Unable to recover my seriousness I turned up my hands to signify ignorance and helplessness. I was still laughing as I answered, “I don’t know, I’m as surprised as you are.” Sylva did not take her eyes off the nurse. Mrs. Bumley meanwhile had recovered her spirits. Her expression softened, lit up.
“The look in her eyes!” she murmured at last. “So piercing and bright! There is something wide awake behind them.”
She turned her big, kind, doglike face toward me with an air that was both affirmative and questioning, and once again I could only raise my hands wordlessly, but I did not laugh.
“Something must have happened to her,” she said in the same tone of deep meditation. “I wonder what. I’d stake my life that her brain is not impaired organically. It will be thrilling to re-educate her,” she said and her eyes were sparkling. Then suddenly the sparkle went out of them. “But this agility-that’s not at all spastic! Are you sure,” she inquired with suspicion in her voice, “that she really is spastic? That she hasn’t… that she isn’t… perhaps… quite simply insane? I am quite incompetent to deal with madness,” she added apprehensively.
“No, no,” I reassured her. “The doctors are all agreed, it’s a nervous activity that has not developed properly. Or rather, developed abnormally. There’s been some progress, but not nearly enough.”
“But why is she afraid of me?” muttered Mrs. Bumley. “I never frighten children, not even the most timid ones.”
“She has lived in great isolation all her childhood. Her mother is a widow and lives in a very remote part of Scotland.”
“How old is the girl?”
“Getting on for eighteen, I believe.”
“How are we going to make her come down from that cupboard?” Mrs. Bumley asked, puzzled.
I went and got a hard-boiled egg and a kipper from my traveling bag; they were two delicacies Sylva was very fond of.
“Stay where you are,” I told the nurse. “Don’t move.”
I turned toward Sylva, approached her.
“Come on, get down,” I ordered, “don’t be afraid. Aren’t you hungry?”
I was standing between the two of them, and this protection reassured her. She let herself slip to the ground with great dexterity, seized the kipper with one hand, the egg with the other, and without taking her eyes off the newcomer, went off to munch them in the narrow gap behind the bed. Mrs. Bumley was resting the kindly gaze of a peaceful mastiff on her. Sylva stopped eating for a moment; something flashed in her eyes that might, at a pinch, be called a smile.
“As pretty as a picture,” Mrs. Bumley said again, with melting tenderness. “Those high cheekbones, those lovely almond-shaped slit eyes! And that pointed chin! A real little vixen!”
Chapter 6
SHE is one,” I said point-blank.
I had only wavered for a few seconds. Contrary to all I had foreseen and upsetting my carefully hatched plans, I had made up my mind on the spur of the moment. Though I could not yet say why exactly, I told myself that I must seize the occasion, that it would not come again.
“A what?” asked Mrs. Bumley.
“A vixen.”
“Is she so cunning?”
I shook my head, looked deep into her eyes.
“I’m saying that she is a fox,” I said slowly, stressing each word. “A real one. She has the appearance of a woman, but in fact she is only an animal. A young vixen, actually.”
She opened her gray eyes saucer-wide, and they filled with alarm, with anguish. I smiled.
“Don’t be upset, I have all my faculties. My mind isn’t wandering. Sit down and listen to me quietly.”
I made the inviting gesture of pushing an armchair forward. She sat down in it slowly, without taking her eyes off me.
“All I have told you is a pack of lies. This isn’t a backward child. And I haven’t any sister in Scotland.”
She had placed a big, gnarled hand on her bosom. Doubtless her heart was beating fast. I smiled as best I could to calm her, afraid of one thing only: that she might become frightened and call for help. It was essential that I reassure her.
“You’re the first person to whom I’ve dared talk about it. I would have to, sooner or later, anyhow. So far I have never ventured to confide this to anyone for fear they might take me for a madman. As they well might.”
I then told her everything, in detail. The hunt, the hounds in full cry ready for the kill, the sudden transformation. She could question the people in the neighborhood: the strange disappearance of the fox when the hunters and their horses were already almost on top of it had provided food for discussion for many an evening at the village pub. I related the vicissitudes of the training, the progress made and the gaps that persisted, the enormous trouble to get her dressed. The good woman listened to me in silence; her fat cheeks quivered a little, her eyes wrenched themselves from mine to stare at Sylva gnawing at her kipper, then wrenched themselves away again to meet mine. While I was telling my story, the ghost of a smile began to hover on her rotund face, a kind of wondrous amusement. I had won: she believed me.
“Not half an hour ago,” I confessed in conclusion, “I never guessed I would tell you all this. I was prepared to let you find out for yourself a sufficient number of oddities to come pressing me with questions. But you’ve made me feel I can trust you,” I added, putting my hand on hers. “I am sure you won’t give me away.”
She understood this familiar gesture which the strange circumstances warranted, and for a long while she left her hand beneath mine, giving me a hesitant smile, a moist, anxious look. Then she got up, in a flutter of excitement.
“This is even… even more thrilling!” she cried in a stifled voice. She was devouring Sylva with her eyes, with far more avidity than Sylva displayed in eating her kipper. “I said right away that… that she seemed different from all the girls I’d known!”
“But you’ll keep all this to yourself, won’t you?” I said imperatively.
“Of course!”
“They’d shut us both up!”
She gave a little giggle.
“Most likely, indeed! In fact, it did cross my mind, a moment ago, to have you put in a strait jacket.”
“Or else we might be accused of goodness knows what -abduction, illegal restraint, all the rest of it.”
“She is your niece,” said Mrs. Bumley firmly. “Your sister is getting married again, she lives in Scotland and has entrusted you with her daughter. I know nothing else.”
To familiarize Sylva with her nurse, I asked Mrs. Bumley a little later to give Sylva her lunch (a pair of pigeons bought in Soho) and they became friends. The kind-hearted nurse tried hard to start a conversation with her new pupil, but failed at once. Sylva was still incapable of understanding any abstract question, however simple, if it was not intimately linked to her most immediate material needs.
Mrs. Bumley heaved a sigh. “Maybe she knows a lot already for a fox, but it is awfully little for a woman-even a very backward one.”
We traveled back to Wardley in an ordinary compartment; that is to say, I had not booked it entirely for ourselves this time. The presence of a nurse would render any possible incidents less significant in the eyes of fellow passengers, and it seemed to us that this was a useful time for experiment. Sylva proved docile between Mrs. Bumley and myself. We had come early to take our seats in order to be the first. Every time a passenger came in, Sylva gave a start and we had some trouble calming her fears. During the whole beginning of the journey she remained nervous and watchful, her eyes glued on the people opposite her, scared by their slightest movement, their every word.
Our attitude toward her had at once enlightened our fellow passengers and they showed no surprise at the unwonted behavior of “the poor child.” Embarrassed and constrained at first, as one usually is in such a case, they averted their eyes. But our placid serenity put them at ease, they relaxed and even displayed much kindliness, smiling frequently at the young girl, asking us if they could offer her a piece of chocolate.
Mrs. Bumley shook her head. “She does not care for sweets. Now if you had a sausage about you,” she said humorously, “a piece of meat…”
“Does she understand what one says?” asked an elderly lady, with eager solicitude.
“You can talk freely in front of her,” I assured her. “She understands only the simplest words.”
I had to answer a slightly perverse, though kindly and compassionate curiosity. I had the pleasure of hearing Mrs. Bumley butt in to supply imaginary facts that were far more authoritative than any I could have given. When the slow train stopped at Wardley Station, the whole compartment helped us to get out, vying in kindliness and tokens of friendship. Sylva had by now become quite reassured. To the passengers’ “good-by” she even answered “Bye… bye…” which increased their smiles and friendly waves: she was so sweet, so charming to look at! When the train had left, Mrs. Bumley and I exchanged a proud smile-and a sigh of relief. It had been a ticklish experiment and it had succeeded; our hopes had not been disappointed.
We found the horse and the gig where I had left them, and drove back to the manor. I introduced Mrs. Bumley and her ward to the farmer and his family, with the explanations I had previously prepared. They greeted these with the same blank indifference they showed for all that did not concern their own affairs. I had been a little worried about Fanny’s recollections, but she made no link whatsoever with the “ghost” she had perceived a fortnight earlier. She came with us to help Mrs. Bumley get her room ready as well as the one, between her room and mine, which Sylva was to occupy henceforth, if she consented to sleep in it. We had no great hopes in this respect and expected to meet with strong resistance. On this point we were neither right nor wrong, for Sylva’s behavior proved very different from what we had foreseen.
Chapter 7
ACTUALLY, she did not refuse to sleep anywhere, but she was not content with any one bed, either. Each night she emigrated several times from one to the other, apparently gripped-even more so in the darkness-by a feverish agitation which seemed to come over her whenever she was left alone. I would suddenly feel her warmth and weight on my feet, she would sleep there for an hour, rolled up in a ball, then a sudden lightening would wake me, she was no longer there. It was now Mrs. Bumley’s turn to receive her visit, or else it would be the other way around; we could never foresee in which room, on whose bed, we would find her in the morning. We did try locking ourselves in to force her to stay in her own room, but she scratched at our doors so obstinately that we could not sleep. We had to adapt to this restless, fickle disposition, and not only did we soon stop noticing it but even when, much later, these visits suddenly stopped, we found ourselves at a loss, disturbed in an old-established habit and positively unhappy to be abandoned, as we laughingly had to admit.