8
The Lady Mayoress Doesn’t Like Cats
[Êàðòèíêà: img_5]
The Lord Mayor’s house was large and noble, and the nurseries more splendid even than the little brothers had dreamed of.
There was a golden cradle for the baby, a rocking-horse, soldiers, engines, and a thousand different toys in cupboards and on shelves around the room.
There was a thick warm rug in front of the fire where Gobbolino might tuck in his paws and drowsily watch their play, and a high windowsill where he could sit and look down upon the courtyard, with the Lord Mayor’s lackeys running to and fro, the peacocks that sometimes strayed from the Lady Mayoress’s garden, and the messengers that were constantly bringing great sealed letters to the door.
The Lord Mayor and his lady were as kind and as loving as any parents the little brothers could wish for, the nurseries rang with laughter and happiness; it was the house of Gobbolino’s dreams – if only the Lady Mayoress had liked cats.
She tried to hide it, for she had a heart of gold and dearly loved the little brothers; but when she came into the nursery and saw Gobbolino there she turned pale and put her hand to her heart as though she might faint away. When she saw the baby cuddling him she shrieked aloud, and if any of the little brothers carried him near her she begged him with tears in her eyes not to let Gobbolino touch her on any account.
Gobbolino hated to displease her, and learned to hide whenever he heard her step on the stair, but she knew by a strange instinct when he was in the room, and as the little brothers would not let him leave without them, he spent many an hour crouching under the nursery table and wishing he had never been born a witch’s cat.
“For if I were a common nursery tabby or tom, her ladyship would not feel so nervous about me,” he told himself.
The Lady Mayoress became quite thin and ill, for all that the Mayor, the little brothers and even the baby could do to rouse her. The mere sight of Gobbolino set her shivering, till it was quite evident that she must soon take to her bed or pine away altogether.
But before this happened Gobbolino had made up his mind he would go.
He told the little brothers this, and their sobs, tears and lamentations filled the nursery, nearly breaking Gobbolino’s heart.
“You love your kind new parents, the Lord Mayor and Mayoress, don’t you?” said Gobbolino.
“Oh, yes!” said the little brothers.
“You are very grateful to them, aren’t you?” said Gobbolino.
“Oh, yes! Yes!”
“You would do anything in the world to please them and bring them joy?”
“Oh, yes! Yes! Yes!”
“Then stay with them and be good, dutiful, loving children,” said Gobbolino. “And don’t mind about me. Some day I will come back again and see what fine big boys you have become. I’m off to find a kitchen fire where there is room and a saucer of milk for a little cat, and there I shall stay for ever and ever. Goodbye!”
“Goodbye, our kind, good, faithful Gobbolino!” sobbed the little brothers, so smothering him with their kisses and their embraces that he was not sorry to escape from their hands and scamper away down the back stairs.
The Lord Mayor with his pocket full of sugar-plums stopped the little boys’ tears, and Gobbolino once again heard their joyful cries as he left the courtyard and trotted out into the wide world.
“Surely this time I shall be lucky!” said Gobbolino.
9
Gobbolino on Show
[Êàðòèíêà: img_6]
By evening Gobbolino came to a town.
The lights in the windows winked at him like yellow and friendly eyes:“Come in! Come in!”
In a hundred happy homes the kettle was singing on the hob; fat, comfortable tabbies, careless of their good fortune, dozed under chairs, or grumbled at the noise the children made, bouncing in from school. Fires crackled frostily, and sleepy canaries, with dusters over their cages, twittered a last note before tucking their downy heads under their wings.
It was the teatime hour, the hour when every cat is lord of his house, and every house without a cat is lonely. Every cat without a house is lonelier still, and Gobbolino trotted along missing the bright nursery fire, missing the noisy clatter of the little brothers, missing the chuckle of the baby, the clamour of the orphanage, the comfort of the farm kitchen, missing even the gloomy cavern where he had been born. He belonged to nobody, and nobody belonged to him.
He jumped on to a windowsill, peeping in through the lace curtains.
The room that he peeped into was very strange.
There was an ordinary table in the middle, certainly, and some chairs, and a kettle on the hob that sang and hissed. There were saucepans and a teapot and a blue-and-white china tea set and a clock that had lost one hand, but all the way round the room were dozens of large cages, and in each cage, sitting on a blue velvet cushion, was a cat.
A little old man stood at the table cutting up cat’s-meat on twelve blue china plates.
The cats looked very happy and satisfied. Their coats were glossy, their eyes bright and intelligent, their whiskers spruce and clean.
They purred as they watched the little old man and Gobbolino heard their purring through the windowpanes.
“They look very content and well cared for,” thought Gobbolino. “But nobody who has so many cats already can possibly want another.”
He jumped lightly off the windowsill, but not before the little old man had seen him, for the next minute the door into the street opened wide and a voice called:
“Pussy! Pussy! Pretty pussy! Come here!”
“Oh, my goodness!” said Gobbolino. “He really is calling me!”
The little old man stood at the door with a piece of cat’s-meat in his hand. He picked up Gobbolino and carried him into the room where all the cages were.
“There, my pretty!” said the little old man, setting him down on the table. “Oh, what a pretty cat you are! And what beautiful blue eyes you have!”
Gobbolino did not very much like being prodded and poked by the little old man’s hard, bony hands. His paws were felt, his teeth examined, his whiskers counted, and his tail measured.
“Oh, what a beautiful cat you are!” the little old man said over and over again.
The other cats looked on, sitting on their velvet cushions and growling with jealousy. They had finished their cat’s-meat, and all the blue china saucers were licked clean.
When he had finished poking and prodding Gobbolino, the little old man popped him into an empty cage with another blue velvet cushion in it and a saucerful of cat’s-meat.
Gobbolino would have preferred to sit by the fire, but he was grateful to the little old man for taking him in, so he ate up his cat’s-meat thankfully and said nothing at all.
“It’s nice to know there are such kind people in the world!” thought Gobbolino, as he sat on his velvet cushion. “For I might have been walking all night, or have starved to death.”
“I’m sure I shall be very happy here,” he said presently to his neighbour, a stately Persian madam. “But what are we all doing in these cages?”
“Don’t you know?” said the Persian scornfully. “Why, you are now a show cat!”
In the morning the little old man brushed and combed his cats one by one till their fur gleamed and shone.
He was a little surprised at the coloured sparks that flew from Gobbolino’s coat under the brush, but he did not stop praising him or telling him how beautiful he was.
“Such fur! Such a tail! Such colouring! And such beautiful blue eyes!” he exclaimed.
The other cats growled in their cages, for they did not like to hear the little old man praising Gobbolino.
“Ha! They’re jealous!” said the little old man, and tied a red ribbon round Gobbolino’s neck to make him smarter than ever.
Every morning Gobbolino was brushed and combed with the other cats, till his coat shone and gleamed as theirs did, his eyes were as bright, and his whiskers as spruce and clean.