And then one day, after Jennie had been away for a particularly long time, she returned home more than usually troubled. She greeted him kindly, but almost immediately retired to a corner of the bed and crouched there, her forefeet tucked under her, staring straight ahead, the way he knew one did as a cat when one was miserable or did not feel very well. Only from time to time would she turn her head slightly to look at him, and then Peter noticed that her eyes were swimming with tears and that she was looking utterly despairing.
Thereupon, he could stand it no longer. He went over to her and washed her face tenderly, tasting the salt of her tears on his tongue, and said to her: 'Jennie, dear. What is the matter. You are so unhappy. Won't you tell me? Perhaps there is something I could do to help you. There is nothing I would not try to do to make you happy again …'
But Jennie only cried the harder and crawled nearer to him and gave herself up to his ministrations for a little until he had soothed her. She seemed then to recover somewhat and also to come to a decision, for she arose, shook herself, and made a few tongue strokes down her back as though to win herself a few more moments of respite to reflect over what she was going to say. Then at last she turned to Peter, her face grave and filled with concern, but now backed with what seemed to be a decision that could be no longer postponed, and she said:
`Peter…. Listen to me and do not be hurt. Something has happened…. The time has come when I must leave you …'
Peter felt a pang at his heart as though a knife had been inserted in it at these words.
'Leave me, Jennie? But why? How can you? I don't understand. Where would you go? Why can't I come with you? Wherever you go, that's where I want to be …'
Jennie hesitated before replying as though she were searching within herself if there were yet not some way of escape, or even some manner of telling it that might hurt Peter less, or which he could be made more easily to understand. Then she sighed and said:
`Peter, I cannot help it. I must. Dempsey has spoken for me. I must go away with him.'
For a moment, Peter did not even know of whom or what she was speaking. And then suddenly he emitted a long, low growl and his tail began lashing furiously. For now he remembered the big, cruel yellow cat he had encountered in the grain warehouse right at the beginning of his strange adventure, the lean, hard fellow with the scar on his face. He recalled his arrogant, truculent voice and his brutal attack upon him. He was reliving the stunning buffets and the terrible charge that had bowled him over, the sharp teeth that had ripped his ear and the claws like a hundred knives tearing at his chest and stomach, and in particular there came back the mocking, sneering cry of the big tomcat as Peter had painfully dragged himself away, torn and beaten to within an inch of his life: `… and don't come back. Because next time you do, I'll surely kill you …'
But mixed in with his anger at the memory of the pain and humiliation he had suffered was still bewilderment at what Jennie was saying, for he did not quite understand. He said: 'Jennie! Go away with Dempsey? But I don't understand why. I don't want you to leave me …'
She replied: `It's our law, Peter. When you are spoken for by Dempsey or someone like him you must go with him. He refuses to wait any longer, and so I must.'
`But, Jennie,' Peter protested, `I will speak for you. I have, long ago, haven't I? You belong to me …'
Strangely, Jennie made no reply to this, but just stared at Peter miserably. He asked her: 'Jennie, do you want to go away with him?' and this brought an anguished wail of protest from Jennie.
`Peter! How can you ask such a thing? I hate him. I have begged him to let me go a hundred times, but he will not. He says his mind is made up and I must come with him, and this is the law. Don't you see, Peter, I can do no other than obey…’
And now for the first time Peter had the odd feeling that there was something that Jennie was holding back, that she was not telling him the whole story, and that in some manner she was still protecting him. He knew many of the laws that regulated the life and living of cats that Jennie had taught him through their days together, and all of them seemed right and logical and were easy to understand after you learned the reason why they were made, all except this one, and he felt certain that there must be something else about it that Jennie had not told him.
He said, 'I don't want you to go. I won't let you go, Jennie, because I love you. What can I do under the Law to make you stay with me? Jennie, tell me the truth, or I will go to Dempsey and ask him. . .'
And now Jennie saw that Peter had grown and changed. He loved her very dearly, and because of this she could no longer conceal the truth from him, much as she would have wished to do so, and she replied finally in a small, frightened voice: `If you really want me, Peter, under The Law, you may fight Dempsey, and if you beat him then I need not go with him, but can come with you wherever you go,' and with that she began to cry bitterly again.
Peter, however, said at once: `Then I will fight with Dempsey, because I want you to stay with me always, Jennie. I can fight, because you taught me how.'
And here, to his surprise, Jennie wept more miserably than ever until he begged her to stop and tell him why, whereupon she explained: `I'm so frightened, Peter … if you fight him. For this is different from anything else. He has spoken for me, and you must either kill him or he will kill you. It can end in no other way. And oh, Peter, Dempsey is so big and strong and terrible, and no one has ever been able to beat him. If he were to kill you, I should die. And that's why I think it would be better if I went away with him. Peter, I couldn't bear to have anything happen to you, don't you see? Let me go …'
'I am strong, too,' Peter said.
'Of course you are,' Jennie said quickly, `but oh, my Peter, you have a secret that only I know, that you are not really a cat, but a boy, which, perhaps, I think is why I love you all the more. Dempsey is all cat and knows every foul trick of fighting and killing. No Peter, I won't let you. You'll be able to forget me in a while after I'm gone …'
'No,' Peter said, `I will not let you go. I will fight for you under The Law, and I will kill Dempsey, and then he added, in spite of himself, `or he will kill me.' because the truth was that he did not feel too confident that he might win. A certain understanding had come to him and he knew now that it was one thing to engage in play fights or even half serious ones in arguments over priorities or squatters' rights, or passage through certain disputed territories, in which the battles were all conducted strictly under the Rules of the Game, and could even be broken off, and quite another to face Dempsey to decide with whom Jennie Baldrin was to remain for ever.
Ah yes, this would be quite different. For in this one there would be no rules or etiquette whatsoever, no pretending, no looking away, no washing when it was needful to call a halt, no playful giving of handicaps or advantages to make the sport more thrilling and exciting, no generous gestures or chivalrous behaviour just rip and tear with tooth and claw, until one or the other was finished for ever– kill or be killed.
And he understood now, too, everything about Jennie Baldrin's behaviour, how much she loved him, her terrible dilemma and how she had tried to solve it by giving up every thing to shield him. But he knew also that there remained nothing else for him to do but fight Dempsey and, for Jennie's sake as well as his own, strive with his utmost to the very last that was in him, to conquer.
And Peter was conscious of yet another emotion. Although he was not at all certain that he could triumph over such a seasoned and formidable opponent, as he thought back over the hurt, humiliation and indignities that Dempsey had inflicted upon him in their first meeting, Peter discovered that whatever the outcome might be, destroy or be destroyed, he was not at all averse to the encounter and, almost, he looked forward to it. It would be something to get a little of his own back from Dempsey before he perished….
`Don't worry, Jennie,' Peter said. `You shan't have to go away with Dempsey. I'm not afraid of him.'
And here it was that Jennie turned quite suddenly from protectress to the protected, for she stopped crying and came over and looked up at Peter with almost a worshipful expression in her eyes as she said; `Oh, Peter, I know you are not. You never were afraid of anything, right from the beginning. I am sure that is what I first liked about you. Oh, it is so good to have someone upon whom one can rely.'
At her words, something transpired in Peter now, a kind of calm acceptance of whatever it was that fate had in store for him. For not only was a life lived without Jennie unthinkable and certainly not much worth preserving, which he had known from the very first and which had been confirmed over and over during the long days and nights of his search for her, but there was also the personal matter of the little score he had to settle with the big, ugly yellow tom who was a sneak and a bully as well as a tyrant and despot. For he, Peter Brown, for all of his white tail, four feet and furry ears, his cat's eyes and whiskers and body, was still inside of it and in his thoughts and ways very much the human being, a small boy and the son of a soldier. His father had taught him never to accept an insult and to fight for what he thought was right and against any kind of oppression, no matter what the
