The Elephant Keeper Page 8

  The other grooms, who relished every opportunity to damage my interests, were full of glee at what had happened, prophesying that Timothy’s tusks would be cut off, or that he would be gelded, or sold; thus I waited with some dread for Mr. Harrington’s return, which was not expected for another ten days. In the meantime, Timothy remained chained to the elm, and threatened violence to all who approached. His club continued to dribble urine, and a strange black fluid, which I had never seen before, oozed from two spots on either side of his face, between his eyes and ears, and ran glistening down his cheeks. Often he lowered his head, and pressed the points of his tusks against the trunk of the tree, at which the Ooze (as I came to call it) flowed even more copiously. This Ooze had a harsh, sweet smell, somewhat like hot tar. He ate very little, spurning the carrots which I threw at him, and scarcely seemed to drink, although at other times he drank more than fifteen gallons a day.

  These signs were so remarkable that I began to ask myself whether he might have some kind of an illness. My father once mentioned an old horse disease, known as Wild-Fire; the exact symptoms I could not remember, but the remedy was a ridiculous brew of live toads, moles, swallows’ dung, rags, and the soles of some old shoes, to be cooked in an earth pot, and stamped into a fine powder. When I opened my father’s copy of Markham’s Maister-Peece, I could find no mention of Wild-Fire; however, in Chapter XXXI, old Markham addresses the subject of frenzy and madness in a horse, which frenzy and madness he maintains are caused by naughty blood infecting, at its most extreme, not only the heart and brain, but also the panicles; that possible remedies may be bleeding, gelding, and piercing the skin of his head with a hot iron, in order to let out the ill humours. In addition, Markham gives his own cure, which is to make the horse swallow hard hen’s dung, or drink the root of some plant known as Virga Pastoris stamped in water; as to the ordering of the horse, he advises that the stable should be quiet, but not close, and the horse’s food limited to warm mashes of malt and water.

  How much value this was to me in treating Timothy may be imagined, for I scarcely dared advance within the range of his chain, and the prospect of forcing him to swallow hen’s dung or to drink some soothing medicine (when I did not even know what plant was signified by Virga Pastoris), let alone piercing his skull with a hot iron, was not to be contemplated. Besides, although he was without doubt in the grip of a peculiar frenzy, I was by no means convinced that it was the same kind of frenzy described by Markham. An Elephant and a horse are such very different creatures, there is no reason to suppose that the illnesses suffered by one are the same or similar to the illnesses suffered by the other; and nowhere in Maister-Peece could I see any reference to the strange fluid which oozed down the sides of Timothy’s face, or to the engorgement of his club.

  When Mr. Harrington returned, he came to see me with a stern face. “Tom,” he said, “I am told that our Elephants have put an end to the vicar’s dog.” I explained that this was untrue; that the female was entirely innocent, and that it was the fault not of the male, but of his inflamed condition, which had led him to act against his true nature. Moreover, I added, the dog had been very provoking. Mr. Harrington looked at me. “I see that you are in a fair way to becoming a lawyer.”—“Sir, forgive me, but since he is in a state of temporary madness, he cannot be held responsible!”—“And the Reverend Amey must be content with that?” he inquired. I was silenced. “Well, perhaps I should reserve judgment until I have seen the accused,” Mr. Harrington said.

  Timothy was standing in the elm’s green shade, his head hanging low as though in shame. “He appears harmless enough,” Mr. Harrington remarked, “what will happen if we draw nearer?”—“I am not sure, Sir—it is hard to be sure. He is a little more amenable to Reason than he was.” We did move a few feet nearer, whereupon Timothy raised his head and glared, giving a short trumpet blast. “Why—those black marks—is he bleeding?” Mr. Harrington asked.—“No, Sir, that is the fluid, the Ooze, staining his skin, I believe that is one prime cause of his discomfort.”

  I proceeded to describe the Elephant’s symptoms, while Mr. Harrington regarded the Elephant. “And this temporary madness, as you put it, Tom, this paroxysm, this passion: you believe it to be not a sickness, but a sign of his growing maturity?”—“Yes, Sir.”—“He has not been bitten by anything?”—“Bitten, Sir?” Upon which Mr. Harrington told me of a madness called, I think, hydrophobia, that is, the dread of water, which chiefly affects dogs, and how in London he had once seen such a dog, a terrier, running wild, foaming at the mouth, and attacking anyone foolish enough to approach. I said, “I am sure that he has not been bitten, Sir.”—“And yet he has attacked a dog, and refuses to drink water.”—“Yes, Sir. But he has not been bitten, I am sure. The dog provoked him into the attack.” Mr. Harrington examined me keenly, as if to satisfy himself that I was telling the truth. “If he has been bitten, Tom, it is fatal; one may depend on it; there is no cure on earth. I know how attached you have become to the Elephants, but for his own sake it would be better to take pity on him and shoot him at once.”

  I was so horrified by this that I could scarcely speak, save to stammer once more that he had not been bitten and that I believed his madness to be a temporary storm, which would abate soon enough. “How soon is soon?” asked Mr. Harrington. “How long will he have to stay chained to this tree?” This was the question which I had been asking myself, of course. I answered, more out of hope than anything else, that I thought that the Ooze would dry up by the next full moon, which was a fortnight hence. Mr. Harrington nodded. “I hope you are right, Tom. I will write to Mr. Coad and inquire whether he has ever heard of this behaviour. But as and when he does recover, I think that it would be wise to avoid taking him or the female through the village, in order to avoid any further provocation. I do not wish to offend the vicar unnecessarily.” At this, relief surged through me. “Yes, Sir. No, Sir.”

  Some weeks later, Mr. Harrington told me that he had heard from Mr. Coad, and that the Elephant’s behaviour was not an illness but a sign of maturity, for male Elephants, as well as females, come into season, and then are often exceedingly ill-tempered and wild. Mr. Coad, in the Indies, had seen Elephants in this very condition, and with oozing temples, and while the Elephant might remain in season for as long as two months, it would rapidly recover—“which,” said Mr. Harrington, “is excellent.” He proceeded to put me a series of questions. How long, in my judgment, would it be before the female would be ready to accept the advances of the male? When would she reach maturity? I answered, that, though there was, as yet, no physical sign of her coming into season, the keen interest of the male seemed to suggest that she might be nearing that point. “And how much longer do you think his tusks will grow?” Remembering the tusks of the Elephant which died upon the Dover, I said that I thought they would grow a good deal longer. Mr. Harrington now revealed his intentions:

  “I have been thinking for some while, Tom—indeed, it has been in my mind ever since the Elephants came here—of the vast sums of money which are spent bringing ivory to this country from the Cape. It is a difficult trade—costly, uncertain, and unnecessary, for Elephants will thrive here, and breed; our climate is perfectly acceptable. Why should we not have an English supply of ivory, produced by English Elephants? What is the objection? True, Elephants consume a vast quantity of food. But the value of the ivory would more than surpass that.” He paused. “These two Elephants will be the basis of the first English breeding herd, a stock from which other herds may grow.”

  I was filled with enthusiasm; I thought it a grand venture, and one certain to be crowned with success. I imagined herds of Elephants, descended from Jenny and Timothy, grazing the length and breadth of England. They would be the founders of a dynasty. However, I could not help wondering what would become of the male Elephants, once their tusks were removed.

  “The tusks will re-grow,” said Mr. Harrington. “Once they reach a certain length, they are shed, like the antlers of de
er in the autumn. I am assured by Mr. Coad that quantities of tusks are often found littering the jungles. It follows that there will be no need to kill the Elephants. And Elephants, I believe, may live to two or three hundred years of age. So one may have many years of ivory to collect.” Mr. Harrington was a stern man, who seldom smiled, but he smiled now. “These are valuable animals, Tom. They are the first of their kind in England. It will take time, but, you mark my words, a hundred years from now every great estate in England will have its Elephants and we shall be selling ivory to France and Spain and the rest of the world.”

  With these words he went away. I confess that I was somewhat surprized to learn that Elephants shed their tusks, for Timothy’s tusks seemed more like teeth than antlers. Yet soon after this he did, indeed, lose several teeth, with new teeth growing in their stead; and this persuaded me that Mr. Harrington was right, and that there was a great fortune to be made in the production of ivory, which is much in demand for the manufacture of such articles as chessmen, billiard balls, piano keys, mathematical rules, and snuff-boxes.

  Chapter IV

  As the Ooze abated, so did Timothy’s fit of madness, and soon he was in as gentle and gracious a temper as anyone could have desired. I watched him carefully, for I knew that another storm was certain to blow up before long, and I was determined not to be caught unawares. However, as the months went by, his manners continued irreproachable, and I began to forget. It then happened that, one day in the succeeding spring, he walked out of the cart-house, crashed the door behind him, and flung an empty pail across the yard. This unexpected shew of irritability was a sharp nudge to my memory, and, suspecting what was about to happen, I chained him to the elm. Next, I tethered Jenny by a rope to the same tree, in the hope that, before Timothy was overwhelmed by the Ooze, he and Jenny might proceed to the business of mating. Yet this was a great mistake on my part: for though Timothy was soon roused and ready to oblige, as his swollen, spurting member all too readily testified, Jenny was shy and prudish as an old maid, and kept backing away. He pursued her, fleeing, in circles round the tree, and as his chain and her rope shortened both animals were drawn closer and closer to the trunk, and finally brought to a halt—he, wildly trumpeting, on one side of the tree, she, squealing with fright, on the other. How to release her from this predicament without endangering myself was a nice matter, but Lizzy helped me by distracting Timothy. Whether, even if they had mated, anything would have come of it must be doubted, for Jenny had still not passed her first blood, or not that I had noticed.

  It was instructive to observe Jenny’s behaviour during this period. As I rode her through the grounds, she would gradually veer in the direction of the tree to which her brother was tied, in order to see how he did; having given herself this satisfaction, she would continue on her way. Strange as this must no doubt appear, I am sure that she understood why he was restrained, and also that she was grateful to be spared his violent attentions. Toward me she was exceedingly affectionate, often brushing me with her trunk, and sometimes making a peculiar sound which, for want of a better word, may be described as a kind of rumble, or purr, not unlike the purring of a very loud cat. This low purring sound is a sign of great contentment in an Elephant. There were also times when I sensed her observing me in a curious way, much as I observed her, and as our eyes joined I fancied that our very thoughts were colliding in mid air, and mingling, like invisible atoms.

  I would like to say it was now that I succeeded in teaching her to sweep the yard. But, in truth, I did not teach her; she taught herself, picking up the broom one morning after I had put it down, and swishing it to and fro. I praised her loudly, and gave her a tid-bit, and this encouraged her into further sweeping, and she soon became an excellent sweeper, though her enthusiasm sometimes made her sweep too vigorously. On one occasion she broke the broom handle, which puzzled her greatly; after staring at the two pieces she attempted to fit them together and, when she failed to do so, seemed quite dejected. To teach her to sweep slowly, and gently, using the broom like a feather, took more than two weeks. When Timothy returned from the Ooze, he watched her at work, and deciding to copy her, just as she had copied me, grabbed the broom from her grasp; however, he did not understand the reason for sweeping, and made violent sweeps in the air. Jenny was upset at losing the broom, and attempted its recovery, and a short tussel ensued, which came to an end when I ordered them to give me the broom. The matter was resolved when I provided each of the Elephants with a broom; thereafter, each morning, they would sweep the yard in consort, raising a storm of dust.

  The spell of Ooze continued a full six weeks, and was much more severe than the first. The Ooze fairly gushed down the sides of Timothy’s face, and the spray from his club stained the insides of his thighs green. The tarry smell seemed to be everywhere; even at night it hung in my nostrils. Yet afterward, he again became meek and calm. I remember one day when he had a limp in his right fore-foot. I waited for Lizzy, and then, having made him lie down, brushed the dust and dirt from the pad, and spied the head of a nail. The pad of an Elephant’s foot is as hard as a board, and this nail had been driven in so deep, and was so firmly embedded, that I could do nothing with my fingers to draw it out. The skin around the nail was hot to touch. I fetched a knife and tongs, and told Timothy what I intended, that is, to take away the pain in his foot. He lay entirely still, his eyes on Lizzy, who had crouched by his head, while I dug the point of the knife into the sole, in order to get sufficient purchase to draw out the nail. This nail was nearly three inches long, and must have been in the pad some time; when I drew it out, a chute of dirty fluid poured from the hole. As I performed this operation, Timothy’s trunk played pat-a-cake with Lizzy’s hand, and I was very grateful for her help. When I had finished, he clambered to his feet and I shewed him the nail. “Here, this is what was hurting you, you see?” Lizzy laughed: “Tom, he does not understand, you know.”—“But he does understand,” I said. His trunk flickered out and removed the nail from my grasp; he examined it closely and shewed it to Jenny, who took it and examined it too, before giving it back. He tossed it away, and his trunk slid round Lizzy’s shoulders. “There, you see—he is thanking you,” I said. She said, “Tom, he is not thanking me, he is merely being friendly. He does not speak English, you know—he does not understand English.”—“He understands more than a little,” I said, “he is speaking Elephant.” She made an impatient gesture: “Why do you always try to make the Elephants into something they are not?” I was surprized by this question, and as I struggled for an answer, she went on to chide me for spending so much time with the Elephants. “You devote yourself to them.”—“Well; but, Lizzy, they must be cared for.”—“But they are not the only thing in the world that matters. You do nothing but care for them. You never leave them.”—“There is no one else to care for them, what else should I do? They depend upon me. Who else is going to pull a nail out of their feet?” She tossed her head. “I am not talking about nails—but—they are animals, Tom, are they not? You keep talking of them as though they were human.”—“Lizzy, they are intelligent creatures, they are more intelligent than other animals, they are interesting company.”—“Are they more interesting than your own kind, more interesting than human beings?” I thought about this. “More than some, and not others, probably. They are interesting, but in a different way.”

  This is one conversation which I seem to remember, among several; Lizzy often harped on the same theme. It is hard to remember exactly. When did such a thing happen, and in what order? What was the weather like? What were the Elephants doing as we talked? Sometimes I can only remember scraps of conversation, or single remarks: for instance, her remark, how curious it would be if human beings had trunks for noses, and, at the same moment, getting hold of my nose and giving it a tug. Another time, she accompanied me to the copse with the nightingales, and we sat with our backs against a tree and watched the feeding Elephants. Tiny green caterpillars were dangling on fine cables in the soft air,
and speckled butter-flies dancing by, and a yaffle with its bright red head and green body landed on the stump of a dead oak and drummed loudly. Suddenly she told me to shut my eyes, and when I asked why, said that I would find out, and when I asked, what would I find out, she merely laughed and said that, well then, I would never know. So I obeyed her and shut my eyes; whereupon she fed me pieces of wet sugar, which she had in her pockets. I fell to licking the sticky sugar off her palm, indeed she licked it too, with her neat tongue, and our tongues meeting we began to kiss, only to look up and discover both Elephants staring at us in astonishment.

  Some weeks later, during that same summer, I had dozed off in the hay-loft above the cart-house and woke to find her standing over me. It was a bright day and she seemed to block the light. She said, “I have been watching you, Tom.”