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by David Garnett, 1922
(OCR)ed on 1999 by the 1923'ed book
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Wonderful or supernatural events are not so uncommon, rather they are
irregular in their incidence. Thus there may be not one marvel to speak of
in a century, and then often enough comes a plentiful crop of them; monsters
of all sorts swarm suddenly upon the earth, comets blaze in the sky,
eclipses frighten nature, meteors fall in rain, while mermaids and sirens
beguile, and sea-serpents engulf every passing ship, and terrible cataclysms
beset humanity.
But the strange event which I shall here relate came alone,
unsupported, without companions into a hostile world, and for that very
reason claimed little of the general attention of mankind. For the sudden
changing of Mrs. Tebrick into a vixen is an established fact which we may
attempt to account for as we will. Certainly it is in the explanation of the
fact, and the reconciling of it with our general notions that we shall find
most difficulty, and not in accepting for true a story which is so fully
proved, and that not by one witness but by a dozen, all respectable, and
with no possibility of collusion between them.
But here I will confine myself to an exact narrative of the event and
all that followed on it. Yet I would not dissuade any of my readers from
attempting an explanation of this seeming miracle because up till now none
has been found which is entirely satisfactory. What adds to the difficulty
to my mind is that the metamorphosis occurred when Mrs. Tebrick was a
full-grown woman, and that it happened suddenly in so short a space of time.
The sprouting of a tail, the gradual extension of hair all over the body,
the slow change of the whole anatomy by a process of growth, though it would
have been monstrous, would not have been so difficult to reconcile to our
ordinary conceptions, particularly had it happened in a young child.
But here we have something very different. A grown lady is changed
straightway into a fox. There is no explaining that away by any natural
philosophy. The materialism of our age will not help us here. It is indeed a
miracle; something from outside our world altogether, an event which we
would willingly accept if we were to meet it invested with the authority of
Divine Revelation in the scriptures, but which we are not prepared to
encounter almost in our time, happening in Oxford shire amongst our
neighbours.
The only things which go any way towards an explanation of it are but
guesswork, and I give them more because I would not conceal anything, than
because I think they are of any worth.
Mrs. Tebrick's maiden name was certainly Fox, and it is possible that
such a miracle happening be-fore, the family may have gained their name as a
sobriquel on that account. They were an ancient family, and have had their
seat at Tangley Hall time out of mind. It is also true that there was a
half-tame fox once upon a time chained up at Tangley Hall in the inner yard,
and I have heard many speculative wiseacres in the public-houses turn that
to great account — though they could not but admit that "there was
never one there in Miss Silvia's time." At first I was inclined to think
that Silvia Fox, having once hunted when she was a child of ten and having
been blooded, might furnish more of an explanation. It seems she took great
fright or disgust at it, and vomited after it was done. But now I do not see
that it has much bearing on the miracle itself, even though we know that
after that she always spoke of the "poor foxes" when a hunt was stirring and
never rode to hounds till after her marriage when her husband persuaded her
to it.
She was married in the year 1879 to Mr. Richard Tebrick, after a short
courtship, and went to live after their honeymoon at Rylands, near Stokoe,
Oxon. One point indeed I have not been able to ascertain and that is how
they first became acquainted. Tangley Hall is over thirty miles from Stokoe,
and is extremely remote. Indeed to this day there is no proper road to it,
which is all the more remarkable as it is the principal, and indeed the
only, manor house for several miles round.
Whether it was from a chance meeting on the roads, or less romantic but
more probable, by Mr. Tebrick becoming acquainted with her uncle, a minor
canon at Oxford, and thence being invited by him to visit Tangley Hall, it
is impossible to say. But however they became acquainted the marriage was a
very happy one. The bride was in her twenty-third year. She was small, with
remarkably small hands and feet. It is perhaps worth noting that there was
nothing at all foxy or vixenish in her appearance. On the contrary, she was
a more than ordinarily beautiful and agreeable woman. Her eyes were of a
clear hazel but exceptionally brilliant, her hair dark, with a shade of red
in it, her skin brownish, with a few dark freckles and little moles. In
manner she was reserved almost to shyness, but perfectly self-possessed, and
perfectly well-bred.
She had been strictly brought up by a woman of excellent, principles
and considerable attainments, who died a year or so before the marriage. And
owing to the circumstance that her mother had been dead many years, and her
father bedridden, and not altogether rational for a little while before his
death, they had few visitors but her uncle. He often stopped with them a
month or two at a stretch, particularly in winter, as he was fond of
shooting snipe, which arc plentiful in the valley there. That she did not
grow up a country hoyden is to be explained by the strictness of her
governess and the influence of her uncle. But perhaps living in so wild A
place gave her some disposition to wildness, even in spite of her religious
upbringing. Her old nurse said: "Miss Silvia was always a little wild at
heart,'' though if this was true it was never seen by anyone else except her
husband.
On one of the first days of the year 1880, in the early afternoon,
husband and wife went for a walk in the copse on the little hill above
Rylands. They were still at this time like lovers in their behaviour and
were always together. While they were walking they heard the hounds and
later the huntsman's horn in the distance. Mr. Tebrick had persuaded her to
hunt on Boxing Day, but with great difficulty, and she had not enjoyed it
(though of hacking she was fond enough).
Hearing the hunt, Mr. Tebrick quickened his pace so as to reach the
edge of the copse, where they might get a good view of the hounds if they
came that way. His wife hung back, and he, holding her hand, began almost to
drag her. Before they gained the edge of the copse she suddenly snatched her
hand away from his very violently and cried out, so that he instantly turned
his head.
Where his wife had been the moment before was a small fox, of a very
bright red. It looked at him very beseechingly, advanced towards him a pace
or two, and he saw at once that his wife was looking at him from the
animal's eyes. You may well think if he were aghast: and so maybe was his
lady at finding herself in that shape, so they did nothing for nearly
half-an-hour but stare at each other, he bewildered, she asking him with her
eyes as if indeed she spoke to him: "What am I now become? Have pity on me,
husband, have pity on me for I am your wife."
So that with his gazing on her and knowing her well, even. in such a
shape, yet asking himself at every moment: "Can it be she? Am I not
dreaming?" and her beseeching and lastly fawning on him and seeming to tell
him that it was she indeed, they came at last together and he took her in
his arms. She lay very dose to him, nestling under his coat and fell to
licking his face, but never taking her eyes from his.
The husband alt this while kept turning the thing in his head and
gazing on her, but he could make no sense of what had happened, but only
comforted himself with the hope that this was but a momentary change, and
that presently she would turn back again into the wife that was one flesh
with him.
One fancy that came to him, because he was so much more like a lover
than a husband, was that it was his fault, and this because if anything
dreadful happened he could never blame her but himself for it.
So they passed a good while, till at last the tears welled up in the
poor fox's eyes and she began weeping (but quite in silence), and she
trembled too as if she were in a fever. At this he could not contain his own
tears, but sat down on the ground and sobbed for a great while, but between
his sobs kissing her quite as if she had been a woman, and not caring in his
grief that he was kissing a fox on the muzzle.
They sat thus till it was getting near dusk, when he recollected
himself, and (he next thing was that he must somehow hide her, and then
bring her home.
He waited till it was quite dark that he might the better bring her
into her own house without being seen, and buttoned her inside his topcoat,
nay, even in his passion tearing open his waistcoat and his shirt that she
might like the closer to his heart. For when we are overcome with the
greatest sorrow we act not like men or women but like children whose comfort
in all their troubles is to press themselves against their mother's breast,
or if she be not there to hold each other light in one another's arms.
When it was dark he brought her in with infinite precautions, yet not
without the dogs scenting her after which nothing could moderate their
clamour.
Having got her into the house, the next thing he thought of was to hide
her from the servants. He carried her to the bedroom in his arms and then
went downstairs again.
Mr. Tebrick had three servants living in the house, the cook, the
parlourmaid, and an old woman who had been his wife's nurse. Besides these
women there was a groom or a gardener (whichever you choose to call him),
who was a single man and so lived out, lodging with a labouring family about
half a mile away.
Mr. Tebrick going downstairs pitched upon the parlourmaid.
"Janet," says he, "Mrs. Tebrick and I have had some bad news, and Mrs.
Tebrick was called away instantly to London and left this afternoon, and I
am staying tonight to put our affairs in order. We are shutting up the
house, and I must give you and Mrs. Brant a month's wages and ask you to
leave tomorrow morning at seven o'clock. We shall probably go away to the
Continent, and I do not know when we shall come back. Please tell the
others, and now get me my tea and bring it into my study on a tray."
Janet said nothing for she was a shy girl, particularly before
gentlemen, but when she entered the kitchen Mr. Tebrick heard a sudden burst
of conversation with many exclamations from the cook.
When she came back with his tea, Mr. Tebrick said: "I shall not require
you upstairs. Pack your own things and tell James to have the waggonette
ready for you by seven o'clock to-morrow morning to take you to the station.
I am busy now, but I will see you again before you go."
When she had gone Mr. Tebrick took the tray upstairs. For the first
moment he thought the room was empty, and his vixen got away, for he could
see no sign of her anywhere. But after a moment he saw something stirring in
a corner of the room, and then behold! she came forth dragging her
dressing-gown, into which she had somehow struggled.
This must surely have been a comical sight, but poor Mr. Tebrick was
altogether too distressed then or at any time afterwards to divert himself
at such ludicrous scenes. He only called to her softly:
"Silvia — Silvia. What do you do there?" And then in a moment saw
for himself what she would be at, and began once more to blame himself
heartily — because he had not guessed that his wife would not like to
go naked, no notwithstanding the shape she was in. Nothing would satisfy him
then till he had clothed her suitably, bringing her dresses from the
wardrobe for her to choose. But as might have been expected, they were too
big for her now, but at last he picked out a little dressing-jacket that she
was fond of wearing sometimes in the mornings. It was made of a flowered
silk, trimmed with lace, and the sleeves short enough to sit very well on
her now. White he tied the ribands his poor lady thanked him with gentle
looks and not without some modesty and confusion. He propped her up in an
armchair with some cushions, and they took tea together, she very delicately
drinking from a saucer and taking bread and butter from his hands. All this
showed him, or so he thought, that his wife was still herself; there was so
little wildness in her demeanour and so much delicacy and decency,
especially in her not wishing to run naked, that he was very much comforted,
and began to fancy they could be happy enough if they could escape the world
and live always alone.
From this too sanguine dream he was aroused by hearing the gardener
speaking to the dogs, trying to quiet them, for ever since he had come with
his vixen they had been whining, barking and growling, and all as he knew
because there was a fox within doors and they would kill it
He started up now, calling to the gardener that he would come down to
the dogs himself to quiet them, and bade the man go indoors again and leave
it to him. All this he said in a dry, compelling kind of voice which made
the fellow do as he was bid, though it was against his will, for he was
curious. Mr. Tebrick went downstairs, and taking his gun from the rack
loaded it and went out into the yard. Now there were two dogs, one a
handsome Irish setter that was his wife's dog (she had brought it with her
from, Tangley Hall on her marriage); the other was an old fox terrier called
Nelly that he had had ten years or more.
When he came out into the yard both dogs saluted him by barking and
whining twice as much as they did before, the setter jumping up and down at
the end of his chain in a frenzy, and Nelly shivering, wagging her tail, and
looking first at her master and then at the house door, where she could
smell the fox right enough.
There was a bright moon, so that Mr. Tebrick could see the dogs as
clearly as could be. First he shot his wife's setter dead, and then looked
about him for Nelly to give her the other barrel, but he could see her
nowhere. The bitch was clean gone, till, looking to see how she had broken
her chain, he found her lying hid in the back of her kennel. But that trick
did not save her, for Mr. Tebrick, after trying to pull her out by her chain
and finding it useless — she would not come,— thrust the muzzle of
his gun into the kennel, pressed it into her body and so shot hen
Afterwards, striking a match, he looked in at her to make certain she was
dead. Then, leaving the dogs as they were, chained up, Mr. Tebrick went
indoors again and found the gardener, who had not yet gone home, gave him a
month's wages in lieu of notice and told him he had a job for him yet —
to bury the two dogs and that he should do it that same night.
But by all this going on with so much strangeness and authority on his
part, as it seemed to them, the servants were much troubled. Hearing the
shots while he was out in the yard his wife's old nurse, or Nanny, ran up to
the bedroom though she had no business there, and so opening the door saw
the poor fox dressed in my lady's little Jacket lying back in the cushions,
and in such a reverie of woe that she heard nothing.
Old Nanny, though she was not expecting to find her mistress there,
having been told that she was gone that afternoon to London, knew her
instantly, and cried out:
"Oh, my poor precious I Oh, poor Miss Silvia I What dreadful change is
this?" Then, seeing her mistress start and look at her, she cried out:
"But never fear, my darling, it will all come right, your old Nanny
knows you, it will all come right in the end."
But though she said this she did not care to look again, and kept her
eyes turned away so as not to meet the foxy slit ones of her mistress, for
that was too much for her. So she hurried out soon, fearing to be found
there by Mr. Tebrick, and who knows, perhaps shot, like the dogs, for
knowing the secret.
Mr. Tebrick had all this time gone about paying off his servants and
shooting his dogs as if he were in a dream. Now he fortified himself with
two or three glasses of strong whisky and went to bed, taking his vixen into
his arms, where he slept soundly. Whether she did or not is more than I or
anybody else can say.
In the morning when he woke up they had the place to themselves, for on
his instructions the servants had all left first thing: Janet and the cook
to Oxford, where they would try and find new places, and Nanny going back to
the cottage near Tangley, where her son lived, who was the pigman there.
So with that morning there began what was now to be their ordinary life
together. He would get up when it was broad day, and first thing light the
fire downstairs and cook the breakfast, then brush his wife, sponge her with
a damp sponge, then brush her again, in all this using scent very freely to
hide somewhat her rank odour. When she was dressed he carried her downstairs
and they had their breakfast together, she sitting up to table with him,
drinking her saucer of tea, and taking her food from his fingers, or at any
rate being fed by him. She was still fond of the same food that she had been
used to before her transformation, a lightly boiled egg or slice of ham, a
piece of buttered toast or two, with a little quince and apple jam. While I
am on the subject of her food, I should say that reading in the encyclopedia
he found that foxes on the Continent are inordinately fond of grapes, and
that during the autumn season they abandon their ordinary diet for them, and
then grow exceedingly fat and lose their offensive odour.
This appetite for grapes is so well confirmed by Aesop, and by passages
in the Scriptures, that it is strange Mr. Tebrick should not have known it.
After reading this account he wrote to London for a basket of grapes to be
posted to him twice a week and was rejoiced to find that the account in the
encyclopedia was true in the most important of these particulars. His vixen
relished them exceedingly and seemed never to tire of them, so that he
increased his order first from one pound to three pounds and afterwards to
five. Her odour abated so much by this means that he came not to notice it
at all except sometimes in the mornings before her toilet.
What helped most to make living with her bearable for him was that she
understood him perfectly, — yes, every word he said, and though she was
numb she expressed herself very fluently by looks and signs though never by
the voice.
Thus he frequently conversed with her, telling her all his thoughts and
hiding nothing from her, and this the more readily because he was very quick
to catch her meaning and her answers.
"Puss, Puss," he would say to her, for calling her that had been a
habit with him always. "Sweet Puss, some men would pity me living alone here
with you after what has happened, but I would not change places while you
were living with any man for the whole world. Though you are a fox I would
rather live with you than any woman. I swear I would, and that too if you
were changed to anything." But then, catching her grave look, he would say:
"Do you think I Jest on these things, my dear? I do not I swear to you, my
darling,
that all my life I will be true to you, will be faithful, will respect
and reverence you who are my wife. And I wilt do that not because of any
hope, that God in His mercy will see fit to restore your shape, but solely
because I love you. However you may be changed, my love is not."
Then anyone seeing them would have sworn that they were lovers, so
passionately did each look on the other.
Often he would swear to her that the devil might have power to work
some miracles, but that he would find it beyond him to change his love for
her.
These passionate speeches, however they might have struck his wife in
an ordinary way, now seemed to be her chief comfort. She would come to him,
put her paw in his hand and look at him with sparkling eyes shining with joy
and gratitude, would pant with eagerness, jump at him and lick his face.
Now he had many little things which busied him in the house —
getting his meals, setting the room straight, making the bed and so forth.
When he was doing this housework it was comical to watch his vixen. Often
she was as it were beside herself with vexation and distress to see him in
his clumsy way doing what she could have done so much better had she been
able. Then, forgetful of the decency and the decorum which she had at first
imposed upon herself never to run upon all fours, she followed him
everywhere, and if he did one thing wrong she stopped him and showed him the
way of it When he had forgot the hour for his meal she would come and tug
his sleeve and tell him as if she spoke: "Husband, are we to have no
luncheon today?"
This womanliness in her never failed to delight him, for it showed she
was still his wife, buried as it were in the carcase of a beast but with a
woman's soul. This encouraged him so much that he debated with himself
whether he should not read aloud to her, as he often had done formerly. At
last, since he could find no reason against it, he went to the shelf and
fetched down a volume of the "History of Clarissa Harlowe," which he had
begun to read aloud to her a few weeks before. He opened the volume where he
had left off, with Lovelace's letter after he had spent the night waiting
fruitlessly in the copse.
" Good God!
What it now to become of me?
My feet benumbed by midnight wanderings through the heaviest dens that
ever fell; my wig and my linen dripping with the hoarfrost dissolving ??
them!
Day but just breaking . . ." etc.
While he read he was
conscious of holding her attention, then after a few pages the story claimed
all his, so that he read on for about half-an-hour without looking at her.
When he did so he saw that she was not listening to him, but was watching
something with strange eagerness. Such a fixed intent look was on her face
that he was alarmed and sought the cause of it. Presently he found that her
gaze was fixed on the movements of her pet dove which was in its cage
hanging in the window.
He spoke to her, but she seemed displeased, so he laid "Clarissa
Harlowe" aside. Nor did he ever repeat the experiment of reading to her.
Yet that same evening, as he happened to be looking through his writing
table drawer with Puss beside him looking over his elbow, she spied a pack
of cards, and then he was forced to pick them out to please her, then draw
them from their case. At last, trying first one thing, then another, he
found that what she was after was to play piquet with him. They had some
difficulty at first in contriving for her to hold her cards and then to play
them, but this was at last overcome by his stacking them for her on a
sloping board, after which she could flip them out very neatly with her
claws as she wanted to play them. When they had overcome this trouble they
played three games, and most heartily she seemed to enjoy them. Moreover she
won all three of them. After this they often played a quiet game of piquet
together, and cribbage too. I should say that in marking the points at
cribbage on the board he always moved her pegs for her as well as his own,
for she could not handle them or set them in the holes.
The weather, which had been damp and misty, with frequent downpours of
rain, improved very much in the following week, and, as often happens in
January, there were several days with the sun shining, no wind and light
frosts at night, these frosts becoming more intense as the days went on till
bye and bye they began to think of snow.
With this spell of fine weather it was but natural that Mr. Tebrick
should think of taking his vixen out of doors. This was something he had not
yet done, both because of the damp rainy weather up till then and because
the mere notion of taking her out filled him with alarm. Indeed he had so
many apprehensions beforehand that at one lime he resolved totally against
it For his mind was filled not only with the fear that she might escape from
him and run away, which he knew was groundless, but with more rational
visions, such as wandering curs, traps, gins, spring guns, besides a dread
of being seen with her by the neighbourhood. At last however he resolved on
it, and all the more as his vixen kept asking him in the gentlest way:
"Might she not go out into the garden?" Yet she always listened very
submissively when he told her that he was afraid if they were seen together
it would excite the curiosity of their neighbours; besides this, he often
told her of his fears for her on account of dogs. But one day she answered
this by leading him into the hall and pointing boldly to his gun. After this
he resolved to take her, though with full precautions. That is he left the
house door open so that in case of need she could beat a swift retreat, then
he took his gun under his arm, and lastly he had her well wrapped up in a
little fur jacket lest she should take cold.
He would have carried her too, but that she delicately disengaged
herself from his arms and looked at him very expressively to say that she
would go by herself. For already her first horror of being seen to go upon
all fours was worn off;
reasoning no doubt upon it, that either she must resign herself to go
that way or else stay bed-ridden all the rest of her life.
Her Joy at going into the garden was inexpressible. First she ran this
way, then that, though keeping always close to him, looking very sharply
with ears cocked forward first at one thing, then another and then up to
catch his eye.
For some time indeed she was almost dancing with delight, running round
him, then forward a yard or two, then back to him and gambolling beside him
as they went round the garden. But in spite of her joy she was full of fear.
At every noise, a cow lowing, a cock crowing, or a ploughman in the distance
hallooing to scare the rook", she started, her cars pricked to catch the
sound, her muzzle wrinkled up and her nose twitched, and she would then
press herself against his legs. They walked round the garden and down to the
pond where there were ornamental waterfowl, teal, widgeon and mandarin
ducks, and seeing these again gave her great pleasure. They had always been
her favourites, and now she was so overjoyed to see them that she behaved
with very little of her usual self-restraint. First she stared at them, then
bouncing up to her husband's knee sought to kindle an equal excitement in
his mind. Whilst she rested her paws on his knee she turned her head again
and again towards the ducks as though she could not take her eyes off them,
and then ran down before him to the water's edge.
But her appearance threw the ducks into the utmost degree of
consternation. Those on shore or near the bank swam or flew to the centre of
the pond, and there huddled in a bunch; and then, swimming round and round,
they began such. a quacking that Mr. Tebrick was nearly deafened. As I have
before said, nothing in the ludicrous way that arose out of the
metamorphosis of his wife (and such incidents were plentiful) ever stood a
chance of being smiled at by him. So in this case, too, for realising, that
the silly ducks thought his wife a fox indeed and were alarmed on that
account he found painful that spectacle which to others might have been
amusing.
Not so his vixen, who appeared if anything more pleased than ever when
she saw in what a commotion she had set them, and began cutting a thousand
pretty capers. Though at first he called to her to come back and walk
another way, Mr. Tebrick was overborne by her pleasure and sat down, while
she frisked around him happier far than he had seen her ever since the
change. First she ran up to him in a laughing way, all smiles, and then ran
down again to the water's edge and began frisking and frolicking, chasing
her own brush, dancing on her hind legs even, and rolling on the ground,
then fell to running in circles, but all this without paying any heed to the
ducks.
But they, with their necks craned out all pointing one way, swam to and
fro in the middle of the pond, never stopping their quack, quack quack, and
keeping lime too, for they all quacked in chorus. Presently she came further
away from the pond, and he, thinking they had had enough of this sort of
entertainment, laid hold of her and said to her:
"Come, Silvia, my dear, it is growing cold, and it is time we went
indoors. I am sure taking the air has done you a world of good, but we must
not linger any more."
She appeared then to agree with him, though she threw half a glance
over her shoulder at the ducks, and they both walked soberly enough towards
the house.
When they had gone about halfway she suddenly slipped round and was
off. He turned quickly and saw the ducks had been following them.
So she drove them before her back into the pond, the ducks running in
terror from her with their wings spread, and she not pressing them, for he
saw that had she been so minded she could have caught two or three of the
nearest. Then, with her brush waving above her, she came gambolling back to
him so playfully that he stroked her indulgently, though he was first vexed,
and then rather puzzled that his wife should amuse herself with such pranks.
But when they got within doors he picked her up in his arms, kissed her
and spoke to her.
"Silvia, what a light-hearted childish creature you are. Your courage
under misfortune shall be a lesson to me, but I cannot, I cannot bear to see
it."
Here the tears stood suddenly in his eyes, and he lay down upon the
ottoman and wept, paying no heed to her until presently he was aroused by
her licking his check and his ear.
After tea she led him to the drawing-room and scratched at the door
still, he opened it, for this was part of the house which he had shut up,
thinking three or four rooms enough for them now, and to save the dusting of
it. Then it seemed she would have him play to her on the pianoforte: she led
him to it, nay, what is more, she would herself pick out the music he was to
play. First it was a fugue of Handel's, then one of Mendelssohn's Songs
Without Words, and then "The Diver," and then music from Gilbert and
Sullivan; but each piece of music she picked out was gayer than the last
one. Thus they sat happily engrossed for perhaps an hour in the candle light
until the extreme cold in that unwarmed room stopped his playing and drove
them downstairs to the fire. Thus did she admirably comfort her husband when
he was dispirited.
Yet next morning when he woke he was distressed when he found that she
was not in the bed with him but was lying curled up at the foot of it.
During breakfast she hardly listened when he spoke, and then impatiently,
but sat staring at the dove.
Mr. Tebrick sat silently looking out of window for some time, then he
took out his pocket-book; in it there was a photograph of his wife taken
soon after their wedding. Now he gazed and gazed upon those familiar
features, and now he lifted his head and looked at the animal before him. He
laughed then bitterly, the first and last time for that matter that Mr.
Tebrick ever laughed at his wife's transformation, for he was not very
humorous. But this laugh was sour and painful to him. Then he tore up the
photograph into little pieces, and scattered them out of the window, saying
to himself:
"Memories will not help me here," and turning to the vixen he saw that
she was still staring at the caged bird, and as he looked he saw her lick
her chops.
He took the bird into the next room, then acting suddenly upon the
impulse, he opened the cage door and set it free, saying as he did so:
"Go, poor bird! Fly from this wretched house while you still remember
your mistress who fed you from her coral lips. You arc not a fit plaything
for her now. Farewell, poor bird! Farewell I Unless," he added with a
melancholy smile, "you return with good tidings like Noah's dove."
But, poor gentleman, his troubles were not over yet, and indeed one may
say (hat he ran to meet them by his constant supposing that his lady should
still be the same to a tittle in her behaviour now that she was changed into
a fox.
Without making any unwarrantable suppositions as to her soul or what
had now become of it (though we could find a good deal to the purpose on
that point in the system of Paracelsus), let us consider only how much the
change in her body must needs affect her ordinary conduct So that before we
judge too harshly of this unfortunate lady, we must reflect upon the
physical necessities and infirmities and appetites of her new condition, and
we must magnify the fortitude of her mind which enabled her to behave with
decorum, cleanliness and decency in spite of her new situation.
Thus she might have been expected to befoul her room, yet never could
anyone, whether man or beast, have shown more nicety in such matters. But at
luncheon Mr. Tebrick helped her to a wing of chicken, and leaving the room
for a minute to fetch some water which he had forgot, found her at his
return on the table crunching the very bones. He stood silent, dismayed and
wounded to the heart at this sight. For we roust observe that this
unfortunate husband thought always of his vixen as that gentle and delicate
woman she had lately been, So that whenever his vixen's conduct went beyond
that which he expected in his wife he was, as it were, cut to the quick, and
no kind of agony could be greater to him than to see her thus forget
herself. On this account it may indeed be regretted that Mrs. Tebrick had
been so exactly well-bred, and in particular that her table manners had
always been scrupulous. Had she been in the habit, like a continental
princess I have dined with, of taking her leg of chicken by the drumstick
and gnawing the flesh, it had been far better for him now. But as her
manners had been perfect, so the lapse of them was proportionately painful
to him. Thus in this instance he stood as it were in silent agony till she
had finished her hideous crunching of the chicken bones and had devoured
every scrap. Then he spoke to her gently, taking her on to his knee.
stroking her fur and fed her with a few grapes, saying to her;
"Silvia, Silvia, is it so hard for you? Try and remember the past, my
darling, and by living with me we will quite forget that you are no longer a
woman. Surely this affliction will pass soon, as suddenly as it came, and it
will all seem to us like an evil dream."
Yet though she appeared perfectly sensible of his words and gave him
sorrowful and penitent looks like her old self, that lame afternoon, on
taking her out, he had all the difficulty in the world to keep her from
going near the ducks.
There came to him then a thought that was very disagreeable to him,
namely, that he dare not trust his wife alone with any bird or she would
kill it. And this was the more shocking to him to think of since it meant
that he durst not trust her as much as a dog even. For we may trust dogs who
are familiars, with all the household pels; nay more, we can put them upon
trust with anything and know they will not touch it, not even if they be
starving. But things were come to such a pass with his vixen that he dared
not in his heart trust her at all. Yet she was still in many ways so much
more woman than fox that he could talk to her on any subject and she would
understand him, better far than the oriental women who are kept in
subjection can ever understand their masters unless they converse on the
most trifling household topics.
Thus she understood excellently well the importance and duties of
religion. She would listen with approval in the evening when he said the
Lord's Prayer, and was rigid in her observance of the Sabbath. Indeed, the
next day being Sunday he, thinking no harm, proposed their usual game of
piquet, but no, she would not play. Mr. Tebrick, not understanding at first
what she meant, though he was usually very quick with her, he proposed it to
her again, which she again refused, and this time, to show her meaning, made
the sign of the cross with her paw. This exceedingly rejoiced and comforted
him in his distress. He begged her pardon, and fervently thanked God for
having so good a wife, who, in spite of all, knew more of her duty to God
than he did. But hero I must warn the reader from inferring that she was a
papist because she then made the sign of the cross. She made that sign to my
thinking only on compulsion because she could not express herself except in
that way. For she had been brought up as a true Protestant, and that she
still was one is confirmed by her objection to cards, which would have been
less than nothing to her had she been a papist Yet that evening, taking her
into the drawing room so that he might play her some sacred music, he found
her after some time cowering away from him in the farthest corner of the
room, her ears flattened back and an expression of the greatest anguish in
her eyes. When he spoke to her she licked his hand, but remained shivering
for a long time at his feet and showed the clearest symptoms of terror if he
so much as moved towards the piano.
On seeing this and recollecting how ill the ears of a dog can bear with
our music, and how this dislike might be expected to be even greater in a
fox, all of whose senses are more acute from being a wild creature,
recollecting this he closed the piano and taking her in his arms, locked up
the room and never went into it again. He could not help marvelling though,
since it was but two days after she had herself led him there, and even
picked out for him to play and sing those pieces which were her favourites.
That night she would not sleep with him, neither in the bed nor on it,
so that he was forced to let her curl herself up on the floor. But neither
would she sleep there, for several times she woke him by trotting around the
room, and once when he had got sound asleep by springing on the bed and then
off it, so that he woke with a violent start and cried out, but got no
answer cither, except hearing her trolling round and round the room.
Presently he imagines to himself that she must want something, and so
fetches her food and water, but she never so much as looks at it, but still
goes on her rounds, every now and then scratching at the door.
Though he spoke to her, calling her by her name, she would pay no heed
to him, or else only for the moment. At last he gave her up and said to her
plainly; "The fit is on you now, Silvia, to be a fox, but I shall keep you
close and in the morning you will recollect yourself and thank me for having
kept you now."
So he lay down again, but not to sleep, only to listen to his wife
running about the room and trying to get out of it. Thus he spent what was
perhaps the most miserable night of his existence. In the morning she 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 for his
sake. Ordinarily she had taken the greatest pleasure imaginable in her
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 a project into
execution that would show him, so he thought, whether he had a wife or only
a wild vixen in his house. But yet he was comforted that she bore at all
with him, though so restlessly that he did not spare her, calling her a "bad
wild fox." And then speaking to her in this manner : "Are you not ashamed,
Silvia, to be such a madcap, such a wicked hoyden? You who were particular
in dress. I see it was all vanity—now you have not your former
advantages you think nothing of decency."
His words had some effect with her too, and with himself, so that by
the time he had finished dressing her they were both in the lowest state of
spirits imaginable and neither of them far from tears.
Breakfast she look soberly enough, and after that he went about getting
his experiment ready, which was this. In the garden he gathered together a
nosegay of snowdrops, those being all the flowers he could find, and then
going into the village of Stokoe bought a Dutch rabbit (that is a black 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 the
basket with the rabbit in it, with the lid open. Then he called to her:
"Silvia, I have brought some flowers for you. Look, the first
snowdrops."
At this she ran up very prettily, and never giving as much as one
glance at the rabbit which had hopped out of its basket, she began to thank
him for the flowers. Indeed she seemed indefatigable in shewing her
gratitude smelt them, stood a little way off looking at them, then thanked
him again. Mr. Tebrick (and this was all part of his plan) then took a vase
and went to rind some water for them, but left the flowers beside her, He
stopped away five minutes, timing it by his watch and listening very
intently, but never heard the rabbit squeak. Yet when he went in what a
horrid shambles was spread before his eyes. Blood on the carpet, blood on
the armchairs and antimacassars, even a little blood spurtled on to the
wall, and what was worse, Mrs. Tebrick tearing and growling over a piece of
the skin and the legs, for she had eaten up all the rest of it The poor
gentleman was so heartbroken over this that he was like to have done himself
an injury, and at one moment thought of getting his gun, to have shot
himself and his vixen too. Indeed the extremity of his grief was such that
it served him a very good turn, for he was so entirely unmanned by it that
for some time he could do nothing but weep, and fell into a chair with his
head in his hands, and so kept weeping and groaning.
After he had been some little while employed in this dismal way, his
vixen, who had by this time bolted down the rabbit skin, head, ears and all,
came to him and putting her paws on his knees, thrust her long muzzle into
his face and began licking him. But he, looking at her now with different
eyes, and seeing her Jaws still sprinkled with fresh blood and her claws
full of the rabbit's deck, would have none of it.
But though he beat her off four or five times even to giving her blows
and kicks, she still came back to him, crawling on her belly and imploring
his forgiveness with wide-open sorrowful eyes. Before he had made this rash
experiment of the rabbit and the flowers, he had promised himself that if
she failed in it he would have no more feeling or compassion for her than if
she were in truth a wild vixen out of the woods. This resolution, though the
reasons for it had seemed to him so very plain before, he now found more
difficult to carry out than to decide on. At length after cursing her and
beating her off for upwards of 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 affected towards her. When he had acknowledged this he looked up
at her and met her eyes fixed upon him, and held out his arms to her and
said:
"Oh Silvia, Silvia, would you had never done this! Would I bad never
tempted you in a fatal hour! Does not this butchery and eating of raw meat
and rabbit's fur disgust you? Are you a monster in your soul as well 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 her
belly and at last climbed sorrowfully into his arms. His words then seemed
to take effect on her and her eyes filled with tears and she wept most
penitently in his arms, and her body shook with her sobs as if her heart
were breaking. This sorrow of hers gave him the strangest mixture of pain
and joy that he had ever known, for his love for her returning with a rush,
he could not bear to witness her pain and yet must take pleasure in it as it
by David Garnett, 1922
(OCR)ed on 1999 by the 1923'ed book
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Wonderful or supernatural events are not so uncommon, rather they are
irregular in their incidence. Thus there may be not one marvel to speak of
in a century, and then often enough comes a plentiful crop of them; monsters
of all sorts swarm suddenly upon the earth, comets blaze in the sky,
eclipses frighten nature, meteors fall in rain, while mermaids and sirens
beguile, and sea-serpents engulf every passing ship, and terrible cataclysms
beset humanity.
But the strange event which I shall here relate came alone,
unsupported, without companions into a hostile world, and for that very
reason claimed little of the general attention of mankind. For the sudden
changing of Mrs. Tebrick into a vixen is an established fact which we may
attempt to account for as we will. Certainly it is in the explanation of the
fact, and the reconciling of it with our general notions that we shall find
most difficulty, and not in accepting for true a story which is so fully
proved, and that not by one witness but by a dozen, all respectable, and
with no possibility of collusion between them.
But here I will confine myself to an exact narrative of the event and
all that followed on it. Yet I would not dissuade any of my readers from
attempting an explanation of this seeming miracle because up till now none
has been found which is entirely satisfactory. What adds to the difficulty
to my mind is that the metamorphosis occurred when Mrs. Tebrick was a
full-grown woman, and that it happened suddenly in so short a space of time.
The sprouting of a tail, the gradual extension of hair all over the body,
the slow change of the whole anatomy by a process of growth, though it would
have been monstrous, would not have been so difficult to reconcile to our
ordinary conceptions, particularly had it happened in a young child.
But here we have something very different. A grown lady is changed
straightway into a fox. There is no explaining that away by any natural
philosophy. The materialism of our age will not help us here. It is indeed a
miracle; something from outside our world altogether, an event which we
would willingly accept if we were to meet it invested with the authority of
Divine Revelation in the scriptures, but which we are not prepared to
encounter almost in our time, happening in Oxford shire amongst our
neighbours.
The only things which go any way towards an explanation of it are but
guesswork, and I give them more because I would not conceal anything, than
because I think they are of any worth.
Mrs. Tebrick's maiden name was certainly Fox, and it is possible that
such a miracle happening be-fore, the family may have gained their name as a
sobriquel on that account. They were an ancient family, and have had their
seat at Tangley Hall time out of mind. It is also true that there was a
half-tame fox once upon a time chained up at Tangley Hall in the inner yard,
and I have heard many speculative wiseacres in the public-houses turn that
to great account — though they could not but admit that "there was
never one there in Miss Silvia's time." At first I was inclined to think
that Silvia Fox, having once hunted when she was a child of ten and having
been blooded, might furnish more of an explanation. It seems she took great
fright or disgust at it, and vomited after it was done. But now I do not see
that it has much bearing on the miracle itself, even though we know that
after that she always spoke of the "poor foxes" when a hunt was stirring and
never rode to hounds till after her marriage when her husband persuaded her
to it.
She was married in the year 1879 to Mr. Richard Tebrick, after a short
courtship, and went to live after their honeymoon at Rylands, near Stokoe,
Oxon. One point indeed I have not been able to ascertain and that is how
they first became acquainted. Tangley Hall is over thirty miles from Stokoe,
and is extremely remote. Indeed to this day there is no proper road to it,
which is all the more remarkable as it is the principal, and indeed the
only, manor house for several miles round.
Whether it was from a chance meeting on the roads, or less romantic but
more probable, by Mr. Tebrick becoming acquainted with her uncle, a minor
canon at Oxford, and thence being invited by him to visit Tangley Hall, it
is impossible to say. But however they became acquainted the marriage was a
very happy one. The bride was in her twenty-third year. She was small, with
remarkably small hands and feet. It is perhaps worth noting that there was
nothing at all foxy or vixenish in her appearance. On the contrary, she was
a more than ordinarily beautiful and agreeable woman. Her eyes were of a
clear hazel but exceptionally brilliant, her hair dark, with a shade of red
in it, her skin brownish, with a few dark freckles and little moles. In
manner she was reserved almost to shyness, but perfectly self-possessed, and
perfectly well-bred.
She had been strictly brought up by a woman of excellent, principles
and considerable attainments, who died a year or so before the marriage. And
owing to the circumstance that her mother had been dead many years, and her
father bedridden, and not altogether rational for a little while before his
death, they had few visitors but her uncle. He often stopped with them a
month or two at a stretch, particularly in winter, as he was fond of
shooting snipe, which arc plentiful in the valley there. That she did not
grow up a country hoyden is to be explained by the strictness of her
governess and the influence of her uncle. But perhaps living in so wild A
place gave her some disposition to wildness, even in spite of her religious
upbringing. Her old nurse said: "Miss Silvia was always a little wild at
heart,'' though if this was true it was never seen by anyone else except her
husband.
On one of the first days of the year 1880, in the early afternoon,
husband and wife went for a walk in the copse on the little hill above
Rylands. They were still at this time like lovers in their behaviour and
were always together. While they were walking they heard the hounds and
later the huntsman's horn in the distance. Mr. Tebrick had persuaded her to
hunt on Boxing Day, but with great difficulty, and she had not enjoyed it
(though of hacking she was fond enough).
Hearing the hunt, Mr. Tebrick quickened his pace so as to reach the
edge of the copse, where they might get a good view of the hounds if they
came that way. His wife hung back, and he, holding her hand, began almost to
drag her. Before they gained the edge of the copse she suddenly snatched her
hand away from his very violently and cried out, so that he instantly turned
his head.
Where his wife had been the moment before was a small fox, of a very
bright red. It looked at him very beseechingly, advanced towards him a pace
or two, and he saw at once that his wife was looking at him from the
animal's eyes. You may well think if he were aghast: and so maybe was his
lady at finding herself in that shape, so they did nothing for nearly
half-an-hour but stare at each other, he bewildered, she asking him with her
eyes as if indeed she spoke to him: "What am I now become? Have pity on me,
husband, have pity on me for I am your wife."
So that with his gazing on her and knowing her well, even. in such a
shape, yet asking himself at every moment: "Can it be she? Am I not
dreaming?" and her beseeching and lastly fawning on him and seeming to tell
him that it was she indeed, they came at last together and he took her in
his arms. She lay very dose to him, nestling under his coat and fell to
licking his face, but never taking her eyes from his.
The husband alt this while kept turning the thing in his head and
gazing on her, but he could make no sense of what had happened, but only
comforted himself with the hope that this was but a momentary change, and
that presently she would turn back again into the wife that was one flesh
with him.
One fancy that came to him, because he was so much more like a lover
than a husband, was that it was his fault, and this because if anything
dreadful happened he could never blame her but himself for it.
So they passed a good while, till at last the tears welled up in the
poor fox's eyes and she began weeping (but quite in silence), and she
trembled too as if she were in a fever. At this he could not contain his own
tears, but sat down on the ground and sobbed for a great while, but between
his sobs kissing her quite as if she had been a woman, and not caring in his
grief that he was kissing a fox on the muzzle.
They sat thus till it was getting near dusk, when he recollected
himself, and (he next thing was that he must somehow hide her, and then
bring her home.
He waited till it was quite dark that he might the better bring her
into her own house without being seen, and buttoned her inside his topcoat,
nay, even in his passion tearing open his waistcoat and his shirt that she
might like the closer to his heart. For when we are overcome with the
greatest sorrow we act not like men or women but like children whose comfort
in all their troubles is to press themselves against their mother's breast,
or if she be not there to hold each other light in one another's arms.
When it was dark he brought her in with infinite precautions, yet not
without the dogs scenting her after which nothing could moderate their
clamour.
Having got her into the house, the next thing he thought of was to hide
her from the servants. He carried her to the bedroom in his arms and then
went downstairs again.
Mr. Tebrick had three servants living in the house, the cook, the
parlourmaid, and an old woman who had been his wife's nurse. Besides these
women there was a groom or a gardener (whichever you choose to call him),
who was a single man and so lived out, lodging with a labouring family about
half a mile away.
Mr. Tebrick going downstairs pitched upon the parlourmaid.
"Janet," says he, "Mrs. Tebrick and I have had some bad news, and Mrs.
Tebrick was called away instantly to London and left this afternoon, and I
am staying tonight to put our affairs in order. We are shutting up the
house, and I must give you and Mrs. Brant a month's wages and ask you to
leave tomorrow morning at seven o'clock. We shall probably go away to the
Continent, and I do not know when we shall come back. Please tell the
others, and now get me my tea and bring it into my study on a tray."
Janet said nothing for she was a shy girl, particularly before
gentlemen, but when she entered the kitchen Mr. Tebrick heard a sudden burst
of conversation with many exclamations from the cook.
When she came back with his tea, Mr. Tebrick said: "I shall not require
you upstairs. Pack your own things and tell James to have the waggonette
ready for you by seven o'clock to-morrow morning to take you to the station.
I am busy now, but I will see you again before you go."
When she had gone Mr. Tebrick took the tray upstairs. For the first
moment he thought the room was empty, and his vixen got away, for he could
see no sign of her anywhere. But after a moment he saw something stirring in
a corner of the room, and then behold! she came forth dragging her
dressing-gown, into which she had somehow struggled.
This must surely have been a comical sight, but poor Mr. Tebrick was
altogether too distressed then or at any time afterwards to divert himself
at such ludicrous scenes. He only called to her softly:
"Silvia — Silvia. What do you do there?" And then in a moment saw
for himself what she would be at, and began once more to blame himself
heartily — because he had not guessed that his wife would not like to
go naked, no notwithstanding the shape she was in. Nothing would satisfy him
then till he had clothed her suitably, bringing her dresses from the
wardrobe for her to choose. But as might have been expected, they were too
big for her now, but at last he picked out a little dressing-jacket that she
was fond of wearing sometimes in the mornings. It was made of a flowered
silk, trimmed with lace, and the sleeves short enough to sit very well on
her now. White he tied the ribands his poor lady thanked him with gentle
looks and not without some modesty and confusion. He propped her up in an
armchair with some cushions, and they took tea together, she very delicately
drinking from a saucer and taking bread and butter from his hands. All this
showed him, or so he thought, that his wife was still herself; there was so
little wildness in her demeanour and so much delicacy and decency,
especially in her not wishing to run naked, that he was very much comforted,
and began to fancy they could be happy enough if they could escape the world
and live always alone.
From this too sanguine dream he was aroused by hearing the gardener
speaking to the dogs, trying to quiet them, for ever since he had come with
his vixen they had been whining, barking and growling, and all as he knew
because there was a fox within doors and they would kill it
He started up now, calling to the gardener that he would come down to
the dogs himself to quiet them, and bade the man go indoors again and leave
it to him. All this he said in a dry, compelling kind of voice which made
the fellow do as he was bid, though it was against his will, for he was
curious. Mr. Tebrick went downstairs, and taking his gun from the rack
loaded it and went out into the yard. Now there were two dogs, one a
handsome Irish setter that was his wife's dog (she had brought it with her
from, Tangley Hall on her marriage); the other was an old fox terrier called
Nelly that he had had ten years or more.
When he came out into the yard both dogs saluted him by barking and
whining twice as much as they did before, the setter jumping up and down at
the end of his chain in a frenzy, and Nelly shivering, wagging her tail, and
looking first at her master and then at the house door, where she could
smell the fox right enough.
There was a bright moon, so that Mr. Tebrick could see the dogs as
clearly as could be. First he shot his wife's setter dead, and then looked
about him for Nelly to give her the other barrel, but he could see her
nowhere. The bitch was clean gone, till, looking to see how she had broken
her chain, he found her lying hid in the back of her kennel. But that trick
did not save her, for Mr. Tebrick, after trying to pull her out by her chain
and finding it useless — she would not come,— thrust the muzzle of
his gun into the kennel, pressed it into her body and so shot hen
Afterwards, striking a match, he looked in at her to make certain she was
dead. Then, leaving the dogs as they were, chained up, Mr. Tebrick went
indoors again and found the gardener, who had not yet gone home, gave him a
month's wages in lieu of notice and told him he had a job for him yet —
to bury the two dogs and that he should do it that same night.
But by all this going on with so much strangeness and authority on his
part, as it seemed to them, the servants were much troubled. Hearing the
shots while he was out in the yard his wife's old nurse, or Nanny, ran up to
the bedroom though she had no business there, and so opening the door saw
the poor fox dressed in my lady's little Jacket lying back in the cushions,
and in such a reverie of woe that she heard nothing.
Old Nanny, though she was not expecting to find her mistress there,
having been told that she was gone that afternoon to London, knew her
instantly, and cried out:
"Oh, my poor precious I Oh, poor Miss Silvia I What dreadful change is
this?" Then, seeing her mistress start and look at her, she cried out:
"But never fear, my darling, it will all come right, your old Nanny
knows you, it will all come right in the end."
But though she said this she did not care to look again, and kept her
eyes turned away so as not to meet the foxy slit ones of her mistress, for
that was too much for her. So she hurried out soon, fearing to be found
there by Mr. Tebrick, and who knows, perhaps shot, like the dogs, for
knowing the secret.
Mr. Tebrick had all this time gone about paying off his servants and
shooting his dogs as if he were in a dream. Now he fortified himself with
two or three glasses of strong whisky and went to bed, taking his vixen into
his arms, where he slept soundly. Whether she did or not is more than I or
anybody else can say.
In the morning when he woke up they had the place to themselves, for on
his instructions the servants had all left first thing: Janet and the cook
to Oxford, where they would try and find new places, and Nanny going back to
the cottage near Tangley, where her son lived, who was the pigman there.
So with that morning there began what was now to be their ordinary life
together. He would get up when it was broad day, and first thing light the
fire downstairs and cook the breakfast, then brush his wife, sponge her with
a damp sponge, then brush her again, in all this using scent very freely to
hide somewhat her rank odour. When she was dressed he carried her downstairs
and they had their breakfast together, she sitting up to table with him,
drinking her saucer of tea, and taking her food from his fingers, or at any
rate being fed by him. She was still fond of the same food that she had been
used to before her transformation, a lightly boiled egg or slice of ham, a
piece of buttered toast or two, with a little quince and apple jam. While I
am on the subject of her food, I should say that reading in the encyclopedia
he found that foxes on the Continent are inordinately fond of grapes, and
that during the autumn season they abandon their ordinary diet for them, and
then grow exceedingly fat and lose their offensive odour.
This appetite for grapes is so well confirmed by Aesop, and by passages
in the Scriptures, that it is strange Mr. Tebrick should not have known it.
After reading this account he wrote to London for a basket of grapes to be
posted to him twice a week and was rejoiced to find that the account in the
encyclopedia was true in the most important of these particulars. His vixen
relished them exceedingly and seemed never to tire of them, so that he
increased his order first from one pound to three pounds and afterwards to
five. Her odour abated so much by this means that he came not to notice it
at all except sometimes in the mornings before her toilet.
What helped most to make living with her bearable for him was that she
understood him perfectly, — yes, every word he said, and though she was
numb she expressed herself very fluently by looks and signs though never by
the voice.
Thus he frequently conversed with her, telling her all his thoughts and
hiding nothing from her, and this the more readily because he was very quick
to catch her meaning and her answers.
"Puss, Puss," he would say to her, for calling her that had been a
habit with him always. "Sweet Puss, some men would pity me living alone here
with you after what has happened, but I would not change places while you
were living with any man for the whole world. Though you are a fox I would
rather live with you than any woman. I swear I would, and that too if you
were changed to anything." But then, catching her grave look, he would say:
"Do you think I Jest on these things, my dear? I do not I swear to you, my
darling,
that all my life I will be true to you, will be faithful, will respect
and reverence you who are my wife. And I wilt do that not because of any
hope, that God in His mercy will see fit to restore your shape, but solely
because I love you. However you may be changed, my love is not."
Then anyone seeing them would have sworn that they were lovers, so
passionately did each look on the other.
Often he would swear to her that the devil might have power to work
some miracles, but that he would find it beyond him to change his love for
her.
These passionate speeches, however they might have struck his wife in
an ordinary way, now seemed to be her chief comfort. She would come to him,
put her paw in his hand and look at him with sparkling eyes shining with joy
and gratitude, would pant with eagerness, jump at him and lick his face.
Now he had many little things which busied him in the house —
getting his meals, setting the room straight, making the bed and so forth.
When he was doing this housework it was comical to watch his vixen. Often
she was as it were beside herself with vexation and distress to see him in
his clumsy way doing what she could have done so much better had she been
able. Then, forgetful of the decency and the decorum which she had at first
imposed upon herself never to run upon all fours, she followed him
everywhere, and if he did one thing wrong she stopped him and showed him the
way of it When he had forgot the hour for his meal she would come and tug
his sleeve and tell him as if she spoke: "Husband, are we to have no
luncheon today?"
This womanliness in her never failed to delight him, for it showed she
was still his wife, buried as it were in the carcase of a beast but with a
woman's soul. This encouraged him so much that he debated with himself
whether he should not read aloud to her, as he often had done formerly. At
last, since he could find no reason against it, he went to the shelf and
fetched down a volume of the "History of Clarissa Harlowe," which he had
begun to read aloud to her a few weeks before. He opened the volume where he
had left off, with Lovelace's letter after he had spent the night waiting
fruitlessly in the copse.
" Good God!
What it now to become of me?
My feet benumbed by midnight wanderings through the heaviest dens that
ever fell; my wig and my linen dripping with the hoarfrost dissolving ??
them!
Day but just breaking . . ." etc.
While he read he was
conscious of holding her attention, then after a few pages the story claimed
all his, so that he read on for about half-an-hour without looking at her.
When he did so he saw that she was not listening to him, but was watching
something with strange eagerness. Such a fixed intent look was on her face
that he was alarmed and sought the cause of it. Presently he found that her
gaze was fixed on the movements of her pet dove which was in its cage
hanging in the window.
He spoke to her, but she seemed displeased, so he laid "Clarissa
Harlowe" aside. Nor did he ever repeat the experiment of reading to her.
Yet that same evening, as he happened to be looking through his writing
table drawer with Puss beside him looking over his elbow, she spied a pack
of cards, and then he was forced to pick them out to please her, then draw
them from their case. At last, trying first one thing, then another, he
found that what she was after was to play piquet with him. They had some
difficulty at first in contriving for her to hold her cards and then to play
them, but this was at last overcome by his stacking them for her on a
sloping board, after which she could flip them out very neatly with her
claws as she wanted to play them. When they had overcome this trouble they
played three games, and most heartily she seemed to enjoy them. Moreover she
won all three of them. After this they often played a quiet game of piquet
together, and cribbage too. I should say that in marking the points at
cribbage on the board he always moved her pegs for her as well as his own,
for she could not handle them or set them in the holes.
The weather, which had been damp and misty, with frequent downpours of
rain, improved very much in the following week, and, as often happens in
January, there were several days with the sun shining, no wind and light
frosts at night, these frosts becoming more intense as the days went on till
bye and bye they began to think of snow.
With this spell of fine weather it was but natural that Mr. Tebrick
should think of taking his vixen out of doors. This was something he had not
yet done, both because of the damp rainy weather up till then and because
the mere notion of taking her out filled him with alarm. Indeed he had so
many apprehensions beforehand that at one lime he resolved totally against
it For his mind was filled not only with the fear that she might escape from
him and run away, which he knew was groundless, but with more rational
visions, such as wandering curs, traps, gins, spring guns, besides a dread
of being seen with her by the neighbourhood. At last however he resolved on
it, and all the more as his vixen kept asking him in the gentlest way:
"Might she not go out into the garden?" Yet she always listened very
submissively when he told her that he was afraid if they were seen together
it would excite the curiosity of their neighbours; besides this, he often
told her of his fears for her on account of dogs. But one day she answered
this by leading him into the hall and pointing boldly to his gun. After this
he resolved to take her, though with full precautions. That is he left the
house door open so that in case of need she could beat a swift retreat, then
he took his gun under his arm, and lastly he had her well wrapped up in a
little fur jacket lest she should take cold.
He would have carried her too, but that she delicately disengaged
herself from his arms and looked at him very expressively to say that she
would go by herself. For already her first horror of being seen to go upon
all fours was worn off;
reasoning no doubt upon it, that either she must resign herself to go
that way or else stay bed-ridden all the rest of her life.
Her Joy at going into the garden was inexpressible. First she ran this
way, then that, though keeping always close to him, looking very sharply
with ears cocked forward first at one thing, then another and then up to
catch his eye.
For some time indeed she was almost dancing with delight, running round
him, then forward a yard or two, then back to him and gambolling beside him
as they went round the garden. But in spite of her joy she was full of fear.
At every noise, a cow lowing, a cock crowing, or a ploughman in the distance
hallooing to scare the rook", she started, her cars pricked to catch the
sound, her muzzle wrinkled up and her nose twitched, and she would then
press herself against his legs. They walked round the garden and down to the
pond where there were ornamental waterfowl, teal, widgeon and mandarin
ducks, and seeing these again gave her great pleasure. They had always been
her favourites, and now she was so overjoyed to see them that she behaved
with very little of her usual self-restraint. First she stared at them, then
bouncing up to her husband's knee sought to kindle an equal excitement in
his mind. Whilst she rested her paws on his knee she turned her head again
and again towards the ducks as though she could not take her eyes off them,
and then ran down before him to the water's edge.
But her appearance threw the ducks into the utmost degree of
consternation. Those on shore or near the bank swam or flew to the centre of
the pond, and there huddled in a bunch; and then, swimming round and round,
they began such. a quacking that Mr. Tebrick was nearly deafened. As I have
before said, nothing in the ludicrous way that arose out of the
metamorphosis of his wife (and such incidents were plentiful) ever stood a
chance of being smiled at by him. So in this case, too, for realising, that
the silly ducks thought his wife a fox indeed and were alarmed on that
account he found painful that spectacle which to others might have been
amusing.
Not so his vixen, who appeared if anything more pleased than ever when
she saw in what a commotion she had set them, and began cutting a thousand
pretty capers. Though at first he called to her to come back and walk
another way, Mr. Tebrick was overborne by her pleasure and sat down, while
she frisked around him happier far than he had seen her ever since the
change. First she ran up to him in a laughing way, all smiles, and then ran
down again to the water's edge and began frisking and frolicking, chasing
her own brush, dancing on her hind legs even, and rolling on the ground,
then fell to running in circles, but all this without paying any heed to the
ducks.
But they, with their necks craned out all pointing one way, swam to and
fro in the middle of the pond, never stopping their quack, quack quack, and
keeping lime too, for they all quacked in chorus. Presently she came further
away from the pond, and he, thinking they had had enough of this sort of
entertainment, laid hold of her and said to her:
"Come, Silvia, my dear, it is growing cold, and it is time we went
indoors. I am sure taking the air has done you a world of good, but we must
not linger any more."
She appeared then to agree with him, though she threw half a glance
over her shoulder at the ducks, and they both walked soberly enough towards
the house.
When they had gone about halfway she suddenly slipped round and was
off. He turned quickly and saw the ducks had been following them.
So she drove them before her back into the pond, the ducks running in
terror from her with their wings spread, and she not pressing them, for he
saw that had she been so minded she could have caught two or three of the
nearest. Then, with her brush waving above her, she came gambolling back to
him so playfully that he stroked her indulgently, though he was first vexed,
and then rather puzzled that his wife should amuse herself with such pranks.
But when they got within doors he picked her up in his arms, kissed her
and spoke to her.
"Silvia, what a light-hearted childish creature you are. Your courage
under misfortune shall be a lesson to me, but I cannot, I cannot bear to see
it."
Here the tears stood suddenly in his eyes, and he lay down upon the
ottoman and wept, paying no heed to her until presently he was aroused by
her licking his check and his ear.
After tea she led him to the drawing-room and scratched at the door
still, he opened it, for this was part of the house which he had shut up,
thinking three or four rooms enough for them now, and to save the dusting of
it. Then it seemed she would have him play to her on the pianoforte: she led
him to it, nay, what is more, she would herself pick out the music he was to
play. First it was a fugue of Handel's, then one of Mendelssohn's Songs
Without Words, and then "The Diver," and then music from Gilbert and
Sullivan; but each piece of music she picked out was gayer than the last
one. Thus they sat happily engrossed for perhaps an hour in the candle light
until the extreme cold in that unwarmed room stopped his playing and drove
them downstairs to the fire. Thus did she admirably comfort her husband when
he was dispirited.
Yet next morning when he woke he was distressed when he found that she
was not in the bed with him but was lying curled up at the foot of it.
During breakfast she hardly listened when he spoke, and then impatiently,
but sat staring at the dove.
Mr. Tebrick sat silently looking out of window for some time, then he
took out his pocket-book; in it there was a photograph of his wife taken
soon after their wedding. Now he gazed and gazed upon those familiar
features, and now he lifted his head and looked at the animal before him. He
laughed then bitterly, the first and last time for that matter that Mr.
Tebrick ever laughed at his wife's transformation, for he was not very
humorous. But this laugh was sour and painful to him. Then he tore up the
photograph into little pieces, and scattered them out of the window, saying
to himself:
"Memories will not help me here," and turning to the vixen he saw that
she was still staring at the caged bird, and as he looked he saw her lick
her chops.
He took the bird into the next room, then acting suddenly upon the
impulse, he opened the cage door and set it free, saying as he did so:
"Go, poor bird! Fly from this wretched house while you still remember
your mistress who fed you from her coral lips. You arc not a fit plaything
for her now. Farewell, poor bird! Farewell I Unless," he added with a
melancholy smile, "you return with good tidings like Noah's dove."
But, poor gentleman, his troubles were not over yet, and indeed one may
say (hat he ran to meet them by his constant supposing that his lady should
still be the same to a tittle in her behaviour now that she was changed into
a fox.
Without making any unwarrantable suppositions as to her soul or what
had now become of it (though we could find a good deal to the purpose on
that point in the system of Paracelsus), let us consider only how much the
change in her body must needs affect her ordinary conduct So that before we
judge too harshly of this unfortunate lady, we must reflect upon the
physical necessities and infirmities and appetites of her new condition, and
we must magnify the fortitude of her mind which enabled her to behave with
decorum, cleanliness and decency in spite of her new situation.
Thus she might have been expected to befoul her room, yet never could
anyone, whether man or beast, have shown more nicety in such matters. But at
luncheon Mr. Tebrick helped her to a wing of chicken, and leaving the room
for a minute to fetch some water which he had forgot, found her at his
return on the table crunching the very bones. He stood silent, dismayed and
wounded to the heart at this sight. For we roust observe that this
unfortunate husband thought always of his vixen as that gentle and delicate
woman she had lately been, So that whenever his vixen's conduct went beyond
that which he expected in his wife he was, as it were, cut to the quick, and
no kind of agony could be greater to him than to see her thus forget
herself. On this account it may indeed be regretted that Mrs. Tebrick had
been so exactly well-bred, and in particular that her table manners had
always been scrupulous. Had she been in the habit, like a continental
princess I have dined with, of taking her leg of chicken by the drumstick
and gnawing the flesh, it had been far better for him now. But as her
manners had been perfect, so the lapse of them was proportionately painful
to him. Thus in this instance he stood as it were in silent agony till she
had finished her hideous crunching of the chicken bones and had devoured
every scrap. Then he spoke to her gently, taking her on to his knee.
stroking her fur and fed her with a few grapes, saying to her;
"Silvia, Silvia, is it so hard for you? Try and remember the past, my
darling, and by living with me we will quite forget that you are no longer a
woman. Surely this affliction will pass soon, as suddenly as it came, and it
will all seem to us like an evil dream."
Yet though she appeared perfectly sensible of his words and gave him
sorrowful and penitent looks like her old self, that lame afternoon, on
taking her out, he had all the difficulty in the world to keep her from
going near the ducks.
There came to him then a thought that was very disagreeable to him,
namely, that he dare not trust his wife alone with any bird or she would
kill it. And this was the more shocking to him to think of since it meant
that he durst not trust her as much as a dog even. For we may trust dogs who
are familiars, with all the household pels; nay more, we can put them upon
trust with anything and know they will not touch it, not even if they be
starving. But things were come to such a pass with his vixen that he dared
not in his heart trust her at all. Yet she was still in many ways so much
more woman than fox that he could talk to her on any subject and she would
understand him, better far than the oriental women who are kept in
subjection can ever understand their masters unless they converse on the
most trifling household topics.
Thus she understood excellently well the importance and duties of
religion. She would listen with approval in the evening when he said the
Lord's Prayer, and was rigid in her observance of the Sabbath. Indeed, the
next day being Sunday he, thinking no harm, proposed their usual game of
piquet, but no, she would not play. Mr. Tebrick, not understanding at first
what she meant, though he was usually very quick with her, he proposed it to
her again, which she again refused, and this time, to show her meaning, made
the sign of the cross with her paw. This exceedingly rejoiced and comforted
him in his distress. He begged her pardon, and fervently thanked God for
having so good a wife, who, in spite of all, knew more of her duty to God
than he did. But hero I must warn the reader from inferring that she was a
papist because she then made the sign of the cross. She made that sign to my
thinking only on compulsion because she could not express herself except in
that way. For she had been brought up as a true Protestant, and that she
still was one is confirmed by her objection to cards, which would have been
less than nothing to her had she been a papist Yet that evening, taking her
into the drawing room so that he might play her some sacred music, he found
her after some time cowering away from him in the farthest corner of the
room, her ears flattened back and an expression of the greatest anguish in
her eyes. When he spoke to her she licked his hand, but remained shivering
for a long time at his feet and showed the clearest symptoms of terror if he
so much as moved towards the piano.
On seeing this and recollecting how ill the ears of a dog can bear with
our music, and how this dislike might be expected to be even greater in a
fox, all of whose senses are more acute from being a wild creature,
recollecting this he closed the piano and taking her in his arms, locked up
the room and never went into it again. He could not help marvelling though,
since it was but two days after she had herself led him there, and even
picked out for him to play and sing those pieces which were her favourites.
That night she would not sleep with him, neither in the bed nor on it,
so that he was forced to let her curl herself up on the floor. But neither
would she sleep there, for several times she woke him by trotting around the
room, and once when he had got sound asleep by springing on the bed and then
off it, so that he woke with a violent start and cried out, but got no
answer cither, except hearing her trolling round and round the room.
Presently he imagines to himself that she must want something, and so
fetches her food and water, but she never so much as looks at it, but still
goes on her rounds, every now and then scratching at the door.
Though he spoke to her, calling her by her name, she would pay no heed
to him, or else only for the moment. At last he gave her up and said to her
plainly; "The fit is on you now, Silvia, to be a fox, but I shall keep you
close and in the morning you will recollect yourself and thank me for having
kept you now."
So he lay down again, but not to sleep, only to listen to his wife
running about the room and trying to get out of it. Thus he spent what was
perhaps the most miserable night of his existence. In the morning she 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 for his
sake. Ordinarily she had taken the greatest pleasure imaginable in her
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 a project into
execution that would show him, so he thought, whether he had a wife or only
a wild vixen in his house. But yet he was comforted that she bore at all
with him, though so restlessly that he did not spare her, calling her a "bad
wild fox." And then speaking to her in this manner : "Are you not ashamed,
Silvia, to be such a madcap, such a wicked hoyden? You who were particular
in dress. I see it was all vanity—now you have not your former
advantages you think nothing of decency."
His words had some effect with her too, and with himself, so that by
the time he had finished dressing her they were both in the lowest state of
spirits imaginable and neither of them far from tears.
Breakfast she look soberly enough, and after that he went about getting
his experiment ready, which was this. In the garden he gathered together a
nosegay of snowdrops, those being all the flowers he could find, and then
going into the village of Stokoe bought a Dutch rabbit (that is a black 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 the
basket with the rabbit in it, with the lid open. Then he called to her:
"Silvia, I have brought some flowers for you. Look, the first
snowdrops."
At this she ran up very prettily, and never giving as much as one
glance at the rabbit which had hopped out of its basket, she began to thank
him for the flowers. Indeed she seemed indefatigable in shewing her
gratitude smelt them, stood a little way off looking at them, then thanked
him again. Mr. Tebrick (and this was all part of his plan) then took a vase
and went to rind some water for them, but left the flowers beside her, He
stopped away five minutes, timing it by his watch and listening very
intently, but never heard the rabbit squeak. Yet when he went in what a
horrid shambles was spread before his eyes. Blood on the carpet, blood on
the armchairs and antimacassars, even a little blood spurtled on to the
wall, and what was worse, Mrs. Tebrick tearing and growling over a piece of
the skin and the legs, for she had eaten up all the rest of it The poor
gentleman was so heartbroken over this that he was like to have done himself
an injury, and at one moment thought of getting his gun, to have shot
himself and his vixen too. Indeed the extremity of his grief was such that
it served him a very good turn, for he was so entirely unmanned by it that
for some time he could do nothing but weep, and fell into a chair with his
head in his hands, and so kept weeping and groaning.
After he had been some little while employed in this dismal way, his
vixen, who had by this time bolted down the rabbit skin, head, ears and all,
came to him and putting her paws on his knees, thrust her long muzzle into
his face and began licking him. But he, looking at her now with different
eyes, and seeing her Jaws still sprinkled with fresh blood and her claws
full of the rabbit's deck, would have none of it.
But though he beat her off four or five times even to giving her blows
and kicks, she still came back to him, crawling on her belly and imploring
his forgiveness with wide-open sorrowful eyes. Before he had made this rash
experiment of the rabbit and the flowers, he had promised himself that if
she failed in it he would have no more feeling or compassion for her than if
she were in truth a wild vixen out of the woods. This resolution, though the
reasons for it had seemed to him so very plain before, he now found more
difficult to carry out than to decide on. At length after cursing her and
beating her off for upwards of 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 affected towards her. When he had acknowledged this he looked up
at her and met her eyes fixed upon him, and held out his arms to her and
said:
"Oh Silvia, Silvia, would you had never done this! Would I bad never
tempted you in a fatal hour! Does not this butchery and eating of raw meat
and rabbit's fur disgust you? Are you a monster in your soul as well 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 her
belly and at last climbed sorrowfully into his arms. His words then seemed
to take effect on her and her eyes filled with tears and she wept most
penitently in his arms, and her body shook with her sobs as if her heart
were breaking. This sorrow of hers gave him the strangest mixture of pain
and joy that he had ever known, for his love for her returning with a rush,
he could not bear to witness her pain and yet must take pleasure in it as it