‘Dow I feel better!’ he said, and went on in a snuffly voice, ‘I say, I noticed something last night when I was coming home on the back of the lorry. We had to go through the outskirts of Broomhurst, and the whole place was alive with cats. Even the lorry driver noticed. They were running backward and forward along the walls and collecting in corners and waste spaces. In one place, it was a churchyard I think, there was a whole collection of them, with a great striped brute in front who looked as though he was making a speech.’
‘What was he saying?’ asked Rosemary.
‘I couldn’t hear, which isn’t surprising, because the lorry was carrying a load of lemonade bottles, and we were doing fifty miles an hour at least!’
‘But the Fallowhithe cats –?’
‘They were just trotting about their ordinary business. You know, I wonder if Merbeck is right not to warn them what’s in the wind?’
‘I’ve been wondering that,’ said Rosemary. ‘And what I’ve also been wondering is what is happening about Mrs Flackett’s son, Albert. Do you think he is still shutting himself up in his bedroom, refusing to talk to anybody?’
‘Well, you’d better set off to Hedgem and Fudge as soon as you can and find out.’
‘He may even be back at work again,’ said Rosemary hopefully.
But he was not.
When Rosemary reached the chemist shop, Mr Fudge himself was serving behind the medicine counter. There were several customers before her, so she had to wait a little while to be served.
‘I’m sorry to keep you waiting, Madam,’ he said to a fat woman who was tapping impatiently on the counter. ‘One of my assistants is away ill, so that I’m shorthanded. I have another coming next week.’
‘Another assistant!’ This meant that Albert was losing his job, and it was all their fault! Rosemary looked across at the perfumery counter where Albert’s young lady worked. She looked as though she had been crying.
With the bottle of cold cure safely in her blazer pocket, Rosemary walked thoughtfully out of the shop. If only they could find the counter-spell for the red mixture he had tasted by mistake! She looked up at the shop window. The great cut glass bottle of crimson liquid glowed like a huge ruby. Then she glanced at the other window. There stood the companion bottle, gleaming green and vivid as a great emerald.
‘Surely it must be the green liquid which undoes the magic of the red,’ thought Rosemary. ‘But what if it doesn’t? What if it does something quite different, like making you sprout two heads or turn into something creepy crawly? I don’t think I’m quite brave enough just to try and see.’
She turned slowly away and walked on down the crowded High Street. She was so deep in thought that she forgot to look where she was going. Suddenly she bumped into someone carrying an overloaded shopping basket. Several packages fell out.
‘Oh, I’m so sorry!’ said Rosemary, and stooped to collect the fallen things.
As she retrieved a rolling tin of baked beans she noticed the shoes of the owner. They were very large and black with big brass buckles. She looked up quickly. Yes, it was Mrs Cantrip.
‘I’m so sorry!’ said Rosemary again, rather faintly.
The old woman looked at her from beneath the headscarf she was wearing. It was scarlet, with a pattern of bold black shapes. To Rosemary’s surprise she looked almost amiable, so with a rush she said, ‘Please, Mrs Cantrip, you remember the prescription you gave us to make us hearing humans?’
‘Oh, ah, I remember!’ The old woman nodded.
‘Well, if you drink the green liquid from the other bottle, will it cancel out the red magic?’
Mrs Cantrip hunched her shoulders and put her head on one side.
‘So you’ve got tired of being a hearing human, have you? Mind, I don’t say as I blame you. All that animal chatter, as well as human! I wouldn’t be in your shoes when that Carbonel comes back and finds his kittens gone! It might be just as well if you couldn’t hear what he says to you.’
Rosemary opened her mouth to say that the kittens were both safe and sound again, but she remembered just in time and said nothing.
‘You’d best get out of it all. I don’t mind telling you there’s more trouble to come! I’ve got a shot in my locker yet!’ And the old woman chuckled.
‘But the green liquid?’ went on Rosemary.
Mrs Cantrip pursed up her mouth till it looked like a buttonhole and drew in her breath as she considered. At last she said, ‘All right, I’ll tell you. For why? Because it suits me to, and mind you, magic is the one thing that the likes of me can’t lie about, so you needn’t be afraid. The answer is yes. The green potion is not so tasty perhaps, but it’s good and thorough.’
‘Oh, thank you!’ said Rosemary gratefully.
‘What for?’ said Mrs Cantrip sharply. ‘Not that it wasn’t quick of you to spot it for yourself. I’ve always thought you aren’t so milk and water as you look. That affair with the rocking chair, now, clever that was! I suppose you wouldn’t consider taking up the business seriously yourself ? I’d take you on as an apprentice!’
Rosemary shook her head hard. The offer seemed almost a kind one, so she did not say what she really felt about it.
‘Me, Rosemary Brown, to train as a witch!’ she thought indignantly.
‘Ah, if you’d seen the ranting, roaring, good old days, maybe you’d think differently,’ said the old woman. ‘It’s the loneliness that makes it so hard nowadays, to be the only one left. Why I’ve seen as many fly-by-nights on a midsummer’s evening as there are smuts in the room when the chimney’s been smoking. And the air so full of magic that it fair crackled with it! And I’ve seen ’em all go out, one by one, like bubbles on a bowl of water.’
The old woman’s eyes were dim.
‘But Miss Dibdin –’ began Rosemary.
‘Her?’ said Mrs Cantrip with contempt. ‘She can’t so much as whistle a psalm tune backward! No ear for music. And do you know the only bit of magic she ever pulled off?’
‘What?’ asked Rosemary.
‘A bit of invisibility – child’s play. But what does she have to do when half my furniture’s vanished?’
‘What?’ asked Rosemary again, although she thought she knew the answer.
‘Why, lose the book with the counter-spell in it, so that I was forever tripping over things I couldn’t see. Lucky for her she put it right somehow. It was all there again this morning.’
‘How did she do it?’ asked Rosemary curiously.
‘That’s no concern of yours!’ snapped Mrs Cantrip. Her softened mood had gone. ‘Well, don’t keep me gossiping here!’ she said, and, hitching her shawl more firmly around her thin shoulders, turned and disappeared among the throng of shoppers, with her basket over her arm.
Rosemary turned and ran as fast as she could back to Hedgem and Fudge. As she reached the shop it was just striking one o’clock. Albert Flackett’s young lady was hanging a notice on the door which said ‘Closed’.
‘Oh please, I must speak to you!’ she gasped breathlessly. ‘It’s about Mr Flackett!’
The young lady, whose name was Myrtle Jones, tossed her flaxen head. ‘I’m sure I’m not interested in Albert Flackett!’ she said, but the sniff that followed was a sorrowful, not an angry one.
‘But surely you don’t want him to lose his job?’ pleaded Rosemary. ‘And him the only son of his mother. Mrs Flackett’s so proud of him!’
The girl looked at Rosemary shrewdly for a minute as if undecided.
‘Here, come inside,’ she said at last.
The pale green light that filtered through the drawn blinds made it seem a mysterious place. The only things that stood out in the gloom were the two huge bottles that stood on the mahogany partition dividing the window from the shop. The crimson of the red bottle was a little dulled by the green light, but the green liquid glowed clearer and brighter than ever above them.
‘If it’s a message from Albert,’ said Myrtle, ‘you can just tell him from me –’
/> ‘But it’s not a message,’ said Rosemary. ‘He doesn’t know I’ve come. And please, please don’t be angry with him, because it’s all our fault!’
‘Now if this is some more of his nonsense,’ began Myrtle.
‘But it isn’t! Oh, please listen. Now, do you remember the day he was taken ill, he and Mr Fudge took down the big red bottle out of the window?’
‘Yes, yes, I do,’ said the girl. ‘You could have knocked me down with a feather when I saw them doing it. I’ve never seen it happen before.’ She sat down on one of the chairs provided for the customers.
‘Well, that was our prescription, and Albert got it all over his hands when he was pouring it out, and then when he was turning over the pages of the catalogue he kept licking his thumb. Don’t you see, that made him ill!’
‘Poor Bertie!’ said Myrtle in a softened voice. ‘But to refuse to see me, after me and him going steady for three years!’
‘But if you’ll only do what I say, he’ll get better, and you can go on going steady.’
‘All right, ducks,’ said Myrtle suddenly. ‘What do you want me to do?’
‘Give him a teaspoonful of the green liquid from the other bottle!’ said Rosemary. ‘I’ll get the ladder, while you fetch something to put the mixture in, and a spoon to get it out.’
‘Well, things can’t be much worse than they are!’ said Myrtle. ‘Here goes!’
She disappeared behind the glass partition where the dispensing was done. When she came back, Rosemary was already at the top of the steps which she had propped against the partition, and the cut glass stopper of the great bottle was in her hand. A vapour rose from the neck of the bottle, and a sweetish smell which made her head swim filled the darkened shop.
‘Please hold the stopper while I fill the little bottle!’ said Rosemary.
Very carefully she scooped some of the liquid up with the spoon, and with a steady hand emptied it into the bottle. She took six spoonfuls to make sure. By the time it was safely corked and in Myrtle’s pocket, the heady smell was making Rosemary giddy. She pulled herself together and replaced the glass stopper in the huge bottle. Then she climbed a little unsteadily down the ladder and went into the dispensary to wash her hands.
‘It’ll be a new assistant instead of me next week as well, if Mr Fudge finds out about this!’ said Myrtle worriedly.
‘He won’t,’ said Rosemary. ‘If you can give Albert a dose this afternoon he can start work again tomorrow! I must run now, I’m going to be terribly late for dinner!’
26
Council of War
When Rosemary reached home, she was just in time to take John’s dinner in to him on a tray.
‘It’s chops and peas and new potatoes!’ she said as she removed the cover.
‘Good!’ said John. ‘Have you got the cold cure?’
Rosemary nodded and told him about Mrs Cantrip and the green mixture. The idea of Rosemary as the old woman’s apprentice he seemed to think very funny.
‘But I’ve got some news for you, too. The attack will be in two days’ time!’
‘How do you know?’
‘Mr Featherstone came in to see me. He’s staying to lunch. He had seen it announced in the local paper. He said that instead of the two towns being ashamed of a disgraceful piece of ribbon development, they were actually going to celebrate its being finished with what the newspaper called a Friendship Ceremony.’
‘What’s ribbon development?’ asked Rosemary.
‘He said it was building a lot of houses along the roadside without proper planning. Anyway, there’s to be music and speechifying, and he said would we all like to come and see it. Then your mother could celebrate finishing the Julius Caesar clothes.’
‘What did Mummy say?’
‘She laughed and said, “What nonsense,” and that she liked making the acting clothes anyway. But she looked pleased, and it’s all settled. We must let Blandamour know as soon as possible.’
‘She’s coming this afternoon,’ said Rosemary. ‘To see the kittens and say thank you to us. I met Woppit as I was coming home. We had better have a council of war up here.’
It was three o’clock before Blandamour arrived. She was followed by Merbeck and Woppit, and to their surprise Tudge came trotting behind at a respectful distance. He had called to see his sister.
Rosemary had brushed the protesting kittens until their coats gleamed. Calidor’s white socks were spotless. Every whisker was in order. They both sat on John’s bed rehearsing the Kitten’s Welcome to His Parents which all well-bred animals use. It begins:
Accept my warm, respectful purr,
Clean, my paws, and trim, my fur.
But when their mother walked through the open door they got no further than ‘Accept my warm…’ before they scrambled off the bed and ran helter-skelter to her. They rubbed themselves against her snow-white sides, mingling their shrill, quick purrs with her deeper, steadier hum.
‘My children! My little children!’ said Blandamour as she licked their upturned faces. Both Calidor and Pergamond were telling their adventures at the same time, in shrill, excited voices. ‘Hush! hush, my dears. Later,’ said their mother and turned to John and Rosemary.
‘I have no words with which to thank you for all you have done!’ she began.
‘That’s all right, Your Majesty,’ said John awkwardly. ‘Don’t bother. Besides, we haven’t really got time. The attack will be in two days. We’ve just heard!’
While he told her what he knew, Blandamour leapt on to the bed, closely followed by her Councillor. The kittens scrambled up the bedspread and began jostling for the place nearest their mother, until she silenced them with a scoop of her paw. There was a scuffle as Tudge tried to leap up, too. Woppit’s voice could be heard coming from under the bed, making such remarks as ‘Like your impudence!’ and ‘The likes of us.’ At last they all listened to John in silence. He told them of the activity among the Broomhurst cats that he had seen from the back of the lorry, and the conversation he and Rosemary had overheard near Adelaide Row. At last Merbeck spoke.
‘Some of this we knew already. What we did not know was when the last little gap in the wall would be finished and the Cat Causeway completed. That is the news we have been waiting for. Now, we can act!’
‘Two days doesn’t seem very long to get ready when the others have been stirring up their followers for weeks!’ said Rosemary anxiously.
‘Do not worry. We have not been idle,’ said Blandamour. ‘Contented, well-governed cats do not need to be brought to heel with bribery and fiery speeches.’
‘We have two advantages,’ said Merbeck. ‘First, Grisana does not know that we are warned and well-prepared; secondly, they will have only one road of approach, the newly finished garden walls of Broomhurst Road.’
‘But how do you know that they won’t come pouring across the fields on either side?’ said Rosemary.
Merbeck turned his grizzled face toward her. ‘Because if cats begin fighting on human ground, then humans will join in, and when that happens, in their blundering way they set about every cat in sight, with brooms and buckets of water and even hose pipes. I’ve seen it happen. How are they to know which cats are which?’
Tudge’s voice from under the bed was heard to mutter, ‘Daft creatures, humans!’ to be hastily shushed by Woppit.
‘Cat troubles must be decided in cat country, and beyond a scuffle or two the humans will know nothing about it,’ went on Merbeck. ‘Now, as I see it, the enemy, not knowing that we shall be alert and watching every movement, at a given signal will pour into Fallowhithe.’
‘And you will fall silently on them as they arrive along the causeway and finish ’em off!’ said John bouncing up and down in bed. ‘Easy!’
‘Not so easy!’ went on Merbeck. ‘Already many enemy cats have slipped into the town – lawless, insolent creatures, urged on by their wicked Queen. Provided that they still think themselves unnoticed, it seems to us that there will be some pre
arranged meeting place where they will plan to meet the newcomers. The main body of animals, who will come pouring along the Causeway, must at all costs be stopped from joining the others at this meeting place. Where that will be it is for us to find out.’
The hair on the ridge of the old cat’s back was bristling, and his tail was lashing fiercely from side to side.
‘Will you have enough cats to turn them back?’ asked Rosemary anxiously.
‘We are a highly organized society, my dear young lady!’ said Merbeck. ‘Every road, square and terrace has its cat guardian. They have had their instructions for some days. Every ten houses has at least six able-bodied animals who would fight to the last claw, cat and kitten, for their Queen, and their families. “The choice of the best hearthrugs for Broomhurst animals” indeed!’
‘But what about Mrs Cantrip and Miss Dibdin?’ asked Rosemary. ‘Aren’t you forgetting them?’
‘I don’t think we need bother about Miss Dibdin,’ said John. ‘She wasn’t much good anyway, but without her book of spells she can’t even try to do anything. As for Mrs Cantrip, you said yourself, Rosie, that she had practically nothing left in her magic cupboard.’
‘There were only two things left, a little bit of Flying Philtre in a tine, but Miss Dibdin said she had finished that on the broom, and a pinch of brownish powder in a pickle jar, but I can’t remember what it said on the label, M-i-n… something.’
‘Well, whatever it was, I shouldn’t think she could do much damage with a few grains.’
Rosemary frowned. ‘I wonder what she meant when she said she’d still got a shot in her locker then? She kept her word to Grisana about the kittens, and she may still try to “kidnap” Queen Blandamour.’
‘You talk as though I am as feeble as a kitten with its eyes closed!’ said Blandamour. ‘I can defend myself!’ she added proudly.
The Kingdom of Carbonel Page 15
