Jennie

“Poor, poor Jennie!” Peter said. “Weren’t you awfully hungry?”

“The pain wasn’t in my stomach, Peter,” Jennie replied, “it was in my heart. I only wished to die of longing, misery, loneliness and sadness. More than anything, I wanted my Buff to be holding me in her arms close to her and giving me the little squeezes she used to because she loved me.

“And then suddenly to my horror I found myself hating her. I wanted to bite, scratch, claw and kill her for having abandoned me. Yes, I learned to hate, Peter, and that is worse than being sick, or starved, or thirsty, or in pain. It replaced all the love I had felt for Buff. I had no hope of ever getting out of that room alive, but I swore that if I did I would never again trust a human being, or give them love or live with them.

“And then one morning, when I was nearly dead, release came. I heard someone at the front door and then footsteps. I knew it wasn’t their footsteps, and yet I hoped that somehow I was mistaken and they had come, and I was all ready to welcome them and purr and even try to reach Buff ’s shoulder to show her I had forgiven her. Oh, I would have put my paws to her face and kissed and kissed her if she had only come back and not forgotten me.”

Peter said, “I do wish she had, Jennie …”

“It wasn’t, of course,” Jennie continued. “It was just people, two women, very likely come to look at the house. One of them made sympathetic sounds and picked me up. But I was weak and dizzy from starvation and nearly out of my mind with worry, and didn’t know what I was doing. I bit her. She dropped me, and I was so frightened I found the strength to run out of the door and down the stairs. Or rather I fell more than ran down them and didn’t stop until I got to the bottom and out the front door. That was the beginning …”

“Of what?” Peter asked.

“Of being independent of human beings, of never again asking for a favour, of spitting and growling whenever one tried to reach down and stroke me or pick me up, of never again entering a house to live with them.”

Peter wanted to show her how sorry he was it had all turned out so badly, but he could not think of anything to say, because if it was really true that her family had abandoned her so heartlessly he felt very much ashamed that they were human beings. Instead he arose, went over to her, and bestowed a few licks on the side of her cheek.

Jennie gave him a winning smile and purred for a moment.

“That was sweet,” she said, “but I like the life of a stray now, really. It’s a rough one, and sometimes it isn’t easy, but at least no one can hurt me any more. I mean inside, where you can’t get at it and it never heals up. There isn’t much that is open to cats that I haven’t seen or done in the past two years. I found this place months ago. It’s wonderful, because people hardly ever visit here. Come along, and I’ll show you my secret entrance …”

They left the Highland scenery, walked by the Pyramids and the Sphinx, skirted the rooftop of a penthouse in New York, wound their way in and out of a drawing-room in Mayfair and a castle on the Rhine and retraced their steps down the long, dark, musty corridors.

But just before they turned the corner to enter that part of the warehouse where Jennie’s home was, she stopped, gave a low growl, and Peter saw her tail fluff up to twice its size. He halted behind her and heard voices, footsteps, scrapings and bumpings, and was all for running around the corner to see what it was, when Jennie whispered – “Get down, Peter! If they see us, we’re in for it. It’s our home! They’re moving it out. Looks like your friend Napoleon has come for his bed.”

Peter felt it might embarrass her if he were to reveal that Napoleon had been dead for more than a hundred years, and anyway, it did not make much difference; more to the point, it was no longer there, and everything else in the bin was also being moved out either to a sale or an exhibition.

“Pity,” said Jennie. “It was a nice home. I’d grown rather fond of it, particularly your friend’s bed. Ah well, one can always find another somewhere else.”

“There must be dozens of storage bins we passed where we might be cosy,” Peter said.

“Won’t do. Not in here,” Jennie said decisively. “Once people show up, you’ve had it, and if you are wise you will clear out. When the movers get those things into the light they’ll find evidence of our having lived there. Your hairs and mine. And the mouse business. Then there’ll be a hue and cry and a hunt for us all through here – lights up and dust swirling, and men poking about with torches and sticks. No, trust me, Peter, I know. As soon as they have finished we’ll use my emergency exit. There’s still plenty of daylight left to look about for a new place to stay the night. Keep out of sight until I give the word.”

Peter did as she bade him, for he very well appreciated that Jennie was more experienced and must know what she was talking about.

And then, what with all the dust about, the washing and the talking and not having had anything to drink after all that running through London, Peter fell prey to a most dreadful thirst and it suddenly seemed to him that he would perish if he did not soon feel something cool and moist going down his throat.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Always Pause on the Threshold

“I’M AWFULLY THIRSTY, Jennie,” Peter whispered.

They had been crouching there around the bend of the warehouse corridor for the better part of an hour waiting for the men to finish the work of carrying out the furniture from the storage bin.

Jennie flattened herself and peered around the corner. “Soon,” she said. “There are only a few pieces left.”

“How I wish I had a tall, cool glass of milk,” Peter said.

Jennie turned her head and looked at him. “Dish of milk, you mean. You wouldn’t be able to drink it out of a glass. And as for milk – do you know how long it is since I have seen or tasted milk? In our kind of life, I mean cut off from humans, there isn’t any milk. If you’re thirsty you find some rainwater or some slops in the gutter or in a pail left out, or you can go down the stone steps to the river landings when they are deserted at night, if you don’t mind your water a little oily and brackish.”

Peter was not at all pleased with the prospect and he had not yet got used to the fact that he was no longer a boy, with a home and family, but a white cat with no home at all and no one to befriend him but another scrawny stray.

He was so desperately thirsty and the picture drawn by Jennie so gloomy and unpleasant that he could not help bursting into tears and crying, “But I’m used to milk! I like it and Nanny gives me some every day …”

“Sshhh!” cautioned Jennie, “they’ll hear you.” Then she added, “There’s nobody goes about setting out dishes of milk for strays. You’ll get used to not having it eventually.”

But Peter didn’t think so, and continued to cry softly to himself while Jennie Baldrin watched him with growing concern and bewilderment. She seemed to be trying to make up her mind about something which apparently she did not very much wish to do. But finally, when it appeared that she could bear his unhappiness no longer, she whispered to him, “Come, now … don’t take on so! I know a place where I think I can get you a dish of milk. We’ll go there.”

The thought caused Peter to stop crying and brighten up immediately. “Yes?” he said. “Where?”

“There’s an old watchman lives in a shack down by the tea docks,” Jennie told him. “He’s lonely, likes cats, and is always good for a titbit, especially for me. He’s been after me to come and live with him for months. Of course, I wouldn’t dream of it.”

“But,” said Peter, not wishing to argue himself out of milk but only desiring to understand clearly the terms under which they were to have it, “that is taking from people, isn’t it?”

“It’s taking, but not giving anything,” Jennie said, with that strange, unhappy intenseness that came over her whenever she discussed anything to do with humans. “We’ll have it and then walk out on him.”

“Would that be right?” Peter asked. It slipped out almost before he was aware of it, for he very much wanted the milk and he equally did not wish to offend Jennie. But it was just that he had been taught certain ways of behaviour, or felt them to be so by instinct, and this seemed a poor way of repaying a kindness. Clearly he had somewhat put Jennie out, for she stiffened slightly and with the nearest thing to a cold look she had bestowed upon him since they had met, said, “You can’t have it both ways, Peter. If you want to live my kind of life, and I can’t see where you have very much choice at the moment—”

“But of course I do!” Peter hastened to explain, “it’s just that I’m not yet quite familiar with the different way cats feel from the way people feel. And I will do as you say, and I do want to learn …”

From her expression, Jennie did not appear to be too pleased with this speech either, but before she could remark upon it there came a loud call from the movers: “That’s the lot, then,” and another voice replied, “Righty-ho!” Jennie peered around the corner and said, “They’ve finished. We’ll wait a few minutes to make sure they don’t come back, and then we’ll start.”

When they were certain that the aisle was quite deserted again, they set off, Jennie leading, past the empty bin and down the corridor in the direction the men had taken, but before they had gone very far Jennie branched off to the right on a new tack until she came to a bin close to the outside wall of the warehouse, filled with horrible, new, modern kind of furniture, chrome-bound leather and overstuffed plush. She led Peter to the back where there was a good-sized hole in the baseboard. It looked dark and forbidding inside.

“Don’t be afraid,” Jennie said. “Just follow me. We go to the right and then to the left, but it gets light very quickly.”

She slipped in with Peter after her, and it soon grew pitch black. Peter now discovered that he was feeling through the ends of his whiskers, rather than seeing where Jennie was, and he had no difficulty in following her, particularly inasmuch as it soon became light enough to see that they were in a tunnel through which a large iron pipe more than a foot in diameter was running. Then Peter saw where the light was coming from. There was a hole in the pipe where it had rusted through a few feet from where it gave exit to the street.

Apparently the pipe was used as some kind of air-intake, or had something to do with the ventilation of the warehouse, for it had once had a grating over the end of it, but the fastenings of that had long since rusted and it had fallen away, and there was nothing to bar their way out.

Peter was so pleased and excited at the prospect of seeing the sun and being out of doors again that he hurried past Jennie and would have rushed out into the street had not the alarm in her warning cry checked him just before he emerged from the opening.

“Peter! Wait!” she cried. “Not like that! Cats never, never rush out from places. Don’t you know about Pausing on the Threshold, or Lingering on the Sill? But then, of course, you wouldn’t. Oh dear, I don’t mean always to be telling you what to do and what not to do, but this is really Important. It’s almost Lesson Number 2. You never hurry out of any place, and particularly not outdoors.”

Peter saw that Jennie had quite recovered her good nature and apparently had forgotten that she had been upset with him. He was curious to find out the reasons for her warning. He said, “I don’t quite understand, Jennie. You mean I’m not to stop before coming in, but I am whenever I go out?”

“Of course. What else?” replied Jennie, sitting down quite calmly in the mouth of the exit and showing not the slightest disposition to go through it and into the street. “You know what’s inside because you come from there. You don’t know what’s outside because you haven’t been there. That’s common ordinary sense for anyone, I should think.”

“Yes, but what is there outside to be afraid of, really?” enquired Peter. “I mean, after all, if you know where you live and the street and houses and all which don’t change—”

“Oh, my goodness,” said Jennie, “I couldn’t try to tell you them all. To begin with – dogs, people, moving vehicles, the weather and changes in temperature, the condition of the street, is it wet or dry, clean or dirty, what has been left lying about, what is parked at the kerb, and whether anybody is coming along, on which side of the street and in how much of a hurry.

“And it isn’t that you’re actually afraid. It’s just that you want to know. And you ought to know, if you have your wits about you, everything your eyes, your ears, your nose, and the ends of your whiskers can tell you. And so you stop, look, listen and feel. We have a saying, ‘Heaven is overcrowded with kittens who rushed out of doors without first stopping and receiving a little’.

“There might be another cat in the vicinity, bent on mischief, or looking for a fight. You’d certainly want to know about that before you stepped out into something you weren’t prepared for. Then you’d want to know all about the weather, not only what it’s like at the moment, but what it’s going to be doing later, say an hour from then. If it’s going to come on to rain or thunder, you wouldn’t want to be too far from home. Your whiskers and your skin tell you that.

“And then, anyway,” Jennie concluded, “it’s a good idea on general principles not to rush into things. When you go out there are very few places to go to that won’t be there just the same five minutes later, and the chances of your getting there will be ever so much better. Come here and squat down beside me and we’ll just have a look.”

Peter did as she suggested and lay down directly in the opening with his paws tucked under him, and felt quite natural doing it, and suddenly he was glad that Jennie had stopped him and that he hadn’t gone charging out into goodness knows what.

Feet went by at intervals. By observation he got to know something about the size of the shoes, which were mostly the heavy boots belonging to workmen, their speed, and how near they came to the wall of the warehouse. The wheeled traffic was of the heavy type – huge horse-drawn drays, and motor-lorries that rumbled past ominously loud, and the horses’ feet, huge things with big, shaggy fetlocks, were another danger. Far in the distance, Peter heard Big Ben strike four. The sound would not have reached him as a human being, perhaps, but travelled all the distance from the Houses of Parliament to his cat’s ears and informed him of the time.

Now he used his nostrils and sniffed the scents that came to his nose and tried to understand what they told him. There was a strong smell of tea and a queer odour that he could not identify, he just knew he didn’t like it. He recognized dry goods, machinery, musk and spices, and horses and burned petrol, exhaust gases, tar and soft coal smoke, the kind that comes from railway engines.

Jennie had got up now and was standing on the edge of the opening with only her head out, whiskers extended forward, quivering a little, and making small wrinkly movements with her nose. After a moment or so of this she turned to Peter quite relaxed and said, “All clear. We can go now. No cats around. There’s a dog been by, but only a mangy cur probably scared of his own shadow. There’s a tea boat just docked. That’s good. The Watchman won’t really have any responsibilities until she’s unloaded. Rain’s all cleared away. Probably won’t rain for at least another forty-eight hours. Goods train just gone down into the docks area. That’s fine. Means the gates’ll be open, and besides, we can use the wagons for cover.”

“Goodness!” Peter marvelled, “I don’t see how you can tell all that from just one tiny sniff around. Do you suppose I’ll ever—?”

“Of course you will,” Jennie laughed, and with a bit of a purr added, “It’s just a matter of getting used to it and looking at things the way a cat would. It’s really nothing,” and here she gave herself two or three self-conscious licks, for, truth to tell, she was just a trifle vain and nothing delighted her so much as to appear clever in Peter’s eyes, which was only feline.

“Well, I don’t understand—” Peter began, saying just the right thing and giving her the lead which she was quick to take up.

“It’s really quite simple,” she explained. “For instance, you can smell the tea. Well, that wasn’t around last time I was outside. Means a tea boat has come in and they’ve opened the hatches. No cats about – I don’t get any signals on my receiver, at least not hostile ones. The dog that went by, well, goodness knows, you can smell him. If he had any class or self-respect that might lead him to chase cats, he’d be clean, and a clean dog smells different. This one was filthy, and that’s why I say he’s nothing to worry about. He’ll be slinking along down back alleys and glad to be left alone. And as for the goods train that went by, after you get to know the neighbourhood it’ll be easy for you too. You see, the smoke smell comes from the left, down where the docks are, so of course it went that way. And you know it was a goods train, because you can smell everything that was in the wagons. There, you see how easy it is?”

Peter again said the right thing, for he was learning how to please Jennie. “I think you’re enormously clever,” he told her.

Her purr almost drowned out the sound of a passing horse-drawn dray. Then she cried to him gaily, “Come along, Peter! We’re off!” and the two friends went out into the cobbled street.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Hoodwinking of an Old Gentleman

THE PAIR WENT off down the busy commercial street towards their destination not at a walk, lope, trot, or even a run, but a series of short, swift charges, a kind of point-to-point dash, and again Peter learned something about the life and ways of a homeless city cat that has no friends and must fend for itself.

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