'It is just as if you were ashamed of it, Graham,' she said, and Auntie May didn't contradict her, but shut me up in her room and went. She came back with some nice asparagus heads for me that she had begged of the waiter at Durand's. After that she went out no more to luncheon, and I supposed Mr. Fox had gone back to England.
Then Auntie May began to get worse and worse, and she coughed so that she quite lost her voice and could only call me in a whisper. She had a doctor fetched, to Manxie's great disgust, and he said she had to put her mouth to the spout of a kettle that had benzoin in it, and she used to sit for hours with her lips to the spout till Manxie complained that the steam hurt her ceiling. French rooms are very funny, before you furnish them yourself; there is a mirror let into the mantelpiece and a stove in the dining-room. They cook quite differently, too, and Manxie's cook used to write poetry. She kept the papers in her biggest stew-pan, and used to read them to Auntie May, who said they were quite good for a cook and far better than her omelettes.
Trivia, that was her name, was so grateful that she was always coming in with cups of tisane.
'Buvez ça, Madame, je vous assure que cela vous fera du bien!' and Auntie May said it did do her good, but as a matter of fact she got worse and worse, and the doctor said he must get a friend of his to call on her. She was English. He was English. As Auntie May said, 'I come to Paris to change my ideas, and I have an English land-lady, an English doctor, and now I am to have an English friend. Funny how we English herd together!'
I may say that I mixed with the French more than Auntie May did. I had a French friend; her name was Mistigris. She belonged to M. Ducrot, the concierge. To call on her I had to seize my opportunity and sneak downstairs when the bonne went out to do her shopping and Auntie May was still in bed. Mistigris was generally lying on the silk eiderdown that covers Monsieur and Madame Ducrot's bed. Their bed takes up half their room, and it isn't very big either. It is close to the door. Madame Ducrot cooks every meal there. They only have the one room and the coal-cellar under the stairs. Their door gives on to the stairs and has a glass window in it, so that they can see whoever goes past. They are a curious race, are concierges, whose business it is to find out things and take tips. At night, when they are in bed, of course the door is fastened, but M. Ducrot has a bell that rings by the bed head, and he has to wake up, if he isn't already awake, and pull a button to open the door. The person at the door going out also has to say, 'Cordon, s'il vous plait!' All this Mistigris told me. She was very Anglophobe, meaning she hated the English at first, but I convinced her that we were really des braves gens—that means a good sort. At first she used to call out 'Angliche!' and 'Poos! Poos!' at me, very rudely, and even sometimes, 'Aha, Rosbif!' but she soon improved. Besides, they don't say 'Puss! Puss!' to their cats here, but Minet or Minette, so perhaps she was only trying to emulate the English accent. Of course I don't know French any more than Mistigris knows English, but our common language, 'Catapuk,' is known all over the world, so there was no difficulty about our intercourse.
Madame Ducrot did not like my friendship with Mistigris at first, for fear I should run away with her, but I am a born bachelor, and people soon see that there is no fear of my carrying any cat off. Mistigris was pretty, rather prettier than the white cat at the party, but it made no difference to me, we were very good friends and that was all.
Mistigris used to lie in wait for me in the shadow of the bed-curtain sitting on her warm nest in the eiderdown. Talk of French politeness; she never once invited me to come up! And if I happened to get down to see her about meal times when she sat on the table between Monsieur and Madame Ducrot, as they drank their soup and ate their salad, she frowned at me through the glass door and pretended not to know me. I didn't want any cabbage soup, either, their cookery is far too greasy for me. But when she was not so pleasantly engaged and the door of the room was open, she used to come to me and thread herself in and out through the balusters as a sign of friendliness. I never saw her after seven o'clock. They turn all lights out on the stairs here after eight, and I used to sit indoors on the cold wood floor in the evenings and listen for Auntie May to come in. Manxie fed her so badly that in disgust she used to go out and get her dinner at a restaurant. She used to come up, bumping herself in the dark, and fumble for the door-key under the mat, where Manxie, who went to bed at nine to save lights, had left it. There was a jam-pot on a bracket in the hall full of oil and a wick floating in it. It was the cheapest possible way of lighting, so Manxie said. Then Auntie May used to grope for her sealed bottle of milk on the table, and light one of those beastly French matches that smell and sputter, and read her letters if there were any, and then go to bed.
MISTIGRIS USED TO LIE IN WAIT FOR ME.