The Black Fox A Novel Of The Seventies (30 page)

He turned and, putting his hand on the other man's shoulder, he remarked in the tone that one admirer of their county cricket team would say to another when a sound member of the eleven has just been bowled after netting a creditable number of runs:

'We have all been proud of her and shall be. She will not be forgotten." Whether the latter part of the sentence was kindly rhetoric or no, certainly the first part was more of an understatement than the Bishop could have known or, had he known, his taste for truth desired. It would have been highly improbable, however, if anyone could have made him grasp what in particular had been admirable in a life that seemed more quiet than most and maybe even more comfortable than quiet.

When the Dean was left alone his expression was stronger, in the end. At first he seemed quiet. Then, evidently thinking that he ought to kneel down, the attitude, as attitudes often will, seemed to release a current of feeling. He felt his throat. It seemed as though it must split, as though a wedge were being forced into his larynx. He gasped, "Laetitia," was all he could whisper.

Then a spasm of grief twisted him like a cramp. The pain was so sudden and intense that part of him seemed to be split off, to wander off as though it were seeking down the ranges of his quiet past to find if it could pick out another stretch of emotion among the long lengths of easy enjoyment and hardly memorable routines, another span or band to match the present acuteness of feeling. He found it. Yes, there was another, but it wasn't grief. He hadn't had much grief, very little, really, in his life. But this other buried pain that was as sharp as this present cut? It was hatred. But when had he felt any real hatred?

Slowly, like a person coming gradually to wakefulness in a strange room, after thinking he was in his own bedroom, he remembered. That one bright patch of feeling, bright as a very hot sunbeam, seemed to thaw the landscape of his memory. Fact after fact emerged from the white snow-cover of amnesia, and the ugly things which the blizzard of forgetfulness had made into one broad, unfactual sheet, came staring through. He forgot that he was with the dead. He forgot where he was or when he was. He had now been swept by the thaw-stream down to the spot from which he had escaped.

How long this clear restored memory lasted he couldn't say. For he was not recalling the past to himself in the present. The past had called him away from the present. As soon, then, as he became aware of where he was, his memory sank under. To remember and at the same time live was still impossible. After a while his rigid position began to relax; he shifted and fidgeted a little, feeling stiff. He looked up and around him. He raised himself clumsily from his knees.

" 'My words'—why they haven't even flown up! 'My thoughts remain below'? Where? Pure woolgathering, can't even recall what I was thinking of, and here and now! Worrying over some worthless small matter of my own concern!"

He stood close beside the bed. He raised the bandage that lay across the face. Death, as it so often does, had not only removed age and expression, it had taken away the physical damage. The skin had again become smooth with the congested blood gone from beneath it and had the texture of alabaster. As he continued to look at it, this face that he had known best in all his life and which now already was no longer the lifelong friend but the likeness of some unnamed woman, the cold quietness in it seemed to surround him. He felt something in his heart as cold, incapable of movement as the body on the bed. Moment after moment as he stood still looking down at the white figure his whole memory was sinking deeper under the renewed snow fall of forgetfulness. He noticed faintly that everything seemed as quiet as it was still. Though he heard now and then a distant sound from the outside world, it awoke no echo of meaning, no significance in his consciousness. Only once was his mind roused to question-point by his ear. Suddenly, from the direction of the garden below, came a small sharp, querulous bark.

'We have no dog?" he questioned himself perfunctorily.

He listened a moment more. The silence was not again challenged. He found a new handkerchief and spread it over the face. Then he went to the door. Outside the nurse was waiting.

"I will see to everything," she said moving past him into the room. He nodded and went downstairs.

He slept well that night, only waking a few times and then not because of any restlessness of mind; it was a dog's barking that each time roused him. And each time, as soon as it stopped its quarrelsome little protest, he fell to sleep again. In the morning, after writing the necessary notes to announce his bereavement and sending them out, he rang the bell for Cook to come to him. Cook, a glance made clear, had had a worse night; and indeed clearly eyed his composure and kck of any apparent exhaustion with the disapproving surprise with which those who belong to an earlier and more expressive social pattern view the apparently heartless stoicism of their employers. She had taken the admonitory precaution of coming to the interview equipped with a large, fresh, fully-unfurled handkerchief, held at half-mast across her bosom, in instant readiness for the moment when the tide of her feelings would swamp her controls and she would be, as she told the head-housemaid, when that comforter was patting her heaving shoulders, "awash with tears."

The Dean's presence and attitude proved, at least at the beginning of the interview, astringent—a fact for which he was considerably more grateful than she. He was coldly business-like: did not refer to the death; told her what he wished for himself and gave her the main control of the house. She was elevated from cook to housekeeper. She was left neither puzzled as to what he might want, nor unpleased by the recognition and promotion, both in rank and salary, that she now had received. On his side he now knew, with a feeling of complacency at his own adroitness, that he had reached the point when he ought, having pointed her mind to a far from unpleasing prospect, to he able to get her out of the room. Then the return of her grief—which quite clearly was getting ready for a come-back—would submerge her when and where she would have more suitable, more equal aid than he would or could supply. Yet to say "That is all, Mrs. Binyon" might have about it just that touch of finality and dismissal that would give her emotions their cue, recalling the final finality. She would feel it was her duty to refer to it— as "Happy Christmas" must be said when meeting anyone on the Feast. An innocent stratagem came to him.

Rising he went to the window, from which a glimpse of the garden could be obtained, for his study had the same outlook as his bedroom next to it; they were both over the great parlor and so, from a higher level, shared its view.

"I thought, Mrs. Binyon," he remarked over his shoulder, "that last night a dog had managed to get shut up in the garden. Will you tell Silas to see that neither he nor the boy leaves the garden gate open. I was roused a couple of times by some yapping. Please see that he gets that message from me as soon as he comes in with the vegetables." That would necessitate her leaving at once. For, as it happened as he looked down from the window, he had been able to glance at the figure of the gardener in the kitchen garden making his way toward the back of the house with his daily offering from his stores of winter vegetables. He speeded her with this watch-tower information and then turned back to his desk certain that she too must have begun her turn toward the door. She had not, and his look of annoyed question was not left unanswered long enough for him to put it into words. He was answered by a question.

"Ah, then, Sir, you heard it top?"

Before he could retort "You'd have to be deaf" or had to check himself from the irritated but unfortunate addition "It would disturb the dead . . ."

She had added, "You know, Sir, what it was!"

He certainly knew that he did not want her explanations.

I've told you. Please go at once and tell Silas to lock the iron gate at the end of the garden. If you don't go at once you'll miss him!"

"Oh, no Sir! No! No locking of gates nor bolting of doors, no nor high walls round them and glass set on the top of them— no, that sort is not stopped by that sort of thing or order. If you yourself, Sir, instead of Silas—if you yourself, Sir, with all your linen and satin, your robes and your rites were to go instead of him—poor fellow with his key and his spade—why, Sir, it would make nor a difference nor a dimming of that din than if I in my kitchen with the kettle over-boiling and the frying-pan afire just spoke eloquent and courteous-like to the red-hot kitchen-range!"

He saw with a dismay, that under-its irritation had still some humour, that his effort to get rid of her and forestall the emotional outburst had evidently, for some obscure reason, been the, actual trigger that had sprung the mine.

"Well," he cut in, "that dog can be kept out of the garden. Please don't argue but go and give my instructions!"

"But that's the point, Sir, as you've just said— a dog, yes, and then very well. But, Sir, I've been with hunting people and I know the countryside. That's no dog, at least it's not a dog you could have in the house. It's a dog-fox that was barking on and off all last night. And I know why: When I was in Ireland with the household of the Master of Thomondstone, well we knew that sound. And well, on such a night as we've now been through, we knew what it meant. As long as one of that race was lying 'in wake* as they would say, there would never be a fox

in any of the coverts and ever there would be a fox round the house barking, calling at him, they would say."

"Mrs, Binyon!" his voice was raised, "I will not have that kind of superstitious and insane nonsense spoken in a Protestant Christian household!"

For a moment he felt ashamed at having used such a term and such a method. His shame was, however, instantly expunged by relief. Mrs. Binyon, accused of unchristian, unprotestant views recollected herself. Of course she could not deny to herself that she had picked up those theories and fancies over in Catholic Ireland where anything, as you might say, might take place. The gale of her conviction suddenly fell. But that, as might have been expected, by a better student of humanity than the Dean, permitted the deluge of her grief to break.

"I am indeed sorry, Sir, that I should have repeated such things, but, Sir, with poor dear Miss Laetitia, lying as you might say "

He was determined that nothing more should be said by her or him. He swung open the door and pointed to the stairs. Already the handkerchief had been mounted to mast-head so 'that Cook's mouth and nose were covered. Wiping her now pouring eyes Cook picked her way to her kitchen, her chair and a strong cup of tea.

Still she had been right. And the Dean himself, with a suppressed bewilderment, realized that there was nothing now that he or his staff could do about it. The two nights before the funeral, he heard the rapid barks as though they were peremptory calls, repeated knocks summoning a doorkeeper to open or take the consequences.

After the funeral there was silence. Indeed nothing happened till a February day which was calm, still and sunny. He took a turn in the garden. Half-way down against the south-looking wall was a fine Forsythia, the first thing to bloom. He had gone over to examine the hundreds of bright yellow blossoms, almost like small gold flames in the level sunlight. Then turning back to the long alley of mown grass that led up to the house, he glanced its whole length, for it ran from the house to the wrought-iron gate in the brick wall that terminated the formal garden. The design was finished off down at that end by a sundial set on an ample paved base. Evidently, on a day as mild as this, the few hours of sunlight had been sufficient to warm the stone pleasantly. For stretched on it lay a small dark fox. It certainly was not very shy for, though it looked wary, it did not make at once for the shrubbery, but watched him with its head on one side. He went quietly, slowly toward it until he could see that the thick hair of its coat was really a dark walnut tint. It rose then but stood its ground and when he paused not half a dozen yards from it, it stretched itself and actually took a step in his direction. Then it too paused. It turned its head even more on one side as it watched and held one of its fore-paws raised, as though wondering whether it might come closer. He could see the bright amber of its eyes.

Suddenly he raised his arm. It darted across the strip of lawn and into the thick yew hedge. He did not cross the herbaceous border to look into the hedge. But after he had had his tea in the great parlor he went to the window, drew aside the curtain that the maid had already pulled to and looked out into the garden.

A fox was standing some three yards outside.

That night was as still as the day had been. But though he was awake several times he did not hear any barking. In the end he nearly overslept himself, waking with a start, not certain that the housemaid had not knocked at the door with his tea and shaving water. He sat up—no, he had not overslept —the room was still in dusk; outside the day could not have come fully. The house, too, was still. Then he was aware that someone might be, must be standing, just outside the bedroom door. He nearly caDed out "Come in."

But a moment after he felt sharp relief that he had not done so, when down at the door threshold he heard a long breath being drawn. He bent toward the side of the bed nearer the door and listened. Perhaps a minute later he heard steps coming up the stairs. When they reached the landing they stopped for a moment and he was not sure that he did not catch a suppressed exclamation. Then they came on till they were at the door. There came a low tap.

He answered with relief, Yes, now it was the maid. He thought that after her "Good morning" she might be about to add something. If so she thought better of it.

He lay for a while sipping his tea and wondering whether in this case it was well or ill that the silence, which he had done so much to teach his household, had been observed. He could not make up his mind for his mind was not clear as to the matter of fact* To decide whether or not he would like to be informed it would be necessary surely that one should know whether there was information to be had?

That point at least settled itself without undue delay. First he saw the intruder at the end of the entrance hall, a large almost empty space but not too well lit. Then a couple of evenings after he was sure it was in his study. He heard something move and looking up from the circle of bright light given by his reading lamp caught sight of two small bright eyes. They seemed to have been caught by his sudden movement of his head. The animal was not grooming itself. He and it regarded each other, his face as expressionless as its mask. Then it moved off into the shadow. He remained looking for some while at the spot. He did not get up to investigate. At dinner that night, when, as he liked, the dishes had been put on the table and he had been left, he was reading a book. Looking up over the top of it he saw the fire burning pleasantly and seated in front of it, not looking at him, sat this dark-haired fox. He could see the sheen of the flames on its thick glossy coat.

"A fine little animal," he remarked in a low voice.