by Dodie Smith
“Lovely, lovely!” said Cruella, clapping her hands with delight. “Ah, but the flames never last long enough!” The minute they died down a little, she shivered and huddled herself in her absolutely simple white mink cloak.
Mr. and Mrs. Dearly left as early as they felt was polite, and walked along the Outer Circle, trying to get cool.
“What a strange name ‘de Vil’ is,” said Mr. Dearly. “If you put the two words together, they make ’devil.‘ Perhaps Cruella’s a lady-devil. Perhaps that’s why she likes things so hot!”
Mrs. Dearly smiled, for she knew he was only joking. Then she said, “Oh, dear! As we’ve dined with them, we must ask them to dine with us. And there are some other people we ought to ask. We’d better get it over before Missis has her puppies. Good gracious, what’s that?”
Something soft was rubbing against her ankles.
“It’s Cruella’s cat,” said Mr. Dearly. “Go home, cat. You’ll get lost.”
But the cat followed them all the way to their house.
“Perhaps she’s hungry,” said Mrs. Dearly.
“Very probably, unless she likes pepper,” said Mr. Dearly. He was still gulping the night air to cool his throat.
“You stroke her while I get her some food,” said Mrs. Dearly. And she went down the area steps and into the kitchen on tiptoe, so as not to wake Pongo and Missis, who were asleep in their baskets. Soon she came up with some milk and half a tin of sardines. The white cat accepted both, then began to walk down the area steps.
“Does she want to live with us?” said Mrs. Dearly.
It seemed as if the white cat did. But just then Pongo woke up and barked loudly. The white cat turned and walked away into the night.
“Just as well,” said Mr. Dearly. “Cruella would have the law on us if we took her valuable cat.”
Then they went down into the kitchen to receive the full force of Pongo’s welcome. Missis, though sleepy, was fairly formidable too. There was a whirling mass of humans and dogs on the kitchen hearthrug—until Mrs. Dearly remembered, far too late, that Mr. Dearly’s dress suit would be covered with white hairs.
It must have been about three weeks later that Missis began to behave in a very peculiar manner. She explored every inch of the house, paying particular attention to cupboards and boxes. And the place that interested her most was a large cupboard just outside the Dearlys’ bedroom. The Nannies kept various buckets and brooms in this cupboard, and there wasn’t a spare inch of space. Every time Missis managed to get in, she knocked something over with a clatter and then looked very ill-treated.
“Bless me, she wants to have her puppies there,” said Nanny Cook.
“Not in that dark, stuffy cupboard, Missis, love,” said Nanny Butler. “You need light and air.”
But when Mrs. Dearly consulted the Splendid Veterinary Surgeon, he said what Missis needed most was a small, enclosed place where she would feel safe, and if she fancied the broom cupboard, the broom cupboard she’d better have. And she’d better have it at once and get used to it—even though the puppies were not expected for some days.
So out came the brooms and buckets and in went Missis, to her great satisfaction. Pongo was a little hurt that he was not allowed to go with her, but Missis explained to him that mother dogs like to be by themselves when puppies are expected, so he licked his wife’s ear tenderly and said he quite understood.
“I hope the dinner party won’t upset Missis,” said Mr. Dearly, when he came home and found Missis settled in the cupboard. “I shall be glad when it’s over.”
It was to be that very night. As there were quite a lot of guests, the food had to be normal, but Mrs. Dearly kindly put tall pepper-grinders in front of the de Vils. Cruella ground so much pepper that most of the guests were sneezing, but Mr. de Vil used no pepper at all. And he ate much more than in his own house.
Cruella was busy peppering her fruit salad when Nanny Butler came in and whispered to Mrs. Dearly. Mrs. Dearly looked startled, asked the guests to excuse her, and hurried out. A few minutes later Nanny Butler came in again and whispered to Mr. Dearly. He looked startled, excused himself, and hurried out. Those guests who were not sneezing made polite conversation. Then Nanny Butler came in again.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” she said dramatically, “puppies are arriving earlier than expected. Mr. and Mrs. Dearly ask you to remember that Missis has never before been a mother. She needs absolute quiet.”
There was an instant silence, broken only by a stifled sneeze. Then the guests rose, drank a whispered toast to the young mother, and tiptoed from the house.
All except Cruella de Vil. When she reached the hall she went straight to Nanny Butler, who was seeing the guests out, and demanded, “Where are those puppies?”
Nanny Butler had no intention of telling, but Cruella heard the Dearlys’ voices and ran upstairs. This time she was wearing a black satin dress with ropes of pearls, but the same absolutely simple white mink cloak. She had kept it round her all through dinner, although the room was very warm (and the pepper very hot).
“I must, I must see the darling puppies,” she cried.
The cupboard door was a little open. The Dearlys were inside, soothing Missis. Three puppies had been born before Nanny Butler, on bringing Missis a nourishing chicken dinner, had discovered what was happening.
Cruella flung open the door and stared down at the three puppies.
“But they’re mongrels—all white, no spots at all!” she cried. “You must drown them at once.”
Dalmatians are always born white,“ said Mr. Dearly, glaring at Cruella. ”The spots come later.“
“And we wouldn’t drown them even if they were mongrels,” said Mrs. Dearly indignantly.
“It’d be quite easy,” said Cruella. “I’ve drowned dozens and dozens of my cat’s kittens. She always chooses some wretched alley-cat for their father, so they’re never worth keeping.”
“Surely you leave her one kitten?” said Mrs. Dearly.
“If I’d done that, I’d be overrun with cats,” said Cruella. “Are you sure those horrid little white rats are pure Dalmatian puppies?”
“Quite sure,” snapped Mr. Dearly. “Now please go away. You’re upsetting Missis.”
And indeed Missis was upset. Even with the Dearlys there to protect her and her puppies, she was a little afraid of this tall woman with black-and-white hair who stared so hard. And that poor cat who had lost all those kittens! Never, never, would Missis forget that! (And one day she was to be glad that she remembered it.)
“How long will it be before the puppies are old enough to leave their mother?” asked Cruella. “In case I want to buy some.
“Seven or eight weeks,” said Mr. Dearly. “But there won’t be any for sale.” Then he shut the cupboard door in Cruella’s face, and Nanny Butler firmly showed her out of the house.
Nanny Cook was busy telephoning the Splendid Vet, but he was out on another case. His wife said she would tell him as soon as he came home and there was no need to worry—it sounded as if Missis was getting on very well.
She certainly was. There was now a fourth puppy. Missis washed it, and then Mr. Dearly dried it, while Mrs. Dearly gave Missis a drink of warm milk. Then the pup was put with the other three, in a basket placed where Missis could see it. Soon she had a fifth puppy. Then a sixth—and a seventh.
The night wore on. Eight puppies, nine puppies! Surely that would be all? Dalmatians do not often have more in their first family. Ten puppies! Eleven puppies!
Then the twelfth arrived, and it did not look like its brothers and sisters. The flesh showing through its white hair was not a healthy pink but a sickly yellow. And instead of kicking its little legs, it lay quite still. The Nannies, who were sitting just outside the cupboard, told Mr. and Mrs. Dearly that it had been born dead.
“But with so many, its mother will never miss it,” said Nanny Cook comfortingly.
Mr. Dearly held the tiny creature in the palm of his hand and looked at it sorr
owfully.
“It isn’t fair it should have no life at all,” said Mrs. Dearly with tears in her eyes.
Something he had once read came back to Mr. Dearly. He began to massage the puppy; then he tousled it gently in a towel. And suddenly there was a faint hint of pink around its nose—and then its whole little body was flushed with pink, beneath its snowy hair. Its legs moved! Its mouth opened! It was alive!
Mr. Dearly quickly put it close to Missis so that she could give it some milk at once, and it stayed there, feeding, until the next puppy arrived—for arrive it did. That made thirteen!
Shortly before dawn, the front doorbell rang. It was the Splendid Vet, who had been up all night saving the life of a dog that had been run over. By then all the puppies had been born, and Missis was giving breakfast to eight of them—all she could manage at one time.
“Excellent!” said the Splendid Vet. “A really magnificent family. And how is the father bearing up?”
The Dearlys felt guilty. They had not given Pongo a thought since the puppies had begun to arrive. He had been shut up in the kitchen. All night long he had paced backwards and forwards, and only once had he heard any news—when Nanny Cook had come down to make coffee and sandwiches. She had told him that Missis was doing well—but only as a joke, for she had no idea he would understand.
“Poor Pongo, we must have him up,” said Mrs. Dearly. But the Splendid Vet said mother dogs did not usually like to have father dogs around when puppies had just been born. At that moment there was a clatter of toenails on the polished floor of the hall—and upstairs, four at a time, came Pongo. Nanny Cook had just gone down to make some tea for the Splendid Vet, and the anxious father had streaked past her the minute she opened the kitchen door.
“Careful, Pongo!” said the Splendid Vet. “She may not want you.”
But Missis was weakly thumping her tail. “Go down and have your breakfast and a good sleep,” she said—but nobody except Pongo heard a sound. His eyes and his wildly wagging tail told her all he was feeling, his love for her and those eight fine pups enjoying their first breakfast. And those others, in the basket, waiting their turn—how many were there?
“It’s a pity dogs can’t count,” said Mrs. Dearly.
But Pongo could count perfectly. He went downstairs with his head high and a new light in his fine dark eyes. For he knew himself to be the proud father of fifteen.
Perdita
“AND NOW,” said the Splendid Vet to the Dearlys, “you must get a foster mother,”
He explained that though Missis would do her best to feed fifteen puppies, doing so would make her terribly thin and tired. And the strong puppies would get more milk than the weak ones. The puppy Mr. Dearly had brought to life was very small and would need special care.
The largest pup of all had a black patch all over its ear and one side of its face. This is a bad fault in a Dalmatian—which should be born pure white, as Mr. Dearly had told Cruella de Vil. Some people would have drowned this patched pup, because it would never be valuable. But the Dearlys felt particularly fond of it because it had started life with a bit of bad luck. (And they liked being able to recognize it. Until the spots started to come through, some weeks later, the big puppy with the patch and the small, delicate puppy were the only ones who could be told apart from the others.)
The Splendid Vet said the foster mother would have to be some poor dog who had lost her own puppies but still had milk to give. He thought he could get such a dog. But as he wasn’t sure, the Dearlys had better telephone all the Lost Dogs’ Homes. And until the foster mother was found, they could help Missis by feeding the pups with a doll’s feeding bottle or an old-fashioned fountain-pen filler.
Then the Splendid Vet went home for an hour’s sleep before starting his day’s work.
Nanny Cook got breakfast, and Nanny Butler took Pongo for a run. And Missis was persuaded to leave her family for a few minutes’ walk. When she came back, Mrs. Dearly had tidied the cupboard. Missis gave the second lot of pups a meal, and then she and her family of fifteen had a glorious sleep. And Pongo, down in the kitchen, had a glorious sleep too, knowing that all was well.
As soon as the shops opened, Mrs. Dearly went out and bought a doll’s feeding bottle and a fountain-pen filler. And then Mr. Dearly and the Nannies took turns at feeding puppies. Mrs. Dearly fancied this job herself but was busy telephoning, trying to find a foster mother. The Nannies were too fat to be comfortable in the cupboard, so soon Mr. Dearly got the feeding job all to himself and became very good at it and just a bit bossy. Of course he couldn’t go to business, which was awkward as he had an important business deal on.
Luckily there was a telephone in the Dearlys’ bedroom and it had a long cord to it. So Mr. Dearly was able to telephone while he was feeding the pups. There he was, in a dark cupboard with Missis, fifteen puppies, and the telephone. He nearly upset his important business deal by holding a pup to his ear and giving the telephone a drink of milk.
No sooner had Mr. Dearly put the telephone down than the Splendid Vet rang up to say he had not been able to find a foster mother. Neither had Mrs. Dearly, anywhere in London. She now started to ring up Lost Dogs’ Homes outside London. It was late afternoon before she heard of a mother dog with some milk to give, nearly thirty miles from London. And this dog had only just been brought in and would have to be kept some days in case she was claimed.
Mr. Dearly put his head out of the cupboard. After being up all night and feeding pups all day, he was beginning to feel pretty tired, but he was determined to go on helping Missis until the foster mother arrived. “Why not go and see if you can borrow that dog?” he said. “Say we’ll give it back if its owner turns up.”
So Mrs. Dearly got the car from the old stable at the back of the house and drove off hopefully. But when she got to the Dogs’ Home she found that the mother dog had already been claimed. She was glad for the dog’s sake, but terribly disappointed. She thought of poor Missis getting exhausted by too many puppies, and of Mr. Dearly, who might easily refuse to come out of the cupboard for a good night’s sleep, and she began to think she never would find a foster mother.
It was now almost dark, a gloomy, wet October evening. It had been raining all afternoon, but Mrs. Dearly hadn’t minded when she was feeling hopeful. Now, as she started back for London, the weather made her feel more and more depressed. And the rain got so heavy that the windscreen-wiper could hardly keep pace with it.
She was driving across a lonely stretch of common when she saw what looked like a bundle lying in the road ahead of her. She slowed down, and as she drew closer she saw that it was not a bundle but a dog. Instantly she thought it must have been run over. Dreading what she might find, she stopped the car and got out.
At first she thought the dog was dead, but as she bent down it struggled to its feet, showing no signs of injury. It was so plastered with mud that she could not see what kind of dog it was. What she could see, by the light from the car’s headlights, was the poor creature’s pitiful thinness. She spoke to it gently. Its drooping tail gave a feeble flick, then drooped again.
“I can’t leave it here,” thought Mrs. Dearly. “Even if it hasn’t been run over, it must be near starvation. Oh, dear!” With seventeen dogs at home already, she had no wish to take back a stray, but she knew she would never bring herself just to hand this poor thing in at a police station.
She patted it and tried to get it to follow her. It was willing to, but its legs were so wobbly that she picked it up and carried it. It felt like a sack of bones. And as she noticed this, she also noticed something else. Hurriedly she laid the dog on the seat of the car, on a rug, and turned on the light. Then she saw that this was a mother dog and that in spite of its starving condition it still had some milk to give.
She sprang into the car and drove as fast as she safely could. Quite soon she was in the London suburbs. She knew it would still take her some time to get home, because of the traffic, so she stopped at a little restaurant. H
ere the owner let her buy some milk and some cold meat and lent her his own dog’s dishes. The starving dog ate and drank ravenously, then at once settled to sleep. The nice owner of the restaurant took back his dishes and wished Mrs. Dearly luck as she drove away.
She got home just as the Splendid Vet was arriving to see Missis and the puppies. He carried the stray dog in and down to the warm kitchen. After a careful examination he said he thought her thinness was due more to having had puppies than to long starvation and that, if she was fed well, the milk intended for her own puppies might continue. He guessed they had been taken away from her and she had got lost looking for them.
“She ought to have a bath,” said Nanny Cook, “or she’ll give our puppies fleas.”
The Splendid Vet said a bath was a good idea, so the dog was carried into a little room which had been fitted up as a laundry. Nanny Cook got on with the bath as fast as she could because she was afraid Mr. Dearly might want to do the job himself. Mrs. Dearly had gone upstairs to tell him what was happening.
The stray seemed delighted with the warm water. She had just been covered with soap when Pongo came back from a walk with Nanny Butler and ran through the open door of the laundry.
“He won’t hurt a lady,” said the Splendid Vet.
“I should hope not, when she’s going to help nurse his puppies,” said Nanny Cook.
Pongo stood on his hind legs and kissed the wet dog on the nose, telling her how glad he was to see her and how grateful his wife would be. (But no human heard him.) The stray said, “Well, I’ll do my best, but I can’t promise anything.” (No human heard that, either.)
Just then Mr. Dearly came hurrying in to see the new arrival.
“What kind of dog is she?” he asked.
At that moment Nanny Cook began to rinse off the soap—and everyone gave a gasp. This dog was a Dalmatian too! But her spots, instead of being black, were brown—which in Dalmatians is called not “brown” but “liver.”
“Eighteen Dalmatians under one roof,” said Mr. Dearly gloatingly. “Couldn’t be better.” (But it could, as he was one day to learn.)
