The Chrestomanci Series

by Jones, Diana Wynne

  “Who is it?” Gammer demanded urgently.

  “Gaffer Farleigh. In his best,” Joe said. “And Gammer Norah. State visit, Gammer. She’s got that horrible hat on, with the poppies.”

  “And they all look horribly angry,” Marianne added. She watched a Farleigh cousin jump out of the carriage and go to the pony’s head. He was in a suit too. She watched Gaffer Farleigh hand the whip and the reins to the cousin and climb stiffly down, where he stood smoothing his peppery whiskers and waiting for Gammer Norah, who was making the carriage dip and creak as she stood up and got down too. Gammer Norah was a large lady. Poor pony, Marianne thought, even with a light carriage like that.

  “Go and let them in. Show them in here and then wait in the hall,” Gammer commanded. “I want some Pinhoes on call while I speak to them.” Marianne thought Gammer was quite as much surprised by this visit as they were.

  She and Joe scurried out past the stuffed animals, Joe with his sulkiest, most head-down, mulish look. The cracked old doorbell jangled and Gaffer Farleigh pushed the front door open as they reached it.

  “Come all the way from Helm St Mary,” he said, glowering at them, “and I find two children who can’t even be bothered to come to the door. She in, your Gammer? Or pretending she’s out?”

  “She’s in the front room,” Marianne said politely. “Shall I show —?”

  But Gaffer Farleigh pushed rudely past and tramped towards the front room, followed by Gammer Norah who practically shoved Joe against the nearest stuffed animal case getting her bulk indoors. She was followed by her acid-faced daughter Dorothea, who said to Marianne, “Show some manners, child. They’ll need a cup of tea and biscuits at once. Hurry it up.”

  “Well, I like that!” Joe said, and made a face at Dorothea’s back as Dorothea shut the front room door with a slam. “Let’s just go home.”

  Raised voices were already coming from behind the slammed door. “No, stay,” Marianne said. “I want to know what they’re so angry about.”

  “Me too,” Joe admitted. He grinned at Marianne and quietly directed a small, sly spell at the front room door, with the result that the door shortly came open an inch or so. Gaffer Farleigh’s voice boomed through the gap. “Don’t deny it, woman! You let it out!”

  “I did not!” Gammer more or less screamed, and was then drowned out by the voices of Norah and Dorothea, both yelling.

  Marianne went to the kitchen to put the kettle on, leaving Joe to listen. Nutcase was there, sitting in the middle of the enormous old table, staring ardently at a tin of cat food someone had left there. Marianne sighed. Gammer always said Nutcase had only two braincells, both of them devoted to food, but it did rather look as if Gammer had forgotten to feed him again. She opened the tin for him and put the food in his dish. Nutcase was so ecstatically grateful that Marianne wondered how long it was since Gammer had remembered that cats need to eat. There were no biscuits in any of the cupboards. Marianne began to wonder if Gammer had forgotten to feed herself too.

  As the kettle was still only singing, Marianne went into the hall again. The screaming in the front room had died down. Dorothea’s voice said, “And I nearly walked into it. I was lucky not to be hurt.”

  “Pity it didn’t eat you,” Gammer said.

  This caused more screaming and made Joe giggle. He was standing over the glass case that held the twisted, snarling ferret, looking at it much as Nutcase had looked at the tin of cat food. “Have you found out what it’s about yet?” Marianne whispered.

  Joe shrugged. “Not really. They say Gammer did something and she says she didn’t.”

  At this moment the noise in the front room died down enough for them to hear Gaffer Farleigh saying, “… our sacred trust, Pinhoes and Farleighs both, not to speak of Cleeves. And you, Edith Pinhoe, have failed in that trust.”

  “Nonsense,” came Gammer’s voice. “You’re a pompous fool, Jed Farleigh.”

  “And the very fact that you deny it,” Gaffer Farleigh continued, “shows that you have lost all sense of duty, all sense of truth and untruth, in your work and in your life.”

  “I never heard anything so absurd,” Gammer began.

  Norah’s voice cut across Gammer’s. “Yes, you have, Edith. That’s what we’re here to say. You’ve lost it. You’re past it. You make mistakes.”

  “We think you should retire,” Dorothea joined in priggishly.

  “Before you do any more harm,” Gaffer Farleigh said.

  He sounded as if he was going to say more, but whatever this was it was lost in the immense scream Gammer gave. “What nonsense, what cheek, what an insult!” she screamed. “Get out of here, all of you! Get out of my house, this instant!” She backed this up with such a huge gust of magic that Joe and Marianne reeled where they stood, even though it was not aimed at them. The Farleighs must have got it right in their faces. They came staggering backwards out of the front room and across the hall. At the front door, they managed to turn themselves around. Gaffer Farleigh, more furiously angry than either Joe or Marianne had ever seen him, shook his fist and roared out, “I tell you you’ve lost it, Edith!” Marianne could have sworn that, mixed in with Gammer’s gust of magic, was the sharp stab of a spell from Gaffer Farleigh too.

  Before she could be sure, all three Farleighs bolted for their carriage, jumped into it and drove off, helter-skelter, as if Chrestomanci himself was after them.

  In the front room, Gammer was still screaming. Marianne rushed in to find her rocking back and forth in her chair and screaming, screaming. Her hair was coming down and dribble was running off her chin. “Joe! Help me stop her!” Marianne shouted.

  Joe came close to Gammer and bawled at her, “I’m not going to Chrestomanci Castle! Whatever you say!” He said afterwards that it was the only thing he could think of that Gammer might attend to.

  It certainly stopped Gammer screaming. She stared at Joe, all wild and shaky and panting. “Filberts of halibuts is twisted out of all porringers,” she said.

  “Gammer!” Marianne implored her. “Talk sense!”

  “Henbane,” said Gammer. “Beauticians’ holiday. Makes a crumbfest.”

  Marianne turned to Joe. “Run and get Mum,” she said. “Quickly. I think her mind’s gone.”

  By nightfall, Marianne’s verdict was the official one.

  Well before Joe actually reached Furze Cottage to fetch Mum, word seemed to get round that something had happened to Gammer. Dad and Uncle Richard were already rushing up the street from the shed behind the cottage where they worked making furniture; Uncle Arthur was racing uphill from the Pinhoe Arms; Uncle Charles arrived on his bicycle and Uncle Cedric rattled in soon after on his farm cart; Uncle Simeon’s builder’s van stormed up next; and Uncle Isaac pelted over the fields from his smallholding, followed by his wife Aunt Dinah and an accidental herd of goats. Soon after that came the two great-uncles. Uncle Edgar, who was an estate agent, spanked up the drive in his carriage and pair; and Uncle Lester, who was a lawyer, came in his smart car all the way from Hopton, leaving his office to take care of itself.

  The aunts and great-aunts were not far behind. They paused only to make sandwiches first – except for Aunt Dinah, who went back to the Dell to pen the goats before she too made sandwiches. This, it seemed to Marianne, was an unchanging Pinhoe custom. Show them a crisis and Pinhoe aunts made sandwiches. Even her own mother arrived with a basket smelling of bread, egg and cress. The great table in the Woods House kitchen was shortly piled with sandwiches of all sizes and flavours. Marianne and Joe were kept busy carrying pots of tea and sandwiches to the solemn meeting in the front room, where they had to tell each new arrival exactly what happened.

  Marianne got sick of telling it. Every time she got to the part where Gaffer Farleigh shook his fist and shouted, she explained, “Gaffer Farleigh cast a spell on Gammer then. I felt it.”

  And every time, the uncle or aunt would say, “I can’t see Jed Farleigh doing a thing like that!” and they would turn to Joe and ask if J
oe had felt a spell too. And Joe was forced to shake his head and say he hadn’t. “But there was such a lot of stuff coming from Gammer,” he said, “I could have missed it.”

  But the aunts and uncles attended to Joe no more than they attended to Marianne. They turned to Gammer then. Mum had arrived first, being the only Pinhoe lady to think of throwing sandwiches together by witchcraft, and she had found Gammer in such a state that her first act had been to send Gammer to sleep. Gammer was most of the time lying on the shabby sofa, snoring. “She was screaming the place down,” Mum explained to each newcomer. “It seemed the best thing to do.”

  “Better wake her up then, Cecily,” said the uncle or aunt. “She’ll be calmer by this time.”

  So Mum would take the spell off and Gammer would sit up with a shriek. “Pheasant pie, I tell you!” she would shout. “Tell me something I don’t know. Get the fire brigade. There’s balloons coming.” And all manner of such strange things. After a bit, the uncle or aunt would say, “On second thoughts, I think she’ll be better for a bit of a sleep. Pretty upset, isn’t she?” So Mum would put the sleep spell back on again and solemn peace would descend until the next Pinhoe arrived.

  The only one who did not go through this routine was Uncle Charles. Marianne liked Uncle Charles. For one thing – apart from silent Uncle Simeon – he was her only thin uncle. Most of the Pinhoe uncles ran to a sort of wideness, even if most of them were not actually fat. And Uncle Charles had a humorous twitch to his thin face, quite unlike the rest. He was held to be “a disappointment”, just like Joe. Knowing Joe, Marianne suspected that Uncle Charles had worked at being disappointing, just as hard as Joe did – although she did think that Uncle Charles had gone a bit far when he married Aunt Joy at the Post Office. Uncle Charles arrived in his paint-blotched old overalls, being a house-painter by trade, and he looked at Gammer, snoring gently on the sofa with her mouth open. “No need to disturb her for me,” he said. “Lost her marbles at last, has she? What happened?”

  When Marianne had explained once more, Uncle Charles stroked his raspy chin with his paint-streaked hand and said, “I don’t see Jed Farleigh doing that to her, little as I like the man. What was the row about?”

  Marianne and Joe had to confess that they had not the least idea, not really. “They said she’d let a sacred trust get out and it ran into their Dorothea. I think,” Marianne said. “But Gammer said she never did.”

  Uncle Charles raised his eyebrows and opened his eyes wide. “Eh?”

  “Let it be, Charles. It’s not important,” Uncle Arthur told him impatiently. “The important thing is that poor Gammer isn’t making sense any more.”

  “Overtaxed herself, poor thing,” Marianne’s father said. “It was that Dorothea making trouble again, I’ll bet. I could throttle the woman, frankly.”

  “Should have been strangled at birth,” Uncle Isaac agreed. “But what do we do now?”

  Uncle Charles looked across at Marianne, joking and sympathetic at the same time. “Did she ever get round to naming you Gammer after her, Marianne? Should you be in charge now?”

  “I hope not!” Marianne said.

  “Oh, do talk sense, Charles!” all the others said. To which Dad added, “I’m not having my little girl stuck with that, even for a joke. We’ll wait for Edgar and Lester to get here. See what they say. They’re Gammer’s brothers, after all.”

  But when first Great Uncle Edgar and then Great Uncle Lester arrived, and Marianne had gone through the tale twice more, and Gammer had been woken up to scream, “We’re infested with porcupines!” at Uncle Edgar and “I told everyone it was twisted cheese!” at Uncle Lester, neither great uncle seemed at all sure what to do. Both pulled at their whiskers uncertainly and finally sent Joe and Marianne out to the kitchen so that the adults could have a serious talk.

  “I don’t like Edgar,” Joe said, moodily eating left over sandwiches. “He’s bossy. What does he wear that tweed hat for?”

  Marianne was occupied with Nutcase. Nutcase rushed out from under the great table demanding food. “It’s what estate agents wear, I suppose,” she said. “Like Lester wears a black coat and striped trousers because he’s a lawyer. Joe, I can’t find any more cat food.”

  Joe looked a little guiltily at the last of Great Aunt Sue’s sandwiches. They had been fat and moist and tasty and he had eaten all but one. “This one’s sardine,” he said. “Give him that. Or —” He lifted the cloth over the one untouched plateful. These were thin and dry and almost certainly Aunt Joy’s. “Or there’s these. Do cats eat meat paste?”

  “They sometimes have to,” Marianne said. She dismantled sandwiches into Nutcase’s dish and Nutcase fell on them as if he had not been fed for a week. And perhaps he hadn’t, Marianne thought. Gammer had neglected almost everything lately.

  “You know,” Joe said, watching Nutcase guzzle, “I’m not saying you didn’t feel Gaffer Farleigh cast a spell – you’re better at magic than I am – but it wouldn’t have taken much. I think Gammer’s mind was going anyway.” Then, while Marianne was thinking Joe was probably right, Joe said coaxingly, “Can you do us a favour while we’re here?”

  “What’s that?” Marianne asked as Nutcase backed away from the last of Aunt Joy’s sandwiches and pretended to bury it. She was very used to Joe buttering her up and then asking a favour. But I think her mind was going, all the same, she thought.

  “I need that stuffed ferret out there,” Joe said. “If I take it, can you make it look as if it’s still there?”

  Marianne knew better than to ask what Joe wanted with a horrid thing like that ferret. Boys! She said, “Joe! It’s Gammer’s!”

  “She’s not going to want it,” Joe said. “And you’re much better at illusion than me. Be a sport, Marianne. While they’re all still in there talking.”

  Marianne sighed, but she went out into the hall with Joe, where they could hear the hushed, serious voices from the front room. Very quietly, they inspected the ferret under its glass dome. It had always struck Marianne as like a furry yellow snake with legs. All squirmy. Yuk. But the important thing, if you were going to do an illusion, was that this was probably just what everyone saw. Then you noticed the wide open fanged mouth too, and the ferocious beady eyes. The dome was so dusty that you really hardly saw anything else. You just had to get the shape right.

  “Can you do it?” Joe asked eagerly.

  She nodded. “I think so.” She carefully lifted off the glass dome and stood it beside the stuffed badger. The ferret felt like a hard furry log when she picked it up. Yuk again. She passed the thing to Joe with a shudder. She put the glass dome back over the empty patch of false grass that was left and held both hands out towards it in as near ferret shape as she could. Bent and yellow and furry-squirmy, she thought at it. Glaring eyes, horrid little ears, pink mouth snarling and full of sharp white teeth. Further yuk.

  She took her hands away and there it was, exactly as she had thought it up, blurrily through the dust on the glass, a dim yellow snarling shape.

  “Lush!” said Joe. “Apex! Thanks.” He raced back into the kitchen with the real ferret cradled in his arms.

  Marianne saw the print of her hands on the dust of the dome, four of them. She blew on them furiously, willing them to go away. They were slowly clearing when the door to the front room banged importantly open and Great Uncle Edgar strode out. Marianne stopped doing magic at once, because he was bound to notice. She made herself gaze innocently instead at Edgar’s tweed hat, like a little tweed flowerpot on his head. It turned towards her.

  “We’ve decided your grandmother must have professional care,” Great Uncle Edgar said. “I’m off to see to it.”

  Someone must have woken Gammer up again. Her voice echoed forth from inside the front room. “There’s nothing so good as a stewed ferret, I always say.”

  Did Gammer read other people’s minds now? Marianne held her breath and nodded and smiled at Great Uncle Edgar. And Joe came back from the kitchen at that moment, carr
ying Aunt Helen’s sandwich basket – which he must have thought was Mum’s – with a cloth over it to hide the ferret. Great Uncle Edgar said to him, “Where are you off to?”

  Joe went hunched and sulky. “Home,” he said. “Got to take the cat. Marianne’s going to look after him now.”

  Unfortunately Nutcase spoilt this explanation by rushing out of the kitchen to rub himself against Marianne’s legs.

  “But he keeps getting out,” Joe added without a blink.

  Marianne took in a big breath, which made her quite dizzy after holding it for so long. “I’ll bring him, Joe,” she said, “when I come. You go on home and take Mum’s basket back.”

  “Yes,” said Great Uncle Edgar. “You’ll need to pack, Joseph. You have to be working in That Castle tomorrow, don’t you?”

  Joe’s mouth opened and he stared at Edgar. Marianne stared too. They had both assumed that Gammer’s plans for Joe had gone the way of Gammer’s wits. “Who told you that?” Joe said.

  “Gammer did, yesterday,” Great Uncle Edgar said. “They’ll be expecting you. Off you go.” And he strode out of the house, pushing Joe in front of him.

  Marianne meant to follow Joe home, but Mum came out into the hall then, saying, “Marianne, Joy says there’s still her plate of sandwiches left. Can you bring them?”

  When Marianne confessed that there were no sandwiches, she was sent down to the Pinhoe Arms to fetch some of Aunt Helen’s pork pies. When she got back with the pies, Aunt Joy sent her off again to pin a note on the Post Office door saying CLOSED FOR FAMILY MATTERS, and when she got back from that Dad sent her to fetch the Reverend Pinhoe. The Reverend Pinhoe came back to Woods House with Marianne, very serious and dismayed, wanting to know why no one had sent for Dr Callow.

  The reason was that Gammer had no opinion at all of Dr Callow. She must have heard what the vicar said because she immediately began shouting. “Quack, quack, quack! Cold hands in the midriff. It’s cabbages at dawn, I tell you!”