CHAPTER I
The Visitor from the Cellar
The whole house in London was dull and gloomy, its lofty rooms and staircases were filled with a sort of misty twilight all day, and the sun very seldom looked in at its windows. Ruth Lorimer thought, however, that the very dullest room of all was the nursery, in which she had to pass so much of her time. It was so high up that the people and carts and horses in the street below looked like toys. She could not even see these properly, because there were iron bars to prevent her from stretching her head out too far, so that all she could do was to look straight across to the row of tall houses opposite, or up at the sky between the chimney-pots. How she longed for something different to look at!
The houses always looked the same, and though the sky changed sometimes, it was often of a dirty grey colour, and then Ruth gave a little sigh and looked back from the window-seat where she was kneeling, into the nursery, for something to amuse her. It was full of all sorts of toys—dolls, and dolls' houses elegantly furnished, pictures and books and many pretty things; but in spite of all these she often found nothing to please her, for what she wanted more than anything else was a companion of her own age, and she had no brothers or sisters.
The dolls, however much she pretended, were never glad, or sorry, or happy, or miserable—they could not answer her when she talked to them, and their beautiful bright eyes had a hard unfeeling look which became very tiring, for it never changed.
There was certainly Nurse Smith. She was alive and real enough; there was no necessity to "pretend" anything about her. She was always there, sitting upright and flat-backed beside her work-basket, frowning a little, not because she was cross, but because she was rather near-sighted. She had come when Ruth was quite a baby, after Mrs. Lorimer's death, and Aunt Clarkson often spoke of her as "a treasure". However that might be, she was not an amusing companion; though she did her best to answer all Ruth's questions, and was always careful of her comfort, and particular about her being neatly dressed.
Perhaps it was not her fault that she did not understand games, and was quite unable to act the part of any other character than her own. If she did make the attempt, she failed so miserably that Ruth had to tell her what to say, which made it so flat and uninteresting that she found it better to play alone. But she often became weary of this; and there were times when she was tired of her toys, and tired of Nurse Smith, and did not know what in the world to do with herself.
Each day passed much in the same way. Ruth's governess came to teach her for an hour every morning, and then after her early dinner there was a walk with Nurse, generally in one direction. And after tea it was time to go and see her father—quite a long journey, through the silent house, down the long stairs to the dining-room where he sat alone at his dessert.
Ruth could not remember her mother, and she saw so little of her father that he seemed almost a stranger to her. He was so wonderfully busy, and the world he lived in was such a great way off from hers in the nursery.
In the morning he hurried away just as she was at her breakfast, and all she knew of him was the resounding slam of the hall door, which came echoing up the staircase. Very often in the evening he came hastily into the nursery to say good-bye on his way out to some dinner-party, and at night she woke up to hear his step on the stairs as he came back late. But when he dined at home Ruth always went downstairs to dessert. Then, as she entered the large sombre dining-room, where there were great oil paintings on the walls and heavy hangings to the windows, and serious-looking ponderous furniture, her father would look up from his book, or from papers spread on the table, and nod kindly to her:
"Ah! it's you, Ruth. Quite well, eh? There's a good child. Have an orange? That's right."
Then he would plunge into his reading again, and Ruth would climb slowly on to a great mahogany chair placed ready for her, and watch him as she cut up her orange.
She wondered very much why people wrote him such long, long letters, all on blue paper and tied up with pink tape. She felt sure they were not nice letters, for his face always looked worried over them; and when he had finished he threw them on the floor, as though he were glad. This made her so curious that she once ventured to ask him what they were. They were called "briefs", he told her. But she was not much wiser; for, hearing from Nurse Smith that "brief" was another word for short, she felt sure there must be some mistake.
Exactly as the clock struck eight Nurse's knock came at the door, Ruth got down from her chair and said good-night.
Sometimes her father was so deeply engaged in his reading that he stared at her with a far-away look in his eyes, as if he scarcely knew who she was. After a minute he said absently: "Bed-time, eh? Good-night. Good-night, my dear." Sometimes when he was a little less absorbed he put a sixpence or a shilling into her hand as he kissed her, and added: "There's something to spend at the toy-shop."
Ruth received these presents without much surprise or joy. She was used to buying things, and did not find it very interesting; for she could not hope for any sign of pleasure from her dolls when she brought them new clothes or furniture.
It is a little dull when all one's efforts for people are received with a perfectly unmoved face. She had once brought Nurse Smith a small china image, hoping that it would be an agreeable surprise; but that had not been successful either. "Lor', my dear, don't you go spending your money on me," she said. "Chany ornaments ain't much good for anything, to my thinking, 'cept to ketch the dust."
Thus it came to pass that Ruth never talked much about what interested her either to her father or to Nurse Smith, and as she had no brothers and sisters she was obliged to amuse herself with fancied conversations. Sometimes these were carried on with her dolls, but her chief friend was a picture which she passed every night on the staircase. It was of a man in a flat cap and a fur robe, and he had a pointed smooth chin and narrow eyes, which seemed to follow her slyly on her way. She did not like him and she did not actually fear him, but she had a feeling that he listened to what she said, and that she must tell him any news she had. There was never much except on "Aunt Clarkson's day", as she called it.
Aunt Clarkson was her father's sister. She lived in the country, and had many little boys and girls whom Ruth had seldom seen, though she heard a great deal about them.
Once every month this aunt came up to London for the day, had long conversations with Nurse, and looked carefully at all Ruth's clothes.
She was a sharp-eyed lady, and her visits made a stir in the house which was like a cold wind blowing, so that Ruth was glad when they were over, though her aunt always spoke kindly to her, and said: "Some day you must come and see your little cousins in the country."
She had said this so often without its having happened, however, that Ruth had come to look upon it as a mere form of speech—part of Aunt Clarkson's visit, like saying "How d'ye do?" or "Good-bye."
It was shortly after one of these occasions that quite by chance Ruth found a new friend, who was better than either the dolls or the man in the picture, because, though it could not answer her, it was really alive. She discovered it in this way.
One afternoon she and Nurse Smith had come in from their usual walk, and were toiling slowly up from the hall to the nursery. The stairs got steeper at the last flight, and Nurse went more slowly still, and panted a good deal, for she was stouter than she need have been, though Ruth would never have dreamed of saying so. Ruth was in front, and she had nearly reached the top when something came hurrying towards her which surprised her very much. It was a long, lean, grey cat. It had a guilty look, as though it knew it had been trespassing, and squeezed itself as close as it could against the wall as it passed.
"Pretty puss!" said Ruth softly, and put out her hand to stop it.
The cat at once arched up its back and gave a friendly little answering mew. Ruth wondered where it came from. It was ugly, she thought, but it seemed a pleasant cat and glad to be noticed. She rubbed its head gently. It felt hard and rough like Nurse's old velvet bonnet; there was indeed no sleekness about it anywhere, and it was so thin that its sides nearly met.
"Poor puss!" said Ruth stroking it tenderly.
The cat replied by pushing its head gently against her arm, and presently began a low purring song. Delighted, Ruth bent her ear to listen.
"Whoosh! Shish! Get along! Scat!" suddenly sounded from a few steps below. Nurse's umbrella was violently flourished, the cat flew downstairs with a spit like an angry firework, and Ruth turned round indignantly.
"You shouldn't have done that," she said, stamping her foot; "I wanted to talk to it. Whose is it?"
"It's that nasty kitchen cat," said Nurse, much excited, and grasping her umbrella spitefully. "I'm not going to have it prowling about on my landing. An ugly thieving thing, as has no business above stairs at all."
Ruth pressed her face against the balusters. In the distance below she could see the small grey form of the kitchen cat making its way swiftly and silently downstairs. It went so fast that it seemed to float rather than to run, and was soon out of sight.
"I should like to have played with it up in the nursery," she said, with a sigh, as she continued her way. "I wish you hadn't frightened it away."
"Lor', Miss Ruth, my dear," answered Nurse, "what can a little lady like you want with a nasty, low, kitchen cat! Come up and play with some of your beautiful toys, there's a dear! Do."
Nevertheless Ruth thought about the cat a great deal that afternoon, and the toys seemed even less interesting than usual. When tea was over, and Nurse had taken up her sewing again, she began to make a few inquiries.
"Where does that cat live?" she asked.
"In the kitchen, to be sure," said Nurse; "and the cellar, and coal-hole, and such like. Alonger the rats and mice—and the beadles," she added, as an after-thought.
"The beadles!" repeated Ruth doubtfully. "What beadles?"
"Why, the black beadles, to be sure," replied Nurse cheerfully.
Ruth was silent. It seemed dismal company for the kitchen cat. Then she said:
"Are there many of them?"
"Swarms!" said Nurse, breaking off her thread with a snap. "The kitchen's black with 'em at night."
What a dreadful picture!
"Who feeds the cat?" asked Ruth again.
"Oh, I don't suppose nobody feeds it," answered Nurse. "It lives on what it ketches every now and then."
No wonder it looked thin! Poor kitchen cat! How very miserable and lonely it must be with no one to take care of it, and how dreadful for it to have such nasty things to eat! And the supply even of these must be short sometimes, Ruth went on to consider. What did it do when it could find no more mice or rats? Of the beetles she could not bear even to think. As she turned these things seriously over in her mind she began to wish she could do something to alter them, to make the cat's life more comfortable and pleasant. If she could have it to live with her in the nursery for instance, she could give it some of her own bread and milk, and part of her own dinner; then it would get fatter and perhaps prettier too. She would tie a ribbon round its neck, and it should sleep in a basket lined with red flannel, and never be scolded or chased about or hungry any more. All these pictures were suddenly destroyed by Nurse's voice:
"But I hope you'll not encourage it up here, Miss Ruth, for I couldn't abide it, and I'm sure your Aunt Clarkson wouldn't approve of it neither. I've had a horror of cats myself from a gal. They're that stealthy and treacherous, you never know where they mayn't be hiding, or when they won't spring out at you. If ever I catch it up here I shall bannock it down again."
There was evidently no sympathy to be looked for from Nurse Smith; but Ruth was used to keeping her thoughts and plans to herself, and did not miss it much. As she could not talk about it, however, she thought of her new acquaintance all the more; it was indeed seldom out of her mind, and while she seemed to be quietly amusing herself in her usual way, she was occupied with all sorts of plans and arrangements for the cat when it should come to live in the nursery. Meanwhile it was widely separated from her; how could she let it know that she wanted to see it again? When she went up and down stairs she peered and peeped about to see if she could catch a glimpse of its hurrying grey figure, and she never came in from a walk without expecting to meet it on her way to the nursery. But she never did. The kitchen cat kept to its own quarters and its own society. Perhaps it had been too often "bannocked" down again to venture forth. And yet Ruth felt sure that it had been glad when she had spoken kindly to it. What a pity that Nurse did not like cats!
She confided all this as usual to the man in the picture, who received it with his narrow observant glance and seemed to give it serious consideration. Perhaps it was he who at last gave her a splendid idea, which she hastened to carry out as well as she could, though remembering Nurse's strong expression of dislike she felt obliged to do so with the greatest secrecy.
As a first step, she examined the contents of her little red purse. A whole shilling, a sixpence, and a threepenny bit. That would be more than enough. Might they go to some shops that afternoon, she asked, when she and Nurse were starting for their walk.
"To be sure, Miss Ruth; and what sort of shops do you want? Toy-shops, I suppose."
"N-no," said Ruth; "I think not. It must be somewhere where they sell note-paper, and a baker's, I think; but I'm not quite sure."
Arrived at the stationer's, Ruth was a long time before deciding on what she would have; but at last, after the woman had turned over a whole boxful, she came to some pink note-paper with brightly painted heads of animals upon it, and upon the envelopes also.
"Oh!" cried Ruth when she saw it, clasping her hands with delight. "That would do beautifully. Only—have you any with a cat?"
Yes, there was some with a nice fluffy cat upon it, and she left the shop quite satisfied with her first purchase.
"And now," said Nurse briskly, whose patience had been a good deal tried, "we must make haste back, it's getting late."
But Ruth had still something on her mind. She must go to one more shop, she said, though she did not know exactly which. At last she fixed on a baker's.
"What should you think," she asked on the way, "that a cat likes to eat better than anything in the world?"
"Why, a mouse to be sure," answered Nurse promptly.
"Well, but next to mice?" persisted Ruth.
"Fish," said Nurse Smith.
"That would never do," thought Ruth to herself as she looked at a fish-shop they were passing, "It's so wet and slippery I couldn't possibly carry it home. Perhaps Nurse doesn't really know what cats like best. Anyhow, I'm sure it's never tasted anything so nice as a Bath bun." A Bath bun was accordingly bought, carried home, and put carefully away in the doll's house. And now Ruth felt that she had an important piece of business before her. She spread out a sheet of the new writing-paper on the window-seat, knelt in front of it with a pencil in her hand, and ruled some lines. She could not write very well, and was often uncertain how to spell even short words; so she bit the end of her pencil and sighed a good deal before the letter was finished. At last it was done, and put into the envelope. But now came a new difficulty: How should it be addressed? After much thought she wrote the following:
The Kitchen Cat,
The Kitchen,
17 Gower Street.