Touch Not the Cat
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Touch Not the Cat is a novel by Mary Stewart.
 First edition | |
| Author | Mary Stewart |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Hodder & Stoughton |
Publication date | 1976 |
| Publication place | United Kingdom |
| Media type | |
| Pages | 302 |
| ISBN | 0-340-20157-6 |
Touch Not the Cat was first published in 1976 and is one of Mary Stewart's best-known works.[1] In the United States, Touch Not the Cat was the 9th highest selling book of 1976.[2] Like many of Stewart's novels, the story has a supernatural element.[3]
The title of the book refers to the motto of the clan chief of Clan Chattan, a community of twelve clans including Clan Mackintosh, Clan Macpherson and Clan MacBean. In full this motto is 'Touch not the cat bot [without] a glove'. This is also the motto of the book's fictional Ashley family, from a Scottish ancestor.
Mary Stewart admitted that the vicar in the novel, Mr Bryanston, 'is to some extent a portrait of my own father'.[4] Her father, Frederick Albert Rainbow (1886-1967), was an Anglican vicar in County Durham.[5][6]
Settings
The story begins in Madeira, where the heroine, Bryony Ashley, is working as a hotel receptionist. Foreshadowing what is to come in the novel, Funchal is described as a sun-drenched town with 'its very pavements made of patterned mosaics'.[7] Bavaria is only very briefly described, in relation to Bryony's father's recuperation from illness and then death there. The main setting is fictional Ashley Court in the Malvern Hills in England. Detailed description is given of the houses and outdoor space that make up the Ashley estate.
Plot summary
Bryony Ashley has the gift of telepathy and is able to communicate subliminally with a man she regards as her lover, but whose identity she is unsure of. She supposes that he is a blood relative because the gift of telepathy runs in the family, and assumes him to be one of her three male second cousins, twins Emory and James, and the younger Francis.
Bryony returns to Bavaria having received a telepathic message and discovers that her father has been hit by a car, and has died after speaking some mysterious phrases, which seem to have some connection with a book in the house's library.
She remains puzzled about the identity of her telepathic contact. Her initial preference is for James, but she gradually realises that the twins are plotting to steal her inheritance, and are willing to murder for it. She learns also that her secret lover is a long-standing friend to whom she had not known she was related, the man-of-all-work around Ashley Court, Rob Granger, whom Bryony grew up with.
Bryony gradually solves her father's puzzles, some of which involve a maze depicted on the family's arms, the motto being "Touch not the cat". In the book's climax, when they learn that she has married Rob, the twins try to murder Bryony and flood the property so they can sell it for redevelopment. She is saved by Rob, with whom she plans to emigrate, and Francis belatedly shows up, the implication being that he will take over the care of Ashley Court.