the night on certain Eastern counties. The details given were vague and
meagre, and no names of towns or villages where bombs had been dropped
were vouchsafed to the public. But later in the day private information
came to Waghorn that Forsyth Hall, near Epping, had been completely
wrecked. No lives, luckily, were lost, for the house was empty.
CAT STORIES
“PUSS-CAT”
It was during the month of May some nine years ago that the beginning of
the events that concerned Puss-cat took place. I was living at the time
on the green outskirts of a country town, and my dining-room at the back
of the house opened on to a small garden framed in brick walls some five
feet high. Breakfasting there one morning, I saw a large black and white
cat, with a sharp but serious face, observing me with studied attention.
Now at the time there was an interregnum, and my house was without a
mistress (in the shape of a cat), and it at once struck me that I was
being interviewed by this big and pleasing stranger, to see if I would
do. So, since there is nothing that a prospective mistress likes less
than premature familiarity on the part of the householder whom she may
be thinking of engaging, I took no direct notice of the cat, but
continued to eat my breakfast carefully and tidily. After a short
inspection, the cat quietly withdrew without once looking back, and I
supposed that I was dismissed, or that she had decided, after all, to
keep on her present household.
In that I proved to be mistaken: she had only gone away to think about
it, and next morning, and for several mornings after that, I was
subjected to the same embarrassing but not unfriendly scrutiny, after
which she took a stroll round the garden to see if there were any
flower-beds that would do to make ambushes in, and a convenient tree or
two to climb should emergencies arise. On the fourth day, as far as I
remember, I committed an error, and half-way through breakfast went out
into the garden, to attempt to get on more familiar terms. The cat
regarded me for a few moments with pained surprise, and went away; but
after I had gone in again, she decided to overlook it, for she returned
to her former place, and continued to observe. Next morning she made up
her mind, jumped down from the wall, trotted across the grass, entered
the dining-room, and, arranging herself in a great hurry round one
hind-leg, which she put up in the air like a flagstaff, proceeded to
make her morning toilet. That, as I knew quite well, meant that she
thought I would give satisfaction, and I was therefore permitted to
enter upon my duties at once. So I put down a saucer of milk for her,
which she very obligingly disposed of. Then she went and sat by the
door, and said “A-a-a-a,” to show that she wished the door to be opened
for her, so that she might inspect the rest of the house. So I called
down the kitchen stairs, “There is come a cat, who I think means to
stop. Don’t fuss her.” In this manner the real Puss-cat--though I did
not know that--entered the house.
Now here I must make a short defence for my share in these things. I
might, by a hasty judgment, be considered to have stolen her who soon
became Puss-cat’s mamma, but anyone who has any real knowledge of cats
will be aware that I did nothing of the kind. Puss-cat’s mamma was
clearly dissatisfied with her last household and had, without the least
doubt, made up her mind to leave them all and take on a fresh lot of
servants; and if a cat makes up her mind about anything, no power on
earth except death, or permanent confinement in a room where neither
doors nor windows are ever opened, will stop her taking the contemplated
step. If her last (unknown) household killed her, or permanently shut
her up, of course, she could not engage fresh people, but short of that
they were powerless to keep her. You may cajole or bully a dog into
doing what you want, but no manner of persuasion will cause a cat to
deviate one hair’s breadth from the course she means to pursue. If I had
driven her away she would have gone to another house, but never back to
her own. For though we may own dogs and horses and other animals, it is
a great mistake to think that we own cats. Cats employ us, and if we
give satisfaction they may go so far as to adopt us. Besides, Puss-cat’s
mamma did not, as it turned out, mean to stay with me altogether: she
only wanted quiet lodgings for a time.
So our new mistress went discreetly downstairs and inspected kitchen,
scullery, and pantry. She spent some time in the scullery, so I was
told, and felt rather doubtful. But she quite liked the new gas-stove in
the kitchen, and singed her tail at it, as nobody had told her that
lunch was a-cooking. Also she found a mouse-hole below the wainscoting,
which appeared to decide her (for, as we soon found out, she liked
work), and she trotted upstairs again and sat outside the drawing-room
door till somebody opened it for her. I happened to be inside, with
Jill, a young lady of the fox-terrier breed, and, of course, did not
know that Puss-cat’s mamma was waiting. Eventually I came out and saw
her sitting there. Jill saw her, too, and eagerly ran up to her only to
talk, not to fight, for Jill likes cats. But Puss-cat’s mamma did not
know that, so, just in case, she slapped Jill smartly first on one side
the head, and then on the other. She was not angry, but only firm and
strong, and wished that from the first there should be no doubt whatever
about her position. Having done that, she allowed Jill to explain, which
Jill did with twitchings of her stumpy tail and attitude provocative of
gambols. And before many minutes were up, Puss-cat’s mamma was kind
enough to play with her. Then she suddenly remembered that she had not
seen the rest of the house, and went upstairs, where she remained till
lunch-time.
It was the manner in which she spent the first morning that gave me the
key to the character of Puss-cat’s mamma, and we at once settled that
her name had always been Martha. She had annexed our house, it is true,
but in no grabbing or belligerent spirit, but simply because she had
seen from her post on the garden wall that we wanted somebody to look
after us and manage the house, and she could not help knowing how
wonderful she was in all things connected with a mistress’s duties.
Every morning when the housemaid’s step was heard on the stairs during
breakfast (she had a very audible step), Martha, even in the middle of
fish or milk, ran to the door, said “A-a-a-a” till it was opened, and
rushed after her, sitting in each bedroom in turn to see that the slops
were properly emptied and the beds well and truly made. In the middle of
such supervision sometimes came other calls upon her, the front-door
bell would ring, and Martha had to hurry down to see that the door was
nicely opened. Then perhaps she would catch sight of somebody digging in
the garden, and she was forced to go out in this busiest time of the
morning, to dab at the turned-up earth, in order to be sure that it was
fresh. In particular, I remember the day on which the dining-room was
repapered. She had to climb the step-ladder to ascertain if it was safe,
and sit on the top to clean herself. Then each roll of paper had to be
judged by the smell, and the paste to be touched with the end of a pink
tongue. That made her sneeze (which must be the right test for paste),
and she allowed it to be used. That day we lunched in the drawing-room,
and it is easy to imagine how busy Martha was, for the proceeding was
very irregular, and she could not tell how it would turn out. Meal-times
were always busy: she had to walk in front of every dish as it was
brought in, and precede it as it was taken out, and to-day these duties
were complicated by the necessity of going back constantly to the real
dining-room to see that the paper-hangers were not idling. To make the
rush more overpowering, Jill was in the garden wanting to play (and to
play with Jill was one of Martha’s duties) and some young hollyhocks
were being put in, certain of which, for inscrutable reasons, had to be
dug up again with strong backward kicks of the hind-legs.
She had settled that there was but one cat, which was, of course,
herself. Occasionally alien heads looked over the wall, and the cries of
strangers sounded. Whenever that happened, whatever the stress of
housework might be, Martha bounded from house into garden to expel and,
if possible, kill the intruder. Once from my bedroom window I saw a
terrific affair. Martha had been sitting as good as gold among
hair-brushes and nail-scissors, showing me how to shave, when something
feline moving in the garden caught her eye. Not waiting for the door to
be opened, she made one leap of it out of the window into the
apple-tree, and whirled down the trunk, even as lightning strikes and
rips its way to the ground, and next moment I saw her, with paw
uplifted, tearing tufts of fur from the next-door tabby. She was like
one of those amazing Chinese grotesques, half-cat, half-demon, and
wholly warrior. Shrill cries rent the peaceful morning air, and Martha,
intoxicated with vengeance, allowed the mishandled tabby to escape. Then
with awesome face and Bacchanalian eye she ate the tufts of bloodstained
fur, rolling them on her tongue and swallowing them with obvious
difficulty, as if performing some terrible, antique and cannibalistic
rite. And all this from a lady who was so shortly to be confined. But it
was no use trying to keep Martha quiet.
A second minute inspection of her house was necessary before she decided
which should be the birth-chamber. She spent a long time in the
wood-shed that morning, and we hoped that it was going to be there; she
spent a long time in the bath-room, and we hoped it wasn’t. Eventually
she settled on the pantry, and when she had quite made up her mind we
made her comfortable. Next morning three dappled little blind things
were there. She ate one, for no reason, as far as we could judge, but
that she was afraid that Jill wanted to. So, as it was her kitten, not
Jill’s, she ate it.
With all respect for Martha, I think that here she had mistaken her
vocation. She should never have gone in for being a mother. The second
kitten she lay down upon with fatal results. Then, being thoroughly
disgusted with maternity, she went away and never was seen any more. She
deserted the only child she had not killed; she deserted us who had
tried so hard to give satisfaction; and in the basket there was left,
still blind, still uncertain whether it was worth while to live at all,
Puss-cat.
Puss-cat was her mother’s own child from the first, though with much
added. She wasted no time or strength in bewailing her orphaned
condition, but took amazing quantities of milk administered on a
feather. Her eyes opened, as eyes should do, on the seventh day, and she
smiled at us all, and spat at Jill. So Jill licked her nose with anxious
care, and said quite distinctly, “When you are a little older, I will be
always ready to do whatever you like.” Jill says the same sort of thing
to everybody except the dustman.
Soon after, Puss-cat arose from her birth-bed and staggered across the
pantry. Even this first expedition on her own feet was not made without
purpose, for in spite of frequent falls she went straight up to a
blind-tassel, and after looking at it for a long time, tested it with a
tiny paw to make sure of it, thus showing, while scarcely out of the
cradle, that serious purpose which marked her throughout her dear life.
Her motto was, “Do your work,” and since she remained unmarried in spite
of many very eligible offers, I think that her unnatural mother must
have impressed upon her, in those few days before she deserted her,
that the first duty of a cat is to look after the house, and that she
herself didn’t think much of maternity. Puss-cat inherited also, I
suppose, her fixed conviction that she ought to have been, even if she
was not, the only cat in the world, and she would allow no one of her
own race within eyeshot of house or garden. Some of her duties, though
they were always conscientiously performed, I think rather bored her,
but certainly she brought to the expulsion of cats an exquisite sense of
enjoyment. On the appearance of any one of her own nation she would go
hastily into ambush with twitching tail and jerking shoulder-blades,
teasing and torturing herself with the postponement of that rapturous
stealthy advance across the grass, if the quarry was looking the other
way, or the furious hurling of herself through the air, if a frontal
attack had to be delivered. And I often wondered that she did not betray
her ambush by the rapture and sonorousness of her purring, as the
supreme moment approached.
Jill, I am afraid, gave her a lot of worry over this duty of the
expulsion of aliens, for Jill would sooner play with an alien than expel
it, and her plan was to gambol up to the intruder with misplaced
welcome. It is true that the effect was just the same, because a
trespassing cat, seeing an alert fox-terrier rapidly approaching,
seldom, if ever, stops to play, so that Jill’s method was really quite
effective, too. But Puss-cat had high moral purpose behind her: she
wanted not only to expel, but to appal and injure, and like many
moralists of our own species, she enjoyed her fulminations and
onslaughts quite tremendously. She liked punishing other cats, because
she was right and they were wrong, and vigorous kicks and bites would
help them perhaps to understand that.
But though Puss-cat resembled her mother in the matter of the high sense
of duty and moral qualities, she had what Martha lacked: that
indefinable attraction which we call charm, and a great heart. She was
always pleased and affectionate, and went about her duties with as near
an approach to a smile as is possible for the gravest species of animal.
Martha, for instance, played with Jill as a part of her duty, Puss-cat
made a pleasure out of it and played with the ecstatic abandon of a
child. Indeed, I have known her put dinner a quarter of an hour later,
because she was in the lovely jungle of long grass at the end of the
garden, and was preparing to give Jill an awful fright. This business of
the jungle deserves mention, not because it was so remarkable in itself,
but because it was so wonderful to Puss-cat.
The jungle in question was a space of some dozen yards, where in spring
daffodils grew in clumps of sunshine and fritillaries hung their
speckled bells. There were pæonies also planted in the grass, and a
briar-rose, and an apple-tree; nothing, as I have said, was remarkable
in itself, but it was fraught with amazing possibilities to the keen
imagination of Puss-cat. At the bottom of this strip of untamed jungle
the lawn began, and it was one of Puss-cat’s plans to hide at the edge
of the jungle, flattening herself out till she looked like a shadow of
something else. If luck served her, Jill, sooner or later in the pursuit
of interesting smells, would pass close to the edge of the jungle
without seeing her. The moment Jill had gone by, Puss-cat would stretch
out a discreet paw, and just touch Jill on the hind-quarters. Jill, of
course, had to turn round to see what this inexplicable thing meant, and
on the moment Puss-cat would fling herself into the air and descend
tiger-like on Jill’s back. That was the beginning of the game, and it
contained more vicissitudes than a round of golf. There were ambushes
and scurryings innumerable, assaults from the apple-tree, repulsions
from behind the garden roller, periods of absolute quiescence, suddenly
and wildly broken by swift flanking movements through the sweet-peas,
and at the end a failure of wind and limb, and Jill would lie panting on
the bank, and Puss-cat, having put off dinner, proceed to clean herself
for her evening duties. She had to be smart at dinner-time, whether we
were dining alone, or whether there was a dinner-party, for she was
never a tea-gown cat, and she dressed for her dinner, even if we were
dining out. She was not responsible for that; what she was responsible
for was to be tidy herself.
Puss-cat, without doubt, was a plain kitten; but again, like many
children of our own inferior race, she grew up to be a very handsome
cat. With great chic she did not attempt colours, but was pure black and
white. Across her broad, strong back there was a black saddle, but the
saddle, so to speak, had slewed round and made a black band across her
left side. There was an arbitrary patch of black, too, on her left
cheek, a black band on her tail, and a black tip to it. Otherwise she
was pure white, except when she put out a pink tongue below her long,
snowy whiskers. But her charm--the outstanding feature of Puss-cat--was
independent of this fascinating colouring. Martha, for instance, had
been content that dishes were carried into the dining-room, and
subsequently carried out. That and no more was her notion of her duties
towards dinner. But Puss-cat really began where Martha ended. Like her,
she preceded the soup, but when those who were present had received
their share, she always went round with loud purrings to each guest, to
congratulate them and hope that they liked it. For this process, which
was repeated with every dish, she had a particular walk, stepping high
and treading on the tips of her toes. This congratulatory march was
purely altruistic: she did not want soup herself; she was only glad that
other people had got it. Then when fish came, or bird, she would make
her congratulatory tour just the same, and then sit firmly down and say
she would like some too. Occasionally she favoured some particular guest
with marked regard, and sometimes almost forgot her duties as mistress
of the house, choosing rather to sit by her _protégée_ and purr loudly,
so that a dish would already be half-eaten before she went her round to
see that everyone was pleased with his portion. Finally, when coffee was
brought, she went downstairs to the kitchen and retired for the night,
usually sharing Jill’s basket, where they lay together in a soft
slow-breathing heap of black and white.
Puss-cat, like the ancient Greeks, was never sick or sorry; never sick,
because of her robust and stalwart health; never sorry, because she
never did anything to be sorry for. From living with Jill, and never
seeing a cat, except for those short and painful interviews which
preceded expulsion from the garden, she grew to have something of the
selfless affection of a dog, and when I came home after an absence she
would run out into the street to meet me, stiff-tailed, and really not
attending to the debarkation of luggage, but intent only on welcoming me
home. Eight busy, happy years passed thus, and then one bitter February
morning, Pussy-cat disappeared.
* * * * *
The weeks went on, and still there came no sign of her, and when winter
had passed into May I gave up all hopes of her return, and got a fresh
cat, this time a young blue Persian with topaz-coloured eyes. Another
month went by, and Agag (so-called from his delicate walk) had
established himself in our affections, on account of his extraordinary
beauty, rather than from any charm of character, when the second act of
the tragedy opened.
I was sitting at breakfast one morning, with the door into the garden
thrown wide, and Agag was curled up on a chair in the window (for,
unlike Puss-cat and Martha, he did no housework at all, being of proud
and aristocratic descent), when I saw coming slowly across the lawn a
cat that I scarcely recognized. It was lean to the point of emaciation,
its fur was disordered and dirty, but it was Puss-cat come home again.
Then suddenly she saw me, and with a little cry of joy ran towards the
open door. Then she saw Agag, and, weak and thin as she was, she woke at
once to her old sense of duty, and bounded on to his chair. Never before
in her time had a cat got right into the house, and such a thing, she
felt determined, should not occur again. Round the room and out into the
garden raged the battle before I could separate them--Puss-cat inspired
by her sense of duty, Agag angry and astonished at this assault of a
mere gutter-cat in his own house. At last I got hold of Puss-cat and
took her up in my arms, while Agag cursed and swore in justifiable
indignation. For how could he tell that this was Puss-cat?
They never fought again, but it was a miserable fortnight that followed,
and all the misery was poor Puss-cat’s. Agag, in spite of his beauty,
had no heart, and did not mind how many cats I kept, so long as they did
not molest him, or usurp his food or his cushion. But Puss-cat, though
she understood that for some inscrutable reason she had to share her
house with Agag, and not fight him, was a creature of strong affections,
and her poor little soul was torn with agonies of jealousy. Jill, it is
true, who was always treated with contemptuous unconsciousness by Agag,
was certainly pleased to see her friend again, and had not forgotten
her; but Puss-cat wanted so much more than Jill could give her. She took
on her old duties at once, but often when she escorted the fish into the
dining-room and found Agag asleep on his chair, she would be literally
unable to go through with them, and would sit in a corner by herself,
looking miserably and uncomprehendingly at me. Then perhaps the smell of
fish would wake up Agag, and he would stretch himself and stand for a
moment with superbly-arched back on his chair, before he jumped down,
and with loud purrings rubbed himself against the legs of my chair to
betoken his desire for food, or even would jump up on to my knees. That
was the worst of all for Puss-cat, and she would often sit all dinner
through in her remote corner, refusing food, and unable to take her
eyes off the object of her jealousy. While Agag was present, no amount
of caresses or attentions offered to her would console her, so that,
when Agag had eaten, we usually turned him out of the room. Then for a
little while Puss-cat had respite from her Promethean vulture; she would
go her rounds again to see that everybody was pleased, and escort fresh
dishes in with high-stepping walk and erect tail.
* * * * *
We hoped, foolishly perhaps, that in course of time the two would become
friends; else, I think, I should have at once tried to find another home
for Agag. But indeed, short of that, we did all we could do, lavishing
attentions on dear Puss-cat, and trying to make her feel (which indeed
was true) that we all loved her, and only liked and admired Agag. But
while we still hoped, Puss-cat had had more than she could bear, and
once again she disappeared. Jill missed her for a little while, Agag not
at all. But the rest of us miss her still.
THERE AROSE A KING
Agag, though of undoubtedly royal blood, was never a real king. He was
no more than one of the Hyksos, a shepherd-king, bound by the
limitations of his race, and no partaker in its magnificence. Naturally,
he did not work as the late housekeeper had done (and no one expected
that of him), but he had neither the splendour nor the vivacity,
possessed, let us say, by Henry VIII. or George IV., to make up for his
indolence in affairs of state. Henry VIII., anyhow, busied himself in
marriages, whereas Agag was merely terrified at the idea of wooing, not
to say winning, any of the princesses that were brought to his notice;
and they, on their part, only made the rudest faces at him. Again George
IV., though unkingly in many respects, used to plunge about in the wild
pursuit of pleasure, and was supposed to have a kind heart. Agag, on the
contrary, never plunged: a cushion and some fish and plenty of repose
were the sum of his desires, and as for a kind heart, he never had a
heart at all. An unkind heart would have given him some semblance of
personality, but there was not the faintest room to suppose that any
emotion, other than the desire for food and sleep and warmth, came
within measurable distance of him. He died in his sleep, probably of
apoplexy, after a large meal, and beautiful in death as in life, was
buried and forgotten. I have never known a cat so completely devoid of
character, and I sometimes wonder whether he was a real cat at all, and
not some sort of inflated dormouse in cat’s clothing.