Read Ebook: The Cat by Hunt Violet Birkenruth Adolph Illustrator

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Ebook has 742 lines and 51164 words, and 15 pages

They did not know, but we all had one name already, a traditional one in our family. It was Pasht. Our ancestors lived at a place called Bubastis. For convenience' sake, however, we stuck to the names They gave us. They seemed to have an idea that we should answer to them and come when we were called, but mother told us on no account ever to do so, it would be false to every tradition of our class. We might go as far as to twitch an ear when we heard our name spoken pleasantly, but only on the very rarest occasions were we to stir a paw. Then, if we decided to go to Them, it was at least manners to stop half-way and scratch. If the name was spoken in an unfriendly tone, the thing to do was just to stare the impertinent creature down. At Bubastis, in the olden time, our ancestors had been worshipped and prayed to. In the studio downstairs, where mother had been a constant visitor in the days when she was free of domestic cares, there is one of our ancestors under a glass case just as he was buried when he died thousands of years ago. He is all wrapped in a sort of brown greased cloth, so mother says, many hundred folds of it, but still you can perfectly well see the original shape of our many-hundreds-of-times-over great-uncle. Nobody has ever unwrapped him; it would be very wicked to do it, and might bring misfortune on the house. Altogether he is treated with the greatest respect, and mother is quite content to have it so. We are taught to look on that room not as the studio as They do, but as the Family Tomb, and mother says that when we grow up and are permitted to sit there sometimes, we must all keep very quiet and behave seriously and do no romping.

ONE LESS THAN FIVE

One morning we woke up, and found mother had left us. The window was open, and mother had suddenly felt tired of nursing and as if she must have a breath of fresh air. She was outside on a kind of coping there was all round the house. Nobody was worrying at all when in came Mary and Rosamond. They called to mother to come in at once, for it was blowing a cold east wind, and then suddenly they discovered that she was in difficulties. She had jumped off the coping to another piece that stuck out at the side, and now, though she wanted to come back, her resolution had deserted her, and she thought she should never be able to do it. She told us all this, but Mary and Rosamond only thought she was crying out piteously.

'She can do it quite easily, Miss, if she will only face it,' said Mary. 'It stands to reason that if she could jump there, she can jump back!'

'Of course, Mary,' said Rosamond. 'What you can do once you can do again. Come, you silly-billy! Jump! Don't be a coward!'

Mother explained that the more she thought about it, the more she couldn't do it, and that perhaps if they would go away and leave her to herself, she would feel differently, but of course they couldn't understand her. They took a small chair and held it out of the window with one hand. Mother knew that if she were to leap upon that, her weight would make them drop it, and, sure enough, they did drop it all the same, and it went clattering down into the garden below. Then they said 'Ow! Whatever'll Miss May say?' and shut the window. Mother was glad of that, for the wind was really too cold for us as we lay inside, and as a matter of fact she was not in the slightest danger if only they would go away, go downstairs and pick up the pieces of the chair in the garden. She mildly suggested it to them, but they did not even begin to understand.

'Aw, poor thing, don't her mew come faint-like through the window!' said that silly Mary. 'You and me can't both leave her, Miss. Shall one of us go and fetch Miss May?'

'Do, do go away!' implored mother, 'and then I shall be able to make my jump!'

'I have an idea!' said Rosamond, and she came to our basket and picked up Zobeide, and carried her to the window and held her out to mother. Of course Zobeide screamed, and poor mother couldn't stand that and her legs obeyed her unconsciously and brought her in at once. She said 'Thank you' to Rosamond as she crossed the sill and walloped back into her bed and begged them to shut the window, which of course they didn't do, and it was open half-an-hour later when Auntie May came up from her singing lesson and Rosamond told her with pride what she had done. Auntie May knows a great deal about cats. She said at once that it wasn't necessary, that Petronilla would have known quite enough to come in of her own accord, and that it was too cold a day to hold a young kitten out in the raw air; still, as far as she could see, we were all perfectly well, and feeding away busily, so probably no harm was done.

Mother said to us that she wasn't quite so sure of that, for the wind was very cold, and she took particular care of Zobeide, and gave her the best place, and cuddled her till Zobeide squealed and said she didn't like affection if it meant being held so tight.

Next morning, when Auntie May came and stood over the basket, she seemed very grave.

'Rosamond, come here,' she said. 'Which kitten did you hold out of the window?'

'Come and look!' said Auntie May.

Then I myself noticed for the first time that Blanch was lying a little way off mother, and breathing very funnily. Her body seemed to break in half under the skin with every breath she took, and she gave a great shake right across her. She was flattened out and her legs parted wide so that her chest was spread along the floor of the basket. She made a rushing noise with her breathing like what one hears when the bath is filling.

'She looks just like a frog!' said Rosamond. 'Oh, Auntie May, is she ill, and is it my fault?'

'Do you think it was Blanch you held over the window?'

'I said before I don't know, but perhaps it was.'

'It looks rather like it,' said Auntie May sadly, and put on her hat and jacket and fetched the doctor.

'Lor', for a kitten!' said Mary.

'It's worth three guineas if it lives, Mary,' said Rosamond through her tears. 'But it won't, and it will be my fault. I have murdered it!'

'Don't cry, pretty child!' mother said to her. 'It was Zobeide you held out of the window, and look at her sleeping so sweetly here under my paw! This is Blanch who is dying, and it is the will of Providence.'

Poor Rosamond couldn't understand her, and began to abuse her for her calmness.

'Of course it will not eat. It will die,' said mother gently, and as usual Rosamond didn't understand.

'Oh yes, you may mew, and try to palaver me, but that won't stop me thinking you a heartless beast!'

'Oh, please, please, make it eat! or else it will starve!'

'It is very unlikely,' said he. 'This kitten was probably unhealthy from the first. It has pneumonia now, and I am afraid in such a young kitten the case is pretty well hopeless; but we will try to save it, if you think it worth while?'

First of all Blanch was put into a separate basket, lined with flannel; a piece of flannel was to be sewn round her with little holes for her front paws to go out of. She had to lie on a hot bottle. The temperature of the room had to be kept up to sixty-three degrees. She was to be fed every two hours, on a mixture of milk and sugar and hot water, about equal parts, so as to make something as like mother's milk as possible.

'I shall have to sit up with her,' said Auntie May, 'or buy an alarm clock to wake me up every two hours.'

'Why, you are but a kitten yourself!'

'Ah, but I'm over three years old,' said Rosamond. 'I am twelve years old. I suppose that represents a kitten's twelve weeks, doesn't it? So this kitten is three weeks, that is to say three years old.'

'It is a baby in arms,' said Auntie May, 'and is going to be fed with a bottle, like other babies.'

She had got a doll's feeding-bottle she had bought once at a bazaar, and she tried that, but it was defective and would not let the milk run through. Then she got her stylographic pen-filler and dipped that in the milk she had arranged and sucked some up, and squirted it out into Blanch's mouth, and really got some in that way; but it was a slow business, and poor Blanch used to hate being disturbed dreadfully. She was too young to talk, but she used to get into a regular temper sometimes and turn away her body with a scraping noise in her throat that meant how disgusted she was with life and people trying to cure her.

Blanch had been much more forward in some ways than the rest of us; she had climbed all over Auntie May, and had a strong little back, and could sit up and look grown up, though she was only three. Her fur was nice too, a very much lighter grey than Zobeide's or mine, and her head very broad, and the distance between her small ears very great.

After two days the doctor came and looked at Blanch. He didn't take her up.

'This kitten is better!' he said in a surprised tone. 'It breathes more freely. You may save it yet. If you want to apply for the post of nurse for animals I'll recommend you, Miss Graham.'

Punctually at eleven I was awakened by the swish of Auntie May's dress on the stairs, and she came up followed by Mary, and the electric light was turned full on.

'Bring me my traps, Mary,' said Auntie May, and she sat down just as she was and began to mix the water and sweetened hot milk. When she had got it ready she leaned over the patient, and then called out.

'Come here, Mary,' she said in a queer voice. 'This kitten is dying!'

'The doctor said it was better, Miss.'

'So it is better--its breathing is better--but it is dying all the same. Look at its eyes!'

'Just like my old aunt's died last June! Well, Miss, it's only a kitten after all!'

Auntie May held Blanch up in her two hands and looked at her. She gave her her medicine and a little drop--a real drop, not what the cook here calls a drop--of brandy, but Blanch let it all roll out of her mouth and on to the pink gown. I knew that from what Mary said: 'Lor', Miss, your nice gown!'

'It's no good, Mary. Its eyes are glazing already. They look tormented. We mustn't plague her any more. Bring Petronilla!'

'How absurd!' said mother, as Mary lifted her out.

Auntie May showed her Blanch, whom she had laid back in her bed. Blanch's head had rolled quite uncomfortably back, and her eyes saw nothing. She was almost gone.

Mother didn't do at all what they expected, though; indeed, I don't know whether they expected her to bring Blanch back from the grave in some mysterious way that mothers ought to know of. Mother had no way. She knew it was no good. To satisfy them she did something. She licked and rolled Blanch over in her bed with her tongue--roughly, I suppose, from the way they spoke.

'She's killed it!' said Auntie May. 'Look, it's dead!'

She took Blanch up, and Blanch's head fell back over her hand and a film came over her eyes--so Auntie May said afterwards.

Poor Auntie May put Blanch down again, and cried as if her heart would break.

'I nursed it--I took such care--and he said I had saved it, and no, it's dead--oh!--oh!--'

'Don't cry, Miss May, don't cry so,' Mary begged. 'It's only a kitten at that. We'll bury it in the garden. It will be our first funeral; there's a nice little place back of them trees, I've often thought of it for that. Here, let me get you out of your dress. I'll put the corpse in the bathroom till the morning. What'll ever your father think if he hears you crying like this over a kitten, and wake Miss Rosamond, too!'

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