Violet Hunt

“ I felt another kitten. Yet nothing really was changed. Rosamond's moonface was as round as ever, Auntie May was still sitting there with her apron full of great pools where Fred and Zobeide and Admiral Togo had let it run down out of the corners of their mouths, mother was purring away and looking at us all with her great big mournful eyes.
In less than a week I was no better or cleverer than everybody else. The others could do it too, but they hated the bother of it. The other way is really so much more convenient. And mother prefers it; she says that it brings us together. ”

“ Still, you are going to be a fluffy cat, one can see that, and invalids—if poor Beatrice really is an invalid—prefer fluffiness. I think I'll take you, Loki. No, Fred, not you, indeed, you pertinacious darling, for you always go for one's eyes, you are such a dangerous cat, without a single atom of self-control. So, Loki, you may as well say goodbye to your mother and make the most of her, for she just won't know you when you come back. ”

“ Petronilla is to be left entirely alone and not bothered.'
'Quite right, Miss Rosamond!' said Mary; 'I've heard say that if you watch her she'll do them a mischief. I knew a cat what ate all her kittens—'
'Ssh, Mary, I am sure Petronilla would not do such a thing. She isn't a common cat. But I tell you what she will certainly do if she thinks we are going to touch them or take them away from her—she will hide them. She knows it isn't good for them to be handled. You have no idea of the amount cats know, and though Petronilla is only four years old, she knows as much as the best nurse ever did. ”

“ I asked mother if she wouldn't mind telling me why she had licked Blanch so hard.
'My dear child,' mother said, 'I daresay you and Auntie May consider me very unfeeling, and think it very odd that she should do all the crying instead of me; but then you must realise that I was never in favour of nursing Blanch and trying to keep her alive. She was delicate and bound to die sooner or later. It is a great mistake to try to preserve the lives of kittens that are weak and feeble from the very beginning, and no sensible cat would ever countenance such a proceeding. ”

“ A cat never follows, it goes before, and looks back and waits for you if it fancies you. It has pronounced likes and dislikes, and is not afraid to show them. A dog will lick any one's hand.'
'And a cat will scratch any one's nose. How do you manage in London, Miss Graham, when you have to go out? Do you confide in all your partners, and tell them that it was your favourite cat that scratched you through thick and thin?'
'Yes, May,' said Beatrice, 'I could not help looking at your neck last night at dinner, and wondering how you managed?'
'That was poor Loki,' said Auntie May hastily. ”

“ Later in the day mother was brought up and put to bed, very weak and disinclined to talk. She never scolded either Freddy or me, feeling, no doubt, that she began it by romping with us, and the matter was never discussed again.
I fell out of the very same window myself a year later. It was entirely my own fault and Mary's habit of being too free with her hands. I was quietly sitting on the window sill, watching the fat birds fly past the stone coping, and giving their children walking lessons up the tiles of the roof opposite, when Mary came in to do the room. ”

“ I am not a stable, or a kitchen, or even a carpenter's cat, and mousing is not a fit pursuit for Petronilla's child.
'So Loki has vindicated his reputation!' remarked Mrs. Gilmour, when she heard of what Beatrice was pleased to call my prowess. 'Disgusting little cruel wretch! The principle of cruelty is deeply embedded in a cat's consciousness. Now a dog—'
'What does a dog do to a rat?' asked Auntie May rudely. ”

“ Fox.
Mother said, 'It sounds as if one of you was going to leave me! This wretched man seems to have bought a kitten of Auntie May and doesn't even care which!'
'Mr. Fox buy a cat!' I cried. 'He simply hates us; he can't bear to be in the room with one of us. Don't you remember, I told you all about him at Crook Hall?'
'I cannot explain it!' said mother. 'Perhaps he is going to give you to some one? I wish I knew what places one goes to from Charing Cross. But there is no cat's Bradshaw, alas!'
I was taken away by a groom—I smelt his clothes through the basket—next day, as arranged. ”

“ I am not a bit ashamed of being sick any more than Auntie May is ashamed of blowing her nose. It is a perfectly natural action.
We none of us said Goodbye to each other. They never gave us time. Fred and his white cat were really a little sorry to part, but they said nothing, only she gave him a look over her mistress's shoulder which seemed to say, 'I hope we shall meet again.'
I did not want to see any one of them again except the theatrical cat, who was a jolly sort of cheerful beast. ”

“ Since I have been here I have learned that there are such things as swallows—fidgety birds, that winter abroad like Auntie May and Mr. Fox, and that I would as soon think of eating as I would of eating the baby. I feel a sort of relationship, too, as if swallows were the 'smoke-blues' among birds; their fur is the kind of blue we are, only darker, and they are not at all a common kind of bird.
One summer a swallow built its nest in a tool-house not far off the tree where the nurse and baby and Lotty used to take the pram and sit all the afternoon. Lotty had not much to do ”

“ Mary!' for Mary had bolted.
'I simply cannot rest till I find Zobeide,' she muttered, going to cupboard doors and opening them. 'The darling! Where is she, Mary? Mary!'
It is always the way. She had got us, but people always want the one they haven't got, and then take not the slightest interest in the ones that have been good and stayed at home; for, of course, as every one knew, Zobeide was up to no good when she got herself stolen. ”

“ Dillon will have no objection, but don't imagine for a moment that Togo will be glad to see you. Cats have hardly any memories, and kittens none at all. And a good thing too, for treated as chattels as they are they would have wretched lives of it. They don't listen to the rain upon the roof and think of other days, or have tears come into their eyes when they look at sunsets because they feel so ancient—'
'Why, Auntie May, you are talking like an old cat, while you are only a young woman. ”

“ Auntie May stays with Beatrice sometimes without him, but not for long. They live in the summer at Shortleas. Of course she often comes over for the day. When he comes with her I am carefully kept out of the way, and, indeed, I fall in with their plans cheerfully, and arrange to spend a good deal of time in the garden and employ myself as well as I can, for I am becoming quite an outside cat now, and catch birds and mice. One's sentiment becomes blunted with age, I find. ”

“ Then Beatrice came to stay in London with us for a week, and she spoke to Auntie May very severely about Mr. Fox.
'May, you are a fool,' she said. 'I am fond of animals myself, but I shouldn't let them interfere with things of real importance.'
'It is unfortunate,' said Auntie May in a cold, horrid tone, 'that I should happen to fall in love with the only man I know who cannot be in the same room with a cat. It is too absurd. ”

“ No cat that ever was born was worth that, mother says, but it is They who settle what we are all to cost, and They might be mistaken. They have agreed that cats are inferior to dogs; you may be as silly as you like about a dog, and even believe he has got a soul if you like, but a cat!—'My dear, it's too absurd!'
I hear this kind of thing in the drawing-room on Auntie May's at-home day, when we are often carried downstairs in a basket and allowed to play about and amuse the people. One hears a good deal. People who don't like cats think that Auntie May makes a perfect fool of herself about us. ”

“ Sell all this lot of kittens before you have time to get fond of them; leave Petronilla with Dad, and they can be the prop of each other's declining years—that is Dad's phrase, not mine, he said it to me only this morning—and I—yes, I will have Loki, and Tom shall take up every blessed trap on the place—I'll make him. There, will that suit you?'
'But I have got so used to having cats about. Must I be condemned to live without a cat for all the rest of my life?'
'May, I have no patience with you. ”

“ I don't suffer over my hunting proclivities as I used to do. Tom calls me the sporting cat, and wouldn't shoot me for the world, I am too useful. Beatrice is proud of me and my ruff, and shows me to visitors when she can get me in in time. I always come when she calls me, unless I am in the middle of a bird, and then I bring it along to show her why I dawdled. She always screams and hides her face, and says:
'Oh, take it away, Loki, don't show it me! ”

“ Get him ready for me, Petronilla, by to-morrow morning, will you?'
'So Beatrice is an invalid!' said mother, after she had gone. 'It is bad for you, my child. But now listen attentively to your mother, and perhaps she may tell you how to avoid any bad effects. If they put you on the patient's bed, keep as near the foot as you can; don't lie near her or take her breath. I always believe in giving invalids a very wide berth. I remember once that my old mistress, Miss Jane Beverley, was very ill, and I had kept away as much as I could. ”

“ I don't see why because Miss Joldwin was a pedigree-woman she should be too good to sweep out a cattery, but I do think she might have put a pinafore on, and said so.
'Dear little fellow, he is very lively and talkative!' said the old woman to me. 'I know I shall make a pet of you, I shall.'
'Oh, no favouritism, Mrs. Jennings, please,' said Auntie May. 'I should like them all to be kept together, if you don't mind, as much as possible. They are a very united and loving family. Fred, do leave Zobeide alone! ”

“ I had no shoes, but Auntie May took me across her shoulder. I did not mind going so long as I was not taken up to those awfully rude rabbits, and I suspected they were somewhere that way; people generally keep all their children's nuisances in one place. But we did not after all go near them, and all I saw was nice hens, and one duck with a beak exactly the colour of Amerye's hair. All his family had been eaten, but somehow he had got left out so long that they hadn't the heart to kill him.
AUNTIE MAY TOOK ME ACROSS HER SHOULDER.
I was glad they didn't put me down among the animals. ”

“ She thought it the highest possible praise of a cat to have said of him, as Auntie May had once said of a friend's cat, 'The more he is called, the more he doesn't come.' We should find time to sit down on the way and make pretence to attend to our personal appearance, or what not. We might suffer Them to hold us in their arms, but not in inconvenient or indecorous positions, such as upside down, or round their necks like a boa, or pretending we are wheelbarrows, and so on. ”

“ She always told her how Blanch was, and mother used to say that Blanch was in good hands, and that Auntie May could do what she could not do for Blanch, feed her through stylographic pens, for instance. But she always said that though it was very good of Auntie May to devote herself so, she could not alter the result of Blanch's illness; no sick kitten as young as that could possibly recover. If only it had learned to feed itself, there would be a chance for it, and not much even then. She was glad for our sakes that Auntie May had parted us; she believed in the segregation of invalids. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ You never know what They may have in their hands to make it worth your while to stop; as often as not it is something to eat. Rosamond put me back in the box, and mother cleaned me for half-an-hour quite unnecessarily, saying, 'My children shall be kept unspotted from the world as far as I can manage it, for the world is very dirty.'
She is indeed most particular. She washed off the marks of people's hands carefully wherever they had touched us. It looks rude, I think, to see a cat, the moment it has been kindly stroked, turn round and begin to lick the stain away. ”

“ Auntie May got up and came to where I was, and when she saw me she gave a little jump, and put her finger to her mouth and went back to Mr. Fox.
'Henry,' she said, 'how do you feel?'
'I never felt better in my life, dear,' he answered. 'Since you gave me your promise the whole air of the world seems changed. I could move mountains, I feel so fit—'
'Yet the air of the studio,' she said, 'is not particularly pure. ”

“ The cook's mother was pleased with him, and, as he had calculated, offered to borrow him for a month and see what he could do with the rats down at her place, down at Limehouse Pier, or something like that, and he said we would hardly believe it, but he got far more to eat while he was there than at home. The poor are much more lavish than the rich, and live so much better. And he saw life! 'My word!' he would say, licking his whiskers, which were fine and large, and his only beauty. ”