The Black Fox

by H. F. Heard

  “And sometimes”—she added her question to his—“sometimes we can see the hidden causes which have set in motion the very evident, but seemingly inexplicable, results?”

  He nodded. She was silent, too, for a moment. But he evidently had followed her thought when she continued,

  “We are free, of course. We can initiate—I mean we ourselves must often be the cause of the things that befall us. I know that sounds trite, self-evident, I mean.…”

  He continued for her, “We can become involved in certain, certain moods.…” He stumbled, then went on, “What I am trying to get clear in my mind is, I think, a question. I remember a remark I heard Dr. Wilkes make at a conference to which the Bishop took me where a number of professional men met together for discussion of social trends; Dr. Wilkes’ point, as far as I recall, was that infection, physical infection, seems to be a thing we must view increasingly as pervasive, general, almost a climate. I know what he said interested me because then our bodily health would depend less on disinfectants than on keeping up our general resistance. He meant it, I believe, to point to a link between his work and ours. If so, then at times we might, by worry, by resentment, by any negative mood, let our mental resistance become lowered.”

  “And then,” she concluded, “the ill infection breaks in, inundates.”

  “We do need soul-physicians,” was his conclusion.

  She smiled frankly at him. “Thank you for being so confidential with me. You are treating me as an associate of the Faculty!”

  He did not, however, smile back at her. Indeed his face was now more clouded. But though overcast his expression was more open than before. He had from his first days in the Close felt an intuitive liking for this quiet woman, of his mother’s generation, with no children of her own, taking care of that forbidding brother, ready to let him completely eclipse her and ready, it seemed, with the same silent charity, to let Close gossip and its small petty competitions apparently go by. Naturally he had taken her quietude as serenity. Even the most informative of the Cathedral wives left Miss Throcton’s character alone. He had been told, as soon as he came into residence, that, whereas Miss So-and-So was lively and Mrs. So-and-So very conservative, of Miss Throcton it was only said, with uncommon agreement and a certain finality, that she was “remote.”

  “Sometimes, Miss Throcton, I am sorry to say, I get discouraged. I know it is wrong of me. I know I have been blessed, favoured. But somehow I thought it was going to be different.…”

  “What?” She knew, but knew also that he needed encouragement.

  “I have been fortunate, as the world says and as it counts. I am sure you know my loyalty to the Bishop. He is a wonderful man under whom to work, learn about administration and the understanding of men. And this lovely spot to work in.…”

  He looked at the perfect blend of cultured comfort and antiquarian picturesqueness which a well-kept Cathedral Close then achieved, all the charm of the past distilled and all its inconveniences strained away.

  “But sometimes—of course it is probably impatience disguising itself as zeal—I wonder whether, just because we have achieved such finish, we are not now entirely on the rich surface?”

  “Floating in the rich cream?” she asked. “But with no depth in us?”

  She had not smiled but he did, “Yes, this week the Bishop asked me to attend a picture expert from London who is to look over our fine series of Bishops’ portraits, a unique series, he thinks. It was extraordinary the things he showed me that he could do with cleaning fluids, et cetera to keep and indeed bring back into good condition the faces of those dead worthies. He told me this kind of antiquarian preservation has progressed wonderfully and then remarked, ‘And a good thing, too. It will help us preserve the great Italian masters. We need all the preservatives we can lay hold on, for once they are gone we shall never have such treasures again, we shall never be able again to paint as they painted.’ And then he added, ‘Maybe, when you can no longer create, as a compensation, you are given the power to preserve.’”

  Young Halliwell glanced again unhappily at the great fretted West Front, mellow in the western light, and the wide lawn spread like a green velvet cloth, on which this precious antique had been put out to sun.

  “What do you think we lack?” she asked.

  “Oh, I don’t know! I know I oughtn’t to complain. But you see I’d hoped … I’d hoped the Church today might be what it was when it began.”

  “That’s what the Methodists claim,” she smiled now. “Or at least used to.”

  “It’s what my father believed could and should be,” he went on. “It certainly didn’t bring him preferment. But then, for years, he was a missionary. And that not only puts you out of the running; it brings you up against experiences not met with and not believed in here.” He waved his hand at the large enclosed calm of garden and architecture in which they sat.

  “But a thing may exist, may it not, even when it is not believed?”

  She asked the question so quietly, so much to herself, that he did not seem to notice it but ran on,

  “Yes, certainly he was out of the running. You see he said he sometimes believed God sent him to Persia to learn rather than to teach.”

  “What did he learn?”

  This time her question was definite enough to turn his attention.

  “He used to tell me that he was sure of one thing—our supreme need of what he called spiritual mastery.”

  “Did he ever tell you how it might be found?”

  “He thought it required a very considerable attention to one’s way of life. I mean he was sure that it would take time, skill and instruction—perhaps years of training.”

  “That is asking a great deal?”

  “Certainly the theological students I have seen and the theological studies I myself have been put through are, I must own, superficial. After all, Dr. Wilkes had a longer and more thorough training before it was thought safe to permit him to handle our bodies—are our souls any less valuable or complex?”

  “Could your father give you any examples of men whom he thought proficient?”

  “Yes, he said he had seen wonderful things, things like the therapy described in the Gospels, done by those who had suffered themselves so as to become adepts.”

  “In Persia?”

  “Yes, but he said he had been assured that it could be done just as well here—if we cared as much to be trained.”

  “But have any of us? Is there anyone known to you that can do—that kind of thing—here and now?”

  As her questions followed one another her voice had taken on a tone of urgency. Intuitively, however, he seemed to understand the naturalness, the inevitability of their return to personal matters and now on a level of increased intimacy.

  “I wish with all my heart,” he said impetuously, “I knew of someone who could teach me. My father didn’t. Indeed just before he died he actually thought of going back to Persia—I know it sounds almost grotesque. But, as he said, just keeping out of the running, just avoiding ambition, just going the small round, of which this”—again he pointed to the vast front that loomed on their right, like the walls of an abandoned prehistoric fortress—“this is only the big round. Just difference in quantity doesn’t alter quality. And we need a new quality, a new species of force. I’d give up all my work here, however promising, approved and pleasant it may be, if only I could find out that—but what’s the use giving up one’s place on the fly-wheel, though one be but a fly, to become Only a miniature crank!”

  He smiled ashamedly, then added, “Please forgive me. What led to this, this outbreak is that, as you know, the Bishop himself is now apprehensive and I believe suspects that we may perhaps be in need of insight which if we cannot command.…” The young lieutenant paused, then went on, “He is wise, you know, as he is shrewd. Indeed I am sure he knows always much more than he says, and indeed maybe more than he can say.”

  “A woman’s predicament,” she put in to enco
urage him.

  “I’ve seldom seen him show anything that might be construed as misgiving, still less apprehension. Certainly he has never before asked me, as on this occasion, to inquire what if anything can or could be done.”

  “It is kind of him,” she answered in a low steady voice. “But haven’t you, with your kind frankness, been telling me that nothing can be done, that our Established Church was not established to deal with any who might climb above or fall down from its Via Media?”

  “You mean that a diplomatic scholar or a nice-mannered, well-informed young gentleman, has really no power and maybe no insight? And that the latter is the only bud, the former the one fruit that this ornamental tree”—again he nodded at the Cathedral—“can now yield?”

  Her voice as she answered was very grave but not weak, “I don’t want to sound despairing: But I do feel that I should not hide from you that my hopes now depend on a very fine constitution, on Nature’s inherent power of recovery and, immediately, on what change may yield,” she paused, “and on, what I feel you will not mind my mentioning, our prayers.”

  She had not embarrassed him, nor even disturbed the run of his thoughts. “How I wish you could meet with one of those doctors of the soul my father came across. Of course the ordinary person would be able to get little—he would only see all the little surface differences. Can any good thing come out of Galilee? Or, indeed, in anything but the dress we know? But I think you might find then what might help.”

  Suddenly his self-assurance seemed to go, his successfully acquired conventionality to return, “Please forgive me. I expect I don’t know what I’m talking about. All I was commissioned to do was to ask how the Dean was and whether there was anything that might be done for him. Please forgive me!”

  “Please don’t apologize. It has been a relief to talk with you and to hear of those who at least understand the reality of spiritual problems. Thank you for coming. I or my brother will keep the Bishop informed. As I said, the absence now will be brief. Forgive me,” she concluded rising and giving him her hand, “I must be getting back.”

  He thanked her with a clumsiness that helped her more than a finished phrase.

  “I have been helped by our talk,” she repeated as she left him, “and you will continue, I know, to help us in the one way we know.”

  He watched her as she went across the great lawn to the stately house. Its fine eighteenth century façade seemed the crystallization of the scholarly self-assurance that had smiled away all the dark fancies of an earlier ignorance.

  14

  When she re-entered the house it was to find that his improvement—if such it could be called—had been sustained. And as far as his will was concerned it might be said to have been increased. As the light failed, he seemed to have full mastery of himself and even to wish to test his power. He still was willing to sleep in her sitting room. But he insisted on her going to her bedroom.

  “You will not be fit to travel,” he said, and though his voice was without interest it was clear he was determined to prevent himself becoming totally unaware of another’s health. “You must get some proper sleep.”

  And when she went to him in the morning, before she enquired, he told her quietly, “Yes, it passed and I shall be able to travel.”

  The group at Cambridge proved to be one that at any other time would have been for Dean Throcton most congenial. Even now it was clear that the distraction was so apt that he was able to give his whole attention to their discussions. Indeed he had seemed to gain perceptibly in self-detachment each mile that Norminster was left behind. And while they were driving down the long dreary road, which the University had insisted should keep the railway-station at its proper distance, he remarked to her with something that sounded almost like a quiet defiance, “‘The master passion strong in death!’ Well, anyhow it’s stronger, I believe, than a doleful delirium! I remember when our father was failing, he would wander hopelessly if I tried to talk any business with him. But if I quoted Scripture, time and again he’d cap the quotation. Arabic, I suspect, is my brain-cordial.” She wished that his support was more fundamental but was certainly grateful for anything which permitted time to be gained.

  Dr. McPhail, the conference’s convener, was one of those thorough scholars who feel that they can have no true linguistic knowledge unless they have lived in the country whose literature they desire to understand. He had spent time in Eygpt, Syria, Mesopotamia and Persia. Hence he was able with some pride to introduce as his foreign visitors two men who had been his hosts in his Near East travels. One was a Persian, the other an Egyptian. Both were outstanding scholars. And both proved to possess the intelligence that is so informed that it finds the views of others, the more alien they are, the more interesting. The Persian had the vivacity of his nation. He was also a poet of considerable standing in a language that is second to none in its poetry. He gave a very welcome finish to his accomplishments by perfect use of English. The Egyptian was, however, the more remarkable. Experts are, when with the public, generally aloof and taciturn. There is nothing to their taste in the common market, and their special fare they expect the ordinary purchaser to find as unpalatable. When, however, they are brought together with their peers their common humanity emerges. The volume of sound-waves emitted by a group of experts clearing their minds is seldom less in force and range than the noise caused by the clearing of an equal number of common throats.

  This conference might certainly have been heard some distance outside the massive doors of the large hall wherein they met. Perhaps one voice alone would not have carried beyond the ears for which it was intended. Though the Egyptian spoke English as fluently as the Persian, he spoke far less often. On those occasions, however, the very quietness of his tone, the lack of any nervous advocacy, always gave him the attention of the entire group.

  Dr. McPhail, pleased with the dawning success of his congress, remarked, smiling to Dean Throcton, “I think he obtains so readily the loan of our ears because he does not seem anxious to inform us, still less to correct us.”

  “And, conversely, he appears to have no doubts as to his information,” the Dean allowed with gruff appreciation, “and I must own that always is an aid to listening when evidently one is listening to an authority.”

  “Yes”—Dr. McPhail’s voice modulated to a whisper as another speaker began to address them—“Yes, on his own grounds, few, very few, may be greater.”

  The speaker who had the floor had apparently not this power of commanding more than polite silence and, as courtesy censored the circulation of further biographic detail, Dean Throcton let his eyes entertain him by studying his host’s face. It too showed that the ear was failing to hold the eye. “He, looks like a hen anxiously proud because she has just a few more chicks than she can count.” The Dean smiled not unkindly to himself as he watched the man beside him bobbing his head to and fro as his eye ran over the faces around. He had hardly seen McPhail since they were undergraduates. They had kept in that highly insulated touch which can be sustained by a common study, rising at times, perhaps twice a year, to the exchange of technical letters on points of scholarship. Now the Dean was amusing himself in fitting these elderly features onto the student face he could recall as clearly as he saw the present man beside him. The lower lid was puckered with a cheerfully defensive vigilance. The corners of the mouth were drawn up with a ready criticism. The lips pursed to add construction. “A lively mind and a sound sense also,” the Dean summed up. “Of course he’s never gained any position in the academic world. But then he never seemed ambitious. Perhaps to some men if not virtue then scholarship can be its own reward. Just to know may be enough? No,” he answered himself. “No. Learning is only an anodyne to those who have never felt any keener distress than gentle boredom.” He shook himself slightly, a shrug to shake off a shudder, looked round him quickly, not at the faces but at the floor, seemed to be reassured but turned his attention now deliberately to the speaker.

  Yet
every day when he returned Miss Throcton noticed that her brother was not tired from these long sessions. On the contrary, he seemed actually refreshed. The past he seemed able now to keep at bay. As far as she could judge, from those less than hints that can be picked up by an anxious watcher, his anxiety seemed to have set itself a range and the one thing he now was waiting with foreboding was the break-up of the conference.

  The next to last day she was informed that Dr. McPhail had leave from his college to give a small party on the last afternoon in the college garden and to invite the wives of those who had been conference members. Miss Throcton was, of course, invited. She naturally expected that. She was, however, surprised that the small and courteously expressed note in which Dr. McPhail invited her should have added to it a postscript.

  “I thought women only confined their real intentions to the P.S.,” she remarked aloud to herself, smiling. She would have made the little joke to her brother had he been in the room; as women, almost by habit, try to cheer the vanity-despondency of their men-folk by taking every opportunity to point out the superiority of the male. A moment after she was glad with all her heart, greatly relieved, in fact, that her brother was not with her.

  The postscript ran: “I trust you will pardon the eccentricity of my request, but it would be, I ask you to believe, of the utmost service to us”—“a few of” had been added above the line and then scratched out—“if you could manage tomorrow morning to be in Sheriton’s Bookshop at 10:30 precisely. I will be there myself. I need not be at the beginning of the conference session as your brother will be taking the chair for me. It would be highly advisable that this should not be mentioned to him.”