I Know a Secret/Chapter 1

by Christopher Darlington Morley

Fourchette and the Kittens

FOURCHETTE was a wise old cat who knew how pleasant it is to sit still and do nothing. The top of the cellar doorway was her favourite place. The doors had just enough slope to make them very comfortable for sprawling; the morning sunshine fell warmly there; and the kitchen was just overhead, so she could smell the cooking and get an idea of what the next meal was likely to be. There were many reasons why Fourchette liked the cellar door, though she was too lazy to tell you them all. It was raised above the ground so that she could keep an eye on the kittens, Hops and Malta, as they played about. Just below it, behind the laurel bushes, was an open window into the cellar. It was convenient to be able to flit in there if anything sudden happened. One jump from the sill to the washtubs, one more jump to the cellar floor, and there you were with all sorts of dark hiding places to choose. An experienced cat, no matter how comfortably you see her dozing, has always picked out in her mind which way she will run in an emergency. An emergency means something dangerous that happens very quickly, such as Fritz, the Snyders' dog, coming into the garden and making a dash at her.

Also, Fourchette liked the cellar door because the old weatherbeaten gray paint was just the same colour as her fur. She looked handsome lying there, and a cat of good family thinks of her appearance. Dogs, as you know, don't care. Donny, the long-haired sheepdog, will spend half the night barking through the woods after rabbits, plunge into the marshy edges of Gissing Pond, and come home with his coat full of burrs and mud. Does he mind? Not a bit. He chooses the softest place in one of the flowerbeds and lies down for a nap. But a cat can't sleep until she is clean.

This Sunday moming in summer everything was a little too thrilling for sleep. There had been kippered herring for breakfast, and an exciting fishy whiff still lingered in the bright air, mixed with the warm sweetness of the mint that grew by the back steps. When there was kippered herring, Perez, the Filipino cook, always gave the cats the juice from the can. The herrings had been lying in that juice ever since they were packed somewhere in Scotland; I have often heard Fourchette say there isn't anything more delicious. The only difficulty was that Donny was very fond of it too, and Fourchette always had to stand guard and hiss him away; while she was doing that the kittens, their pink tongues flashing busily, got most of the treat. Then they complained of being thirsty, but Fourchette had taught them to lick little drops of dew from the grassblades. This was more refreshing than the water in Donny's bowl, which had a queer taste because there was a big lump of yellow sulphur in it.

Few people know how many pleasant smells a cat's nose enjoys on a warm morning. That is why cats usually stay near the kitchen where the fragrance is more interesting. Some day when you are walking round the house you can make a list of the different things you smell. Fourchette, as she lay with her front paws tucked under her, could feel in her nose not only the breakfast herrings, but the first cracklings of the leg of lamb that Perez had in the oven for lunch, and the cool ashy whiff from the cellar entry below her, oily and leathery smells from the garage, ticklings of heliotrope and mignonette in the flowerbed, and a soft mixed sweetness that drifted out of the woods on the other side of the house. There was a cat-bird in the wood, who made a queer mewing sound as if on purpose to tease her. When Fourchette heard that her ears tingled and twitched just as they do when you blow in them.

There was the smell of the kittens. Kittens smell very fragrant, like warm sweet biscuits. Louise knows that, and though she has been advised not to put stray cats up to her face, because they are often lively with fleas, yet I think I have seen her do it just to enjoy their smell.

And there were odours of dog. The smell of Donny, of course, was quite strong by the back steps; but Fourchette was used to that. Her nose also told her that Donny's friends Mike Hopkins and Fritz Snyder had been to call that morning.

 

Hops and Malta were squabbling over the Funny Paper. There was plenty of it for both of them, and by taking turns they ought to have been able to enjoy it without fuss. But they always did fuss about it and Fourchette had threatened many times, if that sort of thing went on, to burn it up, before anyone had seen it at all, in the big wire basket where rubbish is put. The incinerator, she called it, a word that had a great effect on the kittens. They knew that sin meant things that were unpleasant, and this long word incinerator, they supposed, had something to do with it. "If you do that, I'll put you in the incinerator," Hops once shouted at Malta when they were quarrelling over their croquet. Fourchette then explained to them that the word simply means something that turns other things into ashes. Fourchette, who was a well-educated cat, worried a good deal about the kittens' training. She was a Wonderful Mother, the kind handsomely described on the Greeting Cards, but there are moments when even they are less Wonderful. She felt, lying there in the sunshine, that she really ought to punish the kittens for squabbling, but she was in one of those drowsing moods that are so helpful in the lives of middle-aged cats. There are times when even kittens must be left to settle things for themselves, as we all have to do sooner or later. But the squalling went on, and a little angriness began to prickle in her lazy muscles. Her eyes opened and brightened, and she was just getting ready for a sudden spring when she was startled by a very polite voice beside her.

"Is there where Madame Fourchette lives?" it said, with a slight foreign accent.

Fourchette was greatly surprised; so much so that for a moment she forgot her dignity and her manners and simply stared. The stranger was a snail, a creature quite rare in Long Island gardens. A large, fat, and very comely snail with a round striped shell and two bright anxious eyes at the ends of queer elastic prongs. Snails are rather short-sighted, which sometimes makes their behaviour seem bold and forward without their intending it, for they are really quite bashful. So the visitor had come very close before he saw Fourchette at all. Now, when she gave a start of astonishment, the stranger retired nervously inside his shell. There was a long silence.

"I beg your pardon," said Fourchette presently, still a little bewildered. "Did you say anything?"

The snail, very carefully, put out one eye from under his shell and looked at her. His eye was courteous but wary. Fourchette almost laughed, he was really rather amusing, peering up like that.

"Forgive me for taking you by surprise," he said, "I am so short-sighted. I really ought to wear glasses, but with eyes like mine it would be so difficult to keep them on." This was true, for now that he had put his head out again his eyes were constantly moving forward and back and waving to and fro. He kept gazing at her with a sort of nervous hopefulness which Fourchette found slightly embarrassing.

"I introduce myself," he continued. "My name is Escargot, pronounced S-car-go—with a slight accent on the go. You see, I am French. And when I heard your name mentioned at the station, I thought perhaps I would have the pleasure of meeting another person from my own country."

"How do you do, Mussoor," said Fourchette. "I believe that some of my ancestors were French. But before my marriage I was a Roulston."

Of course Fourchette's notion about French ancestry was nonsense: her name was given her by Louise when the family had lately come back from Normandy. Her connections were all with the chain-stores: she herself had grown up at Roulston's grocery, down by the station, and her husband (when last heard of) worked for the A & P in Roslyn Heights. He was that rather handsome cat who used to lie in a sack of white beans in the window.

"That is a long journey, from France," she said kindly. "You must be tired."

"I am very glad to be here," he said. "I left France because, though it is a beautiful country, they have one very regrettable habit. They eat snails. I fled from my home to avoid being eaten. Perhaps fled is too hasty a word," he added thoughtfully. "At any rate, I departed. Tell me, Madame," he said, waving his eyes anxiously, "in this country, snails are not, I believe, considered a delicacy?"

"Certainly not," Fourchette reassured him.

"So I understood," he said, "from the conversation of an American family that was visiting France. I was one of a platter of snails that their cook, old Julie, a truly murderous woman, had gathered for their dinner. But when they heard about it, they refused to have those brave snails sacrificed for their nourishment. Julie was instructed to replace us in the garden. Our lives were saved, and I have come to America to express my gratitude. As you say, it is a long journey, but I affixed myself to the baggage of some travellers and got here at last. It is true that I had some difficulty in the Pennsylvania Station, where I just escaped being trodden upon."

He moved his eyes rather wildly, and Fourchette noticed that he did not look at all well. She hastened to bring him a fragrant leaf of mint, but he had retired into his shell, speechless. Escargot had fainted.