Lady into Fox by David Garnett

First published: 1922

Type of work: Novelette

Type of plot: Fantasy

Time of work: 1880

Locale: England

The Story:

Silvia Fox married Richard Tebrick in 1879 and went to live with him at Rylands, near Stokoe, Oxon. The bride was oddly beautiful, a woman with small hands and feet, reddish hair, brownish skin, and freckles. Early in the year 1880, while the two were still very much in love, Silvia accompanied her husband on a walk. Hearing the sounds of a hunt, Mr. Tebrick pulled his bride forward to get a good view of the hounds. Suddenly, she snatched her hand away and cried out. Mr. Tebrick saw a small red fox beside him on the ground where his wife had stood.

Even in her changed form, he could still recognize his wife. When she began to cry, so did he; to soothe her, he kissed her on the muzzle. Waiting until after dark, he buttoned her inside his coat and took her home. First, he hid her in the bedroom; then he announced to the maid that Mrs. Tebrick had been called to London. When he carried her tea to the bedroom and found his poor fox trying to cover herself with a dressing gown, he dressed her properly, set her up on some cushions, and served her tea, which she drank daintily from a saucer while he fed her sandwiches.

Because the dogs had all that time been making a clamor, he went out into the yard and shot them. Then he dismissed the servants and retired to bed, sleeping soundly with his vixen in his arms. The next morning, their daily routine started. First, he would cook breakfast; later, he would wash and brush his wife. Next, they would eat breakfast together, the same food Silvia had enjoyed before her transformation. Once he started reading to her from Clarissa, but he found her watching a pet dove in its cage nearby. Soon Mr. Tebrick began to take his vixen outdoors to walk. On such occasions, her chief joy was chasing ducks near the pond.

One day after tea, she led him to the drawing room with gestures that showed she wished him to play the piano; but when she continued to watch the bird, he freed the dove from its cage and tore his wife’s picture into bits. He also found himself disgusted by the way she ate a chicken wing at the table. One night, she refused to share his bed and pranced about the room all night.

The next morning, the poor husband tried an experiment. From town, he brought her a basket containing a bunch of snowdrops and a dead rabbit. Silvia pretended to admire the flowers; but when her husband left the room purposely, she devoured the rabbit. Later, she repented and showed by motions that she wanted him to bring out the stereoscope so that she could admire the views. She refused to sleep with him again that night. Next day, she pulled off her clothes and threw them into the pond. From that time on, she was a naked vixen, and Richard Tebrick drank frequently to drown his sorrows.

At last, Mr. Tebrick decided that to avoid scandal he must move to another location with his vixen, and he chose as his place of retreat the cottage of Nanny Cork, Silvia’s old nurse. He drove over in a dog cart with his wife in a wicker basket on the seat beside him. The best feature of their new home was a walled garden in which the fox could enjoy the air without being seen, but she soon began to dig under the walls in her attempts to escape. Once, thwarted in an attempt to escape, she bit her husband on the hand. Finally, he gave his vixen her freedom and allowed her to run wild in the woods.

Stricken with grief over the loss of his wife, Mr. Tebrick hired a jockey named Askew to follow the hunts and report on the foxes killed. He shot two foxhounds who strayed on his land. One night, Mr. Tebrick heard a fox bark. He heard the barking again in the morning. His vixen had returned to lead him to her earth and proudly display her litter of five tiny cubs. Mr. Tebrick was jealous, but at last he overcame his scruples and went each day to visit the young foxes. Able to identify the cubs by that time, he christened them Sorel, Kaspar, Selwyn, Esther, and Angelica. Of the whole litter, Angelica was his favorite. She most reminded him of her mother.

The Reverend Canon Fox arrived to visit Mr. Tebrick. After hearing Mr. Tebrick’s story, the clergyman decided that the man was insane. As the cubs grew older, Mr. Tebrick spent most of his time in the woods, hunting with the vixen and her young by day and sleeping outside with them at night. On one occasion, he purchased a beehive and brought honey to the pups.

One winter day, Mr. Tebrick was outside listening to the sounds of a hunting chase that ended at his own gate. Suddenly, the vixen leaped into his arms, the dogs so close after her that Mr. Tebrick was badly mauled. Silvia was dead. For a long time, Mr. Tebrick led a despairing life; but he recovered to live to a hale old age and may be still living.

Critical Evaluation:

A comparison of LADY INTO FOX with Franz Kafka’s METAMORPHOSIS seems possible on the basis of their sharing a theme hardly encountered elsewhere in modern literature—the sudden and inexplicable transformation of a human being into a totally different form. It is hard to find any further likeness: Kafka’s grim and sardonic tale cries for symbolic interpretation, but David Garnett’s delightful literary prank is pure fun of no discernible allegoric significance.

Perhaps in reaction to the horrors of World War I, the English reading public in the 1920’s was particularly receptive to witty fantasy, and LADY INTO FOX shared the best-seller lists with works of Ronald Firbank, A. A. Milne, and Saki. Its continuing popularity, however, attests to Garnett’s comic skill.

The idea for the story came from the author’s wife during a playful conversation, but what particularly engaged him was the problem of how to induce credulity toward an intrinsically incredible situation. He chose Daniel Defoe as his guide, and the novella employs the same devices Defoe used to convince his readers of the factuality of his fictions. The unremittingly sober narrator constantly reiterates his skeptical insistence on total accuracy, solemnly decrying all gossip, rumor, and imaginative invention. Subtly archaic in diction and syntax, the style is eighteenth century, firm, balanced, and full of moral sententiousness. The narrator applauds Mrs. Tebrick’s early efforts to remain a lady even in fox form and deplores her descent into beastliness, he debates at length the moral and religious implications of Mr. Tebrick’s godfathering her cubs, and he approaches eloquence in the final catastrophe.

LADY INTO FOX is a story in which its author, like Coleridge in THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER, attempts to make the unreal seem probable. Perhaps many a bridegroom, and as suddenly, has found himself married to a vixen. The book is fantasy, but fantasy written with scrupulous regard for realistic detail. So far as the book’s underlying meaning is concerned, the reader may make whatever interpretation he will. It is first of all an entertaining story. The total effect is both funny and oddly touching, one of the most successful exercises in English of the deadpan tall tale.

Principal Characters:

• Mr. Richard Tebrick
• Silvia Fox Tebrick, his wife