Charlotte’s Letter
Look, I don’t want to make a big song and dance about this so I will get to the point. You might remember mother took in Mrs Rutherford’s cat when she sold the bakery. The cat was to keep the mice down in the ‘Bakers Dozen’, the name of her shop in Inveraray Village. Not that she was particularly troubled with vermin but Mrs Rutherford said she used to see the odd mouse. Why some mice appeared odd and others didn’t defeats me and I regret never asking her to explain.
Anyway, she called the cat Lorraine, the name of her sister, which I thought was a silly name for a cat and I was going to change it to Pollyanna but as Tamsin pointed out it won’t recognize its new name if it was changed at this late stage, so it was stuck with Lorraine.
I will get to the point in just a moment. At Inveraray Castle, we are not troubled with mice although squirrels in the roof are somewhat of a nuisance.
It all started when Lorraine the cat (I hate using that name) brought in a dead mouse one weekend when I was home and Tamsin, Charlotte and Phaedra were staying over.
Tamsin pointed out “the cat had only brought the mouse into the castle because it was dead, like out of respect”.
Phaedra noted, “It is more than likely the cat, that’s Lorraine, killed it and had brought it into the castle to show off.”
Tamsin broke in “Because there was no blood on the mouse, it must have died of a heart attack or maybe a stroke”.
Now that makes perfect sense, but there again I don’t know for certain if mice are prone to heart attacks brought on by the narrowing of the arteries or lack of exercise and things of that nature. It certainly did not appear that its demise was brought on by a stroke or even suddenly reaching old age. Nevertheless, I felt very sorry for the mouse.
I suggested to Tamsin “Why don’t we bury it and send it to Valhalla or wherever mice go on death with some vestige of dignity”.
We were both in agreement.
Mother suggested we just put it in the garden and mentioned words like compost and rotting. I shuddered.
Father had no interest in the mouse whatsoever which I thought was rather strange as he really likes finches and ferrets and things.
Tamsin suggested if it were to be sent on its way with dignity, it deserves a name. Names like Mickey and Maurice were suggested. We mulled this over for a while and decided giving it a name at this late stage was a bit silly so we did not proceed with that idea. I reminded Tamsin it was her idea in the first place.
We reached a consensus on the mouse’s funeral arrangements. As we stood on the bank of Loch Fyne I turned to father and quietly whispered “Father please feel free to launch the mouse on its watery journey” he declined.
It was Tamsin who finally launched the mouse in an empty plastic bottle …... er the mouse was in the bottle not Tamsin, from the banks of Loch Fyne just in front of Inveraray Castle with myself, Charlotte, mother and father also in attendance.
There was no formal farewell as such but we gazed silently with sad hearts as it floated gently down the loch. It goes without saying it would take quite a while for Mickey, or whoever, to reach the open sea.
About 2 years later I think it was, on a beautiful calm, cloudless sunny day with little or no wind if I remember, we received the news that the mouse had made landfall off the east coast of Canada.
Included in the plastic bottle had been a lovely handwritten note by Charlotte saying the mouse had no name but would be sorely missed, by whom she didn’t say, and other comments like ‘Now resting in God’s care’ and a couple of words of French she knew, like ‘Bon Voyage’.
The story made the Canadian National News and was warmly applauded by the animal rights people. The news said the mouse was eventually buried with the dignity and respect it deserved and frankly that’s all we asked for.
As an aside and being brutally honest, although Charlotte’s farewell letter was OK, I didn’t think it was ALL that great but Charlotte reckons she was good on obits, so be it.
It was suggested by father it would have been much kinder if they had put a couple of holes in the plastic bottle first before sending the mouse down the loch then it would have reached Valhalla much earlier. Mother was still talking about the garden and compost and things.
Now for some other news I wanted to tell you about. Mother and Mrs Dalrymple have taken up an interest in hypnotism which makes a change of trying to make contact with ‘our dear departed’ which neither of them was making much headway with.
It was Mrs Dalrymple who talked mother into doing an online course of hypnotism, probably explains why she is fondly known by the locals as the mad lady. Nothing Mrs Dalrymple does surprises me anymore.
This was going to be very interesting.
I said “Mother, don’t rely on Mrs Dalrymple too much. You should make sure if it’s possible by getting advice from the hypnotist people or practicing in front of a mirror as you could find yourself in a permanent trance-like state without knowing it”.
That was not the extent of my worry as I heard Mrs Dalrymple discussing with mother that they could probably practice together putting each other under at the same time. The problem as I saw it was if they were successful they would not even know they were in a trance.
It was the glazed eyes of Mrs Dalrymple that gave me the first clue, coupled with her unusual behaviour like stroking the back of mothers hand at the dinner table and again in the garden, and asking ‘are you getting sleepy’, that something had gone awry with the hypnotist thing.
I asked mother what had taken place during the hypnotism practice. She said she can’t remember much other than she has this urge to bark and chase cars all the time.
Oh No, this was an emergency thing!
We may have to seek the help of Mrs Pasta, the Italian kitchen lady, for some advice. She reckons she is psychic and sometimes aids as a back-up when mother and Mrs Dalrymple are endeavoring to establish contact with ‘our dear departed’.
Mrs Pasta sat both Lady Delilah, that’s mother, and Mrs Dalrymple on chairs in front of her in the saloon and removing a necklace with a small cross from around her neck swung it back and fore in front of them and intoned “you are getting sleepy, you are getting sleepy, you are….. etc. etc.”.
My thoughts were “Oh God here we go again”...
