Devil May Care by Elizabeth Peters

adventures were very soothing. What an innocent world it had been, that remote Canadian province in the last years of the nineteenth century. A cynic might claim that such innocence existed only in fiction; that the real world had had just as much misery, poverty, and sin as this present decade. Fictitious or not, it was a nice world to escape into from time to time.
    A sharp snapping sound announced the appearance of a pair of cats through the swinging panel Kate had had cut into the outer kitchen door. One of them was Abu Simbel, the Abyssinian, a handsome, ruddy aristocrat; the other was his inseparable companion, George. George was a scrubby white mongrel with one black spot under his nose, like a Hitlerian moustache. No amount of grooming or cream-rich diet could make George look anything but lower class; but he had been Simbel's protege ever since the night Simbel had carried him in by the scruff of the neck, a skinny, half-drowned kitten.
    Kate never turned anything away from her door, animal or human, two-legged or four-legged, feathered or furred or bare, but George's adoption had been foreordained. He was several pounds heavier than Simbel now, but the Abyssinian still treated him like a spoiled baby, washing him several times a day and standing back from the food until George had finished.
    The two of them sat down on very solid bottoms by the empty food dishes and stared compellingly at Ellie.
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    "You already ate," she told them. "You're both too fat anyway. You can't have any more until ... "
    She filled the food dishes with dry food. Then she picked up the piece of paper that had drifted to the floor on the current of air from the animals' passage into the kitchen. Marian had left a shopping list.
    Bleach, paper towels, cat food, dog food, goat food, birdseed ... Ellie winced as she thought what Kate's monthly bills for animal food must come to. A number of people had challenged Kate on that subject-- once; they never challenged Kate more than once.
    "How can you spend so much on animals when there are babies starving to death in India?" was one objection; the other end of the ethical spectrum was represented by comments along the line of
    "Dumb critters oughta feed themselves, they don't need all that fancy food." Kate's reply usually expressed her preference for animals over people; animals, she said, might occasionally bite the hand that fed them, but they never stabbed it in the back. Kate never worried about mixed metaphors so long as she got the point across.
    George slobbered noisily over his food. Ellie left him to it. She got her purse and went out the front door.
    Ow. It was hot.
    Ellie opened all the car windows and then went back into the shade to let it cool off. As she stood there, fanning herself ineffectually with the shopping list, her ears were assailed by a mounting roar.
    A bright-red rider mower came ponderously into view around the corner of the house; it looked and sounded like a mythical monster. Donald was driving it.
    As soon as he caught sight of her he began veering in eccentric circles and swaths, cutting insane patterns across the lawn. Ellie glowered at him. Donald steered the mower up to the porch steps and shut it off. Silence, exquisite and calm, descended.
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    "Hi," Donald said.
    "Hi."
    "Where are you off to?"
    "Town. Shopping."
    "You've been talking to Marian," Donald said. "I recognize her rhetorical style. Or are you still mad at me?"
    "Why on earth should I be mad at you?" Ellie inquired loftily. She got into the car. The steering wheel was still so hot she could hardly bear to touch it.
    "Mind if I come along?" Without waiting for an answer, Donald got off the mower and into the car.
    He instantly got up again. He was wearing shorts.
    The agonized expression on his face broke down Ellie's reserve. She whooped with laughter.
    "Oh, cruel," said Donald, his posterior two inches off the seat. "I may be permanently maimed. Get moving, will you?