by Paul Gallico
They heard it again, the long, wailing, plaintive meow, a chilling cry to accompany a small girl to dissolution.
Someone in the room said, “Thomasina!” It was hardly a voice at all, so long had the vocal chords been unused.
Mr. Andrew MacDhui, from a shocked and tortured heart, cried, “Who spoke?”
Willie Bannock replied, his mustache suddenly alive and bristling, his soft, kind eyes popping, “The bairn! I’ll swear it was the bairn!”
A long protracted, purplish glare of sheet lightning dulled the lamps and candles in the room to red pinpoints but illuminated the window and the miserable, anguished, waterlogged ginger cat poised on the outside sill thereof, begging to be let inside.
Mary Ruadh’s second cry of recognition and Mrs. McKenzie’s shriek were almost simultaneous.
“Thomasina! Thomasina!” The little girl was pointing to the window, now black and blank again.
“Maircy on us all!” It was Mrs. McKenzie. “ ’Tis Mary Ruadh’s Thomasina come back to us frae the grave!”
Andrew MacDhui started to his feet, his eyes half mad, crying, “Ah, no, no! Am I out of my mind? The ghost of Thomasina come for Mary Ruadh—”
The window leaped to life again, framing the head and body of the cat, with its expression of outrage at the stupidity of those within the warm, dry room. It was the good, solid Willie Bannock whose wits returned the first. “ ’Tis nae a ghaistie!” he cried. “ ’Tis Thomasina real as life. Will ye not let her in to the wee bairn—?”
MacDhui grasped at the miracle now. “Mrs. McKenzie”—he whispered hoarsely, lest the animal hear him and take fright— “Mrs. McKenzie. She knows you. Do you open the window. But gently—oh, in God’s name, gently.”
The old housekeeper arose trembling and in the dim light of the lamps and flickering candles, one hand clutching her wrapper closed, went to the window, which again was dark and empty.
The room seemed filled with unbearable tension, but only Lori heard the hard, dry beating of the pinions of the angel of death in retreat.
Mrs. McKenzie slowly and carefully, as she had been bidden, raised the window. Gusts of storm-driven rain swept in and nothing else.
“Come, puss,” croaked Mrs. McKenzie. “Come Thomasina! Come and get your porridge!”
And Lori’s melodious voice rang out, too, above the soughing of the wind, “Talitha! Come, my puss. Come, Talitha!”
There was a soft plop and a soaked and bedraggled cat landed upon the floor of the room, looked about at them all, and opened her mouth in a silent “meow” of greeting; then she shook herself to send the drops of muddy water flying in all directions and thereafter raised first one paw and then the other, fore and aft in rotation, shaking it in a kind of drying-off dance. Willie Bannock, the practical, had slipped up behind her and jammed the window shut. They all then stared as though they could not get enough of staring. But there was no doubt of it. Thomasina had come home.
It was impossible, but it was so. Andrew MacDhui went over to the animal with the fearful feeling that should he touch her she would vanish in a puff of smoke, or that his hands would grasp nothing, that it was a mirage or an apparition that had bemused them all . . .Yet when he lifted her gently she spat at him realistically enough. She was solid, wet, and indignant. For an instant he held her aloft as though she were the Holy Grail. “Sir! SIR!” he cried from a full heart, “Thank you!”
Then MacDhui carried the cat over to Mary Ruadh in Lori’s lap and placed it in her arms. The child, leaving off with dying, embraced it and covered it with kisses. Thomasina began to purr. Mary Ruadh cried out in her small, cracked, newly returned voice that was hardly a voice at all, “Daddy—Daddy! You’ve brought Thomasina back to me! Really live Thomasina, and all well!” There would be a long and careful convalescence, but in that instant the child’s world had slipped back into place. The big, wonderful, smelly man was God again.
MacDhui looked upon the scene from the depths of bewilderment, relief, and gratitude. “Do you understand it?” he said to Lori.
The old, enchanted, rueful, and tender expression had returned to the corners of Lori’s mouth and her eyes were filled with wisdom. “Yes,” she replied simply. She arose and placed the child, with Thomasina clutched to her, in her bed. When the girl relinquished her hold, the cat at once went to work washing herself. There was much work to be done there, including cracked and bleeding pads and a paw where several claws had been torn almost loose. But she had time occasionally, as of old, to bestow a side lick or two with the rough tongue upon the neck and cheek of Mary Ruadh and to look up with undiminished hostility into the face of the big man with the red hair and red beard and the strangely wet cheeks as he stood looking down upon them.
The storm abated at last and withdrew muttering into the distance. The child gathered the unprotesting cat into her arms again. A few moments later both were asleep.
Willie Bannock and Mrs. McKenzie were sent off to bed. The rain had stopped and the wind had died down . . . There came a knock upon the front door. MacDhui opened it to the Reverend Angus Peddie, owlish after a sleepless night and clad in old clothes. He, too, had been up with his family. He said, “I saw your light, Andrew.”
The veterinary stood regarding his friend for a moment. There was something about his expression, a calmness and peace. The deep concern and anxiety no longer filled the eyes behind the gold-rimmed spectacles. “Ah,” he said, “then you know.”
Peddie would have wished his friend the joy of telling him the news, but could not deny the truth of the revelation that had come to him during the night, the wonderful certainty that his prayers and MacDhui’s had been answered.
“Ah—yes,” he replied, “I do. The child is well and will live—”
“She can speak again.”
Peddie nodded. MacDhui then said more slowly, “Thomasina has returned to her,” and waited to see the effect upon his friend, but Peddie merely nodded again and said, “Ah, that too. Well—”
They went in and tiptoed into the room where Lori was watching by the bedside of the sleeping child and cat. Mr. Peddie’s cheerful smile lit up his round face and inside his breast there was a singing happiness. “Aye,” he said. “A lovely sight—”
MacDhui suddenly remembered something that had puzzled him and when they had all three repaired to his study across the hall he said, “Lori—”
“Aye, Andrew—”
“When Mrs. McKenzie opened the window and called to Thomasina you called her too, but it was another name. What was it?”
“Talitha.”
“Talitha?” MacDhui looked bewildered.
But the Reverend Peddie could not repress a chuckle as the veterinary stared at him. “Mark, Chapter V; Verse 35, et sequitur,” he said.
Lori smiled, but MacDhui continued to look baffled.
“If I can quote from memory,” the dominie said, “or at least the pertinent part—” and looking up and within himself he launched into it: “ ‘There came from the ruler of the synagogue’s house certain which said, Thy daughter is dead: why troublest thou the Master further? As soon as Jesus heard the word that was spoken, he saith unto the ruler of the synagogue, Be not afraid, only believe. And he cometh to the house of the ruler of the synagogue and when he was come in he saith unto them: Why make ye this ado and weep? The damsel is not dead but sleepeth—”
Lori was still smiling her slow, mysterious smile, but MacDhui now was regarding them both sharply.
Mr. Peddie continued, “—And he took the damsel by the hand and saith unto her, Talitha cumi; which is, being interpreted, Damsel, I say unto thee, arise. And straightway the damsel arose, and walked. And they were astonished with a great astonishment—’ ”
MacDhui said hoarsely, “I do not understand.” But he had a glimmering.
Lori said, “She was not dead, but only asleep. I watched the children at their burial play from the woods. When they had gone I went and opened the grave, for fear of some mischief—”
“Ahhhhh.” A long sigh escaped from Mr. MacDhui.
Lori looked inward and backward to that day. “My tears fell upon her, for she was a sweet, sad sight, curled up in her silk box as natural as life. And—and then she sneezed.”
The two men were listening silently to the recital.
“I plucked her forth and took her home. It was wicked of the children to bury her, I thought. I named her—Talitha.”
Mr. MacDhui sighed again and then said gravely, “Thank you, Lori.” His mind had reviewed swiftly all that had happened, the circumstances under which he had ordered Willie Bannock to chloroform the animal, the rush and hurry when the dog needed their attention again, and Bannock leaving off with the cat not yet dead. The mysterious paralysis had cleared of itself, as it sometimes did. His thoughts left him with a strange tinge of sadness.
Lori was looking into both their faces as if searching for some censure, but found none. Then she said, “Ye could both do with a bit of breakfast. I’ll go into the kitchen and warm some porridge and make you tea—”
MacDhui moodily loaded his pipe, set it to burning, and smoked silently, for he was still thinking hard. Mr. Peddie waited for his friend to speak, but when he did not, said, “There is still something that upsets you, Andrew?”
“Aye,” the animal doctor admitted, and then after a further moment’s reflection said, “So it wasn’t really your kind of miracle after all—”
Mr. Peddie’s cheerful and engaging smile lit up his round face. “And you who at first thought that it was or might be are now regretting it for my sake. That is good of you, Andrew, and kind. No, it wasn’t. But when you look back over it all, and think about it—from the very beginning, hasn’t the design been beautiful?”
MacDhui caught his breath sharply, for his friend had surprised him again, and at the same time relieved and pleased him, pleased him more than ever he had throughout their long relationship, for with the simple phrase delivered from a pure and gentle heart, he had confirmed to MacDhui and opened his eyes not only to his own God but to one with which the animal doctor knew he could live in harmony.
He drew slowly on his pipe, throwing a smoke screen about his thoughts as he searched them out, tracing them, remembering them far back, seeing detail upon detail. And when he spoke at last it was to say gently, “Aye, Angus. You are right. It was very beautiful.”
Noises emanated from the kitchen, where Lori busied herself with kettle, pot, and frying pan. They were the kind of sounds made in a house by a person who has come to stay.
3 3
Well, I warned you, didn’t I?
Did you ever hear of anything the like?
Now that I am back home again, I can hardly credit it myself, and yet there it is; I, Thomasina, taken ill, murdered by the very doctor who was supposed to cure me, buried by my friends, dug up by a strange woman, to live a strange life among strange people and animals under a different name until one night I apparently went to sleep in a drawer full of lavender bags and when I woke up I remembered who I was and came home.
But of what happened to me, or where I was up to that moment and from the time that I was put onto the table in Mr. MacDhui’s surgery and Willie Bannock held the chloroform rag over my nose, I remember nothing.
One day Mary Ruadh and the woman known as Lori who is the person who dug me up, and is now her mother, and Mr. MacDhui took me out to the glen where I was supposed to have lived under another name. I recognized nothing, or no one.
A big yellow tomcat with a torn ear and his face crisscrossed with love and battle scars—believe me, I know THAT type—came up to me and said, “Hello, Goddess! How are things?” I spit in his eye. I don’t allow anyone to take liberties with me. A Scottish terrier came yelping about, breathing his stinking breath in my face and shouting, “Hi, Talitha! Where have YOU been?” I let him have it too. I was glad when we left the place. I didn’t think much of it.
Shortly after my return Mr. MacDhui married the woman called Lori, which surprised me, as I did not even know they were acquainted with one another. She was the one the local gossips called “Daft Lori,” and said was a witchwoman and half mad, but that shows you what gossip is. She did not act at all mad. She seemed to me a rather plain and ordinary person, but pleasant and easy to get along with, and respectful of my rights.
The good thing in all this for me was that it provided Mary Ruadh with a mother, and pretty soon after she recovered and was about again, she stopped carrying me around all the time. Oh, did I forget to mention it? During the time I had been away, Mary Ruadh had been ill. Now that she no longer dragged me everywhere she went, it meant that I had some peace and time properly to look after my business about the house. But I still jumped up to the foot of her bed at night to curl up to sleep. Old habits are hard to break.
Oh yes—one rather big change and an amusing one I must mention. Upon my return, Mr. MacDhui suddenly came to the notion that he was fond of me and began making a fuss over me and sucking around me for favors and affection. Ha ha, can you imagine? He treated my cracked pads and torn claws as though I was some titled lady’s pet.
It didn’t go down with me at all, and I gave him the back of my tail. I hadn’t liked him before and I didn’t like him any better now. He still smelled bad, of old pipes and surgical dressings, and he still stuck out his beard and roared when things didn’t go the way he wanted them. But to me he was butter and honey. As soon as I found out that he wanted me on his lap now, I got down. When he called me I wouldn’t come. Whenever he picked me up to stroke me I laid back my ears and made myself stiff, or dug my claws into his arm. The trouble was he didn’t seem to mind and continued his insulting attentions to me. It’s exasperating when you cannot manage to annoy someone, no matter WHAT you do.
Still, one cannot have everything, and I suppose I ought not to complain now that life has settled down again. I have my comforts and Mrs. McKenzie treats me with the greatest respect since my return, and does not even complain when she finds me in one of Mary Ruadh’s bureau drawers, smelling lavender. And it is a relief not to be dangling over that child’s arm from morning until night. However, I would not wish her to become too casual about me, and every so often as a little reminder I jump to her shoulders and lie there, particularly outdoors where people can see me and point me out as the one everybody is talking about.
I was always aware, from the very beginning, that I was a most unusual cat, but now I am wondering whether it might not be that I am a very clever one as well; I rather think so. However it happened, all I can say is that this house is now run to my way of liking.
Table of Contents
THOMASINA
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
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