“There’s no hurry,” said Dorothy (which surprised me a little) .
She was smiling at me with trustful affection.
“I’m wondering whether the passage of time…” I began.
She interrupted me. “Wait and see. Mind you, in any case…”
She seemed uncertain whether to go on. I said, “Well?” and she continued:
“In any case—whatever progress she makes—to whom could you show her afterwards? You’ll have taken a lot of trouble for nothing.”
“What do you mean: to whom?”
“Well, I mean, she’s not one of our sort.”
I suppose my eyes must have expressed my blank incomprehension.
“I mean you’ll only be able to present her as a freak,” she went on, a little crossly. “Not as a relative, or even a friend.”
“Why ever not?” I was amazed.
“Well, it would shock people.”
“For heaven’s sake, do explain!” I cried impatiently.
“She has a pretty skin, but it’s amber-colored. Her eyes are fine, but black as jet. Her eyelids are almond-shaped, and her cheeks like apricots…”
“Are you composing a poem or a still life?”
“In a word, she is an Asiatic, my boy. I suppose foxes must have come originally from Asia. She looks as if she were born in India or Annam.”
“With red hair?”
She pursed her lips ironically, and said, “Some misalliance, perhaps…”
I was rather taken aback. I had thought myself that Sylva had a vaguely exotic look, but not to that extent… If this were so, there would indeed be some rebuffs coming to me on the day I tried to introduce a “native” among the gentry. I wanted to get this straight at once. “Let’s go and see her,” I said.
We went upstairs again. We found Sylva asleep, snuggled up in an armchair, her face still smeared with egg. We could thus scrutinize her for a long moment; then we withdrew as quietly as we had come and I closed the door.
“You must admit you’ve exaggerated,” I said at once.
“You don’t agree with me?”
“I won’t say there isn’t a little something. But from there to…”
“Little or not, isn’t it too much already?”
“I didn’t know you were so particular,” I said with astonishment.
“Me? I adore Indians—Gandhi, Krishnamurti, Tagore… But everyone in his place, don’t you think?”
“I think she looks a bit like the Duchess of Melcombe,” I persisted.
“Everyone knows that the duchess’s mother was on the best of terms with I don’t know what Maharajah.”
“Well then, as you said yourself: some misalliance—like the Duchess of Melcombe. Not worth talking about.”
“As you like, dear boy. But I’ve warned you.”
The tone adopted by each of us was courteous but a trifle sharp. I had not liked those remarks. To be sure, everyone in his place or society will go to pot, but all the same, I don’t support the theories of that little Frenchman—what’s his name?—Gobineau or Gobinot. We mustn’t exaggerate.[2]
To make a diversion, I suggested going for a walk. As soon as Sylva was not involved, we rediscovered our mutual sympathy, a warm affection and a tenderness of long standing which went straight to my heart. We spent an exquisite hour wandering through the woods. On our way back, tired with walking, she let herself lean lightly on my arm. Was I so sure, after all, that I was no longer in love with her?
Chapter 12
DOROTHY prolonged her stay till the end of the week. She had made it a point of honor to become friends with Sylva before she left. She only half succeeded, but still enough to save her face. The next time Sylva saw us both together, she growled once more. But Dorothy was the one who brought her the food—a chicken, some ham. When my vixen understood that she would have to fast or show friendliness she became less hostile and gradually almost cordial. But she never displayed toward the young woman the flattering eagerness she showed toward me or even toward Nanny.
When Dorothy had gone, it seemed to me, curiously enough, that Sylva was missing her. But it is often like that with domestic animals: in many cases attachment is just a form of habit and they are distressed by a change. When she next saw me alone, Sylva went behind me to see where the second person might be. She inspected the corridor and the stairs. Not finding anyone, she returned, vaguely worried, and ate a little absent-mindedly. She went to make sure, two or three times, of an absence that was upsetting her. And then progressively she accepted the fact, did not seem to think of it any more. But when, some eight or ten days later, Dorothy paid us another visit, Sylva gave her an almost festive welcome. I say almost, because her attitude retained an ambiguity that was not without its comical side, for it expressed in a naïve way the complication of her soul—if I may use this word for a young vixen. She let Dorothy caress her head, at first purring, then suddenly, as if angry with herself for this abandon, she dug her sharp little teeth into the hand that was stroking her; it is true she did not press very hard, not enough to lacerate but just enough to hurt. Whereupon she quickly moved away with a frightened look. Then seeing that Dorothy was laughing, and I too, she sidled up to her again.
I have always felt a greater liking and respect for wild beasts than for domestic animals (apart from horses) and I could not conceal from myself that Sylva was becoming domesticated. She was becoming so all the faster ever since being reconciled, once for all, to living between the four walls of Richwick Manor. Now that she had become home-loving and obedient she consented to have baths and even enjoyed them, and she no longer showed the same obstinate distaste for putting on a dress. She could even pronounce a hundred words or so, always the most prosaic ones but happily with the same comically sharp and sunny accent which delighted me.
Although she charmed me less now that she had become less wild, at the same time something else in her touched me, filled me with a worried tenderness, an upsurge of slightly anxious affection: it was a kind of feverish impatience that gripped her at the slightest provocation, often without any discernible cause. This had nothing in common any more with the agitation she displayed when scratching the door, sniffing the window, trotting along the walls. It was rather a sort of local impatience, a need to change places, to pass incessantly from one room to the other. Though I could not tell whence it sprang, I did understand one of its causes: to escape from boredom she would now less and less take refuge in sleep, and this fidgetiness in some way replaced it.
When Mrs. Bumley returned, after burying her mother at the end of a long agony, I told her of this change. She answered that one ought to take her for a walk.
Everyone in the neighborhood, at the farm, in the village, was aware that I had taken into my care the abnormal child of one of my sisters, and whenever one or the other passed by the farm I made a point of letting them meet her. I therefore had nothing to hide any more, nor any cause, in consequence, to fear a possible escape: for the worst that could happen now was that she would be brought back to me more or less quickly, more or less bruised and tired. I therefore entrusted her to Nanny’s care and let them go for a stroll in the country without apprehension. And they did indeed come home very properly after an hour or two.
The departure itself was a joy to watch. Every morning Sylva displayed the same enthusiasm, as if the previous day’s walk had left no imprint in her memory; each departure seemed to her the first after a long confinement. She exploded with uncontrollable joy, frisking hither and thither through the garden with shouts and leaps, went scouting ahead, ran back to make sure that Nanny was following, raced off again, returned. I saw them disappear (never in the direction of the woods, however—we didn’t dare yet) and when they appeared in the country lane on their return, a very different Sylva was walking sedately at Nanny’s side. Calmed at last, exhausted but radiant, her hair streaming in the wind, her rough woolen dress falling in heavy folds, and her woolen sweater molding her lovely figure, she looked to me, as I watched her approach, like an exceedingly smart golfer on her way back from a long match.
2
These remarks strike me today as rather tepid. But in those days the very word “racialism” had not yet been heard of, Hitler was an unknown prisoner of the Weimar Republic, and everyone in this respect thought more or less along Kipling’s lines. How things have changed since!