Carbonel and Calidor (2 page)

‘Bother! It's only you!' she said ungraciously, and then went on hurriedly, forcing a polite smile: ‘How dreadfully rude of me! But I hoped you were the postman. I'm expecting an extremely important parcel. Of course I'm glad to see you really. Come in, my dears, Katie is so looking forward to seeing you.'

The front door opened directly into the little sitting-room. It was a cheerful place, neat and shining with much polishing of furniture, with a vase of daffodils on the table. Rosemary noticed a faint smell, as though the flower water needed changing, which was odd when everything else seemed so well cared for.

Mrs Cantrip was sitting in a flower-patterned armchair, knitting something in mauve wool. She rose at once to welcome them, holding out both hands as she did so.

‘Why, John and Rosemary,' she cried. ‘How delightful! Gracious me, how you've both grown! Now come and sit down and tell me all about yourselves. John, dear, could you rescue my knitting for me?'

A handsome black cat with white paws was chasing her ball of wool so that it was already tangled round the legs of several chairs. Rosemary tried to hold the creature while John unwound the thread, but the cat turned and spat at her, so she let it go.

‘Crumpet, you bad puss!' said Mrs Cantrip. ‘I'm afraid he is rather naughty. Do you know, he just walked in one day a short time ago and adopted Dorothy! He won't allow anyone else to touch him.'

She turned to the open door. Miss Dibdin was standing on the pavement outside, gazing across Fairfax Market under the shadow of her hand.

‘Dorothy, dear!' called Mrs Cantrip impatiently. ‘Do come in and close the door. Such a draught! I told you, the postman has already gone by.'

Miss Dibdin turned and reluctantly came inside.

‘I know the postman's been,' she said peevishly. ‘But my parcel might come by special messenger, or something.'

‘Well,' said Mrs Cantrip crisply, ‘as you won't tell me what's in this precious parcel of yours, or where it's coming from, I can't help; so I may as well go and put the kettle on. Then we can have a cosy chat with John and Rosemary over a nice cup of tea. It's all ready, dears. I shall only be a minute.'

She put her knitting on the table, looked at the cat, thought better of it and placed the woolly bundle out of reach, on top of a high book-case. Crumpet watched her slyly through half-closed eyes, then he padded to the hearth-rug, curled himself up with his chin on his tail, as close to the fire as he was able, and closed his eyes. Miss Dibdin laughed.

‘You can see why we call him Crumpet,' she said. ‘He will toast himself as near to the fire as he possibly can. How long are you staying with Rosemary, John?'

‘Only for the week-end,' he said.

‘What a pity,' said Miss Dibdin. ‘I have just retired from teaching, and I thought it would be rather jolly to have a little party on Monday for a few of the senior girls. That's why I asked Katie to find out your mother's recipe for short-cake, Rosemary.'

‘And how we shall all squeeze into our tiny sitting-room I don't know!' added Mrs Cantrip cheerfully, as she returned with the tea-tray. ‘Oh, Dorothy, I've forgotten the chocolate biscuits. They are in the kitchen cupboard, top shelf, dear.'

She watched Miss Dibdin with an anxious frown as she disappeared into the kitchen, and went on in a lowered voice: ‘To tell you the truth I'm worried about Dorothy. She's not ...' She paused as though she couldn't think of the right word. ‘Not ... very well. I'm glad she has stopped working. For the last three weeks she has behaved in such a strange, mysterious way. I know you can't call that a proper symptom, like spots, or a temperature, but it's so unlike her.'

‘She does look rather different from last summer,' said Rosemary.

‘Sort of ... beaky about the face, although she's still quite fat,' said John. He stopped, not sure if he had been rude, but Mrs Cantrip didn't seem offended.

‘A very good way of describing her,' she said, and lifted a warning finger as her friend returned with the biscuit tin.

‘I was just wondering,' said Miss Dibdin, ‘whether you would be able to put off going away until Tuesday, so that you could both come to my little party? Such nice girls, and all of them prefects!'

Rosemary was just opening her mouth to say they'd love to, when she caught sight of John's horrified face, so she cleared her throat instead and went on: ‘Of course we should like to, but we're going to stay with John's uncle at Highdown.'

Miss Dibdin gave a little screech.

‘Well, what a coincidence! That's just where I'm going the day after the party, to do some house-hunting! Fairfax Market has changed so, and not for the better. So we thought we'd move to a little cottage in the country — if I can find something suitable.'

‘Of course, I shall be sorry to leave the Market in many ways, after so long,' said Mrs Cantrip. ‘But what with all this building, and the noise ...' As she spoke, above the hum of the traffic outside, they heard an eerie, wailing cry. ‘There's that cat again!' she went on, as the sound was repeated, rising higher and higher, till at last it sank to a low bubbling murmur.

At the first wild note, Crumpet had leapt to his feet, ears back, coat bristling, and his green eyes wide. He stood with lifted head as the cry died away, then he dashed for cover beneath the frill of Mrs Cantrip's armchair, where they heard him swearing quietly to himself behind the flowery frill.

‘Whenever he hears that cat, Crumpet runs and hides under my chair!' said Mrs Cantrip. ‘Milk and sugar, Rosemary?'

Miss Dibdin, who was on her knees trying to persuade Crumpet to come out, and assuring him that the ‘nasty rough animal' shouldn't do him any harm, suddenly sat back on her heels.

‘Was that someone at the door? Do go and see, John.'

He looked out into the Market.

‘There's nobody there,' he said.

‘Oh bother your old parcel!' said Mrs Cantrip cheerfully. ‘I suppose it's to do with this mysterious hobby you've taken up. Surely you can tell us that much?'

Miss Dibdin frowned for a moment. At last she nodded. ‘Yes,' she said slowly. ‘It is to do with my ... er ... hobby. Well, now I've retired I must have something to do. I can't sit and twiddle my thumbs all day. I'll tell you what I can about the parcel. Not what's inside, because I don't know.'

‘All this fuss, and you don't even know what's inside it!' said Mrs Cantrip.

Miss Dibdin went on as though she had not heard.

‘I've been doing a correspondence course. You know, lessons by post. I shan't tell you what in, because I know you'd disapprove, Katie. Well, I learned all I could about ... about my hobby, from books and so on, and was just ready to start on some practical work, when the correspondence course people wrote and said they were closing down. Not enough customers. So disappointing!'

‘Does that mean you can't go on with it? Your hobby, I mean?' asked Rosemary.

‘Certainly not,' said Miss Dibdin, stirring her tea with vigour. ‘They went on to say they would tell a local shop to send me a Do-It-Yourself Kit instead, with instructions how to use it, if I would send the money and the postage. So of course I wrote off at once. But nothing has come.'

‘Why didn't you go to the shop and make inquiries?' said Mrs Cantrip.

‘I did,' said Miss Dibdin shortly, ‘when a week had gone by. It was the other side of the town, in a queer little back street. “N
OSTRADAMUS
L
TD
. Fancy Goods” it said over the window, which was full of all kinds of rubbish. False noses and paper hats, and tricks to play on people, and the sort of thing that conjurers use: wands and top hats and so on. They were having a sale.'

‘I say, I like that kind of shop,' said John. ‘Couldn't Rosie and I go and fetch your parcel for you?'

Miss Dibdin didn't answer at first. She was staring into her tea-cup as though it was something other than the dregs of tea she saw there.

‘It was dark and poky inside the shop,' she went on at last, as though she hadn't heard. ‘When I rapped on the counter, a queer little old man with a long beard came out from the back and said, yes, he had had the order, but he was short of staff, and had done nothing about it, and wouldn't I take the parcel back with me instead, as I was there?'

‘Well, why didn't you?' asked Mrs Cantrip.

‘Because I'd got too much to carry already. All those groceries, and a box of crackers for the party. They were on the counter, marked down to half-price. I know there's nothing inside them as a rule except rubbishy gew-gaws. But they do help to make a party go. Besides,' went on Miss Dibdin in an aggrieved voice, ‘I'd
paid
for the postage. Quite cross with him I had to be. When at last I told him to stop arguing and pack up the box of crackers, and see that the other parcel was sent to Fairfax Market at once, he began to laugh. More of a cackle it was really. Then he took the cracker box to the back of the shop. Quite a long time he was over it.'

‘But didn't you ask him when you could expect your precious parcel to arrive?' asked Mrs Cantrip.

‘Of course I did,' said Miss Dibdin, ‘and all he said was: “It'll be there the minute you're home yourself, ma'am.” His very words. And then he went off into such a fit of cackling I thought he'd do himself a mischief. So I came away and left him to it. But there was no sign of the parcel when I got home. So disappointing.'

‘How funny,' said Rosemary. ‘Did you go back again and tell him?'

‘That's the queer part,' said Miss Dibdin slowly. ‘When I went the second time the shop wasn't there. It was number thirteen. I distinctly remember seeing it written up over the door that first time. But there wasn't a number thirteen any more. The neighbours said there never had been. But I'm still hoping that the parcel will come.'

‘Well, if you will only stop being mysterious, and tell me where you're staying at Highdown, I'll send it after you if it comes,' said Mrs Cantrip. ‘Besides, you might arrange for John and Rosemary to come and see you there.'

‘I can't tell you what I don't know!' snapped Miss Dibdin. ‘I am going to Highdown Station where I shall be met by ... by a friend. Besides, I shall be far too busy for callers. How you do badger a body, Katie! And another thing, I mean to take Crumpet with me.'

The cat, now quite recovered from his fright, was weaving round Miss Dibdin's ankles. ‘He shall help me choose a house for us to live in. Shan't he, my pussididdlums!'

‘Help you choose a house? Really, Dorothy, I never heard such nonsense!' said Mrs Cantrip sharply. But clearly feeling it was time to change the subject, she turned to John and Rosemary. ‘How kind of your mother to let me have her favourite recipe! John, dear, do have another piece of cake.'

The rest of the tea-party passed quite pleasantly, though Miss Dibdin rose several times to answer imaginary knocks on the door.

W
HEN
at last John and Rosemary got up to go, Mrs Cantrip said: ‘I tell you what, Dorothy! As these two can't come to the party on Monday, don't you think it would be a good idea if they chose a pretty cracker to take home instead?'

‘Splendid!' said Miss Dibdin. ‘Why didn't I think of it? Rosemary, you know which is my room? Run upstairs, dear, and take whichever one you fancy. They are in a brown paper parcel on my dressing-table.'

As she climbed the narrow stairs, Rosemary couldn't help thinking that to pull crackers at a party was one thing, but to pull one without any jollification beforehand didn't seem quite the right thing to do.

The small bedroom was dark and rather stuffy. The faint smell of stale flower water was stronger here, although she could see no flowers. Although the room was neat and tidy in every other way, on the hearth-rug, before the old-fashioned gas-fire, was a large untidy pile of twigs.

‘What a funny thing to have in your bedroom!' said Rosemary to herself. ‘Ow!' she went on. She had caught her ankle against a long stick which had been leaning against the wall. It fell with a clatter. Rosemary picked it up and looked at it curiously before propping it up again. It was about four feet long, rather crooked, with the twigs that had grown from it very roughly hacked off.

She found the brown paper parcel and undid the plastic ribbon that took the place of string. It had ‘N
OSTRADAMUS
L
TD
. Fancy Goods' printed on it all the way along its length, so she knew it was what she was looking for. Rosemary took off the lid of the cardboard box inside. The crackers were fat and pink and spangled at the ends. Each one had a shiny picture of a flower stuck on in the middle. They were kept neatly in place by two strands of thread; but lying loose on top, slightly squashed, for there was not really room for it, was a single cracker, clearly of a different kind. It was made of dark purple, crinkled paper, and instead of a flower it had a plain shape glued to it, which looked like a five-pointed star. It seemed a pity to disturb the neat pink row, so she took the loose purple cracker and slipped it into her pocket. When she ran downstairs she found John already standing by the door and ready to go.

‘I say,' he said as they walked down the street. ‘That was decent of you to let me off the party. What a ghastly idea, six girl prefects and me the only boy!'

‘Miss Dibdin didn't seem very anxious to meet us at Highdown,' said Rosemary. ‘I wonder what's inside her mysterious parcel?'

‘Another funny thing,' said John, ‘saying she was being met at Highdown Station. It's been closed for donkey's years. There aren't any trains.'

 

‘Bother!' said Rosemary when they reached the bus stop. ‘Nobody here. It looks as though we've just missed one. Now we shall have to wait for the next.'