Gobbolino the Witch's Cat

by Ursula Moray Williams

  But when the cook came up from the kitchen to fetch away the cauldron her eyes nearly started out of her head, for the orphans’ rosy cheeks were covered with chocolate sauce, and so were their clean white bibs, put on in the Lord Mayor’s honour. No wonder that their faces shone with pleasure, or that their bowls were so clean and polished.

  The cook rushed away to call the porteress, who appeared in her nightcap, blinking with sleep, for she was no early riser.

  When she heard the cook’s story and saw the orphans’ bibs she turned quite pale.

  “Where have you come from, my little cat?” she asked Gobbolino. “And who was your mother?”

  “Please, ma’am, I was born in a witch’s cave and Grimalkin was my mother!” replied Gobbolino innocently. “My little sister Sootica is apprenticed to a witch in the Hurricane Mountains, but I wished to become a kitchen cat, so I left home, and here I am!”

  “I knew it! I was positive of it!” stormed the cook. “Only a witch’s cat could do such things! No cat could kill so many mice without the aid of magic. He may cast spells on the children! He may turn us all into herrings or bats or horrible reptiles! Do away with him directly, ma’am! Don’t keep such a creature among innocent babies!”

  The eyes of the honest porteress filled with tears as she looked at Gobbolino, for she had no heart to turn even a witch’s kitten out of doors, while all the orphans set up such a weeping and a wailing (particularly the little brothers) that they threatened to ruin all their best starched shirts and dresses as well as their dirty bibs, stretching out their arms and sobbing:

  “Oh, don’t send away our dear, darling, beautiful Gobbolino!”

  And in the middle of it all the Lord Mayor’s coach rolled up to the door, and the Lord Mayor’s coachman pulled the bell.

  The porteress had just time to dry the orphans’ tears, wipe the chocolate sauce off their faces and remove their bibs, while the cook, having flung her slipper at Gobbolino and driven him into the kitchen, ran to open the door.

  The orphans were ready with bows and curtseys and shy smiles of excitement when the Lord Mayor and Mayoress came into the hall, but the cook bounced back into the kitchen and slammed the door behind her.

  “Now be off with you!” she cried to Gobbolino. “Witch’s cat! Magic maker! You shall never put spells into my cauldron again! Out into the street you go, and let me never see a whisker of your face again!”

  So saying she picked up a stick and chased Gobbolino out of the back door into the street.

  The little cat shivered and shook when he found himself safe round the corner.

  “Oh, my goodness, how unlucky I am!” he said to himself, sitting down for a moment to get his breath. “I never meant any harm, I only meant to give some pleasure to those innocent children! Who would have thought it would lead to such trouble? Oh, why was I born a witch’s cat – oh, why?”

  But as he became calmer he began to think that after all it might be for the best. The little brothers and the baby, all of whom he loved dearly, were about to be adopted by the Lord Mayor and given a happy home. They would certainly be well brought up, and the baby would have a stately cradle.

  As for himself, the cook had never liked him, and would sooner or later have turned him out.

  He sighed to think of the orphans’ gruel, but the porteress presided over the rest of their meals and they had nothing to complain of.

  “Some day I shall find a happy home,” said Gobbolino, trotting along in the dust, and purring to think of the good fortune that had come to the little brothers.

  7

  The Lord Mayor’s Coach

  Gobbolino had not left the orphanage more than two miles behind him when he heard a far-off sound like the rolling of distant wheels and the galloping of horses.

  With his ears a-prick he jumped lightly out of the road in case the coach should run him over in its haste, for on the road behind him a cloud of dust was coming nearer and nearer with such a thundering of hoofs, jingling of harness, and creaking of wheels as Gobbolino had never heard before.

  Presently he could distinguish four grey horses driven at a furious speed, and could even hear the shouts of the driver urging them on faster and faster and faster.

  “Oh, my goodness!” said Gobbolino. “That looks remarkably like the Lord Mayor’s coach which I saw standing at the orphanage door! If it really is so, he must have left in a hurry! Whatever can be the matter?”

  He crouched against the roadside while the great coach thundered past, swaying and jolting like a clumsy elephant, but it had scarcely passed him before three voices called out:

  “Oh! Oh! Oh! Our darling, beautiful, sweet Gobbolino! Stop the coach! Stop! Stop! Stop! He’s here! He’s here! He’s here!”

  And to Gobbolino’s horror and surprise he saw that the galloping coach with the sweating frantic horses and flying wheels was driven by the biggest of the three little brothers.

  Two more leaned out of the windows, calling his name with all their might, while the baby, slung on the axle in his basket, solemnly sucked his thumb amid all the jolting and swinging and said nothing at all.

  When they saw Gobbolino, Big Brother made a tremendous effort to draw in his horses, but they were galloping so fast that he only bewildered them. The coach swerved wildly round the next corner, catching the wheel hub on a large stone, and overturned. The next minute with a terrible crackling of shafts and splintering of gilded wood they were all upside down in the ditch.

  “Oh, my goodness!” cried Gobbolino, galloping after them.

  The horses were unharmed, and although all the little brothers were crying bitterly with distress and bruises on their foreheads, they were not sorely hurt either. The baby had been tossed on to the grass and was already picking dandelions, but the Lord Mayor’s beautiful golden coach lay in the ditch with broken shafts.

  Gobbolino set the little brothers on their feet, prodding them for broken limbs in some anxiety. When he found they were all safe and sound, he cuffed their ears soundly all round, took the dandelions out of the baby’s mouth and said:

  “You ought to be ashamed of yourselves, you ought. I don’t know what in the world is to become of you! The Lord Mayor will never adopt you now!”

  “Oh, please, don’t be angry with us, dear, sweet, kind Gobbolino!” sobbed the little brothers, bursting into fresh tears of grief and remorse. “How could you run away and leave us and not expect us to come after you and fetch you back again? How can you expect us to be adopted and leave you behind? We didn’t mean any harm! How can you be so angry with us, Gobbolino?”

  “Well, well, well, it can’t be helped now,” said Gobbolino, wiping away their tears. “I suppose the coach can be mended, and the horses seem as fresh as ever. We must go back to the orphanage and ask the Lord Mayor’s pardon directly.”

  Big Brother caught the horses and mounted the leader. Brother climbed on the second and Little Brother on the third. Gobbolino leapt lightly on the fourth, holding the baby in his basket in front of him. The horses were no longer excited and unmanageable; they trotted quietly back to the orphanage gate and stopped in front of the door.

  They found the whole orphanage, the Mayor and Mayoress, the porteress, the four and twenty orphans – even the cook, assembled on the steps peering anxiously down the road.

  When they saw the little brothers the Lord Mayor was the first to gather them into his arms.

  “Oh, my poor, unfortunate children!” he cried. “You might have been killed or terribly injured! You might have broken your legs or cracked your skulls, or been thrown out into the road! When you become my sons you shall never, never run into such danger again!”

  The Lady Mayoress hugged the baby in its basket and exclaimed in horror at the dandelion stains on its fingers.

  “We must send for a new coach and take them home with us directly!” she said.

  “They ought to be beaten!” said the cook, disappearing into the kitchen, but the porteress had already found out
about the gruel and dismissed her.

  By the time the porteress had put arnica on the bruises of the three little brothers and had scolded them well and told them to behave and kissed the baby and blown all their noses and kissed them again, the Lord Mayor’s second-best coach was at the door and it was time for them to start for their new home.

  The Lady Mayoress took the baby on her lap, the three little brothers scrambled aboard, quarrelling as to which should sit next to the driver, and the coachman was just cracking his whip when the boys cried out in chorus:

  “Gobbolino! Gobbolino! Where is Gobbolino? – please, oh, please, kind sir, don’t take us away without our little cat!”

  The kind-hearted Lord Mayor was ready to do anything for his four new sons, but the Lady Mayoress detested cats.

  Gobbolino might have been left behind again had not the baby stretched out its little arms so pleadingly that the Lady Mayoress herself opened the door, and Gobbolino jumped inside. He was careful to avoid distressing her by sitting very quietly in a far corner of the carriage, and so the coach rumbled steadily towards their new home, and Gobbolino realized with pleasure that he was now to become a Lord Mayor’s cat.

  8

  The Lady Mayoress Doesn’t Like Cats

  The Lord Mayor’s house was large and noble, and the nurseries more splendid even than the little brothers had dreamed of.

  There was a golden cradle for the baby, a rocking-horse, soldiers, engines, and a thousand different toys in cupboards and on shelves around the room.

  There was a thick warm rug in front of the fire where Gobbolino might tuck in his paws and drowsily watch their play, and a high windowsill where he could sit and look down upon the courtyard, with the Lord Mayor’s lackeys running to and fro, the peacocks that sometimes strayed from the Lady Mayoress’s garden, and the messengers that were constantly bringing great sealed letters to the door.

  The Lord Mayor and his lady were as kind and as loving as any parents the little brothers could wish for, the nurseries rang with laughter and happiness; it was the house of Gobbolino’s dreams – if only the Lady Mayoress had liked cats.

  She tried to hide it, for she had a heart of gold and dearly loved the little brothers; but when she came into the nursery and saw Gobbolino there she turned pale and put her hand to her heart as though she might faint away. When she saw the baby cuddling him she shrieked aloud, and if any of the little brothers carried him near her she begged him with tears in her eyes not to let Gobbolino touch her on any account.

  Gobbolino hated to displease her, and learned to hide whenever he heard her step on the stair, but she knew by a strange instinct when he was in the room, and as the little brothers would not let him leave without them, he spent many an hour crouching under the nursery table and wishing he had never been born a witch’s cat.

  “For if I were a common nursery tabby or tom, her ladyship would not feel so nervous about me,” he told himself.

  The Lady Mayoress became quite thin and ill, for all that the Mayor, the little brothers and even the baby could do to rouse her. The mere sight of Gobbolino set her shivering, till it was quite evident that she must soon take to her bed or pine away altogether.

  But before this happened Gobbolino had made up his mind he would go.

  He told the little brothers this, and their sobs, tears and lamentations filled the nursery, nearly breaking Gobbolino’s heart.

  “You love your kind new parents, the Lord Mayor and Mayoress, don’t you?” said Gobbolino.

  “Oh, yes!” said the little brothers.

  “You are very grateful to them, aren’t you?” said Gobbolino.

  “Oh, yes! Yes!”

  “You would do anything in the world to please them and bring them joy?”

  “Oh, yes! Yes! Yes!”

  “Then stay with them and be good, dutiful, loving children,” said Gobbolino. “And don’t mind about me. Some day I will come back again and see what fine big boys you have become. I’m off to find a kitchen fire where there is room and a saucer of milk for a little cat, and there I shall stay for ever and ever. Goodbye!”

  “Goodbye, our kind, good, faithful Gobbolino!” sobbed the little brothers, so smothering him with their kisses and their embraces that he was not sorry to escape from their hands and scamper away down the back stairs.

  The Lord Mayor with his pocket full of sugar-plums stopped the little boys’ tears, and Gobbolino once again heard their joyful cries as he left the courtyard and trotted out into the wide world.

  “Surely this time I shall be lucky!” said Gobbolino.

  9

  Gobbolino on Show

  By evening Gobbolino came to a town.

  The lights in the windows winked at him like yellow and friendly eyes: “Come in! Come in!”

  In a hundred happy homes the kettle was singing on the hob; fat, comfortable tabbies, careless of their good fortune, dozed under chairs, or grumbled at the noise the children made, bouncing in from school. Fires crackled frostily, and sleepy canaries, with dusters over their cages, twittered a last note before tucking their downy heads under their wings.

  It was the teatime hour, the hour when every cat is lord of his house, and every house without a cat is lonely. Every cat without a house is lonelier still, and Gobbolino trotted along missing the bright nursery fire, missing the noisy clatter of the little brothers, missing the chuckle of the baby, the clamour of the orphanage, the comfort of the farm kitchen, missing even the gloomy cavern where he had been born. He belonged to nobody, and nobody belonged to him.

  He jumped on to a windowsill, peeping in through the lace curtains.

  The room that he peeped into was very strange.

  There was an ordinary table in the middle, certainly, and some chairs, and a kettle on the hob that sang and hissed. There were saucepans and a teapot and a blue-and-white china tea set and a clock that had lost one hand, but all the way round the room were dozens of large cages, and in each cage, sitting on a blue velvet cushion, was a cat.

  A little old man stood at the table cutting up cat’s-meat on twelve blue china plates.

  The cats looked very happy and satisfied. Their coats were glossy, their eyes bright and intelligent, their whiskers spruce and clean.

  They purred as they watched the little old man and Gobbolino heard their purring through the windowpanes.

  “They look very content and well cared for,” thought Gobbolino. “But nobody who has so many cats already can possibly want another.”

  He jumped lightly off the windowsill, but not before the little old man had seen him, for the next minute the door into the street opened wide and a voice called:

  “Pussy! Pussy! Pretty pussy! Come here!”

  “Oh, my goodness!” said Gobbolino. “He really is calling me!”

  The little old man stood at the door with a piece of cat’s-meat in his hand. He picked up Gobbolino and carried him into the room where all the cages were.

  “There, my pretty!” said the little old man, setting him down on the table. “Oh, what a pretty cat you are! And what beautiful blue eyes you have!”

  Gobbolino did not very much like being prodded and poked by the little old man’s hard, bony hands. His paws were felt, his teeth examined, his whiskers counted, and his tail measured.

  “Oh, what a beautiful cat you are!” the little old man said over and over again.

  The other cats looked on, sitting on their velvet cushions and growling with jealousy. They had finished their cat’s-meat, and all the blue china saucers were licked clean.

  When he had finished poking and prodding Gobbolino, the little old man popped him into an empty cage with another blue velvet cushion in it and a saucerful of cat’s-meat.

  Gobbolino would have preferred to sit by the fire, but he was grateful to the little old man for taking him in, so he ate up his cat’s-meat thankfully and said nothing at all.

  “It’s nice to know there are such kind people in the world!” thought Gobbolino,
as he sat on his velvet cushion. “For I might have been walking all night, or have starved to death.”

  “I’m sure I shall be very happy here,” he said presently to his neighbour, a stately Persian madam. “But what are we all doing in these cages?”

  “Don’t you know?” said the Persian scornfully. “Why, you are now a show cat!”

  In the morning the little old man brushed and combed his cats one by one till their fur gleamed and shone.

  He was a little surprised at the coloured sparks that flew from Gobbolino’s coat under the brush, but he did not stop praising him or telling him how beautiful he was.

  “Such fur! Such a tail! Such colouring! And such beautiful blue eyes!” he exclaimed.

  The other cats growled in their cages, for they did not like to hear the little old man praising Gobbolino.

  “Ha! They’re jealous!” said the little old man, and tied a red ribbon round Gobbolino’s neck to make him smarter than ever.

  Every morning Gobbolino was brushed and combed with the other cats, till his coat shone and gleamed as theirs did, his eyes were as bright, and his whiskers as spruce and clean.

  Every morning the little old man praised and admired him from the tip of his tail to his beautiful blue eyes, while the other cats growled jealously in their cages; they would not make friends with Gobbolino.

  One day the little old man was especially busy, combing his cats, brushing the velvet cushions and polishing the cages from dark till dawn. He became very bad-tempered with his haste and exertion, scolding and hustling the cats and never once telling Gobbolino how beautiful he was.

  “What is all the fuss and fluster about?” Gobbolino timidly asked his neighbour, the Persian madam.