Best Short Stories Omnibus - Volume 2

The Fox-5

‘Oh, I don’t mind,’ said Banford: although she DID.

‘I’ll go and get it, shall I?’ he said.

March’s dark eyes turned slowly down to him.

‘No, don’t you bother,’ she said in her queer, twanging tone. ‘If you feel all right as you are, stop as you are.’ She spoke with a crude authority.

‘Yes,’ said he, ‘I FEEL all right, if I’m not rude.’

‘It’s usually considered rude,’ said Banford. ‘But we don’t mind.’

‘Go along, “considered rude”,’ ejaculated March. ‘Who considers it rude?’

‘Why, you do, Nellie, in anybody else,’ said Banford, bridling a little behind her spectacles, and feeling her food stick in her throat.

But March had again gone vague and unheeding, chewing her food as if she did not know she was eating at all. And the youth looked from one to another, with bright, watching eyes.

Banford was offended. For all his suave courtesy and soft voice, the youth seemed to her impudent. She did not like to look at him. She did not like to meet his clear, watchful eyes, she did not like to see the strange glow in his face, his cheeks with their delicate fine hair, and his ruddy skin that was quite dull and yet which seemed to burn with a curious heat of life. It made her feel a little ill to look at him: the quality of his physical presence was too penetrating, too hot.

After tea the evening was very quiet. The youth rarely went into the village. As a rule, he read: he was a great reader, in his own hours. That is, when he did begin, he read absorbedly. But he was not very eager to begin. Often he walked about the fields and along the hedges alone in the dark at night, prowling with a queer instinct for the night, and listening to the wild sounds.

Tonight, however, he took a Captain Mayne Reid book from Banford’s shelf and sat down with knees wide apart and immersed himself in his story. His brownish fair hair was long, and lay on his head like a thick cap, combed sideways. He was still in his shirt-sleeves, and bending forward under the lamplight, with his knees stuck wide apart and the book in his hand and his whole figure absorbed in the rather strenuous business of reading, he gave Banford’s sitting-room the look of a lumber-camp. She resented this. For on her sitting-room floor she had a red Turkey rug and dark stain round, the fire-place had fashionable green tiles, the piano stood open with the latest dance music: she played quite well: and on the walls were March’s hand-painted swans and water-lilies. Moreover, with the logs nicely, tremulously burning in the grate, the thick curtains drawn, the doors all shut, and the pine trees hissing and shuddering in the wind outside, it was cosy, it was refined and nice. She resented the big, raw, long-legged youth sticking his khaki knees out and sitting there with his soldier’s shirt-cuffs buttoned on his thick red wrists. From time to time he turned a page, and from time to time he gave a sharp look at the fire, settling the logs. Then he immersed himself again in the intense and isolated business of reading.

March, on the far side of the table, was spasmodically crocheting. Her mouth was pursed in an odd way, as when she had dreamed the fox’s brush burned it, her beautiful, crisp black hair strayed in wisps. But her whole figure was absorbed in its bearing, as if she herself was miles away. In a sort of semi-dream she seemed to be hearing the fox singing round the house in the wind, singing wildly and sweetly and like a madness. With red but well-shaped hands she slowly crocheted the white cotton, very slowly, awkwardly.

Banford was also trying to read, sitting in her low chair. But between those two she felt fidgety. She kept moving and looking round and listening to the wind, and glancing secretly from one to the other of her companions. March, seated on a straight chair, with her knees in their close breeches crossed, and slowly, laboriously crocheting, was also a trial.

‘Oh dear!’ said Banford, ‘My eyes are bad tonight.’ And she pressed her fingers on her eyes.

The youth looked up at her with his clear, bright look, but did not speak.

‘Are they, Jill?’ said March absently.

Then the youth began to read again, and Banford perforce returned to her book. But she could not keep still. After a while she looked up at March, and a queer, almost malignant little smile was on her thin face.

‘A penny for them, Nell,’ she said suddenly.

March looked round with big, startled black eyes, and went pale as if with terror. She had been listening to the fox singing so tenderly, so tenderly, as he wandered round the house.

‘What?’ she said vaguely.

‘A penny for them,’ said Banford sarcastically. ‘Or twopence, if they’re as deep as all that.’

The youth was watching with bright, clear eyes from beneath the lamp.

‘Why,’ came March’s vague voice, ‘what do you want to waste your money for?’

‘I thought it would be well spent,’ said Banford.

‘I wasn’t thinking of anything except the way the wind was blowing,’ said March.

‘Oh dear,’ replied Banford, ‘I could have had as original thought as that myself. I’m afraid I HAVE wasted my money this time.’

‘Well, you needn’t pay,’ said March.

The youth suddenly laughed. Both women looked at him: March rather surprised-looking, as if she had hardly known he was there.

‘Why, do you ever pay up on these occasions?’ he asked.

‘Oh yes,’ said Banford. ‘We always do. I’ve sometimes had to pass a shilling a week to Nellie, in the winter-time. It costs much less in summer.’

‘What, paying for each other’s thoughts?’ he laughed.

‘Yes, when we’ve absolutely come to the end of everything else.’

He laughed quickly, wrinkling his nose sharply like a puppy and laughing with quick pleasure, his eyes shining.

‘It’s the first time I ever heard of that,’ he said.

‘I guess you’d hear of it often enough if you stayed a winter on Bailey Farm,’ said Banford lamentably.

‘Do you get so tired, then?’ he asked.

‘So bored,’ said Banford.

‘Oh!’ he said gravely. ‘But why should you be bored?’

‘Who wouldn’t be bored?’ said Banford.

‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ he said gravely.

‘You must be, if you were hoping to have a lively time here,’ said Banford.

He looked at her long and gravely.

‘Well,’ he said, with his odd, young seriousness, ‘it’s quite lively enough for me.’

‘I’m glad to hear it,’ said Banford.

And she returned to her book. In her thin, frail hair were already many threads of grey, though she was not yet thirty. The boy did not look down, but turned his eyes to March, who was sitting with pursed mouth laboriously crocheting, her eyes wide and absent. She had a warm, pale, fine skin and a delicate nose. Her pursed mouth looked shrewish. But the shrewish look was contradicted by the curious lifted arch of her dark brows, and the wideness of her eyes; a look of startled wonder and vagueness. She was listening again for the fox, who seemed to have wandered farther off into the night.

From under the edge of the lamp-light the boy sat with his face looking up, watching her silently, his eyes round and very clear and intent. Banford, biting her fingers irritably, was glancing at him under her hair. He sat there perfectly still, his ruddy face tilted up from the low level under the light, on the edge of the dimness, and watching with perfect abstract intentness. March suddenly lifted her great, dark eyes from her crocheting and saw him. She started, giving a little exclamation.

‘There he is!’ she cried involuntarily, as if terribly startled.

Banford looked round in amazement, sitting up straight.

‘Whatever has got you, Nellie?’ she cried.

But March, her face flushed a delicate rose colour, was looking away to the door.

‘Nothing! Nothing!’ she said crossly. ‘Can’t one speak?’

‘Yes, if you speak sensibly,’ said Banford. ‘What ever did you mean?’

‘I don’t know what I meant,’ cried March testily

Oh, Nellie, I hope you aren’t going jumpy and nervy. I feel I can’t stand another THING! Whoever did you mean? Did you mean Henry?’ cried poor, frightened Banford.

‘Yes. I suppose so,’ said March laconically. She would never confess to the fox.

‘Oh dear, my nerves are all gone for tonight,’ wailed Banford.

At nine o’clock March brought in a tray with bread and cheese and tea — Henry had confessed that he liked a cup of tea. Banford drank a glass of milk and ate a little bread. And soon she said:

‘I’m going to bed, Nellie, I’m all nerves tonight. Are you coming?’

‘Yes, I’m coming the minute I’ve taken the tray away,’ said March.

‘Don’t be long then,’ said Banford fretfully. ‘Good-night, Henry. You’ll see the fire is safe, if you come up last, won’t you?’

‘Yes, Miss Banford, I’ll see it’s safe,’ he replied in his reassuring way.

March was lighting the candle to go to the kitchen. Banford took her candle and went upstairs. When March came back to the fire, she said to him:

‘I suppose we can trust you to put out the fire and everything?’ She stood there with her hand on her hip, and one knee loose, her head averted shyly, as if she could not look at him. He had his face lifted, watching her.

‘Come and sit down a minute,’ he said softly.

‘No, I’ll be going. Jill will be waiting, and she’ll get upset, if I don’t come.’

‘What made you jump like that this evening?’ he asked.

‘When did I jump?’ she retorted, looking at him.

‘Why, just now you did,’ he said. ‘When you cried out.’

‘Oh!’ she said. ‘Then! — Why, I thought you were the fox!’ And her face screwed into a queer smile, half-ironic.

‘The fox! Why the fox?’ he asked softly.

‘Why, one evening last summer when I was out with the g*n I saw the fox in the grass nearly at my feet, looking straight up at me. I don’t know — I suppose he made an impression on me.’ She turned aside her head again and let one foot stray loose, self-consciously.

‘And did you shoot him?’ asked the boy.

‘No, he gave me such a start, staring straight at me as he did, and then stopping to look back at me over his shoulder with a laugh on his face.’

‘A laugh on his face!’ repeated Henry, also laughing. ‘He frightened you, did he?’

‘No, he didn’t frighten me. He made an impression on me, that’s all.’

‘And you thought I was the fox, did you?’ he laughed, with the same queer, quick little laugh, like a puppy wrinkling his nose.

‘Yes, I did, for the moment,’ she said. ‘Perhaps he’d been in my mind without my knowing.’

‘Perhaps you think I’ve come to steal your chickens or something,’ he said, with the same young laugh.

But she only looked at him with a wide, dark, vacant eye.

‘It’s the first time,’ he said, ‘that I’ve ever been taken for a fox. Won’t you sit down for a minute?’ His voice was very soft and cajoling.

‘No,’ she said. ‘Jill will be waiting.’ But still she did not go, but stood with one foot loose and her face turned aside, just outside the circle of light.

‘But won’t you answer my question?’ he said, lowering his voice still more.

‘I don’t know what question you mean.’

‘Yes, you do. Of course you do. I mean the question of you marrying me.’

‘No, I shan’t answer that question,’ she said flatly.

‘Won’t you?’ The queer, young laugh came on his nose again. ‘Is it because I’m like the fox? Is that why?’ And still he laughed.

She turned and looked at him with a long, slow look.

‘I wouldn’t let that put you against me,’ he said. ‘Let me turn the lamp low, and come and sit down a minute.’

He put his red hand under the glow of the lamp and suddenly made the light very dim. March stood there in the dimness quite shadowy, but unmoving. He rose silently to his feet, on his long legs. And now his voice was extraordinarily soft and suggestive, hardly audible.

‘You’ll stay a moment,’ he said. ‘Just a moment.’ And he put his hand on her shoulder. She turned her face from him. ‘I’m sure you don’t really think I’m like the fox,’ he said, with the same softness and with a suggestion of laughter in his tone, a subtle mockery. ‘Do you now?’ And he drew her gently towards him and kissed her neck, softly. She winced and trembled and hung away. But his strong, young arm held her, and he kissed her softly again, still on the neck, for her face was averted.

‘Won’t you answer my question? Won’t you now?’ came his soft, lingering voice. He was trying to draw her near to kiss her face. And he kissed her cheek softly, near the ear.

At that moment Banford’s voice was heard calling fretfully, crossly from upstairs.

‘There’s Jill!’ cried March, starting and drawing erect.

And as she did so, quick as lightning he kissed her on the mouth, with a quick, brushing kiss. It seemed to burn through her every fibre. She gave a queer little cry.