The Catlady (2 page)

“You are right, of course, Florence dear,” Percival replied. “Why, we have our new lives ahead of us.”

“And possibly other lives,” said Florence.

“What do you mean?”

Florence rubbed her face against her husband's luxuriant whiskers. “We might have babies,” she said.

Of course, not all the kittens born in Ponsonby Place were reincarnations of human beings. Most were simply ordinary kittens born to ordinary cats and were given names like Tibbles or Fluff. The Catlady could tell the difference merely by looking into their eyes once they were opened, and until this happened she did not attempt to name them.

So it was not for ten days that she examined the four kittens born on January 22, 1901, the very day upon which Queen Victoria had died. Three of the kittens were tabbies, the fourth a ginger.

The Catlady picked up the tabbies first, looking to see what sex each was and then peering into its newly opened eyes.

“You're a tom,” she said three times, and, again three times,“Sorry, dear, you're only a cat.”

But when she came to the fourth kitten, a small and dumpy one, expecting it to be another tom—for ginger kittens usually were—she found it to be a queen, as female cats are called. Then she looked into its eyes and caught her breath.

“Not just a queen,” said the Catlady in a hoarse whisper,“but
the
Queen!”

Reverently, she placed the ginger kitten back in its nest.“Oh, Your Majesty!” she said. “Reborn on the day you died! To think that you have come to grace my house!” And awkwardly, for she was not as young as she had been, she dropped a curtsy.

“Your humble servant, ma'am,” said the Catlady, and retired from the room, backward.

Chapter Two

Hastily, the Catlady made her way from the room in the East Wing where this latest litter of kittens had been born to the principal bedroom of Ponsonby Place. It was a spacious chamber where her parents had slept in their lifetime—their previous lifetime, that is—and that they, in their reborn shapes, still naturally occupied. Once the Colonel had been a fiery old soldier and his wife a bit of a battle-ax, and now no other cat ever dared cross this threshold.

The Catlady found them lying side by side in the middle of the great four-poster bed. Percival had been reincarnated as a white
kitten that had grown into a very large and fat cat. His sweeping whiskers aped the military mustache of the human Percival. Florence was a tortoiseshell with just the same small, dark eyes that had once glinted behind Lady Ponsonby's pincenez.

“Papa! Mama!” cried the Catlady excitedly (she could never bring herself to address them by their first names). At the sound of her voice, they yawned and stretched themselves upon the fine silken bedspread with its pattern of damask roses,
which was now much torn by sharp claws and dirtied by muddy feet.

“What do you think!” went on the Catlady.“Our dear departed Queen is come to stay! Edward VII may now be King of England, but here at Ponsonby Place Victoria still reigns!”

“Mu,” said Percival in a bored voice, and Florence echoed,“Mu.”And they climbed off the four-poster and made their way down the curving staircase toward the dining room, for it was time for tea.

How I wish Mama and Papa were still able to speak the Queen's English—the King's English, I should say, mused the Catlady as, in the huge stone-flagged kitchen, she set about the task of filling a large number of bowls with a mixture of fish heads and boiled rabbit and ox liver. For that matter, I wish that those others that have been reborn could speak too. How nice it would be to talk over old times with Uncle Walter and Aunt Beatrice or chat about school days with Ethel or one of the other girls.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a loud, impatient meowing from the waiting cats.

The Catlady sighed. “Coming, dears!” she called.

She sat at the head of the table, nibbling a biscuit. Later, when all had been cleared away and washed up, she would make herself a nice cup of tea, but at that moment she realized for the first time that she was not only lonely for human conversation but that she was tired.

The older I get, she thought, the more cats and so the more work I have, and it'll be worse soon. Both Cousin Madeleine and Edith Wilson are pregnant.

By the time she got to bed that night (after paying her respects to the infant Queen Victoria), the Catlady had come to a decision. “There's only one thing for it, dears,” she said to the patchwork quilt of different-colored cats that covered her. “I shall have to get help.”

The next day she composed an advertisement to be placed in the local newspaper, the
Dummerset Chronicle.
It was very short. It said:

For some days the Catlady waited, rather nervously, for replies. She had been a recluse for so many years now that she was not looking forward to the ordeal of interviewing a whole string of strange people.

She need not have worried. As soon as the locals of Dumpton Muddicorum read the “Situations Vacant” in the
Dummerset Chronicle
, they said to each other, “Look at this, then! It's the old Catlady, advertising for home help. What a job, eh? Great rambling place, crawling with cats, and stinking of them too, no doubt. And as for her, well, if she ain't a witch she's as mad as a hatter! Anyone who applies for that needs their heads seen to.”

And no one did.

Muriel Ponsonby did not renew the advertisement. Perhaps it's just as well, she thought. I probably wouldn't have got on with the person. I'll just have to manage somehow.

Nonetheless, when shopping in the village, she did ask the shopkeepers if they knew of anyone suitable, but none of them did.

“Not at the moment, madam,” said the butcher, tipping his straw hat to her, “but I'll be sure to let you know if I hear of anyone.” And the others replied in the same vein. They winked at other customers when she had left their shops, and the customers smiled and shook their heads, watching her pedal rather shakily away on her tall black bicycle with the big wicker basket on the handlebars.

Poor old dear, they thought. She needs some help, no doubt about that, but she'll be lucky to get anyone. Shame, really, she's a nice old thing.

As for the village children, they sniggered behind their hands. “It's that old Catlady!” they whispered. And when she had gone by, they curled their fingers like claws and hissed and catcalled, pretending to scratch one another.

The weeks went by, and Cousin Madeleine and Edith Wilson both gave birth, one to four and one to six kittens. These were just ordinary kittens (for no one among the Catlady's family or friends had died), but with a total now of thirty animals in her house, she found herself wishing very much that someone— anyone—had answered that advertisement.

By now the little tubby ginger female that was, its owner knew beyond doubt, the reincarnation of the late great Queen was weaned. The Catlady found that, try as she would to treat all her animals alike, this one had already become special. She took to
carrying her about and had at long last decided what to call her.

After the first shock of finding who was within the little furry body, she had very gradually given up treating this kitten with such exaggerated respect. She stopped curtsying to it and backing out of the room. From first addressing it as “Your Majesty,” she had then progressed to “Victoria” and later, so familiar did she now feel with this royal personage, to “Vicky.”