by Paul Gallico
`Because,' replied both Putzi and Mutzi together now in chorus, 'We saw you!'
All the worst possibilities now crowded to Peter's mind, but he managed to stammer-'You saw me what …?'
`You and that foreigner from Siam,' Putzi replied, lifting her nose high in the air, in which scornful motion she was joined by Mutzi-which was a little strange seeing that they too were both foreigners. `Your dancing with her and carrying on right in the middle of the street, and staring like wass coming right out from your head your eyes. Oh yess. We saw you.'
`And putting your nose right up to hers and listening to the silly Poetry. We heard you too,' Mutzi chimed in.
'Und then so to running off with her,' Putzi continued. `WE went at once and told Jennie.'
`Oh!' said Peter, feeling now quite sick and sad in his heart, `What did she say?'
The sisters smiled prim little satisfied smiles. Putzi announced : `She said she didn't believe us, and that it iss some kind of a mistake.'
Mutzi added: `We advised her to go right away because you were not good enough for her. In spite of everything we tell her she says she will stay and wait because she knows you will come back soon.'
`But WE knew you wouldn't,' Putzi said triumphantly. 'We told her so. That Foreigner! Everybody in this neighbourhood knows her. Ach! Only a man could be so stupid. So now you have it. In the night she realize how we are right, because in the morning she iss gone. We have not seen her since, and we think it serves you right.'
Mutzi added acidly: `I suppose now you want her back.'
`Oh yes,' said Peter, not even caring that this self-righteous, gossipy pair should see his pain and his misery-'Yes, I do want her back. Most awfully.'
`Well,' said both in chorus again, `you won't get her. She's gone away for good.' And then turned away with their tails high in the air and twitching slightly with their indignation as they picked their way over the rubble and through the weeds to the rear of the hostel, leaving Peter alone.
Never had he felt so badly, not even when he had been turned into a cat and Nanny had pitched him out into the Mews. For that had been before he had met Jennie Baldrin. He knew now how much lonelier and unhappy one can feel after one has lost someone who has grown dear, than ever could have been possible before. And he knew, of course, that he deserved it.
But the real ache in his heart was for Jennie, who had thought only of him even to the point of leaving home and loved ones with whom she had just reunited, for his sake. For Peter had not been deceived by the casual manner in which she had dismissed her gesture. He knew that Jennie had made a decision that had cost her much, but she had been able to do it because she loved him. And this was how she had been repaid.
Peter went out from the hostel hardly realizing what he was doing, or seeing where he was going, for he was quite blinded by tears of remorse for his thoughtlessness and irresponsible behaviour, and as the lamps came alight in Cavendish Square he walked slowly along making a vow that somewhere, some– how, he would find her if he had to search for her the rest of his life, just so that with his last breath he could tell her that he had meant nothing by what he had done and that he cared for her and for her only.
Surely some place he would find her again, but his spirits sank when he thought of the magnitude of the city of London with its teeming millions of people and houses, and all the places where a small tabby cat with a white throat and mask, and gentle, loving eyes could crawl away to hide a broken heart.
Still, there must be a beginning made. And perhaps, oh perhaps, she had gone back to Buff around the corner in the Mews. Why had he not thought of that before? Surely, surely, deserted by him, that is what Jennie would have done.
Hope lifted him again, and with a little run and a skip he went dashing across to the Mews, to see.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE: The Search
PETER sat on the pavement and watched outside Buff's house in the Mews, all through the long night with a heavy heart, for while it did not seem as though Jennie were there, he could not really be sure until the next day.
Lights were on in the house, first on the lower floors, then later spreading to the upstairs parts, and once he saw Buff's brown head framed by the window and against the yellow lamplight, but there seemed to be no Jennie draped about her shoulders.
Then one by one the windows went dark, not only in Penny's house, but all over the Mews, until soon the only illumination came from the street lamp at the corner and the moon overhead. Peter began calling to Jennie, softly at first, then louder and with all the misery and mournfulness that was in his heart, but there was no reply from her and not even the faintest hint of her presence coming in over the sensitive receiving-set of his whiskers and vibrissae. The only result of his wailing was that a window on the Mews was opened and someone cried-'Oh hush up, kitty. Be quiet! Go away!'
Thereafter he dared not call any longer, for he remembered the strictures placed by Mr. Black on their welcome in the neighbourhood depending upon their remaining quiet and not disturbing the residents. But remain there he must, just in case she had not replied because she was angry with him and thus there might still be hope of seeing or learning something about her on the morrow.
It was a long and lonely vigil out there on the pavement, but it passed at last with the coming of the milkman, and the darkness lifted from the east and turned first to grey, then to pearly pink, and thereafter shortly the sun arrived and brought with it the daylight.
There were yet many weary hours to wait until the Mews woke up, prior to beginning the new day.
At last the door to No. 2 opened and a gentleman wearing an important-looking homburg hat and carrying a black leather despatch case emerged and hurried off in the direction of the Square. Peter judged that this was probably Buff's father on the way to his business. Anyway, there was not much to be learned from him, but a short time later the door opened again and this time it was Buff who came out, accompanied by her mother. She was carrying her school bag, books and lunch.
So excited and eager did Peter become at the sight of her that he quite forgot himself and ran across the street to them crying-'Buff! Buff, please! Have you seen Jennie? Do you know where she is? I've been horrid to her and I must find her and tell her I'm sorry.'
But of course Buff could not understand a word he was saying. All she saw was a large and somewhat soiled-looking white cat running across the street to them mewing piteously. For a moment there seemed to be something familiar about him as though she had seen him somewhere before, and she gave Peter a long and fixed look as she passed by as though she was trying to remember something.
But Peter heard her say to her mother, `Mummy, why do you suppose that Jennie went away again after coming to find me? And do you think she will ever come back again. It's been days now … '
He heard her mother reply: `Buff, are you sure it really was Jennie? After all those years. . . . It may have been only another cat that was like Jennie.'
`Oh, Mummy, now…. There was only one cat in the whole world like Jennie-'And here her voice trailed off as she and her mother walked out of earshot and turned the corner into the Square, leaving Peter's heart as cold and weighted as the cobblestone on which he crouched, and in his ears the echo of Buff's last remark: `… there was only one cat in the whole world like Jennie.' How well he knew this to be true now that he had lost her, perhaps for ever.
There was no use waiting or looking any longer in the Mews. And besides, deep down, Peter had always known that even if Jennie had been angry at him she would have answered his call had she been there.
But where to search next? In a panic lest she might have returned to the hostel in the meantime, he went charging around the corner and in through the broken board, almost tearing an ear in his haste, but of course she was not there. He would even have been glad to have been abused by the two sisters once more just because they had last had contact with Jennie, but they had gone out and there were only a few strangers in the hostel, most of th
e residents having gone about the business of the day.
It was then the conviction came over him that he must look elsewhere, and probably far from there, that she must have left the neighbourhood which had brought her unhappiness.
He thought now that he would go back and look around their old haunts on the docks as the most likely place where Jennie might go. He moved both by day and by night, and because his mind was so occupied by his quest, Peter was not even aware what an experienced and practised London cat he had become, thanks to Jennie's teaching and training. Sights and sounds and sudden noises no longer frightened him; he erred to know how to avoid trouble automatically; he could melt away and hide at a moment's notice, instinctively, no matter where he was he always picked out and marked a place of safety to which to go in case of sudden danger, something to get under, or on top. But of course he was doing these things without realizing it at all. For right then he was going through that awful stage of seeing Jennie in every tabby cat curled up in a shop doorway, or washing in a window, or gliding across the top of a fence or hoarding.
Because the yearning for her was ever in his mind, it seemed to him that each time he turned a corner his heart leaped high with hope that he might come upon Jennie, and if there was a cat there at all tiger striped, no matter what her size, shape or colour, he suffered first from the hope-born illusion that it was Jennie and then from the oft-repeated when it was not.
And from this he passed to the stage where he had the strongest feeling that surely now he must and would find her just around the next corner, and so he would dash at full speed to get there and look. There would be nobody there, only some children playing in the gutter, or women queueing up at the fish store or the local sweet shop, or perhaps only a dog scavenging in the streets. Then the conviction would seize hold of Peter that he had just managed to miss her, that she had been there but probably had just nipped around the next corner, and that if he ran as fast as he could he might be in time to catch her there.
This sort of thing of course soon led to a state approaching exhaustion, particularly since he was not stopping to eat or drink, except as he came upon a pool of dirty water still remaining from the last rain in some depression of the street, and whatever scraps of anything edible happened to come his way during his pell-mell, headlong, conscience-driven search. He had let himself go physically and personally as well, not stopping to wash or clean up, and soon his white fur lost its gloss and became matted and dirty, his pink skin began to collect grime and itch him, and it was not long before he was the counterpart of the scrawniest, mangiest stray that ever slunk along the backwaters of London Town and the river reaches.
And still he kept on, with night merging into day and day into night again. He slept when he could not go on any longer out of sheer weariness, and wherever he happened to be, and always when he had had a little rest, there was the memory of the sweet and unforgettable face of Jennie with its white throat and soft, pink-lined muzzle, and the glowing, liquid, tender eyes, as well as all her individual mannerisms; her smile, the quick way she would look over at him to make sure that everything was well with him, her dear motions when she washed herself, her gay carriage. And there were her little weaknesses such as her family and ancestry and her desire to show off and look well before Peter's eyes, and at the same time all her strength, her lithe sureness, muscular paws and quiet, efficient action when it came to the hunt, or any kind of emergency. And it drove him on and on and on, ever searching.
When he reached the dock section once more he found that he remembered his way about somewhat better, and he went to the shack where Mr. Grims had lived on the chance that Jennie might just possibly have returned there to mourn for her friend, or drawn by her memories of the old man.
It was a grey, cold day, and raining again, when Peter went slinking along beneath the cover of the lined– up goods wagons in the late afternoon as he had that day so long ago with Jennie and thus came at last to the shack with the tin roof and the crooked-pipe chimney sticking out of it.
But, alas, what a difference. Gone were the red-blooming geraniums from either side of the door and from the windows. It looked dirty, dismal and more tumbledown than ever, and when Peter crept near and looked inside through the half-opened door he could see a mean-eyed, snivelling-looking little fellow wearing a dirty neckcloth, sitting on the cot with an Upraised gin bottle held to his mouth, and the whole place smelled of gin and sweat and dirt. And of course there was no sign of Jennie.
The man removed the bottle from his lips, and since he had drained it empty, he sent it flying through the door where it crashed into a thousand pieces almost where Peter was sitting. Had it been another inch or two to the left, it would have hit him. Peter wished it had. He dragged himself away from there..
As a kind of last hope, he found his steps turning towards the basin, east of the London docks, where the Countess of Greenock had been berthed. Surely, oh surely that was where Jennie must have gone. And the terrible part of his punishment was that each time he had such a thought about where she might be, it became at once the place where she must be and then he became all of a fever to get there, and as he went his mind would delude him with the picture of exactly where he would find Jennie, and how she would look, and what he would say to her, and what she would reply. And soon he would convince himself that it was all true and that he had only to hasten his steps to reach the Countess to find all as it was before-Mr. Strachan slashing at his dummy with his sword, Mr. Carluke cocking his fingers and firing off imaginary pistols at imaginary bad men and Indians, the crash of smashing crockery emanating from Captain Sourlies' cabin, and Jennie perched up on her favourite place-the flag locker on the after– deck.
The Countess was indeed in port, warped to her dock in the usual slovenly manner, but outside of the mournful strains of singing coming from amidships, there were no signs of life aboard her, the entire crew and officers having apparently gone ashore leaving no kind of watch whatsoever and no one aboard except Mealie, the cook.
He was sitting on a stool on deck at the head of the gangway, shining black and round-eyed, chanting a doleful blues, but his sharp and rolling eyes missed nothing, and when Peter poked his head around the corner of the gangplank and looked up, he ceased singing at once and shouted down-'Hollo, you Whitey! Hollo you. I know you. I know you. I never forget NO one. Where you been, hey? Where you gorl friend? You looking for you gorl friend, hey? She ain' been aroun' here.. . Why you both no come back.? We got plandy mouse and rot on board again.'
Peter was so stunned by the news that Jennie was not there, that for the moment there was nothing he could do but stand, almost frozen by despair. He had been so certain that Jennie would be at the ship, that this was truly the last place where she could be, and he could only look up at Mealie in silent misery.
It was astonishing how the big negro seemed to understand him. He arose from his stool, shaking his head and saying: `Don't you look at me thot way, big Whitey. I tol' you I ain' seen your gorl friend. Where you leave her, hey? Maybe she come along later . . .' Now he made clucking noises and advanced half-way down the gangplank and called: `You Whitey! You come bock and work, hey? I pay you good wages for cotching rot and mouse. Roas' lamb on Sunday and watchu like…. Plandy milk too. What you say, Whitey? You look like you plandy hongry inside …'
Now Peter became afraid that Mealie might pick him up, take him back aboard the Countess and lock him up in the galley, and so before the cook could come any nearer he turned away and ran and ran, his eyes again scalded by tears of misery and disappointment. He ran as fast and as far as he could, but it was no great distance, for it had been so long since he had eaten anything that he was quite weak and even felt that he was perhaps going a trifle light in the head since he now began to take to imagining things.
This took strange forms, such as finding himself at places with the feeling that he had been there before, and of course in the company of Jennie. Under the spell of this imagining, Pete
r would even turn to speak to Jennie, only to find that she was not there and the street a strange one in the wilderness of London.
He was staggering late one night, still looking, hunting and searching in the grim neighbourhood of the great warehouses and storage yards and buildings near the basins and the river by Wapping, when again he was impressed with the sense of familiarity as he passed a large hoarding advertising Bovril, not far from a pillar box. Surely he had been here before, but it, his exhausted condition he could not remember when.
He felt ill and weak, and was sure that another imagining was upon him. But he gave himself up to it because of the strong feeling that Jennie was somewhere nearby and the comfort it brought him for the moment.
He had had so many bad dreams and horrid nightmares during the endless days and nights of looking for Jennie, that he welcomed this good one that seemed to have been granted him for the moment, and this was that the drab, grimy, blackened brick wall of the warehouse along which he was dragging him– self at the moment would soon contain an aperture or hole, about the size of a dinner plate, a foot or two above the pavement, and that the grating which belonged over it would have rusted at the catches and fallen away so that if one wanted one could get out of the hole—or into it….
Yes, it was a good dream that had come over him, for sure enough, there was the so-familiar hole, metal lined, and on either side the small indentations to show where once the grating had fitted over it.
Such a dream, Peter felt sure, was meant to be followed, and with an effort he leaped upward and into the entrance. Oh yes, indeed, no more than three feet along inside the iron pipe and there was the rusted-out spot, a smaller hole leading off into the dark tunnel at the left, just as he had known it would be.
It was so good, and so comforting, not to feel quite so lost and aimless any more, to seem to be knowing where he was, or at least which way to go at the behest of this kindly, benevolent phantasy, left-now right and then left again, and if the dream as truly his friend and comforter, surely there would be the bin with a little light filtering into it from a grimy window near the top that had one pane out of it, and it would be filled with red and gilt furniture, covered with dust sheets piled right to the ceiling. In the centre would be an enormous bed with a red silk cover on it and a high canopy at one end with folds of yellow silk coming down from a kind of large oval medallion with the single letter 'N' over it in script, with a crown above….