea well enough to recognize that she would have a high, ridiculously and impossibly high, standard for herself. Wasn’t it just possible that if she cared a good deal for a man who wasn’t her husband, she would deliberately set herself to suppress her own feelings; to be far more distant and unkind to him because she loved him, than she would be if she didn’t care? He had seen that she was strained and unlike herself since Waterside. Was this cool, far-off creature trying to hide an ardor that matched his? Did she refuse to be touched because her conscience made her refrain from what she desired? Lovely, silly, muddle-headed, unfortunate woman. Arthur caught his breath at the thought.

  “It’s like that, is it?” he said gently.

  Still without moving she said, “It’s like that.”

  It was a confession. But of what? Of her inward separation from Palgrave and no more — of an empty heart? Or of a heart already given, though fearing to let it be known? A quarter of an hour ago he could have asked her why she avoided him, and got some kind of answer out of her, but now the rooms were filling up, tables near them were occupied, already they had both recognized friends, and intimate talk was too difficult. He hazarded a question.

  “I suppose inquiries aren’t wanted — or sympathy?”

  Aurea turned her head at last and said lightly, “The first wouldn’t be answered, and the second would make me cry.”

  “I see,” said Arthur, unsatisfied.

  “Marriage is what you might call a tossup,” said Aurea, with the air of one making a general reflection, “but it is better to be married than not — for a woman, I mean. It gives one some kind of background, and that’s what women need unless they are abominably clever and strong-minded, or quite unprincipled.”

  Arthur tried again.

  “Did you ever think what it would have been like, Aurea, if you had married me?” he said.

  “But you never asked me,” replied Aurea, interested and very much surprised.

  “I couldn’t very well. I hadn’t a penny, and your people wouldn’t have heard of it. But I would have, later.”

  “Oh, Arthur, I’m terribly sorry, and touched, and upset,” cried Aurea. “How enchanting of you!”

  “You don’t mind?”

  “Mind what? Your having had a young love for me? But of course not. It is always flattering when people say they were in love with one, though mostly they only imagine it in a fit of sentiment, and would never really have asked one. Thank you so much, Arthur dear. I think it quite adorable of you.” She beamed on Arthur, and patted his coat-sleeve affectionately. “And now I can tell you,” she went on, “that I have always felt terribly romantic about you. Not being in love, of course, or any rubbish like that, but just because it was such a nice weekend, and the garden was so heavenly, and we were so young.”

  “So you did feel romantic about me?”

  “Why, of course. And that’s why I was so pleased to see you again.”

  “You
couldn’t feel at all romantic about me now?”

  “Now? Oh, Arthur, of course not. I’m terribly fond of you, but romantic — no. Do you know what I’d do if I felt romantic?”

  “What?”

  “I’d never see you again, of course.”

  “But why?”

  “Because of Fanny. She has been such a dear to me. She might so easily have snubbed one of your old flames. Do you think I’d poach? Oh, no, I like my own sex far too much to want to annoy them, and Fanny I’d certainly never annoy. But, anyway, that’s all ridiculous nonsense. It’s very nice to know that you thought you liked me, and that’s that.”

  That was that with a vengeance, Arthur thought. With many women this appalling frankness might only be a subtle form of flirtation, but with Aurea he sadly felt it was probably the truth. He rather wished he could think that she was leading him on. If only she knew how little Fanny would mind, and indeed how she would approve her gentle poaching, it might encourage her. But one couldn’t say, “My wife will be enchanted if you flirt with me.” Aurea’s taste would be shocked, and she would withdraw fastidiously. He looked at Aurea and saw beyond her, in the dancing room, his Fanny enjoying herself in the arms of a tall cavalier. He pointed her out to Aurea.

  “Where, where?” said Aurea looking eagerly about. Her annoying insubordinate heart was battering at its walls again in the expectation of seeing Valentine, and her eyes were clouded.

  “Over there, with that tall man who has his back to you.”

  Still she couldn’t see well, and one tall back in a tailcoat looks vastly like another. Not till Fanny and her partner had circled the room twice, did Aurea catch a glimpse of a very good-looking face bent over Fanny; therefore, thank God, not Valentine. At least, not altogether, thank God, for one wanted still so desperately to know where he was. Her steadfast gaze must have attracted Fanny, who suddenly caught sight of her, and with a shriek disentangled herself and her partner from the dance and came into the supper room.

  “My dear, what fun to find you and Arthur here,” she cried. “I have had a ravishing evening with Mr. Graham — this is Mr. Graham — and we came on here to dance. Why aren’t you two dancing?”

  “Men always want to eat,” said Aurea.

  “Too true,” said Fanny. “Here, Arthur, get food for Mr. Graham and me, and we’ll sit with you.”

  “It’s the first time I’ve been here,” said Aurea politely, “and I think it’s charming.”

  “Mixed lot,” said Fanny, “but amusing. Mr. Graham wants to join and I’m going to put him up. Who’s seconding you, Ronnie?”

  Ronnie Graham, who does not come into the story except as a make-weight, said he had spoken to Ensor about it.

  “Oh, that’ll be all right,” said Fanny. “Val is a very good person to second you. He practically lives here and knows everyone.”

  “Fanny is off again,” said Arthur parenthetically to Aurea.

  “Off what?” inquired his spouse. “Well, you know as well as I do, Arthur, what Val said to me about the Vampire,” and she began to laugh.

  “When he snubbed you, as you well deserved,” said Arthur.

  “Oh, I say, he didn’t snub you, Fanny?” said Mr. Graham.

  “Oh, yes he did, though.”

  “What happened?” asked Mr. Graham, who was obviously in a fizzling state of devotion.

  Fanny began to laugh again. “Twice I was having lunch here and saw him treating a female — a different one each time, of course — so of course I went and spoke to him.”

  “You would,” said her husband.

  “Yes, Arthur, I would, and why not? Am I not a matron? Well, Ronnie, next time he came to see me, he asked me not to talk to him when I saw him at the Vampire with a lady, as I would be apt to compromise him.”

  “Oh, I say, Fanny, you wouldn’t compromise anybody,” exclaimed Mr. Graham enthusiastically.

  At this ill-judged remark Fanny cast a withering glance at him. “It’s just as well, Ronnie,” she said, “that you failed in the diplomatic exam. Business is about all you’re fit for. My charms have not yet waned to that extent that I couldn’t compromise anyone I wanted to. What Val meant, my poor fool, was that I would probably, in my frank and open-hearted way — or in my cups, if you prefer it — ask after one lady in the presence of the next: and take it from me, Ronnie, they don’t like it.”

  Mr. Graham made profuse apologies. Arthur had relapsed into his more customary silence. Aurea wanted to run out of the room screaming, or have hysterics on the spot. Why, why must people say things that hurt one so? Was she just another of the many ladies that Valentine liked? It was silly, she knew it was silly, to mind. After all, why shouldn’t Valentine take as many ladies out to lunch and dine as he chose? If he didn’t take her, it was only because neither of them could bear it. But it was cruel, cruel, that the ladies who didn’t really care for him should have all the fun, while she, who would give her heart’s blood for him (if it weren’t, of course, for the children) had nothing but anguish and sickening anxiety. Just then Mr. Graham, who had recovered from his lapse, said to Fanny, “There’s that Mounsey girl.”

  “What Mounsey girl?”

  “The good-looking one that goes about a lot with Ensor.”

  “Val never told me about her,” exclaimed Fanny indignantly. “Where is she, what’s she like?”

  “Over there, in blue,” said Mr. Graham, but as this description fitted half the ladies in the room, Fanny nearly danced with rage.

  “Of course she is in blue, you idiot. Everyone’s in blue this season. Who is she dancing with?”

  “Ensor, of course,” said Mr. Graham, delighted to have some gossip that Fanny didn’t know.

  Aurea turned her face from the door towards Arthur. She wouldn’t look; she wouldn’t look. Valentine could dance with all the girls in blue in the world, and go about with them till Kingdom Come; she didn’t care, not she. But she must hear more. Luckily Fanny’s curiosity demanded full details.

  “You started this, Ronnie, and you’ve got to tell me more. Why didn’t Val tell me? Ungrateful hound, dropping in five evenings out of seven and then biting the hand that shakes his drinks. Who is the Mounsey? Are they going to be married?”

  Mr. Graham looked embarrassed. “I really don’t know as much as that, Fanny,” he said. “They just are a lot together at present. She has pots of money.”

  “That’s one good thing,” said Fanny. “I’ll get the rest out of Val, the sneaking, low-down dog. Aurea, why didn’t you keep Val out of this mischief? I thought I had provided a nice quiet, safe friend for him, but you are no good at all.”

  Nobody must know what she felt. Nobody must see that she was walking with bare feet on red-hot ploughshares, pierced with a thousand swords, struggling in tempestuous waters, beaten to the ground by black storm winds. “You ought to have found someone younger and more amusing that I am, Fanny,” she said. “I’m not quite up to Valentine’s standard, I think.”

  “His loss,” said Fanny briefly. “Well, Ronnie, are we to sit guzzling here all night?”

  The obedient Mr. Graham got up. Fanny blew a kiss to Aurea and Arthur, and whirled off with her swain.

  “Had enough?” said Arthur.

  “Yes, please,” said Aurea. Then suddenly it was more than she could bear. She moved closer to Arthur and said, “Arthur, I can’t tell you about it, but I am so unhappy — unhappier than you can ever know or guess.”

  Arthur felt a pang of hope and joy. What had seemed too exquisite to be possible, might be true after all. “Can I help?” he said very kindly. “Couldn’t you tell me about it?”

  “Oh, no; not you; never you.”

  Be still, fast-crowding, heavenly thoughts. She is unhappy; she longs to tell you; but you are the one person to whom she cannot speak.

  “My dear, may I guess?”

  “Oh, yes, if you like — it doesn’t matter one way or the other. Nothing can help me.”

  “Do I come into it at all?” />
  “It was quite a good deal your fault.”

  Fast-crowding, heavenly thoughts, come thicker, come faster. Her unhappiness is your fault. She loves where she may not, dare not, love.

  “Is it anything I said or did?”

  “No — and not animal, vegetable, or mineral. Oh, Arthur, I can’t explain, I can’t.”

  “Was it the weekend when you and Val were with us?”

  “Yes — partly — oh, it’s no good. Don’t ask any more,” she said, so piteously that he had to be silent. But his thoughts soared and raced above him. She cared and would not tell. His touch had roused her blood. But because of Fanny she would be silent. And he would be silent, too. If that darling creature could silence her love for loyalty’s sake, why so could he. For him a double reason for silence. Never to let Fanny know, and never to make it harder for Aurea. They were both worth it, and if his unhappiness would do either of them any good, by heaven, they both deserved it.

  “Come along now, Aurea,” he said, getting up. “I’ll put you into a taxi, and walk home. I need some fresh air.”

  Her eyes averted from the dance, Aurea left the club with Arthur. He told the commissionaire to get a taxi, and put Aurea into it.

  “Thank you so much, Arthur, it was a lovely evening,” she said, and held out her hand through the window. Arthur kissed it. It was very cold. He walked home with a vision of a tired, unhappy child going away alone into the darkness.

  Chapter 7

  Vanna is quite right about the inward eye. There are many ways of dividing one’s friends besides Mr. Max Beerbohm’s piercing definition of hosts and guests, and one of them is the inward or outward eye. Most of the people who were involved in the ill-starred folly of these few spring weeks possessed the inward eye, though in very varying degrees, and not always consciously. For hardly anyone can escape that mingled curse and blessing, unless it is Mr. Graham, who simply found his eyes useful to see things with, or recognize his friends by, or to express a passionate devotion with a fish-like stare. To him things are exactly what they seem, so perhaps he is the truest philosopher.

  First comes Mr. Howard because he is the oldest, and the most to be respected. In him there lived both scholar and poet, and the inward eye saw its own visions. All that was wanting to make him complete was a larger acquaintance with the marketplace. His acutely critical mind shrank from contacts that would disturb his fastidious taste, and for the most part he had made his own circle, and lived entirely inside it. Hence, it came that, while his wisdom could be profound, noble, and without any affectation, he could not always apply it successfully to common life, or if he did, he would apply it so absolutely that it frightened lesser minds. His perception of right and wrong was so finely stern that it could be exercised practically in nothing short of a vacuum. In him there was also an ardor for truth and justice, which in any less easygoing country than England might have led him into difficulties. From time to time he felt called upon to testify, in a way which was excessively alarming to his family and friends, but he was so much loved that his outbursts were received with tolerant affection. In fact, his younger admirers among the scholars and writers of the day rather looked forward to what Aurea undutifully called “papa featuring John Knox,” and took it with beautiful seriousness. Papa would never be really happy, Aurea continued, until he had got his whole family imprisoned or exiled; or better still, encouraged the Government, with a Roman gesture, to cut her (Aurea’s) head off, offering at the same time to wield the axe himself. One could see darling papa terribly hampered by a toga, sacrificing his daughter with one hand, and decently veiling his face with the other, so that no one should see how much he was enjoying his own nobility. Which was all very irreverent of Aurea, but not entirely untrue. Unfortunately — or at least from a purely philosophic point of view, one supposes it must be accounted a misfortune — cheerfulness was always breaking in, and the stern Calvinist or Roman was at the same time the tenderest and most loving of fathers.