Ankle Deep

by Angela Thirkell

  Then it was teatime, and Mr. Howard came down from his study, and a dull friend came to tea and told them all about a cruise in the Mediterranean, and Mr. Howard suddenly rose to epigrammatic heights and said the only advantage of foreign travel was that it put you on an equality with other bores. Then he wondered if he had let himself go too far and hurt the dull friend, and Mrs. Howard wondered too. But the dull friend laughed heartily, and said that was so like Mr. Howard, and told them all about a bird sanctuary at her place in the country which she called Heinz, because she had seen fifty-seven varieties, and Mr. Howard had to have the joke explained to him, and was willfully dense and altogether trying. At last the dull friend went, and Mrs. Howard in the relief at her departure quite forgot to tell her husband about the evening’s arrangements and went upstairs, leaving him comfortably established by the fire.

  His thoughts very naturally fell upon his daughter’s departure. Mr. Howard thought far more about Aurea than she imagined, and though he could be so excessively annoying and, for a clever man, really stupid, he had flashes of insight which paralyzed her. Ever since he had coupled her name and Valentine’s she had looked on him with increased respect, mingled with irritation. Mr. Howard was quite unconscious of the effect he produced. He saw in his mind an Absolute Daughter, who was also Absolute Wife and Mother, and poor Aurea was tacitly expected to represent all three in their highest and most abstracted form. If he had admired her less he might have understood her more, for to be on a pedestal frightened Aurea, and she was torn between duty, which told her to go on standing there looking dull, and inclination, which told her to kick it down and show her papa how human she was. But this would have hurt the poor darling too much, so she had to go on letting him admire her, feeling altogether unadmirable.

  It was quite inconceivable to Mr. Howard that his Aurea should be deeply in love with a man who wasn’t her husband. He looked upon her relations with Valentine as a very foolish flirtation, which was luckily being stopped before it had got too conspicuous, or made Aurea lose her head. He would, and justifiably, have staked his life on his daughter’s strength of principle, but what he did not understand was that she was almost killing herself for those principles. If he had realized the intensity of Aurea’s feeling for Valentine, he would have been really shocked and almost disgusted. She was being silly and needed pulling up, he considered, and it would be his painful, though rather pleasurable duty, to speak to her for her good. If he had been able to formulate his thoughts about Valentine, it would have been found that he thought he was protecting that promising young man against a Rapacious Female, and sticking together as man with man against Femininity. What Valentine would have thought, we shall never know, for he never considered Mr. Howard at all except as a kind old gentleman, who was Aurea’s father and was to be humored and respected. Luckily, neither of these gentlemen will ever see into the other’s mind.

  Mr. Howard must have been sitting alone for some time in the firelit room, when he was roused by the lights being turned on. It was his erring daughter who came up behind him, kissed the top of his head, and threw her hat and furs upon a chair. Mr. Howard had been prepared with several good openings for her improvement, but it did not somehow seem quite the moment for them.

  “Where’s mother?” said Aurea.

  “Upstairs, I think,” said her father. Then there was a silence while he considered. Finally he could think of nothing more tactful to say than, “Did you get your heavy luggage off?”

  Aurea nearly laughed out loud in the middle of her grief and fatigue. It was so like darling papa to ask one that. She knew he only asked her because he couldn’t express sympathy and was afraid of sitting silent, and she understood him well enough to try to continue on the safe lines he had laid down.

  “Oh, yes, papa, that all went this morning. It is rather like burning one’s boats, isn’t it? And now I have to live in a suitcase till tomorrow.”

  “I dare say,” said Mr. Howard, finding this conversation rather difficult, “you will manage all right for so short a time.”

  If this, Aurea reflected, was papa’s idea of a comforting talk, she wished he would say right out how ghastly it was that she was going away. But if it made him feel safer to trample about unconsciously on her feelings, why, then, he should.

  “I dare say I shan’t,” she answered gloomily and not too politely. “I hate living in suitcases. There seems to be room in a suitcase for everything except your shoes and evening dress and cloak and hairbrush and anything you really want.”

  This turned out to be a most unwise remark as it roused Mr. Howard’s slumbering suspicions.

  “But you won’t want an evening dress tonight, will you? Aren’t we alone?”

  “Oh, no, papa. Didn’t mother tell you we are going to a play?”

  Mr. Howard could not afford to lose this opening. In a voice of far too patient resignation he said, “I thought, Aurea, you were spending your last evening at home.”

  Aurea nearly screamed. Of course this scene was bound to occur, but now it had come it was nearly more than one could bear. She thought her mother would have told papa about the plans for the evening, as indeed Mrs. Howard had fully intended to do and would have done, if the dull friend had not driven everything out of her head. Part of her blamed herself bitterly for deserting papa on the last evening; another part pointed out that they would only get on each other’s nerves and be miserable if they spent the evening alone; yet another part regrettably murmured what a pity it was papa had to be so important about it, but she was ashamed of this murmur and stifled it. She couldn’t prevent an answering tone of patience creeping into her own voice as she replied, “We are dining at home, papa, but we’re going to a play afterwards.”

  “I,” pronounced Mr. Howard, in a justly aggrieved voice, “am always the last person to know what is happening in this house. If you and your mother choose to tell me nothing, I am hardly to be blamed for my ignorance.”

  What is the correct answer to a father who expresses himself thus? Aurea would dearly have liked to say, “Oh, aren’t you?” and flounce out of the room, banging the door. But that would startle and hurt papa, and then one would have to come back and say one was sorry, and be mortified, and feel more embarrassed than ever. Remember, said that first part of herself, how much papa loves you and how unhappy he really is at your going away, only he can’t show it. But he needn’t make a song about it, said that other part of her, very rudely and vulgarly, though not without some justification. Then she was overcome with remorse, and got up and kissed the top of her father’s head again, saying plaintively:

  “You don’t mind, papa, do you. It is not so awful as sitting here all evening, pretending that tomorrow doesn’t exist.”

  Mr. Howard was filled with a flood of tenderness for his wayward child, and nearly told her that whatever she did was right. But a perverse spirit entering into him at that moment caused him to make a speech of quite unnecessarily noble renunciation.

  “Tomorrow,” he said, “will come whether you pretend or not, but if it is going to make you any happier, my child, by all means go.”

  A more exacerbating remark could not well have been made. Aurea’s first impulse was to say, “All right, then, I shan’t,” fly to the telephone, put everyone off, and sulk all evening. Her better self then put in a word of warning about people who cut off their noses to spite their faces. She must, she must see Valentine that night whatever happened, even at the risk of hurting her dear papa. She gulped down her resentment and thanked her father very much.

  “It is darling of you,” she said. “But I shall be full of remorse all evening for deserting you and mother.”

  “Don’t add that to your unnecessary worries. Your mother and I shall have a quiet evening with some reading aloud, and be quite happy. I would like you to enjoy yourself.”

  A pang shot through Aurea as she thought of her parents’ peaceful evening, taking it in turns to read themselves to sleep. So many such eveni
ngs when she was a girl and preferred to get away, and be out and about with her friends. So many such evenings, thought of with desperate longing, while she was away in Canada. So many such evenings to come when she had gone again. Even tomorrow evening, when she was at sea, her father and mother would be here in this room, by this fire, beside this lamp, reading, with aching hearts for their daughter each moment further from her true home. A hot flood of tears surged to her eyes at the thought of them so lonely, and herself so lonely. So many such evenings. But how many more? When one’s parents were getting older, each parting held an unspoken fear. If either of them died, what would the other do alone by this fire, beside this lamp, without even a daughter to give what comfort she could. But there was no turning back. While the children were young she must be with them. Later perhaps — but what might later days bring? She must speak at all costs before the tears brimmed over, before her voice was past control.

  “You and mother do have fun with your reading aloud,” she said as cheerfully as possible. “It must be lovely to be a husband and wife that are happy together, and enjoying spending a quiet evening. What I have always wanted and can’t have.”

  Mr. Howard felt a chill at his heart. Was the child even less happy than he feared? Very courageously he put a direct question.

  “Is your marriage not a success, Aurea?”

  This was almost worse than being questioned about Valentine. Aurea was so taken aback that her very strong instinct for telling the truth got the upper hand.

  “Not exactly, papa,” she said dully, and then burst out: “Oh, dear, oh, dear, everything one does seems to be wrong.”

  Mr. Howard would have given all the Roman excavations in the world to be able to thaw and take Aurea in his arms and comfort her, but he did not dare. She had so defended herself with a ninefold wall of reticences, turning aside questions, laughing at herself and everyone else, that he could not approach her. Nothing could scale the hill of glass on which she had established herself. His deep pity finding no outlet was checked, turned to self-consciousness, and had to wound what it most loved.

  “I wouldn’t go so far as to say that,” he answered, trying to sound unconscious. “In any case, don’t indulge in remorse and self-pity, Aurea. They are impure passions, and so do no one any good.”

  The slightly didactic flavor of this remark, more bracing than any sympathy, made Aurea pull herself together.

  “All right, papa,” she said, quite lightly, “I won’t feel remorse. As for self-pity, I think it rather depends on how you feel. If you are quite well you don’t bother to be sorry for yourself. If you are unwell — seasick, for instance” (or lovesick, Valentine, Valentine) — “you can do quite a lot of it. I expect I’ll be full of self-pity on the voyage.”

  “We all hope not,” said Mr. Howard, rather drily. He was thankful to be spared emotion, but not entirely satisfied with his daughter’s flippancy. Her suffering tore at his heart, yet he was slightly offended that she could shake it off so easily. A peculiarity of fathers.

  “How many of you are going to the theater?”

  “Only Fanny and Arthur and ourselves, papa.”

  “But your mother and I aren’t going, are we? I understood that we were staying at home. It is extraordinary how people can’t stick to the simplest plan.”

  “Oh, no, papa, not you and mother. I meant Valentine and I.”

  If it hadn’t been for Aurea’s rash use of the word “ourselves”, Mr. Howard might have left the matter alone. Now his proprietary feelings as a father were ruffled, and his original determination to speak roundly to his daughter returned in full force.

  “I am concerned about you and Ensor, Aurea,” he remarked portentously.

  “Oh, papa,” said Aurea, startled and again on the defensive.

  “I don’t want to seem harsh, Aurea, but it has pained me to see my daughter forgetting herself as you have done in the last few weeks.”

  “Oh, PAPA!” cried Aurea, with a large indignant voice to which no capitals can do justice. Indignant as she was, she was also a little afraid, and not too sure of her ground.

  Mr. Howard, once launched, was beginning to enjoy himself thoroughly, and rolled majestically on, over his daughter’s disclaiming outcries.

  “Not, my dear, that I want to interfere with your friendships, but I don’t think this one has done you any good. And I very much disapprove of night clubs.”

  It was very unfair of Mr. Howard to drag night clubs in, as he knew nothing about them except that he had once had lunch at one with Fanny. But his blood was up and the chase in view.

  “You make it sound as if I were living in night clubs, papa,” cried Aurea. “I’ve only been two or three times, and one must dine somewhere, and equally one must dance somewhere.”

  “Possibly, but they are a type of place with which I do not like my daughter to be associated.”

  Aurea was torn between fury at her papa’s unexpected attack, and thankfulness that night clubs seemed to have ousted her misbehavior with Valentine from her father’s mind. Praying that he would stick to this new scent, she continued to defend herself.

  “But, papa, if you went to one you would see how harmless they are. If it’s the Vampire you mean, I have only been there with Arthur, which is very respectable.”

  “Nevertheless, I repeat that I cannot approve of them, and it will pain me very much if you go to one again. The — Vampire —” said Mr. Howard with a slight hesitation in case the name should sear his lips, or evoke the devil, “is no place for a decent woman with a name to lose.”

  “But, papa, everyone goes there. Fanny does. The Vampire is quite full of propriety.”

  “I hear much about it which I do not like,” said Mr. Howard in a sinister way.

  “You really shouldn’t listen to the scandal the bishops talk at your club, papa darling,” said Aurea, amused and irritated.

  This shot went nearer home than she knew, for Mr. Howard was basing his attack on night clubs on a conversation he had had with an old friend at the club that very day. When we say old friend, we do not mean that he and Mr. L. N. B. Porter, C.B.E., that permanent pillar of the Civil Service, had been nurtured on the self-same hill, nor frequented the same groves of Academy. Nor indeed had they ever met except on committees and boards of governors, and Mr. Howard had never so much as thought of asking Mrs. Howard to call on Mrs. L. N. B. Porter, nor contemplated an invitation to lunch or dinner. But gentlemen have great powers of self-deception, and if anyone had asked Mr. Howard for a character of Mr. Porter, he would without hesitation have described him as an old friend whom he knew very well. Mrs. Howard had never heard of him. Mr. Porter had a great-nephew who had recently become notorious in a rather scandalous drinking party, the members of which had sampled the Vampire among other night clubs, before finishing the evening at the great-nephew’s flat in Battersea. There had been a splash in the evening papers, which described the great-nephew as a well-known west-end clubman, and several night clubs had slightly increased their membership in consequence. The great-nephew was now reaping what he had sown in the shape of a broken leg and collar-bone sustained, as the evening papers put it, through falling from an open window while endeavoring to obtain fresh air. Mr. Porter had much private information about what he called this defenestration, and was frightfully enjoying the horror of fellow members of his club to whom he imparted it.

  “The wretched boy,” said Mr. Porter to Mr. Howard, in a voice of compassionate blame which could have deceived nobody, but was the recognized and proper approach to injudicious gossip. He got such pleasure from this phrase that he pretended he had mislaid his eyeglasses, found them, and began again. “The wretched boy was literally pushed from the window, Howard, pushed, I say, by some young woman in the party. She was, I understand, trying to embrace him, and the unfortunate lad in trying to avoid her, fell from the first floor to the pavement. I have been to see him in hospital, but it is much to be feared,” said Mr. Porter, with gloomy satisfactio
n, “that they will have to break his leg again and re-set it. All this is a terrible blow for his mother — poor Lydia, you know.”

  Mr. Howard did not know, but was far too cowardly to say so.

  “A shocking business, Porter, a shocking business,” he said, with much enjoyment. “From all I hear these night clubs are leading our young people to all kinds of excesses.”

  “Exactly what I say myself, Howard. It is incredible that such places should be tolerated,” said Mr. Porter, who had once been taken to a night club by another great-nephew, not yet qualified for defenestration, and given a kipper and some light beer, and so to bed at eleven-forty-five.

  They had then separated, Mr. Porter to visit the great-nephew, who had won the hearts of all his nurses and made them promise to say he was asleep whenever Old Man Porter called, and Mr. Howard to a meeting of the Library Committee, where he got in first with the story of “Porter’s nephew — the wretched lad gives him much cause for anxiety, I fear,” and thus obtained immense temporary popularity.

  Home shots are rarely appreciated by the recipients. Mr. Howard stiffened slightly.

  “I have my reasons, Aurea, and, as I say, I shall be much pained if you go to such places.”

  After all, it wasn’t worth bothering about. How like papa suddenly to get up on his hind legs about night clubs, just when one was leaving.

  “All right, papa,” she said kindly. “But I haven’t much chance of going to any more, have I?”

  Mr. Howard melted.

  “I knew you would understand, Aurea. I had only thought that perhaps you were going to one tonight.”