James the Conniosseur Cat

by Harriet Hahn

  “Etheria, this is my house, even if you are my sister. You do not need to take care of me any longer. In any case, I understand from Bunko that you are to be married to the Duke of Inverness shortly, and you will have your own castle, not just a stately home, and all the trappings you wish for. Why do you want to ruin my life?” He sounded very unhappy.

  “Ruin your life indeed! I am simply stiffening your spine to make sure you uphold the standards of our dear mother,” Etheria stated firmly.

  “I see you don’t mention our father, the late Earl of Haverstock.”

  “He was weak, weak, weak!” cried Etheria. “But Mother put up with him because she had vowed to, and singlehandedly she kept up the standards of this house, and so shall you.”

  We heard Etheria stamp out of the room, and, filled with sorrow for our dear friend, we scurried to the billiard room.

  Lord Henry mentioned that he had had words with his sister, and that as far as he could see, we could not have an old-fashioned wassail party as long as she was around, though we could indeed do the children’s party on Christmas. Lord Henry was not weak; he simply felt he could not make Etheria miserable in what had once been her house.

  “We will have everyone in for the ritual apple,” said Lord Henry angrily.

  “But if Etheria weren’t here?” I asked tentatively.

  “Then we could do as we wished. But there is no chance of that. I shall just have to wait till next year. But that’s why I hate to come here. I love the old house, but the villagers look on me as a snob now, and it is uncomfortable.”

  James had been pacing the floor, and suddenly he now slipped out of the room.

  We sat quietly watching the news on the box and listening to the sound of the car being brought around on the gravel to take Etheria to the fête at Bunky’s place. Lord Henry did not like Bunky much, and had declined the invitation himself.

  Suddenly there was a terrible noise—shrieks, bangings, and general turmoil. We heard Etheria yelling at the top of her voice. There was much running around. We were frozen for the moment.

  James appeared at the door and blocked our exit. His expression was unfathomable.

  There was the sound of a siren. James let us out of the room, and we all hurried to the great hall, where paramedics were loading the substantial shape of Etheria onto a stretcher. She was shouting instructions at the top of her voice.

  “What happened?” cried Lord Henry.

  “I fell down the stairs, you fool,” cried Etheria. “I think I have broken both legs and a hip. Careful there, you idiot, you have a very important person here,” she shouted at one of the paramedics.

  I was about to ask how this had happened, when a gray paw patted me sharply. I looked down, and James shook his head.

  We watched the procession move out the door, Etheria shouting instructions, which the paramedics ignored, until she was swallowed up in the cocoon of the ambulance.

  We stood stunned.

  James did a somersault or two, and then walked with great dignity up the stairs. We followed him to bed.

  The next day, Lord Henry had a long talk with the doctor, who reported that Etheria had indeed broken a leg, torn a ligament or two, and cracked a rib. He recommended that she stay in the hospital until after Christmas, and then return home. We greeted this news with a certain joyfulness.

  “I wonder how she fell?” Lord Henry mused. “Not that a fall wasn’t what she had coming, and she’ll be right as rain shortly.”

  I looked at James. He winked and put a paw to his mouth.

  I said nothing.

  Preparations began of a very different sort from those envisioned by Etheria, who telephoned instructions to us from the hospital.

  Cook brought out old recipes for cakes and pastries. Wilson concocted, with some modifications, a wassail drink that had been used in the time of Queen Elizabeth I. We moved the furniture in the drawing room around to provide cozy groups and to allow for a big buffet table.

  Helena made decorations for the table, and we all went out to the woodlot and cut branches and holly and came back singing, covered with snow, faces glowing, happy it would be a white Christmas. While we were outside, James spent the time supervising activities in the kitchen and tasting everything. I noted he was getting stout again.

  In the evening we played old children’s games and laughed a good deal. An invitation had been sent to everyone in the village by word of mouth and through the church bulletin. The whole village took on an air of expectancy.

  Of course, Fumia reported everything that was going on to Etheria, who called frantically at every opportunity, but we ignored her.

  The day of the reception dawned bright and cold. The snow was crisp and still white. The hall was busy. The table in the drawing room was laden with all sorts of good things. A great silver bowl, full of wassail, was set up in the great hall. A Christmas tree decorated with ornaments found by James in a storeroom, and obviously accumulated over many generations, filled the hall by the wassail bowl. The treetop reached to the second floor. James had been invaluable in placing ornaments on hard-to-reach spots.

  At last we were all ready for the first guest. James sported a bright red bow around his neck. Lord Henry wore a bright red vest and a sprig of holly on the lapel of his tweed jacket, and Helena wore the emerald green velvet robe with a white scarf around her neck; a wreath of spruce twigs with red bows crowned her golden hair. She looked like a princess.

  People arrived in droves, and Lord Henry found himself inexplicably shy. He stood to one side, beaming at all the guests as they entered, but it was James who was the heart and soul of the party. With a sweep of his paw, a gesture developed long ago for the art exhibition, he welcomed guests at the door. He offered punch, checked the buffet table, and indicated to the footmen when things were wanted. And he rounded up children who strayed out of bounds.

  For a brief time, while their parents had some food, he entertained a pair of eighteen-month-old twins by doing somersaults and chasing imaginary mice. In fact, he chased one or two real mice that had ventured in, attracted by all the crumbs that were slowly littering the floor of the drawing room.

  He was everywhere at once. Helena at last extracted Lord Henry from his corner, and the two of them walked through the rooms, greeting and talking with everyone.

  The carolers arrived and collected around the Christmas tree. James raced through the rooms, alerting everyone that songs were about to begin. Those who paid no attention were treated to mild scratches.

  The carolers sang to great applause. Then the whole house rang with “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.”

  Suddenly the big front door was flung open, and there on the steps appeared Etheria, with her leg in a cast, supported by the Marchioness and Fumia Wettin.

  “My God!” she exclaimed. “What goes on here?”

  “Just a Christmas party, sister dear,” said Lord Henry, who was now feeling not at all shy.

  James stood thunderstruck as Helena stepped forward.

  The Marchioness also stood thunderstruck. Suddenly she curtseyed to Helena.

  Etheria looked on in surprise. “My dear Marchioness, what are you doing?” She said. “She is nothing but a piece of my brother’s riffraff.”

  The Marchioness blushed deeply.

  “Oh, Princess, I beg your pardon!” said the Marchioness.

  “Princess?” Etheria exclaimed.

  “Come in, come in,” said Helena. “Let me help you to the morning room, where you can rest your poor leg, and I will tell you all about it.” She took one arm and the Marchioness took the other, and they headed to the morning room, to the right of the great hall.

  As she left, Helena called out, “The party is not over. Please forgive me for just a minute.” James dashed into action, and Lord Henry and I followed suit.

  The party was pronounced a tremendous success by all and went on much later than anyone had calculated. Finally the last guest said good-bye, urged on by a tired and cro
ss James, who was chivvying him on his way.

  We went in search of Helena.

  We found her in the library, curled up on the sofa, looking into the fire. There was no sign of Etheria, the Marchioness, or Miss Wettin.

  James, almost totally exhausted, had collapsed on her lap.

  “You were wonderful, darling Sir James,” she said, stroking him affectionately. He purred.

  “It was a wonderful party, wasn’t it?” said a delighted Lord Henry. “It is without a doubt the best Christmas party we ever gave. The old hall has never been so merry. And what do we have to thank but that unlucky-for-her, lucky-for-us chance that sent Etheria down the stairs.”

  I looked hard at James, but he refused to meet my eyes.

  “Now what’s all this about a princess, and where is Etheria?”

  “You see,” said Helena, “my mother was the daughter of a German royal family, and she—my mother that is—married a Swedish nobleman named Haakon. My parents are both dead, and I have nothing to do with titles and such. I live in England and am a naturalized English citizen, but the Marchioness makes a hobby of all the royalty of Europe, dead and alive. We met many years ago in Sweden, and she remembered.

  “Etheria was so humiliated at the thought that she had referred to a princess as riffraff that she insisted on being taken to the Marchioness’s house for the night. She will be on her way to Scotland tomorrow, and I doubt she will be back.

  “I’m sorry, Lord Henry, I did my best to assure her it meant nothing to me, but she could not be stopped. Her maid, Mary Jane, packed her bags, and your chauffeur took them over in the wagon.”

  Lord Henry looked at her in wonder. She smiled her golden smile and said, “The party was wonderful, and tomorrow you play Santa at church. Now let’s go into the kitchen and forage before we go to bed. I took the liberty of telling Wilson we could fend for ourselves tomorrow. The staff deserve a free day after all the work of today.”

  Lord Henry laughed. “I beat you to it,” he chuckled. “Wilson must think we are crazy.”

  He took Helena’s hand, and the tall princess and the short earl trotted hand in hand off to the kitchen, followed by a very distinguished, nearly exhausted cat and me.

  CHAPTER 5

  The Christmas Eve party at Haverstock Hall was acknowledged a huge success by all, and the part James played added to his already well-established self-esteem. He was beginning to feel omnipotent. He could do no wrong. The Christmas Day service at the church was filled with warmth and fellowship. In the afternoon in the church parlor, Lord Henry made his appearance as Father Christmas with a great bag of small gifts for the children of the congregation.

  Lord Henry handed the gifts one at a time to James, who made his way to the appropriate child and delivered the gift with a wave of his tail.

  Some of the children, enchanted by the sight of a great gray cat with bright red bow tied around his neck, tried to entice James into playing. Each child was treated to a fierce golden glare.

  Early in the distribution, a young boy hid his gift and pretended that he was next. James passed him up without a second look and, on the return trip, retrieved the original gift from under a chair and, with a sneer, deposited it at the feet of the young boy.

  Once all the gifts had been distributed, Lord Henry hoisted James on his shoulder and walked about to the strains of “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” sung by children and adults and accompanied by Helena on the piano.

  Lord Henry, without his beard, red coat, and bag, returned to join the members of the parish in drinking mulled wine and eating shortbread. James, lionized, in his red bow, enthusiastically lapped up the wine and sated himself on shortbread.

  Finally, with the snow falling around us, Lord Henry, Helena, James, and I headed back across the fields to Haverstock Hall.

  First we all had a nap, and then, refreshed, we sat down to a dinner, prepared by Helena, of roast goose, onions, currants, and apples with bread dressing, oranges from Israel, and finally a flaming plum pudding with hard sauce.

  In the week between Christmas and New Year’s, Helena settled into her studio and worked every day on a series of paintings she hoped to exhibit in early February.

  Lord Henry had decided to catalog some sections of the library that had been untouched for a generation, and I helped him.

  James spent two hours each morning inspiring Helena, then took a nap and sometimes joined us for lunch at the big mahogany dining table, where Lord Henry, Helena, and I sat around one end and James occupied the other, while a footman waited on us all.

  On other occasions he ate in the kitchen, where Cook tried out new tidbits on him. After another short nap, for James and sometimes Lord Henry as well, we all wrapped in coats and mittens and went into the village to get provisions, to see and be seen.

  James was particularly proficient at being seen. Everyone in the village now knew that it was James who was responsible for Etheria’s having retired to Scotland, and he was regarded with affectionate awe.

  At the butcher shop he jumped on the counter and occasionally added his paw to the scales as meat was being weighed, wearing a wide grin on his face, or hissed as Helena suggested a “nice mess of tripe” for dinner.

  At the grocer’s he played tag with tiny lapdogs, and rolled oranges on the floor.

  At the pub where we stopped for refreshment, he stalked down the bar, sampling beers. No ordinary cat would have been allowed in any of these places, but James was a local hero, so he was indulged and admired, and he grew reckless. Each time we went to the village, he danced perilously on mounds of grapefruit at the grocer’s. At the general store he would disappear, only to be found grinning behind a box of detergent, to the astonishment of some unsuspecting villager. Everyone laughed and applauded. James was ecstatic. Lord Henry, Helena, and I were uneasy. We knew James had no sense of proportion.

  The last Sunday we all went to the eleven-o’clock service to say good-bye for now to the church.

  “Behave yourself,” I told James fiercely as we approached the door. James twitched his tail and disappeared.

  Helena, Lord Henry, and I took our seats in the family pew and watched as the processional came down the aisle: the cross, acolytes, choir, minister, and last of all James, head erect, tail waving from side to side.

  The acolytes took their places for the opening rituals, and James lay full-length on the altar rail, from which vantage point he watched the congregation. However, the ritual bored him, and when the vicar ascended the pulpit for the sermon, James grew restless.

  First he performed acrobatics on the rail. Some people tittered. The vicar gave him a stern look, but nothing affected James. He saw the baptismal font and leaped onto the edge. Then, rising to his hind legs, he tried to perform his two-legged dance that had served him so well in the gallery. The congregation was mesmerized. James was carried away. Perched on the edge of the font, he flung his forepaws into the air in a gesture of expansive affection for all his dear friends sitting rapt in the pews in front of him, swayed back and forth, and fell into the font.

  He let out a shriek and tried to scramble out, dripping with holy water.

  The vicar, who had admitted defeat early on, stopped his sermon and smiled wryly.

  Deeply embarrassed, I hurried to the font, grabbed James, and hustled us both back to the vicar’s study as fast as possible. He shook himself and began a concentrated overhaul of his gray coat.

  “James,” I said angrily. He stopped licking himself and looked at me. “That was unforgivable!” I went on. “You were rude to the vicar, desecrated the altar, and treated the congregation to a cheap show of flash.”

  I was just getting warmed up and was about to remind James in detail of the excesses of his recent behavior, but he jumped on my lap and gently tapped my mouth. He looked so sad and humiliated I could not go on.

  It was cold, so I wrapped him in one of the vicar’s old sweaters and carried him home, where he curled up in a corner of the library with
a paw over his eyes, and refused either tea or drinks. He picked at his supper at the end of the table, and did not look at us once.

  Helena tried to hug him, but he shrugged her off. The footman tried to tempt him with flan served with brandy sauce. He only hung his head. He was not worthy.

  After dinner he dragged himself to the windowsill in the library, removed the roll of padding that was used to block the draft, and laid himself down in the cold.

  “Come, James,” Lord Henry said firmly, picking up an unresponsive cat. “Punish yourself if you want, but not your friends.”

  James retreated to a corner under the drapes as Lord Henry replaced the padding roll. He put his paws over his head and retreated from the world. The rest of us watched the news uneasily. By the following morning he was more himself. He supervised Helena’s work, took his nap, and ate quietly at the table, but chose not to go to town. He sat in the corner, refused tea or a drink, and lay on the library table in the evening—not even permitting himself the comfort of the fire or a friendly lap.

  New Year’s Eve was upon us. The village publican had asked us to join the New Year’s festivities at the Rusty Crown. There would be noisemakers and games, and we thought it would be fun, so we accepted.

  But what of James? In his present mood he hardly seemed ready for a party.

  “Will you join us?” Lord Henry asked him at about nine o’clock as we were getting ready to go.

  James shook his head, sighed deeply, and gave us his I’m-not-worthy look.

  “Darling Sir James,” Helena exclaimed, “it won’t be the same without you!”

  James sniffed and covered his head with his paws. As we waved good-bye he stood in the door, the picture of depression.

  The pub was full. We were swept into the circle of new friends, and before long were playing “horserace” with dice and pop bottles on a course laid out on the bar. Dart games were also in progress, and some people sang around a piano played by the vicar.

  The door opened to admit newcomers, and I felt a soft paw on my arm. There beside me was James.