Penelope

Jenn asked me to tell her a story – God alone knows how she actu­ally got me to tell it. The fol­low­ing is the prod­uct of that request, which she then begged me to write down, as she was fond of it. I have done so and pub­lisht it here for want of noth­ing bet­ter to do.

There once was a small man, of no par­tic­u­lar tal­ent. He was nei­ther hand­some nor wealthy and he lived in a small, cramped Grub Street flat that reeked of gin and refuse. Every­day he departed this uncouth lit­tle room for the Count­ing House of mr Fen­quiver Win­klesworth, Gent. an even smaller man with sal­low, gaunt fea­tures like thin flesh stretch over a wire frame. He was not par­tic­u­larly kind to our hero – whose name, by the way, was mr Gilbert Hornkip­per – and was always curs­ing his medi­oc­rity and demand­ing of him more than he was able.

The one relief that mr Hornkip­per had was the com­pany of Pene­lope, who was always await­ing him in their lit­tle hovel each after­noon when he returned ink-​stained and abused. She com­forted him and as he held her his sad­ness had some surcease in her gen­tle embrace. Mr Hornkip­per loved Pene­lope and when­ever he wasn’t at the Count­ing House he devoted him­self to her. They’d walk about the town – she ele­gant and refined, though sim­ple and unaf­fected, her head held high and her fig­ure poised to demand respect; he small, with­ered and unex­cit­ing, a mere shadow of his companion.

One day, it was in June I believe, Pene­lope was out walk­ing in the park unac­com­pa­nied – mr Hornkip­per still being monop­o­lised and molested by mr Win­klesworth – and Admi­ral Cartwright’s bull mas­tiff caught sight of her sway­ing form. Could we have been inside that beasts lit­tle brain, we might have found that he was delighted to see her and wanted noth­ing more than to hold her and love her and kiss her. But – and in such sto­ries “buts” abound, Napoleon – as the Admiral’s mas­tiff was known – broke loose from his leash and pounced upon Pene­lope. He was far too rough and in the process of lap­ping at her face with his tongue, his huge body pressed against her and snapped her leg, man­gled her organs, and by pure luck­less­ness shred­ded her left ear.

The Admi­ral pried the big dog off of Pene­lope and – imag­in­ing the pecu­niary penal­ties he might incur should any­one ever find out – shep­herded Napoleon away and looked back at Pene­lope with his lip turned up in a sneer. Pene­lope lay beneath a large beech tree gasp­ing for breath, her body recoil­ing and con­vuls­ing from the trauma. She spat blood out onto the cob­bled stones and moaned as her frail body slowly lost what lit­tle vital­ity it had.

Just as this was hap­pen­ing, mr Hornkip­per ran up to her pan­icked. He gath­ered up her bro­ken frame and car­ried her to Doc­tor Sil­ver­mann on Fleet Street. The doc­tor looked her up and down, his beady Jew­ish eyes fer­ret­ing out the causes of her present con­di­tion. He sutured her up and splinted her leg. Her ear was stitched back together and her body was swathed in tight ban­dag­ing. Mr Hornkip­per thanked him and gulped as he gave to the Doc­tor his last guinea.

Dr Sil­ver­mann grinned and handed him a small phial of lau­danum to ease Penelope’s pain. Mr Hornkip­per car­ried Pene­lope to the curb and tears run­ning down his face, he hailed a hack­ney cab. When they arrived at their Grub Street board­ing house he car­ried her small body up the stairs and laid her on the only bed in the flat. He scraped the grease paper from the win­dows so that a lit­tle of what­ever light might be avail­able in Lon­don could fil­ter in.

As Pene­lope lay there, mr Hornkip­per knew that he would cease to live should she leave him. He realised how much he took her pres­ence for granted and how valu­able she was to him. As he sat at the bed­side on a wob­bly stool and stroked her hair, Pene­lope opened her eyes, yawn­ing and then turn­ing her lips up in a smile, spoke softly, “Meow.”