The Story of Jennie- or the Abandoned (6 page)

By twisting and turning a little, there was no part of him underneath that he could not reach, and he washed first one side and then, without any further instruction from Jennie, managed to reverse the position and get the left leg up, which drew forth an admiring, 'Oh, you are clever!' from Jennie—'it took me just ages to learn to work the left side. It all depends whether you are left or right pawed, but you caught on to it immediately. Now there's only one thing more. The back of the neck, the ears and the face.'

In a rush to earn more praise Peter went nearly cross-eyed trying to get his tongue out and around to reach behind him and on top of him, and of course it wouldn't work. He cried, 'Oh dear, THAT must be the most complicated of all.'

'On the contrary,' smiled Jennie, 'it's quite the simplest. Wet the side of your front paw.' Peter did so. 'Now rub it around over your ears and the back of your neck.'

Now it was Peter's turn to laugh at himself. 'How stupid I am,' he said. 'That part is just the way I do it at home. Except I use a wash-rag, and Nanny stands there watching to make certain I go behind the ears.'

'Well,' said Jennie, 'I'm watching you now …'

So Peter completed his bath by wetting one paw and then the other, on the side and in the middle on the pads, and washing first his ears, then both sides of his face, the back of his neck, his whiskers, and even a little under his chin, and over his nose and eyes.

And now he found that having washed himself all over, from head to foot, the most wonderful feeling of comfort and relaxation had come over him. It was quite a different sensation from the time that Jennie had washed him and which had somehow taken him back to the days when he was very little and his mother was looking after him.

This time he felt a kind of glow in his skin and a sense of wellbeing in his muscles as though every one of them had been properly used and stretched. In the light from the last of the shaft of the sun that was just passing from the window of the storehouse he could see how his white fur glistened from the treatment he had given it, as smooth as silk and as soft.

Peter felt a delicious drowsiness. His eyes began to close, and as from a distance he heard Jennie say: `It's good to take a nap after washing. I always do. You've earned it. I'll join you, and after we've slept a little, perhaps I'll tell you my story as I promised.'

Just before he dropped off to sleep, Peter felt her curl up against him, her back touching his, warm and secure, and the next moment he was off in sweet and dreamless slumber.

When he awoke, Jennie Baldrin was stretching and yawning at his side, and he joined her, imitating her movements, first putting out his forepaws as far as they would go and stretching backwards from there and then arching his back in a high inverted 'U.'

'There,' Jennie said when she had done. 'How do you feel now?'

'Ever so much better,' Peter replied, and he really felt like a new boy, or rather cat. Then he continued, for he had not forgotten what she had promised—'Now won't you please tell me about you. Please, Jennie, I should so love to hear it …'

The tabby could not resist a small purr at Peter's sincerity, but immediately after she became serious. 'Dear me,' she said, 'I didn't think I'd ever be telling of this to any one as long as I lived. Still—since you really wish it, so be it.'

And she began:

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 another 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.