Part 36

And so he does, most happily, up to this very minute.

And Sep and his dear Princess are as happy as they deserve to be. Some people say we are all as happy as we deserve to be--but I am not sure.

THE WHITE CAT

The White Cat lived at the back of a shelf at the darkest end of the inside attic which was nearly dark all over. It had lived there for years, because one of its white china ears was chipped, so that it was no longer a possible ornament for the spare bedroom.

Tavy found it at the climax of a wicked and glorious afternoon. He had been left alone. The servants were the only other people in the house. He had promised to be good. He had meant to be good. And he had not been. He had done everything you can think of. He had walked into the duck pond, and not a stitch of his clothes but had had to be changed. He had climbed on a hay rick and fallen off it, and had not broken his neck, which, as cook told him, he richly deserved to do. He had found a mouse in the trap and put it in the kitchen tea-pot, so that when cook went to make tea it jumped out at her, and affected her to screams followed by tears. Tavy was sorry for this, of course, and said so like a man. He had only, he explained, meant to give her a little start. In the confusion that followed the mouse, he had eaten all the black-currant jam that was put out for kitchen tea, and for this too, he apologised handsomely as soon as it was pointed out to him. He had broken a pane of the greenhouse with a stone and.... But why pursue the painful theme? The last thing he had done was to explore the attic, where he was never allowed to go, and to knock down the White Cat from its shelf.

The sound of its fall brought the servants. The cat was not broken--only its other ear was chipped. Tavy was put to bed. But he got out as soon as the servants had gone downstairs, crept up to the attic, secured the Cat, and washed it in the bath. So that when mother came back from London, Tavy, dancing impatiently at the head of the stairs, in a very wet night-gown, flung himself upon her and cried, 'I've been awfully naughty, and I'm frightfully sorry, and please may I have the White Cat for my very own?'

He was much sorrier than he had expected to be when he saw that mother was too tired even to want to know, as she generally did, exactly how naughty he had been. She only kissed him, and said:

'I am sorry you've been naughty, my darling. Go back to bed now. Good-night.'

Tavy was ashamed to say anything more about the China Cat, so he went back to bed. But he took the Cat with him, and talked to it and kissed it, and went to sleep with its smooth shiny shoulder against his cheek.

In the days that followed, he was extravagantly good. Being good seemed as easy as being bad usually was. This may have been because mother seemed so tired and ill; and gentlemen in black coats and high hats came to see mother, and after they had gone she used to cry. (These things going on in a house sometimes make people good; sometimes they act just the other way.) Or it may have been because he had the China Cat to talk to. Anyhow, whichever way it was, at the end of the week mother said:

'Tavy, you've been a dear good boy, and a great comfort to me. You must have tried very hard to be good.'

It was difficult to say, 'No, I haven't, at least not since the first day,' but Tavy got it said, and was hugged for his pains.

'You wanted,' said mother, 'the China Cat. Well, you may have it.'

'For my very own?'

'For your very own. But you must be very careful not to break it. And you mustn't give it away. It goes with the house. Your Aunt Jane made me promise to keep it in the family. It's very, very old. Don't take it out of doors for fear of accidents.'

'I love the White Cat, mother,' said Tavy. 'I love it better'n all my toys.'

Then mother told Tavy several things, and that night when he went to bed Tavy repeated them all faithfully to the China Cat, who was about six inches high and looked very intelligent.

'So you see,' he ended, 'the wicked lawyer's taken nearly all mother's money, and we've got to leave our own lovely big White House, and go and live in a horrid little house with another house glued on to its side. And mother does hate it so.'

'I don't wonder,' said the China Cat very distinctly.

'What!' said Tavy, half-way into his night-shirt.

'I said, I don't wonder, Octavius,' said the China Cat, and rose from her sitting position, stretched her china legs and waved her white china tail.

'You can speak?' said Tavy.

'Can't you see I can?--hear I mean?' said the Cat. 'I belong to you now, so I can speak to you. I couldn't before. It wouldn't have been manners.'

Tavy, his night-shirt round his neck, sat down on the edge of the bed with his mouth open.

'Come, don't look so silly,' said the Cat, taking a walk along the high wooden mantelpiece, 'any one would think you didn't like me to talk to you.'

'I love you to,' said Tavy recovering himself a little.

'Well then,' said the Cat.

'May I touch you?' Tavy asked timidly.