Thomasina: The Cat Who Thought She Was God (The Three Lives of Thomasina)

230 Pages·1957·1.44 MB·English

by  Gallico Paul

Perhaps Thomasina did not really have divine powers. Possibly she was only an
ordinary cat. But it cannot be denied that she changed three lives in a near-
miraculous manner . . .
There was Andrew MacDhui, Scottish veterinarian, whose bristling manner
matched his fiery beard. Dour and withdrawn since his wife’s death, he had little
patience with wooing sick animals back to health and was said to be a wee bit
too quick with the chloroform.
There was Andrew’s seven-year-old daughter, who brought her ailing cat,
Thomasina, to her father to be cured—only to be bitterly disappointed by
Andrew’s hasty and unfeeling disposal of her beloved cat.
And there was Lori—beautiful, “daft Lori,” whose gentle and mysterious
powers of healing caused some of the villagers to call her a saint—or a witch.
How Thomasina, taking full advantage of a cat’s nine lives, brought these
three together is a story which may be enjoyed for its face-value excitement and
whimsey, but in which the more discerning reader will find both trenchant
allegory and spirit-lifting philosophy.
Set in the rugged and picturesque Scottish highland, Paul Gallico’s latest and
finest work, while it retains the elements of faith and enchantment which have
long delighted his many devotees, is primarily a novel of romance, character,
and high adventure. With superb artistry, the author of The Snow Goose and The
Small Miracle blends fantasy and warm humanity into a poignant tale of the
natural and the supernatural in
the Enchanted Cat.
Books by Paul Gallico
FAREWELL TO SPORT
ADVENTURES OF HIRAM HOLLIDAY
THE SECRET FRONT
THE SNOW GOOSE
LOU GEHRIG—PRIDE OF THE YANKEES
GOLF IS A NICE FRIENDLY GAME
CONFESSIONS OF A STORY WRITER
THE LONELY
THE ABANDONED
TRIAL BY TERROR
THE SMALL MIRACLE
THE FOOLISH IMMORTALS
SNOWFLAKE
LOVE OF SEVEN DOLLS
All of the characters in this book
are fictitious and any resemblance
to actual persons, living or dead,
is purely coincidental.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 57-13018
Copyright © 1957 by Paul Gallico Designed by Diana Klemin Cover and
Frontispiece by Gioia Fiammenghi
All Rights Reserved
Printed in the United States of America
TO VIRGINIA
T H O M A S I N A
1
Mr. Andrew MacDhui, veterinary surgeon, thrust his brick-red, bristling beard
through the door of the waiting room adjacent to the surgery and looked with
cold, hostile eyes upon the people seated there on the plain pine, yellow chairs
with their pets on their laps or at their feet awaiting his attendance.
Willie Bannock, his brisk, wiry man of all work in dispensary, office, and
animal hospital had already gossiped a partial list of those present that morning
to Mr. MacDhui, including his friend and next-door neighbor the minister,
Angus Peddie. Mr. Peddie, of course, would be there with or because of his
insufferable little pug dog, whose gastric disturbances were brought on by
pampering and the feeding of forbidden sweets. Mr. MacDhui’s glance dropped
to the narrow lap of the short-legged, round little clergyman, and for a moment
his eye was caught up in the unhappy, milky one of the pug, rolled in his
direction, filled with the misery of bellyache, and yet expressing a certain hope
and longing as well. The animal had come to associate his visits to this place, the
smells, and the huge man with the fur on his face with relief.
The veterinary disentangled himself from the hypnotic eye and wished angrily
that Peddie would follow his advice on feeding the animal and not be there
wasting his time. He noted the rich builder’s wife from Glasgow on holiday with
her rheumy little Yorkshire terrier, an animal he particularly detested, with its
ridiculous velvet bow laced into its silken topknot. There was Mrs. Kinloch over
the ears of her Siamese cat, which lay upon her knee, occasionally shaking its
head and complaining in a raucous voice, and, too, there was Mr. Dobbie, the
grocer, whose long and doleful countenance reflected that of his Scots terrier,
who was suffering from the mange and looked as though a visit to the
upholsterer would be more practical.
There were a half dozen or so others, including a small boy whom he seemed
to have seen somewhere before, and at the head of the line he recognized old,
obese Mrs. Laggan, proprietress of the newspaper and tobacco shop, who, with
her aged, wheezing, nondescript, black mongrel, Rabbie, his muzzle grayed, his
eyes rheumy with age, was a landmark of Inveranoch and seemingly had been so