What Timmy Did Part 28

CHAPTER XIX

Two hours later Janet Tosswill, after having tried in vain to read herself to sleep, got out of bed and put on her dressing gown. Somehow she felt anxious about Timmy. She had gone to his room on her way up to bed; but, hearing no sound, she had crept away, hoping that he had already cried himself to sleep.

All sorts of curious theories and suspicions drifted through her mind as she lay, tossing this way and that, trying to fall asleep. She wondered uneasily why Timmy had brought Josephine at all into the drawing-room.

Of course there had been nothing exactly wrong in his doing so, though, as Betty had justly remarked, it was a stupid thing to do so soon after the birth of the cat's kittens. And Timmy was not stupid.

Janet told herself crossly that it was almost as if Mrs. Crofton had the evil eye, as far as animals were concerned! There had come back to her the unpleasant scene which had occurred on the first evening their late guest had come to Old Place, when Flick, most cheerful and happy-minded of terriers, had behaved in such an extraordinary fas.h.i.+on. But disagreeable as that affair had been, it was nothing to what had happened to-night.

She felt she would never forget the scene which had followed on the white cat's attack on Mrs. Crofton. And yet, while concerned and sorry, she had been shocked at the poor young woman's utter lack of self-control.

It was quite true, as Betty had somewhat bitterly remarked, that she, Janet Tosswill, did not care for cats. Unfortunately there was a certain sentimental interest attached to Josephine, for she had been brought from France as a kitten, a present from Betty to Timmy, by an officer who had been George's closest pal. She was also ruefully aware that old Nanna would very much resent the disappearance of "French p.u.s.s.y," as she had always called Josephine. As for Timmy, Janet had never seen her boy look as he had looked to-night since the dreadful day that they had received the War Office telegram about George.

Leaving her room, she walked along the corridor till she came to Timmy's door. She tried the handle, and, finding with relief that the door was unlocked, walked in. At once there came a voice across the room, "Is that you, Mum?"

"Yes, Timmy, it's Mum."

Shutting the door, she felt her way across the room and came and sat down on Timmy's bed. He was sitting up, wide awake.

She put her arms round him. "I'm so sorry," she said feelingly; "so sorry, Timmy, about your poor cat! But you know, my dear, that if--if she were left alive, we could never feel comfortable for a single moment. You see, when an animal has done that sort of thing once, it may do it again."

"Josephine would never do it again," said Timmy obstinately, and he caught his breath with a sob.

"You can't possibly know that, my dear. She would of course have other kittens, and then some day, when some perfectly harmless person happened to come anywhere near her, she would fly at him or her, just as she did at Mrs. Crofton."

"No, she wouldn't--she didn't do anything like that when she had her last kittens."

"I know that, Timmy. But you heard what Dr. O'Farrell said."

"Dr. O'Farrell isn't G.o.d," said Timmy scornfully.

"No, my dear, Dr. O'Farrell is certainly not G.o.d; but he is a very sensible, humane human being--and the last man to condemn even an animal to death, without good reason."

There was a rather painful pause. Janet Tosswill felt as if the child were withdrawing himself from her, both in a physical and in a mental sense.

"Mum?" he said in a low, heart-broken voice.

"Yes, my dear?"

"I want to tell you something."

"Yes, Timmy?"

"It's I who ought to be shot, not Josephine. It was all my fault. It had nothing to do with her."

"I don't know what you mean, Timmy. You mustn't talk in that exaggerated way. Of course it was foolish of you to bring the cat into the drawing-room, but still, you couldn't possibly have known that she would fly at Mrs. Crofton, or you wouldn't have done it."

"I _did_ think she'd fly at Mrs. Crofton," he whispered.

Janet felt disagreeably startled. "What d'you mean, Timmy? D'you mean that you saw the cat fly at her before it happened?"

She had known the boy to have such strange, vivid premonitions of events which had come to pa.s.s.

But Timmy answered slowly: "No, I don't mean that. I mean, Mum, that I wanted to try an experiment. I wanted to see if Josephine would see what Flick saw--I mean if she'd see the ghost of Colonel Crofton's dog. She did, for the dog was close to Mrs. Crofton's arm--the arm hanging over the side of the sofa, you know."

"Oh, Timmy! How very, very wrong of you to do such a thing!"

"I know it was wrong." Timmy twisted himself about. "But it's no good you saying that to me now--it only makes me more miserable."

"But I _have_ to say so, my boy." Janet was not a Scotch mother for nothing. "I have to say so, Timmy, and I shall not be sorry this happened, if it makes you behave in a different way--as I hope it will--the whole of your life long."

"It won't--I won't let it--if anything is done to Josephine!"

But she went on, a little desperately, yet speaking in a quiet, collected way: "I believe the things you say, Timmy. I believe you do see things which other people are not allowed to see. But that ought to make you far, far more careful--not less careful. Try to be an instrument for good, not for evil, my dear, dear child."

Timmy did not answer at once, but at last he said in a queer, m.u.f.fled voice: "If I were to tell Dr. O'Farrell what I did, do you think it would make any difference? Do you think that he'd let Josephine go on being alive?"

"No," his mother answered, sadly, "I don't think it would make any difference."

"I thought by what the doctor said at first that they were going to take Josephine somewhere to see if she was really mad," said Timmy in a choking voice, "just as they did to Captain Berner's dog last year."

Janet Tosswill got up from her little boy's bed. She lit a candle. Poor Timmy! She had never seen the boy looking as he was looking now; he seemed utterly spent with misery.

"I'll tell you what I'll do, my dear. I'll speak to Dr. O'Farrell myself in the morning, and I'll ask him whether something can't be done in the way of a reprieve. I'll tell him we don't mind paying for Josephine to be sent away for a bit to a vet."

Hope, ecstatic hope, flashed into Timmy's tear-stained face. "You mean to a man like Trotman?"

"Yes, that's what I do mean. But I mustn't raise false hopes. I fear Dr.

O'Farrell has made up his mind; he promised Mrs. Crofton the cat should be shot. Still, I'll do my _very_ best."

Timmy put his skinny arms round his mother's neck.

"I'm glad you're my mother, Mum," he muttered, "and not my step-mother."

She smiled for the first time. "That's rather a double-edged compliment, if I may say so! But I suppose it's true that I would do a good deal more for you than I would for any of the others."

"I didn't mean _that_," exclaimed Timmy, shocked. "I only meant that I wouldn't love you as well. I don't mean ever to be a step-father--I shall start a lot of boys and girls of my own."

"All right," she said soothingly, "I'm sure you will. Lie down now, and try to go to sleep." She hoped with all her heart that the boy would sleep late the next morning, as he very often did when tired out, and that the execution, if execution there must be, would be over by the time he woke.

She bent down, tucked him up, kissed him, blew out the candle, and then went quickly out of the room.

As soon as his mother had shut the door, Timmy sat up in bed, and then he gave a smothered cry. It was as if he had seen flash out into the darkness his beloved cat's wistful face, her beautiful, big, china-blue eyes, gazing confidently at him, as if to say, "You'll save me, Master, won't you?"