Lady into Fox Page 5

morning you will recollect yourself and thank mefor having kept you now."

  So he lay down again, but not to sleep, only to listen to his wiferunning about the room and trying to get out of it. Thus he spent whatwas perhaps the most miserable night of his existence. In the morningshe was still restless, and was reluctant to let him wash and brush her,and appeared to dislike being scented but as it were to bear with it forhis sake. Ordinarily she had taken the greatest pleasure imaginable inher toilet, so that on this account, added to his sleepless night, Mr.Tebrick was utterly dejected, and it was then that he resolved to put aproject into execution that would show him, so he thought, whether hehad a wife or only a wild vixen in his house. But yet he was comfortedthat she bore at all with him, though so restlessly that he did notspare her, calling her a "bad wild fox." And then speaking to her inthis manner: "Are you not ashamed, Silvia, to be such a madcap, such awicked hoyden? You who were particular in dress. I see it was allvanity--now you have not your former advantages you think nothing ofdecency."

  His words had some effect with her too, and with himself, so that by thetime he had finished dressing her they were both in the lowest state ofspirits imaginable and neither of them far from tears.

  Breakfast she took soberly enough, and after that he went about gettinghis experiment ready, which was this. In the garden he gathered togethera nosegay of snowdrops, those being all the flowers he could find, andthen going into the village of Stokoe bought a Dutch rabbit (that is ablack and white one) from a man there who kept them.

  When he got back he took her flowers and at the same time set down thebasket with the rabbit in it, with the lid open. Then he called to her:"Silvia, I have brought some flowers for you. Look, the firstsnowdrops."

  At this she ran up very prettily, and never giving as much as one glanceat the rabbit which had hopped out of its basket, she began to thank himfor the flowers. Indeed she seemed indefatigable in shewing hergratitude, smelt them, stood a little way off looking at them, thenthanked him again. Mr. Tebrick (and this was all part of his plan) thentook a vase and went to find some water for them, but left the flowersbeside her. He stopped away five minutes, timing it by his watch andlistening very intently, but never heard the rabbit squeak. Yet when hewent in what a horrid shambles was spread before his eyes. Blood on thecarpet, blood on the armchairs and antimacassars, even a little bloodspurtled on to the wall, and what was worse, Mrs. Tebrick tearing andgrowling over a piece of the skin and the legs, for she had eaten up allthe rest of it. The poor gentleman was so heartbroken over this that hewas like to have done himself an injury, and at one moment thought ofgetting his gun, to have shot himself and his vixen too. Indeed theextremity of his grief was such that it served him a very good turn, forhe was so entirely unmanned by it that for some time he could do nothingbut weep, and fell into a chair with his head in his hands, and so keptweeping and groaning.

  After he had been some little while employed in this dismal way, hisvixen, who had by this time bolted down the rabbit skin, head, ears andall, came to him and putting her paws on his knees, thrust her longmuzzle into his face and began licking him. But he, looking at her nowwith different eyes, and seeing her jaws still sprinkled with freshblood and her claws full of the rabbit's fleck, would have none of it.

  But though he beat her off four or five times even to giving her blowsand kicks, she still came back to him, crawling on her belly andimploring his forgiveness with wide-open sorrowful eyes. Before he hadmade this rash experiment of the rabbit and the flowers, he had promisedhimself that if she failed in it he would have no more feeling orcompassion for her than if she were in truth a wild vixen out of thewoods. This resolution, though the reasons for it had seemed to him sovery plain before, he now found more difficult to carry out than todecide on. At length after cursing her and beating her off for upwardsof half-an-hour, he admitted to himself that he still did care for her,and even loved her dearly in spite of all, whatever pretence he affectedtowards her. When he had acknowledged this he looked up at her and mether eyes fixed upon him, and held out his arms to her and said:

  "Oh Silvia, Silvia, would you had never done this! Would I had nevertempted you in a fatal hour! Does not this butchery and eating of rawmeat and rabbit's fur disgust you? Are you a monster in your soul aswell as in your body? Have you forgotten what it is to be a woman?"

  Meanwhile, with every word of his, she crawled a step nearer on herbelly and at last climbed sorrowfully into his arms. His words thenseemed to take effect on her and her eyes filled with tears and she weptmost penitently in his arms, and her body shook with her sobs as if herheart were breaking. This sorrow of hers gave him the strangest mixtureof pain and joy that he had ever known, for his love for her returningwith a rush, he could not bear to witness her pain and yet must takepleasure in it as it fed his hopes of her one day returning to be awoman. So the more anguish of shame his vixen underwent, the greater hishopes rose, till his love and pity for her increasing equally, he wasalmost wishing her to be nothing more than a mere fox than to suffer somuch by being half-human.

  At last he looked about him somewhat dazed with so much weeping, thenset his vixen down on the ottoman, and began to clean up the room with aheavy heart. He fetched a pail of water and washed out all the stains ofblood, gathered up the two antimacassars and fetched clean ones from theother rooms. While he went about this work his vixen sat and watched himvery contritely with her nose between her two front paws, and when hehad done he brought in some luncheon for himself, though it was alreadylate, but none for her, she having lately so infamously feasted. Butwater he gave her and a bunch of grapes. Afterwards she led him to thesmall tortoiseshell cabinet and would have him open it. When he had doneso she motioned to the portable stereoscope which lay inside. Mr.Tebrick instantly fell in with her wish and after a few trials adjustedit to her vision. Thus they spent the rest of the afternoon togethervery happily looking through the collection of views which he hadpurchased, of Italy, Spain and Scotland. This diversion gave her greatapparent pleasure and afforded him considerable comfort. But that nighthe could not prevail upon her to sleep in bed with him, and finallyallowed her to sleep on a mat beside the bed where he could stretch downand touch her. So they passed the night, with his hand upon her head.

  The next morning he had more of a struggle than ever to wash and dressher. Indeed at one time nothing but holding her by the scruff preventedher from getting away from him, but at last he achieved his object andshe was washed, brushed, scented and dressed, although to be sure thisleft him better pleased than her, for she regarded her silk jacket withdisfavour.

  Still at breakfast she was well mannered though a trifle hasty with herfood. Then his difficulties with her began for she would go out, but ashe had his housework to do, he could not allow it. He brought herpicture books to divert her, but she would have none of them but stayedat the door scratching it with her claws industriously till she had wornaway the paint.

  At first he tried coaxing her and wheedling, gave her cards to playpatience and so on, but finding nothing would distract her from goingout, his temper began to rise, and he told her plainly that she mustwait his pleasure and that he had as much natural obstinacy as she had.But to all that he said she paid no heed whatever but only scratched theharder. Thus he let her continue until luncheon, when she would not situp, or eat off a plate, but first was for getting on to the table, andwhen that was prevented, snatched her meat and ate it under the table.To all his rebukes she turned a deaf or sullen ear, and so they eachfinished their meal eating little, either of them, for till she wouldsit at table he would give her no more, and his vexation had taken awayhis own appetite. In the afternoon he took her out for her airing in thegarden.

  She made no pretence now of enjoying the first snowdrops or the viewfrom the terrace. No--there was only one thing for her now--the ducks,and she was off to them before he could stop her. Luckily they were allswimming when she got there (for a stream running into the pond on thefar side it was not frozen there).<
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  When he had got down to the pond, she ran out on to the ice, which wouldnot bear his weight, and though he called her and begged her to comeback she would not heed him but stayed frisking about, getting as nearthe ducks as she dared, but being circumspect in venturing on to thethin ice.

  Presently she turned on herself and began tearing off her clothes, andat last by biting got off her little jacket and taking it in her mouthstuffed it into a hole in the ice where he could not get it. Then sheran hither and thither a stark naked vixen, and without giving a glanceto her poor husband who stood silently now upon the bank, with despairand terror settled in his mind. She let him stay there most of theafternoon till he was chilled through and through and worn out withwatching her. At last he reflected how she had just stripped herself andhow in the morning she struggled against being dressed, and he thoughtperhaps he was too strict with her and if he let her have her own waythey could manage to