“_Reposeful, patient, undemonstrative,
Luxurious, enigmatically sage,
Dispassionately cruel._”
[Illustration: Kitten by Madame Ronner]
Ra had three periods of development. In the first, he showed himself
cowardly and colourless; in the second, he sowed his wild oats with
a mild and sparing paw; and in the third period it was borne in on
us that whatever qualities of heart and head he displayed were but
superficial manifestations, while the inner being of Ra, the why and
wherefore of his actions, must for ever remain shrouded in mystery.
We might have guessed this, had we been wise enough, from his
appearance. His very colour was uncertain. His mistress could see
that he was blue--a very dark, handsome blue Persian. Those who knew
less than she did about cats called him black. One, as rash as she
was ignorant, said he was brown; but as there are no brown cats Ra
could not have been brown. Finally, a so-called friend named him “The
Incredible Blue.”
When the Incredible Blue sat at a little distance two large green eyes
were all that could be discerned of his features. The blue hair was so
extremely dark that it could be hardly distinguished from his black
nose and mouth. This gave him an inexpressibly serious appearance.
The solemnity of his aspect was well borne out by the stolidity of
his behaviour. There is little to record during his youth except
an unrequited attachment to a fox-terrier. In earlier days Ra’s
grandmother had been devoted to the same dog--a devotion as little
desired and as entirely unreciprocated.
But it was necessary that Ra should leave the object of his devotion
and come with us to live in a town; and now it became apparent that his
affections had been somehow nipped in the bud. Whether it was the loss
of the fox-terrier, the new fear of Taffy’s boisterous pursuits, or the
severity of his grandmother’s treatment--for the first time he came
into close contact with that formidable lady--whatever the reason may
have been, it was plain that Ra’s heart was a guarded fortress. He set
himself with steady appetite to rid the house of mice, but he neither
gave nor wanted affection.
He would accept a momentary caress delicately offered; but if one
stroked him an instant too long, sharp, needle-like teeth took a firm
hold of the hand. We apologised once to a cat lover for the sharpness
of Ra’s teeth. “I think the claws are worse,” was all he said.
Ra was an arrant coward. If a wild scuffle of feet was heard overhead
we were certain that it was the small agile grandmother in pursuit of
Ra. If Taffy were seen careering over the lawn, and leaping into the
first fork of the mulberry-tree, it was because Ra had not faced him
out for a moment, but was peering with dusky face and wide emerald eyes
between the leaves.
Once or twice there was an atmosphere of tension in the house, no
movement of cat or dog, and it was found that the three were fixed on
the staircase unable to move. Taffy looking up from below with gleaming
eyes; Granny malevolently scowling from above; and Ra in sight like
Bagheera, in heart like a frightened mouse protected by the very fact
that he was between the devil and the deep sea. Taffy did not dare to
chase Ra for fear of the claws of the cat above; Granny did not care
to begin a scrimmage downstairs, which would land them both under the
dog’s nose. So they sat, free but enthralled, till human hands carried
them simultaneously away.
But the general tension of feeling grew too great. Ra’s life was
a burden through fear, Granny’s through jealousy, Taffy’s through
scolding. Ra was sent off to a little house in London, and here his
second stage of development began.
He had always been pompous, now he grew grand. It took ten minutes to
get him through the door, so measured were his steps, so ceremonious
the waving of his tail. He sat in the drawing-room in the largest
armchair. Then it irked him that there was no garden, so he searched
the street until he discovered a house with a garden, and he went to
stay there for days together. A house opposite was being rebuilt, and
Ra surveyed the premises and overlooked the workmen, sliding through
empty window-frames and prowling along scaffolding with a weight of
disapproval in his expression.
Thus Ra, who had hitherto caused no anxiety to his family, now became
a growing responsibility; visions of cat stealers, of skin-dealers, of
cat’s-meat men, of policemen and lethal chambers began to flit through
the imagination whenever Ra was missing--which was almost always. So to
save the nerves and sanity of his friends Ra left London.
We had now removed to the country, and greatly to our regret, though
little to that of Ra, his ancient foe had passed from the scene; and
although he felt it better to decline the challenges of the sandy
kitten, yet he no longer believed his safety and his life to be in
the balance; it was plain that he had realised his freedom, and would
assume for himself a certain position in the household.
The house was a very old one; but Ra had been not long employed before
the scurrying of feet over the ceiling was perceptibly lessened, and
behind the mouldering wainscot the mouse no longer shrieked. That,
indeed, is a lame, conventional way of describing the previous doings
of the mice. Rather let us say that the mice no longer danced in the
washing basins at night, nor ran races over the beds, nor bit the
unsheltered finger of the sleeper, nor left the row of jam-pots clean
and empty.
If Ra had confined himself to this small game all would have been well,
but he proceeded to clear the garden of rabbits. Day by day he went
out and fetched a rabbit, plump and tender, and ate it for his dinner.
It must at least be recorded that at this time he was practically
self-supporting.
Three he brought to me. The first was dead, and I let him eat it; the
second showed the brightness of a patient brown eye, and while I held
Ra an instant from his prey, the little thing had cleared the lawn
like a duck-and-drake shot from a skilful hand, and disappeared in the
hedgerow.
The third was dead. I took it and shut up Ra. We “devilled” the rabbit
hot and strong; we positively filled it with mustard, and returned it.
Ra ate half with the utmost enjoyment and the sandy kitten finished the
rest.
Then came Ra’s final aspiration. Unwitting of strings of cats’ tails,
dead stoats, and the gay feathers of the jay, with which the woodland
was adorned, he took to the preserves. We have no reason to think he
hunted anything but the innocent field mouse or a plump rabbit for us
to season; but with a deadly confidence he crossed the fields evening
by evening in sight of the keeper’s cottage.
If we had all been Ancient Egyptians we should have developed his
talent. The keeper would have trained him to retrieve, and he would
gaily have accompanied the shooting parties. If I had even been the
Marchioness of Carabbas I should have turned the talent to account, and
Ra, clad in a neat pair of Wellingtons, would have left my compliments
and a pair of rabbits on all the principal houses in the neighbourhood.
Prejudice was too strong for us. I won a truce for Ra until we could
find a new home for him, and he departed in safety. I heard, to my
relief, that he seemed quite happy and settled, and had bitten and
scratched a large number of Eton boys.
Now up to his departure we had at once admired and despised Ra, but
no one understood him. His appearance was so dignified, his spirit
seemed so mean. He lent a silky head to be caressed, and while you
still stroked him, without a sign of warning except the heavy thud of
the last joint of his tail, he turned and bit. He addressed one in a
small, delicate voice of complaint, yet wanted nothing. He followed me
up and down in the garden with a sedate step; there were no foolish
games in bushes, pretence of escape, hope of chase and capture. Happy
or fearful, sociable or solitary, Ra was utterly self-contained.
Now hear the last act.
Ra began paying calls from his new home, and was established on
a footing of intimacy at a neighbouring house. As he sat in the
drawing-room window there one morning, he watched the gardener planting
bulbs. The gardener planted a hundred crocus bulbs and went home to
dinner. No sooner was he gone than Ra descended, went to the bed,
and dug up the bulbs from first to last. Then he returned to the
drawing-room window.
The gardener came back, and lo! his hundred bulbs lay exposed. Nothing
moved; no creature was to be seen but a cat with solemn face and green,
disapproving eyes, who glared at him from the window.
The gardener replanted half his bulbs and went to fetch some tool; when
he returned he seemed to himself to be toiling in a weird dream, for
the bulbs he had replanted lay again exposed and the cat still sat like
an image in the window.
Again he toiled at his replanting, and finally left the garden.
In a moment Ra descended upon it; with hasty paws he disinterred the
crocuses, and laid the hundred on the earth. Then, shrouded still in
impenetrable mystery, Ra returned home.
History does not relate whether or no the gardener consulted a brain
specialist the following day. [Illustration: Kitten by Madame Ronner]