Downton Tabby (3 page)

B
ELOW STAIRS IN A GREAT
cathouse . . . I mean a great cats’ house . . . I mean a great house for cats . . . you know what I mean . . . below stairs, life was conducted in a different temper.

From early morning until early death, the work never seemed to end, because it didn’t, until it ultimately did. It was hard and exacting. Service was a dreary, onerous cycle of backbreaking, soul-crushing, day-in and day-out drudgery.

And they
loved
it.

Which is hard to believe, about cats, but remember: during this period, the English class system was
rigidly
enforced.

And the British Isles were
isles
 . . . precious stones set in a silver sea . . . so leaving would have meant getting wet.

Did they
like
being maids and butlers? Before you answer, consider everything you’ve ever read about English history after Robin Hood and before the Who. Your choices were:

Serving

Being served

Being killed by Jack the Ripper

So the employee class made the best of it and got with the program. It was indoor work, after all. And as a wise man once observed, “You’re gonna hafta serve somebody” (Bob Dylan, c. 1497–c. 1580).

And it beat mining.

At Downton Tabby, the downstairs cats bowed and scraped, went where they were told, and came when they were called, and their greatest pleasures were a general sense of exhaustion and the slightest sign of approval from their masters.

In other words, they worked like dogs.