Originally published by Hodder & Stoughton in
"The Queen’s Gift Book" (in aid of Queen Mary’s Convalescent Auxiliary hospitals
for soldiers and sailors who have lost their limbs in the war)
Where Jill’s cat came from I have no idea: she just came, like the summer or the swallows, from somewhere else. I first set eyes on her on returning home from dinner late one night in August, when windows had been left wide for the sake of air, and found her neatly and comfortably coiled up in an arm-chair in my sitting-room, very fast asleep. Naturally therefore I opened the door of this room which gave on to the garden, and advanced upon her clapping my hands and emitting loud and terrifying noises in order to drive her out, for I was not then aware that I wanted Jill’s cat. But she merely twitched a drowsy ear, stretched out one paw with extreme languor and looked at me with one half-opened yellow eye, as if to say "It is surely too late to play about: let me go to sleep again."
But I still did not want her to go to sleep in my house, and though I regretted having to violate the ancient and sacred claims of hospitality, it was impossible to respect them so far as to give a home to any stray eat that might happen to come along and enter my sitting room. So, already hesitating but firm in purpose, I took her up respectfully with both hands, intending to put her feet into the garden and shut the door. But the moment I touched her she set up a loud teakettle purr, as if to welcome even in her somnolence the touch of a friend, and licked with a rough pink tongue the hand that was near her head.
Now for a cat to show such marks of confidence to a stranger, is to the stranger, if he is but the merest neophyte in cat-matters, an affair vastly complimentary. In nine cases out of ten a stray cat would have bounced angrily from the room at being disturbed by the rude noises I had made, and have certainly woke up, suspicious and distrustful on being touched. Not so Jill’s cat: she said just, Oh, are you still there? How nice? Shan’t we go to sleep again?
This was certainly a very clever cat that made me feel so agreeable a person to cats, and I told myself (though I do not think my inmost mind really believed it) that I would definitely drive this pleasant but unbidden guest away in the morning. So I left Jill’s cat in possession of the chair, and she continued purring till I left the room. Probably she knew that she had already begun to make good her position in the new home she had adopted.
Most cats are absolutely tactless; they are easily bored (showing their boredom in a manner which it is perfectly impossible to construe otherwise), and have the rooted conviction that the human inhabitants of the world were created solely to amuse, feed and shelter them. In all these respects Jill’s cat was different from her race. She had all the tact which was left out of the composition of other cats, and when the housemaid came into the room next morning to do her dusting, Jill’s cat hailed her at once as an old and valued friend, and went to meet her with little cries of welcome, making a poker of her tail. Naturally the housemaid thawed before these exquisite manners, and, instead of turning her out at once, as she (and I also the night before) had meant to do, she took her down into the kitchen to give her a saucer of milk before putting her out on to her pilgrim’s way.
Jill’s cat was hungry, and with the dainty eagerness of her race began to appropriate her breakfast. But, halfway through it, she suddenly froze into stone, but for the end of a twitching tail, and regarded with the blazing eyes of the huntress the wainscoting opposite. Next moment a mouse was pinned by the talons of her velvet paws; the moment after there was no mouse externally visible at all. By that piece of work she insinuated herself into the heart of my cook (as well as enjoying herself very much) and not only showed that she had tact, but that she was going to work for her living, instead of expecting everybody to amuse her. Then, having deposited the poor mouse’s tail, which she did not feel disposed to eat, at the cook’s feet, as a small oblation showing respect and homage, she finished her milk very neatly.
Certainly Jill’s cat had shown excellent diplomacy (I wish the conduct if affairs at Constantinople had been in her hands): but there was a far more critical and hazardous passage in front of her than establishing good relations with the cook, the housemaid and me); For she was not yet aware that the household really revolved round none of us, but round Jill; and Jill, being young, was capricious, and being a fox-terrier might possibly object to the presence of a cat, or rejoice in its presence merely as being a quarry to pursue. Jill had slept that night as usual on various parts of my bed and me, and came down with me in the morning. I had forgotten for the moment all about the cat, and, an hour later, entered the dining-room for breakfast with Jill circling round me, and making short runs at my boots, which, so she had lately ascertained, on what grounds I know not, were some sort of enemy which must be constantly growled at and attacked. Thus then, heedless of cats, we entered the dining room.
There on the hearthrug, symmetrically arranged round one hind-leg which stuck up in the middle of her like a flagstaff, sat Jill’s cat, diligently employed on her morning toilet. The scurry of our entrance interrupted her ablutions, and, looking up with a calm and trustful eye, she saw Jill. I had one moment of horrified suspense as to whether the cat would go for Jill or Jill for the cat, and the flying of fur or hair seemed imminent and inevitable. But Jill’s cat was equal, more than equal to the occasion: she dominated the occasion instantly, and never have I seen the "right thing" so quickly comprehended or so unhesitatingly performed. With one swift, stealthy movement she had concealed herself underneath a corner of the table-cloth which hung down to the ground, and a white paw tipped with black was gingerly put out with little dabs and jerks and mysterious tremblings of the table-cloth. Now how, except by the possession of tact that amounted to genius, should that cat have known that Jill must be instantly conciliated, or how have guessed that the one thing irresistible to Jill was an agency concealed under a rug or the corner of a curtain which made known its presence by mysterious jerkings and tremblings?
But she did know it, and, before I could snatch Jill up to avert the impending catastrophe, no catastrophe impended any longer, and the two were rapturously engaged in a gorgeous game of hide-and-seek behind curtains, table legs, fenders, the Daily Telegraph, and chairs-wherever, in fact, there was the possibility of making ambushes and causing mysterious and secret stirrings. So destiny shapes our ends, and from that moment the stranger of the night before had entered on a new existence and become Jill’s cat.
Both in body and mind Jill’s cat was strong and kind and square. Apparently nature had intended her to be white originally, but had then changed her mind and dabbed her with fortuitous black patches like a nursery rocking horse. Physically, but for her firmness, she was undistinguished; it was in mind that she so excelled. Not only was she Jill’s cat, but Jill’s governess, for Jill, being young and remarkably attractive, was flirtatiously inclined, and through the railings of the front garden which gave on a public road she was apt to behave in a rather common manner with the young gentlemen of the neighbourhood. The railings were too narrow to admit of her squeezing her plump little body through them (she tried once, and stuck, rousing the entire parish by the shrillness of her lamentations), and she had to content her feminine instincts with putting her head through, and indiscriminately kissing any dog who felt disposed to receive her caresses. But Jill’s cat (in the role of governess) instantly thwarted these unladylike proceedings, for whenever she observed Jill trotting down to the garden railings and inserting her head through them to kiss everybody, she would follow, and from the vantage-ground of the gatepost turn herself into a perfect demon of spitting rage, thus distracting Jill’s indiscriminate friends from love, and filling their hearts with war. One particular terrier who was an assiduous loafer in what we may call Jill’s amatorium was the object of her especial aversion, and the language she considered it necessary to use to him was more responsible, I believe, for the blistering of the paint on the gate than the weeks of that hot summer.
Jill’s cat had a perfect mania for work, and her work consisted in catching anything that was alive. Within three days of her arrival I am convinced there was no mouse left in the precincts, and, having cleared the place of them, she turned her attention to birds, butterflies, and snails. I regretted her industry among the birds, though, as a matter of fact, she did not catch many ; but it was quite impossible to stop it, or the belief that no living thing except Jill, herself, and human beings must set foot in house or garden. It took her some time to discover that snails were alive, owing to the pitiable tardiness of their movements, but that fact once grasped, they took their place amid the spoils of the chase, and she brought them as presents to her cook, or Jill, or me. this generosity had its disadvantages, for Jill, like other children, was fond of collections, and liked concealing small objects of various kinds in the folds of the blanket in her basket. There one day I found two dead unfledged birds, a snail, and portions of what had once been a white butterfly. These no doubt were all presents from her cat.
Her work, together with sudden excursions to the garden-railing to swear at the dogs of the neighbourhood, used to take most of the morning; that over, she cleaned herself (for it was clearly a waste of time to do so until the house-work was finished) and she was then at leisure to play with Jill till lunch-time. Then came the desolating moment of the day, for Jill went for her walk, and her cat sat gazing down the road from the gatepost to wait for her return. Evening came and they slept together in Jill’s basket, after a wild romp in which they lay entangled and kicked each other in the face to show their deep and unalterable regard.
A year passed, and then an event occurred which for the time completely puzzled Jill’s cat, for Jill became the mother of four puppies, and in a moment changed from being a flighty and playful young woman into a savage and suspicious mother who would allow no one to go near the wood-shed. All this burst upon her cat like a bolt from the blue, for, strolling into the wood-shed on the morning the puppies were born, ready to play, she had to fly for her life, and seek refuge on the top of the garden-wall, where she crouched, trembling with fright and indignation, and full of astonished wonder at the little white demon, once her friend, who snarled and growled at her from the garden-bed below. For the time Jill’s whole nature was changed there were no more excursions to the railings to kiss indiscriminate gentlemen, and, also, she had neither time nor desire to play with her disconsolate eat. But this fierce access of protective maternity lasted not more than a few days, for she could not substantiate any plot against her puppies, and one afternoon she left the hay-packed box where her family lay, and trotted across the lawn to where sat her cat. The latter, remembering Jill’s unprovoked assault, sprang up the trunk of a tree as she approached, and glared distrustfully through the leaves, while Jill whined and whimpered below, and put herself into engaging postures on the grass. Then step by step, yearning for the return of those happy times, but still cautiously, her cat descended to the lowest branch of the tree, and, after a long pause, decided to trust and to forget and to forgive, and took a flying leap on to her friend. Next moment
they were kicking each other in the face in the old manner, and making ambushes among the geraniums.
But soon Jill’s maternal heart yearned again for the nuzzling noses of her infants, and she ran back to the woodshed. Then ensued a thrilling piece of animal psychology. Very cautiously and ready to fly, the cat followed and inserted her head and half her body through the doorway. Inside there was dead silence. Jill was evidently pondering as to whether her cat could be trusted to approach these precious things then, after a pause, came a little friendly whine of welcome and the cat entered. I followed and looked in. Jill was lying in her box, the four puppies cuddled up against her, and her cat was sitting close by, with wide and wondering eyes. Then she raised one paw gently and delicately, and with it just touched the nearest puppy. Certainly they were live things and so ought to be hunted, but on the other hand they were Jill’s. Then, advancing another step, she licked them very gently with the tip of her pink tongue. And Jill approved, and said, "Wuff! Wasn’t it clever of me?" and we were all very happy to find that marriage after all had not caused any separation between old friends. So the mysterious bond of sympathy between the two only grew stronger instead of being broken, and Jill’s cat became a sort of aunt to the puppies. There was, it is true, one moment of unfounded suspicion on Jill’s part when two out of the four puppies unaccountably vanished, and she was inclined to blame the cat. But this passed, and she took her as joint educator of the young, how that she no longer wanted a governess herself, and even allowed the beloved ones to go staggering excursions first about the wood-shed, and then over the whole romantic playground of the garden under the supervision of their aunt. By degrees, too, the fascination of biting and kicking one’s aunt in the face dawned on the infant mind, and all four would lie together, an inextricable mass of paws and little white teeth and pink tongues.
The road just outside the gate was a long straight level, much haunted by motor cars, and it was here that the end came to that strange animal friendship, for one day Jill was run over and killed just outside my house. The "small slain body " was brought in, and, while the grave was being dug underneath the apple-tree, Jill lay there quite still. And as she lay her cat came out of the house, her work being over, and she therefore disengaged and desirous of relaxation. But Jill was not for play that morning, and her cat strolled away again to look at a bird. Then she returned and sat down by her, trying to attract her attention. She dabbed her with a paw, and, finding that did no good, made a feint of running away. But Jill did not follow. By now the grave was ready, and we laid Jill in it, and filled in the earth.
That night I noticed something white sitting under the apple-tree, and, looking more closely, saw that it was Jill’s cat sitting on her grave. She would not come into the house, and next morning she had vanished altogether.
Had she gone to seek Jill, I wonder? And in the end will those two gay little spirits find each other again?
Special thanks go to Siriami (Alistair Kerr) who found this story
and prepared the text and illustrations.
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