The Fox

by Isabelle Drake

  “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 gun 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 and his words were both invitation and challenge.

  “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, forcing her to move closer to hear him.

  “I don’t know what question you mean,” she said. There were so many questions between them—some that might never have answers.

  “Yes, you do. Of course you do.” He looked up at her and she saw the darkness in his eyes and the commanding twist of his mouth. “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. Was his laughter mocking? Because he knew that when it came to her he would be getting what he wanted, regardless of her own intentions? All he had to do was touch her, press his body against hers again and her thoughts would scatter.

  “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 moved to her. And now his voice was extraordinarily soft and suggestive, hardly audible. The sound seeped inside her, deep inside her and melting across her skin, washing her own essence away.

  “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. He opened his mouth and ran his moist lips across her feverish skin. He nipped her tender flesh, leaving a tiny trail of soft bites down to her shoulder. He moved his head to the other side and worked his way up, pressing her skin so tenderly between his teeth. The pressure of his teeth was light, yet she knew if she pulled away too soon he would leave a visible mark, a reminder of her weakness to him. So she stayed in his arms, letting him possess her with his mouth then—suddenly—with his lips across her own.

  He pressed his mouth across hers and caressed her lip with his tongue. She gasped and he delved deeper, thrusting his tongue into her open mouth and demanding she submit to his forceful kisses. She sagged against him. He pulled her closer. Once she was flat against him, he stepped one of his lean legs between hers, forced her thighs apart and took hold of her hips. Finally, once she was shaking from his attack, he took away his mouth.

  “Won’t you answer my question? Won’t you now?” came his soft, lingering voice. He kissed her cheek softly, near the ear, as he began grinding himself roughly against her. That wicked heat kindled and spread upwards. Oh, how easily he ignited it.

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

  “There’s Jill!” cried March, starting and trying to draw erect.

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

  He lifted his mouth and looked down into her face as he rubbed his hard body against her soft one. The heat he had awakened outside beside the wood pile hadn’t gone. It had been simmering inside her. She hadn’t realised it, but it was there simmering, wanting to burn—that heat, that undeniable heat. “You will, won’t you? You will?” he insisted softly, staring into her eyes.

  She stared back, but said nothing.

  “Must you always know the consequences of not replying? Will you forever deny me only to force me to make you obey?” he asked. He grabbed the hem of her tunic and jerked it upwards. Her arms became tangled in the sleeves, her undergarments twisted. He jerked again, lifting the tunic higher and pulling until it came free then tossed it to the floor, only a foot from the flickering fire. The outline of March’s breasts were visible through the thin chemise, and the youth stared at the pointed tips. He took one breast in each of his strong hands. “If you won’t give yourself to me, then I will take you. It’s what you want, even though you won’t let the words come from your lips.”

  “Nellie! Nellie! Whatever are you so long for?” came Banford’s faint cry from the outer darkness.

  Henry lowered his hands and grasped her hips. He held her fast, pressing his hard, unyielding crotch against her, and was murmuring with that intolerable softness and insistency, “You will, won’t you? Say yes! Say yes!” He began moving against her, starting a rhythm with his hips.

  March, who felt as if the fire had gone through her and scathed her, and as if she could do no more, murmured, “Yes! Yes! Anything you like! Anything you like! Only let me go! Only let me go! Jill’s calling.”

  He didn’t let her go. Instead, he continued grinding against her, then rocking back and forth. The wet heat gathering deep inside her stole her breath, left her hanging in the space between awareness and mindlessness. The hot longing threatened to steal her last breath. She tried to pull away, but he kept moving against her, giving her what she needed. When she began to whimper, he covered her mouth with his own and kissed her firmly until at last the heat sparked and flashed and rolled deliciously through her. Her entire body shook and quivered, and she couldn’t stand to look at him. He possessed her now, and she understood what she must say and do.

  “You know you’ve promised,” he said insidiously.

  “Yes! Yes! I do!” Her voice suddenly rose into a shrill cry. “All right, Jill, I’m coming.”

  Startled, he let her go. She grabbed her tunic and slipped it on, the dull fabric again covering her breasts, and she then went straight upstairs, struggling with each step as she willed her legs to work in their usual manner.

  Her night was long a
nd restless and filled with dreams of both Henry and Banford. On this night though, when she awoke shaking and crying, Banford didn’t stir. She slept soundly, her small chest rising and falling slowly. March managed to fall asleep again, but it was even more restless and disturbed.

  Her last dream was of the young man, holding her tightly, pressing her back against the barn door, kissing her roughly while in the distance Banford was calling them in for tea. The youth was bare-chested, smelt of sawdust and was damp with sweat. Each time Banford called, he tugged her shirt higher and higher, until it was up and off and on the ground. Banford shrieked. The youth unbuttoned March’s breeches. And when the calls were replaced by mournful wailing, the youth tugged down her breeches and undergarment and pressed himself against her. The coarse wood of the barn scraped against March’s flesh, and the pain heightened her senses. The smell of him, the sound of his uneven breath, and the feeling of his body—it was everything and yet it wasn’t enough.

  Banford continued to wail, but March ignored the pain in her friend’s voice. Instead of going to her friend, she stayed with him. She grabbed Henry’s belt, worked it free and, as if her hands moved of their own accord, she began struggling with the button. Once it was undone, she pulled his pants down. She wanted him inside her. Deep inside. He took her hips in his hands and positioned himself in front of her. One hard, fast thrust and he would truly possess her. Instinct told her what to do. She spread her legs as far as the breeches—now at her feet—would allow. Then, knowing that the decision had been made and the moment had arrived, tensed and waited for him.

  He stood before her, naked from the waist down, the evidence of his desire shocking, frightening and fascinating. She’d never had a man inside her before and was both terrified and wanton. She touched the tip of his stiff cock.

  “It’s yours, Nellie,” he said, speaking in a low growl. “All you have to do is take it.”

  She continued to caress him, her fingers moving around the shaft.

  “If you do not take it, I will give it to you anyway, as I know that is your desire.”

  He took her hand away and held it against the rough wood, high above her head. March squirmed, anxious and afraid, but she didn’t pull away when he used his other hand to position that smooth tip between her legs. He rubbed it against her, started to slide it into her tight channel. Knowing he was finally going to take her, she dropped her head back and gave in.

  But March awoke, shaking and shivering, with tears dampening her cheeks

  In the morning at breakfast, after he had looked round the place and attended to the stock and thought to himself that one could live easily enough here, he said to Banford, “Do you know what, Miss Banford?”

  “Well, what?” said the good-natured, nervy Banford.

  He looked at March, who was spreading jam on her bread.

  “Shall I tell?” he said to her.

  She looked up at him, and a deep pink colour flushed over her face as she remembered everything from the evening before.

  “Yes, if you mean Jill,” she said. “I hope you won’t go talking all over the village, that’s all.” And she swallowed her dry bread with difficulty.

  “Whatever’s coming?” said Banford, looking up with wide, tired, slightly reddened eyes. She was a thin, frail little thing, and her hair, which was delicate and thin, was bobbed, so it hung softly by her worn face in its faded brown and grey.

  “Why, what do you think?” he said, smiling like one who has a secret.

  “How do I know!” said Banford.

  “Can’t you guess?” he said, making bright eyes and smiling, pleased with himself.

  “I’m sure I can’t. What’s more, I’m not going to try.”

  “Nellie and I are going to be married.”

  Banford put down her knife out of her thin, delicate fingers, as if she would never take it up to eat any more. She stared with blank, reddened eyes.

  “You what?” she exclaimed.

  “We’re going to get married. Aren’t we, Nellie?” And he turned to March.

  “You say so, anyway,” said March laconically. But she flushed and she, too, could swallow no more.

  Banford looked at her like a bird that has been shot—a poor, little sick bird. She gazed at her with all her wounded soul in her face, at the deep-flushed March. The youth did not see Banford’s expression. Or if he did, it meant nothing to him.

  “Never!” she exclaimed, helpless.

  “It’s quite right,” said the bright and gloating youth, sitting up straighter and reaching for another chunk of bread.

  Banford turned aside her face, as if the sight of the food on the table made her sick. She sat like this for some moments, as if she were sick. Then, with one hand on the edge of the table, she rose to her feet.

  “I’ll never believe it, Nellie,” she cried. “It’s absolutely impossible!”

  Her plaintive, fretful voice had a thread of hot anger and despair.

  “Why? Why shouldn’t you believe it?” asked the youth, with all his soft, velvety impertinence in his voice.

  Banford looked at him from her wide, vague eyes, as if he were some creature in a museum.

  “Oh,” she said languidly, “because she can never be such a fool. She can’t lose her self-respect to such an extent.” Her voice was cold and plaintive, drifting.

  “In what way will she lose her self-respect?” asked the boy.

  Banford looked at him with vague fixity from behind her spectacles.

  “If she hasn’t lost it already,” she said, looking across the table at March, a slight condemnation in her watery eyes. When her friend continued to remain silent, she looked back to the boy.

  He became very red, vermilion, under the slow, vague stare from behind the spectacles.

  “I don’t see it at all,” he said. He had finally stopped eating.

  “Probably you don’t. I shouldn’t expect you would,” said Banford, with that straying, mild tone of remoteness which made her words even more insulting.

  He sat stiff in his chair, staring with hot, blue eyes from his scarlet face. An ugly look had come on his brow.

  “My word, she doesn’t know what she’s letting herself in for,” said Banford, in her plaintive, drifting, insulting voice.

  “What has it got to do with you, anyway?” said the youth, in a temper.

  “More than it has to do with you, probably,” she replied, plaintive and venomous.

  “Oh, has it! I don’t see that at all,” he jerked out.

  “No, you wouldn’t,” she answered, drifting.

  “Anyhow,” said March, pushing back her hair and rising uncouthly. “It’s no good arguing about it.” And she seized the bread and the teapot and strode away to the kitchen.

  Banford let her fingers stray across her brow and along her hair, like one bemused. Then she turned and went away upstairs, the sound of her footsteps fading quickly.

  Henry sat stiff and sulky in his chair, with his face and his eyes on fire. March came and went, clearing the table. But Henry sat on, stiff with temper. He took no notice of her. She had regained her composure and her soft, even, creamy complexion. But her mouth was pursed up. She glanced at him each time as she came to take things from the table, glanced from her large, curious eyes—more in curiosity than anything. Such a long, red-faced, sulky boy! That was all he was. He seemed as remote from her as if his red face were a red chimney-pot on a cottage across the fields, and she looked at him just as objectively, as remotely.

  At length he got up and stalked out into the fields with the gun. He came in only at dinner-time, with the devil still in his face, but his manners quite polite. Nobody said anything particular. They sat each one at the sharp corner of a triangle, in obstinate remoteness. In the afternoon he went out again at once with the gun. He came in at nightfall with a rabbit and a pigeon, the rewards for his hunting efforts. At least he was able to show his skill in that way. Neither Banford nor March seemed to take notice of his offering and
the resistance to appreciate his kill kept the red in his face. He stayed in all the evening, but hardly opened his mouth. He was in the devil of a temper, feeling he had been insulted.

  Banford’s eyes were red, she had evidently been crying. But her manner was more remote and supercilious than ever—the way she turned her head if he spoke at all, as if he were some tramp or inferior intruder of that sort, made his blue eyes go almost black with rage. His face looked sulkier. But he never forgot his polite intonation, if he opened his mouth to speak. March seemed to flourish in this atmosphere. She seemed to sit between the two antagonists with a little wicked smile on her face, enjoying herself. There was even a sort of complacency in the way she laboriously crocheted this evening.

  When he was in bed, the youth could hear the two women talking and arguing in their room. He sat up in bed and strained his ears to hear what they said. But he could hear nothing, it was too far off. Yet he could hear the soft, plaintive drip of Banford’s voice, and March’s deeper note. He wished that March would tell Banford about the kisses, but he knew she wouldn’t. He kept wishing for it though, the edges of his anger fading when he imagined the fog of outrage and disgust behind the Banford’s spectacles. He was capable of stirring March beyond herself and that was something Banford would never be able to do. It was something she herself might never feel.

  He wanted to storm into their bedroom and tell them both he and March were to be married and they both should accept the idea quickly and quietly. But the idea of stating yet again what was to happen was also insulting. Still, the anger in him stirred and churned.

  The night was quiet, frosty. Big stars were snapping outside, beyond the ridge-tops of the pine trees. He listened and listened. In the distance he heard a fox yelping, and the dogs from the farms barking in answer. But that was not that he wanted to hear.

  He got stealthily out of bed and stood by his door. He could hear no more than before. Very, very carefully he began to lift the door latch. After quite a time he had his door open. Then he stepped stealthily out into the passage. The old oak planks were cold under his feet, and they creaked preposterously. He crept very, very gently up the one step, and along by the wall, till he stood outside their door. And there he held his breath and listened.