The Story of Jennie- or the Abandoned (19 page)

Jennie stirred on her girder and the look that she sent up to him was absolutely worshipful. 'Oh, Peter,' she said, `you are wonderful. It's all your doing. If it hadn't been for you we both should have perished here, and all because of me …'

Peter enjoyed being admired by Jennie, though he did feel that she was allowing him rather too much territory, since he had done nothing but say, or hope, that they might eventually be rescued. However, before he could reply there was a rush and a roar and a small aeroplane dived at them out of the sky, and just as it seemed about to crash into them, wheeled upwards again over and away, revealing a young man leaning out of the fuselage pointing a box at them. The next moment it was gone.

Jennie gave a small scream. 'Oh! What was that?'

`Taking our pictures for the papers, no doubt,' Peter explained, thrilled to death.

'Oh dear,' Jennie said, `and me a perfect fright, just when one ought to look one's best. Do you suppose he'll come back?' And as far as she could, without disturbing her balance, she commenced to wash.

But Peter was far too excited and fascinated by the rescue operations to devote even a moment to this function at such a time

First, the electric light and telephone wagons tried it, but their towers weren't nearly tall enough to reach Peter and Jennie, even when they were cranked as high as they would go.

The maintenance wagons were moved away with a good deal of noise and shouting, and the fire laddies had a go next. They raised their tallest rescue ladder as well as the water tower and sent up two firemen, the sun glinting handsomely on their brass helmets and belt buckles, as well as a large, red– faced police constable in a blue uniform.

But firemen and constable both remained stuck a good twenty feet below Peter and Jennie, for their equipment did not reach either, and Jennie was just about to despair when Peter, who really was having the time of his life, pointed out that now in the centre of the throng still further preparations were going forward.

This time it was two of the bridge maintenance men who had fitted themselves out with their climbing shoes, grappling-hooks, safety webs, sliding belts, gloves, helmets, sacks and ropes. Ready at last, each simultaneously placed his foot in one of the girders of the twin steel pillars and, as though at a given signal, started their ascent together to the accompaniment of a faint cheer.

First one would be leading in what developed into a race upwards, and then the other. Soon the sporting members in the crowd began to shout encouragement and lay bets at the same time: 'Go to it, Bill! Ye've got him, Tam! A little more leg there, Tammas lad! Odds on Bill reaches the white 'un afore Tam climbs to the little puss. Three to two Tam's first down with hisn'. Bravo, Tam! Well climbed, Bill! Hooray!'

'We're saved!' Peter called down joyously to Jennie. `This time they're going to make it.'

'Oh dear, oh dear', Jennie lamented. 'I just know I'm going to bite and scratch when he comes, and I won't mean to. That's the kind of thing that gives cats a bad name, and we can't help it. I'm nothing but a bundle of nerves and hysteria right now, and I suppose that wretched aeroplane will be along to take the picture just at the moment I have my hooks entangled in Tam's hair. No, no, NO! Let go! I WON'T COME! MMMMFFF!'

This last was a kind of strangled protest and muffled cry as Tammas appeared on the girder alongside her, snapped on his safety belt to free his hands, plucked her, spitting, growling, clawing and fighting, from her perch and popped her into his bag.

Peter was just about to cry out to her, 'Be brave, Jennie!' when Bill had him by the scruff of the neck, into the sack he went, and down they started.

It was a horrible sensation inside the sack, dark and stifling, coupled with the awful motion of the descent, but Peter was more worried how poor Jennie must be taking it than any discomfort he himself was experiencing. However, it was soon over and the increasing volume of ringing cheers made it obvious they were approaching the ground, and then at last, amidst shouts and cries of congratulation, he was let out of the bag to see Jennie quivering in Tam's grasp while he was held by Bill. Policemen, firemen and citizens crowded around, the men grinning and the women cooing 'Oh, the pretties. Isn't the little one sweet. Up there all the night, the poor things. Wonder who they belong to …'

Peter would have been delighted to have been the centre of such attention if he had not been so concerned about Jennie who, even now that she was safe and sound, continued to reveal the most miserable and unhappy expression upon her countenance, even as photographers arrived to take more pictures and a reporter interviewed both Tam and Bill, asking them what it felt like to be up there hundreds of feet above the heads of everyone risking their lives for the sake of two stray cats. Tam said: 'Ah didn' feel nowt but 'er digging offer claws into me 'ide,' while Bill declared modestly, 'Aw, it was naethin'.'

But the adventure was drawing to a close. For the firemen had packed up their ladders and lowered the water tower, the utilities maintenance wagons had cranked down their platforms, and now with a great grinding and roaring and chuffing of motors, clanging of bells and muttering of sirens, the apparatus and vans and lorries and squad cars all started pulling away, backing, turning and starting up with a good deal of advice from the spectators.

Tam and Bill, once the pictures had all been taken, dropped Jennie and Peter to the ground where they crouched close to the stone abutment to keep from being trampled on, climbed aboard their equipment truck and drove away. And as fast as the crowd had gathered, now it began as quickly to melt. With all the excitement over, people returned to their business. Now and then one would stop to reach over and pat Peter on the head, or give Jennie a chuck under the chin, and say: 'Feeling better now, eh, puss?' or 'Pretty lucky they got you down from there, old man . . .' and then on they would go. Now that the suspense was over and they were safely down, no one thought to offer them something to eat, a drink or shelter, and in a few minutes all the thousands of people had vanished, and except for the occasional passers-by bound for the bridge and who, being latecomers did not even know what had happened and therefore paid no attention to the two cats squatting on the walk beneath the shelter of the arch, Peter and Jennie were left quite to themselves.

'Goodness,' said Peter, `but that was exciting’.

But from Jennie there issued only a long, deep sigh. She was still far from a happy little bundle of fur crouched down hard by the great stone abutment where two nights before their terrifying experience had begun Peter looked at her curiously. 'Jennie, he said, 'aren't you glad that it all turned out so well and we were rescued and everything?'

Jennie bent her large, liquid eyes upon him and Peter noticed that they seemed to be almost on the verge of tears again and that she had rarely looked so desperately appealing.

'Oh, Peter,' she moaned, 'I've never been so miserable or unhappy in all my life. I've made such an awful mess of things …'

'Jennie dear!' Peter went over to her and sat down next to her and right close so that his flank touched hers in a comforting way. 'What is wrong? Won't you tell me? Something has been upsetting and worrying you for so long.'

She gave herself two quick licks to get a grip on herself and crowded close to him. 'I don't know what I should do without you, Peter. You have been such a comfort to me. It's true. I have something dreadfully important to tell you about changing my mind, but I feel like such a fool. That's why I haven't told you before. But now I've been thinking about it for days, and after everything that happened I can't hold it back any longer …

'Yes, Jennie,' Peter coaxed sympathetically, wondering what on earth it could be. 'What is it …'

'You promise you won't be angry with me?'

'I promise, Jennie.'

'Peter,' Jennie said, 'I want to go back and live with Mr. Grims,' and then pushing quite close to him began to cry softly.

PETER looked at Jennie as though he could hardly believe his ears.

'Jennie! Do you really mean it? We could go and live with Mr. Grims? Oh, I'd love to.'

Jennie stopped crying and put her head down close to Peter's side where it was half hidden from him so that he could not see how upset and ashamed she was.

`Oh, Peter,' Jennie said in a low, soft voice-'then you're not angry with me?'

`Angry with you, Jennie? But of course not. I liked Mr. Grims enormously, he was so cheerful and jolly and kind, and all the flowers in his little house and the way the tea-kettle sang on the stove and his offering to share everything he had with us. And besides, he seemed to be so awfully lonely-'

'Peter—don't,' Jennie wailed, interrupting him, `I can't bear it. It's been on my conscience ever since we left him. It was a dreadful thing I did. Old people are always so very much more alone than anyone else in the world. I'll never forget the way he looked, standing there in the doorway, kind of lost and bent, calling to us and begging us to come back. It nearly broke my heart …'

`But, Jennie,' Peter said, `you were angry with me when I said the same thing after we ran away. You remember I said I felt like a rotter …'

`My Peter, of course I was,' Jennie said, still hiding her head, `because you were right and I knew you were. I was being mean and nasty and infeline and hard, and just hateful. And you were being sweet and kind and natural and wanting to do what was right, and of course it made me look and feel all the more horrid. That was why I made you come away with me to Glasgow …'

Peter felt quite confused now, and said: `But I thought you said you wanted to see your relatives and where you were born and. . .'

Jennie's head came up with a toss and she said, `Oh, bother my relatives. You saw what that one was like we happened to meet. And I suppose I have literally thousands of them up here who don't care any more about me than I do about them. But I thought if we went off on a little trip together it would take your mind off Mr. Grims and what I had done and—oh dear, I guess what I really thought is that it would take my mind off it. I was running away from having been a perfect pig.'

She leaned a little closer to Peter and continued with her confession. `And, of course, I couldn't get away at all. Wherever I was and wherever I went, down in the storeroom with you, up in the forecastle in the dark, waiting for a rat, I'd see him again and the expression on his face when he was begging for us to come back, and even during the biggest noises I would keep hearing his voice and remembering how I had behaved and repaid his hospitality. And then I tried to tell myself the reason I acted that way was because of what Buff had done to me. Then I would hear you saying that she couldn't have done that to me, that something must have happened, that it wasn't her fault, and I would have the most awful feeling that perhaps you were right and I had been wrong all the time and maybe she had come back there looking for me sometime, perhaps the next day even, and how she would have cried when she didn't find me …'

Peter felt sorry for Jennie, but in a way he was relieved too, for this was beginning to be like the old Jennie again, who loved to talk and talk and explain, and besides, he was terribly happy about her wanting to go back to Mr. Grims.

'And then,' Jennie continued, having drawn a deep, full breath and taken one desultory lick at her side, 'when I fell overboard I thought that it was the punishment being visited upon me for all my sins and that I deserved to be made an end of, and so when I found myself in the water I didn't much care any more and didn't really try very hard to keep up because I knew the ship would never turn around and come back to pick me up. Then YOU came to me and it was too much to bear, because I knew that I was to be the cause of your end too. After that I didn't remember anything more until I found myself in Mr. Strachan's cabin and you were washing me. But then and there I resolved to go back and live with Mr. Grime and try to make him happy and keep him company because I knew that until I did I would never have another peaceful moment.'

'I know,' Peter said. 'I thought about him a lot myself.'

'And then I was ashamed in front of you, Peter,' Jennie said, 'so very ashamed that I didn't know when or where or how to begin to tell you about wanting to go back. When we got marooned up there I kept thinking if we ever got down alive I would tell you at once and then perhaps I would stop leading you into such awful trouble and dangers-'

Peter interrupted-'Yes, but we always get out of them.'

'Some time we won't,' Jennie said grimly. 'The humans have made up a sort of supposedly funny saying that a cat has nine lives, which is, of course, utter nonsense. You are entitled to just so many narrow escapes in your life and then the next time you are going to catch it. I don't want there to be any next time. If we can find some way to get back to London, soon. . .'

‘Jennie!' Peter cried excitedly, `why not now-right away, if it isn't too late?'

'What do you mean, Peter … '

'Why, the Countess of Greenock. I could see her when we were up on the tower. She was still there this morning with a lot of black smoke coming out of her smokestack, the way it was the day we went aboard her in London. She'll be going back again. Maybe if we hurry we won't be too late and can catch her before she sails.'

Jennie gave a great sigh and pressed close to Peter for a moment. 'Oh dear,' she said, 'it's SO good to have a male about who knows what to do.' Then she leaped to her feet. 'Come on, Peter, let's run. She might be casting off any second.'

Away they went then, tossing rules and ordinary feline discretions to the winds, not bothering to take cover, or employ the point-to-point system, but bounding, leaping, flying over obstacles with not only the speed and agility of cats, but with that extra something that is lent to the limbs and the feet when a great weight has been lifted from the spirit.