About the spring time, when the grass in the square garden was not so often wet and the birds made more noise there and the nests were more plentiful1, Auntie May seemed not so very well.
She always had the hardest knee in the house to sit on, though it was the nicest knee, and now her fingers grew so thin that the rings began to drop off them, and then we were accused of having taken them. I believe it was for this reason that she suddenly began to say that she must go away.
'And leave us?' we said, when she told us.
'I don't think I can make up my mind to leave you, dears,' she said, just as if she had understood our remarks, which of course she did not. 'Fancy waking up in the morning all alone by myself instead of being waked by one of you putting your paw in my mouth! I can't picture it. No, I'll stay here and die.'
'Nonsense!' her father would say. 'You must live, dear, if not for my sake, for the sake of the cats. Let us think of something to amuse you and make you forget your family for a while. Why not go up to see Beatrice?'
'No, I don't want to go and stay with Beatrice.' She and Beatrice were cross with each other just then, I happened to know, and truly Auntie May's temper was not exactly even nowadays. She had been known to say that we got on her nerves, and that there were too many of us. We knew she was out of sorts by that alone.
'Why not try Folkestone with your Aunt Cecilia?'
'An old cat!'
'What about Mrs. Gilmour at Bournemouth?'
'Another!' It was easy to see she was ill.
'Then come with me to the Riviera?'
'That would be lovely, but, dear Daddy, I could not possibly take you away from your Academy picture.'
'Then,' said the poor old man in desperation, 'go to America and read passages from your own works and make a fortune.'
He was at his wit's end or he would not have proposed anything so absurd and improper2 as that. He said no more, but I sometimes saw him watching her with tears in his eyes.
When her hair began to come out in handfuls she herself agreed that something must be done.
'I think I will go and live in Paris for a bit and study.'
'But, my dear child, you don't know anybody there.'
'That's just the point. I shall change the scene completely and get out of myself.'
That seems an odd and impossible sort of thing to do, but it isn't the first time I have heard people speak of performing this feat3. Cats can't, and wouldn't want to, I fancy.
The old man said he couldn't think of allowing it, and she at once wrote for rooms to an address she knew. He said it would never do, and she answered the woman's letter who kept the pension and took the rooms for a month.
Then we were the difficulty. She could not think of leaving us to Mary, who was good but careless, and she thought of a certain place she had heard of at Gunnersbury where they boarded cats.
Mother disliked the idea very much, but what could she do? We were all three put in baskets and taken in a cab. Gunnersbury seemed partly country when we got out, but I saw very little, for we were hustled4 into the house, and our fastenings not undone5 till we were in a garden with wire cages or houses in it that they called 'cat-runs.'
A young lady in a grey voile frock trimmed with blue ribbons was sweeping6 one of the wire places out, and she seemed to be no relation to the mistress of the cattery, just a friend.
'I am single-handed just now,' the old lady said. 'My daughter, who helps me, is away, taking King Henry the Eighth to a cat-show, but Miss Joldwin—such a nice girl, and so well connected!—is good enough to come here and help me turn out the cages twice a day!'
I don't see why because Miss Joldwin was a pedigree-woman she should be too good to sweep out a cattery, but I do think she might have put a pinafore on, and said so.
'Dear little fellow, he is very lively and talkative!' said the old woman to me. 'I know I shall make a pet of you, I shall.'
'Oh, no favouritism, Mrs. Jennings, please,' said Auntie May. 'I should like them all to be kept together, if you don't mind, as much as possible. They are a very united and loving family. Fred, do leave Zobeide alone! You are nearly murdering her.'
'Pretty little spirited dears,' murmured the woman, and I hated her. 'Come here! Kittie! Kittie!'
I wouldn't come here, and I saw that Auntie May was pleased. She soon after took her leave, whispering to us:
'Now keep yourselves to yourselves, my dears, and though you must be civil to other cats, don't make great friends. I shan't be away long; I feel I shan't be able to stand it. Eat what you are given, and don't have fancies. Don't climb up the old woman. Be civil to her, but no more. Now goodbye, pets—angels—darlings—I must tear myself away!'
She tore herself away, and we were left alone in the wire house with a sort of box thing inside where we were expected to retire for the night. It wasn't bad, and the food was excellent.
I cannot tell the clock, and I never know either what time or what day of the week it is, so I cannot say how long we were all together in this cattery. It may have been a month. But one day (I had been taken into the house, for I was a good cat and allowed to sit on the dining-room woolly rug) I heard a well-known voice in the hall saying:
'No, thank you. There is no necessity for me to see it. I leave the selection of the kitten to you. So long as the animal is ready packed in a basket and so forth7, all ready for my servant to fetch and hand over to me at Charing8 Cross, that will do. Thank you, ten-thirty. He will call here half an hour before. Good morning!'
It was the voice of Mr. Fox.
Mother said, 'It sounds as if one of you was going to leave me! This wretched man seems to have bought a kitten of Auntie May and doesn't even care which!'
'Mr. Fox buy a cat!' I cried. 'He simply hates us; he can't bear to be in the room with one of us. Don't you remember, I told you all about him at Crook9 Hall?'
'I cannot explain it!' said mother. 'Perhaps he is going to give you to some one? I wish I knew what places one goes to from Charing Cross. But there is no cat's Bradshaw, alas10!'
I was taken away by a groom—I smelt11 his clothes through the basket—next day, as arranged. We got into a noisy place full of people talking, and I felt myself being transferred to Mr. Fox's hands, and didn't he take hold of the handle of the basket that contained me as if it was a hot coal! I wondered why he didn't put me in the guard's van; but no, he stuck to me and put me down on the seat of the compartment12, just as Auntie May did, and then went as far off me as he could go, for I could tell the distance by the rustle13 of the newspaper he opened, and read fiercely all the way. I learned that we were going to cross the sea from the conversation of two ladies in the same compartment.
'Do you think it is going to be rough, guard? Have you heard what the sea is like at Dover?'
'Like a mill pond, ma'am.'
'Oh, I do hope—' said one.
'I suffer so always!' said the other.
'Not worse than me, surely? Nobody could. I shall die in crossing some day. What is that in the basket? Is it a bird or a cat? I saw a parrot once crossing. I believe it was sick, or was it only imitating the dreadful noise people make? I wonder if cats are sick?'
I wondered too. Not that I mind being sick, as I said before, and I thought They were making a great deal too much of it.
I didn't like it, though, when we got to Dover, and Mr. Fox shouldered me and carried me down a ladder and on to something that wobbled gently. There was a horrible smell—that was the worst of it—a kind of salt prick14 in the air, that I didn't like. Mr. Fox handed me to a man, saying:
'Here, take care of this animal for me—you see it is labelled "Valuable Cat"—and look after it till we get to Calais!'
'Ay, ay, sir,' said the man, who smelt of salt too.
This sailor planked me down somewhere, and never noticed me till there was a shouting and a trampling15 and a hauling and a slowing-down movement. Then the big thing that breathed in the middle stopped, and there was no noise except of voices. Quite a nice rest. The sailor came back and took me up, and put me back into the hands of Mr. Fox, who gave him something he said 'Thank ye!' for, and who then carried me up the ladder himself. I wished I could have seen his face. I am sure he was pale, though perhaps in the strong smell of salt he didn't notice the smell of me so much, and didn't feel so ill. I don't know, for, as I say, I never saw his face.
He never undid16 me, but sat quite close to me on the rattlingest train I ever was in, far worse than the boat. The two ladies said so. They happened to have got into the same carriage as we did, and from their subdued17 sort of manner I think they had both been very ill.
'I wonder how the cat got on?' said one in a very weak voice.
'I don't know, I'm sure, nor care,' said the other. Then in a lower voice she said:
'The man doesn't look very fit; he's green. I expect he has had an awful time!'
I wanted to cry out and say, 'You are quite mistaken. That is the effect of me!' but of course I couldn't do anything but scrabble about a little on the sides of the basket. They seemed to be eating an enormous luncheon18! I had a parcel of fish in with me loosely done up that I could easily have got at, but I never eat on a journey. I make up for it afterwards.
We stopped twice, and people cried out things, but at last we stopped and did not go on again.
'C'est Paris?' said one of the ladies, and then I knew that she was half French, and was probably going home. I thought of Auntie May, who I knew was in Paris, but somehow I was quite surprised to hear her voice—a very thin and weak little voice—speaking to Mr. Fox on the platform.
'Oh, Mr. Fox, I never can thank you enough. And you, of all people, who hate cats so, to offer to bring me Loki. Tell me, how did you get on?'
'Very fairly,' said he. 'I do not choose to let this kind of thing get hold of me. I'm all right, thanks, and glad to be able to do you this little service.'
We all walked along—I was carried of course—till we came to some kind of barrier, and they wouldn't let Auntie May pass. She had forgotten to take a platform ticket, it appeared.
'I shall stay here, then,' said she to Mr. Fox. 'You go through with this ticket, and I shall see whether these foreigners will have the cheek to keep me.' I believe she winked19. She was so happy at having got me. She made Mr. Fox obey her, telling him to wait for her on the other side, and she sat down on a seat and took me on her knee, and kissed me.
'I shall get well much faster now I have a soft sweet grey cat to cuddle,' said she. 'I wonder how Mr. Fox knew that? And to offer himself as a messenger, of all people! I don't believe he had any business engagement in Paris at all, I believe it is pure philanthropy!'
Presently an official came and argued with her in French. She was very sweet to him, on the principle that a soft answer turns away wrath20, and sure enough she worked it, for presently he said sharply, 'Passez, Mademoiselle!' which means 'Go on.'
Mr. Fox had examined his luggage, and was waiting for her on the other side of the barrier.
'Oh, why did you wait?' she said. 'I should think now I have Loki with me you would want to give me a wide berth21?'
'I don't want to,' said he, 'but my unfortunate peculiarity22 is sure to assert its sway over me. Let me, at least, put you into a cab.'
'And shall I not have the pleasure of seeing you while you are in Paris?'
'I am afraid I must not venture to come and see you and risk a scene?' He laughed; he had a nice laugh. 'But will you be very kind, and come to lunch with me to-morrow at Durand's? I go back at night.'
'But,' she said, 'I thought you said you had to be in Paris on business, and that was why you would bring me Loki? That is what Daddy assured me you said when he told you I was pining for him.'
'I can get through the business I have to do in the morning before lunch,' said he, quite shortly, and whisked us into a cab and paid it, and told the man to drive us to Rue23 Chauvau La Garde.
Miss Florence Pettigrew—that was the name of the woman who kept the pension Auntie May had settled to go to—was a pretty, very little woman, and reminded me somehow of the Manx cat, she seemed shortened somewhere, somehow. She opened the door to us and I heard her greeting Auntie May, and took a dislike to her at once from the basket. I didn't like her any better when I was taken out. I'm sure she had a wooden leg.
'Well, so that's the cat. I hope he means to have good manners in my flat. I don't want my nice new furniture torn to bits, you know, Graham.'
That was Auntie May's surname, but I had never heard her called that before. Auntie May was shown to her room and asked if she would have hot water, but she sat down on the bed and cried, and cuddled me, and said, 'Well, Loki, this is life!'
I thought she didn't like life much just now, when we went in to dinner. Manxie, as I always called her, kept telling us that she had had to get fish on purpose for Auntie May, but she couldn't afford it for herself. No, what she had was three-pennyworth of meat a day for herself, and that was enough for any woman. I thought she seemed more like a Manx cat than ever, with her daily allowance of cat's meat, for she couldn't have got proper people's meat for that price!
Auntie May gave me some fish, but it was so French and buttery that I hated it. I tried to eat it, though, for Auntie May's sake, who looked so pale and ill that I longed to write home to her father about her and get her fetched home. It was unfortunate that Mr. Fox could not stand me, or else he would have come to the house and seen Manxie, and after he had seen her I am sure he wouldn't have approved of Auntie May's staying where she was so disliked. Why, Manxie even leaned across the table once, when Auntie May coughed, and said:
'I am sorry for you, Graham, but I don't like you. I don't like your eyes!'
Did anybody ever hear anything like that? The woman was mad, that was her only excuse. Poor Auntie May was miserable24 and her eyes were sunk in and her cheeks hollow, but I don't see that when she was paying Manxie ten francs a day that she ought to have been abused about her eyes. Hollow cheeks are better than a hollow leg any day.
She went out to déjeuner with Mr. Fox next day, telling Manxie about it, who was very cross with her for not bringing Mr. Fox to the flat.
'It is just as if you were ashamed of it, Graham,' she said, and Auntie May didn't contradict her, but shut me up in her room and went. She came back with some nice asparagus heads for me that she had begged of the waiter at Durand's. After that she went out no more to luncheon, and I supposed Mr. Fox had gone back to England.
Then Auntie May began to get worse and worse, and she coughed so that she quite lost her voice and could only call me in a whisper. She had a doctor fetched, to Manxie's great disgust, and he said she had to put her mouth to the spout25 of a kettle that had benzoin in it, and she used to sit for hours with her lips to the spout till Manxie complained that the steam hurt her ceiling. French rooms are very funny, before you furnish them yourself; there is a mirror let into the mantelpiece and a stove in the dining-room. They cook quite differently, too, and Manxie's cook used to write poetry. She kept the papers in her biggest stew-pan, and used to read them to Auntie May, who said they were quite good for a cook and far better than her omelettes.
Trivia, that was her name, was so grateful that she was always coming in with cups of tisane.
'Buvez ça, Madame, je vous assure que cela vous fera du bien!' and Auntie May said it did do her good, but as a matter of fact she got worse and worse, and the doctor said he must get a friend of his to call on her. She was English. He was English. As Auntie May said, 'I come to Paris to change my ideas, and I have an English land-lady, an English doctor, and now I am to have an English friend. Funny how we English herd26 together!'
I may say that I mixed with the French more than Auntie May did. I had a French friend; her name was Mistigris. She belonged to M. Ducrot, the concierge27. To call on her I had to seize my opportunity and sneak28 downstairs when the bonne went out to do her shopping and Auntie May was still in bed. Mistigris was generally lying on the silk eiderdown that covers Monsieur and Madame Ducrot's bed. Their bed takes up half their room, and it isn't very big either. It is close to the door. Madame Ducrot cooks every meal there. They only have the one room and the coal-cellar under the stairs. Their door gives on to the stairs and has a glass window in it, so that they can see whoever goes past. They are a curious race, are concierges29, whose business it is to find out things and take tips. At night, when they are in bed, of course the door is fastened, but M. Ducrot has a bell that rings by the bed head, and he has to wake up, if he isn't already awake, and pull a button to open the door. The person at the door going out also has to say, 'Cordon30, s'il vous plait!' All this Mistigris told me. She was very Anglophobe, meaning she hated the English at first, but I convinced her that we were really des braves gens—that means a good sort. At first she used to call out 'Angliche!' and 'Poos! Poos!' at me, very rudely, and even sometimes, 'Aha, Rosbif!' but she soon improved. Besides, they don't say 'Puss! Puss!' to their cats here, but Minet or Minette, so perhaps she was only trying to emulate31 the English accent. Of course I don't know French any more than Mistigris knows English, but our common language, 'Catapuk,' is known all over the world, so there was no difficulty about our intercourse32.
Madame Ducrot did not like my friendship with Mistigris at first, for fear I should run away with her, but I am a born bachelor, and people soon see that there is no fear of my carrying any cat off. Mistigris was pretty, rather prettier than the white cat at the party, but it made no difference to me, we were very good friends and that was all.
Mistigris used to lie in wait for me in the shadow of the bed-curtain sitting on her warm nest in the eiderdown. Talk of French politeness; she never once invited me to come up! And if I happened to get down to see her about meal times when she sat on the table between Monsieur and Madame Ducrot, as they drank their soup and ate their salad, she frowned at me through the glass door and pretended not to know me. I didn't want any cabbage soup, either, their cookery is far too greasy33 for me. But when she was not so pleasantly engaged and the door of the room was open, she used to come to me and thread herself in and out through the balusters as a sign of friendliness34. I never saw her after seven o'clock. They turn all lights out on the stairs here after eight, and I used to sit indoors on the cold wood floor in the evenings and listen for Auntie May to come in. Manxie fed her so badly that in disgust she used to go out and get her dinner at a restaurant. She used to come up, bumping herself in the dark, and fumble35 for the door-key under the mat, where Manxie, who went to bed at nine to save lights, had left it. There was a jam-pot on a bracket in the hall full of oil and a wick floating in it. It was the cheapest possible way of lighting36, so Manxie said. Then Auntie May used to grope for her sealed bottle of milk on the table, and light one of those beastly French matches that smell and sputter37, and read her letters if there were any, and then go to bed.
I used to help her to undress, playing with her strings38 and stay-laces, and anything in the least taggy, and placing her slippers39 in different ends of the room ready for her to find in the morning. Then when she was in bed, I used to take a header off the high bureau and light on her. She kissed my head for about five minutes and I purred, and then having said good-night to her properly so, I lay down on the lower part of the bed, for I was getting such a big cat that my weight was too much for her shoulder where I used to like to lie. She put out her hand and stroked me sometimes in the middle of the night; she liked to feel I was there. If she was too sleepy to wake up, I generally crept up and just touched the tip of her nose and so back again without waking her. I didn't attempt to prise her eyelids40 open, as Fred did once when he had the privilege of sleeping with her. He never had it again. Auntie May values her eyes above anything, and she said it was too dangerous. I never woke her in the morning, for I thought she wanted all the sleep she could get. Manxie used to come and look at her sometimes when she was asleep, and pry41 into her drawers. I always kept one eye on her, and she knew it. The funny thing is it frightened her, though, of course, she knew that I could not tell tales of her.
At last poor Auntie May stayed in bed altogether, and the doctor brought his friend Mrs. Jay.
She was a nice woman and I adored her, although she played a funny little trick on me. She used to take me up when she came in, and I used to mew.
'It is an odd thing,' Auntie May said to her, after Mrs. Jay had been to see her two or three times and they were great friends, 'that you love cats so much and yet they mew when you hold them!'
'Isn't it odd?' said Mrs. Jay, smiling. She had a very pretty voice. 'I cannot suggest any explanation.'
I could have explained it. Mrs. Jay bit my neck every time, not hard or cruelly, but just so that I could not help crying out.
She was not a naturally unkind woman, but she had a mania42 for experimenting on people by teasing them as well as being good to them. She saved Auntie May's life, I think.
She came one day and said very decidedly:
'Now, Miss May Graham, I am going to take you away from here, bag and baggage, cat and cattage. That dreadful Pettigrew—'
'Poor Pettigrew!' said Auntie May in a thin little voice.
'Poor Pettigrew indeed! She is simply starving you, that is what she is doing, and taking ten francs a day for it! I am not going to leave you here a day longer, if I take you away in an ambulance!'
There was no need for Auntie May to go in an ambulance. She paid Manxie, who was in a towering rage, a month's pay in lieu of notice, Mrs. Jay packed up her belongings43, my old basket was brought out again, and we were settled in the Rue de L'Echelle by the evening. I never saw Mistigris again.
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1
plentiful
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| adj.富裕的，丰富的 | |
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improper
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| adj.不适当的，不合适的，不正确的，不合礼仪的 | |
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feat
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| n.功绩；武艺，技艺；adj.灵巧的，漂亮的，合适的 | |
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hustled
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| 催促（hustle的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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undone
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| a.未做完的，未完成的 | |
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sweeping
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| adj.范围广大的，一扫无遗的 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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charing
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| n.炭化v.把…烧成炭，把…烧焦( char的现在分词 )；烧成炭，烧焦；做杂役女佣 | |
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crook
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| v.使弯曲；n.小偷，骗子，贼；弯曲(处) | |
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10
alas
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| int.唉(表示悲伤、忧愁、恐惧等) | |
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smelt
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| v.熔解，熔炼；n.银白鱼，胡瓜鱼 | |
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compartment
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| n.卧车包房，隔间；分隔的空间 | |
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rustle
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| v.沙沙作响；偷盗(牛、马等)；n.沙沙声声 | |
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prick
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| v.刺伤，刺痛，刺孔；n.刺伤，刺痛 | |
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trampling
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| 踩( trample的现在分词 )； 践踏； 无视； 侵犯 | |
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Undid
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| v. 解开, 复原 | |
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subdued
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| adj. 屈服的，柔和的，减弱的 动词subdue的过去式和过去分词 | |
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luncheon
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| n.午宴，午餐，便宴 | |
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19
winked
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| v.使眼色( wink的过去式和过去分词 )；递眼色（表示友好或高兴等）；（指光）闪烁；闪亮 | |
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wrath
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| n.愤怒，愤慨，暴怒 | |
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berth
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| n.卧铺，停泊地，锚位；v.使停泊 | |
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peculiarity
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| n.独特性，特色；特殊的东西；怪癖 | |
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rue
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| n.懊悔，芸香，后悔；v.后悔，悲伤，懊悔 | |
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miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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spout
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| v.喷出，涌出；滔滔不绝地讲；n.喷管；水柱 | |
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herd
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| n.兽群，牧群；vt.使集中，把…赶在一起 | |
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concierge
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| n.管理员；门房 | |
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sneak
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| vt.潜行(隐藏,填石缝)；偷偷摸摸做；n.潜行；adj.暗中进行 | |
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concierges
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| n.看门人，门房( concierge的名词复数 ) | |
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cordon
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| n.警戒线，哨兵线 | |
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31
emulate
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| v.努力赶上或超越，与…竞争；效仿 | |
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32
intercourse
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| n.性交；交流，交往，交际 | |
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33
greasy
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| adj. 多脂的，油脂的 | |
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34
friendliness
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| n.友谊，亲切，亲密 | |
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35
fumble
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| vi.笨拙地用手摸、弄、接等，摸索 | |
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lighting
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| n.照明，光线的明暗，舞台灯光 | |
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37
sputter
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| n.喷溅声；v.喷溅 | |
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38
strings
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| n.弦 | |
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slippers
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| n. 拖鞋 | |
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40
eyelids
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| n.眼睑( eyelid的名词复数 )；眼睛也不眨一下；不露声色；面不改色 | |
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41
pry
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| vi.窥(刺)探，打听；vt.撬动(开，起) | |
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mania
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| n.疯狂；躁狂症，狂热，癖好 | |
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belongings
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| n.私人物品，私人财物 | |
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