by Paul Gallico
And she began:
CHAPTER SIX: Jennie
My name,' said the tabby, `as I told you, is Jennie. Jennie Baldrin. We are partly Scottish, you know—' she added with considerable pride and satisfaction. My mother was born in Glasgow, and so was I.
`I say "partly" Scottish, because of course way back we came from the continent. Africa, I mean, and then across into Spain. Several of our branch of the family were ship's cats aboard vessels of the Spanish Armada. My mother's ancestor was wrecked on the coast of Scotland, which is how we came to settle down there. Interesting, isn't it?'
`Oh yes,' replied Peter. `I've read about how Drake defeated the Spanish Armada and a storm came up and wrecked all the galleons. But I didn't know about there having been any cats …'
`Indeed, said Jennie Baldrin. `Well, there were—dozens of them. Actually we go much further back than that, Kaffir cats, you know, from Africa-Nubia, Abyssinia—places I'm sure you've heard about. Someone named Julius Cesar is supposed to have brought some of us to Britain in 55-54 B.C. But that wasn't our branch of the family. We were in Egypt two thousand years before that when, as you've no doubt read, cats were sacred. A lot of people try to be; or act sacred, but we actually were, with temples and altars, and priests to look after us. I suppose you have noticed how small my head is. Egyptian strain. And then of course this.'
And here Jennie rolled over on to her flank and held up her paws so that Peter could inspect the undersides of them. `Why, they're quite black,' Peter said, referring to the pads. He then looked at his own and remarked, `Mine are all pink.'
`Naturally,' Jennie said, quite pleased. `Wherever ; come across black pads—that's it, the Egyptian strain again; have you ever seen the relief from the tomb of Amon-Ra in the British Museum, the one with the sacred cat on it? They say I look quite like her.'
`I've been to the British Museum with Nanny,' Pete. said, `but I don't think I ever-'
'Ah well, never mind,' Jennie went on. `It isn't really important, especially to-day when it is what you are that counts, though I must say it is a comfort to know who you are, particularly at times when everything appears to be dead set against you. If you know something about your forebears, who they were and what they did, you are not quite so likely to give up, especially if you know that once they were actually sacred and people came around asking them for favours. Still—' and here Jennie Baldrin paused and gave four quick washes to the end of her tail.
Peter was afraid she might not go on, so he coaxed—Yes, and after you were born . . .'
'Oh,' said Jennie, leaving off her washing and resuming her narrative, `we came to London from Glasgow on the train in a basket, my mother and brothers and sisters and I. We travelled at night. I didn't get to see much because I was in the basket all of the time, and anyway, my eyes weren't open yet because I was very young. That is my earliest recollection.
`We were a family of five kittens, two males and three females, and we went to live in the cellar of a boarding house in Bloomsbury. My mother was owned by a printer who had been working in Glasgow and came back to London. It was his mother who managed the boarding house in Bloomsbury. I don't know if I'm making myself clear. ..'
'Oh yes,' said Peter, `quite!'
`Our mother was wise and good. She fed, washed, cuffed and taught us as much as she thought necessary. She was proud of our family and our strain, and said that wherever we were, our dignity and ancestry would bring honour to whoever might be looking after us. She most most emphatically did not believe it was beneath her to be living in a boarding house or belong to a printer. Do you?'
Peter was somewhat taken aback by the unexpected question, but replied that he did not, particularly if the people were kind.
`Exactly,' said Jennie, and appeared to be relieved. `Our mother said that some of us might go no higher than to be a grocer's cat, or belong to a chimney sweep or a charwoman, while others might come to live in a wealthy home in Mayfair, or even a palace. The important thing was that they were all people and we were who we were, and if there was love and respect between us, no one could ask for anything better.
`One day, when I was seven months old, it happened to me. Some people came to our house and took me away with them. I was adopted.
`How fortunate I was, or at least I thought so at the time. I went to live with a family in a house near Kensington High Street, a father, mother and little girl. And there I grew up and stayed for three years with never a cloud in the sky.'
Peter asked, `What was the little girl like?'
Jennie paused while a tear moistened her eye again, but this time she did not trouble to conceal it with a wash. `She was a dear,' Jennie replied. Her voice had taken on the tender tone of remembering some one who had been good and beautiful, and her glistening eyes were gazing backwards into the past. `She had long, wavy brown hair and such a sweet face. Her voice was soft and never harsh on my ears. Her name was Elizabeth, but she was called Buff, and she was ten years old. I loved her so much that just thinking about it was enough to set me to purring.
`We weren't rich, but we were quite well off. I had my own basket with a cushion in it and was allowed to sleep in Buff's room. The Pennys, for that was their last name, saw to it that I had some of the meat from their ration, and I had fish every other day and all the milk I could drink. When Buff came home from school in the afternoon I would be waiting for her at the door to jump up into her arms and rub my cheek against hers and then lie across her shoulders and she would carry me around as though she were wearing a fur.'
Peter felt sad as he listened to her story, for exactly as she was telling it was how he would have wished to have had it in his own home—a sweet and friendly puss to be there when he returned, who would leap up on to his shoulder and rub against him and purr when he stroked her and be his very own.
Jennie sighed now as she told about the good times. The first thing in the morning when the maid came in to part the curtains, the little cat would leap up on to the bed, calling and purring to say good morning and begging Buff to play the pounce game which they both loved. This was the one in which the child would move the fingers of one hand under the blankets while Jennie would watch the mysterious and tantalizing stirrings beneath the covers and finally rear up and land upon the spot, always careful not to use her claws, and Buff would scream with laughter and excitement. What a wonderful way to start the day.
'Oh, and Christmas and New Years,' Jennie continued, packages arrived tied up in tissue paper and I was allowed to get into boxes that had been emptied, and the whole house smelled of good things to eat. On my own birthday, which, if you would like to remember it, is on April 22nd, I always had new toys and presents, and Buff gave a party for me. Of course was spoiled and pampered, but I adored it. Who wouldn't have done so?
`Those were the three happiest years of my life. I was with Buff or her parents every minute that they were home, and I loved them with all my heart. I even learned to understand a little of their language, although it is very difficult, harsh and unmusical. I've forgotten most of it now, but then, between the words that I recognized and their expressions or tone of voice, I always knew whether they were pleased or displeased and what they wanted of me.
`One day, early in May, just about two years ago, I noticed that everyone seemed to be very busy and distracted and occupied with themselves and that something strange was going on in the house.'
`Oh dear,' said Peter, beginning to be quite upset, 'I was afraid something would happen. It was just too perfect …'
Jennie nodded. `Yes. It seems it's always that way. I went around peering into their faces, trying to make out what might be going to happen. And then one morning, trunks, bags, valises, holdalls, canvas sacks suddenly appeared from the attic, boxes and crates, and barrels full of straw and sawdust were brought into the house, and men in rough clothes, aprons and peaked caps came in to pack them, and of course after that I knew. They were going to move. But whether it was to be to a house in anot
her part of the city, or a place in the country, or abroad, I had no means of knowing or finding out.
`Until you've been a cat yourself, Peter, and have gone through it, you will never understand what it means to sit by, day in and day out, while everything which is familiar and to which you are attached, furniture, and things on mantelpieces and tables, disappear into crates and boxes for shipping, and not know.'
`Not know what?' asked Peter.
`Whether or not you are going to be taken along.'
`Oh, but of course you get taken along!' Peter burst out, thinking how he would act under the same circumstances if he had ever had a cat as sweet and good-natured as Jennie Baldrin. `Why, nobody would think of going away and leaving you behind, even—'
He stopped in mid-sentence because Jennie had turned away abruptly and was washing furiously. There was a kind of desperation in her movements that touched Peter's heart and told him more plainly than words that she was suffering. He cried: `Oh, poor Jennie Baldrin! I'm so sorry. It can't be true. Nobody could be so cruel. Tell me what happened.'
Jennie left off her washing. Her eyes were quite misty and she looked leaner and bonier than ever. She said, `Forgive me, Peter. I think perhaps I'd better stop for a little. It hasn't been easy, remembering back and living over those beautiful days. Come. Take a walk with me and we'll poke about a bit to familiarize you with this place so that you'll know the ins and outs of it, as well as the secret entrance, and then I can tell you the rest of the story of what happened to me that fatal May.'
Peter was terribly disappointed at the interruption, but he did not wish Jennie to know this, he felt so sympathetic because of the tragedy in her life, even though he could not imagine how people as good and kind as the Pennys seemed to be could go off and leave her behind. But he kept his counsel, and when Jennie jumped down from the bed he followed her. He was feeling much stronger now and had no difficulty keeping up with Jennie as she squeezed through the slats at the end of the bin and turned left up the corridor.
They prowled down a long, dark corridor, on either side of which were storage bins such as they had just left. They turned into several passageways, went down a flight of stairs and came around a corner into a place where the room was illuminated by an electric bulb that hung from a wire overhead. It was an enormous enclosure where the ceiling was three times the height of their own and it was filled from top to bottom in the strangest manner, not only with all kinds of things but also with places.
There was a kind of a glittering palace, and right next to it some wild stretches of the Scottish Highlands with huge rocks and boulders piled up and menacing trees throwing dark arms to the sky. Then there was somehow a view of the blue sea with some distant mountains, a trellised garden, a cottage with a thatched roof, a row of Arabian nomad tents, a gloomy piece of jungle all overhung with creepers and vines, a railway station, a piece of Greek temple …
Peter cried, `Why, I know what it is. It's theatrical scenery, like they use in the Christmas Pantomime. I suppose this is where they store it.'
'Is that what it is?' said Jennie Baldrin. 'I didn't know, but I thought it might interest you. I often come here when I feel the need of a change. Let us go over there and sit on that rock in the Highlands, because it reminds me of where we came from, at least the way my mother used to describe it.'
Of course they couldn't actually sit on the rock, since it was only painted on canvas in an extraordinary lifelike manner, but when they had squatted down and curled their tails around them right next to the rock, it was really, Peter felt, almost like being in that part of Scotland about which his Nanny too had so often told him.
When he and Jennie had settled, Peter said, 'Jennie dear… Do you think perhaps you might go on now. . ?'
Jennie closed her eyes for a moment as though to help herself to return once more to those memories that were so painful to her. Then she opened them again, sighed, and took up her narrative
'It was a large house, you know,' she said, `and it seemed to take perfect ages to get everything packed and sealed and ready to be moved.
'I walked around and into and over everything and smelled and fretted and tried to feel—you know how we can sometimes acquire bits and pieces of information and knowledge just through the ends of our whiskers'—(Peter didn't, but he also didn't wish to interrupt at this point, so he did not reply and Jennie went on)—but it was useless. I couldn't make out the slightest hint where everything was going to, or even when, though I knew it must be soon, because for several days the family had not been sleeping there, since all the beds were taken down and crated. Mrs. Penny and also Buff would come back during the day and pack, and of course feed me.
'In the evening they would take my basket upstairs to the top-floor sewing-room under the eaves of the roof and leave me there with a saucer of milk and one of water for overnight. The sewing-room was quite bare. I didn't even have any of my toys. I shouldn't have minded that if only I hadn't been so worried and upset by not knowing. Of course, I imagined that very likely the Pennys were stopping with friends or at a hotel where perhaps they couldn't have me until the new house should be ready wherever it was. But then, on the other hand, how could I be sure they weren't going far away somewhere over the sea where I could not go along?'
Peter knew all about moving. In military circles people were always packing up their belongings and starting off for India or Australia, or Africa. And he thought too that he understood the anxiety Jennie must have felt. For he remembered enduring nights of terror and sudden panic himself when the thought had come to him from nowhere at all, as it were, `What if Mummy were not to come back to me ever? Supposing I wake up in the morning and she isn't there?' And then he had lain fearful and wide awake in the darkness, listening and straining with his ears and all his senses for the sound of her key in the front door and her footsteps in the corridor going past his room. And not until this had come to pass, and more often than not it was well after midnight, would he be able to fall into a restless and troubled sleep.
Jennie's voice brought him back from these memories. 'One morning,' she was saying sadly, 'they did not come back; nor did they ever. I never saw them again, my dear, beloved Buff, or Mrs. Penny or Mr. Penny. They had gone away and cold bloodedly abandoned me.'
Peter gave a cry of sympathy. 'Oh, poor Jennie Baldrin!'
But then he added: 'I can't believe it. Something must have happened to them …'
`I only wish I could think so,' Jennie declared, `but when you grow older—I mean, after you have been a cat for a while, you will come to understand that people are always doing that. They keep us while we are convenient to them, and not too much trouble, and then, when through no fault of ours it becomes inconvenient, they walk out and leave us to starve.'
'Oh, Jennie,' Peter cried again, quite horrified at such cruelty, `I would never go away and leave you …'
`You wouldn't, perhaps,' Jennie said, `but people do, and THEY did. I remember that morning. I couldn't believe it at first when the time came and they were not there. I watched at the window. I listened at the door. Time passed. Then I started to shout, hoping perhaps that somehow they had managed to slip into the house without my hearing them.
`I cried myself hoarse. I threw myself against the door. I tried desperately to open it, but it was one of those slippery doorknobs instead of a latch I might have worked. Morning turned into afternoon and afternoon into evening. I hardly slept at all, but kept pacing the floor of the empty sewing-room the whole night hoping against hope that they would come the next day.
'On the morrow something much more terrifying occurred. They didn't come, but the moving-men did. From the window I could see their van drawn up in front of the house. All day long they went in and out of the house, removing the furniture, crates, boxes and barrels. By late afternoon everything was loaded and tied on behind with ropes. Then they climbed into the front seat and drove away. And that night there wasn't any milk or water left, and I had nothing to ea
t or drink, nor the next, nor the one after that.'
`Poor, poor Jennie!' Peter said. `Weren't you awfully hungry?'
`The pain wasn't in my stomach, Peter,' Jennie replied, 'it was in my heart. I only wished to die of longing, misery, loneliness and sadness. More than anything, I wanted my Buff to be holding me in her arms close to her and giving me the little squeezes she used to because she loved me.
`And then suddenly to my horror I found myself hating her. I wanted to bite, scratch, claw and kill her for having abandoned me. Yes, I learned to hate, Peter, and that is worse than being sick, or starved, or thirsty, or in pain. It replaced all the love I had felt for Buff. I had no hope of ever getting out of that room alive, but I swore that if I did I would never again trust a human being, or give them love or live with them.
`And then one morning, when I was nearly dead, release came. I heard someone at the front door and then footsteps. I knew it wasn't their footsteps, and yet I hoped that somehow I was mistaken and they had come, and I was all ready to welcome them and purr and even try to reach Buff's shoulder to show her I had forgiven her. Oh, I would have put my paws to her face and kissed and kissed her if she had only come back and not forgotten me.'
Peter said, `I do wish she had, Jennie …'
`It wasn't, of course,' Jennie continued. 'It was just people, two women, very likely come to look at the house. One of them made sympathetic sounds and picked me up. But I was weak and dizzy from starvation and nearly out of my mind with worry, and didn't know what I was doing. I bit her. She dropped me, and I was so frightened I found the strength to run out of the door and down the stairs. Or rather I fell more than ran down them and didn't stop until I got to the bottom and out the front door. That was the beginning …'
`Of what?' Peter asked.
`Of being independent of human beings, of never again asking for a favour, of spitting and growling whenever one tried to reach down and stroke me or pick me up, of never again entering a house to live with them.'