Do you remember Topaz? Do you remember that ball of pride and red fur
with the inscrutable eyes and erect tail and no heart at all as far as I
was concerned?
Do you remember her slow, insolent porte, her airs of caste? How she
lapped milk, delicately, dubiously, to oblige you, not herself? How she
would sit in the fireside circle o’ nights, her paws doubled under her,
discreet, unobtrusive, yet so obviously a visitor, that she made Father,
who is a family man, feel uncomfortable? How she would edge in graceful
reproof from the uninvited, stroking hand? With what silent savagery she
fought you if you took her on your knee?
No cat to whom I have belonged has ever treated me as Topaz did; at
best—with resignation as having a nice taste in eiderdowns on a rainy
night; at worst—ignoring me as subtly as she ignored the fluttered but
inaccessible canary. Yet I did my best for her, always brushed her,
never washed her, obeyed barefooted, in the chillest hours, her
peremptory mew. Not that she was consciously ungrateful. I think she
knew that I meant well. But she never permitted me for an instant to
imagine that I understood her—I, who flatter myself that I appreciate
poor pussy more than most!
And then the house next door was taken at last, by a ramshackle, elastic
family with a studio, who hung out their washing in the front garden as
well as the back. We did not call upon them. But Topaz did. Call? She
adopted them!
She, who would not be handled, patted even, I have seen, her claws full
of bark, hauled from a tree by her tail and carried limply, head
downwards, under the arm of the youngest son; or rolling on her back in
the gravel, ecstatically appreciative of Mrs. Next Door’s thimble under
her ear. She sat about on their shoulders, their laps, wherever she
could get: caught their mice, drank their skim milk, allowed them to
wash her in one bath with the terrier pup. Why? Heaven knows! She liked
them. They were her sort. Yet I am sure we were a much nicer family than
the people next door.
She never quite forgot us: was even, as if in apology, a shade more
friendly than before. For a long time, indeed, she paid a daily call of
courtesy, sitting a dignified half-hour on what had been her chair,
before retiring again to her spiritual home; but one always felt that
she did it as a matter of duty. And when the Next Doors moved on, her
visits ceased. We missed her, just a little, and made half-hearted
inquiries, but there it ended. The Next Doors must have taken her with
them. At any rate we never set eyes on Topaz again.
All this I tell you because I am sure that what I feel about Topaz is
what Aunt Adela felt about Laura and the Clouds. Laura, you see, adopted
the Clouds. From the day when Justin carried her home to his mother, to
the end at least of this story, she was theirs, body and soul, clinging
to them, shyly, unobtrusively, yet with the delicate tenacity of a white
rose-bush adopting a south wall.
Aunt Adela did not, could not, object. Aunt Adela, who lived
wholeheartedly for her neighbours and their more intimate affairs, Aunt
Adela, who liked to be asked to _tête-à-tête_ tea, or to meet her
hostess’s dearest friends, had never overcome a certain aloofness that
distinguished Mrs. Cloud and made her a desirable acquaintance. Aunt
Adela’s snobbery was harmless enough. To do her justice, money meant
nothing to her, poor as she was; but she had her weakness for what she
called “the best people.” And Mrs. Cloud, with her gentle interest in
your affairs, and her placid and implacable reserve about her own, Mrs.
Cloud, with her son at college and her husband on the church wall, and a
bishop burgeoning in the family tree, Mrs. Cloud belonged, Aunt Adela
felt in her bones, to the very best people.
Aunt Adela, then, was flattered at Mrs. Cloud’s approval of Aunt Adela’s
niece, put no difficulties in Laura’s way, and, after a time, grew tired
of questioning her as to how she got on with Mrs. Cloud, how she
employed the regularly lengthening hours she spent at the Priory. Yet,
under her acquiescence, and without any special affection for Laura, she
resented Laura’s stubborn preference for Mrs. Cloud in exactly the
fashion that I resented the defection of Topaz. Why couldn’t Laura be
contented at home? After all, they must be a nicer family than the
Clouds—even than the Clouds!
Gran’papa, by the way, made no comment at all, shared neither Aunt
Adela’s voluble approval—“and Mrs. Cloud has such an Influence”—nor her
secret acerbity. Possibly he was uninterested—possibly he was not left
out in the cold. Laura knew her way to Gran’papa’s room. And Gran’papa,
between his care of his granddaughter’s grammar and his correction of
her pronunciation and enunciation—he was never satisfied with either—may
yet have had time to be thrilled by the news that Mrs. Cloud had sent
Justin a hamper, that Laura had helped her to pack it and had dug up her
own radish from her own garden to put in, because Mrs. Cloud had said
that Justin simply loved—liked, Gran’papa—Justin simply liked radishes!
and had Gran’papa read _The Tiger of Mysore_—Henty? It was Justin’s
book, only one of the covers was gone, and Mrs. Cloud had said that
Justin had said she might have it. She would lend it to Gran’papa if he
liked. A perfectly ripping—a most extremely interesting book.
Now why should not Laura have imparted these and kindred matters to Aunt
Adela—questioning, quiveringly interested Aunt Adela? When Papa was so
unsympathetic with children.... The twins, for instance.... The twins
had no link with him at all beyond the weekly threepennies.... Aunt
Adela could not make it out. Or, for that matter, what dear Mrs. Cloud
saw in Laura....
Little enough, I should think, at first, save Justin’s vouchsafed
interest. Justin, who was so absorbed by things that he seldom had time
for people, had not forgotten Laura, had actually inquired after the
child, twice, in letters, had carried her off, dumb with delight, on his
next Sunday at home, to spend the afternoon in his den. Justin had
talked: Mrs. Cloud had heard the rumble of his deep voice all the
afternoon. Mrs. Cloud had a smile and a thanksgiving for her good son,
tender as a girl to acknowledged pain or need.
Yet, to me, it seems nevertheless certain that Laura had, from the
first, the trick of keeping him amused. From the first, too, she must
have had her shepherding way with him and his belongings; for Mrs.
Cloud, announcing tea, hardly recognized Justin’s den—Justin’s
housemaid-proof den. Laura would appear to have tidied it. At any rate,
however they had passed their afternoon, they came down to dripping cake
and muffins at last, hungry and very well-pleased with each other.
Justin told his mother that Laura was a ripping little kid.
What Laura told the Memory who still came to her in the night-time, who
knows? Yet that that yearning shadow was eased, appeased, by what it
heard, I do believe; because, as the months sped, its anxious visits
lessened and grew rare, until, at last, it came no more to a Laura grown
happy again.
Justin, of course, was seldom at home, but you can see, with his open
and unusual approval working upon Mrs. Cloud’s already aroused
motherliness, how swift and steady would be her notice of Laura. It was
in her nature to be kind, pitiful, easy. Her cheerful heart was like her
cheerful house, with window-wide rooms, white and golden and domestic,
filled with sunshine and flowers, with firelight and singing birds and
kittens that never grew up. She had room in both for a child’s voice and
a child’s ways, the more, perhaps, since the reserve her son shared
would not, though she were lonely with Justin away, let her say easily
to a stranger, “Come in—be at home!” But a child she could welcome.
Laura, on her side, had no hesitations whatever. Driven by the needs of
her nature, shy Laura, timid, tentative Laura, could, like any starved
sparrow, be insistent upon Mrs. Cloud’s threshold, cheeping hopefully
till she was accorded entry-right, her crumbs, and a corner in the warm.
Once in, once accepted, she was quiet. Too quiet ... thought Mrs. Cloud,
yet a good little soul.... She was dazed, I dare say, in those first
months, by her better fortune: was still eyeing life with meek
vigilance, as a dog eyes you when you have stumbled on its paw. Also,
though she clung to Justin’s mother, she had no special spontaneous
affection for Mrs. Cloud, as Mrs. Cloud who was ready enough to pet her,
soon realized. Grateful she was, but elusive too, cold, evading kisses,
unresponsive when you took her on your knee, limply angular against a
motherly breast. It was not Mrs. Cloud who had picked her up out of a
haystack—out of a hell....
But, received discreetly as one representing a federate state, allowed
to hunch by the hour (but on an individual footstool) at Mrs. Cloud’s
feet, hugging her own knees, elaborating her own views of life and
enquiring with luring, alluring interest into those of her hostess,
Laura could be singularly companionable in an elderly and impersonal
fashion that made Justin laugh and chaff them both when he caught them
at their gossiping, but which had the undoubted effect of making Mrs.
Cloud confidential.
‘Confidential’ is a strange word to link with Mrs. Cloud, who did not,
originally because she would not (but ‘would’ had long ago hardened into
‘could’) expand or respond to any one save Justin: and how often, how
intimately even to him, had she spoken of what lay closest to her heart?
closer, more desperately dear than Justin, even than Justin; for women
will always wonder how far the God-appointed seed consoles for Abel dead
and Cain a fugitive. What should Justin know, beyond their names, of the
two little girls who died, and of the first-born, John, the legendary
brother, so like and so unlike himself, John Cloud the ne’er-do-weel,
swallowed up years since by the continent that gives new lamps for old?
But watch Mrs. Cloud’s face (or, if you love her a little, do not watch)
when Brackenhurst stirs its tea, and doubles up its thin
bread-and-butter, and talks, with its air of bewildered but unshakable
patronage, of America.
The grocer, bankrupt since Brackenhurst’s invasion by the smart,
blue-painted Co-operative Stores (margarine given in with every pound of
butter) poor Pringleson the grocer is doing very well out there. Has
built a house and sent home for Mrs. Pringleson.
“Ah, well—one knows how they want men!” says Brackenhurst sagely.
“Actually pay emigrants to come. Or is that New Zealand? And that girl
from the ‘Plough’!” Brackenhurst coughs. “Yes, doing splendidly! Ah,
well, they want servants so out there, you see! An absolute famine! Put
up with anything—anything! Extraordinary! No caps! Bicycles provided!
Evenings out! And wages! Incredible!”
Brackenhurst, with an eye on its own dragooned and aproned treasure,
hesitates between envy of a land that can afford such wages and concede
such privileges, and a preference for its own England of modest incomes
and attendant uniforms. And volunteers news of a nephew’s friend who was
in the rush of ’ninety-six, an eulogy of Ella Wheeler Wilcox and a
recipe for American rarebit, and so to Mrs. Beeton and home waters
again.
But we watch the two bright spots of colour fade again in Mrs. Cloud’s
cheeks, and her hand relax that held so tightly the arm of the chair,
while with the other she lifts her tea-cup and drinks, a little
thirstily, and are glad that Brackenhurst is less observant than you or
I should be, of its dear Mrs. Cloud.
And yet, incredible as it may seem, it was not long before Laura knew
all about John, and Lettice, and little Mary-Rosalind. The big fat
family albums, with their stamped, stuffed leathern covers and biblical
clasps, were not to be kept from Laura, reverent yet intrigued: and once
fairly open on Mrs. Cloud’s lap at a little girl in pantalettes and an
urchin that Laura at first glance had mistaken for Justin, there would
be stories.
Laura would ground-bait artfully.
“Was Justin ever naughty when he was little, Mrs. Cloud?”
Mrs. Cloud would affect forgetfulness.
“Oh, not more than other children, I suppose. Aren’t your little
brothers ever naughty?”
Laura would consider.
“Oh, yes. Silly naughty. But not exciting. Not like Justin when he threw
the porridge at Miss Beamish.” Her eyes gleamed admiration. “And that
day, you know, at the photographer’s—when he was so cross. The picture’s
here.”
“That was John,” said Mrs. Cloud quickly.
“Oh??” Laura could put a good deal into her exclamations. “Oh???”
The knitting needles would slacken for long minutes, till at last, with
a click and a gleam, caught from the fire or from Mrs. Cloud’s eyes,
hands and voice would pick up the thread.
“I’m afraid he was a bad boy, too. I remember——”
Then Laura would give a sigh of achievement and settle down to listen.
But besides the stories, the interminable stories that a child loves, of
other little boys and girls, there was endless amusement in the
grown-ups, the drooping ladies and _Mr. Mantalini_ gentlemen, the family
groups with pig-tailed children, the crinolines and the bustles, the
whiskers and the ringlets, and the pork-pie hats of all the aunts and
uncles and cousins and grandfathers and great-grandmothers of Justin. It
was very interesting: and she learned to refer to them with an air of
intimate recollection that staggered Justin one day, when, sprawling by
the fire with a college friend and _The Scarlet Pimpernel_, he told a
story, quite a good story, of an _émigré_ who had married a great-aunt
or other of his own.
A voice from the window-seat at once reproached him.
“Not _your_ great-aunt, Justin, your _mother’s_ great-aunt, and it was
her great-aunt Jane Eleanor, not her great-aunt Emily.”
Justin jumped.
Laura—as usual she was lying flat, her chin in her fists, her heels in
the air—turned a page. She was no longer concerned. She had done her
duty, and the _Arabian Nights_ was more than absorbing.
“Oh, it was, was it?” said Justin. And then, recovering, “Shut up,
Laura. It’s not your Aunt Emily!”
She lifted eyes clouded with her story.
“Eleanor—not Emily,” she corrected patiently. “Great-aunt Emily married
Great-uncle Michael, and it’s their little boy you were so like when you
were little. All except the nose.”
The friend chuckled.
“Where did you get all this from?” demanded Justin, overborne by the
evidence.
“I don’t know—your mother told me,” said Laura vaguely. Then, without a
change of tone—“Justin, would _you_ have married _Haiatalnefous_, as
well as the _Princess of China_ if you’d been _Camaralzaman_?”
“Certainly not,” said Justin virtuously, and the friend went off into a
sudden fit of laughter.
“Because I don’t think it was fair,” said Laura with intense conviction.
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