Banford’s voice. “No, I simply couldn’t stand it. I should be dead in a month. Which is just what he would be aiming at, of course. That would just be his game, to see me in the churchyard. No, Nellie, if you were to do such a thing as to marry him, you could never stop here. I couldn’t, I couldn’t live in the same house with him. Oh—oh! I feel quite sick with the smell of his clothes. And his red face simply turns me over. I can’t eat my food when he’s at the table. What a fool I was ever to let him stop. One ought never to try to do a kind action. It always flies back in your face like a boomerang.”
“Well, he’s only got two more days,” said March.
“Yes, thank heaven. And when he’s gone he’ll never come in this house again. I feel so bad while he’s here. And I know, I know he’s only counting what he can get out of you. I know that’s all it is. He’s just a good-for-nothing, who doesn’t want to work, and who thinks he’ll live on us. But he won’t live on me. If you’re such a fool, then it’s your own lookout. Mrs Burgess knew him all the time he was here. And the old man could never get him to do any steady work. He was off with the gun on every occasion, just as he is now. Nothing but the gun! Oh, I do hate it. You don’t know what you’re doing, Nellie, you don’t. If you marry him he’ll just make a fool of you. He’ll go off and leave you stranded. I know he will, if he can’t get Bailey Farm out of us—and he’s not going to, while I live. While I live he’s never going to set foot here. I know what it would be. He’d soon think he was master of both of us, as he thinks he’s master of you already.”
“But he isn’t,” said Nellie.
Silence followed. The youth held tight to his breath as he wished again she would tell Banford about the kisses. He had mastered her and she knew it. Perhaps it didn’t matter if she admitted it aloud. The truth was the truth.
“He thinks he is, anyway. And that’s what he wants—to come and be master here. Yes, imagine it! That’s what we’ve got the place together for, is it, to be bossed and bullied by a hateful, red-faced boy, a beastly labourer. Oh, we did make a mistake when we let him stop. We ought never to have lowered ourselves. And I’ve had such a fight with all the people here, not to be pulled down to their level. No, he’s not coming here. And then you see—if he can’t have the place, he’ll run off to Canada or somewhere again, as if he’d never known you. And here you’ll be, absolutely ruined and made a fool of. I know I shall never have any peace of mind again.”
“We’ll tell him he can’t come here. We’ll tell him that,” said March.
“Oh, don’t you bother. I’m going to tell him that, and other things as well, before he goes. He’s not going to have all his own way while I’ve got the strength left to speak. Oh, Nellie, he’ll despise you, he’ll despise you, like the awful little beast he is, if you give way to him. I’d no more trust him than I’d trust a cat not to steal. He’s deep, he’s deep, and he’s bossy, and he’s selfish through and through, as cold as ice. All he wants is to make use of you. And when you’re no more use to him, then I pity you.”
“I don’t think he’s as bad as all that,” said March.
“No, because he’s been playing up to you. But you’ll find out, if you see much of him. Oh, Nellie, I can’t bear to think of it.”
“Well, it won’t hurt you, Jill, darling.”
“Won’t it! Won’t it! I shall never know a moment’s peace again while I live, nor a moment’s happiness. No, Nellie—” And Banford began to weep bitterly.
The boy outside could hear the stifled sound of the woman’s sobbing, and could hear March’s soft, deep, tender voice comforting, with wonderful gentleness and tenderness, the weeping woman.
His eyes were so round and wide that he seemed to see the whole night, and his ears were almost jumping off his head. He was frozen stiff. He crept back to bed, but felt as if the top of his head were coming off. He could not sleep. He could not keep still. He rose, quietly dressed himself and crept out on to the landing once more. The women were silent. He went softly downstairs and out to the kitchen.
Then he put on his boots and his overcoat and took the gun. He did not think to go away from the farm. No, he only took the gun. As softly as possible he unfastened the door and went out into the frosty December night. The air was still, the stars bright, the pine trees seemed to bristle audibly in the sky. He went stealthily away down a fence-side, looking for something to shoot. At the same time he remembered that he ought not to shoot and frighten the women.
His blood stirred with the need to move, to conquer, so he prowled round the edge of the gorse cover, and through the grove of tall old hollies, to the woodside. There he skirted the fence, peering through the darkness with dilated eyes that seemed to be able to grow black and full of sight in the dark, like a cat’s. An owl was slowly and mournfully whooing round a great oak tree. He stepped stealthily with his gun, listening, listening, watching.
As he stood under the oaks of the wood-edge he heard the dogs from the neighbouring cottage up the hill yelling suddenly and startlingly, and the wakened dogs from the farms around barking answer. And suddenly it seemed to him England was little and tight, he felt the landscape was constricted even in the dark, and that there were too many dogs in the night, making a noise like a fence of sound, like the network of English hedges netting the view. He felt the fox didn’t have a chance. For it must be the fox that had started all this hullabaloo. The crafty fox with his beautiful coat, gleaming bright eyes, and brutal ways. The creature was as dangerous as he was elusive.
Why not watch for him, anyhow! He would, no doubt, be coming sniffing round. The lad walked downhill to where the farmstead with its few pine trees crouched blackly. In the angle of the long shed, in the black dark, he crouched down. He knew the fox would be coming. It seemed to him it would be the last of the foxes in this loudly-barking, thick-voiced England, tight with innumerable little houses.
He sat a long time with his eyes fixed unchanging upon the open gateway, where a little light seemed to fall from the stars or from the horizon, who knows. He was sitting on a log in a dark corner with the gun across his knees. The pine trees snapped. Once a chicken fell off its perch in the barn with a loud crawk and cackle and commotion that startled him, and he stood up, watching with all his eyes, thinking it might be a rat. But he felt it was nothing. So he sat down again with the gun on his knees and his hands tucked in to keep them warm, and his eyes fixed unblinking on the pale reach of the open gateway. He felt he could smell the hot, sickly, rich smell of live chickens on the cold air.
Then—a shadow. A sliding shadow in the gateway. He gathered all his vision into a concentrated spark, and saw the shadow of the fox, the fox creeping on his belly through the gate. There he went, on his belly like a snake. The boy smiled to himself and brought the gun to his shoulder. He knew quite well what would happen. He knew the fox would go to where the fowl door was boarded up and sniff there. He knew he would lie there for a minute, sniffing the fowls within. Then he would start again prowling under the edge of the old barn, waiting to get in.
The fowl door was at the top of a slight incline. Soft, soft as a shadow the fox slid up this incline, and crouched with his nose to the boards. And at the same moment there was the awful crash of a gun reverberating between the old buildings, as if all the night had gone smash. But the boy watched keenly. He saw even the white belly of the fox as the beast beat his paws in death. So he went forward.
There was a commotion everywhere. The fowls were scuffling and crawking, the ducks were quark-quarking, the pony had stamped wildly to his feet. But the fox was on his side, struggling in his last tremors. The boy bent over him and smelt his foxy smell.
There was a sound of a window opening upstairs, then March’s voice calling, “Who is it?”
“It’s me,” said Henry. “I’ve shot the fox.”
“Oh, goodness! You nearly frightened us to death.”
“Did I? I’m awfully sorry.”
“Whatever made you get up?”
“I heard him about.”
“And have you shot him?”
“Yes, he’s here.” And the boy stood in the yard holding up the warm, dead brute. “You can’t see, can you? Wait a minute.” And he took his flash-light from his pocket and flashed it on to the dead animal. He was holding it by the brush. March saw, in the middle of the darkness, just the reddish fleece and the white belly and the white underneath of the pointed chin, and the queer, dangling paws. She did not know what to say.
The youth wondered if March’s chest was heaving with excitement, her eyes bright. Indeed, that would be the way she was, stirred by his skill. And Banford would be forced to thank him or endure the rudeness she so despised.
“He’s a beauty,” he said, standing straighter and looking down on the fallen animal. “He will make you a lovely fur.”
“You don’t catch me wearing a fox fur,” she replied.
“Oh!” he said. And he switched off the light.
“Well, I should think you’ll come in and go to bed again now,” she said.
“Probably I shall. What time is it?”
“What time is it, Jill?” called March’s voice. It was a quarter to one.
That night March had another dream.
She dreamt that Banford was dead, and that she, March, was sobbing her heart out. Then she had to put Banford into her coffin. And the coffin was the rough wood-box in which the bits of chopped wood were kept in the kitchen, by the fire. This was the coffin, and there was no other, and March was in agony and dazed bewilderment, looking for something to line the box with, something to make it soft with, something to cover up the poor, dead darling. Because she couldn’t lay her in there just in her white, thin nightdress, in the horrible wood-box. So she hunted and hunted, and picked up thing after thing, and threw it aside in the agony of dream-frustration. And in her dream-despair all she could find that would do was a fox-skin. She knew that it wasn’t right, that this was not what she should have. But it was all she could find. And so she folded the brush of the fox, and laid her darling Jill’s head on this, and she brought round the skin of the fox and laid it on the top of the body, so that it seemed to make a whole ruddy, fiery coverlet, and she cried and cried, and woke to find the tears streaming down her face.
The night wasn’t finished with her though. She had another dream.
The youth was there by the casket and took the fox away from poor lifeless Jill. He held the light tip of the tail in one of his strong hands and the neck in the other and wrapped the dead beast around March’s shoulders. He pulled her away from the bare wooden coffin. He laid his mouth across hers and kissed her soundly. So soundly, her blood stirred and heat filled her. The tears became sweat that ran down her neck and between her breasts. Even though she ached to be held, he didn’t pull her closer, he only held her with the fox and the possession of his mouth. March hated the stupid animal, and she grabbed blindly until she found its tail and wrenched it from Henry. He lifted his mouth. She threw the dead creature aside. It landed on the edge of Jill’s coffin, the head dangling down, the mouth open in a mocking smile. March ran.
She ran outside, her legs churning inside her thin, white nightdress as she raced through the cold December air. It was dusk and the bare trees were shadowed in grey. The youth caught her at the top of the hill by the wood stack. He grabbed her and spun her around. His face was inches from hers, his cheeks red, eyes bright. Anger rolled off him in waves.
“She’s gone now,” March said. “You won.”
He ignored her statement and once again pressed his mouth to hers. The roughness of the kiss did not surprise her but her body’s response did. The anger inside him flowed into her, and she felt her body stir with hot blood and cruel need. She clung to the image of poor Banford, trapped in the stark wooden coffin. Hate him. He did this to her, she told herself, but the picture of her lost friend was not enough to stop her body’s immediate response to the forcefulness of the youth. She parted her lips and let him invade her mouth.
He moved his mouth across hers and slid his hands around her waist then dropped them to grab her hips. The heat of his anger continued to flow into March, warming her body and sending waves of tension through her. The waves seemed to circle smaller and smaller, rolling tightly to her centre and settling there. She shifted to get more of the pressure his hands delivered to her hips and he laughed.
“You understand now what I want. How I’ll know when I’ve truly won.”
She wanted to tell him that she’d already known, that she’d wanted to give it to him. But now, with Banford gone, it seemed wrong. Traitorous. And so March should move back and go to her dear friend’s coffin. Instead she widened her stance and invited the hardness from between the youth’s legs. He thrust forward and a bolt of heat shot upwards and she felt its effect all the way up into her breasts. Her nipples tightened into hard points and she ached for him to touch her as he had before.
“Banford was right. I am your master.”
Banford, her friend. Gone and never, ever coming back. Lost to her forever. March whimpered.
He thrust again, and she was lost for a moment, her mind clouded with shades of emotion much darker than the grey of the dusky night sky. She felt him lift her nightdress up to expose her knees then her thighs. When he lifted it higher, the cold night air whipped up between her legs, and the heavy mist in her mind evaporated. She thrashed against the youth, and he let go of the thin fabric and tumbled back. March spun and raced down the hill towards her poor lifeless friend.
The first thing that both she and Banford did in the morning was to go out to see the fox. Henry had hung it up by the heels in the shed, with its poor brush falling backwards. It was a lovely dog-fox in its prime, with a handsome, thick, winter coat—a lovely golden-red colour, with grey as it passed to the belly, and belly all white, and a great full brush with a delicate black and grey and pure white tip.
“Poor brute!” said Banford. “If it wasn’t such a thieving wretch, you’d feel sorry for it.”
March said nothing, but stood with her foot trailing aside, one hip out. Her face was pale and her eyes big and black, watching the dead animal that was suspended upside down. White and soft as snow his belly—white and soft as snow. She passed her hand softly down it. And his wonderful black-glinted brush was full and frictional, wonderful. Why hadn’t she noticed that in her dream? She passed her hand down this also, and quivered. Time after time she took the full fur of that thick tail between her fingers, and passed her hand slowly downwards. Wonderful, sharp, thick, splendour of a tail. So much softer now in the light of day. She pursed her lips, and her eyes went black and vacant. Then she wrapped her hands around the neck before taking the head in her hand.
Henry was sauntering up, so Banford walked rather pointedly away. March stood there bemused, with the head of the fox in her hand. She was wondering, wondering, wondering over his long, fine muzzle. For some reason it reminded her of a spoon or a spatula. She felt she could not understand it. The beast was a strange beast to her, incomprehensible, out of her range. Wonderful silver whiskers he had, like ice-threads. And pricked ears with hair inside. But that long, long, slender spoon of a nose—and the marvellous white teeth beneath! It was to thrust forward and bite with, deep, deep, deep into the living prey, to bite and bite the blood. She wondered again at her dream, nearly wishing she could have the dream again, only with a different ending.
“He’s a beauty, isn’t he?” said Henry, standing by, the closeness of his lean, angular body stirring March’s blood. It wasn’t anger this time, she acknowledged. It was something else much harder to predict and control.
“Oh yes, he’s a fine big fox. I wonder how many chickens he’s responsible for,” she replied.
“A good many. Do you think he’s the same one you saw in the summer?”
“I should think very likely he is,” she replied, forgetting herself as she caressed the dead animal with eager hands.
He watched her, but he
could make nothing of her. Partly she was so shy and virgin, and partly she was so grim, matter-of-fact, shrewish. What she said seemed to him so different from the look of her big, queer, dark eyes.
“Are you going to skin him?” she asked.
“Yes, when I’ve had breakfast, and got a board to peg him on.”
“My word, what a strong smell he’s got! Pooo! It’ll take some washing off one’s hands. I don’t know why I was so silly as to handle him.” And she looked at her right hand that had passed down his belly and along his tail, and had even got a tiny streak of blood from one dark place in his fur.
“Have you seen the chickens when they smell him, how frightened they are?” he said.
“Yes, aren’t they!”
“You must mind you don’t get some of his fleas.”
“Oh, fleas!” she replied, nonchalant.
Later in the day she saw the fox’s skin nailed flat on a board, as if crucified. It gave her an uneasy feeling, a sensation that was oddly close to the one she’d felt during her dream. Even though the youth’s efficient work impressed her, she said nothing to him and went about her chores as usual. No doubt he was thinking about more than the animal, but she left him to his dark thoughts.
The boy was angry. He went about with his mouth shut, as if he had swallowed part of his chin. But in behaviour he was polite and affable. He did not say anything about his intention. And he left March alone.
That evening they sat in the dining-room. Banford wouldn’t have him in her sitting room anymore. There was a very big log on the fire. And everybody was busy. Banford had letters to write. March was sewing a dress, and he was mending some little contrivance.
Banford stopped her letter-writing from time to time to look round and rest her eyes. The boy had his head down, his face hidden over his job.
The Fox Page 6
