The Kitchen Cat, and other Tales | Page 7

Amy Catherine Walton
and explain
that it had not been her fault!
The next day Aunt Clarkson herself came. She always had a great deal
on her mind when she came up to town, and liked to get through her
shopping in time to go back in the afternoon, so she could never stay
long with Ruth. She came bustling in, looking very strong, and
speaking in a loud cheerful voice, and all the while she was there she
gave quick glances round her at everything in the room. Ruth was well
enough to be up, and was sitting in a big chair by the nursery fire, with
picture-books and toys near; but she was not looking at them. Her eyes
were fixed thoughtfully on the fire, and her mind was full of the kitchen
cat. She had tried to write to it, but the words would not come, and her
fingers trembled so much that she could not hold the pencil straight.
The vexation and disappointment of this had made her head ache, and
altogether she presented rather a mournful little figure.
"Well, Nurse, and how are we going on?" said Aunt Clarkson, sitting
down in the chair Nurse placed for her. Remembering her dream, Ruth
could not help giving a glance at Aunt Clarkson's hands. They were fat,
round hands, and she kept them doubled up, so that they really looked
rather like a cat's paws.
"Well, ma'am," replied Nurse, "Miss Ruth's better; but she's not, so to
say, as cheerful as I could wish. Still a few fancies, ma'am," she added
in an undertone which Ruth heard perfectly.
"Fancies, eh?" repeated Aunt Clarkson in her most cheerful voice. "Oh,
we shall get rid of them at Summerford. You'll have real things to play

with there, Ruth, you know. Lucy, and Cissie, and Bobbie will be better
than fancies, won't they?"
Ruth gave a faint little nod. She did not know what her aunt meant by
"fancies." The cat was quite as real as Lucy, or Cissie, or Bobbie.
Should she ask her about it, or did she hate cats like Nurse Smith? She
gazed wistfully at Mrs Clarkson's face, who had now drawn a list from
her pocket, and was running through the details half aloud with an
absorbed frown.
"I shall wait and see the doctor, Nurse," she said presently; "and if he
comes soon I shall just get through my business, and catch the three
o'clock express."
No, it would be of no use, Ruth concluded, as she let her head fall
languidly back against the pillow--Aunt Clarkson was far too busy to
think about the cat.
Fortunately for her business, the doctor did not keep her waiting long.
Ruth was better, he said, and all she wanted now was cheering up a
little--she looked dull and moped. "If she could have a little friend, now,
to see her, or a cheerful companion," glancing at Nurse Smith, "it
would have a good effect."
He withdrew with Mrs Clarkson to the door, and they continued the
conversation in low tones, so that only scraps of it reached Ruth:
"--Excitable--fanciful--too much alone--children of her own age--"
Aunt Clarkson's last remark came loud and clear:
"We shall cure that at Summerford, Dr Short. We're not dull people
there, and we've no time for fancies."
She smiled, the doctor smiled, they shook hands and both soon went
away. Ruth leant her head on her hand. Was there no one who would
understand how much she wanted to see the kitchen cat? Would they
all talk about fancies? What were Lucy and Cissie and Bobbie to

her?--strangers, and the cat was a friend. She would rather stroke its
rough head, and listen to its purring song, than have them all to play
with. It was so sad to think how it must have missed her, how much she
wanted to see it, and how badly her head ached, that she felt obliged to
shed a few tears. Nurse discovered this with much concern.
"And there was master coming up to see you to-night and all, Miss
Ruth. It'll never do for him to find you crying, you know. I think you'd
better go to bed."
Ruth looked up with a sudden gleam of hope, and checked her tears.
"When is he coming?" she asked. "I want to see him."
"Well, I s'pose directly he comes home--about your tea-time. But if I let
you sit up we mustn't have no more tears, you know, else he'll think
you ain't getting well."
Ruth sank quietly back among her shawls in the big chair. An idea had
darted suddenly into her mind which comforted her very much, and she
was too busy with it to cry any more. She would ask her father! True, it
was hardly likely
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