by E. Nesbit
VI
THE WHITE CAT
The White Cat lived at the back of a shelf at the darkest end of theinside attic which was nearly dark all over. It had lived there foryears, because one of its white china ears was chipped, so that it wasno longer a possible ornament for the spare bedroom.
Tavy found it at the climax of a wicked and glorious afternoon. He hadbeen left alone. The servants were the only other people in the house.He had promised to be good. He had meant to be good. And he had notbeen. He had done everything you can think of. He had walked into theduck pond, and not a stitch of his clothes but had had to be changed.He had climbed on a hay rick and fallen off it, and had not broken hisneck, which, as cook told him, he richly deserved to do. He had found amouse in the trap and put it in the kitchen tea-pot, so that when cookwent to make tea it jumped out at her, and affected her to screamsfollowed by tears. Tavy was sorry for this, of course, and said so likea man. He had only, he explained, meant to give her a little start. Inthe confusion that followed the mouse, he had eaten all theblack-currant jam that was put out for kitchen tea, and for this too, heapologised handsomely as soon as it was pointed out to him. He hadbroken a pane of the greenhouse with a stone and.... But why pursue thepainful theme? The last thing he had done was to explore the attic,where he was never allowed to go, and to knock down the White Cat fromits shelf.
The sound of its fall brought the servants. The cat was not broken--onlyits other ear was chipped. Tavy was put to bed. But he got out as soonas the servants had gone downstairs, crept up to the attic, secured theCat, and washed it in the bath. So that when mother came back fromLondon, Tavy, dancing impatiently at the head of the stairs, in a verywet night-gown, flung himself upon her and cried, 'I've been awfullynaughty, and I'm frightfully sorry, and please may I have the White Catfor my very own?'
He was much sorrier than he had expected to be when he saw that motherwas too tired even to want to know, as she generally did, exactly hownaughty he had been. She only kissed him, and said:
'I am sorry you've been naughty, my darling. Go back to bed now.Good-night.'
Tavy was ashamed to say anything more about the China Cat, so he wentback to bed. But he took the Cat with him, and talked to it and kissedit, and went to sleep with its smooth shiny shoulder against his cheek.
In the days that followed, he was extravagantly good. Being good seemedas easy as being bad usually was. This may have been because motherseemed so tired and ill; and gentlemen in black coats and high hats cameto see mother, and after they had gone she used to cry. (These thingsgoing on in a house sometimes make people good; sometimes they act justthe other way.) Or it may have been because he had the China Cat to talkto. Anyhow, whichever way it was, at the end of the week mother said:
'Tavy, you've been a dear good boy, and a great comfort to me. You musthave tried very hard to be good.'
It was difficult to say, 'No, I haven't, at least not since the firstday,' but Tavy got it said, and was hugged for his pains.
'You wanted,' said mother, 'the China Cat. Well, you may have it.'
'For my very own?'
'For your very own. But you must be very careful not to break it. Andyou mustn't give it away. It goes with the house. Your Aunt Jane made mepromise to keep it in the family. It's very, very old. Don't take it outof doors for fear of accidents.'
'I love the White Cat, mother,' said Tavy. 'I love it better'n all mytoys.'
Then mother told Tavy several things, and that night when he went to bedTavy repeated them all faithfully to the China Cat, who was about sixinches high and looked very intelligent.
'So you see,' he ended, 'the wicked lawyer's taken nearly all mother'smoney, and we've got to leave our own lovely big White House, and go andlive in a horrid little house with another house glued on to its side.And mother does hate it so.'
'I don't wonder,' said the China Cat very distinctly.
'_What!_' said Tavy, half-way into his night-shirt.
'I said, I don't wonder, Octavius,' said the China Cat, and rose fromher sitting position, stretched her china legs and waved her white chinatail.
'You can speak?' said Tavy.
'Can't you see I can?--hear I mean?' said the Cat. 'I belong to you now,so I can speak to you. I couldn't before. It wouldn't have beenmanners.'
Tavy, his night-shirt round his neck, sat down on the edge of the bedwith his mouth open.
'Come, don't look so silly,' said the Cat, taking a walk along the highwooden mantelpiece, 'any one would think you didn't _like_ me to talk toyou.'
'I _love_ you to,' said Tavy recovering himself a little.
'Well then,' said the Cat.
'May I touch you?' Tavy asked timidly.
'Of course! I belong to you. Look out!' The China Cat gathered herselftogether and jumped. Tavy caught her.
It was quite a shock to find when one stroked her that the China Cat,though alive, was still china, hard, cold, and smooth to the touch, andyet perfectly brisk and absolutely bendable as any flesh and blood cat.
'Dear, dear white pussy,' said Tavy, 'I do love you.'
'And I love you,' purred the Cat, 'otherwise I should never have loweredmyself to begin a conversation.'
'I wish you were a real cat,' said Tavy.
'I am,' said the Cat. 'Now how shall we amuse ourselves? I suppose youdon't care for sport--mousing, I mean?'
'I never tried,' said Tavy, 'and I think I rather wouldn't.'
'Very well then, Octavius,' said the Cat. 'I'll take you to the WhiteCat's Castle. Get into bed. Bed makes a good travelling carriage,especially when you haven't any other. Shut your eyes.'
Tavy did as he was told. Shut his eyes, but could not keep them shut. Heopened them a tiny, tiny chink, and sprang up. He was not in bed. He wason a couch of soft beast-skin, and the couch stood in a splendid hall,whose walls were of gold and ivory. By him stood the White Cat, nolonger china, but real live cat--and fur--as cats should be.
'Here we are,' she said. 'The journey didn't take long, did it? Nowwe'll have that splendid supper, out of the fairy tale, with theinvisible hands waiting on us.'
She clapped her paws--paws now as soft as white velvet--and atable-cloth floated into the room; then knives and forks and spoons andglasses, the table was laid, the dishes drifted in, and they began toeat. There happened to be every single thing Tavy liked best to eat.After supper there was music and singing, and Tavy, having kissed awhite, soft, furry forehead, went to bed in a gold four-poster with acounterpane of butterflies' wings. He awoke at home. On the mantelpiecesat the White Cat, looking as though butter would not melt in her mouth.And all her furriness had gone with her voice. She was silent--andchina.
Tavy spoke to her. But she would not answer. Nor did she speak all day.Only at night when he was getting into bed she suddenly mewed,stretched, and said:
'Make haste, there's a play acted to-night at my castle.'
Tavy made haste, and was rewarded by another glorious evening in thecastle of the White Cat.
And so the weeks went on. Days full of an ordinary little boy's joys andsorrows, goodnesses and badnesses. Nights spent by a little Prince inthe Magic Castle of the White Cat.
Then came the day when Tavy's mother spoke to him, and he, very scaredand serious, told the China Cat what she had said.
'I knew this would happen,' said the Cat. 'It always does. So you're toleave your house next week. Well, there's only one way out of thedifficulty. Draw your sword, Tavy, and cut off my head and tail.'
'And then will you turn into a Princess, and shall I have to marry you?'Tavy asked with horror.
'No, dear--no,' said the Cat reassuringly. 'I sha'n't turn intoanything. But you and mother will turn into happy people. I shall justnot _be_ any more--for you.'
'Then I won't do it,' said Tavy.
'But you must. Come, draw your sword, like a brave fairy Prince, and cutoff my head.'
The sword hung above his bed, with the helmet and breast-plate UncleJames had given him last Chris
tmas.
'I'm not a fairy Prince,' said the child. 'I'm Tavy--and I love you.'
'You love your mother better,' said the Cat. 'Come cut my head off. Thestory always ends like that. You love mother best. It's for her sake.'
'Yes.' Tavy was trying to think it out. 'Yes, I love mother best. But Ilove _you_. And I won't cut off your head,--no, not even for mother.'
'Then,' said the Cat, 'I must do what I can!'
She stood up, waving her white china tail, and before Tavy could stopher she had leapt, not, as before, into his arms, but on to the widehearthstone.
It was all over--the China Cat lay broken inside the high brass fender.The sound of the smash brought mother running.
'What is it?' she cried. 'Oh, Tavy--the China Cat!'
'She would do it,' sobbed Tavy. 'She wanted me to cut off her head'n Iwouldn't.'
'Don't talk nonsense, dear,' said mother sadly. 'That only makes itworse. Pick up the pieces.'
'There's only two pieces,' said Tavy. 'Couldn't you stick her togetheragain?'
'Why,' said mother, holding the pieces close to the candle. 'She's beenbroken before. And mended.'
'I knew that,' said Tavy, still sobbing. 'Oh, my dear White Cat, oh, oh,oh!' The last 'oh' was a howl of anguish.
'Come, crying won't mend her,' said mother. 'Look, there's another pieceof her, close to the shovel.'
Tavy stooped.
'That's not a piece of cat,' he said, and picked it up.
It was a pale parchment label, tied to a key. Mother held it to thecandle and read: '_Key of the lock behind the knot in the mantelpiecepanel in the white parlour._'
'Tavy! I wonder! But ... where did it come from?'
'Out of my White Cat, I s'pose,' said Tavy, his tears stopping. 'Are yougoing to see what's in the mantelpiece panel, mother? Are you? Oh, dolet me come and see too!'
'You don't deserve,' mother began, and ended,--'Well, put yourdressing-gown on then.'
They went down the gallery past the pictures and the stuffed birds andtables with china on them and downstairs on to the white parlour. Butthey could not see any knot in the mantelpiece panel, because it was allpainted white. But mother's fingers felt softly all over it, and found around raised spot. It was a knot, sure enough. Then she scraped round itwith her scissors, till she loosened the knot, and poked it out with thescissors point.
'I don't suppose there's any keyhole there really,' she said. But therewas. And what is more, the key fitted. The panel swung open, and insidewas a little cupboard with two shelves. What was on the shelves? Therewere old laces and old embroideries, old jewelry and old silver; therewas money, and there were dusty old papers that Tavy thought mostuninteresting. But mother did not think them uninteresting. She laughed,and cried, or nearly cried, and said:
'Oh, Tavy, this was why the China Cat was to be taken such care of!'Then she told him how, a hundred and fifty years before, the Head of theHouse had gone out to fight for the Pretender, and had told his daughterto take the greatest care of the China Cat. 'I will send you word of thereason by a sure hand,' he said, for they parted on the open square,where any spy might have overheard anything. And he had been killed byan ambush not ten miles from home,--and his daughter had never known.But she had kept the Cat.
'And now it has saved us,' said mother. 'We can stay in the dear oldhouse, and there are two other houses that will belong to us too, Ithink. And, oh, Tavy, would you like some pound-cake and ginger-wine,dear?'
Tavy did like. And had it.
The China Cat was mended, but it was put in the glass-fronted cornercupboard in the drawing-room, because it had saved the House.
Now I dare say you'll think this is all nonsense, and a made-up story.Not at all. If it were, how would you account for Tavy's finding, thevery next night, fast asleep on his pillow, his own white Cat--the furryfriend that the China Cat used to turn into every evening--the dearhostess who had amused him so well in the White Cat's fairy Palace?
It was she, beyond a doubt, and that was why Tavy didn't mind a bitabout the China Cat being taken from him and kept under glass. You maythink that it was just any old stray white cat that had come in byaccident. Tavy knows better. It has the very same tender tone in itspurr that the magic White Cat had. It will not talk to Tavy, it is true;but Tavy can and does talk to it. But the thing that makes it perfectlycertain that it is the White Cat is that the tips of its two ears aremissing--just as the China Cat's ears were. If you say that it mighthave lost its ear-tips in battle you are the kind of person who always_makes_ difficulties, and you may be quite sure that the kind ofsplendid magics that happened to Tavy will never happen to _you_.