The Elephant Keeper Page 10

  “Where are you going?”

  “I am going to talk to them.”

  The Elephants were grazing on the far side of the meadow, which was so thick with dandelion globes that they seemed to be standing in a kind of summer snow. As they rambled toward me, their feet kicking up clouds of white seeds, their trunks swinging gently from side to side, I felt myself in a daze. Everyone, I said to myself, has now turned against them, my fellow grooms, my mother, Mrs. Harrington, Mr. Harrington, even Lizzy, for, indeed, none of them understands the Elephants, or tries to understand. But then, how could they begin to understand, when they do not know the Elephants, when they do not even see them properly; what they see are two ugly misshapen creatures, half-cow, half-pig, with long snouts and thick legs, who consume as much grass as twelve horses and serve no useful purpose. It was unjust to say that they might be a danger to Mrs. Harrington’s little children, since they loved children. What angered me most was the charge that they were evil-minded; for, although they occasionally misbehaved, they were never malicious and I think had no conception of evil. Their faces shone with love and innocence.

  Like an old woman muttering charms, I kept repeating to myself that Mr. Harrington could not sell them, he would not sell them. Yet, in what remained of that summer, it became apparent that he was indeed endeavouring to sell them, for he brought a number of gentlemen to see the Elephants, and these gentlemen asked detailed questions about their diet, habits, temper, et cetera, as they would when deciding whether to buy a horse.

  With the autumn drawing on, there were fewer of these visitors, and I began to feel somewhat easier in my mind; thus, when the blow fell, I was not as prepared as I might have been.

  It was an afternoon late in October; we had returned to the cart-house after a longer trip than usual, in which the Elephants had enjoyed themselves bathing in one of the woodland pools. Mr. Harrington was waiting. There was something in his manner that alarmed me, even before he began to speak. I cannot remember his exact words, but what he began with was, that he had lately been informed that it was impossible to induce Elephants to breed in captivity, and that no one had ever succeeded in such an undertaking, either in the Cape or in the Indies. Mr. Coad had been much mistaken on this point. Indeed, said Mr. Harrington, frowning, he had placed too much reliance on Mr. Coad’s advice, for it was not true that the tusks of Elephants could be harvested in large quantities. Moreover, having considered deeply, he had recognised that to bring about a union between creatures who were probably brother and sister, was repugnant, against all moral law, he could not countenance such an idea; he had been blind not to see it before. It was his duty to prevent such a union from taking place. Therefore, he had decided to sell one of the Elephants, the tusker, to the Earl of Ancaster, who was building a menagery on his estate at Grimsthorpe, in the County of Lincolnshire. Seeing the alarm on my face, he went on:

  “I agree, Tom, it might have been better if he were to take both, but at the moment it is not possible.”

  “Sir, they will be lost without each other!”

  “They will be puzzled for a time, but no worse. Animals are not like us, Tom; their capacities are limited; they have short memories. They live in the present, it is their curse and their blessing. They will forget each other soon enough, believe me. It is the same with dogs.” I heard this with amazement, for I seemed to remember Mr. Harrington telling me that Elephants had much better memories than other animals. Nor did I understand why it would be so wrong for Jenny and Timothy to mate; after all, the offspring of pigs and sheep and dogs and horses are commonly mated. However, it would have served no purpose to have pointed this out to Mr. Harrington, who, I perceived, had merely seized on this idea as a convenient pretext. I asked him when the tusker would have to leave, and he said, the coming Sunday, which was just six days hence. “If you wish, I am sure, you could go too. Indeed, the Earl asked if you might, but I said that you would prefer to remain here. Consider how much easier it will be for you, with only the female to care for.”

  That night I lay awake, not knowing what to do. I greatly desired to accompany Timothy to Lincolnshire; but, if I were to do so, it would have left Jenny with Bob or Dick, who were her enemies. This last was a prospect too horrible to contemplate, and when I considered the characters of both Elephants, it seemed to me that Jenny’s was more timid and less robust than that of Timothy. I therefore chose to stay with Jenny, but it was the hardest decision that I ever had to make. Over the succeeding days I had to build a strong crate to carry Timothy on his journey to Lincolnshire, and every nail I drove into the wood felt as though it was being driven into my heart.

  I took care to build the crate out of sight of the Elephants, so that they would not become alarmed or suspicious. On the Saturday night, under cover of darkness, I and several other servants carried it quietly into the yard and set it down; after which I disguised its appearance beneath a mass of vegetation and stocked it with quantities of hay in which I hid apples and pears. Yet in the morning, when I opened the cart-house door, Timothy recognised the trap at once, and giving a sharp and agitated squeal, retreated to the other side of the yard. Nothing would persuade him to move: ears flapping, head tossing, he rejected all my blandishments until I resorted to liquor, and in this way stupefied him into submission. He was pushed and shoved into the crate by a pack of shouting servants. When the horses pulled him away, he gave a single trumpet blast, a last anguished appeal, and I confess that I felt as much sorrow as I had at the death of my father; it was like another death.

  After his departure Jenny fell into a mope. Sometimes she stood in long silences, her trunk hanging limp, sometimes she trumpeted and seemed to listen for her brother’s reply, which, never coming, left her very disappointed. She walked without enthusiasm, lifting each foot as though it were made of stone, dragging herself through thick air. Imagining her state of mind, and how I, in her place, would feel if the only member of my own species whom I knew in the entire world were to disappear without explanation, I endeavoured to raise her spirits by offering her tid-bits, and by taking her to her favourite places, and by letting her bathe longer than I might otherwise have done, and at nights I used to sit by her and talk softly, he will be well cared for at Grimsthorpe, he will be pampered and indulged, to be sure, in the Earl’s menagery, and one day you will meet him again, indeed, there is every chance that the Earl will love him so much that he will decide to buy you, too, but whatever happens do not fear, I will stay with you, I promise. Thus I ran on, and though I wished that she could talk to me in return, relieving the weight of sorrow that lay on her aching heart, I did have the notion (which may or may not seem laughable) that she understood some part of what I was saying, or at least understood the reassurance in my voice; but all the while there would be another voice, speaking in my head, saying that I was lying: for how did I know how her brother was being treated, and was it really likely that the Earl would buy her, no it was not. That she too would be sold by Mr. Harrington seemed certain enough, at least it was anticipated by everyone. I lived in a state of dread and uncertainty.

  The winter came and went. Then Mr. Harrington informed me that Lord Bidborough of Easton, in the County of Sussex, had agreed to buy her.

  “He asked whether you would agree to accompany her, since you know her habits well. I said that you might prefer to remain here, that it should be your decision, whether to go or no, I would not press you either way. I have no wish to see you go, but Lord Bidborough is a wealthy man with a fine estate, and, from what I hear, has a reputation as a considerate employer. I am in no doubt that you would be treated fairly.”

  I said at once that I would go. Mr. Harrington nodded. “I am sure you are right, Tom. And I am sure that you will do very well.”

  I shall hurry over the days that remained before my departure from Harrington Hall. Suffice it, that word quickly spread, and though Bob and Dick congratulated me by tipping a pail of filthy water over my head, others offered me their best w
ishes. Mr. Judge said that Lord Bidborough’s gardens would fare all the better for the Elephant’s dung, which he would miss a good deal. As for my mother, when she heard the news she burst into tears, and wringing her hands, said, that she would never see me again and that she rued the day I had set eyes on the Elephants, which had brought nothing but bad luck, and had killed my father, whose death, it seemed, she still blamed on Elephant Fever. “And what of poor Lizzy? You will break her heart.” I flew into a rage: what of poor Lizzy, it was none of her business, there had never been any understanding between Lizzy and me as regards marriage, if that was what she meant. She went on wailing about the heartlessness of men who trifled with the affections of girls without any heed for the consequences. In truth, I did feel somewhat uneasy on Lizzy’s account.

  She had come running to the cart-house, panting for breath. “I have heard—is it true? Tom? Mrs. Harrington told me—tell me it is not true?”

  “What is true or not true?”

  “That you are leaving—you and the Elephant—you are going hundreds of miles away.”

  “Yes; she has been bought by Lord Bidborough, of Easton, in Sussex.”

  “But, Tom, you have not been bought,” she said. “Lord Bidborough has bought the Elephant, not you.”

  “Lizzy, I have been looking after her for over three years. No other keeper will understand her. She needs me to look after her.”

  “She will find another keeper, there is no doubt. She will find another keeper. If you go to Sussex I will never see you again.”

  “It is not hundreds of miles. I will come back to Thornhill, I am sure. I promise you, Lizzy, I will come back.”

  “When?” she asked. “When? You will never come back, Tom. I know you will never come back.”

  She was trembling and shaking, and she uttered these words with great force and passion. I confess that I was altogether taken aback. I had never been entirely sure, I think, how much she felt for me; although we were sweet-hearts, I had sometimes wondered whether she was playing a sort of game. I now perceived that she was very much in earnest, which pleased me; and yet if love was on her side, it seemed to me, Reason was altogether on mine. Lord Bidborough had asked me to go to Easton, Mr. Harrington had made no attempt to dissuade me from going, and it was by no means certain that any other keeper would know how to care for Jenny. Who could tell how she might be treated?

  Again I promised that I would come back to Thornhill, but I said that it was too late to stop me from going to Sussex, the matter was settled. I then walked across the yard to a small store, from which I dragged down a sack of carrots. She followed at my heels, pleading. “Tom, you cannot tie yourself for ever to an Elephant. You cannot spend the rest of your life caring for an Elephant.”—“Why not?”—“Because you cannot, it is unnatural. She is only an Elephant.”

  At this, my mind began to burn. Only an Elephant. As if a creature as noble and brave as an Elephant, as fine and beautiful and intelligent as an Elephant, were worth no more than a common frog, or bird, or beetle, or rat. I gazed at her, the sack of carrots in my hand. “When you say she is only an Elephant, you mean that she does not matter, when weighed in the scales. She does not matter, she is unimportant. But that is not what I believe.”

  “You believe she is worth more than a human being,” Lizzy said in an accusing tone.

  “Sometimes I do,” I said coldly, and her lip began to quiver and she turned from me, weeping.

  She hoped, I am sure, that I would take her in my arms and say that I loved her and would stay at Harrington, abandoning Jenny, who was only an Elephant. Or perhaps she hoped that she could come with me to Easton as my wife, and indeed, had she not said that fatal phrase, only an Elephant, so it might have turned out. But those three words angered me more than I can say, and I pushed past her and tipped the carrots into Jenny’s trough, and what do I remember after that? A roaring in my ears, a blackness in my vision—it pains me now to think that we parted thus; I can scarcely bear to think of it. The reader may judge me harshly, if he chooses, and yet, was I not in the right? Is it not evident, that an Elephant is of more value than many human beings?

  Jenny and I bid farewell to Harrington Hall on a fine day in the spring of the year 1770, with the trees snowy with blossom. I was one month short of my seventeenth birthday. Before our departure, I shook hands with my brother, Jim, and told him to care for my mother, who was red-eyed with weeping. As a present she gave me a number of my father’s possessions, including his best hat, which I clapped on my head, and his copies of Markham’s Maister-Peece and Gulliver’s Travels, which I packed in a small bag. I also took my leave of Joshua, who clasped my hand and said that he would always remember me, come what may. He was even more white-faced than when he had put his arm out of joint. Mr. Harrington, by his side, wished me well and thanked me for my service. “I shall always be grateful to you, Sir,” I said; and I meant it sincerely. I later learnt that he had sold Jenny for the sum of three hundred guineas, making an excellent profit.

  Chapter VI

  The journey from Somersetshire to Easton took four days. Our progress would have been quicker, but in every parish we were met by groups of children, like detachments of soldiers sallying forth to meet an army. Once they had ascertained that the Elephant was in no way dangerous, they ran beside us shouting questions, or raced to fetch their mothers and fathers and their aged relations, who came out of their houses and cottages and plied us with dainties and sweet-meats and other refreshments. Sometimes word of our approach flew in advance of us, and Jenny was greeted like a Queen by the pealing of church bells. All this noise and excitement made me apprehensive, but she was calm and good-humoured, and seemed to enjoy the attentions of the crowds. We stayed the first night at The Antelope, in Sherborne. On the morning of the second day we travelled through a country of soft grassy fields, greatly alarming its cows, which kicked up their legs and ran away. We were again delayed in every village, but in the afternoon we climbed a high down, and made good progress along the drove. Toward the end of the day, we approached the city of Salisbury, with its shining spire, and leaving the down crossed a big river at a ford.

  I thought it best to avoid Salisbury itself, and we stayed at a solitary inn, the name of which I cannot remember, but in the middle of the night I was awoken by trumpeting—I ran out, wearing nothing but a shirt, and found three drunken rogues in the act of breaking into Jenny’s stable, with the intention of stealing her, though they denied anything of the sort. After this, I thought it best to watch over her, but the stable was so small I could not find anywhere to put down my head and I had to sit in the yard. It was a fine starry night, though very cold when the dew came on, but I wrapped my great coat round me and was comfortable enough. On the third day we passed Winchester and reached Petersfield, staying at The Hand And Glove, and here the landlord, a cheery fellow, brought the Elephant quantities of potatoes, and several pails of ale, each of which she drank with great gusto, putting her trunk into the pail and draining it in a single draught. Thereafter, I fell into conversation with a hoary-headed old man who, on learning my destination, said that he knew Easton well. When I asked him whether the house and grounds were as beautiful as I had heard, he replied, that they had once been so; and when I endeavoured to find out what he meant by this, he said, that I would see for myself soon enough. Extracting any information from him proved hard work, however, after supplying him with ale, his tongue was loosened, and he let me know that Lord Bidborough had been improving his entire estate, according to the fashion; that people from villages for many miles round, and also a regiment of soldiers, had been employed to dig lakes and build temples, and erect an Obelisk. “It is known as Improvements,” he said, making it clear that he, at least, did not consider it an improvement on what had been there before. Since I had never heard of an Obelisk, I asked him what it was; he replied, that it was a tall pillar, a spike, built of stone, rising to a point. “Though,” he went on, in a grumbling tone, “what the po
int is of your Obelisk—what good it do to anyone—that I can’t say—but then”—and he swung his pot in the direction of Jenny’s trunk—“what is the point of that thing?” I told him that the trunk of an Elephant had many purposes. “In that case,” he answered, “an Obelisk may have many purposes, too—all I know is, all the lords and ladies round here is having them built. No park is complete without its Obelisk, believe me. It is the fashion.”

  The succeeding morning, one of Lord Bidborough’s grooms rode out to meet us. His name was John Finch, and he had been in Lord Bidborough’s employ for twelve years. His title was that of Groom to the Stranger’s Horse: that is, he was to care for any horses belonging to ladies and gentlemen staying in the mansion. He was dressed in his Lordship’s claret and green livery. He told me that Lord Bidborough was a most considerate nobleman, of about sixty-five years, while Lady Bidborough was somewhat younger, being his third wife. From his first wife he had a daughter, Elizabeth, who was now married to Lord Parham, of Dicker, Sussex; from his second, a son, Mr. Charles Singleton (Singleton being his family name), at present travelling in Italy and Germany, and a daughter, Miss Anne Singleton, aged fourteen.

  Finch told me that Lord Bidborough’s Improvements, by which I mean the changes to the Easton estate, had been in train for nearly two years. The first stage of the work, which had already been completed, had seen the creation of a lake, with the earth being used to throw up hills and mounds. I was astonished by this and asked how big the hills were. “Well,” said he, “they are proper hills.” After this, he said, thousands of young trees had been planted in clumps and groves and walks, and an Obelisk had been erected at the far end of a long avenue of lime trees. A stone temple, dedicated to the goddess Diana, was being built on a hillock to one side of the lake.

  All this greatly heightened my eagerness to reach Easton, in which sentiment I was matched by Jenny, who strode along at such a speed that Finch had to canter his mare to keep pace. When we arrived, turning through the entrance gates and riding along the drive, I found myself craning my neck for a glimpse of the mansion, but a slight rise, which has since been smoothed away, hid it from view. However, once we had reached the top of the rise we saw it before us. In my head I had formed a picture of a grand mansion in grey stone, perched on an eminence, and so it was; but beyond it lay the lake, which in size far exceeded my imagination. It was surrounded by a vast expanse of dark, shimmering mud. Within the park, hundreds of labourers were at work, some planting trees, some building the temple, others moving cart-loads of earth or stone, and when these labourers caught sight of the Elephant, the nearest, then those further away and finally the whole army, stopped their work, and sent up a ragged chorus of cries and cheers, which gladdened my heart.