No cat to whom I have belonged has ever treated me as Topaz did; at best—with resignation as having a nice taste in eiderdowns on a rainy night; at worst—ignoring me as subtly as she ignored the fluttered but inaccessible canary. Yet I did my best for her, always brushed her, never washed her, obeyed barefooted, in the chillest hours, her peremptory mew. Not that she was consciously ungrateful. I think she knew that I meant well. But she never permitted me for an instant to imagine that I understood her—I, who flatter myself that I appreciate poor pussy more than most!
And then the house next door was taken at last, by a ramshackle, elastic family with a studio, who hung out their washing in the front garden as well as the back. We did not call upon them. But Topaz did. Call? She adopted them!
She, who would not be handled, patted even, I have seen, her claws full of bark, hauled from a tree by her tail and carried limply, head downwards, under the arm of the youngest son; or rolling on her back in the gravel, ecstatically appreciative of Mrs. Next Door’s thimble under her ear. She sat about on their shoulders, their laps, wherever she could get: caught their mice, drank their skim milk, allowed them to wash her in one bath with the terrier pup. Why? Heaven knows! She liked them. They were her sort. Yet I am sure we were a much nicer family than the people next door.
She never quite forgot us: was even, as if in apology, a shade more friendly than before. For a long time, indeed, she paid a daily call of courtesy, sitting a dignified half-hour on what had been her chair, before retiring again to her spiritual home; but one always felt that she did it as a matter of duty. And when the Next Doors moved on, her visits ceased. We missed her, just a little, and made half-hearted inquiries, but there it ended. The Next Doors must have taken her with them. At any rate we never set eyes on Topaz again.
All this I tell you because I am sure that what I feel about Topaz is what Aunt Adela felt about Laura and the Clouds. Laura, you see, adopted the Clouds. From the day when Justin carried her home to his mother, to the end at least of this story, she was theirs, body and soul, clinging to them, shyly, unobtrusively, yet with the delicate tenacity of a white rose-bush adopting a south wall.
Aunt Adela did not, could not, object. Aunt Adela, who lived wholeheartedly for her neighbours and their more intimate affairs, Aunt Adela, who liked to be asked to tête-à-tête tea, or to meet her hostess’s dearest friends, had never overcome a certain aloofness that distinguished Mrs. Cloud and made her a desirable acquaintance. Aunt Adela’s snobbery was harmless enough. To do her justice, money meant nothing to her, poor as she was; but she had her weakness for what she called “the best people.” And Mrs. Cloud, with her gentle interest in your affairs, and her placid and implacable reserve about her own, Mrs. Cloud, with her son at college and her husband on the church wall, and a bishop burgeoning in the family tree, Mrs. Cloud belonged, Aunt Adela felt in her bones, to the very best people.
Aunt Adela, then, was flattered at Mrs. Cloud’s approval of Aunt Adela’s niece, put no difficulties in Laura’s way, and, after a time, grew tired of questioning her as to how she got on with Mrs. Cloud, how she employed the regularly lengthening hours she spent at the Priory. Yet, under her acquiescence, and without any special affection for Laura, she resented Laura’s stubborn preference for Mrs. Cloud in exactly the fashion that I resented the defection of Topaz. Why couldn’t Laura be contented at home? After all, they must be a nicer family than the Clouds—even than the Clouds!
Gran’papa, by the way, made no comment at all, shared neither Aunt Adela’s voluble approval—“and Mrs. Cloud has such an Influence”—nor her secret acerbity. Possibly he was uninterested—possibly he was not left out in the cold. Laura knew her way to Gran’papa’s room. And Gran’papa, between his care of his granddaughter’s grammar and his correction of her pronunciation and enunciation—he was never satisfied with either—may yet have had time to be thrilled by the news that Mrs. Cloud had sent Justin a hamper, that Laura had helped her to pack it and had dug up her own radish from her own garden to put in, because Mrs. Cloud had said that Justin simply loved—liked, Gran’papa—Justin simply liked radishes! and had Gran’papa read The Tiger of Mysore—Henty? It was Justin’s book, only one of the covers was gone, and Mrs. Cloud had said that Justin had said she might have it. She would lend it to Gran’papa if he liked. A perfectly ripping—a most extremely interesting book.
Now why should not Laura have imparted these and kindred matters to Aunt Adela—questioning, quiveringly interested Aunt Adela? When Papa was so unsympathetic with children.... The twins, for instance.... The twins had no link with him at all beyond the weekly threepennies.... Aunt Adela could not make it out. Or, for that matter, what dear Mrs. Cloud saw in Laura....
Little enough, I should think, at first, save Justin’s vouchsafed interest. Justin, who was so absorbed by things that he seldom had time for people, had not forgotten Laura, had actually inquired after the child, twice, in letters, had carried her off, dumb with delight, on his next Sunday at home, to spend the afternoon in his den. Justin had talked: Mrs. Cloud had heard the rumble of his deep voice all the afternoon. Mrs. Cloud had a smile and a thanksgiving for her good son, tender as a girl to acknowledged pain or need.