Carbonel: The King of Cats

by Barbara Sleigh

  The fire was nearly out. The cauldron had boiled dry, and in the bottom was a hole the size of her fist. Rosemary gave a great sigh. She was aware that the thrush was once more tapping with his snail shell. The noise of the fête sounded cheerfully on the breeze again. She stood up with the broom in her hand. Carbonel was still sitting on the far side of the enclosure.

  ‘Say the Summoning Words!’ he said harshly. ‘If I am still bound I must come to you.’

  Rosemary said them rather faintly. She felt strangely tired.

  By squeak of bat

  And brown owl’s hoot,

  By hellebore,

  And mandrake root,

  Come swift and silent

  As the tomb,

  Dark minion

  Of the twiggy broom.

  Nothing happened. Carbonel still sat unmoved upon the bucket. There was a long, long pause. Then very deliberately he stepped down and came towards her.

  ‘Little mistress!’ he said.

  ‘You never called me that before, and now I’m no longer your mistress,’ said Rosemary, and her eyes filled with tears. ‘You didn’t have to come this time when I summoned you!’ Carbonel was purring deeply.

  ‘I came in gratitude. That will be a stronger bond than any spell.’ And his warm tongue licked her scratched hands.

  There was a movement on the other side of the enclosure. The young man got up from the wheelbarrow. He yawned and stretched.

  ‘Extraordinary thing,’ he said cheerfully. ‘I must have dropped off to sleep, sitting here bolt upright! I had a pretty rum dream, too. I’ll tell you about it sometime.’

  Rosemary looked inquiringly at Carbonel, who shook his head.

  ‘It is just as well he should think he dreamt it. It will save awkward questions.’ But only Rosemary heard him, because only she had the broom.

  ‘It has been a warm day,’ she said. ‘Thank you very much for the Hat. We shan’t need it any more.’

  ‘Not at all. I hope you had a good game with it. I say, it’s five o’clock! I must fly. Look here, will you and young John put it back in the van? I will give you the key, then you can bring it back to the summer-house when you have locked it up. Here you are. See you later!’

  The children listened in silence to his receding footsteps. Then Rosemary said: ‘I know what I am going to do.’

  She removed the cauldron, and bent down and blew up the fire again, and then she took the Book of Spells and poked it deep into the smouldering heart of the ashes.

  ‘Stand back!’ warned Carbonel, and she jumped away just in time. With a swish, a green flame edged with purple shot up ten feet into the air. For a moment it flashed and flickered, then it wavered and sank. There was nothing to be seen of the book in the bonfire, nothing but a trickle of sluggish, oily-looking smoke.

  ‘You are wise, little mistress!’ said Carbonel.

  ‘Well, I think it was just silly of her,’ said John. ‘Think what fun we could have had with it on wet days.’

  ‘Nothing but evil ever came of that book.’

  In silence they put away the flower pot in the toolshed, then, taking the Broom and the Cauldron with them, they went to replace the Hat in the van.

  ‘Before you put the Broom in the car, I shall say good-bye,’ said Carbonel gravely.

  ‘But shan’t we see you again ever any more? Must you go?’ asked Rosemary.

  ‘I must go. I have work to do. I shall never forget what you and John have done. You will see me at the Full Moon!’ he said. He gave Rosemary’s hand a little lick, then he turned, and they watched him grow smaller and smaller as he trotted with head and tail erect down a long path bordered on either side with tiger-lilies. Then he turned a corner and was gone.

  ‘How simply beastly,’ said John. ‘Everything is over now. We’ve even missed tea. I’m starving.’ Silently he passed Rosemary his handkerchief.

  ‘We ought to feel as pleased as anything, because we have done what we set out to do. But I don’t feel as though I shall ever be pleased again.’ She blew her nose very hard.

  They left the cauldron and the broom in the car suitably hidden under the rug, and then they returned to the summer-house. But it was not possible to feel miserable there for long. To John’s relief there was tea, which they ate sitting on the steps. Mrs Brown and Molly, and even Megs and Sara, were still sewing between mouthfuls. The Occupier and the other men teased the children in a friendly sort of way. It was all very jolly and cheerful, and by the time they had started on the second plate of cakes, they felt they knew everyone quite well. The last tunic was nearly done, and Rosemary could see by her mother’s smiling face that she was enjoying herself.

  ‘I must admit,’ she said to her daughter later, ‘that my heart sank when I thought I had got to sew this afternoon, just when I was off for a holiday. But it has been such fun sewing unusual sorts of clothes, and everyone is so friendly that it has not seemed like work at all.’

  ‘Your mother is a wonder,’ said the Occupier, and Rosemary flushed with pride. ‘I gather from Molly that not only can she work at twice everybody else’s speed, but that by some mystic process of hers called “cutting on the cross” she has transformed Oberon’s sleeves.’

  ‘And saved yards of stuff into the bargain,’ said Molly.

  The children and Mrs Brown, as guests of honour, sat in the front row for the next performance. They were acting the fairy part of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and even John, who usually thought of Shakespeare as somebody invented by masters to harass school-boys, admitted that it was ‘smashing’. They were transported by the fairy part, and they laughed and laughed at Bottom and his friends. When it was all over the Occupier took them all round the fète again, and John won two coconuts and Rosemary a china kitten in a boot which she decided to give to Mrs Walker. And when it was time at last to meet Jeffries and the car, they were both so tired they could hardly keep their eyes open.

  ‘What a day!’ said John, as he and Rosemary flopped into the back seat.

  ‘Did you enjoy it, dears?’ asked Mrs Brown.

  ‘We shall never have such a day again!’ said Rosemary. ‘I wonder what Carbonel meant when he said he would see us at the full moon?’ she whispered to John.

  ‘I don’t suppose we shall know till tomorrow,’ he whispered back.

  23

  The Full Moon

  The next day Rosemary was looking pale.

  ‘Too much excitement,’ said Mrs Brown. ‘I wonder if perhaps you had better stay at home today, instead of coming with me to Tussocks?’

  ‘Oh, Mummy, please!’ begged Rosemary. ‘If you have nearly finished the sewing I shall hardly have any more time to play with John, and I have got such heaps to talk to him about. Besides, I think I ought to say “Thank you” to Mrs Pendlebury Parker, don’t you?’

  Her mother smiled. ‘Very well, Poppet. But it must be a really early bed for you tonight!’

  Although Rosemary felt there was so much she wanted to talk over with John, when she reached Tussocks she found that by common consent they both avoided any reference to Carbonel or Mrs Cantrip, or anything magic at all. They played good, solid games like Cowboys and Indians all morning, and in the afternoon they built a tree house, which was fun, until Mrs Pendlebury Parker decided that it was not safe and made them take it down again.

  When Rosemary and her mother reached home in the evening, Mrs Brown said, firmly:

  ‘Now, we will have supper straight away; scrambled eggs and jam tart, and then you can have your bath and hop into bed. You may take a book with you if you like.’

  Rosemary had her bath in the usual bower of other people’s drying stockings, then she chose The Wind in the Willows, kissed her mother good night and got into bed. But she could not read. She sat propped against the pillows with the book open before her, but her mind was not on the adventures of Toad and Mole and Rat. It would keep going over the events of the past three weeks. What fun it had all been. What would become of Mrs Cantrip? How would C
arbonel win back his place at the head of his kingdom? She closed her eyes to think the better, but she must have fallen asleep, for when she opened them again it was dusk, and the book had slipped to the floor. Something dark and furry leapt on to her bed, and licked her cheek with a familiar rough tongue. She was wide awake at once.

  ‘Carbonel! I did so hope you would come! What are you going to do? Is it the Law Giving tonight?’

  Carbonel was kneading the blanket with his front paws and purring rhythmically. ‘Oh, wait a minute while I fetch the broom!’ She jumped out of bed and ran to the wardrobe. ‘Now then!’

  ‘It is, as you say, the Law Giving tonight. Would you like to come?’

  ‘Oh, may I? How lovely! Where is it? And how? And what about John? He would be terribly disappointed if he missed it!’

  ‘Patience, Rosemary. As to where, it will be on the roof of the Town Hall, where it has been at every full moon for four hundred years. And how? By Broom. The fact that the moon is full tonight will give it temporary life, and by Broom we will fetch John from Tussocks. But we must wait for the moon to rise. In the meantime you had better be composing instructions, and mind they are accurate,’ he went on in his old manner. ‘You can’t afford to make mistakes when you are flying high.’

  Rosemary put on her old red dressing gown and her slippers with the bobbles on them; then she knelt on the chair by the window, with Carbonel on the sill beside her. The sky was darkening, and the vista of roofs stretched dim and shadowy, away into the distance. Down below she could see countless moving shapes.

  ‘Carbonel, look! Running along the top of the wall… hundreds of cats!’

  ‘My people!’ he said. ‘This is a night they will never forget. As yet they know nothing of my return. I thought it best to descend on an unsuspecting enemy. Only Malkin, my father’s friend and adviser, has seen me. He is an old, old animal.’

  ‘But I have never seen so many cats! Look at them! All running along the garden wall!’

  There was a steady stream of animals, black, white, grey, and tabby, silently but purposefully trotting along the garden wall in the same direction, continually joined by other cats where other walls intersected.

  ‘This is one of the main roads from the outlying parts,’ said Carbonel.

  The sky behind the roof-tops was becoming lighter.

  ‘Look!’ said Carbonel. ‘The moon!’

  As he spoke, a tiny segment of silver rose from a bank of clouds low on the horizon. Rosemary’s hand lay on the cat’s sleek back, and she felt him stiffen. He was making low, crooning, cat noises in his throat. As the moon rose majestically in sight – a superb moon, round as a pumpkin and golden as honey, filling the roof-top world with light, and deep, mysterious shadow – Carbonel rose to his feet, lifted his head and sniffed the air, and the crooning noise turned to a bubbling wail, which rose and fell, and rose again to a wild, high note which struck the ear like a trumpet call. Then it sank once again to silence. When the moon was sailing high above the cloud rack, he spoke.

  ‘To Broom, Rosemary!’

  And Rosemary strode the quivering Broom with Carbonel balanced on the sadly diminished twigs behind her.

  ‘Go on, say it!’ he said. She took a deep breath and said:

  If you please, my gallant Broom,

  Take us straight to John’s bedroom.

  And the Broom, which had been giving little hops under her, as though it longed to take the air, rose smoothly and silently, circled once round the room and was away through the window. Rosemary gripped with her knees, and screwed up her eyes and her toes. But the motion was smooth and pleasant, and soon she dared to open her eyes and look around her. They were flying high. They skimmed the weather-cock of All Saints’ Church, where she went on Sundays with her mother, they flew over the shopping centre, now empty and silent, with only here and there a lighted square of window, over the new housing estate and out over the moonlit country beyond. She was so fascinated by the shifting shapes beneath that she forgot to be frightened. The road wandered idly along, like a pale grey ribbon tossed there by some careless giant. Away to the south the river gleamed, a silver streak, and woods and houses, barns and ricks crouched like sleeping animals on the crazy paving that was the fields and meadows. Rosemary was so interested in watching it slip away from beneath her that she was quite surprised when Carbonel said, ‘We’re nearly there. Duck your head when we go in!’

  She looked up, and there was Tussocks, apparently rising up to meet them with such speed that Rosemary had a queer feeling in her stomach. How on earth, of all those windows, could the broom be expected to know which was John’s? But it sped on without any hesitation, and as it seemed that they must crash head on into the great castellated wall that rose in front of her, she flung herself flat along the broom and shut her eyes. But it was only by the light touch of a curtain brushing against her cheek that she knew they had passed into the room. There she was, actually on John’s bed, with the broom beneath her. John shot up from the bedclothes, wide awake, with his hair standing up in spikes all over his head.

  ‘Quick!’ said Rosemary. ‘Mount the broom behind me. We’re going to the Law Giving to see Carbonel take possession of his kingdom!’ To John’s credit, he did not stop to ask questions. He tumbled out of bed, and all he said was:

  ‘Whacko, budge up!’

  Rosemary budged. It was rather a squash, but he bundled up behind her.

  ‘Make haste!’ said Carbonel. ‘Now, the Town Hall roof, Rosemary.’

  After a moment’s thought she said:

  On the Town Hall roof put us gently down,

  And oblige John, Carbonel, and Rosemary Brown.

  She was rather pleased with this, as being both polite and business-like.

  ‘Duck!’ shouted Carbonel.

  And as they ducked the Broom swooshed through the window, and once more they were sailing through the night air back towards the town. They were not flying so high this time. John was bouncing up and down with excitement.

  ‘Boy, oh boy! This is terrific! There’s the Lodge and the gardener’s cottage! That must be the railway by Spinnaker’s wood!’

  A train, like a jewelled snake, was threading its way through the darkness. A bat blundered into them and squeaked something.

  ‘Don’t mention it!’ said Carbonel. And the bat flew off again. Soon they were over the first huddle of houses, and as they flew above the town the broom rose heavily. It was travelling more slowly now. The extra weight of John was telling on it. It skirted a tower here and a block of flats there, as though it was conserving its energy. As they drew nearer to the Town Hall they could see the stream of cats below them, still silently crowding in the same direction.

  ‘It’s a funny thing,’ said Rosemary. ‘Sometimes it looks like slates and bricks and roofs and chimneys, and sometimes like hills with grass and flowers and trees. It’s difficult to see with the moon going behind the clouds every now and then.’

  ‘I noticed that,’ said John. ‘Queer. But how could it be grass and trees, when we know it isn’t?’

  ‘How do you know it isn’t?’ asked Carbonel.

  ‘Just look at the Town Hall roof!’ interrupted John. They looked. It was a strange sight. The roof of the building in which Queen Elizabeth I had slept was covered with a thatch, not of straw, but of cats, and still more were pushing their way on from the surrounding buildings. So intent were the animals that they did not see the dark shape above them which was the broom.

  ‘Where shall we land?’ said Rosemary.

  ‘What about behind that chimney?’ said John.

  The moon had gone behind a cloud again, and in the dim light they could not quite make out if it was a chimney stack with half a dozen different cowls and chimney pots, or a tree stump, with gnarled and twisted branches. But tree or chimney, behind it they could see and not be seen. The Broom alighted gently, and they found they were standing with their bare feet, not on cold slates, but on short, soft grass. Rosemary had lost h
er slippers some time ago. Before them a grassy slope fell steeply down towards a small flat valley, and both slope and valley were covered with cats.

  ‘Look, they are all staring up at the clock!’

  In the centre of the Town Hall roof was a four-sided clock. At each corner was a pillar which supported a small golden dome. Beneath the dome had once hung a bell which warned the town of fire and disaster and great happenings, both glad and sorry. The bell was now in the Fairfax Museum.

  ‘I thought it was the clock,’ said Rosemary in a puzzled way, ‘but it can’t be. It is a sort of little temple.’

  ‘The throne of my fathers!’ said Carbonel with emotion.

  ‘Then you ought to be sitting there!’ said John. ‘Not that great cat that is there now!’

  ‘A usurper!’ hissed Carbonel. ‘But he shall not remain there much longer!’

  Sitting proudly under the golden dome was a huge ginger cat with a rabble of disreputable animals behind him.

  ‘I say!’ said John excitedly. ‘I do believe…’

  ‘Hush, he’s talking!’ said Rosemary.

  ‘Listen to me!’ said the ginger cat.

  There was a sighing murmur from the animals gazing up at him, and the rabble behind him pushed and jostled.