The Catlady

Chapter One

On the morning of January 22, 1901, Muriel Ponsonby had, living in her house, sixteen cats (including kittens). By the evening of that day, another litter of kittens had been born, bringing the total to a round twenty.

This event was, as usual, recorded in a large book titled
BIRTHDAY BOOK (CATS ONLY)
.

Miss Ponsonby, it should be explained, was an elderly lady living alone in a large country house that had belonged to her parents. Because she had always looked after them, she had never married, and after their deaths she had allowed her liking for cats
full rein. To be sure, she gave away some of the many kittens that appeared, but nevertheless Ponsonby Place—for this was the name of the family home—was always swarming with cats.

Miss Ponsonby kept herself to herself and did not mix much with the local villagers, save to go now and then to the shop to buy provisions for herself and the cats. Most felt she was harmless, a rather sweet old lady, but there were some who said she was a witch. Partly because of this, she was known to one and all as “the Catlady.”

In fact, she was not a witch but simply a somewhat strange old woman with odd habits.

For example, she talked constantly throughout the day—to herself, a listener might have thought. But this was no sign of madness. She was, of course, talking to her cats, and they talked back. Colonel Sir Percival Ponsonby and his wife had always addressed their daughter by a shortened version of her Christian name, Muriel, and all her cats used this. When spoken to, they would reply,“Mu! Mu! Mu!”

Many would have found it odd to discover that she took all her meals with her cats. The long refectory table in the great dining room was laid with a bowl for each adult cat and any kittens old enough to jump up on it, and the Catlady would sit at the head with her own bowl before her.

To be sure, she used a knife and fork and spoon, and afterward wiped her lips with a napkin while the rest cleaned their faces with their paws. But on occasion, so as not to seem standoffish, she would fill a bowl with milk and lap from it.

At nighttime she was kept very comfortable, especially in the winter, for all those cats who wished—and many did—slept on her bed, providing her with a warm, furry bedspread.

With her rather sharp features, green eyes, and gray hair tied back to show her
somewhat pointed ears, Muriel Ponsonby looked much like a giant cat as she lay stretched beneath the purring throng.

Few people knew of her eating habits, for she had no servants, and only the doctor, called on a rare occasion when she was confined to bed, had ever seen the cat blanket. But no one at all knew the strangest thing about Miss Ponsonby, which was that she was a firm believer in reincarnation.

As a simple soldier, her father, who had served in the army in India, thought that the idea of reincarnation was a lot of nonsense,
but he had talked about it to his daughter when she was a child. As she grew older, Muriel came to believe, as Hindus do, that when a person dies, he or she is reborn in another body, and not necessarily a human one. She was sure that some of her feline companions had once been people she knew. Thus among her cats there was a Percival (her late father, she was certain, just the same whiskers), a Florence (her late mother), a Rupert and a Madeleine (cousins), a Walter and a Beatrice (uncle and aunt), as well as some newly departed friends. Ethel Simmons, Margaret Maitland, and Edith Wilson (two tabbies and a black), all old school friends of hers, had reappeared in feline form.

It was to these nine cats that Muriel Ponsonby chiefly spoke, and they replied by making typical cat noises like meowing and purring. All were delighted to be living in comfort in Ponsonby Place, in the care of a human whom they had, in their previous lives, known and loved.

Percival and Florence were, of course, particularly pleased at how well their only daughter had turned out.

“How fortunate we are, my dear,” the Colonel said to his wife,“to be looked after by Muriel in our old age.”

“Old age?” said Florence. “I think you tend to forget, Percival, that we have been reincarnated into new bodies and that ours are now comparatively young.”