The Black Fox

by H. F. Heard

  “Are you sure?”

  It was all she could think to say. He closed the issue by saying quietly,

  “A murderer alone is followed by that species and that particular variety follows those who have done murder through magic—or as you would put it, not by deed but by intention. I need hardly, however, point out to you that your Prophet, Jeshua ben Miriam, may his name be blessed, has specifically told us that it is intention rather than act that establishes blood-guiltiness before the Throne of the Most High. Your brother is followed by what my predecessors in my land called the black form of Anubis, the dark and dreadful aspect of him who summons the dead before the Judge in the underworld. I see further that the creature is not only black with the shadow of the darkness caused by murderous death, it is also leprous. He placed evil on another and then lied to himself when he had done it and while he did it. Therefore, not only has it returned on him, as it must: He is unable, because of his lie, to rid himself of it by expiation, by making the offering that, though it might not save his forfeited life of the body, would at least save his soul out of the hand of vengeance.”

  They sat silent for some time. Time seemed to have stopped for her as she looked across from the pass to which he had brought her, the pass between two worlds, the unseen and the seen, and saw, as though she were already a stranger, a disembodied revenant, the bright innocent scene, where, as ignorant as children playing over a covered mine-shaft, the conference members—her brother treated as one of them—chatted of their studies. She felt herself at last sighing, as one coming to from fainting, and then heard her voice saying,

  “Can’t anything be done? Can’t I do anything?”

  “That offer is never useless.”

  He spoke as might a fine judge of engravings who, turning over a large portfolio, will select one and hold it up to the light. “Next to its own act of trust in the Most High, the devotion of another can be the soul’s greatest defence.”

  “I would do anything for him.”

  “I had judged that possible or it would have been little use our meeting.”

  “Then can’t I take this thing from him, for him—he is so helpless, so young, if the word does not sound absurd to you.”

  “No”—and almost a smile could be suspected in the tone—“No: years are made by the soul and its desire for growth. I am in my ninth decade, as it has been my duty to wait, and, if it might be, to grow inwardly. And others can refuse to grow, as he has. The folly of youth is the vice of old age, you know the phrase. So”—and his voice again let go its lightness—“had he been really young, and not merely arrested, then you might have taken this for him. Parents, devoted and wise parents, can for their children. But very seldom a sister for her brother. For he acted with an adult intention and he can pay the price, the heavy price, if he will … if he will confess to his evil and throw himself on the mercy of the All Merciful. Therefore no one can do it for him. ‘No man may make agreement for his brother nor take his guiltiness upon him. For it cost more to redeem their souls, so he must leave that alone for ever.’”

  The Psalter quotation she had heard mumbled over so often, and sometimes wondered about as the choir chanted all question out of it, now used by an Arab seemed to give a certain security to their conversation, a conversation that seemed to waver between incredible fantasy and hopeless despair. She felt a sudden strength of confidence come to her. This man knew. He knew with a precision about the things of the heart and soul that we had yet to achieve in things of the body and its hygiene. And with that, because her engrossed absorption with the present had been for the moment a little relieved, her memory began again to work.

  She recalled Dr. Wilkes, feeling his way, voicing his need for a true psychotherapy. That led to seeing again the young Chaplain under the limes. Could it be that her almost incredulous request for his prayers and the thing he had asked for—? Could he have actually, specifically prayed that the spiritual assistance he felt sure alone could help, should be sent? She realized with a sense of surprise that had, even in this atmosphere, a touch of the uncanny, how little she really believed that any Understanding really listened to all sincere appeal. Like most good people when prayer seemed too specifically to be answered she was as much startled as reassured.

  “Well.” The voice was as undramatic as a surgeon’s when he comes to the conclusion of an operation’s first phase. “I am glad that we have met and that I have been able to confirm what in your heart you already knew.”

  He had risen from his chair. She looked up, with all her alarm returned.

  “But, but what is to happen? You know. Please believe me I am absolutely sure now. You can help him. You will!”

  “No, no. I have said that he must help himself if he is to be saved.”

  “But surely you did suggest that I could help him, that I could be of use? And you must tell me what that is. I really am at my wit’s end”—she suddenly recoiled into her lifelong poise—“or I assure you I could never have spoken to a stranger as I have. What can I do—except make the offer which I have!”

  He did not sit down again but bent slightly as he said,

  “I wished you to say that again. You recall, in your tradition, that those who said they would drink the cup, were asked not once but three times if they could really know what they were declaring they would do.”

  He bent a little lower. He was now standing almost behind her, so that no one could have seen him touch her arm. Nor did she feel it. And, had she felt the touch, she would not have been able to turn round or attend. At that moment her brother was approaching. She heard him say,

  “Well, Laetitia, we should be going. I am glad you have been able to meet our most distinguished guest. The Sheik is.…”

  She heard his voice, thin and meaningless, as we hear the voices round us as an anaesthetic takes the brain. For her eyes saw her brother not three yards from her. And, not a foot behind him, she saw with equal clearness—there was nothing shadowy or wavering about it—padding over the lawn, following his every step, seeming to scent the imprint just left on the grass, a black, leprous fox. She felt she must have screamed—some inarticulate, animal effort to warn him—had she not heard Sheik ibn-Khaldun’s voice above her saying, “Ah, Mr. Dean, we can have one more turn together,” and as she spoke he stepped between her and her brother.

  As they moved off together no shadow followed either of the tall figures.

  She was too exhausted to move: more, she was too exhausted to be roused even to dismay, when, after a couple of turns, she saw the two figures making for where she sat. The garden now was nearly empty. She could have heard their every word in the stillness. They were not speaking. The Sheik’s face was calm with the silence that is waiting. Her brother’s was tense with words he obviously still feared to release. Her presence was keen enough provocation to rupture his caution.

  “You, certainly, are not slow to share your fancies with a complete stranger!”

  His voice was, if not under perfect control, still able to be repressed into a sneer. His lips, though, were trembling and white with frightened rage. Indeed he whirled half round with something like a snarl when the Sheik put a hand on his shoulder. The hand, however, instead of letting go, completed for him the movement he had begun. He was turned in his tracks, and clearly saw there something that expunged from his mind any emotion as reassuring as a sense of insult.

  When he turned again, so that she could see his face, it was still whiter; but all the defiance had vanished. He spoke in so low and unaccented voice that had not the spot become as silent, as a deserted church, she could not have heard.

  “It is no use telling me to act. I am doomed. My one hope was that the whole thing must be subjective. I was building it up. If I could get away it must fade.…” The voice died down.

  “He is the All Compassionate.”

  “No. This is the Law. How can I believe in mercy when it would suit me. I believed in, I believe in Law. And now the Law has me in it
s grip.”

  “Why dispute about terms. An algebraist uses X. He does not strive to define his efficacious symbol. You need mercy. It alone can save you. Why not then take it? Why choose death?”

  The Dean stood beside the Sheik for some five minutes, then he began to sway. The Egyptian put his hand on the sick man’s shoulder, again swung him round gently, but this time so that they were face to face.

  “For the fourteen days’ grace I have power to loan, Forget, Forget!”

  Miss Throcton saw her brother’s face lose, first, its awful tension, then its fear, caution, circumspection. Layer by layer, the coats of defence that had been laid like a lacquer-varnish over it and hardened into a mask of pride, smoothed away, as over-painting disappears under the cleaner’s solvents leaving the first fresh design and colour. She saw something of the boy she had known. True, the physiological age remained, but the psychological experience, the chosen and studied reaction to life, that was gone.

  “Well,” he remarked in the vague friendly voice of someone who has forgotten the point of what he has been saying and gropes for the lost thread, “Well, I must just go over and catch McPhail before he leaves. I want a last word with him. I’ll be back in a moment for you. I am sure you’ll enjoy every minute with the Sheik; a rare privilege, indeed; though perhaps only to be appreciated at its full worth by one who has borne the brunt of being called with ignorant patronage, a mere Arabian.”

  He nodded and smiled at them. Then turned toward the farther end of the lawn where Dr. McPhail was taking last counsel with the tea-staff who with their paraphernalia assembled were about to vacate the green.

  “I cannot deliver him.” The Arab’s voice went on in the same clear tone as it had spoken the word “Forget,” clear and carrying, as though the Dean were not still, on his way across the lawn, within earshot. “You have seen—his pride is still too passionately resistant. Pride can believe in Law: only humility can have trust in Mercy. But your affection—it permitted you to see, did it not!”

  She bowed. Then asked,

  “But, till this afternoon, till just now, I have never been able to see, unless he touched me, and then I was still mercifully uncertain, never quite despairingly sure. And to-day he was some distance from me, when, when I saw?”

  “This time it was I who touched you, so that you might see, yes as clearly as I saw and see. That, I am now permitted to do to whom I please, for whom I believe it would serve. But the fact that you can see when you touch him (no one else could receive vision—light or dark—through him), that is because you are willing still to love him, in spite of your knowledge.”

  “That means, then, that there is still a chance?”

  “You realize what that may mean?”

  “I repeat, I am willing. Could I endure to see him go down, if there remained any possible thing I might do to guard, screen him from that fate? How could I not be willing.”

  “You have said it the third time. And now it is accepted. I will help. But my help will not appear to you, until the end.”

  The Dean was already coming back for them, accompanied by Dr. McPhail. Together the quartet made for the college courts and passing through two of them finally reached the main gate leading to the street. The big doors were open and the small tunnel was dusty yellow with a sloping cone of sunlight. As they reached that Dr. McPhail stopped, “I and the Sheik will say good-bye to you here.”

  He put out his hand, took Miss Throcton’s and then the Dean’s, bowed to them both and stepped back to make way for the Arab to make his farewell. He put out both his hands taking both the Dean’s and his sister’s at the same time. For a moment, as he so did, he brought the hand of the brother and sister together in his double hand-clasp. Then he bent his head, murmuring, “May the Power of the Most High overshadow you with His invincible protection,” and drew back toward the court whither his host was already leading the way.

  “Rather touching that gesture of Oriental courtesy in farewell, and even the theological language, which is after all embedded in our laconic ‘Good-bye,’ takes on a certain grace and almost conviction when said with such presence, don’t you think?” her brother asked as they went along the street to their lodgings. Then added, as she had not replied, “You mustn’t mind that kind of elaboration of our simpler manners.” A slight touch of impatience rose, however, in his tone as he concluded, “But I see my interest in the customs of other peoples cannot take your mind from the, of course, quite rightful observation of your own. I suppose ladies must wear these trains, better than the crinoline, but they seem to take if anything more management.”

  She looked up at him and seeing that he was looking at her, she smiled, “Yes, I thought that the hem of my dress had caught.”

  “Well, we managed to get quite a good deal off our hands at the conference. Though it was an extemporized affair it was certainly well worth while.” He was following his obviously self-satisfied thoughts.

  “Yes, yes.”

  Her agreement pleased him though he did not restrain himself from remarking that she could hardly estimate the amount of technical information that had been exchanged. “I wonder,” he summed up, just as they came to their rooms, “whether some time in the not too far future it would be possible to obtain a long enough vacation to visit the Near East. Both McPhail and the Sheik tell me that not only is there so much worth seeing but that a scholar can find in the libraries of Cairo and Alexandria, now that they have been somewhat ordered, and in other places, documents that throw much light on linguistic and other problems. I have a feeling that the Sheik would not find a visitor such as myself at all unwelcome and of no little interest.”

  15

  Her brother’s freedom from all apparent strain showed no sign of leaving him when they arrived back at the Deanery. Without question or explanation he went to the Cathedral and he made no comments as to the way the stalls were being kept or the choir garnished. He spoke briefly to her about his work, remarked that he had received much encouragement—not merely refreshment—by attending the conference, and would now prosecute his studies with renewed assurance as to their worth. He settled into regular hours of study punctuated by as regular attendances in his stall. Except that occasionally he would appear for a moment a little blank and ask her what he had just been saying, he seemed to her much as he had always been, perhaps a trifle less inclined to let satire tinge his accent or pride show through a phrase.

  She was not surprised that when she passed Dr. Wilkes in the street she was not able to gain right of passage merely with a bow. He was honestly pleased with what he called the complete improvement.

  “Change,” he said brightly, “is so often treated by moralists, and in most sermons, as something that must be always for the worse—until of course the final one for heaven. And even then we poor physicians are treated as having permitted one more failure! But change of air and change of place, as I think I mentioned to you earlier, I have found among the soundest allies of health. Here we are being given a vivid and most welcome example, are we not!”

  He paused and as she only bowed slightly, added, “Indeed I would venture further: Mr. Dean looks to me as though a weight had been lifted from him. He seems to me to be not only in his old health but actually to appear younger.”

  There was of course almost a question in his voice.

  The “I believe you are right” with which she closed their conference, disappointed him a little. As they went their ways he remarked to himself, “But can this be, as I had begun to suspect earlier it might be, a cyclic thing—as one subject gains resistance the next falls a prey, as one conquers the infection he passes it on to one who has so far escaped?”

  He had no doubts that he had been right when after a fortnight he met Miss Throcton again in the Close. “I wonder that she does not call me in?” was his not unnatural self-interrogation.

  The question never crossed her mind, though she was not unaware that it would probably occur to anyone who met her. Sh
e had not expected things to be otherwise and was indeed grateful that the two weeks, that had been specified as the space during which the molestation would find no purchase on her brother, had gone quietly. Both she, as well as he, had seemed to be under the cover of a calm that was so secure as to feel almost anaesthetic. She had found herself incapable of thinking of past or future. She could not rouse either regret or foreboding so long as she was held in that almost animal peace. They had parted from the Sheik in Cambridge on a Friday afternoon. That had been the seventh of September.

  The actual day of the autumnal equinox opened as calm as its predecessors and even more still. The trees now were wearing considerable yellow but as yet no touch of the frost-given red. “It is even more peaceful than Cambridge,” her brother had remarked at breakfast. Cook, being more practical and food-absorbed, told her, when she went into the kitchen for the morning consultation, that harvest was yet to be lifted and rain was feared. She had answered that farmers were always pessimists and asked whether they oughn’t be getting another cat. This brought out Cook’s own pessimism,

  “We ought never to have lost Tiss. As fine a cat as ever I’ve seen; quite an ‘astocrat.’ It was all that horrid dog-fox coming in. When I was with hunting folk they’d say, ‘Fox in the covert, good: Fox in the house, bad.’”

  Miss Throcton left the kitchen silently and when she was gone Cook added herself to those who shook heads and said, “Bad to start low with the leaf in the fall.”

  Anyhow she and her farming friends did not have to wait long to be proved right about the weather. By noon it had clouded. The clouds did not roll up from the west. They formed first as a curdle of grey in the vault of blue, a curdle that grew steadily denser and darker while across it appeared still darker bands, almost black. Then, without hesitation, as though it had been timed and planned to a moment, as though the sound had precipitated it, just as the two forty-five chime sounded, the chime which set the bell tolling for Evensong at three, the rain began. It was from the first drop a steady deluge, straight, unswayed by draught or eddy, as though fine lines of unbroken water, and not drops, were running staunchlessly onto the flooding earth from the heavens, which had become a vast sagging perforated bag. Through this grey curtain of ten thousand liquid threads, as Miss Throcton stood looking out of the south parlor window, it was now hardly possible to see with any distinctness the looming mass of the Cathedral’s West Front. The ear, too, received all other sounds—as happens when going under an anaesthetic—through a web of steady hissing. Though the sun must of course be still well above the horizon, the light under this depth of cloud had become no more than submerged shadow.