“She is a little wild animal,” I said. “Give her time to get used to you.”
“Animals generally like me,” she complained, “and let me stroke them.”
I smiled. “It’s not quite the same thing. Didn’t you say so yourself last Sunday?”
“Do you mean… it might be… feminine jealousy?”
“Might be. It’s not impossible.”
Sylva never took her eyes off the newcomer, nor did she stop growling darkly.
A little later, when Dorothy was back in the living room with me, the poor reception she had been given still seemed to rankle a little.
“She is very pretty to look at,” she admitted. “But what a foul temper!”
“Go on! Complain!” I protested. “She has let herself be locked up unprotestingly. Have you often come across such meekness in a wild beast? Or in a jealous woman?”
“You defend her very well,” said Dorothy.
I did not take the hint (if it was one) and contented myself with smiling.
“What are you going to do with her in the long run?” she asked after a moment.
“As for that…” I said, with a gesture of ignorance. “The first thing is to tame her, isn’t it?”
“But isn’t she tame, since she has come back? She seems very fond of you.”
“She is, but you have seen for yourself she knows only me. Apart from Mrs. Bumley, of course. I’ve got to make her more sociable.”
“Do you think you’ll succeed?”
“The progress she has made makes me hope so. If you had seen her in the first days! Why, just ask your father!”
Dorothy kept silent for a moment before saying, “That’s just it. My father isn’t very hopeful.”
“Why?” I said, worried.
“He says that she was born too old.”
I merely raised my eyebrows and waited for what was to follow.
“He says that if the basis, the groundwork of intelligence has not been laid in the earliest youth, between the age of two and six, it is too late afterwards. At the age of your… fox… he says you might perhaps train her like a cat or a dog, if as much.”
This coincided so exactly with my own fears that all I could manage to do was to show myself disagreeable.
“That’s what you’re hoping, I suppose?” I snapped.
Dorothy grew pale, then blushed, her lips quivering with anger too.
“What are you trying to say? Why should it matter to me? I didn’t make this lucky find in my garden!”
I felt contrite. It was true, what had I meant to say?
“Forgive me,” I apologized. “I don’t know what came over me—probably the fear that you might be right.”
“I don’t quite see why it should matter to you, either. This creature has no claim on you—nor you on her, for that matter.”
“The fact remains that I rescued her. I suppose this implies some duties. At all events, I can’t bear the idea of letting her molder in this savage state, without lifting a finger.”
“Just because of her anatomy? But if, in every other respect, she’s only a fox, after all?”
“If there is just one chance that she is no longer a fox, have I the right to neglect any means in my power?”
“But in that case there are plenty of educators, specialized institutions that know a lot more about it than you or even Mrs. Bumley.”
It was a curious thing: what I had so much wanted to talk about with Dorothy and her father was precisely this. And now this discussion was irritating me, I found it almost hateful.
“I have already explained to you,” I said testily, “that that is impossible for all sorts of reasons. But one reason will do. I can’t give any proof of her existence. I have no status in respect to her: I am neither her father, brother, cousin or guardian. By what right could I ask for her to be shut away?”
“You might just tell the truth—or almost: that you don’t know where she came from, that you found her roaming near your place in a pitiful state, that you gave her shelter and some care. But now you’re asking the public authorities to take charge of her.”
“It’s too late for that. The whole village believes by now that I have taken in my sister’s daughter.”
“The Board of Control is discreet. They’ll investigate—there’s no doubt about the result of their inquiries. Your objections won’t wash. My father could testify if you wanted him to. Why are you so set on it? You’re assuming an absurd responsibility without any reason.”
This was wisdom itself speaking, yet such a project went deeply against my grain. And I was annoyed with Dorothy for forcing me to oppose it when I was unable to advance any reasons that I could believe in myself.
I had asked Fanny to cook dinner for us. During the meal and after it both Dorothy and I avoided continuing this argument. We talked of one thing and another, of the lives we led, of our childhood memories. She remained oddly elusive on the subject of her stay in London. Being naturally reserved, I did not press her for confidences. Moreover, I feared that my insistence, apart from being rude, might only make her withdraw into her shell. Whereas her trustfulness filled my heart with gentle warmth. And hers too, it seemed. We remained chatting by the fireside till deep into the night.
At last I led her to her room and went into mine. Sylva was sleeping, rolled up in a ball, under the counterpane below the bed, as usual. She moaned a little when I put on the light, but without waking up. It seemed to me that, with Dorothy under my roof, it would have been bad form to share a room with Sylva, even in all propriety. I went to lie down in the room next door.
I found it hard to get to sleep. My feelings were mixed up and contradictory. Why shouldn’t we have more delightful evenings like this one? Why didn’t I marry Dorothy? Love? We were both past thirty; love is not indispensable for a happy union. And there would be two of us instead of one to bring up Sylva. She would be our foster child. But this idea struck against some obstacle that I could not manage to locate. As if I had sensed that the two women could never bear each other, get on with each other. That, sooner or later, I would certainly be forced to sacrifice one to the other. And that it would necessarily be Sylva. That was something I could not make up my mind to. Was I, then, going to sacrifice the prospect of a future filled with mellow, quiet happiness for the sake of this silly vixen? I had to admit that I would be acting like a fool. Come on, I told myself, stop driveling! Don’t think about it any more and go to sleep. But my thoughts continued their endless merry-go-round. I only dozed off at the first light of dawn.
I don’t know what Dorothy had thought about during the night, but in the morning she was more charming than ever, and in the kindliest disposition toward Sylva.
“Let me take her up her breakfast,” she begged me. “We have got to make friends.”
Together we fried some eggs and bacon and I walked upstairs behind her, at a distance but not too far away. I was not very sure of Sylva’s mood when, despite the appetizing smell of breakfast, she would see a woman instead of me.
I did not have to step in, but it was not a success. When Sylva saw Dorothy with the tray, she began to growl, and shouted: “No!” She wrenched the tray out of Dorothy’s hands and sent it flying, whereupon she picked up from the floor whatever she could of the eggs and bacon and went off to devour them under the bed, like a messy little animal.
“I am so sorry!” said Dorothy, contritely.
She helped me scrub the dirty floor. I was very annoyed, but with whom? Sylva or Dorothy? I watched the latter cleaning up; she really had a natural, simple grace. Would Sylva whenever crossed always fall back into her primitive savagery? Wasn’t I inviting an endless series of troubles if I persisted in keeping her?