Cats are Useful Things

by Doris M Holden

“I s’pose they’ll be getting rid of you now.” 

It was Tony-Next~Door who said it, with the cheerful callousness of the very young, and all in the middle of digging a castle in his sand-heap. Margaret, who had come round to play with him, held her spade suspended and stared back at him the — words making no sense to her.

 “Getting rid of me?" she repeated. 

Tony went on digging and carefully levered out a stone, but then, realising that he had not made his meaning sufficiently clear, he flung a casual explanation over his shoulder.

 “We had to get rid of some of our kittens the other week. My mum said that four cats in a house was more'n any woman could stand." 

"But Auntie May -- Uncle Mark - -” the words came stammering as Margaret tried to understand. “We haven't got any kittens. There’s only me and Tim and the Tinker." 

Tony leaned back on his spade impatiently, as one dragging himself from important matters to discuss trifle. 

“Well, I dunno," he said. "Sat I heard my mum tell Mrs. Smith that your mum ~~ I mean, your Auntie May, Tim and Tinker’s  mum, was going to have a really baby, a really belonging one like Tim and Tinker. And Mrs. Smith said that she s‘pected they would put you in a home now. She said four was too much of a good thing for that poor little Mrs. Barber: That's what she said.

"Margaret’s face had gone very white, her thin hands twisted her pink ond white checked pinafore, one sandalled foot rubbed frettingly against the other, 

“But Auntie May said I was to stay for always,” she said, in a troubled voice, “She said I was her girl now, Uncle Mark said it too, when my mum - -" 

Her voice trailed away. Even now she found it hard put into words the awful thing that had happened two years ago when she was only four, that thing which had broken her world and robbed her so completely of her sense of security. Tony had no such scruples, He cheerfully filled the gap. 

"I know. Your mum got knocked down by a lorry — deaded, and Tinker’s mum 'dopted you, But anyway that's what my mum said about the kittens. "Tour cats in a house is more'n any women can stand', and cats are useful things. They catch mice and they are fun to play with.

” He went back to his digging as if the matter were settled. Margaret's hands still clutched her pinafore. There was something comforting about that pinafore, Auntie May had made it, and worked daisies on the pocket because Margaret and Daisy were somehow the same, "She is something like a daisy, too," Uncle Mark had said, when she showed it to him, and he had taken her on his knee and tucked her into the curve of his arm. “She is tiny and shy, but very sweet."

 She clutched the memories back, but they were powerless to banish this strange new thought that Tony had so carelessly thrown out. She looked at his backs bent over the sand-castle, and made a desperate bid for reassurance.

 “I'm fun to play with, aren’t I, Tony?"

Tony considered this in silence for several minutes and then passed judgement.

“You are all right to play with, but you aren't useful, are you? Not as useful as a cat would be. And if my mother couldn't stand four cats in a house, I ‘shouldn't ‘think ‘your mun could stand four children. My mum says one is plenty." 

He Looked up and seeing Margaret's face, realised dimly what his words meant to her. He wrinkled his brows in sympathy and then suddenly smiled again. 

"It's all right," he said, cheerfully, "Perhaps it won't be you after all. I don't s'pose they will bother to keep the baby, babies are not much use anyway.”

 Margaret shook her head. She knew it was meant to be a secret but she had peeped once and seen what was under the cover in the space room.  Auntie May would never have trimmed up Tinker's cot so beautifully for a baby she did not mean to keep. She opened her mouth to speak but a sudden shout from the wall made them both turn. Tim the elder of the Barber boys, sat on the top swinging his slim legs, while the chubby face of the Tinker, red with effort, peered over between clutching hands. 

“Oo! Tim and Tinker!" yelled ‘Tony, throwing himself at the wall and for a moment or two there was confusion. Then the three sorted themselves out from the sand-heap into which they had fallen, and Tim remembered his message.

“Margaret is to come and wash for dinner, Dad is coming home early and he is going to take us all out this afternoon. Maybe we will take our tea and make a picnic." 

Tony's eyes grew eager. 

“Do you think I could come too?" he asked. There was nothing he liked more than a walk. with Tim's dad. All children loved Mark Barber, for he was such a wonderful listener. not like most grown-ups who said ‘yes’ and ‘no’ with their minds elsewhere, but one who talked man to man as if he were really interested. Even Margaret, the reticent, could sometimes tell him what she could tell to no-one else. 

Tim was doubtful . “

“We better ask Mum." he said, and the four poured round to the Barber's back door in a shouting crowd. 

To May Barber, dishing up dinner and very tired, the noise seemed overwhelming and she clapped her hands to her ears, "Boys, boys! I can't hear! Do talk one at a time."

 Tim, always the quiet one, subsided, and Tony and Tinker continued as a duet, in which Tinker was easily the winner. Feet wide apart, hands thrust into the pockets of his gingham knickers, he held his ground, his voice growing louder and louder till Tony gave way. Having at last grasped the reason for the invasion, his mother looked doubtful. 

"Can Tony go with you this afternoon? I really don't know if Dad wants to take another. We shall have to ask him first." Her glance ran over the noisy group that made the tiny kitchen seem so overcrowded. “Four is such a lot, isn't it?” 

Such a simple remark! How could she guess that it fell like a blow on a little worried mind? While the boys still argued and pleaded, Margaret slipped away, biting her lip to keep it from trembling. As she washed her hands with /slow care, the words repeated themselves in her head in a cruel chorus:

 "Four is such a lot, isn't it?... four cats in a house is more'n any woman can stand... and cats are useful things." 

She was silent on the walk that afternoon, so silent that.once, when the boys had run on in front, Uncle Mark took her arm and said, gently: 

“Is something worrying you, Margaret?” 

"No, thank you, uncle Mark," she answered, primly, and after a quick look at her averted face, he changed the subject. That was the lovely thing about Uncle Mark, she thought, he always understood. He never bothered you with questions when you did not want to tell. Almost, she might ask him whether four was too many, but supposing he said it was, could she bear it? She shuddered and slipped her hand into his and he pressed it silently. It was an invitation to give her confidence, but the boys were coming shouting back now, with a hedgehog they had found, and the moment was past. 

That night Margaret lay awake long after Tim and Tinker, in the next room, had ceased chattering and dropped asleep. The problem was straightening itself out in her mind. Cats were more useful than babies, but even of them four was too much, but if a girl were more useful than a baby, more useful even than a cat, then she might not be one too many. There lay the only hope, It was a queer, muddled solution, but somehow at satisfied. 

“Please, God," prayed Margaret, her eyes screwed tight, "make — me so useful that I will stay for always." 

Turning on her pillow, she settled to sleep, comforted. 

Surely never was any small girl so continuously useful as Margaret was next day! When Mark barber, in accordance with his usual Sunday custom, came down in his dressing-gown to make his wife a cup of tea , he found the tray already laid and the water boiling.

 “I could make it," gasped Margaret as he took the heavy kettle from her hand, and he smiled gently: 

"I expect you could, but I wouldn't try lifting boiling kettles just yet awhile, if I were you." 

When Tinker raised his usual morning shout of: "Mum, I can't tie my shoe-laces", Margaret flew to him, with a breathless: "Let me do them" She helped to clear the breakfast, and dried cups without a murmur, though Tim and Tinker made a dozen excuses to get out of their few simple jobs. Did May Barber but move from the room Margaret was at her heels with a quick: "Can I do anything for you Auntie?" Generally, the answer would have been a cheerful: “Not just now, dear. Go and play with the boys", but today it seemed that Auntie May was glad of help, and only too ready with suggestions of jobs. 

"Perhaps she wants to see if I'll be useful enough to keep," worried Margaret, polishing hard at her shoes and, all unasked, she polished Tim's and Tinkers. as well.

How could she guess, little willing horse proving her mettle, that far from testing her, Auntie May’s only feeling was only one of shame that her own need mode her accept so much Service from such a tiny helper, and that she watched the three set off for Sunday School with a tender smile on her lips for the solemn little girl who was so carefully shepherding Tinker across me road.

 Possibly Margaret tackled a bit beyond her strength, or it may have been only that to be conscientiously useful all day is thoroughly exhausting to a small person, but she certainly nodded in her bath that evening and no fear of the future could keep her awake after the goodnight kiss. So soundly did she sleep that the noise of coming and going, and of strange voices merely slipped into her dreams without waking her, and the first thing she knew was that Tinker was shaking her arm. 

 Rosy from sleep, and clad only in blue pyjamas, he squirmed excitably on to her bed. 

“Wake up!” he commanded trying hard to whisper, but achieving only a muffled shout. 

“We got a new sister. She came last night and Dad says we must dress ourselves and be ever so quiet, ‘cos she is asleep."

 Margaret’s eyes opened wide and back into them came the expression of fear. 

"Are they going to keep it?”  she whispered back. 

“ I ‘spect so," said Tinker. “They got a nurse to look after it. I saw her.”

Margaret sighed. One could not get past evidence like that.

"’I’ve got to be useful," she told herself, slipping quickly into her clothes, and again she tied Tinker's laces and helped him with his brace buttons. 

It was queers at breakfast, with only Uncle Mark, but he made such a joke of it all that the boys were through their breakfast and off to school without realising that there had been no mother to see them off.

 “You are all to come to dinner with me, and tea," said Tony, proudly, as he caught them up and the strange day went on. Always there a load on Margaret's mind, a fear in her heart, so that her writing and sums went wildly astray, her answers were confused, and Tony’s mother found her so silent and unresponsive that she shoulders and gave up the attempt to talk to her.

 :But after tea came Uncle Mark to fetch them, and, as they entered their own lounge, a soft voice called from upstairs: 

"Is that my boys at last? Do let them come up and see me.” 

Tim and Tinker raced for the stairs, their father hurrying after them to take them quietly in, but Margaret stood stricken in the hall. Was it true then? Did Auntie May only want the boys now that she had this new Little girl? Feet dragging, she went through into the kitchen. Was it any good going on trying to be useful? 

‘Uncle Mark's tea~things stood by the sink, and steadily she took up the mop and began to wash and dry them her face set in lines of hopeless resignation that made it look suddenly old. There was no security in the world for those who had lost their own mummies, went her thoughts. Things happened all at once, like that lorry, and now this baby, and then you had no home and had to begin again. Her mouth quivered and she bit it hard, but no tears came.

She was putting china away when they called her from upstairs, and so insistently that she knew there was no gains saying it. Slowly she climbed the stairs and stood looking in at the bedroom door. There was Auntie May, propped with pillows and smiling her old, gay smile, and in her arms a bundle wrapped in shawls. 

"Come and see it," cried Tinker, bouncing excitedly."It's ever so funny, it’s all tiny and it can't say anything.” 

"Perhaps it. will grow," said Tim, kindly, making way for Margaret, and she looked down at the baby's face. Then the last gleam of hope died. It was so smug, so complacent, this new little person, its eyes, drooping with sleep, its head tucked so trustingly into auntie May, its tiny fist grasping Uncle Mark's finger. It had come and it meant to stay. Silently she looked, finding nothing to say only her hands twisting ceaselessly together. Then, suddenly, over her head there was a movement and Uncle Mark's hand was firmly removed from the small fist and closed over the restless fingers instead. Margaret grasped the hand, and the silence grew, even the boys feeling that something was wrong. Then across her bleak misery came Auntie May's voice, gay and kind, and, more than that, as if she were sharing a secret.

 :“Isn't it fun to have another girl, Margaret?" she said, "Now we are just lovely and even, with no odd ones at all."

Margaret looked up, puzzled, and met her eyes. 

"There's Uncle Mark and me," went on the voice softly. 

"And me and Margaret," took up Tim, quickly, seeing the rightness of the three pairs.

 “And Tinker and Lucy Anne" finished Auntie May. “It's just at it should be, three women and three men, But you and I will have to go on locking after all these men on our own for a bit longer, till Lucy Anne grows big enough to help.” 

Margaret's eyes were shining and she heaved a great sigh.

“Oh Auntie May" she breathed, but nothing else would come. Then the new nurse appeared at the door, and they were hurried off downstairs. 

 "Try to play quietly till I come," called Uncle Mark, ‘and they all said ;"Yes" so earnestly that it was not unnatural that he took it for a promise and that when, a bare ten minutes later, there came up to him” sounds of bumping and-screaming, he should have been surprised and annoyed. He ran down and threw open the sitting-room door. Tinker and Tim rolled to and fro on the floor, quarrelling and hitting, and Margaret, little, quiet Margaret, was bouncing up and down on the table, her face pink with excitement, her mouth open and shouting: 

At Uncle Mark's sharp word of command, the boys rolled off each other and began a muddled justification, out Margaret was oblivious of his annoyance, She bounced round to face him, her thin body quivering with joy and pride, and in her face a look he had never seen there before, the glory of the woman who knows herself loved and desired. 

"Uncle Mark," she cried, flinging out her arms. "They are fighting about me! Tinker said he wouldn't have the baby for his special sister, like Auntie May said, because it wasn't any use, And Tim said he would have to, because: he ‘wouldn't have it instead of Me!”

On the last triumphant word fear and insecurity which had haunted her  took flight for ever, and Margaret jumped straight into her adopted fathers arms  as one certain of her right to be there.