Aunt Cynthia's Persian Cat Page #2

"Aunt Cynthia's Persian Cat" is a charming short story by Lucy Maud Montgomery, centering around a young girl named Valancy Stirling and her fondness for her Aunt Cynthia's beloved cat. The tale explores themes of love, family, and the bittersweet nature of companionship, as Valancy navigates her feelings towards the passing of time and the relationships that shape her life. Montgomery’s signature lyrical prose and keen observations of human emotion shine through, making this story a delightful read for fans of her work.

• Short story

								


"If anything happens to her Aunt Cynthia will hold us
responsible," said Ismay darkly.

"Do you think Anne Shirley is really engaged to Gilbert Blythe?"
I asked curiously.

"I've heard that she was," said Ismay, absently.  "Does she eat
anything but milk?  Will it do to give her mice?"

"Oh, I guess so.  But do you think Max has really fallen in love
with her?"

"I dare say.  What a relief it will be for you if he has."

"Oh, of course," I said, frostily.  "Anne Shirley or Anne Anybody
Else, is perfectly welcome to Max if she wants him.  I
certainly do not.  Ismay Meade, if that stove doesn't stop
smoking I shall fly into bits.  This is a detestable day.  I hate
that creature!"

"Oh, you shouldn't talk like that, when you don't even know her,"
protested Ismay.  "Every one says Anne Shirley is lovely--"

"I was talking about Fatima," I cried in a rage.

"Oh!" said Ismay.

Ismay is stupid at times.  I thought the way she said "Oh" was
inexcusably stupid.

Fatima arrived the next day.  Max brought her out in a covered
basket, lined with padded crimson satin.  Max likes cats and Aunt
Cynthia.  He explained how we were to treat Fatima and when Ismay
had gone out of the room--Ismay always went out of the room when
she knew I particularly wanted her to remain--he proposed to me
again.  Of course I said no, as usual, but I was rather pleased.
Max had been proposing to me about every two months for two
years.  Sometimes, as in this case, he went three months, and
then I always wondered why.  I concluded that he could not be
really interested in Anne Shirley, and I was relieved.  I didn't
want to marry Max but it was pleasant and convenient to have him
around, and we would miss him dreadfully if any other girl
snapped him up.  He was so useful and always willing to do
anything for us--nail a shingle on the roof, drive us to town,
put down carpets--in short, a very present help in all our
troubles.

So I just beamed on him when I said no.  Max began counting on
his fingers.  When he got as far as eight he shook his head and
began over again.

"What is it?" I asked.

"I'm trying to count up how many times I have proposed to you,"
he said.  "But I can't remember whether I asked you to marry me
that day we dug up the garden or not.  If I did it makes--"

"No, you didn't," I interrupted.

"Well, that makes it eleven," said Max reflectively.  "Pretty
near the limit, isn't it?  My manly pride will not allow me to
propose to the same girl more than twelve times.  So the next
time will be the last, Sue darling."

"Oh," I said, a trifle flatly.  I forgot to resent his calling me
darling.  I wondered if things wouldn't be rather dull when Max
gave up proposing to me.  It was the only excitement I had.  But
of course it would be best--and he couldn't go on at it forever,
so, by the way of gracefully dismissing the subject, I asked him
what Miss Shirley was like.

"Very sweet girl," said Max.  "You know I always admired those
gray-eyed girls with that splendid Titian hair."

I am dark, with brown eyes.  Just then I detested Max.  I got up
and said I was going to get some milk for Fatima.

I found Ismay in a rage in the kitchen.  She had been up in the
garret, and a mouse had run across her foot.  Mice always get on
Ismay's nerves.

"We need a cat badly enough," she fumed, "but not a useless,
pampered thing, like Fatima.  That garret is literally swarming
with mice.  You'll not catch me going up there again."

Fatima did not prove such a nuisance as we had feared.  Huldah
Jane liked her, and Ismay, in spite of her declaration that she
would have nothing to do with her, looked after her comfort
scrupulously.  She even used to get up in the middle of the night
and go out to see if Fatima was warm.  Max came in every day and,
being around, gave us good advice.

Then one day, about three weeks after Aunt Cynthia's departure,
Fatima disappeared--just simply disappeared as if she had been
dissolved into thin air.  We left her one afternoon, curled up
asleep in her basket by the fire, under Huldah Jane's eye, while
we went out to make a call.  When we came home Fatima was gone.

Huldah Jane wept and was as one whom the gods had made mad.  She
vowed that she had never let Fatima out of her sight the whole
time, save once for three minutes when she ran up to the garret
for some summer savory.  When she came back the kitchen door had
blown open and Fatima had vanished.

Ismay and I were frantic.  We ran about the garden and through
the out-houses, and the woods behind the house, like wild
creatures, calling Fatima, but in vain.  Then Ismay sat down on
the front doorsteps and cried.

"She has got out and she'll catch her death of cold and Aunt
Cynthia will never forgive us."

"I'm going for Max," I declared.  So I did, through the spruce
woods and over the field as fast as my feet could carry me,
thanking my stars that there was a Max to go to in such a
predicament.

Max came over and we had another search, but without result.
Days passed, but we did not find Fatima.  I would certainly have
gone crazy had it not been for Max.  He was worth his weight in
gold during the awful week that followed.  We did not dare
advertise, lest Aunt Cynthia should see it; but we inquired far
and wide for a white Persian cat with a blue spot on its tail,
and offered a reward for it; but nobody had seen it, although
people kept coming to the house, night and day, with every kind
of a cat in baskets, wanting to know if it was the one we had
lost.

"We shall never see Fatima again," I said hopelessly to Max and
Ismay one afternoon.  I had just turned away an old woman with a
big, yellow tommy which she insisted must be ours--"cause it kem
to our place, mem, a-yowling fearful, mem, and it don't belong to
nobody not down Grafton way, mem."

"I'm afraid you won't," said Max.  "She must have perished from
exposure long ere this."

"Aunt Cynthia will never forgive us," said Ismay, dismally.  "I
had a presentiment of trouble the moment that cat came to this
house."

We had never heard of this presentiment before, but Ismay is good
at having presentiments--after things happen.

"What shall we do?" I demanded, helplessly.  "Max, can't you find
some way out of this scrape for us?"

"Advertise in the Charlottetown papers for a white Persian cat,"
suggested Max.  "Some one may have one for sale.  If so, you must
buy it, and palm it off on your good Aunt as Fatima.  She's very
short-sighted, so it will be quite possible."

"But Fatima has a blue spot on her tail," I said.

"You must advertise for a cat with a blue spot on its tail," said
Max.

"It will cost a pretty penny," said Ismay dolefully.  "Fatima was
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