The Catlady Read Free

Nutt put out a hand to stroke him. “Isn't he handsome!” she said.
    “You like cats, do you?” asked the Colonel's daughter.
    “Oh yes!” replied the daughter of a trooper.

    The Catlady looked at her, stroking with one hand Colonel Sir Percival Ponsonby and with the other cuddling Victoria, Queen of the United Kingdom, Empress of India, and any doubts vanished.“I hope,” she said,“that you will stay here with me, Mary, and help me to look after my family.”
    On that snowy day when Mary Nutt first set foot in Ponsonby Place, the house was as it had been for many years now. That is to say, the floors were dirty, the ceilings cobwebby, the furniture dusty, the chair covers grubby, and the windows smeary.
    The place was a paradise for cockroaches and wood lice and earwigs and beetles and even, in the damper parts, for snails (though mice had the sense to keep well away).
    On top of everything else, the whole house stank of cat.
    By springtime the change in Ponsonby Place was miraculous. The floors and the ceilings and the furniture were clean, the covers washed, the insects gone. If the Colonel and his lady could have been reincarnatedin human rather than feline form, the house would have looked to them just as it had been in their day. To be sure, there was still a smell of cat, but, thanks to opening as many (clean) windows as possible when the weather allowed, it was much less strong now.

    All this, of course, was due to the busy hands of Mary Nutt, who had turned out to be what the Catlady's mother would have called “a treasure.”

    At first from simple gratitude at being given a home and then because she quickly grew fond of the Catlady, Mary worked from dawn to dusk in Ponsonby Place, dusting, scrubbing, washing, and polishing, and indeed doing most of the cooking. Even more importantly from the Catlady's point of view, her new helper paid alot of attention to all the cats, and whenever she had a spare moment, it was spent grooming some happily purring puss.

    Percival and the rest spoke about her to each other with approval. “Good sort of girl, that, don't you think?” he said to Florence. “She's being a great help to Mu, what?” And his wife agreed, as did the uncle and aunt, the cousins, and the school friends. Only Vicky made no comment.
    The Colonel cleared his throat.
    “I hope you approve of the young servant, Your Majesty?” he said respectfully.
    Vicky looked up at the big white cat with her usual haughty expression.“We have only one criticism,” she replied.
    “What is that, pray, ma'am?”
    “We do not have enough attention paid to us. We are, after all, the most important cat in the house—in the land, indeed. The girl should feed us first.”
    “Certainly she should, ma'am,” said Percival, and once Vicky had left the room, he had a word with all the other cats.
    From then on, to Mary's puzzlement and Muriel's delight, when the food bowls were put upon the long refectory table, no cat touched a mouthful of its food until the tubby ginger cat Vicky had finished her meal and jumped down.

    Just as it should be, thought the Catlady. Her Majesty must eat first. Perhaps one of these days I'll tell Mary about reincarnation. The poor girl has lost both father and mother, or at least she thinks she has. It would surely be a comfort if I could persuade her that each of them is no doubt enjoying another life in another form.

Chapter Four
    As time passed, the relationship between the Catlady and her young orphaned helper strengthened.
    Miss Muriel (as Mary now addressed her employer) became a kind of replacement for the girl's late mother, despite the huge gap in age.
    Equally, for the childless Catlady, this hardworking, affectionate, cat-loving girl was a great blessing. Especially because once again the cat population of Ponsonby Place was increasing. Margaret Maitland and Edith Wilson had, between them, another half dozen kittens, so that now the total was thirty-six.
    Miss Muriel was