Барбара Слэй - Carbonel - The King Of Cats

The cat, who had curled himself up on the hearthrug, yawned elaborately. ‘Well, you were not interested enough to ask me what I was doing last night and this morning,’ he said huffily. ‘Not so much as a “Hope you enjoyed yourself”.’ He turned in his paws and closed his eyes to mere golden slits. ‘Besides,’ he added sleepily, ‘you really can’t wash-up with one hand, so you had better put the broom down,’ and he shut his eyes firmly. Not another word would he say.

Rosemary splashed the plates so vigorously that a good deal of the water slopped over on the floor, which made her cross. ‘Really, Garbonel behaves sometimes as though he has bought me, not the other way round.’

But Rosemary was not a sulky child, and as soon as she heard her mother coming slowly across the landing she forgot everything except the fact that they sounded like the footsteps of someone who has not good news to tell.

‘It’s no use, Rosie,’ said Mrs Brown sadly, ‘Mrs Walker won’t hear of having a cat in the house!’

‘Mummy, what shall we do?’

‘Poppet, I said everything I could think of to make her change her mind. I told her how useful he would be for catching mice. But she only sniffed and said there had never been a mouse in the house in her day. I’m so sorry, darling. I’m afraid he will have to go.’

‘But I can’t send him away, not now I can’t!’ said Rosemary, scooping Carbonel up and hugging him fiercely. ‘Darling Carbonel, how could I?’ Two fat tears went rolling down her cheeks and fell with a splash on to the cat’s black fur. He struggled violently, and when Rosemary put him down he stalked off, shaking each paw in turn.

‘If only we had our own little house, you should have half-a-dozen cats,’ said Mrs Brown.

‘I don’t want half-a-dozen cats. I want Carbonel.’

‘Well, use my hankie and cheer up. Suppose we keep him until the morning and see if we can think of something. I never thought I should ever want to live in a house that was full of mice!’ said Mrs Brown. Rosemary was startled to hear Carbonel say ‘Don’t worry, you will!’

She looked up in alarm, but her mother was quietly putting the china away in the cupboard. Then she noticed that when she had flung herself down to pick up Carbonel she had put her hand accidentally on the handle of the broom which was sticking out from where she had pushed it under the sofa. Of course, her mother could not have heard. Rosemary looked sharply at Carbonel, but he was sitting on the hearth-rug, absorbed in washing himself, with one of his hind legs sticking straight up in the air.

‘Will you come and talk to me in bed like you did last night?’ she whispered. Carbonel paused for a moment.

‘Not tonight. I shall be too busy.’

‘And please don’t be cross with me,’ she bent down to whisper, ‘it isn’t fair.’

But her mother had returned and Carbonel did not reply. Instead he lifted his head and with a warm, wet, rasping tongue gave her cheek a little lick. Comforted, Rosemary sat beside him on the hearth-rug and stroked him very gently on the top of his satin-smooth head.

7

Carbonel and Mrs Walker

When Rosemary woke next morning it was not to a feeling of pleasure at the prospect of the visit to Tussocks, but to one of uneasiness. At first she could not think what it was that was worrying her, but as her mind wandered sleepily back over the events of yesterday, it came to her quite suddenly. Mrs Walker would not let her keep Carbonel. And as suddenly she was wide awake and jumping out of bed.

The cat was not in her bedroom. Neither was he in the sitting room, where her mother was getting breakfast.

‘Never mind!’ said Mrs Brown when she saw her daughter’s anxious face. ‘Perhaps it is just as well he should take himself off, if Mrs Walker won’t let us keep him. I have been wondering how on earth we could find another home for him. But go and get dressed, darling. Had you forgotten you are coming with me today?’

Rosemary put on her newest gingham frock with none of the satisfaction that it usually gave her. She tidied her bedroom and made her bed with special care, and all the time she was making desperate plans for keeping Carbonel secretly in the tumbledown rabbit hutch in the yard.

‘But I don’t suppose he’d so much as look at a rabbit hutch,’ she thought, as she smoothed the bedspread with the exactness of thoughtful misery. ‘He would probably be offended at the very idea.’

During a rather silent breakfast, Rosemary was making patterns on her buttered toast with the point of her knife when there was an unmistakable ‘Mew’ outside the door. Rosemary ran to open it, and sure enough, there was Carbonel! He trotted into the room with a smug expression on his face, without so much as a glance at Rosemary. Her mother, who was secretly feeling that it would have been much simpler if the cat had not come back, looked at her daughter’s worried face and reproached herself.

‘Let’s give him some milk, Poppet. But what to do about him I just don’t know! We simply must get ready to go now.’

Rosemary had such a tight feeling in her throat that she did not dare to say anything. She poured out a saucer of milk and was listening to the cat’s rhythmical lap-lap, lap-lap, when there was a knock on the door. Before her mother had time to say ‘Come in!’ Mrs Walker burst into the room.

‘Oh, Mrs Brown!’ she said. ‘It’s a judgement on me for saying you could not keep your cat. I never saw the like!’

‘Good gracious, what has happened? You look so upset! Now do sit down and let me give you a cup of tea. It has not been standing long.’

‘The kitchen!’ gasped Mrs Walker. ‘It’s full of mice, hundreds of them! You never saw anything like it! And me that’s always said that mice is vermin, and there’s only vermin where there’s dirt, and not a mouse in the house in all the fifteen years I’ve been here. Would you believe it? I opened the kitchen door to cook my old man a pair of kippers for ’is breakfast – he’s partial to kippers, Alfred is – and it fair turned me over. I can’t abide them!’

Rosemary, who gathered it was mice that Mrs Walker could not abide, and not kippers, looked at Carbonel. He was tactfully keeping out of sight behind the horse-hair sofa, but she could see that he had finished the saucer of milk and was looking as self-satisfied as if it had been a bowl of cream. He opened his great golden eyes and looked full at Rosemary, and could it be? She was not quite certain, but it almost seemed as if one eye flickered in a wink.

‘I shall never feel easy in that kitchen again,’ said Mrs Walker.

‘But it will be quite all right,’ said Rosemary. ‘You see, we did not get rid of my cat last night.’

‘We were going to see if we could find a home for him today,’ broke in Mrs Brown hurriedly.

Rosemary picked up Carbonel; it needed both arms. ‘But isn’t it a good thing we’ve still got him? Because I’m sure he will get rid of your mice for you.’

‘I think you would find the very fact that there was a cat in the house would keep the mice away,’ said Mrs Brown.

‘Well, he’s a handsome animal, that I will say,’ said Mrs Walker. ‘You can keep him and welcome, if only he’ll get rid of the mice!’

‘Rosie, dear, take him down to the kitchen and leave him there…’

‘Yes, dearie, do! And I’ll give your mum a hand with her dirty crocks; I expect she wants to be getting off to work. I couldn’t stay in the kitchen while…’ Mrs Walker broke off and shuddered.

Carbonel had already struggled out of Rosemary’s arms and was standing expectantly by the door. As her mother said, he might have understood every word. She opened the door and he ran down the stairs so quickly that Rosemary had no time to fetch the broom-stick. So it was an entirely one-sided conversation she held with him on the way down. Explanations would have to wait till later.