Puss-cat was her mother’s own child from the first, though with much added. She wasted no time or strength in bewailing her orphaned condition, but took amazing quantities of milk administered on a feather. Her eyes opened, as eyes should do, on the seventh day, and she smiled at us all, and spat at Jill. So Jill licked her nose with anxious care, and said quite distinctly, “When you are a little older, I will be always ready to do whatever you like.” Jill says the same sort of thing to everybody except the dustman.
Soon after, Puss-cat arose from her birth-bed and staggered across the pantry. Even this first expedition on her own feet was not made without purpose, for in spite of frequent falls she went straight up to a blind-tassel, and after looking at it for a long time, tested it with a tiny paw to make sure of it, thus showing, while scarcely out of the cradle, that serious purpose which marked her throughout her dear life. Her motto was, “Do your work,” and since she remained unmarried in spite of many very eligible offers, I think that her unnatural mother must have impressed upon her, in those few days before she deserted her, that the first duty of a cat is to look after the house, and that she herself didn’t think much of maternity. Puss-cat inherited also, I suppose, her fixed conviction that she ought to have been, even if she was not, the only cat in the world, and she would allow no one of her own race within eyeshot of house or garden. Some of her duties, though they were always conscientiously performed, I think rather bored her, but certainly she brought to the expulsion of cats an exquisite sense of enjoyment. On the appearance of any one of her own nation she would go hastily into ambush with twitching tail and jerking shoulder-blades, teasing and torturing herself with the postponement of that rapturous stealthy advance across the grass, if the quarry was looking the other way, or the furious hurling of herself through the air, if a frontal attack had to be delivered. And I often wondered that she did not betray her ambush by the rapture and sonorousness of her purring, as the supreme moment approached.
Jill, I am afraid, gave her a lot of worry over this duty of the expulsion of aliens, for Jill would sooner play with an alien than expel it, and her plan was to gambol up to the intruder with misplaced welcome. It is true that the effect was just the same, because a trespassing cat, seeing an alert fox-terrier rapidly approaching, seldom, if ever, stops to play, so that Jill’s method was really quite effective, too. But Puss-cat had high moral purpose behind her: she wanted not only to expel, but to appal and injure, and like many moralists of our own species, she enjoyed her fulmi nations and onslaughts quite tremendously. She liked punishing other cats, because she was right and they were wrong, and vigorous kicks and bites would help them perhaps to understand that.
But though Puss-cat resembled her mother in the matter of the high sense of duty and moral qualities, she had what Martha lacked: that indefinable attraction which we call charm, and a great heart. She was always pleased and affectionate, and went about her duties with as near an approach to a smile as is possible for the gravest species of animal. Martha, for instance, played with Jill as a part of her duty, Puss-cat made a pleasure out of it and played with the ecstatic abandon of a child. Indeed, I have known her put dinner a quarter of an hour later, because she was in the lovely jungle of long grass at the end of the garden, and was preparing to give Jill an awful fright. This business of the jungle deserves mention, not because it was so remarkable in itself, but because it was so wonderful to Pusscat.
The jungle in question was a space of some dozen yards, where in spring daffodils grew in clumps of sunshine and fritillaries hung their speckled bells. There were preonies also planted in the grass, and a briar-rose, and an apple-tree; nothing, as I have said, was remarkable in itself, but it was fraught with amazing possibilities to the keen imagination of Puss-cat. At the bottom of this strip of untamed jungle the lawn began, and it was one of Puss-cat’s plans to hide at the edge of the jungle, flattening herself out till she looked like a shadow ot something else. If luck served her, Jill, sooner or later in the pursuit of interesting smells, would pass close to the edge of the jungle without seeing her. The moment Jill had gone by, Puss-cat would stretch out a discreet paw, and just touch Jill on the hindquarters. Jill, of course, had to turn round to see what this inexplicable thing meant, and on the moment Puss-cat would fling herself into the air and descend tiger-like on Jill’s back. That was the beginning of the game, and it contained more vicissitudes than a round of golf. There were ambushes and scurryings innumerable, assaults from the appletree, repulsions from behind the garden roller, periods of absolute quiescence, suddenly and wildly broken by swift flanking movements through the sweet-peas, and at the end a failure of wind and limb, and Jill would lie panting on the bank, and Puss-cat, having put off dinner, proceed to clean herself for her evening duties. She had to be smart at dinner-time, whether we were dining alone, or whether there was a dinner-party, for she was never a tea-gown cat, and she dressed for her dinner, even if we were dining out. She was not responsible for that; what she was responsible for was to be tidy herself.
Puss-cat, without doubt, was a plain kitten; but again, like many children of our own inferior race, she grew up to be a very handsome cat. With great chic she did not attempt colours, but was pure black and white. Across her broad, strong back there was a black saddle, but the saddle, so to speak, had slewed round and made a black band across her left side. There was an arbitrary patch of black, too, on her left cheek, a black band on her tail, and a black tip to it. Otherwise she was pure white, except when she put out a pink tongue below her long, snowy whiskers. But her charm-—the outstanding feature of Puss-cat—was independent of this fascinating colouring. Martha, for instance, had been content that dishes were carried into the dining-room, and subsequently carried out. That and no more was her notion of her duties towards dinner. But Puss-cat feally began where Martha ended. Like her, she preceded the soup, but when those who were present had received their share, she always went round with loud purrings to each guest, to congratulate them and hope that they liked it. For this process, which was repeated with every dish, she had a particular walk, stepping high and treading on the tips of her toes. This congratulatory march was purely altruistic: she did not want soup herself; she was only glad that other people had got it. Then when fish came, or bird, she would make her congratulatory tour just the same, and then sit firmly down and say she would like some too. Occasionally she favoured some particular guest with marked regard, and sometimes almost forgot her duties as mistress of the house, choosing rather to sit by her protegee and purr loudly, so that a dish would already be half-eaten before she went her round to see that everyone was pleased with his portion. Finally, when coffee was brought, she went downstairs to the kitchen and retired for the night, usually sharing Jill’s basket, where they lay together in a soft slow-breathing heap of black and white.
Puss-cat, like the ancient Greeks, was never sick or sorrv: never sick, because of her robust and stalwart health; never sorry, because she never did anything to be sorry for. From living with Jill, and never seeing a cat, except for those short and painful interviews which preceded expulsion from the garden, she grew to have something of the selfless affection of a dog, and when I came home after an absence she would run out into the street to meet me, stiff-tailed, and really not attending to the debarkation of luggage, but intent only on welcoming me home. Eight busy, happy years passed thus, and then one bitter February morning, Pussy-cat disappeared.
The weeks went on, and still there came no sign of her, and when winter had passed into May I gave up all hopes of her return, and got a fresh cat, this time a young blue Persian with topaz-coloured eyes. Another month went by, and Agag (so-called from his delicate walk) had established himself in our affections, on account of his extraordinary beauty, rather than from any charm of character, when the second act of the tragedy opened.
I was sitting at breakfast one morning, with the door into the garden thrown wide, and Agag was curled up on a chair in the window (for, unlike Pusscat and Martha, he did no housework at all, being of proud and aristocratic descent), when I saw coming slowly across the lawn a cat that I scarcely recognized. It was lean to the point of emaciation, its fur was disordered and dirty, but it was Puss-cat come home again. Then suddenly she saw me, and with a little cry of joy ran towards the open door. Then she saw Agag, and, weak and thin as she was, she woke at once to her old sense of duty, and bounded on to his chair. Never before in her time had a cat got right into the house, and such a thing, she felt determined, should not occur again. Round