The Story of Jennie- or the Abandoned (21 page)

'Jennie!' he cried-'What's the matter …'

`I … I don't know,' she replied. 'Oh, Peter, I just know I'm afraid …'

Peter said manfully, `Well, I'm not,' though he was not too certain of it. `What is there to be afraid of? I'll go in first,' and he went up to the door and leaned on it with his shoulder. The latch had just failed to catch, and now with the pressure it yielded with a loud click and with a gentle creaking the door swung ajar sufficiently for Peter to look inside.

The room was clean and neat and the table was bare, as though that night Mr. Grims had not had anything to eat. Everywhere the geraniums in their pots were full, rich, ripe and blooming jucily, the leaves thick and velvety, and each blossom shedding fragrance so that the room was riled with the sweet, pungent and slightly peppery geranium scent.

Then the pupils of his eyes having adjusted to the brightness of the single light hanging overhead, Peter saw Mr. Grims. He had gone to bed and lay there quite still, his worn, gnarled hands outside the covers, and apparently deeply asleep. And somehow, at the sight, Peter felt touched to his heart. Something very close to tears rose to his eyes, for he thought he had never seen anyone look so beautiful.

First, the thought came to his mind: `He looks like a saint,' and then was replaced by a much more daring one-'Oh no. He looks like God.' For the snow-white hair fell back from his brow and there was an extraordinary sweetness about the mouth and the gentle manner in which the closed eyelids lay over the eyes that Peter knew contained so much kindliness. The white moustaches now fell in two gentle lines about his lips, and with the thin arch of his nose and the pose of his head upon the pillow gave to his face the grave, tender mien of a patriarch, but filled at the same time with a sense of overpowering peace and majesty. From the clear, untroubled brow to the relaxed and resting hands there was not a line of bitterness or protest at his fate. Something had come to touch Mr. Grims with nobility.

Peter did not know how long he stared, for it seemed he could not take his eyes from him. Then the wireless, which had been playing away, stopped for a moment and brought him back. Peter turned to Jennie who was behind him and spoke in the low voice that one uses when a child is sleeping.

'shhhhhhhh. He's asleep. We can still surprise him. When he wakes up, we'll be here for him to see …'

But Peter was wrong, Mr. Grims was not asleep.

All through that night, with the burning eye of the electric light upon them, Jennie huddled miserably in a corner and wept for the old man who had been kind and befriended her and now would never know that she had come back to him. Peter sat by her and tried to comfort her with words, or an occasional sympathetic lick or two of washing, or just silently pressed his body close to hers. He could feel her trembling with sorrow and wished that there was more that he could do for her. In a way it seemed strange to him that Mr. Grims should be so contented and serene and Jennie so shaken with misery.

The wireless played steadily on until midnight, when it shut down, only to come on again at very early in the morning and awaken Peter from sleep into which he had fallen in spite of himself. And with the dawn came voices and footsteps outside the door, and a moment later someone called

'Oi there, Bill. Wotcher doin' with yer light on and yer wireless goin' at this hour. It's just the keys we're after.'

It was one of the foremen accompanied by two of the dock workers, and seeing the door was open they started to come in when the foreman said– 'Ullo-'ullo! Steady there, boys. I don't like the looks of this at all. Here, Bill! Bill Grims! Are ye ill?'

One of the dock hands said, `If ye ask me, it looks loike the poor old chap's 'ad 'is last illness.'

`Aye. And that's the truth ye've spoken.'

All three removed their caps and came inside hesitantly and awkwardly, as if now that there was no longer any possible chance of their doing so they were afraid they might disturb Mr. Grims. The foreman, with a grave look of sympathy and concern on his seamed and leathery face, studied the strange scene, the quiet figure in the bed, all the gay and gracious coloured plants, the two cats, one tiger-striped brindle with small head, shining, liquid eyes and snow-white throat and mask, and the other a creamy tom with broad head and shoulders and not a single mark or blemish on him.

Then he snapped off the wireless set and at the same time extinguished the light so that nothing but the early dawn glow came in through the windows. `Aye,' he said, "tis so. And none but his two faithful pets here to ease the loneliness of his last hours and be at his side when the summons came.'

The foreman's words gave Peter a wrench at his heart He took some comfort that Jennie could not understand all the foreman had been saying and was glad likewise that he did not know that even that solace had been denied Mr. Grims, and that when the call had come he had taken to his cot by himself and faced it alone.

The foreman gently drew the cover over Mr. Grims' shoulders and head, and then went about the place performing the last offices of tidying up a little. One of the dockers bent down before he left and rubbed Peter's ears for a moment. `Aye, pusses, ye know, don't ye,' he said. `Ye'll be in need of a new home now and someone else to feed and look after ye. Ah well…. First there's to see that he's properly cared for and then we'll think of what's to be done for ye. Old Bill would have wanted his friends remembered …'

He and the two dockers went out quietly, leaving the door ajar.

Peter said to Jennie: `He's going to be looked after. I heard the foreman say so. You mustn't grieve so. We came as quickly as we could …'

But Jennie refused to be comforted. She said: `He shared his food and broke bread with us. He spoke to us sweetly and kindly and begged us to stay with him. And I laughed at him and made you run away. Peter, Peter … How can I ever forgive myself? Don't you see, if it hadn't been for me and the way I acted, if we had stayed, it could all have been different? He might even have had something to live for again, instead of falling ill and just lying down to die. And even so, we would have been here by his side, or maybe we could have run and got help for him. Oh, I wish I were dead …'

She fell silent again and Peter, squatting down beside her bethought himself of what to do. He felt that unless there was some way that he could distract her mind, she might well remain there mourning and brooding over something which could now no longer be helped, and perhaps even grieve and starve herself to death. He knew that neither he nor she would ever forget, that a thoughtless cruelty can be too late repented of, that life does not take cognizance of how one feels or what one would like to do to make up for past errors, but moves inexorably, and that the burden is more often `too late, too late' rather than `just in time …' A good deed or a right action wanted much immediacy in its performance. He also knew that he must help Jennie at once.

He said finally, 'Jennie … there is nothing further we can do here. I have a wish … I want to go home …'

`Home?' she said, as though the word had a strange and unfamiliar ring in her ears.

`To Cavendish Mews,' Peter said, and then added-'Just to visit…. Perhaps I could see Mummy and Daddy and Nanny, from the outside, for a moment. We might just walk by and look in. . .'

`Yes,' said Jennie, in a dull, hurt voice, `you must go.'

`But I can't go alone, Jennie..I don't dare. You must come with me. I need you. Don't you see? … Just as you needed me to go to Glasgow, I need you to help me here. I'm not yet enough cat to get around London by myself. I'd get lost, I'm not sure I could even find my way, or get a meal, or secure a place to sleep at night. Jennie, please help me. I do so want to see them just once more …'

A change came over Jennie. Her lithe body lost the sick, slack, slumped crouch and pulled itself together again. As q usual, when she was much moved, she sat up and gave her back a few licks. Then she said, `If you really think you need me, Peter …'

`Oh, but, Jennie, I do …'

`Then I'll go with you, whenever you say.'

Peter jumped up and looked out the window. Off in the distance, down by the goods wagons on the siding, he could see a group of people approaching, the foreman, the two dockers, a man carrying a black bag, and several others.

'I think we'd better go now,' he said, `before they come back.'

Without another word, Jennie arose and they slipped out of the door, but it was significant that this time it was Peter who led the way and Jennie who followed him. They quickly slipped around behind the shack, and then alternately running and walking down the water side of the docks and sheds, soon reached the iron gates of the pier which now stood open, and went through them out into the street again.

IT was only half true that Peter wanted to go home. For boy and cat were becoming so intermingled that Peter was not at all certain any longer which he really was.

More than once during his voyage aboard the Countess of Greenock and the subsequent adventures, Peter had thought of his mother and father and Scotch Nanny and wondered how they were, if they were missing him and whether they had any explanation for his mysterious disappearance. For certainly, none of them, not even Nanny, who had been right there at the time, could be expected to guess that he had changed suddenly from a boy into a snow-white tomcat under her very eyes almost, and had been pitched out into the street by her as a stray.

He thought it was probable that they would have notified the police, or perhaps, believing that he had run away, placed an advertisement in the `Personal' columns of The Times saying: `Peter: Come home, all is forgiven-Mummy, Daddy and Nanny,' or possibly it might have been more formally worded: `Will anyone who can give information as to the whereabouts of Master Peter Brown, vanished from No. IA Cavendish Mews, London, W.C.2, kindly communicate with Colonel and Mrs. Alastair Brown of that address. Reward!'

But in the main, when he thought of those at home he did not believe that he was much missed except by Nanny who, of course, had been busy with him almost from morning until night, leaving out the hours when he was at school, and now that he was gone would have nothing to do. His father was away from home so much of the time that except for their occasional evening romps he could hardly be expected to notice the difference. And as for his mother-Peter always felt sad and heavy-hearted when he thought about his mother, because she had been so beautiful and he had loved her so much. But it was the kind of sadness that is connected with a memory of something long ago that was. Looking back to what life had been like in those now but dimly recollected days, he felt certain that his mother had been a little unhappy herself at first when he was missed, but then, after all, she never seemed to have much time and now that he was gone perhaps it would not have taken her long to get used to it.

Really it was Jennie who had come more and more to mean family to him and upon whom he leaned for advice, help, companionship, trust, and even affection. It was true, she talked a great deal and was not the most beautiful cat in the world, but there was an endearing and ingratiating warmth and grace about her that made Peter feel comfortable and happy when they slept coiled up close to one another, or when even he only looked at her sometimes and saw her sweet attitudes, kindly eyes, gamin-wise face and soft white throat.

The world was full of all kinds of beautiful cats, prize specimens whose pictures he had seen in the illustrated magazines during the times of the cat shows. Compared to them, Jennie was rather plain, but it was an appealing plainness he would not have exchanged for all the beauty in the world.

Nor was it his newly acquired cat-self that was seeking a return to Cavendish Mews in quest of a home, though to some extent the cat in him was now prey to curiosity as to how things were there without him and what everyone was doing. But he knew quite definitely that his mother and father were people who had little or no interest in animals, or appeared to have any need of them, and hence would be hardly likely to offer a haven to a pair of stray cats come wandering in off the streets, namely Jennie and himself.

Peter's suggestion that Jennie accompany him on a trip home to Cavendish Mews was perhaps more than anything born out of the memory that when he had been unhappy and upset about their treatment of Mr. Grims at the time of the first encounter with him, she had managed to interest and distract him by proposing the journey to Scotland. When he saw her sunk in the depths of grief, and guilt over the fate of the poor old man, Peter had plucked a leaf out of her book on experience in the hope that it would take her mind off the tragedy, and particularly what she considered her share in it. By instinct, he seemed to have known that nothing actually would have moved her from the spot but his expression of his need for her.

Whatever, it was clear after they had set out for Cavendish Mews that she was in a more cheerful frame of mind and anxious to help him achieve his objective.

It is not easy for cats to move about in a big city, particularly on long journeys, and Jennie could be of no assistance to Peter in finding his way back to Cavendish Mews, since she had never lived or even been there and hence could not use her homing instinct, a kind of automatic direction-finder which communicated itself through her sensitive whiskers and enabled her to travel unerringly to any place where she had once spent some time.

Peter at least had the unique, from a cat's point of view, ability to know what people around him were saying, as well as being able to read signs, such as for instance appeared on the front of omnibuses and in general terms announced where they were going. One then had but to keep going in that direction and eventually one would arrive at the same destination or vicinity. In his first panic at finding himself a cat and out in the street, Peter had fled far from his home with never any account taken of the twistings and turnings he had made. However, he was quite familiar with his own neighbourhood, and knew if he could once reach Oxford and Regent streets he would find his way.