The Kingdom of Carbonel

by Barbara Sleigh

  ‘The last time I saw Mrs Cantrip she was washing dishes at the Copper Kettle tea room,’ said Rosemary. ‘I don’t know if she is still there.’

  ‘Let’s go and see,’ said John.

  They set out for the Copper Kettle early after lunch. Carbonel was waiting for them on the gatepost. They explained where they were going, but, instead of coming with them, the black cat showed complete indifference. He sat down in the middle of the pavement and began to wash his tail. John and Rosemary walked past, but Carbonel caught up with them and calmly placed himself in front of them again. This time he transferred his attention to his left hind leg.

  ‘Well,’ said John, ‘you’d better hurry if you want us to go and find Mrs Cantrip, Carbonel, because I’m not going without you and that’s final.’

  Carbonel gave him a withering glance, then trotted ahead, keeping pointedly to Rosemary’s side of the pavement. Having decided to go with them, he set off at such a speed that they could barely keep up, and when they finally reached the Copper Kettle, which was some distance away, they were hot and footsore.

  Miss Maggie and her sister Florrie, who owned the teashop, were old friends. They welcomed the two children with cries of pleasure. Carbonel waited outside.

  ‘Why, if it isn’t John! And how you’ve grown!’ said Miss Maggie with upraised hands. As everyone of a still-growing age knows, there is no answer to this, so John merely grinned sheepishly.

  ‘Now, come into the kitchen, dears. We’re just putting away the lunch things. Choose whatever you’d like to eat. How about some nice fruit salad?’

  John winked at Rosie as they followed Miss Maggie. Fruit salad was always welcome, and Mrs Cantrip would probably be found in the kitchen.

  But, standing at the sink in a cloud of steam, was not Mrs Cantrip, but a square, vigorous young woman who was accompanying her saucepan cleaning by singing a rather doleful hymn tune. This was a thing that Mrs Cantrip would certainly not have done.

  ‘To tell the truth, dear,’ said Miss Maggie in reply to Rosemary’s inquiries, ‘I was quite glad when the funny old thing left of her own accord. Want some more cream on your fruit, dear?’

  Rosemary nodded. She finished the last of the pineapple, which she did not really like, and prepared to enjoy the pears and peaches.

  ‘I’m always saying to Florrie,’ went on Miss Maggie. ‘Florrie, I say, if there’s one thing I hate it’s unpleasantness! And really she was so very queer that I never knew quite how she’d take it if I told her to leave.’

  ‘So it wasn’t you who fired her?’ asked John.

  ‘Would you believe it? She went off one evening in the middle of the week. Put her shoes and apron in the cupboard under the sink, just as usual, and never turned up again, and with half a week’s wages to come!’

  ‘We’d send it on to her if we knew the address,’ said Miss Florrie, who had come in while her sister was talking. ‘But she never would tell us where she lived.’

  ‘Not that she did her work badly, mind you,’ continued Miss Maggie. ‘I will say that. Now it’s no good for you to sniff like that, Doris,’ she said to the new girl. ‘Fair’s fair. But her washing-up water! I do like it clean! She always seemed to get hers not exactly dirty but coloured, somehow – bright red or yellow or green. I can’t imagine how she did it.’

  John and Rosemary looked at one another.

  ‘And when I spoke to her about it once,’ went on Miss Maggie, ‘she said something about clean water being so dull. Did you ever hear of such a thing?’

  Conversation became general after this. Presently Rosemary said, ‘If you like, John and I could take Mrs Cantrip’s money to her, and her shoes. She used to keep a little shop in Fairfax Market.’

  ‘Well, that would be kind of you, dears!’ said Miss Maggie.

  She rummaged in the cupboard under the sink and brought out an enormous pair of buckled shoes of a very expensive make, but very down at the heel. The apron had a vivid pattern of flowers and tropical fruit. As Miss Maggie shook it out, a little screw of paper fell from the pocket on to the floor. By the time Rosemary had picked it up, the shoes and the apron had already been made into a neat roll, so she put the paper in her pocket. As soon as they could, John and Rosemary said good-bye.

  Carbonel paused in his restless pacing as soon as he saw them.

  ‘Well, if we can find her in her own house, it will really be much better than trying to talk to her at the Copper Kettle with Miss Maggie buzzing around,’ John said, when they had explained the situation.

  But Carbonel did not wait for him to finish. He bounded off in the direction of Fairfax Market so quickly that the children did not attempt to keep up with him.

  ‘Well!’ said Rosemary.

  ‘If he isn’t at Mrs Cantrip’s house when we get there, I vote we just go away and do nothing more about it,’ said John.

  ‘I almost hope he won’t be!’ said Rosemary.

  But he was. When they reached the little shop that had been Mrs Cantrip’s last year, the black cat was sitting beside the door with what John called his ‘waiting expression’.

  ‘Supposing Mrs Cantrip doesn’t live here any more,’ said Rosemary hopefully.

  ‘She lives here all right!’ said John. ‘Look at the curtains!’

  There was no longer any trace of a shop. The grimy window was hung with two odd lengths of lace, looped up in an attempt at elegance. One was tied with a bootlace, and the other with a piece of purple ribbon that looked as though it had come off a chocolate box.

  ‘They aren’t very clean,’ said Rosemary.

  Someone had started to paint the battered front door scarlet, but had lost interest halfway down.

  ‘I say! Look at that notice!’ said John.

  Propped against the window was a card which said, in wobbly capital letters,

  APARTMENTS

  H. and C. in all rooms.

  R.S.V.P.

  As they looked at it in silence, a bony hand appeared between the dusty curtains and took away the card. John squared his shoulders. ‘She’s at home all right. Here goes!’ he said, and he knocked loudly on the door.

  In reply to his second knock, the door opened a crack and a voice that was unmistakably Mrs Cantrip’s said, ‘Apartments is let! Go away!’ And the door was firmly slammed in their faces.

  When John knocked again, there was no answer, so he pushed open the flap of the letter box and called through, ‘Do let us in, Mrs Cantrip, we’ve got something for you!’ But he backed away suddenly when he saw a pair of piercing eyes staring at him from the other side of the letterbox.

  Rosemary, who had been trying to see, too, nearly fell over when the door was suddenly flung open.

  ‘Got something for me, have you?’ said Mrs Cantrip. ‘That’s different, that is! Come inside!’

  She stood blinking and bobbing at the open door while the children waited uncertainly on the step. A furry pressure on the back of the knees from Carbonel, which might have been affection, or even a plain shove, sent John stumbling down the step into the house, which was below the level of the road. Of course Rosemary followed.

  3

  Prism Powder

  Mrs Cantrip led the way into an inner room. There was very little furniture, but it was tidy, and on the rickety table was a jam jar which held a bunch of nettles and dandelions. The familiar golden flower faces made Rosemary feel a little braver.

  The old woman sat down in a rocking chair by the smouldering fire.

  ‘Well,’ she said eagerly, ‘hand it over!’

  ‘It’s from Miss Maggie at The Copper Kettle,’ said Rosemary. ‘She asked us to give you the shoes and the apron you left behind, and the money she owes you.’

  As she spoke she put them on the table. Mrs Cantrip hardly bothered to look.

  ‘Do you mean to say that’s all?’ she snorted. ‘Coming into my house under false pretences, I call it. I could have fetched them for myself any day.’ She started to rock herself violently in the rocking cha
ir, pushing herself off with her big feet.

  ‘Miss Maggie wondered why you didn’t,’ said Rosemary.

  ‘Why did you leave?’ asked John.

  ‘Because the sight of her stirring away at her pots and saucepans made my fingers itch! Hours she spent over her magic books and her mixtures, and never so much as a puff of coloured smoke to show for it! Let alone turning anyone into anything satisfactory, like a blowfly or a spider!’

  ‘But of course she didn’t,’ said Rosemary indignantly. ‘She wasn’t trying to. That isn’t how you run a teashop! She was making nice things to eat out of cookery books, not magic!’

  Mrs Cantrip snorted again.

  ‘Incompetent I call it. And anyway, I’m letting apartments instead. H. and C. in all rooms.’ She nodded with satisfaction. ‘R.S.V.P.’

  ‘Have you really got hot and cold water?’ asked John.

  ‘Who said anything about water?’

  ‘Well, that’s what it usually means,’ said Rosemary.

  ‘Not when I use it, it doesn’t,’ snapped Mrs Cantrip rocking with renewed vigour. ‘It means air. Cold when the window is open, hot when it’s shut – if you build up a good fire. It’s up to you. The postman taught me a tidy bit of magic to get a lodger.’

  ‘The postman?’ said Rosemary in surprise.

  ‘That’s what I said! He brought me an invitation to a ball once, by mistake. But a bit of cardboard always comes in handy, so I kept it.’

  ‘But you shouldn’t –’ began Rosemary.

  Mrs Cantrip ignored her. ‘At the bottom of the card it said R.S.V.P. I asked the postman what it meant, and he said it was foreign for ‘You’ve got to answer.’ A magic rune, you see. That’s what I call practical. So I put R.S.V.P. on my card in the window, and it worked. In half an hour I got a lodger and then, because I didn’t undo the R.S.V.P. straight away, you two came along.’

  ‘But we don’t –’ began John.

  ‘That’s a good thing, because you can’t. There’s no room. Apartments I said, and I’m not having togetherments, not with nobody.’

  Rosemary looked hopelessly at John. They seemed no nearer to the real object of their visit.

  ‘Mrs Cantrip,’ interrupted John firmly. ‘We want to ask you something. It’s about Carbonel!’

  Mrs Cantrip ceased speaking in mid-sentence and stopped rocking the chair. For a minute, there was complete silence in the dark little kitchen.

  ‘That animal again!’ said Mrs Cantrip, in a hoarse whisper. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘We are John and Rosemary. Don’t you remember?

  When you retired from being a witch last summer, you sold me your old broom and your cat, Carbonel, and John and I set him free from your spell to be King of the Cats again. We want you to help us.’

  The knuckles of Mrs Cantrip’s bony hands showed white where she held the arms of the rocking chair, and her small eyes bored into them like needles.

  ‘Oh, ah! I remember the pair of you now. Interfering busybodying children. What do you want?’

  ‘Carbonel is in trouble,’ said Rosemary. ‘At least I’m pretty sure he is, and he can’t make us understand. Won’t you help us?’

  ‘Why should I help Carbonel?’ said the old woman, in a voice as cold as steel. ‘Did he ever help me? Not him. He hampered me at every turn! Besides,’ she added sulkily, ‘I’ve gone out of business, you know that. Broom, books, cauldron – all gone, and everything as dull as puddle water.’

  ‘What about the dishwater at The Copper Kettle? How did you make it turn red and green?’ said John accusingly.

  Mrs Cantrip’s eyes wavered.

  ‘That wasn’t what you’d call magic. Not real magic,’ she muttered. ‘Just using up odds and ends of spells I’d got left over. You wouldn’t have me be wasteful, now would you?’ she said virtuously. ‘I couldn’t throw them away. Some dear little child might have picked them up, and then what would have happened to it?’ She grinned wickedly. ‘It’s nearly all gone. I just use a pinch here and a spoonful there, to liven things up a bit. And that reminds me, where’s that apron?’

  She pounced on the bundle that was lying on the table, shook out the apron, and felt feverishly in the pocket.

  ‘It’s gone! It isn’t here! My last little bit of Prism Powder! What have you done with it?’

  Rosemary felt hurriedly in her own pocket. The little ball of paper she had picked up from the floor of The Copper Kettle was still there.

  ‘If I give you back your Prism Powder, will you tell us what we can do to understand Carbonel when he talks to us?’

  There was a pause.

  ‘All right, I’ll tell you! I’ll tell you and willing!’ said Mrs Cantrip, eagerly holding out her hand.

  ‘Wait a minute,’ said John. ‘You shall have it when you have told us what to do and not before!’

  Mrs Cantrip pursed her mouth to the size of a keyhole and rubbed the side of her great nose with a bony finger.

  ‘I can’t do it myself, not now. That would never do. I know. I’ll give you a prescription and you must have it made up at the chemist.’

  ‘At the chemist!’ said John.

  Mrs Cantrip ignored him. She was ferreting round in the drawer of the table, among bits of string and candle ends. Presently she fished out a crumpled bit of paper, and fetching a bottle of ink and a rather moth-eaten quill pen from the mantelpiece, sat down at the table. For a minute she sucked the end of her pen, then she chuckled, smoothed out the paper, and began writing with great speed. When she had finished, she folded the paper and handed it to Rosemary.

  Both children were craning over to see what she was writing, and they were quite unprepared for the pounce that the old woman made on the screw of paper that Rosemary had brought out of her pocket. They unfolded the note she had given them and stared at it.

  ‘But it isn’t writing! It looks like nonsense!’ said Rosemary.

  Mrs Cantrip took no notice. She was undoing the paper. Inside was about a saltspoonful of what looked like tiny grains of hundreds and thousands.

  ‘Take it to Hedgem and Fudge to have it made up. Now go away. I’m busy.’

  As she spoke she dropped a single grain of the powder into the ink bottle. There was a slight hiss, and the muddy-looking ink turned a brilliant scarlet. She dropped another grain into the bottle and the ink changed to pure yellow. Her grim face softened.

  ‘Good heavens!’ said John with interest.

  ‘Go away,’ said Mrs Cantrip fiercely, shielding the bottle with her hands.

  There seemed nothing else to do, so they went.

  4

  Hedgem and Fudge

  John and Rosemary closed the front door behind them and stood blinking in the sunlight. It was like coming out of a cave. Carbonel stopped his restless pacing and ran to them with an anxious little ‘Prrt!’

  ‘She’s given us a prescription, and we’ve got to get it made up at a chemist’s called Hedgem and Fudge. It looks like nothing but a lot of squiggles to me,’ said John.

  ‘But so do the prescriptions that doctors write,’ said Rosemary. ‘What’s the matter, Carbonel?’

  ‘I think he wants to read it,’ said John.

  Rosemary bent down and laid the piece of paper on the pavement. Carbonel held it down with one paw and stared at it with unblinking yellow eyes. They waited anxiously while he examined it. First he sniffed it with delicately twitching whiskers. Then he sneezed violently. Finally, he removed his paw and shook it with distaste. But he purred loudly, and gave each of the children an approving lick on a bare leg, and set off at a gallop in the direction of the High Street, looking back from time to time to see that they were following.

  ‘It’s all so strange,’ said John breathlessly, as they hurried after him. ‘Such a mixture of queerness and commonsense!’

  ‘I know,’ said Rosemary. ‘And whoever could be going as a lodger to Mrs Cantrip? Oh, goodness! I believe Hedgem and Fudge is that big chemist near the Cathedral!’

  ‘We sha
ll look pretty silly if we hand over a page of gibberish and say “I want this made up, please!”’ said John gloomily.

  But no one can be gloomy for long if he is running, so Rosemary and John stopped talking because they needed all their breath to keep up with Carbonel. Once, in the High Street full of afternoon shoppers, they thought they had lost him, and several times they bumped into people and had to stop and apologize. When Carbonel reached the top of the High Street where the road widens in front of the Cathedral, he waited for them to catch up.

  ‘There it is!’ said Rosemary. ‘That’s the shop on the other side of the road!’

  It was a large, old-fashioned building. Above the cars that honked and hurried, they could see the name in gold letters, as well as two great glass bottles full of glowing red and green liquid that have been the sign of a dispenser of medicine since the days when few people could read.

  There was a screeching of brakes as Carbonel stepped without warning on to the pedestrian crossing and with great dignity, tail erect, swept across the road. The drivers who were not angry grinned.

  Very red about the ears, John and Rosemary crossed the road behind him.

  Although the building was clearly an old one, the shop had been brought up to date inside. Behind the counter, there were rows of little mahogany drawers with cut-glass handles which sparkled in the strip lighting. There were steel chairs to sit on, and one counter, which displayed face powder and lipsticks and shampoos, with a yellow-haired young lady behind it. A smaller counter displayed castor oil, cough medicines and headache pills, with a pink young man behind it. On this counter was a notice which said, PRESCRIPTIONS, so Rosemary handed the piece of paper to the young man.

  He took it and glanced casually at the writing. Then suddenly his eyebrows shot up and his neck seemed to lengthen as he peered at the paper.

  ‘Wait for it!’ said John under his breath to Rosemary.

  But far from being angry, the young man said, ‘Excuse me one minute!’ and went to consult an older man who was busy in a glass-partitioned dispensary at the back of the shop. They whispered together for a while, and then the older man came over to the counter. First he read the prescription again through his spectacles, then he peered over them at John and Rosemary.