He felt ill and weak, and was sure that another imagining was upon him. But he gave himself up to it because of the strong feeling that Jennie was somewhere nearby and the comfort it brought him for the moment.
He had had so many bad dreams and horrid nightmares during the endless days and nights of looking for Jennie, that he welcomed this good one that seemed to have been granted him for the moment, and this was that the drab, grimy, blackened brick wall of the warehouse along which he was dragging him– self at the moment would soon contain an aperture or hole, about the size of a dinner plate, a foot or two above the pavement, and that the grating which belonged over it would have rusted at the catches and fallen away so that if one wanted one could get out of the hole—or into it….
Yes, it was a good dream that had come over him, for sure enough, there was the so-familiar hole, metal lined, and on either side the small indentations to show where once the grating had fitted over it.
Such a dream, Peter felt sure, was meant to be followed, and with an effort he leaped upward and into the entrance. Oh yes, indeed, no more than three feet along inside the iron pipe and there was the rusted-out spot, a smaller hole leading off into the dark tunnel at the left, just as he had known it would be.
It was so good, and so comforting, not to feel quite so lost and aimless any more, to seem to be knowing where he was, or at least which way to go at the behest of this kindly, benevolent phantasy, left-now right and then left again, and if the dream as truly his friend and comforter, surely there would be the bin with a little light filtering into it from a grimy window near the top that had one pane out of it, and it would be filled with red and gilt furniture, covered with dust sheets piled right to the ceiling. In the centre would be an enormous bed with a red silk cover on it and a high canopy at one end with folds of yellow silk coming down from a kind of large oval medallion with the single letter 'N' over it in script, with a crown above….
Sweet and dear dream, thought Peter, for there indeed was the room, exactly as it had been before. And would the dream hold now, would it grant him the final grace by letting him imagine that he had but to leap up on to the red silk cover to find Jennie waiting there for him, or would he waken or return to his senses to find himself cold, hungry, miserable, wet and shivering in some wretched alley in the slums, alone and no nearer to Jennie than he had been at the beginning of his search?
For a moment almost he dared not move lest it fade, and then came the queerest feeling that he was no longer dreaming, but that maybe … maybe …
The next instant he made one leap up on to the bed, and found himself face to face with Jennie. And it was no dream. No, not even an imagining. It was true. He had found her at last.
'Jennie! Jennie!' Peter cried-'Oh, Jennie, I've looked and looked for you. Jennie, have I really found you?'
Jennie said: `Hello, Peter. I'm glad to see you. I've been waiting such a long time. I knew you'd come here in the end to find me.' And then she went over to him and touched noses and kissed his eyes. But the next moment she said: `Peter…. How thin you've grown. And your coat! Oh, my Peter, what has been happening to you? You haven't been eating. You're starved. Peter, you must let me give you some mouse at once. I've a lovely one I caught earlier in the day . . .' She leaped down to where she had cached the prize and returned to the bed with it and laid it in front of Peter. `See, he's just the right size, and nice and fat too. But don't eat too fast, Peter, if you haven't had anything for a long time.'
There was a quiet pride in her eyes when Peter carefully took it down on to the floor to eat, and even more when after he had finished half he withdrew and offered her the rest. `No, my dear,' she said, `you finish it. You need it more. I've had plenty.
Peter felt strengthened at once. He was so wildly happy at having found Jennie, at seeing her once again, or he would have been had he not felt so ashamed, and worried about how he would explain to Jennie, and what he should say and how to begin.
But somehow the final miracle happened too, for it just never came to that at all. Because when he started to wash after his meal, partly from realizing what a mess he was again and how he must look to Jennie, and partly because of his embarrassment, Jennie came over to him and said; 'Peter, you're so tired. Let me do it for you. Just lie down and close your eyes …'
It was plain to Peter now that she had forgiven him, and all the shame and misery and conscience feeling that was in him seemed to be swept away by a great flood of loving her that seemed to pour through him and dispel all the darkness, unhappiness and sorrow that had been his share for so long.
He lay on his side and, closing his eyes as she had bade him, gave himself up to the delicious medicine and balm of her rough, busy little tongue, soothing, massaging, healing his worn, tired, aching limbs as she washed him thoroughly and lovingly from head to tail-tip just as though nothing at all had happened.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX: Jennie Come Out
AND just-well, almost as though nothing had happened, Peter and Jennie resumed life amongst the Napoleon furniture in the storage bin.
Without mentioning why she had left the hostel on Cavendish Square by herself, Jennie merely recounted that she had made her way back to the warehouse almost directly, and to her surprise when she arrived there had found all the furniture back again and the bin exactly as it was before. It seemed probable that it had been removed originally to be presented at some exhibition or other and had been returned when the exhibition closed.
She did not tell Peter the reason why she had come there, namely because this was where they had first met, as it were, and where they had been so happy together in the early days of their friendship when Peter was learning how to be a cat. But there was no need to do so, for Peter quite well understood, and he was ashamed that he had not thought of the same thing, and had not come back to their first home immediately to see if she were there instead of running almost blindly and unreasoning about London, searching for her everywhere she was not.
He was of course too young to understand that there was an essential difference in the way that she thought about things as compared to the way that he did and that could not be accounted for. Nevertheless he was instinctively wise enough to permit her to labour under the little white deception that having exhausted all the other familiar and remembered places where she might have been, he had come to their own home on purpose, instead of staggering upon it almost by accident in a kind of dream-delirium induced by not having enough to eat.
Important was that they were together again and that Jennie seemed to bear him no grudge of any kind. She listened with great interest to the tales he had to tell her of what he had overheard Buff say to her mother, of the melancholy change that had come over the shack of their departed friend, Mr. Grims, and the new and unpleasant occupant thereof, and about the Countess of Greenock and Mealie, and she laughed when he told her of Mealie's complaint that there were again plenty of mice and rats aboard and that they were wanted back on the job.
No, the difference, and Peter was quite well aware that there was a difference, lay not in Jennie's comportment and demeanour towards him, but in a certain preoccupation, an occasional absent– mindedness and staring off into the distance with a worried expression on her countenance, certain un– explained absences from their home by herself from which she returned even more disturbed and filled with an underlying sadness.
If anything, she was even kinder and more loving towards Peter than she had been before, more generous, thoughtful and solicitous about his welfare and health (which now that he was eating regularly again, bloomed up quite rapidly), quick to smile upon him or try to anticipate anything he might wish to do. Sometimes, he noticed, that for what appeared to be no particular reason, Jennie might suddenly get up and come over to him and give him two or three little licks over his eyes or the sides of his cheeks, or between the ears. Then she would look down upon him with the tenderest and most loving expression imaginable, but also with a great sadness that seemed to lie behind her lustrous liquid eyes. It was clear that Jennie again had something preying on her mind, something secret that was troubling her deeply and Peter could not fathom what.
And it was also true that since the episode of his adventure with Lulu a certain shyness and reserve had come between them in that they did not care to inquire too closely into one another's thoughts lest they invade some compartment marked `Private,' the opening of which might permit the escape of old and wounding memories. And for this reason Peter felt in a way shut off from coming right out and asking her what was the matter and whether there was not something he might do to help. For as the time went by she seemed to be growing more and more unhappy.
