Though I usually try not to post long excerpts, I feel that Mamacita may be anxious to speak for herself after several years of silence. She occupies an important spot among the characters in my second novel, Married in Haste. A moggy of no particular distinction, Mamacita had her name changed by my sharp-eyed editor who pointed out that Mamacita did not enter our slang until the 1890’s. Still, she will always be Mamacita to me, and she is wise beyond her years. She serves as the perfect confidante to a troubled Elizabeth during this story. We meet her in the garden:
There was a certain hidden spot, an old forgotten bench, where she could feel somewhat free, where she could breathe for a few minutes. She would sit on the bench, taking care not to soil her fine pelisse and her dainty slippers, and turn her face to the sun. Eyes closed, she would drink in the winter warmth, take deep breaths of the chilly air, listen to the muted sounds of the London traffic and the winter birds still present in the garden. All too soon it would be time to return to the house, where she would be prepared by her maid for dinner with her husband. She longed for a simple, brisk walk in the park.
She felt something brush against her ankle and looked down. A cat, small and half-wild, sat and watched her from a short distance away. “Mamacita,” she said quietly. Little mother. “Have you come for your treat?”
The cat was a typical gray tabby of no distinction. Her soft belly and distended nipples seemed to indicate that she had given birth recently, and her presence here demonstrated that her kits had most likely been taken away and drowned. She continued to regard Elizabeth expectantly, head cocked to one side, but she would come no nearer.
Elizabeth smiled. “I will not make you wait any longer.” She reached into her pocket for her handkerchief, in which she had wrapped a few choice tidbits from breakfast. Today’s offering was ham, a particular favorite of Mamacita’s. Elizabeth carefully placed the ham at some distance from herself before returning to her bench. Mamacita devoured the morsels with that delicate greed peculiar to cats, and when she had finished, she vanished with no farewell but a flick of her mottled tail. “And so ends my pleasant conversation for this day,” thought Elizabeth.
We soon learn that the Darcy marriage, so hopeful and bright at its beginnings, has gone awry in only a few short weeks. The couple, so devoted as they spoke their vows, has all but separated, existing like polite ghosts in the large town house. Servants, families, and the couple themselves are baffled. Elizabeth, the farm girl, has turned to the stray cat for companionship, just to have another living being to talk to. During this trying interval, she also meets a young woman who will become her lady’s maid and confidante. Between the two of them, the maid and the cat serve to bring Elizabeth out of her stupor and to instill some fight into her.
Mamacita weaves through the narrative on cat-feet, serving as our unspeaking witness to several incidents that are at best suspicious and at worst downright criminal, or at least immoral:
Mamacita
The cat, grown much fatter and sleeker now, was angry and insulted. It was a perfect, moonlit night, but neither of the two human females had visited her with food offerings since breakfast. This would not ordinarily have inconvenienced her, as it was an excellent night for hunting. But two human beings—a male and a female—had caused a great deal of disturbance on the bench in that area of the garden that the cat regarded now as her personal domain. Their behavior had been unseemly enough that the cat had approached, arching her back and hissing in an effort to warn them off. This had earned her a kick from a boot-shod foot which she had avoided easily enough. Now she sat at some distance, hissing quietly and spitting occasionally, but to no avail.
“Now behave, Dinah,” the man was saying. “There’s plenty more where that came from, and if you are a good girl and let me into the garden tomorrow at sunset, you shall have some.”
“Some more money, or some more of this?” She giggled.
“There’s plenty more of both. Shall you enjoy being rich, Dinah?”
“Oooh, very much. I shall be a lady.”
“Just see that you meet me tomorrow. I must go now.”
Mamacita relaxed. At last she would be free to go about providing herself with dinner.
Only a day later, we learn through her eyes who is at the heart of all the mischief:
Mamacita
Mamacita was more content that evening, since one of the two females who waited on her had come out at mid-day with a variety of rare tidbits including beef, ham, and mutton. She awaited the night, when the small, timid creatures would come out and she might supplement her mid-day meal with the fruits of her hunting. However, she was thwarted in this.
He . . . arrived at the side gate at dusk and found Dinah waiting to let him in. He led her to the bench in Mamacita’s domain, where they engaged in behavior that the cat found most unseemly, though she supposed they were somehow mating. She did not bother to hiss but retired to another part of the garden to seek her evening meal.
Mamacita has succeeded in leading us to the perpetrator, whose name I have carefully edited out. Her appearances in the story become a little sparser at this point. The Darcys, in process of their reconciliation, relocate to Pemberley, and Mamacita comes along. Though the second half of the story is more eventful than the first, Mamacita is very much occupied with her own pursuits. These involve conceiving another litter of kittens which she will be allowed to keep, consolidating a friendship with the cook and other human kitchen staff, and becoming the estate’s legendary and most highly successful mouser.
Her friendship with Elizabeth remains strong, and though I don’t relate this in the story, Elizabeth is always permitted to come to Mamacita’s basket to play with the latest kittens.
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