The Innocents by Margery Sharp Page A

Sundays running no milk had been stolen; but on Thursday just after breakfast our policeman arrived with a long face and asked if I’d mind going round till the undertaker sent a pro.; it didn’t seem right she should be left, he explained, on account of the cats. “There’s quite a comfortable chair,” he added encouragingly, “and I’ve sprinkled a bit of disinfectant about …”
    It was just as well. I am hardened to the disagreeable frowst of old people’s sickrooms, where the first response to illness is often to close every window; but the stench in Mrs. Bragg’s cottage was so to speak vintage. The whiff of her coat in the High Street but hinted at it. But at least it might be said that it wasn’t old Mrs. Bragg herself, even in death, who stank, the smell of cat overriding all others.
    Evidently the creatures hadn’t been let out for some days, and so naturally had had to relieve themselves where they could. I propped the door wide open, but obviously too late in the day to interest them (cats having very regular motions); only one or two nosed out, and almost immediately slunk in again, as though half-starved into lethargy. I did the best I could for them by filling half-a-dozen bowls and pans with tap-water and setting them on the floor. The cats lapped, mewed for something more, and then when no better was forthcoming subsided into patches of thin parti-coloured fur, like old mats.
    All this was before I looked at their owner. When I did, I saw easily why our policeman hadn’t hesitated to summon the undertaker. Flat on the floor, flat on her back—nose sharp as a pen, mouth and eyes rigidly open—old Mrs. Bragg was obviously dead as a doornail. I saw no danger to her from the cats, from either affection or hunger; they gave the body a rather wide berth.
    As our policeman had promised, there was a quite comfortable chair, an old-fashioned bentwood rocker which I actually recalled being knocked down at a Jumble for seven-and-six. It still had a sound cane back and seat; only I would have sat more comfortable in it had not every now and then, from the parti-coloured mats, a green or yellow eye opened …
    Our policeman was as good as his word, however; only a couple of hours elapsed ere he came back with a smooth-voiced professional who—took over.
    â€œAnd you’d better get the R.S.P.C.A.,” said I.
    What else to do with old Mrs. Bragg’s cats, but have them put down? At least a dozen, that is; sparing a pair of Persians and their kit. At first I couldn’t imagine how Mrs. Bragg came by them at all; then realized that Honoria had indeed made a clean sweep.
    I am happy to say the R.S.P.C.A. found them good homes quite immediately; and that the kit in maturity, under the name of Felix Suffolk Braggart, took Second Best in Class at the Olympia, London, cat show.
    3
    The day of the Jumble itself I as I say stayed at home. I expected Cecilia at first in the morning, then at least by tea-time; but when at half-past five there was still no sign could only suppose her still recuperating, and put my garden shoes on.
    East Anglia, especially near the coast, seems to have a climate of its own, and usually (or such is the general East Anglian belief), much better than anywhere else; warned in the papers All Southeast England, cloudy , we as often or not bask in unofficial sunshine. Even the calendar has less authority: though we were still only in May, the afternoon was so summer-hot, to step from the unshaded part of the terrace into the little copse was like going into a church—at least ten degrees cooler than outside. I greatly enjoyed the sensation, particularly as I was rather sweaty from separating catmint. (This should of course have been done earlier, but since I had Antoinette with me when was anything in my garden done by date?) The spicy scent clinging to my hands was peculiarly distinct above that rather muted, anonymous,