Notes: I'd like to introduce you to Dawn Powell, who I stole this diary entry from and made it Sebastian's own because it made me cry.
.o
Saturday, September 29, 1887
My dear cat Perkins died today—very sweetly, very quietly, daintily, a lady wanting to give as little trouble as possible. She took sick Monday with chills and bladder trouble and threw up her fish. She knew and I knew that this was it.
I had Perkins for several years under the Phantomhive manor. My master, Ciel, forbid me from owning cats, but he never ordered it. So I had kept Perkins within my room, which the young master had never stepped foot in, and I am grateful for this, as it would have bothered his allergies most angrily.
I took her to Speyer's where the vet gave me pills and medicine to give her which she hated. She could not eat either, not even the finest carp in rhine wine sauce. Nor would she try. Finally she lay on the balcony, exhausted, in the sun. I heard her choke, and she was in a convulsion, but I picked her up and put her in a chair where she managed to fix her sweet eyes on my while I held her paw and moistened her lips with water. It was unbearable to know that everything in my demonic entity could not save this grace of heaven.
It was with a heavy heart that I buried her myself, in the valley of flowers that so pleased my young master. It would not please him to discover that I'd buried a cat on his property, but it is all I can do not to soil his freshly laundered clothing with my tears every time Perkins crosses my mind throughout the day.
It seemed the only lovely thing in my life that cost nothing, asked nothing, and gave only pleasure. At least she now won't have to have the operation Speyer's recommended, which would have been fatal, and at least she didn't give me the prolonged anguish of running away and being lost.
I welcomed Perkins into the manor almost a year ago after an underground case had concluded involving one Senna Perkins, a lovely lady that left a lasting impression upon myself. This Senna Perkins loved cats. After she had been taken care of, her cats were let loose into the city. There was one such lovely cat that followed me home—Perkins.
Her major service to me was curious—she cured me of the disease of night boredom. During times where my young master slept and nothing was left to prepare, I heard her rattling about outside before scratching at the window to be let in. Very dainty from the start she waited, like a modest bride, till I was in bed with the lights out, then worked herself and lept softly onto the bed, tucked herself in my neck and nuzzled off to sleep.
It was wonderful to have company. I forgot my debt to her for this until the night after she died when I was alone in the manor and suddenly every minute once more became sinister—the silence pounding in my ears and the perfectly waxed floor mocking me, begging me for dirt just so I could clean it again and not get lost in my boredom.
I cannot have another pet. It would be unfaithful to my little dear who liked no one but me, knew no other cats, no mice, no love but mine. She thought she was my mother—was ashamed and outraged if I was noisy or loudtalking, slapped me if I was bleak, approved if I rested. She was my first pet in this life as a butler.
Being slowly weaned back into writing this journal, as to stave off the boredom after my black months, I think I should go away for a week of concentrated work on the underground. I don't know where to go, however. Maybe in the bowels of London again.