Desperately Seeking a Saki Story

[Prokopton]

Hi everyone,

A story by Saki (H. H. Munro) popped into my mind this morning, that I'd like to re-read. Problem is I don't know what it's called. Can anyone here remember it? As I recall it's about a couple who have a country home where an old woman is on the staff who always does things in the old way, as they had been done for generations -- things like preparing food. And as ever with Saki, he suckers you. This time, into thinking the old lady has died, only to have it turn out, I think, that the young man of the couple has died. It becomes a story about the persistence of that old lady and her country ways.

Have I given enough detail for anyone to recognize the story?

Thanks so much!

[First thoughts]

I believe the story you're thinking of is "The Cobweb".
I could clearly recall the story you described, but similarly couldn't quite think of the name. Amazingly, when I went to search for it in my complete works of Saki, I managed to open it on exactly the right page, which made things easier..

It's amazing how he manages to make his stories so memorable despite only being a few pages long.

[Prokopton]

That's the one! Thanks so much.


Amazingly, when I went to search for it in my complete works of Saki, I managed to open it on exactly the right page, which made things easier..

The same method failed to work for me several times this morning. :)


It's amazing how he manages to make his stories so memorable despite only being a few pages long.

Agreed. This particular one came into my mind when I was thinking about how the west will gradually turn third world without oil... older-minted things will survive, whereas things that had seemed so bright with promise will be cut down before their time etc. etc.... this story had an excellent bitter satisfacion in the way it expressed that idea, along with the impression of the deep strength of older things without any sentiment.

Off to read it now. Thanks again.

[qimissung]

I love Saki. We should start a Saki thread here and read some (or all) of his short stories.

[First thoughts]

I came across a short article in the financial times a little while back, I'll see if I can find it. I seem to remember it was comparing the wikileaks saga to Saki's Tobermory story. It's nothing particularly special, but it grabbed my attention as you don't see Saki mentioned all that often in the media

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d1633946-ff15-11df-956b-00144feab49a.html#axzz1EUufmAqU

[qimissung]

Do you think you could copy and paste it, por favor? I tried the link, but it requires you to register in order to read it. I do so love Tobemory, the fictional Tobermory, that is, as I imagine if I met him in person I might want to kill him!

[First thoughts]

Lessons from a talking cat
By Jonathan Ford
Published: December 3 2010 22:19 | Last updated: December 3 2010 22:19

Nobody likes a sneak, particularly a prickly and self-righteous one. It is even worse when that same individual makes it their business to expose the white lies and hypocrisies that ease social interchange. The celebrated Edwardian novelist, Saki, explored just this situation in one of his best short stories, Tobermory. This tells how a country-house party is thrown into confusion when a guest teaches the house cat to speak.
Far from being the innocent object of amusement, the cat Tobermory turns out to have a, well, catty temperament. With magnificent disdain for the rules of social intercourse, he repeats back to the hostess and all the guests the rude and gossipy things they have said about one another.
At tea time, he explains how the hostess invited one particularly brainless guest purely to try to sell her a broken-down old motor car. Another guest is reminded that she had described her hosts, the Blemleys, as the “dullest people” and had come only because they employed a “first-rate cook”.
The cat is also extremely sensitive. When a Major Barfield asks about Tobermory’s “carryings-on” with a local tortoiseshell, he gets the glacial response: “I should imagine you would find it inconvenient if I were to switch the conversation to your own little affairs.”
The guests realise that Tobermory knows far too much.
Saki’s tale prefigures the problem the US faces with Julian Assange, who has become a sort of internet-enabled global Tobermory, spilling tittle-tattle the powers-that-be would rather he kept to himself.
Of course Tobermory doesn’t need an accomplice in US intelligence or a memory stick. His information comes from his promenades in front of the bedroom windows “whence he could watch the pigeons – and heaven knows what else besides”. Anxious to stop the revelations, Lady Blemley tries to send Tobermory to see if his dinner is ready. This only leads to a guest agonising that the cat will “gossip about us in the servants’ hall”.
The diplomatic cables that Mr Assange is releasing are not dissimilar to Tobermory’s tea-time revelations. Many are fairly banal. Even so, the drip-drip must make for awkward moments at US embassies.
So what is the US to do? Lady Blemley contemplates bribing Tobermory with “a box of fancy mice”. Washington surely cannot contemplate her starker option: putting strychnine in the cat’s food. The US is considering prosecution under an obscure 1911 espionage law. But the best solution may be agonised forbearance – in hope that, as in the tale of the garrulous cat, the status quo soon resumes.
The morning after the cat’s revelations, the gardener retrieves his corpse from the shrubbery. He had been slain, apparently by the rectory tomcat. Hypocritical normal service is quickly resumed: “After lunch, Lady Blemley had sufficiently recovered her spirits to write an extremely nasty letter to the rectory about the loss of her valuable pet.”

The writer is the FT’s chief leader writer
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2011.

[qimissung]

Thank you very much, First Thoughts. Yes, "Wikileaks" is kind of like Tobermory, in that respect. I laughed until I ached once again at the last line.

Saki was an astute and somewhat merciless observer of mankind, a little like Tobermory himself.

[Prokopton]

Hmm, with the Swedish authorities as the 'big tom from the rectory'? Not bad, not bad... Tobermory acquired the ability to speak (out), but could not control his animal instincts! Such is the accusation against Assange... ish. Saki is beginning to look almost Nostradamus like... but to that one must say, 'beyond-rats!'.

I had a tape of John Gielgud reading this story once. When he got to the line about 'beyond rats' he actually had to control a chortle. Seriously good line.

[howtowriteabook]

I just finished reading a collection of around 100 short stories by Saki last month. And recall wishing I could write half as well - or even a tenth as well :)

Mani