Charmed Life. Diana Wynne Jones
gloomy voice, as if the opposite was true.
Mr Henry Nostrum glanced up at him apologetically. “The fact is, young Chant,” he explained, “we have met with a little setback. My brother is upset.” He lowered his voice, and his wandering eye wandered all round Cat’s right side. “It’s about those letters from – You Know Who. We can find out nothing. It seems Gwendolen knows nothing. Do you, young Chant, perchance know why your esteemed and lamented father should be acquainted with – with, let us call him, the August Personage who signed them?”
“I haven’t the faintest idea, I’m afraid,” said Cat.
“Could he have been some relation?” suggested Mr Henry Nostrum. “Chant is a Good Name.”
“I think it must be a bad name, too,” Cat answered. “We haven’t any relations.”
“But what of your dear mother?” persisted Mr Nostrum, his odd eye travelling away, while his brother managed to stare gloomily at the pavement and the rooftops at once.
“You can see the poor boy knows nothing, Henry,” Mr William said. “I doubt if he would be able to tell us his dear mother’s maiden name.”
“Oh, I do know that,” said Cat. “It’s on their marriage lines. She was called Chant too.”
“Odd,” said Mr Nostrum, swirling an eye at his brother.
“Odd, and peculiarly unhelpful,” Mr William agreed.
Cat wanted to get away. He felt he had taken enough strange questions to last till Christmas. “Well, if you want to know that badly,” he said, “why don’t you write and ask Mr – er – Mr Chres—”
“Hush!” said Mr Henry Nostrum violently.
“Hum!” said his brother, almost equally violently.
“August Personage, I mean,” Cat said, looking at Mr William in alarm. Mr William’s eyes had gone right to the sides of his face. Cat was afraid he might be going off into a trance, like Miss Larkins.
“It will serve, Henry, it will serve!” Mr William cried out. And, with great triumph, he lifted the silver watch-chain off his middle and shook it. “Then for silver!” he cried.
“I’m so glad,” Cat said politely. “I have to be going now.” He ran off down the street as fast as he could. When he went out that afternoon, he took care to turn right and go out of Coven Street past the Willing Warlock’s house. It was rather a nuisance, since that was the long way round to where most of his friends lived, but anything was better than meeting Miss Larkins or the Nostrums again. It was almost enough to make Cat wish that school had started.
When Cat came home that evening, Gwendolen was just back from her lesson with Mr Nostrum. She had her usual glowing, exulting look, but she was looking secretive and important too.
“That was a good idea of yours of writing to Chrestomanci,” she said to Cat. “I can’t think why I didn’t think of it. Anyway, I just have.”
“Why did you do it? Couldn’t Mr Nostrum?” Cat said.
“It came more naturally from me,” said Gwendolen. “And I suppose it doesn’t matter if he gets my signature. Mr Nostrum told me what to write.”
“Why does he want to know anyway?” Cat asked.
“Wouldn’t you like to know!” Gwendolen said exultingly.
“No,” said Cat. “I wouldn’t.” Since this had brought what happened that morning into his mind, which still made him almost wish the Autumn term had started, he said, “I wish the conkers were ripe.”
“Conkers!” Gwendolen said, in the greatest disgust. “What a low mind you have! They won’t be ready for a good six weeks.”
“I know,” said Cat, and for the next two days he carefully turned right every time he left the house.
They were the lovely golden days that happen when August is passing into September. Cat and his friends went out along the river. On the second day, they found a wall and climbed it. There was an orchard beyond, and here they were lucky enough to discover a tree loaded with sweet white apples – the kind that ripen early. They filled their pockets and their hats. Then a furious gardener chased them with a rake. They ran. Cat was very happy as he carried his full, knobby hat home. Mrs Sharp loved apples. He just hoped that she would not reward him by making gingerbread men. As a rule, gingerbread men were fun. They leapt up off the plate and ran when you tried to eat them, so that when you finally caught them you felt quite justified in eating them. It was a fair fight, and some got away. But Mrs Sharp’s gingerbread men never did that. They simply lay, feebly waving their arms, and Cat never had the heart to eat them.
Cat was so busy thinking of all this that, though he noticed a four-wheel cab standing in the road as he turned the corner by the Willing Warlock’s house, he paid no attention to it. He went to the side-door and burst into the kitchen with his hatful of apples, shouting, “I say! Look what I’ve got, Mrs Sharp!”
Mrs Sharp was not there. Instead, standing in the middle of the kitchen, was a tall and quite extraordinarily well-dressed man.
Cat stared at him in some dismay. He was clearly a rich new Town Councillor. Nobody but those kind of people wore trousers with such pearly stripes, or coats of such beautiful velvet, or carried tall hats as shiny as their boots. The man’s hair was dark. It was smooth as his hat. Cat had no doubt that this was Gwendolen’s Dark Stranger, come to help her start ruling the world. And he should not have been in the kitchen at all. Visitors were always taken straight to the parlour.
“Oh, how do you do, sir. Will you come this way, sir?” he gasped.
The Dark Stranger gave him a wondering look. And well he might, Cat thought, looking round distractedly. The kitchen was in its usual mess. The range was all ash. On the table, Cat saw, to his further dismay, Mrs Sharp had been making gingerbread men. The ingredients for the spell lay on the end of the table – all grubby newspaper packets and seedy little jars – and the gingerbread itself was strewn over the middle of the table. At the far end, the flies were gathering round the meat for lunch, which looked nearly as messy as the spell.
“Who are you?” said the Dark Stranger. “I have a feeling I should know you. What have you got in your hat?”
Cat was too busy staring round to attend properly, but he caught the last question. His pleasure returned. “Apples,” he said, showing the Stranger. “Lovely sweet ones. I’ve been scrumping.”
The Stranger looked grave. “Scrumping,” he said, “is a form of stealing.”
Cat knew that as well as he did. He thought it was very joyless, even for a Town Councillor, to point it out. “I know. But I bet you did it when you were my age.”
The Stranger coughed slightly and changed the subject. “You haven’t said yet who you are.”
“Sorry. Didn’t I?” said Cat. “I’m Eric Chant – only they always call me Cat.”
“Then is Gwendolen Chant your sister?” the Stranger asked. He was looking more and more austere and pitying. Cat suspected that he thought Mrs Sharp’s kitchen was a den of vice.
“That’s right. Won’t you come this way?” Cat said, hoping to get the Stranger out of it. “It’s neater through here.”
“I had a letter from your sister,” the Stranger said, standing where he was. “She gave me the impression you had drowned with your parents.”
“You must have made a mistake,” Cat said distractedly. “I didn’t drown because I was holding on to Gwendolen, and she’s a witch. It’s cleaner through here.”
“I see,” said the Stranger. “I’m called Chrestomanci, by the way.”
“Oh!” said Cat.