THE KITTEN
The Kitten was born on a Whitsunday morning about eight o'clock. Mr
Ffolliot went himself to announce the news to Ger, who was sitting in
his high chair eating bread and milk at nursery breakfast. Ger was all
alone with Thirza, the under-nurse, and he was thunderstruck to see his
father at such an unusual hour, above all, in such an unusual place as
his nursery.
"Ger," said Mr Ffolliot, quite genially for him, "you've got a new
little sister."
Ger regarded his father solemnly with large, mournful eyes, then said
aggrievedly, "Well, _I_ can't help it."
Mr Ffolliot laughed. "You don't seem overjoyed," he remarked.
"Are you sorry, father?" Ger asked anxiously.
"Sorry," Mr Ffolliot repeated, "of course not; why should you think I'm
sorry?"
"Well, you see," said Ger, "it makes another of us."
Mr Ffolliot ignored this remark. He moved towards the door. At the
door he paused; "You may," he said graciously, "go and see your little
sister in an hour or two; mother said so."
As the door was closed behind him, Thirza sat down again with a sort of
gasp. "Whatever did you mean, my dear, talking to Squire like that?"
she demanded shrilly.
"Like what?" asked Ger.
"Sayin' as it wasn't your fault, and seemin' so down about it all.
Why, you ought to be glad there's a dear little new baby, and you such
an affectionate child an' all."
"It makes another of us," Ger persisted, and Thirza gave him up as an
enigma.
In due time he went to the dressing-room off the big spare bedroom, and
there sat the kind, comfortable lady he knew as "mother's nurse" (Ger
had not seen her as often as the others, but still she came from time
to time "just to see how they were all getting on," and he liked her).
There she sat on a small rocking-chair with a bundle on her knee.
"Come, my darling, and see your little sister," she cried cheerfully.
Ger advanced. She opened the head flannel and displayed a small, dark
head, and a red, puckered countenance.
"When will she be able to see?" asked Ger.
As if in answer the baby opened a pair of large dark eyes and stared
fixedly at the round, earnest face bent above her.
"See, bless you!" mother's nurse exclaimed, "see! why, she isn't a
kitten. She can see right enough. Look how she's taking you in. She
has stared about from the minute she was born, as if she'd been here
before and was looking round to see that things were all the same.
She's the living image of Squire."
"I think she's rather like a kitten," Ger persisted, "but I'm glad she
can see. I think she likes me rather."
And that was how the Kitten got her name.
She was not a Grantly. She was all Ffolliot, and she was the only one
of the children absolutely fearless in the presence of her father.
Small and dark and delicately made, with quick-sighted falcon-coloured
eyes that nothing escaped. Unlike her big, healthy brethren, she was
never in the slightest degree shy or clumsy, and she cared not a single
groat for anyone or anything in the whole wide world so long as she got
her own way. And this, being a member of the Ffolliot family, she did
not get nearly as often as she would have liked. But she understood
her father as did none of the others, and she could "get round him" in
a fashion that filled those others with astonished admiration.
She also considerably astonished Mr Ffolliot, for from the very first
she was familiar, and familiarity on the part of his children he
neither encouraged nor desired. Moreover, she was ubiquitous and
elusive. No army of nurses could restrain the Kitten in her
peregrinations. She could speak distinctly, run, and run fast, when
she was little over a year old, and she possessed a singularly
enquiring mind. She was demonstrative but not affectionate; she was
enchanting, and stony-hearted was the creature who could resist her.
She liked an audience, and she loved to "tell" things. To this end she
would sit on your knee and lay one small but determined hand upon your
cheek to turn your face towards her, so that she could make sure you
were attending. She kept the small hand there, soft and light, a
fairy-like caress, unless your attention wandered. If this happened, a
sharp little pinch quickly diverted your thoughts into the proper
channel. As she pinched you, the Kitten dropped her eyes so that you
noticed how long and black were her eyelashes. Then, having punished
you, she raised her eyes to yours with so seraphic an expression that
you thought of "large-eyed cherubim" and entirely forgot that she had
pinched you at all, unless next day as you looked in the glass you
happened to notice a little blue mark on your cheek. The Kitten could
pinch hard.
She was Ger's greatest joy and his unceasing anxiety. From the very
first he had constituted himself her guide, philosopher . . . and
slave. Yet the dictatorial little lady found out very early in the
day, that in certain things she had to conform to her indulgent
brother's standards, the family standards; and though she might be all
Ffolliot in certain matters, the Grantly ethics were too strong for
her. That Ger should love her, that he should be always kind and
protective and unselfish she took as a matter of course; but she wanted
him to admire her too, and ready as he was to oblige her in most
things, she found that here he was strangely firm. If she told tales
or complained of people, or persisted in tiresome teasing when asked
politely to desist, Ger withdrew the light of his countenance, and the
Kitten was uncomfortable.
To tell tales, or complain, or try to get another into trouble for any
reason whatsoever was forbidden. The others had each in their turn
accepted this doctrine as they accepted day and night, the sun and moon
and stars. The Kitten had to be taught these things, and Ger it was
who saw to it that she learned them.
There was a law in the family that if any member of it, after enduring
for a space a certain line of conduct from another, said, "_Please_
stop it," that person had to stop, or nemesis, by no means
leaden-footed, overtook the offender. It took quite a long time to get
it into the Kitten's head that it was a law.
She had an extraordinarily loud and piercing cry when she was angry--a
cry that penetrated to the sacred study itself, no matter where she
might be in the house.
One day when she was about three years old she was so naughty, so
disobedient, so entirely unmanageable at nursery tea, that Nana, the
long-suffering, fairly lost her temper. The Kitten placed the final
stone on a pillar of wrongdoing by drawing patterns on the tablecloth
with a long line of golden syrup dropped from a blob she had secured on
her small finger, and Nana gave the chubby hand belonging to the finger
a good hard smack. The Kitten opened her mouth and gave vent to a yell
almost demoniacal in its volume and intensity.
Mr Ffolliot, reading the _Quarterly Review_ in dignified seclusion,
heard it in his study, was convinced that his youngest child was being
tortured by the others, and hastened hot-foot to the nursery.
Ger had his fingers in his ears. Nana, flushed and angry, stirred her
tea pretending that she didn't hear; Thirza murmured pacific and wholly
useless nothings. At her father's sudden and wholly unexpected
appearance, accompanied as it was by the swift uprising of both the
nurses, the Kitten stopped her clamorous vociferation, and with bunches
of tears still hanging on her lashes smiled radiantly at the Squire,
announcing with a wave of her sticky little hand.
"'At's fahver."
"What," Mr Ffolliot demanded angrily, "what in heaven's name has been
done to that child to make her shriek like that? What happened?"
"Miss Kitten, sir," Nana said slowly, "has not been very good at tea
this afternoon."
"But what made her shriek like that?" Mr Ffolliot continued--"a more
alarming cry I never heard."
"She smacked me," said the Kitten, glowering at Nana, "she 'urted me";
and at that moment she met Ger's eyes.
The Kitten turned very red.
"Who smacked you?" asked Mr Ffolliot unwisely.
Ger stared at the Kitten, and the Kitten wriggled in her chair.
"Say what _you_ did," muttered Ger, still holding his small sister in
compelling gaze.
Nana smiled. She had started with Grantly, and knew the family.
"Fahver," said the Kitten in her most seductive tones, "take me," and
she held out her arms.
Mr Ffolliot succumbed. He went round to his youngest daughter and
lifted her out of her high chair, only to put her down with exceeding
haste a moment later.
"The child is all over some horrible sticky substance," he cried,
irritably.
"'At was it," said the Kitten.
Mr Ffolliot fled to wash his hands and change his coat. Nana and
Thirza sat down again. Ger shook his head at his small sister. "You
_are_ a rotter," he said, sadly.
The Kitten began to cry again, but this time she cried quite softly,
and Nana, in spite of the libations of golden syrup, took her upon her
knee to comfort her.
Every evening the children went down to the hall to play with their
mother, and when their grandparents were there things were more than
usually festive. Ganpie never seemed to mind how many children swarmed
over him--in fact, he rather seemed to like it; and Grannie assuredly
knew more entrancing games than anyone else in the world.
One Christmas Eve, just after tea, the whole family, including Mr
Ffolliot, were gathered in the hall. Fusby had just taken the tray,
the General was sitting by the fire with Ger on his knee, the Kitten
sat on the opposite side of the hearth on her father's, while the rest
of the young people indulged in surreptitious "ragging." Uz and Buz,
by some mischance, charged into a heavy oaken post crowned by a large
palm, with such force that they knocked it over, and the big flower-pot
missed their grandfather and Ger by a hair's breadth.
When the universal consternation had subsided, the scattered earth been
swept up, and the twins had been suitably reprimanded, the Kitten
scrambled down from her father's knee, and trotted across to her
grandmother, was duly taken up, and with small insistant hand turned
her Grannie's face towards her.
"Which would you rather?" she asked in her high clear voice, "that
Ganpie had been killed or Ger?"
Mrs Grantly shuddered--"Baby, don't suggest such dreadful things," she
exclaimed.
"But which would you rather?" the Kitten persisted. "You're all saying
'another inch and it would have killed one of zem'--which one would you
rather?"
But Mrs Grantly flatly refused to state her preference, and the Kitten
was clearly disappointed.
That night she added an additional clause to her prayers: "Thank you,
God dear, for not letting the flower-pot kill Ganpie or Ger, and I'm
sure Grannie's very much obliged too."
At her prayers the Kitten always knelt bolt upright with her hands
tightly clasped under her chin, her nightgown draped in graceful folds
about her--a most reverent and saintly little figure, except that she
had from the very first firmly refused to shut her eyes.
She was fond of adding a sort of P.S. to her regular prayers, and
enjoyed its effect upon her mother, who made a point of, herself,
attending the orisons of her two youngest children. One evening when
Mrs Ffolliot had been reading her a rather pathetic story of a
motherless child, the Kitten added this petition, "Please, God, take
care of all the little girls wiv no mummies."
Mrs Ffolliot was touched and related the story afterwards to Uz and
Buz, who grinned sceptically.
Next night, when the Kitten had been very naughty, and Mrs Ffolliot had
punished her, she repeated her prayers with the greatest unction, and
when she reached the usual postscript, fixed her eyes sternly on her
mother's face as she prayed fervently, "And please, dear God, take
great care of the poor little girls what _have_ got mummies."
A mystically minded friend of Mrs Ffolliot's had talked a good deal of
guardian angels to Ger and the Kitten. Ger welcomed the belief with
enthusiasm. It appealed at once to his friendly nature, and the
thought of an angel, "a dear and great angel," all for himself,
specially concerned about him, and there always, though invisible save
to the eye of faith, was a most pleasing conception.
Not that it would have pleased Ger unless he had been assured that
everyone else had one too. And he forthwith constructed a theory that
when people got tired of doing nothing in heaven they came back again
and looked after folks down here.
His views of the angel's actual attributes would much have astonished
his mother's friend had he expressed them. But Ger said nothing, and
quietly constructed an angel after his own heart, who was in point of
fact an angelic sort of soldier servant, never in the way, but always
there and helpful if wanted.
He could not conceive of any servant who was not also a friend, and
having received much kindness from soldiers in the ranks he fixed upon
that type as the most agreeable for a guardian angel. And although he
greatly admired the two framed pictures of angels the lady had given
them to hang in the nursery--Guercino's Angel and Carpaccio's "Tobias
and the angels"--his own particular angel was quite differently clad,
and was called "Spinks" after a horse gunner he had dearly loved, who
was now in India.
The Kitten, far less impressionable, and extremely cautious, was
pleased with the idea when it was first mooted, and discussed the
question exhaustively with Ger, deciding that her angel had large wings
like the one with the child in the picture.
"Does it stay with me in the night-nursery all night?" she enquired.
"'He,' not 'it,'" Ger corrected; "but perhaps yours is a 'she.'"
"I won't have a she," the Kitten said decidedly, for even at four years
old she had already learnt that her own sex had small patience with her
vagaries.
"You'll have to have what's sent you," Ger said solemnly.
"I won't have a lady angel, so there," said the Kitten, "I'll have a
man angel."
"I daresay they'll let you," Ger said soothingly. "A great, big, kind
man with wings like you said."
"Has yours got wings?" the Kitten demanded.
"I don't think so," said Ger, "he's not that sort; but," he added
proudly, "he's got spurs."
"Will it stay in the nursery _all_ night?" the Kitten asked again
rather nervously.
"Of course that's what he's for, to take care of you, so that you'll
feel quite safe and happy."
"Oh," said the Kitten, and her voice betrayed the fact that she found
this statement far from reassuring.
She said nothing to her mother, and Mrs Ffolliot heard her say her
prayers as usual, kissed her, blessed her, and tucked her in. No
sooner, however, had Mrs Ffolliot gone down the passage than the most
vigorous yells brought her back to the night-nursery, while both Nana
and Thirza hastened there also.
The Kitten was sitting up in bed, wide-eyed and apparently more
indignant than frightened.
"Take it away," she exclaimed; "open the window and let it out."
"Let what out?" asked the bewildered Mrs Ffolliot.
"The angel," sobbed the Kitten, "I don't want it, I heard its wings
rustling and it disturbed me dreffully--I don't want it, open the
window wide."
"The window is open at the top," said Mrs Ffolliot; "but why do you
want to get rid of an angel? Surely that's a lovely thing to have in
the room."
"No," said the Kitten firmly, "I don't like it, and I don't want it. I
don't want no angel I haven't seen. I don't like people in my room
when I go to sleep."
Nana and Thirza had melted away, only too thankful not to be called
upon to arbitrate in the angel question. Mrs Ffolliot and her small
daughter stared at each other in the flickering firelight.
"I'm sure," said Mrs Ffolliot, trying hard to steady her voice, "that
no self-respecting angel would stay for a minute with a little girl
that didn't want him. You may be certain of that."
"A she might," the Kitten suggested suspiciously.
"No angel would," Mrs Ffolliot said decidedly.
"Do you think," the Kitten asked anxiously, "that there's enough room
at the top for it to squeege froo? I can't _bear_ those wings
rustling."
Mrs Ffolliot switched on the light. "You can see for yourself."
"Thank you, mummy dear, I'll be much happier by myself, really," and
the Kitten lay down quite contentedly.