AN INVALID
After supper, about half-past eight, Auntie May took me in her arms and
carried me into a bedroom. A stiff woman was there with a white cap and
apron on. On the bed, that was very prettily trimmed and arranged with
painted flowers and real flowers all about it, was Beatrice. She had
yellow hair trained all over the pillow, tied up with blue bows, and
a great many of them. Her eyes were very wide open and sad. She was a
very tall woman, for she stretched a good way under the bedclothes. She
put out a wretchedly thin sort of claw to take hold of me--she had seen
Auntie May before, just for a minute.
'Oh, you sweet, right, absolutely perfect thing,' she said to me. 'May,
how did you know that it was exactly what I wanted?'
All this was so fearfully and wonderfully polite that I made a great
effort and conquered my own repugnance to an ill person, and flinging
mother's mean counsels to the winds, I let her take me in her arms and
fold me up quite close to her, almost inside the sheets, and squeeze me
till I thought she would drive all the breath out of my body. At any
rate, the poor sick thing was happy, and it is a delightful feeling to
be giving any one pleasure like that. I didn't even squeal. She was far
too weak to do it again, luckily, but lay quite still with her arms
slack, letting me lie on her chest, curled up so that it would take me
some time to go away. I think They ought to know that if once you get a
cat to curl wherever it is you want him to settle, he has accepted the
situation, and there is no fear of his running away for the present.
'Will you leave it with me, May, dear? Will it stop alone with me
without you, do you think?'
'Oh, it is very young, it hasn't learnt to love _me_ yet!' Auntie May
said hastily. 'It will stay with you all right--that is, if nurse
permits it.'
She raised her eyebrows at the nurse and the nurse nodded.
'I can't say I approve of cats in the sick-room, Miss,' she said in a
low voice while Beatrice was fondling me, 'but for this once--and it
seems to have done her so much good, too!'
Auntie May said, 'You see, we are all like that in our
family--perfectly mad on cats. It is only because my sister lives in
the country, where cats are so apt to go a-hunting and get killed, that
she doesn't have the house full of them. You see, I know how she feels,
as I am her twin-sister. Now I will go and tell my brother-in-law of
the success of his prescription.'
Before she left the room she bent down and whispered to me:
'Be a good boy, and stay behind willingly, and don't come squealing
after me the moment the door shuts behind me, or I'll never forgive
you, Loki, so just you mind!'
'What are you two mumbling together?' asked Beatrice pleasantly. 'I
won't have any secrets. I want Loki's undivided allegiance, please.'
So I stayed with Beatrice all night, and the nurse most officiously
stayed too. There was a sweet little dancing light on the mantelpiece
that I could not take my eyes off, as it flickered over the edge
of its silver dish. Beatrice never seemed to sleep. The nurse fed
her twice--once it was cornflour, for they gave me the remainder of
it. The nurse was kind on the whole, but rather contemptuous. I
told mother about her afterwards, and mother said nurses always were
contemptuous--that is, if they were any good. The coaxing, sweet-spoken
ones never got any authority, and usually were changed in a month.
This one didn't mind showing that she thought Beatrice an utter fool
to want to keep a grey kitten with her day and night, but she had seen
so many invalids she was never surprised at anything. When she was not
nursing Beatrice, she sat and made herself stiff white calico aprons,
and broke a needle over every seam. She took me down to Auntie May for
my meals, lifting me very gently, as if I had been a 'case'; but she
hadn't the slightest idea where my bones came, as Auntie May did--I
could tell that from the way she carried me.
I saw _her_ having her meals once. She crooked her little finger
over the handle of the teacup as she drank and stopped between each
mouthful, and when the parlour-maid, who waited on her very crossly,
asked her if she would have another helping of mutton, she answered,
'Thank you, I have sufficient,' and to the same question about her
beer, she replied, 'Not any more, thank you!'
It was while I was in Beatrice's bedroom that I first saw myself in
the glass. I thought it was another cat at first. I kissed it, and its
mouth was very cold. Then I lifted my paw to shake paws with it, as it
seemed so anxious to be friends. It did exactly what I did. This was
unsatisfactory somehow. I got cross, and dabbed at its paw with mine;
and then I got crosser still and dabbed just anywhere all over the
place, and it seemed quite as furious as I was and dabbed too. I should
have gone on for ever if Beatrice hadn't asked what that scratching,
pattering noise was? The nurse answered, 'The cat sees himself in the
glass, Madam,' in the little stiff voice she had.
So that was all, and I was very much hurt at having been made such a
fool of, and what is more, I did not believe it. It _was_ a ghost.
Some cats believe in ghosts, some don't, mother told me. She herself
sees them. I longed to get home again and compare notes with mother.
What I saw may have been the ghost of Great-Uncle Tomyris, whom I am
supposed to resemble. I sometimes went and exposed myself to him again,
but not too often; I had a shy feeling about him. I simply detested
being held up to a glass to see him, as Auntie May sometimes chose to
do, with great want of tact. I would not fight him, or even touch him;
why should I? His nose was awfully cold, and sent a thrill through me,
as of one who comes from another world.
Beatrice got slowly better, and I got ill. They did not feed me right,
but brought me remains of sticky, greasy made dishes with queer
flavours that would disagree with any cat. We like to live very simply,
and I was little more than a kitten. But I _had_ to eat something to
keep body and fur together, and yet what I did eat did not nourish me,
and only did me harm.
'His little stomach is like a drum,' Beatrice said sadly. 'He has got
indigestion. What could you fancy, my pet, my sweet? I wish I could
guess and I would give it you.'
I wanted a piece of plain lean beef, minced for preference, or
shredded, but I knew cooks didn't like setting the mincing-machine in
motion '_for a cat!_' so I supposed I should not get it, though I knew
Auntie May had ordered it for me. It is funny how people, inferior
people, think a cat can eat anything. Auntie May always takes in the
butcher by not allowing the cook at home to send for 'pieces for
cats.' If you mention that it's for a cat, she says, the butcher or
the fishmonger always wraps up the meat or fish in newspaper, she has
noticed that particularly.
I wished she would go into the kitchen and blow up that cook. She was
so bothered about Beatrice that she was not herself, and seemed to have
forgotten me, in spite of her loving words when she came across me on
the stairs or anywhere.
Beatrice had massage, and she knew how it was done and she gave me
some, which relieved the pain a little. She used to rub my stomach
gently for half-an-hour together, and when I at last got well she was
firmly persuaded that she had cured me. I knew better. It was Tom.
Tom never took much notice of me, but once when he was leaning over
Beatrice's bed she told him that I was not well.
'Poor brute,' said he, 'I should like to know how it could be well! Fed
on messes and deprived of exercise! No dog could thrive on a regimen
like that, and I suppose a cat is put together something after the same
fashion.'
'But,' said Beatrice, 'how can he have exercise, Tom? They tell me that
there were two degrees of frost the night before last, and the garden
is a mush, and the grass all white with rime!'
'No matter, that's what he wants. Look at him!'
I had risen and gone across to the window to try to signify to Them
that I agreed with Tom, who added, 'The poor little beggar knows what
is good for him.'
'It isn't good for him to wet his little silver feet,' said Beatrice.
'I bet you it wouldn't hurt him. Be as good as a Beecham's pill to the
little fellow,' said Tom, who was getting quite excited over his idea.
I was leaping about, alternately rubbing myself against the window and
then against his knee. 'Look here, Beatrice, I'll take him out. I'll
take the responsibility.'
'Do what you like, Tom, but whatever you do don't let May catch you.'
'May is in the dark room, developing some photos. Come on, you kid!' He
lifted me as nicely as Auntie May could; his hands were enormous, and
one of them seemed to swallow me all up, and hiding me under the lapel
of his coat, he slunk downstairs with me, chuckling all the time. He
opened the hall door, carried me across the gravel, which was soaking,
and dropped me on to the lawn.
Wow! but it was wet! I stood a moment undecided, but then I saw that
good Tom on the other side of the patch of grass dangling something in
his hand. My courage came to me and I darted across, squelching out wet
at every step I took. Tom, of course, wasn't at the other end when I
got there, but at the place I had just left, still waving the enticing
thing, whatever it was. I scuttled after him, and we played that game
three times, and I felt like a new cat. The fourth time he stayed,
and let me get hold of the object, which was nothing more than an old
leather bit of strap that he punished the dogs with, and when I had got
my teeth well into it, he caught me up by it and carried me back to
Beatrice.
'Here's your precious cat! Now dry his feet and polish them up for
all you're worth; put a shine on them, if you can'--he handed her a
towel--'and don't leave a wet hair on him.'
I was all right after that. Also the rime went off the grass, and it
was rather fine for October, and they got into the way of letting me
go out a little regularly. Auntie May protested, and said it had never
been done in our family, but Tom assured her it could do me no harm if
I was brought in and not allowed to sit about with damp feet. I simply
loved Tom, for it was he who cured me far more than the massage, and
got me leave to run about in the garden and try to catch things.
I never caught anything, but all sorts of things tried to catch me.
Once it was three thrushes that hunted me across the lawn in front of
the drawing-room windows, and a strange dog once strayed in, attracted
by the sight of me, and I should have had a bad time, only that
Beatrice always took care to have a window left open somewhere on all
the sides of the house for me to fly in to in case of need.
The _house_ dogs had all been introduced to me and told to leave me
alone, and they jolly well obeyed. Beatrice said she never could have
believed that they would have tolerated me as they did. They not only
tolerated me--I saw to that myself, for I very soon began to lord it
over them and take any seat I fancied, even though it had been Peg's or
Meg's before--they got to treat me as gentlemen treat ladies, moving
out of any nice place when I approached, and never thinking of going
out of a room before me. We could not understand each other in the
least, and I have often wondered why, since I can understand Beatrice
and Auntie May, and all the big ones so well. The dogs make absurd
noises and bark, but perhaps it means nothing, and they only _think_
they are talking! Anyway they are not nearly such conversational
creatures as cats; they often get through a whole day without uttering
a sound. Now I can't even enter a room without making a remark, and
when anything has happened to me I come in and tell Them, forgetting
They can't understand me. Auntie May always listens politely.
'What is all this you are trying to tell me?' she said, when I came in
one day full of the adventure of the tame rabbit which had insulted
me. Kitty had brought it out on the lawn to be introduced to me and we
had just rubbed noses, when it suddenly turned round and tossed up its
heels, all over mould, in my face and scuttled off. Ill-bred thing! I
tried to tell Them, but it was no use. Rosamond said, 'What is it all
about, little talking cat? Auntie May, just listen, he is bubbling away
with conversation, and most awfully interested in himself and what has
happened to him. I _wish_ I could understand.'