The Kingdom of Carbonel (25 page)

A torrent of tiny twittering came from Miss Dibdin, which they took to mean that she, too,
disliked being no larger than a fountain pen.

‘Secondly,' went on Carbonel, ‘although Mrs Cantrip has no more magic left, she is so set in her wicked ways that she will go on making mischief for someone for the rest of her life unless something is done.'

‘Wait a minute while I get Miss Dibdin's travelling jar,' said Rosemary.

There was a further agitated twittering from Miss Dibdin. Rosemary put her head as far as she was able into the doll's house. By standing on the tiny table, the little creature was just tall enough to reach Rosemary's ear, and by shouting as loudly as she could, she managed to make herself understood.

‘Not a potted meat jar,' Miss Dibdin said indignantly. ‘So undignified!'

Rosemary ran back to the flat and returned with a green glass jar with a bow around the neck that had once contained bath salts. Carrying the jar with Miss Dibdin, and the matchbox with Blandamour curled inside, John and Rosemary headed the procession for Fairfax Market.

‘Perhaps it would help if we found something to keep Mrs Cantrip busy,' said Rosemary. ‘Then she wouldn't have time for much mischief.'

They had just reached the house as she spoke.

‘It looks as though she's been pretty busy already,' said John.

The lace curtains were gone from the window. Over the top, on a board which had been newly nailed, was some wobbly lettering, the paint still wet. It read:

K. CANTRIP, GREENGROCER
By Special Appointment to Her Majesty the Queen.

Displayed below was a box lid full of nettles and another of dandelions, a tray full of clumps of whitish stalks which might have been celery but which Rosemary suspected were hemlock. There were one or two jam jars containing a dark brown substance labelled H
ENBANE
H
ONEY
, and a soup plate full of toadstools of every colour of the rainbow supported a notice which said, ‘Try them with bacon.'

‘We aren't a minute too soon!' said John. ‘Come on!'

The shop door was open as though to welcome early customers. Mrs Cantrip was sitting beside the counter she had arranged, slowly printing something on a piece of cardboard.

‘Good morning! What can I do for you?' she said, barely looking up from her work.

‘You can give me back my Queen!' said Carbonel.

At the sound of his voice, her pen dug deep into
the cardboard in a spatter of ink. Carbonel leapt on to the counter. The black cat and the old woman stared at each other through narrowed eyes.

‘So you're back, are you? Why should I give you back your Queen?' said Mrs Cantrip harshly.

‘Because your day is over and your power is done!'

The old woman looked around at the ring of accusing faces. Merbeck, Tudge and Woppit had joined Carbonel on the counter. Even the kittens stared with angry eyes from the safety of Rosemary's shoulder.

‘You're all against me!' she said at last. ‘Just when I've turned honest shopkeeper!'

‘Honest!' said John indignantly. ‘What about those toadstools? Have you ever tried them with bacon?'

‘I shouldn't be so silly,' said Mrs Cantrip scornfully. ‘I can't help what my customers do, can I? Well, can I?'

‘And the “Special Appointment to Her Majesty the Queen”,' said Rosemary. ‘That couldn't be true!'

‘I never said which queen, did I?' snapped the old woman. ‘There's a queen bee I know comes to my garden regular.'

‘But you can't go on like this!' said Rosemary. ‘Think of all the trouble and anxiety you've caused
us. And then there's Queen Blandamour and poor Miss Dibdin. Why, you're crying! I believe you're sorry!'

Two hard, round tears fell from Mrs Cantrip's dimmed eyes, and steered an uneven course down her wrinkled cheeks.

‘Sorry?' said Mrs Cantrip. ‘Ah, I'm sorry right enough, but not because I made a bit of bother, not me. As promising a bit of mischief as ever I had a hand in. I'm sorry because I didn't enjoy it. And when a witch doesn't enjoy her wickedness any more, it means she's finished, done for!'

‘But surely you could enjoy doing something else if you only tried?' asked John.

‘Only if I could do the final magic, and I won't ever be able to do that.'

‘But why not?'

‘Because I can't do it by myself. To make it work. not one, but two people must give up the thing they value most for my sake.'

‘But what will the final magic do to you?' asked Rosemary.

‘It will turn me into what I might have been if I'd not taken up with the ways of darkness.'

‘And if you make this final magic,' said Carbonel, ‘what of my Queen, my Blandamour and this… this potted person here?' He waved toward Miss Dibdin, who was anxiously peering over the
edge of the green glass jar which stood on the counter.

‘The spell that changed me would undo all that is left of my magic. They'd become their own size sure enough. But what's the good of talking? Who'd give a bent farthing for me, let alone their dearest possession?'

‘I would!' said Rosemary.

‘And so would I!' said John stoutly.

‘Think well what you're saying,' said Mrs Cantrip.

‘I'd give up my new cricket bat!' said John.

‘I'd give my sewing box. It's inlaid with mother of pearl, and it belonged to my great-grandmother,' said Rosemary.

‘Think well, think well!' said Mrs Cantrip again. For a moment her eyes looked large and appealing as they might have done when she was a girl. The slyness seemed to have been wiped from her face as though with a sponge, leaving nothing behind but a deep anxiety. ‘It must be the most precious thing you have, or it's no good!'

‘Oh, John,' said Rosemary. ‘Do you remember what we said in the wood yesterday – that being able to hear Carbonel and the animals talk was the most exciting thing that had happened to us, and that we couldn't bear it to be taken away?'

John pressed his lips tightly together. He was very pale, but he nodded.

‘Oh, Carbonel!' said Rosemary. ‘Must it be that?'

‘If that is your most precious possession, and if you want to save Mrs Cantrip and undo her magic, it must.'

Very slowly John drew from his pocket the bottle of red mixture.

‘Come into the garden,' said Mrs Cantrip, and led the way.

The garden was much the same as the last time Rosemary had seen it, on the day when she had escaped in the flying chair. The curious weeds were still neatly staked, and the beehive stood in the corner.

Mrs Cantrip moved the garden seat from the little square of grass. Then, in the middle of the grass, she spread the scarlet headscarf with the black squiggles. She looked around.

‘Seven! I must have seven living things of a kind.'

‘We are seven cats!' said Carbonel, and then Merbeck, Tudge and Woppit, the two kittens and Blandamour, made a ring around the red scarf, nose to tail.

‘Can you do it without a book?' asked John.

Mrs Cantrip nodded.

‘Every witch carries the final magic in her head. Give me the bottle.'

Very slowly John handed her the red mixture and watched her take her place in the centre of the red-silk, cat-ringed square.

‘Good-bye, Tudge, Woppit and Blandamour,' said Rosemary, her eyes hot with tears.

‘Good-bye Tudge, Woppit and Blandamour,' said John.

‘Not good-bye,' said Carbonel, and his voice was so faint that the two children had to bend down to hear him. ‘You may not hear us talk again,' he said, ‘but you will always hear us purr. Your fame will stretch far and wide, and cats of Fallowhithe will sing songs about you to their children and their children's children. Whenever any of them purr beneath your stroking fingers, it will be a purr of gratitude, an echo of what my Queen and I will feel always in our hearts. Do not look so sad. Listen, and perhaps we can ease your…'

The last word was so faint that they could not hear it. They were standing side by side, and in her misery Rosemary clutched John's hand. Mrs Cantrip was standing very stiff and straight. She took the cork from the bottle and poured the red mixture which would have made it possible for them to hear again, not only cats talking, but the birds in the trees, the little scuttling wood creatures, the tiny things that crawl and fly and burrow. She
poured it in a ring around the seven cats. They saw her lips move silently as, with her eyes closed, she said the final magic.

Then the purring began. Carbonel began first, loud and clear, not on two pulsing notes as he usually did, but in many notes that made a solemn tune. Then Merbeck joined in, and the two sounds merged and then parted like the instruments of an orchestra. And like the instruments of an orchestra the purrs of Tudge and Woppit joined in, weaving around each other, up and down, now loud, now soft, with Calidor and Pergamond supplying their light treble, making the sweetest music they had ever heard.

John and Rosemary listened, delighted, for how long they did not know, but gradually the sorrow seemed to lift from their hearts, and although their eyes filled with tears, they were not hot tears of unhappiness. Through them the outline of Mrs Cantrip seemed to swell and waver.

‘Lend me a hankie,' said John unsteadily. ‘I've lost mine.'

They took it in turns to wipe their eyes and noses, and when they looked up again they thought at first that Mrs Cantrip had gone. In her place was a tall, upright old lady. Over her neat cotton dress, she wore a gardening apron, and a pair of leather gardening gloves were on her hands. She
looked down at John and Rosemary with eyes that twinkled kindly over her rather large nose.

‘You know,' she said as though they were in the middle of a conversation, ‘animals can always tell when you like them. That's why so many pussies come to see me.'

She bent down and stroked a magnificent white cat with blue eyes which was sitting at her feet.

‘Blandamour!' whispered Rosemary. ‘I'm so glad you are your right size again.'

‘There is no doubt that you like cats, too!' said Mrs Cantrip.

Blandamour and Carbonel were weaving in and out between the two children, pressing so hard against their bare legs that they found it quite hard to keep their balance. Merbeck, Tudge and Woppit had slipped away. Both children fell on their knees beside the black and the white cat.

‘Come and see us sometimes!' whispered Rosemary, and as if in answer a rough tongue licked her cheek.

John stirred Calidor and Pergamond with his foot. They were rolling over each other in an effort to rub themselves against his right ankle.

‘Be good kittens!' he said.

With a little ‘prrt!' Blandamour called her children to her. One behind the other, Carbonel leading, they trotted away. When they reached the
flower bed they paused, gave a quick look back, and disappeared.

‘Look!' said John. ‘The high wall has gone!' In its place was a low fence which let the sun come streaming in. Instead of hemlock, nettles and deadly nightshade, there were roses, tiger lilies, and round, scarlet dahlias; there were marigolds and nasturtiums and sweet-scented stock.

Mrs Cantrip was cutting a bunch of sweet peas which she said were for Mrs Brown, and while she snipped away she talked over her shoulder.

‘Very good of Mr Fudge to give me the morning off. But of course after working with him for so long… What's the matter, dear?'

‘Hedgem and Fudge? Do you work there?' asked Rosemary.

‘Of course! I've been dispensing for him for years.'

John and Rosemary looked at each other in a puzzled way.

‘Luckily Albert Flackett is back at work again,' she went on. ‘He seems quite recovered, and he tells me he and Myrtle are getting married soon. I'm so glad! Ah, here comes Dorothy with the lemonade.'

They turned. Miss Dibdin, her own size and none the worse for her adventure, was coming out of the house carrying a tray with two glasses on
it. She gave no sign of anything except pleasure at their approval of the lemonade. The children drank it politely.

‘Miss Dibdin,' said John, as he replaced his empty glass on the tray. ‘Have you known Mrs Cantrip for long?'

Miss Dibdin laughed comfortably.

‘Why, Katie and I have been friends since we both wore plaits. We were at school together!'

‘It's very puzzling,' John said on the way home as they turned to look back at the front of the house. The neat front door was pale yellow now, and golden linen curtains hung at the windows, which were edged with flower-filled window boxes.

‘I suppose the magic had to work backwards,' said Rosemary. ‘Mrs Cantrip couldn't become what she might have been, without having been all the other things she might have been before.'

John nodded. He seemed to understand, as I hope you do, too.

‘How kind of Mrs Cantrip!' said her mother when Rosemary gave her the bunch of sweet peas from Mrs Cantrip's garden.

‘Mother, have you known her for long?'

‘Why, she's one of my oldest customers!' said Mrs Brown.

‘She has lived with that friend of hers – Miss
Dibdin – ever since I can remember,' said Mr Featherstone, who was suddenly there again. ‘I'm just going down to my flat for a minute – I've left a large block of ice cream on the kitchen table. Your mother and I thought we ought to have a celebration. Come with me, John.'

John went off with Mr Featherstone. Mrs Brown had buried her face in the bunch of sweet peas.

‘I think Mr Featherstone ought to have a lift put in. Then he wouldn't have to keep running up and down the stairs when he comes to see us every day,' said Rosemary.

Her mother lifted her face from the bunch of flowers. It was as pink as the sweet peas.

‘I can think of a better plan, darling,' she said. ‘Supposing he came to live here with us. Would you like that, Rosie?' She paused for a moment, and then she said with a rush, ‘We're going to be married!'