Читать книгу Ankle Deep - Angela Margaret Thirkell - Страница 3

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To find oneself connected with a wrong number on the automatic exchange is so inevitable as not to be at all funny. So, lightly passing over the anger and the politeness of the two subscribers with whom the exchange chose to connect her, and equally passing over the few blasting words which passed between Fanny Turner and the operator whom she had summoned to her assistance, we shall choose to cut in at the moment when Mrs. Howard’s parlourmaid had gone to tell Mrs. Howard, in a form of speech of which her mistress found it impossible to cure her, that Mrs. Arthur Turner wanted her on the phone.

“Is that you, Fanny?” said a nice voice.

“Yes, dear Mrs. Howard,” said Fanny in a non-butter-melting voice.

Butter would have melted in Fanny’s mouth, just as certainly as ginger was hot in it, but Fanny talking to Mrs. Howard, who was old enough to be her mother, was very different from Fanny talking to one of her numerous young men who were perhaps not quite young, but still unmarried, which somehow in itself constitutes youth for a man, though not so markedly for a woman.

“What is it dear?” asked Mrs. Howard.

“Do you think you and Mr. Howard could come down to us for a week-end on the nineteenth?”

“I think so, Fanny. I must ask Will when he comes in and if we can’t come I’ll let you know.”

“That will be lovely. Then I’ll expect you both on the nineteenth unless I hear from you.”

“That’s it, Fanny, we’ll come unless I let you know. I’ll ring up to-night if we can’t come.”

“That’s splendid. Then I’ll expect you if I don’t hear.”

“Very well, dear. Good-bye for the present, then.”

“Good-bye, Mrs. Howard. Oh—Mrs. Howard——”

“Yes, dear?”

“I’ll let you know which train if you do come.”

“Thanks, dear. I suppose you’ll have the children with you as it’s holidays?”

It was extraordinary that Mrs. Howard didn’t know Fanny better than this. It wasn’t that Fanny didn’t love her boys, but though she felt sentimental when they went back to their preparatory school—or rather to their preparatory schools, for having a healthy mind in a healthy body apiece, they quarrelled so awfully that the harassed head master of their first school had implored Arthur to remove some of them, preferably the twins, and Fanny had taken a short cut to avoid trouble by choosing a separate school for each—she would have felt sentiment of an infuriated kind if their excellent schools had had to close for mumps, or break up a week earlier for measles. Fanny’s extremely busy life, which included too many lunches, dinners and theatres to leave her time to give that attention to her family which she would otherwise have wished to give, hardly allowed for resident children, and if Vanna, which was what they all called Arthur’s mother since an outburst of caravanning some years before, liked to have her grandchildren during the holidays, who was Fanny that she should presume to interfere? Of course the excessively annoying part, to other wives and mothers, was that Fanny’s boys continued to be healthy in body and mind and adored their mother, while her neglected household ran itself with smoothness and economy. This is one of the phenomena that discourage one from pursuing the domestic virtues. The Fannys always get the best of it both ways, just as the painted, brow-plucked, cocktail-swigging young minxes settle down quite as well as their less behaviourist sisters. It is all most annoying.

In any case, Mrs. Howard quite realised Fanny’s attitude towards the offspring, and it would be inquiring too much to ask whether she had honestly forgotten for the moment, or was it deliberately exercising a slight sarcasm which always came oddly from her. She looked so good, and was such a darling, and so patient and understanding with Mr. Howard who, although also an angel, could be relied upon to be fiendishly trying at times; and yet Fanny, who would brazen it out equally with a duchess or a taxi-driver, feared Mrs. Howard as she feared nothing else on earth except the rare moments when Arthur asserted himself. So it was with an apologetic tone which she would certainly have never used to any one else that she said:

“Well, you see, Mrs. Howard, Vanna hasn’t had the children really to herself for ages——”

“Not since last holidays, I suppose,” Mrs. Howard’s voice put in.

“No, not since last holidays,” said Fanny. She infused into this statement a pathos that spoke of an ageing grandmother deprived by blindness, deafness, distance and poverty of the sight of adored grandchildren. Though, as a matter of fact, Mrs. Howard knew (and was well aware that Fanny knew that she knew) that the boys spent most of their holidays with Vanna, not to speak of odd Whitsuns, Ascension Days, and other religious school outbreaks, and that Vanna was quite capable of going to the Pole or the Equator at any moment, being quite well off and as full of vitality as her daughter-in-law. So she allowed a moment’s chilly silence to reign. Silence on a telephone is even more nervous than in conversation, so Fanny repeated, though without the pathos which she now quite justly felt was wasted:

“No, not since last holidays. Besides, I thought it would be quieter and more amusing for you not to have them at Waterside.”

“It was very nice of you to think of me, Fanny,” said Mrs. Howard. “Then that’s settled: we come unless you hear from me. Good-bye.”

Mrs. Howard was evidently afraid of a repetition of their last prolonged sentences about coming unless one heard, for she hung up abruptly.

Fanny lighted another cigarette and rang up the Essex and Southend Bank’s head office in the City.

“E. and S. Bank speaking,” said a competent female voice.

“Mr. Ensor, please,” said Fanny.

“I don’t know if he is free,” said the competent female voice. “I think he is in conference.”

“Not for me,” said Fanny truculently. “Tell him it’s Mrs. Turner. And look here—you might give us a line where everyone can’t listen in. I heard half your typists giggling last time I rang him up.”

The competent female voice appeared to see some sense in this, for it effaced itself in favour of a series of whirrs and clicks, which were followed by a male voice. It is by now, thanks to the efforts of our lady novelists, next to impossible to describe a man’s voice as either deep or attractive without rousing feelings of rage and nausea in every breast, but if there were any manner of conveying these qualities without mentioning them, or even hinting at them, this would be the place to do it.

“Hullo,” said the male voice.

“Hullo,” said Fanny.

The male voice, featuring impatience, replied, “Who is it?”

“Me, of course,” said Fanny.

“But who?” said the male voice.

“Oh, blast you—” began Fanny, and the words seemed to touch a chord, for Mr. Ensor’s voice immediately became more human.

“Oh, Fanny,” he remarked.

“Yes, Fanny,” replied Mrs. Turner, adding with some acerbity, “I know they’re all ringing you up all day long, but you might know my voice by now, and anyway I’m married and they’re not, so it’s all above board.”

“Well, lots of them are married too,” said Mr. Ensor with some spirit.

“Forward beasts,” said Fanny. “Look here, Val, I want you to come down on the nineteenth for the week-end. The Howards are coming and I’ll get a charmer for you.”

“I’d love to, Fanny,” said Mr. Ensor. “But probably I can’t get down till late. I’ve a conference.”

“I don’t know why you and your telephone girl can’t think of different excuses,” said Fanny coldly. “She said ‘conference’, and I said ‘Don’t be a fool’, and she put me on to you at once. People don’t have conferences on Saturday afternoons. What is it? Tea and a cinema?”

Mr. Ensor laughed. “Something of that kind, Fanny. Can I make it the 9.15?”

“You can take my invitation or leave it,” replied Fanny. “Don’t be surprised, though, if the village has gone to bed and you can’t get a car. We shan’t turn out for you in the middle of the night.”

“That’ll be all right,” said Mr. Ensor.

“Far from right,” said Fanny, “if you have to carry your suit-case two miles and wake us up at midnight. I’ll tell the village Ford to sit up for you and bring you out.”

“Thanks, awfully,” said Mr. Ensor.

“Not at all,” said Fanny. “Good-bye. Oh—Val——”

“Yes,” said Mr. Ensor’s voice.

“Do you mind who the charmer is?”

“Not a bit,” said Mr. Ensor.

“I’ll try to get a good one with heaps of money,” said Fanny kindly.

“Trust you to show tact,” said Mr. Ensor’s pleasant voice and he hung up the receiver.

Fanny hung up her receiver too and giggled. One of her favourite meddlings was to provide a succession of possible brides for Valentine Ensor. It is true that he had already had a singularly unsuccessful marriage and was in no position, even if he had had the wish, to marry again, as he was paying a large allowance to a technically guiltless wife. But it took more than that to keep Fanny from match-making. To Valentine’s alternate fury and amusement she brought up one young woman after another who seemed to her a suitable person to mend a broken income and a rather less broken heart, but the net result appeared to be a distinct increase in expenditure for the future bridegroom, owing to the number of dinners and dances in which Fanny’s well meant efforts landed him. Meanwhile it suited Fanny excellently to have him on her list of young men.

It was now nearly thirty years since Valentine Ensor and Arthur Turner had met at their public school. Even then Arthur had been a tall, fair, silent boy, absorbed in his one ambition to be a successful surgeon. To this there had been family opposition, as there was a family business which he was expected to carry on, but he went his own way, working fiercely and doggedly, asking for no help. The war he took in his stride, making a considerable reputation for himself. His father had died during the war, leaving him just enough money to live on. Then he met Fanny, who was in full career as a heart-breaker, first hated her, then loved her, and finally married her amid universal disapproval which did not in the least affect either of them. Since then he had risen to Harley Street eminence as a surgeon, encouraged by Fanny who said that it was so much more distinguished to marry a surgeon than a doctor because then he was called a Mr.—a chain of reasoning peculiarly her own—and insisted upon Arthur being a specialist even before they could afford it, because one really could not live in a house where the front door bell or the telephone might ring at any moment of the night. Her ambition for Arthur had, however, been thoroughly justified, and by the time we meet him he was high in his profession, and earning enough to gratify every caprice of his adored Fanny.

His mother, having been sufficiently brought to heel, was ready to be taken on again as a valued and useful friend. Fanny’s attitude to her mother-in-law was perfect. She adored her, laughed at her escapades, made excellent copy out of them for her lunch parties, found for her the name Vanna which all the grandchildren used, and made use of her in every possible way. Vanna saw through Fanny, was grateful for her affection, and loved having the boys, who had not yet reached the emancipatory stage, to play with.

When Arthur was married Valentine should, according to a long-standing promise, have been his best man, but this was not possible. His family were connected with an old banking business which assured a career for him. He entered it soon after leaving Oxford, and his place was kept for him during the war. His friendship with Arthur appeared to be based on contrasts. He had no near relations who required keeping in their places. His tastes were for people, and many friends, and most decidedly for what Fanny called charmers. So much so, in fact, that Arthur had spent a good deal of time in pulling him out of the various scrapes in which he involved himself. Finally he married, towards the end of the war, a charmer who had every virtue, every grace except that of fidelity. Arthur found the role of confidant to the complaints of both sides more and more difficult, and was much relieved when the bank sent Valentine abroad on their affairs for some years. Abroad, domestic affairs became more and more embroiled. Valentine came back with the news that his wife had transferred herself permanently to another man. Against Arthur’s strong-worded advice he let her divorce him, and then payed her an allowance which cramped him considerably. These misfortunes had not, however, in the least affected his taste for charmers, and he danced, flirted and week-ended more assiduously than ever, and was surprisingly good at his work. He used Arthur’s and Fanny’s house in London as a cross between a club and a confessional, and spent with them at Waterside the few week-ends which were not dedicated to the houses of the various charmers’ parents. On the whole, life was not unkind to him, especially as he was one of the happy people to whom debt is a natural condition.

Fanny reached for her address-book and began looking through it for possible charmers. Having turned down one who was pretty but poor, and another who was pretty and rich, but had views about gentlemen with pasts, she was just contemplating an American widow of wealth and charm recently acquired by her, when the telephone bell rang.

“Hullo,” said Fanny.

“Oh—Fanny——” said Mrs. Howard’s voice.

“Oh, Mrs. Howard,” said Fanny, “it’s not to say you aren’t coming?”

“No, not that, but rather worse. Aurea is staying with us.”

“Aurea?” asked Fanny.

“My married daughter, you know.”

“Oh, Aurea,” said Fanny, as if that made it quite different. “Arthur’s old flame.”

“Not in the best taste, Fanny,” remarked Mrs. Howard’s voice.

“Sorry, Mrs. Howard,” said Fanny, “but Arthur did have a tremendous passion for her years ago, didn’t he?”

“Before he met you, anyway, Fanny,” replied Mrs. Howard. “But what I wanted to say is that Aurea is going back to Canada in May, and Will hates leaving her for the week-end. So I was going to suggest either that we come down later, or that you would let me bring her with us.”

Fanny made the mental calculations of a drowning man and answered with enthusiasm:

“I’d love you to bring her, Mrs. Howard. The more the merrier, and I was just looking out for a charmer for Val, and if he falls for Aurea then Arthur will be greenly envious. It ought to be a perfect week-end.”

Mrs. Howard laughed very agreeably down the telephone.

“You expect too much, Fanny,” said her nice voice. “Aurea is a charmer to her father and me, but after all her children are as old as yours.”

“Val likes them at any age,” Fanny hastened to reassure her.

Mrs. Howard appeared from her silence to be considering this statement.

“Don’t take any notice of me, Mrs. Howard,” pleaded Fanny. “We’d love to have Aurea, and I want to meet her. I’ve heard so much about her from Arthur and Vanna. Come down early on the nineteenth—to lunch if you can.”

“Very well, dear,” said Mrs. Howard, “and thank you very much. Good-bye.”

Fanny hung up the receiver and giggled again. She foresaw a delightful opportunity of annoying Valentine. He, according to her plan, was to form a rapid attachment for Aurea, but when he expected to take her out for a walk, or other occupation for two, she was to be given to Arthur, when Valentine would obviously have to flirt with Fanny. As they both had excellent technique, it would be fun for Fanny, and if Valentine were annoyed, his position as guest would forbid him to show it, at any rate, before the Howards. As for Arthur, whom Fanny genuinely adored in spite of the way she kept her hand in with her cavaliers, it would be delightful to give him the pleasure of conversation with the love of his youth. His technique was poor, but at least he should have the opportunity.

Filled with these pleasant thoughts Fanny took up the telephone again and found her mother-in-law at home.

“Good morning, Vanna darling,” she began. “I suppose it’s alright about the boys coming to you on Thursday.”

“Of course it is,” answered Vanna’s voice—not at all the voice of a mother-in-law. “Are you and Arthur very busy these holidays?”

“Frightfully busy, darling,” said Fanny, “and full up every week-end. Oh, Vanna, I wanted to ask you something. Mr. and Mrs. Howard are coming on the nineteenth and they are bringing their daughter—Aurea—you know—the one Arthur used to rave about. Do you know what her name is? Her married name, I mean? I never thought of it till Mrs. Howard had rung off, and then it seemed too odd to ring up again and say, ‘Pardon me, but has your daughter a name?’ Don’t say you can’t tell me.”

“Aurea Howard’s name,” mused Vanna’s voice. “I must have heard it. I know, Palgrave.”

Fanny scrawled the name in that spidery handwriting which is produced by writing with one hand on a pad which won’t keep quiet, while the other hand is holding the telephone.

“Any more details?” she asked as she scrawled.

“Not that I know,” said Vanna. “I used to know her as a young girl, and I have hardly seen her since.”

“Did Arthur rave frightfully about her?” inquired the shameless Fanny.

“I don’t know about frightfully,” said Vanna. “I don’t think he was old enough to know what he was talking about, and certainly she hadn’t the faintest idea of being in love. I always thought her very nice, but a little bit dull and cold. Poor Arthur had some good imaginary suffering when she married very young, but that was all.”

“Oh,” said Fanny, rather downcast, “I thought it was much more amusing than that. I hoped that when I told him she was coming, he would turn pale and look silly, and perhaps moan her name in his sleep.”

“Don’t be dramatic, Fanny,” said Vanna, and then they each laughed down their own receivers and the laughs very cleverly got past each other in the middle and reached the opposite end, and both Fanny and Vanna thought how amusing it was to be on such understanding terms with one’s in-laws. After a little more conversation about the boys and their holiday plans, the telephoning came to an end. Then Fanny went out to lunch with one of her wealthier admirers, and very much disconcerted him by talking exclusively about her adoration of her husband, which was not in the least what he had ordered a very expensive meal for.